There’s one thing about Lyra Heartstrings I absolutely respect.
She has no shame at all.
Now, by saying that I don’t mean that during the long night shifts we hide somewhere in the closet to cheat on Bon Bon till the break of dawn. I mean that, when she does end up in the ER, she tells us the whole truth on what brought her to us, no matter how odd or awful it is. Much more convenient than having to navigate through layers of lies such as “it kind of slipped into my ass”, “I only drank one beer”, or, last but not least, “I’ve never noticed that I weigh as much as a young whale”.
Sometimes, however, even Lyra doesn’t have to say anything. There are days when the case is pretty obvious.
“So, let me guess,” I say. “You were trying to give your marefriend a massive cock?”
“Yes,” Lyra replies. “How did you know?”
“Educated guess.” I turn to Bon Bon. “Can you tell us what happened?”
“Cock-a-doodle-doo!” Bon Bon bellows.
“Well, one thing worked,” I say to Lyra. “You’ve definitely turned her into a big rooster.”
Lyra rolls her eyes. “I know this even without a nurse telling me about it. Can you turn her back? I tried to take her to the vet, but I’m not allowed there anymore due to a previous misunderstanding.”
“What misunderstanding?” I ask without thinking if I really need this knowledge.
“How could I know ‘sexing kittens’ means guessing their gender and not something else?” Lyra shrugs. “Anyway, can you turn her back?”
“Dunno if you noticed, but I’m a little lacking in the horn department,” I reply. “If you can’t do this yourself, go to Twilight.”
“This may take a while,” Lyra replies. “As of late, she’s rather busy with friendship stuff.”
Friendship stuff, yeah. This includes therapy and recovering from getting tased, but it’s supposed to be a secret. Of course, once Rainbow Dash learned about this, it ceased to be a secret and became a somewhat improbable rumour, but rules are rules.
“Still, that’s probably your best bet,” I say. “Maybe some doctor could change her back too, but I wouldn’t risk that. They mostly use magic to manipulate tools. Transformation is just not their thing.”
“Okay.” Lyra grabs Bon Bon with her magic and gets up. “If we still need some help, we’ll come back to you.”
“Be my guests,” I mutter as they leave the room.
Time to get some coffee, I guess. The corridors are full of patients, so it’ll probably be cold before I get to drink it, but I might try anyway. I walk to our brand new kitchen, carefully navigating between stretchers, trays full of pills or food, or carts with cleaning equipment. At least no patient needs me right now, so I just hide in the kitchen.
Yeah, we got the kitchen now, so we don’t have to use the coffee machine in the corridor. Nurse Purple Heart, who travelled around the world with various armies and knows a lot of exotic dishes, says that the coffee from it has something in common with kopi luwak – that is, except they forgot to feed the civet with coffee cherries.
As for the kitchen, we have to thank Peachy Plume. She’s the old receptionist in the clinic and throughout the years, she gained resistance against pretty much every infectious disease. When someone mentioned it’d be great to have a proper kitchen, she went to the board of directors and threatened to start coughing. We got the kitchen in no time.
I drop on the chair by the coffee pot and look at the pony on the other side of the table. I expected it to be Nursery, but she’s currently attending some conference in Canterlot, most likely getting wasted with nurses from all of Equestria. Since we’re permanently understaffed and nopony wanted Atom Heart to wander anywhere near the patients, we settled on Purple Heart – correctly assuming that a one-eyed nurse who doesn’t give a damn about smoking ban and gets panic attacks whenever she hears a typewriter is still better than a radioactive nutjob with an IQ of a demented squirrel.
“What’s up?” I ask.
Purple Heart blows smoke from a cigar and takes a sip of her coffee. “Bunch of kids with diarrhea. Nothing special. Back in Zebrica, we all got dysentery. Now that was something.”
I pour myself some coffee. It’s better not to encourage Purple Heart to tell stories, or else she’ll eventually get to something insane, illegal, or both. On the other hoof, she saved my ass when I ended up before the disciplinary committee, so I kinda owe her.
“Those who survived dysentery later got cholera,” she says. “Now that was pretty inconvenient, especially since some pegasi still tried to fly, so we had to watch out. We were in the middle of the desert, so if something wet landed on your head, it probably wasn’t rain. At least I spent most of that time in my tent, trying not to die.”
“How did you survive that?” I ask.
She gives me a glare of a kind that haunts you in your dreams. “I guess it was my exceptional sense of humour.”
“Surely,” I reply, taking a large swig of my coffee. The sooner I get out of here the better. I’d rather not end up like that poor intern in the Equine Resources department. He noticed that Purple Heart makes all her notes with a pencil, so, against better judgement, decided to give her a typewriter.
Needless to say, we wrote the ‘we need a new intern’ announcement with a quill.
I finish my coffee quickly and trot to the ER. I’m pretty sure someone will eventually need me. The waiting room is full of ponies and Peachy Plume barely manages to keep order; she just kicked Cloud Kicker out again and is now explaining Diamond Tiara that if she needs condoms, she can just go to the store.
“Peachy, chill out,” I say. “The biggest store in town is owned by her father. No wonder she doesn’t want to go there.”
“That’s what I keep telling her,” Diamond Tiara says. “Also, hey, I’m trying to be responsible here, right?”
“The pharmacy is on the left,” I reply. “Did you already have lessons with Nurse Sweetheart?”
“Ages ago.” Diamond Tiara rolls her eyes. “I know everything, don’t worry. After all, I didn’t get pregnant in the last two years.”
I shake my head when she leaves. “Kids these days.”
“Two years?” Peachy Plume asks. “How old is she anyway?”
“Guess the same age as Sweetheart when she started,” I reply. “No generation is complete without at least one pink slut.”
Peachy Plume chuckles. “Eh, back in the day… By the way, Redheart, why are you still single?”
“The only guys I know are either doctors or patients,” I reply. “None of them are someone I’d like to live with. Besides, my house is a mess and I’m never there anyway. I don’t even have a cat because it’d starve to death.”
“Sure thing.” Peachy Plume shakes her head. “You should chill out from time to time…”
Yeah, that’s what I need. Old mares telling me to chill out. Luckily, some kirin walks to us, bailing me out of this conversation. I’m really not good with relationships.
“Excuse me,” the kirin says. It’s hard to tell male and female kirins apart, but at least this one’s voice is most definitely female. She’s young and seems a bit nervous. I hope she's not about to tell me that she keeps coughing. “Do you know what happened to my husband?”
Damn, relationships again. “I don’t know,” I reply. “Where did they take him? I can go there and ask someone.”
“Room number ten,” the kirin replies. “Please, tell him that I really didn’t mean it!”
“Sure thing.” I shrug. Hell only knows what she means, but comforting ponies is my job. Well, ponies, kirins, griffons, and whatever wanders around Ponyville these days. Except of changelings, because their organs are so weird we have separate specialists for them.
Of course, as soon as I open the door of the room number ten, I remember that we’re in Ponyville. The Weird Shit Capital of the World.
“Tendie, stop acting the maggot and give me more of that blue stuff,” Coldheart says, doing something to the patient lying on his back. I can’t exactly say what she’s doing, but from her position and the patient’s position, I can tell that soon the patient’s wife is going to be very angry.
I might grab a fire extinguisher already, just in case.
“I’m coming!” Tenderheart exclaims. Interesting choice of words.
“Hello,” I say when she walks past me.
“Oh…” Tenderheart stops, dropping a container of some ointment. She looks at Coldheart, at me, and at Coldheart again. “This isn’t what it looks like.”
“I hope so,” I reply. “Otherwise, I’d have to ask why Coldheart is giving a patient a hoofjob again.” I look at the patient. “Though at least this one is alive.”
“Oh, feck off,” Coldheart replies. “I only touched a dead guy’s dick because Tendie dared me to, and you’re acting like I’m some kinda floozie.” She turns to me, revealing that her front hooves are covered in some blue substance. So are the patient’s hooves, his genitalia, and Coldheart’s forehead – I guess she wiped the sweat off of it in the middle of whatever she was doing.
“Then what’s going on here?” I ask, trying not to wonder why Coldheart just randomly decided to go full Sweetheart.
“Minus craic altogether,” Coldheart replies, shrugging. “The guy was just having some fun with his wife, you know…”
Sigh. “I know.”
“From what we’ve got, it seems he uttered the wrong name.” Tenderheart shrugs. “The name of his ex-girlfriend or something. Back in school, completely closed case. As you may guess, his wife didn’t take that lightly.”
“Well, that’s for sure.” I look at the patient. He groans, covering himself with his wings.
“And the twist is, she’s a kirin,” Coldheart says. I already know that and I think I know where this is going. “So she got angry and suddenly it’s like he’s bollocks-deep in a furnace.”
“Ouch,” I hiss, looking at the patient. “Is he alright? I mean–”
“Yeah, I know what you mean.” Coldheart rolls her eyes. “Luckily for him, they were trying to make a baby.”
“How does that makes it better for him?” I ask.
Tenderheart chuckles. “Imagine a melted-down condom in here…”
The patient groans. “Could you stop? I have a vivid imagination!”
“Don’t worry, you’ll be fine,” Tenderheart replies. “Soon, you’re going to the burn centre in Manehattan. They’re pretty good and after they fix you, everything is going to be operational. Especially since you’re a pegasus.”
“Yeah, quicker regeneration,” Coldheart says. “Maybe you’ll have a nice scar…”
Tenderheart smirks. “You could tell ladies its story.”
“I mean, when your mot is not around.” Coldheart shoots Tenderheart a glare. “And if she is, I suggest asbestos.”
“But not the whole time,” Tenderheart adds. “Genetic mutations, risk of cancer…”
“Yay, that’s what I wanted to hear.” The patient rolls his eyes. “Also, I fear to wonder how the babies will turn out.”
“Worst-case scenario, you’re getting a winged kirin,” Tenderheart says. “Then, I suggest fireproofing the whole house. Of course, I don’t have to tell you that with baby pegasi there are no shelves that are too high to reach, so–”
“Tenderheart,” I mutter.
“Yes?”
“Shut up.”
“Of course.” Tenderheart nods. “I guess we should, uhh… prepare the patient for the flight to Manehattan.”
“The sooner the better,” the patient says and turns to me. “Is all of the staff like this?”
“No,” I reply. “Have you ever gotten an x-ray at our hospital? Atom Heart uses the machine to fry eggs for breakfast.”
The patient shudders. “Thank Celestia I’m leaving.”
“Another happy patient,” Coldheart mutters. "I wonder if that one nurse we met during the conference last year still works in Manehattan. Cute hoor, but lacked a few marbles, if you asked me."
I’d help them with the gurney, but suddenly, I hear some noise from the outside. Given that Coldheart and Tenderheart are busy with their own patient, I guess it’s time for me to shine.
I rush out of the room and the first thing I see are a couple of paramedics trying to keep some young unicorn in one place. It’s rather hard since she constantly teleports out of their hooves, appearing in random places, like the lamp or the back of an elderly patient.
I look at her. She’s pink and has a blonde mane, currently ruffled, full of twigs, and drenched in blood from a large cut on her forehead. She teleports in front of me and smiles sheepishly.
“What’s wrong with her?” I whisper to the paramedic. “Aside from brain damage, that is.”
“Excuse me,” the unicorn says. “What year is it?”
“More brain damage, then,” I reply. “If you really need to know, it’s been a bit over a thousand years since Nightmare Moon and Discord. Though now we can start counting another thousand years since major shit went down, as we recently had a wannabe metal musician, a bug queen, and a crazy chess kid blow up the castle in Canterlot and it’s not something that happens every day, even here. Also, we recently had a large group of clones–” I pause, seeing as the unicorn bursts into laughter, rolling on the floor.
“It worked!” she exclaims. “Starlight’s spell worked!”
“Oh great,” I mutter. “Someone call Princess Luna’s Clinic for Mentally Unstable Unicorns. Starlight gave someone an untested spell again.”
“Not your Starlight!” the pink unicorn exclaims. “Well, your Starlight, but she didn’t give me the spell yet.” She shrugs. “It’s hard to explain.”
“What do you mean?” I ask. Patients with brain damage are rarely talkative, but when they are, they say the weirdest things.
“She’ll give me this spell in the future,” the unicorn replies. “I managed to travel all the way to the past! Twenty-five years!” She spins around, all the patients in the corridor looking at her. “Like, I haven’t been born yet!”
“Nuthouse,” I mutter to the paramedics. “Magic nullifier, a cozy straitjacket, and let Faint Heart teach her to play parcheesi or whatever they’re doing these days to make the patients feel less insane.”
“I think now they play chess,” one of the paramedics says. “If anything, they seem more insane now, especially after one of the Sombras started to win all the tournaments.”
“Good,” I reply. “Maybe she’ll beat him.” I clear my throat and turn to the future nuthouse patient. “Anyway… What’s your name?”
“Luster Dawn.” The mare looks around. “To think about it, my grandmother used to work in this hospital. Well, she probably still does in this timeline.”
Well, I hope she’s not my granddaughter. Though on the other hoof, she’d recognise me then. Wait, what am I talking about? She’s crazy or just brain-damaged. She doesn’t come from the future.
Though then, who really knows. This town has seen weirder shit.
“Okay, Luster,” I say. “First, we need to take care of your forehead. What happened to you anyway?”
“I went back to the past from my room in the Northern Dormitory in the School of Friendship,” Luster Dawn replies. “Turns out, they didn’t build it yet. I managed to cushion the fall from the third floor… Well, almost.”
“Is she telling the truth?” I ask the paramedic.
“Well, they found her lying on the ground after Sunburst tripped over her,” the paramedic replies. “Of course, there’s no dormitory in there.”
“Interesting,” I mutter, walking with Luster to one of the rooms. “Have you been drinking? Or maybe you got some muffins from Sandbar?”
“What?” Luster exclaims. “Nah, he’s not making any funny muffins. He’s kinda old for that, you know? However, kirins always have a lot of beer, but some say–”
“I can imagine.” I grab some bandages from the drawer. “Any pills you took before?”
“Only the ones I had prescribed,” Luster Dawn replies. “I have asthma, acne, and I once thought I got something from one griffon, but Flurry Heart told me–”
Yeah, sure. I’ve seen Flurry Heart recently when she got scarlet fever during her parents’ visit in Ponyville and the most coherent word I heard from her was, much to her parents’ chagrin, “bullshit”. She may have said something more, but I was too busy trying to stop her friend, a little crystal ball of scarlet fever and undiagnosed ADHD called Rough Diamond from destroying my office. Wonder what will become of this kid.
“Do I have to tell you she’s a baby?” I ask.
“Okay, she will tell me that, I guess.” Luster Dawn shrugs. “When travelling across time, it’s always important to know your tenses. Ms. Glimmer always says that. Also, it’s important to know where the towel is.”
“Guess you hit yourself harder than it looks,” I say. We’ll have to order a CT scan. And call Dr. Stable.
The door opens. Speak of the devil. Dr. Stable walks in, along with Sweetheart, who apparently was slacking off again – she’s still wearing her buckball costume. Whenever I call her out on that, she says she’s preparing for the important match against the ponies from the town hall and that the honour of our hospital depends on it.
Honour? Honour in our hospital is like old ponies. It comes here to die.
“Hi, Redheart,” Sweetheart says. “We’ve heard you got a time traveller.”
“Well, she actually hit herself pretty hard,” I reply. “She claims to fall off a building that doesn’t exist yet, but–” I pause to look at Luster Dawn, but she’s not paying attention to me. Instead, she’s looking at Sweetheart, her eyes lighting up.
“Grandma?” she asks. “You look so young!”
“Oh, thank you, my dear,” Sweetheart replies. “If you swing that way, we can find some secluded storage room and–” She pauses. “Wait… Are you implying my daughter banged a unicorn?!”
“Please,” I mutter. “You’ve banged countless unicorns before. Hell, you banged a yak patient, destroying a bed in process. Why can’t your daughter bang a unicorn?”
Luster Dawn chuckles. “That’s apparently what my dad said to you when my mom said she wanted to get married. Or rather what he will say.” She shrugs and turns to me. “Maybe he heard that from you? Nevertheless, granny Sweetheart said that at least she–”
“At least I didn’t make any unicorn foals.” Sweetheart groans.
“Exactly that,” Luster Dawn says.
“Who’s your dad, anyway?” Sweetheart asks. “I’m asking because I need to find him and kill him.”
Dr. Stable clears his throat. “Hey, let’s not create temporal paradoxes here, okay? If you kill her dad, she won’t be born and she won’t tell you who her dad is, and then you won’t kill him and–”
“Okay, we get the idea,” I say. “Also, why does everyone believe she’s a time traveller?”
“Stranger things have happened,” Dr. Stable replies. “Remember that one patient everyone laughed at because he claimed to be an alien? We stopped laughing when his ship arrived to pick him up.”
“Yeah, but that’s an exception,” I reply. “I mean, normally we just have a regular, scheduled apocalypse. Sweetheart, what are you doing with the patient?”
“A unicorn? Seriously?” Sweetheart turns to me. “I’ve finished patching her up for you. Guess now we need to get her a brain scan. Maybe it’ll reveal a tiny alien sitting in her head.” She groans. “But really? A unicorn?”
I sigh. “Give it a rest.”
We all walk downstairs to Atom Heart’s kingdom of X-ray machines, CT scanners, magnetic resonance machines, and all the other things we use when we want to look at what's inside of the patient but we’re not allowed to cut them up. Of course, Atom Heart is there, surrounded by weird-looking plants she somehow grows in the basement. There are also two foals sitting there and sipping cocoa.
Seriously, I’d be afraid of Atom Heart’s cocoa. Geiger counters go haywire next to it.
“Dinky Hooves,” I say. “Ruby Pinch. Did you escape from the paediatrics ward again?”
“Nah,” Ruby replies. “We just went to the pharmacy for my ADHD meds and something for plot inconvenience for my mother, but we got lost and she’s telling funny stories.” She points at Atom Heart.
“I was just telling them how I built a nuclear reactor in the back of my kindergarten.” Atom Heart smirks.
“Quite a story.” Sweetheart smirks. “If I recall correctly, your hometown is considered uninhabitable for the next thousand years, isn’t it?”
“Hey, but at least I got a cutie mark that way,” Atom Heart says. “With a bang.”
Dinky looks at Luster Dawn. “What is she doing here? She shouldn’t be born yet.”
“Oh, finally someone believes me,” Luster Dawn says. “Wait, did I already tell you I come from the future?”
“Educated guess.” Ruby shrugs. “Do you travel randomly or did you use some spell?”
Luster Dawn nods. “Old Ms. Glimmer’s spell, yeah. Did she teach you that one?”
“Lucky you.” Ruby sighs and gets up, prompting Dinky to do the same. “We’d better get going. I’d rather not be a part of it again.”
“Again?” I ask. “What do you mean?”
“You’ll see.” With these words, Ruby and Dinky walk out of Atom Heart’s office. What a peculiar pair of fillies.
“Peculiar kids,” Luster Dawn says. “Also, you said something about the CT scan.”
“Yeah, but it’s not a big deal,” Atom Heart says. “I mean, none of my patients ever complained. Granted, some of them are unconscious, but still, they don’t complain.”
“I don’t know what it is.” Luster Dawn smiles sheepishly.
“Really?” Sweetheart asks. “If Princess Luna’s Clinic for Mentally Unstable Unicorns still works in the future, you probably had countless of them.”
“It may be an outdated technology.” Luster Dawn shrugs. “I mean, I’m not an expert on medicine and this hospital might just be a tad primitive…”
“Yes, totally,” Sweetheart mutters. “For example, patients who misbehave get free enemas. With hot sauce, if they’re particularly annoying.”
“Okay, grandma.” Luster Dawn rolls her eyes. “Where’s that machine anyway?”
Atom Heart smiles, showing her teeth, which are every dentist’s nightmare. “Be my guest.” She walks to the room with the CT scanner, prompting us to follow her.
To think about it, those rooms could use some painting. The lamps also flicker and look like they could fall apart at any moment. One could shoot horror movies in our hospital’s basement. If Sweetheart is to be believed, someone already did, though it wasn’t exactly a horror movie. And apparently Sweetheart and her then-lover decided to bury the tapes in an abandoned mine and never speak of them again.
Seems that Luster Dawn also gets the horror mood. She looks at the CT scanner and pokes it with her hoof. “Do I have to lie down in that?”
“Precisely,” I reply. “Don’t worry, it doesn’t hurt. Are you allergic to radiocontrast?”
“How would I know?” Luster Dawn shrugs. “I’ve never had it before. Also, I might be a bit claustrophobic.”
“And you call yourself my granddaughter?” Sweetheart groans, walking to the drawer and grabbing a catheter. “I hope you’re not scared of needles too.”
“What’s it for?” Luster asks, backpedalling.
“You know, it’d help if you didn’t smile like a psychopath,” Atom Heart says, walking to Sweetheart. “Also, leave contrast and catheters to me.” She lights up her horn—did I ever mention that even her magic aura looks like glowing uranium?—and levitates the catheter out of Sweetheart’s hooves.
“Is it necessary?” Luster Dawn lights her horn, stopping the catheter with her magic. Her aura sparks against Atom Heart’s grip. “I mean, what is it for?”
“So we can see what’s in your head,” Atom Heart replies.
“Yeah, but is the needle really necessary?” Luster Dawn pushes Atom Heart away with her magic. As far as I know unicorns, it’s better not to stand nearby when their magic short circuits. We already had one burned guy here today.
“I mean, we can do that without a needle, but it’s gonna hurt more.” Atom Heart shrugs. This distracts her for a split second – just enough for Luster Dawn’s magic aura to overwhelm hers, causing the package with the catheter to fly into the air like a small cannonball.
It hits the lamp with a loud ding. The old wire creaks, causing the lamp to fall down.
Straight on Sweetheart’s head. Just great.
Sweetheart falls down with a loud thud, causing a few tiles to crack. As I said, this room is in dire need of a renovation.
“Did she die?” Dr. Stable asks.
“No idea,” I reply. “You’re the doctor here. Or so I've heard.”
“Right.” Dr. Stable rushes to Sweetheart. The lamp flattened her cap and gave her a long cut in her head.
“Uhh…” Atom Heart looks at Luster Dawn, who sits on the floor, hyperventilating. “You okay there?”
“If I killed my grandma…” Luster whispers. “Ms. Glimmer warned me about that.”
The remaining lights flicker. This is just getting better. What if we just created some kind of a temporal paradox? Maybe the world outside this room already doesn’t exist. Or at least it’s broken beyond belief, with everything glitching and getting all fucked up.
“Don’t worry,” Atom Heart says. “Her daughter had already been born. Who knows, maybe your parents met at the funeral?”
“No!” Luster Dawn exclaims. “She’s alive in the future!”
“Wait, we don’t know if she’s dead.” I turn to Doctor Stable. “How’s she, anyway?”
“I can’t feel the pulse,” Doctor Stable replies, furrowing his eyebrows.
“Damn.” Luster Dawn slumps to the floor, sobbing. “I created a temporal paradox and possibly broke the universe. Twilight’s gonna kill me when she finds out.”
“She doesn’t have to find out,” Atom Heart says. “I mean, you might be permanently stuck in this timeline now, so–”
“You’re not helping, Atom,” I mutter, watching as Dr. Stable is looking for any signs of life from Sweetheart. I mean, I always assumed her skull was thicker. Though who knows, maybe she damaged something during the buckball match and the lamp finished her off. I mean, one guy in our hospital fell out of bed at night and–
Hmm, I should probably start helping. I mean, that looked like a heavy lamp, but maybe there’s still a chance. Also, I don’t want anyone to sue me for not helping, even if Sweetheart was a pain in the ass.
Damn, who’s going to piss me off now?
“Should I bring the defibrillator?” I ask after he finishes another round of chest compressions.
Sweetheart opens one eye. “Hey, I don’t do electrophilia on a first date,” she mutters.
“You’re alive!” Luster Dawn exclaims, running to Sweetheart.
“Of course I am,” Sweetheart mutters, rubbing her head. “I woke up a while ago, but he was just going for ventilation.” She smirks at Dr. Stable. “You almost broke my rib, bad boy. Also, you can’t find pulse for shit.”
“I can.” Dr. Stable blushes. “It’s just hard to find your pulse because, uhh…”
“Lots of adipose tissue that gets in the way,” I say.
Sweetheart furrows her eyebrows and tries to get up, but apparently the lamp hit her harder than it looks because she staggers and sits down. “Are you suggesting that I’m fat?”
“That’s not a suggestion, that’s a well-known fact,” I reply.
“It’s genes.”
“Genes that make you naturally attracted to vending machines,” Luster Dawn says. “I remember from my foalhood.“
Sweetheart turns to me. “If I shove this lamp up her ass, will it cause a temporal paradox?”
“It’ll cause a trip to a disciplinary committee, among other things,” I reply. “And Purple Heart is in a shitty mood.”
“Although I also fondly remember your cooking,” Luster says quickly, apparently deciding that it’s better not to risk any enlightening from behind. Or, if we’re into less philosophical things, getting a new set of rear lights.
“That’s nice, dear, though still–” Sweetheart pauses, noticing that Luster got a bit pale. “Are you alright?”
“I feel a bit dizzy…” Luster mutters just before dropping to the floor.
“Is that a family thing or what?” I ask, walking to Luster. She’s breathing and seems fine, though I guess a combination of magical exertion, dehydration, and side effects of falling from a considerable height just caught up to her big time. It’s better to get her out of here – in Atom Heart’s cave the definition of fresh air is rather wide.
“Great,” Sweetheart says. “Now I feel dizzy too, though given that I just had a close encounter with a lamp, it’s understandable. I’m pretty sure I’d rate high on Glass Cow’s Coma Scale, though I get the feeling that I might be babbling a little tit…”
“Bit,” I mutter while helping Atom Heart get Luster Dawn on the stretcher. “Either you’re yourself more than usual or we have to chalk that up to confusion.”
“Yeah, I guess a few days at the ward will be good for you,” Dr. Stable says. “Just to make sure none of you two got haematoma.”
“Yay.” Sweetheart rolls her eyes. “More hospital food.”
As expected, Nursery Rhyme comes back from Canterlot dishevelled, hungover, and just plain tired. Guess it won’t be soon before she tells what she learned during the staff meeting. Especially since the staff is rather dwindling.
“Why is Purple Heart telling those patients to stand in attention?” Nursery asks. “And what is she doing here in the first place?”
“Coldheart is crashing on the couch after working for two days without sleep,” I reply. “Tenderheart will be here in a moment, though.”
“Great.” Nursery rubs her temples. “What happened to Sweetheart? I haven’t seen her since I came back and I miss her calling me a wise little shit.”
“She’s out of the game for a few more days,” I reply. “Her granddaughter dropped a lamp on her head and now they were both demoted to patients.”
Nursery furrows her eyebrows. “How did I miss Sweetheart’s daughter getting pregnant? Also, who dared? I guess that guy is dead now.”
“Her granddaughter came from the future,” I reply. “She can’t magick herself back with a concussion, so she has to stay here for a few days. But at least she told me who will win the hoofball league in the next ten seasons.”
Nursery sighs. “And those two weird nurses from Foalrida said that weed is harmless… Am I still having hallucinations?”
“I’m afraid not,” I reply. “Also, yesterday the nurses from the ward told me that they’ll pay us if we take Sweetheart back and never let her come to them again.”
“Why?” Nursery asks.
“She’s an awful patient, she keeps complaining, banged an intern in the closet, and she decided to make wheelchair racing a thing.” I shrug. “Turns out, she gets completely insane with nothing to do. Frankly, I’m not surprised. When I was in the nuthouse, I also started to go crazy.”
“Isn’t that kinda the point?”
“Well, it might be, but–” I pause, as I see Starlight Glimmer approaching us. She looks terrible, to be honest. She has bags under her eyes and I’m pretty sure there are a few grey strands in her mane that weren’t there just yesterday. I mean, living with Twilight Sparkle is probably stressful, but it can’t be that stressful.
“Are you alright?” I ask. “You don’t look well.”
“I lost my student,” Starlight replies, looking around, as if to check if no one was listening. No problem. In this hospital you can basically tell that you banged a shady mare you’ve met during a road trip and then your balls fell off, and you’ll get nothing more than a weird look and antibiotics. “In some twenty years Twilight will be exactly five minutes from finding out that she’s gone, so I’d rather bring her back before that. Have you seen her? Her grandmother works here, so–”
“Oh, you’re from the future?” I ask. “Don’t worry about Luster. She kinda hit herself on the head, but she got better.”
“Ah, so that’s why you look older,” Nursery, a master of tact and diplomacy, says to Starlight. “Don’t you have face cream in the future?”
“It was banned for environmental reasons.” Starlight rolls her eyes. “I’d rather get Luster back before she causes more temporal para–” Suddenly, she screams and drops on the ground.
Behind her, there’s another Starlight. This one looks much younger and her horn is smoking.
“Who’s this impostor?” she asks. “I’d say she’s a changeling, but it’s apparently rude these days.” She walks to us and pokes older Starlight with her hoof. “What was she talking about? Something about temporal paradoxes?”
I look and Nursery, who shrugs. Luckily, we don’t have to answer. Roseluck crashes through the hospital door, screaming, as usual.
On the other hoof, it may not be that lucky. Just recently we let her out of the nuthouse, after the therapy finally worked and we convinced her that she’s not a cat. Also, I guess I won't start betting on hoofball matches anytime soon.
“The horror!” Roseluck exclaims. “The sun just flickered and went out! Also, I just met my dead aunt and Daisy is clipping through walls.” She shudders. “Also, the water in my kettle froze when I tried to make tea to calm myself down and then Lily grew a horn and a pair of bat wings.”
“Looks like someone broke the universe again,” Starlight says. “Could it be Discord? It must be Discord, or else it’d mean that someone managed to create a temporal paradox–” She pauses and looks at the older Starlight, smiling sheepishly. “Oh.”
“Oh, indeed.” I mutter. Seriously, Starlight needs to work on her self-control if she doesn’t want to get shot in the back by her younger self one day. “What will happen now?”
“A reboot, I hope,” Starlight replies.
There’s one thing about Lyra Heartstrings I absolutely respect.
She has no shame at all.
Now, by saying that I don’t mean that during the long night shifts we hide somewhere in the closet to cheat on Bon Bon till the break of dawn. I mean that, when she does end up in the ER, she tells us the whole truth on what brought her to us, no matter how odd or awful it is. Also, I have a feeling that I already told that to someone, but I can’t quite put my hoof on it.
“So, let me guess,” I say. “You were trying to give your marefriend’s pussy tighter?”
“Yes,” Lyra replies. “How did you know?”
“Educated guess.” I turn to Bon Bon. “Can you tell us what happened?”
Bon Bon looks back at me with all the contempt she can muster. “Meow?”
“Well, one thing worked,” I say to Lyra. “You’ve definitely turned her into a small cat.”
