Ms. Glimmer and the Do-Nothing Prince

by scifipony

08 — Doctoring

The old tan pony gave me the evil eye through his bottle-bottom glasses. "Magic accelerates the healing, but it's your body doing the healing! There's limits. That's why you cracked the same rib I fixed yesterday."

Dr. Flowing Water: Celestia's royal physician, now mine. Sunset's adopted father, which made me think of what mischief she noisily perpetrated back in her ivory tower with Citron, making me nervous I might blurt something.

"I— Um. I was doing the Princess' bidding?"

Magnified green eyes blinked. "I've raised Sunset Shimmer from a feral foal. You're a piker in comparison."

"Sorry, sir."

"The princess installed you, what, 24 hours ago? I am beginning to think you like fighting."

"I— Well— Yes? Expect him to visit later today. The Prince."

"Why?"

"I... broke his nose?"

He sat back on his stool, his magic fizzling out. I lay on the examination table, a slow-to-warm metal one. He pushed up his head mirror so he could put two eyes on me. "That's all?"

"Yeah?" I looked away.

"You'd better work on defense. Were you my daughter, I'd ground you and send you to your room."

"She's there now." Sunset. Not alone.

"Consider it a request, Starlight. Is she doing well? I haven't seen her today."

My face heated up. "Arguably, pretty well? I'm guessing? From experience...?" I coughed into my fetlock.

He looked confused. "How much pain are you in?"

"Medium?"

"That doesn't excuse you from concentrating on my spell. Princess Celestia said to train your talent for this into a skill. Next semester, assigning a medical magic class and anatomy for surgeons."

"With everything else I'm taking?"

"Sunset says you'd read while you sleep if you could find the spell. You don't faint at the sight of blood, either." He glanced at the wet rag on the table, smelling of alcohol and herbs. "Do you really keep a book floating before your nose when you use her gym...? Of course you do. You out-magicked the Princess!"

"Maybe?"

"Give this old stallion a break."

"Celestia nearly killed me?"

His eyes moved right then left as he thought about it, before he nodded. "True. Now concentrate. You, my little fight pony, need to learn this more than anypony. It might save your life, and until you can heal the princess, I can't retire."

I sat up, hooves clanging against the table. I felt an unexpected burning in my eyes. Becoming a doctor, and only a doctor, was my only hope of becoming a normal pony. "She said the R-word?" Retirement.

"She did."

This stallion had offered me a dream months ago, one that the dreadful choices in my past had convinced me I'd never be able to make my own.

Healer.

Doctor.

Physician.

Cutie mark magic gifted me with a talent similar to Dr. Flowing Water's cutie mark talent. I could tell a body how to heal itself—how to heal itself extraordinarily fast. My own included. If I survived the cataclysm that loomed 602 days from now, I could disappear and make a life anywhere in the world, where nopony knew me. Far away from anypony who might threaten to make me their tool. "That's great news!"

I wasn't going to say that I would run away from any commitment to be Celestia physician after he retired. Then again, I was evil and often stated as much. Everypony who knew that fact ignored it at their own peril.

He stood and rotated the mirror down, reflecting the westering sun from the window. "Concentrate!"

Author's Note:

But... is she evil? Comment on what you think. Don't be shy.

The next chapter is extraordinarily long, arguably romantic, and it will bring great change— For both those reasons,I expect to drop it in three parts. Stay tuned.

Oh, yeah. I have a Ko-Fi account. You are welcome to leave a tip or buy me a cuppa: https://ko-fi.com/scifipony

Comments

[scifipony]

11664187
Riding is a euphemism.

[Tillion]

But... is she evil?

A bit morally flexible, but more true nuetral

[scifipony]

11714479
She's previously said (perhaps in another story) that she has "uniquely fungible ethics."