Chapter 7

Amer sighed. She hated having to share her burdens. It felt wrong, like she was too weak to take care of herself. "I've been seeing things," she started, her voice tired and stuttering. "I know this sounds crazy, but he's everywhere. Whenever I see him my leg starts throbbing and my wing aches."

"I don't understand." Twilight frowned. "Who's everywhere? And what does that have to do with your wing?"

"Slender Mane." Amber forced the words out of her throat. "I've been seeing him ever since I got back from the hospital. It's driving me insane! I saw him just last night and I decided to see if I could touch him to see if he was real. I reached out my hoof, and it went straight through him."

"That's odd," Twilight commented.

"I know, but that's not the end of it." Amber barely acknowledged her. "I've killed Slender Mane. Well, that's not quite right. I condemned him to the Pits of Tartarus." She corrected herself. "So there's no way I could be seeing him without seeing monsters everywhere that everybody else could see. So I thought he was a poser, but then I couldn't touch him, so that meant that he was actually not real, and it makes no sense, I- I think I'm going insane." Amber's voice sped up, faster and faster like a runaway train as she tried to get her message across.

Twilight sat in a confused daze. "So... now that we have that out of the way, is there anything else I need to know?"

Amber thought for a moment. "Well, come to think of it, this might be important. Every time I see him, my leg starts throbbing, right where I took the shot. Remember?"

Her friend frowned. "What shot? The doctor never told me anything about a shot. We don't usually give shots for broken bones. Unless, of course, they thought that your lacerations could have contracted tetanus or picked up some parasites. But they would have told me about that."

Now Amber frowned. "But he told me that most ponies get that shot. It speeds up the healing process. He said it might not work on me because I was bigger and built differently."

Twilight stood up and started pacing. "But that's impossible. If somepony made that kind of breakthrough, everypony would know. The science world would be exploding with excitement, the good news would be in every paper. There's no way that this could have happened without my hearing of 's ears pricked forward as she listened. "Do you think this could have anything to do with seeing Slender Mane?"

Twilight nodded. "Possibly. I don't know anything for sure yet. But we're about to find out. Come on, Amber." She stood up and opened the door. Amber followed suit and walked down the dirt path.

"What about breakfast?" Spike called after them, but to no avail. He sighed. "And now I have four eggs to eat."

"Ma'am, that type of medication does not exist." Nurse Cold Heart droned, giving Twilight a bored look. "I would have thought that a librarian like yourself would have known as much."

"But it does!" Amber repeated. "I know what the doctor said. It's supposed to heal me but instead it's giving me some crazy hallucinations."

Nurse Cold Heart looked at Amber skeptically. "Is that so? What was the doctor's name?"

Amber thought for a moment. The stallion given his name, come to think of it. But he hadn't been wearing a name tag. Amber searched her mind a little bit deeper. "Stable," she said. "His name was Doctor Stable."

The nurse sighed. "I'll check our records. Don't think I've met him, though." She pulled out a binder labeled "Staff" and began flipping through it. "Monitor... Shingles... Sunny Daze..." She closed the binder and looked back to the patient. "I'm sorry, ma'am, we have no record of a Dr. Stable. We can run some tests to see what's giving you the hallucinations, but I think that you might be better suited to try our psychiatric ward."

Amber snorted indignantly. "I'm not crazy!" She snapped. Her good wing hunched forward aggressively and a few patients in the waiting room stared. "I know I'm strange compared to you ponies, but that doesn't mean I'm insane!"

"Come on, Amber," Twilight tugged her out of line with her magic. "Let's go home and eat some breakfast. This will all make sense once you calm down."

Amber huffed and stormed out the door. "Sorry about that," Twilight apologized. "She's a bit touchy in the mornings."

"Crazy? I can't believe them! I'm as stable as a table." Amber continued ranting all the way to Sugar Cube Corner.

"She's right, you know." Pinkie appeared next to her. "Tables are very, very stable. Especially our tables. They have to be! Ponies dance on them sometimes when I throw parties, and it would be really bad if one of them broke."

"Good morning, Pinkie." Twilight sighed with relief. She needed something to distract Amber. Twilight was tired already and it was only mid-morning. "We stopped by for breakfast." She walked up to the counter and inspected the sweets behind the glass.

"What can I get for you, dearie?" Mrs. Cake asked. "We have a special on cinnamon rolls today."

Twilight nodded. "Sounds good."

"I think I'll have one too." Amber added. Twilight paid for the food and sat down at a convenient table. Pinkie Pie bounced over and sat next to her friends.

"What's up?" She greeted them.

"Nothing much." Amber glared at a knothole in the table. "I just found out that I'm crazy, nothing much."

"Oh, everypony thinks I'm crazy." Pinkie giggled.

Amber picked at her cinnamon roll listlessly. "Not hyper-crazy, crazy-crazy. The kind of crazy that qualifies me as a public menace."

"She never said anything about being a public menace," Twilight reminded her.

Amber shrugged and rubbed her leg. "Is that still bothering you?" Twilight asked. "I've got some pain-relief spells if you'd like."

Amber shook her head. "I took some medicine earlier. The doctor said magic would mess everything up."

"Right, the doctor who isn't a doctor." Twilight took a big bite of cinnamon.

"I probably just remembered his name wrong." Amber rested her head on the table. "Should have been paying better attention. I just wanted to get out of there."

An awkward silence followed. Twilight ate her cinnamon roll quietly and Pinkie decided to make sure the Cakes didn't need any help with the twins. Amber could see Slender Mane standing in the corner, but decided to ignore him now that his existence was in question.

By the time they got home Spike had cleaned the kitchen and they could hear splashing upstairs. Soap bubbles floated around in the air and Twilight sighed. "Two hours down, five to go."

"Pardon?" Amber tilted her head.

"Oh, Spike likes taking bubble baths. That's not a problem, the problem is that the bubble baths take seven hours."

"I see." Amber laughed heartily. She vaguely realized that that was the first time she had laughed in months. It was kind of nice, a little bit like speaking a different language. "Well, what are we going to do until he finishes his bath?"

"Research!" Twilight clapped her hooves. "I have lots of books relating to strange phenomenons like your hallucinations. It'll be tricky to run some tests without magic, but I'm sure I can work something out." She began levitating several tomes from the east section of the library.

"You can go through this one." She gave Amber a book called Supernaturals: Herbal Remedies that are Simply Super! Amber gave her a confused look. Twilight seemed to be more intent on formal research. If it weren't for the well-worn cover, the book would have been mistaken for a cheap book on a clearance sale. A clearance sale held in a questionable part of town in the middle of a dark alley.

"I know it doesn't seem like a dependable source, but you can't judge books by their cover." Twilight brushed off Amber's concern and continued browsing the volumes.

Amber shrugged and decided to give it a shot.

It had a surprising number of potions and brews she had been obliged to figure out for herself on the borders. Poison Joke, Polyjuice Potions, combinations of herbs that made you well, combinations that made your enemies sick. One in particular caught her interest. It was a rare fungus called Duskwort, an incredibly powerful sleeping drug that had been known to lay out entire villages.

After that came a section of different concoctions and their symptoms. There was one that stole a pony's cutie mark, and another that would cause the thief to break out into itchy rashes. Amber flipped through several more pages until an illustration caught her eye. It was the same hallucination she had seen the other day. Intrigued, she read on.

Jumiji Juice

This poison, made from the juices of the Jumangi berries and a variety of unnamed herbs and plants, has been known to drive ponies to insanity.

The juice was created by unicorn sages in the service of a king who wished to stage small crises that they could defeat in order to gain the trust of his subjects. He believed that if he slipped the poison in the food of one of his servants and cured the servant, the ponies he ruled would see him as a benevolent ruler who cared for even the least of his subjects.

Unfortunately, the plan backfired. Instead of putting the poison in the servant's food, the cook accidentally poisoned the king's food instead. The king saw an apparition (drawn in the left corner based on his descriptions) in various dark corners of his home and the pain of even the least of his injuries intensified tenfold. The sages failed to find a cure for this malady and the king threw himself off of a cliff in panic.

Studies have been performed upon the king's bones. Scientists have theorized as to just what drove the king to his madness. Evidence suggests that the poison was not actually ingested as the story tells, but rather it was injected. While scientists were unable to recreate the poison they were able to deduce that the poison was only effective in the bloodstream and invaded the brain.

The only known (actually theorized) cure is time and calm. The poison of the Jumangi berries, which cause the pain, can disperse from the bloodstream typically within a month or two. If you have seen this hallucination, we recommend that you stay calm and hope that our theories are correct.

Amber turned around to face Twilight. "I think this is it."

Twilight looked up from her fortress of books. "Really? That didn't take very long. I'd say an hour at most. Did it mention a cure?"

Amber sighed. "Keep calm until you stop seeing him."

"How long will that take?" Twilight glanced at her calendar.

"Nobody knows." Amber shrugged her good shoulder. "But it's not like I can fly while I wait. It'll be really boring."

"I'm sure there's something you can do." Twilight assured her. "Like... um... help me with the library!"

Amber snorted. "No thank you," she yawned. "Reading adventures isn't as fun as living one. But you've given me an idea." She tapped the side of her nose. "I'm going to earn a new cutie mark!"

Twilight groaned and hit her book with her face. "I take it there's no stopping you?"

"Nope!"

"Fine. Knock yourself out."

"Will do, Sarge!"