//------------------------------// // O // Story: Sick Week // by CosmicAfro //------------------------------// The two astral deities gave Twilight Sparkle the meanest stare they could have ever given her in their entire lives at that moment behind their own plastic domes. Celestia was wrapped from head to hoof in bandages and casts from being crushed by a stone repeatedly; Luna had to have three beds lined up to accommodate her stretched body. Her long, slender legs limply rolled off the bed and curled into buckets with ice in them. Twilight was suffering from emotional guilt as she had managed to get out of the incident unscathed. She had ducked behind the door and activated the Ever-ice spell, which had thankfully slowed them down enough to not careen into the wall. Dr. Cooperation had readied it, thankfully, after hearing the multitudinous screams coming through his intercom. It didn’t take a medical genius to piece together the two were related. He half-heartedly chuckled. “It was going to happen either way, Princess Celestia and Luna. Her sneezes appear to cause ponies and other objects to gravitate towards her. However... if she had stayed inside the entire time as I had instructed, you two wouldn’t have made contact with her and not... caught... Nullam Constantium.” He knew how awkward it was to say it, but he couldn’t have even imagined how awkward it must have been in the room. His patients didn’t speak for the longest time. Over his personal intercom, he had to deal with finding twenty rooms for injured guards, some more emotionally troubled than others. It was going to be a pain in his side, to say the least. He took one more glance at the three princess’s medical records and became wide-eyed as he stumbled upon one crucial piece of information. “No two princesses have ever recieved the disease at the same time. But now... I have three.” Twilight stared at the ceiling, as she had been for the past four hours. At one point, she had been fed more medication and received lunch, but she couldn’t remember it clearly. Maybe it was a daisy sandwich. It all tasted the same to her. The room was more mundane than writing an essay on magic theorems in the middle grades, filled with the soft hum of machines and the constant beeping that followed. The ceiling was her only solace of privacy to let her thoughts wander and for her mind to wonder. Why had she left the infirmary? She could have asked the two lazy nurses for a portable shower and asked them to leave. On second thought, her mind traced back to when Luna had asked her if they had tried to court her, so maybe they didn’t have her best interests at heart sometimes. She could have asked permission to use a spell, or some other talented unicorn to initiate a grooming enchantment on a comb. Though, in the scope of fifteen minutes, it was unlikely a servant would have made it in time before the whole incident. Even if one had it wouldn’t have changed the fact her teacher and her sister were both stuck in the same situation she was. What would have happened if the Minotaur ambassador hadn’t arrived? Celestia would have been in the infirmary and likely ripped through the dome, no doubt getting her Nullam Constantium. But surely neither of them would have ended up in any pain, nor Luna. She was sure Celestia would think of something to prevent it anyways. What if she had tried to stop the sneezes? She wouldn’t dare try to preemptively block one now, but what if? Would everything move away from her? If that were true, that might be worse than what happened based on the reports from the guards. They might have been haplessly tossed out a window and from these heights... even a flightless Alicorn may not survive. Twilight rolled over, facing away from the two. Doctors had been working on mending Celestia’s wounds and returning Luna’s body to the proper lengths. They get the best treatment all of Equestria has to offer. She was at least glad to hear they would be back in top condition after two weeks. From her terrible habit of eavesdropping, it wasn’t a painless operation though as bone growth took much energy from the body. She was tired of thinking, of the what ifs. It happened. She left because it was the best idea at the time, following Luna’s advice to remain decent at the calculated chance of nothing going amiss due to the circumstances at hoof. But she had forgotten to apply the possibility of sneezing causing princesses to fly like model rockets at her inside of a blue, rubbery pony. How obvious. She closed her eyes and attempted to sleep. ~~~ To say the dream wasn’t something she expected would have been an understatement. She had the jittery sensation in her legs once more and she was hanging over the edge into a depth-defying void. She felt... safe. But she wasn’t being held by an Alicorn this time. “Discord?” She couldn’t mistake the silhouette for anything else, for she only knew of one draconequues with that devilish grin. Not counting she only knew one draconequues, anyways. “Are you surprised?” He pulled her back over to the savanna and delicately put her on the ground. He snapped his fingers and one loud beat from a drum rang in her dream. Twilight turned around and saw a regular savanna. “How are you here?” She tentatively poked the ground and scraped some dirt with her hoof. Whatever that blackness was, it was gone. “And why?” She turned around and saw the god of chaos relaxing in a black massage chair, patting his hand on the armrest for her to join him in an identical seat next to him. “Well it’s my dream, why shouldn’t I be here?” He beckoned with his claw once more. “Come now, join me, Equestria’s newest princess.” Having no other apparent choice in the matter, she rolled her eyes and huffed some hair out of her face and sat down. Some of her tension faded with the chair as it was comfortable. Her eyes were drawn to a selection of buttons to her right, especially the triad that made low, medium, and high. She pushed the low button and it started to hum and gently tingle her spine. “I suppose we might as well address the elephant in the room.” He sighed and slapped the backside of an elephant that was apparently behind him and sent it marching along. “Much better. Now we can talk.” “I bet you use that joke on all the newest princesses.” The god of chaos chuckled. “Yes, actually.” He slouched further into the chair and kicked the vibrations up a notch. “Isn’t this dream so peaceful, so serene? Unlike me, isn’t it?” He lifted his head and looked directly into Twilight’s confused stare. “Don’t answer that. We both know what the answer is.” He pulled out a can of orange juice from literal nowhere and took a sip of the metal can, exposing the liquid. “I suppose I should start by congratulating you, Twilight.” “For what?” “For being here. Now, Celestia and Luna are both powerful and crafty individuals, but neither have been able to actually reach me. You could say they’re always headed in the wrong direction. They will, one day, but while you’re still tuned to the Elements, your magical,” he rolled his paw around, searching for the right word to grace the tip of his tongue, “prowess is stronger. Combine that with your raw magical ability and you’re one powerful force to deal with.” “So, these dreams I’ve been having-” “are mine, yes.” Twilight looked up into the sky and saw a swirling mass of clouds. A light, white cloud was moving behind a darker, threatening one. It looked familiar to her, she had read once about a philosophy about Yin and Yang. “Are you the one who’s been hinting at what the disease will do to me?” Discord grabbed a lever to the side and the chair sat him straight up. “Don’t tell me you’re oblivious to the connection.” “Wait...” He pulled out a stopwatch and pressed the button at the top. “If these are your dreams, and you’ve been the one hinting at what I might do... and it makes sense now that the symptoms would come one at a time... you’re causing this!” Click. “Nine and seven eighths of a second. Impressive.” Balloons floated out of the tall grass and into the air, popping into shrouds of confetti when they reached a certain height. A friendly gust blew away the scraps of paper. Twilight looked over her shoulder to see they formed a thumbs up before disappearing into the horizon. “It’s true. Every few hundred years, I mess with the princesses’ heads in an innocent way that looks like a disease but cannot be traced. It does some good, some bad, but it’s a reminder that even they can succumb.” “To what?” “To what? Anything, Twilight. A Princess is only as strong as her greatest weakness. Even time can affect an immortal,” he added with an air of solemness as he returned to a more relaxed position in the chair. Twilight knew not to stare a cockatrice in the eyes, both as an expression and a life experience. “Why are you telling me this?” “I’m glad you asked.” His chair ascended and he floated only a foot or so above the ground. “You’re going to keep this secret between you and I. Should you fail, I’ll increase the powers of my disease ten-fold and then nopony will be happy with the princesses.” He chuckled and raised his paw over his set of buttons on his massage chair. “Of course, you could risk it and try to find a cure, but you’re gambling with an entire kingdom.” He flipped open a secret tab and pressed the red button inside. “And guess who can fix all of the chaos you’ve caused? Who else but the draconequues of the hour?” Twilight felt the world rumble. The grass shrank into the ground and the sun blacked out; yet amidst the blackness, she could still see Discord and herself clearly. There were thick white lines that ran where the horizons once were and they merged in such a way that it looked like she was in a box. “Show me, Twilight, how a princess faces a threat to her kingdom.” As he filled the realm with maniacal laughter, the world rotated and she helplessly rolled out of her chair and into the void. ~~~ “Twilight? Twilight, are you ok?” She pressed her hooves against the side of her head and forced her eyes to stop rolling in her head. She clambered up the bedside and managed to stand on her own. It felt as if a brick had smacked her upside the head. It wasn’t exactly a headache... just painful. “I’m fine... I think.” She tried to recognize who she was talking to and found it was Princess Luna lifting an elongated leg to press her intercom button. “You rolled out of your bed the same way I had.” Her eyes grew large. “You’re not going to sneeze again, are you?” The freshly awakened princess activated her own intercom button. “No, I feel past that. Just a... bad dream.” She looked left and saw Celestia soundly sleeping in her bed. “Another one of those visions? I had one too. I couldn’t quite make out what it meant.” The princess of the night had no clear intentions of stopping anytime soon, so Twilight returned to her bed and threw the sheets back over her. “I was this grand elephant in a savanna. I was told to march, but not where. I heard behind me, I suppose my traveling companion, talking to some mistress. So I kept walking. It was a very peaceful vision. I don’t know what to make of it.” She blissfully sighed. “But it feels as if the dream took away all of my anger and it made me realize you hadn’t meant it. I knew you never did, but it’s much harder to forgive when you’re in pain. I hope you can forgive me, Twilight.” “I should be the one apologizing. If I hadn’t left my room, you wouldn’t be stuck here with me, a princess who can’t even follow directions from a doctor.” “Ms. Sparkle,” Dr. Cooperation called from the room above. “May I have a quick word with you?” “You should talk with him, he’s been meaning to speak with you when you awoke.” Luna turned off her channel and waved a hoof, telling her to go on with it. Luna gave her a smile before she rolled her head over, looking away. Twilight felt eased knowing at least one of her friends wasn’t too mad at her anymore. She pulled a curtain closed, mirroring Celestia’s earlier act of privacy. “Yes, Doctor?” “Show me, Twilight, how a princess faces a threat to her kingdom...” She twisted her neck fast enough she swore she could have broken it as she looked towards the window. Up in the window was Dr. Cooperation wearing a pair of mismatching horns above his head. “Discord!?” “What better place to be for a disease than the doctor who treats it? It’s time to make a decision, Twilight.” The horns disappeared in a poof along with the doctor. She couldn’t let Discord get away with poisoning them all these years... but she can’t put everypony at risk. She realized her king had just been put into checkmate. She had to put herself and a few close friends above the many, as much as she hated for him to get away with it. “Discord,” she whispered into the intercom. Surprisingly, she heard a faint blip of static on the other end. “Yes, Twilight?” “I thought you wanted to do good with your magic now. Why are you doing this to us?” “I’ve told you, Twilight, this is for your own good. How can an immortal princess practically immune to all diseases have empathy for the ill when she herself cannot become so? I am chaos, a reminder that things can go wrong.” “That’s the worst justification I’ve ever heard,” she yelled as loud as she could while still maintaining a whisper. “I don’t need justification. I’m doing you a favor. By the end of the week, you’ll see what I mean.” “What do y-” “Excuse me, I have other patients to attend to.” Click. Twilight rolled over in her bed and faced in Luna’s general direction. “Luna.” “Yes, Twilight?” “I... ” she couldn’t summon the courage to tell her, no matter how ready her tongue was ready for her confession to roll off of it. “I accept your apology,” Luna returned. “You’ve had a rough day, you’ve earned some more rest. With all three of us under this sickness, we’ll need it.” Twilight closed her eyes once more, miserably moaning in a gut-wrenching feeling that she had made a terrible mistake. She didn’t feel tired, but sleep came all the same. For the first time in the last few nights, a vision did not come. She shivered as the final words from Discord rang in her head. “Good choice.”