Renewal

Disclaimer: I do not own My Little Pony, nor am I profiting off this literary venture.

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Twilight awoke with a beep.

Not from herself, she wasn't beeping, but that was the noise that woke her from her slumber.

She didn't remember falling asleep. She could also tell that this wasn't her bed.

Too firm. Too narrow.

She managed to blearily open her eyes, though there wasn't much to see.

What there was, though, she recognized. A heart rate monitor, a new book on her bedside within whose pages were held the most recent Daring Do story and a get well soon balloon, likely from Pinkie Pie.

She was having a hard time piecing together what she was supposed to be getting better from, though.

No... Wait.

Spike!

"Spike!" The alicorn shouted hoarsely.

He wasn't there! He was always there, when she was sick or she wasn't feeling well.

Why was thinking about him causing her brain to feel like it was trying to split in two?

"Twilight!" A soft voice came from the hallway beyond the door. A white mare, Rarity following it. "You're awake! That's good, we were-"

"Rarity!" Twilight croaked. "What's going-"

"Just hold on a bit more, I need to get the doctor, I'll be right back." The clothier continued on before abruptly turning back around, trotting out the door.

"Wait..." One purple hoof was raised, slow and leaden, reaching out for somepony who was already gone. She dropped back into the thin pillow with a huff.

She was confused, she didn't like being confused. She perked up slightly though when a yellow unicorn with a brown mane entered. Answers at last.

"Miss Twilight, how are you feeling?" No, she didn't need questions! She needed answers she...

"Not very good." She felt terrible. She couldn't do... Do... Fix this if she could barely move!

"Well, that would make sense. Princess Luna dropped you here in critical condition." He levitated a clipboard in front of his face, obscuring him.

"How bad was I?" Am I?

"That's actually a rather tricky answer, Miss Twilight. I hope you understand, we've never had an Alicorn patient before." Slowly, she pulled herself up.

"You make it sound like it's something specific to one of the tribes." She wasn't a medical practitioner, she knew there were some things that only pegasi got, like wing rot, or that unicorns could suffer from such as horn fractures. Beyond what she considered common knowledge, she knew she was relatively ignorant.

"While I wouldn't quite say that, I couldn't really say it's wrong either. You see Miss Twilight, you suffered a cerebral hemorrhage due to magical supersaturation." That... Sounded very bad. Bleeding in the brain could not be good. She'd never heard of magical supersaturation occurring inside of a unicorn before.

"That doesn't sound good."

"It's typically very bad actually. I've no idea what you were doing, but you are very lucky that you're an alicorn."

"I... Don't understand. What does being an alicorn have to do with any of this?"

"It's... Commonly fatal. In unicorns. Pegasi have stronger blood vessels to their cognitive centers, their survival rate is slightly better. Your symptom was more in line with the few pegasi who survived surpassing the sound barrier, such as Miss Dash does with distressing regularity, before coming to an abrupt halt." That didn't explain anything.

"What do you mean? What symptom?" She didn't want to let her voice waver. She didn't want to show how scared this made her.

"Bleeding. From the various orifices of your face. We found that much of the blood that had been pooling in your cortex was being drawn out and drained out of your sinuses. It was fascinating, to be honest, watching your brain scan recover between images." Cortex? She knew where that was. It was the safest place she kept the things most important to her, her memories.

"And finally I suppose I should mention that, even with this unique failsafe present in pegasi, their rate of surviving a hemorrhage like this is only marginally better than a unicorns. Earth Ponies, however, tend to hold on the best and are really the only ones we expect to fully recover with any regularity. About twenty-three percent of the time, given that they make it through the night." Her breath stopped, frozen in her chest.

"Miss Twilight?" She... She nearly died? Over what? She hadn't been casting anything that strenuous, had she?

A purple hand held hers as she stood on shaky feet.

Her headache spiked, her hooves gripping the sides of her splitting skull.

"That never happened..." She mumbled, her eyes squeezing shut.

"Miss Twilight, are you alright?" She heard him coming closer as the pain began tapering off.

"No..." Her memory was wrong.

Her memory was wrong!

"I... I think I have two sets of memories." How else could she explain it. She knew she had fumbled and flailed, latching onto walls and rails to keep from falling over.

Why did she remember someone there. Someone helping her. Someone...

Not somepony.

"Nurse! Redheart, get the cart!" He was shouting. Why was he so loud?

Green eye, green hair. He'd been waiting.

Her nose itched.

"Twilight! I need you to stay with me!" She sneezed and stared in horror, bile rising in her throat. The doctor was likely mirroring her expression.

"I'm okay. It's okay, I'm still here."

Moving made her feel nauseous, the twist of her head when she sneezed seemed like it had rattled something loose.

"Doctor! What's... Ew." Nurse Redheart wrinkled her nose as she stared at her superior. She tried not to snicker at the look he gave her, Twilight's snot dripping down his face.

She laughed, loudly even as the doctor leveled a professional glare on her.

It only made her laugh harder.

Twilight giggled. She shouldn't, she knew she shouldn't.

She laughed just as hard, her hoof pounding into the bed.

She couldn't help herself. Everything was just so ridiculous, what else was she supposed to do?