Note-Worthy

        Sunburst hummed as he strode into Flurry Heart’s room, steering her pram over toward the crib and delicately lifting the child out.

        “Here we are, Flurries.”

        Flurry Heart cooed and clapped her hooves, lighting her horn and grabbing the end of Sunburst’s beard in her magic.

        “Okay, okay,” he laughed, easing her hold on him with his own magic. “Time for nappies.”

        Gently, Sunburst placed the giggling baby in her crib.

        “Good night, Flurries,” Sunburst smiled, turning to leave until the familiar pull of Flurry Heart’s magic wrapped itself around his tail.

        “No,” Sunburst laughed, easing her magic off of him again. “It’s time to go night night.”

        Turning back to Flurry Heart’s crib, Sunburst slid the covers over her with his magic and gave her a quick pat on the head.

        “Now sleep,” he said, letting his eyes linger on her for a moment before he once again turned to leave.

        He made it a measly three steps before Flurry Heart’s magic wrapped itself around his right rear leg. Sunburst let out an undignified yelp as he was thrown off balance and sent tumbling into the table by the crib, causing the whole thing to come crashing down on top of him.

        “Flurry,” he groaned, blinking the spots from his eyes. “We talked about this.”

        Flurry Heart giggled down at him from the bars of her crib as Sunburst stood and took a moment to fix his glasses. “You can do all the magic you want later, but now it’s time to go to sleep.”

        Sunburst turned pointedly toward the baby’s crib and laid her down.

        “Sleep,” he said sternly, easing the covers over her again.

        Having learned from his past mistakes, Sunburst stood over Flurry Heart and waited for any signs of magical activity; and after several minutes of nothing, Sunburst let out a sigh of relief.

        “Finally,” he said, turning away from her. “Sweet Dreams, Flurries.”

        This time, Sunburst was only able to take a single step before something abruptly slapped itself over his face, rendering him blind.

        “What in Equestria?” He yelled, prying the paper off his eyes just in time to notice the familiar yellow-ish tinge of Flurry Heart’s magic around the paper. “Now, Flurry-” he began, only to have the reprimand die in his throat as he stared at the paper in his hooves.

        “What do you think it could be?” Cadence asked as she, Shining Armor and Sunburst stood in contemplation around the paper. “Some sort of message? A threat maybe?”

        Shining moved to embrace his wife. “Calm down, honey. I’m sure it’s nothing like that.”

        “How are you not worried at all? What if somepony is out to get our daughter?”

        “I never said I wasn’t worried. I just think we shouldn’t jump to conclusions.” Shining turned to Sunburst. “You said you found it in her room, right?”

        “Uh huh,” Sunburst nodded, affixing his glasses on his snout. “I was just putting her down for her afternoon nap like I always do and I found this as I was leaving.”

        “You just happen to find it as you were leaving?”

        “Well, more like it found me. With a little help from Flurry’s magic of course.”

        “And this was the only one you found?”

        Sunburst nodded again. “I looked over the whole room twice and didn’t find anything else like it.”

        “What do you think it means?” Cadence asked, poring over the picture on the table in front of her.

        “I’m still not sure,” Sunburst said, leaning over to study it with her. “It’s clear that it’s some sort of message. But for the life of me I can’t figure out what it’s trying to convey.”

        Shining Armor came to stand by his wife and crystaler. “Are you sure Flurry didn’t draw it?”

        Cadence snorted. “Shining, she’s not even a year old.”

        Sunburst couldn’t help but let out a chuckle of his own. “Well, I wouldn’t put it past her. But I don’t think that this was actually her doing.”

        “How can you be sure?” Cadence asked.

        “Well for one I don’t think a child — even one as exceptional as Flurry Heart — could draw something with this level of detail. And even if she was somehow already this good, as far as I know she doesn’t have any crayons or anything in her room to even draw it with.”

        “You didn’t give her any crayons, did you, Shining?”

        “No.”

        “Well, I sure didn’t.”

        “Which is what leads me to believe that somepony else is behind this.”

        “Do you have any idea who?” Cadence asked, as she continued to stare at it.

        Sunburst took a long moment to study the picture. “No. But if we put our heads together I’m sure we can find out something at least.”

        “Yeah…” Cadence frowned.

        Shining Armor put a hoof around his wife’s shoulder. “It’s gonna be okay, honey.”

        “I think I need to go lie down for a bit.” Cadence said, holding a hoof to her head as she walked over to their bed and collapsed onto it.

        “Is she gonna be okay?” Sunburst asked, not looking up from the paper.

        “She’ll be fine,” Shining said, looking over at the formless lump lying on their bed. “We should just give her some time. Do you have any ideas?”

        “Well, I don’t really have much to work with. I mean, there’s only two pictures here and neither one of them seems like it has any correlation with the other.”

        Shining leaned over Sunburst’s shoulder and took a long moment to analyze the two images on the page.

        “I don’t know either. I mean, that is the sun right?” Shining asked, pointing to the illustration on the left.

        “Yes.”

        “And that one’s...an explosion?”

        Sunburst squinted at the illustration on the right next to the crudely drawn picture of the sun. “That’s what it looks like to me.”

        “So...what? Is someone trying to tell us the sun is going to explode?”

        “I doubt it.”

        “This doesn’t make sense.”

        “Well, let’s think about it. If we rule out the sun exploding, what do the sun and an explosion have in common?”

        “They’re both hot,” Shining Armor offered.

        “True…”

        “They’re both big.”

        “In some respects, yes.”

        “And bright.”

        “But there has to be something else.” Sunburst pondered.

        There was another generous few minutes of thinking between them before Shining Armor chuffed and fell onto his haunches. “Yeah, I got nothing.”

        “Hmm,” Sunburst stroked his beard. “Maybe it’s some kind of cipher?”

        “A cipher?”

        “Yeah, like a code or something.”

        “Then wouldn’t there have to be something that explained it?”

        Theoretically, yes.” Sunburst turned the paper over in his hooves a couple times. “But this seems to be all there is.”

        “Do you think maybe it has some kind of magical property to it?”

        “The paper?”

        “That’s all I can think of right now.”

        “I guess it could be possible.” Knitting his brow in concentration, Sunburst picked up the page in his magic and began to search it. After two minutes and many, many passes over each side, Sunburst eventually let the paper fall back onto the table and exhaled a heavy sigh. “Well, looks like it’s just an ordinary piece of paper after all.”

        “Well, what do you think we should do?”

        “About the paper?”

        “About the baby!” Shining Armor bellowed.“What if Cadence is right? What if somepony really is out to get her? I have to double — no, triple the guard! I-"

        “Shining, honey,” Cadence’s voice came suddenly as she trotted up to her husband and grabbed him by the shoulders. “Who's gonna protect the baby if we’re both complete wrecks?”

        “You’re right,” he said, taking a breath. “You’re right…”

        “Let’s just calm down. We’ll just move Flurry’s crib into our room tonight. We can double the guard, put up the protection spell and tomorrow morning we can do more research into where this strange note might have come from, okay?”

        “Okay…”

        “Alright,” Cadence pulled away from her husband and turned her attention toward Sunburst. “You heard all that right?”

        “Yes ma’am,” Sunburst said, snapping to attention.

        “I’ll need you to go and get Flurry Heart and bring her here. After that I want you to help me and Shining put up the protection spell.”

        “Right away, your highness.”

        “And inform the guard about the double shifts.”

        “Consider it done.” Sunburst said, giving a quick nod before heading toward the door. He’d just reached the archway when Cadence’s voice stopped him.

“And Sunburst-” she began before her eyes went wide and she was rendered frozen in place.

“Is everything alright your highness, Sunburst asked, taking a cautionary step forward.

“Sun...burst…” she repeated as if in a trance.

“Cadence, honey,” Shining said, stepping toward his wife. “Didn’t we just have a talk about staying composed for the baby’s sake?”

“No, Shining,” Cadence growled, grabbing the paper in her magic and levitating it so it was floating right next to the bewildered face of their crystaler. “Sun. Burst.” She said slowly, pointing first at the picture and then at the stallion standing awkwardly next to it.

Shining’s face immediately lit with realization.

Sunburst swallowed hard, an icy pit dropping into his stomach. “What…?”