Graphite stormed into the foyer with his weapon prepped and ready. The room was just as empty as it was when he entered. He was standing with his ear to the ground and nose to the air. Any sign of Xain was witnessed only by the murals and paintings. The layout for this building couldn’t be too complicated - it was a public establishment, after all. The best thing to do was start searching now before the sniper could make his way to the other end of the large building. Following the direction of his hooves, Graphite trotted down the first path, one that lead to the “Modern Art.”

Graphite’s trot came down to a slow walk when his eyes were bombarded by a hallway of colours. The portraits were created using every colour a rainbow could make, the paintings were no more than random splatters of bright hues that would send a pony into a dizzying shock. Graphite waltzed away from the leaking paint shop and attempted to keep from seizure as he scooted to the next hallway.

Graphite turned away from the sea of blinding colour, making his way through a stubby hallway into a long room. The room had too big archways - the one Graphite was standing under and the one that was sitting on the opposite side of all the strange sculptures and carvings. Keeping with the building’s split pathways were two more arches on the sides of the room -- more weird and art inspired while under the influence. Graphite had his weapon up ever since he was near shot, but now he had let his guard down.

There wasn’t another soul in sight, all the ghouls would have been handled after the turrets had went off, and Xain was off somewhere in the art institute - perhaps in a separate wing or a separate building all together. It didn’t seem smart to leave the building now, the outside was much worse than this - even if the next row of ‘artwork’ was pictures of hooves and eyes painted by foals during arts and crafts.

Graphite stumbled by the statues, ignoring them all together. There seemed no sense in creating art that had no boundary, no direction, no understanding. The artist’s mindset was definitely shown in his artwork - every artist here was crazy. Perhaps Graphite didn’t understand it like the artist did, perhaps there was something to the chaos. There had to be some form of high understanding that these creations were set on display for everyone to see.

Graphite stopped with just a few more steps left to the exit out of this bizarre room. He didn’t expect himself to be distracted by these pieces of art, but one had to be seen. It was a statue of a pony raising its hooves to the sky. Over the statue was a spill of blue paint, and over the blue paint was a bandage to go around the pony’s eyes - a true window to the mind of the artist.

Xain had been down this way before, perhaps he had traveled it once more. Graphite turned to the archway leading out, heading there quickly. There was another corridor that had split into two directions, Graphite taking a right to make his way out of this hallway.

He passed another set of paintings; the usual landscape and portraits from various artists. Graphite trotted down through the archway waiting at the end of the hallway, ready to give his eyes rest from the vivid art. He came into another long and narrow room; a large carving took up the middle of the floor, it was displayed on a section of wall placed there just for the piece of art. Around the stone carving were paintings that were only good for bringing your attention away from them and to the carving in the middle. It depicted a pony fighting a beast with many heads, perhaps a quick carve made centuries ago. Though it was in the modern wing, perhaps a misplacement or another starving artist trying to throw out and odd piece in the collection of odd pieces.

Graphite continued, paying almost no mind to the main bit of artwork and moving on with his hunt. He reached the middle of the room before noticing something strange with the passage on the side. It was dark, only an orange light could light the room. The other hall seemed normal, but this one was definitely an original work. He stepped inside, no more than a single step was needed to see the skeleton that was displayed on the ground surrounded by the candles that were producing the orange light.

The candles were almost completely burned out, the last of the wax spilt on along the floor. They were sitting in tin cans that were cut in half and encircled the bones asymmetrically. The bones of the skeleton looked weak, eaten away by some awful disease or virus. It was lain out so the arms were resting just at the sides of the chest and the legs were out straight - like it was sleeping. It must have been, there was a cloth over its eyes that would keep light from its eyes as it rested. The cloth was bloody, rapped loosely around the skull.

This must have been the muse for the paintings that were patched across the institute. It was no longer a sky blue, now just a molded ivory. Graphite turned his head away from the remains, looking just beside to discover another holotape. It was sitting almost burnt by the heated wax of the candles. Graphite picked it up and listened to the recording.

“He- he’s dead. That blue pony was my companion for all of this time, and I didn’t even learn his name. It was nice to have him by my side, especially when I heard those monsters wondering nearby.

Those monsters, them and I, look kinda similar. Skin gone at places, only a few lines of hair left in their manes. Some of them have terrible burns and other injuries, but whenever I come near them they just hiss at me. It doesn’t seem like they can talk.

I can talk, though - I can - I’ve talked to my friend. I would always talk to him, he was the only one I could talk too in here. He was always there... now he’s not. He’s gone - he- he’s dead. That blue pony was my companion for all of this time... I’m alone.

No- no no no... I’ve said that already! Oh, but it’s true. He’s dead. I’ll make sure he gets the funeral he deserves. This would be the last time I record a message. I’m out of holotapes and there’s nothing more to say. He- he’s dead... Rest in peace.”

The message stopped, a plastic clack noise after the tape hit the ground and cut-off. This pony sounded like he was nearing insanity. His voice was choked and a little rough like a ghoul’s growl. Though there was this feeling that Graphite had heard the voice before. It had that same pitch as the pony from the first two messages, just scratched and the focus of his speech lost in his disturbed mind.

Graphite backed away from the mausoleum the room was made into, putting the holotape back just by the candles as it was. He stepped out of the archway, only to be meet by a gravely shout.

“Stay away from him!”

Graphite flinched, whipping his head to the booming noise of the yell. Standing just at the end of the room was Xain, standing with his eyes burning into Graphite’s soul and his rifle aimed right at Graphite.

He ducked, a bullet whizzing just by his ear again. Graphite took cover just under the archway he left, firing back with a blind fire of bullets. They gave him just the room he needed to avoid being shot, but nothing that could have ended the fight. Xain jumped back, landing on his back against the marble floor. He bent back forward, firing off his rifle against the corner of the arch and breaking it apart with every shot. One more bullet in the volley of four shots hit across the broken wall and zipped a tear in Graphite’s shirt.

He tripped back, barely keeping himself from falling. Graphite jolted out just as fast as the bullets he sprayed out left the weapon. Xain was in a fit to avoid the fire, squirming in every direction as he backed up further along the hallway. Graphite couldn't follow the path of the bullets as he made a bee-line for the back hallway.

He had made it through, just to be brought down by a quick shot across his cheek. The bullet shed the hairs from his cheek before blowing a clear hole in the portrait on the wall. Graphite wiped the blood from his cheek, scooting away from the entrance and making a quick getaway to the next room.

Graphite stopped just behind the next sculpture, catching his breath and also waiting for the moment Xain steps from the hallway. It was quiet, it was always quiet before the loudest noise possible destroyed the silence. There was just a nice, rhythmic step of dry hooves walking across the floor. Graphite leaned over the sculpture, only the tip of his eyes were peeking around the statue’s body. He leaned over, a sudden burst blasting the waist of the sculpture across Graphite’s body.

He was thrown against the floor with the bits of stone and dust that puffed from the shot. Graphite covered is eyes from the remaining rubble as it rained down, throwing off chunks from his chest as Xain ran to him. Graphite’s weapon was just out of arm’s reach, any attempt to grab it was meet with a quick shot near the gun. Graphite remembered his horn, and his levitation ability -- something forgotten in the heat of the moment.

The weapon was pulled back to him, another quick shot near the gun as it was pulled away. Xain was getting restless, his growling could be heard just at the arch as he brought his rifle up again. Rounds were fired back to back, disintegrating the remaining parts of the sculpture to fine powder. A line was cut across the statue, the top half falling right towards Graphite. He stopped with the levitation he had just remembered he had, tossing the large slab of stone towards Xain.

Graphite got up as gracefully as a rabbit running from a fox, scratching his legs along the slick floor in a scurried attempt to get up. He found his balance and ran straight to the other end of the room, leaving Xain to deal with the sliced statue. He turned the corner in the next hallway which lead him straight to where he had began - in the foyer of the art institute.

Graphite stopped in the middle of the room and turned back to the path he came from, backing away slowly with his loaded gun to the head of the hallway. He back-stepped nervously until his hoof hit a step that lead up to the next wing. He looked down, making sure it wasn’t Xain sneaking from behind. His head snapped back when he found it was nothing, spotting no hungry hunter ahead of him.

His surroundings were already clear in his mind, with the exit just to his right and the main lobby just to the left. Heading outside would be going out into the sniper’s playground, keeping inside was Graphite’s best hope of staying alive long enough to get his shot in on Xain. Graphite tilted left and went back to the lobby, taking another stop just at the base of the red carpeted stairs. He ran up the staircase, getting to the top that was still being guarded by the mechanized turrets. They looked empty, no belt of ammo was being feed to the chambers -- all of the ammunition must have been used to destroy the ghouls and the door just at the end of the short hallway.

The dark room served no purpose, but perhaps these two doorways at the sides would provide more use. Graphite followed out through the left one, only to be detoured by a wall to another set of stairs. He hurdled the stairs easily, turning another wall at the top and out the exit of the staircase. Graphite stepped into a less decorated section of the art institution. The marble floor was no longer made of gold and silver lined around dark red slabs that checkered the floor. It was a simple red coloured floor, with black and gray imperfections spotting and dotting it everywhere. The columns were now just smooth cut stone, the ceiling was also a barren set of stone blocks - up until the edge of the walkway where the ceiling was exposed to the second floor. The railings surrounding the large gap in the middle of the room were also simple iron rails with an iron grip of the same design going across the bars.

Around the area were too many doors to see without a wide angled view, leading to countless maintenance rooms and fire escapes. Across the room were two more corners for two more sets of stairs just like the ones Graphite had ran up. He trotted forward, resting his hooves on the railing and peering over the rails to look to the ground below. There was a sharp bang, followed second by a loud ping and the sound of concrete being chipped away. His leg was hit by a very sharp pain.

Graphite lurched over, his left hind leg festering with a horrible burning sensation. His leg bent and he fell down slowly while trying to stay right-side-up by gripping the rail with whatever feeling he had in his hooves. The rail creaked, metal bending to Graphite’s fall. His grip slipped, swinging him to the column stacked at the corner of the walkway. He fumbled with his arms to grab the round sides of the column, attempting to pull himself just behind it close enough to avoid another dastardly shot.

Graphite looked down to his legs, his left leg was leaking red like a broken pipe. He reared his head back, searing and groaning over the sight of blood and bone and the unsightly sensation that was tormenting his leg. There was a growl, Xain snapping at Graphite once more. Graphite leaned left, hoping the column would cover him better if he laid closer to the ground. His bag snagged a chip in the block, clinging and zipping open while Graphite fell to the ground again. He looked to the ticking noise behind him, his bag was fleeting from his body and spared no mind to its belongings. Out fell a magazine for his rifle and a roll of white bandages. Graphite grabbed for the bandages faster than his mind could tell him to go for them, unraveling the long set of straps and wrapping it across his torn leg. The blood soaked into the bandage quickly, painting it with crimson paint as each layer of wrap went around the wound. The bandages couldn’t tighten any more, and there was just enough to hold off the spout of blood.

Graphite looked around the column, his nemesis was still waiting impatiently for him to show even a sliver of a hair. The zebra jolted, swinging his rifle to Graphite and firing a quick round to his head. The bullet impacted the column, spraying out dust and chips of stone across Graphite’s face. Graphite’s head was pushed from the column, his hooves thrown up to his face as the grains of broken stone slapped his face.

He squirmed back, wiping away the hard dust as his levitation spell sought for his gun. The gun was sucked into the magic spell, Graphite’s mind telling him he had a grip of it. He needed a grip on the wall to bring himself back on the three hooves that still worked, there was no surviving a fight when your enemy could stand right over you. He brought his gun above his head with stone particles still sitting and burning in his eyes. Eyes watering, Graphite fired his weapon to the blunt figure he figured was Xain and obtaining only the moment to push himself to his hooves.

The ground felt askew, the sights of the drywall spanning across the catwalks were drizzled in white speckles of burning dust, the world was shaking - vibrating - giving its all to bring Graphite back down. Graphite refused to be knocked down again, pushing passed the burning pain in his leg and the reaction to wipe his eyes clean with his unsteady hooves. He tried to raise his hoof to his eyes, but his legs wobbled and his body shifted towards the floor. Graphite flung his hoof back to the ground and tried the other hoof, with no difference in results. He clung back near his column, turning right to one of the other hallways in the area. The rifle banged again, brazening through the hall and pushing Graphite to the floor.

A bullet crossed through the back of Graphite’s vest, tearing through the fabric before merging with the wall. Graphite crawled into the hallway, pressing himself to the hard, stone wall before he finally picked the dust from his eyes. Xain grabbed the metal rails, Graphite could hear this when every bar surrounding the gap shook and resonated with Xain’s angry grip. Xain shouted to the empty catwalks, screaming for Graphite’s attention, “Come out!”

Graphite pressed his head to the wall, breathing in and breathing out a troubled shout back, “It doesn’t have to end like this!”

“For you?” Xain hollered in his rough and scratchy voice.

“One- one of us won’t be leaving here alive and you know it!”

The zebra slammed the rails, booming out again like a giant drum, “And I will be the one leaving here! Not you! Me!”

“Just stop, Xain! You’ve done enough, Xain, and I will not leave here until you fucking stop!”

A bullet hit the wall again; it would have never reached Graphite, but it showed him the rage and impatience building in Xain. Xain rattled the rails, “Come out!”

“No!” Graphite roared back. Graphite was boiling with a festering feeling, it wasn’t anger but it was heated Graphite just as hot as Xain. It was something like annoyance; the exponent of a near death battle, lung busting screaming, and a leg that was losing blood faster than the bandages could soak it up. Graphite hit the wall that was saving his life, yelling to Xain once more, “Just stop, Xain! This can’t go on forever! I-if you leave now, you might have a chanc-”

“-A chance?”

“A chance, Xain! You can get out of this place, you can get out and find something to live for! There’s no reason for you to be here!”

“There is! I have to stay here! I cannot leave!” Xain’s voice cracked, he could almost be considered on the verge of crying if his tears hadn’t dried up years ago.

“Why not?”

“I do not want to leave! I cannot leave! I have to stay here...” His voiced droned on until it faded with the echoes.

Graphite sighed heavily, groaning afterwords. There was no way he could talk a stallion out of insanity, so he needed to end this now. He looked out to the columns he was hiding behind, his gun was nowhere insight. The submachinegun was laying broken apart three stories down, dropped in Graphite’s haste to move out of the Sniper’s sights.

“Do you want to spend the rest of your days in this place - together with the monsters? Or would you rather die like the rest of them?” Graphite asked as he tried to distract Xain long enough for him to find a weapon.

The hallway was quiet, the walkway was silent, the resonance of the vibrating rails had dissipated with the rest of the noises. Graphite could hear muttering, something to fill the void of silence. Xain was thinking aloud; about what was the mystery to Graphite. This muttering was nothing new to Graphite, the ghouls would sometimes chant incoherently to themselves when there was no food to snarl at. There was a brain under the burnt skin that continued to turn, telling their host that there was something else. Something else that told them how they were feeling, the thing they have just found, where they’re going and where they’ve been. The brain was still working -- he was still alive, so it must be doing something in his head. It was working just as well as Graphite’s, both parties distracted by the thoughts that flooded through their minds. Graphite was pulled back to reality at the simple sight of an object coming from his bag - a pistol that didn’t belong.

It had a long barrel for a pistol, an oddly round handle and a magazine chamber like a miniature rifle. There was some odd symbols marked into, just above the grip, that Graphite couldn’t read. He’d seen the zebras use the gun back in the war, though this one was polished and even painted with a custom mark. As he peered over the corner of the hall, Graphite could see Xain still talking to himself. The odd pistol came around the corner with Graphite, pointed to Xain’s thickly covered body.

He hesitated to pull the trigger, he had never used or seen this gun before - doubting it would even fire. Graphite peeked away from the gun and back to the mumbling zebra, noting the direction of his head. It was forward, one eye covered by a reflective scope. The trigger couldn’t be pulled faster. A low boom pounded the walls, followed by a second and a third and a forth. Graphite had closed his eyes before firing, retreating away from a sudden shot from a sniper behind his wall. He brought the gun back to him, letting the already smoking barrel cool down.

Xain wailed back into his normal state, screaming maniacally in a terrified fashion. Graphite whipped his head back around the corner, a bright flame made the room glow. It was orange, like a candle burning away on a wax whisk. The smokey smell of burning cloth filled the dense air, a panicking pony was flailing with arms high, voices high, and jacket thrown high off his body. The overcoat was being consumed in a fire, his gun had been misplaced somewhere on the ground to the left, Xain was stomping and jumping to put the fire out.

Graphite acted, splitting from the dark hall with the special pistol towed behind him in a telekinetic spell. Xain rolled across the floor, tearing away his second layer of worn wears. Staged like a performance, the burning zebra danced with a flurry no pony has seen before. With the performance came the decorations; bullet holes glowing with a glowing red ring around the divot.

The room was feeling the deadly heat of the incendiary rounds the pistol had been filled with, Graphite wielding this instrument of hell like a house-hold tool. He had planned to use it generously, Xain so kind as to accept the generosity of Graphite’s cold hoof.

The burning ghoul could see Graphite over the flames that were eating at his rotted flesh, backing away using the thrusts of his back and the grip his hooves could drag across the floor. Graphite stomping hooves would rumble the floor in Xain’s eyes, his thousand-yard stare burning into his disturbed soul. Graphite’s black duster was like the cloak of death, come to take him from the world.

Graphite stood just above the cooking body of Xain. Graphite was fighting his brain to stay up, the blood draining out drained his strength and beat his will. The gun could barely stay afloat in his magic spell, his eyes were fading in and out of blackness. He came reached the fleeting Xain as he was stopped at the door to the supplies. A hoof dropped down to his chest, fizzling out the bit of flame that was burning there.

Graphite stared into the crazed eyes of the sniper. His pupil was broken in one eye, shrunken down to almost disappearing and split like someone had cut it apart. His eyes were lit by the last of the flames from the charring overcoat. He could see fear of dying and fright from the burns that were so close to killing him. It was more habitual than any ghoul could create - a true feeling. Graphite stopped resisting and stopped hesitating.

Graphite pulled the trigger, squeezing it just hard enough to make the gun go bang. He held it long enough just to let the last sixteen bullets spew out the burning spout. Like a volcano, the heated bullets burned through the everything it touched - all the threads in the cloth, all the layers of skin, all the groups of bone. It cast Xain down with a force that mutilated his skull. The fire rose again to cast the monstrosity away from the land once and for all.

Graphite stepped away from the body to let it burn into ash, wobbling as the blood loss came back to haunt him. His vision faded and blurred, his stance low to keep from falling where he stood. The way out was down two flights of stairs and a trek though the foyer. There was no last peek and not even a moment of silence for the late Xain, Graphite turned to the staircase down and told himself, “Time to go home...”

With his bleeding leg dragging along the marble floor and the left of his wavering strength, he trudged down the stairs and through the hallway to the other set of stairs. He tumbled down the precarious steps, a fall that could break his crown if he had fallen the wrong way. Using only his forelegs and what he could make of a spell to lift him up, he got up - now ready to fight his way down the last set of stairs. Graphite found himself at the bottom of the stairs before he knew he had taken a breath. He was fading fast, the pain in his leg numbing out to his delight and despair.

The foyer meet him as he meet the doorway to it; he stepped to the tier of three small steps that lead into the bowl of the room, scared to take the steps down. He was weak, shakier than a leaf, his ability to walk was beginning to drop. He could feel his chest drop, drop like it was being pulled to the ground by a force much stronger than him. He was pulled down the stairs by this force, his body jerked by chains to the floor.

Graphite had his face dug into the twinkling marble floors, his head too heavy to lift away. His legs were sinking into the earth, his arms pulled into foundations, his chest dragged underground. Moving was like tearing a tree from the ground by its roots, dragging and clawing at the ground to find the grip to move forward. He never stopped fading in and out of conciseness, seeing he was steps ahead of himself before he realized he was still dragging himself to the exit.

Graphite was walking blind, his vision blacking out. He looked to the exit, the doorways coming ajar as a light shined through them. With the sun fallen to the ground and shining all of its light through the doorways, a darker cast came from the doors. It stood taller than any pony could, standing over even pegasi in flight. Like a pegasi, it had a pair of wings spanning the length of the foyer’s hallway. At the tip of its head was a horn, a unicorn’s horn. The figure stopped just as it reached the main room, looking down to the hazy Graphite.

In the remaining thoughts that Graphite could understand, he assured himself this was Celestia, coming from lands unheard of to whisk Graphite’s dying soul away. She was here to wrap him in her tail for his final rest. The light blinded Graphite, casting away all the dark shadows that were drenching his sight. The mare came close, Graphite’s mind going completely blank - as if he had been unfrozen all over again.

There was no thoughts, not even a spark of a memory of a word spoken by himself. He could remember nothing, he could not retrace back to anything - no information, no lessons, nothing to tell him where he was or who he is. There wasn’t any feeling of the things his hooves were touching, nothing around to see. He was trapped in a void of nothingness; without emotions, without a touch or feeling of any kind, no thoughts, no conscience.

Graphite slowly opened his eyes, only to see part of a cracked ceiling above him. He felt numb, he couldn’t feel the rest of his body, but he managed to turn his head just enough to see a white curtain to his right. Graphite could hear some other ponies coughing somewhere beyond the white partition. He tried to move his hoof to move the curtain away, but he couldn’t feel it - let alone move it. He felt like he had fallen from the top of a mountain, then suddenly stopped and carried back to the top. It was like coming back to life from death. His head was sore, the thoughts he knew so well were returning to him.

After laying around a bit on what seemed to be a small cot, a shadow approached the curtain and pushed the curtain aside. The blaring light beyond the shadow made it hard to see, but this shade that had come to see him was a pony in a what looked like a stained lab coat. Graphite backed away from the light before the beating rays could burn his eyes.

The pony stood just high enough to look down on Graphite. It didn’t have the horn as before, and was no taller than Graphite himself. She turned back, pushing the lamp away for Graphite to see who this pony was. It was a lime green mare with two wings on her back and that dirty lab coat Graphite could see clearly. It was Dr. Feelgood, turning back from the lamp and back to Graphite.

“Can you hear me, Graphite?” The doctor asked, talking slowly and loudly just to make sure Graphite wasn’t deaf.

It was muffled, but the hearing was still there. Graphite opened his mouth to speak, only to find that even his tongue had went numb. He nodded his head, letting out a timid, ‘Ah-huh.’

The mare smirked, letting out a sigh. It sounded like a sigh of relief, but Graphite wasn’t quite sure. Feelgood spoke up again, “Graphite, you’re going to be a little numb, but we’re just glad you’re still alive. You lost a lot of blood back there...”

A galloping noise of hooves came running across the floor, another pony and another voice to join the conversation, “Is he alright?” The mare sounding voice questioned in a self-contained panic.

Graphite peered over his chest at the pony. It was a mare with a delicate orange coat and eyes that shinned with her fur. Sunny was half-way to a heart attack until she noticed that Graphite was awake and moving. She ran to his side, nudging the doctor aside as she grasped his body in a gleeful hug. Tears of joy beaded down her rosy cheeks and a smile that could make any beast turn was spread across her face.

“We’re so happy you made it, Graphite!” Sunny shouted with a undying happiness.

Graphite regaining a feeling, a warming feeling that tingled across his body -- as well as an aching feeling that cramped his muscles. Sunny squeezed him tight and never let go, the doctor having to break the hug up so she could get a word in and continue her examinations.

She pried Sunny’s arms from Graphite, guiding her to step back from her patient, “Excuse me, Sunny,” The doctor shooed, “I’ll give you two time to talk when I’ve finished.”

The doctor stepped over to Graphite’s leg, pointing to the leg wrapped up in bandages, “I’ve replaced your bandages, since the ones you had on previously were a bit overused. I also took the liberty to give you a - perhaps excessive - amount of Med-X to ease the pain. The numbness will go away eventually, and you’ll feel light-headed every now and again, but that leg isn’t going to heal completely. At the least, you’ll have a limp; but at least you can walk, right?” Dr. Feelgood scoffed, before stepping back from Graphite, grabbing the edge of the white curtains just as she was ready to leave, “I need to get to the other patients, I’ll let you two be for now.”

She pulled the curtains shut, letting the two ponies to themselves. Sunny came back to Graphite’s side, leaning over the cot and giving her lover a kiss on the forehead, “We’ve missed you, Graphite,” She whispered to Graphite.

“Wha- what happened, Sunny? I don’t remember a thing...” Graphite asked disorientated.

“Feelgood told me that you took a bullet to your calf. It was an indirect hit; if it wasn’t, then it might have taken your whole leg off,” Sunny shook her head at the thought of a limb being torn from the body, quickly knocking it from her mind as she returned back to holding Graphite close.

“Oh, that’s... good. B- how’d I get here, I wouldn’t suppose you-”

“-Oh, no,” Sunny denied, “I was in the settlement the entire time since you left.”

Graphite was puzzled, looking in whatever direction his stiff neck would let him turn. He returned back to Sunny, looking through his dim eyes, “Then, how’d I get b-back?”

Sunny moved a loose strand of hair from her eye, answering his question in her best whisper, “Well, Tsoy had carried you here from the boat. I don’t think I heard him correctly, but he told me an ‘alicorn’ had carried you to his boat -- I blame the island’s air, making him see things... But, all that matters is you’re back home.”

“Yeah...” Graphite mumbled, his head fading in and out of a sharp ache.

“There’s this other thing that I wanted to tell you - before you left - but it slipped my mind.”

“Wh- what is it?”

Petting his mane, Sunny whispered again, “Well, do you remember that abandoned boutique, Graphite? That one where-”

“-I do...”

“Yes. Well, since then, I’ve been feeling a bit strange,” She told him quietly, twiddling a bit at his mane.

“H-how so?” Graphite wondered, the light-headedness coming around and beating his head as the conversation moved.

“I’ve been having an upset stomach, and I’ve been sore all over -mostly around my joints,” She reached back to her legs, rubbing around her knee to illustrate the feeling to Graphite who could barely see.

Graphite let his head fall back to the cot, still struggling to speak up to Sunny, “What are you... trying to say?”

“Graphite,” She grinned, the smile almost taking up the remainder of her head, “We might have a foal.”

Graphite felt another feeling in him, his heart pounding against his chest. He smiled, unable to do anything else to show his emotion. His head was fleeting from this feeling, becoming more painful and only suppressed by the blissful feeling he was having. The warm feeling was coming back up, burning now with a passion. It brought a fuzzy feeling around his gut and more relief to that headache.

Sunny beamed with Graphite, clutching his limp hoof tight in hers. They sat in an embrace, enjoying the moment and doing their best to keep the quiet muse of the patients coughing out of their heads. Graphite drifted into a sleep, joined by his mare who was napping right on his warm chest. The light passed as his eyes shut and the world went to black.