//------------------------------//
// C15 - Ishy Situations 
// Story: Trapped In Canterlot 
// by TartarusFire 
//------------------------------//

A clock yelled her in the face. "Eight Thirty! Get up, get up!"

A hoof missing gold adornments smashed through the pile of metal—it had melted before she could touch it. "No." The voice of an eternal diplomat carried a force of terror to it, daring the pile to make another sound.

Pleased with her action, she rolled over, lavishing in thought of going back to sleep.

Only to be interrupted by three knocks at her door. "Breakfast, your highness. Raven sent a slice of cake today."

"Curse Raven and her ability to get me out of bed; first the breakfast along with waking up and cake, or really any pastry? How can I say no?" She all but yelled in her head.

"Come in then. Drop the cart off please." A yellow maid came in, setting the cart in the middle of the room. Bowing, she left Celestia’s quarters.

"A note?" Her magic swiped the paper off of the cart. 


"There was a disturbance last night. ‘Sent you cake to warm you up to paperwork in the morning.

-Your Secretary, Raven"


"You know, for once, I’d like to have something sweet, or rea in the morning without strings attached."



***



They had been awake for hours after their injuries were sealed, light medication only numbing the feelings. They had started talking to The Doctor and were wondering about an early dinner or late breakfast.

"I suppose you’re right. You can’t heal on an empty stomach; I have to look out for my patients." Apparently he was absentminded and forgot the important part of living, food. "I better wake up the actual doctor now. I have to talk some sense into him while your food is being delivered."

He walked away, prompting Nightshade to voice a question. "If he’s a doctor, why is his cutie mark an hourglass?"

"Counting the seconds to death?"

"Yeah.. but if you get your cutie mark when you’re young..." They shivered.

"Too dark for me, Nightshade. Too dark, and I’m a thestral."



***



"Wake up doctor!" He flipped the light switch, illuminating a stallion with a knife and stiches as a cutie mark. "I found you drunk again! Seriously, I have to cover for you all the time, and it’s always during an emergency!"

He cringed under the light and shoved the pillow over his hears. "Whooves, keep it down. Hangover, remember?"

"Don’t call me Whooves, you know I prefer being called The Doctor." He moved over to a small fridge, revealing a glass with a pinkish powder in the bottom. Opening the fridge, he purloined orange juice and a raw egg. Cracking the egg, and pouring the juice, he shit the fridge and stirred the mixture.

"You need to wake up. I made the usual along with some protein powder I found on a trashcan lid." He didn’t voice that he was only mostly sure it was in fact protein powder. "Come on. I’ll even turn out the room light."

His cousin groaned at his own exertion. Once the light was off, he slumped onto the floor with a sweaty plop. Picking himself up, he chugged the fantastically horrible mixture. "I hate your cure for hangovers every time I drink it. Except now it’s even worse being grainy from the powder."

"Oh, and I’ve moved you up a timeslot, so you need to start working at nine a.m."

"Damn it, cousin."



***



The same goldenrod colored maid walked into the corridor leading to the ward. Her brunette hair was in a hairnet, as the kitchens had required if she was delivering to the hospice area. Using her mouth to open the rear door into the ward, she trotted in, looking for the two patients on the list for breakfast.

Inwardly cursing after finding a filly that she had not accounted for, she pushed it toward the dark blue one first. "Good morning sir, I have breakfast here." She displayed the cart’s wares.

There was a staggering array of breakfast and possible lunch items on it; the only response Deepsky could utter was an appropriate, "Uhh."

Amused, she hoofed one of several bowls of salad to him. "This’d probably be better for a healing pony than pancakes would be."

"Thanks." He nibbled on some of the strawberries on top. "If you could just leave the cart, we’ll eat off of it."

While it was a completely appropriate thing to do with any pony that requested it, as far as Maple was concerned, injured ponies should not be out of bed. "I don’t think I can do that. You need to stay in bed to heal up."

He grinned. "So you want to stay? Am I attractive, or did you just forget that there are nurses?" Flummoxed, she turned and stormed away, grumbling about having to deliver another cart with more food for the filly, due to protocol.

Before she could exit entirely he called back, "Sorry. But, just disregard the filly. This is enough food for three or four ponies let alone two and a filly. They probably didn’t update the public ward sheet after four a.m."



"The hay was that Deepsky?" Nightshade blurted out after Maple had left the room. "You didn’t even know her. She could’ve been in the young adult castle’s work study program. Are you really that desperate?"

He shrugged, feeling conflicted. "I didn’t really mean it like that. I was just poking a little, but now I feel bad ‘cause she was just being nice... Now I feel even guiltier. Thanks for that, partner."

Being blissfully unaware of sarcasm that he was, Nightshade responded gleefully.

"Sometimes I wish I had a partner with an ability to understand sarcasm."

"I feel like that general sentiment is shared between lots of ponies."



***



"I wish I had a government that didn’t rely on profuse amounts of documentation." She had a stack of over three hundred papers floating in her grasp. "Stack one of ten, here we go."

"Princess, if you are wondering, that’s the general status report of the night’s events. The next one is the detailed accounting of it, the next stack is the general status report of the infirmary, the next stack is the detailed version of that, and the next two stacks are general and detailed versions of collateral damages, the next two stacks are the two versions of complaints and welfare of Canterlot, and the last two stacks are the daily stacks of paperwork needing to be signed into law or denied."

Raven had the biggest crap eating grin plastered on her muzzle.

She looked to her secretary. "You can burn the other stacks; it’s only this one, and the damage reports that actually matter. And is there anything I actually need to read besides the first twenty or so pages of the first report? It looks like most of it is just blank papers."

"Nope."

"Well, you can joke as much as you like as long as I get a something yummy out of it." She pondered her words. "Also, put back all this blank paper would you? Just because it grows on trees doesn’t mean it’s free or cheap."