FEB 7 Thursday.

I read through the patient form I was just given with a calm expression.

Today has been pretty slow and nothing too bad has come through the patient ward doors, which means a boring day for me. And that is just fine, no trouble means fewer lives needing saving and fewer Ponies getting hurt. It's also just nice to be here sometimes and not have to be working quickly.

The past week or so has been a nice calm really, after talking to Avalon my worry faded for the most part and that's been a relief to have done and settled. Avalon himself was also very fun to work with as we spent a fair few hours that day working on my magic measuring device and just talking.

He had a lot of smaller questions for me about my inventions and details he found interesting when he learned about them. I tried my best to add context and things he should learn throughout it and overall things went very well, he also got pretty excited to learn more about Entropy.

I had to obviously leave some information out but what he learned made him come up with some interesting ideas about her. Nothing that's solid but he seems to have a decent grasp and knowledge of magical creatures, at least a much better grasp than I do.

Beyond that, I also had a meeting with Celestia, along with another meeting with Cadance and Shining. They are all doing well and nothing worth too much note happened. Just about the biggest thing was Cadance asking me to grow the seed I gave her into a small tree inside a pot for her.

Celestia also didn't have much to share as the investigation seems to have stalled out, unfortunately, not too surprising honestly. I did find out that Chrysalis seems to know something happened, and will probably try for another meeting sometime soonish, but that's a worry for another day as such things take time.

I finish the file I was reading and walk over to the bedside where two mares are resting, both around the same age with one lying down on her side and very obviously pregnant. They came in for a checkup and while it's small it is also something I need to learn according to Clear Water. "Hello Miss Poppy. Everything seems fine from your last visit, but I'd like to cast a few spells to make sure, if that's fine with you?" I ask in a professional tone.

I note that both of them have a matching earring, a sign some use for relationships but it depends on where they are from so I don't assume. Still, both of them might be a couple, not uncommon in a society with so many females. "That would be fine. Ya, Honey?" The one sitting up asks the pregnant mare.

The mare nods slowly and I start to cast the spells, delaying it a little to not startle the mares. Stressing a pregnant mare is never good and should be avoided if possible, even in small ways. I bring over some paper and cast a few spells in a row before looking over the results.

The spells don't give me a clear picture of what's going on inside, much like a few inventions from my last world. It at least lets me see roughly what's going on but the details are rough. I go through my knowledge on foals I've read through and from what I can tell things are fine.

Still better safe than sorry so I clip the scans to my clipboard and nod as they look over to me expectantly. "Things look fine, but I'd like to run it by a more senior staff member to be safe." This is something I often have to do and they just nod and thank me as I walk off to go find Clear Water.

I can sense her a little out of sight as she leans down by the side of a bed to get a clear look at an oddly placed burn on a pony's flank. I wait a bit for her to finish and walk up with the scans. "Things look good, but this is my first one, what do you think? Anything I missed?" I ask as she takes the papers from me.

She reads them very quickly, like always, and nods after half a second. "Nothing missed, but it looks like they weren't given a diet plan, they are having a unicorn and should probably eat some meat to balance things out." She observes before copying the notes." Not our area though, clear them and I'll have somepony do that." She advises and I nod before turning.

I stop quickly as she speaks up again. "Also, the next big patient is yours." She adds almost like a second thought and I turn back with a raised brow. She gives me that same mostly blank face but smirks very slightly, "You need something new, handle it yourself as best you can, but call if needed." She is very serious and firm about the last part.

I can't help but smile back and nod firmly before walking back to the couple and leaving them some paperwork. Finally, I sit down to wait on the side as things are once again quiet. I've handled a few larger things but the truly big things I haven't been allowed to touch yet, but it seems she thinks I'm ready to at least do it with her nearby.

Having her as a backup is a nice comfort but I do also like the idea of doing such things by myself. I take a breath and put that thought down hard, no need to get overconfident and help is always needed. Even if I think I have it well in hoof, having her on standby right next to me is something I'll call for if I think I need it at all.

Though, the day has been slow so maybe I won't even get to do anything that extreme, and it's all the better for that happening. I take a moment to close my eyes and make a mental check of my magic, it's full so far as I've done little today beyond some minor wounds and many scans.

Not a moment later I sense three Ponies carrying a fourth Pony here in a dead sprint and sigh to myself. :I just had to think it, fuck my luck: I stand up and make it look like I'm just walking over to a bed to fix it when the doors open near me and I get a clear look at the problem, and by magic is it a problem.

A Pegasus colt, maybe eight or nine, lying with his belly against the stretcher and his wings splayed out. One wing was very bloody and clearly broken in a few places, and the other next to him was fully detached. It looks to have been ripped out somehow and it's pretty messy.

One of them looks at me as I point to a bed. "Bed." My tone leaves no room for argument and they quickly move the colt over to the nearest bed to the door. They set him down and luckily he's fully unconscious from whatever the hell happened to him, the only other good news is that one of the nurses is using a B.L.P spell on them. "Who's holding the spell?" I ask as I move over and start casting Scanning spells.

One puts up a hoof and I notice they seem new, I haven't seen them before and the sight of the colt seems to be throwing them off pretty hard. "M-Me, I can hold it for, an h-hour?" The mare says slowly and with some queasiness. I nod and point to a spot next to the bed.

She might be new but at least she knows what I want, as her preemptive answer is spot on. "Keep his wings covered, drop it around his head," I instruct as I notice the poor colt also has a head wound, although it looks to be minor. She does as instructed as I read through the scans I took as fast as I could without missing anything.

Beyond his wings, he has two broken legs, a cracked knee, and a mild concussion. None of that is great but the most important thing of all is the head wound and the wings, but the head comes first as the wings won't matter if he's dead. I quickly cast a spell to bring down the swelling and start to heal the concussion first.

Healing spells for the brain are actually pretty simple as it's just flesh, however, they just need extreme amounts of control and a delicate touch. It's also best to make sure you heal such things slowly as moving too fast with a thing like the brain is a bad idea. So as that spell works I keep it active and move onto his wings, holding both things firmly in mind.

The first thing I check is the wing that was detached, pulled from its socket actually. I can still feel some life magic in the wing so they got him here quickly, still, I reach out and discreetly add a little life magic to it so I have more time to work with. After that, I start to work on reattaching the wing itself.

I quickly notice that the actual joint is not all there, a few pieces of bone and flesh are just gone and that's a problem but not a massive one. I turn to the nurse, "Drop the spell on his left wing joint, but make sure his other is still covered." I ask and notice the nurse looking a bit ill.

She seems to be concentrating a lot on the spell and the sight of my work is not helping. I need her though, I don't have the magic and concentration to waste on another spell. She nods and fresh blood starts to spurt and pour from the wing joint as I pick up the detached wing.

The wing was literally ripped out from what I can tell and different bits of flesh and veins are stretched out of place while others are elongated. It takes me a minute just to get all the pieces of bone mostly aligned and I end up needing to hold several bits with my space magic just to do it all at once.

I also notice Clear Water walk over as I do this and stop a few beds away, not interfering but keeping a close eye on me as I work and looking ready to jump in if needed. Once the wings are in place and aligned along with the bits of flesh and such I concentrate and overpower a bone healing spell.

I add some life magic to it as well, nearly fifteen percent actually, and watch as bone starts to grow out from the joint impossibly fast and in an impossible way. The bone grows past the flesh and closes the small gap to the wing, and this is where it gets tricky.

Reattaching a limb like this is messy but the hardest part is getting them to connect properly again without anything being off. I have to let the bone grow together a tiny bit and then use as much of my Will as possible to make the spell grow the bone into the opposite bone fully and correctly while replacing any lost bone.

Forcing a spell to act specifically like this is hard and even for me it takes total concentration to do it and hold my other healing spell. I notice a Sound spell of some type go up around me and block out all other noise, I glance up and see Clear Water continuing to watch intently. I nod my thanks and start work on the flesh once the bone is correct and I'm sure it has grown back right.

Thankfully, now that the two parts have the bone connecting properly the flesh is easy enough once I line up the veins and make sure they grow together right. While the wings are growing back on I nearly startle a bit as the Colt stirs and looks like he's going to wake up.

It's not fun but I can't have him moving right now, so I cast a spell and stick his body to the bed. He might panic more from that but I can't do much else at the moment. I look to the nurse after a second of thought, "Drop the spell, try to keep him calm if he starts waking up." I use the help next to me after remembering I'm not alone.

She nods shakily and I start work on the wings. Both are broken in many places so I hold them out and start by casting a spell to move all the bones back into place, I have to overpower the spell due to the number of breaks present. And then the Colt starts to scream as he abruptly wakes up.

It's not pleasant to hear and he's full-on panicking and confused while he screams hard, he shifts a bit and I need to press down near the joints with my hooves to keep them more still as he tries to flap his wings. I finally get all the bones back in place and cast another overpowered Bone Healing spell to fix them. Thankfully the Colt stills some after my spell stops as the second spell is far less painful, while the nurse also tries her best to reassure him.

She's doing ok but I don't pay much attention to their words and what the Colt was screaming, I instead focus on the task in front of me. The wings are healed and so is his head, but I really needed to overpower those spells and I've blown through a third of my magic, mostly from forcing that spell to my Will when reconnecting the wing. I add one final spell to the wings to heal any flesh damage, a few spells are needed as I go a little slower.

The wings will still be very sore and delicate for a while though, he'll need a lot of rest and food. I look over as another nurse walks by. "Do you have a duty at the moment?" They look over and shake their head, looking at my bloody hooves from holding the wings in place to keep them still. "Please get three doses of Pin Prick for my patient," I ask for a pain relief herb.

They nod and walk off while I think about my next step. The only thing left is his legs but at the moment his wings need to stay as still as possible. I spend some of my magic to remove most of the blood and put a calm smile on my face as I walk over to the front of the Colt as he breathes out and in hard while crying. "Hello, sorry for the pain, but it's almost over, you ok?" I try to be gentle as he needs that at the moment.

His face is covered in snot and tears and he's still crying a lot. He looks up at me and flinches from the pain, "It- M-My legs." I nod already knowing that both his forelegs are broken. "C-Can you fi- hic, fix them?" He sounds almost desperate and far from ok, but for his age, he's doing well.

I smile at him and lower my head to be at eye level with him as the nurse comes over with the herbs. "I can and will, and these herbs will help, I promise," I add as he starts chewing on what is likely an unpleasant taste. "I'm going to lift you up a bit and move your legs forward, ok?" He opens his muzzle but flinches from pain unseen and just nods shakily as he cries more and a nurse tries to keep him chewing. "We're almost done, I promise." I make a promise to him again.

I lift him with my field and slowly start to move his front legs forward to lay him completely on his belly. He moans out in pain but it seems my pick of medical herb was a good one, Pin Prick may not be strong pain relief but it's very fast acting. After a minute I move his legs out and quickly repeat the process.

I overpower the spells a little to speed things along, mostly because he starts shouting in pain again, nothing like the screams of before but still not pleasant. After that is finally done I smile widely at the Colt, "There we go, all fixed up, feeling better?" He shakes his head no but I expected as much. "That's ok, it will hurt less with some rest, do you need anything?" I ask while casting a few more Scanning spells to the side.

"M-My dam?" He practically tears up at that and I look over to the nurses who both shrug a little. The new nurse that's been helping me looks at one of the more senior nurses the Colt came in with and walks over to likely question them. I keep my smile and calm look up as I look over his scans.

He still has some damage in a few other areas, mostly some bad bruising and a few small cracks to his bones. Nothing the nurses can't handle and with how much magic I used it's best I leave it for them. I notice the Sound spell fall as Clear Water stands to the side and motions to me.

I nod and look at the Colt as he keeps his eyes on the door. "I'm going to be over there ok? The nurses can help you with anything you need, and your dam should be here soon." I am a little more blunt but no less kind in my tone, and the clearly scared Colt just nods silently. I walk away but keep my senses on him as I take a second glance at the scans.

I used a good amount of magic there, mostly because I was doing things so quickly, if I just let them go at normal speeds I'd have a fair bit more magic. But when it comes to things like a missing limb, speed is key and that really is what took up most of my magic. When I walk over to Clear Water she's got a very slightly proud look. "Here, good work."

She holds out a flask and surprisingly it has a familiar scent when I smell it. Water tinged blood red to make a familiar smell of a tea I know well. I raise a brow in surprise and she looks at me oddly. I just take a drink quickly, "Thank you. Well, a few dozen bits down, Blood Leaf Tea?" I don't hide my guess as she already saw my reaction.

She nods and takes the flask back. "Yes, it is pricey, but lives matter more, and you will be in top shape until we leave in five minutes." It's a blunt statement but one that shows some care from her, even if it's a slight waste with me being off in a few minutes. Honestly, I'd love to give them all that tea, but even with my abilities, I can't grow enough to support a single city, let alone more.

It's simply a problem of time, I'm the only one who can grow it and even if I did nothing but that with my magic every day it wouldn't be enough, not nearly enough. Maybe it's time to look into that plant more. "Scans?" I pass over my clipboard quickly. "How much did you burn through?"

I straighten up a little and actually smile for real when I see a mare practically run in and over to the bed with the Colt in it, it seems his dam is here. "A third, maybe a bit more. A few bits were missing, so I had to push it." I explain and after a moment of reading she nods in agreement. "Any idea what did that?" I ask, mostly because she might have seen similar things before.

She looks at the scans closely and nods slowly. "Flying accident seems likely. If he landed on his back or dragged along the ground when crashing. Definitely an accident though." She unknowingly calms down the human part of me that really doesn't like seeing a child hurt and can get paranoid after seeing that. "Come on, you're off and we need to talk." She stands up and passes me back the clipboard.

I just nod as she's done this a few times for different reasons. "Also, you missed his cracked hoof, I'm giving you extra work for that." She adds a second later as I start to follow her. I look down at the scans of his legs again to see I missed a badly cracked hoof on his hind leg. :Ahh, FUCK!: I huff and she nods as we leave the patient ward. "A small miss, don't do it again." She states bluntly.

I can appreciate her blunt and very dry tone, mostly because she doesn't let me make any excuses for myself. I nod and take the fuck up head-on, "I won't." I state to myself and her. "Yell at me if I do." She nods back. This isn't the first mistake I made, but it's also the first bigger one and it was while I was working on something I could barely afford to mess up on.

I shake away the self-pity for a moment and focus on the positives along with trying to do better. We reach her office shortly as it's close by, "I will, still, good work overall. A missing limb is a bit much for your first really risky patient, but it went well. Keep doing that." She gives her form of encouragement and I just nod as we both settle into her office.

I take a deep breath. "I'll do my best, and you'll keep me doing just that," I add some mild humor to the conversation because Magic knows she won't. She starts to move around and passes me some paperwork. "Ahh, my old friend, and my worst enemy." I chuckle a little as I take it and get to work right away.

One thing Clear Water taught me was the value of getting work done quickly and when you have time. I could do this later, but I might be needed later for an emergency, so I'm doing it now. She settles in and takes out her flask from her desk pocket again before pouring water into two cups she took from a drawer. "I have news, and something important to tell you about."

I stop my work for a moment and move it to the side while quickly giving her my full attention. She looks me up and down, "A small town has been having some trouble with monsters." I blink as that's far from the topic I thought it would be. "The guards are dealing with it, but it's taking time and more are getting hurt."

I can see where she's going but stay silent for now. "It's not really bad, no deaths, but a lot of injuries. I don't know what's taking so long but the guard thinks it will take time to solve, weeks apparently, and they need a healer. I am going." It was more of a statement than a question.

I let that sink in and think it over. Monsters aren't common here, the closest would be the Everfree, but more distant places aren't like that. Monster really just refers to anything hostile and doesn't really narrow the problem down. "So we're heading out then? When?" I ask, assuming that I'd be dragged along.

She actually smiles more but looks at me for a moment. "This will have risk." I just nod calmly. "Hmm, I was going to offer you to stay and work under a doctor, and I still make that offer." She says seriously and actually shows a little emotion by making her tone hard.

I think about it but after a moment I just decide to do it. Honestly, the things I could learn from this are useful, and more than that I simply want to help. Plus I don't think it's too serious, if it was a lot more guards would be there and that would be big news, a smaller continuous attack is odd but less groundbreaking.

It's not like I'd be at much risk either, I shouldn't act arrogantly but I am well off in terms of defense and attack. I nod again, "I'm sure, I do have a familiar I'd like to bring, a crow." She raises a brow at that. "They are well trained and can be of help for a few things." I reason.

She nods after a second without much thought. "Messengers are good to have. I won't be going until the end of this month when a different healer is rotating out. And we'd be gone for three weeks, you have until the twenty-third to back out. Really think about it. I'll get you a list of supplies soon if you still want to go." She lays it all out simply and bluntly.

I think it over more and realize she's being nice, my emotions are still a bit on edge recently and just healing a colt doesn't help. Still, this seems like a worthwhile endeavor, plus I have been thinking about a vacation. And if I can't run from trouble while on a trip, I can run at it.

I nod and she drains her water before passing me my cup and standing up. "Good, think about it. Or I WILL yell at you." She says dead seriously. She walks out with a simple nod goodbye, one that I return. I'm left to get the paperwork done and think about the offer made to me, along with the warning.

I sigh, "Always something. It might be interesting at least."

Author's Note

Thanks for reading. :]
Current year is 997

I thought a nice long hospital chapter was in order, and I also thought this would make for an interesting vacation. One Shade would like both because it's a break of sorts, and because he does like being a healer. Still I'll probably have him think more on it.

What do you think?