“A physician is not angry at the intemperance of a mad patient, nor does he take it ill to be railed at by a man in fever. Just so should a wise man treat all mankind, as a physician does his patient, and look upon them only as sick and extravagant.”

― Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Twilight followed Pinkie and Fluttershy to the path towards the Everfree forest, where they had first encountered Karn. A large patch of the grass was blackened and scorched from what had clearly been quite a spectacular show. The business of being so close to the Everfree forest wasn't altogether pleasing - but this was something that had to be done. At least Pinkie Pie had left behind her detective cap and magnifying glass ... this time.

"I can't sense any magical residue here," she noted. Clearly whatever had transpired here was very unique - at least for Equestria. The only things she was able detect were what her natural senses told her - the light scent of burnt grass and earth, the crunching of the curiously burned sand underhoof. "Did either of you notice anything strange happening just before Karn arrived here?"

"Whadda ya mean by strange?" asked Pinkie. "I've seen a lot of strange stuff, like that time that I loaded my party cannon with sprinkles and blew it through the front door of sugar cube corner, and Mr. Cake was drinking milk at the time and I think it came out his ears ... or his eyes? Or maybe his nose! It could have been all three, but that was strange and ... "

"Pinkie ... please try to focus! Was there anything strange that you can recall happening here, just before the human appeared? Anything at all, even if it seems a little trivial?"

Her two companions solemnly shook their heads.

"We were ... well ... I mean, just here and then ... then there was this loud crack, and that awfully bright light and then ... well, there he was!" recalled Fluttershy.

'Okay,' thought Twilight, 'clearly he arrived very much unannounced,' she mused. Nothing that she'd been able to learn here gave her any further clues as to who the human was. She approached the incinerated grass and took a closer look. There was nothing there that she wasn't already aware of - except for the fact that a few very small parts of the ground had seemed to have been melted into a glass like substance. Whatever phenomenon had brought this strange human here, it had clearly been extraordinarily powerful.

"Do you think he's going to be okay?" asked Fluttershy suddenly. "I just feel somehow responsible, I mean ... he appeared so close to where I live."

Twilight smiled at her friend and shook her head. "No, Fluttershy. Whatever caused this to happen, I am quite certain that neither you nor Pinkie had anything to do with it."

"Yeah, and we know Angel and Gummy didn't have anything to do with it!" insisted Pinkie.

Twilight turned again to look at the scorched earth she had been studying. "But I am going to get to the bottom of this and find out what did happen here!" she insisted. "Let's go and find Spike and let Princess Celestia know what little we've been able to discover so far."

Karn finally lay motionless on his gurney, his breathing steady but somewhat shallow. The medical team at Ponyville Hospital had been trying to find an adequate dose of analgesia and an anti-pyretic to help him be a little more comfortable. This had at least stopped him trembling and flaying his arms around. The amount of analgesia that it had taken to help him with pain had been quite surprising - several times the standard dose for a pony with similar injuries.

They'd attempted as many non-invasive examinations of their unusual patient as they could, without causing him unnecessary discomfort. He was clearly mammalian, an omnivore, possessed of a vascular system not unlike that of ponies. However, his biochemistry could be wildly different from theirs. He seemed to be able to breathe the same combination of gasses in the air - but who knew what any of the medications and treatments at their disposal could do to him?

In his few waking moments, he had started to become quite delusional, yelling and being combative. He would often grasp madly at his throat, tearing the sheets from the bed and in at least one instance had grappled with one of the nurses who had come to his aid. Clearly his fever had gotten worse, and if this or its underlying cause could not be addressed, the final outcome was unlikely to be a good one.

"He's being given ketoprofen at the moment. That seems to have been effective so far. I guess all we can do now is wait and monitor him closely," mused Doctor Horse. He hoped that Twilight and the others could at least shed some light as to what could have happened to him, or why he was so ill. At least in the interim they had been able to continue running cultures and performing tests to check for the presence of various anti-bodies that at least they knew of.

Twilight paced back and forth in her library, her mind churning through the information she had been able to glean thus far. Her companion Spike sat poised with a quill, waiting to dictate a message to Princess Celestia. No message had thus far been forthcoming and the sight of Twilight pacing back and forth was starting to make him seasick. Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie had joined her in the library.

"Twilight," Spike finally said, "did you want to - I don't know - think about what you want to actually say first? You're going to wear a hole in the floor in you keep ... "

"Dear Princess Celestia!" exclaimed Twilight. There was an audible growl from Spike, who rolled his eyes and commenced dictating the message. "The human that we found here in Equestria seems to go by the name Karn. He has sustained some awful injuries, but he has since been through surgery and is likely to recuperate," She paused to give Spike a chance to catch up. "It seems that he materialized here through what may have been an electrical storm and I have been unable to detect any trace of magic where he arrived."

Spike continued to scrawl furiously, before again pausing.

"From what he has told us, we doubt he is from the world we know of through the portal there, and he does not appear to know anything of Equestria, nor understand where he is."

"Twilight - do you think he could be dangerous? I mean, if he's not someone you've met before, who knows what he could be capable of?" questioned Spike.

Fluttershy began quivering, "Really?" she asked fearfully. "Do you really think he might be dangerous?"

The question was a pertinent one. Twilight had mulled over that possibility for some time. "I really don't know, Fluttershy," she sighed before continuing. "At the moment, we know he's too badly hurt to really get up to any trouble and there are royal guards stationed there at the hospital. He's also fairly well medicated for the pain and so he isn't exactly in a clear state of mind. I think we may have to wait and see if his injuries heal and he's able to speak with us. Spike? One last piece of information for Princess Celestia. We are unsure if he is dangerous at this stage, Princess, but I will keep a close eye on him and make sure you are informed of any further changes!"

Karn slowly stirred from his sleep. He felt sluggish and rather groggy, but at least the pain was somewhat controlled. He felt as though he was living in some kind of dream. Strange ideas floated through his mind, and he attempted to grasp each as they passed through his consciousness, but the ideas seemed to flow through his grasp. It was like trying to catch clouds with his hands. Maybe this was death? Was this what death was like?

His vision was so blurry, so confused. There were voices, now - strange voices. His exhausted, troubled mind attempted to catch any part of their conversations, to no avail. His muscles - so much pain. Each joint, each nerve in his body seemed to have been burnt with something. Had he been burnt? He could not remember. A voice came to him - whether real or a phantom of his overheated mind he could not tell.

"Rest. Rest, Karn, you're okay. You are safe. Relax and sleep."

There was something about the gentle sound of that voice that made it impossible not to oblige, and he allowed his aching body to relax, as he slowly slid back into a deep, mercifully painless sleep.

Rainbow Dash had joined her friends on the way back to Ponyville hospital. "You say that this is a human that flew in here? Did this one have wings?"

"No, Dash, this is just the one human without any wings," replied Twilight, exasperatedly. "I've told you that humans don't have any wings, remember?"

"I know, but you did say this one was different from the others! I was just askin'!"

They made their way into the hospital and around to the isolation ward where Karn was resting, under the careful watch of Nurse Redheart.

"Has there been any change? Has he been getting any better?" asked Twilight, quietly.

The nurse sighed. "No, I'm afraid not. We think we have his pain management under control, but he still has a very bad fever. He's been awake a few times, but he's obviously been very confused."

The ponies all gazed at the now sleeping human and for the moment silence prevailed - he was resting; his breathing was regular and suggested a deep sleep. Everyone in the room had questions they wanted answered, but for the moment any answers to such would simply have to wait.

Fluttershy, her natural curiosity for other creatures overcoming her fears, slowly approached him. "He looks ... peaceful" she insisted.

"Well, he has been given some strong pain relief. His fever is also causing him to be a little delusional when he is awake," explained the nurse. "He has been a lot less combative and frightened now that we've improved his medications and adjusted the doses, but he has still been known to awaken suddenly and be a little frightened."

"He's frightened? Oh my goodness, the poor thing," mused Fluttershy, looking upon his badly scratched face.

"He sure looks beaten up!" exclaimed Rainbow dash. Nurse Redhead turned and shushed her.

There was a low moan from the patient, but he did not stir from his slumber.

A voice. Another female voice broke through the curtain of his sleep. Karn slowly cracked open his eyes and stared blankly forward. He was met with the white blur of what he vaguely recalled was a ceiling. There was something else there, this time. Something yellow and pink. It was standing over him to his right. In vain he tried to recollect where he was, what was happening. His thoughts were little more than a soup. The yellow blur emitted a soft gasp. The gasp sounded female. ' Why would there be females here? Here? Where was here?' The blur made some remark about him being awake. 'Am I awake?' he asked himself.

Other voices intruded; there were other blurs of color. A rapid yet very soft series of words fell upon his almost uncomprehending ears. For the first time in what seemed an eternity, the briefest image of his mother fell into his mental grasp. Was this her, the yellow one? 'Mother, have you come for me?' he thought to himself. He gazed longingly at that shape with the soft female voice. A memory of his mother comforting him when he was ill as a child returned to him. He felt emotions well up inside him, emotions he had not known for many cycles.

"He's woken up!" whispered Fluttershy.

The other ponies crossed to the side of the bed.

"Do you think he can hear us?" asked Dash.

"I doubt it," whispered Redheart. "Not in his condition and with the medications we've had to give him."

"I hope he gets better. If he does, maybe we could throw him a happy getting better party? I bet he'd love that!" whispered Pinkie as loudly as she could.

"Let's just wait and see what kind of human he is, first." remonstrated Twilight.

All of their attention focused on the human in the bed as he turned slowly to Fluttershy and spoke. He spoke in soft, whispered tones.

"Mother!" he implored, in a very feint whisper - as if his throat was bone dry. "I .... sorry, mother! I .... hurt! Couldn't ... save them! Oh God, I'm so sorry!"

Fluttershy appeared shocked for a moment. Why would this human think she was his mother? He continued to gaze at her, as if imploring forgiveness for something.

"They all died!" he whispered, softly. "They are all gone - I couldn't stop them in time!"

The ponies all momentarily looked up at the stunned yellow pegasus.

"As I said, when he is awake, he's quite delusional," nurse Redhead reminded them.

Fluttershy looked down at the helpless creature before her, with its eyes and painfully dry voice pleading with her for forgiveness for reasons that were unknown to her. She began to feel compassionate for this poor creature, for the pain he must be feeling. Swallowing a sob, she tried to comfort him. "It's ... okay. It's okay .... shhhhh, you're safe now," she whispered gently. "It's over now, please sleep. Go to sleep, it's okay ... it's okay, I'm here."

Karn slowly closed his eyes, allowing himself to slide back to sleep with the soothing sound and gentle touch of Fluttershy. The touch he felt on his cheeks was unusual to him. But the voice! So gentle, so calm, so sweet. He supposed it must be his mother - for who else could it be to offer benediction for the things he'd done? "I'm sorry ... sorry ... so sorry, mother. So tired. So ... tired," he muttered, as he drifted off once more to sleep.

Fluttershy kept gently brushing his cheeks, as she felt herself tearing up. "What happened to you?" she finally whispered sadly.

"That's what we are going to get the bottom of," said Twilight, coming around the bed to gently console her friend, "but he needs to get better first."

"Do you ... I mean, would you mind if ... well, if I stayed and helped take care of him?" Fluttershy asked.

"Fluttershy, who would look after your friends at your house?" quizzed Twilight.

"Oh! Oh! I can!! I can!!!" yelped Pinkie, immediately earning a universal shush from everyone else present. "Oh ... I mean, I can?"

"Okay, Pinkie, but please be careful! Angel gets very fussy about what you feed him. I'll try and come back as often as I can to help."

Fluttershy looked down at Karn, still resting after Pinkie's excited outburst.

"I'll ask Spike to lend a hand as well," offered Twilight.

"Fluttershy, why on earth would you want to stay here with this guy for?" asked Dash.

She looked down once more at the sleeping patient. "I ... I don't know. I just feel like I should. I mean, I was there when he arrived. I just feel responsible somehow. He seemed so sad just now and I ... I guess I feel sorry for him too."

"Well, as long as the Doctors don't mind, I guess that's okay," answered Twilight, "but please let me know if anything changes, or if he says anything at all!"

Author's Note

Is this a romantic base? Or simply the ideal pony to be taking care of a hurt creature? Honestly I don't know yet. I'm interested to see where my mind takes me.

ketoprofen is an analgesia/NSAID form of a propionic acid. It's used for inflamation, fever and pain relief in humans and in vetinary science - very often in horses.

2017-04-03 POST EDIT

Removed a little of the soppyness and fixed a few minor mistakes.