Hunger

Rain fell on the battlefield in thick sheets, softening the dirt into mud. Shining’s hooves sank in the mixture. He re-planted his hooves without ever taking his eyes off the darkness that surrounded him.

HIs comrades were nowhere to be found; either dead or captured — he hadn’t had the time to dwell on such thoughts. It was only him now, a lone soldier stacked against impossible odds.

Shining offered the creature lurking beyond the darkness a breathy, witless laugh and steadied his hooves in the mud for a third time.

“C’mon,” he spat. “It’s only the two of us. Is there really any point in hiding?”

A slithering, beast-like hiss bubbled up in between the driving rain and the rumble of thunder. Out of the corner of his eye Shining could see the tips of the creature's claws as it lumbered into the light.

Immediately he spun to face the thing, angling his head downward so that his horn was pointed nearly right between its eyes.

The creature mirrored Shining and protracted itself out lengthwise. Its eyes flickered. A rumble like thunder sounded from somewhere inside the thing and — like the drawbridge to a castle — its jaws unhinged and-

Shining’s eyes shot open at the shrill cry that blasted through the doorway to his and Cadence’s bedroom. Cadence was already on her hooves by the time Shining rolled over to commune with her and the two shared understanding yet weary smiles.

“Thanks, honey,” he yawned rolling back over to reclaim sleep as she blearily shuffled out of the room. With a tug from his horn, Shining greedily pulled all of the sheets to his side of the bed and ensconced himself in them like a burrowing woodland animal.

Warmth surrounded his tired body. His eyelids grew heavy and just as they drifted closed there was a second, more bone-chilling cry from the hall — this time coming from Cadence as she desperately cried his name.

Shining was on his hooves and out the door in an instant. He crossed the hallway in a series of powerfully quick strides and burst through the doorway to his daughter's room.

There — thrashing wildly in the grip of Cadence’s magic — was Flurry Heart. However, the supremely unhappy visage of his daughter wasn’t the thing that struck him so viscerally, but the sparking tendrils of magic arching off his infant daughter’s horn.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with her,” Cadence yelled over the persistent wailing from the child.

“You think it’s baby magic?” Shining called back as he came to stand beside his wife and daughter.

“If it is, I’ve never seen it like this before.” Just as she’d uttered those words, Flurry Heart let out a positively soul wrenching cry, the preceding expulsion of magic just barely grazing the top of Shining’s mane and all but obliterating the wall behind him.

Shining looked incredulously back at the wall and when his eyes met Cadence’s again, she had the same worried knit in her bow.

“I think we need to make an appointment.”

“Thank you for seeing us on such short notice.” Cadence yelled over the still howling Flurry Heart as her, Shining and the baby were ushered into one of the Hospital’s many available rooms.

“Oh, it’s no trouble.” The doctor — a brown coated unicorn stallion with a heftier build — gently took the screaming baby from Cadence with his own magic and sat her down on the chair in the center of the room. “Now what seems to be the problem with this little angel?”

“We’re not really sure,” Cadence spoke. “She woke up screaming so I went to check on her and…” Cadence couldn’t bring herself to finish, tears welling in her eyes as she stared down her severely distressed daughter.

“There was something going on with her horn,” Shining continued. “We were thinking it might be baby magic.”

“Alright,” The doctor said, pulling a pair of rubber gloves over hooves and stooping himself over the crying child. “Let’s take a look-see, see if we can get you fixed up, hm?”

The next several minutes consisted of the doctor delicately looking over the distressed princess. Flurry Heart cried through it all, seeming to grow more distressed the more the doctor poked and prodded; the final straw being when he’d experimentally brushed her horn, sending a fresh bolt of magic ricocheting dangerously around the room before it eventually crashed through the room’s only window and exploded in a blinding flash.

“Is everypony alright?” The doctor asked, crawling out from underneath the table he’d been hiding under.

“We’re okay,” Shining said, lowering the barrier he’d erected around himself and Cadence.

“Boy, that’s some horn you got, huh?” The doctor chuckled as he came to stand over Flurry Heart again, this time his attentions more squarely focused on her horn. “How long did you say has this been going on for?”

“Since this morning,” Cadence answered.

The doctor made a few contemplative noises while he pored over the little filly’s horn. “And before today did you notice anything concerning? Any bumps or fractures or knicks, anything like that?”

“No,” Cadence began. “Not that I can think of. “Shining?”

“No,” Shining answered plainly. “She seemed perfectly fine yesterday.”

“Well,” the doctor stood up and peeled the gloves off his hooves. “Just to be safe, I’m going to run a few tests.”

“A few tests…?” Cadence whispered.

“Not to worry, it won’t be anything major.” As he spoke, the doctor went about rifling through the kitchenette, picking out various things which he assorted neatly on the metal tray next to Flurry Heart. “Just a few standard magical tests. “Though if my little hypothesis is correct...”

With his horn, the doctor maneuvered the chair underneath himself and sidled up beside the agitated Flurry Heart. Without ever taking his eyes off of the little princess, he grabbed a wand-like object off of the tray and gently pressed the tip to Flurry Heart’s horn.

Flurry gasped (the first break in her near constant crying since that morning) and her face contorted harshly before an ethereal stream of yellow oozed from the tip of her horn and coalesced in the air above her head.

Shining and Cadence gasped right along with their daughter.

“Just like I thought.” The doctor nodded, pressing the wand back to Flurry’s horn. Again the princess gasped, more of the ethereal yellow substance leaking from her horn, adding to the swatch already floating above her head. “It looks like your daughters got a bad case of magical blockage.”

“Magical blockage...?” Cadence echoed, her eyes wide with panic.

“Wait,” Shining spoke up. “Are you sure it's magical blockage? I mean, I’ve heard of like soldiers and wizards getting it, but never babies.”

“Magical blockage can strike at any age, though I will agree it’s quite uncommon to see it in somepony so young. Then again, she is supposedly the first ever naturally conceived alicorn, so who knows?” The doctor turned back to Flurry Heart, the instrument trailing behind him. “My guess is there’s so much magic in her that her body is struggling to cope with it all.”

“But you can help her, right?”

“Of course. But I’m gonna make you two do most of the work, if that’s okay.” The stallion laughed heartily as he dropped his weight back into the chair and leaned over Flurry Heart again. “Now, Mom and Dad, if you just step over here for a moment — and — I want you to watch me very carefully as I do this....”

Cadence and Shining crossed the room and stood quiet yet attentive on the other side of Flurry Heart opposite the doctor.

“This-” the doctor started, levitating the instrument up so that Shining and Cadence could see. “-is a Magi-plex wand; and what this does is it stimulates the magic receptors in the horn and very gently forces them open so that magic can flow freely.”

The doctor took a moment to adjust himself on the stool, maneuvering the instrument so that it was just inches away from Flurry’s horn. There was a moment of silence wherein he became impossibly focused, and — with the lightest of touches — he slowly inched the instrument forward, just barely kissing the tip of Flurry’s horn.

As was expected by that point, Flurry gasped, her face contorted and more of the yellow tinted magic was released into the cloud above her. After a brief pause, the doctor made contact a second time, this time rotating the instrument around the tip ever so slightly as magic continued to steadily leak into the air.

“See? Just a very gentle pressure...”

Cadence and Shining watched transfixed as more and more magic continued to bleed from their panting daughter’s horn; turning the once generously sized cloud above her head into a veritable miasma that quickly filled the room. But even as the magic continued to accumulate it would be another entire minute before the flow finally ebbed away into nothing.

“There we go,” the doctor huffed, leaning back in his chair and depositing the instrument back onto the metal tray. “Feel better?” He cooed at the little princess.

Flurry Heart squawked excitedly back before turning her flailing hooves toward her parents. Without hesitation, Cadence grabbed the infant in her magic and cradled her in the crook of her hoof.

“Hey, sweetie,” The princess of love whispered as she hugged her progeny closely. Flurry Heart made a series of happy, garbled noises and Cadence couldn’t help but share in her daughter’s mirth.

“Feel better?” Shining added from over Cadence’s shoulder as he craned his neck to nuzzle his giggling daughter. Flurry Heart nuzzled him back whilst Cadence went about securing the little princess with both her whammy and her pacifier.

There was henceforth no more commotion from the child as she genially nursed the artificial nipple. Satisfied, Cadence turned her attention to the doctor, who’d been watching the proceedings with a gentle smile.

“Thank you so much, Doctor.”

“Like I said, it’s no trouble.” The doctor turned to the cabinets again and fished out a small, rectangular box which he handed to Cadence with his horn. “Now, it’s recommended that you purge once in the morning and once at night. You can do it like around dinner time too if she really needs it but you should be fine.”

The doctor flashed her and friendly smile and Cadence smiled back as she turned the box over in her grip, the logo on the front bearing a striking resemblance to the instrument the doctor had been using on Flurry.

The doctor came to stand beside Cadence, leaning over and tapping Flurry on the snout. “And I expect to see this little cutie again in a month.”

Flurry giggled and grabbed at the fat part of the doctor’s stethoscope with her hooves. The doctor cooed back at the infant and pat her on the head with a hoof.

“Uh, doc,” Shining interjected, gesturing to the fog of magic collected above their heads. “What do we do about the magic?”

“Oh, right,” the doctor said, trotting back over to the tray and grabbing a bottle with a long nozzle attached at the neck. “Sorry. Long day.” There was a click and all at once the thing in his hooves whirred to life and began sucking the excess magic from the air until there only a few stray clots remained.

“And don’t worry,” the stallion continued as his horn lit up and the last few dregs of magic left floating around their heads were sucked right into his horn. “There won’t be anywhere near this much in the future. The first time’s always the worst.”

With the last of the magic gone, the doctor disconnected the two pieces and placed both the nozzle and the bottle on the tray again. “One last thing,” he spoke, opening the cabinets and taking out a similar bottle and nozzle which he handed to Shining. “I’ll give this to you just in case, but to be honest you shouldn’t even need it. After the first time you can probably just suck up whatever’s left with your horns.”

It was at that exact moment that Flurry Heart’s maw split into a loud, drawn out yawn while she burrowed into the crook of Cadence’s hoof.

Cadence smiled sweetly down at her daughter. “I think all that crying wore her out.”

“Well why don’t you guys go and get some rest then,” the doctor smiled amicably, hoofing the door open for the couple and their child as they all filed into the hall.

“Celestia knows we could use it,” Cadence replied.

“I can imagine.” The group reached a set of double doors which the doctor once again held for Cadence and Shining as they moved into the lobby. “Well, I hope the little one starts feeling better and if you have any other questions or concerns feel free to swing by.”

“We will,” Cadance replied, placing her daughter in the stroller Shining had wordlessly gone to retrieve. “Thank you again.”

“Thank you doctor,” Shining and the doctor exchanged a brief nod and without another word they exited the office and started back home.