Apple Bloom’s act emboldened the other foals, and soon Noi and the red one and the blue one Apple Bloom didn’t know, and that green blue Aura were all climbing on the bed to sit close to the three of them. Aura needed some help figuring out how to climb, but the other pony helped hook her hooves and pull her up.
Apple Bloom didn’t care. She just wanted Scootaloo not to be hurt, and... and she wanted a certain ketchup and mustard colored foal who will remain nameless to stop saying things are safe, when Apple Bloom should be realizing that they’re in terrible danger. She should have been more careful. She shouldn’t have ever trusted that dream... creature. She didn’t know what happened! Apple Bloom just... wanted Scootaloo back. Some horrible, ugly longing rose in her, older and deeper than anything she could remember, even if Scootaloo was probably fine and just had a real shock or something. She wanted Scootaloo back.
So that’s why 10 minutes later, when the ambulance got there, and the paramedics and a doctor Apple Bloom hadn’t seen before fought each other, for the right to climb the stairs, they found not just an unresponsive Scootaloo, but a strange cluster of ponies all pressed up against each other, with the orange pegasus in the middle. Apple Bloom was on one side, with two she wasn’t entirely familiar with, and on the other side were Noi, and Cheerilee, who had just come crawling upstairs and practically knocked the bannister down hurtling herself into the room, just to be close to her daughter. Sweetie was somewhere in the periphery, with Aura and... that one pony girl.
Apple Bloom vaguely recognized it was weird to do this... pile of ponies thing, but she didn’t know what else to do. They were all comforting her, maybe? Apple Bloom thought she should just leave Cheerilee and her daughter alone, but at the same time she just couldn’t feel it. Apple Bloom didn’t understand, just blushed and wiped away crusted tears off her face, and told the very distressed looking doctor, who looked to be a deep lilac colored man with pale pink hair,
“Ah know it’s strange, but you gotta help!” Apple Bloom said urgently, “See, since we turned into ponies, and you don’ gotta help with the pony part of it, but since we turned we been having strange dreams where we can all dream together and there’s a dream princess in there and she’s real nice or so I thought! But we were just showing her one of Scootaloo’s dreams, the one where we found her in, and the princess just went haywire! She was freaking out and using her freaky dream magic on Scootaloo, and Scootaloo was outright screaming in the dream! Well I woke us up as fast as I could but she’s still not talking and I don’t know what’s wrong, please you gotta help her!”
The doctor seemed completely frazzled, looking at them in astonishment, like they were something he just couldn’t accept as real. The paramedics were better though; they didn’t even hesitate, hustling past him into Apple Bloom’s room. It was a man and a woman. The pink woman with grass green hair said in a no-nonsense if very gratingly sweet tone, “Alright, clear out of the way, you ponies! Let me get a look at the patient.”
The ponies cleared out of the way, except a tear stricken Cheerilee who was still propping Scootaloo’s head up on the pillow, and Apple Bloom who backed up but didn’t jump off the bed. Knelt on the floor at the foot of her bed, the cream colored redhair of a male paramedic was unpacking the equipment from a case they’d hauled upstairs. He started taking notes after throwing the case open, when the the pink lady announced, “Profuse sweating, eyes appear—”
The lady cut off abruptly and grabbed Apple Bloom’s chin in her fingers, staring right into her face! Before Apple Bloom could even pull away, the lady paramedic released her, looking at Scootaloo again stating, “Eyes appear dilated. Heart rate is—”
She cut off again, staring at the heart rate monitor she’d just been handed. It was a finger clip. Throwing it down, the lady pressed her index finger against Scootaloo’s orange neck, then checked her watch, spouting out after ten seconds, “Heart rate is 137 and dropping. Is that high for you ponies?” Apple Bloom blinked as the lady was talking to her again.
“Ah dunno, ah guess?” she said backing to the edge of the bed now that the paramedic had a handle on it or... something. “Hundred uh...” her mind was racing, “Ah don’t think it’s normally much above a hunred,” she offered reluctantly.
Listening at Scootaloo’s ear, continuing to look at her watch, the medic stated, “Breathing evenly at 30 breaths per minute. Appears to have been drooling.” The paramedic had barely pulled away before of all times, Scootaloo chose now, to say in a messed up, groggy slur,
“Wha’s... goingh on?”
Cheerilee burst into tears again. “Scootaloo!” Apple Bloom exclaimed in joy, leaping from the edge of the bed to—she smacked nose first into the paramedic lady’s upraised pink hand, as the lady hissed, “Hst!” at her, stopping Apple Bloom in her tracks.
Cheerilee was still clumsily holding Scootaloo in her new forehooves, but the lady didn’t seem to care about that. Apple Bloom on the other hand backed off blushing and lifting a hoof. It probably wasn’t all that smart to become a red and yellow hug torpedo, when Scootaloo could’ve been seriously hurt. But her impulse halted, Apple Bloom still sagged in relief.
“Patient regained consciousness,” the paramedic continued shortly, “Speech appears to be slurred. You ponies don’t have trouble talking, do you?”
Apple Bloom stared back at her like a moonstruck calf, until realizing that she was being talked to again. “Yeah!” she yelped, “Uh, no! Ah mean, Scootaloo don’t have no problem, no.”
“Are you experiencing any pain?” Another moment for Apple Bloom to realize the lady had switched on a fast track to talking to Scootaloo directly now. Then, the paramedic just waited, looking at Scootaloo steely eyed, while Scootaloo mouthed silently with a worried stare, then winced, holding a hoof to her temple, saying,
“Headegg... wha’s... wha’ happen?”
“You’ll be fine, little girl pony,” the paramedic said in a surprisingly comforting tone, then barked over her shoulder again, “Headache. May be experiencing retrograde amnesia.”
She checked in Scootaloo’s mouth, seemed satisfied by that, and had Scootaloo lift her hoof on command, to which the extremely confused looking filly automatically complied.
The purple doctor was listening in now, along with looking at the notes the other paramedic had taken, while the male paramedic with the rose red hair was also taking out equipment like blood pressure cuffs that were too big, and a thermometer.
While they had been all waiting for the doctor to get there, Twilight Sparkle and Sunset Shimmer had both come up to Apple Bloom’s room, and they were still here now. But they had no idea what was wrong with Scootaloo, neither having ever seen this happen to a pony before on their side of the portal. They stood by awkwardly, and the purple Twilight herself looked unusually anxious as she stared at the lead paramedic. Cheerilee of course, refused to leave from being her daughter’s impromptu giant pillow, and Granny Smith was here too. Granny looked like she was about ready to head off and do something important elsewhere though, instead of just crowding up the room. Sweetie Belle was still around, but she was on the floor reared up with her forearms perched up on the bed, rather than standing on top of it like Apple Bloom was.
“Scootaloo, are you okay?” Sweetie asked, eyes full of worry, once the paramedic had finally finished grilling the orange filly.
Scootaloo focused on her with difficulty, and said, “Uhm... thirshty...”
Sweetie was gone to get some water so fast, Apple Bloom swore the little white unicorn left a cloud of little white unicorn shaped dust in her wake. Scootaloo continued to improve as time went on, and she seemed a lot better after plunging her face into the water bucket Sweetie brought up in her mouth. “Serioushly,” Scootaloo said, looking from Apple Bloom, to Sweetie, and then up to her mom. “Wha’ happened? I jus’ woke up all f..fugged up.”
“The dream princess attacked you!” Sweetie told Scootaloo, her voice like a hurt kitten.
“Do ya remember what she did to you in the dream?” Apple Bloom asked hopefully on the other side.
“Wish dream?” Scootaloo responded with a clueless deadpan. She winced again, and repeated, “Which... dream are hyou talking about?”
“You know, where we showed her that castle town you dreamed up once?” Apple Bloom prompted. Scootaloo’s eyes widened at that, and she exclaimed,
“Oh, right, tha’! Why haven’th we shown her that already?”
“We... did show her,” Apple Bloom said uneasily.
Scootaloo stared at Apple Bloom blankly, and then her brow knotted and she exclaimed in frustration, “Amnethsia?!”
“Is an uncommon side effect of an epileptic seizure,” cut in a warm voice, that while quiet nevertheless had a penetrating presence. It was the purple doctor! Or eh, uh, whatever her name was. “Do you have a history of epilepsy, miss Scootaloo?”
Scootaloo looked at her blankly. The doctor smiled, and started to repeat her question, but Scootaloo interrupted, saying in frustration, “No. No, I don’t have... that.”
The doctor sighed. “And it was going so well,” she said regretfully. “I’m afraid I haven’t an idea what might make a pony behave this way. You’re showing classic symptoms of such a seizure, but I’m told that a... dream princess did it?”
“Are you chrathzy?!” Scootaloo declared, then held her head, grimacing again while her mom worried over her. “She’s the... nicesth printhess, she couldn’t... wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
“She did do it!” Apple Bloom said in, switching her tail in angry righteousness. “Ah saw her! She was fine an’ then she just went crazy! And Scootaloo you were... were screamin’, and and then you weren’t and I just...”
“I don’ remember any of htat,” Scootaloo said solemnly to Apple Bloom, looking a bit haunted from hearing it.
“It’s okay, Scootaloo,” Apple Bloom said sympathetically. “Really better that you didn’t... it looked mighty painful from where we were.”
“If Scootaloo had a seizure, we were in her dream,” Sweetie offered, “So maybe that messed us all up, including the princess?”
Sweetie looked at the doctor who raised her hands and shook her head saying, “Oh no, I don’t know anything about that. I have known some patients with epileptic seizures, but they never said anything about a seizure interrupting a dream. This pony thing is just... are you... telepathic or what? Is your horn an antenna?” She reached out a smooth finger to poke curiously at Sweetie Belle’s horn.
Sweetie jerked away in response with a look of alarm, saying, “Careful! This thing’s sharp!”
The doctor ceased trying to poke at her horn.
“There’s... special ponies,” Apple Bloom explained to the doctor, giving a nervous look at Twilight and Sunset Shimmer, who didn’t volunteer the info, but didn’t sit there crossing their hands and mouthing ‘N O’ either. So Apple Bloom went on, “There’s special ponies, who do special things, ah was told. They’re called princesses, not queens, because there’s more’n one of them, one for each special... thing. There was only one for a while, but that’s getting better now, or so ah heard.
“An’ one of those special ponies is over here in our world,” Apple Bloom said, walking across the bed to face the very curious looking doctor. “For every one of... oh, right. So, those two girls are from an alternate universe, where everyone’s a pony, and they’re trying to figure out why it’s happening to us. But for every one of us humans or... human ponies, there’s one of them ponies in the alternate universe, like a pony me, or a pony you, who always was a pony. A lot of ponies don’t have a counterpart here, but I met Twilight Sparkle’s counterpart in mah dreams.
“Her counterpart is a pony, but is stuck in dreams,” Apple Bloom said uncertainly. “She’s the dream princess, or n-night princess ah guess. Dreams are part of the night, but we just call her the dream princess. Since she’s a princess pony, she can go into our dreams, but only people who are ponies. Ponies dream... different. It’s more vivid-like, an’ tangible. You have to really hunt for the symbolism, unlike in human dreams. And uh... so we don’t really know what we’re doing. We just sleep and figgur out dreaming as ponies, and then the princess goes nuts and uses her horn on Scootaloo—”
“She used her horn?!” Twilight Sparkle suddenly shouted in complete aghast horror.
“No!” Apple Bloom gulped, waving her hooves at Twilight. “That’s not what ah meant. She didn’t skewer her or nothing. She used her horn to do magic on Scootaloo.”
“That’s... that’s what I meant,” Twilight said boggling at Apple Bloom’s words. “Skewer—what? You... you have issues, filly. But no, I’ve at least studied the basics of oneiromancy, just in case Princess Luna is incapacitated, and the only time you use your horn in a dream is when you want to change somepony’s dream, in significant ways! Casting magic in somepony else’s head is incredibly dangerous! And she was just doing it on reflex?”
“She changed her dream, alright!” Apple Bloom retorted fretfully, “She gave her downright amnesia!”
“I can’t believe she’s this world’s version of me,” Twilight fumed seated in one of the chairs they’d brought in. “She’s such... a... a moron!”
The rain came down softly on the roof overhead, as the sound of Twilight’s shout faded from the air, while the flame haired girl next to Twilight failed to hold back a snicker.
“Someone going to do something about the doctor...?” Sweetie Belle asked uncertainly, pointing at the limp figure of the purple haired pink doctor, currently slumped over Apple Bloom’s bed.
“She’s fainted!” the pink lady paramedic practically screeched.
The male paramedic propped her up and looked into her eye, but the doctor was already rousing herself. “No, no marzipan, thanks I’ve had plenty,” she murmured, opening her green eyes to see... three little ponies, in various positions on the bed.
The green haired pink paramedic stood up from crouching beside the doctor. She went up to Scootaloo, saying in a wearily disgusted tone to the woozy filly, “Look, we’re all completely out of our league here, but I don’t care if you’re a pony or a rutabaga. All you had was a seizure. Nobody got hurt, you’re getting better, end of story. Drink fluids, call the hospital if you have another seizure.”
Then the paramedics went and started packing up their supplies, swiftly and efficiently.
Sort of... called for, but damn. Apple Bloom hadn’t seen a worse bedside manner in just about ever!
Twilight Sparkle then raised a slender lilac hand for some reason, behind the three who were cleaning up their stuff, with a curiously worried expression on her face as she regarded the paramedics in particular. The girl stood up, walking over to those paramedics to address the two of them.
“...Daisy?” Twilight asked hopefully. The lady paramedic lifted up her head, looking Twilight’s way.
“Am I supposed to know you?” she asked flatly. Twilight blinked, and then shook her head.
“No, no it’s just—I know a Daisy and she’s just so much more um... delicate.”
“What, everyone named Daisy’s all the same to you?” the paramedic, named ‘Daisy’ apparantly drawled with disdain. “Look maybe I used to be a pushover, but you work this job long enough and you are gonna stop freaking out over every little thing. Me and Rose here, we’ve seen things. Awful, awful things. So be glad your Daisy or whatever is such a delicate flower. Me, I have a job to do!”
“You and...” Twilight gulped anxiously. “Rose, huh,” she said, looking at the male paramedic. “And I suppose Lily’s driving the ambulance?”
“Lily?” Daisy replied loudly and testily, “No, Rose drives the ambulance. Who’s Lily?”
Apple Bloom really wasn’t sure what she was looking at, at that point. Daisy and Rose both started crying then, but just silently crying, and they kept on packing up! Apple Bloom was pretty sure if Twilight was a pony, her ears would be drooping, and her tail would be right between her legs. “I–it’s nothing,” Twilight said miserably to the two of them. “I guess you’re just... not friends in this world.”
“I don’t know who this Lily is you’re talking about,” Daisy said crankily, “But I hope your Daisy friend takes good care of her. We’re just not the same person, I don’t see how this is hard to understand.”
“Sorry, you’re right, and you’re your own person,” Twilight said in an embarassed apology. “I just thought you resembled... um... why are you crying?”
“What?” Daisy said, drawing up short and putting a hand to her very pink face. “I’m not— huh.” She hadn’t even noticed the tears start running down from her eyes? “I don’t... know,” she said thoughtfully, quieter than she spoke before.
The male paramedic, who Apple Bloom supposed was Rose, even though it was an odd name for a man, he sniffled, and said in a pleasant, if downhearted tenor, “Can we just get back to the hospital?”
Daisy looked at him in surprise. “Ambrose, you spoke!” she squealed shrilly.
“Hey, I speak!” he said angrily in reply. “I just... don’t like how I ...sound.” And fell silent again.
Now Apple Bloom was really confused, because Ambrose actually had a pretty nice voice, and Daisy was the one who was sounding so grating. It would have been horribly insensitive of her to just start demanding answers though, and these were just a couple of random paramedics, right? Did Twilight know the other side versions of them? But why was everyone getting upset over this Lily fellow that nobody even knew?
Twilight didn’t seem to know what to say either, and the paramedics cleared out of there and drove their ambulance away. Doctor Swirly Cotton stayed around to monitor Scootaloo a while, and help her with... whatever happened to her. Scootaloo had managed to extricate herself from Cheerilee, assuring her mom that she was fine, even though she did seem to be slurring her words pretty bad. But Apple Bloom didn’t really feel comfortable commenting on that
“Okay mom, jus’ talk to the doctor. Sshe said it was okay,” Scootaloo grumbled at a nervous Cheerilee, standing there before her daughter as best she could on all fours. (She still wasn’t confident on her hooves yet.)
Apple Bloom stood with Sweetie by Scootaloo’s bedside now. Any other ponies had found another room to sleep in. It was still the middle of the night, and Apple Bloom really wished she could sleep.
“Oh man, ish middle of the night,” Scootaloo moaned. “Wish I coul’ jus’ go back to ssleep.”
“And let the dream princess get you?” Apple Bloom said dully. “Ah wanna sleep too, but ah just don’t know anymore what to do.”
“Guessh you’re right, uh...” Scootaloo started to acquiesce, then just looked at Apple Bloom blankly again.
“You okay, Scoots?” Apple Bloom said uneasily at the unresponsive pony.
“I’m fine um...” Scootaloo’s eyes had alarm in them though, as she looked at Apple Bloom, then looked down, saying, “I know it, i’ss right on the tip of... shomething.”
“Your tongue?” Apple Bloom offered.
“My tongue, yeah!” Scootaloo agreed, lifting her head to look at Apple Bloom. With a terrified wince, she went on to say, “What was your name again...?”
“You... you remember me, right?” Apple Bloom said, feeling hollowed out at what Scootaloo was saying to her.
“Hno, I remember hyou!” Scootaloo protested sloppily. “I know you an’ we been friendsh forever and... I should know it. I don’ get it!”
“Calm down,” Sweetie said, “It’s probably normal or something. I’ll go get the doctor.” She trotted off while Apple Bloom hovered nervously by the antipathic Scootaloo.
“Why’d she messh my head up so bad?” Scootaloo moaned, burying her forehead in her pumpkin orange forehooves.
“Ah’m Apple Bloom,” Apple Bloom said in a subdued tone.
“Tha’s it!” Scootaloo said with the most relieved smile on her face. “I can’ believe I forgot htat... hth... that. Thanks uh... wai’ what was it again?”
“Apple Bloom,” Apple Bloom said feeling wearier than she had a right to be. “An’ Sweetie Belle is your pink haired white friend, the really nice one who’s going to bring the doctor.”
“I know who szhe is, um...”
“Apple. Bloom.”
Once the doctor jogged in again, herded along by an insistant white unicorn filly, she knelt down beside Scootaloo. “Don’t worry miss, forgetting names is perfectly normal.” The doctor told Scootaloo soothingly. “I know it’s very scary since you’ve never had a seizure before, but your memories might be a little... jumbled for a while. Since you have no history of seizures, there isn’t likely to be any long term damage at all in your left temporal lobe. It should get better all on its own, but it might take some time.”
“Oh, sso, remembering, uh... her,” Scootaloo said, pointing a hoof in Apple Bloom’s direction.
“Ah’m Apple Bloom!” she said furiously for the umpteenth time, furious that the princess would do this to Scootaloo.
“Apple Bloom! Tha’s it!” Scootaloo said with a relieved smile flashing on her face. “Oh man Apple Bloom, I’m sho sorry it’s just the name was just...”
“The left temporal lobe is the part of your brain that stores names of things,” the doctor explained simply. “Unfortunately, epileptic seizures often begin in that region of the brain. Think of it like turning on all your neurons at once. That drains the neurotransmitters from your synapses, making the connections not work, regardless of how strong they normally will be.
“So, the hardest thing for you to remember should be words or names,” he concluded. “None of the connections have been cut, or atrophied. It’s only temporary. Once your neurotransmitters replenish themselves, you should have no problem remembering the names of things... or people.”
The doctor gave Scootaloo a sad look and added, “Some evidence shows that the names of people close to you are all stored in one very specific place at the front of the temporal lobe. So, if you forgot Apple Bloom’s name, it probably means that spot got hit, and that she’s very important to you.”
He turned to Apple Bloom then and said more disapprovingly, “And if you try to judge her for something beyond her control, you’ll have the wrong idea about what’s really going on every time.”
“Oh,” Apple Bloom said sinking down guiltily, and blushing submissively, “Eh heh... guess maybe I shouldn’t get mad over it then.”
“It’s also normal for the patient to forget everything that happened shortly thereafter,” the doctor said, turning to Scootaloo and saying, “I’ll make sure to write down everything I told you, so you can pick it up again if you need some time to recover.”
“I’m not forgetting shtufff,” Scootaloo said self consciously. “I feel fine, jus’ a headache, and that’s it.”
“You might not feel like it,” the doctor said sympathetically, “But what you think you’re remembering now might not stick for a while.”
“Hthen why are you even talking to me?” Scootaloo said in angry sorrow, twisting in her mother’s arms. “I don’t hwant this! I can’ even shpeak good anymore!”
“Honestly, the best thing for you to do now is probably to sleep it off,” the doctor said. “And recover your—”
“No!” Scootaloo, Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle all shouted at once.
“No,” Apple Bloom repeated more levelly, “No sleeping until we’re sure it won’t happen again.”
“I don’t what this to happen ever again...” Scootaloo whimpered, burying her face in Cheerilee’s shoulder.
“We’ll go to sleep first,” Sweetie Belle said in tense suggestion, “And if the coast is clear, Scootaloo can go to sleep.”
“How’ll I know?” Scootaloo asked worriedly.
“Just give us ten minutes,” Apple Bloom said thoughtfully. “We’ll be sure to wake up the moment we so much as even see the princess, so if’n we don’t then it’s safe. Ah won’t let her so much as even touch you again...” and she found her voice shook with a hot rage that scared even her. “Ah don’t care if she’s a princess,” Apple Bloom whimpered petulantly, “Ah won’t let her hurt mah friends!”
It was so hard to fall asleep when you’re excited and angry, but Apple Bloom had a lot of practice, and her friends were counting on her, so she managed it. When Apple Bloom went to sleep again, she found herself standing on Promise Peak outside her farm. It was a normal place for her to dream up, but she went instead to the big red farm house, and made her way into its much more secure feeling confines.
Apple Bloom didn’t catch so much as a whisper of the princess, not that she could really do anything about it if the princess really wanted to mess them up, but she had to try. Sweetie Belle came by next, when Apple Bloom was in the middle of making a blanket fort, that would serve as the tunnel to Scootaloo’s dream, wherever the orange filly popped out. (Scoots wasn’t that consistent in dreaming yet, and who knows where it was gonna be this time?)
Sweetie found her way to their farm house easily enough, popping out from a hatch in the floor that led to one of her classes in the high school. The unicorn locked the hatch behind her then, if that would help, and they both went through the blanket fort. They found Scootaloo, once she started dreaming... of the castle town again. As that familiar yet terrible vista surrounded them, Apple Bloom had a moment of terrible panic, before realizing that she still couldn’t see the dream princess.
Maybe Apple Bloom had hit her harder than she thought she did?
Well, now Apple Bloom was feeling kind of guilty that maybe she hurt the dream princess. But not guilty enough to go looking for trouble. So once Scootaloo came around, the three of them hustled back through one of the cottage doors, into a surprisingly modern looking living room, where a number of stools had been moved so a blanket could be draped over a table. They snuck through that, and kicked it down behind them so nobody could follow once they got back to the farm house. That was as near as Apple Bloom could figure, the best way she could make sure that all three of them were safe.
Even in her dreams, Scootaloo wasn’t doing so well. She wasn’t slurring anymore, but she kept spazzing out, like going left and right at the same time somehow, just for a moment, before snapping back to herself. They talked to her though, and led her through a journey of discovery, mostly by way of flashcards mouthdrawn in brightly colored crayon. It was kind of boring actually, but none of them really wanted to do anything exciting anymore.
When they did wake up, quite late into the day, Scootaloo was... better. Her headache faded away, and she wasn’t slurring anymore while awake. She didn’t remember a thing about the night before, even the part where she was talking and stuff! Nothing about the dream itself, of course. She didn’t even believe them at first!
“Come on, a seizure?” Scootaloo said jokingly, searching their faces for shenanigans. “I’m not that messed up!”
“We were in your dream at the time,” Sweetie explained, “So it was easy for the princess to mess you up, and thankfully it was just temporary.”
“Here, the doc gave us some information,” Apple Bloom said, grabbing the notes he left in her mouth and tossing them over to Scootaloo. “Says you ran outta neurotransmitter somethings, on account of she blasted ya.”
“You’re serious,” Scootaloo said looking up from the paper with a raised eyebrow. “The dream princess? She’s the nicest princess she could be! I don’t think she could even hurt a fly!”
“Well, she did,” Sweetie told Scootaloo frankly, “We showed her your dream of the castle town, and then she filled it up with dream ponies. Then she went crazy, and said she remembered, and then she attacked you!”
“Used her horn on you!” Apple Bloom said vindictively. “Twilight said—the real Twilight said it was real dangerous to do that, and she still did! Said she had to!”
“She probably even gave you amnesia, so you wouldn’t remember it,” Sweetie added. “But I swear you were there, and even awake for a little, after the seizure!”
“You really saw me having a seizure?” Scootaloo said, looking at her hoof and shaking it, as if to dare it to start spasming.
“Well, nobody noticed any sort of seizure,” Sweetie corrected her earlier claim, “But the doctor said they aren’t always obvious, and don’t usually last very long. You were just... really out of it when they got there. You were talking, but upset because you started lisping again. And also upset because they said you wouldn’t remember maybe.”
“Well, I guess I would be upset,” Scootaloo said noncomittally, “But now it just seems weird. I don’t remember that at all!”
“Guess you have to wait for her to go after one of us, before you get to see how weird it is,” Apple Bloom said in a half joking tone. “It was so weird. You even forgot our names! Quick, what’s mah name?”
“Apple Bloom?” Scootaloo said uncertainly. “Get out. How would I forget your name?”
“You totally did!” Apple Bloom crowed impishly. “You were all ‘Hey there uh... hold on, it’s right on the tip of mah tongue’ And I’m all ‘Ah’m Apple Bloom!’ Then you forgot again! Ah didn’t even know memories could be just turned off like that!”
Scootaloo shuddered, saying, “Yeah that’s... kinda creepy. I don’t ever want to forget who you are.”
“Wayl if she gets me next, you cain see for yourself,” Apple Bloom insisted. “It all came back to ya, so no harm done, right?”
Scootaloo shrugged at that. “I can’t believe the dream princess would do that,” she said in confusion. “She’s a total pushover!”
“Yeah, she just went crazy for no reason,” Apple Bloom said shaking her head. “Guess she really is crazy.”
“Maybe there was a reason, but none of us understood it,” Sweetie Belle said. “She even told us that she had to do it. Maybe she was possessed?”
“By what?” Apple Bloom retorted.
“By a nightmare?” Sweetie guessed. “I don’t know. But she wasn’t just doing it randomly. Don’t you remember all those other pony people running around?”
“What part of amnesia do you not get?” Scootaloo griped at Sweetie, who of course shook her head and said,
“No, I meant Apple Bloom.”
“Ah remember all those ponies running around,” Apple Bloom said. “They sure seemed scared of something. But ah wasn’t exactly paying attention, because that’s when the princess attacked!”
“I’m just saying there was something else going on there,” Sweetie insisted. “She said she—remembered...”
None of the three of them, and for what it’s worth not any other pony, saw any sort of dream princess that night. Apple Bloom was honestly starting to get worried. She wouldn’t be able to live with herself if she’d gone and hurt the dream Twilight, and she couldn’t get better or anything. But Twilight’d almost done the same to Scootaloo, and there really wasn’t anything Apple Bloom could do about it yet.
So the days went by.
Twilight Sparkle used her multi-digit hand to place another pin in the map of the city that they had up on the wall. They were out of their trailer now, and set up in a portable building. Though it was pretty sparse on the inside, just a shack really, and had a very poor level of climate control, it kept back the blustery wind and kept them from being rained on at least.
She stepped back to look at the map, and once again all the pins of people becoming ponies had an apparantly random distribution, with no pattern to it at all. It wasn’t centered on the portal, nor on Sweet Apple Acres. It was just... all over! Red pins indicated approximately where people were when they started changing. Blue pins indicated where they lived, and green pins where they worked.
“Any ideas?” Sunset Shimmer said unhopefully to Twilight. Twilight shook her head, turning to the flame haired girl who was standing next to her.
“I can’t make heads or tails of it,” Twilight said, “All I know is the standard deviation in location is greater than the sample size, no correlation whatsoever. I’ve studied statistics, but...”
“We need something like a whole team of analysts working on this,” Sunset grumbled in frustration. “But this city doesn’t even have a college of higher learning. It’s just this high school thing.”
“And a research laboratory on biochemical synthesis,” Twilight pointed out unhelpfully.
“We had more luck with those forensics guys,” Sunset said shaking her head. “And they don’t see any connections either.”
“There is, um... you know,” Twilight mumbled, running her hands over each other. Sunset cut her right off,
“No. No you do not want to deal with that guy. He’s absolutely infuriating.”
“Well, he is a statistics profess—”
“He’s like the crankiest old bastard that I’ve ever met!” Sunset said, throwing up her hands. “I never got any answers out of him, only a depressing, pessimistic worldview that he feels like he has to push on everyone.”
“I have to admit I’m curious what he’s like in this world, even if he is as unpleasant as in our world,” Twilight said, crossing her arms thoughtfully.
“I can’t believe you’re the one suggesting it,” Sunset said in bafflement, “You actually met him, in all his horrible glory, and you think he’s any better here, just because nobody has any magic?”
Sunset turned to the map again, uttering gloomily, “It’s not like finding out where this is coming from will help at all. You still have no magic. I still have no magic.”
“It’s only a matter of time, at this point,” Twilight said pleadingly. “When the phenomenon reaches us, we’ll be able to do something about it!”
Sunset didn’t cheer up at that, just sat down on one of the beds with a huff. “You more than me,” Sunset said, staring at her feet. “I’m just another unicorn, remember?”
Twilight looked at Sunset with a heavy heart, not sure if there was anything she could say to cheer her up, considering what Twilight really was under this human guise.
“Don’t underestimate yourself,” Twilight decided on saying eventually. “I did become technically more powerful in my princess role, and I don’t know how to say this right, but... a lot of my potential has already been realized. I don’t want to call it tunnel vision, but... the more I adapted to it, the more everything just started looking like a nail. When you know what works, you use it right?
“I guess I’m trying to say that being a princess is a lot more passive than you might have thought,” Twilight said modestly, “Your ability to use your magic with impunity, I truly feel that you still have a big role to play in all of this.”
“Those are nice words, princess,” Sunset said bitterly, “But in the end, you know who’d win in a magic duel. I just... all these years, and I still can’t get over it. I don’t just want to be a unicorn. I want to be something special!”
“Like, a human?” Twilight offered playfully. Sunset couldn’t help but smirk at that.
“Nope, totally sick of being a human,” she replied. “Been there, done that. Heck, I’ve been a human longer than I’ve been a pony!”
“You must be looking forward to it even more than I am, then!” Twilight said with starry eyes. “So long without it, you’re finally going to be able to stand on four hooves again! Doesn’t that make you feel absolutely terrific?”
“Honestly?” Sunset said, sitting next to Twilight on the bed. “It makes me feel absolutely terrified.”
Apple Bloom was tired. She was tired! Something kept poking her.
“Grmuwph” she said articulately.
“Apple Bloom, c’mon, wake up,” whispered Applejack, nudging Apple Bloom through the covers again. “Come on, Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle. Time to get up and at ‘em.”
“Already?” Sweetie Belle whined. “But I'm still tired!”
“Well ah am too,” Applejack said frankly, “But school is school. You three have to get up now, if’n you wanna make it today.”
Scootaloo appeared to be attempting to smother herself with the pillow, mumbling into it, “Not again…”
To get an idea of just what is going on here, some time had passed since the dream princess’s strange attack, and Apple Bloom’s first attempt at attending school. It had been a total disaster, but instead of discouraging anyone from repeating that, Apple Bloom found it seemed to convince everyone that it was super gosh darned important for her to attend! With more and more pony people showing up, and it wasn’t showing any sign of abating, the farm just couldn’t house all those bodies. And what that meant is those people needed to be housed somewhere else. Somewhere like the house they came from. Or apartment, or flat, or orphanage, or what have you.
Or school.
As Granny explained to Apple Bloom, “People changed into ponies, fer sure, but they gotta go back to their old lives somehow.”
“Buh Gimmle,” Apple Bloom had said in response, looking up from her business sweeping scattered bits of hay off the floor. She was using a broom, okay? A broom. Okay a brush, but it might as well have been a broom. “But Granny,” she repeated, dropping the brush out of her mouth into the crook of her hoof, “Ah don’t think there’s one single pony ready to do that! They cain’t do their jobs, or study in school. Most of ‘em don’t even know how to talk, yet!”
“They gotta make enough space, somehow,” Granny insisted, dumping out the contents of Apple Bloom’s dustpan. “There are new ponies coming in. We just ain’t got the space!”
Granny Smith was right. Ponies needed to feel like they could go back to their lives, just like normal people. And that was where Apple Bloom, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle came into play. The plan was to have the school remain a no-press zone, to prevent from alarming any new, or not-so-new ponies. The first time the three crept through those halls, Apple Bloom was sure there was no way this could possibly work. Somehow, someone was gonna ruin their day. But then, she and her friends made it through their classes... separately, and met together without incident. And that was that.
Apple Bloom couldn’t help but feel a bit snubbed, that she’d had so much trouble when she was on her own, and now nobody was bothering with them.
The Cutie Major Crusaders were the best at being ponies, of anyone on the farm, so they were the best candidates to return to some semblance of normality. Noi being the next best, she didn’t have a school to return to. Her job was still fairly unaffected by ponies, and she certainly wasn’t going back into it any time soon. But Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo all had already established classes to attend, even if they had almost none of the same classes together. That would, the authorities hoped, warm people up to ponies rejoining society. The three of them could be the model for anyone forced to come after them in desperate times.
So that’s what was going on. Dawn hadn’t even cracked and Applejack was lightly shoving Apple Bloom, who struggled to swallow the acidic crankiness that rose up in her breast at the thought of getting up early, again. Apple Bloom tried her best to be a model citizen for reintroduction and all. But she just hated getting up so early
Three pony zombies crept downstairs, trying their hardest not to awaken any other ponies or humans littering the Apple Family household. Of the ponies they awoke who were foals, those ones just went back to sleep after waking up, and Apple Bloom envied them so much right now. She felt achy, and droopy, and her voice was creaky, and she just wanted to crawl under the warm covers and continue avoiding dreaming of the princess ever again.
The problem with the princess wasn’t making matters any easier. Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom were sticking close to Scootaloo in their dreams now, but neither hide nor hair of the dream princess had shown up or tried to go after Apple Bloom’s scooter loving friend. Nor had the princess shown up to apologize, for that matter. That left the three of them on edge, even in dreaming. Losing sleep because of school, and not getting as good of sleep because you’re always looking over your back for a princess who was completely flipping insane, and dangerously so.
To make things even dicier, Noi decided she wanted to walk through dreams too.
Noi tried to play it down as just for fun, but she was obviously worried sick about a bunch of kids wandering around with some psycho, who could go after them at any minute. After what happened to Scootaloo, it was clear that the dream princess was a very real danger. As a cop, and as an older woman even if only in spirit, Noi felt it her duty to protect the three of them. Or whatever she could do, with these new pony dreams of hers.
So they had to figure out a way to teach Noi the delicate art of pulling onesself out of one’s own dream, while making Noi think she was the one running the show. Then they had to wake up after way too little sleep, so they could make it downstairs before the Apples took their truck down into town, in order to reach school for first period.
Well, needless to say, Cheerilee wasn’t going to be driving her daughter down the road any time soon, at least not in any sort of vehicle. Rarity was always there to pick up Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo at first, but it was exacting a toll on Rarity to drive all the way across the city and back, just to get her younger sister to school, so instead Rarity just started meeting Sweetie, who came in with Apple Bloom and Scootaloo when one of the humans here loaned their minivan to Granny Smith so she could get the lot of them over there.
The Apple family tried to make things as easy for the three as possible, waking them up only when they absolutely needed to get going. But that meant having to hurry into poorly fitting, uncomfortable clothing, and getting in the back of the van, and...
and...
toast.
Apple Bloom wanted to cry. She had in her little yellow hooves a piece of cold toast. She couldn’t help make waffles today, or use her mouth to scrape the spatula around a pan full of fried hash browns. She couldn’t have a pot of warm, delicious, filling oatmeal. No, all she had time to eat was toast, and they had to eat it on the way, so it got cold. That was her breakfast now. That was her life now.
She did cry... the first day the three of them returned. She was the only one. The other two couldn’t understand why Apple Bloom was so upset over having to eat dry cereal, when she’d already been eating hay, and she wasn’t really sure she understood it either.
But today was like, the second week of it, the seventh day of returning to school, so Apple Bloom didn’t cry. She didn’t do anything today other than stare crabbily at her stupid piece of toast, trying to work up the will to eat it when she’d really rather be sleeping right now.
Things got... better towards the middle of the day. Apple Bloom woke up, stopped falling asleep in her chair at least. She packed a snack of hay and crackers, and just a little bit of cheese, and that got her blood flowing a bit better than just toast.
But golly, what were they even studying? It’s not that Apple Bloom couldn’t grasp what they were studying. That happened to her in Geometry, not in English. But now in English, they were reading about someone called Holden Caulfield, and Apple Bloom could honestly not imagine anyone on the planet she identified less with. He was just some whiny, stupid teenager, and that’s coming from the perspective of a whiny, stupid teenager. That was supposed to make him deep and thought provoking, somehow. Apple Bloom just wanted to kick the book out the window when he got in his stupid car and tried to kill himself. Big surprise there.
People still wouldn’t stop giving Apple Bloom looks in class, and treating her like she was some kind of toy, not a real person. And Ms. Harshvoice still wouldn’t call on Apple Bloom to speak, because of her stupid accent! Apple Bloom tried affecting a British accent once. She got about half a sentence in, before choking. It just did not sound like her. Who the heck says “cahn” instead of “cain” anyway, and why's saying it that way so superior?
After a breakfast of lukewarm toast, and a terrible morning, Apple Bloom was just trying to get through English class, when she saw her two best friends, just standing on the green out the window, and waving at her cheekily. Apple Bloom stared out at them in astonishment, but then looked away to avoid drawing attention. She looked up at the teacher, and around at the students working on their essays.
Aw what the heck, why not go join them? It sure beat trying to finish an in-class essay on the reasons behind Holden’s suicide attempt, when you don’t have any chance of finishing, because you write about 10 times slower than everyone else, on account of you have to use your mouth. So, spitting out her pencil, Apple Bloom cursed the name of whoever thought it was a good idea to put an eraser on the end of these things, and glanced thoughtfully up at Ms. Harshvoice.
She wasn’t watching Apple Bloom specifically, but she was keeping a general eye on the class. They’d be expected to discuss their essays at the end of the class period, but Apple Bloom was just sick of it. Just sick and tired and done with it. So what she did was she put up her binder so it looked like she was working behind it, and cautiously removed her bow, clipping it on the uppermost ring, right where it would pop up over the edge if her head was there.
Then Apple Bloom shimmied easily off her seat, landing on the stiff linoleum floor relatively quietly. Now, granted that didn’t make any sense, but neither did snowballs. Apple Bloom found she could avoid clopping noisily on hard surfaces, just by sort of... pulling back when she put her hooves down. She still winced at the slight amount of unavoidable noise her hooves made, but with her decoy in place the teacher wasn’t looking around for any sounds of missing students quietly clopping around.
Free from her desk, Apple Bloom now had a forest of table legs and human legs to navigate. She dragged just the belt of her bookbag with her, tip toeing lightly across the dangerous territory. Once she got to the door, Apple Bloom risked a look where Ms. Harshvoice was sitting, but the lady wasn’t even looking at the door. She was looking the other way entirely! So with her eyes glued on her English teacher, Apple Bloom slipped her belt loop over the door handle, and pulled, carefully sliding the door open just a crack, so she could slip out to the hallway, and freedom.