One of the first thoughts to successfully pass through Sunny's moderately-fevered brain was that if there was any dubious benefit to having fallen ill, then it was probably going to be the accommodations. To wit, it might be nice to have her own bedroom again. For a little while.
She'd lived on her own for just about the whole of her adult life. Her father had been... gone. She'd never really thought about roommates and given her prior reputation in the Bay, it was probably safe to say that anypony who proposed rooming with her was doing so as the lead-in to telling a future horror story for free drinks. Something about what had happened to the last nonexistent pony who'd tried to take up quarters with the crazy mare. And when it came to the other traditional method of getting somepony to move in... her three-stage disaster with Hitch had never gotten that far, and nopony else had ever chanced expressing public interest: for lack of details, see 'with the crazy mare'. So she'd gotten used to the solo routine. She cooked for herself, cleaned the same way, decorated to personal taste and if anypony had a complaint about the way Sunny lived, then she'd just file it with all of the other complaints regarding her existence.
Sunny had become accustomed to living alone. She'd even begun the slow, emotionally-wearying process of trying to reconcile its potential permanency.
And then a unicorn had trotted into the Bay.
There had been a certain amount of fallout. One of the more locally significant portions had placed four extra beds into the Brighthouse, and Sunny had joined her guests in what was now a common sleeping area.
It had taken some getting used to and in truth, she wasn't completely there yet. She still wasn't sure how to deal with everypony else's habits, and it felt like you had to live with a quartet of mares for a long time before you truly recognized just how well the group could tie up any and all available bathrooms. But simply trying to sleep while her ears were constantly picking up on four additional breathing patterns, hearing all the shifts of limbs plus the rustling of feathers and by the way, Izzy snored...
But on this day, Sunny woken up with a fever. So all of the others were collectively bundling her off to the same room Pipp had used during the last bout with illness. Giving her some isolation and privacy.
"We're sure it's just the flu?" Izzy asked from somewhere behind Sunny, and the horn came a little too close to prodding the earth pony's backside.
"It's not the first time," Sunny sighed. When your first job included making deliveries -- doing so in every kind of weather which the ocean could kick at the Bay -- it was easy to get sick. Especially in winter, and the cold had closed in again. If she listened closely, she could hear near-arctic winds testing the Brighthouse windows. "I know what the symptoms look like." Felt like, for that matter. "So I just need somepony to take a gallop down to the pharm --"
A little too urgently, with heavy overtones of worry, "But you're an alicorn!"
Sunny paused. A lowered horn went into her left buttock.
"OW!"
"Sorry -- !"
"-- what does being an alicorn have to do with it?"
There were circumstances under which the next sound qualified as a horrible one. It was a slow inhale which entered the lungs after being pulled in between teeth, and it was the audio cue which said Zipp was starting to think.
"Well," the older princess thoughtfully considered, "we all have our own diseases, right? That's part of why the hospitals and emergency departments are having so much trouble when the ponies who moved need medical help. I'm pretty sure pegasi are the only ones who get psittacosis. You need wings for that. So maybe alicorns get sick in ways other ponies don't."
"...um..." said Misty, because she was still trying to figure out how to live with the heir and when Zipp really got going, '...um...' was about the best anypony could hope for.
This was followed by a high-pitched, slightly annoyed (and very musical) whistle of frustration. "Look, everypony," Pipp groaned, "we just need to get her into bed. Nopony around here needs Round Two, and I'm saying that as the mare who got to go through Round One --"
"-- I can't get any alicorn diseases!" Sunny's heated neurons fired off.
"Why?" Izzy curiously asked. It was possible to hear the overlong mane swaying with concentration.
"Because a disease infects biology! My wings aren't made of cells! They aren't even solid!" Which once again begged the question of how they were catching the air at all, but... "They're made of magic! Magic can't get sick! And I'm an earth pony!" Which, since the Second Age Of Unity had officially begun, seemed to come with some degree of enhanced stamina -- but that had already failed her. "Biologically. Earth ponies illnesses are the only kinds I could get!" Although there were a lot of isolation wards in those overwhelmed hospitals, because nopony was entirely sure just how much could be passed on between species.
Nopony said anything for a moment. Sixteen hooves continued their attempt to corral the last four towards the proper door. And then a one-of-a-kind brain, which had a tendency to take every possibility to what its owner saw as the logical conclusion, came up with "Unless it's a magical disease."
The silence which temporarily followed represented one of the more typical reactions to an Izzy Moonbow pronouncement: 50% sincere attempt to figure out what she'd meant, 50% desperate concentration on a failed attempt to fend off the incoming headache.
"...what?" Zipp finally expressed for the group.
"If you can have wings made of light," Izzy innocently explained, "then why can't you have viruses made of magic? Tiny bits of floating light, too small to see without help! And they would only be able to infect magical things!" She thought that over for a few extra seconds. "Somepony needs to get a really good magnifying glass and check the sickroom. We'll need to remove any suspicious sparkles."
The next level of skull pain registered behind Sunny's eyes, then settled in for a long stay.
"...um..." Misty technically contributed.
"We'll worry about that," Zipp firmly stated, "when we come to it. Okay, I recognize this door. Let's get her inside..."
They boosted her into the bed. Some of this involved leverage and, with the two unicorns involved, more horn pokes.
"...okay," Sunny finally exhaled, and tried to settle in under the blankets. "Thanks, everypony. So if anypony has the chance, there's a few things I could really use right now." Write up a list, send somepony to the pharmacy. That would be easy enough. "For starters --"
She glanced up to see who could be recruited. An activist always wanted volunteers, but Sunny had a natural attraction to lost causes and was still trying to figure out the process of volunteering somepony else. She was always sure they would see the benefit of working with her, just as soon as she got them lashed to the same tree. And then they could defy the incoming bulldozers together --
-- Izzy, Pipp, and Misty were gone. Zipp was looking at her.
"I know what you need," the heir stated.
Sunny's hot-feeling eyes needed a little extra effort to manage the blink.
"You do?"
"I know I do!"
She's enthusiastic.
She's almost never --
"Just wait right there!" Zipp declared. "I'm going to bring in exactly what you need to feel better!"
Sunny hadn't really intended to look at the books. There were more than thirty tomes on the rolling bookshelf and when you got many hardcovers together in one place, the ink started to collapse in on itself with a sort of literary gravity. It pulled in attention. And when the books were all from the same series, it also collapsed all hopes of actually getting through anything.
She didn't want to look at the books. But to look away from them would have meant looking at Zipp.
The older princess didn't smile much. She found the vast majority of the world to be decidedly annoying. The heir to a throne and future leader of a nation generally treated society as something which could go on without her. On the other side of that door. The one which never opened and, just to make the status a little more official, didn't actually have a lock. Or hinges. Actually, upon closer inspection, it looked a lot like a wall.
It was hard to engage Zipp's attention. But if you did happen to find a subject of interest... everything flipped. She fixated. Hyper-focused. There was a possibility of pictures and if those turned up, having a spiderweb of red strings connecting the images was just about mandatory.
If Zephyrina Storm could be made to actually enjoy something...
The heir was currently beaming, and it was utterly terrifying.
"I know you're going to love Chevalia," Zipp decided in advance. "Anypony with taste does."
Sunny looked at the books. Then she tried properly counting them, and stopped when the sheer weight of the number began to drill into her skull.
"...where do I start?"
"Volume One, of course!" the pegasus guessed. "But..." She glanced at the rolling unit. "Huh..."
"'Huh'?" Sunny's well-justified Fear Of Ten Thousand Pages inquired. "What's 'Huh'?"
"I just thought about it," Zipp announced. "I could arrange everything in the ideal order for you!"
"One," Sunny tried, "is usually followed by two..."
"Bookmarks," the heir clarified. "Color-coded. When you reach a red one, you pull the right supplemental material volume and turn right to the matching tab. That'll give you more than the footnotes ever could!" Helpfully, "The books have their own footnotes. But there's only so much the publisher can do with them."
"...oh."
"The font size is kind of a limit."
"...oh?"
"Three paragraphs is the max." With open happiness, "Oh, and I could bring in some of the things I've been writing down! For submission!"
"For..." was about as verbose as the looming literary terror wanted to be. Besides, the room was already overflowing with words. There might have barely been enough room to get a 'for' in.
"There's rumors that the author is going to start publishing volumes of fan material," Zipp gushed. (Gushed. Sunny hadn't even told the others about her father's notes on changelings and she desperately wanted to make sure she wasn't dealing with one.) "Officially sanctioned! So I've been writing down my own conjectures and figuring out how to submit them. Under a false name."
"Why under --"
"-- I don't want to get published just because a princess wrote it."
"Oh."
"My deductions are solid enough on their own," Zipp added. "They should be more than capable of speaking for themselves. Especially after I've spent so much time working out what the author actually means. As opposed to what she wrote. So on the first round, I won't use my own name."
"The -- first --"
"I know my theories are good," the pegasus ecstatically declared. "Better than anypony else's! I used to dominate in the fan forums. Under a false name. But there's going to be hundreds of ponies sending in material, Sunny. So no matter how brilliant my work is, it could get buried in the landslide. First round is anonymous submission. But if that doesn't get me through, then nopony can ignore a palace postmark!"
She kept beaming. It was the bright expression of somepony who truly adored something and felt that everypony around her was sure to care about it just as much. It was a very happy face, and it was also a face which hosted a list of future inquiries. Because Zipp would want to know just how much Sunny had loved the books. Specific chapters. Paragraphs. Individual lines. If there was laughter, how long did it last? One box of tissues for the tears or two? And if the action had the reader on the edge of her bed, then which edge had it been? Also, name twelve minor characters. Just to see if you were paying attention. And what did you think of the stunning foreshadowing which only came into true view around Cumulative Chapter #290?
"I know you're going to love the originals, though," Zipp enthused. "All of them!"
It was an expression of utter delight, and it came with the promise of an exacting quiz.
"Um," the earth pony said.
She looked at the books.
She wrenched her gaze away from the books.
She hadn't even reached Word One and she was deep into archive panic.
The intense, heartfelt, and somehow half-unnatural smile began to fade.
"It's really dry in here," Zipp noted. "The air, I mean."
"Well, winter," Sunny sighed -- which was when her body decided to kick in a few coughs, as if for emphasis. "We usually don't get humidity this low, not when the ocean's right there. But when it's cold enough, most of it drops out of the air. It happens."
Thoughtfully, "Humid air helps with the flu, doesn't it?"
"With congestion," Sunny agreed. "And clogged throats." Which was when her heated mind recognized that an opportunity had just arisen. "Zipp, I'm going to need some things. But when it comes to a humidifier, I'm pretty sure mine is in the --"
"-- I was thinking about your dad's notes."
Which immediately refocused the whole of Sunny's attention onto the most important topic in the world.
"...you were?"
"I think about them a lot," Zipp solemnly stated. "Like how he said the ancient pegasi were capable of weather control."
The faintest alarm bell began to go off at the back of Sunny's brain and found the sound blocked by the towering image of a lost stallion.
"I know," Sunny sighed. "And it's been seasons since the beacon originally went off. I'm starting to realize, Zipp -- some things may come back slowly. It's possible that others might never return at all. I know at least one of the old rules changed, because the old earth ponies could never grow plants this fast --"
"-- humidity," Zipp openly observed, "would be part of weather control. And that's how the ancients set up climates in buildings, right? This much here, a little less over there, maybe get a sauna going somewhere..."
"There were magic-powered spas," said a rather confused mare. "But we all had to find substitutions through science. So the last time I saw my unit, it was under --"
"-- I'm going to try something," the heir decided, and did so with the air of a pony whose usual authority had exactly one living override. Who was a rather long way off.
"What?"
Zipp's wings unfolded to their full span.
Then they began to flap.
Hitch paused as he trotted in, then glanced around the room. The small cart being towed behind him wasn't quite ready for the stop, and the base nearly jammed his pasterns.
"How are you feeling?" the sheriff asked his ex.
"...tired."
"Is that a new bed?"
"Yes," Sunny sighed.
"Bad mattress?"
"Not really," the mare wearily decided. "Not if you like waterbeds."
The streaked forehead creased. "Waterbed..."
"It held the rain very well," Sunny announced. "Ever after we got everything else dried out. And we couldn't exactly stick it outside in the sunlight during winter, so it wound up in the basement. And then we swapped beds. Because a waterbed is seasickness, but a waterlogged one is just cold and squishy" She thought it over. "Maybe the damage wouldn't have been so bad if Zipp hadn't prioritized for getting the books to safety."
Local law enforcement, which had just heard a bale-ton of evidence being nosed over, looked confused.
"...never mind," Sunny said, and then sneezed. "What's in the cart? I can't see past your tail."
The sheriff tentatively nodded, then unfastened himself from the harness and stepped again.
"Boswellia," Hitch announced as Sunny carefully looked over the little cutting, which had been tenderly placed and propped up in the pot. "The others told me what happened. I thought you'd want something to chew for any joint pain."
"Thank you!" And she meant it. A few of the fernlike leaves would help. "But what I really need is for somepony to gallop to the pharm --"
Sunny squinted. Looked more closely at the tiny planting.
"Hitch?"
"Present and on medical duty, ma'am," the stallion announced with a smile.
"Isn't boswellia usually a tree?" And this wasn't even a bonsai. "That looks like you stuck the end of a branch in soil. It's not going to last long." Not that she was complaining about having gotten some form of medicine, but there weren't all that many leaves and the source was going to die.
He nodded. "It's all Copia would let me have. One cutting."
Oh. Copia. It had probably taken the flash of a badge to get that much out of the Bay's premier greenhouse miser. "Better than nothing," Sunny weakly smiled. "I'll take all the help I can get. Starting with, if you don't need to go back to the station house right away, a bottle of --"
"-- you know," Hitch thoughtfully cut her off with that calendar smile, "I don't think Copia's really gotten the idea of the Second Age yet."
"What do you mean?"
The stallion grinned.
"You're the one always telling me to consider this as a possible solution..." he reminded her.
The soil in the pot began to glow green.
Pipp, who'd balanced the steaming serving tray on her back, carefully stepped around several stray pieces of shed bark.
"Where did all of this come from?"
It was a slow process. Some of them took up more floor space than she did.
"Hitch," Sunny wearily announced from the center of her half-curl on the bed.
Her snout twitched. There was a familiar scent in the room...
"...Hitch," the younger princess repeated, and then looked around a little more. "And the giant leaf impressions in the wall?"
"Also Hitch."
The pegasus looked up.
"So I'm guessing the ceiling damage --"
"-- I still told him to use magic more than he does," Sunny sighed. "For practice. Because it turns out that when it comes to turning a branch cutting into a bonsai tree, he doesn't have a lot of fine control." Paused. "Also, there's firewood stacked up behind the Brighthouse. For the rest of the winter."
The royal slowly nodded. Most of the tiara failed to shift.
"Can you give me a little help?" the princess asked. "It's hard to take something off my own back."
Sunny nodded, uncurled, then scooted over to the edge of the mattress. She looked down at the little royal, then inhaled deeply of the teapot's unfurling steam.
"...spearmint," she finally said, because it took that long for the scent molecules to filter past the congestion. "With -- honey?"
"And a little lemon," Pipp confirmed. "Drink it."
Sunny took a mug, carefully sipped. Some of the soreness in her throat began to ease.
"Is this a pegasus medicine blend?" Because Pipp hadn't asked for anything like this when she'd been sick.
The royal shook her head. "It's for professional singers."
Sunny blinked. Set the mug down on the endtable.
"You should drink all of it," Pipp said. "I made sure it was balanced --"
"-- it's for what?"
"Singers," Pipp repeated. "You've got a cough and a sore throat. It's going to put a lot of strain on your voice."
Three visitors.
I had to get out of bed to help Zipp clean up after the downpour, and then she left.
Then I overworked getting the tree broken up with Hitch. And he left. Pretty much all of the leaves wound up outside, and what was left in here was too wrecked to chew.
This is my third visitor and I haven't had one pill. Or had somepony fetch the humidifier. Go to the pharmacy. Anything.
She brought tea.
A little desperately, "Pipp --"
The little princess shook her head. Sunny stopped.
"I looked it up after I got better the last time," Pipp told her. "Refreshing my memory on the mix." And now there was a faint note of sadness in the younger mare's words. "I'm not a doctor, Sunny. I don't want to try guessing at how to treat an earth pony. And I didn't go back to the Heights for the Number Twelve soup with extra carrots, because... that's not from your mom. It doesn't have the same associations. It would just be soup."
I went all the way to the palace for her soup.
I could have gone to a Zephyr Heights pharmacy. Found the palace physician, whispered the situation to him, and filled a few scrips. Because the species-specific medicines are still being distributed, and a lot of doctors are trying to improvise.
I'm an earth pony and we're in the Bay. Everything I need is right here.
And she made spearmint tea.
Which didn't change the fact that Pipp had done something for her. Pipp didn't always do a lot around the Brighthouse. Requesting basic cleaning usually got a look which suggested that the royal was still waiting for the servants to show up and in their unexplained absence, Sunny could go get a mop.
Pipp's head tilted slightly to the right. But she kept looking at Sunny.
"I know what happened with Zipp," she said. "A little, anyway. Zipp usually goes for detail on somepony else's mistakes. And Hitch didn't exactly help your mood. You already look grumpy." The tilt increased. "You've got a great grump face. Very memeable. I thought about using it for some base images."
"Very --"
"-- I don't deal well with being sick," Pipp solemnly understated. "I'm guessing you're worse. I hardly ever see you when you're not doing something. Maybe that comes from being an activist. Staying busy. And I have the salon, songs, keeping all of my social media accounts going, publicity and interviews and staying connected with the fans -- but you're just busy. So we've got that in common, I guess. And I don't want to be like Zipp. I don't play around with magic --"
-- and stopped, because nopony could have missed the expression of 120% Supersaturated Dubious which had just taken over Sunny's features.
"I don't play with pegasus magic," Pipp firmly said. "I tried something in the palace before Mom sent us here, and that was it. Mixing mane tonics and hoof creams shouldn't count. All that stuff is from plants, and anything which happens is the plant's fault. Besides, a plant should know how to be a plant. It's an expert. The way I'm an expert on acoustics and sound design and viewcount manipulation and getting memes started and..."
Her head came back to center. Leaf-green eyes dipped.
"...not much else," the princess slowly finished. "But I know about singing, Sunny. How to take care of my voice, my throat. And I don't want to mess with things I don't understand. But I know what Zipp did, and now I know what Hitch tried. So I made you some tea. So it would be a little easier for you to speak. And at some point... you might need to scream."
And with that, Pipp turned and left.
Eventually, Sunny finished the tea blend. Then she got off the bed and finished cleaning up the bark.
It made her muscles ache all the more. But Hitch had needed to return to the station house, and nopony else was doing it.
"I was thinking," was a typical way for Izzy to innocently present the start for her own round of horror
Sunny instinctively checked the availability of all exits. This included the windows. The sickroom was fairly high up on the Brighthouse's redesign, but that just gave her more time to manifest the wings before hitting the ground.
"...about what?" Because it usually didn't help to know what Izzy had been thinking about, excepting the potential for having fear lend any listeners some extra speed.
"You're an alicorn! And you're ill." The large mare's head tilted slightly to the left, and the long curtain of mane shifted. "'Ill' is also known as 'ailing'. So right now, you're an ailicorn!"
Silence filled the room, then shoved aside a few volumes on the returned rolling bookshelf and began to browse through the closest index.
"Is it because I explained the joke?" the unicorn politely asked. "I didn't think anypony would get it unless I explained it. Even if I said the new word really carefully. Because everypony here has an accent and that means they don't hear words right. Why is there a different bed in here? Did something happen to the old one?"
Sunny carefully possessed her soul in patience, which didn't do a lot for the fast-intensifying headache.
"You get quiet when you're sick," Izzy decided. "Maybe it's the fever." The unicorn came closer to the bed, reared up on her hind legs and briefly pressed her chin against Sunny's forehead before dropping down again. "You're just too hot. We need to bring that down."
Finally. "Izzy, I need some paper. I've got to write this down for you, because I don't want you trying to spell it -- actually, does Bridlewood have them?" Because she didn't know anything about the forest's medical capabilities. "Tell me if you recognize any of these names. Phenylbutazone. Flunixin meglumine --"
Izzy's eyes had just forfeited a certain degree of focus. The one-of-a-kind brain was lost in thought.
"-- I think," the crafter considered, "those are supposed to be medical sorts of names." (Sunny urgently, desperately nodded.) "Bridlewood's a little weird about medicine."
Words which, upon reaching a fevered mind, temporarily distracted it. "How?"
"Well, it's just about all plants, for starters," Izzy said, and sniffed the air. "Is it like that for earth ponies? Because that would explain why it smells like boswellia in here. With hints of spearmint tea. Anyway, we don't really have the manufacturing for most of the drugs. So it's mostly about what kinds of plants you can eat to feel better. Only most unicorns used to put that off for as long as they could, because being sick makes you feel miserable and the more miserable you are, the more you would fit into Bridlewood."
"...oh."
"The latest thing is leeches."
"...what?"
"I'm not sure it works," Izzy placidly added. "They suck out blood, right? And I don't think there's any blood in a horn." Thoughtfully, "I'd rather not break mine to find out. But that's what ponies are doing."
"THEY'RE --"
"-- not breaking horns, because that's stupid." No change of volume, not a single visible sign that she'd picked up on the half-shout. "They're putting leeches on the tips of their horns. And saying that the bad vibes are being sucked out."
Superstitious.
Remember that they're just about all superstitious.
It doesn't have to make sense. If it did, they wouldn't be doing it.
...don't picture a leech on a horn.
...don't...
...I think I need a bucket...
"I guess nopony tried it before because they wanted all the bad vibes they could get," the crafter offhoofedly mentioned. "But, Sunny... when I see everything Maretime Bay has, and Zephyr Heights... I know we're behind on medicine." A little sadly, "We were so wrapped up in being sad about not having magic that nopony really tried science instead. And now we're mostly buying everypony else's. Because what we come up with is leeches. On horns."
"Science is important," was what Sunny's strained sanity decided to treat as the takeaway. "Especially in medicine." Back to the important part. "Paper. Pen. Or just borrow a phone and tap in the list --" stopped, recognized that she was talking to the Brighthouse's resident techbane, and belatedly remembered that Izzy's last attempt to create a schedule calendar had somehow wiped out the phone's operating system. "-- paper. I think you spell the first one as p-h-e --"
"But we have to bring your fever down," said an extremely worried and caring unicorn, because she had good intentions.
"-- n-y-l --"
Izzy always had good intentions.
Almost placidly, "I thought of a way to do that."
It was the consequences which didn't care.
Sunny stopped again.
"...you did?"
The crafter possessed a singular sort of mind. She thought of things. Some of them worked. Others provided cause for reviewing the acceleration math on a just-cleared-the-broken-window falling body. Oh, and then there was that one which had basically overturned the world...
"It's not tea," Izzy casually mentioned. "I tried tea with Pipp. And it was all good tea, because we have a lot of plants and you get used to steeping them. Getting into hot water is sort of what Bridlewood is all about, only on the social level. But I couldn't get magic to work with the tea. And maybe that's because of my mark. I don't have one for medicine. My personal magic is about fixing things. Not ponies."
All right, considered the part of Sunny's brain which wasn't in a position to see it coming: the rest was lining up on the window. So at least that means she isn't going to try casting anything --
"But that's my personal magic," the unicorn happily added. "I don't need that to get your temperature down! I just have to do what we can all do!"
Two brain hemispheres set off their respective alarms. The panic signals collided in the corpus callosum and tumbled into the cerebellum, which twitched.
A frantic "Izzy --" was as far as Sunny got.
The crafter took a deep breath.
"Frosty shivers! Frosty shivers! Frosty shivers! Frosty shivers --"
Sunny had been thinking about shields.
She'd first read about them in her father's notebook, and then she'd seen the real thing in the fight against Opaline. A shield meant turning hornlight into something solid. The energy became a barrier. Protection, a quick way to imprison ponies...
"Your forehead is sparking," Misty timidly said as she visibly forced each leg forward. "Why?"
...a great way to block the door...
"Just thinking," Sunny sighed, and forced the sparks to stop.
"And the floor's really cold."
"Izzy put the chipped-out slabs of ice next to the firewood."
"...sorry?" was, perhaps, Misty's most natural vocalization.
"Forget it. Misty, how well do you know the Bay now? And I mean for finding things. There's a building over on Pharlap Street. And you have to go there, because they don't deliver no matter how many times you call and beg. I'm up to seven. It's got a sign with a mortar and pestle hanging over the door --" and realized she was dealing with Misty. "Do you know what a mortar is?"
But the shy mare didn't seem to be listening.
"I was thinking," Misty shyly said. "About medicine, and alicorns getting sick. Treatments. I think... I might be able to do something." Hastily, "Maybe. If that's okay with you. And I'll go slow, and I'll concentrate really hard..."
Sunny blinked. Her eyelids felt hot.
"You know how to use magic in medicine?" Nopony had worked out --
"Sort of," Misty timidly quasi-decided. "I mean... I was on the receiving end a few times."
"Receiving..." She knew what Misty meant. Whom. But her fevered brain refused to create the image. Not when it came to something which meant caring for another.
"Opaline," the unicorn softly said, and her eyes briefly closed as forehooves scraped at the cold floor. "I was a filly when she found me, Sunny. Kids get sick. And there wasn't anypony else. So she mixed things for me. She wasn't always happy about it. She'd tell me to stop being so weak. But... she always made the medicine. Every time. And made sure it was by my bed when I needed it."
Sunny went silent. It was rare for Misty to talk about the true alicorn of her own accord, and every bit of pain which finally drifted to the surface was something they could finally try to deal with. That was one very good reason to just let Misty talk.
The other was shock.
Opaline.
Looking after somepony.
She still couldn't picture it.
"And she got sick," Misty added. Mint-hued eyes went down. "Not very often, and she'd always deny it. ...almost. Once, she said it was the natural expectation from having to be around an inferior all the time. To feel ill. But then she'd give me a recipe book, and -- I'd have to do the mixing for her."
Natural-born biological alicorns can become ill.
There was a point in the near-past when that would have truly mattered. It could have meant everything. But... not any more.
"I saw some of the spells she used," Misty went on, mostly looking at the floor. "I don't know how to cast them. I could make my hornlight form the same shapes, but I don't know if it would do anything. But I remember the plant mixes. The ones where she didn't use any magic at all. I can't really go back to the castle to check the recipes, because it'll take so long and most of the books were probably destroyed. But I'm sure on what every plant looked like, because I saw the samples in the storage cupboards all the time. I think I know something which can help you. I... want to help..."
The forehooves scraped again. The mare tried to find the strength to lift her head against the weight of curls and self-imposed expectations, then failed.
And Sunny thought.
Her second instinct was to just send the unicorn to the pharmacy. But... it was hard for Misty to put herself forward. The mare had been taught that she was weak in all things. Forever inferior, perpetually existing a heartbeat away from total failure. It made her reluctant to attempt more than the most basic activities, because a deep-planted seed of poison knew it would all go wrong.
For Misty to openly offer assistance was a sign of possible healing. It was precious. Sunny couldn't just shove that aside.
"Go around to the greenhouses and get the plants you need," Sunny gently said. "Try not to use Copia's unless you can't avoid it. I'll be right here."
Misty forced her head to raise. Gave Sunny a weak smile, and slowly left the room.
"Um," Misty said.
Sunny didn't move.
"I... think I know what happened."
Individual strands of fur were moving. Twisting against each other, as was most of the hair in her mane and tail. The prismatic streaks felt as if they were trying to make a break for it.
"I was supposed to get lesser celandine," the unicorn timidly tried. "Which -- looks almost exactly like... buttercups?"
The fur moved on its own. Hairs shifted. But she would not let her muscles twitch.
"...and that's why you're having the reaction."
There was no way she was going to give in to the itching.
"I think it'll pass in a couple of hours," Misty openly hoped. "The... splotchy look in your fur might last longer. I don't know how long. I..."
She looked simultaneously miserable and apologetic. A talent which was both natural and honed.
"...I know you're mad," Misty finally whispered.
"I'm not," Sunny did her best to lie.
"You look mad," the unicorn just barely managed. "Or grumpy. Pipp said I'd know when you were grumpy. And that it was -- very memeable."
Silence.
"...what's a meme?"
The sickroom was cold. There were still some splinters on the floor, and in most of the ceiling. There was a scent of boswellia bark, peppermint, old books, dampness, and some of the things Sunny had needed a bucket for.
Nopony had come in to see her for over an hour. There had been no pills. No humidifier. She would have settled for the Number Twelve soup, carrots or no. The pharmacy was no longer answering her calls.
The earth pony mare slowly, achingly forced herself out from under the blankets, waited two minutes until the shiver fit finally eased, and then began her search.
Sunny heard them before she saw them. They had gathered near the source of magic, perhaps to see if it could somehow enchant their words into making sense. And in that, they had failed.
"Maybe if we put her right next to the beacon?" Zipp proposed. "She could try to sort of soak up the magic, right?"
"It's the same amount everypony receives," Misty timidly tried to counter. "...isn't it?"
A unique mind considered the problem.
"Maybe we could try to blast her with the lights!"
It was just possible to hear three mares blinking.
"...Izzy," Pipp carefully said, "what do you think that would do?"
"I'm not sure," the crafter admitted. "But her dad's notes said blasting people with magic used to do a lot of things. To make them better. So if it gets any worse, we could just try hitting her with the rainbow!"
Sunny was starting to feel more hot than before.
"And how," Zipp's open disbelief asked, "would we even know it was working?"
This was beyond feverish.
"She'd tell us that she felt better! If she was still conscious." Izzy thought it over a little more. "Does her flu hurt her sense of taste? Because that might come back first. She'd tell us that she was tasting the rainbow!"
"...taste a rainbow..." Misty just barely voiced.
She felt as if she was on the verge of boiling...
"You don't know she wouldn't!"
Sunny crossed the last bit of ramp, reached the proper level. Four heads turned at the sound of hooves.
"Sunny!"
"You shouldn't be out of bed --"
"-- you're sweating, I can see your fur getting darker -- or is that the blotches?"
"...I can go back to the castle and look for --"
"I JUST WANTED SOMEPONY TO MAKE A PHARMACY GALLOP FOR ME!"
Her four originally-unrequested roommates, with expressions and hues distorted by the radiance of the beacon, abruptly, collectively, and completely shut up.
"CAN'T WE JUST USE SCIENCE?" shouted the last of Sunny's strength, channeled into her voice and reaching eight laid-back ears courtesy of a very effective throat tonic. "Good old reliable, proven medicine! Why is everypony trying magic and mixes and the silliest things imaginable? Why can't I just get a pill? WHY ARE YOU All ACTING LIKE THIS --"
"...because we're scared," Misty whispered.
Thirty decibels met ninety, and won.
Sunny's mouth closed.
"We're worried about you," Zipp firmly said. "We need you."
"They're trying everything they can," Pipp softly sighed. "Even when that means new things."
"...anything which happens with you," Misty forced out, "is new. I knew how Opaline got sick. It's not the same with you. You're so different. Even your dad's notes don't have anything on anypony like you. It's scary. And when you're scared all the time, you do dumb things... I'm sorry..."
"We care," Izzy's unique mind vocalized. "We're your friends..."
Slowly, carefully, Sunny sat down. Part of it was from the shock. The rest was because her hind legs didn't seem to be interested in doing much of anything else.
She closed her eyes. Thought about being sick in a big building, hearing the echoes of her coughs bouncing off the walls.
Again.
Alone.
She wasn't looking at them. Closed eyes had fresh tears forcing their way out from between the lids, and also meant she only knew of their approach through hearing the slow, timid taps of sixteen hooves.
Then she felt the cool nuzzles against her hot skin.
Eventually, she nuzzled back.
"I'll get this list to the pharmacy," Zipp said as Pipp placed the paper in the older sibling's left saddlebag. "I'll be back as soon as I have it filled."
"I can make sure your dosages are timed," Izzy offered. "I'm used to timing things! Glue drying, paint..."
"Music," Pipp suggested. "Something soft. Relaxing. To take your mind off being sick."
"The Chevalia books can do it," protested the older sibling. "That's the best distraction from illness --"
"-- music."
Sunny, back in the slow-warming bed, gratefully nodded to all of it. And then she looked at Misty, whose hooves were once again scraping at the floor.
"...I could try to make dinner," Misty shyly proposed. "You shouldn't have to cook. I remember a lot of recipes. Things from her cookbooks, which nopony else knows. I just have to get the right ingredients..."
"Please," the earth pony gently said.
Books were, in fact, a decently good distraction from illness. Sunny tried to focus all of her concentration on the pages, and found that it helped to take her mind off the newest symptoms. And while she was sure that Zipp would have preferred for her to be prepping for the quiz, the Chevalia tomes had to wait. Sunny was much more interested in reading the freshly-borrowed mycology text, because that was what had just taught her that the culinary delight which was the King Bolete mushroom looked almost exactly like the wonder of gastrointestinal distress represented by the Lilac version. And the more she concentrated on that, the longer she could potentially hope to hold the vomit down until she reached the toilet trench.
It had to be the toilet trench. Every bucket and sink had been collectively used. But there was going to be something of a wait. Having five mares in a house could really tie up all of the bathrooms.
Misty had sobbed her way through most of it: something which had only initially stopped when the circle of nuzzles had gathered around the unicorn. And they had to keep going back to her. Telling her that mistakes were made, because nopony was perfect and you couldn't ask them to be. But then they were fixed, and never repeated.
It was okay. It really was.
Illness passed. Friendships continued.
They were all learning.