She didn’t have the dream again that night.
Instead, she was greeted by a nightmare about the Ursa Major, which was terrifying up to the point where Princess Luna burst out of a barrel of apples.
“I wonder if Princess Luna can enter my dreams,” Spike wondered idly, spitting out bits of emerald everywhere. “I’m a dragon after all, even if I consider myself a pony.”
“Say it, don’t spray it, Spike.”
“Sorry.”
As it turned out, the letter to Princess Celestia about the time traveling yesterday had been completely pointless; her day had been especially hectic and exhausting, and the moment she’d lowered the sun she pretty much dropped off to sleep immediately. Twilight always felt bad about adding to the workload on days like that. Princess Luna however was willing to listen to the story, and promised to inform her sister at the changing of the orbs. Her own quest to seek the pony whose dream was bleeding into Twilight’s had been unsuccessful; that pegasus had been dreaming again, but remained just out of reach. They would have to wait for the shared dream once more.
Despite her promise in her thought journal the previous afternoon, Twilight had to fight to keep her thoughts from wandering back to the incident as she pondered other things over her oatmeal. Chief on the list was the storm. Ignoring the fact that a lightning bolt that shouldn’t have been kicked out in a built up area had struck the tree (that lightning rod was going to need fixing) she would like to hear for herself what had gone on with the weather patrol. After everypony had returned to the library, the storm’s intensity lessened, but the odd lightning bolt still struck places across the town. She’d included a note about it in her letter to the Princess, so when she did get around to reading it, it would be another thing to bring up at the meeting with the Forecast Centre.
The charity drive didn’t start until mid-morning. That would give her a little time to head out to the patrol HQ first before hoofing it over to the hospital.
“Uh, Twi?”
“Hm? Oh, what is it, Spike?”
Spike pointed wordlessly at Twilight’s bowl, which was empty, and the spoon, which was frozen halfway into her mouth, also empty. Whoops. She giggled. “I guess I’m a little distracted this morning.”
“A little?”
“Okay, a lot.”
“I still can’t get over that we were in Canterlot castle before I was born yesterday.” The baby dragon paused, and scratched his chin. “That kinda made more sense in my head.”
“I know what you mean.” Time travel was mind bending whichever way you looked at it. At that point of time there had been one baby Spike and one Spike moments away from hatching, along with two Rarities, two Rainbow Dashes, two Ditzy Doos, two Applejacks, two Pinkie Pies, two Fluttershies, two of each of the Cutie Mark Crusaders, and three Twilight Sparkles. Add to that another potential set of Element bearers if her interpretation of the slab prophecy was correct, and… no, no, no! Today was going to be a prophecy-free day, darnit! “Can we talk about something else?”
Any casual observer would be able to tell that the unicorn and the dragon weren’t good at small talk with each other. This was embarrassing.
“Uh…” Spike whistled, trying to come up with a new topic, and drummed his claws on the table. “Nice weather we’re having? Oh! That storm yesterday was crazy!”
Yes, it was. Pegasi were capable of some scary things. Never cross a weatherpony - they could zap you when you least expected it. On the other side of it, make friends with one, and they’d be there to deal with any personal rainclouds you were suffering from. Twilight was proud to say she could put names to the faces of every pegasus in the Ponyville Patrol. Most of the faces. Some of them…? Eheh… Yeah.
A not-quite silence reigned, punctuated by Spike’s chewing. It was surprisingly hard to think of something to talk about when you didn’t want to talk about the thing that had been taking up most of your time for the past few days. “So…” Twilight tested her tea; it was still slightly too hot to drink. “Have you got anything planned for today?”
Spike swallowed. “Eh, not really. I was gonna be helping Rarity with her pincushion problem again…” (Twilight winced internally. While she didn’t want to accuse Rarity of taking advantage of Spike’s crush, it couldn’t be healthy for her to keep sticking him with needles.) “…but she said something yesterday before she left about drawing up a new line so she didn’t want to be disturbed.”
Inspiration struck Rarity at the oddest of times. In this case it was pretty obvious, she’d fallen for the past-Meditation Chamber almost immediately, but she could just as easily start doing a dress line based on the critters at Fluttershy’s cottage, or water flowing under a bridge. No doubt she would be occupied for quite a—
Knock, knock. “Twilight, darling, are you there?”
Er-hm.
Well, this was awkward.
With a quick glow of magic, the door clicked open. “Good morning, Rarity!” Twilight said. “What brings you here this early?” Ditzy hadn’t even arrived yet.
“Oh… things.” Rarity was distracted. Seemed to be the general mood today. “Twilight, did you by any chance recover that book on 9th century accoutrements? I’ve decided to try and incorporate some of the styles in it into a dress I’m designing, but for the life of me I’m having trouble remembering some of the details. I thought I’d catch you early just in case you were heading out to solve more of the mystery.”
Accoutrements, Bracers and Cuffs had been one of the books sucked into the past by the lightning fueled spell, and subsequently stored in Ditzy’s saddlebag for the trip to Hoofington and back. Post-transit the bag was a little singed, but fortunately its precious cargo was unharmed. “Yes, I did. Spike!”
“Yeah?”
“Could you possibly fetch Rarity that book she was reading yesterday? I think I put it on the returns trolley.”
“Sure!”
Twilight turned back to her visitor. “He’ll be just a moment. And no, as much as I like mysteries, I’ve decided that today is going to be a prophecy-free day.” She smiled proudly. “I am taking a break.”
There was disappointment on the white unicorn’s face, but she did well to hide it regardless. “Oh, well, I suppose I can understand that. Shadow Spade always needed her downtime between cases. Ah!” Spike appeared and held out the book, his expression assuming that default aloof look he always got when Rarity was around. “Thank you very much, Spikey-wikey.” She rubbed his head. The dynamic between the two of them was hard to keep a firm grasp on. Spike’s crush was pretty obvious to most ponies, but it was difficult to determine if Rarity saw it or if she just saw it as the same chivalry she was determined to see in all stallions. “Sorry to have to rush off again, but fashion waits for no mare!”
“It’s no problem at all, Rarity. I hope your designing goes well!” Oh, right. “Oh, before you go, did you remember the hospital charity drive Nurse Redheart invited us to?”
From just the body language, apparently not. “Oh stars, is that today? Well…” she tapped a forehoof. “I suppose I may be able to find some time if I get my ideas down to a degree of satisfaction… but please, if I am unable to make it, convey my apologies to Nurse Redheart.”
“Will do.”
As Rarity turned to leave, Ditzy came bouncing up the path, and probably would have continued into the doorframe if Twilight hadn’t caught her. As it was she merely slipped and had to cling on to Rarity to prevent herself from falling over. “Hi, Rarity! Hi, Spike! Hi, Twilight Sparkle!”
Cue chorus of “Morning, Ditzy Doo.”
After all the worrying that she’d done yesterday, Ditzy had bounced right back into her usual cheer. While not quite on Pinkie Pie levels, it was still certainly a measure of the town’s overall mood; the faces of the mailmares reflected the attitudes of the ponies they’d already called on. Letting Rarity excuse herself and exit, the pegasus started to salute but caught herself this time. No mail today, but there was a card from Dinky, carefully inscribed with the words THANK YOU and accompanied by a doodle of Twilight’s face. Aww.
Unfortunately, as much as Twilight would have liked to continue teaching a pony who was certainly eager to continue herself, one thing she didn’t want was to put Dinky in the path of any more of the prophecy business. Given that yesterday had been perfectly fine before the time travel experience had come in out of the blue, the risk of it happening again was too great, and once she’d explained this, Ditzy understood perfectly. Sharing a spell was one thing; accidentally leaving her in the past, or even the future if that could happen, would be unacceptable. She would be disappointed, but maybe they could continue on and off after the whole thing blew over.
Safety while dangerous spells were involved was everypony’s concern.
Business concluded, Ditzy proceeded on her schedule, and Twilight went inside to clean up after her breakfast, before securing a few things and heading out to see the weather patrol.
Evidently, judging from the number of ponies mobbing outside the headquarters, she wasn’t the only one with a grievance. Not only was the entire Ponyville weather team there, but joining them were a number of townsponies complaining about damage to property, or damaged business by inaccurate weather. Of course this sort of thing would happen. Wind Chime should have known that.
Did she risk teleporting inside…? There were no magic-boosting stimuli around this time like a charged up telescope or a lightning bolt or a crystal charm… She’d have to try. No way was she going to let current events put her off teleporting for good. Scanning around surreptitiously to make sure nopony was watching, she charged the spell, concentrated on the interior of the building, and… release!
“Gyah!”
Okay, so she panicked a couple of pegasi, still the teleport worked as advertised and nothing untoward had happened. The mob was still shouting outside, the pegasi from Cloudsdale surrounding her were hyperventilating, and Snow Veil looked like she was going to be sick, but Twilight could count it as a minor victory. Taking back control of her own magic one spell at a time. Perhaps the ponies inside with her thought she was going to start shouting, and started backing away, but there was a collective release of held breath when she calmly but purposefully greeted the mare in charge.
A lot of ponies, put in Snow Veil’s position, would have broken down and started crying. Snow Veil looked like she wanted to. Still she put on a brave face, both for herself and for the ponies under her leadership. It was a difficult place to be put in, even for Rainbow Dash, who spent a lot of her time taking the flak for weather decisions. Rainbow Dash had never had a sudden thunderstorm decision dumped on her, though. Rainbow Dash would have fought the instruction with every breath she had, and had argued as much as she could when the order had come down, but as she’d had her authority removed it hadn’t done any good. Her replacement hadn’t really had much choice.
Unfortunately Snow Veil knew as much as Twilight or Rainbow did. They’d merely received the instruction via a messenger from Cloudsdale to put all effort into converting the rain shower into a storm as soon as possible with no explanation. Rainbow’s view of the event had been slightly inaccurate, the replacement team hadn’t been completely spineless, and more than just Snow Veil had questioned it, but they’d basically been threatened with being replaced themselves. Since this would apparently mean the involvement of an official named Doc Stratosphere (Twilight remembered the name, and Rainbow Dash’s reaction to it) they’d just shut up and got on with it, the immediate conversion not leaving any pony spare to go about warning the townsponies.
It had in fact been the first time manufacturing a thunderstorm for many of them, leading to a great deal of inefficiency and mis-aimed lightning bolts. That inexperience had been a chief factor in the lightning strikes on the library, and though the pegasus responsible for them owned up immediately, she swore that she hadn’t kicked the clouds that hard. Perfectly plausible. If it had been a 2 or a 1, maybe less so, but right on the cusp was probably an easy mistake to make. Twilight didn’t know. She’d have to ask Rainbow Dash about it.
But now the weatherponies were stuck in the headquarters, unable to leave for the mob outside, and with showers that needed putting up in the forecast zones surrounding the town.
With this new information that could be easily fixed. Twilight’s learning relationship with the Princess didn’t count for much sometimes, but she was at times regarded with just a bit more authority than others. Ponies would listen to her. This probably would involve saying something that would backfire on her later, but there was one thing she could promise. It was already on the Princess’s radar, after all.
In fact, now was probably a good time to test out that voice amplification spell she’d been reading about. Now, she needed to get outside, and the front door was now a better option over the teleport. Opening it did prove something - she really needed to improve on her timing, as Thunderlane had been in the middle of a knocking barrage and whacked her in the nose as he fell over. That… that was actually a pretty effective way of shutting the crowd up. She helped the pegasus to his hooves, rubbed her nose (that was going to sting a little but he hadn’t hit her that hard), allowed the mob to back up a bit and give her some space, and cleared her throat. Then she cast the spell and opened her mouth.
“Everyp—” OW. Head ringing, she canceled the spell. Her normal voice would do. “Uh, sorry about that.”
“My ears!”
“Um, if I can have everypony’s attention… those of you who can still hear me… I’ve already sent a letter to Princess Celestia about this, and, uh… oh dear.”
Nurse Redheart was not impressed. But at least she took it well.
“I thought today was going to be about getting donations for the hospital, not more patients,” she said sarcastically, carefully peering into Thunderlane’s ear. “Could I ask you not to do that again?”
“Who what?”
“I wasn’t talking to you, sweetie.”
Amplify was going to need a bit of work. It was supposed to be used for orations in big halls where sound didn’t carry well, and Twilight had sorely underestimated the volume it produced. If you thought Princess Luna’s Royal Canterlot Voice was bad… yeesh. At least the aftermath wasn’t that bad, no permanent damage, the affected ponies would just be a little deaf for a while. Still, the message had been communicated, and some of those who had originally stuck around to ask Twilight just what she’d been shouting at were now sticking around for the purposes of the charity drive, which was a plus.
Ponyville Hospital was usually a pretty sleepy institution. You got your minor accidents like DIY injuries, inattentive flight injuries similar to the one Rainbow Dash had picked up a couple months ago, and your usual sicknesses like the common cold and the flu. All that plus Hard Knocks, who was only ever found either in the hospital or falling off a rooftop. All the staff were well-trained, though, and for a town founded with earth ponies in mind they were familiar with the common unicorn and pegasus afflictions. There of course had to be costs. The entire event to be held today was to bring attention to those costs, as well as to some of the more unusual cases that appeared in hospitals all over Equestria that the doctors and nurses needed to be prepared for.
A sudden influx of hearing cases caused by a dodgy spell was basically a walk in the park.
“Yeah…” Twilight laughed nervously. “Well, at least I can say I have experience with that now.”
“And we mustn’t forget mistakes are part of the learning process. Just… next time, can you test it out before using it in a crowded area?”
“Of course.”
“Who’s talking about a cake?”
“You’re not that deaf, Thunderlane.” Redheart was apparently satisfied and pointed him towards the exit of the clinic. “Okay, Twilight, if you could just come over here.”
Naturally Twilight had insisted that everypony else be examined before her, it was her fault after all. By now she was feeling perfectly fine, but she would let the expert determine that. She would much rather trust the mare with the medical training over her own summation, especially after that one time when she got the pony pox as a filly and insisted she’d felt fine right up to the point where she’d fainted. And, unsurprisingly, it didn’t take that long before Redheart declared her perfectly fit (aside from a slight bruise on the nose) if a little stressed.
“You’ve not been stretching your magic too hard after last week?” the nurse asked, as they left the clinic and headed for the lobby. “I heard something about you saying strange things after you left.”
What? Oh, that. “It was just some lingering effects from the spell,” Twilight said, which was actually true. “It cleared up pretty quickly.” She carefully didn’t mention that she’d overcooked several other spells in the intervening period since then. Or that she’d ingested diluted snoozeberry juice. Those would be some difficult questions to answer, especially if she wanted to stay away from the matter of time travel or prophecies in general today.
“Just checking. The number of cases involving out-of-control magic is up this year so far.” Redheart paused at the reception desk to sign a form regarding the temporarily damaged hearing of twenty eight ponies. “Shall we?”
Twilight nodded. Just through the doors in the grounds outside there would be ponies winding up to the official beginning of the drive, setting up the various stalls and events and such. Very few ponies would chance to miss it, though it was unfortunate that Rarity was among their number. Well, she did run her own business, and that was one of the pitfalls.
Thinking of falls… this point wasn’t strictly prophecy related, but this was the likeliest place she’d get answers about it… “Nurse Redheart?”
“Yes, sweetie?”
“I don’t suppose…” this was a shot in the dark “…you know anything of the cases at Canterlot General after Rainbow Dash’s sonic rainboom eleven years ago…?”
Redheart paused at the doorway, and raised an eyebrow. “Why do you ask?”
“Oh, I’m doing a bit of an, uh… an investigation?”
The nurse gave her the look more commonly reserved for ponies lying about symptoms, but seemed to give her the benefit of the doubt. “As a matter of fact, I’d finished my nurse training there the week before. The place was pretty swamped.” She hummed. “I wouldn’t have thought a sonic rainboom would cause that much chaos, especially with how frequent they’ve become, but different circumstances, I suppose.”
“Do you remember any young pegasi who’d fallen in water?”
“There were four, you’re going to have to be more specific.”
Okay, okay, what did the filly look like again? Uh… darn. Try as she might, Twilight couldn’t remember. Too much had happened since that excitement. “Okay, thanks anyway.” It had been a long shot at best. Three other pegasus ponies falling in lakes on the same day? What were the chances of that? Actually pretty high, probably. Her explosion - the one she’d had as a filly, that is - had been powerful to knock nearby pegasi out of the sky, and if any of them had been flying over the castle river, or maybe even over the lake in Canterlot’s park, they too would have received a soaking.
Oh well. Time to move on to more important matters. The event wasn’t going to wait for them, after all.
Most of the drive was being held outside, where the ground was still slightly muddy, betraying the previous day’s storm. Not that it put a damper on what was going on. Amethyst Star had taken the reins as chief organizer for the event, which had probably been a good thing considering Twilight’s recent stress, and she had really gone all out for this one. It wasn’t a party per se, but Pinkie Pie had still been drafted in to handle the cake sale, and her presence alone was brightening the mood. Ponies were selling knick-knacks, Fluttershy was operating a micro-petting zoo, there was face-painting for the foals who would be coming up from the school, all proceeds going to the hospital fund. In fact the only thing that wasn’t there was Cherry Berry’s hot air balloon rides, seeing as said balloon had to join Pinkie’s with the aeronautical repair ponies on the other side of the kingdom. She instead was assisting at one of the knick-knack stalls, occasionally offering friendly jabs over at the pony responsible for the damage, Rainbow Dash, who herself was animatedly preparing for an aerial display.
Rainbow, as well as Rarity, Ditzy Doo, and Spike, had promised not to tell anypony about the whole time-traveling thing. It would be a little awkward to have to explain to Cherry that the sonic rainboom that had crippled her vehicle happened eleven years ago. Applejack, Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy could all be briefed at a later time.
All in all, the event was showing life in Ponyville at its best. Forget all talk of prophecies, time-travel, stolen books. This was a social gathering everypony could enjoy, and all in the name of a good cause.
“Hey Redheart, Twilight!” Rainbow Dash said, waving, when she saw the two of them approaching. “So I hear you’ve been deafening my weather team.”
“Eheheh… yeah.” She was never going to live that down, was she? “The nurse says everypony ought to be fine in a few hours at most.”
“Yeah, I got all that from Icy.” Rainbow gestured over towards one of the nearby houses, where Icy Rain had set herself up on the roof with a deckchair. Despite the entire team’s suspension she at least had been allowed to keep an eye on and direct the replacements where weather surrounding the event was concerned. There was a lot of things Wind Chime could do, but she couldn’t take away their local knowledge. “Don’t worry about it, Twi. We’ve all been through worse. Remember that time AJ was so tired she poisoned half the town?”
Nearby, Applejack waved a hoof in mock indignation.
“One hundred and eight cases of minor food poisoning cleared up by the next day,” Nurse Redheart sighed. “And one dented pride.”
“Ah said Ah was sorry!”
“Aww, you didn’t need to apologize, Applejack, you weren’t thinking straight!” put in Pinkie Pie from the other side of the event area. “That happens to me sometimes too when I go days without sleep planning parties too, which actually happens more often than you’d think but power naps for the win!” She bent down below the cake sale table and brought up a box. “That, and Phruit Phizz, and I’ve got some today so everypony can— hey!”
While she’d been talking, Nurse Redheart had trotted straight over to her and taken the entire box of Phruit Phizz cartons, holding them just out of Pinkie’s reach, which was an impressive feat. “Sorry, Pinkie, but we’ve all got instructions not to let you give these out here,” she explained, ignoring the puppy-dog eyes she was being given. “This is a place of health, not sugar rushes.”
“Meanie.”
“It’s for your own good, Pinkie Pie.”
“O-kay.” Rainbow watched the Nurse carry the box into the hospital, much to Pinkie’s consternation, then turned back to Twilight. “So anyway, yeah. Did Snow Veil tell you anything at all?”
Twilight related the story about the threatened involvement of Doc Stratosphere, and the pegasus let out an annoyed groan. “Oh, great. Figures. I should’ve known he’d be involved somehow.”
“Who exactly is he?”
“It’s a long stupid story and I don’t know half of it.” From the bottom of the hill some more ponies began filtering in. “Long story short, uh… hang on… he’s the sort of guy who’d go into your library and say…” her voice inexplicably deepened in what Twilight guessed was an imitation of his voice “I’m looking for a book. It was blue.”
“That doesn’t sound so—”
“He also thinks he’s got spooky mind powers so everypony knows what he’s talking about even if he hasn’t said anything.”
The unicorn opened her mouth, changed her mind, and shook her head. “Nevermind. Forget I asked.”
“Asked what?”
“About—” Twilight caught herself. “I see what you did there.”
“I wasn’t exactly hiding it, you know? Hey, I gotta go practice, I’ve been working on this sweet move for the finale all morning and I can’t wait to show everypony!”
There was no stopping her when she got giddy like that, so Twilight waved her away, and the pegasus shot off like a rocket around and behind the hospital building, presumably where nopony could see her. The move she mentioned would certainly be spectacular, there would be no denying that, most of her aerial tricks were, she just had to complete them without getting distracted mid-maneuver and crashing. Well, if she did crash, all of the hospital staff were here…
Since she wasn’t helping Amethyst Star with the scheduling, Twilight was essentially just a general jobspony today, helping out the staff and other volunteers as they required it. Of course that wasn’t to say she couldn’t participate in the events either, and she absently levitated a couple of bits into the jar on Pinkie’s stall so she could get a cupcake. Later, Cheerilee would be bringing the school class up, and Doctor Horse would be giving a talk with a brief history of Equestrian medicine and giving examples of cases that had been particularly unusual to deal with (all with the patients’ permission, of course). She was looking forward to attending that.
For now, though, there was work to be done.
“Today is for them
Today is for us
As when we fall down, they help us back up without fuss
Today is for us
Today is for them
It’s time we gave back to those ponies who help us when
If you’re feeling rough, and a little sick
You get yourself to the hospital quick
They’re always helping us ponies in need
So now it’s our turn to help them, you see
You can give a little, give a lot, it’s up to you
We’re all working together, and we’ll see it all goes through
We can all make a difference, yes, you and me
And we’re doing it all in the name of charity”
“The only thing missing is a dunk tank,” Pinkie complained, as Twilight came to exchange the cake sale’s full bit jar for an empty one. “I’d totally pay loads and loads and loads of bits for that!”
“I think the doctors and nurses would rather they stayed dry, Pinkie. We wouldn’t want them to get sick, after all.”
“Eh, true. I’d also be using it all the time too and I’d hate me if I did that. Hi again, Nightingale!”
At first, Twilight couldn’t work out who she was talking to, until Nurse Redheart emerged from the crowd. “Nightingale…?”
Redheart smiled. “Can you tell mom wanted a pegasus? Just passing round the message that you girls can get a free tea for volunteering from the lunch tent.”
Ooh, you could never say no to free tea. Unless it was bad tea. What kind of tea did the hospital staff use, anyway? “Thanks, Nurse.”
“I think it’s only going to get busier, so I’ll let you two—” the nurse stopped suddenly, her ears pricked, her nose scrunched. “Excuse me, there’s a unicorn with a cold somewhere over there.” With that, she practically vanished towards the other side of the event area. Twilight had never seen her move so fast. Pinkie had, apparently, but from what Twilight understood she was constantly getting banned forever for trying to throw parties for the patients. You would need to develop that kind of speed to deal with Pinkie Pie.
Speaking of… the pink pony whipped out a slingshot. “Hey, Applejack!” she called out. “Swapsies!” She let loose with a bit, which sailed off over the crowd. Moments later there was a cry of ‘Heads up!’ and a small apple came hurtling back, which Pinkie caught in her mouth. “Nice!”
Twilight decided to make a getaway move to take the full jar back to Nurse Tenderheart before she got dragged into something.
“They give up their time
Making sure that we’re well
‘Til we feel better, and what was wrong nopony can tell
Now we’re here today
And we’re letting them know
That we appreciate all that they’ve done for us, here we go
Your body aches and quakes, you feel a touch queasy
You just know that they’ll fix you up easy
They’re always helping us ponies in need
So now it’s our turn to help them, you see
You can give a little, give a lot, it’s up to you
We’re all working together, and we’ll see it all goes through
We can all make a difference, yes, you and me
And we’re doing it all in the name of charity”
“They helped me get over the feather flu real quick,” commented Thunderlane, swallowing the muffin he was eating. “That was a relief.”
“Oh, I remember that.” Fluttershy had gone into that particular event with the blues, but afterwards became something of a savior to the town’s pegasi. At the very least it had stopped them all from embarrassing themselves in front of Spitfire of the Wonderbolts. For a pegasus who preferred staying out of the spotlight, she was actually building somewhat of a reputation. “Um… Thunderlane…?”
“Whassup?”
“Um, aren’t you supposed to be helping Icy Rain…?”
“I didn’t hear— ow!”
A shape had loomed up behind the stallion, and cuffed him round the back of the head. “Yes, he is,” said Icy, grabbing Thunderlane by the tail and dragging him away. “You’re not that deaf, cloth-ears.”
“Ooh, and they fixed Rainbow Dash’s wing, too!” Pinkie interjected, before anypony else could comment on the hapless pegasus. “She was doing a bunch of really cool tricks but crashed and then had to spend a few days in the hospital and she spent most of it learning to like books.” She paused, eyes wandering. “I wonder if that’s going to happen again today.”
“Thanks a bunch, Pinkie Pie!” shouted said rainbow-maned mare from somewhere above them. “You’re a real confidence booster!”
“Aw, I try my best!”
“They give it their all
To patch us up when we fall
And they’re always standing by”
The slide changed with a satisfying click. “Now, fillies and colts, does anypony know where we get the word ‘doctor’ from? No? It actually comes from a zebra named ‘Daktari’, who was a pioneer in the area of herbal remedies…”
“We can all make a difference, yes, we’ll all see
And we’re doing it all in the name of charity!”
Doctor Horse hmmed. “Now, this one is a most perplexing case.”
“(What does perplexing mean?)” Scootaloo whispered.
“(It means confusing,)” Twilight whispered back. “(Shh now.)”
“Now, this patient is in Canterlot General Hospital at this very moment,” the doctor continued, reading from a clipboard. “But she was very enthusiastic about her case being publicized like this and actually encouraged it, so we couldn’t say no. Pegasus female, age 28, admitted with insomnia.”
“(What’s insomnia?)”
“(Trouble sleeping.)”
“(Oh. I never get that.)”
“Sometimes, ponies can’t sleep because they’re sick, sometimes it’s because they’re anxious about something. Patient didn’t seem to fall into either of these categories, so she was given standard sleep-aid magic so we could determine more conclusively.” He paused, raised his eyebrows, and looked at the second sheet underneath. “…Patient reported no allergies to medical magic but was still subject to a negative reaction which necessitated a transfer to the Magic Grounding Ward.”
Twilight’s ears perked up; this was getting interesting. It wasn’t uncommon for ponies other than unicorns to be moved to the Magic Grounding Ward, usually if they were suffering from a spell gone wrong, but for a non-allergic sleep magic reaction? She raised a hoof.
“Ah, I see Twilight Sparkle has a question.”
All heads turned to look towards her. “What sort of reaction would require that response?”
“And it’s a good question.” Doctor Horse flicked through the pages on his clipboard again. “She was receptive to the magic and slept, but while sleeping… hm… she was subject to a small magic explosion which blew the north wing’s lights out.”
You didn’t need a Princess-tutored education to work out what was wrong with that, and a few of the adults started muttering quietly. Pegasi and earth ponies did use magic, in their own ways, but only unicorns were at risk of magic explosions.
“Yes, you see why we moved her. In the MGW, we’ve been able to get her to sleep for a few nights, but largely she has remained awake, and our diagnosis attempts continue. So, fillies and colts, what would you suggest we try?”
Twilight had to bite her tongue to stop herself from mentioning snoozeberries.
“Sing her a lullaby!”
“Get somepony to read her a bedtime story!”
“Phruit Phi— mmph!” Pinkie Pie tugged at the zipper on her mouth, then rolled her eyes in Twilight’s direction.
“All perfectly valid options!” Beat. “Except maybe that last one.” Laughter. The slide changed with another click, to show a pegasus sitting up in bed, waving at the camera. “Thanks of course go to the patient for allowing us to discuss her case.”
Everything that had been whirring away in Twilight’s head ground to an abrupt halt as she processed the image on the slide. Orange pegasus. Brown mane. The expression was slightly more frazzled than she was used to, but it was undeniably the same pony. Trouble sleeping, a magic explosion, and the Magic Grounding Ward. Guess that explained why…
It was an agonizing wait, but she caught Doctor Horse as the ponies were leaving to head back to the main event area. “Doctor?”
“Yes, Twilight Sparkle?”
“Is there anything more you could tell me about that pegasus with the insomnia problem?”
The doctor paused in the moment of turning off the projector. “She’s certainly caught your attention, hasn’t she? A most unusual case. I can only say so much, though.”
“I think I might know her… do you have her name?”
This wasn’t strictly prophecy, or time travel. She had free reign to explore this path, and it had been laid out before her like a red carpet. It hadn’t come at the most convenient time, or in a way she’d at all expected, but it had come nonetheless. Without a doubt, the pony in that slide had been the same pony Twilight had seen in her dreams, the pegasus whose memory was ‘bleeding’ into Twilight’s nighttime. Princess Luna had been unsuccessful in finding her in the dream world… but now she had emerged in the real world.
Doctor Horse consulted his clipboard. “Her name is Reeds Melody.”