Cadance is ill.

Those three words had done nothing to prepare Princess Twilight Sparkle for the reality that was awaiting her when she had arrived in the Crystal Empire following the letter from Celestia. She would not have used ‘ill’ to describe the state Cadance was in when she saw her: She was thin.

Not ‘thin’ to mean ‘skinny.’ Cadance was nearing the end of her term of pregnancy, and it showed around her belly, but everywhere else, her muscles had wasted slightly and the skin underneath her coat — which had grown so pale as to appear ashen — was too tight. She appeared as if her skin had been slightly too small for her body and had to be pulled taut in order to fit. Her mane was similarly near ashen and hung limply, her eyes were sunken, and she was barely lucid. No, Twilight would not have said that Cadance was ‘ill;’ had the physician not been present, she would have thought Cadance was dying.

She was still not convinced that Cadance wasn’t dying, and her need to settle her nerves and seek some place where she felt less rattled had led her to travel the corridors of the palace in search of Celestia. It did not take long to find her, seated in the library with mounds of books scattered about, some opened on the table in front of Celestia and others closed. The ones that were closed were stacked sloppily and haphazardly, almost as if they’d had the audacity to be unhelpful and had been discarded as punishment. Nopony had known anything about what befell Cadance, and it seemed that even the library of the Crystal Empire, filled with lore and knowledge long forgotten by the rest of Equestria, had yielded nothing.

Celestia herself had not taken Cadance’s illness altogether well, and although she did not look nearly as dead, her mane had lost much of its shine and color, and the expression on her face was grim in a way that Twilight could not recall ever seeing before. What had caught Twilight most off-guard in that moment, however, was not the grim look, but rather that Celestia was ignoring the books opened in front of her in favor of a letter floating in her magic field without worry for the direness of the situation it was being read in.

“Celestia?” Twilight asked.

Celestia pulled her attention away from the letter for a moment. “Twilight,” she answered. Celestia pulled her attention away from the letter for a moment, and only for a moment, and then turned right back to it without further comment.

Twilight watched for a moment with wide eyes, and then shook her head to clear the fuzz and walked towards the table. “Have you found anything?” she asked, not really certain what she was asking about.

“Rest assured, the library has been thoroughly useless,” Celestia answered, folding the letter sharply and placing it on the table and rising up from her seat. There was no cushion present, Twilight noticed.

“Well, is there anything that I —”

“My apologies, Twilight, but I have no more time to talk now. There is much to be done, and scarcely any time to do it.”

Celestia left. She did not excuse or explain herself; she simply walked to the door and left. Twilight stared after her for several long moments once the door had closed, unspeaking and unmoving, but shook off her stupor the moment her senses began to return. “She left,” she said to herself, or perhaps to no one. “She just left!” She turned her attention back to the table covered with opened books, and her eyes fell upon the letter that had started this mess, left along the edge as if forgotten.

It was unbecoming, of course, to read another’s mail without permission. Unbecoming of both a lady and of a Princess. But that solitary letter was to blame for everything that had just happened, and so with a passing glance back at the door, Twilight walked to the table, lifted the letter in her magic, and began to read.

Dear Princess Celestia,

It is with regret that I must inform you that my great grandfather Lamp Lighter is 50 years dead, rest his soul. Although you and I have never met he always spoke very highly of you when he recounted the trials of his youth, and I think it should bring you some measure of comfort that he passed on his own terms in the loving glow of family and with ruby blood.

Already, the letter was not off to a great start, not because of its content, but because of the numerous grammatical errors present in only the first paragraph. The urge to mark corrections was suppressed with relative ease, however, as Twilight noted that the spelling was good, and that if nothing else, the syntactical errors were consistent. Whoever wrote the letter may have not been well educated in writing, but at least they probably weren’t lazy. After a moment to organize her thoughts, she resumed reading.

He was careful however to pass on the stories of his tribulations to his children and they passed them to their children. Although we here have moved beyond the baseless superstitions of the past we still fear the old blood and look to the heavens with trepidation. Upon receiving your letter I relayed the contents immediately to my master Dr Anders von Kessel, an accomplished physician and practiced hunter, whose great grandfather Wolfgang von Kessel was served by my great grandfather as you doubtlessly recall. I am very sorry to say that he agrees with your assessment regarding your niece Mdm Mi Amore Cadenza and has begun preparations to depart for Equestria. At the least I shall accompany him and perhaps too will 1 or 2 of our fellows if we can convince them of the urgency of the situation. Many of the old lamps have gone out but some should still be lit and if we are fortunate we should reach the border in 2 or 3 days at the usual crossing, but be warned that if the lamps are not lit then the same journey may take us as long as two weeks. It is most likely that I will be pulling the luggage and equipment myself so if it is possible please have a faster means of transport waiting for us as Dr von Kessel does not feel we can sacrifice even a moment.

Dr von Kessel recommends that Mdm Cadenza be given NO ADDITIONAL MEDICAL TREATMENTS beyond the most basic afforded for prenatal care for the next 5 days unless we have not reached the border within 3 days from the day you receive this letter, which I have been instructed should be not more than 2 hours once it is sent. If however we have not reached the border after those 3 days Dr von Kessel recommends that on the 5th day Mdm Cadenza be given a transfusion of at minimum 1 unit of compatible ruby blood from as distantly related a source as possible but that 2 or 3 units would be preferable as this may slow down the onset of symptoms until we arrive, to be repeated every 5 days as necessary. Once we have arrived Dr von Kessel will examine Mdm Cadenza and will provide an accurate diagnosis of her condition and an appropriate treatment.

Although Dr von Kessel does not presently believe there is any risk of it he has advised that you be watchful in the event that a blood moon rises as this will greatly complicate the situation. If a blood moon should rise at any time Dr von Kessel orders that any and all medical treatments to Mdm Cadenza BE STOPPED AND AN ABORTION BE INDUCED

Twilight threw the letter away from her, as much as a sheet of heavy paper could be thrown. An abortion? On what amounted to little more than a hunch with no actual examination or diagnosis? Princess Celestia couldn’t have been seriously considering such a thing. She wouldn’t consider it! After all the time she’d spent teaching Twilight the importance of evidence and analysis, she would not.

Nearly a full minute passed before the letter was sheathed in Twilight’s magic and drifted up to her face again, shaking so badly that it was almost impossible for her to read.

BE INDUCED IMMEDIATELY BY ANY AVAILABLE MEANS. Failure to follow this order may birth a living nightmare that we will not be adequately equipped to handle without a great deal of collateral damage.

We are coming as quickly as we can and will waste no time during our journey.

Sincerely,

Candle Wick, Esq

PS Dr von Kessel is rarely wrong. He seems to believe he can save Mdm Cadenza and her child so please do not worry. I will gallop until my legs break if it will save them.

Twilight reread the letter, and then reread it again. There could not have been a hidden meaning to any of the words, neither was there an answer that would make Cadance well and set everything back to normal. This was not the way things were supposed to be and this fact was not only left Twilight unsatisfied, but also angry. She had come looking for answers — even if she did not expect to receive any — and now had new questions instead. That those questions centered around exactly what Celestia was planning to do to her sister did not help her mood. Folding the letter up and stowing it under one wing, Twilight Sparkle rose and walked to the door Celestia had exited through only minutes prior. She had found the other Princess once; she would do it again.

Author's Note

I could not tell you exactly where the idea for this story came from; only that it appeared in my notes one day. Originally, I was going to put it in a blog, just so it was out there, until I realized I had written more over the year than I thought. It only took about a half hour at that point to fill in the gaps and have a full chapter.

As you can see, this story is already on hiatus. Honestly, I don't know if I will finish it, even though I know what big points I would want to cover. I have too many other projects, you see, and we'll have to see which of them get finished.