Magical Medicine

by yellowbastion

Chapter 6

It was dusk in Ponyville. Almost all of the town had shown up for the event. Wooden towers and scaffolds were erected in the town square for ambiance lighting rigs and spotlights. The stage itself was set with many musical instruments that wouldn't be out of place back in your home universe. Somewhere behind the stage, a fog machine hissed and a jet of vaporized glucose and water billowed into the crowd. You are the only human in the audience which meant that you had the best view because all of the ponies in attendance were shorter than you.

You weren’t wearing anything fancy, just your everyday comfy clothes, except for the necklace of luminous stones jangling around your neck. It matched a smaller loop around your left wrist and right ankle. You saw a few of the ponies wearing kryptonite glow stick jewelry and you wanted some for yourself. You had also picked up a matching necklace and stuffed in in your right pocket for your changeling who had gone ahead and was probably already grooving somewhere out in the audience. Twenty-four bits at a merchandise stand run by a pony that didn’t recognize net you some cool new glow trinkets. Very nice, indeed! You hoped the lime green rocks were just magic or chemical and not some nuclear shit that would land you back in the local intensive care unit, again. Again, again. And maybe another again for one time you couldn’t remember.

“We’ve been Hamster Knives! Good night Ponyville!” A dark blue stallion wearing a maroon bandanna shouted into the microphone.

The band had just finished their set. The crowd around you erupted into cheers, yelling, whistling and stomping. If music could melt brains you would be a drop in a sea of melted pony grey matter. You didn’t hold back, you hooted and hollered along with them.

Ponies, once you get past the casual racism toward anything that doesn’t look like them, could be cool sometimes. One of the best things about them, other than when they sit their backs are the perfect height to function as fuzzy foot stools, is their talent for singing and playing musical instruments. Cutiemarks made less of an impact on being able to carry a tune and strum a guitar than you first thought. For all the performers playing here tonight, it was nothing but raw skill and talent.

Back on Earth you were never really into classical music but the version they had here got you really excited. Ponies finally had something you loved but it was mostly an import from another country which made it a rare find. Kind of how like how back home you had J-pop and K-pop, they have different types of classical music. And the one you fell in love with the hardest was Griffin-classical. It was straight-up fukkin’ Rock music like you could get back home. It was baller and you were losing your god damned mind over it.

During your musings, the next act had trotted onto the stage and placed themselves around their respective instruments and went about setting themselves up. Nearly everything a human needed to hold in their hands ponies needed to have on stands or strapped around their neck or body. During the concert you observed that their music gear was also physically larger. Like if ponies had done what humans did with smart phones, always making them smaller, but in reverse. Which made sense because of them having hooves and all. They were also stupid expensive in pony world because everything was hoof- crafted by small, family run, guild licensed local shops that were often run out of their own homes. Everything on stage, and even the stage itself, was either borrowed or rented because not everyone could afford to lug their giant pieces of equipment on the train.

The next band’s vocalist, a cream colored earth pony, stood on center stage, grabbed the mic and yelled, “I am Honey Badger and we are Geese of Fire. Alright, girls. One, two, three four!”

The crowd erupted into stomping and cheers as the band launched into their set and played their tiny little horse hearts out. That’s when a hoof patted you on your left thigh. You looked down to see a row of razor-sharp teeth smiling up at you. Unsurprising, your changeling had found your towering form in the ocean of shorty-short ponies and wanted to be by your side. They sat down by your leg and rested their head against your hip. You gently tussled their head fin with your hand. Your awesome night of bitchn’ rock music was pretty good but now it was perfect. Nothing could ever ruin this perfect moment.

---

You awoke to the familiar, rhythmic beeping of a heart rate monitor. You are no stranger to this situation. It’s amazing to you the amount of trauma the human body can withstand and still survive. You are probably naked and laying under a white bed sheet. You are most likely in Ponyville General because the rock concert in Ponyville was the last place you remember being. Somewhere off to the left side of your bed you can hear the faint jingle of magic and the scratching of a quill pen on parchment. You’ve been in various pony ICUs so often that you’re surprised they don’t charge you rent.

You could feel the pain all over your body. It’s the kind of pain you get when you freshly hurt yourself but brain chemicals are screaming through your bloodstream so fast that you can’t feel it. The kind of pain where you know you’re hurt but don’t want to look at it because it would only make things worse. You feel like you were a rabbit that had been hit by a truck, then several more trucks had run it over to make the rabbit into a road pancake. A four out of ten on your pain scale, constant full-body ache but still tolerable, which is a weird thing to think.

So you don’t even open your swollen, dry eyes when you say, “Give it to me straight, doc. How bad is it?” Your voice sounded raspy to your ears.

The scratching of the pen stops but you can still hear their magic field churning away.

“Two other ponies got sick but you got the worst of it. Severe burns around your neck, wrist, thigh, and ankle. I’m surprised you’re even awake right now with how many pain medications you’re on.” He didn’t even sound surprised to hear you awake, the jaded little waffle. Like seeing you here was just another day on the job for him. You recognized the voice of the doctor that, in your head, you referred to as Doctor Stabby because of his inability to find a vein with a needle.

It didn’t require the detective still of Sherlock Holmes to solve this case. You thought it was a little weird at the time. Laying here, now, it’s so much more obvious than last night when it seemed like a great idea at the time. You then say the quiet part out loud.

“Radiation poisoning.” It wasn’t even a question.

“Radiation poisoning,” the doctor confirms and goes back to writing on his paper.

Damn. And you didn’t even get any cool super powers.

Author's Note:

Fun facts:
- The “luminous stones” look like the item from Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom but the size of glass marbles. I’ve been playing a lot of that game so it’s been on my mind.
- “Hamster Knives” and “Geese of Fire” sounded like interesting names for pony bands so I decided to write a chapter around them. “Jade Waffle” was going to be the name of a third band but I couldn’t figure out a good way to stretch the story so I used it as an insult (jaded little waffle).
- I imagine that “Honey Badger” could be either the stage name for Button’s mom, Cream Heart, or that they look similar.

Comments

[tsaukpaetra]

Always be wary of things that inexplicably produce light. There is power there that must be respected.

[Mister-H]

Anything that glows that isn't because of heat or electricity should be looked at with caution.