The Plague Doctor

The Plague Doctor – Prologue

Death

A simple concept, which is both feared and admired by all creatures alike, though most do not realize how much it really affects them until they experience the death of someone around them, may it be the death of family member, the cold-blooded murder right next to them in local tavern or the sight of recently deceased being taken away to be burned, so that they won’t spread the plague that killed them.

Alas, the concept of death holds no great importance to The Plague Doctor, who accepts all the freshly dead for autopsy, so that she can find out the reason behind the plague in question and cure it. Sadly, the foal’s body on the table in front of her hold no answers, so she motioned her hand to the nearest guard, who with the assistance of another guard dragged the body to the burner, which oh so conveniently is placed right next to her workshop.

Letting out a tired sigh, The Plague Doctor replaced the white cloth cloves that shielded her leather covered hands from the blood as her assistants moved the another body into the table, before replacing the used equipment with new, clean ones while they carefully cleaned the used equipment for re-use.

As you might have already guessed, the guards and assistants are all equine of nature, Unicorns to be specific, due to their ability to control the magic in most interesting ways, which has so far been a great assistance to The Plague Doctor in her research for the cure of this nasty disease.

The guards and assistants all wore thick, black solid form-fitting clothing that covered them from horn to hoof, with black overcoat over it and the white mask over their face, which had air-filters in the front to keep the airborne diseases away. The only visible parts of the ponies underneath were the eyes, which were covered in thick see-through glass, allowing them limited visibility. The guards also had two swords, one on both sides in case they needed to use them.

The assistants on the other hand had saddlebags over them, with the right side filled with equipment for potion and salve making, while the left side held a large book, ink and a quill for keeping the record of the recently dead, with small number of red cloth bands to mark those who have the plague, with small knife in the bottom in case they decided to perform a mercy kill to those who were too infected to survive, even if the cure was at hand.

The Plague Doctor on the other hand was no equine pony; she was a two and half meter tall bipedal creature, though what she really looked like underneath her uniform was unknown to the ponies around her. She had appeared few years before the plague had started, buying two empty shops next to each other, before demolishing them and building her shop in their place, which was separated into three parts; the shop in the front, the operating room on the middle and the burner on the back.

Going back to The Plague Doctor, she was quite similar to the Minotaurs, but instead of hooves for lower part of her body, she had two feet. She also didn’t have two horns in top of her head, nor did she have a tail or long face. What she looked like was unknown, but she clearly had flat face, as the bird-like mask was nothing more than what it was; a mask. She was covered from head to feet with black cloth, with the hands being only part of her covered in leather cloves, with small leather belt around her midsection and a hood over her head.

The Plague Doctor thanked the assistant as she prepared her tools and opened the young stallion on the table with her scalpel, with familiar black goo slowly coming from the wound as she took a small sample of it for the vial, which was sealed after half-full. Moving on, The Plague Doctor cleaned away the black goo from the wound as she looked over the burst organs and the rotting flesh inside. After a few minutes of searching, she found what she was looking for as she replaced the scalpel with forceps as she pulled out the black, worm infested growth out of the stallion’s lungs and placed it in the small tray on the table, right next to the goo sample.

The assistant next to her nodded as she took the tray and moved it to the other side of the room, where the two research assistants (well, primary researchers these days, as The Plague Doctor didn’t understand the magical side of the plague, leaving the two unicorns to research it) took the tray and started going through the content with their magic.

The Plague Doctor had already discovered the physical side of the cure, but the magical side was beyond her abilities, so she left the two assistants to figure out how to cure the other half of the cure. She already had them check the previous bodies, but the only thing that was magical was the worms and the black growth, which was fueled by the ponies’ inner magic’s.

If this had been a normal Plague, the cure would have been discovered ages ago by her, but her lack of knowledge and ability of magic made The Plague Doctor unavailable to cure it completely. So far however, the only good thing so far aside from the partial cure was that the origin of the plague had been dealt with, as the old necromancer had died to the plague itself with his carelessness. Too bad that there hadn’t been any notes in his home about how he originally made the plague; otherwise the royal guard would have spread the complete cure to all towns and cities of Equestria by now.

As she finished pulling out the extra growths and jar full of the black goo to the spare tray, she moved away from the table as the other assistant moved the tray over to the research assistant’s workplace while the first one cleaned the table and equipment, after the guards dragged the stallion’s body off the table of course.

Looking around as she removed her white cloth cloves, she could see what her former operating room now looked like. The operating table was in the middle of the room, the research workstation was on the left side of the room, the cabinets for equipment on the right side, and with the shop front across the room from her position while the burner was right behind her.

The Burned had stayed unused for years, though when the bodies started coming in, it had been cleaned and started up in effort to keep the plague from spreading, a practice quickly taken up in other towns and cities by the royal guards. Princess Celestia and Princess Luna were currently in another part of the country, helping where they could due to their immunity to the plague the stupid, now-dead necromancer had released.

The ponies around the town and elsewhere however believed that she was the one who had given the necromancer the means to create the plague, as she was simply called “The Plague Doctor” long before the plague had even begun. The Royal sisters had tried to persuade their subjects that she had not been involved with the plague in any way, but the mobs were getting bigger and bigger every day, and while she was located near the royal palace, the guards soon couldn’t keep the mobs away, which would spark an ugly situation.

After all, this wasn’t the first time the ponies had tried to kill her.

The Plague Doctor was brought back from her thoughts as the door to the shop front opened, with one of the assistants carrying a scroll with his magic. As he walked closer, The Plague Doctor picked the scroll from air and looked at it, as the familiar royal symbol was used as seal in the front. Breaking the seal and opening the scroll, she read through it quickly before closing it again and giving it back to the assistant.

The damn supplies were running out, the mobs were gathering at greater number at her doorstep and the royal sisters were planning to spend another two weeks away before they returned. At this rate, it looked like the mobs would their spark sooner than later, because she would have to soon close all services.

“Alright, start declining any new patients; we’re not getting any more supplies until two weeks from now when the Royal sisters return here. Keep the burner hot, we have everything we need for the research cure, so simply move the remaining and incoming corpses to be cremated in the furnace” The Plague Doctor said as the assistants obeyed, leaving the room to start moving the bodies from storage to burner.

She still didn’t understand why the ponies served under her. She did know that they were formerly in service of the royal sisters, before they had been moved to assist and protect her while she searched for the cure.  She had expected some resistance or desire to be in charge, but they had simply fallen into positions, where it was clear that they willingly followed her orders, even though some of them disliked having to be part of the ‘Mercy kill’ squad, where they would quickly end those who were beyond saving.

Which reminded her, while she had received a visit from couple of the royal doctors from around Equestria, all of them had worn white doctor’s uniforms with simple face masks, instead of the proper uniforms those under her service used. She had never seen the mobs even yell anything bad towards them, while she was constantly feared and hated when she or her assistants went around the town, recording and gathering the recently deceased from the streets and their homes. Even the guards around the town were feared and hated due to their use of armored versions of plague suits, while the visiting guards escorting the visiting doctors were held in high position.

It was no wonder so many of the doctors and guards outside of her services had died from the plague themselves. The only 3 ponies who had died under her service had been careless, causing them to catch the plague themselves, which had caused the others to carefully follow the rules and safety precautions she had laid out precisely, which had prevented the further infections.

As she finished her thoughts in silence, she uncrossed her arms (which she sub-consciously did when she was in deep through) and moved to the operating table again, putting the tools, vials and other medical equipment in their proper in the small compartment chest (made from black wood, with a red + in the top) before picking it up and moving it to the open slot beneath the operating table.

There were only 6 ponies in the room, the two researchers trying to figure out the cure for magical part of the plague, two guards at the burner door (there were over 20 guard, but most of them were outside, with only other two in burner and two in the front shop) and the two assistants moving the dead bodies to the burner.

As she took the small cane leaning against the operating table to her hand, she raised her head to look at the ceiling, where she could see the beautiful night sky above her through the roof window, with the moon glowing brightly as it always did this time at night. Most of the staff was asleep already, as the daytime was more active on research, patient caring and guard activity.

“I shall retire for the evening. You two” She said as she pointed the cane towards the two guards at the burner door “wake me at dawn, when your shift ends. And you two” she said, now pointing towards the research assistants “don’t stay awake the whole night, and remember to write everything you learn to the book so that the day shift can continue your work” she said, receiving an affirmative from both the guards and the research assistants as they nodded in understanding.

Satisfied, she turned towards the open burner door and walked in, taking the look around the room.

The Burner was the most fortified location of the building, as instead of normal wooden walls or thin stone ones, the walls and ceiling were made from thick, double-layer stones fortified with magic. The room itself wasn’t that much, a small bed (for her) on the right side of the door while on the left side, there was a large pile of bodies’ right next to the furnace.

She preferred to sleep in here, as she had no other physical needs except the need to sleep, with her natural immunity to the plague (really, it only affected the ponies, so it wasn’t dangerous to Her, Minotaurs or the griffons, who all delivered supplies around Equestria due to….. lack of ponies to transport them) making it impossible for her to die of the plague. Probably one of the reasons she also never took off the uniform she wore, especially when the cleaning enchantments kept those who wore the suits she and those under her from getting all sweaty and dirty underneath them.

Taking the look towards the furnace, she could see the two guards closing the hatch as another body was being cremated, though the ashes weren’t being placed into small urns, just dumped out of the furnace into small bags every once in a while. The room was quite warm, but it didn’t cause any discomfort for her or the guards, as their suits kept them from getting too hot or cold.

Lifting her hand to the guards as a greeting, their raised their hooves in return as she sat down on the bed and lied down, her mask pointing towards the ceiling as she lied on her back. The bed was bare minimum, with the pillow beneath her head and mattress underneath her on rough wood frame.

As she closed her eyes, she could hear the gentle conversation between the two guards working at the furnace and side comments the assistants made as they moved more bodies for them to burn. Apparently, they all agreed that soon, the plague would end and everything went back to normal (well, kinda normal, there's still like, third of Equestria's population dead)….

"Another day researching the cure, yet the magic of it is hard to grasp" The Plague Doctor said idly as she sat on the table, leaning her head against her hand on the table while she used her free arm to spin the spoon in her teacup.

The setting was unnatural, as the table was in middle of a small, unknown village, right on the edge of two sides. One side, where The Plague Doctor was sitting, was a dark, foggy area with buildings in poor condition, with sick ponies moving around and dead ones lying on the streets, filled with worms as the crows slowly teared small bits and pieces away, eating them.

The other side of the village was a sunny place, ponies happily moving around as the buildings stood strong and carefully maintained, almost shining in the sunlight as the ponies moving around were as healthy as they always were, before the plague had struck them down in the last few months. The Plague Doctor idly moved her gaze from the teacup, which she knew wasn't real, towards her guest sitting on the brighter side of the table.

Luna took another sip of her tea, a motion quite useless in a dream realm. Finishing her drink, she lowered the teacup on the table before turning her gaze towards the small filly next to her, who was using her magic to fill the teacup again.

It wasn't a pretty sight, as the filly in question was the (now deceased) mayor's daughter, no older than 9 years old, having trouble to grasp the teapot in her magic as she poured the tea on Luna's cup, before setting the teapot down. The filly was on the edge between the two sides, showing half of her face as healthy, young filly while the other was rotting, plague filled flesh that was showing the skeleton beneath the skin.

"Thank you, young one. You can now go to your parent's" Luna said in sad tone as the filly nodded her head and ran past The Plague Doctor, her flesh turning fully into rotting, black goo leaking remains. Luna let out a sad sigh as she turned her attention towards The Plague Doctor, who was watching her.

"I take it that she was another victim of the plague?" Luna questioned as The Plague Doctor nodded her head "Yes, she died few hours ago, hugging her teddy bear tightly in her sleep as the assistant quickly and painlessly gave the mercy kill. She wouldn't have survived, even if the cure had been found two days ago" The Plague Doctor said as she set down the spoon on the table and simply watched Luna's reaction.

"It is sad to see such a young life pass, even if there's nothing we could do to safe her. While I and my sister dislike your habit of 'Mercy kills', we know that it is not done out of malice or evil, but pity and sadness. I take it her parents are also...." Luna let the last part of the sentence unsaid, though The Plague Doctor fully knew what she meant as she nodded her head "Two weeks ago, the mother hanged herself after losing her husband, son, two sisters and the parents to the plague, leaving the young filly all alone to appear at the workshop doorstep. She was slightly infected when she appeared, so we didn't bother trying to prevent infection, simply made her remaining time comfortable"

Luna nodded as she brushed the tears away with her hoof, knowing that this most likely wasn't the first time such thing had happened around Equestria "It still saddens me that my sister and I cannot help the ponies that serve us, because our descend to Alicorns made us immune to diseases, and we cannot use it to save the other ponies now dying because of the plague"

The Plague Doctor nodded in understanding, knowing that it must be painful to watch your own race die right in front of your eyes while you are immune to whatever is killing the others "Our supplies are starting to run low and the mobs keep growing more and more dangerous each day. I already had to start declining more patients, but i'm not certain if it's the spark they need for an attack" she said as Luna nodded, before looking to her left. It was a signal that the princess was listening something outside of the dream realm.

After a moment, Luna nodded before turning her gaze towards The Plague Doctor "unfortunately, I will have to leave now. I will send additional guards to keep the peace, but should they not arrive in time..."

"The staff will be secured to basement, where they will protect and continue the research for the cure. The mob is coming mainly for me, so it should be no surprise if they miss the basement hatch before leaving the rest of the building alone. I expect them to burn it down, so the basement has been fortified in case the building collapses in top of it, while the hatch itself is hidden beneath the floor stones of operating room. If the extra guards don't arrive in time, don't inform them about the basement, the staff has already been informed that anyone who's not me, you or your sister would be killed should they attempt to gain access to the basement" The Plague Doctor said as Luna nodded in agreement and left the dream realm.

The Plague Doctor took the teacup on the table and poured the tea to the ground, before standing up from the table as the dream ended.....