Sick Week

by CosmicAfro

D

The circular quarantine room was teeming with medicinal staff, carrying what seemed like to the princesses an endless supply of various tools and gauges. Twilight, Celestia, and Luna were each encapsulated in a thin dome with plastic tubes running between each of them. Equestrian doctors of all races ran through the tunnels like busy ants, barely taking a moment to chatter except for the most utmost important details.

“Is all of this,” Twilight readjusted her face mask, “necessary?” Her doctors looked at her like she killed a cat in front of them, and then reanimated it. Then killed it again. Their excessively violent response made her recoil slightly in her bed.

“Twilight,” Celestia said through the intercom in the room, “please forgive them. I understand you’re new to being an Alicorn and-” she paused for a moment as she ingested a colorful assortment of pills lying on the tray in front of her. She didn’t need a glass of water, she took them down as is. She pointed the doctor towards Luna who received the same set and followed in her sister’s steps. Luna thanked him and pointed him to Twilight. He shuffled through to her dome and presented them.

“There’s no reason for me to take all of this. I only sneezed,” Twilight rebutted, pushing the pills aside. If a frown could kill a princess, she’d look like a dead cat she recently reanimated. Both of her fellow royals wafted a hoof and the doctor rather forcefully pushed a glass of water forward to her on her tray. She rolled her eyes, recalling a memory about tough love and a pill she had tried to force on Celestia’s own pet. Reluctantly, she took them one by one.

“As I was saying, there is something you must know. As an Alicorn, you are not prone to most pathogens that hinder normal society. Your immune system is more like an immune military, effectively removing any foreign substances and invaders on the site of contact. But when one does manage to slip through-” Twilight wanted to sit up and hear more, but a nurse gently pushed her head back down.

“So I catch a small cold, it’s not a big deal,” Twilight frustratedly interrupted.

“You must understand something crucial.” Celestia suddenly stopped and slammed the red button by her side, alerting all staff. All unicorns aimed a magic pulse at her throat and nose while pegasi wafted in cool air from an exhaust port. An earth pony jotted down the time and sprinted out at a nearly impossible speed.

After what seemed like an age of unrest, she gently pressed her button again. Everyone in the room applauded their efforts and continued about their normal business. “I almost coughed, I apologize.” She cleared her throat with a mighty ‘harumph’ and continued speaking. “Infections of any kind dangerously alter our magic and create side effects that branch from our own areas of expertise. It does not favor us that any illnesses we can contract are magical in nature.”

Twilight looked at Luna, looking for a confirmation.

“It’s true, Twilight,” Luna spoke while starting to shiver. The most recent princess was beginning to get the bigger picture, even if most of it was unknown to her.

“So, what you mean to say is that whenever we leave top physical condition, we become prone to metamagical extremities?” Twilight winced as a needle entered her thigh. The nurse gave a quick apologetic nod and then checked a box on the clipboard hanging off the edge of her bed.

“Correct. I have sent a scouting party to assess the possible damage done by your sneeze. It may be that you had sneezed and you were not sick, but we cannot take the chance until we’re certain.”

Twilight didn’t need to hear the rest. If what her mentor was saying was true, which she had no reason to doubt, then it was clear why she had been rushed here to the infirmary. The thought of magic being influenced by a pathogen wasn’t a completely foreign idea either. Some diseases shut off magic in a pony completely, essentially making them lifeless blobs for weeks until it passed; granted, that was extremely rare. Other cases of horns misfiring while sleeping, sleep-flying and sleep walking had also been recorded.

“Princess Celestia, may I speak with you on your private intercom?” a stallion’s voice echoed in the room. The solar princess nodded and magically drew the curtains.

“Twilight,” Luna called to her softly. “Are you nervous about all of this?” Her voice came from a tiny speaker to the left of her bed and it occurred to Twilight that Luna was talking to her in a private channel. Most of the medical staff had left with only a few standing ready at the door close to where Celestia was.

“A little,” the young Alicorn whispered into the microphone. She noticed Luna’s raised brow and slightly tilted head. “Ok, maybe a lot.”

“Try not to be, when an Alicorn is sick for the first time, an opportunity for discovery is created,” she reassured. “We know what will happen when we perform certain actions under a cold and there are equally prosperous effects to match the devastating ones.”

“What do you mean?”

“You see, Twilight, certain ailments like coughing, sneezing, watering eyes and the like have… well for us it’s not like regular ponies. Our magic is intertwined with the land and the ponies who live here so naturally when we change, so do they. What happens isn’t what we always expect but Celestia and I have recorded these findings in detail. For example, if I were to catch Nullam Constantium and have my eyes water…”

Twilight could hear the excitement building in Luna’s voice.

“A meteor shower unlike anything you’ve ever seen will take up the entire night sky,” she said like she was telling a fairy tale to a child. “And if I cry, a midnight rainbow will reach across the night sky, stretching from end to end where dawn touches dusk. I’ve only ever seen it three times, that rainbow. It’s difficult to explain its appearance, I’m afraid.” Her voice gave away her pure sense of bliss, as if she wanted to be sick so she could see these things again. She watched Luna wipe a tear from her eyes as she became entrapped in a memory long past.

“But,” she continued with a darker tone carrying her words, “if I ever sniffle, the moon will turn red and plants start to wither. I hope you see the irony, for when I cry I turn into a sniveling mess,” she half-heartedly joked. “We’ve tried many cures so ponies and all creatures can enjoy those spectacles, but it always ends up the same. Ponies watch in awe and then flee in fear when they see the environment around them deteriorate.” She took in a deep breath. “I am pleased to say when I subside those emotions and the moon returns to its normal state, the plants revive themselves.”

Twilight watched her give the thousand yard stare at a blank wall. “Luna…” She looked out the window where the moon should be and noticed it was close to a new moon tonight. Only a sliver of white graced the twinkling canvas.

“Twilight Sparkle,” the voice on the intercom interrupted, “please engage your personal channel.”

The mare in question looked over at the set of buttons to her right. Ten buttons were arranged in a grid with five per row. She eyed it with uncertainty, letting her hoof waiver over it.

“The top left, Ms. Sparkle,” he impatiently added.

She blushed and gave a quick thanks. She pressed it and as soon as she did, Celestia’s curtain began to open and her own close. Just before she was shut off from the room, she observed Celestia’s frown and her solemn eyes looking directly at her.

“Hello, Ms. Sparkle, I am Cooperation and I am the head doctor of this ward. You may call me Cooper if you so wish.” His voice was light and friendly and reminded the librarian of the school nurse she had in her elementary days before she became Celestia’s student. “I have some good news and some bad news, which would you like to hear first?”

Twilight hesitantly pressed the button. “The bad news?”

“Interesting…” some scribbling noises came through the signal for a moment. “Unfortunately, you have contracted Nullam Constantium. Not quite so unusual, given how long you’ve been a princess. The preemptive medication will also be working and you’ll be feeling groggy, nauseated, and may be prone to headaches for the next few days. The latter was bound to happen either way.

“On the other hoof,” his voice picked back up to his initial cheery demeanor, “this means we can record the after effects and we’ve treated you before you could begin to feel the more powerful effects. You’ll also be in here for a week, free to have whatever book you want delivered to you at a moment’s notice. This also means after this week is over, it could be anywhere from ten to five hundred years that you’ll be sick again.”

Without thinking, she rolled her eyes at the thought of being tied down to a bed for a week. Sure, reading was fun in its own rights, but she still enjoyed exercise.

“Careful, Ms. Sparkle, we wouldn’t want you straining your eye muscles over this delicate recovery.”

She froze in place and then looked up and noticed a tan stallion with grey hair waving to her through a window one floor above her. She rested her face in a hoof and waved with the opposite to hide her shame. “If I may ask, what is this Nullam Constantium?”

“It’s difficult to explain given how little we know about it, but the best we’ve managed to discover is it’s no more dangerous than influenza but much stronger than a common cold. Nothing we can’t handle.”

“I hope,” he added too quickly for Twilight to respond. To her, it came off as a joke but with a hint of seriousness. Over the room intercom, the chuckling doctor announced, “Princess Luna, Princess Celestia, you two are free to go.”

Luna rolled out of the bed and righted the messy sheets by levitating them over the bed and laying them down flat and snug. She waltzed over to the button dash board and pressed down the middle button in the top row. “Twilight, do not worry, we will keep you company during your quarantine. For now, get some rest. It is nearing midnight and a restless patient does not make for a healthy recovery.” She walked through the tunnel and neared Twilight’s dome without entering. She held up her right hoof and crossed it over her left side, then held it close to her eye. Twilight nodded with a yawn she hadn’t realized she had been holding.

The nurses bowed as the royal sisters exited the room and the door closed with a loud but stern click.

“Luna,” Celestia said while giving the thousand yard stare, “Cooper told me some unfortunate news.”

Her sister motioned with her head to follower her. “I sensed it too. Even with the medication, Constant’s disease is going to have a hayday with Twilight’s magical abilities.” She playfully nudged her sister in the side who looked at her in surprise. “Oh don’t pretend you don’t remember your first time.”

The white alicorn warmly smiled. “The unhappiest week in the life of Equestria, I know. Odd, it wasn’t so funny back then.”

“It wasn’t that bad. Not all the symptoms caused mass panic. The country even got some much needed rain that week thanks to you.”

She silently nodded to herself. “You’re right, I shouldn’t be so worked up about this. After all, what’s the worst that could happen?”

“Famous last words, sister.”

Comments

[Dragon of Shadows]

She silently nodded to herself. “You’re right, I shouldn’t be so worked up about this. After all, what’s the worst that could happen?”

“Famous last words, sister.”

i agree the very famous last words what is the worst that could happen