House of the Rising Sunflower

by kudzuhaiku

Hello, nurse

Something about the nurse caught Sundance’s eye. She was a bit older than he was, with an athlete’s physique; a broad, solid barrel and a wide, stocky stance. Beneath the supple skin of her neck, corded muscles rippled with her every movement, and in her expansive hindquarters, there was nothing at all that jiggled, only the solidity of a brick factory wall.

It was enough to cause Sundance to do a bit more looking than he realised.

Talking to mares was now more difficult since finishing school, because mares were mares and in school all he had to worry about were fillies—ponies who, at the time, had been his own age. Then there was the matter of sorting out his issue, something he hadn’t done a very good job of because he had placed priority on other things, such as his genealogy project. Topics of adult conversation eluded Sundance and he never quite knew what to say, a condition made worse when he felt some sense of attraction.

It was all nonsense, really, because he found that he could talk to Princess Celestia or Fleur Dis Lee just fine, but something about a mare his own age that caught his eye made everything so complicated. He liked bookish, smart fillies and mares, but he also liked the heavily muscled athletic types—and he liked them for very different reasons. With a brainy girl came the hopes that she might appreciate the hard work he had done on his special project—but with a rough and ready girl who had a strong, powerful build, there were an entirely different set of expectations at play.

Sundance, who kept his wings tucked against his sides so he wouldn’t cause a scene, made an effort to be chatty with the unicorn nurse that had caught his eye. He licked his lips, cleared his throat a bit, and did everything he could to sound polite while he spoke to the attractive nurse that had captured his attention.

“So, uh, is a day of therapy going to be enough to get Earwax sorted out?”

Right away, Sundance regretted what he had said, because he felt stupid for having said it, without knowing why. The sudden embarrassment that settled over him caused him to cringe a bit, and he was almost positive that he had said the wrong thing. Now, he wished that he had remained quiet, but it was too late: he had opened his mouth and revealed that he was a featherbrain.

The nurse looked up from the clipboard she was writing on, blinked once, and her face offered no hint of what she was feeling. “Unusual circumstances. Typically, therapy is far more intensive, but she is returning to a remote, isolated environment. So we’re covering the basics and seeing how she adapts to life on three legs. Most earth ponies do fine because they are physical creatures. Pegasus ponies who are fliers also tend to do well. Unicorns are the ones who tend to have the most trouble adjusting.”

“Oh.” Sundance felt himself tripping over his own tongue. “That’s kinda neat.”

No, no it wasn’t, a pony’s suffering was never neat, and he wished that he hadn’t said that.

“I always worry that what I have to say about stuff like that will get me tarred and feathered as a tribalist,” the nurse said while she held her inkpen aloft. “Science, facts, and medicine sometimes fly in the face of popular or accepted opinions. The simple truth of the matter is, each of us approaches life differently. Earth ponies expend physical effort to do everything because they have to. Pegasus ponies fly and prefer it over walking. Unicorns rely on their magic for as much as possible and just do not have the physical conditioning found in most earth ponies and pegasus ponies. Yet… nopony wants to talk about it, and that makes practicing medicine difficult.”

Frowning, the nurse put down her clipboard and pen upon the nearby counter, poured herself a cup of coffee from the distant coffee maker, and then poured a second cup for Sundance. Both cups were levitated across the room, through the nurses’ station, and she handed one cup to Sundance, who held it in his now healed wing. He was too polite to refuse the offered cup and so he resolved to drink it, even if it was bitter, black, lacking both cream and sugar.

The nurse had also demonstrated her point, fetching coffee from across the room without moving a muscle. Yet, she was clearly a physical creature, and her physique suggested that she enjoyed a great deal of movement. What a delightful mystery he had discovered. So focused was he on her delightful physique that he absentmindedly took a sip of his hot coffee—and knew at once that he needed to go to the burn ward with all due haste. Hot!

“I can’t help but notice that this hospital has a lot of sick foals,” Sundance said and even as the words were leaving his mouth, he found himself cringing again. “I mean, there is a healer… there is magic… how are there sick foals still? Shouldn’t magic fix that? I mean, it fixed me.”

“There are magic diseases,” the nurse replied, “and not every injury can be healed. Just look at Earwax’s missing leg.”

“Oh.” Sundance didn’t allow himself to say anything else, as he didn’t trust anything that might come out of his mouth.

“I attended nursing school after getting a scholarship through the guard. I joined at fourteen, like so many others, and gave a good seven years of my life. While I was still in the guard, I was sent north to the Crystal Empire for a bit of pre-med training… I think I was about sixteen or so. Had a moment that profoundly changed my life and my outlook.”

“What happened?” Sundance asked while he held his coffee.

“Princess Cadance.” The nurse sipped her coffee and then her lips peeled back away from her teeth while she sucked in cool air. With her eyes unfocused, distant, the nurse continued, “Princess Cadance told a story. And what a story it was… a number of my classmates quit pre-med and went on to other things. Even a nice colt with a mark for medicine. He went into pharmaceutical stuff and I guess he found some happiness… I don’t know.”

Sundance found himself intrigued. What sort of teacher told a story that made their students quit?

“Princess Cadance was in Canterlot attending a demonstration at the Canterlot Military Academy. It was time for the formation fliers to strut their stuff and make Princess Luna proud. I’ve been to one—a few actually—and they’re always a good time. ‘Cept this day, there was a mid-air collision. One of the cadets got confused and zigged when she should have zagged. Smashed her head open… we’re talking some major brain trauma, to hear how Princess Cadance tells it.”

To show that he was listening, Sundance nodded.

“So Princess Cadance goes to work, because she’s a healer, and she’s so busy doing that she never stops to think if she should. This mare’s skull is a mess of multiple compound skull fractures and she’s broken her neck. Somehow, Princess Cadance manages to put everything back together again, and she somehow even regenerated brain tissue. When she was done, everything was restored and all of the pieces fit. Physically, the mare is in excellent physical health.”

Filled with dread, Sundance waited for the nurse to continue.

“As it turns out, fixing damaged brain tissue doesn’t restore memories. It doesn’t restore self. Regrowing the brain cells didn’t restore the memories and experiences that they once held. Princess Cadance was crying while she told us this part of the story. The mare was basically a newborn. She had no memory of her family, her fiancé, she had no memory of who she was, or her name. None of her life experiences had survived. No knowledge of how to walk, no potty training, no language, there was nothing left. Princess Cadance had healed the injury and staved off inevitable death, but had still lost the patient.”

Sundance’s ears sagged and the one wing still tucked against his side went slack.

“Healing is a great resource to have,” the nurse said, her voice now low and gritty. “But you can’t save everypony. Sometimes, you gotta let go. It’s a hard lesson to learn. Sometimes, no matter what you do, you can’t heal what is broken. Not everything can be mended. The sooner you can accept that and move on, the better.”

With these words lingering in his ears, Sundance thought back to breakfast and Earwax’s response to his kindness. A dull ache manifested, but Sundance wasn’t sure if it was a physical ache, because he couldn’t tell where it was exactly. It hurt though, it hurt like nothing else and the sheer overwhelming enormity of it hit him like a broadside from a turbulent squall.

“I should let you get back to work,” Sundance muttered, and it took all of his effort to keep his pain out of his voice. “It was nice to talk to you. I think… I think I’m going to go for a walk, if that’s okay.”

Without waiting for a response, Sundance hurried away, his black coffee sloshing in his cup.

---

Canterlot Castle had once been a difficult place to enter and Sundance thought of all of the trouble he had gone through just to set hoof through the gate the first time. Now, he had been hustled through the gate by the guard and taken inside through a door that wasn’t the public entrance. Life had changed—for better or worse, Sundance could not say.

Why had he come? He wasn’t sure. Right now, he was hurting and lost. He was confused. Why was he doing this? Why had he been chosen? The small room he waited in was flooded with golden sunlight, which didn’t seem possible given the time of day, the angle of the Canterhorn, the walls, the structure of the castle—yet the warm glow of the sun washed over him to revive his flagging spirit. How was the sun streaming in through what Sundance was certain to be a northward facing window?

Like everything else in his life, it didn’t make sense.

He had become the guardian of a group of mental cripples, ponies he feared couldn’t be mended. The nurse’s words still rang in his ears—even more so now that he was alone and waiting. Princess Celestia had been his undoing; he had come to say hello and found himself conscripted. Why him? Surely there had to be somepony else. Cracks had formed under the pressure and now Sundance found unknown parts of himself buckling beneath the strain.

Why had Princess Celestia entrusted him with these ponies?

Trembling, Sundance allowed himself to sink into his chair, almost curling into a ball and coming to rest sideways, with his left side nestled against the high back. He had been told to wait, and so he waited. There was a painting of both princesses, Celestia and Luna, and so distraught was Sundance that he failed to notice that somepony had vandalised their portrait with mustaches.

Princess Celestia had a magnificent full-bodied commanding chevron, while Princess Luna sported a delicate petite handlebar. Had Sundance noticed, it might have been his undoing in his current state, but he was too far gone, too lost in his own thoughts, and was spared the sight of the mustachioed sisters gazing down upon him.

Standing on a shelf beneath the portrait was a priceless artifact, a small statuette of Princess Celestia who had quite a different, delicate body, as well as a magnificent rack of antlers. Beside this curious statuette was a letter in an ornate frame, and at the top of the letter, the words, ‘Deer Princess Celestia’ could be made out. It was obviously a foal’s letter, written in crayon with poorly written letters and some serious spelling mistakes. On the paper was a poorly written plea to come to school, and it was signed, ‘Twiglit Sparkel’ in broad, loopy strokes.

Had Sundance noticed, he might have laughed and felt better; after all, greatness had to start somewhere. For little ‘Twiglit Sparkel’ her greatness had begun at the tender age of about two, when she had decided that she wished to attend Princess Celestia’s School For Gifted Unicorns. In fact, the whole of this special waiting room was meant to inspire, but so wrapped up was he in his own misery, Sundance failed to notice.

Author's Note:

Next: Help comes from an unlikely source.

Comments

[Boulder]

oops wrong image try this one...
img00.deviantart.net/f38a/i/2016/229/2/0/deer_princess_celestia__pun_intended__by_dragonademetal-dae871l.jpg
derpicdn.net/img/view/2015/10/20/1006285__safe_twilight+sparkle_merchandise_photo_pig_piggy+bank_solo_species+swap_toy_twilight+porkle.jpeg

[TheFakeHero]

Kudz you glorious bastard

[AyanamiRei]

Poor little guy. It's a shame that he cannot see the greatness in himself. That the fact that he DOES care so much shows how much that Celestia made a GOOD decision at least. Even more so when you consider what a monster the previous Lord was T_T

[Emtu]

I think "Twiglit Sparkel" is one of the best name misspellings I've seen from MLP.

[Spamotron]

Sundance really needs professional assistance a few counselors and therapists specializing in abuse is something the barony really needs. Of course between Grogar and all the other crises affecting Equestria in the past few years demand probably outstrips supply.

[RomanCandle]

So many allusions to this issue of his...I can only imagine what it could be. It's clearly alluded to that it is sexual in nature - my first guess was that he was either gay or asexual, but since he expressed attraction to the opposite sex...well, he might be bi/poly/pan, but I suspect this issue of his strays a little further from the path. What could it be...

Twould be amusing if he had a fetish for being dominated, given the issues he's dealing with in the Barony. The Peasants would go from having a Lord who tended to abuse them to one who rather enjoyed being the one abused.

[Hodios]

Of course that letter would be honored.

[Ben Knecht]

The Cadence story hit me hard, I cannot imagine how Cadence even recovered from that.

[Prysmkitsune]

9283107
likely? spending the next 20 years teaching the stalion how to live again, from scratch...he was empty headed, but not brain dead basicly a baby in a stalions body so yeah...she couldnt save who it was, but she could give them a new life in honer of the one lost.