And now, she's going to die
It was a Saturday morning, which, naturally, meant Twilight had scheduled some unscheduled time. Crises had these strange habits of occurring almost like clockwork on Saturday mornings, so she had built in some free time into her weekly schedule to avoid getting behind on work if she had to go save the world on a given Saturday. That said, she had taken advantage of her scheduled off-time, and had been up quite late the night before reading a fascinating new book from Zecora. Being up late wasn’t something she was unused to, and, in fact, she often only got a few hours of sleep a night and woke up no worse for the wear.
This morning, however, Twilight Sparkle had a headache. Quite a painful one, in fact. She rubbed a hoof to her temple and groaned and rolled out of bed, screwing her eyes shut. Migraines were not that unusual for her, but were an annoyance nonetheless. Trotting into her bathroom, she pulled the medicine cabinet open and levitated a bottle of asprin down to the sink. Unscrewing the cap, she gently shook two of the pills into her hoof and placed them in her mouth just under her tongue, and filled her water cup in the sink. Taking a drink, she swallowed the medicine, and resigned herself to wait and hope. Another quick flash of magic turned her shower on, and the purple Alicorn waited with a hoof under the stream for it to warm up. Not much cured a headache better than a warm shower and some medicine, in her experience.
Twenty warm and wet minutes later, Twilight found her headache still in full force, and admitted defeat to the pain in her head. Turning off the water and magicking her towel to her, she dried off, flaring her wings briefly to shake water out of her feathers. Trotting back out of her bathroom, she took a moment to grab her book again and headed downstairs to have some breakfast. If a shower didn’t help, perhaps she could distract herself with a book.
“Good morning, Twilight,” Spike called from the kitchen, evidently already in the process of cooking breakfast. “I’m making pancakes, do you want some?”
“Some pancakes would be wonderful, Spike,” Twilight said, trying to sound cheerful despite the seemingly growing pain in her head, “Thanks.”
“Of course, Twi,” Spike answered, humming a tune and returning to flipping pancakes. Twilight sat down at the table and opened the book in front of her, picking up where she left off – a rather detailed description of known effects of Poison Joke. The more she read, the more her head began to hurt, the once mild annoyance growing into a throbbing pain she couldn’t ignore.
“Twilight?”
Twilight looked up, Spike standing on the table in front of her, looking concerned.
“I called your name three times, Twilight, are you alright? You don’t look so good…” the dragon’s voice dropped a little, his eyes wide with concern.
“I’m sorry Spike,” Twilight put on a smile, “I just… didn’t sleep very well last night and I’ve got a bit of a headache. I’m fine, thanks. Those pancakes ready?”
“You really don’t look alright, Twi. You’re sweating like crazy,” Spike leaned forward and placed a claw on her forehead, “and even I can tell you’ve got a fever. We should get you to the hospital, Twilight.”
Twilight sighed and nodded. “Alright, fine. Breakfast first though, those pancakes smell good.”
Twilight groaned as she sat on the examination table in the hospital, idly reading her book as she waited for a nurse to come back. Spike sat on a chair in the corner, twiddling his thumbs and kicking his legs back and forth as they dangled in the air.
“Twilight, stop reading the book. You could be really sick, you know,” he mumbled.
“I’m just trying to pass the time, Spike. Besides, the nurse should be here soon.”
As if on cue, the heavy latch on the door gave a muffled thunk and a light green unicorn mare in nurse’s garb entered the room. Twilight thought she recognized her as –
“Hey! My name is Nurse Lightheart, how can I help you today?” Lightheart chirped as she stepped closer to her.
“Twilight has a really bad headache and a fever,” Spike answered before Twilight could.
“I’m fine, really,” Twilight interjected, “It’s just a migraine. They happen from time to time.”
“I dunno, miss, you do look awful flushed, and…” Lightheart trailed off and her horn glowed bright green for a moment, “a fever of one hundred and four degrees! You are quite sick, miss.”
“I feel fine!” Twilight snapped, “I just want to go home and read my book! With a little medicine I’ll be better by tomorrow.”
“Twilight, you’re not normally this irritable, are you sure you’re alright?”
Twilight sighed and hung her head. “I’m sorry, Spike, Nurse Lightheart. This is an unusally painful headache and it’s making me a little short-tempered. Can I go home, Lightheart?”
“Well, in just a minute. If it is an infection of some kind – which it seems like it might be. I’m going to go get you some antibiotics, okay?”
“Alright, if it makes you feel better.”
“It’s going to make you feel better,” Lightheart added with a wink and slipped out the door. Twilight rolled her eyes and levitated her book back over to her, popping it open to her last page. Her eyes began to scan down the page, finding out where she just was.
“Wow, Spike, this is fasci- aaaaAAAAAAGH!” Twilight stopped mid-sentence and let out an agonized scream. Her magic cut out and the book fell to the floor, and Twilight doubled over, clutching her head in her hooves.
“Twilight? Twilight!” Spike leapt from his chair and ran over to her, hopping up onto the exam table and grabbing her shoulder. “Twilight, what’s wrong?”
All the mare managed in reply was a strained grunt, clearly trying her hardest not to scream so loudly again. Spike hopped off the table and ran over to the call button, hitting the button over and over. A rather alarmed Nurse Lightheart burst through the door moments later, a panicked look on her face.
“What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know! She just picked up her book again and started screaming!”
“Miss, on a scale of one to ten, ten being the worst pain you can imagine, how bad does this hurt?”
Twilight’s writhing stopped and her eyes opened wide.
“One,” she said quietly.
Spike smacked his forehead with a claw. “That’s a useless question to ask her, she has an overactive imagination sometimes. Judging by how she’s screaming I’d say… seven, eight?”
Lightheart’s horn lit up as Twilight yelled again, and her green aura appeared around the Alicorn’s head.
“Oh no, this is always a problem with these bookish types,” the nurse muttered, “I’m afraid it’s a case of Cognitio Nimis, or ‘Excess Knowledge.’ To put it simply, Twilight Sparkle, you know too much. Unless you can forget something, your brain is going to explode and you are going to die.”
“That is utterly ridicul- AAAAAAARGH,” Twilight tried to object, only to cry out in pain instead. “Okay! Fine! I believe you! What do I do?”
“Forget something!” Lightheart replied cheerully.
“How can I just forget something? By the very act of trying to decide what to forget I only remember even more!” The Alicorn yelled, hooves pressed to her temples.
“Well don’t you know any memory alteration spells?”
“Well yes, but performing them one oneself is extremely dangerous!”
“More dangerous than your head exploding?” Spike asked.
“Fair enough,” Twilight said through gritted teeth. Her horn began to glow, and a bright flash filled the room for a moment. When the glow faded, Spike and Nurse Lightheart were surprised to see Twilight staring at them, a pleasant smile on her face. “Hello Spike, hello Nurse Lightheart. Why am I here?”
“Twilight?” Spike asked tentatively. For a mare about to die, she seemed… awfully calm.
“Yes?” she acknowledged with a smile and a cute cock of her head.
“How do you feel?” Nurse Lightheart questioned. “Does your head hurt at all?”
“What? No, why?”
“Oh, uh… no… no reason,” Lightheart lied.
“But Twilight,” Spike started, “You were just aaaaoooohhh,” he finished as Nurse Lightheart magically stuffed a container of cotton balls in his mouth and drew him aside.
“I think,” she whispered to the wee dragon, “She chose to forget she was about to die!”
Spike coughed and sputtered, spitting the cotton balls out of his mouth. “That makes exactly zero sense,” he hissed back.
“Well it seems to have worked, so let’s just count our blessings. Magic works in strange ways,” Lightheart told him, nodding and winking.
“Is everything alright?” Twilight asked innocently from behind them.
“Of course, everything is fine,” the green unicorn answered her princess, “You are free to go home, Twilight.”
“Excellent, I need to finish that book Zecora gave me.”
