GASP

Redheart woke up the next morning to the sound of excited shouting again. She rolled out of bed and looked out her window. The crowd at the festival had crowd huge and she could hear the susurrus of the crowd up the hill, a mess of white noise trickling down to her house that had been the cause of her awakening. She stumbled to her kitchen and prepared breakfast, then dragged herself out the door to the office.

Upon arrival, she was greeted by Dr. Hang with a smile that didn’t inspire her with confidence.

“Good morning, Nurse,” he said.

“Good… morning, Doctor,” she answered, wary.

“I have a deal for you. How would you like to attend the Rolling Rock festival?”

“Well… I guess that would be fun. It’s loud, but I’ve never been.”

“Excellent, excellent!” He motioned for her to follow him. “So, I’m sure you can imagine all the injuries ponies will cause to themselves during the course of such a rowdy event. We always maintain a medical presence, and though I’m usually the pony on hoof, I can let you attend in my place.”

“As the go-to medical pony.”

“Yes, of course. You’ll have assistants from out of town who are part of the festival. They’ll be handling most things as they happen, but you are to be the liaison between them and our offices here for the major cases. You’ll need to be available, but you’ll have a front-row seat to all of the major events. Sound good?”

“I guess so.”

“Wonderful! Take this kit.” He passed her saddlebags filled with medical supplies, water, and a pager. “You can contact me with that, it’ll alert me you’re coming with an injury.” He fairly pushed her out the door, ushering her along. “Good luck, Nurse! Do try to enjoy yourself.”

Nurse Redheart found herself outside the office on the road leading up to the Rolling Rock festival without being quite aware of it. She couldn’t help feeling insulted that he had seemed so excited to get her out of the office. Either he was looking forward to not having to go himself, or he was pleased he wouldn’t have to hear her talking to him in the office.

“Whatever.” She hoofed her way up the hill, coming to the flat, and now crowded, plateau at the top. What had once been bare and empty, filled with nothing but rocks, was now filled with tents, booths, carts, and ponies. So many ponies. It wasn’t like she was a stranger to crowds, but these ponies were the kind of pony she usually avoided when walking around at night.

As she entered the fair grounds she was swamped by the heavy smell of sweaty ponies and dust.

There was so much dust.

The plateau wasn’t the cleanest thing on the best of days, but with the tramping of hundreds of hooves it was even worse. What little plant-life there had been on the rocky soil was dead by this point, and the dust was easily kicked up from underneath. Nopony really seemed to mind, and the dust was blown away by a nice, cool breeze, but it was going to get irritating very quickly.

Redheart made her way to a spot mentioned on the map of the fairgrounds where she found the medical booth. It had been set up by out-of-towners who had volunteered to come help out during the festival, and they welcomed her with jovial greetings.

“You must be Dr. Hang, right?” one overweight pony said.

“Oh, no, actually. I’m Dr. Hang’s assistance, Nurse Redheart. He didn’t…” Redheart chose her words carefully. “…have the freedom to come today, so he sent me.”

“Oh,” he said, “well that’s alright! You’re a sight for sore eyes, anyway! Are you excited for the races?”

Nurse Redheart looked around at the booth. There were plenty of supplies, and the only patient was a child with a scraped knee, so she picked a spot behind the counter and sat down. “Sort of. I’ve never been to an event like this one before.”

“Oh, dude, well, I hope you’re prepared to have your knees blown off in excitement! Today’s the first race, the cycling races, right, Wheeler?”

The other pony, a much smaller mare with a short mane, turned to look at them. She was excited about something. “The first part of the cycling races, yes. This is when the ‘motorcycle’ should be unveiled! Ohhhh, isn’t this exciting?”

“Yeah!” The stallion turned to look at Redheart. “Somepony has been hyping up this thing called a ‘motorcycle’. It’s supposed to have some sort of train engine attached to it, but it’s going to be about the size of a pony. I went to go have a look at it, and the size of the thing the sheet was covering was almost as small as me!”

“That’s still pretty big, Dunkel,” the mare said with a grin.

He sat up indignantly. “My point is that the motorcycle thing is just big enough for a single pony. I’m not sure where they’re going to put the engine, but they insist it isn’t magical.”

“Yeah, they say even an earth pony can use it!”

“Something that small, though? Won’t it be super hot, like the engine of the train?”

“How do you even make a furnace that small?”

“I dunno…”

“And without magic!”

The mare, Wheeler, shrugged. “Anyway, Redheart, you said?”

Redheart nodded. “Yes. I’m here to help however I can, and contact the hospital the moment something bad happens. I’ve been told something surely will happen.”

“Oh, yeah,” Wheeler said. “This kind of rough and crazy event, ponies stop paying attention to safety guidelines. In fact, it’s kind of a matter of pride to get injured doing a stunt. More’s the pity for us, eh?” She smiled ruefully.

“I bet. When’s the event supposed to start?”

“Well, if you look up there.” Dunkel pointed to the nearest mountainside. Redheart followed his hoof. “You’ll see the tracks? That’s where it’ll take place in about… two hours? If you want to walk over there and get familiar with it, Wheeler can give you a tour of the most likely accident spots.”

Redheart stood up. “I think I would like that.”

“Then c’mon, Red. Can I call you Red?” Wheeler asked

“That’s fine.”

“Then c’mon, Red. I’ll show you the accident spots.” Wheeler grabbed a first-aid saddlebag and slung it over her back and led the way toward the mountain.

The mountainside looked worse up close than it did from a distance. There were ponies of all sorts riding bicycles, scooters, and other contraptions Redheart suspected were of their own making all over the rocks, dirt piles, and hills.

There were sections that were flat with just hills here and there set up for tricks, and there were plenty of ponies on that, but the mountainside trails were steep and rocky. Wheeler led Redheart up and down the tracks, careful to avoid the trails themselves, and she pointed out the most likely places somepony would crash.

“This one’s the worst offender. Last year there were six accidents on this corner alone!” Wheeler pointed at a banked corner next to a dropoff into a rocky ravine.

“By Celestia, how is this allowed?”

Wheeler shrugged. “Ponies are expected to know the track when they ride this one. You sign a waiver that exempts the festival from responsibility if you hurt yourself during the races.”

Redheart crouched down and looked into the ravine. It wasn’t deep, but the rocks at the bottom were jagged. There was a scattering of gravel among the rocks that didn’t look natural.

“Those rocks don’t look natural, where did they come from?”

“Hmm?” Wheeler looked down. “Oh, that was the misguided attempt by the festival to make it safer. They dumped in a bunch of gravel to soften the landing, but all they did was cause an avalanche the next day when it rained. They haven’t touched it since. They’re afraid of bringing down the whole mountainside.”

“I understand. At least they tried.”

Something sparkled in the ravine, drawing Redheart’s eye. She squinted to get a better look but couldn’t identify what it was. Something was hidden underneath an outcropping of rock below, hidden under the overhanging stone.

“Whatcha lookin’ at?”

“Do you see that?”

“What?”

“Something sparkling down there.”

Wheeler stepped closer to the edge. “All kinds of metal falls down there, Red. It’s probably the broken remains of somepony’s bicycle.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

“’course I’m right. Now c’mon, let’s go get our ‘front row seats’ to the bike races, eh? I can’t wait to see that motorcycle!”

Redheart let herself be led away from the ravine and followed Wheeler back down to the medical tent. Somepony had come by for a bit of sticking plaster, but there was otherwise nothing happening.

They chatted for a bit, with Wheeler and Dunkel showing Redheart where everything was kept, until it was almost time for the event to start. Dunkel was double-checking supplies in their saddlebags before it was time to head out.

“Okay, so we have enough bandages for any number of wounds, splints, oils, plaster, and medicine. I think we’re good. You good, Wheeler?”

Wheeler put her own saddlebags on her back and nodded. “All good! Redheart?”

Redheart had checked her bags before she had left the office, and they hadn’t left her back ever since. She nodded. “I got it. I even have a pager for the hospital, just in case.”

“We’ll probably need it. The Wonderbolts have a booth here, and they were showing off a gnarly luge,” Dunkel said. “Looks fast, but completely unsafe.”

“I saw that!” said Wheeler. “Pushing the boundaries of acceptable construction, but still technically legal. They said only a pegasus could use it because the rider will have to fly away to stop. Crazy stuff.”

“That’s terrible!” Redheart said.

“If by terrible you mean ‘awesome’!” Dunkel said.

The two ponies high-hoofed and left the booth. They put up a hoofwritten sign saying they were off at the bike races, and all medical matters should go there and look for the red cross.

Redheart thought it might be best for someone to stay behind, but she didn’t trust these two in matters of health as far as she could throw them, and seeing as they were both earth ponies, she didn’t think she’d toss them very far. She wanted to be where the action was, and if that meant leaving scraped knees to themselves, she’d do that.

She followed them to the bike trails where the crowd had gathered, got into position, and waited, watching.