"What now?"
"Well dearie," the nurse paused. "If it's okay with you I would like to ask you some questions."
Here it comes. This is when she starts asking why a child was out alone in the forest anyway. Where I had to come up with a cover story, at least until I could gauge how they’d react to the truth. Or at least, the truth as I saw it.
She no doubt thought I was a runaway. If I was lucky, she'd assume I was being childish and over-reacting about something trivial and that's why I ran. The other option that I could think of was that I would be considered a runaway because of something like abuse, which would make everything more complicated.
I could try and convince her of the former, but then again, I was coming in with a closed fracture. I could try and say I got that in the forest, maybe that the timberwolf did that, bu- shit, that wouldn't work anyway, there were no bite wounds on that leg. She'd have to have seen the bite wounds on the rest of my body though.
So here's the problem, I'm a god-awful liar. So I could either come up with that convincing cover story in the next couple of seconds, or… tell the truth.
Shit.
"May I ask what you were doing in the forest in the first place?" Sweetheart gave me one of those fake smiles obviously reserved for children.
Fuck it, don’t really have much of a choice here, do I? Truth it is.
"I got lost."
"I see," Sweetheart nodded. "Did you get separated from somepony?"
Ugh, somepony. Ew. Just say somebody like a normal person.
"Clearly at some point, considering there's nobody here with me."
Sweetheart gave me an almost certainly fake chuckle. "Well can you tell me what happened since you were last with somepony you recognized?"
Well, here goes nothing.
"Jumped off a train," I said casually.
Well I assume I jumped off the train. I look like I got some distance from the tracks so I wasn't pushed or tripped. It was either being thrown, unlikely with a world of quadrupeds due to biology, or jumped.
"Beg pardon?" Sweetheart blinked in confusion.
"Jumped off a train." I repeated, shrugging.
"Wh-what would possess you to do that?!"
"It seemed like what all the cool foals were doing." I shrugged again.
I mean, back home there was a popular internet challenge that had teens snorting condoms, so I felt this wasn't too weird.
Sweetheart took a moment to soak in what I was saying as my mind wandered.
I was still a po- still a kirin. Nothing changed overnight. My faculties all seemed to be there and all seemed to point at not being human anymore.
Great, so… shelve that for later. This is real. Go into shock later.
Wait, what if I was dead?
I could have been drunk and choked on vomit while asleep, or been walking, had another fainting spell, hit my head on a corner, and bled out.
Okay, calm down, ground yourself, what are you feeling physically? What’s around you?
Well, a lot of things actually, it feels like my field of view is massively larger. Probably because I have giant-ass fucking eyes now.
I could feel a soft surface under my hooves, and still smell what was apparently actual antiseptic (I blame my much larger nose). I could also feel the cast covering my hoof, feeling like when you cover your hands with hot glue as a kid so you can peel it off, but all over.
There was one more sensation I couldn't place, because it felt like it was behind my body, but not even attached to my body. It felt like I could feel the bed under and behind me. I kind of half limped in a circle, trying to find the source of the sensation, but it kept following my back. It wasn't until I caught Sweetheart giving me a weird smile out of the corner of my eye until it dawned on me what it was.
My tail.
I had a tail now.
And had been furiously chasing it like a puppy.
Well that's an interesting start.
"Uhm." I cleared my throat, my cheeks burning. "Forget you saw that, please."
"Of course, dear." The nurse smiled. This one looked genuine. "But you didn't answer my question. Why in Celestia's name would you jump off a train?"
"Don't remember." I replied nonchalantly. It wasn't a lie.
"Hm." The nurse hummed. "What do you remember before that?"
Shit.
"I was uh… just at home. Drawing a picture."
The nurse nodded.
"Okay Sunny, I'm gonna go run these notes over to the doctor. Please stay here."
I nodded and she left.
Blowing out slowly, I collapsed onto my back. No doubt they would be starting to file some sort of report with the police. They would be searching for my parents, and interviewing them. It was fair to assume I did have some guardian of some sort to get me on the train, who would be searching for me at the nearest possible stop. Assuming that next stop was Ponyville, this should be solved quickly. But if the next stop wasn’t Ponyville, or if this body was just poofed up magically, then I’m an injured child who just had a traumatic experience, and refused to give up information on a family I didn’t know existed.
I had no experience working in hospitals, but in that situation, enough red flags would be thrown up that any dolt with half a brain would be dialing up Child Protective Services. Or whatever the Equestrian equivalent would be.
It was lose-lose. I was either in the body of a child that already existed, had a past, and might have been trying to get away from somebody for a very good reason, or had some very serious mental issues; or I was a child that would have no relatives or paperwork, and it could almost be assumed was an abuse victim of some variety.
Honestly, I didn’t know which was worse. If it was the former, my belligerence might have me walking back to an abuser with a smile on my face.
Or I could just have been having a temper tantrum and jumped off a train to act out. In which case, I was a little bitch, which also wasn’t great.
My optimistic line of thinking was interrupted by a stallion with a tan coat, glasses, and a dark brown mane entering. He was wearing white scrubs, but for some reason was wearing a white undershirt with a tie on it, tucked into the scrubs.
“Ah, Sunny.” The doctor greeted.
"Hey, what's up, doc?"
The doctor pretended to look stumped and gazed at the ceiling. He extended a foreleg and pointed at the ceiling above me.
"Looks like that is."
It was a stupid joke, but it eased the environment in the room. I could already tell I was gonna like this pony.
"My name is Doctor Horse, and I'll be the doctor seeing you today, Sunny."
"Alright, cool. So how long I got, doc?"
The doctor gave off a small chuckle. "I'm gonna say probably another year. You're already very old."
Okay, a real comedian. I can dig it.
"You mean my life isn't over as soon as I graduate school?"
"Well I certainly thought so in my last few years of secondary school, but no." The doctor smiled, hanging up two x-rays side by side on the wall.
Quickly scanning over it, I recognized a simple oblique fracture, and the x-ray next to it showing it had been cleanly put back together. I couldn't make out any bone fragments, so the healing process should be simple enough. Though the logistics of a healing broken leg on a quadruped was probably very different than a leg on a biped.
"As you can see here…" the doctor started off.
"The break was clean, it was successfully splinted and casted, and I should put no weight on it for somewhere around a week, then let it bear weight gently, stopping before it hurts." I interrupted.
The doctors eyebrows shot up. "...Yes. Have you broken a leg before, dear?"
They might have done a magical scan of my body while looking for further injuries, and might have noted if they saw a bone with signs of a healed break. If I say yes they could easily catch me in a lie I wouldn't even be wittingly telling.
"Nope!" I put on my best attempt at an innocent smile. "I study medicine sometimes!"
Again, technically true.
"Wow, that's impressive." The doctor gave off an obviously fake excited tone. Maybe I'd thrown him off with my interruption and annoyed him? Oh great, brilliant first impression, me. "Planning on becoming a doctor?"
"Oh, um," I cleared my throat, "just trying to keep my options open."
The doctor nodded. "Good to hear. I want you to put no weight on that leg for at least four days, then no more weight than you can bear. After that, we'll arrange a follow up with your guardians, alright?"
I nodded silently.
"Alright, let's get the nurse in here, then we can get you a lollipop for being such a good patient. What flavor do you like?"
"No than-"
Wait, I was a kid. Well, this body was a kid. No normally functioning kid would refuse candy.
"Do you have chocolate?"