AUG 2 Thursday.

I slowly trim away at the Prismatic Rose bush with a pair of small scissors.

I could just use my magic but I find the process of doing this by hoof to be very refreshing and something to do to let me relax. Unlike a lot of my work it's a very simple thing to trim away at a plant and enjoy taking care of it.

After yesterday I decided to do something to unwind for a while, so I've spent the first half of this day just reading and doing small things. I also spent a long time playing with Entropy and teaching her a few new words, something she's still improving on.

Over time her mental abilities have been improving, and that ability is rising faster this year than the years before, at least as best I can tell without being an expert. I even spent some time going shopping with her at the end of yesterday to buy some foal books, very simple things that she can practice reading from.

She's currently on the couch flipping through one of them and occasionally sounding out a word while I give advice whenever she asks for it. As if on cue she speaks up, "Fire?" She asks and I walk over with the small watering can I bought yesterday as well, something completely unneeded but I thought would be fun to have.

I look at the book and shake my head a little, getting a slow thrill of disappointment from her. I pet her and smile, "No, but close. That's 'fine' A pretty similar word so good guess." I am encouraging as I want her to have the confidence to not just learn from me but learn on her own as well.

That's the main reason I got her the books, so she could learn extra outside of our lessons if and when she wanted to. She ruffles her feathers, "Silly story, but cute." She points out the rather silly story in her new book but I just smile as she is cuter than every book I got her from that single sentence alone.

I cast a spell to tell the time and pause as I see I need to go soon. "Looks like I need to go, do you want to stay here?" She jumps on my back quickly and leaves her book alone. I nod and walk over to grab my saddlebags while my spell disappears in green particles.

Casting a spell to see the time is easy but maybe I should get a clock, or anything really so Entropy can tell the time when she wants to. She can already read a clock and a decent one would be a nice addition to my empty walls. I think that over as I leave my apartment with a disguised Entropy.

The flight there is about the same as it always is, Entropy going into my shadow before we land and me dismissing my wings as I walk into the hospital. Putting away my things I'm a tad bit more comfortable being naked, I still don't like it but I have work to keep me from thinking about Changelings.

After that, I join the crowd like the last two times, and not long after Dr. Meadows greets us and does the same thing as before. We all get led to our different patient wards and I'm once again greeted by Dr. Stick as we settle into what looks like the same routine as yesterday.

I nod in greeting to the doctor as he looks me over for a moment and nods before marking something. I raise a brow and he smiles, "You would be surprised how many are so tired from the last day they forget to clean up before coming here. A single spell will solve it now but why waste the magic?" I nod as I've had days like that in the past. "So, how are you feeling? You seem well enough." He starts off with the questions quickly.

I notice the other seven testers look a little worse for wear, not a lot but you can see it in the slightly tired eyes. It seems more like mental exhaustion than anything, I don't know what they did before now but it probably wasn't volunteering and I think they are new to the sights and work.

At least most of them are like that, two others seem better off and more stable than the rest, both being Ponies who held up the best yesterday as well. I shrug, "I'm fine, I'm more than used to this. It's also just nice being able to actually heal others and not just clean or stitch wounds, sure it works but it feels slow when you can fix it in a minute with a spell." I am honest with him as the questions aren't too personal.

He nods and gives me an understanding look. "I can sympathize with that, but hey knowing how to do both is better as well." He points out to keep spirits high. "Anyway, before one of us opens the doors we need to tell you things will be a bit different today." He keeps a calm tone and I notice something similar being talked about with all the doctors and testers.

I show some curiosity and he elaborates. "It's not a large change, but today we're mostly only going to get patients with wounds, and a few rare lesser cases." I take that as confirmation that a lot of the smaller things were planned out in advance yesterday. "But that means we're not keeping a firm schedule, you might wait ten minutes with nothing to do or get three patients quickly." He says seriously and I get what he means.

I'm not sure but it seems that they padded out yesterday with a bunch of real patients that only had small injuries so we all had consistent things to do. Now we're getting the real flow, "So they will balance them between us eight, but what we get is up in the air." I guess and he nods before making another thing. "Ok, ready whenever," I say and spend the remaining time going over the six beds I have in front of me.

He and the other doctors eventually finish talking to every tester and open the doors while I fix up the beds. Not a moment after they are open a nurse comes in with someone floating behind them and being loud, a trickle of blood falling on the floor with them. And with me being one of the two testers closest to the door, I get the patient.

They are laid down on a bed with some blood spilling on the sheets and floor. This is a lot more blood than yesterday and all the other Ponies take notice, a few of the other testers look uncomfortable about the amount of blood. I just cast a spell to remove most of it from the floor so I don't slip as I move to the patient.

A Griffon of all things, less commonly seen but still something I can handle. "Shit this hurts!" The female tone complains as she speaks Griffon and I look over her wound, her foreleg is broken and the bone is sticking out, while it is bleeding fairly badly. I open my mouth but she cuts me off as she sees me get close. "I don't care, fix it!" She demands with narrowed eyes and she clenches her beak and makes keening noises like an angry bird.

I nod and take hold of her foreleg while laying her down before casting a scanning spell. The break is fairly clean all things considered but I need to get this bone back in place quickly as she is still losing blood, including some getting on my hoof holding the misaligned limb for inspection.

I can think of a few ways to solve this, but mainly I need that bone back inside of her, it's only sticking out half an inch so It shouldn't be hard. "This will hurt, a lot. You want me to make sure you can't move?" She just glares at me not already doing something and nods. I cast an overpowered Sticking spell and pin most of her body to the bed.

She squawks in surprise but doesn't fight it too much, still moving due to the pain though. I need the strength in my hooves for this and I need to be able to feel the movement. I take hold of her bleeding limb with both of my front hooves and start to painfully move it back into place. "SHIT! AAA FFFF!" The Griffon's pain shoots up and she thrashes on the bed pretty hard.

I can't silence her so I ignore it and just try to move as quickly as I can while being careful. I get the bone back inside and realign it inside the limb by feeling around, as I have done with many others while here. A few seconds later I'm able to hold the limb still and stop moving it.

The Griffon flops back a small bit out of breath from her shouting and she already looks tired. "F-Fuck, please tell me that's it?" I shake my head as that is by far the worst part over but not everything is done. I cast a spell to start healing the bone and she winces at the new pain. "Great, how long will this last?"

I cast the B.L.P spell to stop the bleeding of her wound and let the bone heal first, casting scanning spells every ten seconds to make sure it was working properly. "Not too long, after that I can get the flesh and skin healed and you can rest. They can get you something for the leftover pain." I slip into Griffon so she might feel a bit more comfortable.

She blinks in surprise but again flinches a bit in pain as I hold her leg still. I look around and cast a cleaning spell to remove most of the blood, watching as most Ponies in the room are taking glances at us due to the shouting while dealing with their own patients as more and more are brought in.

It takes a minute but the bone is mostly healed. "Ok, don't move it quickly, it's still delicate." Dr. Stick walks over and passes me a herb, "Ingested?" He nods and I move it over to the Griffon's beak. "This will help with the pain, just sit still and let the spells work." I explain and she starts to chew.

Before I can turn to Dr. Stick and answer his questions, another patient is dropped off with me and I walk over while keeping concentration on the spells healing the Griffon. This patient is a middle-aged unicorn mare, with a broken tailbone being the suspected problem. I put down the clipboard and looked at the mare. "Ok Ma'am, I'll need to use a few spells on you if that is fine?" I ask calmly.

My cleaning spells got most of the blood but there is still a little on the Griffon's bed and the mare looks pretty squeamish about it. "Y-Yes." She doesn't elaborate and just looks away from the bed and uses a hoof to cover her nose, mostly to block out the smell of fresh blood.

I cast a Scanning spell and see that there is a small crack in one of her tailbones that is pinching some flesh, but not too bad and easily fixed. I move her tail a bit and try not to look too far down while casting a spell to heal the bone, this one only takes a few moments due to its small size.

With her done I walk over to make sure the Griffon is fully healed before walking over to Dr. Stick. He nods as I pass him the scans I took, "Good work... Do you need, ahh, time to clean up?" He asks while looking at my still slightly bloody hooves. I shake my head and cast an overpowered Cleaning spell to fully clean myself up. "That works, ok, so what did you do and how?"

We dive right back into the questions as I go through everything and treat another patient, the same cycle as yesterday repeating itself. After three hours I get time to rest for a good twenty minutes, but by the time that's over a Pony is brought in by two nurses and already has some bandaging.

I jump up and help them move the pony as they look badly hurt, with one problem standing out as they place the Earth Pony mare down on the bed. The bandages are wrapped around her back right leg and this one looks bad. I remove them to see what I'm working with and have to suppress some concerns.

I am beyond thankful that the mare is out cold, her leg is a complete mess. The bottom half of her hindleg seems to have been crushed and just from a glance I can tell the inside has been broken in dozens of places. I scan it and don't even hesitate to act, flipping her on her back and moving the hindleg so it's in mid-air and not resting on its own weight.

Even doing just that causes a large chunk of one side of her hoof to fall off onto the bed. I'm also thankful for whichever Pony put a makeshift tourniquet on her upper hindleg to stop the bleeding. The bone is in so many pieces and I set to work moving each one back into place trying to get them all aligned as fast as I can.

Dr. Stick is on standby right next to me which gives me some comfort. But all the movement loosens the tourniquet and blood starts pouring out from her. "Do you need assistance?" I shake my head as I know I can heal this patient, I just need the bones aligned. I can't even stop the bleeding with a spell though as I need to fix the bones.

It takes me a few minutes and one of the other doctors also comes over to be on standby. I feel my fear and anxiety rise but keep calm as I get the last large bone fragment in place. The spell to fix bones can move the smaller fragments into place, I just needed to move the big ones first.

She's bleeding a lot and looks a little pale by this point so I stop going slow and dump nearly ten percent of my magic into a single spell. The flash blinds the two doctors for a second and we all hear several rapid snapping sounds as bone fragments and pieces scrape against each other. The sound was added to by the small sounds of the rapid regeneration and reconstruction of her leg bones, luckily the process was over in less than a minute as the doctors looked impressed and disturbed at the sight.

I cast a Cleaning spell and a spell that takes even more magic as I lose another ten percent in a single moment. The flesh was torn in several places and it starts to rapidly regrow as I move fur out of the way and try to make sure it fully regrows properly, still, it takes two full minutes to regrow the flesh as well. And finally, I fix her hoof with a slower spell to finish off my work.

I sigh and move back, casting a cleaning spell to remove yet more blood from my hooves and the bed, pausing for a moment to throw away the hunk of hoof that fell off into a trashcan. That was a bit close, if it was worse I might have had to use my life magic. Reminder to self, I need to find a spell for aligning bones, or make one.

The doctors also look relieved and Dr. Stick nods slowly as he casts his own scanning spell on the patient, intervening for the first time. "Are you ok? That must have taken a lot of magic and will to get that effect, feeling worn out? Things like that can be very... Stressful." He asks with some concern and moves his clipboard to the side.

I take a deep breath as the worry fades quickly. "I'm fine, it didn't take too much out of me. I still got around a third of my magic left, probably more actually." He raises a brow but nods and passes me a flask, I drink from the cool water inside. "Thanks. And I'm good to keep going, I might not be able to take any big cases though." I reassure him to release any worry.

He raises a brow at my calm attitude but nods. "If you are sure. It was impressive you are able to overpower a spell that far and keep control." He starts and brings his clipboard over. "That's the same spells you have used a few times already, right?" I nod and shrug off the compliment. "You sure you don't need a minute?" He asks with some concern.

I shake my head. "It was a bit worrying for a while there, but it's fine and I had you two on standby. But if you insist, just give me something easy and I can go slower for a patient or two." I reason and that seems to satisfy him enough to drop it, walking off to the nurses.

A minute later a Pony walks over to me, this patient is actually able to move under their own weight, being one of the rare patients today who is not wounded, although they seemed to be in some mild pain. I walk over as the pegasus stallion sits down on the edge of the bed. "Hey doc, I'll save you the trouble, something in the chest is hurting a little. I think it's fine but it's a little annoying so I came in." He explains like he's done this a few times now.

I nod my thanks as that simplifies things. "Ok, I'll cast a few Scanning spells and we can work from there," I responded calmly, casting the spell over his chest and grabbing some fresh paper to see the results. Oddly nothing comes up on the scan, I raise a brow and try a different one for his lungs.

I know a scanning spell for at least one of every large organ, but I have a general one for the chest area to narrow things down. Again nothing, I start to cast Scanning spell after Scanning spell for different organs but nothing pops up. By the time I'm done, I'm trying to decide if I need to ask for help or if this stallion is lying for whatever reason.

A thought occurs to me and I mentally shrug before casting that spell as well, a spell that I learned more on a whim than anything, and in a second flat my calm is gone. This scanning spell is far less used as the actual detection of anything is rare, yet there the rarely is, staring me in the face. A positive test for an internal infection somewhere inside his chest.

I have no fucking idea how it got there but this is bad, beyond bad. I nod like nothing is wrong and turn to the stallion, hiding my growing panic. Without using pure life magic I can't do shit for him, most Ponies here can't do anything for him, but I still need help. "Ok, Sir. I need to show this to a few others, please relax and wait." I say, my tone is as calm as I can get it but still sounding a tiny bit on edge.

He looks confused but nods, and no sooner do I turn away and head for Dr. Stick. My face drops its calm look and goes deadly serious as I can't be wasting time looking calm. I struggle to walk and not run the short distance to him, but I still walk quickly over to him. He looks concerned as I quickly walk over. "Mr. Evergreen do yo-"

I shut him up by shoving the result in his face and he reads it for all of five seconds before grabbing the paper and running past me, heading straight for the only Pony in this room I've seen doing nothing. The older-looking mare has sat in a corner for all of both days and done nothing but take notes.

The unicorn mare is average in height and has a deep red coat, a velvet mane, and a pair of light red eyes. She looks to be in her late thirties, maybe mid-thirties actually. She looks up as Dr. Stick runs over and quickly passes her the scan and the old mare is moving only a second later.

Unlike Dr. Stick, the older mare is a lot more calm but still acts quickly and has an expression that shows some worry. She moves to the patient, who is obviously confused and seems to just start taking over my job for me while I watch. Not that I mind, if she's qualified and can help the patient then I couldn't care less who she is.

I sense Dr. Stick walks back over to me. I and a lot of other Ponies present raise a brow as I see three spells cast at once and all of them look fairly powerful. Three at once would place her firmly in the master rank of a caster and isn't that a shock. :Why the fuck was she in here with us?:

My mind catches onto that thought as I try to take in her appearance more, trying to make sense of her being here and then it clicks. There are two Master Rank Spell casters in this hospital, and only one of them would need to be in this room taking notes. "Figured it out yet? It always takes a while for anypony to notice." A more rattled sounding Dr. Stick says to my side as we watch.

I nod as it's now obvious who she is, this hospital's resident Master Healer. I watch her cast a few more spells and summon a knife with conjuration, the knife having an odd design to it. Very thin but also very short, something like a primitive scalpel and a tool I've seen referred to as a Surgical Knife.

Having a spell for just that seems a bit over the top, but it would give you a tool you can remake if needed, and do so anywhere you want. I watch as she puts the stallion to sleep and starts to make a cut, deep enough to get into wherever that infection specifically is.

In a world with mostly only herbs to help with infections an internal infection is really fucking bad. From what I understand though this stallion got really lucky, as there are spells that can help an infection. The problem is that they are all high-level spells, Master Rank spells mostly.

I'm honestly surprised I didn't pick up on it before, but her being there seemed normal so I didn't really question it. I'll need to pay more attention to things like this in the future. "She's been making notes on us the entire time as an expert, a good way to observe our skill without pressuring us with her presence." I reason out and he raises a brow before nodding. "What do I do now?" I ask while continuing to watch.

The Master Healer casts what is definitely a Master Rank spell from how much her horn glows, a deep red spell shooting into the stallion's chest for a moment, and after that, she casts another spell to quickly seal up the cut she made. Dr. Stick looks at his clipboard.

"Well, this won't be marked against you, you couldn't have done anything against something like that. Good catch with the spells by the way, we missed that when we checked." He shakes his head a bit in dissatisfaction. "For now we wait for her to finish up and we can get back to it. And I can catch up on questions." He encourages me and sits down next to me on the cold floor.

"I did have one question that's more of a curiosity if you're fine with that." I continue to watch the mare work and just nod to the doctor. "What is your special talent? It wasn't listed and I honestly couldn't figure it out." He says as he glances at my flank.

I raise a brow at the odd question and its odd timing, before realizing he's probably trying to distract me so I don't stress out. I've told others who have asked so I am blunt, "It helps me with all runic magic, at least to some degree. It's not a large effect though, more so just a nudge in the right direction." I say almost disinterestedly, too focused on watching the mare work.

The mare ends up casting over a dozen spells on the stallion before eventually talking to a doctor and heading back our way. I take my cue and start to head over to receive another patient as I'm already behind. As I walk past her I nod in thanks and with respect for her skill, I can see why she has the rank she does.

I walk past her but I feel a tug on my fur and turn away as she grabs my coat with her magic to stop me. She looks me over for several long moments, "You the one who caught that?" She asks in a fairly gruff voice, sounding straight to the point. I nod after a second, "Hmm, not bad." That's all she says before she walks back to her corner, now with more eyes on her.

I am happy at the compliment but keep my face professional while moving over to the beds and a patient waiting for me. She seems interesting, but even with me knowing she's watching me I don't really feel all that different. I've had Celestia watching me for years, a single strong Pony is bearable for a few hours.

I smile a bit at spotting something and maybe saving a life, and if I did save a life then come what may, but this was all worth it. I shake my head and get back to the next patient.

Author's Note

Thanks for reading. :]
Current year is 996

Ya know, sometimes I forget just how much I actually write, I know entire stories with fewer words then this three-day arc, it's just sort of surreal to think about for me. Enough of my blabbering though, have a good day.