Songs of Innocence

Chapter 97: Awoken By Whispers of Destiny

Fluttershy's cottage, many moons later

"We're approaching the end. The end of Sun's story... and Sun. We kind of thought everything was over after the Temptress had been defeated. Sun, Death Drive, and Cozy had all faced themselves, and learned to love themselves, and each other. Of course, just outside of our walls of comfort and happiness, the world was gradually giving into the urge to scream at the unknown, crying at the dizzying inexplicable evils who were descending upon our world. But we were happy. Sun was at her strongest... and that was why it was so ironic that she suddenly fell ill, blighted with a mark of the otherworld."

Ponyville Hospital, many moons ago

Sun drew heavy and shallow breaths, staring upwards at the ceiling. She couldn't muster the strength to lift a single limb. Her recollection of how she got into this vulnerable situation was unreliable and incomplete. Luna had appeared to her in a hazy, vague dream, but halfway through it, the dream took an odd turn that got her into this state. 

Her dream-self, Sun recalled, was lost exploring an unimportant redneck country, where she stopped at a shoddy, but charming family barn. It was the only source of interaction with a fellow person to be found for miles. After briefly conversing with a stallion farmer and his foals that excitedly played around the barn's inexplicably nostalgic yard, she eventually proceeded to trek on deeper into the seemingly endless fields of verdant farmland. It eventually grew dark, and the night sky was a dark, greyish-brown, where very few stars cared to twinkle on the lonesome country. The sky was moonless, as if much of the night's comforting lights were being hidden by some giant cover far off in the night-realm. It was then that her journey took a turn for the superstitiously supernatural.

Stereotypical stories of abductions by strange creatures revealed themselves as true to Sun, when she came across another local who wished to warn her about an alien danger. Sun wasn't sure when, exactly, but Luna had appeared to listen to the local's story. But before the local could finish, the truth of his words shewed themselves. He abruptly stopped to point their looks upward, and the three of them all saw a truly bizarre creature. The danger he spoke of revealed itself to be a pink alien thing made of a dozen separate, hot pink-hued, triangular "wings", which beat themselves awkwardly, out of sync with each other. 

The local cried softly at the creature, but although he recommended that the mares hide from it, he himself shewed an enraptured curiosity with it that made him hesitate to run in fear. The two mares similarly let their interest hold them. After a few seconds of awed observing, the creature noticed them, and emitted some kind of invisible auric energy. The next thing Sun knew, she was awake, with a black growth over her right eyelid, which had spread out sparsely in a few separate directions. She also found the act of moving anything other than her lips a near-Sisyphean task.

And now, here she was, in a hospital bed, staring up at the ceiling as her mind swirled with wild speculative thoughts, trying desperately to understand what had happened. Death Drive and Cozy had rushed her here, and her condition was to be examined by a nurse whose name was uttered with a certain reluctance, as if the staff who had announced it was surprised that the particular nurse was needed to examine Sun. Her name was Nurse Blackheart. Sun knew nothing about her but that name that implied grim cruelty and apathy. The pause before her name was uttered didn't help this nurse's mysterious, yet also presumably malevolent image.

Then, Sun heard the door open, then close, followed by hoofsteps towards her hospital bed. The one who had just entered her room leaned over her bed, and she was now face-to-face with Nurse Blackheart. Her messy bob-cut mane was a dark, delft blue, while her coat was pale like a corpse. Her hazel eyes were dead like Death Drive's, yet she looked down at Sun with a pleasantly-surprised grin.