Seeds of Doubt

The hospital room was distastefully white and the nursing uniforms were equally as distasteful and a hideous, dirty kind of vintage green. Rarity held her tongue. In such an environment, complaining would get her nowhere. She’d been first in line and had been ready to donate for the past hour and as irritable as she’d become, donating three times the amount of magic required would benefit those around her by protecting them from the changelings.

Rarity sat on the edge of the hospital bed toying with her royal purple curls until the door opened. Quite a line of donators had formed outside the hospital since she’d arrived. Funny how everyone was referring to unicorns as ‘donators’ when the donation was a requirement, she thought. In walked a nurse wheeling in front of her a machine half as large as herself, covered in a white sheet. Rarity gulped.

“Oh, we are ever so sorry! We haven’t used this machine for a very long time, and it took quite a while to set it up and to ensure it was functioning correctly” the nurse pulled back the sheet. It revealed a pump-like machine attached to a number of plastic tubes, which were in turn, all attached to a single, large, thick needle. “We are trying so hard to open more rooms to allow multiple donations at the once, but we’re all so hectic trying to get the pups up and running that none of us are available to oversee the procedure. We’re terribly sorry.”

“It’s… understandable” Rarity replied, polite in tone.
“Hm. Well then” she said taking a clipboard in her hoof. “You’ll need to answer a few before this if you don’t mind, Miss...”
“Rarity”, she finished her sentence.
The nurse took a pen and began to write. “Have you recently been ill?”
“No.”
“Are you on long term medication?”
“No.”
“Have you had magical ability for over three years?”
Rarity nodded.
“Hm. It seems you have consented to donating fifteen percent rather than five. Do you consent to this?” she raised her eyebrows.
“Yes, for Equestria I will go first!”
“And do you understand the possible long and short term effects associated with this?”
Rarity nodded. Adrenalin was beginning to fill her veins, but she was determined to do this. Equestria needed magic and she was ready to give it.

“Now I ask that you lay down, Miss Rarity” the nurse instructed, setting the clipboard on a table beside the bed. “This will take very little time but it is in your best interests to remain calm during the procedure.”
Beginning to feel slightly light headed, the silvery-white unicorn did as she was instructed, closing her eyes and bracing herself; waiting for the nurse to push the tip of the needle into the giant nerve running through her horn. It was quiet enough that the sound of a pin dropping on the polished floors could have startled her.

“Raarriiittyyy!” The doors burst open and the nurse dropped the needle onto the floor, staggering backwards and proceeding to cower in the corner. Rarity’s eyes jerked open and she sat upright. She had to do a double take to realize who was standing before her.
“Wh-wh-aaat?” Rarity stuttered. “Twilight?”
“You can’t do this, Rarity!” the lavender unicorn tore past the line of hospital beds in a rage, hooves madly assaulting the floor. “What are you thinking, Rarity?!”

Insistent donors began spilling in through the doors, all pushing to get a glimpse of the action. “Oh, Twilight darling! You heard The Princess this morning” Rarity tried to remain calm and composed. “This is for good. The Princess is only trying to keep us safe.”
“No.” Twilight stamped her hoof. “This is so wrong. Something isn’t right here and I know it.”
Rarity recoiled.
“Have you seen the threats?!” Twilight roared.
“No, but”-
“No, you haven’t” she reinforced. “Neither has she, she, or she!” she pointed to various members of the growing crowd. “There is no evidence to prove the threat, and The Princess would have told me if there was even a threat in the first place! Don’t you see that this is just so…. so wrong!? It’s exploitation! For all as we know, Celestia could be a changeling!”

As security guards grabbed each hoof, the last thing she remembered seeing was a thick needle being inserted into the tip of Rarity’s horn and blue magic being pumped from her as she cringed. These times were all too strange.