• Published 29th Jun 2014
  • 4,270 Views, 38 Comments

Twilight Sparkle is Paralyzed - CartsBeforeHorses



Twilight Sparkle severs her spinal cord, paralyzing her from the neck down. Now, she must cope with the minor inconvenience of being disabled.

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Paralyzed

“Are you sure this is safe?” asked Twilight Sparkle, glancing across the cornfield towards two sets of tin cans on fence posts, which were peppered with bullet holes.

“Sure thing, Twilight! I’ve been shootin’ guns since ah was a filly!” said Applejack, smiling as she pointed towards the gun rack on the back of her pickup truck. You know, the pickup truck that Hasbro sells but is never actually seen in the show.

“They didn’t even have guns when you were a filly,” said Twilight Sparkle, rolling her eyes. “Let alone pickup trucks.”

“Amazin’ how much technology has progressed ever since you came to Ponyville, huh?” asked Applejack.

Twilight smiled with nostalgia. “Yes, I remember writing with quills on parchment by candlelight and having Spike breathe fire to send them. Nowadays, I just shoot Celestia an email.”

“And nowadays, you’re gonna shoot this gun at this can over there!” said Applejack, hoofing the rifle to Twilight Sparkle barrel towards the sky with the safety on, like a responsible gun owner.

Twilight fired the gun at the tin can and missed. Instead, she somehow hit the back of the pickup truck, which ricocheted off of the metal fender and right through the top of Applejack’s hat, narrowly missing her brain.

Applejack chuckled. “You gotta look down the ironsights, sugarcube.”

Applejack, patience like a saint’s, spent the next few hours showing Twilight how to shoot a gun. After training for a few hours and not hitting any of the cans, Twilight lost patience and just cast a spell that would let her always hit the target no matter how badly she aimed. Now she was a better shot than Applejack, who had been shooting every day for years.

However, there was a minor accident. On her way home, Twilight tripped over a fallen tree branch and ended up in the hospital.


“I’m afraid that I have some bad news, Princess Sparkle,” said the caramel-coated unicorn doctor.

He levitated some X-rays in front of Twilight Sparkle. “It appears that you have fractured your spinal column just below the neck. I am sorry to say this, Miss Sparkle, but you will never walk, fly, or use your hooves again.”

Twilight’s mouth gaped open in shock.

“Is there anything that you can do to help me? Is there a procedure? A magic spell?” asked Twilight.

The doctor shook his head. “We’ve been doing research on how to help quadra- and paraplegics for years, but, unfortunately, haven’t come up with anything. Of course, if there are any promising developments, you’ll be the first to know.”

Twilight grinned. “I’ll bet that I can find some sort of spell.”

The doctor said, “There aren’t any. I can assure you.”

Twilight rolled her eyes. “Yeah, right. I’m better at Rarity’s gem finding spell than Rarity is. I can teleport faster than Rainbow Dash can fly. I can tame an ursa minor just as well as Fluttershy can. My princess coronation party, which I planned myself, was bigger and better-attended than any party that Pinkie Pie has ever thrown. I can harvest apples with my magic quicker than Applejack can buck them, and I can shoot a rifle more accurately than she can, too. So, I’ll bet that I’m better at medicinal magic than you are, Doctor.”

Her horn lit up and she disappeared from the hospital bed, off to find a cure for her affliction.

“Wait, you forgot to pay!” the doctor called out, but it was too late.


Twilight Sparkle sat in the library. Magic books floated in front of Twilight as she scanned them with her eyes, looking for any sort of spell that she could cast to enable her to use her hooves again.

“No, that one’s useless,” she said, casting it aside with her magic.

“Oh, hey, Twilight,” said Spike, walking over with a feather duster. “I was wondering when you’d get back from shooting with Applejack. I was starting to get worried.”

“Oh, no, I was injured,” said Twilight, turning her head towards Spike.

Spike’s eyes widened. “Injured? What happened? Are you okay?”

“I’m a quadraplegic,” said Twilight Sparkle, shaking her head.

Spike blinked. “But, you look the same as you normally do!”

“Oh, I guess the doctor didn’t have time to put that pad thingy around my neck,” said Twilight Sparkle. “I kind of left before he could. But I’m here looking for a magic spell so that I can fix my spinal column and get back to normal.”

Spike chuckled. “Well, it looks like you already are. But call me if you need anything. I’ll just be cleaning up all the debris and wreckage from Tirek.”

Gosh, Tirek destroying Twilight's Library. That was, like, the 9/11 of My Little Pony.

Twilight glanced up at the sky, and at the charred remains of the top floor of the library. Hopefully there weren’t any books up there that would have helped her.

After another hour of searching, Twilight Sparkle’s stomach started to rumble. Wait, can that happen if you’re paralyzed? Oh well, let’s just say that she was hungry.

“Spike! Could you get me some lunch?” she called out.

“Uh, I’m a bit busy trying to get this branch out of here! Just let me move it really quick and I’ll be down in a minute!”

Twilight sighed. How inconsiderate of him! Didn’t he know that she was totally paralyzed from the neck down? Instead he was screwing around with branches or whatever.

Another minute passed and Twilight’s dragon servant didn’t arrive.

“If you want something done right…” she groaned. Her horn lit up, and she disappeared with a flash of light, and reappeared in the kitchen, still sitting on the floor.

“Let’s see if Spike remembered to go grocery shopping,” she said. She opened the cabinets with her magic, and craned her neck up as she tried to see if she could see inside. But it was too high.

“Drat,” said Twilight. But then, a lightbulb appeared above her head as she got an idea.

Twilight’s horn lit up as she levitated herself up to eye level with the pantry. A lot of the food had burned when Tirek attacked the library. There was half a loaf of bread left, and a jar of peanut butter.

“Ah, looks like we have peanut butter and bread. But do we have jelly?” said Twilight.

She glanced in the fridge, and found what she was looking for. Strawberry: her favorite. She pulled them out with her magic and made herself a slightly charred sandwich, then she ate it.

“That hits the spot,” she said. She teleported back into the library and started to read again.


After a few hours of reading, she found that there weren’t any spells to restore a spinal column. Apparently, along with making food appear out of thin air and finding the last digit of pi, healing a spinal column was one of the few things that magic couldn’t do.

“I guess that I’ll have to improvise,” said Twilight. She recalled a spell that she had secretly used when she was helping Applejack on the farm during Winter Wrap-Up.

“The come-to-life spell!” she proclaimed. Her horn lit up as she cast it on her own body. At first, it caused her legs to move out of control, and she crashed into a bookshelf, snapping her neck. Good thing she was already paralyzed, so she didn’t feel a thing.

But after a few more iterations, she finally got it right, and was moving around the library. It was a bit magically taxing, even for Twilight, so she turned off the spell and went to bed. She coughed at her ashy and partially burned covers.

Later that evening, it started to rain. Twilight tried brushing the water off of herself with her hoof, but remembered that she was paralyzed. So, instead, she just cast a force field over herself.


The next morning, there was a knock at the door. Twilight’s head sat up from her blackened, charred bed.

“Coming!” she called out. Her horn lit up and she reappeared in front of the door, still sitting. She opened it with her magic, and her friends walked in the room.

“Howdy, Twi,” said Applejack, a sullen look on her face as she removed her hat.

“My goodness, Twilight. I heard about what happened, and I hope that you’re alright,” said Rarity.

“I baked you a get well soon cake!” said Pinkie, foisting a cake unto Twilight.

Twilight raised her eyebrows. “Wait, what are you guys talking about?”

“You’re paralyzed!” Fluttershy exclaimed, throwing her hooves in the air.

“Oh,” said Twilight. “Well, to be honest, I hadn’t really noticed.”

Author's Note:

Want a more serious story? Check out Rainbow Dash is paralyzed, a story about exactly the same plot, but it's a tragedy.
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/200115/rainbow-dash-is-paralyzed

Comments ( 37 )

This is terribly insensitive. Have a like.

Paralyzed ponies! handicapped humans are hilarious all on their own, but add pones and this is comedy gold, my friend.

What the actual...?
Dammit, Carts. :facehoof:
Have a like.

Heh, nice! I also found the "Walk in wheelchair rental" ad on this page to be slighty ironic.

All hail the Unicorn master race.

Comment posted by The Communist CosmoCat deleted Jun 29th, 2014

Magic bitches!

Is it odd that I found both stories kinda funny?

4614852 Eh, not really. I mean, the contrast itself is funny. :pinkiehappy:

Fun fact: your stomach can, in fact, rumble if you're paralyzed. Your stomach makes a rumbling sound when it's trying to digest something, but there's only air. So as long as you can digest, your stomach can rumble.

payed for by the NRA

On Twilight. :twilightsheepish:
You're such a silly filly. :facehoof:


:rainbowlaugh: Beautiful.

This is precisely what went through my head in the weeks following my injury. "If I was a unicorn, I wouldn't even notice it." Teleportation/Telekinesis OP. Of course, I wanted both of those things just as much before as after. :trollestia:

4614681 yus :trixieshiftleft:

God, this is so inconsiderate it hurts.
I probably shouldn't like it, but I do.

To me, the bits with the NRA, health care and 9/11 just feel out of place in this story. But then you did this:

Thanks, Celestia!

and made up for it by having me laugh my ass off at 2am.

Well played sir:moustache: you have earned my like.

The introduction didn't work for me, and the whole NRA thing was like "What?!". Anyway, kind of funny with the choice of spells there. I think you could probably write a decent (read: better) story with the same basic plot about Twilight trying out various spells to restore some measure of normalcy, but you'd have to drop the random tag. For giggles, you can always pull the alicorn trump card at the end and declare that alicorns always heal any injury given enough time and basically make fun of Twilight Sparkle's ignorance of that fact.

Can't tell if political bits purely for comedy or making statement.

Hilarious story though.

Funny, but the political bits are very jarring.

What do you mean magic can't cure this? That's the answer for everything.

People are saying that this is insensitive and inconsiderate, but I just don't give a fuck. It's not my life, why should I god damn care? Everyone always says to mind your own business, so I do just that.
If everyone who was paralyzed from the neck down or midrift down had magic, it would be just like this... unless they were stupid, then nevermind.

4616156 It basically did. As she said: 'I didn't even notice'. And really, a little bit of improv and it's hardly noticeable. :twilightsheepish:

Unicorns OP, Hasbro plz nerf

Just ask Batman how to deal with it.

Mind over matter!

4618194 I actually wrote both stories myself to present a wildly different take on the same plot.

Twilight will burn out her horn if she is going to rellay on magic 24/7
Got to hope she moves into the castle soon.

Unicorns. What will they do without their magic?

i don´t like it that they talked about hasbro and well it is not even funny for me, but that is maybe just me so i won´t vote for it down, but not up too.

4662442 Sorry to hear that you didn't like it, but thanks for reading anyway :pinkiesad2:

It was a decent read until I hit this line:
"Gosh, Tirek destroying Twilight's Library. That was, like, the 9/11 of My Little Pony."
Honestly it pulled me 210% out of the story. It looks like you just left in a Beta's comment accidentally. Really unpolished. After that I had a lot of trouble getting back into it.

4709688 Sorry, I tend to do that in my stories sometimes :twilightblush:

The rainbow dash version was ok to read.
I didnt like this one cause it made no sense.

Its basically the same damn thing except its twilight and slightly altered. Not impressed.

You could do alot better than that mate.
No offense.

5345306 Yeah I readily admit that this story is far, far, far from my best work. I must have been out of my mind when I thought it was a good idea to post it. :facehoof:

5345779 Either you were drunk or you were high on drugs.

I doubt it was either. But still. Yout readers expect more than this to be better.
But interesting how it has 100+ likes.

5346930 What is popular is not always good, and what is good is not always popular.

Advert below story is for the American Red Cross.

Well, you weren't kidding:
Same plot, but still totally different.

Gosh, Tirek destroying Twilight's Library. That was, like, the 9/11 of My Little Pony.

How many downvotes would I get when I would mention the following opinion:
"The 9/11 of My Little Pony was Twilight's ascension to alicornhood."

(No downvote necessary. Simply answering is sufficient.)

All things considered it’s stranger that she sleeps in the ashes than anything.

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