Prelude: Lemons...
"Princess Sparkle?"
The name echoed out like distant words across a windy field to the purple alicorn, her blank stare speaking volumes about the shock she was in. Again, the voice called to her and again she lay in her bed, staring at the white bed sheet that draped over her body as if trying to find the nearly microscopic hole through the threads.
Her search was interrupted as she felt a firm grip on her shoulders lightly jostle her. Her wings flared out and her head shot up to face the pony touching her. A concerned alabaster earth mare with sapphire eyes watched her, her mane lightly disheveled an slightly matted by sweat. Finally, she turned to face the voice that had called out for her before, a middle-aged unicorn stallion with a grey coat and a slicked-back black mane with a single stripe of silver running through it. If his pressed white coat, stethoscope, and hospital badge wasn't enough of a dead giveaway, the clipboard wrapped in his magical aura was enough to tell Twilight that he was her doctor. It took her a moment to remember where she was and who she was with. The mare to her left was named Nurse Redheart, an old friend and the pony she usually sees when visiting the hospital. The stallion's name escaped her, but it was irrelevant at the moment.
"Princess Sparkle? Are you alright?" the stallion asked, moving up to the side of her bed and next to Redheart.
Twilight looked back into the sheets before she spoke, her voice shaking slightly, "As alright as I can be right now, I guess."
The stallion nodded before reaching his hoof out to hers, gently placing it over hers. "I know hearing this can't be easy, but-"
"How am I supposed to take this?" Twilight asked to no pony in particular.
It was at this time that Nurse Redheart decided to speak, "Well, what are you feeling Twilight?"
"Well, I'm not entirely sure. Anger? Confusion? Sadness? A little of all of them and yet none of them all at once," she said, withdrawing her hooves to her lap and idly folding the sheet between them. "Being told you have a few weeks to live is a lot to process."
Nurse Redheart and the doctor shared a glance before the doctor moved to Twilight's charts at the end of the bed and read them again before letting out light a sigh.
"Miss Sparkle, at the rate the cancerous cells are spreading, giving you a few weeks is pretty generous. The Equestrian Medical society has never seen such an advanced case in recorded history," he said with a particular calmness in his voice. "Even my associates with the Royal Physicians say that this is a medical phenomenon and impossibility, but with the lifestyle you have been forced to live recently, magical mutation of cells is not completely out of the realm of possibility..."
Twilight continued to fidget with the sheets in her hooves as if knotting and unknotting them would make her problems just disappear.
Taking note of this, the doctor turned back to the clipboard and flipped through a few of the papers. "With that said, there may yet be able to find some cure. Allow me some time to do some research and maybe-"
Twilight raised one of her hooves, "No... Please, do not try to give me false hope. I can read the medical report from here. I know there is nothing left to do."
There was a slight clatter as Redheart backed into one of the metal trays behind her. As the alicorn turned to face the nurse, she saw a the nurse's face contorted in a mixture of shock and disbelief. "Twilight, what are you saying?"
"I guess I'm saying that, I accept this..." she admitted with a long sigh, her head slumping down below her shoulders. "And I don't see any reason I should waste what little time I have left fighting the inevitable."
The doctor stepped forward. "Princess Twilight, you understand that you are asking me to sit by and basically commit medical regicide?"
"If you are worried about your wellbeing, don't worry. I will write a letter to Princess Celestia explaining my choice and how, even if she ordered that I be taken into intensive medical care, I would decline." The blankets jumped into the air as Twilight swung her legs over the side of the bed, taking great care as she gently lowered herself to the floor. "Besides, it would only be 'medical regicide' if you gave me medication that was more lethal than the affliction itself. Like prescribing copious amounts of oxicodone for a minor backache."
Using her magic, she removed the motoring devices and IV needle. After the first few steps, it felt as if her head was in a washing machine during the spin cycle, causing her hooves to cross and trip herself.
Thankfully, Nurse Redheart had rushed to her side with the doctor just on her heels. "For Faust's sake, Twilight, at least let me get you a wheelchair!"
o.0.o
Doctor Valor sat in his office, a small lamp generously providing enough light to illuminate his now cluttered desk. It had been almost an hour since he had issued Princess Twilight Sparkle her desired course of action and, while she was completely content with leaving it at that, he was not. His hooves raked through his mane and deep into his scalp, an old habit of his whenever he was dealing with a difficult problem. His eyes constantly scanning the medical files and journals that lay before him, trying to piece the puzzle together. As a doctor experience had taught him that no-win situations are very real, but the job hadn't kicked the life out of him yet.
A light knock on the door pulled him from his work. Taking this moment to rest he carefully closed the princess' file, removing his reading glasses and gently placing them on top.
"Come in, Redheart."
The door opened just a crack as Nurse Redheart peeked inside before she slipped through. Valor took note of her shrunken posture as she fidgeted in place. It was clear that she was uncomfortable with the way things had resolved with Miss Sparkle, but what other choice did they have?
"I have all of the equipment packed and ready," she said in monotone. "I am ready to leave when you give me the word."
Doctor Valor sighed before he reached across his desk, grabbing a vanilla folder labeled 'Hospice' and flipping to one of the patient tables in it. After finding the name, he signed off for Nurse Redheart to take a leave of absence in order to cater to the medical needs of Princess Twilight Sparkle until the event of her death. He closed the file and handed it to Redheart.
"She is a very brave mare, you know," he said to Redheart as she turned to leave. "Despite what you may think of her choice, to admit to herself that she won't make it and not lose herself in that despair is more than can be asked of most ponies."
Nurse Redheart refused to face the doctor, but nodded in response before taking her leave.
As soon as he heard the click of the door's frame as it closed, Valor opened Princess Sparkle's file back up. As per Ponyville General's standard, each file was to have a picture of each patient as to help doctors recognize them and match the name to the face. Using his magic, the doctor diligently removed the picture and leaned it against the nameplate on his desk, her image beaming at him with the smile only a young mare like herself could have.
"Life has handed you quite the sack of lemons, Miss Sparkle," he said, remembering one of his old teacher's lectures from college. "Now let's make some lemonade."
