"She's over here," Nurse Tenderheart said as she led the gray earth pony through hospital beds. "You have no idea how hard it was to find you, or any relative for that matter!" Tenderheart laughed nervously, realizing what she had said was more tragic than funny. The other pony flipped her yellow mane and snorted to show her displeasure.
"Well, I'm here now." The earth pony's orange eyes were fixed straight ahead, but gleamed with tears. She wore a serious expression.
"And here she is." Nurse Tenderheart pulled open the curtain around a bed. In it laid a small gray pegasus with yellow hair and crooked eyes. She had been propped up with pillows and attached to all sorts of devices which monitored her condition.
After one look at the cutie mark, the earth pony cried out "Dilly! It really is you!"
She embraced the injured pegasus. Though Dilly's eyes remained distant, she smiled at the sound of her voice.
"I must admit," Nurse Tenderheart cut in, "I see the family resemblance... Well, except for the ey-" She stopped, but she had already brought attention to Dilly's eyes.
The earth pony sat up and looked into her eyes. "So it's as bad as they said."
Nurse Tenderheart nodded. "Probably from a previous injury... There seems to be brain damage, as well. I'm afraid that's why we called you... Ditz---Er... Dilly here won't be able to take care of herself for a while."
"I'll take her into my custody."
Nurse Tenderheart nodded knowingly and left the ponies to some privacy.
"Dilly, do you remember me? Lemon, your sister."
The pegasus nodded. She had some foggy memories of this pony.
"Do you remember anything else? The nice nurses here said you had trouble remembering your past."
Dilly shook her head fiercely, shaking the wires on her head.
Lemon tenderly brushed her sister's hair out of her face. Well, half sister, but they grown up together, so Lemon always thought of her as a full sister.
"Well, Dilly, you were born on a sunny day when I was still just a filly. Our mother was an earth pony, but your dad was a pegasus, so that's why you have wings. But you were raised by our mom and my dad, both earth ponies. When you were learning to fly, they would keep you on a flying leash so you didn't float away!" Lemon's sour expression eased up for a moment as she remember this. "When you were born, Mom looked into those yellow eyes of yours and immediately decided your name was Dandelion. Dandelion Drop. But I couldn't say 'Dandelion', so I called you 'Dilly'."
"Dilly the Filly!" she sang out, remembering her fillyhood nickname.
"Yes," the earth pony laughed. "Dilly, you were the best little sister I could've asked for. Every morning, you and I would go swimming in our family pond. Even with your wings, you were always the most graceful swimmer. In fact, that's how you got your cutie mark!"
Dilly strugged to focus her eyes onto her cutie mark. Irridescent bubbles adorned her flank.
"I was always better at diving, myself. But once we were actually in the water, you'd swim circles around me." Lemon giggled, lightening up even more. "A bit ironic, isn't it? The earth pony is great at soaring through the air, and her pegasus sister swims like a fish."
Dilly giggled, too. It was funny.
She suddenly focused very hard on something. Lemon was startled by her sister's sudden change in demeanor; but she noticed Dilly was trying very hard to see her sister's cutie mark. Lemon adjusted herself so Dilly could get a closer look.
"Remember? It's a wave."
And sure enough, Dilly saw that her sister's gray flank faded into blue and frothed white at it's crest.
"Mom?" A voice rang out from the other side of the curtain. A small unicorn pushed her way under the curtain rather than to the side of it. She stopped when she saw the earth pony.
"Mom... who is this?"
"Mom?!" Lemon's happy demeanor instantly changed to outrage. "You don't even remember your own name! Why on earth did the Stork give you a child? Besides, the Stork usually only gives fillies and colts to two ponies! Where's your other pony?"
"The Stork said..." Dilly scrunched up her face, thinking very hard. "The Stork said sometimes a filly or a colt only has a mommy... And he said that sometimes the mommy is like me. And sometimes the baby doesn't look exactly like the mommy, even though they only have a mommy, but they're still their mommy." She smiled proudly, having remember everything he said.
Lemon sighed. "Alright, honey... What's your name?"
The lilac unicorn perked up. "My name is Dinky!"
The earth pony trotted over to the unicorn. Lemon squatted to get on her level. "Dinky, do you like ice cream?"
Dinky nearly did a summersault right there. Lemon laughed.
"How about after your mommy is discharged, your Auntie Lemon takes us all out for some ice cream?"
"Yay!"
"I'm going to go fill out all the forms and get you checked out of here, all right Dilly?"
Dilly nodded happily. Lying in a bed like this was uncomfortable and she would be happy to get out of it.
After Lemon left the room, Dinky crawled up into the bed with her mother. "Who was that, mommy?"
"She's Auntie Lemon, and she's gunna take care of us now." Dilly smiled.
"Okay," Dinky said while curling up with her. "I hope she gets us ice cream every day!"
