Flitter's Friday

"Good afternoon, Miss Flitter."

The pegasus jumped a bit at the voice, her wings flaring and her eyes shooting from an informational poster on feather flu to the door. An earth pony of passing familiarity crossed the threshold, looking Flitter briefly up and down with a pair of blue eyes. She had white fur and a pink mane neatly tied up, and donned a nurse's cap and a light smile.

"Uh, hi," Flitter answered, trying to remember the nurse's name as she bashfully returned her wings to her sides. She knew she worked at the clinic, but couldn't recall if she'd ever heard it. She was quickly preempted.

"I'm Nurse Redheart. As you know, Doctor Trotter retired recently. I've been assigned to handle your checkups for the immediate future," Redheart explained, maintaining her smile even as Flitter's own dropped a bit.

"Oh, that's right." Flitter's ears lowered. Trotter had been the matter-of-fact but gentle mare who'd seen Flitter through the better part of her treatment. The memory of last month's appointment had largely faded over the last few weeks, but it returned in clarity now. As blunt as ever, Trotter had ended the last appointment by telling the pegasus that next week she was off to Silver Stable, and that she was proud to have watched Flitter mature into the bright young mare she was. The nurse waited patiently for Flitter to lift her gaze to her again.

"So, shall we get right to it?" Her voice was smooth and cool, but not cold.

"Sure," Flitter sighed softly as the practitioner took a moment to approach the nearby counter to look through the stack of papers on a clipboard detailing everything Flitter wouldn't be comfortable telling a friend. In the meantime, Flitter relaxed into the paper-protected cushion of the low exam room table, both hearing and feeling its distinct crinkling as she settled in. Cloudchaser would complain practically every time she had an appointment that she didn't care for the cold, sterile environment of the Ponyville Clinic, but Flitter herself had always found something calming about the neutral colours, the spotless tiles and counters, and even the slight lingering scent of disinfectant. It was tidy and reliable, which was the most you could want from a medical facility, and it had been for every one of her monthly visits since she and her sister had moved to Ponyville. She could already feel herself calming down from the lingering bout of embarrassment earlier, even if she couldn't quite shake the underlying... frustration.

"I understand you started a new treatment recently?" Redheart very neatly and politely recaptured Flitter's focus from the irritating heat between her thighs.

"Uh, that's right," Flitter answered, not quite able to look the nurse in the eye.

"And how have the results been so far?"

That question gave Flitter pause, but it was a welcome distraction from less welcome distractions. It took her a long moment to reflect on what changes she'd noticed, but as she recalled the subtle but vital differences, she couldn't help but smile. All the same, it was difficult to find the words to explain to another soul--especially other than her sister--and it was only Nurse Redheart's reassuring expression that finally helped them all tumble out.

"Well, ah, really, good so far?" the pegasus started, halting at first, but she gained a bit of confidence as she continued. "I think the biggest thing has been the hips. At first I thought I was gaining weight, and I only even looked closely because they were feeling sore, but they've definitely started to fill out even in just these few weeks in a way the previous treatment just... didn't. In, in another year, I'll look almost just like a real mare!" The bright hope in her words was contrasted by a self-conscious cringe as she realised just how poorly she'd expressed it.

"You are a real mare, Miss Flitter. The treatments are to help your body reflect what you already know," the nurse replied matter-of-factly, before taking a moment to jot a note in the records with a quick exertion of her lips and jaw on her pen. Then, she was right back with the patient. "And, for the record, you already pass very well. Any other changes to note?"

"Well, there's my voice." Flitter found it surprisingly easy to move right past her brief bout of embarrassment, feeling her ears warm a bit at the kind earth pony's compliment. "I didn't notice it myself, but my sister said she thought it was starting to sound a little higher." Another abrupt flurry of pen strokes took note.

"That's very promising progress for the first month of treatment," Redheart noted out loud, and Flitter had to hold in a giddy, relieved giggle of agreement.

"I think so too," she said instead, meeting the mare's smile with her own.

"Have there been any unwanted side effects?" the medical pony continued to the next point. Flitter's smile dropped from her features, and she scrambled to pick it back up before Redheart noticed. Unfortunately, the astute physician had immediately noticed, so the mare's hastily erected facade was immediately defeated by a skeptical glance.

"Uh... Ah... Just, one big one, really," the pegasus admitted with a hefty sigh, already feeling her face heating as she realised the practitioner would want to know the details. As anticipated, Redheart was looking at her expectantly, although Flitter appreciated that she seemed content to wait for her to work up the courage to speak again. "I've been really... excitable, lately."

"Excitable," the nurse echoed curiously with a single blink, glancing towards the clipboard. "Do you mean restless? Or unusually energetic?" Looking back towards her patient, Redheart seemed to immediately understand that she'd meant something else by the pronounced swivel of her ears back and down. Rather than make another guess, though, the pink-maned pony merely awaited Flitter to explain more in her own words. The room's singular clock ticked by the seconds.

"I meant... Ah, well... H-Horny?" Flitter finally managed.

"Ahh, persistent arousal," the physician finally supplied a more graceful term than Flitter's brain had seen fit to conjure. An immaculately clean white hoof lifted one of the pages of her file, scanning down through it momentarily. "Well, a significant uptick in libido is one of the rarer potential side effects. It should naturally smooth out over time, but if it persists past the first few months, we may need to prescribe you something to bring things back in balance." She diligently recorded this incredibly embarrassing detail with a few more jots of the pen. "And that's the only side effect you've noticed?"

"Yeah," Flitter mumbled.

"Then that should conclude our checkup."

"Really? That was fast," Flitter remarked, relieved. While she'd miss Doctor Trotter talking her ear off every time she came in for an appointment, it was admittedly pleasant to have a practitioner as prompt and professional as Nurse Redheart.

"Just a short checkup, after all. We'll just need to schedule some blood work before your next appointment." With a scratch-scratch and a clatter for punctuation, the pen fell to the counter. "And, of course, if you start to notice any pressing side effects you should try to come in as soon as possible."

Flitter privately guessed that chronic horniness must not have classed as a medical emergency, or else her sister would be here even more often than she was. She hoped the medical mare didn't notice her self-amused snicker as she started to get to her feet. She was stopped cold as Redheart looked from the clock to her and spoke, "One moment. I have about ten minutes before the next appointment. If you're not in a rush, would you mind if I gave you a cursory examination?" Seeing the skeptical look in the other pony's violet eyes, the tidy mare explained, "I find it helps to get a good idea of a regular patient's physical condition when we start. Then I have a better chance to notice any changes they might not notice themselves. There won't be any touching or prodding or checking your teeth."

The pegasus settled back onto her papery seat, starting to think maybe promptness and professionalism had their drawbacks, too. All the same, she nodded her assent. "Sure, I guess I don't have any place to be."

"It shouldn't take more than a few minutes," the medical mare assured, stepping closer. "Look straight ahead for me."

She wasted no time, leaning into Flitter's personal bubble to inspect her eyes in a way the pegasus had to remind herself wasn't intimate. Nearly muzzle to muzzle, Flitter couldn't help but notice all the little details of her new physician; how vividly blue her searching eyes were, how long and lustrous her eyelashes were, and how she'd so carefully applied her modest makeup so as to make it seem entirely natural. She leaned slightly, side to side, and then ordered, "Now follow me with your eyes."

The pegasus did as she was told, simply watching the pretty earth pony through her methodical movements. She carried almost no scent discernible from the clinic, likely foregoing any perfume for the sake of her patients, except for the slightest note of sweetness that left Flitter wondering. Its source only became evident when she noticed the stems of a pair of wrapped lollipops tucked between one of Nurse Redheart's ears and her cap.

"Good," Redheart cut into Flitter's counter examination, satisfied, "now wings." The pegasus pony stretched and flared her wings in a near-instinctual response to this request, years of similar examinations priming her to neatly spread them to display her feathers just-so. It was always awkward to feel another pony's eyes roaming them, but in this case she found it more bearable than having the other pony's face inches from her own.

"My! Not a feather out of place," the earth pony announced brightly as her eyes finished their circuit of the first wing and moved on to the second.

"Oh, thanks!" Flitter responded with a note of pride. "Cloudchaser and I preen for each other every few days. It's a lot easier than trying to do it alone, and cheaper than getting it done professionally."

"Coltfriend?" Redheart idly guessed at the name.

"Oh, uh, my sister.” The winged pony swallowed a bit, but before the other could apologise she dismissed it with a slight chuckle. "Don't worry, you're not the first pony to make that guess."

"I see. Well, tell her she has my compliments, and with a little formal training she could probably work in feather therapy." Finally, the nurse took a step away, catching Flitter's soft smile at the compliment paid to her sister. Those analytical blue orbs next traveled upwards. "I take it your ribbon provides your glamour?"

"What? Oh!" The pegasus nearly jumped in surprise as that singular object that provided her so much security and affirmation was openly pointed out by a stranger. She glanced up towards the bluish edge of her mane but she couldn't see the big pink bow herself. With trepidation, she answered, "Yes, that's right."

"Would you mind taking it off for a moment?" The medical pony patiently and politely confirmed Flitter's growing fears. Noting the downward movement of her ears and the increasingly pink saturation in her features, Redheart gave the embarrassed equine her most reassuring smile. "There's nothing to be embarrassed about, Miss Flitter. This is just a quick examination, and I'm already aware of your condition. I'm here to help you with the next few steps of your journey, that's all."

"I... Yeah, you're right. It's just weird," Flitter mumbled.

"It's only as weird as you make it," Nurse Redheart retorted, echoing Cloudchaser's long-held maxim on the matter.

"Then it's still pretty weird," the be-ribboned mare offered her long-held response with a sigh. All the same, after a long moment's awkward fidgeting, she raised her front hooves to fiddle and tug at the bow until it came loose, before setting the precious pink accessory beside her. The surprised upturn of Redheart's brow made Flitter immediately regret this decision, but there was nothing else for it now.

"Oh. Right now?" the nurse asked casually. Flitter had to admit that after that first split second's surprise, the white mare did a pretty admirable job of keeping it not-weird.

"Yeah," she managed to squeak out. She could feel Redheart's blue eyes studying it, but she refused to so much as glance downwards, doing her best to lose her focus in the pretty landscape decorating the calendar hanging on the door. All the same, she could feel it there, its presence so much more obvious to her for the lack of her bow and for another pony's attention. She could feel how it obtruded incongruously from the feminine form she'd struggled for years to shape and maintain through exercise and diet and medication. She could feel how, now that it knew she was thinking about it, it subtly pulsed in time with her anxious heartbeat, how it sat crude and clublike and masculine between her hind legs, how its dark purple colouration popped obtrusively against the light colour of her coat, how it-

"That's a very impressive glamour, maybe the best I've seen," Nurse Redheart said, moving nearer and leaning slightly downward to get a proper look.

"Th-thanks!" Flitter desperately seized on the offered topic. "It was a gift from my sister, from when we first moved to Ponyville. It's so much better than the one I was getting by with until then... It adapts to almost everything, even water, pretty important for a weatherpony. She got it specially made in Canterlot. She, she was even the base for the image. Our coats are really similar so it took just a little tweaking and came out perfect. It's... really the best gift anyone's ever given me." Flitter rambled freely, allowing her mind to follow the course of the memory her words accompanied, far away from the anxiety of the here and now.

"I... I was so upset," she forced out a chuckle. "I got her the lamest scarf, and she got me something so incredible. I kept telling her I'd pay her back, somehow, and she just, she just said, 'Just pay me back by being my sister.'" On second thought, telling this story was a bad idea. Thinking about this always made her throat cramp up, and the lovely rendition of Neighagra falls on the calendar swam and grew blurry. She realised she'd never told anyone else this story. Not even Doctor Trotter.

"You and your sister sound very close," Redheart spoke, and though Flitter dare not look an inch lower, she could tell from her tone she was smiling.

"Yeah, we are," the pegasus answered with a smile of her own, lifting a leg to wipe at her eyes. Those words, however, prompted her memory onward--too far onward--into that same night, their first night living together in Ponyville. Their first night with no parents to worry about, on the mattress on the floor, amidst the stacked boxes yet to be unpacked.

She found herself back in the present, suddenly intensely aware that it had just twitched at the memory of her sister, with a medical professional observing from what could not be more than a foot away. There was no way she hadn't noticed. Redheart had noticed, and she was judging her right now, and not purely as a medical professional, and that was painfully exciting for some reason. The irritating heat that had been harassing her all morning coursed through her with renewed vigor, painting her cheeks red and starting to fill her head with lascivious ideas about the very nice mare currently looking between her legs.

A very real and nonsexy irritation swelled along with it. Just what was taking her so long down there? She'd been down there forever. For an hour at least! This had to constitute harassment. She couldn't believe this professional pony she thought was so nice was sexually harassing her.

Flitter furiously looked towards the clock, to find that only the better part of two minutes had passed over the entire course of Nurse Redheart re-approaching her after asking her to remove her ribbon, despite the long emotional trip back to one of the most meaningful and affirming days of her life and the frantic night that followed. The anger drowned before the tide of shame, and Redheart followed in its wake, taking a step back and straightening her legs, smiling as patiently as ever.

"That should about cover it. I'm sorry if that was uncomfortable for you," the pink maned mare announced, looking only slightly but genuinely apologetic. "Although while we're on the topic, I'm obligated to ask. Are you sexually active?" Flitter's mind, already bewildered by the hour she'd just lost, raced backwards through time in an attempt to find the trail.

"With my sister?" Her mouth moved before her brain. The seconds hand on the clock audibly ticked out the marks between 3 and 4, during which Flitter was convinced she lost another hour.

"Or, with anypony else," Redheart explained, very nicely.

"Uh. No," Flitter replied, unable to meet the kindly mare's intimidatingly unjudgemental gaze. If she squinted, she could almost convince herself that it was only a half-lie.

"Alright. Well... With the Season coming up, keep in mind Ponyville clinic will be offering free condoms for the duration. Even if you're not concerned about pregnancy, those are prime spreading months, so be safe," Redheart informed the mare, taking all of ten seconds to mark down the results of her examination.

"Okay," was all the formerly purple pegasus could muster. Her face had finished its transition to red.

"Alright. I hope you have a good rest of the day, Miss Flitter," the nurse said, preparing to bustle off to her next appointment. "Oh, would you like some help with your ribbon before I go?"

"No! Uh, no. Don't worry. I've got it."

Flitter knew that tying her own ribbon without Cloudchaser, or even a mirror, to help her would be an awkward and arduous thing, but it would still be infinitely less awkward than inviting the diligent earth pony to touch her. That irrepressible annoyance between her legs gave a final pronounced throb of longing as she watched Redheart's neat pink tail follow her out through the door.