//------------------------------//
// 16 – Stress 
// Story: Applied Starlight 
// by Unknownlight 
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The atmosphere of the room could probably be best described by a single word: stressed.

Of course, the word alone grossly undervalued the intensity of the mood, but it was, at least, technically accurate.

“Stress” is, of course, the foundation of a large variety of mental states; the basic emotions one feels when they are late for work are, from a scientific point of view, fundamentally the same emotions one feels when they are, say, stabbed in the chest. It is simply that the emotions are amplified by a billion-or-so times in the latter case.

With this odd piece of trivia in mind, perhaps it is not sufficient to describe the atmosphere of the room using terms that describe feelings and moods. Perhaps, paradoxically, a more accurate description of the atmosphere of the room could be made using physical descriptions.

Sight: The room was mostly colored white, although the walls themselves actually had a bit of a pink tint to them. There were some curtains in the room as well; they were colored green.

Hearing: The loudest and most obvious sound was one of a heart rate monitor, which beeped at a frequent and regular pace. Otherwise, the room was surprisingly silent, with only the occasional gasp or cry that betrayed the presence of life within the room.

Feeling: I’m feeling fine, thanks.

Smell: Tears and antiseptic. I’m not entirely sure what tears smell like, but if they have a smell then this room would certainly smell like them.

Taste: Tasteless. As in: “Whoever decided that it was a good idea to hang green curtains in a room with pink-tinted walls had absolutely no taste at all.”

…

Huh. Well, that attempt at description kinda fell apart halfway through. Sorry. Let’s try this again:

This room had a current population total of six.

Starting with the most terrified, broken, and depressed, and then working our way up, we have a little dragon named Spike. He had not stopped crying for an hour now, although following his initial outburst he had kept himself mostly inaudible, keeping his sobs and wails confined to a pink mare’s chest. He kept his eyes squeezed shut, and, from the looks of things, would be perfectly happy if he never had to open them again.

Next, there was a pony named Pinkie Pie. Her bright, curly hair had rebelled against her, seemingly having decided that grim, dark, and mirror-straight was more in style these days. (Incidentally, the dragon within her forelegs was very grateful toward her perfectly-straight hair, as it managed to hide his own shivering form from the outside world.) She had been tightly holding the dragon and whispering empty reassurances to him since he had initially started crying. The pony was crying her own tears as well, but admittedly she’d been so preoccupied by the dragon over the past hour that the reality of the situation had yet to truly sink into her.

Thirdly, there was a farmer named Applejack. There was actually very little to say about this particular pony—she was the one who had found her friend collapsed and unresponsive, as well as the one who had rushed her to the hospital. She was still clearly in shock from these events; her time at the hospital had consisted entirely of her lying forward on her chair and staring into space, unmoving. Quite boring.

Fourthly, there was an unbearable fashionista named Rarity. Nicely fulfilling her dreams of being completely unbearable, the pony appeared to be indifferent to the entire horrible situation, as she had been spending her time leaning back in a chair and reading one of the hospital-provided fashion magazines. With that said, if one were to look a bit more closely, they may notice her tear-stained cheeks, the fact that she never seemed to turn the page of her magazine, and that said magazine seemed to be perfectly placed in front of her face so that she didn’t have to look at the pony in the hospital bed in front of her. 

Fifthly, there was a superhero-wannabe named Rainbow Dash. This pony was an odd one, as she seemed to be fighting an internal struggle. Like most “superheroes”, she wanted to be doing something (preferably action-packed somethings) rather than just sitting around. That would be why, instead of sitting down like her other friends, she was pacing around the room with a determined look on her face, as if at any moment she was going to find the being responsible for her friend’s hospitalization and buck its face in. However, like most wannabes, she also realized she had no clue what she was doing, it was impossible for her to help in any meaningful way, and she probably would make things worse if she tried. The end result was a pony pacing around the room, looking depressed and at any moment looking ready to somehow buck her own face in for not being able to help.

Finally, there was a vegetable named Twilight Sparkle. While it would be technically accurate to say she was at the very end of the “terrified, broken, and depressed” scale, it would be better to say that she was living in a different scale altogether. She was decidedly unstressed—she was happy, and at peace. She was doing nothing but laying snugly in a hospital bed, smiling and asleep. Not even the very uncomfortable tubes that the nurses had stuck into her body deterred her relaxation. She’d been asleep for quite a while now, and it didn’t seem like she’d be waking up anytime soon. 

That, of course, was basically the reason why the atmosphere of the room was “stressed” in the first place.

…Now that I think about it, it was probably wrong to say that the atmosphere of the room was “stressed”. Of the six beings in the room, five were stressed but one was not. Therefore, the room was only five-sixths stressed. Or eighty three-point-three percent. Hmm. Let’s see how that would look…

“The atmosphere of the room could probably be best described by the words: 83.3% stressed.”

…

That sounds so stupid.

Oh well.

So, anyway, the five ponies (and one dragon) were doing what they were doing in the whitish room. 

The lack of movement was electrifying.

…

…





Fluttershy whimpered.

“I could ask your friends to come out and see you first, then you could all go back in together,” said the nurse. “Would that help?”

Fluttershy shook her head. 

“Well, I ask that you make a decision soon. Your… friend is wandering the hallways and scaring our other patients, and we can’t have that. I understand that you’re nervous, but we’ll have to ask you to leave soon if you continue to just stand in the middle of the hallway.”

Fluttershy nodded.

The nurse paused, and then wrapped a foreleg around the trembling pegasus. “It’s okay, it’s okay… the doctors are doing their very best. She’s stable, uninjured. It’s okay. You don’t have to worry. We’ll fix this.”

Fluttershy stiffened at the initial contact, but otherwise accepted the nurse’s comfort. “Thank you…”

“You’re welcome. Now get in there. Your friends need you.”

Fluttershy nodded again, then pushed open the door in front of her. 





Only half of the occupants of the very stressed room looked up when the door opened, but that was enough for the time being. Applejack briefly broke her staring contest with nothing to acknowledge the butter-yellow pegasus entering the room, but that only served as a brief distraction and she quickly returned to staring at nothing. Rarity put her magazine down—displaying an interest in making her own acknowledgment slightly more permanent—but she was beaten to the punch by Rainbow Dash who was right in front of the door when it opened.

“Fluttershy!” Rainbow exclaimed, bouncing up to her to give her a hug. “You’re here! I thought you were still on vacation! I’m so happy to see you! Y’think maybe we could harmony blast Twilight if what the doctors are doing doesn’t work? I mean, I know the Elements are in that tree right now, but that doesn’t mean we can’t go get them! If we’re fast it shouldn’t be much of a…” 

Rainbow trailed off as she realized that Fluttershy wasn’t returning the hug, and in fact was scowling. Fluttershy, scowling? 

“Erm, how did you find out Twi was in the hospital? I mean, I don’t think any of us told you…” Rainbow murmured, realizing her mistake far too late.

The intense glare Rainbow Dash received from Fluttershy surprised her enough that she broke the hug and stumbled back as if her friend had physically struck her. Rainbow watched in distress as Fluttershy strode to the hospital bed, stopping before she got too close. 

The room was nearly dead silent as Fluttershy stared at the form of the comatose alicorn. The only sound was of the continuing sniffles of Spike, who was still oblivious to the world around him.

Rainbow watched as Fluttershy slowly advanced until her face was right above Twilight’s own. Wobbling a bit on her hooves, the pegasus ducked in her head and buried it in her motionless friend’s chest, and shivered. Rainbow fidgeted as the moment went on for a few minutes more than what was comfortable. 

Finally deciding to speak up, she walked toward her friend. “Fluttershy, um, are you feeling all right—?”

“Am I feeling all right?!” Fluttershy screeched, snapping her head up and revealing the streaks of tears running down her face. She rounded on the blue pegasus and made a threatening step toward her. “No! I am not feeling all right, Rainbow Dash! Twilight is in a coma and instead of hearing about it from one of my best friends, I learned it from Discord, of all people!”

“I take offense to that,” Discord commented out of nowhere, happily strolling into the feast of chaos. 

“What were you thinking?” Fluttershy continued to yell as she backed Rainbow into a wall. “Did you think I wouldn’t want to know? Did you think I wanted to come back to Ponyville and hear, ‘Oh, hi, Fluttershy! No, not much happened while you were on vacation. Oh, Twilight died, but that’s about it.’ Do you know how that would feel?!”

“I–I didn’t mean… no! Twilight is not gonna die!” Rainbow shouted back at her friend, the edges of her eyes becoming damp. “H-how could you even say that?!”

“The doctors say she’s near completely brain dead!” Fluttershy retorted angrily. “I’m just saying what everypony else is—”

The yellow pegasus’s advances were halted by two white forelegs pulling her into a hug from behind. “Fluttershy, darling, stop. I’ve seen you like this before. This isn’t you,” Rarity whispered into her friend’s ear. “Now’s not the time for this. You too, Rainbow.” 

Fluttershy struggled for a few moments, but soon relented and let herself curl up into the unicorn’s embrace, whimpering softly. 

“You’re right, it was wrong of us to keep you in the dark,” Rarity spoke softly, stroking Fluttershy’s mane. “But it hasn’t been very long; Twilight was only found like this yesterday afternoon. We didn’t know how serious it was, and we still don’t know. We didn’t want to send you a message and worry you about something while you were on vacation, especially if it turned out to be something small. We wanted to know what was going on ourselves before we worried you.”

Fluttershy said nothing, but curled up into herself even tighter. 

Rainbow breathed a hesitant sigh of relief and frowned softly at the scene in front of her, a frown that quickly deepened when she saw Discord floating above Twilight’s still form and poking various parts of her upper body. “Hey! Watch what you’re doing there, bud!” Rainbow snarled as she flew up in front of Discord.

“Ah, Rainbow Dash, always so suspicious.” Discord sighed theatrically. “Can’t a person go poking at pretty purple princesses without being pestered?”

“Did you just call Twilight pretty?” Rainbow said, looking even angrier.

Discord scowled. “No.”

“How do we even know you didn’t cause this?” Rainbow yelled, spittle flying in the draconequus’s face. “You’ve already betrayed us before! Twilight falling into a coma for no reason whatsoever would be pretty convenient for you, wouldn’t it?”

“Oh, please.” Discord snorted. “This sort of thing is what you ponies do. Putting somebody in a coma is one of the most boring ways to dispose of an enemy imaginable, second only to being turned to stone. Why would a spirit of chaos do something like that?”

“Because you’re the spirit of chaos,” Applejack stated blandly, not even looking up at the argument. “You do things that are unexpected. Doing this wouldn’t be expected of ya.”

Discord grinned. “Oh, you’re a clever little pony.”

“So you admit it!” Rainbow exclaimed, poking Discord in the chest. “Change her back! Fix her, now!”

“Or what?” Discord smiled sweetly. 

“Or we’ll… we’ll…” Rainbow faltered, then stumbled backward, eyes wide, suddenly realizing the bad position she and her friends may very well be in.

“Discord is not at fault for this,” a voice announced from the doorway, breaking Rainbow Dash out of her mounting panic. 

Princess Celestia strode into the room, confident, majestic, and immediately the center of attention. “Don’t worry, my little ponies,” she said kindly to the occupants of the hospital room. “I believe I know how to fix this.”

Before the words had even finished leaving Celestia’s mouth, the alicorn felt her foreleg being tackled by a small purple dragon, whose tears of grief were quickly being replaced by the joy variety. “Thank you! Thankyouthankyouthankyou!” Spike blubbered into her leg.

Celestia smiled and nuzzled the dragon in return. “Don’t worry, everything will be fine soon. Now, would you mind letting go of my leg so that I may help Princess Twilight?”

Spike blushed and released the leg from his clutches, a relieved grin on his face. He bounced over and hugged a smiling Pinkie Pie instead, whose hair had already begun re-poofing.

(Due to nothing but the reassurances of their princess, the room could no longer be described as “stressed”.)

Princess Celestia closed her eyes and touched her horn to Twilight Sparkle’s.