The Possession of Dot MacPherson

by McPoodle

Afterward: Loose Ends

The next day was the adoption, which was a mostly happy affair. This was followed by the going-away party, in the same grand ballroom where O’Shea first saw Dot and Twilight.

Twilight was out of Dot’s body, in one of her first appearances since Movie Day. Ethan and Kevin were also attending, with their ponies out as well. The two boys and O’Shea could see all three apparitions; Dot could only see Twilight.

Having the boys over meant that Buddy Lignite needed to be present as well. Which meant that the occasion was not entirely a happy one. Buddy was quite insistent on his plans for stealing the Yellen property away from its rightful owners. Bea called him out on his callousness in front of the various other adults she had been forced in invite on account of their help getting the adoption pushed through. Buddy then twisted the situation around to make it sound like that nefarious plot was her idea instead of his, and walked away with his hands clean.

It was a typical tactic of his.

Bea for her part didn’t care much about the bridges she burned that day. Her true allies knew how low she was willing to go in pursuit of her goals. (Answer: nowhere near as low as Buddy Lignite.) And this particular goal served to make Buddy far richer than her, so the truth was obvious to them.

The day ended with Dot moving into the Platt villa for good. She fell asleep in Bea’s arms, and when she fidgeted when she attempted to put the girl in her bed, ended up sleeping with Dot in her own bed.

***

“Twilight?” Dot asked. It was her dream that night, and they were sitting atop their usual hill. The western ocean to Australia had returned. Perhaps it had become a permanent feature of Dot’s dreamscape.

“Yes, Dot?”

“Those times when you’re alone with Rainbow and Rarity, what do you talk about?”

Twilight sighed. “The rough times we shared. The sorts of things I didn’t think you wanted to know about.”

Dot turned to her companion. “You didn’t think I could handle it?”

Twilight shook her head. “I didn’t think you’d want to.”

“I do want to,” Dot said, earnestly. “I want to know everything.”

Twilight looked out over the ocean. “Very well.”

And so she did. She told of their nastier encounters. Toned down in the details, but with nothing essential left out.

She went on to discuss her doubts to the girl, her fears that she was never going to be good enough for her crown.

And for this part, Dot just listened. She knew that was all she was expected to do. She figured that Twilight was warming up for her eventual shrink session, once the Platts had found a willing doctor that would be able to see her.

And then she asked for permission to spend time with the previous companion of her dreams.

***

Twilight spent the next night’s dream with Kangaroo in dream Australia. The two of them traveled the world searching for her lost joey. They finally found him in New York City.

Kangaroo was very happy, both for the reunion and for the time with Dot. She made sure to teach Dot what her voice actually sounded like.

Dot promised that she would visit again, to see the rest of the Dream Bush.

***

For the next night’s dream, Dot took a list of bulleted questions with her from the waking world, questions she wanted to ask Twilight.

It lifted Twilight’s heart to see her latest student taking after her.

“Twilight, if you can’t cast spells, how come you’re able to bring your friends into my dreams?” Dot asked first.

“Well, it appears that my spells can be safely cast upon other ponies, but not on people or the physical realm,” answered Twilight.

“OK,” said Dot. “I want to ask you about that little filly you told me about from when you were young. The one who lost her brother. What happened to her?”

“Oh, I’ve told you a bit about you before, although I forgot to tell you that it was the same pony. Her name was Lyra Heartstrings.

“I’m afraid we all treated her awfully at first. The idea of somepony our age dying was so horrific that we avoided her after the funeral. But she managed to bounce back. It was like the lesson that Rainbow taught Ethan: a pony can control their reaction to bad things. And like Ethan, Lyra devoted herself to making other ponies happy, in this case with her music. The other fillies and colts soon befriended her once again, and she succeeded in lifting the spirits of many creatures. Eventually she found a mare who loved her as much as she loved the world, and they got married.”

Dot smiled. “I’m glad she got a happy ending. I’ve got one more question: what was the name of the brother who died?”

“Oh, um, let me see. I think it was Orange…Orange Creamsicle. On account of his white coat and orange mane and tail.”

Dot smiled in triumph. “Do you think he might have been called ‘OC’ by his sister?”

“I suppose so.”

Dot leaned forward eagerly. “And do you think he might have heard Lyra’s version of that as ‘O’Shea’?”

“I don’t see why—hey! Are you saying…” She paused a moment in thought as she remembered the name that O’Shea took in Dot’s big dream of two nights earlier. “I suppose it could be possible. But if so, he’s working on a completely different model than Rainbow, Rarity and I. For one thing, I have no doubt that he’s the only one in that body.”

“Maybe…” And here Dot’s enthusiasm drained away utterly. “Maybe something bad happened, right before he showed up, so that he ended up the only one in there.”

Twilight shrugged. “I suppose. It’s not like there would be any way to tell.”

“You could pull him into my dream,” suggested Dot.

Twilight shuddered. “And leave no one in his body? I’d rather not risk it.”

“Oh,” said Dot.

“And besides, what good would knowing that he once was a pony do him? I say we keep this a secret unless something changes.”

Dot nodded solemnly. “Alright.”

---

In the waking world, the next week consisted of Bea and O’Shea taking Dot to her new pediatrician for a complete check-up, followed by comprehensive visits to her new dentist and a host of other doctors, to get a complete list of everything the Platts needed to be aware of with her.

A physical therapist set up exercises to work off her limp.

The last visit was with the optometrist.

---

Bea nervously shuffled a deck of cards one-handed as she waited for Dot’s turn. If there was any one of the doctors who was likely to give her bad news, it would be Dr. Partridge. She had read one too many stories of ocular degeneration spreading from one damaged eye to the other, or even leading to permanent brain damage. She shook her hand, and the ace of spades, the king of diamonds and the queen of hearts popped up and then down into the deck on command.

“She’ll be fine,” O’Shea assured her. “Her vision has been stable ever since Twilight arrived. Perhaps even because of Twilight.”

Bea pursed her lips in thought as she looked over at her new daughter. Dot was sitting next to her, right side facing her. She was at the end of the rows of seats, her left side facing out, so that if Twilight needed to appear for some reason or another, there was a clear space for her to do so.

Bea leaned forward, staring into that space. Remembering Dot’s drawings and trying to imagine Twilight in that space, with the personality that she had seen displayed during her brief period possessing Dot.

Bea sat back, frowning. It wasn’t fair that her husband could see Twilight and not her.

Now Bea had spent quite a lot of time pondering how she should treat Twilight. She concluded that it didn’t matter if Twilight was a ghost from another world or an autonomous personality of Dot’s. Regardless of her true nature, Bea should treat Twilight exactly the same. And since Twilight being real was the less depressing and more fascinating possibility, she decided to just start believing in her. Having gone to all of this trouble, she decided that not being able to talk to her was an insult to both of them.

Well, she could talk to Twilight, in two different ways: she could ask O’Shea to repeat everything she said, or she could ask Dot to lend out her body to the pony. She had employed the first method several times. She did not intend to ever employ the second one again if she could help it.

She turned to O’Shea. “You know, it’s a pity that nobody knows more about how those visions of yours work. That way Dr. Partridge could tap my head in just the right spot with a silver hammer or something. Even if it only allows me to see her and not hear her, I could learn lip reading.”

O’Shea raised an eyebrow. “A silver hammer? As in Maxwell’s Silver Hammer?” he asked.

“Oh,” said Bea, recognizing the reference. And what that particular hammer did to people.

“Nobody knows anything yet about how some people can see visions, or what they really are,” said O’Shea. “Maybe we will, someday in the future. I don’t enjoy leaving you out of our conversations, you know.”

“I know,” said Bea.

“Dot? Dot Platt?” the nurse asked from the door. “We’re ready for you.” Her nameplate announced her as Melissa Cohl.

O’Shea and Bea both got up.

“I’m sorry,” said Nurse Cohl. “There’s only room for one parent or guardian.”

O’Shea sat back down. “Your turn,” he said.

***

Bea followed Dot into a little room dominated by a big chair with a big machine mounted in front of it for peering into eyes and displaying sets of tinier and blurrier letters (“A…or B? B…or C?”). A setup with mirrors facing each other on opposite walls allowed the large eyechart mounted on the wall behind the big chair to appear to be seen the regulation twenty feet away, for testing 20-20 vision.

At Nurse Cohl’s prompting, Dot sat in the big chair, while Bea settled for a smaller one in the corner. The nurse took digital photographs of the retinas of both eyes, pulling them up onto the two screens attached to a computer. The two photographs looked more or less identical to Bea. The nurse tapped her finger on the left-hand image and frowned. She then turned to go.

“Excuse me,” Bea asked. “I did a little research, and I was wondering if Dr. Partridge had a timetable for a replacement.” She was talking about a glass eye but didn’t want to be explicit for Dot’s sake.

Nurse Cohl checked Dot’s file. “No, as a matter of fact there are no plans to replace Dot’s left eye at all.”

Bea looked over at Dot to see if the subject made her uncomfortable. Dot shrugged. “Isn’t that unusual?” Bea asked.

“As a matter of fact it is. Dot’s optic nerve was severed in the accident. This almost always deprives the eye of most of its circulation, leading to decay. But other than the loss of sight, her left eye is just as healthy as her right. I have no explanation for this.”

Bea wondered if perhaps O’Shea was onto something when he said that Twilight was somehow affecting Dot’s health. It would assuage Bea’s worries that the Princess of Friendship-slash-Magic might accidentally be harming her with unconscious magic use, on top of whatever long-term damage might have unknowingly been inflicted from having Twilight manifest for three whole months.

Seeing her mind preoccupied, Nurse Cohl left to fetch Dr. Partridge.

A few minutes later, Bea heard an argument outside the closed door of the room.

“Oh no, not her!” A male voice said. “I swore I would never look at that cursed eye ever again!”

“You have to go in there,” the voice of Nurse Cohl insisted. “Whatever weird misgivings you may have, they are not the fault of that poor girl.”

“Nope! Not going to do it! Never, never—” The optometrist froze as Bea yanked open the door.

“Dr. Partridge?” she asked sweetly.

“…Yes?”

“Would you please see my daughter?” She swung the door open behind her so Dot could be seen.

Dot smiled widely and waved. “I remember you! You’re the funny man who ran away screaming after looking in my eye!”

Dr. Partridge looked wildly between Dot and the two women, neither of whom looked like they were willing to put up with his hysterics. Finally he sighed, slumping forward. “Fine,” he groaned. “I’ll look at her. But only on condition that you look as well.”

“Me?” Bea asked in confusion.

“She doesn’t believe he,” he confided.

“I have never seen anything unusual in that girl’s eye. Either one of them,” said the nurse.

“Then I won’t have need of your services, Nurse Cohl,” Dr. Partridge said curtly. He walked Bea into the room, closing the door behind them.

“Dot, could you sit over there?” the doctor asked. Once Dot had sat in Bea’s old seat, he sat himself down into the big chair. “Now, let me teach you how to examine retinas…”

---

Dot watched curiously over the next few minutes as Mrs. Platt—she had told her repeatedly that she didn’t have to call her ‘Mom’, now or ever, unless she felt comfortable doing so—was walked through the process of shining a blindingly-bright light into somebody’s eye and tracing the arteries and something called a “fovea” in the back. With how many times they walked through the process, Dot wondered if Dr. Partridge would ever see again. But he seemed to put up with it, so eager was he to find somebody who believed him.

---

Finally, Dot was put in the big chair, and Bea examined the retina of her right eye. It looked just like the photograph on the monitor. Dot of course flinched—it’s not pleasant having that light shone in your eye, even by somebody who now knew what they were doing.

Dr. Partridge crept up beside her. “Now…now the left one!”

She looked over her shoulder at him. He was way too close. He shrunk back, and sat himself down in the guest chair.

With a shake of her head, Bea shone the light into Dot’s left eye and took a look. Being a blind eye, Dot did not flinch this time. Bea got a good look, and then compared what she had seen with the photo.

It was identical.

Well…it was pretty close.

As a matter of fact…

Bea reeled as if she had been struck.

“There!” Dr. Partridge exclaimed, pointing back and forth between Bea, Dot, the monitor, and various other random spots in the room. “That! That right there! You saw it, didn’t you!”

Bea scratched her head as she tried to recall what she had truly seen. She looked at the screen. It was flat. Eyes are not supposed to be flat. Dot’s right retina was curved, but her left one…

She grabbed the machine, and peered again. Sure enough, the central area of the retina was flat, and as she watched, that flat area moved…just slightly. Wobbled around a bit.

It was a panel. A photograph, maybe a centimeter square, being suspended in front of Dot’s actual retina. Suspended…or perhaps held.

“Twilight Sparkle!” Bea addressed the little floating square.

“The imp has a name?” Dr. Partridge asked himself, his sanity further unraveling.

A little purple muzzle peaked over the top of the photograph, only a couple of millimeters across. The purple hooves holding the photo in place were at the limit of visibility, even with the magnification provided by the machine. The muzzle was followed a horn, and then by the rest of her face.

It was her. Twilight Sparkle. She was literally living inside Dot Platt’s left eye.

The situation was completely absurd.

Bea didn’t care.

“I see you,” she declared, beaming.

Author's Note:

Credits and Acknowledgements blog post

Comments

[FanOfMostEverything]

Fascinating stuff. I have zero familiarity with the other side of the crossover, but this was still an endearing tale of Twilight doing what she does best. Thank you for a delightful read, with some potent emotional hits that never crossed the line into melodrama.

[Pink as Pie]

This was a very enjoyable story, it hit certain beats not oft traveled as well as a few common ones. Thank you for writing it.