Overqualified in Paradise [AiE]

Story Concept:

Anon is an overqualified human therapist stuck doing couples counseling in a pastel utopia.

Nurse Redheart is an overqualified doctor or highly skilled nurse after having to deal with edge crises Ponyville has often. Nurse Redheart finds ponies don't bounce back after a disaster, due to Ponyville being a crisis magnet. Magical exhaustion, crash injuries from failed spells and flight stunts, she would take care of. However for post-changeling paranoia manifesting as psychosomatic symptoms, she sends them to Anon.

She sends ponies who show up weeks later with "nothing wrong" that turns out to be buried anxiety or relational strain from unresolved trauma. They bond over how some issues can't be solved over friendship and hugs.

The story is focused on Anon's alienation and melancholy, but with a native pony that almost gets it. No romance (maybe), just two colleagues who knows that Equestria's healing (bed rest and hugs) will sometimes fall short.

I will be constantly updating this.

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You sit behind a desk that used to belong to somepony’s great-aunt, carved from applewood that still smells faintly of cider years later. The office is small: two chairs facing each other, a low table between you with nothing on it but a single box of tissues, and a half-dead fern Twilight insisted would “promote calm energy.” It doesn’t. The fern is dying in silent protest.

Your door reads DR. A. NONYMOUS in block letters you painted yourself. Underneath, in smaller script: Relationship Counseling – No Magic Allowed. That last part keeps the unicorns from trying love spells mid-session. You’ve seen what happens when they do.

The bell above the door jingles. Lyra Heartstrings walks in, ears flat, tail dragging like wet rope. She doesn’t sit right away. She paces once, twice, then drops into the chair opposite you with a huff that sends dust motes spinning.

“Hayseeds,” she mutters. “I’m here. Happy now?”

You lean back. “You booked the appointment, Lyra. I’m just the guy who showed up.”

She snorts. “Bon Bon says I’m ‘avoidant.’ Says I turn everything into a joke when it gets real. Which—okay, maybe. But she’s the one who keeps bringing up moving to Canterlot. Canterlot! Where everypony wears tiny hats, wears clothes, and talks like they swallowed a dictionary.”

You nod once. No notebook. You never take notes anymore; ponies notice and clam up faster than you can say confidentiality.

“She wants the city life,” you say, level, not judging. “Fancy shops, concerts, and instead you want…?”

“Ponyville.” Lyra’s voice cracks on the word. “I want the stupid market where old mares haggle over carrots and the air smells like hay and fresh bread. I want our little house with the creaky porch and the window that sticks unless you kick it just right.” She looks at her hooves. “I want her to stop acting like staying here means I’m holding her back.”

Silence stretches, and you let it. In the human world you’d already be reaching for DSM buzzwords: attachment styles, fear of abandonment, codependency. Here the stakes feel smaller, softer. Nopony’s getting stabbed over custody or dodging eviction notices. Instead it's just two mares who love each other and can’t agree on where home should be.

Lyra finally meets your eyes. “You ever feel like… like you’re the only one who gets how much it hurts to picture life without the little things?”

You exhale through your nose. “Every damn day since I landed here.”

She blinks. Then laughs, short, surprised, and almost guilty. “Buck. Right. The alien therapist. Forgot for a second.”

“You didn’t forget.” You tilt your head. “You just didn’t want to say it out loud. Because if you admit I might understand loneliness, then maybe Bon Bon’s loneliness looks different too.”

Lyra’s ears flick, then she picks at a loose thread on the chair arm. “She says I’m selfish for not wanting to try the city. I say she’s selfish for wanting to drag me somewhere I’ll hate. We’re both right. And we’re both miserable.”

You wait three heartbeats. “What would happen if you told her exactly what you just told me? Word for word. No jokes. No deflections.”

Lyra’s throat works. “She’d cry. Probably yell a little. Then I'm back to square one.”

“Maybe,” you echo. “Or maybe she’d hear you for the first time in months.”

Another long quiet. The fern droops another inch.

“I don’t wanna lose her over a zip code,” Lyra whispers.

“Then don’t.” Simple, brutal in its simplicity. “Go home tonight. Sit on that creaky porch. Hold her hoof. Tell her the truth hurts less when you wrap it in sarcasm. See what she does.”

Lyra stands slowly. She looks smaller than when she walked in, like the weight of unsaid things finally shifted off her shoulders just enough to breathe.

“Thanks,” she says at the door. “For… not laughing.”

You shrug one shoulder. “I save the laughing for when ponies try to pay me in cupcakes.”

She smirks, first real one today. “Next week?”

“Same time. Bring Bon Bon if she’s ready.”

Lyra nods once, sharp. The bell jingles behind her.

You sit there a minute longer, staring at the dying fern. Outside, Ponyville keeps moving: colts chasing each other, mares gossiping over saddlebags full of produce, life so gentle it sometimes feels like a lie compared to everything you left behind.

But the ache in your chest when Lyra said “lose her over a zip code” was real enough.

You reach over, nudge the fern into a patch of sunlight it wasn’t getting before.

Small fix in a world of tiny stakes.

Still feels like the only kind of saving you’re qualified for anymore.