Lessons in quirks

by Mike84

Chapter XXV

With the rough awakening the arrival of the pony from Fillydelphia had given him the previous morning, Spike had expected for Frank's presence to result in additional tasks and more jobs to be dealt with. However, things had turned out quite differently. With Twilight having taken care of leading the guest around, the previous day would have been rather easy on him but for Pinkie Pie's insistence on informing all of Ponyville about the impending party. It had been a bit of work, but it had been more than made up for by the party itself. This morning Twilight had let him sleep in and except for the questions at the town hall and the one letter Twilight had had him write and send to Princess Celestia this day too had been uncommonly unscheduled for Spike.

He was standing in the main room of the library, looking a bit undetermined at a feather duster in his hand. There was no real point in dusting the library again. There just hadn't been enough time for much dust to settle anywhere since the last time he had done it. With Twilight gone with Frank and Owlowiscious asleep on a perch upstairs, Spike felt a bit at a loss of what to do with the unexpected free time. Maybe he could pay Rarity a visit and see if she had any use for his services as an assistant for whatever kind of fashion project she might be working on?

Spike shrugged, put down the feather duster and headed for the desk to write a note to Twilight about his whereabouts when suddenly a well known sense of inflation told him that a task was coming. With a loud burp and a surge of greenish flames Spike produced a scroll from his mouth bearing the seal of Princess Celestia. With an often practiced motion he caught the scroll in midair and headed for the door to search Twilight at the town hall or wherever she and Frank might have headed from there.

The door burst open with such a force that Spike took a leap backwards. Had he been one step closer it probably would have knocked him right over.
"Spike! Write a letter to the princess immediately!" Twilight ordered from the threshold.
"Gee Twilight, what happened? And I just got this letter from the princess."
Twilight levitated the letter straight out of Spike's hand, broke the seal and unrolled the scroll. Judging from her deepening frown she didn't like what she read, which was fairly uncommon when it came to letters from Celestia.

"Twilight, what is it?" Spike asked as he rushed to the desk for a piece of paper and a quill, knowing that he stood a better chance of having his questions answered if at the same time he was following Twilight's order about the letter. This time however Twilight didn't answer. Still scanning the letter she entered slowly while gnawing her lower lip.
Spike returned from the desk.
"Ready", he said thinking that, by taking Twilight's dictation, he would most likely learn what upset her. "What am I to write?"
Twilight shook her head slowly. "Maybe not yet after all..."
"What, but you just said...?"

"I know Spike, but looking at this..." she tapped the letter of the Princess which she had put on the table, "...I think Princess Celestia may have enough trouble to deal with at the moment without me adding another without being able to say anything helpful about it. We will send a letter later when I can tell her more."
"Care to tell me what in Equestria is going on?" Spike asked.
Twilight sighed. "They arrested Frank, Spike."
The dragon gave Twilight a look as if she had just proclaimed the world was a rotating sphere circling the sun rather than Princess Celestia raising and lowering it.

"What? Who? How? Why?" Spike asked, not sure which question he wanted answered first.
Twilight laid out what had happened as quickly as possible but as detailed as necessary for her number one assistant to do what she had decided to ask him to do.
"Spike, I am going to visit Mr. Rich and ask him about all this. I want you to tell Applejack, Rarity, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash about this. When I'm done at Mr. Rich's place I'm going to return here. Maybe then we will have enough to write a letter to Celestia. Got it Spike?"
Spike nodded and made for the door. By the looks of it, his original intuition about Frank's presence meaning more tasks and jobs had been right, though in a manner different from what he had expected.

As she entered Ponyville hospital, Twilight was greeted by Dr. Horse and Nurse Redheart who was standing behind the reception counter.
"Hello Princess", the doctor said with a respectful yet informal bow.
"How are you?" Nurse Redheart asked friendly without bothering about any more formal greeting. The hospital was her own realm and Twilight thought that if Princess Celestia herself would enter through the hospital doors she would not get any different treatment from Nurse Redheart as any other patient, which meant the best treatment possible but without any kowtows of any sort. Twilight found this quite refreshing. She noticed that the nurse had been one of the few ponies she hadn't seen at the party yesterday.

"I'm fine, thank you. How about yourself and all of Ponyville?"
"Can't complain. The doctor was just telling me about everything I missed yesterday", she shrugged. "But it was my shift."
"Luckily Ponyville is mostly fine too. Almost no sprained fetlocks in spite of all the dancing yesterday", the doctor joked. "If all ponies heeded my advise to drink enough and not to expose themselves too much to the sun in all this heat we might get idle for want of sunstrokes. Not that that would be a bad thing."

"Doctor, I was wondering if I could visit Mr. Rich here?"
"Ah yes...", said the doctor, getting more serious again. "Indeed the one case these days which I don't think is related to the heat. I'm afraid you can't visit him here though."
Twilight looked surprised.
"He is no longer here", Nurse Redheart said. "He came here this morning, but after the examinations we discharged him."
"He is alright then?" Twilight asked.
Doctor Horse cocked his head and looked concerned: "Not quite, I think. But I'm afraid that he wouldn't benefit from staying in this hospital."
"What do you mean, doctor?"
"Now princess, with all due respect, I am not authorized to give out detailed information about the state of health of my patients and—"

"I know he has suffered a loss of memory that you diagnosed as amnesia and that he has been rather down-spirited", Twilight said a little impatiently. "Inkhorn told so", Twilight added as Dr. Horse looked at her surprised.
The doctor sighed: "Medical confidentiality really doesn't mean much in this town... bless it. In the part of Baltimare I'm from originally, a pony could suffer from all kind's of ailments without even the immediate neighbors noticing."
"Doctor, you probably heard about the theft from Mr. Rich's house..."
"How could I possibly not hear about it in this town?"
"...and whatever happened to Mr. Rich may be important for the investigations in this matter."
Doctor Horse rolled his eyes: "I think Inkhorn said something similar—"

"Mr. Rich didn't remember anything that happened after about yesterday midday to this morning", Nurse Redheart said.
"What are you—?" Doctor Horse began indignantly.
"Saving you from a severe case of conscience crisis by telling the investigating princess what she wants to know, Doctor. I never lived outside Ponyville and am therefore not as likely to develop any negative symptoms or adverse effects over it."
The doctor looked rather dumbfounded but also somewhat relieved about the brazenness of the nurse and didn't interrupt again as she continued:

"We didn't find any sign of physical injury whatsoever which rules out a concussion or other brain traumas which are the most frequent causes for amnesia. Blood tests didn't bring forth the use of any intoxicating substances which might have a similar effect—"
"Now really Nurse Redheart—", the doctor protested.
"Did you come to a different assessment of the blood samples, Dr. Horse?" Nurse Redheart asked with a raised eyebrow.
"No", sighed Doctor Horse resigning into the lack of professional discretion.
"In short...", Nurse Redheart continued, "...he seemed physically totally healthy, but for the total lack of any memory to the said time frame. His memory just ends around yesterday noon, by his estimation, and sets in again when waking up this morning."

"But shouldn't he have been kept under supervision then?" Twilight asked.
"Hmm... since Nurse Redheart's efforts to spare me a guilty conscience would not leave this a secret and since apparently Inkhorn didn't show any more discretion either, I guess I can tell you just as well", Dr. Horse grumbled. "But I would appreciate if at least you, Princess, would be a bit more sensitive about this than anypony else seems to be."
Twilight nodded.

"I am not a psychologist, but Mr. Rich seemed utterly and totally depressed. I have rarely seen anypony so completely resigned as him. I guess he would have just laid down wherever he stood not to do anything at all anymore but for the efforts of his young daughter and his butler to keep him walking."
"All about the bits stolen from him?" Twilight asked.
Dr. Horse shrugged. "If I understood correctly we are talking of quite a few bits there, but I don't remember if Mr. Rich himself even mentioned them. He wasn't very talkative altogether. This hospital is an excellent place for pony's to have their physical ailments cured and we are doing our best to make it appear as light and uplifting a place as possible...", Dr. Horse nodded at some potted plants and at pictures, undoubtedly done by young, thankful patients, which decorated the walls, "...but in general ponies just tend to be happier outside our hospital than inside it, no offense taken. We therefore decided to permit Mr. Rich to return home to pay us another visit tomorrow if there is no improvement. We think his mood may be helped more by his familiar surroundings under the loving care of his family rather than under our professional care."

Twilight nodded at both, Dr. Horse and Nurse Redheart: "I better go to visit him at his place then. Thank you very much."
"Eager to catch the thief and bring Mr. Rich's money back?" Nurse Redheart asked.
Suddenly Twilight noticed that the question somewhat turned the tables. She was not professionally obliged to any secrecy about Frank's arrest and more likely than not all of Ponyville would know about it by sundown, but still she didn't want to tell about it. She simply nodded again, while having a bit of a guilty conscience for disregarding the doctor's discretion the way she had. She then turned around and rushed out of the hospital.

Author's Note:

Last edited on December 10th 2015.