No Smoking
My coat felt hot and prickly and I wanted to push Applejack away, but I didn’t want her to go. Why couldn’t I just hold myself together back there? Why did I allow myself to get so attached to Applejack? I should have known it would just end up causing pain - and I’d probably just made things worse.
“I’m okay.” I said. “Thank you for taking care of me. I just - I wanted to see you before I had to go. I don’t want to make this difficult. They won’t have to drag me.”
“Nopony is taking you away sweetpea.”
My face burned, my breath caught, and I felt a weight in the pit of my stomach.
“They’re not?”
How could I have misread the situation so completely? I wanted to feel relieved, but I couldn’t. If I was wrong about this then how could I be sure of anything? If my judgment was impaired then how could I protect myself?
I’d made an absolute fool of myself.
“Yer okay sweetpea,” Applejack comforted, “ What’s wrong? Ya can tell me.”
I cringed. She’d never understand. If she saw me reacting negatively to the news I’d be staying with her... what if I had a panic attack right now? That would -
Honesty, Green, honesty.
“I’m embarrassed,” I explained, “I got really anxious over nothing and everypony saw me crying over something that didn’t even happen. And now I’m feeling... ”
I struggled to find the right words.
“Ya don’t have ta be embarassed about getting scared.” Applejack said, “Everypony gets scared sometimes an’ telling other ponies that yer scared is a brave thing ta do.”
“Yeah, if it’s voluntary.”
Dayglow and Morning Light re-entered the room. I couldn’t look them in the eye.
“Are you feeling better, Green?” Asked Dayglow.
“I’m sorry.”
“There’s nothing for you to be sorry for,” said Morning Light, “Sometimes strong emotions come up in therapy, but that’s part of the process.”
You call that therapy?
“I said I didn’t want to talk to you, but you kept going.”
“You said you were feeling anxious and you didn’t want to be there.” Morning Light explained. “If you asked me to stop I would-”
“Don’t gaslight me!” I snarled. “I know what I said.”
“I’m so sorry if I made you feel that way.” Said Morning Light. “I really am trying to help you.”
I took a breath and my body gave an involuntary shudder.
“It’s fine. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“Why’s that?” She asked.
Ugh, just make it end.
“Ah’m thinkin’ she said she don’t want ta talk to ya.” Applejack raised an eyebrow.
I blinked at Applejack.
“Er, right.” The Therapist pony said. “Sorry. I’ll see you two next week, maybe.”
Her ears went down as she exited the room and I immediately felt sorry for her. Damn ponies with their impossible to resist adorableness.
“Alright, well Applejack and I were just discussing how things have been going with your foster placement,” Said Dayglow, “Were there any difficulties or concerns you wanted to talk about while we’re here, Green?”
I thought about it for a moment.
“I don’t want to go back to school,” I said, “I can self educate more efficiently than if I was sitting in a classroom, and I really don’t want to be in a classroom full of children.”
“You don’t have to go back to school right now, but I do want to get you back in the classroom eventually.” Dayglow replied. “Princess Luna has granted us sufficient bits to pay for any assistance you may need so our options are quite open.”
“Okay, well how about a one on one tutor then?”
I’d always imagined that if I was rich, that’s the way I’d want to learn.
“That can be arranged, certainly,” Said Dayglow, “But education isn’t the only reason I want you back in school.”
“Yeah, yeah. I know.” I said dryly. “Make some friends.”
“It’s more than that.” Dayglow replied. “If we let you run away from social interaction forever your anxiety is only going to get worse.”
I didn’t have a good response for that.
“How would you feel about going back to school if you had an adult that you trust who would stay with you the whole time?”
“What, so Applejack is going to come to school with me now?”
“No, this would be a teacher’s assistant, or maybe a carer.”
I’m not that bad!
...Am I?
In one day of school I nearly peed myself, had a panic attack, and got so angry that I fainted.
Oh god, I’m a total basketcase.
I cringed at the things the other students would say about me but, at the same time, at least it would make them less likely to fuck with me; and I’d have another adult to talk to.
“I guess that would be okay.”
“If you’re still up for it, did you want to say hello to the nurses who took care of you while you were here?”
“Errr, Alright,” I nodded, “I just hope I wasn’t too annoying.”
“Oh sweetie, you don’t need to worry about that.” Said Dayglow. “You were a perfect angel, and I think they found your little nurse act quite endearing.”
Well, if a little kid was going around pretending to be a nurse I guess that would be pretty cute.
Wait. If they’re all enthusiastic about this they might have set something up for me, or be expecting me to come and be disappointed if I don’t show up. Well, I have to go now.
I didn’t even get them a card.
Walking through the hospital I felt more at home than I had in a while. Everyone had their own jobs to do; they only glanced up for long enough to see that Dayglow was with us.
The nurses’ break room was busier than I expected. Even on a larger ward it was rare for more than two or three nurses to be on break at the same time and the room had clearly been sized with that in mind. There was a stack of pizza boxes on the central table as if in apology for staffing issues, but the atmosphere seemed too cheerful for that to be the case.
I didn’t recognise any of the nurses in the room by name, but they looked familiar - especially the pink pegasus - and the pink unicorn. There was a lot of pink.
The unicorn was one of the trainees that looked after me - Melanie? No, that wasn’t a pony name. Her cutie mark was a pair of musical notes - Melody? Ugh. Better to just say nothing than to get it wrong. I couldn’t read her badge from this angle. And I didn’t want her to see me staring at her badge because then she’d know I’d forgotten her name.
The nurses greeted me fondly, but I wasn’t sure how much of that was because they liked me rather than just being friendly to the poor little orphan filly. It felt genuine. I felt safe. They all knew me, and as a nurse I felt I could understand them too; We had a shared experience. If they weren’t all so much taller I could almost convince myself that we were colleagues.
Applejack noticed my apprehension at the height difference and helped me up onto a chair one of the nurses had vacated when they saw us walk in.
My mouth began to water as I was hit with the greasy, doughy scent of the pizzas in front of me.
“Courtesy of the Princess,” Dayglow explained, “She paid for lunch as thanks for us looking after you. Help yourself.”
“Will there be enough left over?” I asked.
I didn’t want to be ‘that guy’... or is it ‘that pony’?
“What do you mean?”
“For the ponies working the night shift.”
“Oh honey, you don’t really think Princess Luna would let us forget the night shift do you?” Nurse Redheart chimed in.
How Redheart knew her entry cues would forever remain a mystery.
“I guess that would be an easy way to get your dreams haunted.” I pretended to look thoughtful.
“Luna would never use her powers to-” Applejack began to reassure me.
“I mean, there was that one time.” Redheart smirked as she lay a fetlock across my withers. “So we decided that the night shift should have their pizza delivered fresh.”
“Sounds like a sensible precaution.” I nodded sagely.
Dayglow rolled her eyes.
There was no pepperoni pizza of course, but I found a plain cheese pizza and managed to somewhat awkwardly grab a slice with my hoof.
I didn’t quite manage the technique I saw the other ponies use to hold their pizza. Somehow they managed to grab only the crust and have the slice remain rigid. My self-consciousness went up another notch when I realized my hooves were now covered in grease and pizza crumbs so I couldn’t put them down on the floor. The sink the others were using to wash their forehooves before returning to work was too tall for me to reach, and because I’d used both my forehooves I would have had to balance on my hind legs just to walk over to it.
Redheart seemed to read my mind, but in reality she probably just observed my eye movements when she proceeded to pull a small plastic tub with some wet handtowels from under her hat.
“Your hat is magic, right?” I asked, wiping my hooves with the towels. “That’s how you always have the right thing under your hat when you need it?”
Now that I knew ‘bags of holding’ existed in this universe it was the obvious explanation.
Redheart smiled and put a nurse’s hat on my head. “Why don’t you try it?”
She may just be joking, but if I assumed she wasn’t then I hadn’t heard her say any words when she was summoning an item, so it must be thought activated.
I imagined pulling a roll of medical tape from under my hat, then I reached under it and... it was just my own mane.
“This is just a normal hat, isn’t it.” I groused.
“It looks good on you.” She said, “It’s yours, actually. We figured you’d like to have one.”
On one hoof they were treating me like a child playing dress-up, but on the other, they were accepting me into their group. Tears welled in my eyes as I grasped Redheart in a hug that it seemed actually took her by surprise. I couldn’t put my thoughts into words, but a few tears ran down my muzzle.
I took the opportunity to quiz some of the nurses about their work - trying to work out the similarities and differences between nursing in Equestria and on Earth. More pizza was consumed. Dayglow left after a while, but Applejack stayed. There was a rotating cast of nurses as some had to return to the floor and others took their place. The nurses were suitably impressed when I took the part of translating medical terms so Applejack could understand the conversation.
“How can ya talk about that stuff while yer eatin’?” Applejack looked a little green around the gills.
“Oh...” I rubbed the back of my head, “I kinda forgot you weren’t used to this sort of thing.”
The nurse I was talking to blinked, as if remembering just now that I wasn’t actually a nurse.
She smiled and patted me on the head.
“I guess she just has a strong stomach.”
I giggled. “I think Applejack knows from experience that that’s not the case.”
The nurse’s expression shifted to serious “You’ve been throwing up a lot?”
“Nah, nothing like that.” I placated, “It was only once, while I was at the hospital, but throwing up on somepony leaves a lasting first impression.”
“You’d be surprised how many nice ponies I’ve met that way.”
“It is such a glamorous profession we find ourselves in.” I went to mime tossing my non-existent hair pretentiously only to fail by successfully tossing my mane.
A sense of wrongness wormed its way into my brain, but it passed.
“It’s the hat,” she quipped, “Stallions can’t resist a mare in uniform.”
I wore the hat on the way home, but only because it was the easiest way to carry it. It wasn’t like I wanted everypony to know I thought I was a nurse. Or worse, for the other kids at school to make fun of me for playing dress up, or bullying me for wanting to be a nurse.
“T’day went better than expected,” said Applejack, “Wouldn’t ya say?”
“Ugh,” I groaned, “I ate too much pizza.”
To be fair, in this body my eye plates were literally larger than my stomach.
“Sore tummy?”
“I’ll live.”
“Applebloom and her friends will be home from school by now.” Applejack said, “They’ll probably be over in their clubhouse - unless you want to lay down for a spell.”
I sighed. “Nah, I promised Granny I would go out and play this afternoon.”
“Ahm sure she would understand.”
“A promise is a promise.” I replied. “I just hope there isn’t too much running around.”
“Okay crusaders!” I could hear Applebloom from well outside the clubhouse, “Back to the business of earning our cutie marks! Any suggestions?”
That sounded really familiar.
“No, we’ve tried everything!” Scootaloo moaned.
“We’ve run out of ideas.” Said Sweetie Belle.
Wait. I know this scene! They’re about to break into song. To get their cuite marks. I liked the song, even though I couldn’t really stand to watch that episode. For obvious reasons.
“Well Granny said that Green was finally going to come crusading with us today,” Applebloom said, “We should ask her!”
Oh no.
Chapter title is a reference to a fic from another good friend of mine by the name of Jinzou.
https://www.fimfiction.net/story/496407/all-smoke-no-mirrors
All Smoke, No Mirrors follows the story of a human who finds themselves transported to Equestria as a young Kirin!
Oh and have some art of Green by Skydreams:
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now all i can imagine is green yelling clear.
Aww, poor green finally gets a break
Tantabus
...*looks up at what Applejack said about the CMC*...
I kinda wish Green would've had the nurses quiz on her on stuff they know she never heard and have her know the answers to everything. Wouldn't that have been the shock of a lifetime!
Well, next chapter is gonna be interesting, but I'm also curious how things are gonna go when Green has her first class with the TA.
If the nurses ever compare notes in detail about what they talked about with the dear little filly, they're going to be... I'm not sure what the word for it would be. Finding themselves attempting to ignore the erosion of part of the foundation of their world-view.
But is earth pony's mane magical? Pinkie always pulls something from her's.
Cutie Mark Crusader Nurses?
Nice
11150303
That's just Pinkie being Pinkie. I'm not even sure she's a pony. My current theories are: 1) She's a sentient pony-shaped balloon. 2) She's some sort of eldritch horror disguised as a pony that will eventually destroy the universe in an eternal party of madness. 3) She's actually an extra-dimensional traveler only bound by the laws of her home universe. 4) [this entry can only be read by 5th dimensional beings]
11150265
That is literally what I "yelled" under my breath when I saw the picture.
Oh. Oh no. Green please don't anxietize yourself into breaking the plot, you don't know if the show is perfectly accurate, just flow....
That's twice now they've witnessed her knowledge demonstrated, wonder how long it will be before they begin taking notes...
So is the fact that he used to be a dude completely forgotten? Is that "little" detail ever gonna raise its head again?
I don't wanna be "that" guy but it's coming up on three years and it's like we're still nowhere near the big reveal that he used to be a male human and an adult.
Is that gonna be touched on in the future or has the story diverged to him accepting the idea he was not human at all and that he could have made it up?
I'm having flash-backs to my school years. The class I had was called either 'ELA', or 'ELS', and it was basically there to give me time to do my homework.
It also had an assistant that would watch over you from class to class, (mine was there to make sure I was keeping focus) and we'd end up in a class with similar students for a set time during the day. I came to dislike my Assistant because she thought I was dumber than what I was capable of [they literally confiscated a book I was reading, claiming "it is too advanced for you"].
I really hope that Green doesn't have to go through something similar...
(I was the kid that would do Trigonometry / Quadradic equations on the white-board for fun...)
Also, Glad to have another Chapter! [Perfect end to a hard day of work!]
Fun chapter... Still waiting for somepony to call Green on where she actually is from.
But for now, seems like the next chapter is her suffering through a Cutie Mark Crusade! I predict collateral damage.
Very cute chapter, thank you c:
im pretty sure that what green is holding is ment to be the... crash pads? defibrilators? but when i saw it at first it looked like to me that green was screaming in confusion over the hybreed mug/poptart that she had found
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I mean we’re progressing very slowly. It could be another 4 years who knows
that was a great ch worth the wait thank u
"We"? Green, your slipping again... Unless, this was the author's fault... Yes, let's blame the author for all your troubles actually. You terrible, terrible author.
I wasn't expecting another reference to a "HiE, but as a foal" fic. It feels like a really interesting sub-genre. Sparks interesting scenarios, too
I do wonder what exactly the intended goal is here, since Green both won't give up and be a filly, yet refuses to do anything to fix it.
I can never get enough of this story, I always want more. Looking forward to the next chapter with great anticipation.
Don't know what cuter. Green with a Nurse cap coming towards us or she use a Delifibrator to save a Gummy Chicken life with it.
this chapter is just amazing.
so how is Green keeping all of her for knowledge under control?
Green should trick them into helping her study medical textbooks. So Green can get a medical cutie mark. That would throw those danger seeking fillies for a loop.
i just got done reading "all smoke no mirrors" the other day. or at least up to a point, it was great! love the new chapter and i hope to see more when they are ready!
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Ayyyo called it
camo.fimfiction.net/e0I4pJPnyuc5C8bIV2DpbMR4iFUPjvY3hXbKQZKCztg?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.postimg.cc%2F7LM01QDL%2Fclear.png
Is that a VR system she’s holding?
11150857
It's a defibrillator paddle. (We don't use those anymore, but they're iconic).
11150312
Pinkie's a Chaos-touched Earth Pony. When she took Discord's magic from Grogar's Bell in the Season 9 Finale, she kept her own eye color instead of gaining Discord's eye color like Cozy Glow did. We even got a hint of something like that in the Season 8 finale, where when magic was restored to Equestria, three focused globs of magic went to the Mane 6: one each to the horns of Twilight and Rarity, and one to Pinkie's face. And then following that Pinkie makes a big, strained smile while looking sidelong at her friends, as if expecting someone to have seen that and have questions. She adopts a more natural smile when she sees her secret wasn't discovered. So it's proven that she has an active magic, and the payoff of that hint comes with her being able to properly harness Discord's magic. Still a good thing Discord took it back, because she was about to go on one heck of a power trip.
I’m just happy we got to see more Redheart. Hope she continues to reappear.
Oh, so you're the reason why I woke up with thirty notifications today. Thanks for the shout out! I'll be sure to give be you one back when I finally write my next chapter, but I'm pretty sure all my readers already know about this story.
Also this chapter was just... adorable. I loved seeing Green interact with the nurses.
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Glad you like it. I want to write more but it seems my muse is on vacation. Or just MIA.
Good on AJ for standing up to Morning Light on Green’s behalf.
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Truly? Huh what do they use now?
11151516
I use the D-fib stickers that are about the size of a hand. you stick em and forget it. unlike the old paddles which you had to manually place for each cardiovert
11151516
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUSgPXaICEU Here's an example if you're curious
11151606
Ohhh Ty! Always interested in med tech
11150424
I don't understand. Green is a nurse, and they are nurses. They find themselves in the same profession, though the other nurses do not realize she is in the same profession.
11153258
Green says "we" in letting slip of her past as a nurse. Yet, to the other nurses, they do not believe her to have been a nurse, it's ridiculously. And I can't fault them. But not only does it hint more towards there being more to her past from certain perspectives(Twilight) but it also makes the nurses believe that Green still is making up make-believe due to something, possibly a traumatic event which hurts Greens goal of making them believe she is alright.
11153335
The nurses "know" that Green likes to play pretend. They even gave her a little hat. So they wouldn't think it was unusual for her to speak from the perspective of being a nurse while they're clearly induging her make believe play.
She's like, eight, so playing make believe is a pretty normal thing for her to do from their perspective.
11153474
encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTj-kG1nojp1A7fXq0l8y4S64cFlILboBD-5g&usqp=CAU
“Oh no! They’re going to take me away from the closest thing I have to a family!”
“No we’re not.”
“Oh no! I can’t accurately judge situations!”
“Maybe you should reassess how you’re judging them.”
“Now you’re being ridiculous.”
In any case, it is nice to see Green be a little more comfortable in her skin… though now she has to worry about upsetting the apple cart of canon. This could go very poorly indeed… or she can just pass them off to Pipsqueak in a minute.
11153474
The actual knowledge she's demonstrating should be a bit more of an indicator, but I suppose she hasn't given any indication that there's anything she's learned outside of keen observation, and a good memory.
Which probably puts a bit more credence to the abused and escaped theory, because someone / pony would need to keenly observe and memorise all sorts of things to escape an abusive situation.
11158344
Yeah, I saw in the comments. It's a little bit jarring uwu
...Shut up
11163882
Nothing too detailed. He's tall, mid 20s, had a crew cut.
11166977
They were trying to say they hate old people, but their keyboard auto corrected boomers to bloomers.
11166984
cool. i hate old people too. except for my grandfather
It's honestly shocking to me that this situation isn't more common in fics where humans get sent to Equus as fillies and colts. It took me a while to realize, but our mental issues never entirely seem to go away, we usually just end up learning how to manage them. Considering the differences in ability between a developing brain and a developed one you'd effectively be trying to use methods you're familiar with,but likely require more resources than you now have.
How many readers heart stopped from the cuteness overload? Just lucky Nurse Green was on shift ♡