Chapter 41

Two Out of Five Doctors

I can’t for the life of me figure out why some people like sneezing.

That moment just before just before this involuntary action where your eyes flutter-squint, where there’s a sudden short sharp inhalation of air in your lungs, the almost automated preparation of your body tensing and drawing back for the literal near hurricane about to eject itself from your face?

Yeah, fet-fuck that noise.

I don’t know what could be done in place of this often, but not always necessary biological function, all I know is that I just wish it would stop.

Right now, in the middle of this fit in which I have barely time to draw breath, I recall the first time I discovered this allergy. It was while I was living in Melrose with a friend whose internet name was Telegrand.

He had a ‘friend’ named... Jem? Jewel? Jeulie? Yeah, that last one. She was a choosing beggar Karen stay-at-home mom that was just... the worst.

She was always trying to take advantage of Telegrand, her house was an absolute clutter of rotted, rancid, discarded food and near literal mountainous piles of clothing. Not to mention the fact that she had this creepy unmutual crush on him...

She had given him a plate of salad one time. Just a whole salad that you’d get from one of those ‘all-you-can-eat’ buffet places. A literal salad! ... A salad that was barely salad and more like a thin layer of lettuce leaves with like a... maybe half cup of sunflower seeds just... dumped on top...

Just really?! A whole circle of sunflower seeds that covered the greens! Who does that?!

Telegrand said I could have it and after just a few bites, the sneezing started... just like it is right now... The only difference is the hooves, amount of hair getting flung back and forth, and the high pitch in the ‘Ah!’ before the all too pain riddled ‘chuu!’

My left... leg is pointed outwards, but its contents are getting jarred about and it feels like the grinding grit of a rock tumbler!

All my senses are being blotted out, my vision is darkened, my hearing is deafened, my smell is obviously blank, but I can still taste something.

That coppery-metallic tang of blood.

In between those moments where I can see, the mucus flying from my nostrils has thin red strands... Pinkie and Fluttershy are panicking. Nurse... Goodfilly is prepping yet another needle and-

I feel something soft on my nose and that twinkly sound of a magical aura being activated. Looking up through squinted eyes I see a dark blue sparkling blob of... magic holding a crumpled up wad of tissue paper.

“Blow please,” comes an irritated, cynical, and oddly, potentially familiar, sounding male voice says.

Fighting a sneeze, I look to my left and am met with a scraggly, exhausted eyed, resting bitch face of a unicorn stallion.

“I said, ‘blow please’,” he repeats irritated, tapping a four pronged walking cane on the floor. Unable to stand the feeling of the mass of mucus in my significantly longer nasal passages, I comply, only to feel a sharp poke to my more than abused hind!

“What... was... that?!” I keep blinking, prepping myself or another round of sneezing... turning my head, it’s... Goodfilly with a needle. Because of course it’s Goodfilly with a needle! Why wouldn’t it be?! If Robyn is there, a fetting needle must there also be!

“Antihistamines,” the dower... charcoal gray unicorn with a black mane and dark forest green eyes says.

“Hey! Doesn’t that come in naeeeeeigh!” Another cartoonish ‘point!’ and I’m turning and glaring at Goodfilly. She’s giving me that impishly innocent face while placing the needle down and backing away, forehooves in the air...

=========

Heartbreak’s tail began to curl and coil, entangling Robyn’s back hoof and causing her to trip before falling into a decorative ficus plant.

“If the first needle wasss the ‘antihissstaminesss’, then what wasss that sssecond one?!” Heartbreak asked, her mane twisting and untwisting.

“Just a little something to help you relax!” Nurse Goodfilly said, pushing herself out of the plant.

Heartbreak’s eyes widened and her face twisted up in disbelieving anger. “Another sssedative!?” she snorted angrily, a full on body shiver traveling from her nose to tail! “Ugh! Why isss it ssso cold?!” she exclaimed, her teeth chattering.

“Come on, H.B.!” Pinkie said, playfully approaching the increasingly shaky mare. “Auntie Pinkie will help you sit down while you go on a magic journey... Well, another magic journey... Well actually, another-another magic journ-”

“B-b-back off, Pinkie! Y-you’re the one that brought me the quack doctor!” Heartbreak stammered, attempting to push her away. “Was he even a real d-d-doctor?!”

“Of course he was! He’s totally famous and has been on TV next to a juicer!” Pinkie exclaimed, pulling back a hoof going to her chest floof in disbelief that even such a question was asked.

Heartbreak growled and turned away from the pink puff, her hooves almost sticking to the floor. “A j-juicer!? Let me g-guesss, he was sshowing it off with ‘Trot McColt’!?” she asked with an icy tone, her tail whipping and curling.

Pinkie nodded. “Yeah, how’d you know?”

This only served to further animate Heartbreak’s mane and tail to the point of cracking on the floor.

“Pinkie!” Fluttershy began, swooping in and putting herself in between the tan and pink ponies. “Maybe, now’s not the time?” she asked before turning to Heartbreak. “H-H.B.?”

“W-what?!” Heartbreak angrily snapped, her ears pinning and her eyes going strange.

Fluttershy swallowed and steeled herself. “Remember the flower shop? I-it’s happening again...”

“W-what’sss happening a-” That’s when Heartbreak spotted a terrified Cream Puff cowing behind Fluttershy, eyes confused at something...

Turning away, she caught a visage reflecting in a clock face

Something so bizarre, so horrifying, so utterly disturbing, that it took her more than a few moments to realize that it was her that she was looking at in the glass plane...

Her mane and tail were curling and uncurling, the shadows on her features had somehow deepened and darkened.

It was the eyes that caught her off guard.

The sparkling light blue seemed to have been pushed to the outer rim of her irises, with the pupils inky blackness having turned white but with nine sharpened points surrounding it, giving with the look of a completely white flower dropped and floating in the middle of an ebony tea cup as seen from above... or a maw of a nine-toothed lamprey whose teeth had been blackened with the bile of its victims and whose white throat contained terrifying secrets not mean for pony-kind to be aware of...

Whichever one you cared to take comfort in first...

Lifting her trembling right forehoof towards the sight, she almost had an air of familiarity about it, as if she had seen it once before, but somehow was just forced to forget...

An uneasy, pained, confused, sad light chuckle managed to escape her vocal cords.

“H.B...?” Came the tiniest of Cream Puff’s voices.

Heartbreak’s gaze was broken as her attention snapped to the little filly, who was startled from seeing the look of anger in every muscle and especially those eyes that caused her to close her own eyes tightly, and when they reopened they were once again their normal glistening blue color, like if stardust could be visible in the daylight.

“Cream Puff...” Heartbreak began, her mane and tail going limp and falling into long deflated wavy locks with curled ends. She bit her lower lip at the eyes that were welling up with tears and worse, questions at the quick events that had just transpired before her.

“Are ya- What’s goin’- Ah’m-” Cream Puff stammered out, reaching to hug the casted leg as she didn’t seem to know what to do next.

“I-it’s...” Heartbreak’s words seemed frozen in her throat. “I... didn’t mean to...” She looked at Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie for any way to help her explain all this strangeness away, but was only met with looks of pity. Taking a deep breath and looking at Cream Puff, she let the breath out, vapor visible like on a winters’ morning. “I’m ss-”

As she began those words, she had lifted a hoof up to dry the filly’s tears, but the moment the perforated hoof touched the liquid, something unexpectedly terrible happened.

The tear froze to Heartbreak’s hoof creating a tiny, razor sharp icicle that clung to the end of the appendage, and what was worse, nicked Cream Puff’s soft cheek!

“Ouch!” she cried out, pulling away!

Heartbreak’s eye twitched and she began to hyperventilate, puffs of frosty clouds coming out with every breath. “W-what’s going on?!” she asked, wagging her hoof in an attempt to free herself from the tiny ice-dagger.

“Nurse Goodfilly! Restrain her!” Dr. Stable commanded.

“I’m on the case!” Nurse Goodfilly exclaimed, pulling out what looked to be an oversized butterfly net from behind the desk.

Heartbreak’s eyes flashed with pure fear and she tried backing away from the two encroaching medical ponies. “Nonononononononono!!”

“They're just trying to help you, H.B.!” Fluttershy called out, though her uneasy body language did not do anything to abade Heartbreak’s fretful fears.

“Hold still!” Dr. Stable ordered, unable to really do much in the way of physically restraining due to the cane.

“No!” Heartbreak shrieked. Her one good hoof stomped to the floor and with it, a white heart shape appeared from the spot where the hoof had made contact, before it expanded into a sparkling layer of slick frost, covering the black and white squares!

Nurse Goodfilly who looked so sure hooved on her capture of Heartbreak, found her hooves quickly going in different directions as she sharply spun around before slamming face first into the floor! The net she had scooped up Cream Puff instead of her intended target! That target, who upon colliding with the medical pony’s rear, ricocheted into the almost open door of a darkened and empty room!

Once being swallowed up by the darkness of that room, the door that Heartbreak had collided with was jarred with such violent velocity that it bounced back and slammed shut, locking itself in the process!

Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie attempted to rush to her rescue, only to find themselves also the victims of this suddenly bizarrely created ice rink!

“H.B.!” Fluttershy exclaimed, trying to flap her wings only to find herself colliding with Pinkie Pie, who herself was trying to steady herself by grappling onto something!

Unfortunately in that last moment, that something happened to be Fluttershy.

Dr. Stable looked at the door and grimaced. “Everypony, stay b-” He stopped and watched the ponies around him sliding on the ice. “Please... try to stay clear...” he said, a strained grimace forming on his face as his horn began to glow with a dark blue before he let out a blast directed at the door.

This was however, a mistake, as the magical beam was deflected back at sharp angles, barely missing several ponies only to meet its final destination in an explosion of hospital paperwork behind the front desk.

“Ah got this!” Cream Puff shouted, valiantly leaping out of the net and slip-sliding to the door, her back legs aiming towards the door...

“Hold up there, little filly!” Nurse Goodfilly called out, jumping into the fray, only to watch Cream Puff’s back hoof make contact with the door hard. The little filly then cried out in pain!

“Ah! Ah! It burns! It’s so cold that it burns!” Cream Puff cried out before Nurse Goodfilly scooped the filly back up in her arms before using the net to push away from the door.

“I got you...” Nurse Goodfilly said, holding on to her back hoof in order to warm it up.

Cream Puff tensed up before sighing in relief... “That was really cold!”

Nurse Goodfilly looked the hoof over. “It looks okay. No signs of...frost burn?”

“H.B...?” Fluttershy cautiously, worriedly, and as tenderly as she could, asked, gently knocking the door, only for frost to form on the hard part of her hoof. She shuddered, and put her hoof in her mouth to warm it up before going to attempt to contact. “Are you there? Are you okay?”

There was a pause before an answer came...

“Y-yes...” Heartbreak’s voice weakly sounded off from the other side of the door. “And no...”

“Yes, you’re okay, and no, you’re not there?” Pinkie asked before getting a partial Flutterstare. “What’s... I-I-I didn’t...” The pomph falling from her mane a bit.

“This is serious!” Cream Puff scolded.

Fluttershy looked back at the door. “H.B., could you please open the door?” she asked.

“...No...” echoed a lonesome answer.

“And exactly why not?” Dr. Stable gruffly asked.

“Because the doorknob is a knob!” Heartbreak sharply answered through the door. As the irritation in her voice grew so did a white frosty spot on the said door.

“What does that have to do with anything?” Dr. Stable asked, attempting to rub his temple only to nearly slip. Thankfully, he was able to grab his cane with a dark blue, nearly black magical aura. As he did so, a wince of pain passed over his face.

“Because she has a shaky hoof, a hoof condition that makes it so that she can’t pick things up!” Cream Puff said, biting her tongue on anything she wanted to add.

“Huh, that’s not something I’ve ever heard of before, by chance do you think she would allow me to examine her after... this...?” Dr. Stable asked, waving at the slick ice that had spread all over the floor.

Suddenly, there was a thudding sound that came from the other side of the door and the spot of frost grew larger, taking on a heart shaped appearance...

Fluttershy drew back and raised a hoof to her mouth, she looked around, her ears fell in fear and the feathers her wings ruffling involuntarily as a cold draft came off the door.

She raised her hoof to knock on the door once more, only to be stopped by the voice on the other side.

“Go... away...” It said, a faint tiny crackling accompanying it.

Fluttershy hesitated, her nerves twitching. ‘You’ve faced far worse things, you can do this!’ she told herself. “H.B... Please...”

“Go away!” she repeated, the ice heart on the door tripling in size! “No more examinations! No more needles! No more stupid doctors! No more!”

Dr. Stable slapped his face and rubbed his stubbly chin. “Look, we don’t have time for niceties if we want to solve whatever magical malady that’s afflicting your friend. I need to get samples and run tests!” he griped, attempting to hobble his way to the door.

“No...” started the shivery voice, the frost heart solidifying into a solid crystalline structure!

“Just open-”

“MORE!” Heartbreak shouted, making the ice heart cover the full width of the door, including its knob.

“If you would just-”

“I SAID…NO! MORE!” came the frigorific shout that seemed to thicken the rimy heart on the door. “Just... go… away…” Several creaking and grounds emanate from the sculpture-like creation on the door before jagged white cracks suddenly made their appearance down its middle. “I...don’t want to h-hurt you... Just go away...”

The ponies slid away from the door to the other side of the room, the still netted Cream Puff gasping in disbelief and nearly about to say something, only for Nurse Goodfilly to cover her mouth and raise a hoof to her lips to hush her.

The six ponies passed through the doors and into the other adjoining room.

“What in the Hearth’s Warmin’ plum puddin’ are we all doin’!?” Cream Puff asked once the doors were fully shut behind them. “What’s goin’ on?! Why did everythang freeze over faster than the time pa left a glass of juice outside durin’ the winter?! An’ why did H.B.’s mane an’ tail start curlin’ up like chocolate ribbons?!” She rapid fired questions from the prison that was the rim of the oversized butterfly net. “An’ could ya put me down already!?”

“Oh, right,” Nurse Goodfilly giggled, freeing the frustrated filly. “I’m sure what you saw with her mane was a case of animated mane syndrome. I’ve only ever really seen one other case of it. Though that mare was able to use it in the creation of her line of interactive magical comic books.”

Pinkie Pie slowly turned her neck to face the noxious nurse, her head just as slowly tilting as a hard lined expression inked her features, feeling somewhat suspicious of the nurse. Especially since she never actually heard of something like that ever happening before. “What’chu talkin’ about Good. Filly?” she spaghetti westerned.

“We dun’t have time fer whatever ya two are goin’ on about!” Cream Puff exclaimed, popping into what could have been an Appleloosain stare down. “H.B. is in there an’ she needs our help!”

“The little filly is right, whatever is affecting your little Heartbreak-” Dr. Stable started.

“Ah-Hem!” Cream Puff crossly coughed, her face resembling the semi-melted maple glaze on a long john donut that had been tilted down the longways for far too long in the sun.

Dr. Stable’s eyes fluttered incredulously at the scowling disgruntled disapproval being thrown off the little filly before him, a little filly whose flank was still bare, he added to himself. “Uhm, yes?”

“Ah dun’t know where ya got yer manners from, an’ ah might not have any fancy piece a paper callin’ me a doctor, but Ma name is Cream Puff, an’ while the pony in that there yonder room’s name is Heartbreak, she likes ta be called H.B.!”

The near senior stressed stallion shook his head in disbelief at what felt like a chewing out from a filly that could just almost not even be classified as a foal... Part of him wanted to dryly laugh at this attempt at intimation, but the looks from the mares around him advised him to do otherwise.

“Hehem, right,” He said, uneasily deciding to return to the situation at hoof. “Whatever is happening to-” he paused and took a deep breath before glancing at Cream Puff. “-your friend, H.B. in there? We don't have any time to waste.”

“What’cha think it could be, doc?” Pinkie asked, her nose twitching left and right.

Dr. Stable sighed and blocked out any wacky antics. “Without any tests, I have a hard time saying. There could be lots of things. Creeping cold, arctic achilles, possible windighost possession? It could explain the sudden animated mane and tail, but not the eyes. Whatever the cause, it’s now being driven by her volatile emotional state!”

“That’s dishearten-” Nurse Goodfilly covered her mouth, coughed, and cleared her throat. “-ening to hear. Excuse me, I swallowed wrong.”

Dr. Stable rolled his eyes. “I need more detailed information.” He turned to Nurse Goodfilly. “I need you to gather up all the doctors that the patient has interacted with. Stat.”

=========

The room that the five doctors had been called to was an unremarkable conference room that acted as a secondary breakroom.

In the middle of this space was a long rectangular table, brown top with a lighter brown three inch ledge that was wrapped with a black rubber edge. On the table was the box of what was left of the muffins Cream Puff had baked, a few sheets of paper and pens, an odd-half drunk cup of coffee, with a cold, black sludge coagulation at the bottom, and today’s edition of Ponyville Times looking as crumpled and disheveled as the doctors who awkwardly glanced at one another.

Before any of them could say anything from their silent, uneasy half cocked smiles, the entrance to the room burst open and Dr. Stable came hobbling in; an irritated, pained expression on his face and his horn aglow, holding a manila folder several inches thick in its magical levitation aura.

Fluttershy and a small cream colored filly followed, the yellow mare closing the door behind them.

“Alright, Gentlecolts-” Dr. Stable started before pausing. “-and Puddin’ Pop...” he remarked harshly.

“Now see here! I-” Puddin’ Pop started looking indignant.

“Wouldn’t be here unless I needed you for something. After all, xylazine doesn’t just gitty up and trot itself out of the hospital, now does it?” Dr. Stable snapped, making his way to the white board positioned behind the head of the table.

“Well... I... Uhm...”

“Right. As I was saying, you have all been called here for an emergency meeting because all of you have one thing in common,” He took out a black felt marker and wrote a name on the whiteboard with a broken heart next to it. “An interaction with a pony named Heartbreak...” He heard a cough from Cream Puff. “Excuse me: H.B.”

Four of the five doctors, that being the very young Dr. Hoofer, recoiled and squirmed at the mention of the name.

Doctor Hoofer looked confused at the others' reactions.

“What’s wrong? She seemed like a rather nice pony when I saw her!” he beamed. “I mean, she was a little gruff and not the sweetest patient, but she was suffering from a swollen left hoof due to a cat bite!”

“Gruff is hardly a word I would use to describe that mare...” Dr. Marshmallow Tourniquet said, rubbing the side of his head.

Dr. Stable sighed. “Do you remember exactly why you ended up with a hoof to the head?”

Marshmallow opened his mouth and then gapped like a seapony a few times. “Because.. I made an ill timed joke about a physical before a hoof went to an ill placed... place...” he said reluctantly, editing his words in the presence of the little filly in the room. “But I was only suggesting a physical because her hormone levels were off-kilter! Far too much testosterone for a mare her age!”

Dr. Stable slammed a hoof on the manilla folder. “Do you know what this is?”

“Uhm...” Marshmallow lifted the outer cover of the folder. “A patient's medical records?” he asked, confused.

“That’s right! A patient’s medical records!” Dr. Stable horsley exclaimed, shaking his cane in the air. “Something that every doctor should at the very least skim over before examining a patient!”

Dr. Marshmallow tapped his hooves together shamefully. “I... wasn’t sure where it was and was told I was needed right away...” The other doctors excluding Dr. Nickers exhibited similar signs of shame while looking around hoof tapping. “So I didn’t get the time to read it...”

“Well, that much is clear, because if you had, you would have learned that the patient is from a place called...” Dr. Stable levitated the folder in front of him and flipped through its contents.

“Min-ner-soter.” Cream Puff interjected, dejected, worriedly looking through the grid glass windows next to the door.

“Thank you, Minneighsota, and according to this,” Dr. Stable’s eyebrows raised slightly. “It’s a land of ice and snow isolated from other parts of Equestria by a massive magical ice wall. It also experiences only three months of sunlight, a sort of spring mashed with summer situation.” He looked at Marshmallow. “Now, I know that most of your patients have yet to earn their cutie marks, let alone develop object permanence, but I’m sure that I don’t have to explain what happens to most mares come springtime when the sun hits their coats.”

All the adults in the room excluding Dr. Stable himself blushed.

“No... what?” Dr. Hoofer asked, his head tilting.

Cream Puff frowned. “Don’t bother askin’. They’ll just tell ya that they’ll tell ya when yer older...”

“Point is that a mare making that drastic of a climate shift is sure to suffer an initial hormonal imbalance. Especially if the climate they’re coming from is mostly implied to be rather dark.” Dr. Stable said, wiping off the whiteboard.

“Then she’s sure to get a seven years itch!” Dr. Nickers, much to the horror of the others in the room, exclaimed. “Whaaaat?” he asked, holding his hooves out while shrugging his shoulders.

“Is... ‘Seven years itch’ a severe medical condition?” Dr. Hoofer asked. “Wait, I’ll look it up on my scroller...” he said, pulling out a small scroll that fit in his coat pocket. “Is... seven... years...”

“We ain’t got time fer that!” Cream Puff exclaimed hoofing away the bit of magical parchment. “Sumthin’s strange, sumthing’ weird, an’ it don’t look good happenin’ here an’ now!”

“Well, she was complaining about it being too cold, but I figured that it was just... mares being mares!” Dr. Nicker said moving his forehooves back and forth with the frogs up. “You know a mare has been in the room if the thermostat has been moved up five degrees in the summer!”

The whole room with the exception of Dr. Puddin’ Pop let out a collective groan.

“Ah-hehe” Puddin’ Pop chuckled, before realizing he was the only one laughing. “I mean, where’s the lie? That grown silly filly was complaining about being cold while sitting under the air conditioner!”

“Did she sit under it for so long that she gained that white streak in her mane?” Dr. Nickers asked, feeding off the energy that Puddin’ Pop was putting out. “Or is that just her natural mane color coming out?”

Cream Puff grimaced. “Now Ah’m startin’ ta understand why H.B. dun’t go an’ trust fancy-schmancy doctor types! What with half of ya not doin’ anythang an’ the other half askin’ why’s a mare feelin’ cold or if somthan’s wrong with her mane!” She glared at the two stallions whose hyena cackles had been shamed into a quiet kookaburra. “Ah’m startin’ ta wonderin’ if yer’all actual doctors!”

“Ha... ha... Uhm... Confession time...” Dr. Nickers sheepishly said, tapping his hooves together. “I’m not a real doctor! Well, not as much as the doctors here anyway. Which maaaaybe means I should return these x-rays I had in my saddlebags! Oopsie Daisy!” He pulled said x-rays out of said saddlebags.

“What’cha mean you’re not a real doctor!?” Pinkie Pie asked, picking up the newspaper that was on the table and pointing to an advertisement with Dr. Nickers clearly featured. “You aren’t one of the seven doctors who recommends that I drink a tall glass of juice from the Nectar Releaser every night?”

“Ha... Ha... Well, legally I have to say ‘No!’” Nickers hesitantly replied. “Please don’t tell my agent, Petty Fogger! She’s also my lawyer and she told me I can’t have any more bad P.R. after the last time!”

Pinkie harrumphed at the fraud and snatched the x-rays away from him, giving them over to Dr. Stable. “I’ll never use that juicer again!” she said, tossing the newspaper down in front of the young Dr. Hoofer who then tilted his head at an article in the front page.

Dr. Stable looked at the x-rays, his own head tilting at the configuration of bones, fractures, and ligaments. “There’s something... off...” he said, hovering the picture in the air before tracing an arc along the canons. “A slight warping of the cannons...”

“Dr. Stable! Look at this!” Dr. Hoofer exclaimed, pointing to a picture of a snow covered Apple family farm.

“Hearth's Warming in July...” Dr. Stable read after he pulled the newspaper to the proper distance from his eyes. “Sweet Apple Acres was hit with a sudden explosion of snow and ice after brave Big Macintosh froze the fiendish fire ants infestation. When asked if this will affect the August’s cider season, he gave a seemingly somber ‘Nope!’”

“Saaaay,” Dr. Puddin’ Pop started. “That’s what she came in for yesterday! Fire ant burns!”

“Wait, really?” Dr. Hoofer squeaked. “But then why isn’t she... well, I hate saying this, but not in the infirmary’s burn ward having magical salves being applied to her? Magical fire ant fire is dangerous stuff! It can burn like rubbing alcohol! Invisible flame!”

“Not if treated right away... it also depends on species...” Dr. Stable said, frowning, looking over the paper a few times as if there was more to what he had been reading, but it just got misplaced. “So,” he turned to Fluttershy who was stimming by running her hooves through her mane at this point. “I need to know, what did Big Macintosh use to freeze the fire ants?”

“Uhm, what was-” Fluttershy started very anxiously.

“Aren’t you paying attention?” Dr. Puddin’ Pop scolded. “What did Big Mac-”

“Right, what did Big Mac use to freeze those poor, confused fire ants?” Fluttershy processed. “Uhm.. he used apple juice and a crate made of ice wood. He... smashed the crate into a wall and made it explode over the... poor dears...”

Both the young fresh faced and the grizzled grimace of Dr. Hoofer and Dr. Stable shot worrying concerns as to the implications of this trivially small bit of information.

“Of course...” Hoofer began tapping his chin wide eyed. “The ice wood crate must have shattered and sent splinters everywhere! But... wouldn’t they just evaporated? I read that ice wood needs a special lacquer to remain stable... any pieces wouldn’t survive long enough to get embedded in a pony...”

“Normally yes, but older ice wood crates or those of poorer quality would sometimes contain pieces of the heartwood. The densest and oldest part of the tree. Ice wood crates were discontinued after unicorns became more common territories where earth ponies were traditionally homesteaded.” Dr. Stable rolled his eyes and pursed his lips thoughtfully. “I mean, why have a potentially dangerous object that could explode and freeze your family, when a unicorn can cast an ice enchantment? However, I can see the Apple family matriarch being somepony stubborn enough to keep something like that around because of ‘tradition’.”

“That means that we just have ta go an’ get that there splinter out an’ she’ll be ok!” Cream Puff, not wanting to feel like she was not understanding any of this, interjected.

“We do have to get a pair of special tweezers that can manage the extreme cold that she’s sure to be generating currently, but yes!” Dr. Hoofer reassured.

Cream Puff looked up at Fluttershy. “Didja hear that, Missus Flutter- Ah mean, didja hear that, Fluttershy?!”

“Oh! What is it?!” Fluttershy asked frantically before grabbing the nearest thing to her for comfort, in this case that being the filly that was speaking to her. “This is all my fault isn’t it? H.B.’s going to die a cold and lonely death because of meeeee!!”

“Die!?” Cream Puff exclaimed once she pushed her face above Fluttershy’s squeezing arm, which to be fair wasn’t terribly difficult because this was Fluttershy after all.

“Only if we don’t remove the ice wood-heartwood sliver that’s mostly likely somewhere in her neck. You bringing her to the hospital every day over all these little things might have just saved her life. I-”

Just then Dr. Stable was interrupted by Nurse Goodfilly opening the door. Perplexed expression on her face as if she had read a confusing bit of fanfiction and the current plot was interrupted by the most insane and Cloud Cuckoo Land thing ever.

“Dr. Stable, I need you to come see something,” she said urgently.

Author's Note

What a chapter! Did ya follow everything? I hope so! Anyway, The reader who made that comment about Dr. House being interesting to have interact with H.B... You didn't have an influence on this. BUT Lucky you, you had a hunch on where this was going!
As always, I think my Editors Scared Ghost and The Psychopath and the artwork for this chapter is here!