Chapter One
Primum Non Nocere
by: GearheartHound
Chapter One
Auspicious Beginnings
Today was my big day. The day when I, Emerald Heart, would prove that i was worthy of a place in Celestia's school for gifted unicorns. I took several slow breaths to steel my resolve before i looked at the egg sitting in its basket before me. The dull black shell shone under the harsh lights of the lecture theater. I took a final look around the room, noting the stern faces of my instructors and the hopeful smile of my mother. I closed my eyes and turned back to the task at hoof.
What i failed to notice was the figure who slowly trotted into the room to stand behind the teachers with a gentle smile on her lips. Princess Celestia had come in to watch the exams personally. I was glad i didn't notice as i slowly concentrated then began to feel the magic burning upward through my hooves. It crawled like ivy over my green coat and tousled my unruly blue mane, i was sure i at least looked dramatic as the magic began to build at the tip of my horn.
I reached out with my thoughts and grasped the egg, keeping it planted in the soft hay. I had been told that dragon eggs were impossible to break. The shells so hard that you could drop an ursa major on one and it wouldn’t budge. It took the gentle caress of magical force for the dragonling inside to burst the shell. I carefully applied the charm i had practiced and waited for the shell to start to crack. There was no change.
The instructors looked between each other and i could hear my mother gasp, unknown to me Celestia had walked slowly down the steps to stand at my side, regarding the egg. I redoubled my efforts and the shell began to tremble though i felt a pain settle at the pit of my heart, i stumbled a little bit kept my eyes squeezed tight, i had to do this. This was the most important day of my life. With a final grunt of effort i heard the shell crack and shatter.
Finally i let my eyes open and i blinked softly. Instead of a little dragon waiting for me in the soft hay and eggshells, there was a little body still curled upon itself and unmoving like a wax sculpture. The instructors gasped and made their way down to get a closer look. That was the first moment i noticed the princess. My eyes went wide as she leaned down and planted the gentlest of kisses upon the little creature's head. "this happens from time to time... a tragedy... not your fault at all, my little pony." she spoke softly and i felt the tears welling up in my eyes. My mother laid a hoof gently on my back to try and reassure me as the princess continued. "some dragons are born... imperfect... it's impossible to say for sure while the egg is whole. It is a hard lesson for one as young as yourself but stillbirth is a fact of life..."
i looked back up at the princess then down to the lifeless little dragon, she looked so very peaceful but so very sad at the same instance. I fought back my tears and struggled away from my mother. A sudden need overtook me and i placed both hooves on the side of the little basket. "no..." i said simply, all ponies staring as i began to work my magic once more. My heart beat faster and faster as i reached out and cradled the dragonling in the gentle radiance of my magic.
"there is nothing that can be done, my little pony..." the princess watched me with sad eyes though didn't interfere. That changed instantly as i pulled more and more power into my casting. I had no idea what spell, if any, i was casting but i could see everything about the dragoness i cradled tenderly. I could follow every line of her blood vessels and every fiber of her muscles. I could look within each bone and more. Then i looked upon her heart, I had never seen a naked heart before but it was as if my mind could see what was wrong, the little imperfection which kept it from beating. I squeezed my eyes tighter in concentration and i felt my own heart begin to hammer in my ears, all argument from the instructors or my mother was drowned out by that heart beating.
I listened to the rhythm and let all my power go. There came an answering beat. Soft at first but growing stronger by the second. The dragon's heart began to beat and the life began to flow back into her. I felt the magic tugging the little rusty orange dragoness back into the world of the living. The heart hammering in my ears died down and only then i realized that the assembled instructors were silent.
"she didn't deserve to be dead..." i managed, feeling weak all over as i stumbled back to flop on my haunches. I watched as the dragoness opened her big green eyes and looked around at the world, cooing softly before reaching up towards Celestia with a giggle. The princess had no expression on her face as she looked between the dragon and myself.
It took the voice of the mother to pull me back more to wakefulness. "oh honey! Your cutie mark!" she exclaimed with joy and i turned to look. There on my flank was a bright green heart which was wreathed in gentle orange flames. I smiled to myself a little before a pain raced through my chest. I couldn't breathe, I could barely see clearly and I fell to the marble floor. With one last twitch I lost the battle to stay conscious.
The waking world beckoned me slowly back and I let my eyes crack open. The sun was warm coming through the window and the sheets were soft against my coat. There was the silence of a closed room in the air around me save for the softest of snores. My eyes fluttered open and I looked down to smile wider. There in the bed beside me was the little dragonling that I had given back her life.
She snored loud for a newly hatched thing but all I could do was smile down at her, carefully reaching out a hoof to touch her on her tiny head.
“you have done a very good job, my little pony.” the voice in the room made me shiver and my eyes snapped up to take in the princess in all her radiance. She looked as noble as always and as majestic though at the moment, the usual warm smile was gone from her lips. The room suddenly fell cold. “you have preformed a spell that even the greatest medical unicorns can not... a spell which is forbidden...”
my eyes began to overflow as I looked up at the suddenly very scary princess. “b-but... but I...” I began to stammer, fearing instant and brutal reprisal from the solar monarch. She only sighed and shook her head.
“you did not know... you were pained... heartbroken for the little life which could never be lived.” Celestia spoke, the gentle benevolence beginning to creep back. “you drew upon powers you could not comprehend and brought life... but you must understand that this spell is forbidden... it is beyond dangerous.”
“h-how? Isn't it good to make ponies live again?” I sniffled and gave a glance back down at the dragoness who still slumbered, a little steam rising from her nose.
“the spell is dangerous because... for a moment, the wounds of the other pony become your own... you passed out in the lecture theater because for a instant... you were stillborn...” Celestia's words made my eyes widen even more and my bottom lip trembled. “if there hadn't been four talented unicorns present, and your mother, a trained nurse... you would have perished.”
I began to cry again and the little dragon woke to the rain of tears on her scales. She reached up a little clawed hand, batting at my cheeks in an effort to stem the tide of tears. Celestia chuckled and knelt beside the bed. “you are alive however and your new friend is as well... but I do have one request... just one...” her tone was more steely and I couldn't help but gulp and nod.
“never again cast this spell... the risks far outweigh the benefits and there are far more dangers I dare not heap upon one so young.” Celestia touched my back with a wing gently and I gave a nod, beginning to smile once more as the dragoness again curled up against my side to sleep. “it is traditional for a unicorn who has a dragon companion to give the little one a name... have you got one picked out?”
I looked down at the curled up rusty colored dragon and thought for a moment, imagining everything that could be her name and what might suit her. “i think maybe I should call her.......
“.... Chance! I need the straps tighter! I can't work when she's thrashing!” I shouted and the little dragon snapped off a salute before climbing over the struggling pegasus to pull the straps more taut. I wiped the blood from my cheek and placed both hooves beside her wound, the blood was flowing freely, too freely. She had moments.
“Heart! Chance! Hold her a little longer, we can get an anesthesiologist up here and a surgeon but it's gonna be five minutes!” a nurse charged to the doorway and my heart fell.
“she doesn't have five minutes!” I called after her retreating tail and tried to apply any charm I could think of to staunch the bleeding. It was the night shift, I was running on too much caffeine and too much adrenaline. It was a miracle my hooves weren't shaking. The poor patient had flown home drunk from a Canterlot nightclub and ended up impaling herself on a flagpole outside her apartment.
I stole a glance at chance for just a moment and the dragon made the slightest smile before the din of the magical sensor scanning her heartbeat indicated a failure. “She's flat-lined!” chance screamed and jumped back from the hospital bed, she rushed to the door and stuck her head out into the hallway. “Crash Cart!”
in an instant the pegasus of the same name came barreling through the door and to the bedside. The excitement made sparks crackle from his trembling wings. “I’m on it!” he rubbed his forehooves together, gathering electrical energies. It was an old technique from the days when the weather service encountered much worse storms than the ones they did these days, it allowed a pegasus to build up and channel electricity to ground harmlessly.
“Clear!” he called loudly and a pulse of lightning ran through his glowing hooves. She jolted but slumped again back to the bed. “damnit!” Crash Cart again rubbed his hooves together, the static building before jolting her again. There was no change.
“No change... alright, gorgeous,” he leaned in to whisper in her ear. “once more for Crash, ok?” his hooves sparked bright blue and he tried once more to shock the life back into her heart but it failed. His eyes fell but I shouldered past him.
I took a deep breath and placed my lips to hers, supplying her with air before I pulled back and pressed both hooves over her heart, counting to five as I tried to jump start her heart again. The more I tried the more pale she became, the blood flow from her wound had long ago slowed to a trickle I felt my colleague place a hoof on my shoulder. “no! No, damnit, not tonight!” I ran through my gambit of medical charms and wards but nothing took hold, everything depended on the pony having a pulse. Finally I grit my teeth and took a steadying breath. “The spell... I need to use it, chance!”
“you can't! You promised the princess you wouldn't.” The dragon was wringing her hands together and looking towards the door for the surgeon she and I both knew was too late. Crash was backing away, the room beginning to darken as I summoned up my will and courage for the task at hoof.
“no choice. 'I swear by Celestia's golden radiance I shall do no harm, nor by my inaction, allow harm to befall a pony'” I repeated the oath I had taken, the same oath my mother and many ancestors before me have sworn to. “if I don't act then she dies...” I breathed and turned my eyes back to the filly before me. Her sunny yellow coat soaked in blood along with the tattered remnants of her party dress. She had a dash too much makeup on her cheeks which had run from her tears of anguish. Her mane shone such an unnatural shade of blue, it had to be dyed. She could have been anypony's little sister or teenaged daughter.
But now she lay slumped and cold on the hospital bed. just a kid who made a mistake... “you don't deserve to die...” I whispered and closed my eyes, the magic ripping up from the world to obey my command. Chance rushed to my side and placed both clawed hands on my hindleg, lending her support as I weaved the magical energies. The spell I had been told not to cast, the spell that dare not be cast.
I looked into her body and saw the damage, the artery torn and the splinters of wood preventing the healing charms from taking hold. I concentrated and time fell away into nothing. In the grips of the spell I had all the time I needed. I tugged away each shard of wood and let the magic consume it. The natural energies from the once living tree flowing into the sway of the spell. I pulled the wound back together cell by cell and let her body take hold and then I focused on her heart.
It was still and silent, my own thundered in my ears. Live... live again... please I willed as strong as I could and her heart stirred. Slowly and surely it began to beat. Stronger and stronger by the second until the world came crashing back and I heard her gasp and choke. Still unconscious and faint but very much alive.
My vision darkened and I stumbled back, quickly eased onto the floor by tiny scaled hands. “hey! Hey I’ve got you... I’ve got you, boss...” she whispered as I felt the pain sear through my side, the pegasus' wounds made manifest in my own flesh. Just for an instant I was impaled upon a flagpole. Just for an instant I had bled out in a hospital emergency ward. Just for an instant the specter of death had me in his icy hooves.
Then I felt the gentle touch and the soft kiss on my nose and the world floated back to me. I was looking into those warm green eyes I had known for so long. “you did it... you did it, Heart... it was dumb but you did it...” chance smiled wide and gave me as tight a hug as she could manage. I just grinned like an idiot as the surgeon and the nurse barreled into the room. All they found was a pegasus, still strapped down but passed out, the redoubtable Crash Cart standing slack jawed, and a giddy dragoness who hopped up on a stool to address them.
“surgery was a success... the patient needs a blood transfusion and Emerald needs a coffee... and a break.” she grinned, ever looking after my stress and strain. I struggled to my hooves and the surgeon narrowed his eyes at me. I could tell I was in some serious trouble but one look down at the girl who was going to have a full life ahead of her made it all worth it.
The next morning I was nowhere near as pleased as I was during my shift. I stood in the sterile white hall of the Canterlot collage of medical mysticism's headmaster. I had been in the room once before with my peers, reciting the long oath of a physician and being given a certificate saying I could practice medicine. The old unicorn looked down at me over his glasses, the very same as he did back then, but stayed silent. In the room beside him was the headmistress of Celestia's school for gifted unicorns, who I had likewise met just the once before, and she too looked at me over her spectacles. Like her stoic companion, she too was silent because there was a greater authority in the room.
Princess Celestia sat as regal as on the day of my examination all those long years ago and she had no need to look down at me over a pair of glasses. Her gaze was making me feel more and more like a helpless foal the longer she turned it on me. I was sure I had been standing in silence for minutes at this point.
“why...” Celestia spoke softly and I nearly jumped out of my skin. “why did you disobey me... why did you break your promise and use the spell I had asked you not to cast?”
I parted my lips to speak, suddenly parched, being under the gaze of the princess was like being stranded in a shadeless desert. The fury of the unconquerable sun blazing down on my pathetic form. “she was just a filly... had an accident doing something dumb. She didn't deserve to die.”
“and who are you to stand as judge over life and death!?” came the flustered and shouted response from the collage headmaster. So great was his rage that his glasses fell from his nose, it took a few gentle pats on the shoulder from his colleague to calm him.
“the surgeon was late! We couldn't even get a spell working to numb the poor filly's pain! We had her strapped to the bed while we tried to remove four feet of wood from her chest and patch her heart back together! I did what I did because if we had been properly staffed instead of just me and a hoof full of nurses, then that filly would have been on her hooves and home in five minutes. Not bleeding out in agony!” I shouted back, my nerves were frayed as it is and the animosity for my hard work wasn't helping me feel warm and fuzzy either.
The room fell silent, I could see both unicorns beginning to fume behind their spectacles but Celestia remained as calm as always. “Emerald Heart... you saved the life of a filly last night. Regardless of the means to achieve that end, the outcome was still a bright one. I am certain that Mr. and Mrs. Lemonade will be glad to have their daughter back and you are quite right. No pony ever deserves death... but you have none the less tampered with the laws of nature.”
Celestia turned her eyes slowly to the other occupants of my review panel and both tried to stifle their smug grins. “you are hereby expelled from Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns and your current degrees in your areas of study are revoked.” the headmistress shuffled a stack of papers and glanced at the old stallion who chuckled.
“furthermore,” he grinned. “your medical license is also hereby terminated, you are barred from practicing medicine professionally on equestrian soil.”
the pair rose and Celestia did the same, turning her gaze to mine. My heart had fallen as low as it could, Celestia's eyes didn't frighten me anymore. “Emerald Heart this shall be your final warning... your good deeds not withstanding... should you tamper with life and death again, I will be forced to banish you forever from our borders on pain of imprisonment should you return... I am terribly sorry, my little pony, but the powers you wield are far too dangerous.”
the princess turned her eyes to the unicorns who shuffled out of the room, leaving me alone again with the solar sovereign. “you must understand... it is imperative you listen to me, Emerald Heart...” Celestia's face changed again to one of motherly concern and she stepped closer to me. Her radiance was not muted in the slightest as she slowly took a seat before me and laid a pearly white wing over my back. “the spell you have cast twice is the very pinnacle of our medical magic. It is true that you take on the wounds of your patient when it is cast but that is no the true danger. Sometimes when you try to pull a soul back to a body, you do not always find the right one. There are monsters beyond your comprehension waiting in the dark for the chance to be brought into this world... it is not only a danger to yourself but a danger to all of Equestria. And I know this firsthoof, my little pony... it is always best to leave the dead in peace.”
I can't say I remembered the walk back to my dorm room. The words Celestia spoke to me and the fear in her eyes spoke volumes, volumes about things I didn't dare try to comprehend. It was the click of my room door closing which roused me from my stupor.
“i take it things didn't go quite so well...” came the soft voice of my companion and I nodded. She sat by my side and listened as I told her everything which Celestia had said and everything I had been punished with. She didn't weep for me or tell me she was angry for loosing my job our place to stay. All she did was reach up and pat my cheek, her voice a whisper. “i still think you did the right thing...”
I looked down into her smiling face and the warmth there, and for a moment I recalled the words of the princess when you try to pull a soul back to a body, you do not always find the right one. Mature beyond her years and possibly the single being in this world, save my mother, who truly loved me. I couldn't dream of a day passing without her by my side.
“so what now, boss?” she asked softly, looking around the small room at the meager possessions I had managed to accumulate.
“how about a little travel? We have a few bits left and I think I want to get as far away from hospitals and doctors as I can for a little while.” I laid a foreleg around her and she leaned against my side, looking over to the window. “Hoofington... maybe Marechester...”
“i hear Ponyville is nice this time of year.” she chimed in and I grinned wider.
“that's the spirit!” I rose to my hooves and brought my magic to my command, swirling the little possessions I did have and packing them away neatly as I could manage into my saddlebags and traveling case. “we could go anywhere. Do anything we wanted...”
“as long as it doesn't include doctors or hospitals.” chance grinned and narrowly avoided a thrown pillow, both of us descending into laughter.