//------------------------------// // Medication // Story: Big Mac's Dream Journal // by Trevosta //------------------------------// The last day of the National Rodeo Championships dawned with Big Mac awakening to his cousin’s alarm clock breaking the peaceful silence of the early morning. He rolled out of his bed, landing harshly on the floor below, and knocking his yoke off of the nightstand. Braeburn woke up and shut off his alarm clock shortly after his cousin’s fall. Braeburn trotted over to where Mac was picking himself off the floor. “What are ya doin’ down there cousin?” He asked with an unusually chipper voice, to which Big Mac responded with a growl. “Well, Mac, Ah’m gonna’ head on down to tha stand, see ya soon!” He called back as he left. Big Mac was confused and annoyed with his cousin’s abnormal punctuality, as he now had very little time to write his dream down. Settling for merely scribbling down a few notes and key points, without much detail, He grabbed a quick shower and left for the competition. This should be a fairly decent day. As always happens with Pinkie Pie; dinner had become a party, the party went late, and finally the owners of the restaurant kicked the group out. Rainbow had returned and gotten to sleep late, thankfully she didn’t need to work the following day. Not so thankfully, it was now the following day. Rainbow Dash had found that she had apparently fallen asleep the wrong direction in her bed, with her tail and hooves laying on her pillows, and her head tucked under her covers at the far end of her bed. After she managed to untangle herself from her covers, she looked around her room, still slightly disoriented. Nothing seemed too out of order, everything was exactly where she left it, but something felt wrong. Then she saw that she had knocked Big Mac’s book off of the bed. She scrambled over to find the volume, pages down, lying on the floor. She scooped it up, examining it for any damage. After she had decided that there was no discernible devastation, she took wing for the lake, where she had been planning to spend the day hanging out with her friends. She buzzed by the beach on the lake’s edge, and dropped her things; a beach chair, a blanket, and an umbrella. They all landed, expertly organized with the practiced precision befitting of a military bomber. Rainbow was the first one there that day, and was planning to torture her friends about it some. She laid down on her beach chair, placed her trademark shades on her face, and pulled out two books. One book was a Daring Doo novel that she had read already and the other was Big Mac’s Dream Journal; she hid the unfinished volume behind the pages of the officially published book, and began to read. The ship creaked along, slowly making its way toward the shore, the remaining masts straining to accomplish their jobs without the primary sail. Ever so slowly, the ship approached the beach. Stitch approached me at my position on the poop deck and said, “C-c-captain, M-m-miss Doo needs, um, some herb that w-we d-d-don’t have.” I could tell that she was worried about my response, and scared that it would be negative. I thought for a few moments, and looked contemplatively at the oncoming shore. Then I had an idea. “Stitch? Do ya think tha herbs could be on shore?” She looked at the forest ahead of us and seemed to mull over the possibility. Then she responded with a, “Uh, Y-yes Sir!” “Then git a group together, n’ find some when we make land.” She saluted and hurried off the deck, beginning to shout at the ponies and dogs near her, gathering her own mini-search party. Finally we reached a shallow enough depth for the ship to become beached. “Aright, follow me.” I commanded of my crew as I grabbed a loose mooring line and leapt over the railing of the main deck. Lowering myself safely down to the water, I walked as far forward as I could, before the mooring line became taut. I looked behind myself to see most of my crew in the water, and some still working their way down the ropes. “Everyone,” I shouted to them, my powerful voice drawing their attention. “Once ya git down ‘ere, pull ‘er further on shore.” “Ooh, somepony’s tooting their own horn.” Rainbow Dash said with a roll of her eyes. “Well, he’s not a unicorn, but I meant like a trumpet, er- wait… who am I explaining this to?” Slightly more self-conscious of her outbursts, she went back to reading. Ponies and Diamond Dogs all around grabbed ahold of a rope and began tugging on the barely floating ship. Finally we were far enough on shore that it would not drift back out when the tide came in, and I dropped my line. “Lumber Mill, git a crew ta go git a new mast, there’s a large group of pines up that way,” I said as I pointed towards the cluster of evergreens that I had been traveling towards originally, before Daring Doo and the blue monster distracted me. “Saw one down, and tow it back ‘ere.” Thankfully we were far enough down the shore that they shouldn’t find the carcass of Daring’s enemy. Rainbow Dash whispered to herself, “That’s just gross.” He turned preparing to gather a group, before he looked at me, “Captain, why aren’t you coming with us? We could really use you.” I merely lifted up my false leg, showing the, now splintering, table peice. “Ah ain’t fit ta walk, an if it ain’t too much of a problem, Ah’d like ya ta make me a new leg.” “Aye-aye, Cap’n!” he said with a salute as he began gathering stallions and dogs to collect the pillar. I looked around, seeing Daring Doo approaching me as Stitch shouted orders to the ponies around her. “Get me aloe! And you! Get me some lavender, NOW!” She shouted at a couple of nearby mares that hadn’t gone to get a new mast. “And somepony find me some mint!” She shouted to the sky, while her eye twitched violently. “She scares me.” Daring Doo said to me with a face of uncertainty, while the other ponies and dogs in the area scampered off in every direction, attempting to find the plants that the psycho doctor requested. “Eeyup.” I responded with a nod. “Haha!” Rainbow laughed, kicking her legs in the air. “Told ya you shouldn’t have hired a quack.” She then looked around to be sure that none of her friends had arrived yet. Satisfied that nopony had heard her, she prepared to read again. “Hi Dashie!” came a familiar high-pitched voice, from the pink wall that had appeared in her field of vision. “Augh! Pinkie!” Dash said, flailing, trying desperately to escape from the bubble-gum scented, mess of pink hair. Finally, Rainbow Dash had managed to right herself, and sneak her books under her chair, and she was fairly sure that she had managed to keep Pinkie Pie from seeing that there were really two books. “Pinkie, you know that I hate it when you do that!” Rainbow Dash said with a laugh as she brushed the sand out of her mane, and her other friends approached. “Hey, guys, what took ya so long?” “Rainbow, we were supposed to meet here at noon.” Twilight Sparkle said, matter-of-fact-ly. “It was noon, like fifteen minutes ago.” Rainbow Dash said, cocking her head to the side, confused. Rarity chimed in, “Rainbow, darling, I do hate to correct a friend, but it is definitely noon at the moment.” She said, using a fan of some sort to gesture at the clock tower in Ponyville, that could still be seen easily from the lakeside. “Hmm… I guess my clock must be fast…” Rainbow reasoned with herself. Pinkie then shouted, “Last one in is a rotten egg!” causing all of them to take off in a flurry of hooves and sand. Except Rarity and Fluttershy who decided to take in the sun on the shore. Taking off and overtaking her friends, Rainbow quickly adjusted her trajectory so that she would land in the lake, and just before she entered, she saw Pinkie Pie’s head pop out of the lake. As she resurfaced, Rainbow, had to ask, “Pinkie, how did you beat me?” “I just hopped in, silly!” that, sadly, made as much sense as anything relating to Pinkie Pie. For the next few hours, the six friends splashed in the lake and soaked in the sun, until they had to return to their respective duties; Applejack to her farm, Rarity to her dress shop, Pinkie to the bakery, Twilight to her library, and Fluttershy to her animal friends. “Bye, girls!” Rainbow called after them, watching carefully as they disappeared over the knoll. As soon as she was sure as they were out of sight and wouldn’t know what she was doing, she dove for Big Mac’s book. “Now where was I?” She asked herself. Scanning the page, she mumbled to herself, “Carcass, no… fit to walk, no… Ah, scared of Stitch, here we are.” “Hey, Stitch,” I called to the jittery surgeon, “Ah don’t remember mint bein’ an herb fer burns.” I said, as a question. “Oh, uh, it’s not. I mostly j-just like t-to chew on it.” She said, a blush forming on her face, while she pulled a few dried leaves of the plant in question out of a pouch around her neck and began to chew on them. “It also c-c-calms me d-down, I discovered that after my ‘accident’.” Daring Doo and myself made eye contact, before beginning to laugh. “You just like to chew on it? You scared that Smoky Mirror mare half to death.” Daring said, having recovered from our laughing fit to speak again. “She thought you were gonna kill her.” Stitch seemed offended, “I would never kill somepony, on purpose!” the last part seemed like and afterthought. She began drawing in the sand with a hoof, “I might sew her lips shut or something; if she deserved it.” She mumbled. Daring donned a slightly deranged smile, “I think we could get along well.” Before something regrettable happened, I decided to step in. “Alright, yer only gonna do somethin’ like that If Ah say ya can.” I scolded her, “Remeber Ah’m the Cap’n.” She seemed slightly scared of me so I backed off, then I noticed a certain tan and green bundle sleeping at the edge of the forest. “Grog, however, doesn’t seem ta pay me much attention; Ah’d be fine if somethin’ unpleasant was snuck in his rum.” She perked up immediately. “What!? He just gave her the ‘go-ahead’ to poison him?” Rainbow was horrified, “B-b-but, Grog was his first crew member!… Even if he is lazy and sexist…” “Captain!” Daring stepped in, misunderstanding my intentions. “Don’t poison him!” “What?! I already told you, I wouldn’t purposefully kill somepony… just make them regret some things.” I could tell that Stitch was torn by her conscious and own desires. “Well, Ah say we don’t worry ‘bout that fer now.” I decided, “Ya know, we’re all gonna be here fer a while, why don’t ya tell us about yerself, Stitch? Since ya seem ta know all about Miss Doo ‘ere.” The explorer pulled her hat lower over her eyes and blushed a bit, while Stitch began her story. “Plus, Ah want ta hear ‘bout this ‘accident’.” “W-well, I d-don’t think it’s that great, but if you really want me to…” She trailed off, trying to get out of telling her life’s story. However, seeing as how she was my ship’s surgeon I would like to know what to expect from her, so Daring Doo and I gestured for her to continue. “Fine,” She said, defeated, “But, it will probably seem pretty rough.” “My real name is, Caduceus.” She said, pointing to the image of a staff wrapped in rattlesnakes on her flank. “When I was growing up in Phillydelphie, I was always made fun of, the other fillies always picked on me, they called me a freak, they called me a tomcolt.” She said, rubbing her foreleg with another hoof, “I was never really a girly-girl: I was always fascinated by animals, and even performing surgery on them. I once gave a lizard an extra set of limbs, and they worked… for the most part.” She admitted, with a slight chuckle. “But one day, we were on the playground at school, and another filly fell off of the slide and broke her leg.” She explained with a completely emotionless expression. “It was a compound fracture, with the bone sticking out and bleeding everywhere. She had always made fun of me, but I really couldn’t stand to see that happen to anypony.” She got up and pulled a pin of some sort out of her mane, loosening her tight bun and allowing her hair to drop. “I could stand to see her suffer, just not bleed to death. So I broke part of her bone off,” She levitated the long skinny bone fragment over to us. “I then used my magic to set her broken bone, and used this bone shard and some strands from her tail to stitch her leg up. I earned my cutie mark, and my nickname, that day. I was hailed as a hero, then everypony avoided me like a rabid dog.” She sighed, “But I guess it was for the best, I put all of my energy into learning Anatomy and Physiology in preparation for college.” She tucked her bone-pin back into her mane, and continued. “When I was hired for Phillydelphia Hospital, I developed dozens of procedures for treating diseases, and surgeries. I even wrote a book on them!” She said with a proud smile. “Much of the scientific and medical community shunned me because of the risks that I took, they called me ‘unethical’ for not testing procedures, that were very risky; but they couldn’t argue with the results. I was one of the most successful surgeons in the country.” She then explained some of her procedures quickly, “I was very fond of using the patient’s own body as the operating tools, as you can see by my first stitching needle.” She said, referencing the pin in her hair. “I used natural anesthetics and herbal remedies that I picked up from a zebra, and a lot of nerve work, that would help with the pain, without pumping them full of drugs that they shouldn’t have in their system.” “Ha! She is a quack!” Rainbow announced. “I guess it wasn’t really debatable, but still, I called it.” Then she visibly and audibly deflated, “My life took a turn for the worse, when I received a unique call: there was a unicorn who had broken his horn.” She shuddered with fear for the first time that I could remember. “Do you two know the difficulties that come with reattaching a horn?” We shook our heads. “Well, it didn’t go well. As it turns out, the horn split down to the skull, and the magical well, that a unicorn digs into for magic, was unstable, and it blew up in my face during the surgery.” I saw tears well up in her eyes as she recalled the events that occurred that day. “When it blew, it-… it k-k-killed him,… and r-r-ruined my steady hoof. I have been shaky, and a stutterer ever since. I found out that mint calmed my nerves and steadied my hoof. I also haven’t been able to live with myself since I killed him; I wasn’t actually fired, I quit.” She said, hanging her head. “I came to port trying to get a new start.” “Ok, still a quack,” Rainbow reasoned, “But I do feel kinda bad for her.” Daring was sitting with her mouth agape, the whole of the story being a bit much to take in at one time. I decided to reassure her, “Ya know, a lot of the crew did the same thing, includin’ mahself.” Daring Doo turned towards me. “Ah used ta be a farmer, but Ah lost mah leg an’ Ah needed a new job; so, Ah bought a ship, hired a crew, an’ ‘ere we are.” As I was finishing up my very abbreviated life story, a few ponies came back with a good bit of Aloe. Steadily, the other members of the crew, that had been sent in search of herbs, returned with immense amounts of the requested plants and some assorted other herbs. I stayed with Daring Doo as Stitch made an herbal paste, and applied it to the burns on her wings, immediately drawing a contented sigh from the explorer as the cooling effects of the concoction took over. “So,” she said to me, “You were a farmer, eh?” “Eeyup.” “What did you farm?” “Apples: I was the head of Sweet Apple Acres, we shipped apples and our other products all over the country.” She became very excited, “Ooohh! I love your cider!” Her eyes closed in blissful remembrance of the beverage. “There was just the right amount of spices. Oh, and warmed up, it always helped me relax after a long temple raid, or a stressful day at the school.” She continued to rant about my cider, until the mast crew arrived with the monumental pine. “Well, as much as Ah love hearin’ ya rant about my produce;” She blushed a bit, “Ah gotta ‘elp them with tha mast.” Then as an afterthought, I asked her, “Would ya mind keepin mah past on tha down-low, Ah jus don’t want tha whole crew knowin’.” She winked at me, showing her understanding, and sending a familiar wave of butterflies through my stomach. I recovered as best as I could, and I set off towards the returning stallions and dogs. “Wait.” Rainbow asked with a raised eyebrow, "Does he like Daring? I mean, who wouldn't, but does he?" then she looked back at the book and demanded, “That’s it? That’s how the chapter ends? Stupid...” She mumbled while packing her things from the beach day, and headed towards her home. “Go get ‘im!” Braeburn shouted after his cousin as Mac walked off toward the rodeo arena. Mac simply tipped the hat that he had donned before the bullfighting competition began, and stepped out into the ring. Then the smaller apple then yelled out, “Win this year.” The match was a longer one, but wildly entertaining to the crowd. Big Macintosh had become a staple of the bullfights at the National Rodeo every year, and this year was no exception. After putting on a bit of a show for the ponies, he ended the round, and left into the hallway, meeting up with Braeburn again. “Hoooo Weeee! Mac, ya never disappoint, that was better than last year!” “Eeyup, felt better.” The sweaty workhorse admitted. “Ya might even wi-…” Braeburn cut himself off as he stared over Mac’s impressive shoulder, his jaw hanging from its hinges. “What’s wrong, cuz’?” Big Mac asked, as Braeburn fell, face-first, to the floor. “Ah, Sir Macintosh, We were informed that thou would be here!” Big Mac turned around to find that all of the ponies in the area had bowed to the imposing stature of Princess Luna. Unsure of how to react, he did the most logical thing he could think of and bowed to her as well. “Uh, P-P-Princess-” “Oh, stand up.” She cut him off. “There is something we must discuss, follow me.” The midnight blue princess turned and began to walk away. Big Mac looked back at his cousin, making uncomfortable eye contact, before Braeburn shoed him on to catch up with Princess Luna. Macintosh Apple was escorted through the grounds, until they came upon a clearing, blocked off to the public by Luna’s armed night-guard. “Now, Sir Macintosh, We must ask you a few questions.” Big Mac glanced around, in search of the other part of ‘We’, “Firstly, it has come to our attention that you have been having interesting dreams, it that not true?” There was no one else around them that she could be talking about with ‘we’ and ‘our’. “Uh, yes, Ma’am Ah have been havin’ dreams m’lady.” Big Mac, unaware of proper etiquette for meeting with royalty, did his best to be respectful. “Interesting, now tell us, have you been keeping record of them?” She asked, with a slightly unnerving smile, and a strange confidence in what she was asking. “Um, yes, Ma’am, Ah have; an’ if it ain’t too much ta ask, how do ya know about this?” Big Mac was becoming more and more uncomfortable as the conversation went on. “Nevermind that, but Cadence will be very pleased.” She noted to herself, confusing Mac even further. “Guards!” She called out, causing two of the intimidating beings to almost materialize at Big Mac’s sides. “Escort Sir Macintosh to his hotel, if you would.” She then disappeared in a flash of moonlight leaving Mac and his escorts to trot back to his hotel. Upon arriving, he shared what had happened with Braeburn, who promptly mocked him for keeping a dream journal.