Cold N Flu Crusaders

by Brass Polish

1 First Snowfall

The Running of the Leaves had come and gone (with Carrot Top taking 1st place this year), and Cloudsdale had dropped by Ponyville unloading tons of snow.

“Let the fun begin!” Sweetie Belle called to Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, Nyx, Lazybug, Twist, Gilt Eyes, Diamond Tiara, and Silver Spoon.

The first snowfall of the year was always something of a celebration for Ponyville. Nopony had a name for it or anything, but everypony more or less did the same thing. Tobogganing, building snowmares, snowball fights, ice skating and hockey; the works. It was also normal on this occasion or everypony to don hats, jackets, boots, and/or scarves; and sometimes ponies who are having snowballs fights work up such a sweat, they take their winter clothes off. This is what most of the Cutie Mark Crusaders found themselves doing. Only Sweetie Belle, Nyx, and Lazybug kept their hats and coats on while the snowballs were flying about.

“How do you stay warm?” Silver Spoon asked Lazybug. “Aren’t you a plant?”

“No!” snapped Lazybug. “I’m a mutant!”

“Sorry,” said Silver Spoon. “But you do rely on water, don’t you?”

“Snow is water,” said Lazybug. “And I’m still warm blooded. So…”

He was cut off by a snowball to the face, some of which got into his mouth.

“Gotcha, Lazybug!” cackled Sweetie Belle from behind the Wolf River Tree.

Silver Spoon was about to return fire, but not for the first time, Gilt Eyes crept up to her unawares and magiced her glasses off. Lazybug ended up taking another hit.

“Take off, Gilt Eyes!” roared Silver Spoon, listening to Sweetie Belle laughing.

No one had been keeping score of any kind, but by the end of the day, the clear winner had to be Sweetie Belle. The only snow to be seen on her was on her boots. The eight other foals were all out of breath, pink in the face, shivering, and covered in clumps of packing snow.

“Too bad my protective zap apple magic doesn’t ward off snowballs,” panted Lazybug.

Sweetie Belle offered to buy everyone hot chocolates at Sugarcube Corner, regardless of her victory.

Sweetie Belle wasn’t faring as well the following morning. She woke up before sunrise gasping. Her throat was killing her, and she couldn’t breathe through her nose at all.

“Deary me,” sighed Rarity minutes after she woke up. “You’ve caught a cold.”

Sweetie Belle needn’t have been told. The short time she’d been blowing her nose, gulping down water, and spitting into the waste basket felt like a lifetime to her.

“It’s back to bed with you, sweetheart,” Rarity insisted.

Again, she needn’t have bothered. Sweetie Belle wanted to do nothing else with her nose-clogging, hacking cough-endusing, ear-popping, phlegm-horking, chest-aching, eye-watering cold. It wasn’t a school day, so at first, she didn’t think she was missing much. But she awoke at midday, feeling even worse than before, to the sound of indistinct chatter from beyond her window. She lifted her head as far as she could, not wishing to leave her bed, and was surprised to see Lazybug, Nyx, Gilt Eyes, and Silver Spoon walking about with snowshoes. None of them looked even remotely sick, although they did appear a bit bothered.

Lazybug got a snowball in his mouth, and Nyx was shaking the whole time, so why don’t any of them have colds? she wondered.

The next time Sweetie Belle was woken up, she still felt horrible to not be sleeping. She was happy however to see that Rarity had gone to the Everfree Forest to fetch Zecora. The zebra had arrived with several remedies to soothe Sweetie Belle’s throat and reduce her congestion.

“The first victim of winter has been claimed,” sighed Zecora. “Your cold will not be easily tamed.”

“I just don’t get it,” wheezed Sweetie Belle. “I didn’t take my scarf or my boots off, and I didn’t get much snow on me. So why is my cold so bad?”

“There are things in life that can’t be helped,” Zecora said. “No matter the methods we have developed.”

That’s a cheat, Sweetie Bell thought.

“Best let the medicine do its work. And try not to let the annoyances drive you berserk,” advised Zecora.

“I’ll try,” sighed Sweetie Belle, promptly hacking up a wad of phlegm as big as Seabreeze.

Sweetie Belle had not improved the following day, so Rarity kept her home from school. Apple Bloom brought her homework in the afternoon.

“What did you do that for?” groaned Sweetie Belle. “I’m just sleeping all day. I won’t have time to do any homework.”

“You mean you’re not doing anything?” asked Apple Bloom.

“Every second I’m awake is horrible,” Sweetie Belle’s statement was punctuated by a tumultuous cough.

“I better get outta here before ya get me infected,” Apple Bloom backed out of the room.

“Thanks a lot,” Sweetie Belle griped.

Why am I so mad? I didn’t want her to stick around anyway. she thought after Apple Bloom had left.

She glanced at the two sheets of paper Apple Bloom had delivered. One was a passage from Equestrian Literature Abridged, the other was a fill-in-the-blanks. The questions were in order as well, so this would be pretty simple homework. Sweetie Belle didn’t bother.

Rarity provided hot drinks and tissue boxes for the five days Sweetie Belle had been bedridden, and she’d removed mounds of used tissues and cough candy wrappers from her room at the same time. Come the weekend, she thought perhaps Sweetie ought to return to class on Monday.

“I don’t just spit in my garbage when you’re in the room!” protested Sweetie Belle, throwing her voice out.

“Yes, I am repulsed by that, but that’s not why I’d like you to go back to school,” insisted Rarity. “Your cold symptoms just aren’t getting any better. It wouldn’t make a difference whether you rode them out in your room or at school. And to be honest, I don’t see you getting over your cold any time soon.”

“But Zecora said I had to let her remedies work!” objected Sweetie Belle.

“If you wish, you may bring a few things along to school tomorrow. A thermos of tea, some cough drops, a blanket…”

Sweetie Belle huffed.

“Well, listen. I also have to run to Canterlot on Monday,” Rarity went on. “New designs to deliver and the like.”

“Couldn’t you ask somepony else…?”

“But when you’re feeling better,” interrupted Rarity, “I’ll take you on a trip there one day to meet Sassy Saddles. How’s that?”

Sweetie Belle had never been to Rarity’s new boutique, nor had she met her manager. So she agreed. But as the weekend crept along, Sweetie Belle began to suspect that Rarity didn’t ask one of her friends to take care of Sweetie Belle in her place because she didn’t want to subject anypony else to her gruesome coughing and spitting.

Perhaps it was just because of her bad mood, but Sweetie Belle thought none of the ponies she saw on her way to school looked anywhere near as enthusiastic about the snow as they had on two Saturdays ago. Apple Bloom and Scootaloo were startled when they saw Sweetie Belle lumbering towards the schoolhouse beneath a blanket and spitting on the ground along the way.

“Somehow, ya look even worse than when I saw ya last week,” Apple Bloom grimaced.

“I’d rather stay in bed,” Sweetie Belle moaned.

“Well, colds do last a long time,” said Scootaloo. “It’s just one of those things you gotta put up with.”

Sweetie Belle made a rather large hole in the snow next to her.

“Ew! Whatcha gonna do about that phlegm in yer throat?” asked Apple Bloom.

Sweetie Belle shrugged. “Suck on a cough candy all through class, I guess.”

The smell of the cough drops proved very distracting for Sweetie Belle’s classmates during Cheerilee’s lesson, and her cough drove everypony insane during recess.

“Why would your sister let you come here?” asked Diamond Tiara. “You’re gonna get everyone in class infected.”

Sweetie Belle spat on the frozen sand. She didn’t actually have phlegm in her throat; she just wanted Diamond Tiara to leave her alone.

“So Sweetie Belle, if you’re coming to school for the rest of the week, does that mean you can play with us when school’s out?” asked Nyx.

Again, Sweetie Belle feigned a spit, prompting Nyx to back away.

“Sweetie Belle, don’t get crabby,” Scootaloo insisted. “If you stop thinking about your throat and runny nose, you’ll be able to have a normal day. Come on. Let’s play tetherball.”

About four minutes in, Sweetie Belle accidentally sneezed on the ball.

“Well… once it freezes, it’ll come right off,” reasoned Apple Bloom.

Diamond Tiara was right. A cold did spread around the class the day after Sweetie Belle returned.

“Nyx, why are you wearing your glasses?” asked Twist.

“No reason,” Nyx fidgeted.

Gilt Eyes was no novice to yanking glasses off a filly’s face.

“Holy smokes! You look like a demon!”

Nyx sniffled, and then sneezed.

“Sorry, but it’s not like we can blame you,” Gilt Eyes said, passing the jinxed glasses back to Nyx. “We all know it’s because of Sweetie Belle.”

During class that day, Gilt Eyes took a few used tissues to the back of his head. Cheerilee gave Sweetie Belle detention for this, but it didn’t last long; possibly because the smell of minty gum was too overpowering.

“Alright, class. Let’s move on to our next lesson,” Cheerilee said after recess. “Could all the unicorns in the class please come to the front of the room? Thank you. Now then, who knows the average ratio of unicorns whose magical auras match their eye colours?”

Rumble raised his hoof. “Five in six?”

“Correct. So, since we have six unicorns in this class, let’s see if we can match that statistic.”

One by one, the unicorn foals standing in front of the chalkboard lit their horns. Nyx was hoping that her aura would not be red. But it was Sweetie Belle who stole the show. When her turn came, she sneezed, ejecting a large snot bubble, which stuck to her horn.

Sweetie Belle had managed to skirt over the incident until the next morning when she found that Nyx’s eyes were back to normal (as in their regular colour), and that she displayed very few signs of illness.

“I still need my blanket and cough drops!” she groused. “How did you recover so quickly?!”

“I don’t know,” Nyx shuddered.

“You must’ve done something,” pressed Sweetie Belle. “It’s Twilight, isn’t it? She put a spell on you!”

“She didn’t!” insisted Nyx.

“Sweetie Belle, leave Nyx alone!” Scootaloo snapped. “What did I tell you? You just gotta wait it out.”

“I did! I’ve still got it, and she doesn’t!”

“Just get over it,” Scootaloo really wasn’t thinking.

“I’ve been trying to get over it for almost two weeks!”

Scootaloo’s replay was drowned out by a raspy, horking cough. Sweetie Belle said no more for the rest of the day.

Author's Note:

Basically inspired by the longest and most terrible cold I've ever had... actually, I downplayed it here to avoid upsetting anyone. That's not something I normally do, but believe me, this cold was miserable.