At Healing Hooves you always knew exactly what you were doing that day and when you were doing it. The schedule was always the same:
7am: Wake up call
8am: Meet in common room.
8:30am: Go to breakfast in the cafeteria
9:30am: Back to common room for medicine
10am: Free time, where you get pulled for individual therapy with your doctor.
11:30am: Group therapy 1
12pm: Lunch (and medicine, if needed)
1pm: Recreational therapy of the day.
2:30pm: Group therapy 2
3:30pm: Free time
4pm: Visiting time
6pm: Dinner (and medicine, if needed)
7pm: Free time (movie time on Fridays)
9pm: In your room
9:30: Lights out
The schedule was never deviated from. The only variations between days were which recreational therapy you were sentenced to. Different groups had different therapies on different days, and for group 2, Octavia's group, Monday was when the patients went to the gym to play a team sport, Wednesday was when they went for a walk around the hospital’s grounds, Friday was free day, where you could do whatever you wanted- within the confines of your level of course- and Tuesday and Thursday were Music and/or Art therapy. Which on you had depended on both what you asked for and what your doctor thought was best. Octavia had asked for Art, but her doctor had decided that Music was a better option for her.
One guess as to who's opinion won out.
“Wake up girls, time to get to the common room!”
Octavia didn't really mind most of the schedule, but this 7am wake up call was a load of horse apples.
Some nurse swung open the door to her and Rosy Pallet's room, letting the bright light from the hallway spill on to Octavia's bed. It was the one closest to the door, much to her annoyance. But Rosy was here first, so Octavia didn't get a choice in the matter.
“Ergrth...” Octavia groaned something that tried it's best to sound like 'Ok' to signal that she had heard and literally rolled on to the floor, landing in a heap of blankets and pony. Not the most ladylike of moves, but Rosy wasn't likely to say anything, if she was even still there. Octavia cracked an eye open to check and wasn't surprised in the least to see that Rosy had left already. Rosy was an early riser, usually awake, ready and reading a magazine in the common room before Octavia even considered regaining consciousness.
Octavia untangled herself from the blankets and spread them back on the bed in a way that resembled being made. Stumbling her way into the bathroom she shared with Rosy, she cursed the fact that the bathroom tiles were always freezing and propped herself up on the sink. She stared at her reflection in the shatter-proof mirror with half-closed eyes and was mildly repulsed by what she saw.
The pony looking back at her seemed half dead; her eyes were slightly red from the nightmare she had that night (and the night before that, and the night before that), and her mane resembled some kind of exotic sea creature. She thought to herself that she looked like one of the recovering zombies from Warm Ponies.
“Rrrrrr...” she growled at herself and laughed lightly. She thought that it might be fun to be a zombie, no worries, no responsibilities, just shamble around all day. The whole 'being dead' bit would be a bit of a downer though.
She snapped back to reality and went through the automatic routine of getting ready for the day- brush teeth, shower, brush mane, wish they had let her keep her favorite bow-tie, brush fur, and try to brush tail- and emerged from the bathroom looking slightly more alive. After taking a small moment to try and shake herself awake, she trotted out the heavy metal door and into the long hallway that led to the common room.
The way this section of the hospital was set up was kind of like a 'T'. In the middle was the common room, with two hallways branching to the east and west. The west hallway led to the mare's bedrooms, and the east led to the stallion's. There were two doors on the south wall of the common room, one led out to the garden, which was enclosed in a chain link fence, and the other led to the hallway that went to the elevators and the lobby.
To use to elevators you had to scan your bracelet, and you had to be at least level 3 use them without a nurse. The ground floor had the lobby, group 2's ward, group 1's ward on the other side of the lobby, and the library. The gym was a separate building that could be reached by going through the flower garden and following the flagstone path. The second floor had the cafeteria, the recreational therapy rooms, and the doctor's offices, as well as group 3's ward.
The workers at the hospital could tell where you were and weren't supposed to be by the color of your bracelet. Level 0s were red, Level 1s were yellow, Level 2s were green, Level 3s were blue, and Level 4s were white. Level 3 and 4 eating disorder patients had their bracelets marked with a large 'ED' to let the staff know that they weren't to be allowed in the gym or cafeteria unsupervised. If you were caught in a place you weren't allowed you were immediately demoted to level 0, and depending on the severity of the infraction you were either place on 'probationary' level 0, which meant that after a set amount of time all of your points were returned, or on 'permanent' level 0, meaning you had to earn all of your points from scratch.
Octavia still wasn't allowed to even leave the common room without an escort, not that it bothered her much, she doubted she would go anywhere if she could.
When she got to the common room she saw that all the other patients had made it in before her. Not usual, Octavia was not in any way a morning pony. A unicorn nurse was standing by the door and held her medicine out to her with pale yellow magic. Octavia wordlessly gripped the tiny paper cup in her mouth and tossed it back, feeling the small pill hit the back of her throat. A small cup of water was offered to her and she knocked that back too before going to take her usual seat next to Typewrite.
There was a soft hum of conversation around the common room, just like everyday. The news was playing on the TV, like it did every morning. In fact, the only thing different about this morning was the new addition to the Crazy Couch, the very, very loud new addition.
“Ok, so I'm at the royal wedding, right? And I'm hiding under my turntables; I was supposed to pop up, yell 'Let's get this party started!', then toss the mic to Twilight so she could sing her song,” Vinyl Scratch was telling a story to Hopper, Rosy, and Typewrite, complete with flailing hoof gestures, and in a voice that was way too loud and way too energetic for 8 o' clock in the morning. “But for some reason, I never got my cue! I was just sitting there, hunched up under the thing, and Pinkie Pie, who was standing right next to me, literally yanks me up by my mane, and says my line!”
Hopper and Typewrite burst out laughing and Rosy giggled softly. Vinyl snorted, while Comet and Octavia rolled their eyes. Arithmetic wasn't paying any attention, too absorbed in the morning news.
“And that wasn't even the best part of the night! After Twilight's song was over, Pinkie and I actually got everypony, Princess Cadance and Prince Shining Armor included, to do the Pony Pokey!”
Octavia's entire body went stiff at the mention of that horrible song. Time seemed to stop as her mind instantly went back to the night her career was stomped on. The night she managed to prove her parents right. The night where she failed, where she became blacklisted from ever playing at any major Canterlot venue ever again.
She shook her head ferociously to clear the thoughts away and stared at the floor, trying to will away the slight stinging in her eyes. She prayed to Celestia that nopony had noticed her slip of composure, that they were all too wrapped up in Vinyl's storytelling to notice her momentary lapse of stoicism.
Apparently Celestia wasn't listening.
Comet Tail smirked as he watched Octavia's minor freak out at the mention of “The Pony Pokey”. This was going to be very, very fun for him.
“Best not mention the Pony Pokey around Octavia here,” He drawled, a smirk in his eyes as he addressed Vinyl. “I'm afraid she can't stand it.”
“Aww, that can't be true, everypony loves the Pony Pokey!” Vinyl stood from her seat and moved to stand in front of Octavia, who glared at Comet with all the hate she could muster. “Come on! How can you hate the Pony Pokey? You reach your right hoof in, you reach your right hoof out...”
Octavia's glare moved from Comet to Vinyl. “Shut up.”
“You reach your right hoof in and you shake it all about,”
The entire common room was watching now, staff included. Octavia's hatred of the Pony Pokey was well known, it had been part of her introduction speech. Her exact words had been 'My name is Octavia, and I'm here because of the Pony Pokey. Please do not mention, sing, or reference that song around me if you wish to continue breathing'.
“Shut up before I am forced to strangle you,” she gritted out through her clenched teeth. Her eyes were nearly imperceptible slits and her ears were flat against her head. Every muscle in her body tensed as she dared the other mare to keep singing.
Vinyl moved in slow motion as she took an exaggerated breath and belted “YOU DO THE PONY POKE--”
She was cut off as a gray body slammed against her with all the force of an earth pony, throwing her backwards and slamming her against a bookshelf. Octavia was on top of her, back legs straddling her middle while Octavia's front hooves struck at her wildly.
All Octavia could see was pink. That horrible giggling rung in her ears as she threw blow after blow. Most didn't connect, but Octavia didn't care. She poured out all her anger, all her hatred for both that song and the pony who ruined her life into each punch.
Vaguely she heard Rosy scream- or maybe it was Hopper- and a nurse call for the guards. She felt the strange sensation of warm unicorn magic enveloping her as someone tried to pull her off of Vinyl, who was also shouting.
“No, no, no, no, no, no...” Octavia hadn't realized that she was shouting too. She felt a guard lift her off of her target with unicorn magic, but it didn't matter. She flailed about wildly, her eyes locked on Vinyl, who was being led away by a nurse.
With the target of her attack gone, her swings began to get slower and slower, until she hung limp in the guards magical grasp. He lowered her on to the floor where she collapsed, limbs having been turned to jelly.
As she came to her senses she noticed all the destruction she had caused. Two bookshelves had been knocked over in the fight, their contents spread all over the floor. A chair had been overturned as well.
She shifted her gaze over to the other patients to find that Rosy was sobbing loudly, and Pink Plasters was trying to calm her down. Arithmetic, Hopper and Typewrite were staring at her with wide eyes, Typewrite's jaw was almost on the floor. Comet was doing a very poor job of concealing his smirk, and the guards that had been called in were glaring at her angrily.
Suddenly Octavia realized what exactly she had done. She had attacked another pony, all over a stupid song. A wave of shame washed over her and her cheeks went pink as she looked meekly up at the guard who stood over her.
“Get up,” He grunted harshly, and Octavia struggled to comply. She wasn't entirely sure how long she had been swinging, but by how much her legs were wobbling it seemed like it had lasted at least a couple of minutes. After a few seconds of struggling, the guard sighed and pushed her up on to her hooves.
“Follow me.”
Octavia was too tired and embarrassed to do anything but follow the order. The guard walked out of the common room and Octavia followed, her head hanging in shame. They walked in silence to Octavia's room, the second of the four bedrooms, and the guard pushed open the door. He motioned for Octavia to go in, then propped the door open with a door stop before following.
“I'll need your bracelet, please.”
Octavia tried not to cry as she pulled at the yellow bracelet around her left leg with her teeth. The sound the plastic snap made as it came undone sounded like a judges gavel to her ears. She knew what that meant.
The bracelet was pulled from her mouth by dark blue unicorn magic and deposited into a nearby trashcan.
“A nurse will come by later with your new bracelet. You're being demoted to a permanent level 0,” The guard waited for Octavia to nod her understanding then went to take his post outside her open door, leaving Octavia alone.