“Twilight, you simply must go,” Rarity said, her pleading eyes becoming a little more dramatic than usual.
“I don’t know, Rarity. I feel fine, and it’s not like I don’t do my monthly self-examinations.” There was the slightest bit of doubt hidden in my reply, but it’s not like I had a lot of time in my schedule as it was.
Rarity leveled her stare. “Proper horn care is essential for a young unicorn mare such as yourself, even if you did grow a pair of wings.” She stomped her hoof, not ready to take no for an answer. The sad part about it being that she was technically right. I hadn’t been to the doctor in over a year. My last physical occurred shortly after I became an alicorn. Now that I had my own castle and the royal calling to help run the kingdom riding on my crown, the last thing on my mind was keeping up with preventative care.
I thought back to my last visit. The tests for my horn and wings went as well as could be expected, but they came up inconclusive on the topic of immortality. Becoming an alicorn came with certain obvious physical alterations. What remained to be seen was how it would affect my lifespan. I wasn’t sure how I felt about the possibilities. I guess that was one reason why I had avoided going back—too many variables in the data.
I tried to talk to my sister-in-law, Cadance, about it, but she didn’t seem too concerned, said I should live in the moment and enjoy my life here and now. I had to agree that was probably the best way to look at it. No use dwelling on the future so much that you can’t enjoy the present. Even so, Rarity had a point.
I sighed, defeated by the voice of truth and reason. “Alright, I’ll make an appointment.”
“No need for that,” Rarity said. “I already have us scheduled for this afternoon. Having a friend there to support you makes all the difference in the world. We’ll do it together.”
“You really shouldn’t have, but I appreciate the thought.” I smiled, and she came in for a hug. It was times like these that helped show how great my friends were. “Thanks for looking out for me.”
After a light lunch at our favorite cafe, Rarity and I made our way to the hospital. The clinic sat off to the side in a squat little building barely resembling an office of medical practice and more closely a funeral services home. Stepping inside, the sterile air reminded me of my own lab at home but still gave me butterflies. I felt a tingle in my horn, magic held in check by my not-so-obvious attempts to remain calm. I kept telling myself I was only here for a simple horn exam, everything would be fine.
Rarity didn’t seem phased by the sights and smells of the office. She marched right up to the reception desk and signed us both in. I took a seat in the waiting area and picked up a magazine while we waited our turns. Fields and Streams, Better Stables and Gardens, Mare’s Day, C—the Celestia Magazine, I had my pick of topics. Too bad they didn’t have a copy of the latest issue of Equestria Geographic. I settled for Popular Magics while Rarity absorbed herself in Cosmarepolitan.
“Princess Sparkle,” the receptionist pony called soon after I got hooked on a piece about deconstructing the mystery of teleportation spells, “you can come back now.”
I placed the magazine back in the rack and got up from chair.
Rarity laid her magazine down on the chair next to her. “Twilight,” she said, “Would you mind if I accompanied you for your exam? You know…for moral support…as a friend.”
I glanced over at the door the receptionist was pointing at, a nurse pony there standing at the ready, and then back at Rarity. “I don’t see why not. It’s a pretty boring procedure that takes all of a minute or so to take care of. If you want to go in together, that’s fine with me.”
“Oh, thank you, Twilight. I appreciate your willingness to help a friend.” Rarity stood up and pranced over to the door. She followed the nurse, and I trailed behind both, wondering to myself who was here helping who.
“Please wait in there, the doctor will be along shortly,” the nurse pony said, indicating a brightly lit room a few doors down the hallway. We stepped inside.
The exam room had one large table with a smaller guest seat in the corner, neither of which looked inviting. The table had a rough sheet of paper that didn’t really cover the whole surface. The small black guest chair seemed like an afterthought matching nothing else in the room. The doctor’s stool positioned by the equipment didn’t look all that comfortable to sit on either. It all seemed like the whole setup was designed to make patients as uncomfortable as possible. We both stood there waiting for the doctor without picking a seat.
Several minutes rolled by in silence. My hooves were getting restless. Rarity paced in slow circles.
Just as I was getting acclimated to the rhythmic tapping of Rarity’s hooves across the polished stone floor, the doctor arrived. “Hello and good afternoon ladies. My name is Doctor Quackenstein.” He held up a clipboard in his hornglow, squinting just a little to read the chart only a hair’s breadth away from his muzzle. “Looks like we’ve got a couple of unicornalisys exams to perform. Who would like to go first?”
Rarity stopped pacing, but didn’t make any move toward the exam table. In fact, she began to retreat toward the corner seat.
“Looks like I’ll be going first,” I said. I shook out the butterflies and hopped up on the exam table.
“Very good.” The doctor lowered the clipboard and picked up a set of magelectrodes attached to the diagnostic machine. “Pardon me just a moment while I get you all hooked up for the test.”
“Take your time.” I tried my best to get comfortable. The doctor took the multicolored ends and attached them all the way from the tip down the stem to the base of my horn. It felt rather awkward having somepony messing with my horn, not really to the level of being creepy, but strange and unsettling for sure. Rarity, for all her talk of the importance of getting the testing done, just sat and stared at the floor.
“Alright Princess, you’re all set.” He stepped back to the controls and flipped a switch. The console lit up with a series of lights and beeps. Once the big green light on top lit up, he turned back to me. “Let’s have you try and relax while we run the basic test. I’ll get the ball.” He opened up a drawer in a side cabinet and retrieved a small orange ball setting it on the floor. “Please, levitate the ball and hold it in the air while we run the standard battery.”
“Pretty simple, heh.” I tried to make light of things, but only succeeded in making it more awkward. Rarity said nothing, lost in her corner and not really looking like she was paying any attention. I lifted the ball and held it, much like any foal past the age of twelve could do. The machine buzzed and hummed away, collecting whatever information it needed.
“Uh huh. Yes. Hold it right there, Princess. That’s good.”
A little bell dinged.
“Looks like we’re done,” the doctor said. “Let’s get those probes off of you.” I set the ball down and let him finish his work. He took his time, carefully unclasping and lifting all the probes off my horn. The horn itself still buzzed with a bit of residual energy.
“Well that was easy,” I said as I got down off the table. “Thank you, doctor.”
“You’re very welcome, Princess.” Looking back at the screen, the doctor smiled. “According to these results, it looks like you’ve got a perfectly healthy horn there, too.”
I breathed a silent sigh of relief. “That’s good to hear. Guess I won’t have to worry about anything for another year or so then?”
“Looks that way, but keep up the self-evaluations just to be sure. Come in for a checkup if you ever find anything out of the ordinary.” The doctor gave a nod of his head and turned around to face Rarity. “Next?”
Rarity raised her head. “I-I changed my mind. I don’t want to do this today.” She got up and started toward the door. “I’ve got a lot of work to take care of, and it needs my full and immediate attention.”
I cut her off. “Hold it, Rarity. You’re the one that dragged me over here saying how important these annual checkups are. What’s with the sudden change of heart? We’re already here, and it only takes a minute. Why don’t you just take care of it now?” I could see her trembling, visibly shaken and quite obviously scared.
“I’m…” She looked down at her hooves, avoiding my gaze. “I think I found something, and I’m scared of what it might be.”
“Oh, Rarity,” I said, rushing to her side. “I’m so sorry to hear that. I had no idea. Whatever it is, I’ll do whatever it takes to help you get through it, but…” I had to take a pause to signal over to the doctor. “Don’t you think we should take a look at the test results first so we know for sure?”
“I-I thought I was strong enough to confront this,” Rarity said, tears welling up in her eyes. “But I’m just a scared little filly when it comes to this kind of thing.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll be right here with you.” I wrapped my forelegs around her shoulders, running my hoof through her mane to try and calm her down.
Rarity spun a leg over my shoulder and gave a hug in return. “Thank you, Twilight. You’re such a dear friend. I’m sorry to have to drag you into it all like this. I thought it would be easier to come in together, but all it’s done is make me more nervous it seems.”
“Let the doctor run his tests. It’ll only take a minute, and I’ll be right here with you. Okay?”
Rarity rocked back on her hindquarters. With a fore, she wiped the tears from her eyes. “Okay.”
The doctor did his best to help and coax Rarity up onto the exam table. I held her hoof while he hooked up the probes. Swiftly and gently, we made ready for the test to begin.
“Alright, miss,” the doctor signaled with the green light lit, “please lift the ball and hold it as long as you can.”
Rarity nodded her head. She focused and brought out her magic to take up the ball. Easily it rose from the ground and hovered in the air about chest height. The machine buzzed and hummed as before. I held her hoof tight.
“Alright. Just a little more, if you could, miss. Try and lift the ball a bit higher.”
Rarity tugged at my hoof and the glow from her horn brightened. The ball rose another head or two so it settled right about where I’d kept it.
“That’s better.” The doctor turned a knob and pressed a button on the machine. “Could you please rotate the ball?”
Rarity obliged, changing up her magic field and letting the ball spin freely within it.
“You’re doing great, Rarity,” I said, patting her hoof and trying to give her what encouragement I could.
The little bell dinged again.
“And…we’re done.” The doctor stepped back from the machine. I helped him remove the probes while Rarity dropped the ball from her grasp.
The doctor returned to the screen. I helped Rarity down from the table, but out of the corner of my eye I could already see the doctor’s reaction.
“Doc? Is everything alright?” I asked.
“Uhh, perhaps I should have you step outside, Princess—doctor-patient confidentiality and all that.” Voice a little shaky, his eyes seemed to focus and unfocus on the screen.
“It’s bad, isn’t it?” Rarity asked, slumping down to the floor while I tried to hold her up and steady. “Just tell me. It’s not like I didn’t already know this was coming.”
The doctor took a seat on his stool. The clipboard floated over and he scanned down the page once more. “I’m not one-hundred-percent sure going off a single test, but…” He tipped his glasses down onto the edge of his muzzle and gave Rarity his most professional, no-nonsense stare. “Judging by these results, it seems you might have an acute case of Magicular Degeneration. I’m sorry.”
I had to tell myself to breathe. One of my best friends had just gotten the worst news she could have possibly gotten in that moment. She broke down in tears. Beside my regular attempts to comfort and console, I didn’t know what else I could do.
My scientific instincts kicked in. “Doctor, could I please take a look at those results?”
“Uh, of course, Your Majesty.” He passed along the medical history and stepped back from the machine console.
Even in her vulnerable state, I left Rarity’s side. I quickly scanned the chart—nothing out of the ordinary. The historical data looked clean. Stepping up to the console, my first impression struck as somehow ‘off’. The lines matched up almost perfectly.
The chart on the console output still showed critically low. It just didn’t match up with what I saw with my eyes. Rarity had performed the same basic spell that I had, and with little to no trouble in doing it. If it was true that her base magic levels were really that low, she would have shown signs of it.
“Can you pull up my test results?” I asked, the doctor taken a little out of his element with the way I’d stepped in.
“Sure thing.” He stepped over and cycled the screen to show the previous test. I took another look.
The line showed a lot higher, but had the same basic curve. That’s when it hit me.
“Doctor, is there a reason why the power level ratios on these graphs are set constant?”
“Hmmm?” he questioned. “What do you mean?”
I pointed a hoof at the screen. “Both of these charts have the same power level indicators. Shouldn’t there be some kind of difference?”
His face went pale. “Oh no.” He all but pushed me aside and went to work on the machine punching buttons and spinning dials. “This is so embarrassing.”
“What is it? What’s wrong, doc?” I stepped back, retreating to Rarity who continued to bear the burden of the poor test results.
“I…” he said, pausing to catch his thoughts after giving the machine a workout on the keys. “I must apologize to Miss Rarity. The machine was improperly calibrated for her test.”
“What do you mean?” I asked. “You ran my test just fine.”
Rarity perked up her ears, mascara running down her cheeks under a torrent of tears.
“I failed to notice that my nurse had set the machine to ‘alicorn’ sensitivity.” His shoulders fell and he slumped back onto his hindquarters. “Rarity’s test was run using those same measurement guides. I’m terribly sorry for giving you both such a scare. The actual results show nothing out of the ordinary. She has a clean horn-bill of health.”
“That’s…that’s wonderful!” I said.
I threw myself around her, the shock still keeping her calm. Slowly, the smile returned to her face.
“I’m…I’m not sick? I’m not sick. I’m not sick!”
Together we did a little dance holding one another as tight as friends could be after having gone through such a scare.
We left the office and didn’t look back. Having a cupcake to celebrate our good health seemed the most appropriate thing to do.
Our little adventure taught us one thing, if nothing else, having a friend help out when we don’t feel we can handle what life throws us is better than trying to face it alone. I wasn’t sure what the future would bring, but I wasn’t going to let that stop my celebration of the present.
Author's Note
Hello there. If you've actually read this far, I hoped you liked this short story. It's something I put together in an afternoon as a sort of practice for the Writeoff competition.
Nothing too complex to go over, just a story about friends and being there for one another. People may like to take a secondary message about the benefits of preventative care, and I wholly support that. My mother survived breast cancer because she took care of herself and made time for her annual checkups. If nothing else, I hope this story leaves you with a thought to be on the lookout for someone who might need a push in the right direction, some help when they're dealing with a problem, or even just to remember that you need to take care of number one.
It's really easy to do, and it just might save a life, maybe even your own.
