"Nurse, I’ll need some assistance checking the vitals of the patients."
She grumbled as Laceration called out. Her shift had ended nearly an hour ago at dawn, and her replacement had yet to come in. Picking herself, she tied her maroon hair into a bun using magic; she had been woken from a nap.
"Doctor, you know I have a name." She grimaced, opening a chilled cabinet with blood bags. "I hope you remember it because I am very, very angry at you."
"Eh?" He turned around, facing her. She was most definitely ready to murder him. "Nurse..." He choked, on his next words, praying that he actually remembered his partner’s name, "...Mend?"
Something about stallions and names of close coworkers tickled his ears before a reserved slam closed the cabinet. That was definitely not her name.
"You just stay right there." Her right ear was pointed down, ready to slice his eye, should he as much as twitch. "You really suck at your job, except for the impromptu surgeries which are exceedingly rare that none of us but you can salvage. I’ll take the patients’ vitals, and you can fix any mistakes that I’ve made, acting on your behalf, helping out your forcefully drafted cousin." Red Cross’s tail slapped him in the face, marring his muzzle.
Her magic surrounded their foreheads, throats and midsections. Reading general vitals, but a little above average temperature, Cross figured they were fine—except for sleeping in the same bed slumped over one another, in an awkward position.
Swiveling around to the opposite side of the room before any lewd thoughts were to come to mind, she noted Caedes’s position, and moved the sheets off of her before levitating her slightly to wrap magic around her barrel.
"Elevated heart rate, and a very high fever." She removed the nearly empty blood bag and replaced it with the fresh one she had been keeping suspended in her field. Levitating Caedes and the equipment over to the examination table, she peeled off the last sheet of paper and replaced it with a new sheet.
"Laceration, get your plot over here. I need some cold water and rags; this filly has a rather high fever with 18 degrees over the average."
Downgraded to menial labor, Laceration plodded depressedly but quickly over to the sink with a bucket in tow.
***
"And you’re sure that this does not need my immediate attention, but rather merited consideration as an event that only stood out?" Celestia felt that it was a rather one sided conversation and to her secretary no less. "It seems like more of a concern than just usual happenstance. Tell me, what’s there to do today on the schedule?"
Raven inwardly groaned. Even thou it was her job to organize and file the paperwork, scheduling was always distasteful. "Well, there are petitions to be looked over for an hour, and there are no major court issues today, but that’s taken up by playing dignitary to the aristocrats, and then it’s time for lunch. Then at one, you’ll be revising aged laws and tax code due to expanding markets and technologies.
"From there, you’ll be holding an open session for citizens to voice suggestions, complaints, or alterations to current government practices for two hours. Meetings with the parliament follow suit with any planned meetings with nobles, and then sleep."
The usual morning routine never sat well with Celestia, "Erase the morning pandering and toss any petitions from ponies not on the whitelist." She straitened. "We’ve got work to do."
***
The records office was buzzing with ponies on enough coffee to feed an entire city block – no pony liked the records office, especially those who worked there. Overflowing with papers, the inbox for papers delivered in the daytime was left mostly untouched because the inbox for nighttime had priority currently.
Mister Transcript fished out the paper and made a request to the Canterlot Public Records Commission for information on ponies living at 45 Twelve East Street. "Fast Bag! We’ve got one again."
A slightly overweight Pegasus trotted out of a corner. "Really? I don’t get enough exercise as it is. Gimme it."
Transcript grimaced. "At least you get paid for doing next to nothing compared to us. We’re political cannon fodder." He paused realizing he forgot to tell his co-worker where to go. "Ah yes, deliver this to the CPRC."
"Can do!" He jumped off the balcony, clipping his hoof. "Shoot, every time!" He tumbled down into a couple of lone bushes placed conspicuously at his exact spot.
***
"Yes, yes. I realize you do more work than me on a daily basis. But I still do my part well when the opportunity arises." He had his hooves in the air while defending himself.
"Just like last night?"
His hooves lowered.
"Tch, whatever. Just undo the temporary stiches I gave her. Here’s a few cc’s of anesthesia." Red Cross placed a syringe on the table. "Just don’t kill her accidentally." She walked over to a chair and slumped down exhausted.
The anesthesia had slowed her pulse enough to work on her without causing her to bleed out. After removing the stitches and slicing open the wound with a scalpel, he noticed the recess had begun to pool with blood, highlighting the perforation in her chest cavity.
"It’s a wonder you could sleep at all with your lung filling like that."
He reached for a plastic tube with a hollow end. Feeding the tube into her lung, he forced the fluid into the hollow end, and started stitching the cut. Feeding the thread was no problem, but maintaining both actions caused him undue stress after waking up from his earlier stupor.
"Annnnnd, done." He knotted the final thread on her barrel and sanitized the wound. "Phew. You’ve gotten luck, filly. Now if I only had something to call you." He rubbed her back. "Whoops. Almost forgot to get you another bag. Your insides were leaking badly. And I might’ve spilled you a little..."