Rainbow Dash instinctively raised her forelegs, swatting furiously at the insane doctor's face in a desperate attempt at escape. Strangely, even though Payne was only inches away, she didn't feel her hooves hit anything, but the loud growl of that motor stopped.
Wait a second... how did her legs get free? Just a second ago, they’d been securely bound with steel cuffs! Something wasn’t right here (which, given her current situation, was saying a lot). She looked at her hooves for a second, then back at Dr. Payne. Abruptly, as if somepony had lit a candle, the insane dentist and the examination room vanished. Dash clenched her eyes shut in disbelief. When she opened them, she realized she was was safe in bed. Thank Celestia! It was just a dream!
Sunlight flooded in through her window, creating two warm rectangles on her blanket. She looked at the alarm clock on her nightstand. Her appointment was in the next hour and as much as she hated the dentist, she couldn't wait to get this episode of her life over with.
Dash yawned and stretched, then let out a groan. Her left molar was throbbing again, worse than ever. Time for more of Zecora's pain ointment. She reached for the flask on her nightstand and applied some to her hoof. As she spread the ointment on, something made her freeze.
“Whoa. What the…?” Dash checked her gums below the tooth with her tongue. Some sort of lump had formed there! She ran for her bathroom mirror in a panic and gasped at her reflection. There was a golf ball-sized bulge on the bottom of her cheek!
“Holy Luna, what IS that?” she shouted to herself as she rubbed it. Curious, she dared to press it harder and instantly regretted it. “Ow!”
Her hoof went to her lips in dread, pondering what that thing could be, particularly if it was permanent or life-threatening.
“I can't believe I'm saying this,” she told the pony in the mirror, still rubbing the bump, “but now I can't wait to get to the dentist. Hopefully he can tell me what the hay this thing is.”
Exiting the bathroom, Dash took a deep breath to summon her courage and beat her wings, flying out the window and making the descent to Ponyville. She hadn't even bothered with breakfast; with the nauseating worry growing in her stomach she doubted she could have kept it down, anyway.
Dash's hooves touched the soft dirt of Ponyville's main road. The village of ponies was quiet at this early hour, so at least she wouldn't have to suppress grim look of visible dread of the appointment to come written on her face. Her legs quivered as she walked the short distance to dentist’s office a couple of blocks away. As she got closer, each progressive step became difficult than the last, almost like she was marching towards her own funeral.
Come on, Rainbow Dash. You can do this, she told herself. It's not like you to be such a scaredy-pony. Remember, dentists are here to help ponies with bad teeth…
A growing lump in her throat distracted Dash from her own thoughts as she neared the curb just across from the office. She paused to gulp it down and gathered her resolve, then crossed the street.
…Or torture them.
Dash stepped onto the patio of the office and stopped again, regarding the front door with trepidation. As far as she was concerned, it might as well have been the gate to Tartarus itself! Nonetheless, Dash took a deep breath and pushed the door open with a hoof. The chiming of the bells above the door prompted the receptionist to look up at the new victim...er, patient. The sight of the receptionist made Dash's blood freeze. She looked just like the one from her nightmare last night! It has to be a coincidence Dash told herself halfheartedly; I probably saw her the last time I was here.
“Rainbow Dash?” the mare asked, taking a guess from the new arrival's prismatic mane.
“Yeah. Here to see Dr. Neighnamel.”
The receptionist tilted her head, eying the lump on Dash's cheek with an expression of great concern.
“Oh my, that looks awful!”
“Eh, it's really not so bad,” Dash lied.
“'Not so bad?' I might not be a licensed dental practitioner, but I've worked in dentists' offices long enough to know a potentially serious tooth infection when I see it! Have a seat and the nurse will call you when the doctor is ready.”
Cheeks puffing, Dash let out a burst of nervous air and took a seat next to a young unicorn filly and her mother.
Wait a second... Dash looked at the ponies next to her again, her eyes widening slightly. The filly was brushing a crayon across the page of a coloring book with her telekinesis while her mother's attention was absorbed in a book. Just like the nightmare!
Hoo boy. Better get ready to dash in case Dr. Payne shows up. Dash shook her head to clear her thoughts. No. come on, Rainbow Dash! You're making less sense than Pinkie Pie! It's ridiculous to think this place is anything like the one from the dream. Nopony would come here. They'd go out of business in no time!
“...Dash?”
No, I can't dash now! I have to be brave. Be brave-
“Rainbow Dash!”
Dash lifted her head to look at the source of this new voice. A nurse was standing in the doorway leading to the examination areas. Unlike the one from her nightmare, this one was a little younger and instead of an earth pony with a pale yellow coat and two-tone gray mane, she was a pink-furred unicorn, with a light blue mane. The only similarity was her cutie mark, which featured a large toothbrush and a dollop of toothpaste.
Dash stood up. “Right here.”
“The doctor will see you now. Please come with me.”
Standing up, Dash followed the nurse through the door into a narrow corridor to various examination and treatment rooms. The whirring of a drill coming from one of them forced Dash to cringe, but she kept her focus on the nurse until she was lead to an unoccupied room at the end of the corridor.
“Have a seat,” the nurse said, indicating the pedestal chair in the center of the room. “I'll go let the doctor know you're here.”
Dash took a seat on the chair and rested her back against it, closing her eyes to force herself to relax. As she tapped her hoof on the arm of the chair, she reminded herself over and over again that she was here to get herself out of pain. This did little to suppress her desire to pick herself out of that chair and dash out the door as fast as she could. Desire finally gave way to action and she sat up from her reclined position.
“Good morning, Rainbow Dash!” said pleasant male voice from the doorway.
Darn! Too late! Dash pressed her back against the chair once more and closed her eyes as tight as she could. This was it. Her finest hour had come.
“Are you... Dr. Neighnamel?” she asked, her voice warped with a quiver.
“Yes, that would be me. Were you expecting somepony else?”
“N-no.”
“Relax, Rainbow Dash.”
“What makes you think I'm nervous?”
“You're shivering, your leg is twitching uncontrollably and you're squeezing your eyes shut. All signs of somepony who's nervous. I've been working with ponies who have dental fear long enough to tell.”
“I'm not scared!” Dash protested, eyes still clamped shut. “Not!”
“Oh, it's nothing to be ashamed of. Plenty of ponies get nervous about going to the dentist. Why don't you open your eyes? I'm not even going to do anything at the moment, I just want to talk to you.”
“O-okay.”
A few seconds passed.
“Your eyes are still shut.”
Swallowing hard, Dash reluctantly opened them a crack, one after the other, half-expecting to see Dr. Payne leering at her, and then opened them a little more. The middle-aged unicorn stallion in front of her appeared to be the complete opposite of the fiendish dentist of her nightmares in every way.
He wore a clean white lab coat and, rather than soulless and evil-looking, his brown eyes were warm and full of compassion, neatly matching the gentle smile on his face. Instead of a ghastly, corpse-like ice-blue, his well-maintained coat was a pleasing dark beige color. Finally, unlike Dr. Payne’s wild, unkempt gray locks, his azure mane was well-groomed and neatly parted to one side, with only a small streak of gray in one place.
Dash allowed herself to relax a bit.
“That’s better. Now, what seems to be the problem?” he asked.
“I have this really bad toothache that won't go away,” she answered, pointing to the side of her jaw with the lump.
“I see, I see. On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate the pain you've been in, with ten being the worst pain you've ever felt?”
“I'd probably give it a nine.”
“Ah, that's no fun, is it? Well, we'll do our best to get you out of pain as quickly and comfortably as possible.”
Dash let out a relaxed sigh. Finally, things were starting to seem normal.
“Now, while I wait for my assistant to come in, why don't you tell me what's got you so nervous?” Doctor Neighnamel continued, assuring Rainbow Dash of his compassion with a gentle smile.
“Bad past experiences,” Dash replied. “Let's just say the dentist I had when I was a filly was a total plothole.”
The doctor nodded. “Ah yes, I get that a lot. It's unfortunate that a small number of dentists can give all of us a bad reputation. Let me just assure you that you're in gentle hooves, and dental science has come a long way since you were a filly. We'll make sure you're as comfortable as possible. I'm going to set you back now.”
As the chair tilted backwards, Rainbow Dash shivered in dread. The sensation was all too familiar as she slowly found herself staring up at the ceiling, at the bright light, in a position where she couldn't tell what the dentist was reaching for. A position that made some of her worst memories come crawling back.
Dr. Neighnamel's nurse, a pink unicorn, appeared beside Dash. She made a small, flat, square-shaped plastic...thing float in front of Rainbow with magic. “Here, open your mouth and hold this against your bad tooth.”
Dash raised a questioning eyebrow. After swallowing a nervous lump, she opened her mouth wide. The flat object slid in and rested on her bad tooth.
“Bite down now, please,” the nurse gently ordered.
Doing as told, Rainbow cringed from a slight pressure against the tender tooth.
“Perfect. Now, just hold it there while we take the x-ray.”
A menacing machine that Rainbow could only describe as a cannon attached to a thin, long, three-segmented arm stretched out from a storage closet to her left, the barrel of it now aiming down at her, a vision that made the pain in her bad tooth irrelevant. Dash pointed a shaky hoof at the unfamiliar object. “What is that?!”
“Relax,” Neighnamel said with emphasis on the last syllable. “This is the x-ray machine.” He gently patted Dash on the shoulder to reassure her everything would be fine. “Just hold still, okay? I have another patient to check on while the photos develop, but I'll be back.”
“Uh-huh” Dash mumbled, though she still expected the monstrous device to shoot something at her.
The nurse had vanished, leaving Dash to wonder if the circular opening staring down on her would be the last thing she ever saw. A loud, distinctively metallic click sounded, and the nurse stepped back in front of her to maneuver the giant lens so it faced her left side. Once again the nurse stepped away, followed by another metallic click.
“Ok, I think that's good. I'll set you back up and let you relax for a moment while the x-rays develop.”
With the ceiling vanishing and the wall coming back into view, Dash sighed through her nostrils and forced those bad memories to escape.
“How was it, sweetie?” Dash heard a motherly voice ask.
Rainbow looked over her shoulder into the hallway, where there was a smiling unicorn colt and the same mare she saw in the waiting room. Strangely, the colt was smiling.
“It wasn't bad at all!” the colt trumpeted. If only he knew how much those words cut Dash's pride. “I didn't feel a thing!”
“What did you do to this child?” the mother asked. “He was so terrified, I had to literally haul him here!”
“Well, I understand how frightening dental work can be, especially to young foals,” Dash heard Dr. Neighnamel say, “so I'm always as gentle as possible. We dentists have a bad enough reputation as it is. Honestly, some ponies make us out to be sadists or something!”
Yeah, some ponies like me, Dash thought to herself with a pinch of guilt.
“Thank you, doctor,” the mother said.
“My pleasure.” The dentist looked down at his young patient. “You'll remember to brush twice a day, right?”
“You bet!”
“Atta boy. Well, I've got other patients to attend to. The receptionist will check you out.”
As the mother and child walked off down the hall, Neighnamel stepped back into the room. Pretending she hadn't been eavesdropping, Dash stared back at the wall.
“Ok, Rainbow Dash, let's have a look at your x-rays,” he said, his nurse reappearing and handing him the pictures. “Hmmmm, I see. Yes, just as I thought.”
“What's the matter?” Dash asked.
Dr. Neighnamel stepped back in front of the chair and eyed his patient gently. “I won't be able to do any work on that tooth today. It's badly infected and an abscess has formed.”
“A-abcess? What's that?!”
Neighnamel indicated the swelling on the left side of Dash's mouth. “That would be this boil you have in your cheek.”
He turned his attention to a stack of pre-signed sticky notes and scribbled something on it with a pen. “I'm going to write you a prescription for some antibiotics. You'll take one a day for the next week. In a couple of days, the pain and abscess should start to go away. I'll also schedule you to come back in one week from today so I can fix that tooth. Now, it's critical you don't miss that appointment because if I don't treat that tooth, the infection will just come back, although I'm afraid a root canal will be necessary.”
“Root canal?” Dash asked, puzzling over what that portended. She wasn't sure she WANTED to know. “Can't you just pull the thing?”
Neighnamel shook his head negatively. “I won't pull a tooth I can save. Don't worry, with modern dental science I assure you it's virtually painless, and it's certainly far less painful than an abscess.”
“Sure doc,” Dash said, hardly paying any heed to the doctor's words as she snatched the prescription. She was more interested in getting out of there as quickly as possible. “One week, right?”
“Yes. The quicker I can get you out of pain, the better. If you have no more questions, you're free to go.”
Dash scrambled out of the chair at the words she'd been aching to hear. “Ok, great. One week. I'll see you then!”