“Hello?” a little voice squeaked out in front of the receptionist's desk, the mare behind it looking up from the book she was reading. She was a little bit surprised to see a small pegasus filly standing in front of her, one all alone in the waiting room, without her parents or anypony else around in what was the middle of the night. The mare leaned down to get a good look at her as she spoke.
“Yes, dear?” she asked politely. “What is it?”
“My heart is burning really badly,” she told her simply, putting a hoof up to her chest for emphasis. “Like, really, really badly.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, sweetie,” the receptionist apologized. She earned a slight squeak and a giggle from the filly before she closed her eyes and moaned, frowning again in obvious discomfort.
“Oh, it burns so much…” she got out as she kept her eyes closed, the mare behind the counter giving her a sympathetic look.
“Well, why don’t we get you back to see the doctor now, dearie?” the receptionist offered as she stepped from behind her desk to lead her to one of the beds in the back. Each bed was partitioned off by a curtain, and contained a simple machine to monitor heart rate and blood pressure. All of the curtains were opened up showing each and every bed was available, the receptionist, filly, and a couple of doctors being the only ones back there. It was a slow night in Ponyville General Hospital.
“You just sit here for a minute dear,” the mare told her as she patted the bed with a hoof and watched as the filly awkwardly climbed up. “I’ll go get the doctor.” With that, she closed the curtain and made the very short journey across the hallway to Doctor Horse, who was already looking her way and taking a few steps forward towards her.
“You’re bringing her back here?” the stallion asked curiously, raising an eyebrow at her. “What’s her issue? Where are her parents?”
“Don’t know,” the mare told him. “I didn’t ask her where her parents were. She said her chest is burning and put a hoof over her heart, so I brought her back here.”
He sighed at that, floating off his glasses and rubbing them with his lab coat as he said, “Well, I’ll take a look at her and see what she’s doing here so late and see if we can’t get in contact with her guardians.” He sounded a bit annoyed as he said it, and slightly tired, but forced himself to smile as he made his way behind the curtain to speak with the filly.
“Hello there little one,” he greeted her, portraying happiness in his voice, a tone he usually used with children. “What’s got you awake past your bedtime tonight?”
“I have heartburn,” she answered simply, her voice a bit squeaky.
“Awww, that doesn’t sound very fun,” he responded sympathetically. “Let’s see what’s going on and what we can do about it. Can you scoot up for me, so your forelegs are over the front of the bed please?” The filly obliged, and the stallion took the stethoscope around his neck and put it to her back to listen to her lungs.
“Is the burning bad right now?”
“Mmm hmm,” she answered as she closed her eyes and placed a hoof back on her chest. “I can feel the acid crawling up my throat,” she explained.
“Awww, I’m sorry. Deep breaths for me,” he told her as he moved the stethoscope to different areas of her back, finding it interesting the way she described what was happening. “Do you have a name?”
“Emily.”
“Ama Lee,” Doctor Horse repeated. “A very unique name for a very unique little girl. It sounds very pretty.”
Emily couldn’t help but giggle at that, smiling and giving a little blush as he said it, making the stallion put on a smile of his own because of it.
“Do you have any parents, Ama Lee?” he asked. “Any brothers and sisters?” At those questions she shook her head, her dark brown mane hitting his muzzle a bit as a result. “You don’t have any parents?” he continued lightheartedly. “That’s silly! Every little filly has parents.”
“I do, but they’re not here,” she told him as he moved on to listening to her stomach and bowels.
“They’re not here? Well where would they be, sweetheart?”
“I don’t know,” she shrugged as though it were completely inconsequential. “I haven’t seen them in a while.”
“Well, I’m sure they're very worried about you. Such a pretty filly like you shouldn’t be all alone. But don’t worry, cause we’ll get that all fixed up, right after we get you all fixed up. Can you tell me where it burns the most?”
“Right in my chest,” she explained, putting her hoof over her heart again. “Right here.”
“Oh, that sounds terrible. Does it ever burn anywhere else?”
“No, just in my chest and throat.”
“How often does that happen?” the doctor asked politely.
“Hmm…” she trailed off thoughtfully. “I think every day… but it’s not that bad sometimes. But a lot of days.”
“Well, let’s get you some medicine, okay, dearie?” the doctor told her as he stepped back a bit and gave her a wide smile. “And then we’ll do some tests and see what’s wrong to make you all better! Does that sound good?”
“Yup!” Emily responded eagerly, sending a smile of her own before he stepped back in front of the curtain and away from her, sighing to himself once he was out of her sight.
“Something wrong?” one of the doctor’s colleagues asked from across the room as they watched him frown.
“It’s nothing,” he explained, sighing again. “I’m just tired. Do we have anypony who can do an EKG with magic? Or do I have to roll in that old machine?”
“This late at night? Probably not. What’s wrong with her?”
“She says she has heartburn,” the stallion explained. “It’s probably nothing, but I want to do an EKG just to be sure. If nothing shows up, I’ll give her some antacids and have her parents bring her in sometime later for a follow-up if it keeps happening. Speaking of which, could notify the Ministry of Foals and Families about her? She actually said she doesn’t know where her parents are.”
“I mean, I can, but with how late it is, we probably won’t hear back until morning. You’re going to be sitting with her all night.”
“It’s after midnight,” the doctor commented as he started to walk off again to get the machine he needed. “I’m sure we can just put her to sleep until somepony gets here. I’ll get a full report for you to send her way.”
Not much longer after that, he found himself wheeling a relatively large machine with his magic across the hospital and back behind the curtain. Emily was laying in the bed right where he left her and singing a song he’d never heard when he got back, a deeply confusing sounding one, too. Something about saints and lullabies?
“I’m back, silly filly,” he started to say, but watched her put a hoof up in response so she could finish her song.
“Destiny is calling me. Open up my eager eyes… cause I’m Mister Brightside,” she sang, ending with an exhale of her breath and putting her hoof back down. Then she looked back up at him and apologized with a bit of a sheepish smile.
“I’m sorry,” she told him. “I couldn’t just not finish my song. It’s one of my favorites.”
Doctor Horse laughed a little bit at that, responding, “It’s okay. It sounded like a good song. But now what we’re going to do is use this cool machine to look at your heart and make sure everything is alright.”
“Okay!” she said with a smile as she lay back in the bed, letting him use his magic to place the electrodes on her chest under her fur. As he did, he tried to make conversation with the filly.
“So what are your parents’ names, sweetie? Where do you live?”
“My dad is Willie, and my mom is Mindy, and… I don’t really know where they live. Like I said, I haven’t seen them in a while.”
“You don’t know where they live?” Doctor Horse asked lightheartedly as he continued to work. “That’s so silly. What do they look like?”
“My dad is black with black hair, and my mom is white with blonde hair, and so I’m brown with brown hair.”
“So it would seem, a perfect color combination. Can you tell me how old you are?”
“Uhh…” The filly trailed off as she looked down at herself, stretching out her legs and examining them. “Twelve?”
The doctor gave her a knowing smile at that answer, telling her, “You know, they say Nightmare Moon comes to take little girls who lie to Tartarus.” The comment earned a squeak along with another giggle from Emily, who was starting to blush a little bit.
“How old do I look?” she asked.
“Well, I’d say you're about four or five years away from being twelve, silly filly. Do you know how old that is?”
“Hmmmm… is that… umm…” She paused for a second to think, tapping her hoof on the bed as if to count before answering, “Seven thousand days?”
“Impressive! Very smart girl you are! You might get a math symbol as your cutie mark.” He spoke as he stared at the screen that showed measurements of how well her heart was doing, saying a moment later, “Everything looks perfect. You look like a very healthy filly to me.”
She frowned at that, telling him, “But my throat is burning really bad. Is there any medicine I can have?”
“You absolutely can have some medicine, but first I have to ask: do you like strawberries better, or cherries?”
“Ummm… if you have plain medicine, can I have that please?”
“I can certainly get you some plain medicine, but you can’t chew it, okay?” the doctor told her as he used his magic to grab a bottle out of a drawer on the other side of the curtain. “And then after this, we need to put tired little fillies to bed, okay?”
“Oh, can I go to the restroom first?” Emily asked. “Also, I just woke up like an hour ago.”
“Well, we can take you to the bathroom,” he told her as he placed a tablet of acid reducer in her hoof, watching as she popped it into her mouth. “But even if you’re not tired, we do have to put you to sleep. Healthy fillies need their sleep.”
“Well, I guess I can try to go to sleep… can I have some water, too, please?”
“We’ll take care of all of that right now, sweetie.”
With that, the doctor led Emily to the water fountain for a drink and then showed her the mare’s room, letting her enter alone. He waited patiently outside the door for her, watching as one minute passed, and then two, then noticing five minutes had turned into ten before knocking on the door.
“Ama Lee? Are you okay in there?”
When no answer came, he put his ear to the door, a little bit of fear starting to come over him when he heard no sound. Was there something he missed with her EKG? It made him nervous to think, and knocked on the door again because of it, a little bit louder this time.
“Can you come out now please, Ama Lee?” he asked, waiting a few more seconds for an answer before speaking again. “I’m going to come in there, okay?”
With that he carefully stepped in, breathing a sigh of relief that the filly was okay, although a bit confused as to what she was doing. She stood on a stepstool in front of the sink to inspect herself in front of a mirror, her wings outstretched. She blushed happily and giggled as she used a hoof to pet her mane, staring at her face intently with joy painted on it.
“What are you doing there, little filly?” Doctor Horse asked curiously. “What’s got you so distracted in the mirror?”
“Mmmm… I really am a little filly, aren’t I?” she got out happily, closing her eyes and giving herself a hug.