"Look at what we still have..." Clair repeated, and finally let Dom go.
She grabbed both his shoulders and looked him in the eyes, "You stay here and fix things," she smiled, "I'll take care of everything else now..."
Clair opened her eyes.
"YYYEEEEEAAAAAHHH!" A crowd of doctors cheered when Clair awoke A few ponies popped open some beverages, chugged them, and fell to the floor.
Clair looked around, bemused. "What's going on?" She asked.
"You're alive!" Several doctors cheered.
Clair's heart sank. What had happened to Dom's-- her body that her just being alive warranted a party?
"What's wrong?" one of the doctors asked after seeing her face fall, "you're alive, and you should be ready to leave in just a few more days!"
Clair smiled. That was good news.
"Well," she turned to the doctor, "thanks." She smiled. The doctors cheered.
"One thing though," she spoke up, the doctors all quieted. "Could I have a few history books to read while I'm here?"
"She shouldn't be reading..." a doctor spoke.
"But what else can she do?" another doctor asked.
"...Sure," a doctor said, "which ones?"
"Everything you can get," Clair said. "but I'd prefer some about everything that happened around 756 A.C."
Twilight heard a knock on her door in the middle of some after breakfast studying. She looked up for a second, then went back to reading her history books.
"I'll get it!" Spike yelled and happily dropped his comic book to greet the new pony. Hopefully it would be Rarity.
Spike's face fell when he saw the pony wasn't rarity. Instead, it was some light brown unicorn. "Hello," Spike said dejectedly.
"Hi there," the doctor grinned back "I'm Dr. Stable," he held out his hoof. Spike reluctantly grabbed the hoof, and nonchalantly shook it.
Dr. Stable let himself in and started looking around. "Do you have any books on history? There's a patient back at Ponyville hospital who will be stuck for a few days, and she's requested history books, specifically of around 756 A.C."
"Oh," Spike perked up, "Twilight should have plenty of those!" He turned around and cupped his claws around his mouth, "Twilight!"
Twilight jumped at Spikes voice. Great, now she forgot what she was just reading about... She opened the door to her room and walked downstairs.
"What is it, Spike," she mumbled.
"There's a visitor who wants history books!" Spike said, almost hopping in excitement.
"About 756 A.C.?" Twilight asked, brightening.
"How did you know?" Dr. Stable asked, tilting his head.
Twilight opened her mouth to explain, but Spike beat her to it.
"Twilight's been trying to convince ponies to remember the story of the humans for days now!" Spike said, smiling brightly as he did, "I've never seen her so dedicated to something!" He gestured with his little arms, "And that's saying something!"
Twilight smiled bashfully and nodded.
"Well," Dr. Stable smiled, "I think your efforts may have paid off, your friend Clair back at the hospital definitely seems to have developed an interest..."
Twilight's pupils shrank.
'Okay,' Twilight thought to herself, 'Clair's obviously trying to get the upper hoof in this battle of ours.' She looked off into the distance... 'But I can't just refuse an order from the hospital without "alienating ponies," as Lyra would put it...'
Twilight smirked.
"Uh, hello?" Dr. Stable waved his hoof in front of Twilight's face.
"Sorry," Twilght said, coming back to reality, "I just remembered something."
"Oh," Dr. Stable shrugged, "okay."
"I'll give you a few books," Twilight said, hiding a devilish smirk, "But I'm reading a few right now, so I can't give you everything."
"Of course," Dr. Stable nodded in agreement.
Twilight started trotting back to her room, but stopped to look back at Dr. Stable. "This might take a little while. I don't have these books sorted since I'm currently reading them."
"I'll be waiting," Dr. Stable smiled.
"...So," Spike crossed his arms in challenge and smirked up at Dr. Stable, "Did you ever have to remove some pony's spine and replace it with a new one?"
Dr. Stable furrowed his eyebrows, baffled. Eventually he looked down and met Spike's gaze.
"Yes." He lied, giving Spike a hardened look.
Spike gaped.
"Horticulture of the mid 700's." Twilight tossed the book into the stack to be sent to Clair; the one on the right.
"The great human war." Twilight tossed the book into the left stack.
"Musical history of 750 - 760 A.C." Twilight tossed the book into the right stack.
"Tactical revolution of 762 A.C." Twilight hesitated, motioning between the left and right pile. Eventually, she set the book on top of the left stack to be on the safe side.
...
"Here you go..." Twilight levitated a stack of ten to twenty books to Dr. Stable.
"Dr. Stable," Dr. Stable finished Twilight's sentence.
"Twilight." Twilight said her name too.
Dr. Stable smiled as he took the stack of books, and walked out of the library.
Clair laid on her gurney. To an outside viewer, she would appear to be sleeping. But her mind was most definitely not asleep.
In her head, Clair tried placing another piece on the chessboard. BonBon this time, but like the other fifty or so pieces, she didn't have enough information to properly place it. And she had a headache the whole time...
She sighed and got up. She was bored; she was stuck in a hospital, and there was nothing to do... She searched her head for Dom, and popped into existence right next to him. Looking around, she saw countless shelves of picture books. Dom would pick up some seemingly random book, look at all the pictures, then place it back on its shelf.
"Hey," Clair spoke up, laying her arms around him from behind, "why don't you take a break?"
Dom closed the book he was holding and yawned. "Okay," he smiled, "what do you have in mind?"
"Hmm..." Clair looked off in thought. "We could always walk around that space station you keep building..."
Dom smiled, took Clair's hand in his, and concentrated. They both reappeared under a large dome. In the center of the ceiling was a giant, several hundred ton plate of metal suspended by rubber. The ground and the walls however, were of an almost cave like nature; they were built of dirt and stone in organic shapes, but lacked real stalagmites and stalactites.
"The diaphram," Dom started, "taken from the Biosphere 2 project, it relieves changes in pressure due to temperature changes within a rigid--"
Clair felt something prodding her face.
"Aww, not now..." She mumbled to herself. But she was already becoming too alert to focus on Dom. She opened her eyes. The Blue unicorn doctor was poking her face with his magic.
"What...?" Clair asked grumpily.
"Oh," The doctor shied back a bit, "Sorry to wake you up," he cringed slightly, "But your books arrived." He pointed to the wall Clair was facing. There was a large stack of 10 - 20 books.
"Thanks," Clair smiled, then went back to 'sleep'.
"I'm back," Clair reappeared sitting on Dom's shoulders, "and this is neat and all, but I'd like to go outside."
"...I don't think the door's big enough for us if we go this way," Dom pointed out, trying to look up at her.
"Make the door larger," Clair said.
"Hmm..." Dom rubbed his chin. "I'll add an extra door above for tall objects."
A second door appeared above the first one. Dom walked forward.
Once Dom and Clair got close enough to the doors, they opened themselves. Since the air pressure was higher outside, air started rushing in and the steel plate behind them started rising ever so slightly. Dom had to push to get past the strong winds.
"It tastes like rain forest!" Clair shouted past the rushing wind.
Dom closed the door behind him.
"Close," he laughed, "I'm not really sure if this biome has a name though."
Once their eyes adjusted to the almost overly bright lighting, they could see something beautiful... In front of the pair was a massive lake, several hundred meters across, filled with countless colors of algae and types of fish. All around the lake were small rolling hills, and on these hills stood sugarcane, corn, millet, and other C4 plants. Behind the lake and small hills was a massive sixty degree incline filled with rainforest trees, all of which operated using C4 photosynthesis. (The oxygen levels were high enough that many other plant types would die.) Since the 'sun' always stayed in the same spot--it was the massive fiber optic cables connecting to the dome a few decimeters above the door Clair and Dom just exited from--it appeared as if the ground was slanted, since every single plant was growing at a slight angle.
Back in the hospital, Clair smiled warmly on her gurney.
...
Clair woke up several hours later.
She breathed in deeply, "Haaaaaaaahhhh..." and released it in one long sigh...
She tried sitting up, but found her abdomen didn't want to obey, so she pushed herself up with her arms, and managed to sit up. After a couple seconds, she felt a stinging pain in her tailbone. She got off the gurney to see if it would improve. It did.
Clair walked over to the stack of books. On top of it, she found a stack of papers.
"List of injury" the title read.
"fractured tailbone..." Clair skimmed "Avoid sitting for prolonged periods of time... drink plenty of water and high-fiber foods to help ease passing of stool..." Clair cringed, "estimated time for healing: 1 week." Clair furrowed her eyebrows. She didn't know anything about fractures, but she was pretty sure they didn't heal in a single week.
She briefly remembered Celestia slamming Dom's body against Twilight's bed. "Jesus," she cringed in fear. She would definitely make sure to avoid Celestia...
"Pulled lower back muscle (mostly healed)... standing and walking for long periods of time may hurt... avoid long periods of running... Estimated time for healing: 1 day"
'Definitely stay away from Celestia,' Clair thought, 'Or any powerful angry unicorn really...'
"Petrified intestines..." Clair reread that a couple times. It seemed eating cockatrice really wasn't a good idea... "Take one capsule of softening formula daily... failure to take capsule daily will lead to intense stomach pain and inability to digest food or water..." Clair blanched. Apparently, it was really not a good idea to eat cockatrice. "...estimated time for healing: 1 week."
"Concussion..." Clair read, "...take prescribed pain medication and corticosteroids... estimated time for healing: 2 days." Clair reread that... Maybe she just got lucky and didn't hit her head too hard? "Do not perform activities that risk further head injury..." Cliar shrugged, then sighed, "...avoid tasks that require concentration..." Nope, no way in hell that was going to happen...
"Broken hand bone..." Clair looked at her right hand and noticed it was in a cast, "Huh..." Then she remembered she was right handed, "aww..."
"...estimated time for healing: 3 days."
'Okay,' Clair thought, how did they do these estimates... I mean, I really hope they're right, but what if ponies just heal a lot faster than humans?
The next few pages were her scans. Clair decided to take a look; she was curious as a tulpa whether she differed from other humans or not...
On the next page, there were scans with labels scribbled over almost every single organ, but something caught Clair's eye... There was something circled frantically, and when she followed the arrow leading out, she saw a bunch of question marks. She took a closer look...
It was in her chest, right beside her heart. In the center was a hard ball dotted with holes like a golf ball. Apparently it was harder than bone, because it showed up completely white on the x-rays... and around it looked like some weird combination of organs, some of which connected to her veins, arteries, and surrounding bones...
"What the hell...?" She breathed, "...Dom?" She searched her head for him, but he was resting.
Sighing, she tossed the paper aside and looked at the first book, "Horticulture of the mid 700's"
'What the hell is horticulture?' She thought to herself before tossing the book aside like a dead rat.
"Musical history of 750 - 760 A.C" Clair considered the book for a few seconds, then put it in the 'to read' pile.
"Pre 700 A.C. Tax History" Clair looked at the book in revulsion and bewilderment.
...
"Well," Clair sighed and picked the stack or two semi-readable books, "either Twilight hates me, or pony history is stupidly specific..."
Clair walked over to her gurney and laid down, holding her book in the air above her. She read the forward... "...The music in this book shows a striking difference before and after the war of 756. For a better understanding on that, please read 'the war of 756', or any other books on that time period if you don't know about it..."
Clair groaned and dropped the book to her side, "Damn you Twilight..." she cried weakly.
Clair picked up the book and forced herself to flip it to the year 756. Surprisingly, she found the music ordered by locations that were destroyed and the passages seemed to be filled with hypothesis to the cultures that were lost, as well as the culture that was gained from the war. Perhaps the book would be more useful than she thought...
Twilight stared at her map in thought. She would have to prepare for a few days if she wanted to participate in a debate instead of a lecture, and she couldn't find too many more opportunities for teaching in Ponyville... Other than trying to convince her friends...
She had to be missing something...
Twilight gazed throughout her room in frustration, but her eyes caught on her desk and the paper on it... Of course! She could just send a letter to Celestia describing everything and ask for her help!
...
"Spiiiike!"
...
Dear Princess Celestia,
Recently I've been trying to convince ponies here in Ponyville of just how dangerous harboring a human--specifically Clair/Dom--is. I've tried a guest lecture at the local school, and attempted to give a speech at town hall... But in the first case, a sea-foam green pony with the first name of Lyra gave a counter lesson, undoing everything I taught, and in the second case, she came up to me during my rehearsal and informed me that if I was to give my speech, it would end up as a debate against her. I wasn't prepared for a debate, so I had to take her offer of our both feigning sickness. And after town hall and the school, the only other thing I can think of to do is convince my friends. (Which I will do shortly.)
I've never asked for your help before, but I think I might need it.
Yours truly,
Twilight Sparkle
Dear Twilight Sparkle,
You always forget to address me as Celestia. We're both princesses now, there's no need for such formality.
But about the subject at hoof... I'm glad that you decided to ask me for help. It appears that history hasn't been taught well enough, and I wouldn't expect one pony to rectify that. Though I am saddened that Lyra Heartstrings has chosen to defend humans, and I can't fathom as to why. Her music was so splendid, enchanting even, and she was the top of her class in Luna's school for the arts, much like you were top of your class.
Please take all the time you need to convince your friends. I'll have a group of historians sent to Ponyville tomorrow. They will be told that they are to investigate the two humans in Ponyville to get a better understanding of history, but I'm sure they'll be happy to join in any coming debates.
I should be able to come to Ponyville within the week if you need any further help convincing ponies.
Yours truly,
Celestia