Paging Doctor Sparkle!

Chapters

Episode One: Diagnostic Duel
Episode Two: Trouble at the Pharmaromatherapist's
Episode Three: Healers' Combat
Episode Four: Love Bites
Episode Five: Midnight Blues
Episode Six: Clandestine Confessions
Episode Seven: Fallen Feathers
Episode Eight: Bad Medicine
Episode Nine: Endemic Pandemic
Episode Ten: Freeze Over
Episode Twelve: Afterlight
Episode Thirteen: Sugar Pulse
Episode Fourteen: Cinnamon & Roses
Episode Fifteen: We Can Rule Together
Episode Sixteen: Paralysis by Analysis
Episode Seventeen: Broken Bird
Episode Eighteen: Becoming the Mask
Episode Eleven: Scarlet Heart
Episode Nineteen: I Choose to Stay

Episode One: Diagnostic Duel

Twilight Sparkle, M.D.
Ponyville Hospital, Day 1, late night

Every city has some particular little slogan that defines them. In Manehattan, it’s “everypony for themselves.” In Canterlot, it’s “shape up or ship out,” and from what I’ve seen in Ponyville thus far, theirs has to be “anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.”

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve heard the stories before, the jokes about how much of a death trap this place is. I never really paid attention to them, but with the sheer amount of encounters with the Everfree alone today, not taking other factors into consideration, I have just one conclusion.

Ponyville is a place that needs as many doctors as it can get.

Most doctors I know would take this as a noble cause, then. Get sent to Ponyville for a few months, do some charity work, and hope the pathetic city can keep itself standing after you leave. But I haven’t spent years of toil and research to become just any old medic.

Doctor Twilight Sparkle doesn’t make mistakes. Whenever a patient dies on my watch, or any other complication goes by, I tell myself this. It’s not a mistake if I can keep them alive longer than anypony else, and I make sure everypony around me knows. As long as I tell myself this, I’ll keep rising the ranks and basking in Hospital Director Celestia’s approval.

I said that in rapidfire succession as I saw the letter that sent me here. As Hospital Director Celestia did everything she could to prove me wrong in just a few simple words.

Several complaints of bad bedside manner.

And a few after that.

Seems to look down on own patients.

Worse doctors than me have gotten by with a “bad attitude,” so she calls it. But she and I both know I have no intention of becoming those “worse doctors.” She wants the best for me, my new mantra becomes. I don’t make mistakes, and Hospital Director Celestia doesn’t stab me in the back. It’s what makes us, us.

But then, I hear Canterlot’s little message again, and think of what getting sent to a new location really means.

Shape up or ship out.

It was in that moment I knew I wasn’t going back to Canterlot. And since nopony there will ever see any of this, I guess it’s as good a time as any to really admit this to myself.

I tell myself I don’t make mistakes, just to keep myself together.

****

Twilight Sparkle, M.D.
Ponyville Hospital, Day 2, early morning

My first real medical case here starts like any other, with some amazingly gorgeous coworker asking me if I’d like to come with her on her morning muffin run. We’d been the first ponies to show up, even before the receptionist dragon. Of course, I wasn’t surprised by any stretch of the imagination, as I always make an effort to show up before anypony else. But this mare, who appears in every way to be a regular small-town nurse, has me baffled with her extreme punctuality.

To clarify: she is the type of pony who other workers at the Canterlot National Hospital would call “amazingly gorgeous,” not myself. When I say that she is, I’m saying it from a standpoint that she’s the sort society would consider reasonably attractive. Beauty is a societal convention we doctors really shouldn’t abide by, after all. It’s just a biological construct to make the mating process easier—

You know what? Scratch that, I’m embarrassing myself. All I’m saying is that with her white fur and pink mane, she could’ve passed herself off as superstar model Fleur de Lis. Speaking from a strictly professional standpoint.

Strictly. Professional.

“So that’s a no to the muffins, then?” she asks after barely ten seconds of silence. Even as she comes to this realization, she’s still smiling, something that appears to me as intensely fake.

“Considering the exorbitant amounts of sugar and low amounts of protein the average muffin contains, they’re hardly a nutritious food for breakfast or anytime else. With all that in mind, I’ll have to pass.”

Her smile is still firmly painted onto her face, but her eyes are giving me an increasingly blank look. She’s sizing me up for whatever reason, trying to update her tactics.

“You…don’t actually have to eat one,” she says. “The director thought it’d be a good idea for you to at least get to know somepony here. We’ve got at least an hour before the hospital actually opens, so…”

“It’d be better spent on prep time. I still have to make sure all my supplies are in order, even if I have checked them twice already. I intend on giving these ponies the best medical attention possible, even if they’re not used to it.”

While I do sometimes fully intend to make snide remarks at ponies who really deserve it, the minute that one came out, I could feel the tenseness flowing throughout the waiting room. And, in that moment, the smile flew straight off the other mare’s face. It was only for a second, but I swear I saw the smallest of sneers, a sly chuckle hidden underneath everything else.

“Suit yourself.”

The other mare canters out the door as fast as she can, even still with a dainty sort of step. Her medical headband, which she wore even this early in the morning, falls off as she does so, and against my own judgement, I choose to pick it up.

It might as well have been a glove dropped in anger.

She places it back on her head, gives me a strange sort of glare. Gets herself ready to go out in public again, probably with the same sort of act as before.

Is this what Hospital Director Celestia wants from me? To hide everything under this precarious mask I see the other mare wearing?

“Doctor Scarlet Redheart, since you haven’t introduced yourself,” she whispers. “I’m the director apparent here. Everypony in my family has been a nurse, and if you want to keep on my good favor, don’t call me one.”

As she slides out the door, I can’t help but wonder if I’ve already messed that much up. Hospital Director Celestia’s big task was that I was supposed to partner up with some doctor here—like some silly mystery-solving film. Today, I realize that Redheart’s just one partner to cross off the list. Partially because of that. Partially because she doesn’t come back after an hour at the muffin shop.

Not healthy, at least.

****

Twilight Sparkle, M.D.

Ponyville Hospital, Day 2, afternoon

Everypony in town so far has taken to calling me “Doc Twilight,” but I don’t have time to complain. With Redheart out of duty (for whatever reason), I have to take on her patients as well as my own. Proper names, and proper terminology, is only so much of a problem when everypony in town is getting themselves into scrapes.

Scrapes were the first part of the morning, actually, when the rainbow-maned town plumber took three foals in to have their cuts examined. Technically, she told me, she was only guardian to one of them, but they were all under her watch when the shenanigans occurred.

They happen often, according to her, since they’re always out looking for their cutie marks. That’s still no excuse for their only supervision being a mare in the middle of time-consuming labor, always out of sight.

“So I’ll quit the plumbing biz, then,” she muttered. “Been gettin’ bored of it, anyway, doc. There’s only so many times you can stick a plunger down there before you—“

“I get it. There’s no need for all the fascinatingly disgusting details.”

Just as soon as I’d finish talking, though, the mare—Rainbow Dash, her hastily-constructed badge read—began her spiel yet again.

“Anyway, I’ve been thinkin’ of starting up an amusement ride myself, for foals who can’t fly. Send ‘em around town with loop-de-loops galore and a grand finale! ‘Course, it’ll cost extra for the real special effects.”

“And how is that going to help you supervise your foal better?”

“Birds’ eye view, duh! With the flight training I have, I can totally make it work. I can do my thing and watch her at all times.”

By that point, any attempt I had at faking a smile like Ponyville Hospital’s golden mare was just not going to work. There was just too much stupidity surrounding me in one place.

“A pony’s vision, even for a pegasus so awesome as yourself, cannot detect movement from that far off the ground. And you do realize that, should you quit your job as the only plumber in town, ponies will have to go to Canterlot for their bodily needs?”

Rainbow just lined her tongue along her teeth like a particularly strict teacher, shaking her head in disapproval.

“Oh, Doc, first you tell me to quit my job, and now I shouldn’t? Sounds like a personal problem.”

I’ll spare you the rest of the transcripts of the numerous other occasions I had, since they practically all ended the same way. To make a long story short—I’m pretty sure Hospital Director Celestia had me sent here precisely because everypony here is so insufferable, I’d rather change my bedside manner than keep realizing what idiots they are.

At about 2:00 pm Canterlot time, after at least eleven reported cases of food poisoning in one day alone, Doctor Scarlet Redheart finally bothers to show up. If this is how most doctors make their morning muffin breaks, I frankly can’t fathom how they hold a job.

That sentiment stays with me for all of ten seconds. Just the amount of time needed to look Redheart in the eye and know that she’s going to be my twelfth.

Her admittedly somewhat enviable white mane has been twisted into the worst shade of green I’ve ever seen. Whatever’s caused this food poisoning—and nopony in town’s been willing to tell me all day—seems to have hit her the hardest. Nevertheless, I intend to get to the bottom of this by sheer deduction, since I now at least appear to have some lead as to how it could have occurred.

Redheart, on the other hoof, looks particularly angry and embarrassed to be on the examining table, kicking her leg almost as if she can’t be bothered to be here. If she’s supposed to be picking up on the fact that taking her in was my repayment for the utter fool I made of myself earlier, she isn’t doing a thing to indicate that.

“Have you eaten anything besides the muffins today?” I ask, at least trying to be cordial towards her.

Even if she has taken off work, left me with all her patients, and filled my schedule up to the brim, at least she’s incapacitated, I think to myself. That’s a better excuse than running off and deciding to replace Rainbow Dash as the town’s only plumber, at least.

“No,” she says curtly, still mad for no conceivable reason. “I haven’t been able to keep anything else down.”

“Did the muffin seem strange at all to you? If it happened to be doughy, then it might not have been cooked long enough for the various pathogens to be removed.”

She gives off another scoff, seeming to have completely removed her charade in the wake of her illness. Understandable, I tell myself, however reluctantly.

“I know that, and it wasn’t. It was green, but the baker likes to experiment, so I figured it was fine. You live here long enough, you know not to question her. And yeah, it tasted somethin’ terrible, but I hadn’t eaten since last night, so I figured—“

She continues her explanation in much the same manner, so much more detailed than anything the other patients have told me. I barely have room to utter a diagnosis before she practically does it herself, and even with her bad attitude and small-town upbringing, I can’t deny her skills.

“Come to think of it, one of the guest bakers, an apple farmer, seemed pretty fatigued,” Doctor Redheart finishes. “So I figure I’ll tell the team about it, and they’ll take it in. Mystery solved. Impressed at my timing, huh?”

All I can do is stare at her, still so caught up in her job even as her digestion is severely malfunctioning. Hesitantly, I wonder if I have the skills for that, and frankly, I’d rather never be put to that sort of test.

But just as I write her prescription, just as she’s about to amble out the door, she manages to surprise me, too.

“Can I tell you something, Doctor Twilight Sparkle? Here…now that nopony else is around?”

“Sure,” I answer, the only thing that manages to come out of my mouth.

“I don’t think I’m going to be here much longer,” she whispers, her voice turning vulnerable. “It’s been five good years here. It might seem a bit off the wall to you, but it’s all I know. So this morning--”

In that moment, her voice goes from zero to sixty. Not yelling at me, thankfully, but something somehow fiercer. Like a flower with a knife in its center.

“—was a test. And like I expected, you failed. You really don’t see anything in this town except another step in your grand journey. You don’t have room for friends, ‘cause you won’t be staying long.”

I struggle with explanation, trying to get her to realize that I don’t want to be here. She can keep her thankless job, for all I care. Getting back to Canterlot is all I care about.

It’s only then that I realize I’m just giving her ammunition.

“I don’t blame your director for having you go here,” she continues. “You need all the help you can get, and believe me, I had the same problem once, too. With the patients, I still need to hide it all. But with you…you’re going to see the real me. And that pony won’t let Ponyville’s only doctor just surrender to some Canterlot big shot. You’ve seen this place. If you keep impressing ponies, and I end up fired, and you end up leaving…what will Ponyville be left to then?”

She finally leaves, in a much less graceful way than before, but with no warmer words. And that’s when I realize: Doctor Twilight Sparkle may not make mistakes, but neither does Doctor Scarlet Redheart.

“I’m not going to go around Ponyville being your crime-solving buddy cop, no matter what the director says. Either I’ll force you out, or I’ll do everything I can to make you stay here forever.”

Author's Note

I've really been into a British medical show lately, and I decided with a few tweaks, Twilight could be quite the snarky doctor. Even if it's based on medical procedurals in general, that particular show's influences on this fic explain at least some things--for instance, why Ponyville Hospital is smaller than canon and why the heck I cast Dash as a get-rich-quick plumber. (For the fun of it!) Hope you enjoy--even if it doesn't update much.

For people who have read my past dramas before--this isn't a "heroes and villains" type one like I usually write, but a "rivals to lovers" drama. Rivals to lovers is probably one of the hardest types of romance to pull off, IMO, but I adore it when it's written well. Romance writing is still new to me, so I hope I can portray those great sorts of relationships here with Twilight and Redheart. :heart:

Episode Two: Trouble at the Pharmaromatherapist's

Twilight Sparkle, M.D.
Ponyville Hospital, Day 3, early morning

I wish I could say Doctor Redheart’s statement gave me pause, but I honestly hadn’t considered it much until this morning. Whether it was because I’d gotten used to ponies holding grudges over me, or because I thought she was still under the raving lunacy of food poisoning, I have no idea.

In either case, I’m experiencing even greater delays today. It seems that the practice has run out of valuable prescriptive herbs, and as the new doctor, I was the one sent out to get them. Never mind that Redheart’s sickness already has me working for two; I guess workplace hazing is something that transcends city lines. The way I expect it, I’ll be forced into some long chat with the sorts of peppy mares I’ve heard small-town pharmacists can be.

Then I see the sign, and am yet again reminded that nothing in this city is predictable.

Written in a curling script, the name is almost too large to fit onto the wooden marquee. At least, that’s certainly one way I could describe it.

“Pharmaromatherapist?” I mutter to myself, seeing if the name sounds as nonsensical out of my mouth as it does in my head. “That’s not even a word.”

“Who says it has to be?” a voice answers without warning.

It’s barely tiny and soft enough to be considered a whisper, but terrifies nonetheless. As the figure appears from the back of a very well-lit alleyway, I still flinch at the sight of the other pony, who only cringes more in response.

“Oh, did I scare you?” she says in a soft voice. “I’m very sorry about that.”

To be frank, she looks like somepony about to be eaten by a manticore. About the furthest thing from a business owner I’d expect, but I decide to play along. Thinking too much about why she is the way she is, after all, will only delay the delivery I need to make.

“It’s fine,” I reply, trying to seem as genuine as possible. “I just need to pick a few herbs from your clinic. Assuming it’s yours, anyway.”

“It is. But really, I wasn’t expecting anypony from Ponyville Hospital to come today.”

Her pink tail seems to be shaking a little less, but a worried expression still clouds her face. It’s almost the same color as Redheart’s, but with none of the bombastic confidence the other has. Everything about this pony is silky and flowy, beautiful by some standards, but unkempt by medical ones.

I wonder how many times she’s accidentally gotten that mane caught in her herbal mixtures. Probably more than I’d like to know, anyway.

“Why weren’t you?” I ask, trying to abide by Redheart’s rules in the slightest of ways. As much as I hate to admit it, she would likely handle a pony like this far better than I could, as I tend to make clinically shy ponies erupt in tears. Just as this compliment crosses my mind, though, the other mare—Fluttershy, her tag reads—interrupts me with something bound to cancel it out.

“I could’ve sworn somepony just came by yesterday,” she mutters. Giving me yet another sugary sweet glance, she holds out her hoof as though waiting for something.

It takes me a minute to realize, but I happen to be holding the herb list right out in the open. As soon as I figure it out, I hoof it over to her, and her eyes widen as she reads the ingredients.

“Sorry, we just sold those yesterday. I don’t know what happened, but somepony at the hospital must’ve already got them and forgot to tell you.”

Any other pony would’ve seen what was going on here, and I myself realized it an hour or so later. Redheart or no Redheart, my position within Ponyville Hospital is a disputed one, and apparently ponies seem to be going out of their way to prove my incompetence. Nowhere near as cutthroat as the medical rivalries I’ve seen unfold in Canterlot, but still enough to give most ponies a little bit of sting.

But then again, I’m not like most ponies. And that’s something they should’ve seriously considered before getting me into this.

Doctor Twilight Sparkle doesn’t make mistakes, I tell myself one last time as I move closer to the table lined with bottles. Some were glass and filled to the brim with potions, while many were the more modern—and less breakable—foalsafe plastic bottles.

“I guess I’ll have to chew them out about that later,” I mutter at least a little bit jokingly. “For now, I should probably get going—“

Fluttershy’s face peeked out from her selection of bottles, abrupt enough to scare me half to death yet again. Of course, just like the last time, she apologized profusely once she realized what she’d done.

“Wait,” she yelled.

Or, at least, her version of yelling. To anypony else, it was far more of a strict, clipped tone that wouldn’t even get you shushed at a library. She’d also tried to get a firm hold onto my haunches, but was only barely touching them.

“Don’t you want to see the rest of the store? I just opened it a few months ago.”

“You’re kidding, right?” I muttered without thinking. “Not only is this a town with only one plumber, but you haven’t even had a functioning pharmacy for a year?”

With the way the other mare was, I expected her to curl up into a ball at the slightest snarky comment. Instead, though, Fluttershy shook her head so hard her mane looked more like a pink tornado.

“No, no, no. We’ve had a pharmacy for quite some time. But when I became a certified aromatherapist, I thought I’d renovate the place a little. It was a lot of work getting there, but now I can say I’m the first joint herbalist/aromatherapist Equestria has ever known. A pharmaromatherapist, if you will.”

She has a distinct look of pride that betrays the fact that she had intentionally made sure her job title was the hardest thing to say in all Equestria.

“Catchy,” I mutter under my breath.

Fluttershy’s wings suddenly shake with glee, though she still doesn’t feel compelled to lift herself more than a few inches off the ground.

“I know,” she says in her little sing-songy way. “It’ll be a pleasure getting to know you, Doc.”

Before I can correct her on titles, she catapults herself towards a display of fragrances and picks one up to show me. For something that’s meant to be for aromatherapy, it looks surprisingly like a perfume bottle.

“I heard you were having trouble with Doctor Redheart. Rose is her favorite scent.”

“And this is supposed to do…?”

“It’ll cheer her up, of course! Rose oil is great for easing anxiety after a hard day at work, and it even comes with a nice brew of Earl Grey.”

As she prattles on, that last bit raises my eyebrows just a little more.

“You make tea, too?” I question. With the amount of weirdly herb-related specialties this mare has, it really wouldn’t surprise me.

“No, silly. I’m terrible at making tea. But Rainbow Dash is really good at it.”

If there was some tiny part of me that was honestly thinking about buying the rose oil gift basket, it was certainly gone now. I know Dash had said she was going to change jobs, but…

My eyes twitch and every part of my being reels from the sheer unsanitariness of it all. With that, I give Fluttershy a quick wave good-bye and bolt straight out. The phararomatherapist’s bell rings, barely audible, and I can just hear Fluttershy call out as I leave.

“It’s not made out of sewage! I promise!”

From the corner of my eye, I can see her sulking at the table, her snout just barely touching one of the bottles.

“Oh, everypony always does that when I bring up the tea.”

****

Twilight Sparkle, M.D.
Ponyville Hospital, Day 3, noon

As much as I’d like to spend the rest of the day foiling Rainbow Dash’s inexplicable plan to get the town sick on tea, it turns out that the pharmaromatherapy clinic has come with other complications. After a strange lull in the amount of patients, somepony finally comes in, and she barely has to say a word before I know what’s wrong. Partially because I’m just that good.

Partially because bits of her fur have been entirely covered by sun rashes.

She’s fretting a lot more than most patients with this problem, her eyes moving from me to her legs and back again.

“Can you help me, doctor?” she practically cries. “I have a fashion show in Canterlot tomorrow, and I simply can’t look like this.”

With the amount of time she’s spent stooped over at her legs, I’d barely noticed that the rashes cover her neck, too. While I don’t quite know how the Canterlot elite feels about ponies with mild sun-related issues, I’ve never seen anypony with a sunburn there. Whether it really is because basic skin functions are looked down upon there, or just some protective sun field the princess sets up around the town, it probably would make her stick out like a sore thumb.

I get the patient’s name—Rarity—from the receptionist, and call her into the closest office. She manages to be dignified about it, but I get the impression that she’s still panicking internally about the splotches on her white fur.

“Sunburns can take up to a week to heal,” I tell her once she’s inside. “Spells don’t work on them, or speed up the process. If it works with the dress code, I’d recommend wearing a scarf or socks to cover them up.”

I was about to ask her if she had the aforementioned clothes items, but from the way her eyes light up, I feel it hardly necessary. The receptionist had told me she was a well-known fashion designer around here, and from the looks of it, she’s probably formulating a new look to meet both requirements.

As she nods to herself about seemingly nothing at all, I continue, “How much time have you spent out in the sun this week?”

Rarity awakes from her fashion-induced reverie and places a hoof on her chin, patting it from one place to another repeatedly.

“Not any more than usual,” she admits. “I do tend to stay in my boutique quite a bit, and I’m usually very careful when it comes to taking care of my skin. I’d say I go out three hours at most, mainly in the morning, and never without sunscreen.”

That, at least, explains why she came to the clinic about a simple sunburn. I haven’t seen very many cases with them myself, but patients do tend to be surprised by the sheer amount of factors that can cause this sort of irritation, and now that the sun portion is safely debunked, I move on to the next major cause.

“Have you been on any new medications?” I question. “Some painkillers and prescription skin creams have been known to increase skin sensitivity.”

Rarity shakes her head again, which is at least preferable to the “you’re a doctor, you should know” response I probably would’ve gotten from certain other citizens had I asked them the same question.

As I lean in closer to inspect the mysterious rashes, I can just detect a faint smell coming off of them. Approaching the rest of her body, I can see that the scent hasn’t spread everywhere; just on the irritated regions.

I won’t pretend to be an aromatherapist, or pharmaromatherapist, or anything of the like, but I at least have some working knowledge of perfumes. There was a huge scent craze in Canterlot a while back, and quite a few ponies ended up in the hospital for it. While that case was largely due to improperly and cheaply manufactured perfumes, it still compelled me to research the subject a bit more.

As it turns out, some scents cause certain adverse reactions based on body composition, and allergies and migraines are just a few. But there are some universal reactions that happen to everypony who comes into contact with the perfume.

“Are those…oranges I smell on the affected areas?” I ask.

“No,” Rarity replies.

My head droops suddenly, figuring I’ve been experiencing some sort of olfactory hallucination that I really ought to get checked. But then her mouth opens again.

“It’s from Fluttershy’s shop. Made from the finest Manehattan citrus ingredients, which makes them not oranges, but…oh-ran-jes!”

Here’s a fact for you: a surprisingly large amount of Equestrian languages use the same word for “orange” as we do. I’d read about it in a book once, but didn’t quite remember it until now. Any other time, I’d have been frustrated with Rarity’s attempts to seem fancy by pronouncing the word in a foreign language, but now, all I feel is the relief of a case solved.

“Where did you apply the scent?” I press her.

“Well, one very famous Prench fashion designer said you should always put perfume where you would like to be kissed. That’s the advice I always follow.”

I give the mare a good stare for a few moments, trying to figure out just what is wrong with that sentence.

“You want to be kissed on the neck?”

The white mare blushes almost instantaneously when I say this.

“I’d say that’s a rather private thing, wouldn’t you?” she replies, almost singing with awkwardness.

“Anyway,” I continue before things manage to make themselves even weirder, “aromatherapy oils are extremely concentrated, far more so than regular perfume. Any effect perfume has on the body, these oils amplify it, which is why they should be used in extremely small doses. While this citrus oil is perfectly fine for you to use at home, orange scent has been known to make ponies photosensitive.”

The minute I realize what I just said in front of a fashion-minded pony, I already regret it.

Don’t go for the pun, I tell myself, don’t go for the pun…

“Oh, but darling,” Rarity answers, striking a fierce and camera-ready pose, “I’m already photo-sensitive!”

She went for the pun.

“I’m sure you are,” I mutter, “but here, ‘photosensitive’ means you’re sensitive to light. Your fur is more likely to sunburn, but as long as you don’t use the oil when you’re about to go in the sun, you should be fine. Orange perfume doesn’t have this effect, so if you’re that deadset on tropical scents, you should buy some in Canterlot tomorrow.”

Once again, Rarity’s eyes light up at the sheer possibilities. I can tell that she’s already done a good deal of perfume shopping and knows exactly which scents to narrow herself down to.

In that moment, I realize I just gave a mare full permission to indulge herself on a shopping spree. It’s not something most doctors do, annoying as it is.

But then again, I’m not most doctors.

Author's Note

You have no idea how many of Rarity's lines were ad-libbed. You just can't plan fabulosity like that, can you? :raritywink:

Also, as IGYALL readers might have already caught on to, this whole part was basically a way of blaming my usual villains, the Manehattan Oranges, for something that happens in a story they're not even part of. (That and the fact I had to do an entire project on sunscreen for marketing finals.) This is probably the one indication I'll give that they're not in the same universe: if they were, there's no way Rarity would willingly buy Manehattan Orange products.

Episode Three: Healers' Combat

Twilight Sparkle, M.D.

Ponyville Hospital, Day 7, early morning

Days start to blend into each other once Doctor Redheart comes back to work. I knew in advance that the hustle and bustle of the medical profession, even in a town as small as Ponyville, would prevent me from keeping a daily journal. However, I did not predict it would happen quite so soon as it did.

It’s a constant back-and-forth between Redheart and I, leaving little time for us to work out our problems even if we wanted to. Now that her patients have returned to her, she’s growing ever more distant, the way things were probably meant to be in the first place. In the meantime, each catastrophe that comes to me is no worse than the last; at the very least, unpredictable events come in steady paces here.

Oh, gosh. Only a week in, and I’m already starting to rationalize strangeness that should never be rationalized. It’s like Ponyville grabs ponies into its clutches and makes them think every little part of it is normal. Disgusting, really.

Anyway, I’m back at the pharmaromatherapist’s shop, yet another thing I should never have accepted as the norm. Even the word itself is no longer strange to me. I get the feeling I’ll be stuck with errand filly tasks like these for a while, but today, at least the shipment is there. Doctor Redheart isn’t trying to trick me this time.

However, the pharmaromatherapist is nowhere to be found, and nopony’s at the register. I do not have time for this.

“Fluttershy!” I yell, not caring who can hear. “I need you to ring up my shipment!”

Still no response, not even when I ring the bell on the countertop. With my luck, maybe she hasn’t even woken up yet. After all, the shop has housing just above it, making it all too easy for her to assume nopony would come at this hour.

With Redheart in my mind, telling me to at least try to tolerate this town’s ponies, I keep my cool as best I can. My eyes glaze over as they look over the various herbs and mixtures, not really caring about what a single one does. The rack of sunglasses near the front of the store catch my eyes a little more, and I make a mental note to pick up a particular pair once summer weather kicks in. Eventually, though, my patience wears thin once more after I’d managed to keep it for five long minutes.

My idle walk through the store has proven that Fluttershy is nowhere within its limits, so I hesitantly decide to walk into the pharmacist’s room. The “Employees Only” sign shames me as if it knows exactly what I’m going to do, and honestly, I’ve never disobeyed that sort of thing. I keep thinking there’s going to be some sort of siren that goes off once I trot inside, and that I’ll already have the Ponyville police on me on my first week of duty.

Instead, the room is completely serene, filled to the brim with soothing sounds. There’s a large desk inside, and the yellow pony that should be working the counter is deep in thought of some kind. She’s concentrating on a stack of paper, occasionally making slight pencil strokes and erasing them.

It strikes me with sudden sympathy, remembering the sorts of paperwork that show up at this hour. Medical professionals, to my knowledge, share this type of kindred feeling whenever they fill out more papers than patients; it’s one of the things I despise most about my profession.

The feeling fades just as quickly when I look down at what’s on the paper: what looks to be the second or third draft of a comic book. A well-drawn comic, yes, but still a comic.

“What in the name of Equestria are you doing?”

I try to keep my voice low, but Fluttershy still flinches to the point of almost falling off her chair. Even in fear, she twists her pencil away from the paper and ensures no stray marks will get on the drawing. Clearly, this exact scenario has happened enough times before and resulted in just as many mistakes.

“Um, drawing manga?” she finally replies once she calms down.

“I can see that,” I mutter with a deadpan expression on my face. “But why? Shouldn’t you be handling prescriptions?”

“I didn’t think anypony had shown up yet. Oh my, I’m so sorry for keeping you waiting!”

She starts grabbing medications left and right, something I’d warn her against if she wasn’t so good at finding them accurately. Somehow, she manages to get the whole task done in less than a minute, and by the time I leaving the room, she’s already seated at the counter.

“Again, I am so incredibly sorry, doctor. It’s just a hobby of mine. I won’t let it get in the way of my job anymore.”

Normally, I’d still tell somepony off if they made these types of mistakes, but Fluttershy’s nearly crying already. Even though ponies call me unpleasant from time to time, I do have limits.

Sometimes, I just wish they knew about them.

“It’s fine,” I reply with a slightly unconvincing smile. I figure I’ll play along, if only to placate her. “How long have you been working on this?”

“It’s my second volume,” she says, her eyes practically aglow with stars. “I started selling the first one in bookstores, and it sold really well!”

She’s already in daydream mode, ready to rant about her hoof-drawn baby. I make a mental note to duck out as soon as I can, but stay for the first few moments.

“It all started a year or so ago, when I found out the artist for Skipper Sun was a pharmacist just like me. I’ve always been good at drawing, so I figured maybe I could follow her example and make my own magical filly manga. But instead of pirates and planets, it’s all themed around aromatherapy!”

Of course it is, I think to myself. Taking a look at the cover, I groan internally yet again.

Scent-sational Perfumer Cassia. Does everypony in this town speak in bad puns?

“Right now, the team’s made up of Cassia, Cedarwood, and Lemon, and they just found Perfumer Rose. But Rose doesn’t want anything to do with the rest of them and would prefer to fight the evil on her own. So she gets captured by a second-level villain, and the main three combine their powers into the Legendary Bath Bomb!”

There’s a display of bath bombs on display, and predictably enough, Fluttershy runs straight to it and grabs the first one she sees.

“In the volume I’m working on, they’ve just unlocked its power. It gathers magical power until it’s placed in a water source. Then, it amplifies it in a rush of pressurized water, takes the enemy by storm, and gives the room a lovely lemon-cinnamon scent. Only four bits!”

Of course, these sorts of stories were always meant to sell merchandise, but this is just ridiculous. That said, I buy two anyway, if only for the delightful way their scent wafts through the air.

Before long, I walk out of the pharmaromatherapist’s with all needed prescriptions, two Legendary Bath Bombs, and an advance copy of Scent-sational Perfumer Cassia. The only reason Fluttershy let me out of the store as soon as she did was because I told her I’d be her prereader.

“It releases in a month, so give it back with edits as soon as possible,” Fluttershy calls out as she left. “Thanks so much, Twilight!”

I would protest about her addressing me without my title, but another item pokes inside my bag. It’s the rose oil relaxation set from before, with Rainbow Dash’s Earl Grey tea bags attached.

“Consider it my gift,” she says as I notice. “I really do appreciate you trying to reach out to Nurse Redheart.”

I want to yell out to her that it’s Doctor Redheart, and that I’m not trying to reach out to her. I could care less about anything that stubborn mare says, but my mouth can’t keep up with my thoughts, and I just end up staring into space.

“She does so much for everypony, yet I’ve never seen her with a friend. I hope you’ll be the one to change that.”

I’m not going to be. Even if I were to believe it, Redheart would never let me in. And now I’m in the street, late to work, and stuck with the most lovey-dovey aromatherapy gift set possible. Stuck without an excuse.

****

Twilight Sparkle, M.D.

Ponyville Hospital, Day 7, (later) early morning

I trot into the office as quietly as I can, hoping nopony else has noticed my tardiness. Sure, it’s only been a half hour, if even that, yet just walking in, I get the strangest feeling that somepony is watching me.

Sure enough, somepony is. The exact last pony I need to see right now. I’m going to have to come up with an excuse far sooner than I would’ve liked.

“You’re later than usual,” Doctor Redheart mutters as I walk by. I swear I can hear the tiniest scoff out of her mouth, but she already has her perfect-doctor smile on. Of course.

“Fluttershy told me to give you this,” I answer bluntly, wanting to get this out of the way as quickly as possible. “I was just going to get prescriptions, but she was talking me up about how glad she was that you got well, so…here.”

I unceremoniously give her the package, filled with oils, bath gels, and all sorts of other instruments of relaxation. The thing’s probably worth at least thirty bits, all the more reason for me to pass it off as a gift from Fluttershy. For what it’s worth, it actually cheers Redheart up enough for her to pass a real smile in my direction. Then she realizes where she is and who she’s with, and she’s already back to her usual snorts of annoyance.

“I wasn’t out for that long,” she replies. “I mean, I appreciate the thought, but…don’t get the wrong idea.”

“About what?”

“About me being some incompetent doctor who’s always getting herself sick. It’s bad enough that ponies are showering me with gifts, but not being able to put up my A-game in front of you…”

Redheart looks at the box with the utmost disgust, as if she knows what its true intentions were. However, it only takes her ten seconds to get back to the way she ogled at it before. She’s ranting about how she’s going to take it straight back to Fluttershy, probably because she assumes the sheer sight of a get-well present will lead me to exploit her every weakness, before she finds the hidden compartment.

“Oh my stars, there’s Rainbow Tea in here, too?” she nearly shouts, becoming more and more like Fluttershy with every passing second. She’s basically devolved into a schoolfilly version of herself, holding my front leg up against her and gesturing closer to the tea. Almost as if, in this moment, she mistakes me for a friend.

“You don’t get how hard this is to find, do you? It’s right up there with Sweet Apple cider as the best-selling beverage in Ponyville, and it only comes out once a year. I’d thought every last box of this had sold already!”

I’ve already gotten one lecture like this today, and I certainly can’t put up with another. I opt to interrupt her as soon as she goes through my bag and starts squealing about me being Fluttershy’s prereader.

“You really are bad at hiding your emotions, aren’t you?”

Just like all the other times, it only takes a few split seconds for her to return to normal. It’s almost as if these moods are caused by some sort of magic spell, with one fading into another as easily as they begin.

I don’t realize it now, but as soon as she goes back, part of me almost wishes it’d lasted longer. Wonders how things could possibly turn out if we could be friends.

Seven days in, and the pharmacist has managed to get to me as much as the city itself has. Here I am, playing right into her plan. Thankfully, Redheart’s there to set me straight.

“It’s a skill you’d do well to learn,” she says as she twirls on her back legs. “For one, there’s no way I’d act the way I did if I knew Fluttershy had bought that for me.”

Am I really that transparent? I ask myself as she winks in satisfaction. Suddenly, memories of all the times I’ve had to lie and hide secrets from ponies, even the tiniest ones. Was I always like that, or is this just another recent development?

Yet again, she chooses to swerve in a different direction, shifting the conversation towards the subject of a parasprite epidemic in Ponyville. Apparently, even though the creatures themselves have moved on, the bites they left are still causing trouble around town. With the most hesitant tone possible, she tells me that she knows nothing about these sorts of insect bites, and her voice fights against itself as she asks for my help. I tell her that I have everything under control, like always.

“I know what Fluttershy’s trying to pull with us,” she says. “She’s done it enough times with me, and none of her friendship matches end up working out. I don’t intend for it to work out this time, but if I had to quit hiding my feelings, I’d say…thanks for bothering to try harder than anypony else did with me.”

Everything, I figure out as she leaves, except for her.

Author's Note

Skipper Sun=ponified Sailor Moon+pirate dresses instead of sailor suits. It's already an AU--I can dream, right?

Anyway, apologies for the lack of medical cases in this part. After a lot of thought, I figured a character development part would be best. Will definitely make up for it this time!

Episode Four: Love Bites

Twilight Sparkle, M.D.

Ponyville Hospital, Day 7, noon

I know absolutely nothing about parasprite bites.

In the middle of the moment, when Redheart would’ve talked up a storm about how incompetent I was, I figured the best way out would be to fake it. Now, as I page through book after book and dread the onslaught of patients, I realize the flaws in my thinking.

“Come on, come on, where is it?” I ask out loud, even though my fellow doctors could probably hear me from the other room. “I could’ve sworn there was a chapter on magical pathogens somewhere…”

Okay, I do have some area of expertise when it comes to these sorts of things, but it was never a situation I anticipated in Canterlot. And believe me, I anticipate everything. I always took the best notes in my rare ailments classes, but we only spent, what, a day on parasprites, if even that? As fast as they might reproduce, they’re still an endangered species in most of Equestria.

But, as I often found myself saying these days—not in Ponyville.

Eventually, I give up looking through my limited bookshelf and cut straight to the point. I know plenty about parasprites, and plenty about insect bites, so I run the facts in my head while I eat what little lunch I was able to pick up. While these sorts of bites can cause allergic reactions in the most severe cases, it’s incredibly rare for such a thing to happen, and parasprites—to my knowledge, at least—aren’t poisonous. Normally, they just cause your typical itching and pain symptoms—yet neither of these line up with the urgency Redheart had in her voice when she told me about it.

Sure, she could’ve just as easily have been pulling my leg, but I still insist that I saw another side to her just now. Not that I’m letting my guard any around her, or letting her know I think this way, but something tells me that even somepony as annoying as her wouldn’t lie about this.

So right now, things could go in either one of two ways: it could be a town-wide pandemic with relatively mild symptoms, or parasprites could be far more dangerous than I could’ve imagined. If you’ve known me long enough, you probably know which theory I’m willing to take.

However, both happen to be thrown out of the water when I see Cheerilee, the first patient to come in with these symptoms. Seeing the job title on her paperwork is enough to alert me to the issue—if bug bites are enough to keep a schoolteacher out of the system, everything has to be far worse than I thought.

I practically take one deep breath after another as she comes through the door, covered in multicolored spots the likes of which I’ve never seen before. And then, only moments later, she faints on the waiting room floor.

****

Twilight Sparkle, M.D.

Ponyville Hospital, Day 7, afternoon

Dr. Twilight Sparkle doesn’t make mistakes. Dr. Twilight Sparkle doesn’t make mistakes. Everything I do happens for a reason, and I always come back at the end. Dr. Twilight Sparkle doesn’t make mistakes.

When I was a filly, I didn’t have the kinds of coping skills I do now. When Redheart asked me why I hide my emotions, it’s all because of situations like this, ones that I thought could never happen again. Everypony I knew would laugh whenever I freaked out, had one of my little “Twilight Explosions.” It was adorable then.

When your doctor is watching you with bated breath as you show up with something so rare that she doesn’t even know how to handle it, barely keeping herself from hyperventilating, it is not adorable. It’s something that I’ve spent years and loads upon loads of bits crushing into a barely recognizable dust, along with anything else that could keep me from being the most efficient doctor possible. Doctors, after all, do not cry unless somepony dies, and after a while, even that grows numb.

I bite down every last feeling of despair, fear, and everything else I’ve been trained to tune out while scanning the patient’s vital signs. Nothing appears to be wrong with her heart rate, and other than the fact that her comatose body is lying right in front of me, there’s no other indication that she’s in severe condition. That, at least, rules out some of the worst possibilities.

The pockmarks all over her, on the other hoof, are another matter entirely. For them to have spread so quickly, she had to have been in closer contact with parasprites than anypony else in Ponyville. As I’ve waited on her, I’ve had to shuffle back and forth between other bite victims, and yet nopony seems to be showing any signs other than an itch that, in the nearby apple farmer’s words, “smarts like burrs on a jackrabbit.”

As I pace towards the waiting room and back into the examining area, I can distinctly hear Rarity lecturing the panicked public on the benefits of clear hoof polish as an itching remedy.

For the love of all things holy, I have never felt so relieved to see somepony think they can do my job by listing off a bunch of old pony’s tales. All we need is Fluttershy going on about detox treatments, and maybe they won’t notice my utter incompetence.

I pick up a book on entomology from the hospital library, figuring maybe it’d have more information about parasprite infections, or that maybe finding a book on such an obscure topic would be fate. By the time I go back to Cheerilee’s room, she’s only just barely beginning to wake up, and I can feel an invisible stopwatch over my head. I flip to the book’s index as quickly as I can, and just like that, the answer hits me between the eyes.

With most cases in the medical world, things are aptly named and categorized based on their most prevalent traits. Thankfully, while the parasprite happens to be a rarity in innumerable ways, it certainly isn’t one in this case.

Or, in less eloquent words: para-sprite. Para-site. Duh.

I moan, realizing that getting annoyed at the endless punning of the world is, at least, one step above a panic attack. To make things even more surprising, it turns out that the necessary treatment for parasprite bites is only slightly different than the normal parasite regimen, and by that, I mean it that it takes twice as many pills to cure. Apparently, even with their strange and disgusting reproductive habits, larval parasprites still lay eggs, which burrow into the skin like an odd combination of ticks and head lice.

As a smile creeps onto my lips, I remember that there’s a reason why ponies say doctors have low disgust thresholds.

Before I get too far into thought, though, Cheerilee begins to wake up again, at which point I prepare to put the mask back on. Never let the patient know your weaknesses. Give them the best show possible, with the best results.

And the most important thing I ever learned in medical school: be sure to get the facts as quickly as possible, especially when something doesn’t add up.

“I’ll tell it to you straight,” I say just before she responds. “Your symptoms don’t line up with anypony else’s. To my knowledge, nopony’s reached your level of severity. How long have you had these bites?”

Cheerilee just stares off into space, as if she barely comprehends the question. Her eyes are glazed and green like somepony under a changeling’s spell, though I realize the irony of comparing one insect creature to another only after I complete the thought.

“I wish I could give you some,” she drawls, “but I already ate all of them on my lunch break.”

She glances at a red box sticking out of her saddlebag, about the same size as a typical movie theater snack. In huge print, the label reads, “Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Bites.”

Well, at least she doesn’t have low blood sugar, I tell myself as I try to get through her delirious ramblings.

“What kind of teacher am I, really? I always tell my students to bring enough treats for everypony, and here I am…”

Finally taking in her surroundings, her eyes widen, and she trails off. She has barely enough strength to scratch her head in confusion, which exceeds my expectations considering how much blood the parasite parasprites must’ve sucked out of her.

“How long have I been in here, doc?” she asks. “Will I have to stay the night?”

“Hopefully not. You’re just a bit anemic from the parasprite bites.”

Trying to be as sympathetic as possible against my better instinct, I add, “It might not seem that minor to you, but sometimes, stress can cause the problem to escalate. From what I know of working with foals, that was probably what did you in. And from what we know, your bites aren’t contagious, so you can pick up some iron supplements and antiparasitics from Fluttershy whenever you’re comfortable. So, how long have you been like this?”

Once again, her head stretches up to the sky, or at least as far as her hospital pillow would allow her. Cheerilee places a hoof to her chin in thought, wincing when she realized it was an infected area.

“A couple of days, I’d say,” she replies. “Most of the parasprites were gone by the time I got it.”

Once again, just when this case seems to be making sense, another wrench is thrown into the whole thing. If Cheerilee’s condition matches up with a parasprite infestation, and no other parasites can replicate the symptoms, how could she have gotten it once they’d left? Without thinking, I find myself replicating her gesture, and I realize I probably look like a mocking foal.

Before I can even ask, though, for once all the facts fall straight into my lap. I barely have to press my patient before she admits everything to me, even though a fearful look crosses her face for the slightest of seconds.

“I had all the right safeguards in place, honest,” she begins. “It’s just that some were still left in my house, and I thought it’d be the perfect opportunity. We’re doing an insect unit in my class, and I figured the students would appreciate something rarer.”

“And you don’t think they’d seen enough parasprites these past few days?”

She just smiles in response to my out-of-place remark. While I figure she’s used to hearing ponies mouth off, it still strikes me as more than a little odd.

However, I shake the thought off and tell myself that’s not important. The Ponyville schoolhouse could be ground zero for a second wave of parasprite attacks, and parasprite infections. One could just as easily educate themselves with mosquitoes, or brown recluses, or even deadly scorpions. Why stop at parasprites when you could practically decimate Ponyville’s entire foal population with a single bug?

It takes a few seconds before I notice that I actually said all that out loud, and that Cheerilee is surprisingly not in tears.

“I figured I’d get a lecture like that from you,” she says. “That’s why it took so long for me to get my flank over here. For what it’s worth, though, I have had an exterminator stop by, and I received the brunt of the bites when the parasprites escaped their enclosure. You won’t find anypony else at the school with these things.”

Even as she lectures me in her own way, her voice never goes above a teasing tone, and considering how much time I’ve spent around ponies like Redheart, part of me actually appreciates that. Granted, she still released parasprites into one of Ponyville’s most cherished public institutions, but the way she took all those bites for her students proves she isn’t a complete moron.

Or, at least, that she hasn’t lost sight of her real profession like I have. I realize that maybe that’s what Celestia meant when she sent me here: that in order to succeed, I have to see my patients as more than just ponies below me. That I have to ask myself when I stopped caring and get myself back to that point.

I sure know I wouldn’t take a swarm of parasprites for this town, but maybe I’ll get there someday. Against all my training, somehow I soak in this sappy, sentimental feeling as I treat Cheerilee on autopilot. Next thing I know, I’ll be saying that a certain somepony isn’t as bad as I’ve made her out to be.

It takes an hour, maybe two, for me to reprogram myself into thinking this sort of idea is idiotic to the extreme. But it only takes a few moments, just when Cheerilee is about to check out, for me to reach that uncertain state again. That state where I don’t know who I am, or what I’ve worked for, or if I was ever right in the first place.

Cheerilee notices the parasitology book right as she leaves, and yet she isn’t as judgmental as I thought she’d be. She doesn’t think anything of it, and instead starts skimming through for ideas on treatments—or, knowing her, lesson plans.

After she skims through it for a few seconds, I notice her snagging on a single page: the first one, which shouldn’t have anything written on it. Before I open my mouth to respond, though, Cheerilee hands me a tiny note, giggling like a filly before giving it one last look. I recognize the slip of paper instantly as one of the items from Fluttershy’s gift basket and read it with intense dread.

Twilight Sparkle,

This is from my personal collection. I figured you might need it. Remember, never be afraid to ask for help! <3

Doctor Scarlet Redheart

Numerous thoughts race through my head, from Redheart signing the note with an uncharacteristic heart to sheer shock at how she was able to get the book there so quickly in the first place. And yet somehow, one reigns supreme among them all.

Is everypony in this town trying to get us together?!

Author's Note

Either that letter is planted, or Redheart's had a change of heart?! Either way, it's sure to be a great part next time.

Every great medical show has to have an episode where someone randomly faints and they're rushing to recover them in time. My apologies to Jack of a Few Trades for making it Cheerilee.

Episode Five: Midnight Blues

Scent-sational Perfumer Cassia--Book Two, Chapter Eight

“Would you say you care about the fate of this planet?”

The light red pegasus flinched and tugged at her fluffy brown dress as the other mare drew even nearer. With her silvery fur and light purple mane, this older unicorn could’ve easily been a model in her past life. But now, she was Perfumer Rose, the pony destined to save the world…and also destined to be her enemy.

Perfumer Cassia stared at Rose for as long as she could, hoping to find a hint of sympathy in her eyes. But she couldn’t help it. Rose was a warrior who’d been training for Celestia knows how long, and Cassia was only a simple florist. Of course, this match was going to be weighed against her the moment she’d stepped into it.

That’s why she’d always wanted to fight fate and bring Rose to her team of Scent-sational Perfumers, and why she’d saved her from their enemies instead of leaving her to die. Maybe she wasn’t really fit to be a guardian of friendship after all, and every decision she’d ever made had been out of cowardice.

Rose’s gaze weakened her more than any enemy attack ever could, and all she could do was nod as the purple Perfumer asked her question.

“O-of course,” Cassia whispered. “Why wouldn’t I? Surely you don’t want Equus to fall into the Mist of Despair, do you?”

It took every piece of her will to turn her hesitation into accusation. It pained her to think about it, but she knew deep down that Rose wouldn’t be moved by friendship anymore. And, if a Perfumer’s heart had blackened to this point, who was to say they were one at all? Who was to say everything she’d known about Rose wasn’t a lie?

Meanwhile, the other magical filly only chuckled in response.

“You never change, do you, Cassia? You keep going mission by mission until a better one comes along. You never once realize that villains strike the same place twice. You flit your little wings from planet to planet whenever anypony needs you, and leave once you don’t. You doom everypony else to the aftershocks of a second attack. And always, the more you run away, the sooner you die.”

Rose’s face suddenly went blank, as if remembering more apocalypses than anypony could imagine. Perfumers could regenerate only a year after their deaths, good as new and with no memories of their past, but how?

How could Rose have gamed a system not even the gods herself could change?

“That is the story of your past life, and why I work alone.”

“But you need me!” Cassia found herself saying without thinking. “Us! You were captured so easily without a magical team by your side! I don’t want you to have to go through that again.”

The other mare cornered her ever closer, staring into her eyes with pillars of purple flame.

“I have, more times than you can count. All because I rely on you against my better senses. Something needs to change this time, and I have a feeling you won’t. If it means seeing you have to save me again, I’d rather die.”

With a lips curled in a particularly nasty snarl, Rose whispered, “Tell me, do you even care about the ponies you save anymore? Because here’s what I think. Saving the world, and everypony in it, has always just been a power trip to you. And when you run out of ponies, you run to the next place that needs you.”

Fear suddenly blossomed onto Cassia’s face, and the black spires of evil all around only hurt matters even more. Doing such a thing in a villain’s lair, when the two of them could easily be caught yet again, had to mean that Rose had lost all reason. Yet her words bit her in the side nonetheless.

Was she really destined to leave Equus again, if her past self had done it so many times? Was she herself doing the things Rose said without even thinking about them?

“Well, I won’t turn into one of your little pawns. I’ll never let you think I need you, and so you’ll chase me until the end of time. If that’s what it takes to keep you anchored to this disastrous planet, I’ll do it as many times as it takes.”

With that, Rose trotted away, her head held high. But Cassia couldn’t help but wonder: how many times had this same scene unfolded? Was there really a past, or a future, in which the two of them could be allies?

These were the sorts of feelings the purple unicorn always seemed to stir in her: pandemonium, sadness, and very occasionally, longing. She knew she didn’t just look at Rose as somepony to save, whatever her past self did. But what did she see her fellow Perfumer as?

And would Rose, as aloof and elusive as any of the purple-frocked mares in her magical filly stories, ever see her the same way?

****

Twilight Sparkle, M.D.

Ponyville Hospital, Day 10, early evening

Saving the world, and everypony in it, has always just been a power trip to you.

Way to hit a nerve, Rose. Way to hit a nerve, not just for your little co-star, but for me, too.

As I spend my dinner break reading this weird comic, which seems way too childish for me to have sought out if the pharmacist hadn’t coaxed me into it, I can’t help but feel along with Cassia, and as much as I hate to admit it, it does make me wonder.

I curse these stupid sorts of feelings even as they come into my head—why should I care if it’s a power trip or not? Ponies get saved either way, and I certainly don’t run away from my responsibilities like Cassia apparently does. Gosh, her past self is such an idiot. If I was Rose, I would’ve cut with the lecture and punched herself straight in the—

Oh, for the love of all things holy, I’m actually having an existential crisis over a magical filly manga instead of getting ready for work. What even is my life right now?

With that dismaying question in mind, I turn my attention towards something even more important, something that, in hindsight, should’ve been extremely obvious. I add up the facts like a subpar detective in a dollar-store novel: Redheart likes rose scent the best, Rose herself was getting pretty close to Cassia, everypony in this town seems to want the two of us to end up together…

With a sigh of annoyance, I’m beginning to wonder if Fluttershy was a bigger mastermind than I thought, and as I ponder this, I accidentally say a few of my strange little questions out loud.

“So Rose must be Redheart, then…”

“Really? She seems a ton more like Healer Midnight to me.”

I swear, just hearing the answer makes me jump six feet in the air. As soon as my fear reflex eases up, I’m able to tell that somepony had been reading over my shoulder all this time. Yet another obvious thing I should’ve noticed, and yet somehow didn’t. Have I always been this dense?

Seeing the bewildered look in my eyes, Redheart adds, “You know, from Beautiful Healers? The magical manga that’s been sweeping Nippon for, what, the last ten years now?”

It’s almost hilarious how she thinks I’m all confused because I don’t know what she’s talking about. Because ponies definitely sneak up on their coworkers on a regular basis. But like I said, almost.

“Actually, she does seem a bit too high-strung to be a pure Midnight rip-off. So come to think of it, she’s probably got a bit of Healer Chance in her, too. It certainly makes her more interesting that way.”

She’s talking to a wall in every sense of the word. Not only is she doing so in the usual sense, but at the moment, she’s literally facing one, and I hate myself for finding humor in the sort of corny joke Ponyvillians would go wild over. In any case, I start waving my hoof in front of her face to get her back to her usual Redheart, and out of whatever weird fanfilly phase she’s in.

In any other circumstance, I would absolutely hate to do this, as it’d be far easier to just let her rant and move on. But this is the first time she’s been willing to talk to me in three days, and I have to know what was up with the letter in that book. As hard as I try not to think about it, it always comes up, even though I know it’s probably a plant. I tell myself every day that surely Fluttershy would’ve had a book like that, and bringing it over would’ve been yet another ingenious way to get us closer together. But somehow, part of me almost wants it to be Redheart’s work, for some stupid, inexplicable reason.

Either way, it goes against the mare she usually is, which means I have to confront it eventually. From the few days I’ve been here, I know that her acting out of character is usually a bad sign, either for me or for the entire city. So I press on and distract her the manga as much as I can.

“But really, I don’t mind you comparing me to Midnight,” she goes on, her voice sounding more noticeably flirty than before. “She’s my absolute favorite character, so that’s the best compliment you could give me. And to think, if you would’ve said that when we first met, maybe we wouldn’t be at each other’s throats so much…”

“MIDNIGHT!”

I practically facepalm at myself the minute I realize what I yelled. At least, by the time I’m through having her explain everything to me, she’ll probably forget my slip-up.

“I—I MEAN REDHEART! I NEED TO TALK TO YOU!”

For somepony who’s probably yelled at her fair share of patients, Doctor Redheart actually looks pretty scared to be on the receiving end. However, she regains her composure just as soon as she loses it, and suddenly, her usual annoyed stare is back on her face.

“I thought we were already talking,” she mutters. “And if anypony asks, I just wanted to read Fluttershy’s comic. Getting close to you was just a consequence of that, so don’t get too excited.”

As much as everything seems back to normal, I can’t help but get the impression that she’s laying it on a bit thick today. Something seems off about the way she engages me, from her threatening stance to her insults themselves. Today, it almost seems like the regular Redheart is just an act, and the sickeningly kind and energetic shtick she does for the patients is real. Either way, I can’t shake the feeling that something about the mare is empty somehow, and may not be returning anytime soon.

For some reason, the pain of knowing that is almost too much, even if she is my rival.

“It’s about the letter,” I ask hesitantly, trying to use my most sincere tone. “Were you really the one who wrote it?”

Just like usual, for one distant moment, her face is neutral, shocked even. But the minute she realizes I’m the enemy yet again, anger twists onto every part of her.

“Of course. Why? You think I’d never want to help you? That this rivalry doesn’t go completely off the table when there are lives at risk?”

Like Cassia, I stand limp in disbelief, seeing a side of Redheart I never thought I would. As easy as it can be to reduce her to some enemy figure, she really does care about her patients enough to shut down every interaction between us. She’s every bit as close to her patients as she is distant from everypony else.

“Would you say you care about the fate of this planet?”

Compared to how she cares, it almost feels like I don’t. But, just like her story counterpart, she doesn’t relent when I stand quietly. If anything, she turns into a volcanic eruption with a cross on its flank.

“If you honestly can’t see that, then maybe you’re the one who’s taking this too far. I wrote that letter because I saw your real heart when you were waiting for Cheerilee to wake up. That was the first time I actually saw you show weakness. I could feel you begging for help, so I did.”

“Because you cared about more than just the patient?” I ask.

Redheart’s emotions are practically fighting for their lives in front of me, as that one question pierces every piece of composure the mare might’ve had. Her face shifts from shock, to annoyance, even to relief. But I know which one she’s going to settle for. The same mask she always comes back to, as if it has her hooked.

“No,” she replies, settling for a smug smirk. “Because I wanted to see you struggle like everypony else. All those other words in there? They were just in case anypony else stumbled on that book. To throw them off long enough for me to prove your perfection was a lie.”

In my silence, I can almost hear something snapping across the room. For all I know, it could be something very real, but now, it just feels like something I shouldn’t be feeling. Sadness. Regret. Loss.

Dare I say, even betrayal.

This isn’t real, I keep telling myself. This isn’t who she really is.

I stay silent anyway.

“Nopony else will ever figure it out, but I did. And every time I ever see you outshine everypony, I’m going to remember the time I brought you down to earth.”

With a particularly sassy swivel, Redheart exits the room, probably onto her next case. After that, I’m not really sure what to expect, if anything.

One thing I don’t expect, though, is tears.

****

Twilight Sparkle, M.D.

Ponyville Hospital, Day 11, midnight

They aren’t mine.

I search out the entire hospital trying to find the source of the sound. To my knowledge, everypony has left, or should have left, hours ago. Heck, the only reason I’m still here was because I needed to organize my space some more.

The only pony who’d stay this late is one whose face flashes straight into my head, but I still don’t believe it until it’s right in front of me. Redheart, the stone-cold, ice-cold pony who just told me off a few hours ago, is half-asleep and half-crying. Wailing, even, from the looks of it.

I know I shouldn’t snoop, partly because Redheart doesn’t deserve my attention and partly because I’m a civilized pony. But somehow, against my better judgement, two documents on the opposite side of the room catch my eye. One’s open to a certain page, and the other seems to have been printed backwards. Most notably, the open journal page has the words “I couldn’t beat her” followed by endless repetitions of “I’m sorry.” Like a madmare wrote it, almost.

The other oddly printed book has paper sticking out on one page, and I open it up silently and carefully. It’s a comic like the one Fluttershy drew, and the panels show a shadowy villain kicking his henchmare to the curb. Judging from the young unicorn mare’s desperate face and the copious dry tear marks all around her section, it’s clearly meant to be a very emotional and agonizing scene—at least, for ponies who are into these sorts of stories.

Most important of all, however, is the official-looking document that Redheart must’ve used to mark her place. I barely have to read it to know it’s Ponyville Hospital stationery, and the scene she marked was about to become all too relevant.

Doctor Scarlet Redheart,

As you know, your performance ratings have plummeted within the past several months. While we regret to inform you of this fact, Ponyville is a high-danger area, and we feel it would be best for you—and for the entire population—if you moved forward in your medical pursuits. We wish more than anything for you to stay, but seeing as you have been issued several complaints in the areas of bedside manner, professionalism, and have taken numerous absences, you will be moved to our Appleloosa branch in one month’s time. We appreciate your service and wish you the best of luck in your new life.

The Ponyville Hospital Board

I look back and forth between the letter and the story of the henchmare, and only one thought runs through my head.

It’s the only life she’s ever known.

Author's Note

Writing Fluttershy's series excerpt was surprisingly fun for me. I've always enjoyed magical girl stuff a ton (and am writing a MG series now, even), so it kinda showed in this part. For translation purposes: Beautiful Healers is Pretty Cure, Healer Chance is Cure Fortune, and Healer Midnight is Cure Moonlight. It's not exactly the same as human Precure, but the characters are similar...and Redheart's love of Midnight is, sadly, based entirely off Moonlight being my fave Cure.

It's a bit more dramatic now with the hospital board's ultimatum, but there'll still be plenty of laughs and tension to go around. Stick around, folks!

Episode Six: Clandestine Confessions

Twilight Sparkle, M.D.

Ponyville Hospital, Day 11, just after midnight

Doctors, after all, do not cry unless somepony dies, and after a while, even that grows numb.

Those are the words that swirl all around me as I take in more and more of the scene, and as time itself stops. Every once in a while, I find my head turning towards the window, watching as everything in Ponyville stays the same as ever. Rainbow Dash is even out on the street again, hawking some new product even though no one will be there to watch. The entire town, it seems, is putting on a brave front.

Everypony except Redheart, the one pony who should know how to do that better than anypony. And yet, rather than wanting to yell at her or call her out for such a display, I’m transfixed by the sight. I’m surrounded by happiness, yet all I can hear is tears.

I give the comic one last look, realizing how much Redheart looks like the fallen henchmare with her pink mane down, and do something I know I’m going to regret.

It’s for the sake of the hospital, I tell myself over and over before approaching the other mare. Nopony else, and especially not me. I am not trying to make friends with her, and I most certainly am not attached to her. She’s the best pony for the job here, and that’s it.

After sufficiently fooling myself, I canter towards Redheart, who almost seems to have put herself to sleep with all her crying. As I whisper softly into her ear, her head jolts straight into my face, and she prepares yet again for her usual act.

“Doctor Sparkle,” she mutters, her tears stopping just long enough for her to lecture me, “what in Equestria are you doing in my office?! I thought even an idiot like you would know that this is a private area, and—ohhh…”

Her head flops onto the desk yet again, and judging from the way she’s rubbing her entire face in pain, she’s going through the one thing that keeps me from crying these days. The next time she tries to face me, she gets disoriented yet again and goes down within seconds. This continues for at least three more tries until she finally just gives up and glues her body to the desk for good.

“Need an aspirin?” I finally ask, banging on the medicine cabinet as if she’ll actually know what I’m doing.

“I hate you so much,” she croaks out.

Realizing that’s probably the closest thing I’ll get to a ‘yes’ tonight, I unscrew the cap, lift her head up with my magic, and pop the pill straight into her mouth. I admit, it’s a bit invasive, but I also realize that she’ll probably forget all about it unless I force her to take it. She sighs and puts her head back onto the desk as soon as I give it to her, and that’s the last I hear of her for a while.

Possibly even forever, I tell myself as she refuses to speak. I’m not sure if it’s because I want to find out why she’s being transferred or something else entirely, but somehow, I can’t help but feel pained by that thought. That’s why, even though the nerves of the situation press against me and make me acutely aware of how terrible I am at consoling ponies, I’m still compelled to act.

“I didn’t mean to snoop,” I finally whisper, “but I heard you crying, and I was worried.”

“Not because you wanted to gloat?” Redheart replies, so offended by the statement that she forgets she was giving me the silent treatment moments before.

“I didn’t even know you were going to be fired, honest. To my knowledge, I don’t think anypony else does, either.”

After giving the pills a few minutes to settle in her system, Redheart lifts her head off the desk, still feeling a bit woozy even with her signature scowl on her face. Still, if she’s able to stay mad at me for more than a few seconds, at least that’ll keep her from crying. Maybe it’ll even take her mind off the grave announcement she just got, even.

“Everypony’s gonna know by tomorrow,” she mutters, already turning her head away from me and towards the wall. “As much as I hate to admit it to you of all ponies, it was inevitable. I’ve been at the bottom of the list for months.”

That fact, above all, shocks me to my core. Not the fact that she was at the bottom, but rather the idea that the bottom still exists here. At particularly competitive hospitals, like Canterlot National, doctors were always ranked at the end of the month, and enough time at the bottom could send a pony straight out of the capital. But, to my knowledge, most smaller towns had eliminated the system, claiming that it was too competitive and scared doctors into stirring drama more often than not. Being at the top, I never really had too much of an opinion about it, but now, it just strikes me as yet another false promise the hospital ponies gave me before carting me off here.

Looking back at the form that’d started tonight’s trouble, I can’t help but wonder if Redheart feels the same way about being transferred to a place she barely knows. But first, I decide to ask the question that’s puzzled me ever since I got the news.

“I still don’t get it. In a hospital that’s barely scraping by with ten doctors, how can this place afford to lose you? Better yet, how’d you even get to the bottom in the first place?”

As my voice becomes ever more determined, I slowly realize that I may be hitting a nerve in Redheart that she doesn’t necessarily want to face. I keep expecting her to lash out again or at least act like her usual self, but instead, she bows her head in surrender and turns towards me again.

“One at a time, please. I’m not sure if I can handle any more than that right now. And besides, that first question has a perfectly obvious answer. Or are you really that dense?”

Even that last sentence seems to lack her usual biting nature, and when she sees that I’m just as confused as ever, she rolls her eyes and stares straight into mine.

“You’re worth more than five doctors to them,” she sighs. “It’s like that whole story where the railroad stallion almost gets beat by a hammering machine. Compared to you, the hospital would have to fire half its employees to lose efficiency. Transferring me is just a drop in the bucket.”

For a few brief seconds, I wonder why a town fifty miles away from Canterlot has such incomprehensible stories, and I can’t help but think it’s some other way to keep everypony confused about what really happens in Ponyville. In any case, reference or no reference, her statement is no less perplexing to me. As much as I may like to pretend I’m better than other doctors, actually hearing it sounds wrong somehow.

And, as much as I try to convince her that she’s worth just as much to the hospital as I am, she refuses to believe me. For good reason, probably—after all these days of playing her rival, of course she wouldn’t be willing to accept anything from me. Yet even as she shoots every single one of my statements down, I can still see a blank and meaningless look in her eyes.

Redheart is no longer playing a role. It’s almost as if she’s somepony else entirely, barely more than a doll that responds to voice commands. Thinking back to yesterday, I can’t help but notice that she’d had that face when she yelled at me last, even before she knew the news.

It’s only fitting that I do the one thing that’ll break the rivalry more than anything, the one thing that can possibly get to her in that moment and make her real again.

“You’re one of the best doctors here,” I finally whisper. “The best, I daresay. You keep talking about how I’m worth so much, but you’re so much better than me in so many ways. All the things that got me sent here, you’ve already figured out for yourself. You never have any problems with your patients or lose your temper with anyone except me. You always seem to have the answer for everything, and if I wasn’t so darn stubborn and scared about messing up in front of everypony, I would’ve just asked you how you do it all already!”

“I don’t.”

The sound is so quiet, so vulnerable that if there had been even one more pony in the room, I wouldn’t have heard it at all. And even though I was able to hear it, believing it is a whole other story.

Tears flow out of Redheart’s blue eyes yet again like a waterfall from a lake. She shakes her unkempt mane one last time before facing me with the most desperate face I’ve ever seen.

“You’re the only one at the hospital who thinks I’m still competent,” she confesses. “Probably because you haven’t seen me as anything but yet, right? Everypony who stays longer than you, though…they already know everything. Otherwise, I wouldn’t even give you the satisfaction of knowing.”

She gives off one last deep sigh before she gives me all the answers I’ve been waiting for. Yet somehow, seeing her now, every last bit of curiosity I have about them vanishes, and I can’t look away from her sorry sight. I’d almost say it’s worse than any patient I’ve ever seen—and that means I have to care for her in a time like this.

That’s the only reason I feel this way, I warn myself one last time before listening to her story. Don’t get too close, or you’ll regret it.

“It was six months ago, before hiring you was even a blink in the director’s eye. At first, the hospital didn’t want to take a risk on me, since everypony in my family had been nurses, but I did everything I could to prove them wrong. And it even worked for a while. Ponies still got confused, called me ‘nurse’ from time to time, but I didn’t mind. Because once upon a time, I didn’t actually have to hide my feelings. I never lashed out at anypony, and I was actually happy, believe it or not.”

She only pauses to narrow her eyes, almost as if the thing that’d ruined her career could strike at any moment.

“Ponyville has a full-time surgeon now, but back then, we did everything we could to find one, even putting ads in other cities. Even that wasn’t too much of a problem, until two ponies developed heart attacks at exactly the same time. To this day, nopony knows how such a thing could’ve happened, but more importantly…one of them was a stallion I’d never met, and the other one was my mother. I never had the best relationship with her, and surgery still isn’t my strongest suit, but I cantered in as fast as I could and told the other doctors to handle the stallion.”

“Because you still loved her deep down?” I ask against my better judgement. Redheart simply shakes her head.

“Because I wanted to show her what I could do,” she whispers. “See, she was always the one who didn’t think I had what it takes to be a doctor, even after I got the job here. So I thought, if saving her life didn’t convince her, what would?”

Just after she shrugs, a solemn pause permeates the room and brings her soon-to-be-lost job back to the forefront. Even though she’s stopped crying, her nose still brushes the ground, and her head is dangerously close to hitting it as well.

“Both patients died that evening. After losing their longest, most beloved nurse to an inexperienced mistake, Ponyville Hospital finally petitioned Mayor Mare to form a committee to find the surgeon we have now. More importantly, if the stallion had gotten quicker care, we could have saved him. As head doctor on that case, I was the one that ended up getting most of the blame, and one of my closest friends even told me I cared more about my family than my patients. After all that…it was a wonder they kept me as long as they did.”

She puts on the bravest face I’ve seen all night, one that’s nevertheless as false as can be. From the story she tells me, I’m able to fill in the rest of the details—even though that one case couldn’t have been enough for the hospital to dismiss her, it definitely could’ve been enough for her to lose her resolve. To start making foalish mistakes that would take her to the bottom every time.

Before I can say anything else, though, Redheart shocks me yet again.

“If I would’ve known they would’ve gotten rid of me so quickly afterwards…I never would’ve gotten into it with you. I thought you’d come here all this time because you were going to replace me, but considering they were going to do it anyway, it’s pretty pointless. But hey, at least it gave somepony new for me to prove wrong for a little while.”

She wipes the tears off her eyes one last time and begins to gather her things one by one, just like she would on any other night. And that’s when it occurs to me—she still has a month here and more importantly, she still has me.

If I’m able to challenge her so much that she barely thinks about anything else, could that mean I’ve been taking her mind off her mistakes all this time? If that’s the case, then could I keep pushing her long enough for her to keep her job, her home, everything she’s ever known?

It’s a risk I’ve never wanted to take, but somehow, one that I feel obligated to tell her about. As I expected, the idea barely even registers in her mind, but I get the distinct feeling that it will in a few days. It has to, if she has any hopes of staying here.

Even after ten days of being here, I know I probably won’t stay. But, seeing how Redheart’s being pushed into the same situation, I can’t help but fight for her. Just because of the things that bind us close. Nothing more. Ten days is too soon to fall in love, so there’s no way.

Still, in the moonlight of a cold winter’s night, I can’t help but let her tail cross mine as I walk her back to her house. The place that, hopefully, will be her home for as long as she lives.

Author's Note

This is the first completely serious part in this series. I hope I was able to do it justice.

The comedy will return before long, so don't worry. For now, Twilight and Redheart are allies (against each other's better judgement), so look forward to their antics next part!

Episode Seven: Fallen Feathers

Twilight Sparkle, M.D.

Ponyville Hospital, Day 13, morning

What would Director Celestia do at a time like this?

I’ve been through just about every set of hoops I can find to figure out how to make everything better for Redheart, admittedly even more than I’ve puzzled how to get out of this town. Right now, however, that fact doesn’t strike me near as much as my utter incompetency. And here I stand, leafing through page after page of the Canterlot hospital bulletin I still receive in the mail and avoiding the sad truth in front of me.

I have no. Bloody. Idea!

It seemed like an excellent plan on paper, ending the rivalry by acting cool and leaving Redheart completely and utterly in my debt. I was even able to stall for all of yesterday by telling her I needed more time to think, but I can’t keep doing this to myself or to her. After realizing there isn’t going to be an interview with Director Celestia in the hospital magazine telling her exactly how she keeps all her doctors on staff, I slam it shut right on the page about her new personal protégé.

Strangely enough, jealousy is on my mind about as much the possibility of me actually liking Redheart is. There’s satisfaction to be found in shoving her face back into the magazine, granted, but it’s pretty empty. Rehearsed, even.

Hope you don’t screw up too much, Dr. Sunset Shimmer. Otherwise, you’ll end up where I am and realize you can only help ponies if they’re about to die.

Just about as soon as I do this, however, the back of the publication gives me a new idea. There’s some fancy mumbo jumbo in there about some new technique or another, but what catches my eye is one thing in particular. This new innovation is all about detecting cases before they can happen, about knowing frequent clients and predicting their behavior.

In one fell swoop, I’ve managed to find my weakness—and Redheart’s strength.

Doctor Twilight Sparkle doesn’t make mistakes. Not this time.

****

Twilight Sparkle, M.D.

Ponyville Hospital, Day 13, noon

“Think about it,” I tell Redheart, simultaneously telling myself that I’m only eating lunch with her for the sake of the hospital, “who always shows up here with some issue or another?”

Any shade of the fearful pony she was just a few days ago vanished just about as soon as I told her to meet me in the office. We’re both in between patients, which gives us just enough time to discuss her future and how I can make it brighter than ever. For the most part, she seems eager to face this new challenge, though, knowing her, she’s probably hiding her sadness yet again. Then again, I shouldn’t talk as if I’m any better in that regard.

“Granny Smith, I’d say,” Redheart replies. “I appreciate what she’s done for the town, and I love her cider as much as anypony else does, but she’s sure become a hypochondriac in her old age.”

I file that bit of knowledge into my long-term memory, just in case the elderly Apple matriarch suddenly comes down with some rare disease. Still, I can’t help but facehoof at my coworker for missing the point.

“That’s not what I meant,” I groan before suddenly changing my voice to a more pleasant tone. After all, I am supposed to be getting into Redheart’s good graces and all. “While hypochondria is something we definitely have to be on the lookout for, is there anypony around here that seems to come to the hospital abnormally often?”

Redheart gives a single huff of thought before responding with the last thing I want to hear.

“Rainbow Dash. She’s always here to sell something, but lately, I feel like she’s hanging around for other reasons. Plus, she changes jobs so much that I feel like maybe her body isn’t cut out for that many of them.”

“That’s one way of putting it.”

Laziness is another. Something that I can’t help but think Dash probably has in spades; either that or utter stupidity. Still, she’s stayed on the tea craze for so long that I’ve almost forgotten that she’s ever done anything else.

All of eleven days. Must be a new record for her.

“Anyway, her visits have really started to peak right when you showed up. I guess I could look into her a bit more and figure out what’s up. It may not be anything medical, but if it means keeping other ponies from getting sick off her schemes, then I’d be all for it.”

The way she says this all-too-casually suggests one of two things to me: that Rainbow Dash has been at this longer than any of us have realized, and that significant casualties have been inflicted in the process. With any hope, she’ll stick to making her subpar tea.

Anyway, I swear that just about as soon as Redheart gets ready to leave the hospital, Rainbow Dash trots right in, accompanied by the same little companion who always stares at her with such adoration. Although Dash herself annoys me to no end, I feel that I can at least live with the foal’s company, seeing as she already seems quite a bit more mature than her maybe-sister, maybe-mother.

(None of this is because I’m soft on foals to the point where I almost became a neonatal nurse. Honest. Even if she does flap her wings enough to remind me of a tiny hummingbird.)

Sure enough, whether by magic or perhaps something more mundane, Redheart actually manages to predict their arrival, and I pray to the stars above that she keeps that ability in future cases.

Rainbow, oddly enough, appears with none of her usual businesspony swagger, even as the filly remains blissfully ignorant of the situation. She doesn’t utter a single word to either of us as she’s guided into the nearest room, not even a “Doc Twilight.” Whatever’s gotten to her has to be the moment of reckoning Redheart mentioned. And now comes the hardest part of my task. I have to let Redheart take them into her office and trust in her with everything I’m going to have.

Yeah. Like I’m going to let that happen.

****

Twilight Sparkle, M.D.

Ponyville Hospital, Day 13, afternoon

Some clarification on that last statement: I may trust her more than most ponies, even after just a few days of really getting to know her, but that’s not saying much. I’m built to trust the patients who come into my life for a few hours, after all. But deep down, I know—anything more than that doesn’t come easy for me. I’m not sure where or when I stopped trusting anypony else, but that’s an issue I can’t fix just yet.

Thankfully for me, this building has terrible insulation, and I’m able to pick up a few bits as I examine my patients. Enough for it not to be considered eavesdropping, at least.

Most of the ponies I have today just require short, simple checkups. For example, one random colt with a propeller hat screams “I need healing” at me for at least five minutes straight without specifying his condition, at which point I push him straight out of the room. One needed a physical for the hoofball team. Yet another followed up with me on their chronic indigestion, which I chalked up to all the pills their past doctors had been prescribing them. (Note to self: I should really figure out whose bright idea it was to prescribe a pony five ibuprofens per day and hand them over to the Crown at once. At least reporting their utter incompetence out of Equestria would take some of the pressure off Redheart.)

Just after I get out of a particularly long and equally infuriating appointment, in which I had to repeatedly lecture a middle-aged stallion about how I can neither treat his erectile dysfunction within a day’s notice nor give him a day’s supply of “performance-enhancing drugs” so he can lie about a particular engagement tonight, Redheart finally comes in and relieves me of my misery.

As it turns out, the insulation might be terrible, but Dash’s voice has been so low the whole time, I haven’t been able to make heads or tails of her. I hate to admit it, but I might actually be kinda worried about her.

“For the love of all things holy,” I yell right when Redheart trots in. “Just tell your goddess-forsaken wife!”

“Um, bedside manner?” Redheart mutters, glaring at me intensely. Or she would be, if I wasn’t so scared by her sudden intrusion that I can barely look at her.

“Oh, sorry. What I meant to say was that, in a stable relationship—“

Redheart facehooves as if preparing for impact, and just about as soon as I say it, the stallion laughs in my face. This town never gives me a chance to forget how much everypony loves puns, does it?

“You know what I meant! Not the ‘stable’ like the place we live, the ‘stable’ like the type of wife who won’t leave you due to a diagnosable medical condition. Which should be obvious!”

The stallion practically laughs all the way out of the hospital, and Redheart cautions me on using that word again. Apparently, all the doctors here have had to buy thesauruses just to avoid making the same mistake I did.

I’m going to have to put a moratorium on any and all words that could be construed as puns, if today’s any indication. Anyway, just after lecturing me, a grave look sweeps onto Redheart’s face, something I haven’t seen since the big scene a few days back.

“The tea factory burnt down when Rainbow Dash was in it,” she explains. “None of the burns were particularly intense, but she didn’t get them treated soon enough, and…”

I challenge myself to recall the last time I saw her enter the waiting room, and come to think of it, most of her body had been covered. Whether out of embarrassment or otherwise, Dash clearly wanted as few ponies as possible to know about her condition. Which, of course, explains why she didn’t want to come to us as soon as possible, but still makes her an absolute idiot.

You see, while most minor burns can be treated at home, ones inflicted by such things as chemicals or an entire damn building being razed to the ground tend to require a bit more care. The fact of the matter is, ponies like Rainbow tend to make mistakes that turn ordinary burns into disasters, and disasters into cataclysms. From the smell she emits all over the hospital, either butter is the newest scent craze in Canterlot, or she fell victim to one of the most dangerous old pony’s tales around. And, judging from the way she managed her business, I severely doubt the former.

From what Redheart’s been able to tell me, the factory was an incredibly makeshift operation constructed out of an abandoned hut, someplace that was already very susceptible to fire otherwise. Turn that place into a factory and tasting area, and any mistakes with that kettle could prove as catastrophic as they did.

“Thankfully, Sugarcube Corner was doing an event the day it burnt down, so only a few ponies showed up,” Redheart explains. “Ms. Dash says she received the brunt of the damage, so most were already treated by the firefighters. Most of her damage will go away on its own, I think, but her wings will take quite a bit of time and surgery to heal.”

I almost didn’t hear it from the fuss my last patient was making, but I do recall hearing Rainbow Dash screaming from the other room for at least a minute straight. While Redheart goes on to explain that only the edges of her wings were damaged, and that they wouldn’t have been as damaged as they were if she hadn’t put butter on the wound, I can hardly imagine what any wing injury would feel like. If she still planned on using that tour guide idea she chatted me up about on my first day here, she wasn’t going to get too far with it.

“Why are you telling me all this?” I finally ask, trying to be as reasonable as possible. “You seem to have everything handled, and if you can sense patients like you did today, there’s no way they’ll fire you.”

Redheart’s eyes go straight to the ground before finally turning to face me. She gestures to Dash’s door, guides me to the peephole. Our patient is clutching her filly companion as hard as she can, crying as if her life was on the line.

“Where am I gonna to find the money?” she whispers. “Oh, stars above, what am I gonna do? I certainly can’t work in this condition…”

She strokes the filly’s wings, holding them like a particularly trusty security blanket. I can only see them for a moment, but they’re deathly small for her age, and even when she flapped them like there was no tomorrow, she still couldn’t lift herself off the ground.

“There’s something bigger going on here,” mutters Redheart. “I asked her about Scootaloo—that filly over there—and Ms. Dash said she’s being treated at the Featherfall Clinic in Cloudsdale. Supposedly, they haven’t been able to make heads or tails of her condition, even though she’s gone to them for years.”

I can’t help but steal another glance at the filly, wondering if things could really be as easy as they seem. Certainly, Cloudsdale doctors would be able to detect this far quicker than I could with today’s advances in wing technology. Right away, though, I can tell that something about Dash’s story isn’t adding up, and for once, it has nothing to do with the mare herself.

“They have to know,” I murmur, almost too low for Redheart to hear. “Even though she can’t fly, she doesn’t show any extreme signs of sickness. I can’t say for sure, since I haven’t looked at her yet, but if I’m right, she probably just has growth hormone deficiency. That has to be something they’ve treated before.”

“I was running tests on her while you were working, and while I did, Ms. Dash told me that she was diagnosed with it six months ago. Exactly the same time she started her schemes, if I recall properly.”

It takes everything I have not to curse as soon as I hear this. Even though she doesn’t say it, Redheart can already feel the gears turning in her mind, just as hers must have done just minutes ago. In any other situation, the idea of Rainbow Dash holding a stable job, or at least some vague facsimile of one, would’ve come as a shock, but it already pales in comparison to the plot unraveling in front of me.

Redheart may very well have found the pet project that’ll anchor her here. I only wish it didn’t have to come with the kinds of repercussions it brought on everypony else.

“She says she won’t be able to afford both her burn treatment and Scootaloo’s hormones,” whispers Redheart, as if the truth wasn’t obvious to me already. “Now, correct me if you’re wrong, but that isn’t how hospitals work where you’re from, is it?”

I solemnly shake my head and launch into an explanation of what she surely already knows. As part of the Crown’s reform plan and as part of our own responsibilities as working ponies, no medical treatment carries a charge in Equestria. That means that anyplace that attempts to do so—even for the relatively complex procedure that goes into transplanting one pony’s growth hormones into consistent daily doses for the other—has no right to exist. And, all too likely, no license to operate.

Hospitals like this were thought to be a thing of the past—a passing scam that faded as quickly as the dew itself. But here they are, right in our backyard, possibly keeping an innocent filly from ever leaving the ground. Or, if worse comes to worse, even earning her cutie mark altogether.

Anypony who would still say I never cared about my patients should stare at me right now and say it to my face.

With a heavy heart, I tell my fellow doctor that she was right about everything. That her suspicions are not unmerited. And then, I go into Dash’s room, leave Redheart to her investigations, and trust that she’ll be able to push through. Because really, it isn’t just about her anymore.

And by trusting that she’ll be able to push through, I mean that I walk towards the filly as if nothing I just heard ever happened. As if just looking at her doesn’t make me want to burst into tears.

Author's Note

I realize this could be a controversial part for some people, but this isn't so much a political statement as it is headcanon about how Equestria works. After a lot of thought, I figured Equestria would be the type of place that doesn't pay for healthcare, and since it is another world, what may seem normal to us Earthlings (and especially those of the American variety), could very likely be considered a scam there. Different worlds have different morals, and Featherfall is about as trustworthy as a for-profit college there. Just some world-building about the medical profession in Equestria, is all; this story will not have any political rantings about either side of the IRL health care issue. Guaranteed!

On a lighter note, I don't even play Overwatch, and somehow I still couldn't resist making that joke at some point. :rainbowlaugh:

Episode Eight: Bad Medicine

Twilight Sparkle, M.D.
Ponyville Hospital, Day 13, late afternoon

In hindsight, there are multiple ways I failed to think this plan through. Firstly, I failed to properly inform the director that Redheart and I would be out this evening. That, at least, had been easy enough to solve, simply leaving Scootaloo and Rainbow Dash to another few minutes of uninterrupted grief, just long enough to brief my boss on the issue.

As for the second? I’ve been sitting in this accursed hospital room pondering that very thing for ten minutes now. By the time I realized that neither Redheart nor I had easy access to Cloudsdale, my partner in crime fighting had already left. My only comfort in these trying times is that, at the very least, Redheart isn’t brash enough to launch herself out of a cannon, even if doing so would foil a medical racketeering scheme. At least, so I suspect.

In any case, I figure I ought to wait for her to return before making further plans, seeing as fate seems to be pulling us together on this mission. Whatever she’s up to at the moment, it at least buys me time to comfort the patients, explain the problem, and most importantly of all, gain intel as to how this Featherfall Clinic operates. Thankfully, for once, Rainbow Dash is all too willing to cooperate on all three fronts once she figures out the real issues at hoof.

“So you’re sayin’ you can just do it here, for free?” she asks for at least the third time. The first few times, I was too distracted with just about everything else to justify a response, so for once, it’s actually my own fault for not attending to the patient. Then again, the more I think about it, and the more I think about how far this scheme goes, the more I realize Dash may be far less of an idiot than she seems.

Or, at the very least, she’s an idiot who cares. Which, saddening as it is, is still better than a genius who doesn’t.
Either way, she never lets go of her filly, almost as if she’s a tiny plushie that’ll make all her troubles go away. Judging from her companion’s eyes, though, the feeling of comfort is definitely mutual, regardless of how these two came together to begin with.

“Absolutely,” I tell them. “Ponyville Hospital doesn’t see many pegasi with this deficiency, but there were plenty in Canterlot. Thankfully, the treatment isn’t much different than it is for unicorn foals with stunted horn growth, or anypony with low height percentiles. The point is, no matter what, neither of you will have to pay for your conditions, though I would like to ask something from you.”

Both ponies move out of their hug for just long enough to cock their heads to me curiously, like dogs waiting for a command. The desperation’s already beginning to clear up a little in their eyes, but I can sense that fear still has a stronghold in their hearts.

“It’s not gonna be anything too bad, is it, Doc?” Rainbow questions. “I’d kinda prefer to leave this all in the past, if that’s okay with you.”

“I’d like to make sure you can do exactly that,” I reply. “Unfortunately, the only way to guarantee that no other ponies fall into this scam is to hear about it from primary sources.”

Without realizing, I fall into one of my old schooling terms, and the results show ever-so-clearly on Rainbow’s face. She’s more confused than ever, trying to make some sense out of my offer, when the filly finally interjects.

“I’ve had to answer a lot of questions in these places, but I never thought a doctor would actually interrogate me!”

From anypony old enough to have a cutie mark, this would’ve almost come off as an insult, but the little thing’s still young enough to get excited about this plan. Her eyes sparkle with wonder, and she eyes my body as if imagining me in a police uniform. Really, she’s quite adorable when she does it, and I would’ve let her keep staring at me like this forever if she hadn’t suggested that this made Redheart my buddy cop.

“If you’re willing, I’d like to start off by asking how you and Scootaloo, um…”

I curse under my breath as soon as I ask this, realizing how insensitive of a question it might seem. For all I know, they could simply be a couple of close friends, and as much as I hate to admit it, I have no right to pry into any details of their lives other than what Featherfall did to them. Still, Rainbow Dash notices my trailing off and answers before this can get more awkward.

This “good bedside manner” thing is definitely going to have to be something to get used to. Or perhaps I’m just overcorrecting, like I do with everything else.

“It’s pretty complicated. My parents are related to her aunts, and then I guess that’d mean my parents were related to hers. So we’ve pretty much always called ourselves ‘sisters.’”

She blushes for a few moments, an uncharacteristic action for her even at a time like this, and admits, “I guess it isn’t that complicated, then. It...seemed like that when I was a filly, I guess.”

When she finally receives validation that I’m not going to make fun of her for that gaffe, she continues, “Her aunts just moved back to Cloudsdale, and they’d told me they took her to a lot of hospitals where they used to live. None of them knew anything about her trouble, and they hoped I could figure it out. Like they thought I was smarter than them or somethin’. What a laugh, right?

“Anyway, I was just about to get an appointment with a real hospital when I got a flyer for Featherfall. When you go through their system for as long as I did, you almost forget other hospitals aren’t like ‘em. But that’s their whole selling point: they had ponies in street corners shilling them like some specialist place. A place that took on cases the rest of Cloudsdale couldn’t anymore.”

Somewhere in her stream of self-pity, I’m already able to piece together just how these ponies managed to get fooled. As Dash helpfully supplies, most pegasi under their wing were willing to pay as long as they got special services. And to get those special services, the Featherfall Clinic would tell them their foals had exceedingly rare illnesses, tell them that only they can help. A little bit of codependency to help them swallow down their immense medical bills.

The more I listen to her story, the more I realize the doctors there had to know exactly what Scootaloo’s problem was. They also knew their illusion couldn’t hold without a little bit of panic.

Six months without a conclusive diagnosis. Six more months where Rainbow had to become the town laughingstock just to get her sister’s cures. Here I’d been, so annoyed at her, when the real enemy was right under my hooves--or, to be more precise, right above them.

“How many other ‘special treatments’ do they have?” I ask without thinking, too loud to hide my anger at the situation.

If they’re willing to lie about their funds, who’s to say they haven’t gone all the way into quackery?

As Redheart rushes in, that thought strikes my mind like nothing else. It comes through like an Everfree thunderstorm, utterly unpredictable and without anything to give it birth. As Dash speaks, I can already sense that my time is limited, and I can hear the gentle music of a rented hot-air balloon from my window. Redheart, it seems, is one pony that thinks everything through.

Surprisingly enough, in this moment at least, Rainbow Dash is another. She gives me a full list of Featherfall services, and sure enough, most of them are actual maladies. I almost gain an ounce of respect for the clinic for not taking the darkest route until I read the last name on the roster. That’s all it takes for me to find the pony responsible for all this--and who could be responsible for so much more if we don’t act immediately.

Dr. Starlight Glimmer
Pediatrician, Growth and Cutie Mark Deficiency

****

Twilight Sparkle, M.D.
Featherfall Clinic, Day 13, sunset

“But that doesn’t even exist!” Redheart lectures yet again, her eyes fixed on the roster.

With the way she frets over it, I almost wish Dash had never given it to us. For the entire journey to Cloudsdale, she’s been on an endlessly repeating loop, either telling me that this is not a romantic balloon ride--something I never once thought anyway--or yelling about Featherfall. Which would be all fine and dandy if she didn’t limit her focus to that one particular detail.

“Try telling this Dr. Glimmer that,” I reply. “I have no clue what she’s thinking with the whole cutie mark thing, but just imagine how many ponies would trek up here from Ponyville if they knew about it! Just about every foal in town--in Equestria--worries about getting theirs on time, and now somepony’s figured out a way to channel that into making them her guinea pigs.”

As Redheart stares knowingly at me, I realize that I’ve been fixating on this detail as much as she has. Even then, though, she doesn’t take the chance to gloat, looking back to the sky and letting me cast the walking-on-clouds spell on her.

(Admittedly, if anything good comes out of today, it’s the knowledge that I still remember that spell. Not many ponies believe me when I tell them this, but I never was the best magic student to begin with.)

“Which is why we need to trot up there and ask for her first thing,” Redheart briefs. “I don’t know how long she’s been doing this, but that drug’s gotta be untested. Otherwise, it’d be all over Equestria by now. So what matters is making sure Scootaloo and the others never take it.”

That’s yet another silver lining in our scheme--when I asked Rainbow Dash about the cutie mark deficiency services, she told me Scootaloo had begged her for them, but the mare herself had been skeptical. Granted, she hadn’t extended her skepticism to the rest of Featherfall, but at least she’d taken the filly out of that part of the medical program before it was too late. Our only hope is that her and all the others will be alive to complain about our achievements.

As we trot into Cloudsdale, we make a mutual decision as if through telepathy. We won’t let foals sacrifice themselves for the sake of impatiency. And we won’t let Dr. Glimmer sacrifice them for her own purposes.

****

Twilight Sparkle, M.D.
Featherfall Clinic, Day 13, early evening

By the time we get there, I see yet another thing I hadn’t taken into consideration. Even with the roster, the advertisements, and just about everything else about this place, I’d just as soon assumed it was some small podunk place in the middle of nowhere. But here it stands, at least three stories of the rarest clouds bits can buy--or at least, I assume they didn’t come cheap. There’s a reason I’m not a meteorologist, after all.

Anyway, Redheart gets to work just seconds after I realize I’m staring. I can tell she’s just as shocked as I am to see such a disgraceful clinic hidden in plain sight, but she’s already forced herself to focus. Even her gait has changed, turning into an authoritative march as I trail behind.

And really, I tell myself, that’s how it ought to be. This is Redheart’s way out, and like it or not, it isn’t my place to interfere. So, for once, I let her take the reins and gear up for the show.

With a model’s confidence, she storms through the front entrance and asks for the director. In spite of her sincerity, she’s just as quickly turned down, but even then, she doesn’t let it show in her eyes. I almost feel like a child, standing behind somepony as capable as her to wait on an appointment, but eventually, we hit gold.

It takes the receptionist a lot of clattering away at her luxurious typewriter, but we have a meeting with Dr. Glimmer within minutes, just enough time for us to piece together what we really need to say to her.

“Remember, this is just a stakeout,” Redheart whispers as we wait. “We collect whatever evidence we can, enough to convince the director, and go in for a second strike later. So keep your criticism of this place to a low.”

At that point, I decide it’d be best not to talk at all, and shoot her a knowing wink instead. In return, she gives me probably the first sympathetic glance I’ve ever seen from her, one that probably translates to something like, “I know these guys are flankholes, so let’s just fake it.”

Hey, if it means I’m not the flankhole in this scenario, I’ll gladly take it.

Anyway, we’re guided up several flights of stairs, almost as if the staff itself knows we can’t be trusted, and by the time we reach Dr. Glimmer, I feel like I’m about to face a boss in a video game. Even though her office is on the highest floor, in true villainous fashion, everything else about it looks terrifyingly normal.

The door doesn’t lock behind us, and all in all, it’s your typical sickeningly sweet pediatrician’s office. Back in Canterlot, ours were decorated with rainbow mosaics as if foals could be fooled into thinking they were entering a castle instead of a hospital, but the purple clouds covering Glimmer’s wall are every bit as grand. Tiny stars and moons dapple the ceilings, the same glow-in-the-dark things just about every foal asks for when they’re small. To complete the effect, crudely drawn ponies and families line the medicine cabinets. Just imagining the foals lovingly drawing them for her, oblivious to what’s going into their bodies and how little she can be trusted, is enough to make me vomit.

“I’m here to check up on your patient, Scootaloo,” Redheart finally says. “I’m her new general practitioner, and I’ve heard you’ve worked quite a bit with her.”

True to our plan, Dr. Starlight Glimmer is nothing but confident, which means anything but suspicious in my book. She leisurely stirs a spoon through her coffee, reciting Scootaloo’s information without giving her records a single look. Thankfully, since Redheart and I are still in uniform, she doesn’t ask any more questions about our story.

“That’s just about all I can tell you now,” she says in a perfectly saccharine pediatrician’s voice. “Anything else would go against patient confidentiality, but if you really want to know more about the other stuff, I’m definitely free tomorrow night. I have another precious foal coming in a half hour from now, and I really must get to preparing. We have a different care program for everypony who comes in, after all.”

I swear I can see something poking out of her shaggy bangs, a tiny pink knob, but just about as soon as Dr. Glimmer shifts, it’s already gone. Stranger yet, even though our meeting has been rather short, her wings haven’t opened once since. I’ve known enough pegasi in my life to know wings are rather restless limbs, and them staying in place for so long has to be at least my third red flag against her.

“I certainly understand,” replies Redheart, never once breaking character. “I should be free tomorrow night, as well. I assume I’ll be meeting you here, then?”

Starlight gives me a strangely knowing glance, as if noticing me for the first time, but like the pink knob, it vanishes just as quickly. Instead, she moves towards her cabinet and shuffles around in it, as if searching for a particular item.

“Absolutely. Scootaloo’s one of my rougher cases, so I’m definitely grateful for the help. Especially if you could convince her to come back here.”

Dr. Glimmer stops her shifting around for a slight moment, just enough time to place a hoof against her chin.

“I don’t know what’s happened between us, but her rainbow friend hasn’t made any appointments for a week now. I hope she’s all right.”

Redheart and I nod in unison, never once thinking of how much we’d regret giving her this information later. As Dr. Glimmer’s briefed on our patient’s condition, she tucks her head behind the medicine cabinet, and shadows crowd around her face as she flashes us one last devious smile.

“Then can you do me a quick favor?” she asks, sliding a clear-colored bottle over the counter. Even from where I stand, I can tell that the pills are printed with several different symbols and come in colors I’ve never seen on medicine. Redheart nods without thinking, cinching the final part of our plan.

“If you can’t convince her to come back here, give her these. Featherfall was the first hospital in the area to get these, and I have a feeling they may just make all her dreams come true.”

Glimmer, it seems, may have just given us more evidence than she thinks. Because the minute we get to Fluttershy’s pharmacy, we’ll finally know just what this faulty clinic is cooking up.

Author's Note

Even though this fic has stayed in S1 territory up until now, I knew from the minute Twilight became a doctor that Starlight had to have some sort of cutie mark pseudoscience plan up her sleeve. And besides, I feel like that's probably the main reason ponies would willingly go to a place like Featherfall.

So, to sum things up, Starlight pretends to be a pegasus instead of pretending to have an equal mark in this canon, and she's basically a mad scientist-type doctor. We can only hope Equestria will be intact by the time she's through with everything...

Episode Nine: Endemic Pandemic

Twilight Sparkle, M.D.
Ponyville Hospital, Day 20, early afternoon

Dr. Starlight Glimmer--or whoever the hay she really is--is far smarter than any of us had accounted for. Between her schemes and our clients, it’s taken Redheart and I at least a week to pin down her operation, but now that we have, her days are sure to be numbered.

Ever since our visit to Cloudsdale last week, Redheart and I have had to work in teams just to crack down on this case. Whenever the two of us have time, we look into different aspects of the Featherfall affair--she collects information on Starlight from the skies, and I stay down on Earth in Fluttershy’s makeshift analysis room. As it so happens, small-town pharmacists only carry so many tools for drug research, so we’ve had to make do with what little we can find. In the meantime, there’s a single goal that all of us share--to lay in wait for anypony curious about Featherfall and to warn them otherwise.

So far, nopony’s mentioned the operation since we uncovered it. But, as Rainbow Dash wanders in the pharmaromatherapist’s for the umpteenth time today, I can’t help but reflect on it. If Starlight’s really seeking to extend her influence past Cloudsdale--and judging by her ambitious miracle drug, she most certainly is--it’s only a matter of time before word of it reaches Ponyville.

I don’t quite know why, whether it’s out of general concern or some impossible love for this city or what, but somehow, something about that scares me far more than it would’ve just three weeks ago.

In any case, I’m shook out of this stupor by Fluttershy’s needlessly loud analysis contraption, something she picked up from who knows where. In most of the books I’ve read, pharmacists simply use dyes and particular chemical reactions to determine a drug’s content, but the device she’s using now is a whirring heap of gears and beakers. With the history this town has, I’m almost tempted to think she made it herself, especially considering how she’s launched herself into this investigation.

The machine’s humming finally dies down, and Fluttershy hastily places the remaining solution under a petri dish, not allowing a single atom to pierce the air.

“Dang,” Rainbow Dash whispers softly. “Those are some killer reflexes you’ve got there. Never knew you had it in you.”

She flexes her wings a bit in a brief show of bravado before cringing in pain yet again. I keep telling her that she needs to rest them, but just like Fluttershy, she insists on following me around anyway. If I’m not careful, everypony in town will end up working on this case soon.

“I don’t,” Fluttershy replies. “But I can’t let any of this stuff get anywhere around us. I’ve been going over the numbers for days, and everything points to this drug being contaminated with Cutie Pox. It’s an outright biohazard, and every once in a while, even I’m too afraid to get close to it.”

At least that explains part of the delay, I almost mutter to myself as Fluttershy eyes the pills with the utmost fear. I swear I even see her shudder a few times, as if the bottle could jump out and eat her at any moment.

While I do wonder how she managed to graduate pharmacy school with an attitude like this, I quickly remind myself that I likely would’ve reacted the same way towards the stuff in any other situation. After all, the only known Cutie Pox viruses are locked up in a secret facility, to my knowledge at least. Anything less would be an immediate danger to Equestria, possibly even larger than Discord himself.

But somehow, the knowledge that it’s Cutie Pox is almost a relief to me. It’s far from the unpredictably complex drug I’d imagined in my worst nightmares, and more importantly, the results are documented. Ponies fear the virus so much that, were I just to tell all of Ponyville what the new medication contained, there’d be no chance of anypony taking it.

Excepting, of course, as always, Rainbow Dash.

“Cutie Pox?” she mumbles in between laughs. “Really? That sounds so made-up! ‘Don’t get too close to colts, or you’ll get the Cootie Pox!’ Seriously, what’ll you doctors come up with next, Pretty Plague? Fancy Flu?”

Any hopes that Dash’s wing injury will give her a sense of gravity or humility have already flown straight out the door. Even as Fluttershy gives her a surprisingly strict look, Rainbow goes on as if mocking the gods themselves.

“Oh non! J’ai mal à la tête, et maintenant, je parle français couramment!”

While I don’t know enough Fancy to quite catch what Dash is saying, I can still tell that it’s far from serious. At this point, I’m not sure if she’s using humor as a defense mechanism, or if she really is this stupid, but clearly one of us needs to educate her on the dangers of this disease, and fast.

“This is no laughing matter!” I finally yell. Just about everypony else in the pharmaromatherapist’s office turns to stare at me, and I realize all too late that I’ve attracted far too much attention to myself. “Cutie Pox is a serious disease, and if it isn’t eradicated anymore, then who knows what could happen?!”

Thinking quickly, I hold up Scootaloo’s bottle of pills, figuring I’ll inform the villagers just in case they really have lived under a rock when it came to this disease.

“Doctor Redheart and I recently came across this medication at Featherfall Clinic in Cloudsdale. It has been illegally manufactured without the consent of the Crown by one Starlight Glimmer, who claims it can speed up a foal’s cutie mark retrieval process. Well, it most certainly can, but should your foals take it, they will not be able to stop earning cutie marks.”

A few murmurs of interest arise amongst the audience, almost as if I’m putting on a show for everypony in town. Just like Rainbow Dash, most of them think of the contagion as a blessing rather than a curse, and some even clamor for the bottle. Before I can lecture them further, however, Fluttershy steps in with her quiet, yet strangely commanding, voice.

“After days of research, I can confirm that each of these pills is spiked with the Cutie Pox virus, something that’s never been attempted outside of the vaccination process. Verified doctors are able to severely weaken the germs we use in our vaccines, so our systems can build up immunity as quickly and efficiently as possible. But it seems Starlight Glimmer’s process wasn’t strong enough, and most of the viruses inside the pills are strong enough to attack foals’ vulnerable bodies. Should a foal take one of these pills, cutie marks will begin to spread throughout their body, and they will be forced to simultaneously perform every new talent the disease gives them.”

This fact in and of itself is enough to give most ponies pause, and I can practically see their minds going over the implications of this toxic medication. However, just as everything seems to be under control, I hear that same annoying voice that’s plagued me all day.

Really, I ought to have more sympathy for Rainbow. She’s been conned by the worst sort of medical system, forced into increasingly dangerous situations, and now she has to deal with severe burns and an ailing sister. But with the way she’s been acting all day, it’s becoming increasingly hard to think that way.

“Yes, Ms. Dash?” I ask in a voice that’s far more clipped than it has the right to be. Then again, she’s also the one holding her hoof straight into the air like a schoolchild.

“So, this scary Cutie Pox thing...it just makes ponies do a bunch of silly stuff at the same time?”

Before I can utter a single word of explanation, she shouts, “Boy, would I love to see that! That sounds hilarious!”

“Trust me, it’s not.”

“Oh, oh! I’ve got something for you. If Cutie Pox gave you the talent to run a marathon and fly super fast, how would you pull that off? D’ya think it’d be some weird hovering thing or something? I mean, it’d almost have to be.”

I don’t know what I hate more right now--Dash’s meaningless distractions themselves, or the fact that one of them actually makes an insane amount of sense. I’ll never admit it to her face, but if Starlight’s pills ever cause an Equestrian cataclysm, looking into talents that should cancel themselves out will have to be my first priority.

Regardless, controlling crowds seems to be the one thing Fluttershy doesn’t excel at, and so I’m forced to cut off the discussion as soon as possible.

“Let me cut to the chase,” I mutter, barely masking my irrational anger. “Cutie Pox is a virus that infects other cells to a mind-boggling degree. If left unchecked, it will gradually force every cell in your body to produce new cutie marks, and do nothing else. It is far more comparable to cancer than to any other disease known to ponykind. It will not kill your foals in and of itself, but it will lead them to develop further complications, from exhaustion to Tartarus knows what else. We’re still studying what it did to the last ponies it messed up. And also, there is no known cure. So I would appreciate it if we all sat down, looked at ourselves, and really thought about why there’s so much pressure to get a cutie mark in this town that foals would literally kill for one. Does everypony understand?”

Before I can tell anypony not to spread the news across town, they’ve already fled in fear. They always say a doctor shouldn’t spread this sort of panic, but for once, I feel like it’s for the best.

I leave Fluttershy’s office, give Dash a single poke of support, and head off to check on Redheart’s progress. As always, my first step is to check her case book, the one and only time she’ll ever allow me to glimpse into her life. No matter how this case might separate us, we’ve agreed on two universal things. A sort of modified Hippocratic Oath, if you will.

Step one: do no harm. And step two: document everything.

****

Doctor Redheart’s Notes
Glimmer Investigation--Day 6

After only three days with her, Doctor Glimmer has already asked for a private meeting with me. If you’ll recall, my past few encounters with her have been strictly public affairs, as cut-and-dry as any interview. Tonight, however, she’s as unpredictable as ever.

“You sure seem to be interested in our services,” she says to me, flashing her signature grin. “Perhaps a bit too interested, I’d say.”

“It’s for the good of my patients,” I quickly correct her. “As Ponyville’s chief physician, it’s my duty to know about neighboring towns and their medical systems.”

“I think you and I both know that isn’t true. You’re taking an unhealthy amount of interest in my clinic, and you haven’t been Ponyville’s chief physician for...quite a while, actually. My methods may not be ethical, but after the stunt you pulled six months ago, I’d say you’re far from ethical yourself.”

Any fear about my cover being blown is dispelled just about as soon as Starlight places her cup back on its saucer. Her face, as always, is stuck in a smile, except this time, a far more devious shadow crosses it.

Whatever she has planned for me, it’s far more than just calling me out for spying on her.

“So I suggest you quit lying to yourself and admit it,” she whispers. “You’re impressed with the way we run things here. You see a new start at Featherfall. And you know...I’d be more than willing to give you that chance.”

Everything in me wants to show surprise, but I remain as composed as usual. Fake it until you make it, ponies always say, and I have a distinct feeling that this time, faking it will give me everything I need from this case. Because, just from that very suggestion, Doctor Glimmer unveiled her first red flag.

“I’d love to,” I tell her. “But that’s impossible. Having somepony cast a spell on me every few days to let me walk on clouds is one thing, but commuting is out of the question. I’m not a pegasus.”

What happens next is at once predictable and unpredictable. A ball of light emerges from Doctor Glimmer’s forehead, and it slowly begins to cover her entire body. The next thing I know, her wings are gone--and a horn pokes straight out of her head.

“Neither am I,” she drawls, drawing ever closer to me. “But it’d be awfully inconvenient if anypony else were to know about it. I can teach you ways to stay here forever, but I fully expect something in return.”

“I won’t tell.”

“That’s not all I’m expecting from you. Your partner, Doctor Sparkle, is pretty accomplished where I come from. And so, I didn’t just give you those pills to treat Scootaloo. I know nopony will believe me if I publish my findings myself, but if I were to have her backing…”

I nod helplessly, knowing exactly what she’s getting at. We were weapons to advance her schemes all along, or rather, Doctor Sparkle was. I was nothing.

Just “nothing” enough to gain her trust. Just “nothing” enough to hit paydirt. So, against my better judgment, I accept her offer.

“I’ll do my best to convince her,” I tell Doctor Glimmer as I leave, mirroring her devious glance, “so just sit tight.”

****

Twilight Sparkle, M.D.
Ponyville Hospital, Day 20, late afternoon

Even minutes after reading Redheart’s notes, I’m still looking at the book in shock, and the pony in question simply shoots me a smile and trots onward. However, from what little I’m able to register of the incident, I know I’m not going to let off that easy.

“You actually agreed to it?” I ask her without thinking.

There’s a million other questions I should be pressing her on, but somehow, that one rings out more than the rest. I’m not really sure what I’m feeling--fear, shock, or something in between--but I know one thing for sure. Whatever it is, it’s not betrayal. I may not have known Redheart long, but I know she’d never go along with Featherfall’s schemes.

I’m not quite so sure about the rest, though.

“Only to get the facts out of her,” Redheart replies. “And to relay them onto you, of course. She said not to tell you, but she never said I couldn’t write it down. Document everything, right?”

She winks, and I can tell that she honestly thinks she’s figured Glimmer out. That she can jump through enough hurdles, and her promise won’t matter anymore. But something tells me that somepony powerful enough to change her race on a whim, for her own purposes, isn’t going to let Redheart go that easily.

I tell her just that, and my partner tells me she has it all covered. Now that I’ve properly warned the town--or at least warned them to the point where they’re too scared to touch one of those pills ever again--my job here is finished. Just go back to the patients, the everyday grind, and let her handle the rest.

I shouldn’t feel this way, I know. This is Redheart’s case, after all. I always knew this was going to have to be something for her to prove on her own. But somehow, watching as she prepares to go out on her own and face that monster again pains me to see.

Because it means that helping Redheart get her job back has stirred something in me. I don’t know what it is yet, but it isn’t the selfish desire to get back to Canterlot I thought it was. It isn’t fear for the Ponyvillians either, or at least, not quite. If it’d been just two weeks ago, I would’ve felt this way because I didn’t trust Redheart, but now I know better.

As she steadily trots out the door towards enemy territory, towards territory not even her tricks can fully comprehend, I feel like I’ve finally found the answer for myself.

My patients aren’t the only ponies I want to protect anymore. Somehow or another, she’s become somepony completely outside the system I’ve drilled myself on all my life.

I call out, or at least try to. I sprint towards the balloon, hoping that maybe she won’t make the wrong choice. Or if she still does, that I can be there to protect her anyway. But even then, it’s still too late. She’s off into the clouds, and here I am on Earth.

So I go back to my hospital, the one post I have where I can forget about everything. Where the implications can never pierce my mind. Glimmer’s certainly should’ve been the ones troubling me, but somehow, the thoughts I have towards Redheart strike me more. Even then, I walk inside and put on my battle face once more.

Fake it until you make it.

Author's Note

~~In which Redheart speedruns IYGALL and its shady deals.~~

And so, we start getting into the real romance of the matter, no matter how much Twilight denies it. I really wanted this to be a comedic part, but I figure we can have more of those once Starlight's defeated. Anyway, Twilight just needs to stop being such a Tsundere and realize that Redheart's smarter than she gives her credit for. :raritywink:

Also, the French Dash says translates to, "I have a headache, and now I speak fluent French." As a bilingual person who can speak fluent French, I felt the need to use it at least once in my stories.

Episode Ten: Freeze Over

Twilight Sparkle, M.D.
Ponyville Hospital, Day 20, early evening

There’s another advantage to documenting everything, I find out soon enough. Granted, one that involves me being unbearably stupid and doing something I never set out to do in the first place, but an advantage nonetheless.

The Twilight Sparkle I’ve trained myself to be all my life would’ve walked straight into the waiting room, called out the next patient, and forgotten everything from there. Fake it ‘till you make it, the job comes first, do no harm, that sort of thing. But somehow, as if something else is possessing my body, I find myself in my office, grabbing the first thing I see--Redheart’s journal. Then, I rush through room after room in search of the director.

It’s probably going to be a regular meeting, I try to tell myself. They’ve done this all week. She’s been coached through it by now, and she made sure to talk to the Cloudsdale police the last few times, so she has backup.

An image briefly flashes through my head of Doctor Redheart gagged and chained, helpless as Glimmer runs one of her twisted IVs through her. Giving Redheart the Cutie Pox pills the normal way would just open up a chance for her to scream or spit them out, after all. I blink hard and force my way out of the vision, trying not to think of how much the idea makes me want to scream.

It’s just Fluttershy’s magical filly mangas, the logical side of me explains. Villains don’t act like that in this world. Doctor Glimmer has too much at stake to pull something like that, anyway. So if you keep thinking like this, there’s no way you can beat her.

After several seconds of urging myself to pull it together, I trot into the director’s room, place the journal on his desk, and watch as he reads. He’s so unlike Director Celestia, so reclusive, that I can barely even remember his name right now. Or it could be the stress I’m in now. Either way.

To be fair, he isn’t completely in the dark about this. While Redheart and I have been keeping our operation secret from the other employees, we’ve given him pretty consistent updates about the Featherfall affair. To everypony else, I’ve just been helping Redheart out and getting her back to her normal self after her past failures, and it’s a solid alibi. Logically, she still has a long way to go, but her improved services, plus her investigations, have landed her solidly in the middle of the preliminary list. Still not her best, but hopefully, still good enough to convince the director to let her stay.

Or, at least, it would be if he didn’t just find out she signed a deal with Featherfall.

“She’s going to work for them?” he asks, far more confused than angered. “Even after everything she uncovered? I mean, I pegged her as a loose cannon the minute she continued her degree after the rest of her family quit, but--”

“It’s a trick,” I explain. “She thinks that doing it will get more information out of Doctor Glimmer, and the whole thing will go down by the time Featherfall tries to make good on it. But I have a bad feeling that doing this is just going to put her in more danger than it’s worth.”

There’s an inexplicable part of me who wants to throw this fact straight in his face and pin the blame straight on him. If he, or whatever idiot decided to use this outdated rank-and-yank system in the first place, thought for one moment nopony would pull a scheme like this to keep their job, then he would deserve every bit of it. Heck, I’d probably deserve a bit of it myself for pushing Redheart into this, but as soon as the thought enters my mind, I will the guilt straight out. That’s something that can be saved for another time.

So is confronting this mystery of a director, who can’t seem to be bothered with us unless there’s an emergency. I get the feeling that the moment I finally suck that information out of him will be the moment I finally leave Ponyville for good.

Yet another fleeting thought, one that would’ve distracted me just three weeks ago, destroyed by my sudden, insane, and raw worry about Redheart. And from there, a wall crashes around my brain.

I feel as if I’m out of my body. An empty shell, with nothing but gears moving inside. Yet somehow, looking into the director’s eyes and addressing him in a way I’d never dared to address Celestia, I’ve never felt more alive.

“Tell the Ponyville Police Department that there’s an emergency in Cloudsdale. We’re going to need backup, both with them and in here.”

It might be an ordinary meeting after all. Redheart might be back another day to pester me. But as we doctors say, do no harm and take no chances.

The director barely has time to look back at me before I go off to do the most daring thing I’ve ever accomplished.

I leave my post to save somepony outside the hospital limits.

****

Twilight Sparkle, M.D.
Featherfall Clinic, Day 20, early evening

“The next leap will be the leap home.”

For at least a year, that was the last thing I heard before drifting off to sleep. My brother, Shining Armor, was quite the science fiction aficionado--a nerd, even, to those who didn’t know him well--and every night he had the chance, he would sneak over to the radio by my room and listen in. We were both supposed to go to bed at nine o'clock sharp, but somehow, I was never so willing to bend the rules. Even then, I’d always try to pick up on bits and pieces of his old broadcasts, but everything but that was a blur. Even the old show’s name, which made it a lot harder to find it on records once I got old enough to be curious about it.

But somehow, that old phrase still stuck with me, and as I sail through the Cloudsdale skies, it’s the first thing I hear. The type of “leaping” it talks about isn’t really relevant to me, but the message is. It was all I wanted to do once I entered Ponyville: leap home by whatever means possible.

I can’t help but think about how foolish that all was as I float through, watching the clouds as if Dr. Glimmer could shoot me from above. I never remembered anything about the show, but what I could remember was that the message never changed, even hundreds of episodes later. The stallion was still leaping into unknown place after unknown place, path after path, always hoping the next would bring him where he wanted to go. It only figures that I’d be the same way.

Just as I really get into my brooding, however, my senses suddenly sharpen into high alert. The balloon stallion has parked me just outside Featherfall Clinic, just as I asked him to, and yet somehow, I’m still surprised. I try not to show it, though, and take a quick scan of the situation before trotting in.

The area around the clinic is practically an empty hangar, and not a single cop is around. Of course, I wouldn’t expect the forces I’d called in to show up so soon, but I’d figured Redheart’s warning would bring at least a few Cloudsdale spies. On the bright side, this at least means I have some time to stall Glimmer before she A) sees that her sorry excuse for a hospital is surrounded or B) manages to buck anything else up.

Getting in, as usual, is a piece of cake. Judging from the reaction I got last time I came here, my name’s managed to spread to most corners of Equestria. Unlike some ponies I know, I’m smart enough not to take this as an opportunity to gloat and head straight over to Dr. Glimmer’s office, straight ahead on the third floor.

(From my brother’s old video games and Fluttershy’s manga, I’m beginning to get the impression that villains like being on the top floor for no explicable reason. I know thinking of Glimmer as a fantasy villain is probably the last thing I should be doing right now, but in my defense, she sure isn’t helping matters.)

In any case, fantasy villain or not, I’m still tempted to press my ear to the door, and if this wasn’t such a delicate situation, I would’ve shoved that thought away with all the others. From what little I know about cases like this, it’s always good to have surprise on your side, and the longer I can go without Glimmer finding me, the better. I’m not sure just how much Redheart has spilled about our plan--normally, I’d trust her, but I also feel like someone like Dr. Glimmer wouldn’t take that sort of deal without decent collateral--but there’s only one way to find out. Thankfully, my Cloudsdale alter ego was too dumb to install any windows in her office, and for once, I’m grateful for her stupidity.

It’s just enough to give me an opening--until I realize that something is going very, very wrong.

I don’t know much about the times Glimmer has called Redheart up to her office--about as much as Redheart wants me to know--but there are certain things I’ve come to expect of any peer meeting. Silence is not one of them.

As a matter of fact, it’s something that we doctors rarely hear to begin with. Our offices are always filled with some sort of filler noise, whether it’s a complaining patient or a device blipping away. Yet, as I listen in, I can’t even hear a clock tick. Part of me wonders, in fact, if Glimmer already knows I’m here, and the very thought makes my fur stand on end.

Unfortunately, what I hear next only confirms that feeling.

“So that’s why you’re here?” Redheart whispers in between wheezing breaths. “The doctors at your old hospital pulled you out, too?”

No. No. Oh, moon and stars, no!

I barely even have to hear Glimmer speak to know that’s the truth, or at least her version of it. But the way Redheart responds fills in all the gaps. Somehow or another, this disgraceful charlatan dared to not only compare herself to my coworker, but hit her where it hurt most in the process. Everything about this is so obvious, so rehearsed, and yet somehow Redheart’s just going along with it. Forgetting every terrible thing this mare ever did to Cloudsdale, and was about to do to Ponyville.

I shouldn’t care, I tell myself, gritting my teeth so hard they almost go into the wooden door. If she really thinks this pony can do anything for her, it’s her own damn fault for being so naive.

The more I say it, though, the madder I am at Doctor Glimmer. The more I’m able to forgive Redheart and stir the tiny optimistic part of my heart into thinking it’s just another trick. And, to be fair, she doesn’t leave me much doubt on that front. By the time I listen in again, she’s already stopped hyperventilating, moving on to making her companion reveal as much as possible.

I can’t say I remember everything about Doctor Glimmer’s story, because at that point in my mind, all I was thinking about was slapping those crummy fake wings straight off her back. But thankfully, horn-recording was one of the few spells I actually remembered, from the times Shining wanted me to tape his radio shows when he was out on dates.

Anyway, the minute she starts flapping her gums, I knew it was going to be a blur, and so I might as well let my horn do the remembering. From what little I did pick up on, it was a pathetic excuse for the things she’d done, something about her old friend meeting the right ponies, getting a promotion, and being transferred to a different hospital. While I do admit networking opportunities like that aren’t always fair, they sure as hay are more valid indicators of medical prowess than, say, becoming a mad scientist in your spare time. Even then, however, I keep my judgment to myself.

I can only hope that Redheart is doing the same.

At this point in the game, I realize, I don’t even care why I’m worrying so much about her. Whether it’s in-character, out-of-character, as a patient, as a friend, or even as something else. What I know is that she’s heading down a slippery slope, and has been for heaven knows how long.

Maybe that’s why I can’t leap home yet, I tell myself one last time as I let my body slam against the door.

There’s somepony who needs me here.

****

Twilight Sparkle, M.D.
Featherfall Clinic, Day 20, mid-evening

I know all about you.

Those are the first words I hear after I break the silence. After I crash into Glimmer’s door Faust knows how many times before finally getting in. They’re the ones that make me realize that no matter how aware Doctor Glimmer is of my presence, her attention is still turned towards Redheart.

The Featherfall worker looks straight into my eyes for the slightest of moments, just long enough for her gaze to turn into something else entirely. As she stares back at Redheart, the smile slips straight off her face, and the sparkle in her eyes narrows into darkness.

If I was a more imaginative mare, I’d almost say it was like the slit of a cat’s pupil. Or, perhaps more accurately, like the look somepony would give their prey, and never their peer.

By the time Redheart detected it, it was already too late.

“I know why you came to me,” Doctor Glimmer whispers, already straight on Redheart’s tail. “And this job’s all the sympathy I’m going to give you. You’re the type of pony who deserves a living Tartarus.”

In that moment, I remember one last place I’d seen that sort of glance. In my old biology books, right next to a picture of a cockatrice. With the way my plan unravels right in front of me, she might as well be one. I can barely move, barely speak, until I receive clarification. She couldn’t have known all along, could she?

No response. I can say many things about Doctor Glimmer, but I will say the mare knows how to milk the moment for everything it’s worth. Redheart’s every bit as still as I am, refusing to acknowledge my presence, almost as if both of us are frozen in time. No, almost as if we’re frozen in separate worlds.

Either way, I can’t let this emotional whiplash get the better of me any longer. I’ve stood idly by far too many times today, and I finally find myself speaking out. Once again, I feel as though I’m outside of my own body, but this time, I embrace it.

“I heard there was something going on here,” I say, trying to keep my voice as level as possible. After all, I’m really not supposed to know about any of this. “What were you talking about just now?”

For once, Starlight Glimmer’s glance is utterly indecipherable. Her ponytail whips around, as if she’d just now noticed me. For a few brief seconds, I can’t help but wonder if that’s the truth, or if this whole thing was staged.

Fortunately, she isn’t the best at keeping to herself when it comes to these sorts of things. She puts her saccharine mask on again, the one that makes me cringe even more than her real face, and trots straight towards me.

“Oh, I was just helping your competitor out of her unfortunate situation,” she whispers. “I’m afraid she was under the mistaken impression that she could just leave her Ponyville job behind and come here. But I’m afraid a prestigious clinic like this one doesn’t quite work that way.”

Prestigious clinic, my ass, I almost say, nearly ruining our plan. Yet when I turn to face Redheart, I already know similar thoughts are swirling through her head. She shoots me the universally accepted “can you believe this flankhole” face and gestures for me to speak. What she doesn’t realize is that it takes me about a minute just to come up with something civil enough to say in a situation like this.

In the end, I settle on telling an abridged version of the truth, one that neither implicates me nor makes me seem completely oblivious.

“She did tell me about her plans to come here earlier, but I was under the impression that she’d already gotten the job.”

“What, and completely ruin this hospital’s publicity in the process?” Glimmer responds, her chuckle still eerily, sickeningly sweet. “Believe me, I do thorough background checks on everypony this place hires. Even more thorough than Pony Resources does, I’d even say.”

I swear, this mare has absolutely no concept of irony. Just as I’m about to tell her this, though, I swear I can see a shadow covering the upper part of her face as she stares straight into her eyes.

“I think you and I both know Redheart’s secret pretty well, don’t we? There’s one of them in every hospital, after all. That one pony who just won’t. Go. Away. And of course, it’s not like they can, even if they wanted to. They’re the perfect family heirs, spread out throughout Equestria to make sure all the hospitals have their perfect little monarchies. So I figured, since I had her on my side and all, I might as humiliate her a bit. Make sure she knows what it’s like to be abandoned by the system.”

Every word makes me feel like my mane’s about to fall off my head. Out of all the things I’d expected her to pull, this is probably the last thing I considered. But somehow, she knows our weaknesses--or at least Redheart’s--and I realize now that she’d prefer to use that as leverage and get the other information later.

I can see a white-and-pink blob out of the corner of my eye, but I don’t dare to look. Somehow, the idea of seeing Redheart broken scares me even more than it did when I started the operation. But, yet again, I don’t brood on it.

Save ponies first. Sort out feelings later.

“Do you even realize,” I say through gritted teeth, “that you’re saying all this to her face? Even if you say you don’t care about her feelings, she could still use it against you.”

“She’s fulfilled her purpose. And shouldn’t you be glad? By leaving her on the curb, you won’t have any competition from here to Canterlot.”

I should be telling her how I really feel about this whole thing. About just how twisted I’ve come to find this whole idea of doctors as competitors. Yet somehow, I can’t help but snag on the tiniest detail, one I know could turn the case in my favor.

“You wouldn’t be my competitor in this plan,” I whisper, letting accusation finally pierce my voice, “would you?”

Doctor Glimmer gives me an impressed grin, the sort I’d seen on Director Celestia a million times, and presses her hoof against my leg. I swear, I can feel the hives forming even now.

“Of course not. I knew all I had to do was lead one of your coworkers here, and you’d come eventually. You see, your whole story’s been around Equestria and back. The most promising young doctor of her time, sent off to some small town practice so she couldn’t threaten the higher-ups too much. What I mean to say is...I’ve been there, too. They always say it’s bedside manner, or accuse us of patient mistreatment, but it’s really something else, isn’t it? They’re afraid of what we can do, the way we can change everything. But with you, we can beat them for good.”

I can barely comprehend what’s happening in front of me, the way she’s daring to justify herself. All this time, it’s been little more than a game to her, and all I can do is compare herself to Perfumer Cassia. The old one, at least, before Rose cut her down to size.

I hate myself for bringing up Fluttershy’s magical filly manga yet again, but for once, it actually comes true. Or, to be more precise, this world’s Rose still manages to cut her down to size.

I see it unfold in front of me like slides from an old projector. Redheart going under Glimmer's desk. Pulling her medical bag out, the one she’s hid all this time. Scrambling through it until she finds the two perfect items for her plan. Loading a hypodermic needle with equine tranquilizer.

And stabbing it straight into Doctor Glimmer’s flank.

“I understand this is highly unethical,” she says as she does it, “but I don’t think you really have the right to complain about that.”

I swear to Faust, the only thing keeping me from laughing right now is the way my jaw hangs straight to the ground.

“You...tricked me,” Glimmer groans. “Just what the hay do you think you’re trying to pull?!”

Rather than the broken look I expect, Redheart stares straight down at Starlight and shows no mercy.

“Again, I don’t think you’re allowed to complain about that. And about what I’m pulling--I’m just making sure doctors like you don’t enter the system anymore. You know, the ones who actually do endanger lives and blame ponies like me for ruining the industry. So the police should be coming in an hour or so, and since I swooped in to save the day, I’ll probably get to work in a hospital that’s still open tomorrow. Then they’ll confiscate your pills and study them for a few years until they come to a consensus that cutie mark deficiency never existed, and that you never should’ve left medical school.”

I’ve never been more impressed with her. Even though, deep down, I can still see the dried tears streaking her fur. Even though I know that tomorrow, I might just have deeper wounds to heal.

The thoughts I have now are still the only things on my mind, and they’re about as far from our professional relationship as it can get. They just might be enough to risk everything for, even.

I officially love this mare, I finally tell myself.

And for once, as the stars soar all around the Cloudsdale skies, I might actually mean it.

Author's Note

I figured I might as well have an "Olympic-sounding" title for today's part, considering recent events. This is the longest part I've ever written for this series, and I feel like the next is going to start a whole new arc. I just don't want to spoil too much yet. What matters is that, for once, I was actually able to wrap up a villain arc in just a few parts for once ~~unlike a certain other series we know~~.

Also, concerning the Quantum Leap references in this chapter: IDW's already referenced it with Shining Armor, I really like the seasons I've seen of it, so I figured I might as well go for it. :twilightsmile:

Episode Twelve: Afterlight

Twilight Sparkle, M.D.
Ponyville Hospital, Day 27, sunrise

Somehow, the whole idea of Redheart calling me by my first name is both surreal and predictable. It haunts me when I wake up, and yet somehow, I feel bad for letting it shock me so much. I’ve been through so much this past week or so that it really shouldn’t be a revelation at all. It doesn’t even mean anything, for the love of Equestria!

It shouldn’t. It shouldn’t. It does.

I keep hearing her voice saying it over and over, with a tone coworkers don’t normally use. Somehow, I’ve warped it into being something even deeper, and even as I realize how irrational I’m behaving, somehow, it just doesn’t stop. I even swear that, the minute I heard her say that name, I heard music in the distance. Not the sort typically associated with romance by any stretch of the imagination, more like carnival music than anything else, but enough to lift my spirits all the same. The sort that says that this is destiny, that somehow, the two of us are getting somewhere--

I lay in bed, running these thoughts over and over in my mind, before slamming a pillow straight onto my head. The more they come into my head, the more I swear I’m sleep-deprived. That’s the only way you could ever get me to act so illogically, after all.

And so, checking the clock one last time, I go back to sleep and hope that maybe, just maybe, I won’t be such an idiot when I get to work.

****

Twilight Sparkle, M.D.
Ponyville Hospital, Day 27, early morning

“You say you heard music when she talked?”

I was that idiot. I still am that idiot. I’ve officially gone so crazy that I’m actually talking to my receptionist about this, and for some inexplicable reason, I can’t get myself to shut up. How did I get into this mess?

To be fair, my receptionist has been trying to take more of an interest in my life lately. For the most part, though, I’ve largely ignored him or told him I was busy, but today, I don’t have that privilege. I showed up to work especially early to make up for my sleeping in, and the hospital doesn’t open for another half hour. And so, here I am trying to make conversation with my receptionist Spike, who, by the way, also happens to be a dragon. And, somehow or another, that’s the most normal part of this entire conversation.

As much as I hate to admit it, I am getting far too used to Ponyville’s brand of weirdness.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have put that way,” I finally mutter. “I know I sound like a lunatic right now, but--”

“Nah, it was probably just the traveling salesponies being run out of town,” Spike says. “They can’t even ditch us without their theme music.”

Placing a careful claw onto the varnished desk, he leans towards me and asks, “You did hear about that, right?”

Right now, my thoughts are about halfway between “is running traveling salesponies out of town common here” and “is employing an undersized dragon technically child labor.” In any case, his question doesn’t register at first, but once it does, I quickly shake my head. Hopefully, describing the incident will take his mind off how quickly I confided in him about my relationship.

“Well, you’ll probably hear tons about it by lunch. We’ve got another case of food poisoning going around, all thanks to them. Hence why they were run out of town, obviously.”

“Another case of food poisoning?” I ask skeptically.

While I’m well aware that I had to deal with several ponies falling ill from “baked bads” a few weeks ago, including Redhe--Scarlet herself, the blasé way he says it is terrifying in and of itself. From what I can recall, Canterlot National only had to deal with it a few times a year, though I hear it’s far more common in carnivorous gryphon communities. Neither of which, of course, explains why it keeps happening in Ponyville.

“Actually, it was caused by poorly made cider. Which, I guess technically means it’s drink poisoning, but I’m really not sure such a thing exists.”

The dragon gives me a tiny nervous grin in response, and I simply nod, prepping myself for everything that could be thrown my way today. If it’s anything like the last outbreak, we’re about to have ponies flooding our gates any minute now.

It’s only after I trot back to my office and look over the overnight complaints we’ve gotten that I realize that this time, I haven’t felt tempted to mention Dash’s tea fiasco, not even once. A week or so ago, that would’ve been my first snarky remark--to say that perhaps she got her sewage mixed up with her water or something else of that nature. But now, all I can do is sigh in relief, knowing that for once, she won’t get blamed for something like this.

Maybe Scarlet isn’t the only pony I’ve warmed up to here…

It’s sad, but I can’t remember the last time I genuinely had that much of a connection with a patient. Maybe it’s because Scootaloo’s problems ran so deep, but Scarlet had at least some help in the matter. If it wasn’t for her, I’d have dismissed Dash like everypony else, given her a simple prescription and sent her off.

Just the thought of Scarlet changing my life that much is enough to make me blush. And so I force myself to learn as much about this case, and these strange salesponies, as I can, for the sake of the town.

For the sake of my own emotions. Because I can’t let them run wild when my real job could always put life on the line.

****

Twilight Sparkle, M.D.
Ponyville Hospital, Day 27, noon

Sure enough, ponies are practically flooding Ponyville Hospital, but luckily for me and for everypony else’s sanity, their complaints seem minor compared to the last incident. Most of the ponies affected have minor stomach pain and, at worst, nausea and diarrhea. As always, I keep close watch for dehydration, but other than that, the problem is fairly small. A few ponies who tried to come in last night even come to tell me that their condition has already improved.

Between appointments, I try to piece the whole fiasco together. According to local newspapers, a couple of salesponies came in a few days ago and apparently gained a sudden interest in apple farming. If I’d gotten an apple cutie mark like them, that would’ve been one of the first jobs I’d tried, but apparently that obvious fact was lost on the con ponies. From what I can tell, they’ve spent years traveling from town to town and the minute cider became a valuable commodity here, they attempted to seize on it. Fortunately, the Ponyville apple market was not overtaken by a couple of opportunistic morons. Unfortunately, they thought turning off the quality control mechanism on their weird apple machine was a good idea, and now I have to deal with it.

The more I read into it, the less and less this whole operation makes sense. Why bother building such a complex machine if your plan has such a high probability for failure? How did a couple of quacks manage to build a suction system so strong that it could suck up entire trees at once, and why didn’t they just decide to build Equestria’s most powerful vacuum cleaner? If it only sucked up the trees, how did rocks manage to get into some ponies’ cider?!

It hurts my head just thinking about it, quite possibly even more than it does thinking of Scarlet. Thankfully, even though the epidemic was fairly contained compared to the infamous “baked bads” incident, I still don’t get much time to dwell on it. My office is practically a revolving door at this point, and according to my calculations, a new patient comes in approximately every fifteen minutes. But, then again, since just about everypony has the same problem, I can get them out just as quickly.

Bedside manner, I realize, doesn’t matter near as much in situations like this.

By the time I finally make my way to the cafeteria, the cider cases are almost equally divided into one of two categories. Some ponies fell from the rotten fruit, and some fell from the debris mixed into the cider. Thankfully, the Apples keep their farm pretty well-maintained--although I haven’t had the chance to visit it yet--and so very few moldy apples were left on the trees by the time the Flim Flams came. This means that minor nausea remedies from Fluttershy’s pharmacy are just enough to cut it. However, the debris cases are just a bit more complex.

Most ponies just got splinters and sores in their mouth. The less I talk about the ones who tried to pass rocks in my bathroom, the better.

Judging from the disgusted look on Scarlet’s face when she comes in, I figure she’s just had one of these patients. The minute she sees me, though, her lips purse back into usual position. And that’s when I become acutely aware of something that’s bothered her for weeks.

Ever since I came to Ponyville, she’s always thought I was a better doctor than her, as if such a thing can be determined by the hospital you work at. In many ways, I’ve come to find that’s far from true, and it’s been a humbling experience. But, nevertheless, it’s something that Scarlet needs to realize for herself.

“So,” I finally call out to her, “I’m guessing you just came back from one of the bathrooms.”

For a minute, Scarlet doesn’t respond, but as she realizes she’s in a safe place, she somehow shudders and cringes at the same time.

“This isn’t something they teach you in med school,” she whispers. “It’s been awhile since I’ve graduated, but...I can definitely tell you that.”

She shoots me an overly confident stare and adds, “I’ve seen kidney stones before, just so you know. And now I’m glad they’re surgically removed most of the time.”

After she stops shuddering, she pulls up a chair next to me and lets out a deep breath. I’m honestly not sure if it’s because of her traumatizing experience with Starlight Glimmer or because of her questionable experience today, and I’m not sure I want to know which one it’s about.

“My last patient was bleeding,” she muttered. “Just getting that out of the way before we go any further into this.”

I’m no stranger to patients bleeding in odd places, but just hearing that’s enough to make me cringe, too. It’s enough to make me grateful that I wasn’t the doctor who had to deal with the ponies who got bigger rocks in their cider.

But that’s not the issue I have to deal with in this point and time. No matter what sort of incident Ponyville chooses to fling at us today, I have to know what went through Scarlet’s mind that night. Back when she was still Redheart to me, and back when Starlight Glimmer told her doctors like her were the source of all her problems.

“Before I ask you to say anything, I just want to know that I’m not going to use anything against you. I won’t tell any of the other doctors what’s going on, and I’m not using this information to take advantage of you. You may not believe me, and I almost don’t believe myself, but I’m asking you this because I’m worried about you.”

Scarlet could do literally anything in this situation, but ever true to character, she just scoffs.

“There’s nothing to be worried about. I appreciate the gesture, but my issue isn’t with Glimmer. I have so little respect for her that I only bothered to call her ‘doctor’ when I was around her, and I definitely wouldn’t beat myself up over anything that mare says.”

Her voice is sharper than ever, and yet somehow, I can still tell she’s compensating for something. No matter how hard she denies it, there’s still a chink in her armor, and as she continues on, I can almost hear it break.

“The problem is, Twilight...a lot of other ponies have said the same thing. Ones that are actually trusted doctors. Sometimes, it just seems like no matter what I do, no matter how much I try to surpass them, my family’s shadow is still over my head.”

Unlike the other times we’ve met, she takes special effort not to cry. She knows that even if she has my word, we’re not in a private place this time, and anypony who wants to see her can. But somehow, she just keeps talking anyway, just like how I unloaded in front of Spike this morning.

“You know, you’re the main reason I even wanted to stay here in the first place. You were the ultimate test, in a way. Because if you never would’ve come here, if you never would’ve forced me to prove myself...I would’ve left the minute they tried to transfer me.”

“I thought you wanted to stay with your patients.”

“That’s true, but if you would’ve seen the way things were before you came, you’d understand a lot more. Even before my mother died, some ponies were still on my back. There’s only so much a mare can take, after all.”

After awhile, she stops trying to keep the tears from flowing, but they never come. By the time she speaks again, she already has a wistful sort of smile on her face.

I admit I’ve never seen anypony speak poorly of Scarlet while I’m around, but if I do, I get the distinct feeling it won’t end well for anypony. But, with the way she seems to be now, it may end more poorly for me than it will for her.

“But that’s all over now, at least,” she whispers. “If anypony else says I haven’t earned my slot, I’ll just keep fighting to prove them wrong. That’s why I told you I wasn’t going to show my soft side from today on. Because I need to realize that Glimmer didn’t do anything to me. It’s just me, dwelling on my past and questioning myself. And if I was able to hold my own so well against you, and if I was able to last two weeks against the brightest mind in Canterlot, then who knows what you can do?”

She gives me a tiny wink, making me want to think all this is over, but just from the way she looks at me, I know it isn’t. It won’t be, as long as she keeps saying the one thing that puts her down more than anything.

“I’m not the brightest in Canterlot.”

No, my old self wants to say. You are. You are. You’ve worked all your life for this. Don’t throw it away for her--

“I just got lucky. I was in the right place, the right time, the right med school, the right hospital. All a bunch of rankings that don’t mean anything when patients are concerned. I had the right family, filled with ponies who wouldn’t make me compete with them to feel worthy. And I still ended up here, because somehow or another, I managed to throw it all away. If that’s how it is, then it can be the same for you. You succeeded without any of those things, and that’s practically a miracle.”

Suddenly, I realize that I don’t know where these words are coming from. I’ve never been good at giving pep talks, or doing anything like this. And, before I can fully comprehend what I’m doing, my lips move on their own accord. Just like with Spike, but worse.

Because this time, it’s too late to correct it.

“That’s what made me fall in love with you.”

Scarlet’s expression is wordless, thoughtless, the ultimate cipher. As much as I want her to say something, anything, I know I’ve frozen her in this moment.

Doctor Twilight Sparkle makes mistakes.

I just hope this won’t be one of them.

Author's Note

Well, this is as apt an anniversary episode as any, isn't it? I sincerely hope the month wait for the next part won't be too excruciating... :raritywink:

Episode Thirteen: Sugar Pulse

Twilight Sparkle, M.D.
Ponyville Hospital, Day 27, noon

Perhaps I’m better at magic than I thought.

This is what I tell myself as I watch everypony freeze all around me. I’m not sure if they’ve heard what I’ve said or not, but with any luck, that’s all it is. Just some sudden magical surge, something I haven’t had for years, but something that at least makes more sense than this whole spectacle.

Everypony here is trapped in time. The closer they are to me, the more potent the spell is.

It sounds like one of my brother’s old shows, but somehow, it’d explain everything. It’d be better, at least, than the truth. That love really is a spell, a secret one that ponies like me aren’t supposed to share, and I blew the whole operation by blabbing it. I was so close to keeping it hidden forever, keeping it locked and at bay, and here I am.

“What did you just say?” Scarlet finally asks.

And just like that, the illusion cracks all around me. There’s no longer a point to keeping all of this inside, and with any luck, Flim and Flam will keep any doctors from watching this too closely. As long as everypony in this break room focuses on their patients instead of being insufferable gossips, everything will be fine.

But somehow, I still can’t own up to it, even if the facts are pointing me that way. Even if I wanted to. Which, of course, Equestria knows I do.

“Forget it,” I mutter, imagining myself pulling the plug on the whole thing. Imagining everything I’ve ever heard about how awkward office relationships are, how much things like this tear you away from your job. Wanting more, but knowing I can’t have it.

As I say it, I can almost hear the whirring sound stage lights make when they turn off. Hopefully, she’ll be able to hear the same thing, and I can go back to what I do best. Furthering medicine, making discoveries, and staying away from as many ponies as I can.

“I got a bit too emotional back there and said things that I maybe didn’t mean. Sleep deprivation can do that to you, you know. Which is why we should both get a good night’s sleep tonight and forget all this ever happened.”

I chuckle nervously for good measure, thinking that maybe Scarlet will start to see this as a joke and trot away. But somehow, she stays frozen in front of me, staring into my eyes without coming any closer. My romantic vision kicks in for the slightest of moments, imagining her luscious mane hanging down for everypony to see, blowing in the wind, giving me that same distant look.

“So what?” she asks me. “I’ve seen ponies say a lot of weird things when they’re delirious. But you expect me to believe they’d start confessing their love to everypony they see? I may be below you, but I’m not that stupid.”

Her voice is terrifyingly undecipherable, and this is coming from a pony who’s never really feared anything. That last part, though, is enough to send an arrow through my back. Even after everything I’ve said, she still believes in these rankings, which could have been made by some idiot with a checkboard for all I care. She’s tuned everything else out except the last thing I’d wanted her to hear.

I test this theory, as I test everything, and find out that it’s true. I tell her, over and over, that isn’t true, but she still continues on with it. Little by little, she keeps pushing me away from my lie and towards the truth. A truth that, I come to realize, she might never accept even if I wanted her to.

Just a few weeks ago, if I’d told her all this, I would’ve been afraid she’d use it as blackmail material, and now I fear something else entirely. That I’ll turn myself into a fool for her, and she’ll be the only one who ever knows.

“You know that’s not what I meant,” I whisper as I dial up the awkward act. “I used the wrong words to say it. What I meant was I’m really starting to warm up to you. As a coworker, or maybe a friend. What I just said was a griffon saying before ponies started using it, and they’d kinda say it all the time for friends. Since they’re always in the sky so much, ‘I’m falling for you’ can mean that they have somepony to keep them down to earth. Except we ponies didn’t really understand it when it came to our language, so we...just started using it...for lovers. And that’s why I said it!”

Telling that story is an exercise in and of itself, and so by the time I’m done, sweat’s rolling down my fur, and my throat’s as dry as it’s ever been. On top of that, I swear that the more Scarlet’s eyes narrow, the more choked my voice gets. It’s almost like she’s strangling me with my words.

Even then, the minute I say that last sentence, I immediately regret it. Because I’ve known Scarlet long enough to know exactly what she’s going to do.

“So you did mean it like that,” she muttered. “You’re falling for me as more than a friend.”

With a raise of her eyebrow, she whispered, “As only ponies can.”

I inch away from her as quickly as I can, and she chuckles a little. Apparently, she only said that and got up close so she could get a rise out of me, but everything’s so tense that I feel afraid of everything. Still, though, I’m not able to get away from her completely, and for the first time in awhile, just seeing her face makes me uncomfortable.

“It’s not something that I’m supposed to feel, okay?” I finally tell her. “We’re the best doctors this town has. We have to stay focused all the time, or somepony dies for it. And even if ponies like us can afford the time to fall in love. Plus, in case you’ve forgotten, we used to hate each other. This isn’t something that should be happening.”

Just like that, the room freezes again for the slightest of moments before returning back to normal. But the minute all that comes out of my mouth, I begin to fear that I’ve broken something else, something greater.

Maybe we’ll hate each other again by the time all this is over.

“I don’t think this is something we should talk about here,” Scarlet says. Even as she talks, I can still feel her sizing me up, wondering just how much of a fool I really am.

And then, even as she gives me that weird sort of half-glare, she gives me my saving grace, too.

“Sugarcube Corner should still be open when our shifts are over. So why don’t you tell me everything there?”

As everypony around me leaves for their next patients, I feel a weight coming off my body. Yet I know exactly what she’s going to want in the next few hours, and that should be enough to make me squirm even more.

“I do mean everything,” I hear her say as she leaves the room. As she leaves me alone to think about just what I’ve done.

****

Twilight Sparkle, M.D.
Ponyville Hospital, Day 27, late night

Time finally speeds up again, even if I have to see patient after patient with weird cider-related digestive problems. And, while I realize that “working my flank off” is not a healthy defense mechanism in any sense of the word, it’s the only way I really have to keep myself together now.

Still, even as I sift through ponies with some of the worst vomiting spells I’ve ever seen, I can’t help but wonder what got into me back there. At this point, I’ve surrendered myself to the idea that somepony injected me with truth serum while I was sleeping last night, or whatever in Tartarus made me so damn honest today. But, even though I’ve considered the pros and cons of being with Scarlet several times, I still have no idea why I shoved her away like that. Sure, it’s how I treat everypony else, but she’s supposed to be different. Romance is supposed to be different.

As the office finally closes for the evening, and the night-shift emergency care ponies start showing up, I think two things to myself. One, I’ll never understand love. And two, I never want to see a rock in a trash can, in a toilet, or in any combination of the two, ever again.

And so, with the Flim Flam cases over and done, I trot over to Sugarcube Corner, feeling surprisingly good about myself. Running away from your problems can do that to you, or to me, at least. Otherwise, I would’ve just skipped out, told Scarlet I’d accidentally drank an unlabeled sample of tainted cider, and cut my losses. But still, I find myself heading towards the second-most dangerous eating establishment in Ponyville.

Actually, considering Dash’s place burned to the ground not long ago, and Sugarcube Corner has yet to experience any real cataclysmic disasters, it’s probably third. Then again, from what I’ve heard, no place is really completely safe in Ponyville. The villagers all accept this with an optimistic sense of nihilism, and I think it’s starting to rub off on me.

As I approach the building, I take a few deep breaths, build myself up, and assure myself that Scarlet and I will probably be the only ponies in a bakery at this hour. There might be a few cops around if I’m especially unlucky, but judging from how little I’ve seen them around, they probably won’t pay us too much attention.

Get it together, Sparkle, I tell myself one last time before pushing the door open with exaggerated bravado.

Sure enough, I figure out once I see the place, it is literally impossible to stress out inside Sugarcube Corner. Even in the dead of night, the wallpaper is so outlandishly bright that it practically sends a smile through my brain waves. On top of that, the furniture and decor have been specifically picked to imitate whatever town candy store your mind might conjure. It’s basically like the science fiction radio shows my brother used to watch, except this time, it’s the good kind of traveling through time.

In true Ponyville fashion, I walk straight up to the counter and order the most sugary thing they have: “unicorn-inspired” hot chocolate (whatever that entails) with a Prench-style cotton candy macaron. I figure with the way the ponies I know talk about this place, it’s best to lean towards the most unhealthy option possible. In any case, I pick Scarlet out from the one occupied table and prepare myself for more awkwardness. Judging from the stare she’s giving me, I can’t help but wonder just how hard this is going to be on both of us.

“Um,” I finally mutter, half to myself. “That pep talk really got out of hoof, didn’t it?”

She blinks as if realizing that was what I’d meant to do after all. Before the whole thing derailed, all she had to do was talk to me about Starlight, and everything would be over. But instead, something entirely different had emerged.

With a quick whisper, she says, “I wanted to talk to you on neutral ground. I figured the cafeteria would be the best place for that, but judging from how nervous you got, this probably would’ve been a better place anyway. I’m usually the only one here at this hour.”

She bites into a strange cupcake as she says this, beige in color and covered with little black dots. I’m about to ask if it’s really made out of cookie dough before I realize that I’m trying to dodge the situation again. If anything’s going to come out of this, I have to address it at the root, even if I don’t particularly want to.

“So unless you’re going to tell me another griffon story, I’d like to hear what was really on your mind when you said that. How would you explain it if you knew nopony in the world was watching?”

The explanation would be the same, I think. Even though it’s something I want, nothing about this relationship made any sense. What would happen if I had to move back to Canterlot? What would happen if I ever wanted to advance in my job, even in Ponyville? What would happen if it turned out I was holding Scarlet back? What would happen if we weren’t meant to be together?

What if? What if? What if?

A tiny light turns on in my brain, even though I know it can’t possibly be there. It’s that one little part of me other ponies don’t believe exists, the part of me that’s supposed to have a heart. I’d turned it off without even thinking about it for years, letting logic and reason dictate my body in its place. I’d gotten pretty far without it, but suddenly that’s not enough. I should be allowed to be happy.

What if? What if? What if?

The light explodes in realization, and the words crystallize into a single thought.

I’m sure.

“I would tell you the same thing I said before,” I reply. “That you don’t give yourself near enough credit and that somehow or another...you made me want to stay in Ponyville. You made me fall for you.”

Scarlet blinks a few more times, but the reaction I get is nowhere near what I expected. It’s a little sly, but in the calming way I’ve come to expect from her.

“That’s what I figured,” she says, her blue eyes locked on mine. “I can’t say I feel the same for you, but I can’t say I’m surprised, either. Ever since the whole Glimmer deal, neither of us have really been acting right.”

“We sure haven’t,” I respond without thinking.

“Anyway, I can’t say I remember the last time somepony told me that. I’m still not sure how to feel about you, but I can’t deny that when you first told me that...I felt really happy for some reason. Maybe...it’s time we both start working towards that, instead of running away from ourselves.”

She’s practically reading my mind, I tell myself, taking a tentative bite of the macaron. Just like the bakery itself, I find it’s hard to feel stressed when I eat it.

For a few short moments, she goes back to her old self, her own little unhealthy defense mechanism. She sizes me up, tilts her head to the side, and looks at me as if I’m little more than another enemy.

“I’m not about to guarantee anything,” she mutters. “That I’ll end up falling in love with you or anything. Or that you’ll be able to put up with me.”

And then, for probably the first time since I met her, her eyes pulse with the slightest spark. A twinkle in her eye, or perhaps even love itself. On top of that, she does the one thing I thought impossible.

She pulls herself in towards me and stretches her hooves along my chest. Earlier today, I would’ve thought it was far too close to my liking, but all of a sudden, it just feels right.

“The con’s in a few days. That’s a good a time as any to try this whole thing, right? The two of us, together?”

My heart practically skips so many beats it almost falls over. Scientifically inaccurate or not, the one thing I never thought possible just happened.

Scarlet Redheart, my absolute equal, the one pony I thought would hate me with her final breath, is now my marefriend.

Author's Note

Random inspiration for this part: a bakery by my hometown actually makes cotton candy macarons, and as much as I like macarons in general, I've always thought they were too sugary, even for me. Sounds like the perfect thing for Twi to order by mistake!

Anyway, after three whole months of waiting, Scarlet and Twilight should make it to CanterCon next part. And after thirteen whole chapters...I just now remember that there's a reformed villain character in Precure/Pretty Cure who goes by Twilight as a villain and Scarlet as a hero. Naming Redheart Scarlet was subconscious all along... :facehoof:

Episode Fourteen: Cinnamon & Roses

Twilight Sparkle, M.D.
Ponyville Hospital, Day 30, early morning

Life gallops by when love is in your heart.

Either that saying is true for everypony, or I’m even more of a sap than I realize. Already, it’s been almost a month since I’ve come to Ponyville, and yet somehow, even that escapes my brain for the longest time. I always figured I’d keep counting the days of my exile forever, as if it’d actually get me closer to my Canterlot home, but somehow, even that whizzes past me. All I can think about right now is just how lucky I am to have Scarlet by my side, to have another crisis averted. That, and my patients, of course. I’m not so much of a sap that I’ll ever stop being married to the job.

In any case, I don’t really realize until too late that I am, in a way, fulfilling my dreams. I am returning to Canterlot, in a sense, even if it’s only for one day. And that, on top of spending time with Scarlet, is enough to rope me into some dangerous decisions. Namely: choosing to be an “undercover medic” at a manga convention.

The director made it sound harmless enough--the two of us would be allowed to go to the con and shill Fluttershy’s manga on the express condition that we patrol the building for potential emergencies in the making. For whatever reason, the con planners hadn’t hired a safety staff from Canterlot, and while I would’ve berated them for it under any other circumstances, I was at least thankful that the date was going as planned. That is, however, until Rarity comes straight into my office just as I’m about to meet the train.

“Dr. Redheart and I will be out on business in Canterlot this weekend,” I try to explain before she gets too close. “Another doctor will come to assist you momentarily, so I would just recommend that you stay in the waiting room until--”

I nudge Rarity towards the area, and I’m just feet away from the waiting room when the seamstress starts pulling something out of her saddlebag. A sight that, in and of itself, would have been completely normal if I didn’t notice two other saddlebags sitting nearby in an otherwise empty room. As this whole scene unfolds, Redheart trots straight into the room, shooting me a glance that reads “those aren’t mine” before moving onwards towards her office.

Just when I’m about to question the situation more, though, Rarity pulls out what has to be the frilliest dress I’ve ever seen, with pure white fabric and red crosses stitched onto the sleeves and pockets. As if that whole thing wasn’t too big to fit into Rarity’s seemingly bottomless saddlebag, she pulls out a matching hat and, later, a purse made to resemble a first-aid kit. All I have to do is look into the other saddlebag, which contains the exact same ensemble in pink, to know exactly what’s going on here.

“He really did mean undercover, didn’t he?” I mutter to myself, half-expecting that Rarity won’t hear me.

“Indeed,” Rarity responded. “Your director came by to commission these a week or so ago. Dresses like these don’t run cheap, and he was about to deduct the cost from you two’s monthly pay. I was able to persuade him into paying for it himself, though, considering all you’ve done for Ponyville already and considering that I have a younger sister who would’ve easily fallen into Dr. Glimmer’s schemes. The way I see it, it’s a gift of thanks for all your hard work!”

I suppose it’s official now, then. Saving Ponyville’s foals from certain Cutie Pox-related doom means you get a free dress from Rarity. Not something I needed, but pretty fair all the same. I just hope the next time Rarity offers, I actually get to pick my outfit instead of just trotting around wearing a stereotypical nurse costume with extra frills.

I choose to grin and bear it, simultaneously wanting to strangle my hospital director in the process. It’s hardly Rarity’s fault, and if I’m going to stay sane with Scarlet, I have to at least try to keep these remarks to myself. Just as I think of my new marefriend, she trots back into the room, sees the second saddlebag, and practically squeals in delight. I almost wouldn’t have thought that sound possible, if I hadn’t heard it for myself.

“Oh my stars, you could practically pass this off as designer!” she practically screams, going back into her fangirlish mode without warning. “How much do you want for it?”

She nearly faints as Rarity goes through her whole spiel again, lovingly touching the fabric to her face. I never would have pegged Scarlet as a fashion-loving pony, but I suppose this is the sort of thing that happens in relationships. Still doesn’t make it any weirder to witness.

“About what you said before--that’s because it’s, unfortunately, almost-designer. Unfortunately, the methods the Fillita greats use are arduous, and authentic Neighponese fabric is so hard to get on short notice. I had to use some less intricate fabric I had left over from my last Fillita commission. Alas, I only wish your director had come up with this plan sooner, or I could have come up with some truly stunning haute couture. So, unfortunately, there will be somepony at that convention with a far more expensive dress than yours.”

“It won’t fall apart, will it?” I question, half-wondering if Rarity had to cut serious corners to get two extremely intricate dresses done in five days’ time.

“Of course not. It’s not a designer piece, but it’s certainly not a knockoff. I’d never have you two going out in something like that. Plus, if you managed to get blood on anything other than this perfect medium fabric, it would be a disaster waiting to happen.”

My mind tunes out just about as soon as Rarity gives that surprisingly morbid comment--surprisingly morbid for a non-doctor, mind you--but from what I can tell, this “Fillita” fashion is one of the most coveted things in the Canterlot manga subculture right now. Most of the richer Canterlot ponies can easily afford it, but for ponies like Scarlet, anything other than the cheaper versions are pipe dreams. With that background in mind, I almost consider myself lucky to have such an item in my possession. (Whether or not that lucky feeling will stay when I put it on remains to be seen.)

Anyway, ugly or not, just seeing Scarlet smile over finally getting one of her dream items is enough for me. That is, at least, until I make the mistake of asking what’s in the third saddlebag.

As it opens in front of me, I can see a pure white suit with sleeves covered in gold chains. It’s far too small to fit me, but I’ve seen that sort of outfit enough times in Canterlot to know exactly what it’s meant to be, and exactly what it’s for.

I pull the matching crown out of the saddlebag and turn to face Spike with a skeptical gaze.

“Princely Fillita’s really popular too,” he says nervously. “I’m not going to the convention, but I figured I’d commission something too, for...recreational purposes?”

Barely five seconds after he tells me this, I can just imagine him posing in front of a mirror, royal suit and all. For once, Scarlet must’ve imagined the same thing, because the minute the two of us leave the room and head towards the train station, she whispers into my ear.

“Because impressing mares is absolutely recreational.”

By the time I reach the station, I realize I’m still laughing.

****

Twilight Sparkle, M.D.
Ponyville Hospital, Day 30, mid-afternoon

By the time we reach Canterlot, the convention is already underway. While we don’t have tickets for the first day, we can still see the revelers from outside our hotel room, and they crowd the area in droves. Most of the costumes are ones that I can’t place, but judging from the way Rarity talked about the fashion at these sorts of places, months of work had to have been put into them. And, of course, everypony who’s able to afford one of these ensembles is strutting around like they’re on some sort of subcultural catwalk. They’re the envy of everypony there, and they know it.

I know that sort of confidence won’t be easy to summon up tomorrow, but the more important fact is that it should be. With the way I was in Canterlot back then, it should be all too easy to patrol the premises, help Fluttershy promote her manga, and everything in between. Unfamiliar crowds or strange uniforms shouldn’t matter. After all, Doctor Twilight Sparkle doesn’t make mistakes, and she certainly doesn’t get nervous. Eight years of medical school had been enough to pick every last bit of anxiety off the fearful little filly I used to be, and I wasn’t about to let her creep back into my life.

Until I realize that maybe it isn’t the dress that’s causing this much trouble. It’s looking at Scarlet in a new way, and wondering if, deep down inside, I’ll always be destined to screw this up.

Whatever the case, I tell myself, it certainly isn’t something to dwell on. So I slowly retreat back to the technique I used when I was an undergraduate getting used to things: analyzing the facts of the case until the nerves went away. And since there aren’t too many for me to really dig into, I focus on the good and the bad.

Bad news: it seems that, after those costuming shenanigans, the director didn’t want any more money to go down the drain for something like this, so we only have passes for Saturday and Sunday. Good news: from what little Fluttershy’s told me, nothing really happens during the Friday afternoon slot anyway--so little, in fact, that she didn’t even bother to set up the booth today.

Bad news: ponies already start to pick the vendor booths off on Fridays, Fluttershy says, so I might not be able to find a Healer Midnight figure to surprise Scarlet with. Good news: Beautiful Healers isn’t the most popular manga on the market, so they might still have what I want tomorrow. Bad news: I might not be left alone for long enough to sneak past Scarlet.

And the ultimate good news: for all the penny-pinching this director’s done for us, he’s at least bought us a room with two beds. No rom-com awkwardness to be found here.

I’m about to tick off the whole trip as a success, all things considered, when I suddenly realize one flaw in the plan.

“If we’re not going to the con today,” I say, half to myself, “then what are we going to do for the next few hours?”

By the time I say it, though, I almost immediately regret it. Not because it’s a particularly bad thing to say, but because I know that lately, whenever I say something “to myself,” somepony else always manages to answer. I don’t know if Ponyville ponies have particularly keen ears or what, but either way, I really ought to quit that habit before it gets me into any more trouble.

“I don’t know,” Scarlet replies, her voice tinged with some indecipherable emotion between annoyance and fatigue. “With the way you were off in another world, I figured you just wanted to stay here.”

Sure enough, I’d been trying to deescalate the situation in my head for so long that I’d barely even noticed the way Scarlet had already draped herself over the bed. I can’t say I’ve ever seen her look tired, not even after she learned she was being transferred to Appaloosa, but sure enough, the hours caught up to her just like they did to everypony else. Judging from everything she’s been through up until now, from investigations to love confessions, I’m actually not all that surprised her perfect doctor mask is peeling off again.

“So in other words, you wanted to take a nap,” I tell her, trying my best to make sure my voice doesn’t sound like I’m criticizing her. As I’ve often been told, both inside and outside of Canterlot, teasing isn’t really my forte. Still, I figure it’s at least worth a shot, and for once, Scarlet actually gets the message.

“Hey, I never can stay awake long after being on a train,” she mutters, letting off a tiny chuckle for once. “Maybe that’s why I never left home.”

She lets out a satisfied sigh and holds onto her pillow like it’s a life preserver tethering her to the waking world. Yet, even as she puts on this big show of being tired, I can still tell she’s troubled somehow. I’ve never been that much of an emotion reader, but somehow, with Scarlet, I can always tell. Maybe she’s an easy pony to read, or maybe it’s just another sign of this strange romance I’ve allowed myself to fall into.

Either way, she stretches her hooves out onto the bed for a few short moments before finally letting her words come out.

“So tell me, how does this place make you feel?”

“The hotel?” I ask, nerves falling into my voice for no particular reason. I know it can’t be that easy, that there has to be more to the question, but I move onwards anyway. “It’s fairly passable, so far as these sorts of places go. Most hotels here look the same these days, anyway. I hear the restaurant district is the exact same way. The amenities are nice enough, but I haven’t tried the beds yet, so--”

Scarlet cuts me off with a glance, confirming my suspicions. All too often, there’s something more to this mare than she tends to put on, and I get the feeling that this will be yet another one of her moments.

Instead of a normal response, she stretches one of her front legs out towards the window and waves it around like a taxi driver giving a tour.

“No,” she finally says. “Not just the hotel. The whole thing. Canterlot. You’ve managed to end up back here, even if it’s just for a few days. Does it feel like you’re back home?”

Her voice seems sincere enough, but even then, there’s still a world of doubt hidden behind it. I want to tell her that I never even considered the possibility, that the date has been more on my mind than my grand return. But somehow, for once in my life, my mouth fails me. It’s almost like confessing everything to Scarlet has caused it to tense up, locking its secrets shut for good.

“I’m fine with being together tomorrow,” she reaffirms. “I’m fine with everything. But the more I think about where we’re going together, the more I wonder how long it’s going to last. Everything about us, whether if it’s as friends or rivals or lovers or something else.”

The minute I realize the implications behind what she’s saying, I want her to fall asleep. I want everything to turn out the way it would when my brother’s radio wasn’t working. One time, when he was studying at the library, it almost broke altogether, but I found a way, just as I always did. Just as I always will.

Turn it off. Turn it back on. Everything is fixed. Everything is forgotten.

“If you’re serious about this, I’m willing to play along. But I want you to know this much: if I fall in love with you, and you flit off to some other place without me, I won’t forgive you.”

From what little I’ve learned from Fluttershy’s magical manga, phrases like that are just things magical fillies say. “Unforgivable” is just a stock line you throw at a villain to show the audience you’re in on the genre. Or, in Fluttershy’s own case, the exact same line Rose gives Cassia every single time she moves to another planet in her eternal quest for attention.

Even if it was just meant as a nerdy joke, it still hurts. But not as much as what Scarlet says next, the question that shakes me to my core.

“Will you be able to bring yourself back to Ponyville?”

As I try my best to answer, as she falls asleep, I realize the ultimate flaw in my plan to return to Canterlot National Hospital and woo Scarlet. I never thought it would have to be an either/or decision.

As if the thought of an upcoming first date wasn’t crushing enough, a final question pulses through my mind as I force myself to sleep, to reset to a better place.

Can I really live with a hoof between two worlds?

Author's Note

I've wanted to use a title like this for a while now. Since Cassia and Rose's interactions have paralleled Twilight and Scarlet's, I figured this part would be as good as any to highlight that (cassia being another name for cinnamon).

Anyway, I promise we will actually get to the con next chapter. I just wanted to write about the pre-con festivities first (ngl, the Lolita sketch came to me before anything else in this chapter, and I just wanted to use it for all it was worth).

EDIT: I almost forgot to tell you all this: I finally got a piece of Cure Moonlight merch! One of the most important people in my life gave me a figure of her civilian form for my birthday, and I adore it. Now, I really want to make sure Scarlet has the same luck as I did with her Healer Midnight merch.

Episode Fifteen: We Can Rule Together

Twilight Sparkle, M.D.
Ponyville Hospital, Day 31, sunrise

Where do I belong?

I’ve been trying to outrun that question all morning, but then again, I’ve never been the best athlete to begin with. In the meantime, like always, I choose to distract myself with other activities--waking up before Scarlet to check out the breakfast bar, stopping by the CanterCon information booth, anything to keep my mind off it. Anything to keep me from staring out the window, towards the place that I once called home.

I don’t often indulge in fairy tales, but I’ve heard enough of them to know what happens when outside creatures get trapped in our realm. The only reason they stay in Equestria is because there is no other way to get back--villainous ponies destroy their magic, steal it, to the point where there is no escape. These ponies believe that someday, the creature they’ve captured will forget their home and stay in Equestria forever and out of that foolishness, they return their magic. And that, above all, is the true danger of looking back to a place you once called home.

Just one look, and you’re compelled to leave everything behind. Before, I would have considered the citizens of Ponyville no different from the evil sorcerers in those stories--ponies who’d conspired against me and trapped me. I don’t feel like I’ve changed that much since then.

So why am I suddenly so afraid of staying here?

With an annoyed sigh, I realize yet again that these thoughts are useless. Scarlet wants me to decide in the next couple of weeks or so, not immediately. Nopony, no matter how cruel, would expect such a thing, and I know for a fact she is as far from cruel as a seapony is from a dragon. Scolding myself for even thinking about the situation, I take a flyer from the information desk and prepare myself for the best first date a pony could ever have.

The flyer is surprisingly large, almost a booklet in its own right, but even that doesn’t deter me. With newfound confidence, I set off to create the perfect plan for our trip, one that involves hitting off all of Scarlet’s interests while still giving us enough time to promote Fluttershy’s manga.

Which is good, because other than the things Scarlet talks about, I have no clue what this whole “manga” thing is all about.

As I trot through our hotel hallway with my booklet in tow, I realize that at least half of the panel topics are about things I’ve never heard of. (Actually, now that I think about it, “half” might actually be a generous estimate.) I can understand most of the things about magical filly manga and Fillita from experience, some ideas about comedy and romance manga, some cultural Neighponese concepts, and everything else is a blur. The blurbs about the panels are enough to clear up some things--like how yuri isn’t really something to be discussed on any first date, let alone one between two mares--but other than that, everything else might as well have been in another language.

A feeling of dread creeps up my spine, and I can suddenly imagine Scarlet roping me into a round of manga trivia just so she can tease me about it later. Yet another reason why I feel the need to plan all this in advance.

More importantly, if I can do this for her, maybe she’ll be convinced that I really am serious about all this. If anything, maybe it’ll even convince myself.

As I open the door to our room and see Scarlet sleeping just across from me, one last set of questions forms in my mind.

Is home always the place where you grew up, or can it be someplace else? Does it always have to be a place at all, or can it be a pony?

The more I run from these questions, it seems, the more they catch up to me.

****

Twilight Sparkle, M.D.
Ponyville Hospital, Day 31, early morning

One hour. That’s how long it takes for my old life here to catch up to me. One freakin’ hour.

After running my plans past Scarlet, we’ve decided to check out the booths before too many ponies choose to hit them up. Sure enough, just like Fluttershy told me, nopony’s really picked through any of the merchandise yet, so I’ve still got a fair chance at a Healer Moonlight figure. Or, at the very least, one of the other Healers Scarlet likes. True to fangirl fashion, asking her to name one favorite character is like pulling teeth from a manticore.

Fluttershy isn’t expecting us for another couple hours, and we’re only expected to work an hour at her booth, anyway. Most of the panels before noon didn’t seem interesting to me, and to my surprise, they weren’t all that interesting to Scarlet either. So that leaves us with more booth time than either of us can possibly have anything to do with.

Thankfully, we fill in those gaps pretty well. Scarlet isn’t really familiar with anything outside of magical filly manga, so we traverse the stands and come up with our own stories of what sorts of characters the various figures could be. At first, we’re fairly serious about it, making guesses based off clothing and muscle structure and all that happy stuff. Then we go straight into imagining the bulkiest warriors as doctors, all that sort of thing. It doesn’t last long, because one of the artists heckles us about it, and honestly, I almost want to heckle myself for it, too.

The premier doctor in all of Canterlot, fooling around on a date like any old teenager. Yet another thing that would’ve horrified me a month ago, but something that strangely...doesn’t now. Just like how, every time I look outside at the landscape, everything just seems wrong.

I tell myself that Canterlot is a big city, that this is a part of town I was never really familiar with. But even now, I’m not sure that’s true. It’s like the capital itself has morphed into something I can’t recognize.

Scarlet probably senses my sudden silence, because she suddenly starts prattling about Skipper Sun, something that I vaguely recognize as a magical filly series but otherwise know nothing about. From the way she talks about it, I feel like I’d be kicked out of this convention for admitting that.

It takes me about halfway between “Skipper Sun revolutionized the concept of magical fillies as warriors” and “vintage magical filly series used music-based magic to take down villains” to realize she’s lecturing to hide something else. I try to ease into it the best way she can, since she never reveals anything right away.

“So they sing the enemy to death? Really? Glad I got in when I did, then.”

Scarlet quickly clears her throat, something that almost makes me think she’s out of fangirl mode. Sure enough, there’s a serious glint in her eyes, the kind I only see in the emergency room.

“They’re not as bad as they sound!” she asserts. “Any unicorn worth her salt would know that a strong enough voice can work as great as any spell. Other than that one ill-advised singing seapony manga that came out a few years back, idol MFs are some of the best in the genre!”

I wisely choose to assume that “MFs” is an acronym for “magical fillies” in this context, but it still takes everything I have not to laugh at that last statement.

It’s official, I think to myself. Imagining Scarlet swearing is my maturity’s one weakness.

“Or at least that’s what people who’ve read them have told me,” Scarlet continues. “Unfortunately, they’re out of print and beyond a Ponyville doctor’s salary.”

We keep on like this for another few moments before she finally admits what’s wrong--she starts talking about how out of line she got last night. That she expected too much of me, that I don’t have to decide between hospitals right away. That she, more than anypony, ought to know how hard transferring from one place to another could be.

I should say something grand and romantic after that, about how I would willingly leave everything behind for her. It’s not what I feel, not yet at least, but it’d give her some peace of mind, at least. Unfortunately, just like always, my mouth isn’t quite in line with what I want.

“We’ll talk about it later,” I whisper. When Scarlet’s face turns indignant, I continue, “The director wants us to be undercover, remember? Canterlot National is the biggest hospital in the country, and it’s really not a good idea to let them know we’re taking patients on their turf--”

Before I can say anything else, though, I notice somepony running towards us out of the corner of my eye. She’s a yellow blur, galloping so fast that no normal pony would be able to pick her out. But I’ve seen this exact scene happen enough times to know our cover’s officially been blown. And sure enough, the pony in my memories is every bit as energetic as the one heading straight towards us.

“Dr. Shimmer, you’re needed in room five.”

“On it!”

Nopony really knows what Doctor Sunset Shimmer has been through, but apparently, it was enough to almost get her kicked out of medical school. Even when I was at Canterlot National, it was a subject of endless gossip. All we really knew was that somehow or another, Director Celestia intervened and got her on the right track, and now she has the luxury of never revealing whether she got her speed from running track or running from the cops. She shadowed me for a while, but even then, I never really got to know her. And now, she’s replaced me as the director’s favorite.

My brain basically translates all these facts into “stand your ground immediately.” So, I push in front of Scarlet, realizing too late that my authentic Fillita petticoat is blocking the whole vendor aisle. Judging from the determined look on Sunset’s face, though, I decide to tackle the Canterlot National issue first and apologize to the annoyed sellers later.

Sure enough, though, Sunset happens to be the one to tackle me. With the raging fury of a million stars, you might ask, like any reasonably competitive director’s-favorite would do? No.

With a hug.

“How did you get here?” she asks me without a hint of anger in her voice. “I thought you were over in Ponyville.”

“I am,” I try to explain, “but our director didn’t think anypony from Canterlot National would be on duty here.”

“I didn’t think anypony still glomped at conventions! The patients I’ve talked to said they stopped doing that years ago.”

Both Sunset and I take a few steps away from Scarlet as if to say, “I have no idea what you’re saying, and I really don’t want to know.” From what I can tell, she seems to get the message.

“Directors can be like that sometimes,” Sunset says with a sigh. “Celestia only assigned me to this shift a couple of days ago, and we’re pretty short-hoofed as it is. I guess that’s what happens when you start banishing ponies to the nearest small town.”

She shrugs as if that last statement was nothing more than a casual remark, but even if I’m not good at reading ponies, I can tell it was far from that. If she hadn’t hugged me the way she did, I almost would’ve thought it was another barb, the type Canterlot National doctors exchanged behind closed doors. That almost would have been easier for me to understand than what she’s about to do now.

“I’m not going to report you or anything,” she continues. “But there’s one thing you do need to know. Nopony really agrees with that decision Director Celestia made. They think she had it in for you. And as much as I’ve been fighting for that position...it’s useless without you there. You’re the one who’s kept me in check all these years.”

Kept me in check? That’s the first I’ve ever heard about that. As great as it is to hear that the ponies from my old hospital miss me, that gets to me like nothing else. Doctor Shimmer doesn’t usually act like this. But then again, Doctor Sparkle doesn’t usually hang out at conventions, either.

“Our hospital deserves to have more than one great doctor. Canterlot National needs you.”

And so, I spend the rest of the day avoiding that message, doing everything I can to keep Scarlet from seeing the figure I eventually find. From seeing my conflict. Keeping both of us from seeing Doctor Shimmer again and throwing everything into confusion.

It goes pretty well for most of the day, and into the night. And that’s when, suddenly, a stallion hits the dance floor and trips on his cape.

****

Twilight Sparkle, M.D.
Ponyville Hospital, Day 31, late night

If there’s one thing today’s taught me, it’s that cons are fairly uneventful. Did my old coworker just beg me to come back? Yes. Did Scarlet ask me if Doctor Shimmer and I had ever been particularly intimate. Absolutely. But it also happened to be a day full of food, fun, and art, with Fluttershy’s stand being the most uneventful thing of all. At the end of the day, she told us she’d earned more than enough money to take her idea to a professional publisher.

At the end of the day, nothing can prepare you for a con rave. Nothing.

Dances like this happen every weekend, deep in the back alleys of Canterlot. I’ve mainly heard about them through the medical gossip grapevine, since I’m not technically qualified to deal with some of the crazy stuff that goes on there. From what I’ve heard, ponies take over abandoned warehouses and bring all their buddies in for an extravaganza that goes long into the night. If it was just ponies dancing and waving around glowsticks, there wouldn’t be a problem, but lately, drugs have gotten into the mix, too. The thought of the con putting on something like this, needless to say, is enough to send a shiver down my spine.

Fortunately, the con staff is one step ahead of me, and checks just about everypony at the door to make sure this rave won’t get out of hoof. Foals from the con are still allowed to attend this event, though I question the types of parents who let their kids stay up and do the most hyper activity imaginable at these hours. Unfortunately, the lack of drugs doesn’t make the situation any less weird.

The convention pamphlet I got explains that these sorts of dances originated from masquerade balls, the type nobles hold in Canterlot to this day. Except, instead of ornately decorated masks, ponies are dancing in just about every type of costume imaginable, to some of the loudest and most obnoxious music I’ve ever heard. Just about every inch of this room is covered in neon lights, and I have to shield my eyes just to get into the place.

Ten minutes into the rave, one of the panelists comes in and announces that he’s taking free art requests in the other room. At least twenty ponies rush out of the room and nearly mow him over, and I don’t think it’s because they want their characters drawn.

“Is this what having a migraine feels like?” I eventually ask Scarlet.

“What?” she yells at me, even though I’ve got to be less than a few feet away.

“Is this what having a migraine feels like?”

“I’m having a good time, how about you?”

Realizing there’s no way in Tartarus anypony can carry on a conversation here, I go back to patrolling the area. Which is easier said than done when the room changes color every thirty seconds. Thankfully, I don’t have to dance, though I’m not sure how much more of this racket I can take.

Doctors have kind of a love-hate relationship with loud noises. While you have to get used to things like beeping and drilling, you also have to lecture your patients about the dangers of loud music and early-onset deafness. So, perhaps needless to say, we don’t exactly go around clubbing too often.

As I inspect the room for any public health hazards that aren’t directly associated with the rave environment, I try to take my mind off the situation. I estimate just how many decibels this music is putting out and whether or not it’s really a danger to hearing. Every once in awhile, I stop what I’m doing and just listen to the music, though it isn’t really to my taste. In any case, time seems to run incredibly slowly and incredibly quickly at the same time, which is something I can’t even pretend to understand.

A couple hours into it, I notice a dark stallion wearing a velvet cape. He looks so much like the pictures I’ve seen of King Sombra that it almost scares me out of the room. Putting aside those childish fears, I come in closer, realizing that his cape is far too long for him. I’m no Rarity, but I’m smart enough to know that he should have hemmed it before the con. And so, what happens next is almost inevitable.

I close in on him, so close I can see sweat drip down his face. He dances for a few more moments, so frenetically that I swear he’s wearing cursed shoes. And then, all of a sudden, he stops in his tracks.

A few ponies gather, assuming that he’s only tripped. But as they take in the scene, they slowly realize that he isn’t waking up. I can’t hear the murmurs over the music, but I can imagine what they’re thinking: the absolute worst.

Thankfully, even though I’ve never been on duty at a dance, I know enough about this issue to make a clear diagnosis. A similar thing happened at a Canterlot music festival a few years back, where a dancer got so absorbed by the music that she didn’t even realize she was pushing her body to its limit. Places like this can be heatstroke breeding grounds, especially when you’ve got an impossibly thick cape over your back.

I bite down the urge to call the stallion an idiot and reach inside my first-aid bag. I’m grateful he’s still out, because medical kits just look like any old Fillita bag here, and that’d probably make him more than a little confused. As I rummage through it, I find that the only heatstroke remedy I packed is something that would probably get me a hoof in the face under any other circumstances. But, then again, heatstroke is one of the few conditions that doesn’t care about bedside manner.

I pull out an absurdly overpriced bottle of water I bought at the concession stand earlier and pour it all over the guy. While I’m at it, I figure I’ll try to take his cape off so he doesn’t overheat more than he already has.

Scarlet and Sunset have the rest covered, to my complete and utter surprise. As I keep splashing him with water, I see that they’ve somehow found the nearest stretcher, and the more I think about it, the more I wonder how long Sunset’s been in on this. Did she notice this guy right when I did?

Anyway, the two doctors get over their whole competing-hospitals thing surprisingly quickly and hoist him straight on. I take one side, and in barely a minute’s time, we’re out of that horrible room--hopefully, for good.

“Quick thinking, Doctor Sparkle,” Sunset says to me. It’s probably the first thing I’ve been able to hear all night. “Tell me Canterlot National doesn’t need something like that.”

I move as fast as I can, ignoring her, ignoring everything. I know Sunset means well, that she has to have some sort of agenda behind getting me to come back, but now I realize it’s worked all too well.

Scarlet glances at me in her usual fashion, the serious stare of a doctor on the line of duty. But I know it won’t last, because I know where the nearest hospital is. I thought I could come to Canterlot without facing my past, but I was wrong, so wrong.

Why is that such a bad thing? I ask myself. This is just like what Scarlet did. I’m going into my old hospital, saving a patient, proving myself. And then everything can go back to normal, just like it did with her.

I can feel the Healer Moonlight figure inside my medical bag, weighing against me like I’m holding Equestria itself in my hooves. Instead of remembering all the times I’ve spent traveling this very street, somehow, all I can see are memories of Ponyville, memories of today. And suddenly, I feel like I can’t understand anything, even myself.

Maybe that’s why I became a doctor in the first place. Because whenever you allow yourself to focus too much on anything, a patient’s always in need of saving. Because, sometimes, that patient is the only thing you can understand.

I wish I could go beyond that. I wish I could understand everything and stay that way, that I could know the world and know that nothing else could ever disrupt that knowledge. I wish I knew why, when I see that hospital coming into my sight, I’m not relieved.

Canterlot National is everything I’ve ever worked for, the place I’ve wanted to stay for my whole life. It’s everything I’ve fought for in Ponyville, the one good thing I remember as I fade off to sleep. It’s everything that makes Doctor Sparkle, well, Doctor Sparkle. But that’s not how I feel as I finally reach it, that’s not how I should feel...

I wish I could understand why finally seeing it again made me want to cry.

Author's Note

And so, that concludes the convention arc! I low-key want to give all the parts in the next arc TV Tropes titles...

Also, because I know fans are going to worry about this: Sunset Shimmer is not an antagonist in this fic. She doesn't realize she's getting in the way of Twilight/Scarlet. She's just a newer doctor who wants her senpai to come back, that's all.

P.S. More than a few occurences in this chapter are taken from my personal con experiences. At MWBF (Midwest Bronyfest), the art requests often took place during the rave (in a quiet room that was much more to my liking), and a Sombra cosplayer almost tripped on his cape. I embellished that last one a bit because I saw Incredibles 2 twice this month and figured that merited a few in-story "no capes" references.

Episode Sixteen: Paralysis by Analysis

Twilight Sparkle, M.D.
Canterlot National Hospital, Day 32, sunrise

They say there’s nothing more terrifying than stepping into an unfamiliar hospital. I’ve never quite been sure why that is, but that’s what everypony always tells me about my job. They wonder how I’m able to manage moving from one to another without my soul leaving my body. Ordinary ponies get so scared by this sort of thing that somepony convinced our director to have a Nightmare Night haunted house event at our hospital in a few weeks.

I’ve never felt so ordinary before in my life, and every step I make in Canterlot National reminds me of that. It shouldn’t scare me, it shouldn’t be unfamiliar, and most of all, I shouldn’t be calling Ponyville Hospital mine. I keep telling myself that, but nothing changes.

At the very least, the patient is stable. He’s even woken up a few times, though he’s still not quite aware of what exactly happened to him. Sunset Shimmer spends hours by his side, testing him for all matters of factors before ruling out drug influence once and for all. I’m only able to help out a little, since I’m not technically employed here anymore, but I’m at least trusted with the IV drip--either that, or the pony supposed to be handling it clocked out for the night.

Neither of us--Sunset and I, I mean, not the two ponies that should really be us the day after a date--really know what to do with Scarlet. To be fair, though, she doesn’t really know what to do with Canterlot National, either. Every once in awhile, she just stops and stares, as if she’s never been in a hospital this big. But the fact remains that she hasn’t really talked since the rave incident, and that makes me realize just how terrible I am at reading ponies.

Is she really trying to avoid me, or is she just too wrapped up in the patient like a normal doctor would be? Or does she just feel weird being trapped in Canterlot National, a monument to the pony I used to be?

To the pony I still am, I correct myself. Ponies like you don’t make mistakes, and they don’t give up their dreams to follow some mare.

As the events of last night begin to wear down and the patient settles once more into sweet sleep, I sit and wonder if Canterlot National is still my dream after all.

I’m not sure how long it takes me to notice, but Scarlet eventually trots back into the emergency room I’m in. She’s spent most of the morning making her rounds around the hospital, letting Sunset show her around as if she was interviewing for a job here. Boy, wouldn’t that make my job easier.

Anyway, she’s come back with another ice pack, since our caped convalescent has been going through them like crazy. That’s just about all she’s allowed to do here, since this place’s general elitist attitude doesn’t seem to tolerate “lesser” doctors like her. I never really noticed it before I saw everypony react to her, but ponies at this hospital definitely have sticks up their noses.

Unfortunately, I happen to say that out loud, under my breath, and definitely within Scarlet’s earshot.

“Hey, it’s not like you were any different back then,” she mutters, sitting beside me and keeping watch over the patient. “I’m the only thing separating you from them, you know.”

I swear, if any other pony would’ve said that to me, I would’ve given them a piece of my mind. But instead, I just curl up closer to Scarlet, silently telling myself that this was how our first date should have gone.

“I know,” I say teasingly. “But you don’t have to brag about it.”

“Maybe I do. A month ago, you were some big shot doctor kicking and screaming about working in Ponyville, and somewhere down the line, I made you fall in love with me. Somehow or another.”

“You’re not supposed to fall in love on the first date. At least, that was what my parents told me. But, I mean, I am an adult now, and that is how I feel, even though I could totally get my heart broken in the end. Not that I’d care about that sort of thing.”

By the time Scarlet responds again, I realize I’ve taken the bait, bait that’s far more dangerous than just her trying to get me to admit I’ve fallen for her. In all my time with her, I’ve always been able to tell that she’s somepony who hides her emotions, and I’m somepony who lays them all out. Which means that anytime she acts this calm after this sort of drama, there’s really a storm brewing in her heart.

If she knows I’ve caught on, she doesn’t show it. Instead, she just keeps talking on and on about how I’ve loved her for even longer, maybe even since we met. I know that isn’t the case, but I humor her, because I know I’m about to hit her with something harsh.

“Hey,” I finally whisper, “do you have any idea how anything’s supposed to go after this?”

Scarlet just scoffs in my face and waves her hoof dismissively, as if I have no clue what I’m talking about. With that expression, she almost looks like the pony I used to call my rival a month ago.

Even after such a short time, that pony still feels as far away as my time at Canterlot National did. And yet again, I’m reminded of the fact that if I stay here, I’ll never get to know her other facets, the way I did when we investigated Featherfall. For a short while, that idea seems even sadder than leaving Canterlot behind for good. And then I correct myself before things get too dangerous.

Faust, I tell myself, when did I get so sentimental?

“Second date, obviously,” Scarlet says. “Surely you know enough about relationships to know that’s how it goes, right? Though next time, I’d really prefer not to spend half of it in a hospital, as much as I love my job and all.”

I blush suddenly, and I’m no longer sure if it’s out of embarrassment or romantic bliss.

“That’s not what I meant. I mean...you know where we’re at, right? And you know who went up to us at the con? In case you’re not aware, that’s the new big shot at my old hospital and she wants me back. But for some reason...I’m not happy, and I wish I knew why.”

With a sigh, I finally whisper, “I know the old Twilight would have been.”

For once, Scarlet doesn’t have a quip in her arsenal that could handle any of this. All she can do is stare straight into my eyes as if they could disappear at any moment. For all she knows, I realize, they probably could.

“I wish I knew,” she answers. “It’s probably not the answer you wanted, but it’s the answer you’re getting. For that matter, I wish I knew why I’m not rejoicing at the idea of you leaving. Maybe that’s just how much we’ve changed in the last month, or maybe I’m just overthinking stuff.”

She lets out a long sigh, checks the patient’s vitals for the umpteenth time, and continues talking a few minutes later. I don’t even bother to speak before that.

“I tend to do that, really. Overthinking’s practically my specialty, and it always has to be when ponies could drop to the ground at the drop of a hat.”

Scarlet squeezes my hoof, a gesture I’m not really expecting this early in the relationship, and whispers, “Did I ever tell you about the time I had to take accounting?”

Suddenly, the room becomes hotter than a furnace, and I can’t help but wipe my hoof against my brow. While Scarlet misinterprets this for the slightest of seconds, thinking that I’m pulling away from her instead, I don’t give her any time to doubt it any further. My hoof fits softly back into hers, and for a minute, I forget to even respond to her question.

“What does this even have to do with my situation?”

“Maybe if you listen, you’ll find out.”

She sticks out her tongue ever so slightly, and I’m transported back to our rivalry again. To all the best parts, all the times we argued when we really meant to bicker and never took each other too seriously.

“Anyway,” she continues, “back in college, I thought I’d take accounting as an elective. Now, before you call me a nerd like you aren’t one yourself, I had bigger dreams back then. I wanted to be a hospital director so I could really shove things in my family’s face, and I figured accounting could help me with that. Didn’t quite work out the way I planned, though.

I suffered through that class, and for the longest time, I didn’t know why. I’m good with numbers, and I could get all the budgets in order. But when the tests came, I had to pull all-nighters just to get a B. One day, right before an exam, I asked my professor what a term meant, and he looked at me like I’d sprouted a third eye.”

“And I thought teachers were supposed to have better manners than me,” I mutter with a grin.

“They do. Well, you’re getting better, and he definitely did. But he looked at me funny because I asked him what ‘cost of goods sold’ meant. I knew how to calculate it, but I didn’t understand it. I knew there had to be something more to it than what I was getting, but the professor just shook his head, smiled, and said the definition was in the word. It’s just the cost of the goods that you sold, and nothing else.”

“So what’s that mean?”

“Sometimes there is no ‘understanding’ something. Sometimes, the solution’s right there, and you think so hard that you don’t see it.”

As much as I want to think that’s irrelevant to my situation, somewhere deep inside, I just know that it is. So, even though everything inside me screams to dismiss her, I send a smile her way.

“Maybe that’s how it is with me,” I say. “If it was any other pony or a patient I had to deal with, I’d weigh out the pros and cons before making a decision. But now I’ve gone straight into panicking.”

As soon as I say it, Scarlet shakes her head and boops me on the nose. I can’t say anypony’s ever tried that on me, but somehow, it’s not as annoying as I always thought it’d be.

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you,” she sighs. “No worrying. No pro-con sheets. No thinking. Just go with what your heart feels. If my heart would have been in control, I would’ve known that it was just my emotions running wild, and that I didn’t need to know what ‘cost of goods sold’ really meant.”

“But this means so much more than just that time. I mean, it’s not like your whole life depended on that question.”

“Maybe your whole life doesn’t depend on your question. Maybe that’s just the way you’re thinking in the moment. But no matter how you go about it, one thing’s for sure--nopony’s actually asked you anything yet. So things are exactly how they were before.”

As if to illustrate this, she takes the cold pack off the stallion’s head, and he sighs in relief. From what I can tell, he’s already recovered enough to where immense cold is an annoyance to him, rather than a remedy. Something’s been beating at his head, and now the weight is off. Exactly how things were before.

“Sunset Shimmer told me she needed me here,” I say. “Doesn’t that count for something?”

“Not until you hear from a higher-up. She can want it as much as she likes, but until the director gets involved, you’re still with us in Ponyville.”

I nod in understanding, even though the answer should have been obvious. Just seeing this place, it seems, was enough to send me into a frenzy, a place where logic didn’t exist. So, at least, that’s one crisis averted.

But what happens when they recruit me for real? Will I ever be ready for that, even then?

“So that means my answer from last time still stands. We’ll go on a second date, get so sappy the whole town knows about us before too long. We’ll learn about each other’s lives, and save others in the process. Maybe one of us will snoop too far into the past and try to fix the other’s issues. Five bits says it’s you.”

I don’t even dignify that with a response, instead choosing to stick out my tongue like a schoolfilly.

“Either way, when I first met you, I promised you that I’d either drive you out of Ponyville or make you stay. If Canterlot National’s really foolish enough to steal our brand-new doctor away at this point in the game, I’ll have them know that one of those promises still stands.

“If they really want to take you away from us, I’d love to see them try.”

****

Twilight Sparkle, M.D.
Ponyville Hospital, Day 40, early morning.

A week goes by, and I still don’t know what got into Scarlet then. I can still remember the challenging glint in her eyes, the way she stared down Canterlot National as if it could respond. The way nothing, not even her new Healer Moonlight figure, seemed to take her out of that mood.

She thanked me for it later, almost as if she didn’t realize she had it before. That in and of itself is enough to make me wonder if Scarlet, like her patient, had ended up in some sort of heat-induced daze. But really, I don’t have time to think about it, or to feel much, for that matter. Ponyville Hospital has more patients than ever, and until something else comes up, they’re obligated to me.

Ponyville needs me. Scarlet needs me. And for a week or so, that’s enough to chase any thoughts of Canterlot out of my head.

That is, until I check my daily mail and see Director Celestia’s all-too-familiar stationery. The one thing that could pull me out of Ponyville at a time like this, and it appears right on schedule.

Even before I open it, I know what it says. Apparently, the doctors monitored me the whole time I was at Canterlot National, and they think I’m ready. I’ve changed. Softened. Improved. Proven myself. Won.

I’m not ready. I haven’t changed. I still need time, training, skills, Ponyville, Scarlet, Scarlet…

As I let the letter float to the ground, my victory feels more like surrender.

Author's Note

And so, the final arc of our tale begins. Even though we all know what Twilight will pick in the end, I hope the journey proves entertaining for everyone.

Also, I really enjoyed writing the fluff for this chapter. Scarlet's anecdote is based on one of my own experiences in college, lol.

Episode Seventeen: Broken Bird

Twilight Sparkle, M.D.
Ponyville Hospital, Day 40, early morning

I’ve finally done it. My leap home has finally come. It didn’t even take Director Celestia two months to come crying back to me.

Any of those would have been a typical Twilight response, but somehow, none of them fit. And, as much as I’m tempted to overthink it, I know the answer. Whatever’s keeping me here isn’t just Scarlet anymore. This town has changed me in ways that even I’m not entirely sure of yet. To the point where, when I went back there a week ago, Canterlot didn’t even feel like home anymore.

All this should be telling me that I should throw the letter in the trash, forget it ever existed, and move on with my life. But I know as well as anypony else that you don’t turn down Canterlot National. Anything other than coming straight back there with open arms would be a disgrace to everypony who ever tried to get into Canterlot National and failed. For all I know, Scarlet could have been one of those ponies, and the more I think about the way she reacted when I told her where I was from, the more willing I am to accept that theory.

Months ago, I would have just told myself I was better than all those other ponies. I’m beginning to think life would have been easier if I’d stayed the way I was back then. At least then, I never would have gotten to love somepony so much that I wish I’d never met her.

At least then, I wouldn’t have had a choice.

****

Twilight Sparkle, M.D.
Ponyville Hospital, Day 40, late morning

As I hustle back and forth between patients, my mind goes into overdrive trying to think of ways I could trot out of this without losing anything. I still haven’t told Scarlet about the letter, but I think the writing’s already on the wall, since she was there to see all the weird faces I make when I’m in deep thought. That’s why I want to think of something, anything, before I tell her. So it at least looks like I have a plan to keep us together.

Plan #1: I stay at Ponyville Hospital, but continue to write research papers. Ponyville Hospital is far too small to provide proper research funding, so I’d almost have to ally with Canterlot National in some way. It’d be a tough compromise to make, but Director Celestia would allow it, and Sunset Shimmer would just have to deal with it. There’s only two tiny problems--it’d be time intensive enough to take me away from Scarlet for long periods of time, and after a while, my prestige would wear off and ponies would wonder what authority a pony from dinky old Ponyville Hospital had in the medical world. I give it three years, tops.

Plan #2: I accept the Canterlot National job and come back to Ponyville every few weeks or so. It’s the logical route, the type of thing I would have come up with back when I was obsessed with all that. But if Scarlet and I wanted to get married someday, there was no way she’d ever leave Ponyville, and we’d have to keep up this whole long distance thing for Faust knows how long. No way.

Plan #3: I go to Canterlot National, tell Director Celestia to suck it, and laugh all the way back to Ponyville. I have no idea why I even bothered to consider this one.

And Plan #4: I stay in Ponyville and commute to Canterlot National. It’s only an hour to Canterlot by train, so this seems like the most reasonable option. It’d get expensive after a while, sure, but as one of the highest-ranking doctors in Equestria, I’d be able to handle it. The only thing that can possibly go wrong with this is a situation so strange, there’s no way it could possibly happen in real life. Still, that doesn’t stop me from imagining it unfolding right in front of me.

“Doctor Sparkle, I know it’s late, but we have a patient only you can treat.”

“Doctor Sparkle, come quick. His heart’s about to stop.”

“I’m sorry, but your patient died exactly one minute before you came in. It wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t changed back into your work clothes, Doctor Sparkle. We really should keep a running tally of how many ponies you let die just because you have a marefriend in the country.”

“You could have prevented all of this.”

By the time the thought hits me, it’s almost like I’m in a nightmare. Everything I know dissolves in front of me, and all I can think about is how easily this failure could have been stopped. I, Twilight Sparkle, have officially made the worst mistake of my life. Years of progress at Canterlot National, and all I get is--

“Whoa, easy there,” a familiar voice whispers. “I thought I told you not to make pro and con charts.”

I must be hyperventilating, because the next thing I know, Scarlet comes my way with a paper bag. As much as I want to tell her that the science behind that superstition is questionable at best, I take the bag anyway and try to will myself into my current environment. With all the effort I put into getting myself back together, it takes me awhile to realize the magnitude of what Scarlet just said.

“Pro and con charts?” I ask, trying to play it cool. “I wasn’t doing anything like that. And I most certainly haven’t gotten a response back from Canterlot National. There was just...um, this really scary movie at the theater last night, and I was just remembering one of the scenes. Because I don’t get scared over little things like stress anymore! Keep the stress coming, that’s what I always say!”

All it takes is a single glare from Scarlet for me to realize that I am absolutely abysmal at playing it cool. But then again, she’s always had a way of silencing ponies from her eyes alone.

“You left the hospital at midnight last night,” replies Scarlet. “The theater’s last show begins at eleven every night. Plus, the letter you’re holding is postmarked from Canterlot.”

With a satisfied sigh, she puts a hoof through her mane and mutters, “Sometimes, I wish I wasn’t so good with mysteries.”

If I wasn’t already petrified before, the way Scarlet pinned me down so well would have scared the living daylights out of me.

“Okay, fine. But if it makes you feel any better, I was trying to come up with ways to work it out so we could stay together and I could stay at Canterlot. Then I imagined a patient dying while I was commuting over there, and--”

“I thought you didn’t care about your patients.”

It’s weird, almost, how natural all of this seems. Scarlet doesn’t really say a word about the job opening at Canterlot, almost as if she knows I won’t betray her. A month ago, I wouldn’t have been trusted with such a thing, but now? Somehow, we’ve both changed so much that we just feel something about each other, even if we’ve only been friends for a short amount of time. Ponies always say their loved ones know them better than they do, and for the first time in my life, I begin to think that maybe, just maybe, Scarlet does.

“I didn’t think I did, either,” I finally admit. “But lately, I just feel like I’m caring about too much. So much it might keep me from ever being my old self again.”

“I think that’s the point,” Scarlet tells me. “That’s what us ponies live for, and us doctors. Our heart grows so much that we can never fit it back into the box it used to go in, and that’s a good thing. Sometimes it’s even the best thing that can happen to somepony.”

Scarlet’s eyes lock deep into mine, and it takes everything I have not to say the one thing I’ve always told myself I would never say. Especially not after a first date, and especially not after having only known a pony for a few months. But still, the thought lingers.

You’re the best thing that can happen to me.

“Maybe I’m stretching here, but I don’t think Director Celestia would have wanted you to come here without getting a little attached to us. Ponyville’s kinda famous for making sure ponies never want to leave. It could be wishful thinking for all I know, but I feel like she might be testing you.”

It probably is, considering how strangely reflective Scarlet is today, but I can’t help but wonder how that could be possible. Director Celestia is normally one of the most straightforward ponies I know, so a letter from her has to mean that she wants me back...right?

“Okay, I’ll bite. How could asking me back to Canterlot National be a test? It clearly means she thinks I’m ready to come back.”

Scarlet looks every bit the detective as she places her hoof to her mouth in thought. As dramatic as she’s being right now, I can’t help but hope that this is all true, and I will have a longer exile in Ponyville. With any hope, maybe it’ll even be permanent. And with that thought, any desire of returning to Canterlot National withers away into dust.

Before, it was a place of dreams for me. Now, it’s nothing but a cold place I left behind, a place that doesn’t even haunt me in my nightmares. It’s just emptiness to me, no different from any other status symbol ponies chase after.

I may be lonely in Ponyville if Scarlet breaks up with me someday. But I know I’ll be lonelier in Canterlot, where everypony I ever came into contact with was just a stepping stone.

“Come on, Twilight. No hospital director would expect a pony to come back only a few months after moving away. And besides, how would Celestia even know you’ve changed? You haven’t seen anypony from Canterlot National in town while you were here, have you?”

Her words hit me straight past my eyes and into the deepest recesses of my brain. If somepony from Canterlot National would have followed me to check up on my progress, I would have recognized them in a heartbeat. I may not have been friends with any of them, but I knew all of them by name, by face, by voice. And not a single one ever came to Ponyville.

Either Director Celestia had been trying to get rid of me or she wanted me to get attached to this town. So attached that I wouldn’t even realize what I was missing. Sure, I’d heard about some of Celestia’s wild schemes before, but if what Scarlet’s saying is true, then Faust, everything I knew for the last few months was a lie.

But somehow, even if what she’s saying is true, none of that matters anymore. It should, it should, it should. But no matter how many times I tell myself that...it doesn’t.

“Sunset Shimmer’s the only Canterlot National pony I’ve seen since I left,” I reply. “You don’t think she has anything to do with this, does she? She’s always been an ambitious pony, but something about her seemed off after I left.”

“As much as I hate to say it, her resigning makes more sense than Director Celestia creating this whole convoluted scheme,” Scarlet admitted. “From what you told me about her bad reputation, she may not feel like she deserves that high of a position. She might think that such a drastic move could bring you back. I certainly would.”

Again, it’s a stretch, but Scarlet and Sunset are so much alike that I wouldn’t put it past either of them to pull such a stunt. I haven’t realized it until now, but the two of them are so much alike, it’s almost scary. Both of them would sacrifice everything for the ponies they love, and both of them feel undeserving of the jobs they have. And when you put the two of those together, workplace drama is almost guaranteed to happen.

By the time I look over the letter again, my worst suspicions have already been confirmed. After only two months of being Canterlot National’s top doctor, Sunset Shimmer applied for a lower position. I remember all the fanfare that came when she was promoted, all the glossy magazine pages she got with Director Celestia. It was even enough to help her transcend the rumors about her, whatever they might have been. In a year or two, she might have even escaped them completely.

And the only thing keeping her from that was me. She would sacrifice the best chance of her life for somepony she had barely even known, and loved anyway. But, then again, maybe I wasn’t so different from her, either.

When I imagined Sunset in those moments, I could almost see her face bridging with Scarlet’s, boxing herself into the prison other ponies had created for her. Being the pony that others, or parents, or coworkers wanted her to be, just to bring the most important pony in her life back.

If I wasn’t already convinced that staying at Ponyville Hospital was my best bet, imagining myself doing that sort of thing to another pony would have done just that. Because even if I didn’t know Sunset’s heart, I knew Scarlet’s, and I knew that would be the key to everything.

“Well, anyway, I have to get back to work,” Scarlet finally said. “But if you’re still really on the fence, Canterlot National’s going to be in town next week. Our shipment of flu vaccines got contaiminated, and they’re lending us some of theirs.”

She trots away with a short wink, which tells me we’re both thinking the same thing. Whatever way our lives take us, this is going to be one last mystery for us to solve together. That, alongside the fact that I’m staying here for good, is one of the few things I’m certain of in these moments.

I don’t know if Director Celestia planned this. I don’t even know Sunset’s full motivation for stepping down. Really, there’s so much in this case, in Ponyville, in Equestria that I don’t know. I just knew I couldn’t let Sunset give up her future for anypony, let alone me.

Because if I did, that would be the worst mistake Twilight Sparkle would ever make.

Author's Note

I struggled until the end for how Twilight would manage to pull off turning Canterlot down, but I feel like this is the best way to do it. The struggle to keep Sunset in her position kind of parallels Scarlet's struggle to stay in Ponyville, so it's almost poetic in a way. Plus, I like Twilight and Scarlet as a mystery-solving team too much to not end it like this.

The exciting conclusion is only two parts away, so don’t miss it!

Episode Eighteen: Becoming the Mask

Twilight Sparkle, M.D.
Ponyville Hospital, Day 47, early morning

Few things in this world are an exact science. Figuring out that I needed to stay in Ponyville wasn’t one of them, and the mission that would allow me to do so wouldn’t be one either. But, at the very least, the circumstances that led to this mission were.

This time of year, feather flu runs rampant across most of Equestria, and despite the name, it can infect far more than just pegasi. In Equestria’s early years, it infected entire cities like a plague, but thankfully, our land’s innovative doctors struck again, as they always have. Now, as long as at least three-quarters of a city’s population receives the feather flu vaccine, the chances of catching the virus are almost minimal. The percentage of ponies that actually receives the vaccine is often far larger than the 75% doctors recommend, largely out of fear of catching the virus, but also because my patients tend to assume I’m making a Ponyville-style pun whenever I mention “herd immunity.” Of course, the feather flu vaccine isn’t always precise or up to date with the latest strain, but in many cases, that isn’t where the problem lies. It often lies with the fact that it is an exact science, and therefore, it will never allow for even the slightest of failures.

All week, I’ve heard various rumors about how Ponyville’s feather flu vaccines got contaminated, but almost all of them center around unsterilized vials. Ponyville, for the most part, does its flu vaccines in-house, which would have been immediately suspicious to me if I didn’t have so much faith in Fluttershy’s skills. Don’t get me wrong, there are still plenty of things that annoy me about this town, but for such a small place, it has a surprisingly good pharmacist--or pharmaromatherapist, as she would insist on being called. Many believe that Fluttershy’s new intern, a well-meaning but frequently clumsy pegasus by the name of Derpy Hooves, mistakenly poured the vaccine into pre-used containers, but though many things have changed about me, I am still not one for small-town gossip. And so, as usual, I’ve filtered through all of that and thought through my next plan of attack.

The instant I come to work on vaccination day, I notice that the lines are practically stretching all the way through the door. Apparently, it’s a town custom in Ponyville to be at the hospital even before the doctors themselves on days like this. From the way I hear the ponies chit-chatting, it almost seems like they see it more like a Daring Do midnight premiere than a routine medical event. A few of the typical anxious ponies who despise shots are here, but for the most part, it’s almost like ponies are fighting over who’s going to get the shot first.

For a minute, I think it’s because they all want to be the first to go home and go back to bed, but then I see Rainbow Dash actually dressed in full Daring Do cosplay.

“The bookstore’s that way,” I say to her, trying my best to help rather than laugh my head off at the ridiculous situation.

“I know,” she replies. “And if you didn’t spend so much time in that office of yours, you’d know there isn’t even a new book out yet, egghead. Dressing up like this helps Scootaloo with shots, though.”

I’m honestly not really sure how to react to this. On the one hoof, I know my old self would have snapped at Dash for not realizing this when I had to practically pin the filly down for her growth hormone shot. Now, however, I just think it’s kind of sweet, albeit in a very strange way. So I choke down the obvious snarky remark, wish her luck, and move onto my office.

Sure enough, by the time I get there, Sunset Shimmer is already there to block me. From what I can tell, she’s already sent her usual nurse over to begin the vaccination process, and from the minute I see her, I know she’s here with an agenda.

That’s okay. So am I.

I don’t have a very big window of time, and I’m more than aware of that. That’s why I came in earlier than I usually do, because I know I don’t have long before the regular patients come flocking in. Because this is something that’s more important to me than any of that, at least in this moment.

Without warning, I herd her into the first empty room I find and slam the door.

“Sunset, we need to talk.”

“About you coming back to Canterlot National?” she asks with hope in her voice.

“No,” I say, staring her down like a sheriff in an old movie. “About you stepping down.”

For a slight moment, I swear Sunset’s every bit as surprised as I am that I’m doing this. However, as soon as I pick up on it, she simply flips her mane to the side and copies my intent glance.

“What’s there to talk about?” she asks with a tinge of annoyance in her voice. “I thought I’d made it pretty obvious from last time. If Director Celestia won’t let you ride the Canterlot National ladder, then I shouldn’t get away with doing the same thing. After all, there’s no real reason why you had to leave while I stayed. So really, I thought I’d do her a favor and put myself out of the running before she got the chance to find out why.”

She says all of this with such a straightforward face, as if she’s assessing a patient. Yet, from what little I know of her and from the ways I’ve seen ponies react in Ponyville, I know she can’t really be feeling so blase about everything. Even though Scarlet’s really my only reference point right now, and I can’t assume the two would react the same way to everything, I know for a fact that Scarlet would die before she let herself give up such a huge position. It’d be the same as admitting that she could never surpass her family, and while I don’t know what’s going through Sunset’s head, I know it has to be a matter of pride for her, too.

The more I come to terms with the situation, the more I realize that my hypothesis from before has to be correct. Deep down, Sunset feels that she’s inferior to me, and my departure shattered her worldview so much that she’s convinced herself she can never surpass me. With dread, I wonder what I could have done back at Canterlot National to make her feel this way, force myself to remember all the off-the-cuff, thoughtless remarks I made when she was around.

I don’t know what’s sadder--the fact that I could have caused it or that I can’t even remember any conversations I’ve had with her that could have done it. It’s like I only ever used her as a means to an end, considering how I can’t even remember a single friendly chat I had with her.

“I should have known Director Celestia would have tried something like this,” Sunset continues. “Ideally, you wouldn’t have known about my departure until you accepted the position, and by then, it would have been too late. I can tell that would have been easier on the both of us, but Director Celestia’s always felt differently about these sorts of things. Laughter and talking are the best cures to her, and she doesn’t always realize that not all problems can be solved that way.”

At least that’s one thing she isn’t denying. For the director of a hospital as big as Canterlot National, Celestia has always been a little bit too perky for her own good. Back when the two of us were still close--or as close as I’d ever let anypony get to me--we’d even joke about this. I’d even teased her that she’d probably been a fairy princess in a past life. But for once, I actually believe in the sorts of things her idealistic lectures were always about, and it’s that knowledge that moves me forward.

“I don’t care if Director Celestia planned this,” I finally say, “but I’ve changed. I don’t know how I could have made you feel this way, but I don’t want anypony to sacrifice themselves for me anymore. I might not have noticed what was wrong with you before, but I want to change that. And I’ll start by saying this: if leaving you like this is what it’s going to take to bring me back to Canterlot National, I don’t want it. I...I could care less about the leap home!”

I don’t know how I did it, but somehow or another, what was supposed to be a simple request turned itself into something far stranger. I, Doctor Twilight Sparkle, actually came up with a friendship speech on the spot. Personally, I blame it on the magical filly manga binge I had a few nights ago.

“Impress Scarlet by engaging in her hobbies!” Some lot of good that did me.

Anyway, Sunset seems to be experiencing three stages of confusion right now, and her facial expressions are changing accordingly. First, she’s confused that I’m turning down the position, then, she (like me) is confused that I’m actually giving a friendship speech, and then finally--

“What the hay do you mean, ‘the leap home?!’” she says, her voice rising suddenly. “Can you at least say something that makes sense?”

“Sorry. It’s just an inside thing I came up with while I was here.”

“Cool.”

And then, just like that, the conversation suddenly stops short. Sunset’s staring at me yet again, waiting for me to say something, but now, I realize I’m over my head. As great as that speech was from before, I’m still not an expert at getting ponies to open up or anything. So, for the most part, the place just devolves into awkward silence, and eventually even Sunset is looking for an opening to leave.

I watch the clock tick away, and even though it’s only been an hour or so, it feels like I’ve been in here for an eternity. My ever-critical mind doesn’t help matters too much, either.

Focus! Focus! You’re not being tested on social skills! Just get her story, convince her to take your old position, and get out as fast as you can!

“Soooo, did I ever do anything to make you think I was better than you? Be honest.”

“You didn’t have to,” Sunset replies. “You just were. Everypony knew it, too. You were Director Celestia’s prodigy, and I was her charity case. Every time I went in that hospital, the doctors reminded me of that. Not that I was ever jealous or anything. I probably deserved it, and I still probably do.”

She leans her head against the wall, still completely unfazed by the gravity of the situation. Come to think of it, her one-two punch of confusion and anger from earlier was probably the only expression I’ve seen on her face this whole time. For the first time, I wonder if Scarlet and I aren’t the only ones who hide their true emotions when they’re on duty.

“I know you’re not used to this, so I’ll make things easier on you. All the rumors they said about me were true, and they’d never let me forget that. But since you don’t seem like the kind of pony who would have listened to them anyway, you probably don’t know that three of my Canterlot National coworkers went to the same college as me, and knew me at my worst. Back then, I was the type of medical student who thought she was above everypony else, and as soon as I got into that prestigious school, I wanted everypony to know it.”

“Like how I was before coming here?”

“I was so much worse, you couldn’t even conceive of it. Like I said, ponies always just knew you were better than them. I had to force them to feel that way. At first, it was just your typical high school bullying, because apparently six years of college weren’t enough to kill that urge for good.”

I probably shouldn’t do this, but somehow, I can’t help but laugh at that last remark.

“Implying that it ever goes away with some ponies,” I quip.

“That’s true, but it escalated from there. There was this one student that really pissed me off back then, and you know me. I’ve always kind of had anger issues, and so one day, when she really provoked me, everything in my mind just went black. The next thing I knew...that other student was bleeding. The ambulance came and everything. And before long, nopony was really sure if I’d stay in med school much longer.”

Sunset’s not much older than I am, so the event she’s describing has to have happened at least seven years ago. Whatever happened in between then and now doesn’t matter, because to my knowledge, Sunset hasn’t beaten anypony to a bloody pulp since then. What does matter is that, like Scarlet, she’s so focused on something that plagued her in the past that she’d sacrifice her present for it. All because she believes I have a perfect history, because she believes that Doctor Twilight Sparkle doesn’t make mistakes.

“Director Celestia took me in after that, but the damage was already done. She was the only reason I didn’t get expelled from that school, and everypony knew it. That didn’t matter, because by then, I knew I couldn’t trust myself with any high position. A true doctor wouldn’t let their emotions get in the way like that, so wanting to stay in my current post is irrelev--”

“It’s not!” I suddenly shout. “You’ve changed!”

Sunset cocks her head and smiles slightly, and for a minute, I genuinely believe I’ve gotten to her.

“That’s why I’ve always liked you,” she says. “Everypony else back there thought you were prickly, but you were always the one pony who didn’t care about stuff like that. When I first warned you that you might not want to work with me, you just said that you’d work with anypony who’d get the job done.”

Nothing from her. No matter. I’ll try again, no matter how many times it takes.

“That’s not who I am anymore,” I whisper, allowing my vulnerability to color every word I say. “Coming to Ponyville has made me realize that, and I’ve come out better for it. Once I stopped looking at it as a curse, I found friends I never thought I’d ever have, and a marefriend I’d move Equestria itself for. But that’s not why I don’t want to come back to Canterlot National.

“I believe that I could have stayed in both worlds if I’d accepted Celestia’s offer. I could have stayed the pony I am now in the place I used to be. But now, I want to give you that same chance I got months ago.”

I’m chipping away again. Sunset seems to be falling for it this time, but I can’t stop now. I have to make sure that I can stay here, and that she can be herself. And so, I can’t leave things to the uncertainty that Equestria all too often provides. I have to say my purpose loud and clear, as many times as it takes.

“If I changed that much in two months, then I believe that you can change too!”

Author's Note

You have no idea how tempted I was to name this part "Sunset Shimmer: Origins." And by that, I mean "I was never really considering this name, but I binged the BNHA sports festival arc while I wrote this, and so the whole Izuku/Todoroki heart-to-heart may have leaked into some of this a little."

Jokes aside, I think this might be the first time I wrote a Paging part as one continuous scene, rather than a series of them. I might even pull an anime-style twist and have the final part continue this scene. But, in any case, I hope you look forward to the exciting finale!

Episode Eleven: Scarlet Heart

Twilight Sparkle, M.D.
Ponyville Hospital, Day 26, noon

“Hold still!” I cry out, practically wrestling the tiny filly into submission. It takes everything I have to keep the levitation spell up and keep the needle in the air, considering Scootaloo’s athletic prowess and energy.

Combine all that with fear and, all things considered, she’s probably the hardest thing I’ve had to deal with all week. But I guess that isn’t so bad, in the grand perspective of things.

Still, it’s awfully hard to think that way when a small child is about as likely to pin you down as you are to do the same. It’s a calculated match between the two of us, and as much as I’ve begun to grow fond of the filly, I can already tell that my patience is running thin. Her ability to dodge my needle without leaving the hospital bed was impressive the first couple of times, but now, it’s just getting annoying.

“I told ya Scoots isn’t big into shots,” Rainbow Dash yells from another corner of the room. “Last time she had to get her boosters, four ponies had to hold her down.”

I bite down a remark about how little she’s actually helping this case, at least trying to get myself into Redheart’s good graces with my bedside manner. At this point, I don’t even notice the fact that I think of doing it for her and not for Celestia. As far as I’m concerned, I may never get to go back there in the first place.

And somehow, that doesn’t scare me quite as much as it used to. I’m still working on the hows and whys for that one, though.

“One on each leg?” I ask. It’s a dumb idea to begin with, and I really shouldn’t be taking Dash’s advice, but my front legs are already mounted to the examining table, and I feel the sudden urge to push myself forward.

Dash happens to interrupt at the exact moment I start climbing up the table, and honestly, she’s lucky I didn’t slam straight into the ground then and there.

“Yeah, but I think you might want to have more doctors come in. I really don’t know if you can hold all her hooves down and shoot her with that thing.”

The magic aura around my horn flashes a little, not enough to let go of the needle altogether, but enough to let Dash know that a unicorn can probably handle this sort of tussle.

Probably.

By now, I’ve figured out that slamming myself onto the table and forcing Scootaloo into getting the hormone shot isn’t exactly the best approach, and while Featherfall might’ve had enough doctors to break up this sort of struggle, I want to do this quickly and methodically.

After going through a number of strategies, I learn that the filly has an extremely soft spot on her left wing. Not quite a discovery in the usual sense, as I accidentally touch it when I poke around her wings for a good vein, but a discovery nonetheless. Just about as soon as I touch it, her face turns into that of an extremely relaxed puppy, and it takes all I have not to remark at the utter adorableness of the situation. I’m gaining a reputation in this town, after all.

So instead of squealing at the cute face she’s making, I seize the opportunity and slowly massage that part of the wing. Just as she starts to relax, I push the needle in, and to my surprise, she barely makes a sound. After a few seconds, I wonder if she’s actually fallen asleep from all that effort.

“Make sure you watch the slides before administering the shot at home,” I tell Dash as Scootaloo starts to regain her senses. I give her a set of projector tapes, a needle, and enough of the hormones to last her a couple weeks.

“Got it. But let me just ask, if I get good enough at doing this, does that mean I can be a doctor’s assistant or something? Like, I know you have to go to school to be a nurse, but--”

“Still no,” I answer. “This shot is almost always administered outside of a doctor’s office, so even doing it on a daily basis doesn’t make you any more qualified in the medical field than a diabetic who gives themself insulin shots. No offense to them, of course.”

After Dash’s face falls a little bit, I add, “But I can help you find some jobs in the area that don’t involve injuring yourself, if you like.”

She shoots me a quick wink and a nod, but I can tell just from looking at her that she’s practically jumping for joy. I make a mental note to eke out some time for her later this week, and to find some connections in Ponyville first. I didn’t really realize it until I said it, but I don’t know much of anypony who could help Dash get hired.

In any case, I wave the two patients off with a wave and another lecture, making sure they know everything about the growth hormone before they leave.

“Never do it in her leg, that’s the most painful spot for most ponies. And please, make sure she gets acclimated to needles before she drives you crazy.”

“Can do, doc. She always puts on a brave front, but she gets scared really easy. Always been that way. But I’ll have to try that wing trick you did to calm her down.”

A sinister thought finally registers from the cynical side of my brain, and while I really shouldn’t have to tell Dash this, I’ve seen enough ponies pull this sort of trick at Canterlot National that it’s practically become a blanket disclaimer for this medicine.

“I’m pretty much required to say this,” I begin, trying to let Rainbow know I at least trust her most of the time. “But just as a reminder--don’t use it on anypony except Scootaloo. I know you’re a fast flier, and you might be tempted to use it to get a leg up on the rest of the pegasi, especially with your injury, but--”

Damn, this whole thing is so awkward. It was almost easier back in the day, when I could just tell ponies that if I caught them doping up, I’d report them to the highest authorities in the land. But, as long as my feelings for Redheart keep dancing around my head, those days are over, and it’s not just because she’s hated me for so long.

It’s also because there’s no way she’d fall in love with me the way I am now.

Thankfully, Dash laughs in my face, the most comforting ridicule I’ve ever heard, and tells me there’s no way in Tartarus she’d use them for her personal gain. I believe her, but for a slight second, I still can’t help but doubt. And then, I realize that’s why.

I don’t know what Canterlot’s done to me, or what I’ve done to myself. But somehow, even when I push myself to trust other ponies, something else comes to push them away. I’ve never doubted that part of me until now, but for the past week or so, I’ve been wondering if the fateful day will come, when I stop trusting even Redheart.

Doctor Twilight Sparkle doesn’t make mistakes.

Maybe she didn’t used to. Maybe someday, she won’t. But right now, she’s forcing herself to own up to every last mistake that went under her radar.

Somehow, I realize as they leave, feeling flawed isn’t as humiliating as I always thought it’d be.

****

Twilight Sparkle, M.D.
Ponyville Hospital, Day 26, early afternoon

On my lunch break, I finally get back to proofreading Scent-sational Perfumer Cassia. With last week’s rush, I’ve barely had any time to look at it, and plus, Redheart was always with me then. Now, she seems to have moved on, whether to other patients or to other friends, and she hasn’t seemed willing to acknowledge the final confrontation at all.

Just after she pulled that tranquilizer trick, Dr. Starlight Glimmer was apprehended by the Cloudsdale police. Neither of us has seen the town since, not even for police questioning. They took most of what they needed from us that night, and maybe they’ll take more from us later. But for now, they’ve given us time to move on, and the most I’ve heard of the situation is Dash thanking me a million times for helping shut the place down.

They’ve given us time for things to go back to normal. Or at least, the “normal” that used to be.

Rather than thinking about this mushy stuff any longer, I flip through the pages and lose myself in Fluttershy’s world. As girly and cutesy as it is, it does have its charm, and from what little I know about the genre she’s entering into, it’s pretty original. Unfortunately, I also happen to be near the end of the volume, when stubborn Rose manages to get herself captured again, even though she swears it’s part of her bigger plan. Whichever way it goes, whether it was Rose’s intention or not, it still manages to be quite the compelling plotline.

Twenty minutes before my break ends, I reach the last page and come to the instant conclusion that it’ll take the artist at least another couple months to finish the next volume.

Truly, Fluttershy is the most brutal pony in Ponyville.

“That’s it?!” I yell, not realizing I said it out loud until my coworkers start staring. “I poured my heart into this comic, and you give me a cliffhanger?!”

I swear, you could pierce the ensuing awkward silence with a knife. Unfortunately, today happens to be the one day I decide to sit in the common area with the other hospital staff, and it takes them an excruciating minute for them to go back to their work. Thankfully, nopony directly addresses me, but I get the feeling they’ll probably be laughing about it for months to come.

Gosh, when did I start caring so much about what other ponies think?

“Thanks for the heads-up on that. I was just about to swipe that volume from you, actually.”

I realize far too late that Redheart hasn’t been sitting with anypony else, and she’s taken this chance to swoop in on me. Just glancing at her, I can tell she has a glint in her eye, but for once, it’s actually a happy one that isn’t at my expense. The next thing I know, she’s sitting right next to me, trying to get a peek at the book.

“Haven’t you ever heard of reading it first?” I ask.

I’m actually surprised at the utter lack of annoyance in my voice, and the way it’s managed to replace itself with humor.

“Just seeing if it was really a twist worth yelling about,” she replies, closing the book in mimicked shame. “You’re new to this stuff, aren’t you?”

“I guess. Fluttershy basically dragged me into it, but it actually hasn’t gotten on my nerves near as much as I expected it to.”

More than anything, I want to talk to her about this week. The way she’s shielded herself off from everypony else as if even our efforts haven’t been enough. The way the old “normal” seems to be her new one. Whether or not those tears I saw after Dr. Glimmer’s speech were an illusion.

But instead, I take an effort to ease herself into it and extend my efforts at bedside manner to the real world. Besides, as much as I hate to admit it, I am a little bit curious about how such a high-strung working mare got into little fillies’ comics, anyway.

So, with the maximum amount of care, I prepare to press what is likely her biggest button possible.

“So, did something like this happen to you once? I mean, you don’t seem like the type of pony who’d like these sorts of books, so…”

Before I’m given the chance to descend into any more awkwardness, Redheart suddenly interrupts me.

“I guess I’m not, huh,” she says, her voice slowly turning solemn. “Like a lot of things, I got into magical filly stuff because of my patients. I took my residence at a pediatrician’s office in Canterlot, and a lot of the foals there were reading Skipper Sun. I thought reading it along with them would impress them, so in a way, I guess they roped me into it. I was so entrenched in my studies then that I figured it’d be a relief, too, so somehow, I kept picking up more series. Apparently, this isn’t strange for ponies in my field. I mean, there’s got to be a reason for all these nurse-themed magical fillies, right?”

Her air of seriousness fades, if only for a moment, and she suddenly points to the comic I’ve been reading.

“You know Fluttershy’s premiering it at CanterCon next week? Normally, manga artists don’t get that chance this early in their careers, but she’s going to have a huge booth and everything. If we can find time in our schedules, maybe we should go support her.”

Alarm bells suddenly ring all around my ears. Whatever could’ve happened to Redheart in the past week, there is no feasible way she’s asking what I think she’s asking. Going out of town, alone, for some huge event? Like she actually tolerates me somehow? Nothing’s adding up at all, and I can’t help but wonder if she’s in her right mind.

You’re such an idiot, I want to say, for thinking I won’t see past this.

“By me, you mean ‘you,’ right?” I ask instead. “Because last time I checked, you’d never want to be alone with me in a million years.”

That last sentence escapes my mind, just like every other barbed remark I’ve ever uttered, and I prepare myself for the aftermath. For Redheart to tell me that I haven’t changed at all and that every bit of alliance we once had was over.

Instead, she simply lets out an adorable chuckle.

“We’re the editing team, remember? It’s our responsibility to show up for her. And plus, I wouldn’t mind checking out the vendor booths while I’m there.”

With a tiny blush, she adds, “I’d like to get a Healer Midnight plush to brighten up the room for the kids, but she’s one of the most popular ones, so I can never find anything for her.”

I’ve never been the most expressive pony in the world, but somehow, I swear she can see my disappointment. Up until a week ago, I wasn’t really expecting anything more from the two of us, and yet somehow, that ‘editing team’ remark stings me right in the back now.

“Of course,” she points out, “that doesn’t mean I don’t want to get to know you better, too. I know I was pretty distant with you before, but now that I know the hospital wants us to work together, I’m going to do my best to match your pace. We can call each other friends now, but I still won’t lose to you, got that?”

I nod before going into a flurry of questions. As usual, I’ve been kept in the dark about most of the inner workings of this place, and even though I had a hunch they’d keep Redheart on board, I hadn’t actually heard any confirmation yet.

As it turns out, she’s received her forgiveness, and even now, she’s doing everything she can to keep her rating high. The rest of the conversation flies by, to the point where I can barely tell when the clock rings for us to go back. But the topics remain with me throughout the day.

Thanking me for saving Scootaloo and showing a delicacy beyond what she’d usually seen of me. For saving her, as well. But somehow, the one topic that never comes up is the one that stays with me the longest, and before she goes back to her post, I find myself asking her one last question.

“What Doctor Glimmer said last week, about you just being here because of your family. It seems like that really got to you, and if it did, I want to talk to you about it. I realize I might not be the best pony to talk to, and I know I probably won’t be able to comfort you that much, but what I want to say is that, even if I can’t explain it, you’re meant to be here, Doctor Redheart, and--”

For a slight moment, I can see her eyes dilate in shock, almost as if she hadn’t expected anypony to care about her so much. But she puts her mask back on as we leave, and gives me her trademark smile.

“I’m fine for now,” she tells me, “but if we could meet up here tomorrow and talk about it, that’d be great. I’ve kind of been afraid to tell anypony else at work about it honestly, but you’ve seen me at my worst for so long, it’s barely humiliating to me. But if we do that, I’m going to tell me that it’s going to be the last time you’ll see me so vulnerable, Twilight. From tomorrow on, I’m not going to doubt my life anymore.”

Just when I swear I’m hearing things, she sees into my emotions yet again and cuts me with her icy blue gaze. Just like my first day here, except with far more feelings filling us than either of us could have expected.

“By the way, next time you talk to me...you can call me Scarlet.”

Author's Note

~~The idea for the wing massaging did not come from the fact that I own a handmade Scootaloo plush with very soft and very tiny wings that I like to rub sometimes. Not at all.~~

Anyway, Twilight's starting to show her awkward side in the game of love, and as much as I love cynical Twi, adorkable Twi's always good in my book, too. This was supposed to be an actual Redheart confession part instead of a fluff part, but I was so excited about an anime con coming to my town that...it kinda got derailed a little. :twilightblush:

Episode Nineteen: I Choose to Stay

Twilight Sparkle, M.D.
Ponyville Hospital, Day 47, noon

I can still hear Sunset’s voice in the aftermath of that situation, and in those words. Not because of what she said, but because of the pure silence of the situation. The silence that can only come from the deepest of epiphanies.

“I believe that you can change, too!” Has anypony else ever told her such a thing? Judging from the stream of tears she let out then, probably not. All I can do now is wait and hope that the situation at Canterlot National gets better for her eventually.

Because I’ve decided. When Sunset boards the train back to Canterlot, I’m not going with her. The only time I’ll ever go back there is for family visits and events, not for the title I spent so many years chasing. I’ve always been a pony of my word, and the minute I told Sunset my plans, I knew I’d tethered myself to Ponyville forever. I’d spent the last few days mentally rehearsing my moment with her, making myself acknowledge this new part of my life.

Yet somehow, when I finally tell Sunset that, and with the sound of her tears in the distance, I realize that I’m not quite so sure anymore. Even as I move onto giving ponies shots, one part of my brain keeps firing alerts at light speed, telling me that I’m not acting rationally. It’s not a part of the brain that I can label, or even understand, but the feeling is there anyway.

For the first time in a week, I realize just how much I’m going to lose--no matter what decision I take.

And then I remember everything I could stand to gain, and leave those thoughts behind.

****

Twilight Sparkle, M.D.
Ponyville Hospital, Day 47, evening

Sunset Shimmer has chosen to extend her visit, partially so she could gather enough of her bearings to rescind her resignation, and partially so she can get to know the pony who has changed me so much. Since the feather flu shots have been such a success, Scarlet and I have been allowed an abnormally large break, which we spend sitting in Sugarcube Corner with Sunset.

A tiny smile comes onto my face once I realize that this was the place it all started. My first major case in Ponyville, and the first time I met Scarlet, all had ties to this place. Granted, that had been because the muffins gave everypony in a five mile radius food poisoning, but I don’t even think about that in the excitement of the moment. If I had, I would’ve found some way to tie it into Scarlet and I’s grand love story--brought together by baked bads. Even though the two of us have gone here several times after the incident, everything about it still seems new somehow.

“I’m beginning to see why you ditched Canterlot,” Sunset quips after a long sip of tea. “If nothing else, at least the food’s better here.”

There’s a look of sheer bliss on her face, as if sweets and warm drinks are her idea of nectar from the gods. However, it soon dies down when Scarlet shoots her a disapproving glare.

“Don’t get too used to it,” my marefriend mutters. “The last thing we need is two Canterlot National transplants here. Plus, last I’ve checked, you’ve still got your own hospital to run.”

“So really, the least you can do is stomach terrible Canterlot cuisine for the sake of your patients,” I add. “It’s basically part of the Hippocratic Oath, anyway. Do no harm to others, but perform irreparable harm to your stomach as a ritual sacrifice to the gods of medicine.”

Any fear that might have been in Sunset’s head earlier today has already dissipated, and she actually breaks out in laughter as I say this. In a truly grand show of professionalism, she even gives me a hoofbump in agreement.

“Is the food there really that bad?” Scarlet asks. “I always thought it was just some stock joke comedians made. Kinda like how we all know train food isn’t that bad, but entertainers make fun of it anyway.”

Instead of answering, Sunset and I just shake our heads in slow synchronicity, as if Scarlet is the most naive pony on the planet.

“If you know which places to avoid, it’s okay,” Sunset finally says. “But otherwise, it’s the most annoyingly boring food imaginable. Back in my college days, I actually started a fight in one of those frou-frou places because I couldn’t stand it anymore.”

As much as I’m glad Sunset put an end to that habit of hers, I can’t help but laugh a little thinking about it. The thought of an esteemed medical student using her reputation to her advantage, booking an expensive reservation, and going there just to gripe about it will probably always slay me, no matter how much this town has changed me. Unlike me, Sunset has never been the type to hide her intolerance for ponies who look down on her.

“For a minute there, I thought you were going to say you started a fire,” says Scarlet. “That’s probably the one time I’ve ever felt relieved hearing about a public brawl.”

“Trust me, I wouldn’t go that far. I may have the mane for it, but that’s just impractical. Some other chef would probably build an even more intolerable place after the ashes have cleared, anyway.”

She takes an especially large bite of her cinnamon roll after saying this, and that’s probably the first sign that something’s up here. While we doctors don’t exactly cut junk food out of our lives altogether, we tend to follow our own advice about them--savor them, make sure your stomach is actually full before moving onto the next sweet treat, and so on. While she could just be pretending to be dramatic about Canterlot food, something tells me that there’s still got to be something on her mind. After all, even after all that crying, she seems to have recovered from this morning’s incident surprisingly quickly.

“But long story short,” Sunset finishes, “if you want a good meal in Canterlot, look for places that don’t have any hooves on their signs. Zero’s best, one or two is still pretty good, but three and four are what the food critics like. I swear their taste buds were swapped with dog ones after they were born.”

I’m not sure exactly when in the conversation this happens, but Scarlet eventually catches onto Sunset’s trouble, too. Before long, the entire table is filled with deafening silence, as if that in and of itself will get the yellow unicorn to talk.

“‘Cause, you know, dogs have less taste buds than ponies? Or do I only know this because I roomed with a veterinarian?”

“It’s not that,” I finally say. “It’s just...you seem to have gotten over all that pretty quickly. I want to make sure you’re really ready to go back to Canterlot.”

In that moment, I expect a variety of reactions. I expect Sunset to toss my question to the side, change the subject, deny it, do just about anything she possibly can to avoid admitting her feelings. What I don’t expect, however, is laughter.

“You really have changed, haven’t you? Earlier today, I wasn’t sure what to think when you yelled that at the top of your lungs. But I know nopony at Canterlot would’ve asked me something like you just did. It almost makes me wish more Canterlot ponies would come over here.”

And then, for once, she isn’t laughing or eating or doing anything, really. She just stares off into the distance, imagining how she feels the Canterlot ponies would have reacted. Even though she’s one of the most fearless ponies I know, I can still see panic in her eyes. I want to tell her that a lot of that fear is in herself, and that ponies have come to accept her new position, but I can’t. Because I know the truth, and there’s a deeper question on my mind.

How is it that, in a world of friendship, ponies still find it so hard to forgive?

“Look,” Scarlet mutters, “I’d ask you why you’d stayed in Canterlot so long, but I think I already know the answer. Before Twilight came, I was treated like that in Ponyville. As much as I’d like to say that I stayed because of my patients, I feel like part of it was about proving myself. I wanted to be so good, I could wipe that rumor straight out of everypony’s mouths. But eventually, even I wanted to give up. I could never surpass my parents, and I could never surpass Twilight.”

The second she says this, Sunset’s face is washed with shock and recognition. She doesn’t even have to say anything for me to know that Scarlet was able to get so much of her right without having ever been told. For all I know, Sunset may not have even known she felt this way herself.

“So Twilight shook the place up like usual?” she asked.

“The minute she came in, the director was already thinking about transferring me. I got my transfer letter less than two weeks afterwards. Just after I got that message, I learned about a hospital scam in Cloudsdale. A doctor gave foals bad pills and claimed they would help them get their cutie marks quicker. This Doctor Glimmer had already started to spread her drugs across Ponyville, so I thought that stopping her would make my hospital change its mind. But before it did, Doctor Glimmer made me an offer. She knew that my hospital would never give me a chance, and she preyed on that. And, as terrible as it might sound...part of me wanted that.”

Somehow, that statement doesn’t shock me near as much as it should. Even though it was only a month or so ago, the Doctor Glimmer incident feels so far away to me. Ever since she was arrested, it’d barely even crossed my mind. But if there’s one thing I remember, it’s the way Doctor Glimmer always had to have ponies under her hooves. It was the one and only way she survived as long as she did--once ponies started to question her leadership, everything around her would unravel.

In another time, I might have worried that Scarlet would have still tried to go back to Glimmer on the off chance the quack was declared innocent. But back then, and still now, intentions didn’t matter--as long as there was some moral compass telling Scarlet to refuse the job, she would do just that. It didn’t matter if she did it to distract Doctor Glimmer or if she had really meant it, because it was over and done. And that meant that there was only one reason Scarlet would bring it up.

“I barely know you, but I never want you to feel that desperate,” continues Scarlet. “Back then, there was a part of me that said that was the only way. But there’s always another way, and if your case is anything like mine, you’ll find something even better afterwards. Respect, and possibly even love.”

“It might take a while,” I add, “but if those doctors know what’s good for them, they’ll cooperate with their seniors. If they give you any more grief, you have an excuse to report them to Director Celestia.”

After a long moment of hesitation, Sunset finally smiles at me, the sort of mischievous smile I’ve seen from her dozens of times.

“Maybe you haven’t changed so much, after all,” she says. “What happened to the pony who gave me a friendship speech earlier today?”

“She’s still there, but she realizes that sometimes, you need something else to help you through. Like assurance that ponies will never be able to treat you that way again. But there’s just one more thing I want to ask you before you go back.”

In another life, I would have punched myself for asking such a question. But if there’s any way Sunset can stay in Canterlot, and I can stay in Ponyville, it’s one we still have to confront.

“Is it your dream to stay at Canterlot National?” I ask her.

“Wasn’t it yours?” she answers.

I thought it was, long ago, even longer ago than the Glimmer incident. It’s hard to believe that it’s only been two months, but back then, I was under that delusion. I had never questioned why I’d stayed in Canterlot. It just was. I knew that there was more to the world than my hospital, but I’d never wanted to stray outside of it.

It wasn’t a dream. It wasn’t even destiny. It was a chain, linking me to a path that I’d trotted on my whole life. Once I realized that, I learned that more ponies are tethered to that chain than I originally thought. Which means that, if anypony has any hope of taking my place, they have to have a better reason than I did.

“I thought it was,” I tell her. “But when I asked myself why I wanted to stay, I couldn’t come up with anything. Before long, I realized that I mainly just stayed there for bragging rights. I’d climbed the ladder, and I’d reaped my reward, and that meant dreams didn’t matter. I did what everypony in Equestria thought I’d do from the second I started school, because I thought that’d make me happy.

“I told myself I didn’t care what other ponies thought of me, but deep down, I really did. Once I understood that, I wondered what else I was wrong about. I want to make sure I’m not wrong about you.”

“You can’t just fake it in this job,” Scarlet chimes in. “Back when Twilight first came, I had to teach her that. The chance that Director Celestia gave you has to be something that you want more than anything.”

Sunset cocks her head to the side for a moment and sits, deep in thought. I can almost see the gears turning in her head, as if she’s trying to figure out the answer to a riddle. Somehow, though, I feel like I know what the answer’s going to be, even before she does.

“Do I deserve it?”

“That’s the other thing I realized back here,” I tell her. “Back in Canterlot, they handed me the world on a platter. When ponies like you said I was the best doctor there, I believed it. I didn’t know until later that that type of talk just brings ponies down.

“Dreams aren’t about whether you deserve it, Sunset. They aren’t about what anypony else wants. They’re about you. If all of that is true, then what would you say?”

Sunset’s face contorts itself all the way back into the moved expression it had hours ago, and the second I see it, I know what she’s going to say. I know that her decision, and mine, have already been made.

I won’t lie and say I don’t miss Canterlot National sometimes. I know that I’m going to miss it even more in the coming days, but every time I do, I’ll think about what keeps me tethered to this town. Scarlet, and the patients, Fluttershy, even Rainbow Dash, if we’re really being generous. And those are tethers that I’ve made myself, that I won’t let fate separate.

“I’ll try my best to live up to your legacy.”

“Between you and me,” I say, “doing that won’t be too hard. Because Doctor Twilight Sparkle makes mistakes.”

And my mistakes have made all the difference.

Author's Note

One of my favorite anime of all time, Precure, sometimes closes seasons with sketch-style drawings of the characters and a message thanking the viewers for their support. I've always appreciated that little gesture, and I knew I had to incorporate it into my series one of these days. Sorry if it isn't that good--I still need a ton of practice drawing ponies.

I'd previously envisioned this part as a grand romantic finale, but so many people asked about Sunset that I decided wrapping up her story arc was more important. I think I might write a Christmas oneshot to make up for the lack of TwiHeart screentime in this. (And yes, that's what I'm calling the ship now.)

Check out the postscript in my blog tomorrow to find out more about the writing process behind this series!