Life of Lyra
Chapter 10
Previous Chapter Next ChapterLooking down at the papers, Joyce tried to work out what it meant. She saw the scores per section, but there was no overall score on the paper. What surprised her was how well she'd done on magical medicine, and how badly she'd done at the topics her doctoral training should have covered. "So…?"
"You passed. Barely." Bright Meadow couldn't stop her eyes from sliding to Joyce's wings. It wasn't every day a new breed of pony came along, and she had so far gained the most time to study the amazing wing structure—that she'd fed Joyce a lot of knowledge of magical medicine hadn't (in Bright's estimation) been a problem.
A buzz of excitement rushed through Joyce. She loosed her wings a little and felt an urge to flap them and screech at the top of her lungs.
The enthusiasm that boiled from Joyce "You have a choice, still." She waited for Joyce to calm down and acknowledge her. "I am willing to mark you as having passed your first year. You could spend now until the start of next year studying and filling in the gaps, or—"
Joyce couldn't help her excitement. "Could I join the class in progress?"
"That was going to be my suggestion. I'd appreciate not being interrupted, however." Bright Meadow cleared her throat. "As I was saying, you could spend the year studying, or you could join the class in progress, and excuse yourself from classes you have already shown a good understanding of.
"I wouldn't normally make this offer, you understand, but I have to be clear about one thing—we cheated with the test. Not only did we add some questions to completely stall you, but we crafted some others so that we'd see your depth of learning, and not just breadth."
Waiting with bated breath, Joyce was actually pleasantly surprised by the revelation regarding the test paper's construction. However, she had enough of a hold on her enthusiasm now that she didn't blurt out the first thing that came to mind. Joyce nodded.
"Professor Horse was surprised at the insight you displayed with magical medicine, especially since you'd only studied it for two weeks, though I must express surprise at your answers to questions you should have known." Even now Bright Meadow couldn't get past it. Joyce had already made it apparent she knew more about physical medicine than Equestrian medicine. The apparent gaps in that had almost been grounds to fail her. "I'm excited, Joyce, and worried. I don't want to push you too hard, and yet I see a promising medical student who has a lot to add to the combined wisdom and knowledge of medicine."
"Then teach me," Joyce said. "Teach me yourself."
Dr. Bright Meadow raised one curious eyebrow.
"Ethics," Joyce said as she pointed to her results, "are something I could leave off my first year training. Take me for private tutoring. There's obviously something I'm missing with regard to physical medicine that I'm going to struggle with if I carry my assumptions about medicine. Help me learn the pony way of medicine."
"I expected you to approach any other teacher here about this except for myself. We didn't exactly hit it off, Joyce," Bright Meadow said.
Joyce loosed a sigh and nodded. "The more I explore pony society, the more I find vast similarities to human society, but I don't care. You're the best doctor here in the field of a pony's physical anatomy and its treatment."
"Professor Dembones—"
"Is an expert specifically with the skeletal structure—whom I will no doubt be spending time learning from as well—but I want to be taught by the best. It matters to me." Joyce was almost panting, and she felt particularly charged with energy.
"I'm going to make you work hard, Joyce." Bright Meadow waited for Joyce to acknowledge her before continuing. "And, if I don't think you pass a semester, you are going to work twice as hard in the break to make up for it. Your writing shows you know a style of medicine subtly different to ours, and I want you to teach that to me. I will deduce what is different, what will work, and teach you how to adapt your knowledge to Equestrian medicine." As she spoke, Bright Meadow felt more and more sure of herself—that this was the right way to do things.
Bright Meadow held out a hoof to Joyce. "If you don't think you're up to this, you can stay with the first year students and learn everything as they do."
"Not going to happen—you'll see." Joyce lifted her own forehoof and connected it with Bright Meadow's.
"Excellent. I'll contact Doctor Written Lore and have her bring you up to speed on requirements and classes. Be here for first class tomorrow, Joyce." As she lowered her hoof, Bright Meadow was unconsciously aware that she'd walked into the bait Joyce had set out. When her new student was out of earshot, Bright muttered, "Well done."
Outside, in the warm morning air, fat raindrops fell from the clouds above. Pegasi worked to wrangle the clouds into position, encourage them to drop their load, then escorted them away once they'd been used up.
The city of Canterlot didn't need its streets cleaned by rain, nor did it require it to refill reservoirs—sometimes it was just nice to have a rainy day. Joyce, as with every other citizen of Canterlot, knew it was going to rain. Posters and fliers had been spread all through the city announcing the exciting event.
A lot of businesses had closed for the day, giving ponies a chance to spend their time enjoying a good soak. Schools, on the other hoof, had remained open. Students were given their normal classes—education would not stop for mere rainy days.
Joyce couldn't help it—she pranced. The big fat droplets of rain would have easily run off her wings had she hunched them up around her torso, but she kept them loose at her sides so that her fur had runnels of water through it. Furthermore, her gait meant that any puddle she found—and Joyce was skillful at finding them—sprayed droplets back up.
"I passed!" Joyce said, shouting her joy to the sky.
"She passed!" a chorus of ponies shouted back.
The shock of the moment almost made Joyce freeze in place, but she had to keep going.
"I passed and there's no looking back, the sun's come out and my life's on track!" Now Joyce's voice was beyond just a shout—she sang.
There was no panic, no worry, not even confusion in Joyce's head. She pranced and bounced, and when she found a big puddle she pronked right into the middle of it. "I'm going to school again, learn to mend bodies again, and do it all because I love to help!"
"She loves to help!" the chorus sang.
"I've learned so much already," Joyce turned and found a colt in the middle of the road, "do you have a cough? Try munching on this berry!" She had no idea where she'd gotten the Cough Drop berry, but there it was at the right moment for the song.
"Mmmm!"
Losing herself to the music, Joyce danced and sang, and the world adjusted itself to suit the song. It was a marvel to Joyce, but one she could put her heart into and just let happen. She might be a mare of science, but this felt like magic.
And then, as quick as the song had picked her up, it let her down. She twirled shedding water from her wings as she did so, and stopped turning only when she was face-to-face with Princess Celestia. Joyce, panting a little from the exertion of singing and dancing, giggled. "I passed!"
Princess Celestia had finished her morning class and had started out of her school when she felt Destiny. Of course, she felt Destiny all the time. She'd built a society where ponies could heed the call of Destiny without a worry as to their existence. When she heard Destiny, felt it, and saw the source as Joyce Robertson, she felt positively giddy with excitement. "That is wonderful news, Joyce."
"And I talked with Doctor Bright Meadow, she's going to tutor me in pony physiology, and I—" Giggling, Joyce twirled in another circle. "I'm babbling. I was singing, but now I'm definitely babbling. I feel so good!"
Of the many ways that Destiny could work, Celestia loved seeing songs-as-reward the best. It was how the world itself rewarded ponies for doing everything right without its assistance. "Do your wings work, Joyce?"
Joyce's brain, running along its own tracks with no heed of derailment, stopped to process the input. "Wings? I—" A rush of adrenaline hit her system when Princess Celestia pumped her wings and shot into the sky. Screeching in excitement, Joyce bunched her haunches and shoved up while flapping.
The normal thermals were disrupted today, which meant Celestia had to work her wings more than usual. Becoming soaked in the rain, she stretched herself out and kept working her wings. When a dark and red shape shot up to fly at her side, Princess Celestia realized how much of a wing advantage Joyce had over most ponies.
Letting loose another screech, Joyce pumped her wings hard to keep up with Celestia. When they reached the height of the clouds (and weather pegasi) the sun was the only thing overhead.
"Princess!" Soarin zoomed over to his ruler and her flying companion. He recognized Joyce as the mare he'd flown with recently, but as he got closer he realized the only reason he'd caught up at all was the height he'd given up for speed.
Hearing another voice, Princess Celestia swung around—giving Joyce the outside line, so she had to fly faster—and let Soarin wheel around to fly at her side. "How goes the shower?"
"Excellent, Your Highness. We have used up ten percent of the clouds we requisitioned, and are on target to end the rain before the warm afternoon can dry everything out at fifteen-hundred-hours." Soarin had to fight to keep level with Celestia, but he was an experienced flier, and could handle himself in high-speed, high-altitude flying conditions.
"You should take a break, Sergeant. Go down and experience the wonder you're giving everypony," Celestia said.
Soarin had to turn his eyes away from the big wings flapping on the other side of Princess Celestia to look at the rain as it fell. Memories of times in his foalhood when he flew through rain caught his emotions up, and without a thought further to Joyce, he tilted his wings and dove toward the downpour.
"I thought you weren't shopping?" Celestia asked.
"Huh?" Joyce had to pull her eyes up—she'd been watching Soarin's dive.
Princess Celestia laughed with delight. "Stallions. I thought you were spoken for?"
"I-I'm a doctor. Studying the huma—pony form is part of my job." The statement lasted until Celestia looked pointedly at Joyce. "You were looking too."
"I was. I must watch over all my little ponies." Celestia had a great deal of trouble keeping a straight face while saying the words, but she did. "And Sergeant Soarin has exceptional physique."
"Why don't you ask him out for an evening? Or ask him in?"
"I haven't talked to Cadance yet." The words were admitting (at least a little) defeat. Celestia glided beside Joyce, the wind coming head on giving her enough lift to avoid gravity's embrace. "I don't know how to bring it up."
Joyce held silent for as long as Celestia had between her words. "Is Cadance busy right now?"
"What? We—" Celestia shook her head.
"Come on. I could do anything today, even discuss my romantic hangups with other species." Tipping her left wing in the most subtle of ways, Joyce shed some the lift from that side, and tipped toward Canterlot.
It wasn't exactly excitement that caused Celestia to dip her wing and follow Joyce. She felt a desire in her heart to not just find somepony to share a piece of her life with, but also she didn't want to show any failing to Joyce—Celestia valued their friendship and what Joyce thought of her.
Spiraling down in lazy circles through the raining sky, Joyce could feel when Celestia caught up and took position beside her just by the changes in the air currents. She held her tongue for the rest of the decent, and let Celestia lead the way to Cadance's tower.
Having grown up in a town that only had minimal weather pegasus support, Cadance was used to the rain, and didn't see the point of having a celebration just to make it rain. The worst part, in her estimation, was that Celestia had declared it a day off her royal studies, but everypony she could have hung out with didn't have the day off.
Moping on a rainy day was therefore Cadance's plan. She was therefore surprised at a knock on her door. Walking to the door, Cadance tried to think who might be visiting her on such a day. When she saw who it was, she couldn't have been more surprised.
Looking rainsoaked, Joyce and Celestia together were not just the last two she expected to answer her door to, but the last two she expected together. "Come in! Wow, you both look drenched!"
Stepping in, Celestia waited for the door to close behind her before unleashing her spell. She targeted Joyce as well as herself, and unleashed 'Dresser's Drying Dervish. In a moment her mane and fur was dry and perfectly primped, and Celestia had only to glance at Joyce to see she was likewise dry, but also surprised. "A little trick I picked up."
"Ahem." Cadance tried to regain control of her day, considering her rooms to at least be her own sovereign territory. "Why are you both here?"
Joyce shot a knowing look to Celestia. "Well, my daughter was coming here to live, and I felt it was—"
"No. I mean here-here." Cadance pointed at the floor.
Celestia mad a soft exclamation of dawning enlightenment. "I built Canterlot. I think I have a right to be—"
"Oh no, Cadance, I thought, why in Equestria would Princess Celestia and my friend Joyce be coming to me on the rainiest of days, soaked through? Maybe it's something important? Or, maybe they just want to crack jokes?" Cadance asked.
Joyce and Celestia looked at each other, and laughed.
"We are here to ask for your help," Joyce said. "Something you are the only pony qualified to do."
Cadance's jaw dropped open and she stared between two suddenly serious mares of such different origins as to almost give her a headache trying to think about what they could have in common. "W-What?"
Comedy was a defense, Celestia knew, and she felt a little bad for having used it. "Joyce's right. We both need help, and you're the pony best qualified to give it."
"Cadance, I know Tufts loves me, he tells me so often enough, but where I'm from people don't see other creatures as romantic partners. I need—I want some help to let me see him how I should." The stone weight Joyce had made of her problem felt lighter. She looked at Cadance only to see complete surprise on her face.
Celestia bit her lip for a moment, then sighed. "I just can't stop seeing everypony as my—well—as a foal. I have needs, and I need help."
"But why—?" Cadance stopped herself from asking the question. She took a deep breath, realizing that Joyce and Celestia were both being honest with her. She reached inside for the magic she held, and smiled. "I'll do what I can. I don't think I can just blast you with love magic and make everything better, but we can talk and find out what does need to be blasted—if blasting is needed."
Reaching inside, Cadance tried to feel out what her cutie mark—and her talent—told her. "I'm going to need time with each of you, separate, so I can get a feel for what the problem is. Who wants to go first?"
"I will defer to royalty." Joyce turned and gave Princess Celestia her deepest bow, and a wink. "I'm going to be studying a lot from now on, so maybe on weekends for me?"
A little voice in Cadance's head ran around in circles screaming fire at the top of her lungs as she came to terms with her new task. "I'll see you on Saturday, Joyce." And, with that, she turned all her attention to Princess Celestia.