Twilight Sparkle whistled joyfully to herself, her horn lit with a gentle, purple light as she magically hefted a slender, red quill and a clean, new page of her favorite parchment. The page was covered in tiny columns, each row numbered and all but one of the items checked off.
It was her List--Twilight's List--of things she had to do that day, and the industrious pony had completed the tasks on the List just as completely as she did any List. Tasks included such unpleasant things as: preparing breakfast, magically washing the windows, and cleaning up the droppings that Spike left on the floor. These were balanced out by more fun activities like: preparing dinner, reorganizing her library under a different, obscure system, and punishing Spike for leaving droppings on the floor.
The mare squinted her eyes in pain as she moved her hoof over to the single candle and extinguished it. Putting that candle out was the last thing on her List, but now it was too dark to find that item to check it off. No matter, she thought to herself, I know the List is complete and can be disposed of. She crumpled up the List and ate it, satisfied at another day done. She trotted up to her bedroom, wincing in pain at every other step.
It was her Blister--Twilight's Blister--caused by her shoulder rubbing against the side of her girth. A Friction Blister. She'd left it untreated for a week now; she never put "Deal With Blister" on her List. It just didn't seem like a big deal at first. And then she was afraid of the pain of treatment. If she put it on her List she'd have to do it, and she didn't want to have to do it, and she hoped her problem would go away on it's own, just like the time Rainbow Dash asked her out on a date and she hid in her tree library and hoped that Rainbow Dash would go away and come back when she wasn't being a lesbian, except in this case her blister was Rainbow Dash and not dealing with it was hiding in her tree until her blister stopped seeking same-sex romantic relationships.
Now it (her Blister) was all gross and swelled up and she couldn’t put it (treating her Blister) off any longer. She got up to her bedroom and lit a candle so she could see. She wondered briefly if doing this canceled out her completion of today’s List, and she considered regurgitating the List to reflect its return to relevance. After a moment, she chose not to do this, because the thought of adding “Clean Up List Vomit” to her vomit-soaked List sounded more unpleasant than insufficient documentation.
Using the gift of sight that the candlelight provided, Twilight dug out tomorrow’s List from her Drawer of Lists. Tomorrow was one of her days off, so the List’s format varied slightly. She scribbled some Lists into her List and returned it to the Drawer in the following state:
(DEFUN DAYOFF (STATUS)
(IF (EQUALS STATUS BLISTER)
(TREAT STATUS)
(SPIKETASKS (SPIKE CHORES AMUSEMENT))))
(DEFUN TREAT (STATUS)
…; function definition omitted for fanfiction brevity
)))
(DEFUN SPIKETASKS (SPIKE CHORES &optional AMUSEMENT)
…; function definition omitted for fanfiction brevity
)))))))))
Twilight slipped the List back into her Drawer and turned to her bed. She clambered onto it, careful not to rub against her blister, and slipped under her cool sheets. With a spark of her horn, the curtains of her window slid open a crack, allowing a beam of moonlight and Rainbow Dash’s hopeful-looking face to creep through. She closed the curtains and rolled over, wincing a little.
[chapter break]
Twilight woke up the next morning. The blister was still there, and had gotten even bigger. Twilight rolled (carefully) out of bed and woke up Spike.
"Spike, wake up," Twilight said, shaking the sleeping dragon, "I need you to lance my blister."
Spike kept sleeping.
"Spike, wake up," Twilight said, shaking the sleeping dragon, "I need you to seduce Rarity."
Spike woke up.
"By 'seduce' I of course mean 'lance', and by 'Rarity' I mean 'my blister'."
Spike sighed and headed downstairs to get a safety pin and a bucket.
[chapter break]
Twilight stood carefully over the bucket, the swollen sack of fluid hanging off of her like some kind of subepidermal bag of horrible pony juice. Spike leaned in to examine it, safety pin in claw.
"Twilight, this looks... really bad, actually. I think it might be infected. Are you sure you don't want to go see Nurse Redheart or something?" Spike's voice festered with friendly concern.
"No Spike, that's not on the List. You have to do this."
Spike gulped and brought the safety pin close to the nightmarish sac. He prodded its taut skin and hesitated when he heard Twilight hiss in pain.
"Are you sure about this, Twilight?"
Twilight nodded grimly. "Yes, Spike. Do it."
Spike brought the safety pin back to its target and steeled himself. He carefully slid it in. A small amount of yellowish, clear fluid creeped out around the metal.
Rainbow Dash shoved Spike aside. "Let me do it, my sexy little baby doll!" She gripped the pin in her teeth and shoved it through, impaling the blister.
Twilight yelled out in pain. "Rainbow Dash, what are you doing? Stop! How did you get in here? Get out!"
Spike gasped in horror. "Don't worry, Twilight, I'll fix it!"
He grabbed Rainbow Dash's snout with his claws and tried to pull her mouth off of the pin. Rainbow Dash clenched her teeth and tried to pull the pin out to poke the blister again.
With a grunt of effort, Spike yanked on Rainbow Dash's head. He felt her release and tumble backwards. The pin was free!
A string of pus hung from the filthy pin to the ragged edges of the blister, which had been torn in half in the struggle. Pus and blood gushed from the gash. The stench was horrific.
Twilight Sparkle passed out, toppling the bucket, her coat caked with awful slime. Rainbow Dash slipped her tongue into the blister and waggled her tongue around under its surface, moaning in pleasure. Spike called the police and it was generally the worst day ever for everyone but Rainbow Dash.
