DEAD PONY STORAGE

Ambulances were a rare sight in Ponyville, mainly because the community was so healthy that almost nopony died. Seriously, almost nopony died. Ever seen Granny Smith in one? She should be in the ground with an apple tree growing right on top of her. Even with Twilight Sparkle somewhat bringing in new apocalyptic events every other month, the town was usually at peace.

So when the ambulance was out and about, with Nurse Redheart at the steering wheel, you knew something happened, and it was serious. She was going back towards the hospital from Sweet Apple Acres, and her lights weren’t going off. That meant that it wasn’t anything major happening - or somepony died.

“I can’t believe Applejack was able to buck someone so hard that she was able to break somepony’s neck!” Twilight said from the back of the ambulance.

“I can’t believe that somepony was stupid enough to try and spy on Applejack as she was bucking trees. Do you know this pony?” Redheart asked as she took the longer route in town, around the market so she wouldn’t disrupt the town.

“Uh, I think he’s some kind of detective. His name was easy to remember, P.I., I always enjoyed how some names make it easy to identify ponies.”

“Well, we won’t have to worry about it any longer.” Redheart replied as she drove through a few residential streets. “Just a few pieces of paperwork and we just ship him off to wherever he needs to be. He can get sealed in a vault for all I care. We can toss a tag on him and let his next of kin pick him up.”

“Well, we can expedite the process. I’ll do an intense scanning spell and it’ll make your paperwork much more accurate!” Twilight said somewhat happily, even in front of a corpse.

Redheart laughed slightly at how objective Twilight could be sometimes. Then again, she did need an official to look over the paperwork when a fatality happened in Ponyville. Especially since another pony killed someone, even if it was an accident. She did find it somewhat funny though. Then again, you needed a pretty dark sense of humor to be a nurse.

Redheart heard a humming from the back and the ambulance had an ambient purple glow radiating from it. She took a quick look at the road to make sure she wasn’t going to hit anypony.

“Hey Twilight are you sure that spell is saf-”

BANG!

The whole ambulance bounced and it sounded like a firecracker went off in the back. The small window that was between the driver and the cab was open so Redheart could speak to Twilight. Unfortunately, when the loud bang was going off, Redheart was looking through the window and now her windshield, as well as most of her face, were coated in a wet substance.

“Sweet Celestia, what the buck just happened?” Redheart yelled as she recognized the liquid dripping off her window as blood.

“I just accidentally exploded P.I.’s head...” Twilight shakily replied.

“Why the buck did you do that?” Redheart loudly asked, clearly handling the explosion of a corpse’s head better than Twilight.

“I-I didn’t mean to! It was completely by accident! The spell shouldn’t have reacted like that.” Twilight explained as she tried to get herself to calm down.

“For as long as I’ve have been in this town, I’ve seen so many weird things-”

“-Redheart, please just keep your eyes on the road. I can fix this; you must have gone over a bump or something in the road.”

“You oversaw the paving projects for Ponyville--I didn’t hit no motherbucking bump!”

Twilight steadied herself as she tried to ignore the excessive amounts of blood, brains and double negative statements that surrounded her. “Look I didn’t mean to explo-argh, look, the spell went off and I don’t know why!”

“Twilight Sparkle, we are driving through the family residential areas of Ponyville and there’s a school between us and the hospital! We’re covered in blood and other bits and so are the windows!”

“Oh my gosh, I didn’t even think about the mess…” Twilight looked at the carnage that covered the inside of the ambulance.

“Well, you better start thinking of it now! Ponies kind of notice when something is covered in blood and it isn’t Nightmare Night!” Redheart explained the obvious.

“Can we just take it to a clinic?” Twilight asked.

“There aren’t any in this Celestia-forsaken section of town! We’d have to go through the market!”

Twilight charged up another spell. “Okay, I’m going to contact somepony I know.”

“We need somepony to help us out or Celestia is gonna send us to the moon!” Redheart said as she looked out through the window to the thankfully empty streets.

Redheart heard more noises from the back. “Yeah, is it okay if I come over? I need to ask you for a favour. Yes, a Princess favour. I need your garage and possibly your fridge.”

Twilight’s now red and purple head poked through to the front. “Okay, I’ll direct you to my friend’s house, it’s really nearby. We can go there to fix this.”

====----====

Twilight was finishing off drying her mane with the oversized towels she found in the bathroom. Considering the resident, they just seemed to be too big for her. Nevertheless she made a mental note to find out where her human friend got their towels for future use, for they were very comfy. Twilight went over the many scenarios that could still happen when she got into the kitchen, but the purple mare decided to not stress herself out with anxiety.

Twilight decided it would be best to finally speak, she had to address the situation.

“Look Redheart, we have to be on our best behaviour and be really careful with this whole dead pony situation. I think we might be a few misplaced words from being kicked out of here.”

Nurse Redheart was still in the shower trying to get the blood out of her white coat. “You think we’ll get kicked out?”

“I don’t know what we’ll do, but we can’t leave until we somehow fix this. Sebastian is my friend and I don’t think we can just come in here and tell him how we’re going to do things.”

Nurse Redheart tilted her head in a quizzical fashion that Twilight couldn’t see but could hear in her voice. “Wait, aren’t you the Princess? Can’t you just tell this Sebastian stallion what to do?”

“His kind refer to themselves as ‘men’ for plural, ‘man’ for singular. Though I don’t want to stress him out any more than he is right now. Think of it like this: we just showed up at his place with a dead pony at eight in the morning. He’s extremely stressed out.”

Nurse Redheart stepped out of the shower, wiping off the last bit of blood onto the towel. “You know, for a princess, you don’t really throw your weight around much, do you?”

“I don’t want to be a tyr- did you just wipe your bloody hooves onto clean and new towels?” The purple princess asked, aghast.

“Yeah, is there a problem with that? I am trying to get clean.”

Twilight went through several emotions before settling on anger.

“Of course there’s something wrong with that! If Sebastian came in here he would freak out more than he has. See? It’s things like this that will raise his heart rate and make him more stressed to the point where he’d want to kick us out!”

“Twilight, you have to calm down, I work in the medical field. I’ll have this all cleaned up at the hospital; we can get blood out of almost anything.”

“Look, okay, just…” Sighing in defeat, Twilight put a hoof to her head to calm down the approaching headache. “Just be nice, okay?”

“Yeah, I’ll be nice to your human friend. You think he has any tea? I could use some tea right about now.”

“Same, let’s just get downstairs.”

====----====

Twilight and Redheart were sitting in chairs opposite of the human who owned the house they were currently hiding a dead body in. Twilight was nervously shifting side to side while Redheart was sipping delicately at her tea, enjoying it way more than she should have. Sebastian in question was in a white bathrobe, he looked miserable, but anyone would given the situation and how he was supposed to be off work today and relaxing. He was staring directly in his cup of tea when he sighed, his green eyes not looking at any of the ponies while running a hand through his blonde hair. He was awake way too early for this shit.

Twilight decided that she should break the tension because she had absolutely zero social skills.

“Well, this certainly is some great tea, Sebastian! I mean you didn’t have to make us anything this exotic. I would have settled for Orange Pekoe. What type of leaves are these? I didn’t know th-”

“I swear to God and Satan, Twilight, shut the fuck up.” Sebastian asserted.

“I’m sorry, did I say somethi-”

“Look Purple Smart, I’m not a mushroom so stop giving me bullshit. I don’t have to listen to you telling me how great the tea is, I’m the one who has to import it. I know how good it is. When Celestia comes over, she brings over shit. You’d think a mature and knowledgeable mare like her would be able to pick up some decent fucking tea. I buy the good shit because I don’t want to taste burnt leaves. You know what isn’t on my mind right now? Tea. You know what is? The dead reporter in my garage.” Sebastian tore into her.

“I think h-he’s a private investigat-” Twilight started to correct him while Redheart rolled her eyes seeing Twilight dig her own hole.

“I’m fucking talking,” the human interrupted. “Now tell me. When you two pulled up in front of my house, did you see a sign in the front that said ‘Dead Pony Storage’?”

Once more, Twilight tried to plead her case.

“Look Sebas-”

He slammed his fist on the table, making the teapot clink and jiggle. “Answer the question! Did you see a sign that said ‘Dead Pony Storage’?”

Nurse Redheart enjoyed the scene as she sipped her tea. It really was fantastic tea. She would have to stop by the human sometime to pick up some leaves. She would love a cup after a long shift at work.

Twilight calmed down a little bit. “N-no. I did not see a sign.”

“Yeah, and you want to know why?”

Resigning her to her fate she played along. “Why?”

“‘Cause storing dead ponies isn’t my fucking business, that’s why!”

“I think I saw a movie about this once, luckily we aren’t hiding a zebra.” Redheart commented.

Sebastian looked at the nurse with anger before realizing what she said. “Ah, because of the zigg- look that isn’t the point right now!”

“Seba-” Twilight tried to talk, but was cut off by the human, whose eyes had focused back on her..

“Don’t think I’m done with you! Now Celestia is coming over soon and if she finds a fucking dead pony in my freezer she is going to cut me off for health reasons--even if there is no reason! After the last incident I am not going to go through that again. Last time we talked about it was the last time we talked about it, okay? I do want to help you Twily, but I am not going to lose my steaks over it!”

“What do you mean last ti-” Nurse Redheart started before being interrupted by Twilight.

“We’ll get on it, okay? There is nothing to worry about.”

“Well, you should be trying to make me feel okay because there is nothing you can say to make me forget that I love tacos. Now Celestia has day court before she escapes here to vent off on all the bullshit that she has to get off her chest before going back. That is in less than an hour and a half.” Sebastian got up to slide a bagel into his toaster. “Call your people or whatever you have to do, Princess, then kindly get the fuck out of my house.”

Twilight was still scrambling to settle her emotions again while Redheart was impressed at how much the huma- Sebastian just didn’t care about royal titles.

“Sorry about all of this Sebastian,” Redheart told him in her sweetest nurse-voice that she could muster, “we’ll get this all settled and get out. We don’t want to screw you over, we really appreciate this. Thank you so much for your hospitality and your tea.”

“Sweet fuck, you are all gonna give me cavities and heartaches. I have a phone and messenger paper if you need it in my room.” Sebastian replied, surprisingly in a much less hostile tone.

“Thank you very much, sir. Twilight, could you lead the way?” The nurse led Twilight away, giving a bit more sway to her hips as they left the room.

“Damn cute sexy ponies driving me to drink.” Sebastian muttered as his toaster popped up his bagel.

====----====

Luna was inside her room, trying to finish off the late paperwork she had before sleeping for the rest of the day. She had a wonderful evening with her human friend, Sebastian, in his dreams. She didn’t want to tell anypony, but she definitely favoured his dreams over the other ponies. The Equestrian population mostly dreamed of peace and nice things, with the occasional nightmare. Sebastian however showed her a fantastic way to deal with stress:

Zomponies, baseball bats, slow motion, and high-impact head trauma.

She was about to finish her work when her desktop phone rang. It was a very recent invention and she detested the thing, although she saw the merits of instant voice messaging. There were very few ponies that knew her number, and wouldn’t bug her unless it was an emergency.

Her blue glow picked up the phone and she held it near her ear.

“Princess Luna speaking.”

She listened to the voice speak about their problem.

“Well, if Tia sees it, what would she do?”

Some fast talking took place on the other end.

“I doubt she’d send you to kindergarten, Twilight. It’s most certain she’ll ‘freak’; she has no stomach for seeing any meat, it’s a wonder how often she caters to Griffons. Now you know him, will it be a lot or a little?”

Twilight’s voice calmed down enough for normal ponies to understand. “I don’t think you know how delicate this situation is, Princess Luna. If Princess Celestia comes here, there’s no knowing what she’d do! She could even send him to the mo-”, Twilight realized who she was speaking to and changed her stance, “it’s just gonna be a bad time.”

“I grasped the idea, Twilight Sparkle, I’m just going over the ‘ifs’.”

“‘If’s’!? No, no ‘ifs’! We can’t let it come to that! I just really need to hear that you can help me out--I can relax with Sebastian and that the cavalry coming.”

“I can help you out,” Luna calmly replied. “You can relax with Sebastian. Also...the Timberwolf is coming directly.”

“Wait, wh-” Twilight was cut off by Redheart’s voice.

“Excuse me, Princess, this is Nurse Redheart, and I am doing my best here to make sure Twilight doesn’t make the human more angry. You know how she is with social situations. Now, did I hear you say that you’re sending over the Timberwolf?”

“Ah, Nurse Redheart, ‘tis always good to hear from you. Yes, I’m sending over the Timberwolf.”

“Thank you so much, we can handle it from here, then. Have a great day, Princess, or sleep or… well, you know. Thanks again.”

“Think nothing of it. Now please, before you go, tell Mr Mind Free that I’ll be seeing him on the morrow.”

“Will do, Princess.”

====----====

A lone figure was sitting down with a certain little yellow pegasus. He enjoyed his time with her and the fact that she brought him suits and other clothes. She wasn’t as talented as her friend, Rarity, but she could sew. Despite his appearance she eventually became one of his closest friends.

They were currently enjoying a nice silent tea session when a green fireball appeared in front of them, depositing a note on the table.

“Oh my! Who might that be from?” Fluttershy asked her friend.

“Ah, probably from Princess Luna. Thanks again for introducing us one night.”

“Well, it was no problem. After dealing with Discord for so long, she trusts me more on how I feel about anything from the Everfree. Should I pour you another cup, sir?”

The being opened up the letter with a quick motion and read the contents.

One pony (headless) one van, bloody. Princess Twilight Sparkle, Sebastian (human, you will like him) and Nurse Redheart.

“Unfortunately, I have to attend to some business,” the being said, folding the note. “We can meet in a few hours if you’d like. I can help with the chicken stalls.”

“That would be lovely.” Fluttershy replied.

A different note went back to Princess Luna.

Thirty minutes away, will be there in ten.

====----====

Nine minutes and thirty-seven seconds later there was a knock on the back door. Sebastian opened the back blinds to see who it was. Standing in front of him was a bipedal being, just as large as he was, seemingly made of wood and wearing a black suit. The cold, yellow, and glowing eyes of the Timberwolf met his own human ones, and two predators of different species gauged each other up for a moment before deciding that they already kind of liked each other.

Sebastian opened the door and let the Timberbeing in while offering his hand. “Nice to meet you Mr. Timberwolf.”

Extending one of his wooden and clawed hands the Timberwolf shook with the human as he took in his home. “Always a pleasure to meet another meat eater. I am Winchester T. Wolf, and I solve problems.”

“Good, ‘cause we got one. Come into the kitchen.” Sebastian said, motioning for Winchester to follow.

Twilight and Nurse Redheart immediately stood up when Mr. Timberwolf came in. “You’re Twilight Sparkle, which means you must be Nurse Redheart. Let’s get down to the hunt, shall we? I believe time is a very large factor, right Sebastian?”

“Absolutely.”

“Well it’s come to my attention that Celestia comes in for a quick spot of tea at nine thirty today after a little bit of day court, correct?”

Everyone nodded their heads.

“She probably wouldn’t appreciate our being here, now would she?”

Twilight nodded so much she almost hit her jaw on the table beside her.

“Well then we have about forty minutes to get all of this meat cleaned up before she gets here. Now if you ponies do what I say when I say it we will get it done. Now, show me the mess.”

Twilight lead them all back into the garage, where the bloody ambulance was. The suited Timberwolf looked inside the ambulance and sniffed around as he examined the mess. “Hey Sebastian, I smelled tea as I came in, would you mind making me a cup?”

“Uh sure, how do you take it?”

“Lotsa honey.” The wooden being casually replied.

They looked at the ambulance a bit more before he stood up. “Alright, so this ambulance, is it in good repair? Serviced recently and doesn’t have anything wrong with it?”

“The Princess called us so we took out our best one.” Nurse Redheart replied.

“Really? We don’t need one of Twilight’s guards seeing us suddenly and ding us for a tail-light being out.”

“As far as I know it is in perfect condition, minus the gore.” The nurse replied.

“Alright then, let’s head back into the kitchen before I get too hungry.” He said as Twilight edged a bit further away from him.

Coming into the kitchen they all sat down with their cups of tea. Taking a sip of the brew, the Timberwolf paused his thoughts to give Sebastian a nod of appreciation for the great tea.

“Alright now, Sebastian, you seem to live alone and the house looks fantastic which means that you got some cleaning supplies around here, right?”

“Yeah, under the sink in the garage.” The human answered.

“Alright. Then from you I’ll need a few good blankets and such to make sure that we don’t have the body bouncing everywhere and bleeding here and there. Then we strap it to a roller and hope for the best. You two ponies are going to clean up the back. Don’t get all OCD alright? Just clean up the bits of bone and brain and get the blood all soaked up. The windows have to be perfect though. We don’t want ponies to assume anything wrong is with the ambulance or they’ll start gossiping.”

He took another sip of his tea, making shoo gestures at the three. “Go. Hop to it.”

Twilight started to move before she spoke up. “A ‘please’ would be nice, and friendly.”

Nurse Redheart facehoofed.

“Look, you overpaid excuse for a Princess, I’m here to dispense with the pleasantries and get the job done. So in order to do that, you do what I want, when I say it, alright? Now if self-preservation is your top priority like it is in all prey animals, you are gonna get the fuck in there and get it done, alright? If not, I can just leave and get back to my breakfast with my friend.”

Nurse Redheart waved her hooves. “Nononononononono! We totally appreciate you help.”

Twilight blushed. “I’m just not used to ponies or anybody else, really, barking orders like that. O-Oh, uh, no pun or offense intended, of course.”

Winchester tilted his head and made his face look like a begging puppy. “Well then: pretty please with such a delicious cherry on top, get the fuck to work.”

====----====

Sebastian grabbed a bunch of linen and brought it over to the Timberwolf. He was feeling a lot better about the situation at hand, but there was still one problem. “Uh, Mister Timberwolf sir?”

The Timberwolf waved his hand. “Please, Winchester.”

“Well Winchester, there’s a slight problem.” Sebastian patted the blankets and sheets. “This is the only set of linens I have. This also was given to me by my friend, Applejack, when I first got into Equestria. It kind of has a lot of sentimental value to it.”

Winchester nodded his head in understanding. “May I ask you a question?”

“Go ahead.” Sebastian repled as Winchester took the linens from the human.

“Is Applejack a millionaire?”

There was a pause, as Sebastian wouldn’t know since the Apples were super humble and probably had tons of money. He thought not though. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Well, Luna has plenty of money, the kind of money that would give you a nice replacement bedroom set to break in with that lovely nurse downstairs. I can personally say that I love oak, what about you?”

“The nur- oak is nice.” Sebastian thought for a moment. “You think Redheart likes me?”

The wolf simply smiled.

====----====

The nurse in question was with Twilight, cleaning up all the blood and bone from P.I. in the ambulance. She was currently in the back, picking up a piece of brain from the window. “Twilight, this is gonna take a bunch of donations to Ponyville General for me to even think of forgiving you for this shit.”

Twilight scrubbed the blood off the dashboard from the spray dripping off the windshield. “You know, Starswirl the Bearded once said, ‘once a pony realizes they are wrong, they are forgiven for all wrong-doings’.”

“Starswirl didn’t make disasters happen monthly that requires a new x-ray machine and a larger budget.”

“Well excuse me while I’m saving the world Miss Redheart, but I’m really stressed out right now and I feel like I’m just one more comment away from snapping at you; even if I am the Princess of Friendship!”

“Snapping at you? I’m literally two Celestia-damned minutes from getting up and letting Mr. Timberwolf grab a bunch of his friends and seeing if we can get a new Princess. In fact, what am I doing in the back of this cleaning up your mess? You get back here and pick up the brains with your magic, I’ll get my own windows!”

After about twenty minutes, Winchester and Sebastian came into the garage to see if the ponies were finished with their work. There were a bunch of bloody towels and sheets on a tarp that was laying on the garage floor. The windows were spic and span, the interior of the ambulance was almost perfect as well.

“Well, great job there girls, we might be able to pull this one off just yet.”

“I can’t believe it’s the same ambulance, Redheart.” Sebastian complimented as both ponies beamed with pride, which would have been adorable if it wasn’t for the fact that they were now caked in drying and still wet blood.

“Alright, let’s not slap eachother’s clams just yet.” Winchester interrupted. “We still got work to do. Twilight, get back and scrub off all of that blood, then Sebastian can help Nursey here get clean afterwards.”

“Wait, what?” Both Redheart and Sebastian exclaimed in near unison.

“Yeah why can’t he help me out?” Twilight asked, ignoring the stare from the human.

“You got magic and she doesn’t, now get up there and get back here in five minutes!”

====----====

“You know, this seems like a more of a ‘fifth date’ kind of thing.” Nurse Redheart said as she hopped into the shower.

Sebastian took off his shirt and stayed out of the shower spray. “Well this isn’t the best way to meet somepony. I have the day off, so how about we actually go for dinner after your shift’s over? Make this right and we can know each other a lot better. You know, over a glass of wine and some good food.”

The nurse enjoyed the hot soak of a shower again, grinning, knowing that Twilight had to suffer for a bit of a cold shower to wait for the heat. “That sounds nice. Now let’s see how well those fingers can work.”

“Tell me when I get too far back, I’m still a bit in the dark to know how far is too far with ponies.”

“Well, depending on the dinner, you might not hear a ‘stop’ from me next time.”

The soon-to-be-white-again nurse groaned as Sebastian’s fingers massaged the shampoo into her coat. “Isn’t sexual tension great in stressful situations?” The human commented.

“I can think of worse ways to break the ice. Besides, with all the talk-around we do at the hospitals I’m kind of enjoying this straight talk.”

“Well then, we can dance around later. Let’s get you cleaned up.”

====----====

Nurse Redheart and Twilight were back in front of the ambulance as Winchester was finishing his business with Sebastian. Twilight looked outside the clean windows to the neatly arranged tools on the wall. She hated the silence that was in the front.

“Again, I’m very sorry about all of this. I acted poorly and out of line. I really hope you can forgive me, and you definitely will be seeing new additions to the hospital soon, I promise.” Twilight genuinely apologized.

Nurse Redheart wasn’t even mad anymore. She had a clean ambulance again, they weren’t going to get into any trouble with the guards, and even better, she had a date with a human that had absolutely amazing fingers. “It’s quite alright, Twilight. I forgive you, though that doesn’t let you off from the donations.” The nurse stuck her tongue out at the Princess.

“You know, after Tirek, I think you’re right: I’ll make sure Ponyville General has more support. Besides, I guess I’m in charge of a lot of Ponyville now anyways.” Twilight yawned. “I’ve been up for all of three hours but I want to sleep the day away.”

“Well, some of us still have to work to do, you know. I can’t have myself gone from the hospital all day.”

Twilight giggled. “By royal decree, you have the day off. I’ll volunteer if I have to. I have experience in medical magics.”

“Just don’t do any more neck-scanning spells.”

“I Pinkie Promise.”

The ambulance lurched as Winchester jumped on. He turned around to look out the back to Sebastian. “Thanks again for your hospitality. We’ll be off now, and you can expect a little present from our mutual friend tonight. Have a good day, Sebastian.”

“You too, Winchester.”

The wolf smiled as he shut the doors to the ambulance and hid out of sight. The garage opened up and the vehicle pulled out and sped off. Sebastian sighed and relaxed, he really needed to have another pot of tea. Possibly just pot in general. He thought around the mares he knew in Ponyville if they had any, probably that Tree Hugger mare. He stepped back into his house and put the mugs away as he set another full kettle on the stove.

Not one minute later Celestia landed in his backyard. “Greetings Celly, how are you?”

Celestia smiled as she took in the scent of fresh tea being brewed. “Hello Sebastian, I’m doing fine, and I am glad I can spend some time with my favourite human. Anything new happen this week?”

Beaming a knowing smile to himself, Sebastian took the kettle off the stove, then poured himself a nice cup of tea as he then said, “Just doing some volunteer work for the hospital.”

The End.

Author's Note

Well this was fun to get the rust off.

Give this a good like and a favourite! Feel free to follow me as well. If you want to give me a comment in real-time, feel free to see my blogs for when I do my twitch channel and drop a line there. I am always open to talking about my fics.

Thanks again to the guys for giving me advice or adding in fifty damn commas.