"Ouch," Fluttershy said with a wince. She felt tears spring into her eyes, but she quickly blinked them away and continued her task.
There were four long, angry red cuts on her left foreleg. The skin around them was pink. They didn't hurt—or at least, they hadn't until she began applying antiseptic. Now, the cuts were stinging, and making her tear up...but she knew how important it was to keep them from being infected.
She soaked another cotton ball in antiseptic, and dabbed it on her wound. She hissed, wincing again. But she had to clean these and put bandaids on them quickly, before—
"Good afternoon, Fluttershy!" Discord's voice called from down the hall. Fluttershy gasped, dropping the cotton ball. She considered hiding her foreleg under the blankets of their bed, but was sure that he would notice. Besides, he would probably arrive any second now.
She heard him teleport in, and lifted her head. He was dripping with syrup and jam, holding a soaked bouquet of toast flowers out to her. "I was a little busy, so I didn't hear you come in," he said with a smile. "How was your—" His eyes landed on the cuts on her foreleg, and he gasped dramatically.
"What in the world happened to you!?" he said. Before she knew it, she was whisked into his arms, and he was gently holding her foreleg to inspect it. She also noticed that the syrup and jam had vanished from his body...though there was still a small puddle of it on the floor, next to the dropped toast flowers.
"It's just a scratch," she told him calmly. "There was a new feral cat at the sanctuary who just gave birth...and when I tried to check on her and her kittens, well..." She pointed at the red claw marks that he was inspecting.
"A mean mama feline, eh?" he said, narrowing his eyes.
"Not really mean," Fluttershy corrected. "Just...not entirely trusting of ponies. And protective of her little ones. I probably should have been more careful...but really, it isn't so bad."
"Not so bad!? I saw you crying!"
She pointed to the bottle of antiseptic. "That's just because it stung while I was cleaning it." She shifted in his arms. "Could you put me down, now?"
"Oh...right," he said, laying her gently on the bed. But as she was reaching for the bottle, a flash of light engulfed Discord, and a doctor's coat and stethoscope appeared on him.
"Mrs. Chaos, allow me to assist you," he said. With a snap of his fingers, bundles of bandages appeared, along with a gigantic tube of ointment that he had to carry under his arm. "After all, the best way to let that heal is to not use that foreleg, right?"
"That's for broken bones and sprains," she corrected. He pouted, his pupils becoming wide and shiny. She closed her eyes, wondering why he had to be so convincingly cute sometimes. "But, I...wouldn't mind having some help with this."
He cheered, jumping into the air as fireworks went off behind him. "Now, first question—are you sure you don't want me to just snap the problem away?"
She shook her head. Discord occasionally offered to heal her minor scrapes and cuts with a snap of his claws. She usually turned him down (unless the injury was major, or she had too many of them to count), and had explained that he didn't want him to waste his magic on something that would only take a few days to heal.
Discord had accepted this a while ago, and didn't seem surprised at her answer. "Very well," he said. "Step one is...clean the wound, right?"
"I've done most of it, but it wouldn't hurt to touch it up with antiseptic," she said with a nod. He grabbed the bottle of antiseptic and poured a little onto a clean cloth handkerchief.
"This...will sting," he said softly and with a frown. The cloth hovered just over her scratches, "...I don't want to cause you pain."
She blinked, then smiled softly. She reached up and gently patted his cheek. "It'll just be a little stinging," she said. "And it'll keep my scratches from hurting more in the future."
"Right..." he said, relaxing. Slowly, he pressed the cloth against her foreleg, and began to gently rub it against her scratches. She did her best to hold perfectly still, and blinked quickly to keep herself from tearing up—she didn't want him to stop out of worry for her.
In just a minute, he had finished cleaning, and lifted the cloth away. "There," he said, dropping it into a bright yellow biohazard container, which closed and locked itself once he had done so. "An ointment comes next, right?"
She nodded. "An antibiotic one," she said. "To keep bacteria from entering the wound."
"And then a bandage, as a shield against outside invasion!" With a flash of light, his white coat transformed into white armor, and he held a shield with a red cross that was nearly as tall as he was. She giggled and nodded, and his grin widened.
He set the shield aside, and made his armor vanish. With another snap, the huge jar of ointment teleported into his arms, and he sat in front of her, unscrewing its lid.
She held her foreleg out to him as he began to gather plenty of the goop on his fingers. Slowly, he lifted his hand out and began to dab it onto her scratches, making her shiver a bit.
"Now, most ointments I see boast about being triple antibiotics," he said conversationally as he applied plenty of the ointment onto her scratches.
She nodded. "That's pretty common," she said. "I think that's what most of the ointments I keep at the sanctuary are."
"Well," he said, puffing up his chest. "This ointment has five antibiotics in it! Even more protection for my Fluttershy."
She smiled, giggling a bit. She shivered whenever the cold ointment reached an untouched part of her scratches, but Discord was very gentle applying it. He continued to apply liberal amounts to her skin, smoothing it out flat with his fingers.
Once her scratches were completely covered, a faucet appeared, floating in midair, which he used to rinse his hands off with. "Now that it's been cleaned, and you're protected from infection," he said as he pulled up a part of his coat to use as a towel, "The only thing left to do is bandage it, right?"
"Mhmm," she said with a nod. She reached for the bandages, but they floated up into the air and out of her reach.
"Tricky thing, isn't it?" he said, snatching them out of the air. "I can help with this part, too."
"You're sure?" she asked. "I don't want this to be any trouble for you."
"Fluttershy, you couldn't cause trouble for a mayfly," he said, already unraveling the bandages. "...I can't promise that this will be the best bandaging job in the world, though."
"That's okay," she says. "As long as it covers everything, and isn't too tight or loose, it'll be fine."
He nodded in understanding, and, sticking out his tongue, taped one end of the bandage just above the scratches. He began to wrap the bandages around her leg, carefully making sure that none of her scratched leg would be left exposed.
It was a quick job, if a bit sloppy—the layers didn't line up perfectly, and he had put two layers of bandage in some places, with just one layer in others. "Not too tight anywhere, is it?" he asked, ready to cut the bandage off of the roll.
She shook her head. "Not loose anywhere, either."
"Glad to hear it!" he said. With a snip of scissors, he cut the bandage, but quickly grabbed the loose end. With a little bit of pulling and tugging, he tied it off into a large bow, just above her hoof.
"There," he said as she examined his work, marveling at the bow. "Mrs. Chaos, your wound is now sure to evade all infection and heal properly!" He leaned forward, and in a stage whisper, asked, "That's true, right?"
She nodded. "All we can do now is wait for it to heal. And it shouldn't take that long...they're pretty shallow, and don't hurt."
"Oh, I just remembered!" he said suddenly as the medical supplies vanished. "There's one last trick to make this feel better...a trick I learned from you!"
She raised an eyebrow, looking at him curiously. He gently picked up her hoof, lifted it a little higher...and then bent his neck to place a gentle kiss on it.
The gesture made her giggle and blush. "Why, thank you," she said. "It's starting to feel better already." She leaned forward and kissed his nose. "Thank you for your help."
His tail wagged and his ears wiggled. "It was no trouble, really," he said. He scooped her into his arms, bridal-style. "Now, what say we have frozen yogurt together? A frozen treat is just the thing you need after seeing a doctor, right?" His white doctor's coat appeared on his body again.
She smiled up at him. "The kind of frozen yogurt where we choose our flavors and toppings?" He nodded. "Well, that does sound very good..."
"Then away we go!" he said, pointing his finger to the sky and flying towards the kitchen. She smiled and curled closer to his chest, holding her bandaged foreleg a little closer to herself.