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                    Head above the Rest                    
                      -by Test4Echo-                       
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                Ain't that Buck in the Head                
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Ain't that Buck in the Head
"Looks like we have a good one this time, Nurse," Redheart heard the receptionist of the walk-in clinic at Ponyville General quip to her as Redheart trotted toward the door to call the next patient. As soon as those words reached her ears, Redheart felt a headache come on.
Sure, the walk-in clinic was a wise addition to the hospital, as it did cut down on the number of pointless ER visits, but she could count on all four hooves a dozen times over when she had to tell somepony who had some malady beyond the clinic's ability—such as literally coughing up a lung—that they should have gone to said emergency room. At least, in general, it was less stress-inducing when she was on schedule for the clinic. Not that she didn't enjoy her work or helping other ponies, but as the years dragged on...
Grabbing a clipboard from behind the receptionist's cubicle, she inquired with a small hum. In return, she got a silent affirmation from the receptionist. They both exchanged a glance for a second. From the forced smile that was upon the receptionist's face, Redheart's chest tightened.
There were only a few ponies who could make her grin be fake. Redheart already had an idea who it could be.
Straining a smile herself, Redheart paused and stood before the door to the waiting room. "Thanks for the warning, Bright Greeting," she muttered before taking a few, calming inhales and exhales. The pristine, sterile hallway was the epitome of Ponyville General's standards of cleanliness. It was enough that a neurotic pony like even Princess Twilight would be hard-pressed to find fault with it.
Redheart momentarily whispered to herself. If any of the doctors heard it, they'd probably recommend to her she take an extended sabbatical, but it was fine. She only needed to remind herself that stupidity wasn't contagious.
With a nicker, she struggled to reveal as many teeth as she could in a happy expression, and she opened the door. She heard a small snicker and a whispered "Good luck" from Greeting. Redheart held back a moan.
The waiting room was the same clean, white-washed environment of the inside of the clinic, although there were a few niceties scattered around. A water cooler. Some magazines. A potted plant or two. Roughly two dozen chairs were arranged in neat lines and were about half-filled. She closed her eyes. A bright and vibrant indigo coat had jerked her stomach into a lurching, uneven temperament. Quite possibly she'd have to reacquaint herself with her lunch after dealing with the next patient.
Instead of focusing on the pony waiting there, she slowly cracked open an eyelid, and stared directly at one of the motivational posters that was on the wall. Unfortunately, the saucer-eyed kitten promising that if she just hung in there, she'd be all right, didn't work. Then again, she wasn't sure if any of those posters ever solved anything.
In fact, hanging in there might give the wrong message to a few that she had to deal with.
Momentarily, she locked eyes with another patient. The patient gazed back, completely unfazed. She was quite normal. Aside from having her head in a large egg press.
Redheart paused, opened her mouth, then closed it. There was part of her that yearned to ask how the pony was able to accomplish that, but at the same time, if she had too much insanity at once, she'd have to take a perusal through the various aisles of medications. Not for the patient. For her.
However, she caught a small cough, and she groaned. As she willed the sun to poke through the clouds outside, just at the right time and angle to burn her retinas so she couldn't see the next pony, she let out a long, pained moan behind her clipboard and used it to conceal a grimace.
Starlight Glimmer grinned sheepishly. As a blush came to her face, she tittered, "Funny seeing you here, Nurse."
"I work here," snarked Redheart.
"Oh, right, yeah, because it's the hospital, and stuff." Starlight pointed uneasily at Redheart, another awkward giggle escaping her throat. She snorted, then coughed. Holding up a hoof to motion for Redheart to wait, she finally caught her breath and added, "Imagine that. I would have never expected to see you again so soon."
"Yes, because having to recommend not being so candid about certain aspects of life with your daughter was what I wanted to do," Redheart quipped, her voice dropping to an even flatter quality. Simultaneous excitement and mourning of killing an ant to see how it would cook in the sun was beyond her purview. In fact, if anything, Starlight should have been more than capable handling it, if it wasn't her daughter.
"Y-Yeah... Luster is better now. For the moment. I think." Starlight scratched her chin. "S-So, how are you?"
"Tired." At Starlight's arched eyebrow, Redheart clarified with a sigh, "Tired of waiting for you to get to the reason you're here." She pulled back her clipboard and slipped a pencil into her mouth. Although muffled, she asked, "Did Sunburst manage to slice off a hoof again?" Redheart met the gaze of a couple of patients who were listening in on the conversation.
"No!" Starlight stated with a snort. "He learned from the last time he nearly melted it off instead when doing a science experiment with his class!" She tittered. "That fire almost managed to burn down the school."
"Mhmm." Redheart checked something off one of the pages. Evasive. Clearly hiding something, although was it because it was whatever she was dancing around awkward or because illegal? With what happened in the school some days, it could be one or the other, or both. She scribbled something in the margins of the paper of the clipboard and hummed, "Did Luster stick a fork into one of the power matrix sockets again?" She started to tap a hoof impatiently. Was Starlight going to move soon or did she have to force it?
"Nope! She's trying to see what her terminal velocity is now!" Brightening as soon as her daughter was mentioned, Starlight tittered and pressed a hoof to her muzzle. "You know foals!"
"I know that it's normal for them to try so many... dangerous activities," quipped Redheart. After working out a small kink in her hindleg's muscle, she shifted her weight and then inquired, "Are you having... magical performance issues?" She eyed Starlight as the unicorn flushed profusely. "You know, it is a common thing to happen as unicorns age. You're not as young as—"
"It's not that!" Starlight interjected and wiped a bit of sweat from her brow. A golden ring around the base of her ring glinted in the lights of the clinic as well as a couple of sputters of her magic. "I-I could still easily cast Starswirl's time travel spell. If I had it memorized." When Redheart was the one to raise an eyebrow, Starlight wriggled in her seat and grunted, "It's not about me. I'm fine!"
"It's Trixie?"
"It's Trixie."
As Starlight spoke in unison with Redheart, she sheepishly tittered and scratched the back of her head. Redheart's deadpan stare was enough to speak volumes. In her mind, Redheart determined it was the most guilt-ridden admission that Redheart had ever heard. At least in the last two months. It wasn't an admission of not understanding the instructions of a ceiling fan and getting a horn stuck in it.
Redheart glanced back at Bright Greeting as she caught another snigger from the receptionist. Shooting Greeting a warning glare, Redheart nonchalantly hummed and then inquired, "And is Trixie actually here?"
Starlight shifted to the side, but there was nopony behind her. Or, from what Redheart could see from standing at the entrance to the clinic's backroom, anyway. As soon as she was aside, Starlight's bemusement grew more palpable. Aside from the panicked, uneasy expression that was on her face, she was sweating profusely, and her eyes were nothing but mere pinpricks.
"Again, is Trixie there?" Redheart's headache was growing by the second.
"Uh-huh!" Starlight declared with a rapid nod of her head.
"I swear, if this is some prank, I'll find the nearest thermometer and shove it where—"
"Trixie takes great offense that Nurse Redheart would consider using something as mundane as a thermometer to injure her." Trixie's voice carried from somewhere behind Starlight, yet she wasn't visible. As there were ponies on either side of where the voice originated, it wasn't like she was lying on the chairs.
Redheart craned her neck upward. Starlight did the same. All the while, the unicorn kept her uncomfortable smile. If anything, she managed to make it appear even more awkward. When Redheart still couldn't see where Trixie was, minus what looked to be a bit of a bad burn or exposed skin from somepony, Starlight stated, "T-Trixie is here! Uh, she might have taken things too far this time."
"Trixie does not take things 'too far,' she only goes the extra mile."
"I don't think there's much of a difference, Trix," Starlight snapped back. After grimacing, she brushed back some of her mane and stated, "Y-You can get up. I'm pretty sure that Redheart wants to see you—us—now." At that, Trixie snorted. Wrinkling her nose and sticking out her tongue, Starlight gagged, "I'm not carrying that for you."
"Fine. Trixie supposes she would know how to carry herself best." There was a bit of ruffling, and both ponies on either side of the empty seat shot perturbed, side-eyed glances. Abruptly, there was a jet of blood that shot directly into the air, splattering onto the ceiling before a second gushing pulse dribbled over the chair.
For a second, Redheart's heartbeat catapulted. Then she saw a flash of blue fur, and after a bit of grunting, Trixie stood up. More accurately, Trixie's body did. In a vice-like grip, it had a foreleg wrapped around Trixie's head, which smiled at Redheart as soon as its eyes locked with hers.
"Hi, Nurse!" Trixie's head exclaimed. At the same time, another spurt of crimson ichor squirted from the exposed flesh, muscle, and sinew of the neck of Trixie's body. It did its best to wave while staying upright and holding Trixie's head. Somehow, afterward, the head managed to beam even wider, while Redheart's migraine became a pounding, drilling point, like a spear jabbing straight into her temples.
Granted, was she even surprised? As she quickly asked herself that, she determined that, ultimately, she wasn't. When Trixie showed up the month earlier after entrapping herself in an ice block that took fourteen hours to thaw—because she had used magic to cool her down after a couple of hecklers at her show the previous night had called her hot—it wasn't much of a stretch she'd lose her head at some point.
Looking to Starlight, Redheart mumbled an inquiry, "Did she at least stop breaking her legs before shows?"
"Well..." Starlight shrugged and gave Redheart a chagrined chuckle. "Sunburst has told her that his statement about breaking a leg being good luck isn't literal." Briefly checking her shoulder at Trixie, who was currently making her way, body and head in all, around the chairs, all the while spraying other patients with blood. One pony in a full-body cast was already soaked.
In the back of her head, Redheart felt the niggling thought that it could have been a mercy—to herself—to simply walk out on an extended smoke break. She didn't smoke. Nor did she have any cigarettes. But there was always a time to start. Perhaps about twenty packs in a few minutes would be sufficient to make her drop dead.
Instead, though, she was stuck with the patient from Tartarus. Said pony had now cleared the other patients, after poking one in the eye with her head's horn, and meandered toward the two of them. Somehow, she had not managed to trip and drop herself.
Redheart had to blink. She was already trying to force herself to acknowledge that what she was seeing was completely mundane. Granted, when one's patient's name was Trixie Lulamoon, it probably could be considered so. It really wasn't beyond Trixie's ability at this point. Giving her those magic enhancers was probably a mistake, especially since she never complained about continuous magical fields four hours or longer after ingestion.
Reaching her friend and Nurse Redheart, Trixie halted abruptly, and her smile was wider than ever. The motion managed to provide a perfect view of the muscle groups in Trixie's neck. All of them appropriately moved, contracted, and flexed, so it was quite clear that she had indeed decapitated herself and didn't die in the process. Somehow.
The flecks of blood that rocketed through the air to stain Redheart's uniform and also land on her nose were just the added insult to injury for her day. However, she internally reminded herself that it was approaching the end of her shift, so dealing with Trixie's nonsense could be the last thing she had to do for the day.
"Oh! Trixie is so excited to not feel a breeze over her neck every time she moves." Giddily giggling, Trixie shifted where she was holding her head to the other forearm. "This experience has given her a new perspective, but she wishes to be whole again."
"Right," Redheart grunted. Shaking her head, she exchanged a glance between Starlight and Trixie, stared at Greeting, who was suppressing another fit of snickers, and then placed her clipboard under a forearm. Jerking her head back, she opened the door to the interior of the clinic, then waited for Starlight and Trixie to follow. They wordlessly obeyed, with Starlight shuffling along and Trixie glibly prancing by Redheart.
Another gush of red burst from Trixie's neck, spraying Redheart with some red ichor and staining her fur. Peering down at her chest, Redheart exhaled tiredly. Already she could tell that the blood was drying and was going to stain and mat her fur. That was going to take a long shower or two to get out.
Perhaps she should have stayed in bed today.
"Oooh, is this where fillies are measured to see if they're large enough to feed an Ursa Major—I mean—Minor?" Splitting from Starlight and Redheart, Trixie's body trotted happily over to the combination scale and measuring stick. She tapped with her head's horn the back of the scale, then hummed. "Do you think that Trixie's head would have enough brain that it'd suffice?"
"No," Redheart and Starlight replied in unison.
After a short pondering, Trixie shrugged as best she could and turned around. "Oh well, Trixie supposes she wouldn't be very appetizing regardless." She opened her mouth, then paused. Finally stuttering out, "Not with her current predicament, anyway," she waltzed back to another section of the clinic's intake office.
As she grabbed a stethoscope and used her magic pull it back and forth to make her reflection in the metal center shrink and grow, Redheart growled, "Even if your theory about the scale was true, I wouldn't admit to any of it." She rolled her eyes. Putting on a fake smile, she forced a pleasant air to her voice. "Perhaps we should stop getting distracted and actually examine you?" She blinked innocently a couple of times at Trixie.
Trixie's head stared back. After a short beat, Trixie's head whined, "But Trixie is having too much fun seeing what her internal organs look like!"
"One: that's morbid. Two: you are only seeing the inside of your neck. Barring your trachea and esophagus, you'll only see bone and tissue." As soon as the words left her mouth, Redheart shook her head. "Why am I even entertaining this?"
"Don't question it," whispered Starlight as she leaned in next to Redheart. "It's Trixie." While Starlight pulled back, Redheart simply shot her an arched eyebrow. Starlight shrugged. "This might be one of the weirdest things that happened to her, but she gets some harebrained scheme every week or so." As Trixie switched from the stethoscope to checking the catheters that were lined on the wall, Starlight added, "I think she must have gotten into Pinkie's sugar stash, or something. Or maybe it's because she has Pinkie's old office."
With a noncommittal grunt, she muttered, "I don't know. Maybe that's another thing you can check out while she's in here."
"Oh joy," Redheart huffed and furrowed her brow. Just as Trixie was about to suck on one of the catheter tubes, she snapped, "You may be decapitated, but even that's disgusting!"
"Trixie is only trying to see if this lemonade is—"
"Moving on!" Redheart interjected. Cantering close to Trixie, she pushed both the body and the head away from the wall, and down to one of the short hallways past the intake room. As she did, Trixie's neck sprayed a bit more blood, and she noticed that there was a puddle of it where Trixie's head had been held over for a moment.
A small dribble of red trailed them for the entire trek. Along the way, Redheart gave a nod to one of the other nurses, Honeyheart. Momentarily gawking at the display of Redheart shoving a standing cadaver and a head, Honeyheart stuttered a few times and then blanched. Trixie had waved at her.
"Don't think about it," Redheart and Starlight informed her simultaneously. After sharing a quick glance between each other, Redheart merely motioned for Honeyheart to go on, and the other nurse slipped by. Redheart winced as Honeyheart screamed. Quickly checking her shoulder, she saw Honeyheart, her yellow coat now stained red, sliding and staggering to get to the front office.
"You know, Nurse," Trixie began as she rotated her head to look at a couple of internal anatomy posters that they passed by, "Trixie is quite beside herself with how different the world looks." By now, her body was no longer being pushed, and was happily continuing down the hallway. As Trixie had switched to staring at Redheart instead, whatever brain she had left in her skull was obviously not able to sense that her body was walking straight into a wall.
Every few seconds, it slapped into the barrier with a wet, sticky noise. Redheart just gawked for a second before counting to ten. In the meantime, Trixie added, "It's a bit of a head-scratcher, seeing everypony so differently. Trixie believes that she's head over heels for—"
"Ha ha," Starlight drawled as she lowered her eyelids in annoyance. "How amusing, Trix." At that, Trixie's head merely beamed. All the while, the cadaver continued to walk straight into the wall. The pristinely white tiles on the floor, along with the white panels on the wall, were now heavily coated in crimson gore.
"If Tartarus wasn't likely to send you back, I'd strangle you." Starlight eyed Trixie's current form and then muttered, "Well, once you're together again."
"Trixie is glad that Starlight cares about her." Suddenly, Trixie's eyes lit up, and she exclaimed, "Is that a bowl of lollipops?! Trixie hasn't had one of those for ages!" For a second, her body continued to slam into the wall, then it turned and leaned forward. Trixie's pupils practically sparkled with excitement at the small glass container that was on a nearby tray on top of a trolley.
At first, Redheart believed that ten would have been high enough to regain her patience. She just finished counting to one hundred, but at least some of the red in her peripheral vision had vanished. As Trixie was about to take half a dozen lollipops, Redheart cleared her throat. "Yes, those are, and if you're a good, grown, adult mare, you can have a couple. Deal?"
Switching her gaze from Redheart and back to the candies, Trixie hummed and furrowed her brow before finally chirping, "Trixie accepts!"
Thank Ce—Twilight, praised Redheart internally. Looking to the ceiling for a second, she pinched the bridge of her nose as she saw a few splatters of blood on it. Despite not even really ever craning her stump of a neck that way, Trixie had managed it. It was impressive, in a way. Most impressive.
Although Trixie promised, Redheart still had to grab her body by the tail and drag it back. It had leaned forward, as if yearningly looking after the lollipops, although Trixie had gone back to chatting.
If Redheart were honest to her patient, as much as she normally listened to every detail—the reason why she was appreciated by the general clientele of the clinic and hospital—she was very easily ignoring everything that came from Trixie's mouth.
It wasn't entirely because she was striving as best she could to allow Trixie's words to come in one ear and out the other, it was also because she was attempting to place what magic could possibly allow what she was experiencing. She'd heard of a chicken that lasted a couple of years without the majority of its head, but that was a freak accident. Sure, cockroaches could also live for a while, but it wasn't pleasant.
If going into magic, there was always the undead as an option, but even so, how accurate was the lore around that? Could they speak without lungs? Could they control their bodies after being decapitated from them?
Of course, the movies implied that they could, but who would believe what they saw in a horror flick?
Kicking open the door to the examination room, Redheart caught the last of Trixie's tirade. "...so that's why Trixie is no longer allowed in Puerto Caballo. How was she supposed to know that she might have violated an ancient custom of the native ponies? Who thought that wiping their hooves meant 'please kill Trixie now'?"
Trixie gasped. "Oh! But maybe she can go again! Once her head is back on, of course. It'll be less dangerous."
Groaning and shaking her head, Starlight sat down in one of the free chairs in the room, while Redheart sighed and closed, then locked, the door. By now, the floor was already tinged red again, although the absolutely insane jets of blood had subsided. Probably because the pressure was dropping in the body, not that it'd take a genius to guess that. Wasn't like Trixie needed all that blood, anyway.
After giving the door a couple of jimmies and another rattle, Redheart nodded. She slipped the key to the door into the back of her nurse's cap. Short of Twilight Sparkle on a book bender wishing to get into a library's forbidden archives section, nopony was getting through that door until she unlocked it.
She blinked.
Yes, that meant that Trixie was trapped in there, but also that she was trapped in with Trixie.
She shuddered.
"Please sit," she stated with a long sigh. She traipsed around Trixie, then plopped herself down at the desk, where an automated patient record fetcher was waiting for input. Some of the crystal matrices that powered the machine hummed and buzzed as she approached. A couple of bright flashes flickered across the screen, and she reluctantly punched in Trixie's name with her forehooves.
After a moment or so of clicking and whirring, there was a small pop as a number of papers appeared next to the machine. At that, Redheart huffed and spread them across the desk. She triple-checked that they were all accurate. After all, didn't want to have another incident where Trixie fell for Twilight's joke that she should eat rocks for more minerals in her diet.
She tapped the patient file. Trixie's mug stared back at her, sweetly appearing innocent as if she was completely and utterly unable to do anything that was even remotely wrong. In the back of her mind, Redheart imagined that picture as Trixie's mugshot, but of course, she'd never been charged with a crime.
At least one that stuck, if one were to ask her.
Flattening her ears against her head, Redheart grimaced when she heard some struggling and grunting, and she looked behind her to see that Trixie's body was attempting to straddle up onto the examination table. Operative word: attempt, as it was still holding Trixie's head—which continued to drip blood whatever it happened to touch—and had a rather difficult time with only one free foreleg to properly hoist itself up onto the table.
After a couple more vain tries, Trixie clicked her tongue and fell back onto her haunches. Her body twisted. Thrusting her head forward, Trixie declared, "Starlight, here! Trixie gives you her head!" She smiled. Starlight flushed. Redheart arched both her brows.
Noticing Redheart's expression, Starlight grinned sheepishly and exclaimed in an overly chipper tone, "Gee, thanks, Trix!" Cautiously reaching out, she accepted the proffered head from the body and immediately stuck out her tongue in disgust when Trixie could no longer see her. She thought for a second, then shot a glance over to Redheart. "Could we use some magic when you fix her up to make her stop talking?"
"Trixie heard that!"
"Probably shouldn't," replied Redheart. With a bemused expression, she watched as the body waltzed back over to the table, then hauled itself up. Of course, wetting the paper on the table with blood. Already, Redheart could imagine hearing Dr. Horse coming in, only to demand what in the nine levels of Tartarus was going on.
Suddenly, her heart skipped a beat in joy when she recalled the locked door. At least he wouldn't immediately be able to walk in unannounced. Not that she could keep him out, since he had his own key, if he actually had it on him, but still. There'd be no surprises, at any rate.
As Starlight hugged Trixie's head close to her chest, Trixie held back a couple of giggles. The body on the table twitched, like it was being tickled itself. "It's prickly," Trixie snickered, and Starlight merely sighed. Before Starlight could pull Trixie's head back, since the body was now on the table and settled, Trixie proclaimed, "Oh, Starlight! Trixie sees a few grey hairs in your fur!"
She chortled. "Somepony's getting older. At least you have one youthful pony by your side."
"Or, it could be stress," Starlight interjected, looking down at Trixie with a frown. Rotating Trixie's head up so that she could gaze directly into Trixie's eyes, Starlight inquired, "I wonder how they all could have gotten there?"
Trixie worked her jaw. Humming in thought, she replied with a bemused, "Trixie isn't sure, but perhaps it is after you found the collection of beard clippings from Sunburst in one of—"
"Let's... not talk about that right now!" Starlight proclaimed as she clamped a hoof over Trixie's muzzle. Momentarily, Trixie continued to mumble and murmur into Starlight's hoof, but then finally clued in and settled for a glower instead. Starlight merely shot her a warning look and asked, "Are we clear?"
Trixie grunted an affirmative.
"Good." Removing her hoof from Trixie's mouth, she placed the head on another seat to her left, facing toward the wall. "But, maybe think about it for just a bit longer." When she did that, Redheart cringed and forced herself to remain calm. That chair could just be wiped down, sanitized, and brought back into service. No need to tell any other patients about what was transpiring in the room. Unless, of course, the blood stained and wasn't able to be fully washed out.
She gulped. Maybe they could just burn the evidence.
Closing her eyes and counting to ten again, she finally stated after letting go of Trixie's files, "Okay, let's just... let's just do an examination, although I'm pretty confident that I know what the problem is."
"Well, Trixie isn't sure, Nurse. She also has a bit of a sniffle right now, and she also has a bad case of indigestion that—" As she started to ramble, Trixie's head was twisted back around so Starlight could glower directly at her. Trixie simply arched her brow. "Is there something wrong, Starlight?" She blinked. "Well, aside from your best friend currently having body difficulties?"
"I'm certain that Nurse Redheart has a perfect idea of what's wrong, but will she know how to fix it?" Starlight glanced over at Redheart, who had paused just before placing a stethoscope on Trixie's chest. Nonplussed, Redheart shot Starlight a prying stare. She quirked her mouth slightly in a knowing smirk.
"Okay, fine, yes, I might have tried some magic on her to fix things!" Starlight huffed, sitting back in her seat and crossing her arms. Hastily darting her eyes left and right, she grabbed a magazine that had been left on the small desk that Redheart had used. Redheart rolled her eyes. Whoever had brought that in on a break had clearly not bothered to put it away. Besides, Embalming Monthly was not really the most attractive item to be seen with, anywhere.
Regardless, Starlight unfurled it and started reading, or at least perusing. With a few overly interested "Mmms" and "Uh-huhs," she looked up when Redheart still continued to gaze at her. Squirming a smidgen, she nudged Trixie's head to turn it to face Redheart. Trixie smiled.
"Don't tell me this is all a spell you concocted and can't reverse," Redheart sighed finally when Starlight remained mute and transfixed on her reading. At her question, Starlight pulled the magazine closer to her muzzle and didn't reply. Redheart groaned. Fixing her attention back on Trixie's body, she paused as she thought. What exactly could she diagnose? That Trixie was dead?
Yet the evidence was clear that Trixie was somehow alive. If only she had studied more on her magical afflictions courses, but that was almost never needed in Ponyville General. At least, not until Twilight showed up and attracted every single mythical monster from across Equus, some of which happened to be like plague-bringers of magical ailments.
Staring for a few seconds at Trixie's exposed neck, she was almost mesmerized by seeing the muscles twitch and pulse with tiny movements as Trixie's torso aimlessly swung its hindlegs back and forth. And, somehow, it was still breathing, given that its trachea was still open and she could hear the soft whistle of air being drawn in and exhaled. By now, the blood that had been spurting every which way for the last ten or fifteen minutes had slowed to a trickle.
Some of the muscles were starting to spasm, the exposed skin was in the middle of undergoing necrosis, and a few of the exposed arteries were beginning to disconnect and hang limply, but otherwise Trixie's body appeared fine. Well, aside from the small detail of a lack of head.
After a couple of hums, grunts, and various head tilts of curiosity, Redheart finally raised the stethoscope and placed it on the chest of Trixie's body. She still shuddered at the thought.
Yep. It was breathing.
Glancing down at the floor, she noted the decent pool of crimson that was beginning to dry. Unsurprisingly, Trixie's vascular system had almost entirely failed at this point, as one would expect with the amount of blood that had been lost. Not hard to conceive that there was a puddle of it wherever Trixie had ended up separated from her body, too. Cleaning staff would have a field day, for sure, whether at the hospital, school, or wherever her head and body had had their little connection disagreement.
Partly to go through the motions, partly to confirm her thoughts, she rested the stethoscope on where Trixie's heart would be. She strained to listen. A heart beat was there, for sure, but it definitely wasn't normal. Then again, what was normal when she was examining a living, decapitated body?
During the whole examination, Starlight continued to read the magazine that was there, and Trixie started to whistle. Redheart flattened her ears against her head at Trixie's persistent noise, but she remained quiet. After wrapping a blood pressure monitor around one of the body's forelegs, she observed the reading, gave out a small, "Huh," and wrapped up.
Plopping herself back into her chair, she scribbled a few notes with her admittedly sloppy mouthwriting and then rested her chin on her forehooves. She bleakly stared at the wall. Everything pointed to exactly what she thought was the truth, but Trixie's predicament seemed to just laugh at her and tell her "no."
She drifted her gaze to the left to stare at a chart of blood alcohol level effects. They had been posted sporadically around the clinic and hospital, and were meant as a warning, although given her growing headache, it was more a list of temptations. Although she was not one to partake, some of those effects seemed rather appealing, if it meant she could forget everything she just did.
Permanently.
"So, is Trixie in perfect health, or what?" As soon as Redheart was asked that by Trixie, she gritted her teeth. Spinning around in her chair so that she could grin at both ponies, or pony and head, or whatever, she shot Trixie one warning glare and then cleared her throat. Starlight carefully lowered the magazine and locked eyes with Redheart.
She gulped.
Spending a second to stare at the ceiling and notice some of the tiles' intricate details so she could possibly delay her inevitable aneurysm from Trixie, Redheart sighed and slid off her seat to head back over to Trixie's body. Although it was headless, it twisted as if it was staring at her. As she saw some more of the muscles move and twist, Redheart suppressed a shudder.
"Well," began Redheart with a long, drawn out cough, "you could say that you're in great health. I suppose that aside from the little detail of, well, let's see—" She reached back over and snatched her notes. Ruffling a few papers for effect, she flicked off from one of her rear hooves a bit of blood. The tiles on the floor were even colder as the already seemingly unnaturally cool blood evaporated.
After she landed on the page she wanted, Redheart cleared her throat. "You have a systolic blood pressure of seventy-two and a diastolic of about thirty-six—"
"Ah, so Trixie has very low blood sugar. She supposes that she should have some more of the pink one's desserts she brings every other week to the school." Trixie wriggled her muzzle back and forth in thought. When she finished, Redheart gawked at her briefly, and Starlight merely shook her head.
"That's how strongly your heart is pumping blood, Trix," Starlight interjected. With a pained grimace, she reached a forehoof up and rubbed one of her temples. At least she was beginning to feel the headache that Redheart had gotten the moment she saw the two of them together.
"Eh, Trixie's heard it both ways."
Clicking her tongue, Redheart rolled her eyes and added, "And, of course, can't forget the excessive palpitations and, oh, the heart arrhythmia. Actually, pretty sure it's cardiac arrest at this point, but what does it matter? You have no head on your body." With every word that she spoke, her urge to throw all danger of losing her public example out the window and drown her mental pain in rubbing alcohol was growing. She eyed one of the cabinets longingly.
"Trixie sees. That might explain why she had a horrible night after she ate all those burritos from Burrito Cymbal." At that, Trixie's head grimaced and turned slightly green. Even her body appeared to grow queasy, as it crossed its legs and wriggled uneasily.
"Trixie, that means that your heart is giving out. Because, you know, blood." After groaning in defeat, Starlight slumped further into her massaging position and practically kneaded her head with both of her forehooves.
"Come on, mare." Trixie's head smacked her lips.
"Speaking of blood..." Peering down at the floor, Redheart stuck out her tongue as she moved one of her hooves out of the drying pool. There was a loud, nausea-inducing clacking noise, as the coagulated ichor stuck and clung to her fur. When she finally got free, she gave a sigh and moved slightly away from Trixie's body. Unfortunately, there wasn't a sink by the examination table, or anywhere, in this room. Not quite big enough.
"Oh, yes, Trixie is sure that she is fine."
"Well, you actually have lost a quart of blood or more since you left the waiting room, and I can only guess how much hemorrhaged on the way over here, so..." Redheart shrugged. "Then again, you survived without a head, so what do I know?" With a pained, screechy cackle, she shook her head and tittered, "I'm just a nurse who went to medical school for half a decade! No biggie!"
Opening her mouth, Starlight appeared that she was going to say something, but she went silent when another voice yelped outside. There was a small crash, and Redheart flinched and momentarily whirled around to listen intently to the other clinic staff. After a few seconds, another pony from the hallway cried, "Did somepony walk out of surgery before being sealed up?! Did somepony die here?! What's with all the blood?!"
"It's in my eyes..." the first voice mumbled.
Redheart jerked her head back and exclaimed, "All right! So, I think we've figured out what's wrong. Now to just... fix you." She hummed. "They'll be fine out there. Don't worry."
"Trixie lost some blood, hmm?" Scrunching her brow in thought, Trixie flattened her ears against her skull and muttered under her breath. "She supposes that could be a problem." With every fiber of her being, Redheart restrained herself from snarking something back against that sudden and insightful revelation from Trixie's mind. Instead, she went back to staring at the body instead. It was such a clean cut. Very impressive, if it was actually dead instead of... whatever it was.
Afterwards, a merciful moment of silence, where Starlight only switched her attention between Redheart and Trixie, settled into the room. Redheart jotted a few notes, and stole a couple of glances at Trixie while she pondered. Pondered hard, given her expression. She had stuck out her tongue, and if Redheart had been paying attention, she probably would have sworn smoke puffed out a couple of times from Trixie's ears.
Although it would have probably been stress or exhaustion playing tricks on her, given her current predicament, it wouldn't be surprising.
Jolting Redheart out of her concentration, Trixie proclaimed with a proud cry, "Trixie will just have to eat more blood oranges to get all her blood back!" Redheart stared at her. Starlight merely shook her head. While Trixie couldn't move her head, she did manage to shift her gaze from one pony to another.
With a confused nicker, Trixie inquired, "What? What did Trixie say?"
"That's... not how that works, Trix," Starlight sighed. Although Redheart wanted to back Starlight up, her brain was still trying to wrap itself around words that escaped Trixie's mouth. All she did was stare at the wall, again, although she barely registered anything at all.
All that could run through Redheart's mind was, Did she actually just say that?
With a snort, Trixie inquired, "And what makes you so sure that Trixie is incorrect?" Thumbing her chin up in the air, Trixie also managed to make her body cross its forelegs defiantly. One last little burble of blood oozed from one of the arteries, and the movement was enough to get Redheart to register that the body was moving a bit more spasmodically.
"Well, for starters," Starlight stated as she held up a hoof, "You don't get more blood from anything that has blood in the name."
"Then why would they call it a 'blood orange'?" Trixie countered, like she was talking to a little foal. Tsking a few times, she pursed her lips into a duck face and gave a small titter. "Come on, Starlight, that's just being silly."
Starlight sputtered. Her expression growing dark, she bared her teeth and growled, "No, you're the one who's being ridiculous. That's not at all how biology works!" For a second, she paused, then blinked. "Okay, the sugar would probably help a bit, but still."
"Starlight, don't be the only bullet in Stalliongrad roulette, we all know that there are blood packs. Blood limes. Blood oranges. To name a few. Surely they can't all be lying, right?" At that, she shot Starlight a smug smirk, and Starlight furrowed her brow. Almost instinctively, Starlight started to rub her forehead again, and she gave a long, tired groan.
"Trixie, seriously, you'll need a transfusion once Nurse Redheart, or Doctor Horse, or whoever, can patch you up." Letting the air settle for a moment, she added, "Probably several. I can recommend that maybe they also give you something for the pain you'll feel."
"What pain?"
"Oh, just me jamming the IV tube into the wrong artery when they aren't looking. Repeatedly." Starlight growled and frowned.
Massaging both of her temples at the growing concentration of critical intelligence failure, Redheart moaned, and she glared daggers at Trixie. She cleared her throat. "If we could—" She nickered and scrunched her muzzle in frustration when Trixie cut her off with a dismissive wave. Starlight shot Redheart an apologetic smile.
Trixie exhaled, which made both her head and body perform the action. She tsked derisively. With a look of pure annoyance, she huffed, "Trixie can't do this right now, Starlight. Not when you're in your 'correcting' mood."
"Because you're wrong?"
"Because Trixie is obviously just thinking three steps ahead of you, and you can't see it," Trixie nibbled on her bottom lip momentarily, then glanced around at the room. "Anyway, if Trixie isn't going to get sealed up soon, she would like to return to the friendship school. She has a number of classes she needs to teach. She needs to get ahead of the game!"
Starlight groaned, while Redheart looked again at the cabinet containing the rubbing alcohol. With every passing second, the temptation to just rip it open and guzzle some was growing. Maybe pour some on Trixie's body, just to let her experience some of the mental pain in a more physical way.
While Trixie retorted something back to Starlight, regarding whether it was or wasn't a smart idea to let her return to the classroom as a decapitated corpse that happened to still be breathing, Redheart continued to stare at the cabinet. However, she barely paid attention to any of the bickering, instead just occasionally biting on her lip as her brain poured over her last decade or so of life choices.
She could have been anything else, but no, she had to choose nursing school. Everypony said she was so thoughtful, so caring, so compassionate. Granted, her cutie mark was a giant cross, indicating her natural talent, but those could be ignored, couldn't they? Perhaps she could have taken up painting, or moved to Canterlot to be part of a medical research team?
Or perhaps she could have done something completely different? Adventuring off into the jungles of the South-East? Entering the Equestrian Armed Forces to train others to defend Harmony? Baker? Pianist?
Anything to not have to get a headache every couple of weeks when Ponyville's resident daredevil went about five steps too far!
Jolting in shock, she shook her head and switched her attention to Trixie, who was currently giving a long, immature raspberry at Starlight, who was slowly wiping off some flecks of spit from her stomach. "That's what you get for saying Trixie didn't put our two heads together to think about it."
"If you make one more head pun, I will personally punt you all the way to Tartarus, clear?" Starlight inquired, arching an eyebrow and flashing Trixie what Redheart could only assume was an incredibly practiced glare. Alternatively, if looks could kill, it'd easily be in the top five death stares that she had seen in the last year. Four of them had been by her.
"Bah, Starlight doesn't see the levity of this situation," scoffed Trixie. Tilting her chin up, she sniffed derisively and declared, "And don't go saying Trixie has her head in the clouds."
"Trixie..." Starlight bared her teeth. Leering forward to hang menacingly over Trixie's head, she simply growled, "Shut. Mouth. Now." For a second or two, Trixie merely gawked, then nodded as best she could and sealed her lips tight. At least she did for half a minute.
When she clearly couldn't take it any longer, she inquired, "But say, Trixie is curious if you and Sunburst will explain to Luster—"
"We're not talking about that, especially to my daughter, who's not even gotten her cutie mark yet." Although she didn't add anything more, the rage was palpable at whatever Trixie was suggesting, and Redheart briefly started to try and string conversation clues together. There was no way, though, that her working theory was right. Absolutely not.
Regardless, she was obviously just as insane as Trixie for even entertaining the nonsense that she was experiencing. If she was experiencing it. Maybe she had just finally snapped, and this was all in her head.
Certainly would explain why nopony else was really that perplexed, bemused, or confounded by being so close to Trixie and her separated form. Then again, it was Trixie and Starlight. It wasn't like the former didn't have a bit of a reputation after she had somehow figured out, accidentally, to turn water into a dangerous incendiary.
However, if she wasn't dreaming, insane, or otherwise hallucinating, then the hippogriffic oath was getting incredibly close to being violated. Every patient she had she cared for, but maybe, just maybe, she could make an exception for Trixie. Just once. A temporary break of sanity. No court would convict her.
Just a little strangulation. Nothing major. Besides, if she did it while Trixie was still... whatever she was, would it actually kill her? Maybe it'd just remind her what it was like to be mortal, and then she could desire even further to be restored. So Redheart could inflict said strangulation on her permanently.
"Nurse?" she heard Starlight inquire of her. Shuddering and looking at Starlight, Redheart hummed inquisitively, and Starlight added, "You were drooling. Are you all right?"
Wiping her muzzle, Redheart tittered and stated, "Oh, just, uh, thinking about dinner. Hungry. Yep."
Gazing at Redheart for a moment, Starlight finally drawled, "Right..."
"Trixie understands completely. Do you know how hard it is to feed her right now? All of her meals are incredibly expensive." She smacked her lips. "Trixie may need to look at renegotiating her deal with Discord."
At the mention of the chaotic creature, Redheart arched a brow and crossed her forelegs. Now a few more clues were beginning to fall into place, in her mind, anyway. Narrowing her eyes, she peered at Trixie and Starlight and let out a thoughtful "hmmm." As she did, Starlight began to squirm again and tried to raise her magazine that she had grabbed earlier, but Redheart reached out and blocked it. When Starlight gulped, Redheart clamped her hoof down on it and pulled. It ripped away without effort.
"Discord, you say?" Redheart prodded. Almost imperceptibly, a few hairs from her mane's bun frayed, and her nurse's cap tilted ever so slightly into an askew angle. "Now, why would Trixie need anything from Discord, Starlight?"
"Well, he's her friend, duh."
"Trixie, just because he gives you joy rides in his dimension and once turned you into a newt for fun doesn't make him your friend." Starlight pinched the bridge of her nose.
"Well, Trixie got better from that. Besides, it was rather fun. Do you know what a newt does?" Blinking her eyes a few times innocently, Trixie smiled wide and looked expectantly at Starlight.
Starlight sighed and muttered, "I'd rather not know what you did with your time there."
"You're no fun."
"As much as meandering to the nature of animals and ponies who were turned into them is," Redheart interjected with a long cough, "I feel that maybe, just maybe we should talk about Trixie's little 'deal' with Discord?" As she finished, both Trixie and Starlight exchanged a glance, with Starlight shaking her head rapidly, as her face flushed a soft shade of pink.
"Might I add that, for all intents and purposes, Trixie's dead." Jabbing a hoof over to point at Trixie's body, Redheart grunted in a miffed manner. Trixie's body waved. In return, Trixie simply gave the best equivocation of a shrug she could, which was something, given her head had no shoulders. When it seemed that they weren't bothered by it, Redheart added, "If you want her to, you know, not be undead, or not dead, or whatever—" She grimaced at her statement "—then maybe, possibly, you should start from the beginning of how this happened. I'm starting to get my own idea, but hearing it from the horse's mouth—"
"Ha! You made a pun!" Trixie exclaimed, then sucked in on her lips as Redheart and Starlight glowered at her.
Redheart exhaled tiredly. "If I can get it straight from both of you, then I could have a better idea of how to fix this."
"Oh, I'm sure that I can just give you the Foals' Notes version of—" Starlight interjected, before she was cut off by a furious scowl that was directed her way, courtesy of Redheart. With a soft squeak, she muttered, "Or, uh, never mind."
Trixie stuck out her tongue. After making sure that Starlight saw it, she huffed and tried to wriggle herself to face Redheart. When she couldn't really move, she finally sighed and Starlight groaned before twisting her in the direction of Redheart instead.
"You have magic, you know," she hissed.
"Trixie is having some performance anxiety right now, okay?" Trixie retorted back in a whisper. When she noticed that Redheart was still looking at her, with a small smirk on her muzzle, Trixie sheepishly grinned. "Trixie means that, uh, she simply feels it too demeaning to do it herself."
"But being moved by others isn't," Redheart stated. It was very much not a question.
"Absolutely!" Trixie closed her eyes momentarily, condescension oozing from her like mucus on a snail. As much as Redheart desired to mention that, she refrained. After all, there was no point stirring the pot more.
It didn't take much time for Trixie to drop her smugness and declare, "So, anyway, Nurse, Trixie did this because she thought that her friends would appreciate it as a gift!" At Redheart's lack of a reaction, in any way, shape, or form, she coughed. "But, uh, Trixie doesn't think you'll quite understand it. She's sure that you'll find it truly unbelievable."
"Try me." Adjusting herself into a more comfortable position on her chair, Redheart crossed her forehooves and stared at Trixie. If she used the glower she was currently shooting at Trixie to incise upon different surgery patients, it'd probably be the most effective thing since the discovery that some ponies could harden their magic enough to make scalpels out of it.
Stuttering and catching herself a few times, Trixie hesitated before glancing over at Starlight. Starlight stared back at her. Ever so faintly, Redheart spotted a pained grimace on Starlight's muzzle, as if she was begging her friend not to go through with whatever explanation she was about to give.
Instead, Trixie motioned with her eyes toward the examination table, where her body, which was jerking and twitching occasionally now, sat waiting. Although Redheart had first thought that all the blood that could be pulsed out was on the floor, she was wrong. She still spotted a few dribbles here and there.
Starlight shook her head. With a small click of her tongue, Trixie made the same gesture again with her eyes and then pouted. Briefly, Starlight looked away and snorted, and as Redheart was about to get up and move Trixie's head herself, she relented with a sigh and, without looking, placed Trixie next to her body.
"Okay! Perfect!" Trixie stuck out her tongue in thought briefly, before she looked in glee as her body crossed its hindlegs together, and then stayed about as rigid as it could. "Trixie can still control it!" Some of the veins that Redheart could see were growing darker, as were the arteries. The rest of the skin exposed around the neck was definitely almost as pale as snow.
Once Trixie had made her body move a couple more times, she gave an affirmative huff, and then looked over to Redheart. Her eyes sparkling, she beamed widely and declared, "So, Trixie shall regale you with the entire tale!"
"Oh, Celestia," whimpered Starlight from the side. Subconsciously, she had retracted herself away from both Redheart and Trixie. Although she wasn't in a fetal position or anything, she was most certainly doing her best to demonstrate how ponies instinctively tried to protect themselves from things they perceived as dangerous. She held her forelegs close to her chest, while her hindlegs were partly pulled up toward her stomach.
Redheart forced back a snicker.
Clearing her throat dramatically, Trixie closed her eyes and stated, "It all began a couple of weeks ago when, I, Trixie Lulamoon, the Greatest and Powerfulest unicorn and the most morning of ponies, got up at ten-thirty, after smashing her alarm clock for the thirteenth time and spent the next hour inspecting herself in her mirror."
"Yes, definitely the 'most morning of ponies'," Redheart quipped, flexing her front hooves to act as little air quotes. "I'm sure you didn't need coffee or anything, as you are used to getting up extremely early."
"Trixie likes your sense of humor, but no, of course she needed her morning coffee jug." Blinking a couple of times, Trixie looked upward and pondered softly to herself, "Actually, she believes she had two that day. She had a late night. The evening was getting a bit long in the tooth by nine, as it were."
Wordlessly shooting a curious stare at Starlight, she received a nod, confirming that Trixie was, indeed, speaking the truth about her bed and wake times. It only made Redheart groan.
"Anyway, when the Alert and Awake Trixie descended from her abode in Twilight's—now Trixie's—castle—"
"It's still her castle," Starlight interjected.
"Trixie's heard it both ways."
"No, you haven't. You just made—"
"Ah, ah, ah!" Trixie clicked her tongue a few times and shot a disparaging look at Starlight. "Trixie will remind you that Twilight hasn't resided there for years, and by right of squatting—"
"Which there is none."
"Come on, mare."
Starlight growled, and Redheart could see that a vein or two bulged along her neck. With a bit of morbid curiosity, she stared more intently at the pulsing vascular displays, as her medical mind was distracted by the display. Quite the example of elevated blood pressure. Probably would have to prescribe something later.
"Trixie begs to differ. But anyway, back to her tale." Trixie coughed a couple of times again. "When she came down, in record time, as usual—" She ignored Starlight rolling her eyes "—she stopped when she overheard Starlight and Sunburst talking about her for a moment. Of course, she wanted to make sure it was only good, so she had to hang outside of the kitchen, while Starlight and Sunburst spoke over breakfast."
"We were eating lunch."
"Trixie's heard—"
"You've not heard it both ways. Don't start saying that all the time." With a testy snort, Starlight gave a small roll of her eyes and grunted, "This is almost as bad as when you believed that every pony dressed as Santa Hooves had a fake beard."
"Trixie will ignore that slight, although she will counter that she did expose many fake Santa Hooves during her vigilante stint." As Trixie finished, Redheart's headache came back with raging force, and she started to massage her temples again. Whatever she'd been spared from the at least semi-not insane explanation thus far was ruined by the admission she was the dreaded "beard bandit" that Ponyville had a couple of years back.
"Trixie was about to enter, but then she overheard them talking about something Starlight made a hoofful of students clean off one of the back walls the day before, and how it started making Luster ask 'questions'." Trixie scrunched her muzzle and muttered, "Starlight was going on about how she wanted somepony's head on a platter as recompense, and that Trixie could probably help, too." Although Trixie didn't appear to notice, Redheart very much spotted Starlight's still pink cheeks flush a deep crimson instead.
"So, Trixie was a tad perplexed—" As she stated that, Trixie's body gave a shrug, as if to emphasize as such "—and she wasn't sure why anycreature would present their head on a platter, but she thought maybe it was some custom she wasn't aware of, and it was something that friends did for each other!" Trixie cleared her throat. "So, Trixie decided she wanted to show that she appreciated Starlight and Sunburst too!"
"You did not just—why am I even asking this? You obviously did." Gritting her teeth and wincing at the mere concept that Trixie went through with such an absurd idea, Redheart motioned for Trixie to continue, and she merely groaned as she massaged her head further.
"So, Trixie's first thought was, 'Gee, that does seem like a strange thing to gift to creatures, but perhaps it was a regional thing,'" Trixie continued, making her body mime pondering by hunching over and placing a hoof where her chin would be if she wasn't decapitated. With a snort, Trixie added, "Honestly, she wouldn't be surprised if they did that in Sire's Hollow, given that Starlight and Sunburst's parents are—" She paused when she saw Starlight's fuming scowl "—special. She thought that it fit right in with them."
"You know, Dad nor Stellar Flare wouldn't possibly think of doing what you did unless..." Starlight trailed off as a blank look came over her, and she blinked a few times. Face growing a tad pale, she moaned, "You know what? No, no, they probably would if it'd make one of us happy. Never mind."
With a smarmy grin, Trixie fluttered her eyelids a couple of times, as if to mock Starlight for apparently knowing her parents better than she, and then tittered, "Trixie wasn't stupid, though. Obviously, a pony can't normally survive losing their head, so she got an idea." When nopony interjected with a question, she nickered and flared her nostrils. "She went to the mirror pool in the Everfree Forest.
"She wouldn't have bothered, but she forgot that the previous month she tried to make a clone so she could teach and perform at the same time, and then the clone thought that adding some nitroglycerin was a good combustive agent to Trixie's firework rockets." At that, Trixie's head jittered, and the body shivered uncomfortably. "Also, if you are later asked if I was here, Trixie never was, understood? She may be wanted by Canterlot's courts."
Redheart pressured her head further. Yep. There was definitely that migraine. Back in full force. Absolutely wanting to make her head explode at all the concentrated inanity that Trixie was exuding. How Starlight was still able to tolerate it all, she wasn't sure.
"So, since Trixie had forgotten at the time, she went ahead and made another clone of herself, since she could then use that Trixie's head instead!" Scrunching her muzzle and giving a slightly annoyed growl, she added, "Of course, the clone didn't like that. For some reason.
"She even said that she would be the new Trixie. Don't ask Trixie how that Trixie got a knife, but she did, and threatened the Gracious and Humble Trixie! Asked if she had any last requests before she became the new Trixie.
"So, of course, Trixie asked for clarification, since she wasn't sure if it was a literal last word, or a eulogy, or something else. Apparently, the clone didn't know either, since she kinda froze up, then exploded after saying so. Maybe something with the magic not handling conundrums properly." The body shrugged again. Trixie just closed her eyes and sighed.
Redheart's head was pounding.
"Thankfully, the head survived, so Trixie thought she could just use some magic to reanimate it, and then she could give it to Sunburst and Starlight." As she said that, Starlight's cheeks grew slightly green. Even Redheart's stomach churned a bit. In her mind's eye, she could imagine the condition of the corpse of the cloned Trixie. If it was all true, anyway.
Glancing at her body, Trixie focused, then made it grab her head and wrap it under one foreleg. As she focused back on Redheart, she grinned and tittered, "Trixie decided that the head should talk, too, so when she got back—under cover of darkness as a surprise—she used a bit of necromancy to fix it all up." Trixie paused. "Well, aside from that one patch that kept falling off." Licking her lips, she mumbled, "Then it kept screaming about being a disembodied head and how it was horrible and... well, it wouldn't shut up. So she buried the head in the back yard somewhere. She can't remember where."
"Was it still screaming?" Redheart inquired, half-dreading the answer.
"Yep!" Trixie's body made Trixie's head bob up and down for a few seconds. Using a small bit of magic to push back her mane, Trixie continued with a snort, "Probably still shrieking, too. It had some very strong, non-existent lungs." She cleared her throat. "When that was done, then Trixie knew there was one more thing she could do. When she was reading through some of Twilight's books that she left in Trixie's castle, she read about some place called the 'Dread League' and how it was ruled by 'liches'. She thought it was simple enough. Just ask to become one. Boom. She'd be able to give her head to Sunburst and Starlight."
At mention of the mythical land of the dead, Redheart's blood iced over. Not much was really known about it, other than it was supposedly a land that called to every evil magic user at some point and that it was located on the very northern tip of the continent of Griffonia. While Twilight had sent a few ponies to investigate over time, they never came back with anything conclusive, mainly because the weather always seemed to force them away before they could get that far.
However, if it was real, and there were such undead horrors as liches, then...
Redheart shook her head. There was no way that it was real. Trixie had to be making it up.
Right?
"Well, that was when Trixie chartered passage to Griffonia, after she read that there was some order of knights or something that were 'protecting the land from the undead'." Trixie's body flexed its hooves as air quotes while Trixie's head gave a derisive bray. Shooting Redheart a bemused look, she stated, "They were real. And they were annoying, what with their chivalry and all that, and lack of modern amenities. Like showers! Do you know how long it was before Trixie could get a nice, calming shower?!"
For a second or two, she bared her teeth before she breathed in a couple of times. As she did, the body mimicked the pumping action that Twilight had been taught by Cadance, and ultimately shown to most of the school, before disseminating out into Ponyville.
"When Trixie got to near the supposed edge of the Arcturian Order—those knights—she went to a little town before heading north. Then it was attacked. By zombies, skeletons, and vampires!" She shuddered. "So, she helped defend the town, since zombies wanted to eat Trixie's brains and the vampires suck her blood, and she was told to fasten the deadbolt to the gates.
"Trixie never heard of a 'dead bolt' before, but she guessed that maybe one of the undead could serve as a lock or something? It was confusing. She managed to find a recently killed zombie, and put it across the gate. Had to throw away some old iron beam that was blocking the body from going in to the slots." At Redheart and Starlight's prying stares, Trixie's body shrugged, and she grunted, "It made sense at the time. But she supposes that maybe it wasn't the right call. The whole town was killed, and some pony called Rosa found it funny Trixie survived. She asked her what she was doing there, since ponies were rare in the Order, and Trixie stated she wanted to give her head to her friends and she needed to become a lich to do that."
Redheart flinched. For sure, that headache was in full force. At this rate, it would take up residence in her forehead and just give her existential pain until the end of time. Would be her punishment for all the insanity she was entertaining.
"Normally this Rosa wouldn't help, but she thought Trixie would be perfect to 'send a message' to Twilight, or whatever, so she agreed to make Trixie a lich, and well, that's where we are." At that, Trixie's body's stomach grumbled, and her hoof rubbed it without really even seeming like it was ordered by Trixie. Trixie looked at it; it craned around, jerkingly, to appear as if it was peering back at Trixie.
"Yes, and Trixie is currently rather hungry. Consuming souls for sustenance is pretty... expensive. And seems to be frowned upon by most other creatures." With another shrug, Trixie muttered, "She's not sure why, though. It wasn't like she was feasting on pony souls or the like. Just a couple of cows or something. She can't recall."
"Be glad Applejack isn't around to hear this," Starlight groaned while shaking her head.
"Anyway, Trixie came back, refreshed and feeling sharper than ever, and then she lobbed her head off for Sunburst and Starlight, and presented it to them!" With a titter and giggle, Trixie made an indication with her eyes to her body, and it mimed a slicing animation exactly across where the neck was exposed. As it did, another gush of blood spurted out of one of the arteries.
"You nearly gave Sunburst a heart attack!" Starlight snapped, her face contorting into anger and her cheeks flushing brightly. Stomping down on the floor, she jabbed an accusing hoof at Trixie. "And Luster is now asking every other night if she can be shown how to do what her 'cool' and 'awesome' aunt did! Plus she's still asking about that graffiti!" Sputtering and puffing, Starlight stammered a few times, and then finally just let out a loud, defeated, "UGH!"
Trixie snorted. With a coy, irritated gaze, she snarked, "Well, it's not Trixie's fault if neither of you enjoyed Trixie's present. It wasn't like anypony told her that it would freak you both out." Miffed and frustrated, she furrowed her brow and eyed Starlight. Somehow, despite probably not having any blood in it, Trixie's forehead pulsed with a couple of visible veins, which made Redheart hum in thought.
If Trixie really was a lich, like she was claiming, that would definitely explain the miraculous undeath she seemed to be experiencing. Of course, she was no mage, nor was she an undead hunter, so she neither had a solution for being a lich, nor a desire to end Trixie's existence. At least because of what she had become. Perhaps Redheart would kill her because she was still giving Redheart an earsplitting headache, but aside from that, no.
However, that still didn't quite answer all the questions. What had gotten her so interested in the idea in the first place? Was it going to be something that would come up again and make her a risk to herself if she were to have her curse of lichdom removed?
Pondering to herself, she heard some more commotion outside as the voice of Doctor Horse came through, ordering around some ponies to clean up the mess that must have still been in the clinic. At that, her heart skipped a beat, however, he seemed to head back toward the reception area.
She checked the clock on the wall above the door. Blinking a few times, she let out a small nicker seeing that about half an hour passed. Half an hour of dealing with Trixie's stupidity and wild story. Which, granted, was not the wildest she'd heard. At least not in a while, anyway.
"You literally chopped your head off in front of my husband and my daughter!" Starlight snapped, dragging Redheart out of her thoughts. With a moment of silence, Starlight fumed and spat, as she tried to formulate the next words to speak, given how much she was opening and closing her mouth between sputters. She stammered, "A-And now Luster is making chalk circles, and trying to convince Fluttershy to let her see Cerberus in Tartarus, a-and she responded to those Maar's Heralds from Griffonia, and—"
"Trixie would encourage Luster's curiosity."
"And don't even forget how much blood you got everywhere!" Rubbing her head and running a hoof through her mane, she exclaimed, "Luster thought it was funny!"
"In hindsight, Trixie would agree." Trixie gave a nod, and Starlight groaned in defeat. "But she is still not sure what the issue is, since she was only working with the information she had." From where she sat, Redheart could tell that Starlight was hiding something, given that she was still curled up tighter than somepony who was just uncomfortable at the details Trixie gave. In fact, she was close to an upright fetal at this point. And she was almost as red as Redheart's cutie mark.
"Do you have something else to add, Starlight?" Redheart inquired, which made Starlight yelp in surprise and whip her head to look at Redheart. She tapped a hoof on her desk, which made a bit of still tacky blood click and clack every time that she peeled her hoof off. Redheart arched a brow. "You do seem rather invested in this."
For a second or two, Starlight nervously switched her gaze between Redheart and Trixie. With a bit of squirming, she lightly clopped her front hooves together and worked her jaw in thought. After pressing her tongue against the inside of her cheeks a couple of times, she finally sighed, "Well, Trixie may... have overheard... Sunburst and I... you know..." She twirled a forehoof in its fetlock a couple of times.
"Trixie might have heard me venting a bit about how we are going to be forced to bring up... topics... with Luster, since she was the one who found the whole... graffiti..." With every hesitant sentence, Starlight's face grew a more vibrant shade of crimson, and she slowly started to retreat back into her ball of fear. "You know, the griffons and the breezies talk. Things like that..." As she finished, she shot Trixie a withering glare. If she was any more blatantly furious, she'd probably be firing magical beams from her eyes. "And maybe also about not following her crazy, honorary aunt's actions."
Redheart suppressed a giggle. Before she could tell Starlight that she had had a perfectly normal reaction, and that she didn't need to continue, given she already could guess as to what kind of graffiti that Starlight was referring to, Trixie exclaimed, "Well, how was Trixie supposed to know that presenting a head wasn't a friendly gift?! You were raving about the expressive art, and Sunburst was attempting to calm you down and figure out how to talk with Luster, and—"
"Trixie, just stop talking," whined Starlight as she held up a hoof. After taking a deep breath, she grunted, "I've already explained that it's an idiom half a dozen times today, and if you don't know why I was furious about... that, I can give you the talk with Luster. Also, thanks to you, Luster's gotten even more ideas, and—"
"But Trixie—"
"No buts! Got it?!" Starlight's brow furrowed, to the point that it cast shadows along her forehead. Somehow, wrinkling it even further, she leaned forward and snarled, "Drop it. Now. Redheart already knows more about my family's life than she needs to."
"Well, it certainly wasn't exactly what I guessed was the reason for Trixie's... decision, so I needed to confirm." At that, Starlight withdrew again and squeaked nervously. Lopsidedly grinning, Redheart just nodded and looked at Trixie. "Honestly, Starlight, yours is far from the strangest parental reaction I've seen, and you probably should give Luster a—" At Starlight's irate look now directed at her, Redheart rolled her eyes and instead focused on Trixie. "But anyway, we're not talking about you. Trixie, I think I can probably sew you up. Or at least do something temporarily. For the lich thing..." She shrugged. "See what Twilight can do. Or Discord."
"But he's Trixie's 'supplier' now, and he doesn't 'want to cut Trixie off cold turkey' or something." Trixie stuck out her tongue and sighed. "Is there nothing that can be done for Trixie?"
"Maybe a lobotomy. Brain transplant. Something." Redheart shrugged again. Hopping off her seat, Redheart started to trot to one of the nearby cabinets. She smirked. Digging through it, she tossed a couple of different rolls of gauze out, and finally pulled out what she was searching for. She snatched the line of stitches in her mouth, and proclaimed, "Found them!"
Fuming a bit, Trixie gave a snort, "Maybe Trixie still doesn't see what's wrong about giving somepony a head." When Starlight sputtered, Trixie glanced her way as Redheart was starting to thread the stitching through a needle and giggled, and she demanded, "What?! Is there something else Trixie should be t—"
"I'll fill you in when I'm done, Trixie," Redheart interjected as she did her best to snatch Trixie's head and place it back on the body's neck. With a sickening squelch, it fit, and she began to thread the stitching through the flesh. Surprisingly, Trixie didn't seem to react to being pierced a multitude of times, but it could have been either the lich magic, or maybe the fact that flesh was basically dead and necrotic around where she had lobbed off her head.
As she continued to sew, she heard Starlight inquire, "You seem to be taking the whole story awfully in stride, Nurse. Pretty sure that anypony else here would have run screaming after the clone story." There was a brief pause. "I didn't even know about all that, to be honest. But, it's true. I think. At least the lich part."
"Well, there is a bit of desensitization you get when you see Trixie every couple of months," Redheart finally admitted as she fit a couple more stitches through Trixie's neck. At this point, the undead pony was about halfway sewed back together. Already Trixie was looking more ecstatic.
There was another snort from Starlight, and Redheart shrugged. As she wrapped around Trixie, and got to the last couple of stitches, she declared, "Besides, it's not the weirdest story I've heard." Seeing Starlight arch an eyebrow, she inquired, "Do you really want to know?"
"Trixie is intrigued." Starlight nodded with Trixie's statement.
Sighing, Redheart rolled her eyes and muttered, "All right." She pondered for a second. After putting the last stitch into Trixie, she patted the neck to make sure, and then took a look. It wasn't perfect, and there was a bit of blood oozing out between the cracks as the skin would need to heal on its own, if it could heal, but at least Trixie wouldn't be losing her head anytime soon.
She set down the stitches. Returning to her seat, Redheart looked at both of them, her expression serious, she quipped, "I was given a strange story from a pony 'needing' anti-psychotics for their little filly. Something about controlling her manipulative tendencies and desire for world domination." Redheart snorted, while Trixie and Starlight shared concerned glances. "Either way, she gave me a letter with a perfectly legible signature and instructions from their doctor."
"What's so wrong about that?" Starlight inquired.
With a cackle, Redheart waved a hoof dismissively and stated, "What doctor writes that neatly? The giveaway it was fake was simple: I could wrap my head around it."
FIN
Author's Note
Oh Trixie, you may be inconvenient and a bit clueless some days, but that's okay. Starlight, Sunburst, and Luster (and all of us) love you, anyway. :rainbowlaugh: https://static.fimfiction.net/images/emoticons/rainbowlaugh.png
Regardless, this was something that came to mind a couple of weeks ago, which I thought would fit perfectly for the Dumb as Doornails (https://www.fimfiction.net/group/217954/splash-contests) contest. Besides, I will take any excuse to write interactions between the late season besties.
As always, I wish to thank Everfree Pony (https://www.fimfiction.net/user/275628/EverfreePony) for their help with editing, especially on fairly short notice. Their assistance is always invaluable. :twilightsmile: https://static.fimfiction.net/images/emoticons/twilightsmile.png
Until next fic!  
T4E