Being of Two Minds

by cosmofur

Un mal di testa che non sarebbe credere.

Twilight sparkle was in an office the Director of the Fillidelpha's Penstable Hospital lent her, she and rainbow dash were putting the final touches on a letter to Princess Celestia about the strange events from the previous night. Well, to be honest, Twilight was writing the letter while Rainbow was sleeping on top of one of the offices bookcases. Periodically Twilight would forget Rainbow was asleep and direct a question towards the Pegasus who would reply with a clear and we'll thought out answer of 'Zzzzzz' or sometimes punctuated with a clarification of 'Snorkkkaa" which Twilight would faithfully record with her quill pen.

A short while before, one of the hospital orderlies had dropped by and gave the princess a telegram from Ponyville. The rest of her friends including Spike would soon arrive there by train. Twilight was ecstatic about the news as Spike's fire breath was the fastest way to get news to Celestia and she was anxious to talk to her fellow princess about the fight in Coltsdale.

Twilight was far more disturbed than she wanted to let on, in all the years of facing danger for Equestria, the threat of death may have been real, but the actual violence she had to deal with rarely escalated above a few bruises. Even the war with the changelings had resulted in mostly abrasions and a few broken bones at worst. But these Cultists, these both new and ancient villeins of the Stone Heart Cult, had murdered a pony in cold blood and left the body in the dirt. Twilight shuddered once again with the memory. She then glanced out the window of the office, looking if there was any sign of returning Pegasuses, they still hadn't heard any news back from the guards left in Coltsdale, and didn't know if the remaining males of the town had been found, alive or not.

Twilight turned her eyes to the sleeping rainbow dash and briefly felt jealous of her friends apparent ability to put the horror behind her and sleep at a time like this. Twilight's jealousy was misplaced, Rainbow was dealing with the same imagery in her dreams. Dreams that started with the gruesome remains they had both witnessed and compounded it with details drawn from the Pegasus preferred entertainment of adventure stories and horror films.

While Twilight could only speculate about what was going on in Rainbows head, anther Princess of Equestria was not so lucky. Princess Luna stood to the side of the dream space of the rainbow Pegasus, or in this case nightmare. With some contrition she tried to draw the attention of Rainbow from her own dreams, but even the Royal Canterlot Voice was a poor distraction from the hordes of bloody Zompomies and dark shadows of undefined but monstrous danger that filled the rainbow mares mind. Once or twice Luna had gotten Rainbow to look in her direction but the fear was too real and the danger too recent, there was no recognition and no lucidity. Luna realized that the brave shell Rainbow wore in the waking world, was not there when the mare was alone in the darkness of her mind.

Luna with a sigh of frustration realized she could not help here, Rainbows nightmare was a coping mechanism and had to run its natural course or she would never be able clear her mind of the fear. Resolving to return later, to see if Rainbows dreams would calm down, she instead expanded her dream senses to detect other dreamers in the area. It was daytime now, but some ponies dreamed at all hours in a hospital. With some luck, she could perhaps learn news.

Dreamwalking and physical space had different geometries. There was no way that Luna could tell if a dreamer was on particular floor or room, the minds she sensed were like bubbles in a flowing sea, hospitals were not her favorite place to dream walk, yet she found herself in such places frequently, a duty as an immortal she owed to her short lived subjects. Looking back and forth there were as always a handful of patients sleeping, but Luna was hoping for a hospital staffer, someone taking a nap after a double shift, with some luck she could send, through them, a message.

It was then that Luna spotted something odd. A most peculiar dreamer, instead of a light and organic bubble, it was a box, or a tower, full of sharp lines and mechanical ideas. It stood out, no pony Luna had ever met dreamed like that.

Luna approached and wondered what sort of creature would have dreams as stiff as clockwork. She spun around the thing and wondered for a long time uncertain if it would be safe to enter this alien dream space.

But wasn't she the Princess of the Night! It was her duty to protect her subjects from such strange goings on. Her mind made up, she phased in the dream.

A moment later she found herself in a white room facing a familiar face.

“Ah Red Wood! We..eh I have found you!”

Parker turned from the mirror he was inspecting and seeing Princess Luna, he just face hoofed.

Parker shook his head and quietly said in a deadpan voice, “Stay away from the Mane Six, Stay away from Ponyville, leave the diplomacy to trained diplomats who’ll follow you. Just watch from the outskirts, your an engineer to fix the gateway, not an explorer. That’s what they told me.” He sighed, “OK hello, Princess Luna, I guess there’s no point is saying ‘take me to your leader.’”

Confused Luna demand, “Explain yourself!”

And so Parker started to do just that.

---

Soon after Luna had left Rainbows dream space, a nurse knocked on the office door. Startling both the Alicorn and awakening the Pegasus, for Twilight that was just a case of her smudging some ink on her growing notes, Rainbow on the other hoof had fallen from the top shelf and failed to remember her wings before she hit the floor with a crash.

"Rainbow! Are you alright?" Twilight asked her companion.

"I meant to do that?" Rainbow sheepishly replied, as she shook the last of her sleep from her chromatic head. It had hardly been a restful sleep, but it had helped.

The nurse paused only for a moment to assess the damage and then seeing nothing serious, said "I'm sorry Princess, and you too Lady Dash, but I thought you would want to know, the patient is awake."

Twilight and Rainbow both asked at the same time, "Is he alright?"

"He appears to be healthy but a bit confused. I'll let the doctor explain more." The nurse told them as she started to lead the two friends to the recovery room.

There is some peculiarity about large and old Hospitals, perhaps it was some reflection of the natural magic of Equestria and fact that souls both check in, and check out, inside Hospital walls. But you can never really be sure how long it will take you to walk from one place to another. In general, maps are useless. The most direct route will always be closed off, for cleaning, for security, for no good reason. To get to the room on the other side of an adjacent wall, may certainly require leaving the current building via a skybridge and through several other buildings then after walking the equivalent of four city blocks, entering the original building by a basement passage before climbing up two stories for each one you descended.The old Fillydelphia hospital was no exception to this, still with the guidance of the nurse It took them only fifteen minutes to walk the to the secure ward where Red Wood/Parker was recovering in, perhaps it had only felt longer.

Once they got close to the door, Rainbow Dash, well, dashed into the room first.

“OK Spy! No more nice mare! We want answers, and we want them now!” She yelled at the bed, before even looking down.

Red Wood and Banyan looked up in surprise. Banyan had managed to get to the room first, and he and his father had already been talking for several minutes when the blue flying mare interrupted them.

“What!” Red Wood cried, “Who are you?”

Banyan, knew who Rainbow was of course, but just glared angrily at being interrupted by the shout.

“Calm Down, Rainbow” Twilight told her marefriend as she more calmly strolled into the room.

Twilight then directed her attention to Red Wood, “Sir, while Rainbow Dashes approach was excessive, her basic question is still valid. Yesterday you said several questionable statements, and now that you’re no longer in physical danger, I think it would be most appropriate for you to expand on your declarations.”

Red Wood tried to follow the question, he really did, but his head was still spinning from confusion and shock. So he most elegantly replied. “Huh?”

Twilight sighed and tried again, “Sir, what did you mean yesterday when you agreed with Rainbow Dash that you are a spy.”

“A Spy! Who are you to call me a spy!” Red Wood snarled, then he looked a bit closer.

“What? WIngs and a horn. oh my Celestia! You’re that new Princess, uhh Princess Tiggy Farkel I mean Twilight Farkle, no I mean, we were just talking about you, my head is still foggy…”

“Her name is Twilight Sparkle!” Rainbow corrected Red Wood. “Hey wait a minute! You knew her at first sight yesterday!”

Red Wood looked confused, “Yesterday? I’ve never seen you before! I met Princess Luna in a dream, but that’s the first time I ever met any of the Princesses.”

While Twilight and Rainbow looked to each other in confusion, Banyan instead jumped on the bed and (in a frankly cute way considering he is still just a preteen colt) stared him straight eye to eye. “Are you Mr Parker or my daddy?”

The colt asked him this question with such seriousness that for a moment Red Wood was speechless. “Parker? that stranger that looked like me, called himself Parker.” Then realizing he hadn’t answered his son’s absurd question, “Banyan, I’m your father, don’t you know me?”

“Daddy!” Banyan wrapped his hoofs around Red Wood’s neck in a choke hold, “The ghost didn’t lie! You’re alive! You’re you!”

Twilight was certainly confused but she also realized that she probably should have debriefed Banyan before now. The colt seemed to know more than anypony else about what was going on. “Mr Red Wood? What is a ‘Parker’?”

Red Wood and Banyan exchanged glances, “I think you already met him, he and I exchanged only a few words in passing before I awoke here.”

“Whoa now!” Rainbow interrupted, “You’re saying you have multiple ponyalities! I got this Twi! In Daring Do and the secret of the Trottingham Ripper, there was this mad scientist guy that had a split personality! By day he was this nice dentist that had a real neat collection of teeth, but by night he was the dreaded Peach Heart the RIpper!”

Twilight dead panned “Peach Heart the Ripper? Wouldn’t it sound scarier with something like Dark Lord or Death Bringer or something short if weird like Jake?”

Rainbow just gave Twilight a blank stare, “Who ever heard of pony named ‘Dark Lord’? Hmm come to think of it, Ponies rarely have decently scary names. But Twilight that’s not the important part! Red Wood here must be suffering from a Split Ponyality!”

Twilight blinked a few times at Rainbow then shook her head to clear it. “Daring Do books are not exactly qualified medical journals, and I don’t think real Dissociative Identity Disorder, is nothing like the fictional counterpart, but you might have a point.”

Red Wood asked “Wait! You’re thinking I sick in the head? I mean there been some confusing things happening and some of its scary, but I don’t think….”

Twilight ignored Red Wood’s protest and turned to the Nurse, “Can I get a Echothatologic Kygrimoire Genucordacon in here?”

The nurse who had been standing way clear of the conversation up to this point, just asked, “We have several but we’ll need a doctor’s order and get a technician to operate it.”

Twilight smiled at that, “Oh I have a few doctorates by now, true there mostly honorary but still legally binding, so my word should do.” She shrugged her wings and held her horn high, “Besides I think I qualify as official on other grounds as well?”

“Right, Princess, I will ask one of the ER doctors to come up to operate the EKG.” The nurse turned to leave.

“No don’t bother, just roll the machine in here, I don’t want to inconvenience an ER doctor, beside I used to build them when I was an undergraduate at old CSGU and I’m fully qualified to operate it.”

The nurse gave the princess a skeptical look but with a small bow, turned to get the device from the floor storage room.

Rainbow asked, “Hey Twi not to doubt you, but You really know how to operate this doohickey?”

“I have one in the library basement, that’s what I hooked Pinkie Pie up to when I was trying to figure out Pinkie Sense.”

Looking a little shifty, Rainbow hovered lower to whisper to Twilight “Ehh, that didn’t exactly work out for you, did it?”

“Oh Rainbow Dash, don’t worry I’ve learned a lot since then. I’m sure there will be no problem.”

The nurse brought in the device, which was much sleeker looking and had many more dials and controls than Twilights homemade version. But that didn’t stop the determined Alicorn from hooking up Red Wood to the machine and starting it up. There was a few beeps from a steam whistle on the side of the main console and graph paper started spilling on the floor.

Twilight read the graphs,“Interesting, I’m seeing an odd extra line here, there does seem to be two minds operating in there! But I can’t really separate the two images at this power level. I better increase it”. Twilight set her horn alight and shot some more magic into the device.

“OK now it clearer, definitely a second mind is operating!” Twilight rather impolitely knocked on Red Wood’s noggin. “Hmm, still something blurry here, like the pen trying to filter more noise out. I’m going increase the power again.”

Her horn started to glow again, when the nurse interjected “Wait, you're an Alicorn and the most powerful mage in Equestria, the machine’s not rated for your full power!”

Twilight laughed “Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing!” though her facial features were starting to take on the expressions of ‘manic’ as she was intent on getting to the bottom of this mystery. She blasted the machine with a full load of her magic charge.

The meter started to smoke and the speed of the pen increased so it was more burning images into the paper rather than laying ink. Twilight didn't mind that though, she was reading the graphs and laughing. “Three, yes Three minds are in there! Wow this third one is powerful! Strange, I’d say it was an Alicorn...I wonder what that means?”

Suddenly there were sparks and black smoke, rainbow colors ran back up the leads, sending magic deep into Red Woods body. He spasmed a few times, knocking Banyan to the floor while crying out, as if in shock.

“Oh No! Oh No!” Twilight pranced nervously in place, as she backed down the power, “Please be alright! Please be alright!”

Everyone turned towards Red Wood, who sat up in the bed and looked around in confusion.

There was a long pause as everyone in the room waited for Red Wood to respond. It took a moment as he clearly was having trouble clearing his vision, then with a gasp as if uncertain how to move his tongue correctly, he managed to spit out the words “Twilight Sparkle!”

Everyone let out a relieved sigh, he appeared to be alright, then Red Wood continued, his voice gaining confidence and volume, indeed quite a lot of volume. “Twilight Sparkle, we demand you explain the meaning of this! How did we arrive in the strange room, this is definitely not my quarters in Canterlot!”

With a cry of shock and recognition of the Canterlot royal voice both Rainbow Dash and Twilight screamed “Princess Luna!??”

Author's Note:

Err, well this one was more fun to write than it probably should have been.

Comments

[Shpoople96]

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I dunno, I like it so far...