[MLP:SiM] Sick Day Ch 1 [new] - Waking Up

Sick Day Chapter 1
By Tumultuous

Written: Thurs 25 Sept 2014
Updated: Fri   12 Dec  2014


>You were just on the phone with your parents for your yearly "chat" about what's going on in your life, and whether it's really moving forward the way you want it to.
>It was getting to around the point where you were trying to talk about your new position and occupation as the otherworldly enforcer of the new evil regent of the land.
>It was surprisingly easy to talk around that, and explain it in a way that didn't make you sound like a monster.
>The trick is to be as general and nondescriptive as possible.
>Your new habit of breaking and training slaves who've displeased the crown was a bit harder to sanitize, so you just sort of glossed over it.
>Out of nowhere, there seemed to be some kind of interference on the phone.
>It was like you were using walkie talkies to communicate with someone but some third person tuned into almost the right signal and started blathering on just to mess with you.
>You can't quite make out what they're saying.
>"...ster."
>That was almost clear enough to me a word.
>You adjust the tuning settings on your walkie talkie, which you were always holding, to try and hear what this mysterious 3rd player is trying to tell you.

>"Master, it's time to begin your morning preparations." states the mysterious voice.
>You open your eyes and blink the crust from them.
>That sound was your personal attendant/maid, Octavia.
>She's keeping a respectful distance.
>Not so far that you wouldn't plausibly be able to hear her, but not so close that she'd startle you too badly to wake up and see someone in the same room as you.
>She knows better than to poke you with her hoof to wake you up.

>The first thing you're hit with is an unwelcome news report from your body that your head, contrary to what your eyes are telling you, is actually wrapped in a thick blanket.
>Also, you almost can't breathe through your nose, and your throat feels swollen and like it's lined with pointy needles.
"Uhh", you grunt, unable to form a real reply to answer the grey talking horse.
>Still, it's morning.
>Or what counts as morning here, at least.
>Thanks to the new ruler in charge of both the country and the day/night cycle, it's rather hard to tell unless you use a clock.
>Turns out, they can make magic clocks that always tell the right time, without making a mistake.
>Maybe the clock spell is perfet, or maybe they all just synchronize with some central clock somewhere.
>You've never really checked.
>All you know is that the magic clocks are supposed to be a lot fancier than the regular kind, and you can't use the magical alarm clocks more than once.
>Hitting the snooze button scrambles the magic that makes it work, or something.
>It kind of sucks, not being able to have the best of everything, or even moderately high quality versions of mundane products.
>You're the right hand man to a fucking god, for Pete's sake.
>You suppose you could just get a normal mechanical alarm clock and keep it synched to the right time, but you've got slaves.
>It'd be a shame not to put them to use.

>But back to the present.
>You groan as you sit up in your bed and roll your way to the edge of your bed, feeling the soreness that lets you know you didn't sleep as well as you should have.
>It's an appropriately royal-sized bed: stupidly big, soft, and fluffy, with the most comfortable sheets and blankets you've ever had in your life.
>It's great for sleeping in, but slightly annoying in the mornings.

>Once Octavia sees that you're getting yourself up, she makes her way to the dresser to prepare your garments for the day.
>Being this close to royalty means that, among other things, you normally have to dress extra fancy.
>That, and the daily grind of patrols necessitates the wearing of armour, and it isn't easy to put on a full suit of the stuff on your own.
>Octavia's proven surprisingly adept at suiting you up, given all the practice she's been getting.

>Dragging your feet to your private bathroom like something that just crawled out of a coffin rather than luxury bedcovers, you take a look at yourself in the mirror.
>Looking back at you is someone you barely recognize.
>A slightly swollen face, puffy eyes, and an expression that looks more at home in a partially-melted wax sculpture.
>Still, given the lack of a snout, beak, or any real fur on the face, you're forced to conclude that this apparition looking vaguely in your direction belongs to your species.
>Given the number of individuals of your species currently residing in magical horse land, it's almost certainly you.
>You cough, a wheezing cough that feels like it drains most of the air from your lungs.
>Trying to swallow afterwards is painful enough to make you wince.
>This action being mirrored by your mysterious double clinches it.
"I'm sick.", you mumble to yourself, too quietly for Octavia to notice.

>You answer the call of nature, brush your teeth, and quickly wash your face, not feeling up to the usual more involved routine.
>Stiffly moving yourself to your bedroom where Octavia is still busying herself with laying out the various articles of underclothing, regular clothing, and armour, you quickly reach the only conclusion you can in your current state.
"Octavia..." you scratch out, just loud enough to get her attention.
>"Yes, master?" she inquires as she turns her head in your direction.
"Go tell my usual patrol group that I won't be joining them today. I'm feeling a bit under the weather."
>She nods, but you can see a bit of hesitation and confusion in her movements.
>Your maid almost makes it to the door before she pauses at the threshold because she just can't contain the question anymore.
>"... Under the weather, sir?", she lightly asks with her head over her shoulder and her hoof on the doorlatch.
>After a moment of confusion on your end, it hits you what she's asking about.
"Right," you sigh, with your hand on your forehead, "You control the weather here. It means I'm feeling sick and don't think I'll be able to work well today", you explain.
>With the confidence borne of someone who just figured out the situation and thinks they have a bright idea to contribute, Octavia stands a little straighter, grows a small satisfied smile, and chimes in:
>"Master, if you are feeling unwell, I could go to the palace medical staff and have them use a generalized healing treatment on you. You're second only to Empress Nightmare Moon herself, so I'm sure they'd be all too pleased to oblige."

>You put your muddled mind to this thought for a moment to think about it.
>It didn't occur to you that they might have magical ways of curing the common cold.
>It also doesn't occur to you exactly what being second to Nightmare Moon has to do with anything.
>Faster access to the healthcare, maybe?
>Back to thinking.
>You only have so much brainpower to spare in this condition.
>Spend a day sick, feeling like the living dead, or...
>Don't.
>You don't need to think about that for long.
"That sounds good Octavia. Do that, I'll be waiting here." you command, not so indimidatingly, given how weak and befuddled you're feeling.
>"Yes, sir" she says, and leaves the room.
>You move your butt over to the edge of your bed, next to where she was laying out your clothing for the day, to sit for a while while she brings back the medical pony.
>She left with rather more energy than she seemed to have when you were going to tell her to tell the guard patrol that you'd be bowing out for the day.
>Huh. You guess she just doesn't like delivering bad news.
>That's not a bad predisposition in her line of work, now that you think about it.

>You look at your custom-tailored midnight blue attire with silver trimming and start idly poking at it.
>When your original set of clothing was starting to wear out, Nightmare Moon just asked why you didn't throw them away and walk around nude.
>After explaining a bit about the nudity taboo you had, she suggested getting a few sets of clothing tailored to fit your rather unique form.
>Apparently Equestria doesn't get many minotaurs travelling in it.
>As far as you could tell from your discreet inquiries, Iron Will appeared in ponyville in the show on some kind of limited travel visa as a pilot program to foster some more economic ties to the Minotaur Heartlands.
>Nightmare Moon's sudden ascension seemed to have thrown a lot of Celestia's long-term political planning out of the window.

>Contrary to what some might believe, Nightmare Moon CAN be subtle about doing things.
>There are only a few instances of her cutiemark on your clothing and armour.
>Given how... emblematic you've become to her rule, you half expected her to want your new outfit to consist of nothing but her cutiemark over and over again to make sure that even the most dense mule [spoiler]lolracism[/spoiler] >would have no choice but to make the connection between your otherworldliness, intimidating form, and the enforcement of her rule.
>You just don't want to be covered in logos.
>Luckily, there's just one instance of her cutiemark on your shirt, roughly the size of the palm of your hand, over your heart.
>The armour has another instance of it covering the entire chest area.
>I suppose you can't have too much subtlety with the armour, since it's meant to be eye-catching, but you were almost afraid that there's be at least half a dozen instances of her cutiemark on it in places like the chest, back kneepads, wrists, and boots.
>The way it turned out, your armour had enough of her cutiemark on it to be almost impossible to miss, but had enough free space on it to look professional.
>You think that the "all-business" look works better for intimidating ponies than looking like a walking billboard, even if you're advertising for the new tyrant ruler of the known world.