Trapped In Canterlot

by TartarusFire

C25 - Machinations

The daily after lunch rush had begun. From three to four, ponies in Canterlot shuffled positions all around the city. Jobs offering six hour shifts were far more common than any other length due to the synchronicity with the castle bringing in more bits.

Of course Laceration wanted to leave, since his ‘new’ shift had officially ended ten minutes ago, but Bone Saw had yet to come in. Bored, he sat in a chair with the next nurse that had replaced Patience. Silence pervaded the large room, with only a thin curtain partially blocking off the section that was the ward.

A light coughing sound echoed through the curtain. Intrigued, but too lazy to do it himself, Laceration poked the nurse to check on the patients. Rolling her eyes at the poke, she got up to check on the three, possibly four, patients if Red Cross had fallen ill.

Coughing, the nurse looked away from the stallions sleeping on each other. Red Cross was glanced over.. Caedes, that’s what was on the patient’s clipboard, had started to roll around, but was prevented by the cloth straps.

"Hey, Doctor Laceration," she spoke with an accusatory tone, "Come here a minute."

Moaning, he walked over, silently begging for his shift to be over. "What’re you talking about, Vein?"

Vein pointed at the bound filly. "That. What the Tartarus?" She paused with her hoof still pointing. "Also, I think she’s sick."

"Oh yeah, that." He proceeded to retie the straps with brown aura. "Yeah, she’s kind of crazy at the moment, so she’s a hazard to herself. Just read the summary on her clipboard at the foot of the bed, and I’m sure you can handle it—"

"Vein! Sorry I’m late! I—" He belched "— I fell asleep after stuffing myself at the hayburger place around the corner." He stared, not used to seeing Laceration at this time of day. "Oh hello. I’m just going to get cleaned up—"

"Ugh!" Laceration threw his head back, "Another setback. Yeah sure, just hurry up and wash up."

The doctors took their places while Vein checked for Caedes for illness. "She’s very warm. I’ll go get some cold rags." She trotted out of sight where running water could be heard. "Well, while I’m working on this and Bone Saw is getting washed up, tell me the story of what happened."

"Fine. I’ll cut it short though because I’m sure a fast shower doesn’t take that long." He coughed as Vein walked back in with rags being wrung over a bucket of water. "So, I kind of... fell asleep and I had a replacement tell me what had happened. So," he clapped his hooves, amusing himself, "basically, Caedes, the filly, fled from her home somehow. She was chased by a mare which was intercepted by the two guards here.

"They sustained vicious but not fatal wounds and were patched up in my absence." Vein had finished placing the rags on Caedes and started to soak the cloth restraints. "So, the filly was then chased and caught by the mare who then attempted to murder her. The results were a lot of stiches needed."

Through his entire story he waved his hooves around in the air, trying the capture the feeling of the moment. All that was left was Vein giving him a twisted frown.

"The actual Tartarus? Are you serious?"

"You don’t have to sound so doubtful, but yeah; the Princess is going to explain the whole situation in a couple of days to the public."

She shrugged, contemplating the results of such horrid action. "And the guards in the streets...?"

"Probably, I haven’t looked outside yet." He yawned. "It’s been a long day and I’ve only been awake since five."

A sound of cloth rubbing down wet fur entered the room. "Yeah, I’m pretty much done right now Laceration, you’re free to leave." The other doctor was gone at ‘done.’



Bone Saw had a fun time reading the clipboards at the foot of the beds. Even though the reality of his job was in front of his face, he loved the stories they could tell or could be read into. He snrked as he read Red Cross’s clipboard, "Abnormal Sleep Deprivation. Fell Asleep at 10a.m. Sleep should last between eight and twelve hours."

He let it fall back with a clack on the metal bedframe. "What’cha gawking at, Vein?"

Nurse Vein had her mouth slightly agape at the few pages she had pried apart from under the metal clasp. She just sort of stared at the first paragraph, the quick summary.

"Vein?" He walked a few hoofsteps to look at her shoulder. "Vein?" The proximity to her ear jolted her enough to break her focus.

"Uh.. Right. I was just.." She looked it over again, forcing herself to piece it back together without looking. "Just, read it."

He shrugged, not bothered too much by diagnoses. "Multipl bruises along the barrel. Splinters embedded into flesh all over the body (Mostly Removed). Lump on head, indicating blunt trauma. Non natural substances stuck into coat." He grimaced finally, reading the second half of the summary. "Gashes along barrel, indicating projectile wounds. Fur on left leg is burned or seared off. Ear is slightly molested, with skin peeled off. A major cut into barrel, near fatal."

They stood in silence, letting the seconds tick by. Bone Saw understood perfectly why his empathetic nurse was frozen. "I see.." He was no longer smiling in ambient joy.

"I—just can’t stop imagining. Especially how it felt. And, what caused her to get covered in splinters and sharp objects?" She lifted a hoof to stare at it. "It’s worse than that time I fell down plywood stairs and broke my leg when I was little.. I had splinters everywhere..."

He sighed and loped a hoof over her withers. "I don’t know, but we do have work to do." He flipped a couple pages on the clipboard, "See, there’s no physical. We have to examine her."

"And if she wakes up and tries to harm herself?"

A whistle of air was heard. "We’ll burn that bridge when it happens. Now then, if you’ll remove the covering sheet."

Vein complied, removing the sheet and hanging it over a metal bar set into the wall. "There—Sweet Celestia! She’s worse off than I thought!"

"Always you and your imagination." He walked over in between the beds of Caedes and Cross. "We’ve got to finish this..."

He gazed down to her hind leg, Caedes’s right side unburnt. There partially hidden below a restraint was the figure of a pony over a splash of red.

Author's Note:

Well there we go, we're getting back to the actual story, as much as I love to torture Doctor Laceration, you can only do so much with six hours.

And yeah, the name will be something like a cryptogram in the upcoming chapters if any of you really care to figure it out :P
.. And then she 'dies' ;; Should I add a tragedy tag? NOPE

I think I've been getting a little bit better with my writing, since I've done about one of these every two days. What do you people think?

Comments

[Thought Prism]

Ok, yeah, that's a pretty dangerous talent. But it certainly doesn't justify Empathy's actions.