New Series Excerpt!

Twilight Sparkle, M.D.
Ponyville Hospital, Day 1

Every city has some particular little slogan that defines them. In Manehattan, it’s “everypony for themselves.” In Canterlot, it’s “shape up or ship out,” and from what I’ve seen in Ponyville thus far, theirs has to be “anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.”

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve heard the stories before, the jokes about how much of a death trap this place is. I never really paid attention to them, but with the sheer amount of encounters with the Everfree alone today, not taking other factors into consideration, I have just one conclusion.

Ponyville is a place that needs as many doctors as it can get.

Most doctors I know would take this as a noble cause, then. Get sent to Ponyville for a few months, do some charity work, and hope the pathetic city can keep itself standing after you leave. But I haven’t spent years of toil and research to become just any old medic.

Doctor Twilight Sparkle doesn’t make mistakes. Whenever a patient dies on my watch, or any other complication goes by, I tell myself this. It’s not a mistake if I can keep them alive longer than anypony else, and I make sure everypony around me knows. As long as I tell myself this, I’ll keep rising the ranks and basking in Hospital Director Celestia’s approval.

I said that in rapidfire succession as I saw the letter that sent me here. As Hospital Director Celestia did everything she could to prove me wrong in just a few simple words.

Several complaints of bad bedside manner.

And a few after that.

Seems to look down on own patients.

Worse doctors than me have gotten by with a “bad attitude,” so she calls it. But she and I both know I have no intention of becoming those “worse doctors.” She wants the best for me, my new mantra becomes. I don’t make mistakes, and Hospital Director Celestia doesn’t stab me in the back. It’s what makes us, us.

But then, I hear Canterlot’s little message again, and think of what getting sent to a new location really means.

Shape up or ship out.

It was in that moment I knew I wasn’t going back to Canterlot. And since nopony there will ever see any of this, I guess it’s as good a time as any to really admit this to myself.

I tell myself I don’t make mistakes, just to keep myself together.

I tend to be a rather wordy writer, so I'm personally impressed at how much emotion I managed to convey in less than 400 words. Look for it sometime this week!