Split Shift

Celestia opened her eyes slowly, feeling absolutely terrible. Her gut felt rotted, but physical inspection revealed no bullet holes or blood. However, her tongue heavy and sticky in her mouth. Her joints ached, the sheets were too hot. She rubbed her eyes and slipped out of bed.

Her sluggish steps carried her to the bathroom, her arms crossed under her heavy breasts. She lifted them as she sat down on the porcelain goddess, the lights off still. Celestia let her innards settle a bit. She stood, feeling a little calmer still, then forced some tap water down.

The dream remained vivid in her memory, every detail. It was eerie, but one thing seemed off. She flicked on the light, wincing as her lovely white marble bathroom was flashed with sudden white light. Celestia blinked and stared herself down in the mirror. She was gorgeous, absolutely. With a tiny smile, Celestia dropped her nightgown and looked over her nude self. Her heavy breasts sat well, responded gloriously to a strong squeeze, her nipples still perky and sensitive. Her sides, however, lacked the lovely tautness they once had. Celestia needed to lay off the sweets and implement a little more cardio, she reasoned. No one was perfect, right?

The princess of the day sighed, feeling much better with a little water in her. “Relax,” she told herself. “Just a strange dream.”

Celestia cocked her hip and shot that lady in the mirror a look. “Hey, beautiful,” she said to her. “What are you doing tonight, and why isn’t it me?” She laughed, feeling that youthful rush, just a little surge down below.

The princess contemplated retrieving a magazine from under her bed, maybe a little plastic entertainment. That fleeting feeling came and left as she returned to the bedroom, lit by moonlight through large stained glass windows. Celestia felt drained. She should be, it was just after one in the morning.

Still, there was no reason not to get a little fresh air. Celestia went to the door to the balcony, risking much by remaining undressed. She opened the green glass door and stepped out.

The moonlight lit her up like magic, bright as day. She looked up to a full moon, wondering if it was ever quite this bright. The white disc in the sky was enormous, awesome with it’s brilliance. She felt eyes on her, but didn’t mind at all. Lovehandles and all, Celestia welcomed the cold moon’s embrace on this warm summer night. Celestia lingered a minute on the balcony and drank in the night. A few visible stars danced over her capital city, it’s loving glow below shining all night. Canterlot never slept, and neither did it’s princesses. Someplace not far away, Celestia thougth with a soft grin, Luna was doing her job just like Celestia did in the day. While nights now were shorter and shorter with every coming day, Celestia found her workload that much heavier.

She didn’t mind, however. In the two years since Luna’s return, things were almost back to normal. A thousand years exile, however, changed someone. Celestia leaned on the railing, her skin crawling with a chill as she thought about how Luna had changed. The once happy girl was now much more edgy, in tastes and mannerisms. Her casual dress, her music, her way of acting was considerably different than Celestia remembered a thousand years back.

The volume of time, however, may have warped her memory, Celestia reasoned. In addition, Luna was never quite as sexually alluring, or active. The princess sighed a deep sigh, more sleepy than ever, and ran her hand through her hair. Luna grew up. Her sister was back for good, and that was a great thing. Celestia, despite the sliver of doubt, wholly believed in her sister. Luna was back, and that was great.

The princess retreated, feeling clean and refreshed, leaving the large door open and swinging on silent hinges. The room was a little musty, anyway.

The sheets welcomed her home, apologizing for overheating earlier by blanketing their ruler with a soft silken embrace.

“Relax,” a voice spoke from nowhere. Celestia looked around for it, staying still, turning only her head. She pulled the blanket up to her chin and obeyed as best she could.

“Relax,” the gentle feminine voice commanded. “Relax...”

The soft silk quickly pulled her down into a comatose embrace.

“Relax, sister. You’re not dying, you’re fine, if you pull it together. Look close at the trees, for a mere drop of a hat after the shot. Drop of a hat, that’s where he’s at, sis. Lead on, be strong, and get up. Get up, Celestia,-”

“DAMMIT! We can’t lose her! If she dies, the media is gonna say the two biggest fuckups fucked up big time, and we’re gonna get shitcanned in a big-”

“Captain! With all due respect, I strongly, respectfully suggest we focus.” Ensign Octavia held out her hand. “Canteen.”

“Say again, Ensign?” Toru asked indignantly, but obviously more in control.

Octavia looked up and saw the canteen in his hand, defiantly denying her precious water. “Captain, we can’t be hindered by customs and courtesies. Our leader’s life is in the balance and we need to work together to save her.” Octavia stared blankly at her captain, his face torn up from a fall he took after the battle. It was cosmetic damage, a little blood and dirt, that was it.

Ensign Octavia nodded her head, and the captain obliged. “Okay, Octavia,” he began solemnly. “Now, she’s seemed to lost a lot of blood. Let’s try not to use all the water for cleaning.”

“Agreed,” Octavia said shortly. She splashed a rag and wiped the worst wound in Celestia’s gut. The lead slug was only halfway skin deep, protruding a quarter of an inch. The thin suits really did a lot more to protect than Octavia expected. Science was wonderful.

“It’s just a minor wound,” a familiar voice said. “Once they pull out the bullets, you’ll brush it off just fine, Celestia. You’re fine.”

The bullet came out easily, but the wound was gnarly. What normally would be fairly clean was surrounded by necrosis, even after such a short time. The demon’s metal was festering, evil in itself. Octavia felt a strange heat come off of the bullet, like it had only left the barrel a few seconds ago. Celestia’s skin, however, looked like it would heal without infection or complications after the hateful little slug was gone.

Celestia kept her eyes shut as Octavia led her superior through basic first aid, digging the still hellishly warm lead from her gut. It was painful, but the shock overall kept everything to a dull slate emulsion of discomfort.

“See?” Octavia said. “She’s already coming around.”

“Right, she’s... fine. Right? I think.” Toru winced at the sheer amount of blood that Celestia had lost. The orange silt was sprinkled brown with red all around Celestia’s midriff. Octavia had little trouble removing the bullets with her forceps, however, and pressed clean gauze from her meager medical bag into the wound.

It took all but the last gulp of water, but Octavia managed to keep Toru calm and clean Celestia’s bullet wounds. The lead gone, there wasn’t much else to do.

Celestia opened her eyes to see a tunnel of dark grey clouding everything, a small circle of crimson and white in the center. She blinked, successively clearing a little fog. The red was blood, the orange beyond was the damned planet surface, scraggly rocks ugly and jutting randomly, cut down by erosion to horrid shapes, oddly familiar shapes.

Flesh color, more olive and lovely than the gross orange-blood-brown was also there. Two military strong feminine forearms worked deftly at her side. Celestia attempted to sit up, grunting for such little work.

“Easy, easy,” a soothing, sisterly voice said. “You’ve been badly injured and lost a lot of blood,” someone else said, still female. “Don’t exert yourself.” Celestia shook her head, hearing that voice again.

“She should be positioned to encourage blood flow to the brain-”

“She’s awake. Sir.” Octavia somewhat respectfully dismissed.

“Captain,” Miss Celestia croaked, painfully coughing through a bone-dry throat. “Ensign,” she managed to say. She’d be damned if she was going to let cottonmouth inhibit her from addressing her savior.

With excruciating effort and pain, Celestia stood, her left arm nearly useless it hurt so much. The bullets had penetrated through the meat of her forearm and upper arm, leaving her bones intact, somehow. Celestia winced as she flexed her arm muscles experimentally. She gritted her teeth through it and stood somewhat erect. “Shall we?” she asked before turning and deciphering which direction was southeast. Her feet shuffled, but they moved to her command. It would take much more than that to keep the princess from her destination.

“Princess,” Octavia whispered. “You’re in no condition to walk anywhere, not without more assistance,” she pressed with worry. While being deliberate, Ensign Octavia yielded when Celestia scanned the horizon.

Captain Toru brushed sand off his knees, frowning at the sight of royal blood drying on them, as he stood as well. Celestia’s side burned as she looked into the distance, watching the sunset.

It was an eerie pink to the southeast, familiar and discontenting. It was as if Celestia knew that shade, a memory or something associated with the mild, pleasant hue, but exactly what escaped her like the DCC. But, she had hardly been at work finding this hub, and there was much to be done.

“If you squint,” Toru said, appearing at Celestia’s side with his gravel input. “You can make out a structure on the horizon, just beyond the crest of the valley. Princess,” he said authoritatively. “You’re an inch or so taller than myself. You can surely see it.”

She could see nothing but dark orange against pretty pink, her vision still clearing blink by blink. Celestia had a giant thirst.

“Lead on, Captain,” Celestia croaked. “I’ll keep pace as best I can until we find a place to camp down for the night.”

“That’d better be inside some place.” Octavia flatly added. “M-My Princess. You see, at night, we’ve encountered troubles.”

“Creatures,” Toru said definitely. “Much like mosquitos, only larger, and only at night in open air.” The captain took the head, taking the three on what Celestia hoped was the beam. A presence seemed to propel her along, other than the slight downhill slope, and she breathed a little more easily.

The captain continued. “We don’t know what they are, or why, but these gigantic insects... they devour at night. Hunters, is what we’ve called them.”

“Who’s we?” Octavia mumbled, so quiet Celestia could barely hear.

“Say again, shipmate?” Captain Toru asked over his shoulder.

Octavia cleared her throat innocently. “Sorry, frog in my throat. I was saying, could be that they hunt in packs. At night, when our guard’s down.”

Toru scoffed. “Of course that’s what they do. Fortunately, that’s what we do, right?”

“Hooyah,” Octavia said quasi-enthusiastically. Celestia giggled on the inside at the silliness of military. It was pointless, the lingo and battle chatter, but it did serve a little purpose.

She couldn’t really laugh, or hardly talk. Celestia’s skull was getting jackhammered from the inside, she was so thirsty. This DCC was a few day’s journey, especially if the canyon continued to gouge deeper into the planet’s surface. The going was painfully slow.

After what seemed like hours of slow descent and watching sandy rocks tumble down the cliff, Toru broke the silence. “Princess,” he said offhand, making Celestia frown. “Let’s make some small talk, shall we? Pass the time. What kind of movies do you like? Any hobbies? I’m a cricket man, myself.”

“Cap-tuh,” Celestia began, unable to downplay her thirst or tell off Toru. Her throat was too dry.

Octavia jumped in. “Captain, she’s lost a lot of blood, and she needs more fluids than we have. I recommend finding a stream first, then shooting the shit.”

Toru stopped the detail to shoot Octavia a scowl, but found a much stronger one from Celestia. Her head hurt so much, she could stare murder at anything not offering a big bottle of water.

“Find a stream first, aye,” Toru said, continuing on. “Ensign,” he called over his shoulder. “Take point. The terrain is getting dicey and you’re more... nimble, than I.”

Celestia could feel the death glare Octavia wanted to give the captain. He really wasn’t likeable, Celestia kept returning to in her dry mind. Always being abrasive, or some other thing. The princess forced herself to relax. She was stuck with them, like it or not. Besides, he had done his fair share to earn companion-rights. Octavia a bit more, but that was neither here nor there.

The trio made slow work of the rocky slope. What was a flat plain with a minor wound was now a steepening cliff face. Celestia’s tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth and refused to come down, dried harshly by the setting sun. The mosquito creatures were yet to show themselves and prove their existence, but Celestia was worried about water more than anything. Nothing was quite like dying slowly of thirst.

The cliff was steep, nearly sheer at parts. Celestia squinted, making out distinct foliage between herself and the DCC in the distance. Plants meant water, it was that simple, right? Octavia noticed as well, pointing it out. The three hikers pressed on with new urgency. Everyone was thirsty.

Celestia fell twice on the descent, the first time not so far, merely scraping a knee and forced to wait while the others carefully caught up. The cliffs spun around her, changing colors, becoming more than bone dry, then soaking wet, cold and hot, the setting sun searing, then suddenly soothing. The princess found her senses sometime as Octavia and Toru caught up. They pushed on. The second time she fell, right before the sun touched the warm horizon, Celestia thought that was it.

Her knees gave out outright and she saw black as she fell forward. Adrenaline brought her around just in time for her to see the browner orange beneath catch her. Even though she tried to right herself, Celestia could only move her arms between herself and the cliff. Her elbows caved, and the wind left her in one rush as her chest impacted the flat surface ten feet below, her head whipping forward and kissing the rocks. She flipped around without meaning to and began to slide down the steep, sheer slope feet first, accelerating faster and faster. Her back was rubbed raw by the hundred feet sandstone surface she slipped over,her right wrist now exploding with pain, herself falling into a groove next to a ridge. Celestia managed to slow down by grinding the heels of her boots into the sandy rock, but not enough. The terrain curved to a flatly to a gentle level, then a sheer drop. Celestia went right over.

A hot, humid rush of air blew her long hair back as she fell towards a nearly circular bit of forested area, a hundred feet below or more. Celestia couldn’t scream as she plummeted to the canopy of swampy trees. The greenish-black-brown circle below grew and grew terrifyingly fast. Her lungs and breasts and other organs floated in freefall, a truly uniquely horrific sensation. Celestia felt a little hot wetness in her suit, and she realized her dehydrated body could barely piss itself.

She shook with fear, apprehensive of her own fate, but kept her eyes open. Falling wasn’t lethal, the deceleration at the end was. Celestia watched as the ground rushed up to meet her, gauging which tree would welcome her with hard branches and piercing needles.

It took just two and a half seconds for Celestia’s white-wrapped body to disappear into the foliage, but it felt like years. The princess held out her arms, rushing past a pointed treetop at extreme speed. Celestia felt a hard impact just above her right elbow, covered in thick blood from the landing earlier, and couldn’t ignore the pain. The impact flipped her around, making her tumble over and hit another tree with the trunk of her body, careening off randomly. She was still dropping fast, and the trees weren’t extremely tall.

Finally, her arm hooked into a branch that slowed her down, breaking off a sizeable walking stick. Celestia’s less injured limb struck for a branch and caught it by her bicep, catching it in her elbow.

It was the single most painful experience Celestia had ever endured. She groaned aloud, her body riddled with stinging pain, but finally motionless. Celestia fell again, her body and mind unable to endure the pain. Something else seemed off. When she reached out with her left arm, it didn’t move, just twitched and exploded with pain. Her foot caught something and flipped the broken princess about her center. She landed in mud, face up.

Her mind went blank. Blackness engulfed her in the shadows, figures dancing about her thickening tunnel vision like vile snakes. Celestia could not focus enough to move one muscle, yet endured. The pain was like an ocean, drowning the drop that she was in an endless sea of torment.

Through the ringing pain, the skull-shaking intensity of the fall, Celestia heard a pop, a bang, then a few more pops. Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat, then that was it. A sort of annoying vibration, a hum she didn’t hear earlier, was now fading, then gone. Celestia groaned, finding her stomach to be the only operable muscle in her. She groaned for life, for those little sharp noises to take the pain away and save her from waking hell.

An angelic voice from someplace far away made a sound. It came again, more gruff and not the same. No, the second voice was not the same. It was a man, probably. Celestia only heard ringing beyond him.

It ordered something, so Celestia whimpered a little groan, obeying as best she could. A tiny prick in her neck was all she felt before feeling nothing.

The next thing Celestia knew, she could see something. The trees and red sky were moving. The voices stopped, but her body felt different pressures, at least she thought.

Soon, the red and black blur of a sky changed into a stationary bright, warm grey. The voices came back, and a wetness splashed her face. Her tongue uncemented, and Celestia felt some water go down her throat. It stopped, however, and thankfully she didn’t have to cough any liquid back up. Celestia could move her eyes a little, but her vision was down to basic colors. She could blink, and that helped, but not much.

She laid still forever, awake but unfeeling as voices floated from nowhere and everywhere, sometimes that sweet one from before. It was so familiar, but Celestia could only think of how scary it had been to slip off the cliff, the sensation of freefall lifting her innards and heavy breasts. Then there was the fall and the crashing, her bones and body broken and abused by imparting her kinetic energy to the unfeeling trees. They had saved her as much as the people, or things, that had carried her here and numbed the pain.

Celestia let her mind rest, grateful for a droning nothing to take over. Images of her sister floated into her head, of all things, the last loved one. Her clarinet, the wood taste of the reed on her tongue, it’s lovely dark sound reverbed in her mind’s ear. Celestia felt lighter and lighter as these vague concepts bounced around gently in her head.

Luna seemed to turn in Celestia’s mind, turning away and leading her forward. Celestia followed inside her waking mind, and her eyes opened. She did not realize they were closed.

The voices cleared up, hushed and cautious and inscrutable still. The royal vision returned steadily as well, the warm grey revealing just enough detail to become concrete. Shadows indicated a hanging light as well. Still no pain, Celestia thanked Luna.

A female, young, hummed with curiosity. “So,” Celestia heard. The rest of the inquiry was impossible to unscramble. Her mind was still fried. She heard the word “cast” sometime, and hoped they were talking of a bone-repairing cast in lieu of a death mask. Every second or century, however, Celestia’s senses unmuddied.

“Okay,” someone else said. Celestia saw a shadow out of the corner of her eye, but that was all. Second by second, her senses began returning. She could blink, look around, and even control her breath if she really tried.

Celestia found that pain began to return. Not the sharp jerking pain from the fall, but a harsh, chronic pain that occupied her body. She moaned out when it became serious, yelling as loud as she could for help, which wasn’t much. Both her arms and shoulders hurt so much, it was unbearable. Suddenly, Celestia’s limbs filled and held hot magma, searing her from the inside. She managed to moan out a little louder in anguish.

“Easy,” a soft voice said. “You’ve been through a lot,” she whispered.

Celestia found her muscles responding more and more by the minute. With a large effort, Celestia could look behind her a bit.

“What did I just say, lady?” The female whispered. She walked around on light feet to Celestia’s side, and for the first time since the fall Celestia could see somewhat clearly. It was a young woman, a girl, no older than fifteen or so. “You nearly died, missy, and I am a little surprised you’re in as good shape as you are. Even with the broken bones,-” WHAT?! Celestia screamed internally. She instantly reasoned that broken bones weren’t so unlikely. “and the bleeding, the dislocated shoulder, the-oh, maybe... heh. Maybe you don’t really need to know about all that.”

Like thick honey being slowly heated, the princess could use her sluggish body more, even if it hurt like hell. Unsurprisingly, it hurt to speak. “Who-” Celestia tried, her face on fire after the exertion. “... are you?” she croaked.

The girl with the dirty blonde hair, that really was dirty, twigs and everything, just leaned over and smiled. “Tree Hugger. I’m the copse’s best mudball player, best tree climber, prettiest girl, number one knot tier, band-aid puller, first-aid-giver-person, aaaand the leader of the last Americans. Who’re you?”