Is Paved With Good Intentions
"So you think she can be... cured?" Wind Spark asked. His wife's hoof was wrapped firmly in his own.
Twilight Sparkle, now sole ruler of Equestria for twenty-some years, looked down on the two from her higher vantage point and smiled. They had aged, since she had seen them last, but her proposal had injected new life into them. Life that certainly had faded in all the years they'd petitioned her for their child's freedom. All the years she'd had to deny them their daughter.
"Yes," she said. "Our understanding of the brain has developed quite a bit since your daughter's outburst. What once seemed like wanton cruelty and malice can now be explained by science. Her brain merely... made connections it shouldn't have. We now know that this is treatable."
"And this treatment..." Feather Fall said. "It's proven?"
"It's quite the miracle," Twilight reassured them. "It's been shown to greatly increase patients' ability to cope with the pressures of society that previously burdened them. It's currently being used to empty out our asylums."
Feather Fall glanced at her husband. "Then... If it means she can finally come home..."
"I believe this is her best chance at being able to live a normal, healthy life," Twilight said, her voice gentle and kind. "There is hope for her, now. A modern miracle brought on by modern science."
The married couple looked at each other. Nodded.
"If it means we'll get our Cozy Glow back," Wind Spark said, "The old Cozy, the one we loved, then..."
"We give our consent," Feather Fall finished.
Twilight smiled at them. "Thank you. Both of you. You have made the right decision."
"You're enjoying this, aren't you."
Twilight glanced at the filly. Smiled. "I will admit, Cozy, there is a certain amount of joy in performing your treatment myself. Scientific curiosity, but also the pleasure of getting to finally save you."
Cozy looked up at her. She was currently fixed to an operating table, her head held down by straps, so she could only move her eyes.
"Save me, huh. Is that what you think you're doing?"
Twilight had become patient, in her time as princess. She'd had to learn it. Overcome herself. She smiled.
"I know this must be scary for you," she said.
"Not really," Cozy admitted. "You've got me strapped to a table and haven't told me what you're going to do to me yet, but it can't be anything too bad—you're still 'one of the good guys'. Now, if our positions were reversed, well... who knows what I'd do to you."
Twilight walked across the tile floor, over to the bed, and knelt down so Cozy could see her face. She was still smiling.
"It's okay, Cozy. I'm here to help you."
"Yeah, you keep saying that," Cozy replied, smirking. "What are you planning on doing? Hugging me until I reform?"
"No, not this time. Actually, I'm here to treat the root cause of all your ills."
"...My horrible personality?"
"No," Twilight said, patient and calm as ever. "Your brain. We have a much deeper understanding of how consciousness works now than we did when you were turned to stone. Medical science has advanced considerably. Did you know the brain is made up of thousands of..." She thought of how she could explain it to her, this child arrested in stone for twenty years. "...Connections. Your entire mind exists in the physical structure of your brain."
"Fascinating lecture, Princess, but what's that got to do with little old me?"
"Well, this new understanding of the brain has led to a new understanding of what are now known as 'mental disorders,' things that can go wrong in that structure. As well as how to treat them."
Cozy snorted. "So you've got some kind of new medicine? You think that'll fix me, make me 'good'?"
"Not a medicine," Twilight explained. "A surgery."
"Surgery?"
"It's called a leucotomy."
Cozy was regarding her seriously now. "What's that mean?"
"Well, if the issues with someone's personality come from the brain's structure—the brain making bad connections—then if we were to cut those connections—"
"You're going to cut up my brain?"
Twilight smiled. "Not quite so barbarically, but yes, I am going to perform psychosurgery."
"What will it do to me?"
"Make it easier for you to function in society," Twilight explained. "Make it easier for you to behave normally."
"...I see."
"I'm trying to help you live a more normal life, Cozy," Twilight said. Still calm. Still smiling. "It was unfair of us to turn you to stone. You were just a child, and we didn't understand how to help you then. Now, we do."
"And I suppose I don't get a choice in being made 'normal'."
"Your parents already consented to the operation."
"Figures," Cozy replied. "They're spineless. They'd do anything you told them was good for me. That's how I wrapped them around my hoof, you know. Anything I wanted, I just had to ask."
"They petitioned me for years after you were gone to release you," Twilight said.
"Figures," Cozy said again. "I always was their perfect daughter. Look where that got me! Strapped to an operating table about to have brain surgery."
"I'm glad you're so calm," Twilight said.
"I'm not," Cozy replied. "I'm desperately trying to think of a way to kill you before you kill me."
"I'm not killing you, Cozy. I'm helping you."
"Says you. You just don't want me on your conscience anymore. This is a convenient excuse for you."
"Your attempts to rile me aren't going to work, Cozy," Twilight said. "I'm past that now. I've grown up, in the twenty years you were gone."
"Golly, you must've gotten pretty detached, too, if this is what you're into. You're a real princess now."
"That I am."
Twilight stood up. Lighting her horn, she wheeled a tray over. Upon it were the tools she'd need for the leucotomy, the first of which was a straight razor. Lifting it up in her magic, she began to slice away at Cozy's loose curls.
"Like being at the barber's," Cozy said.
Once the mane was gone, Twilight began shaving her coat in the area around where she would be operating. The skin underneath was pink. Covered in goosebumps.
"You're not going to knock me out?" Cozy asked.
"I'll give you a local anesthetic," Twilight replied. "The brain has no pain receptors; you won't feel a thing."
Once the patch was bare, Twilight Sparkle levitated up a hypodermic needle. It was a big, metal thing.
"This will pinch a little. I promise, it's the only pain you'll feel."
"I always hated needles."
"Bear with it."
Cozy grit her teeth. Twilight pressed the tip of the needle against Cozy's scalp at an angle, then pierced it in one smooth motion. Cozy sucked in a gulp of air through her teeth.
Pressing onward, Twilight sank the needle sideways under Cozy's skin. The plunger depressed under the force of her magic, and the scalp near the tip of the needle bubbled up from the injected fluid, forming a dome against the skull.
The needle withdrew. Twilight set it back on the tray.
"Just need to wait for the effects to set in," she said.
"And then you can off me for good."
"I can see what you're trying to do, Cozy," Twilight replied, walking back around to Cozy's eyeline. "You've noticed that I get a little upset when you insinuate that I'm 'killing' you, so you're trying to use it to provoke a reaction that'll get me to stop the procedure."
Cozy grinned. "You're good, Princess. Guilty as charged."
"I will admit, it does get under my skin," Twilight continued. "But I know that what I'm doing will help you re-integrate into society, in a way that the connections in your brain made you unable to before. Don't you want to be a better member of society, Cozy?"
"I'd rather be me. Wouldn't you rather be you?"
"I don't have a disorder, Cozy."
Cozy smirked. "If I have a disorder, then it's what made me who I am. What right do you have to take that away from me?"
"The same right a doctor has to fix a broken leg. I am obligated to do this. You'll thank me when it's over."
"I was right," Cozy simply replied. "You are enjoying this. Maybe we aren't that different after all. You just have better intentions."
Twilight patted her on the head. "It's okay. It'll be over soon."
She circled back around to the side of the table. Lit her horn and pinched Cozy's scalp.
"Feel that?"
"Not telling."
Twilight adopted a stern look. "It'll hurt if you can still feel it, you know."
"I'd rather leave you guessing."
"Suit yourself."
Twilight lifted up a marker, then, and began to draw lines on Cozy's scalp. She levitated over a book, checked some measurements, then continued her work.
"Have you even done one of these before?" Cozy asked.
"I have, actually. Five times, to prepare for this one. The surgeons I trained under said my work was impeccable."
"Why'd you have to do it yourself? Wouldn't it make more sense for one of those surgeons to be here?"
"I could get one of them, if you'd like. They're observing us from the gallery."
Cozy thought about it. "No," she said, after a moment. "If it has to be anyone, it might as well be you. But admit it—you're just trying to fix your own mistakes. This isn't about helping me, this is about making yourself feel better."
Twilight chuckled. "Maybe it is, in part. But I do want to help you, Cozy. That's all I've ever wanted to do."
She put the marker down. A set of lines now criss-crossed Cozy's shaved scalp, indicating just where to cut.
"Are you going to 'help' Chrysalis and Tirek?" Cozy asked.
"No, I... don't think there's any way of saving them. Regrettably. We don’t know enough about their species’ brain structures. But maybe, in another twenty years' time, medical science will have an answer for them, too."
"Hm."
"I'd love to reunite you with your friends someday, Cozy. I'll make it my mission."
"We weren't friends," Cozy replied. "But I suppose I wouldn't mind seeing them again."
Twilight smiled, even though Cozy couldn't see her.
She picked up a scalpel. Dug it into Cozy's scalp. The blood started immediately. Twilight levitated over a bottle of sanitized saline solution and began trickling it over the area, washing the crimson away even as it oozed from the incision. The goal was just to remove an outer square of skin such that the skull could be drilled without impediment. One line, two, three, four. A nice neat square of skin which was then peeled back on the edge of the blade.
"You aren't feeling that, right?" Twilight asked.
"I can hear it," Cozy said.
"But can you feel it?"
"Not telling."
Twilight set down the scalpel on her tray. Brought up a bottle of alcohol and rinsed the area clean of blood. The white of Cozy's exposed skull was dyed slightly red.
Twilight retrieved the hand drill.
"What are you doing now?" Cozy asked, as Twilight pressed the sharp tip of the drillbit against the bone.
"I'm about to drill a small hole into your cranium," Twilight replied.
"Golly, isn't it a bit morbid doing all this to a poor, defenseless child, Princess?"
There was a quiver in Cozy's voice, now, that hadn't been there before. Twilight patted her on the shoulder.
"You're going to be fine, Cozy. Don't worry."
And with that, Twilight began spinning the handle.
The bit turned, slowly at first but quickly gaining speed, creating a horrible sound: half whirring, half rattling. The bit quickly bit into the bone, offering some resistance, but nothing Twilight's alicorn-level magic couldn't easily overcome.
Slowly, with the care of a surgeon, Twilight guided the drill further and further into Cozy's skull. Bits of cranium flew out of the end of the hole. The air was filled with a burning, acrid smell that wound its way into Twilight’s nostrils and hung there. A drop of blood trickled down from the upper incision and was flung into the air by the motion of the bit; it splashed against Twilight's face, a scar of red against her pure lavender coat, but she did not flinch. Could not afford to.
Twilight had spent a year studying and practicing, learning and revising, cutting and drilling, hours blurring into days blurring into weeks and into months. All for this. All to help Cozy Glow.
It was the filly’s best shot at living a normal life. Didn't everyone deserve a second chance?
All at once the resistance to the bit's progress dropped away. Twilight immediately pulled back, not letting the metal implement go even a millimeter farther. It retracted from Cozy's skull, stained red. She wiped the blood off on a cloth and set the drill down.
It was then that Twilight noticed that Cozy's teeth were clenched.
"How are you feeling, Cozy?" she asked.
"Too loud," Cozy replied. "Impossibly loud."
"I'm sorry," Twilight apologized, her words gentle. Caring. "I'm done drilling now."
Inside the hole, Twilight knew, lay the meninges, three layers of membrane that enclosed Cozy’s brain. They would need to be cut, carefully, before she could properly access the grey matter. She brought over a pair of surgical scissors, specially designed things with long, thin blades that could reach inside the hole she’d drilled, and inserted them into the opening.
Snip.
Snip.
Snip.
The metal instrument was withdrawn.
“We’re almost done, Cozy,” Twilight said. “There's just one thing left for me to do. Then you'll be sent to recover, and after that you can go home with your parents."
"I suppose it'll be nice to see them again."
"That's the spirit, Cozy. Focus on what your life will be like when this is all over."
Twilight lifted up the last implement on the tray. It looked almost like the hypodermic needle, in that it was similarly shaped and also had a plunger at the back of it, but it was to serve a wholly different purpose. This device was called a leucotome.
Though she knew what it did and how it worked, Twilight briefly depressed the plunger anyway. At the tip of the thin needle part of the instrument a length of wire extended from two sides, forming a rough circle of metal. This was what would perform the cutting, excising part of the brain. Severing those bad connections that had led Cozy to do so much harm, twenty years ago.
She could feel the weight of the thing in her magic. It seemed... heavier than usual. But she imagined that was simply the weight of the moment itself.
"Alright Cozy," Twilight said, levitating the thing up to the hole in the young filly's skull. "This is it."
"May I say some final words?" the pegasus asked.
"They won't be your final words," Twilight reminded her.
"Then my final words as I am now," Cozy replied.
"Sure."
"I hope you rot in Tartarus for this."
Twilight sighed.
"Here we go."
She inserted the rod into Cozy's skull. It slid easily through the hole. She kept pushing it along until it met some resistance; it was butting up against Cozy's grey matter. Twilight swallowed—and then continued pushing. The rod slipped into Cozy's brain, forcing itself between the folds.
When it had reached the correct depth, Twilight pushed the plunger. Inside Cozy's skull, the wires forced their way out into the soft tissue of Cozy's brain, cutting their way through like knives through the flesh of a ripe peach.
Twilight twisted the handle of the leucotome.
The wires cut.
The connections were severed.
Cozy twitched.
It was done.
"Oh thank you so much, Princess Twilight!"
Feather Fall.
"I can't believe she's really coming home with us, dear!"
Wind Spark.
"It's a miracle. After all these years, we finally have our daughter back!"
They were both crying. Twilight Sparkle, now sole ruler of Equestria for twenty-some years, looked down on the two from her higher vantage point and smiled. She'd wiped her face; the blood was gone. No remnant left. "I'm just happy I was finally able to help Cozy," she said, with all the poise and grace and kindness and care in the world.
And, stuck in a wheelchair sat between her parents, Cozy’s eyes lazily traced the patterns of the dust drifting through the air.
She giggled, to no one but herself.
Author's Note
I'd like to think neuroscience has evolved since the lobotomy was abandoned by it, become more ethical, more honest with itself. But honestly, as someone who's been under psychiatric care for almost their entire life...
Well, it's a little hard to say, sometimes. They're certainly trying.
I wanted to depict a lobotomy from the perspective of the one giving it, someone who truly believes that the thing they are doing is in someone else's best interests. Lobotomies were always as controversial in the scientific community as they were popular in the thirties/forties, but those who championed them did generally appear to have their patients' best interests in mind. We usually depict them as monsters, and maybe they were, but by all accounts they were just trying to find some way to get people out of the horrors of the overflowing asylum system. They didn't find a very good way, but... well, y'know. They tried.
Fun fact, did you know lobotomies were most often given to women and homosexual folk? Cuz it wasn't fucked up enough already. When your metric of success is 'make difficult people less difficult', and your idea of a good wife is someone who is submissive and doesn't think for themselves... Gotta love the thirties. Christ.
The leucotomy depicted in the fic is a precursor to the transorbital lobotomy (also known as an icepick lobotomy), which is the more commonly known version of the procedure in which a large metal spike is hammered through the eye socket into the brain. While this procedure is more brutal, the leucotomy is more methodical and surgical, and I wanted the process in the fic to allow the two characters time to discuss what was happening. Famously, an icepick lobotomy could be done in minutes; this was treated as a good thing. Accounts talk of Walter Freeman, the inventor of the transorbital lobotomy, staying in one operating room while doing dozens of the procedure in a row. Patients would be wheeled into the room, he'd tap a spike into their brains, and then they'd be wheeled out. Like an assembly line.
Sorry, I did a lot of research on the subject last night before and during writing this and I'm still processing it all.
Anyway. Hope you enjoyed the fic.
