"Finally... about time..."

How long had it been? Arpeggio had no idea; it was just day after day of the same white room with the odd visitor. He'd slowly but surely recovered, though his voice was still incredibly raspy and he had to have a special patch implanted in his chest to allow the air leaking from his lung to escape until his lung had fully repaired itself so it wouldn't collapse again.

Arpeggio did get released from the hospital that day, the Pegasus still had a plate in his cheek, a splint in his jaw (though he was capable of eating on his own now) and his nose was almost normal again.

"...Mmn... what to do now?" The pegasus exited the hospital, wincing a bit at the bright sunlight.

Just on her way from the hospital, Lori was out the doors right behind Arpeggio. She trotted rather quickly with a mischevious grin on her face. Not looking where she was going, she bumped into the back of Arpeggio, dropping several items on the ground. Most of them looked to be candies and breath mints from the hospital counter.

"Oh, oops. Sorry. Are you alright?" She said quickly.

The pegasus stumbled as she bumped into him, turning around and looking at her.

He replied in a raspy sound. "Ehh... I've been better, but that's no fault of yours." He glanced down at what she'd dropped. "...Got enough sweets?" He knelt down to help her pick them back up.

Lori smiled with a slight blush at the mention of the sweets. She gathered up what she could and what Arpy took before putting them in her saddle bag. "Hehe. Yeah...I like my sweets. Want one?"

She opened her saddle bag to pull out a tootsie roll. Not too long after that though, the sound of a rather annoyed nurse could be heard yelling from inside the hospital.

"Umm...Lets walk through town, shall we?"

Arpeggio suppressed a laugh, not wanting to hurt himself too much. He popped a peppermint into his mouth, starting towards town. "Sure thing... my name's Arpeggio. What's yours?"

"Lorenza Counsel. A pleasure to meet you Mister Arpeggio." She smiled and looked back a few times to the hospital as they got some distance from it. "I hope your injuries are not to terrible." She said, noting his condition. "You look like you are recovering well."

"Pleased to meet you, Miss Counsel... Believe me... I was far worse off earlier... I can eat on my own now at least, even if my voice is incredibly raspy still... I just wish I could sing."

The pegasus sighed slightly; he seemed to be rather depressed due to his inability to sing. "...I still have a patch beneath my chest skin right now... helps the air that escapes my lung release so the weight doesn't collapse them... My broken face bones are healing as well, so that's... nice, I guess... I'm glad to be out of the hospital."

He looked over at her. "Ehh... enough about me... what do you do?"

Lori was rather worried to hear about the severity to Arpeggio's wounds. She gathered that he may be a singer with evidence of his words and cutiemark.

"Me? Well, I'm a Psychologist. I like to help ponies and hear what they have to say. More specifically I specialize in cutie mark theory, a bit of a new study lately."

"Huh... that's... interesting, I guess, though I'm not fully sure what there is to study about cutie marks. They're just marks on our flanks that are a symbol of our special talent, no?"

He shrugged a bit. "Either way. So where's your office?"

Lori had so much more to say though. "Oh, but they are not just symbols. They represent a core ability of ours that, to my theory, can correlate to overall happiness. The one thing that a pony can do that can give them joy and healthy mental state.....Of course my theory needs more extreme examples to be proven...But that comes in time." She smiled.

"Oh, and my office, its actually right before the market area near the Whitetail Road. Easy to reach for most any pony."

He sighed a bit. "I dunno... I've been trying to do composition and piano playing which relate to my music talent... but I haven't been feeling much better. That disproving your theory? Sorry."

"I'll keep that in mind." He walked a little bit further, resting on a bench in the square. "Haah...haah..." He looked pretty haggard. "Sorry if I'm not the best of company."