The Doctor Is In

by Kaipony

Rating: everyone
Tags: Slice of Life, Original Character, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Comedy, Capper, Tempest Shadow
Length: 3156

Tempest has taken up a career as an ophthalmologist, and she needs you to open up your eyes.

An out-of-work Tempest Shadow has opened an eye clinic near Ponyville. Nopony is sure if the doctorate hanging in her office is official or why her retinoscope features under-barrel attachment points. And most can agree that it’s best not to ask where she got a permit to perform retinal cryopexy.

Still, she seems to know what she’s doing, and all licenses to practice appear to have been filed using the correct format and proper guidelines. That makes everything okay. Right?

Published 2020-11-13 02:30:01 UTC
Last updated 2020-11-13 02:30:01 UTC

Eye for an Eye

The Everfree Clinic for Ponies Who Can't See Good was having its most profitable day yet. Despite its location just outside the Everfree Forest's boundaries, two whole patients quietly sat in the spacious waiting room. Beige textured walls, a whitewashed ceiling, and faux wood tile surrounded the windowless room, with an impressionist painting of Canterlot almost managing to conceal the outline of a recently bricked-up window. Only the faintest of residual claw marks could be seen through the touch-up paint around the edges of the window frame.

The small reception room, separated from the lobby by a thick pane of glass, was sparsely furnished. Besides a desk, chair, and filing cabinet, an extensive scheduling calendar was tacked to the rear wall. Partially hidden from view was a small box covered by a glass pane that warned ONLY OPEN IN CASE OF TIMBERWOLVES. It, and the glass, looked new.

Seated within easy reach of the box was an elderly, bespectacled mare who was currently squinting at a slip of paper. Her gaze slowly crawled across the same two lines on the form several times before she checked the time on a wall clock behind her. The receptionist coughed into a hoof, rapped on the glass partition, and spoke through a narrow opening in the bottom.

"Is there a Miss Iris here?" she rasped. Her unfocused eyes squinted at the slip again. "Miss Cobalt Iris."

A yellow cream earth pony mare looked up from the ancient copy of Better Hearths and Hovels she had been absently browsing. "That's me," Iris answered, sliding off the couch.

"You're up, deary," the receptionist droned. She slid a clipboard with a short questionnaire and a pencil through the slot, then pointed at the door that led further into the clinic. "Head through there, hang a left, and take a seat in the last room on the right." The receptionist coughed again before continuing. "Fill out the paperwork, and the doctor will be with you shortly." Her job done, the elderly mare reached under her desk and retrieved a set of knitting needles along with an unfinished sweater.

Iris took the clipboard and pencil in her teeth, pushed through the door, and turned left. A plain hall of the same construction as the lobby greeted her. Three doors ran down the right side of the hall, and there were two on the left. Only the last door on the right was open. The walls were bare except for a single eye chart at the far end of the hall.

The open door that Iris meandered through lead into a simple examination room with a large reclining seat covered in a plastic wrap, a countertop with cabinets full of medical supplies, and numerous placards depicting every conceivable fact about various species and races' ocular structures. Hanging alongside the posters was a rough photocopy of a diploma and certificate to practice medicine. Iris lay back in the examination chair and quickly worked through her questionnaire. With the paperwork completed, she set the form aside and waited. And waited.

A clock on the wall quietly ticked through several minutes, the only other sounds in the room coming from the squeak of plastic as Iris shifted into a more comfortable position. Soon, she felt her eyelids growing heavy as the soft, monotonous ticking lulled her mind into a stupor. Just as was dozing off, someone swept into the room behind her and shut the door with a solid thump.

"Good morning Miss...Iris," the new arrival said from behind. Iris heard papers being shuffled, and then an orchid unicorn in a white lab coat, sporting a rose mane styled into a mohawk, slid onto a stool next to her. "I'm Doctor Shadow. How are you feeling today?"

Iris jolted in her seat and leaned away from the doctor. "F-fine?" she squeaked.

"Is that your answer," Tempest asked pointedly, "or are you asking me?"

"Answering," Iris answered quickly, timidly melting under the doctor's stern gaze.

Tempest rolled her eyes. "Look, I know who I am and what my old reputation says about me. Please understand that I've taken up a new path in life." She gestured around the room. "See? Completely reformed and respectable now. Can we move on? My waiting room is swamped."

Iris glanced up at the framed doctorate but could not quite make out the name of the institution of accreditation. She gulped but nodded slowly. "S-sure. I guess I can do that. You are a doctor now, after all."

"Good." Tempest flipped through a few charts she was carrying and reviewed the questionnaire Iris had filled out. "I have a few more questions to ask before we get into the examination. Have your eyes ever been checked before?"

"No," Iris replied with a puzzled look. "They've always been brown."

"Hmm. I see." Tempest made a few notations. "Do you have a family history of vision problems?"

"Well, I often heard my mom accusing my dad of his lack of vision. Does that count?"

"Possibly." Tempest paused and then smirked. "Tell me, do you enjoy certain types of jokes?"

"Um, I guess," Iris said questioningly.

"The cornea, the better," Tempest snickered. "Right?"

"What?"

Tempest snorted. "Ugh. That never works. Final question. When did you first suspect that something was wrong?"

Iris tapped a hoof against her chin as she thought. "About two weeks ago while on a date, I think. My coltfriend kept complimenting me on how I looked―he's always been a sweetie like that―but when I tried talking about my day at work, he never acknowledged anything I had to say. He was always just trying to steal glances at my flanks."

Tempest pursed her lips and tapped her clipboard thoughtfully. "I'm failing to see the connection between his preferred focus and your eyesight, but I'll make a note of it." She scribbled some more notes before concluding. "Is there anything else that you would like to add?"

"Let me think. Oh! During the same date, I kept knocking over my glass of water. It always seemed either closer or further away than it really was."

Tempest hummed to herself while jotting down a few more notations. "This seems like a fairly simple diagnosis, but let's run through a few tests. Just to make sure." She stood and motioned for Iris to follow her out of the room. Iris peeled herself off the chair and Tempest pointed to a small yellow dot on the wall near the floor about halfway back down the hall.

"I need you to stand next to that dot and cover your right eye." After Iris did as she was instructed, Tempest indicated the eye chart. "Beginning at the top, please read aloud all the letters which you can see clearly."

Iris squinted out of her left eye at the chart that hung three meters away and opened her mouth, but then she paused, her ears flicking. From some unseen source came low notes from what sounded like stringed and brass instruments.

"Is...is that music?" She glanced around the hall. "Where is that even coming from?" Iris took a step backward when her glances settled on the form of Tempest as the unicorn advanced, one step at a time in tune with the growing music.

"It's time you learned a lesson," Tempest sang.
"You time that you understand
The symptoms of ocular defects,
Such as problems with the lacrimal gland."

"What do I―"

"Open up your eyes," Tempest continued.
"Can you see the chart from where you stand?
Look at all these letters, and read aloud at my command."

Iris, her eyes indeed open and wide, nodded carefully and stepped back up to the yellow dot. She covered her right eye and began reading from the chart.

When Iris finished, Tempest nodded curtly and opened the door across from the examination room.

"I am quite surprised.
You've beheld all the letters right.
Now follow me into this room," she crooned while grinning.
"Come now, little one. Let's go check those eyes."

As though bewitched, Iris followed Tempest into the room. Inside was another examination chair, but this one had a spidery apparatus attached to one side. A half-dome, slightly larger than a pony's head, sat atop the structure. Across the front of the dome was a series of lenses with a rotary dial on a spindle. On the wall in front of the chair was another copy of the eye chart.

Tempest gestured to the chair. "Have a seat. Place your head under the cap and keep it level." Iris followed the directions, and Tempest lowered the half-globe. "I'm going to flip through several different lenses," she continued, making adjustments to the spindle. "We're going to use the same chart you viewed out in the hall, and I want you to tell me which ones make the letters look easier to read."

"Sure thing," Iris replied, unhelpfully nodding and eliciting a groan from Tempest. The lenses were readjusted, and the first set snapped down over Iris's eyes.

"Take a look at the chart and tell me which of the two lenses makes the letters look better."

Iris hummed to herself for a few moments. "The second one, the one on the right."

Tempest made a note of the lens and selected a new pair. "And now?"

"The left one." The lenses were shuffled again and snapped down over Iris's eyes. She screamed and jerked her head away. "What is that?!"

Frowning, Tempest removed the lens and peered at it closely. "Oh," she chuckled. "That's where that one got to. This is a slide from my vacation to Ghastly Gorge. Too bad what you saw was all we found of our guide after Grubber got too close to a quarry eel trying to get a photo. Good times." She replaced the slide picture with a proper lens. "So, which image looked more detailed?"

"The l-l-left one," Iris stammered. The selection process continued for another dozen combinations of lenses. When the final set had been tested, Tempest pushed the dome away and moved to a storage cabinet against a wall.

"The final test I need to perform is an inspection of the rear of your eye." Tempest opened the largest set of cabinet doors, rummaged around inside, and withdrew a five-gallon bucket. "This is a solution that will temporarily enlarge your pupils and allow me to check for abnormalities."

Iris looked on with trepidation as Tempest fitted a narrow funnel onto the top of the bucket and donned a pair of safety goggles. "I...I didn't think that eye droppers got that big."

"My office has a contract with Coltsco in Manehattan." Tempest checked the seal around the funnel and nodded. "They give me a good deal on bulk supplies." She lifted the bucket and teetered over on her rear legs. "This takes two hooves, so I need you to hold your eyelids open for me while I administer the drops."

"Oh, okay." Iris used the tip of her hooves and spread her eyelids wider apart. "How's this?"

"Good." Tempest hefted the bucket over her head and tilted it downward, angling the funnel toward Iris's face. "Now, remain still and stay calm."

"Calm? Why would I need to stay―oww!" Iris cried, snapping her eyes shut as a deluge of medicinal solution poured down the sides of her face.

"Don't blink," Tempest admonished. "That will wash out the liquid, and I'll have to readminister."

"But it stings," Iris whined.

"Don't be a foal. Now, you know what to do, or do I have to start singing again?"

"No, no," Iris insisted. She braced herself and pulled back her eyelids with her hooves. "Go ahead. I'm ready." Tempest administered the drops while Iris chanted, "Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow."

Once the drops had flushed out the eyes, Tempest offered Iris a cloth to dry herself. "How do you feel?" she asked.

Iris blinked rapidly and dabbed moisture from her coat. "Well, I can see a little more clearly now that the pain is gone."

Ophthalmoscope in hoof, and grumbling to herself about pansy ponies, Tempest peered into Iris's eyes with a serious look on her face. Having just finished a cursory search, there came a knock at the door. It opened, and in stepped a young stallion dressed in a pale blue smock.

"Excuse me, Doctor?" he asked tentatively.

"I'm busy," Tempest growled, continuing her examination.

"Sorry, ma'am," the stallion apologized, "but this is about your two o'clock tomorrow."

At this, Tempest paused and glanced over at the stallion. "That grey mailmare?"

He nodded. "She's asked to move up her appointment to first thing in the morning." The stallion held up a flyer that was covered top to bottom in finely printed words. "Earlier today, Mayor Mare threatened to pursue an executive order mandating 20/20 correctable vision for all pegasi flying through the town under 50 meters if there's one more incident involving collisions."

"The Town Hall clock tower again?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Fine," Tempest grumbled. "Make the necessary changes and call up anypony that will have their appointment rescheduled." The stallion nodded and turned to leave, but Tempest called out. "And give anypony that complains about having to move their appointment 20% off during their next procedure." She returned to her task.

The stallion paused and looked back over his shoulder. "Um." He gulped. "That's 20% off the cost, right?"

"Hmm." Tempest glanced up again. "Right. Yes." She turned away and cleared her throat. "That's exactly what I meant. Nothing at all like last week's procedure to remove that infected tissue from around the patient's eyelids after they insulted my mane. Carry on." The stallion retreated and shut the door behind him, leaving Tempest to finish her examination.

"Well, Doc?" Iris asked when Tempest finally finished.

"Miss Iris, you appear to have difficulty with depth perception."

"I do?" A flash of inspiration crossed her face. "Would that explain why my coltfriend seems so shallow?"

"I'm not that kind of doctor," Tempest said. She returned her ophthalmoscope to its storage drawer and hummed to herself. "I can offer you two options for treatment. The first is prescription lenses. These only correct your vision, not your eyes. If you're concerned about image, my office contracts with a designer in Ponyville to provide the most fashion-forward frames. We're also having a sale on rose-colored glasses this week." She pulled a pair of red, horn-rimmed glasses from the drawer and gave them to Iris. "Here is a sample, but I would personally recommend option number two."

"What's that one?" Iris asked, examining the glasses.

Tempest reached into a different drawer and pulled out a large welding mask. She fastened the headband just below her horn and turned back to her patient, snapping the shield down over her face. An undulating cyan aura enveloping the jagged wound and sent a shower of sparks popping into the air.

"Magical LASIK surgery."

Clearly audible out in the waiting room, a squealing eep preceded the muffled sound of crashing wood as Cobalt Iris burst through the door leading back to the exam rooms at full gallop. She slid past the reception desk with the pair of sample glasses clenched tightly in her teeth. Hot on her heels came Tempest, brandishing a clipboard.

"But it's only an outpatient procedure!" the unicorn shouted to her fleeing patient. "Local anesthesia. In and out in an hour or two!" But Iris had already flung open the office door and bolted outside.

A single cry wafted back in on her wake. "Bill my insurance!"

Dejectedly, Tempest hung her head and stripped off her protective gear as she stalked back to her office. Seated in the corner of the waiting area, a gamboge brown Abyssinian in a dark red coat slowly rose from his seat. Quietly, he set aside the dusty issue of Highlights he had been skimming. With his green eyes darting from Tempest to the exit, he crept towards the door with careful steps.

"Dapperpaws," the receptionist called out, freezing both the feline and Tempest in their steps. Bifocals were adjusted, and the receptionist squinted at the name on her schedule. "Is there a Mr. Dapperpaws here? First name...Capper."

Tempest turned and locked eyes with the feline, a flash of recognition brightening her face. She smiled toothily as he took a step backward. Holding out a hoof, a file slipped through the reception window slot into Tempest's waiting hoof, and she rapidly flipped through the first couple of pages.

"Mr. Dapperpaws, I see here that you think you might be developing cataracts," Tempest commented, taking a step forward. Capper matched her with a single step backward. "Furthermore, you claim that sometimes creatures in the background of your vision just seem to fade in and out at random times."

The Abyssinian reached for the door, still slightly ajar from Iris's sudden exit, but a blunt wave of magical force slammed the door shut. He stared at the door, and his ears folded against his head.

"Is all that correct, Capper?" Tempest asked. She hoofed the file back to her receptionist.

Capper glanced around the waiting room. When no alternate escape route or solution to his predicament presented itself, he smiled. His whiskers twitched, and he presented his paws, pads up.

"Oh! No, no," he corrected. "My name's, uh, Kat. Scaredy Kat. Capper is my cousin." He nodded vigorously. "Yeah. He had to step out, so I was just keeping this chair warm for him. A warm place to sit is just so nice to have when you're waiting around." Capper turned and reached from the doorknob. "I'm just going to go find him for you, and―yeow!"

Tempest, the tufted tip of Capper's tail firmly gripped in her teeth, yanked the feline away from the exit, and marched forward. "Right thith way, please."

Capper yowled and dug his claws into the floor, straining to pull himself free, but found himself being inexorably drawn further into the depths of the office.

"Relax," Tempest purred. "I'm fully committed to my new job and guarantee that I'll be able to fix whatever issues you're having with your eyesight." Capper yowled again, but there were no other patients in the waiting room to heed his cries.

"Now," Tempest continued as she dragged the pouting feline into the first examination room. "Let's see if maybe your eyesight was to blame when you pointed me in the direction of Black Skull Island when clearly the airship I wanted to go after was heading in the opposite direction, shall we?"

Author's Note

Presented as-is because this is what happens when you are required to self-quarantine after international travel for two weeks, and run out of steam one day while working on NaNoWriMo projects. It's also what happens when you're randomly scrolling through DA and run across an image that creates an immediate spark.

It was fun. I regret nothing.