Relief suffuses me as the nurse despite being an earth pony skillfully extracts the tubes from my left forearm. She uses how the tape sticks to her hooves to pull it loose, and soon as the tubes slide out from under my skin, she's got a cotton swab on a long stick held in her mouth, that she presses against my more fleshy pink shaved skin. Having disposed of the tape and tubes while I wasn't looking, her hooves now pass a roll of medical tape around and around, compressing the cotton against my wound. And... then I'm free of the I.V. And once again earth ponies are OP.

I still can't get over the novely of my bright pink fur, all over my body including my forearm, but not including the thick nail of my hoof. Despite it being a hard, bony... nail though, it's just as pink as the rest of my keratin, which is to say my fur. So I guess ponies do have unshorn fetlocks, and their hooves are just the same color as their fur, except for the... stallions? I don't get it.

But what I do get is the reason why I can climb off the bed, and stand between the nurse and my mother, looking shell shocked at how even taller they are once I'm off the bed, and how strangely stable I feel on these... toe tips they call hooves.

"I don't feel... weak or anything," I tell the nurse worriedly, "I can really just go walk like this?"

"Oh, yes you should be able to," she says cheerfully, "We've had you on reanimation therapy for quite a few weeks now." At my horrified half-understanding, she clarifies, "That's where we animate your body sort of like a puppet, and help you get your exercise, even though you're... sleeping."

"You... already did my physical therapy, while I was <i>unconscious?</i>" I ask, dumbfounded.

"Well... yes?" the nurse says unsurely, "It'd be awfully tedious if you had to do it while awake. It's mostly just repetitive movements and muscle building exercises, not anything fun."

"Huh."

I demonstrate how I still need physical therapy by trying to take a step and falling on my face. Fortunately the highly attractive and athletic stallion who acts as my personal trainer manages to show me the basics in about an hour. You um... walk forward on your two toes, then catch yourself with your two fingertips. Voila, walking. I'm still kind of slow though, and my mom's really excited, so on our way out of the hospital, she says, "Ohh, c'mon!" and nabs my scruff, carrying me happily out the hospital and down the road, with a joyful bounce in her gait that I can feel, hanging there limply above the moving ground.

With a blindingly fast swing of her head, I squeal in alarm before landing solidly on her shifting rump. I cling there instinctively, looking at the back of her head with big eyes as the purple pink mare moves beneath me, carrying me along.