Anon and Amber Eyes 6: Breather

    >Be Anon.
    >Be Anon, walking on a treadmill. Well, limping and cursing, really.
    >You're cursing, because even with pony healing magic, your muscles have still atrophied from disuse, and you're walking on what's essentially a brand-new set of legs that have never really walked, or ran, or jumped.
    >Not for the first time, you find yourself wishing that whatever saw fit to bring you back from the dead had also seen fit to just fix your ruined body instead of making you work to build it back up.
    >"You need to step up the pace, Anon," says the PT nurse--you think her name is Tender Care, and you've all but decided that that name is a sick joke. She has the brusque manner of a drill instructor and a voice like a nasal foghorn. "Two kilometers, and you've only done one. You need to push harder."
    >"Make more of an effort to walk normally." Cursing, you try to obey, pulling yourself up a little straighter and trying to limp a bit less, but you're still staggering along. She looks you over clinically, and nods.
    >Grunting, you mutter:
    I want you to know that I thank you for everything you're doing for me, and I hate you and want you to die. That is all.
    >Her ugly face lights up with one of her rare grins. "That's good. Anger's a damned fine motivator. At the end of the day, you don't get function back without hurting a bit to get there. Like I told you when we started--all of my patients start out hating me. And most of them walk out the door still hating me, too. But they walk."
    I can relate. My hatred for you burns with the fury of a thousand blazing suns.
    >She chucklesnorts, then increases the treadmill's speed very, very slightly. You curse and step up the pace.

    >>27840992 (You)
    >On a treadmill beside you is a small, grey-brown bird pony mare, who is doing a far better job of walking than you are. Well, trotting, actually. And softly singing a song under her breath.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_X-dLTjXAk [Embed]
    >If you weren't so tired right now, you'd be able to identify it, because it sounded vaguely familiar. You're actually a bit jealous because she has extra wind.
    Fuckin' showboating quadrupedal showoff.
    >"Hey, you're just jealous because I'm so awesome," says Amber Eyes. Even through your own discomfiture, though, you notice she's limping a bit herself and huffing. "I'm amazed that you're so slow with those long legs, you should be able to cover a lot more ground than I can."
    >Her wings flutter. She has yet to try to fly since arriving here at the hospital, but they've got her going through the specialized physical therapy that injured pegasi get. With some modification, the same exercises work for bird ponies, too.
    >Human supremacy has been challenged? CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!
    Well, you know that humans..evolved from hunters, right?
    >Damn, you're talking like William Shatner now. Not enough air for a proper rant. Oh well...
    Not fastest animals. Not strongest. First, best strategy was to walk prey to death. Just get up and...walk. They look around, there we are. they run, no matter how far, they turn around, there we are. Relentless. Finally they just fell over and we walked up and got 'em. And lunch was served.
    >She looks suitably impressed, and so does Tender Care, oddly enough. "Okay, yeah, that's....actually kind of creepy," says Amber. "Like something out of a horror movie."
    We're...like our world's eldritch abominations. Everything else was...bigger and tougher than us. Had to play to our strengths. Stand our ground long enough, do enough damage to something stronger. And it might go away.
    >Bitch has turned the treadmill up even more, you know it. She's smiling. Why?

>>27841097
>You're out of breath for the moment.  You're going to need to stop talking for a while, until you've got a enough reserve wind to flap your gums.
>You're supporting a lot of your weight on the arms of the treadmill.  Not for the first time, you find yourself looking at your right forearm.
>It's scarred, but the most interesting scars are where the Az'k'za she'd given you as a gift had burned a few weeks before, when a unicorn hitpony had tried to murder you both.
>the jeweled platinum ring centerpiece had literally burned its way into your flesh--even the center was a dead-ringer for the intricate pattern of the delicately woven feathers that had filled the ring.  Pony regenerative magic didn't seem to touch it, no matter what they did, and it seemed like you were just going to have to live with the scars.
>Dermabrasion REALLY wasn't an option that was going to be on your table.  Yeah, fuck that.
>Ah well, chicks dig scars, right?
[spoiler>Chicks?  Bird Pones?  Geddit? [/spoiler]
[spoiler]>Ah well, tough crowd.  Fuck all y'all.[/spoiler]
>You've got a little wind back.
So...tell me about this "Memory Tapestry" your Elders are making?
>Amber Eyes is breathing a bit harder, and her coat's a bit sweaty.  Apparently she's nearing the edges of her own stamina right now.  "I don't know a lot about it--the Elders aren't talking much about this one.  We mostly see them in our temples, places like Red Sun Aerie in Zebrica.
>"The combined flocks come together every once in a great while when something important happens, and the Elders discuss how to record it.
>"Once they've decided on the details, they begin constructing a...well, an artifact.  A tapestry.  They don't just weave pieces of cloth, they actually weave memory and experience into it somehow.  I don't really understand the process, other than it takes years to learn it, and then only if you're one of the ones born with the right combination of natural talents.  Like my sister."

>>27841222

Yeah, your sister's a genius.  I mean that, she made the little feather-jewel-thingie for your MP3 player.  The one that takes the place of the battery.  What did you do with the solar charger, anyway?
>She's breathing hard. "Yeah, she took that apart--I was a little reluctant to tell you.  Part of it she worked into the Az'k'za I gave to you.  Said it was perfect for it.  Most of the rest of it, she reworked into rechargeable charms.
I don't think I mind--I've got a couple more broken solar cells lying around, if she wants them.  Not like I can do anything with them.
>She smiles.  "That'd be awesome.  But.. anyway," she says, "The tapestry actually contains memories.  Anyone touching it doesn't just see what happened in the past--they're actually there, as much as you can be.They can learn things, they can learn new skills, sometimes, if the ponies who let their memories be woven in knew something.
>"They create one every time something of significance happens.  Or at the beginning and end of an age.  There's a bunch of them, some of them so old that it's said that the ponies you see in them don't look very much like us today. Or at least I've been told.  The oldest ones are really fragile.
>"But...this age, is the Age of the Roc. the one before this was the Age of the Garuda.  I DID find out from mama that the Elders think that this age is ending.  Or has ended.  She wasn't really clear on that.  According to her. though, the Flock Elders are calling the age to come the Phoenix Age, and want to convene a meeting.  That's what this tapestry is supposed to herald."

>>27841222


Yeah, your sister's a genius. I mean that, she made the little feather-jewel-thingie for your MP3 player. The one that takes the place of the battery. What did you do with the solar charger, anyway?
>She's breathing hard. "Yeah, she took that apart--I was a little reluctant to tell you. Part of it she worked into the Az'k'za I gave to you. Said it was perfect for it. Most of the rest of it, she reworked into rechargeable charms.
I don't think I mind--I've got a couple more broken solar cells lying around, if she wants them. Not like I can do anything with them.
>She smiles. "That'd be awesome. But.. anyway," she says, "The tapestry actually contains memories. Anyone touching it doesn't just see what happened in the past--they're actually there, as much as you can be.They can learn things, they can learn new skills, sometimes, if the ponies who let their memories be woven in knew something. And you can see events they went through. .
>"They create one every time something of significance happens. Or at the beginning and end of an age. There's a bunch of them, some of them so old that it's said that the ponies you see in them don't look very much like us today. Or at least I've been told. The oldest ones are really fragile.
>"But...this age, is the Age of the Roc. the one before this was the Age of the Garuda, the one before that was the Age of the Cetan, and the one before THAT was the Age of the Rain Bird. It goes on for a while. Each age has certain attributes, spells a change in history and fortunes, and so forth and so on. I DID find out from mama that the Elders think that this age is ending. Or has ended. She wasn't really clear on that."
>She's breathing harder and limping. And so are you. "According to her. though, the Flock Elders are calling the age to come the Phoenix Age, and want to convene a meeting. That's what this tapestry is supposed to herald. The end of the Roc Age, and the beginning of the Phoenix Age."

>>27841346

>>27841346

>You're just about at the end of your rope.  You turn around and you're about to lay into the therapist with what little wind you have left, when you notice she's smiling slowing the treadmills down, and you finally, gently stop.  "Awesome," she says.
I agree.  It's totes awesome to be off the Tender Care Death March.
>You wheeze. Your legs are on fire.
>She snorts.  "No, it's awesome that you walked 3.2 kilometers instead of two.  I kind of lied back there."  She beams.  "Sometimes I do that."
Fuckin' slave-driving battleaxe.
>She laughs.  "Flattery will get you nowhere with me.  Your therapy is going awesomely well, by the way. " Tender Care guides you through a modified series of cooldown stretches and exercises, surprisingly gentle, while a pegasus therapist guides Amber through her own version.
>"You pushed hard.  Don't be surprised if you're pretty sore tomorrow.  We'll work on that."  She hands you the cane Rarity had made for you--you've been off the crutches for a week at this point, which is awesomesauce.
>Even with the extra padding, minotaur-crutches don't work quite right for human armpits.   "So...how does a half hour in a hot whirlpool bath sound right about now?"
Like a tender, delicious slice of heaven.  A nice bath, maybe a morphine on the rocks...
>"Hah hah, no.  We'll go with bottled water right now instead."

>>27841483
>You still occasionally heard ringing in your ears.  According to the tests the doctors had ran, you had roughly forty percent hearing loss in both ears, though to be sure because they were uncertain because they were dealing with a being with a markedly different range of hearing than a pony.
>Okay, scratch occasionally.  Pretty much all the time, especially at quiet times of the day and night.  The little pieces of shaped, enchanted graphite in your ear canals amplified sound, and, mercifully, they reduced the ringing to something manageable.
>Amber Eyes didn't get off scott-free in that regard--she had virtually no hearing at all in her right ear, though her left was normal.  She had her own little earpiece, much more elaborate than yours.  Still compact, though.
>You figured the medical hardware designers of this world had a few things they could teach the ones back on Earth.
>You still didn't really remember the events of that day clearly.  Your last clear memory before waking up in the hospital was of picking up the injured bird pony in the street.  Though you'd seen the pictures some of the more level-headed marketgoers had taken during the Incident.

>>27841546
>the most spectacular of them had been run in virtually every paper in Equestria, and from what you knew, many papers outside of it.
>It was a photo of you that a mare had snapped at just the right moment, of you crouching with your head down and cradling an injured Amber Eyes in your arms while a ragged beam of ruby-red arcane power from the horn of a snarling, undersized, impossibly-ugly unicorn stallion standing only a few feet away poured around you both--spilling to either side and over you, as if pouring across an invisible dome.
>Your face was barely visible, and your teeth were bared in a snarl, your right arm up in front of your face like a shield while you leaned into the beam.  Rarity had said you looked astonishingly fierce and determined.
>But you knew that expression, and it wasn't bravery or determination, because you lived in this face and you knew how it worked--it was pure, unadulterated, pants-shitting terror.
>The headline the Manhattan Time had ran?
>EXTRA-EQUESTRIAN AMBASSADOR STOPS MYSTERIOUS MARKETPLACE MASSACRE
 >Rainbow Dash had told you she'd bought over a hundred copies of that paper.  You had no idea why, and when she'd offered to give you one, framed, you'd refused.
>You didn't remember it.  You didn't WANT to remember it.
>It wasn't an event to commemorate.  Too many ponies had died, brutally...along with one human .

>Together, you and Amber Eyes are escorted to the whirlpooth bath area, where there are already tubs filled and waiting for you.
>Epsom salts, and you can smell various herbs and potion preparations they've added to the water, a peculiar mix of sweet and medicinal scents. It's not as jarring as you first thought, though you wonder if you're just getting used to it.
>As you understand it it's a combination of things designed and intended as carriers of magical force, intended to help encourage and speed wound healing and muscle recovery. Also, to reduce aches and pains.
>Interestingly enough, most of those things didn't work on you at all before the Incident, or if they did, they worked in bizarre, unintended ways. You remember a simple painkiller Sparkle had given you not long after you'd arrived, aspirin with a magical kicker, and it had turned your skin green and caused most of your hair to fall out. To this day, it was still extremely short
>The headache eventually went away on its own, of course.
>Anyway....you don't pretend to understand it. You're just glad it works.
>You shrug off your sweaty workout clothes, and with the help of two of the earth-pony attendants, you climb into the whirlpool tub, right across the way from Amber Eyes. "Oh Celestia," she breathes. "This is buckin' heavenly." She flutters her wings, fluffing the water through them, an expression of utter bliss on her face. She ducks her head under the water and stays down for several seconds, coming up with a gasp.
>She spreads her wet wings and begins to preen them, gently removing bent and damaged feathers from the right one. The left one's feathers are still growing back in, and according to what you'd been told, that's going to take couple of months with magical assistance, much longer naturally.

>>27841847

>You look down at your right arm, and note how reflective and shiny the red-and-black mottling of the scars looks.  It's almost beautiful, even if you know what it represents.
>And then you refuse to look at it anymore, instead choosing to watch as Amber Eyes carefully, unselfconsciously nips and works at her wings.  Later, you knew, she'd use a combination of lotions and the waxes her own preen-glands produced to condition and waterproof the feathers.
>It's probably the single most soothing thing you've ever seen.
>You realize that no only could you watch it for hours, you'd probably fall asleep halfway through it.  Just watching it makes you yawn.
>Preening was often a social activity.  You remember how you'd awakened the first time she'd climbed into bed with you, with her sleepily nibbling on your hair.
>You let the sight lull you away from the dark place your thoughts had turned toward, and bask in the soothing heat of the tub.
>She interrupts her preening to look at you. "Say, uh, lunch is pretty soon, right?"
Yeah, right after we get out of here, I think.
>"Good," she says.  Food is always a priority with Amber.  "The food here sucks though.  Think we can rook them out of some corn nuts this time?"