The Mare

She had no idea how long they'd slept. She didn't particularly care. She had seen neither sun nor moon for so long, the whole concept of time seemed to be slipping from her. All she knew was that her stallion had continued to recover at an impressive rate, but he was so hurt. Only hours before he had been literally pulled from death's door and only with the combined help of the spectral voice and her own terrifying firsthoof experience with surgical tools had he managed to stay in the world of the living.

Now he was sitting up, having fashioned a sling for his broken arm, letting it hang in front of his muscled abdomen. All the scraps of armor had been gathered together and piled into the ponymade saddlebacks that he had worn strapped to his hips, but he was barely able to sit up. She had been the one to gather all the pieces, using her muzzle and only her fervent, newfound love for the strange biped had allowed her to suffer through the humiliation. Samuel had just sat there, watching her with quiet awe and his patience seemed endless. She would drop the same piece several times, blushing and fidgeting, occasionally growing frantic with embaressment until he had extended his gloved hand and without even thinking, her body had responded, bringing her to nuzzle his hand, letting him caress her ears and her still tender jaw. He had comforted her in this way several times and each time, she would return to the task at hoof with steadily mounting confidence.

Samuel, a curious name but it had been so long since she had done any speculation on names. It was almost as forbidden as hoping had been. Knowing their names had been one of the few things that could possibly deepen her perverse misery, giving it a whole new dimension, so she had stopped thinking about their names. She had shut her ears to their words.

But this wasn't Tartarus and hope was not forbidden, so why should she shy away from his name? She could stand to contemplate one name at least. She could do that much for him, for Samuel. Being regarded with anything other than unending sorrow and pity was similarly a new experience to her. Normally she didn't have a choice; the forcefield had prevented her from hiding anything. They would all gawk at her broken horn, they would weep at the sight of her marred flanks and they would cry to the heavens for her lost voice, their pity only deepened when they had witnessed her refusal to even move her lips. She could make no sounds.

The darkness seemed to expand from the corners of the dark cave and her whole world trembled and lost focus before she felt a comforting embrace as she was pulled into a one-armed hug. She realised she had been sobbing noiselessly again, only able to vocalize with her studdering breath as it hitched in her throat. Damn it, she was crying like a foal again.

She recoiled more in self-loathing and exasperation than any intend to hurt her stallion and just like before, his patience proved endless as he sat back, watching her steel herself. She sat upright, still blushing and keeping her hair down, covering her right eye and more importantly, the broken stub of her horn. Realising her discomfort, Samuel ripped his skin-tight suit in twain with an idle thought, the powerful, sleek muscles of his upper arm flexing with the effort until he had cleanly removed the top, leaving on his pants and leg barding.

Before she could speculate further, he had draped the black shirt over her back like a skirt, once more taking her off-guard with how nimble his fingers were as he tied the sleeves together to hug her barrel. Now the black material covered her flanks and hung loosely down her backside like a black skirt.

It was simply ridiculous that she should be crying again, but there was no stopping the trickle of thick tears streaming noiselessly down her cheeks as she realised that her stallion had noticed her shyness and thought to cover up that only other truly glaring evidence of her broken nature. She hugged him and kissed him needily, shivering as she tried to still the flow of tears, managing only after a few minutes.

He wiped her face clean and helped her put on the saddlebags, lifting them effortlessly in his one good arm until they were slung over her hips. She scowled and he grinned, obviously finding her expressions adorable, which only deepened her blush as she stood on quivering legs, struggling to stay upright with the lightly ladden saddlebags.

Yes, he was definately feeling smug. He had a broken arm, a half-crushed ripcage and his naked skin was paled visibly from bloodloss, and here she was, unwounded and unencumbered safe for a pair of saddlebags, but somehow, impossibly, he seemed to have more strength than she did. She squared her jaw and silenced him with a look.

"Sorry, I can't help it, you just look so cute when you're trying to keep your balance," he choked out between chuckles.

Cute? She raised one brow, the question clearly written in her features. Then her frown turned thoughtful and she nodded, finding it preferable to pity. She did not know what she would do if he had pitied her. He continued to radiate good cheer and support for her and she shuffled a bit, finding a steady stance and finally the quivering subsided.

He looked appropriately impressed with her efforts, making her heart swell with pride. She puffed up her chest and managed a fragile smile which seemed to hold him spellbound. It was ridiculous that he should find her so beautiful, but she wouldn't question his tastes in mares. She took a few hesitant steps, finding that she could keep her balance on three hooves, moving only one leg at a time. Well, it might be slow progress, but she was still more mobile than Samuel as she inched towards the last remaining piece of his suit. The visor lay split down the middle as if it had been intended to split open like that when it was still whole. The left half was still glowing with the red glyphs that seemed to be the only manifestation the spectral alterego could manage. She bit down on the dead half of the visor, stowing it in her saddlebag. Looking to the other half, she could see it was molded to fit over the top half of Samuel's face and with the lower half broken, she acted on impulse.

She pushed her face into the concave shape of the half-visor and when she raised her head, the glowing display sat perched on her snout, the see-through panel sitting right over her left eye. She saw the world now as her stallion must have seen it when he fought the dragon. Everything was bright, banishing the shadows, showing her the world in tones of green. The red letters stood out sharply defined against the green backdrop.

SIMULATED ARTIFICIAL MIND

POWER RESERVES CRITICAL. PLEASE RECHARGE.

POWER RESERVES = 2%

ALL SUBSYSTEMS OFFLINE. POWERSAVE MODE ENABLED.

SIMULATED SENTIENCE MATRIX OFFLINE. READ-ONLY TEXT COGNITIVE PROCESSES ENABLED.

[SUBJECT ID UNKNOWN] PLEASE BE ADVISED. THE REMAINING POWER RESERVES WILL ALLOW FOR ONE JUMP TO CLEAR THE CHASM. FROM THERE, SAMUEL MUST WALK ON HIS OWN TWO LEGS. I CAN PROVIDE NO FURTHER BACKUP.

As the red letters scrolled over the screen, they seemed to flicker between a variety of random shapes until her rapidly shifting pupil seemed to dialate whenever the symbols by chance would take on the semblance of Equestrian letters, gradually replacing the alien language until the whole message was spelled out for her. She had watched her own reactions in a picture-in-picture display, able to see how her pupil shifted between each letter.

It was mind-boggling. The spectral voice known to her now as Simulated Artificial Mind was able to track the minute motions of her eye, able to see which words she was looking at, and by using that same process, he allowed her to highlight sections of text and he provided a list of words and letters to choose from so she could piece together a sentence.

SIMULATED ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

[SUBJECT ID UNKNOWN] HOW DO YOU FEEL?

Q W E R T Y U I O P
A S D F G H J K L
Z X C V B N M

EUPHORIA

Her eye seemed to move over the letters in random order as quickly as she could find them, but the screen aligned them easily into the correct order. Euphoria. She could think of no other word to summarize her feelings. Turning to regard her stallion, only now realising that he was still watching her, she blinked, peering through the visor seeing him outlined against the cave wall in tones of green, smiling at her. When she wasn't looking at the letters, a small crosshair tracked the motions of her pupil, allowing her to highlight her surroundings and anything recognized was given a label. There were labels for Samuel, his armor, the halberd (curiously labeled VENGEANCE in all uppercase letters) and his Rifle. The latter she knew to be the magical tool which had taken the eyes from the dragon.

So this was how Samuel saw the world. Everything was illuminated and labeled. The device described the exact distance between herself and each object to a staggering degree of accuracy, using a type of measurement called 'feet and inches,' whatever that was. He was grinning from ear to ear, watching her wear the visor over the only eye not obscured by her blond mane.

Feeling uplifted by her sudden and unexplainable success with wearing the visor, she managed to trot over to where Samuel sat, her muscles seeming to remember some of their lost strength. She kissed him tenderly and then pulled away, gasping as he struggled to his feet. He should not be moving, yet what other reason could he have had for helping her put on the saddlebags? The visor had indicated to her that his leg bardings held enough left-over power in them for just one of his great leaps. He had not read the screen as she was now wearing it over her eye. She watched him pensively as he took his first few unsteady steps moving around the cave.

The bonfire was nothing but embers and he seemed to navigate the cave by relying on his sense of touch, trailing his gloved hand along the cave wall. He wore the halberd strapped across his back and the rifle strapped to his right thigh. They had all the other pieces of his armor in the saddlebags so he was now wearing just the leggings and the right armguard. His hair was shaken loose from its ponytail and his left arm was in a sling.

He looked haggard, yet she still found him beautiful. As he walked, she noted the extended rearhooves were still folded behind the small of his back. He would have to extend them and make one jump to get them both out of here. When she saw him fumbling in the darkness, she alerted him to her presence by clopping one hoof on the stone floor. He turned towards the sound and she led him, guided by the screen which painted everything in tones of green, banishing the shadows.

He was able to walk and keep up with her unsteady trot until they reached the gaping chasm with the ledge some 20 feet above them, according to the screen. The Simulated Artificial Mind insisted that he would be able to make the jump and she had only to replay the battle scene with the dragon in her mind's eye to confirm this. Hesitating, she blushed and the visor did little to hide the glow with her snout still exposed, as she reared up on her hindlegs, hugging Samuel with her forelegs. He understood her meaning and scooped her up, hoisting her up by her flanks, her frontlegs propped up on his good shoulder. Again, she marveled at his strength. Even half-dead, he was lifting her in one arm.

He unfolded the metallic equine legs, growing a good foot in height and running in a graceful lope, he kicked off just before they went tumbling into the deep pit, making another explosive leap, easily clearing the gaping chasm, slowing to a halt after a few strides. She was trembling in his grasp and he kissed her on the lips, instantly calming her as he set her down, laughing when she fell onto her rear with a huff.

She would have fixed him with another glare, only the visor now obscured her eye, the right one still hidden by the curtain of her mane. Instead, she turned towards the source of light and the green tones bled away as the display allowed her to see with her natural eyesight.

For the first time in Tartatus only knows how long, she gazed upon bright, golden shafts of sunlight. They were at the mouth of the cave, just a few broken cobblestone archways seperating them from Equestria. She was going to cry again, she just knew it. This time she wouldn't be able to stop bawling after just a few minutes.

...

Euphoria.

Author's Note

Just finished another chapter. The broken mare and Samuel escape the cave!

He still hasn't picked out a name for her. So far the only word she has communicated has been 'euphoria.' Thank you for the suggestions in the comments.