Worlds Apart: Unity

by MrBackpack

Rating: teen
Tags: Princess Celestia, Slice of Life, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Human, Princess Luna, Original Character, Bat Pony
Length: 41195

Six long years have passed since that one fateful day in Australia when Discord shoved Matt, Luna, and Michelle through a portal in Equestria. Things have certainly changed.

Six long years have passed since that one fateful day in Australia when Discord shoved Matt, Luna, and Michelle through a portal and into Equestria.

Things have certainly changed. For everypony.

Matt, now Feather Stroke, has had to come to terms with his new lot in life all while dealing with the mental anguish of leaving everyone and everything that he knew before, behind him.

Published 2020-08-24 02:30:01 UTC
Last updated 2020-10-10 09:04:10 UTC

Chapter 1 - The Nightmare

Thunder and lighting rent the skies with their fury.

The winds howled in agony.

The sea tossed and churned, outraged at the small boat that dared sail that night.

The skipper of the small sloop held fast to the rudder, weathering the crashing waves and pouring rain, holding his vessel’s course steady.

The storm had crept up on him, coming in cold and fast from his rear, by the time that he had smelt it on the salty air, it had been far too late.

There would be no sleep that night, and, depending on how his little ship fared, might not ever be again.

A bolt of lightning tore overhead, illuminating the massive wall of water that was rushing in at him.

He grit his teeth, set his jaw, and cinched the thick rope around his midsection tighter.

Another flash lit the sky, he could see her in the wave that was now crashing down upon him.

Her grape and lavender mane.

The celeste of her coat.

Her turquoise eyes that held nothing but contempt and cold fury.

The memories crashed down over his small ship, crushing him beneath the waves, drowning him in pain, longing, and loneliness.

He opened his mouth to scream and the salty water rushed into his lungs.

Panicking, he kicked away from his remains of his ship only to be pulled ever further down, down into the blackness.

Drowning!

He was drowning!

He couldn’t see!

Cold, crushing, blackness overwhelmed him.

Dying! He was dy-

The door to my chambers crashed open, jolting me awake and about two feet into the air. There was a moment of total weightlessness and then shocking, but minor, pain as I ended up on the floor next to my bed.

“Terribly sorry Master Stroke,” said Windsor as he peered down at me, a mug of steaming coffee and a brush held aloft in his thistle colored magic. “Her highness wished to speak to you before you began your day.”

“Thank you Windsor,” I replied, still laying on the floor, savoring the cool slate under my body. I admit, I seriously contemplated just staying right there for the rest of eternity.

There was a moment of silence, gently accompanied by the soft, tinkly chime of my butler’s magic as he sets the coffee and brush on my nightstand. There was a few pulls and tugs and I rolled over with a small groan, letting him make the bed with the blankets that I brought down with me in my fall.

“Windsor?”

“Yes Master Stroke?”

“Why am I on the floor?”

“I would assume that you would know better than I, Master Stroke.”

Cheeky bastard.

With another series of groans and the popping of joints, I hauled myself to my hooves and shook my coal mane out of my eyes.

“Ah,” said my butler, floating the coffee over to me and, after seeing that I had a good hold of it, ran the brush over my sides and through my mane and tail. “Still the same shape today Master Stroke.”

I snorted into my coffee. Windsor had been my butler for nigh on five years now, Princess Luna assigned him to me herself. Apparently, he came from a long line of Grooms to the Royal Houses of Equestria, they are very good at their jobs.

I, of course, apologized to him for getting me instead of somepony important.

“I haven’t been anything but this,” I replied, stretching out one bat-like wing from my side. “For years now, Windsor, you know that.”

“Of course sir.”

“Then why do you insist on making that joke at least five times a week?”

“Let an old stallion have his jokes, sir.”

“Pretty sure that I’m older than you are Windsor.”

He ignored me and continued to brush my coat, he’d swapped to a large and very soft brush, carefully smoothing out the rough fur on the back side of my wings.

“Which?”

“Sir?”

“Which princess wants to see me at this unholy time of day?”

“It is eleven in the morning, Master Stroke.”

“When you go to bed between four and five in the morning, anything before noon is unholy.”

“Of course sir.” He’d put the brush away and pulled out a comb, he looked at it for a moment before putting it away; I don’t like ponies touching my head. “And her majesty, Princess Luna, has requested your presence.”

“Was she even lucid?”

“It is not my place to question a royal summons, Master Stroke.”

I finished my coffee with one last, long pull and passed the empty mug back to my butler.

“Perfect as always Windsor, thank you.”

“You’re very welcome Master Stroke.”

“Can you have my barding prepared? I’m probably going to need to head straight into work after meeting her royal laziness.”

“I’ve already sent a couple of grooms down to the stables to fetch it,” The grey unicorn didn't even flinch at my insult, he’s heard me say worse, to her face too. At least he’s stopped looking like he was going to have a heart attack every time. “It will be freshly cleaned and oiled upon your return.”

“Not too much oil this time, please,” I reply, standing and trotting over to the door. “I still haven’t heard the end of it from the last time.”

That made him wince.

“I will oversee their work myself, sir.”

“I know you will, my friend. Are you ever going to take that vacation I keep trying to force on you?”

“Not until you do, sir.”

With another snort, I opened the door with a leathery wing and stepped out into the hall.

/＼ ^._.^ ／\

Celestia’s sun poured through the windows of each and every hallway that I trekked through, my hoof falls muffled by the plush scarlet runner that covered the center pathway. I’d been this way so many times that I didn't even bother opening my light-sensitive eyes.

I could hear the occasional whispered conversation as maids and other servants rushed about the palace. Many of the corridors have had to be closed off, or were blocked by piles of rubble, the Chaos Rifts afflicting the majority of Equus did not leave Canterlot unblemished.

Pristine marble statues were cracked and broken, stained glass windows shattered and replaced with basic glass, the white stone of the walls, floors, and ceilings were being checked over by master stone cutters, one by one, and many had to be replaced. I fully expected that, in the next few years, most of the palace would end up being new.

The two guards at the double doors leading into the Throne Room’s antechamber saluted me as I approach, their spears clacking against the stone at their hooves in unison.

“Sir,” said the one on my left, I cracked my eyes open to take a look at the stallion who had just spoken. He’s tall, pale blue, and clad in the golden bronze of the Solar Praetorians, his companion, to my right, is a shorter mare with a dark grey coat and clad in the purple and silver of the Lunar Sentinels. “Her highness told us to expect you.”

The two of them moved to open the door for me.

“Ah ah ah,” I stopped them with a wave of one wing. “Protocol my friends. Not even I am exempt from the scans.”

It was true too, I was the one that put the policy to Celestia after conferring with the captains of the two guard forces that protected the castle. After everything that had happened before, we wanted no one within striking distance of the diarchs who wasn’t who they said they were.

No exceptions.

Most of the checking was done at the castle gates, before any ponies even entered the castle in the first place and passive scans were done on the palace staff constantly.

The two guards looked at each other uneasily before nodding. The Solar Praetorian passed his spear to his partner and ignited his horn, casting a series of detection and dispelling charms over me while she held her spear at the ready.

The spells aren’t painful, but they are unpleasant, especially on the wings.

“Clear sir,” said the thestral to her partner, returning his spear to him and shouldered her own.

“Clear,” the stallion confirmed, taking his weapon from her. This time, I didn’t stop them from opening the doors and ushering me inside into the cool darkness of the antechamber.

I took a moment before speaking to shake myself, trying to get the feeling of the invasive magic out of my burgundy fur.

“You summoned me, your laziness?” I asked after a long moment of silence.

“Feather!”

I was assaulted by a teenaged, navy blue, vaguely princess shaped, missile.

With a grunt, I caught the Princess against my barrel and rolled with the impact, ending up on the floor again. It wasn’t the first time that she had done this, and I’m sure that it won’t be the last.

Blowing my mane out of my face, I turned my head down to Luna and scowled at her.

“I was so worried!” She sobbed into my chest before I can say anything, her front hooves are locked tightly around my neck. “You were in so deep in that nightmare that I couldn’t find you to break it.”

Oh.

My own hooves come up and encircle her smaller form, cradling her to me as I did when she was much smaller, my wings wrapped around her as well.

She was crying, great wracking sobs shaking her little body as she pressed into me.

“Shhh shh shh,” I cooed into her mane, rocking her ever so gently. “It’s fine, I’m fine, everything’s fine.”

“N-n-o-o-o it’s NOT,” she wailed. “I’m supp-posed t-to b-be thu-thu-thu d-dream g-guard-dian an’ I c-can’t-t even g-guard you!”

She must have been really be upset, she hadn't stuttered like that in years.

“Hey,” I said, my voice still low and comforting. “You don’t need to worry so much about me, I’m a big strong pony and you’re still a little princess.”

She didn't respond, just squeezed my neck even harder.

I sighed and stood, pulling the Princess to her hooves with me, letting her lean into me, still shaking and trying to get her emotions under control.

“C’mon Lu, you know better than to try to break my nightmares,” I consoled as I draped one wing over her and give her another hug. “There’s nothing anypony can do about them, your sister said so herself.”

“T-t-they’re m-my d-domain,” she sniffed as she lets go of my neck, her stutter almost under control. “T-Tia wouldn’t-t know her f-flank f-from her head if I had-dn’t-t t-taught-t her.”

“Of course Lu,” I chuckled in reply. “I know that, you know that, Princess-”

She stopped me with a delicate hoof over my muzzle.

“No, not while we’re alone.” She whispered, looking up at me with deep, sea green eyes. “You do not call us by our titles while we’re alone, Feather. Not you.”

She must have been serious, even the stutter was gone.

“Celestia then,” I grumbled after she puts her hoof down, she nodded. “Celestia may have learned everything that she knows from you, Luna, and she may not be as attuned to the dream-aether as you, but she does have the power to overwhelm most nightmares. She couldn’t help me.”

“Nightmares do not require power to defeat,” Luna huffed with a scowl. “Tia should know better than to try.”

I rolled my eyes, this was an old argument. The two of them were sisters after all, they bickered and fought like school foals at times. More than once I had to step in and prevent magic from being thrown around.

“Which one was it?” she asked, catching me off guard.

“Huh?”

“Which nightmare was it, Feather?”

“Oh, the boat.”

“You’ve not had that one in a long time.” She said with a wince. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.”

“Are-”

“I’m sure, Lu.”

“Was she there?”

I wasn’t able to answer that question fast enough.

“Of course she was.”

The venom dripping from her voice made me wince.

“It’s been five years-”

“We are not having this discussion.”

“But-”

“No, Luna. Not now. Not ever.”

Luna looked like she was about to try and contest my point.

“Lu, I love you like the daughter I will never have,” I interrupted her before she can get going. “But we are not going to talk about her. What’s done is done and there’s no changing it.”

I could tell that she didn't want to drop it, but I didn't really care.

“Was there anything that you actually needed from me, Luna?”

“No, Feather,” She admitted, deflating from her worry. “I was just so worried about you.”

“I know Lu,” I said gently, giving her a soft nuzzle behind her ear, right where I know she’s most ticklish. “And I appreciate it.”

She giggled and batted at me with one of her own wings.

“I’ll see you at night court then,” I continued with a grin. “I still have a job that I need to get to unlike a certain lazy princess.”

“I can still fire you, you know? I am, technically, your boss,“ She said as she put on a regal face, or as much as she can with tear tracks running down her face and a grin still half-formed at the corners of her mouth.

“But you won’t,” I countered.

“I could assign you as my butler or even to my guard.”

“You could, but you won’t.”

“I should, though.”

“Perhaps, but you won’t.”

“Get to work, you overgrown thestral, you haven’t stopped complaining about the one time you were late four years ago.”

“It was your fault too,” I shot back with a mock scowl. “You insisted on that ‘tea party’.”

“It was my birthday party, not a ‘tea party’.”

“Sure looked like a tea party, Noodle was there and everything.”

“Hmmph,” she crossed her hooves and huffed at me. “See if I invite you to anymore birthday parties, jerk.”

I gave her another nuzzle and followed it up with a terrible bow and took my leave, making sure to close the doors behind me before the guards can do it.

“Do try to get her into bed,” I said as I pauses next to the Lunar Sentinel. “She’s up way past her bedtime.”

The thestral mare clicked her spear against the stone floor and nods, giving me a small grin. “We’ll do our best, sir.”

“And that’s all that I ask,” I replied with a nod of my own before beginning my long and entirely too bright journey back to my rooms.

/＼ ^._.^ ／\

True to his word, Windsor was waiting with my barding by the time I returned to my room, a pegasus groom next to him. I took my place upon the small dais next to the long bench that held my barding and the two of them immediately set about tying the protective gear around me.

The barding had been a present from Princess Celestia, dug out from one of the old armories that hadn’t been damaged in The Fall. According to her, it had been a gift from an ancient minotaur empire to Equestria’s south, part of a fifty piece set, designed for soldier craftsponies to wear in either occupation.

It was a smooth and supple leather-like material that neither Windsor nor I had ever seen before, beautifully and intricately stitched together with minute patterns stamped into every strap and inlaid along every edge.

I bit back a groan as the groom pulled my wing to full extension and Windsor carefully placed the cold silver wing guards in place. Those had been issued by the Lunar Sentinel High Marshal, Evening Song. My wings had taken a beating during my first few weeks of work and she, another Thestral, had demanded that I wear them when working.

“You should fly more, sir,” said the groom as he used his hooves to fold and unfold my wings. “Your flight muscles need as much work as your legs and, given how big you are, even more than you think that they do.”

“I’ll glide to work and back-”

“You will not sir,” interrupted the groom, his scowl almost as fierce as my own. “With as bad as your muscles are right now, the extra weight of your barding will only make things worse.”

“I like this one Windsor,” I said after a long moment of the two of us just staring at him, giving my butler a wry grin. “He’s got chutzpah.”

“As you say, sir,” Windsor replied after a moment, I could tell that he wanted to disagree.

“What’s your name, son?” I asked as I rolled my neck and shoulders, checking the fit.

“Thunder Cloud, sir,” the pegasus answered quickly, shrinking into himself. “I’m sorry for speaking out of turn. Please don’t fire me, I’ll keep my mouth shut.”

“No you won’t,” I chuckled, giving him a closer look over. He’s young-ish, maybe seventeen or eighteen, with a seal coat and rusty mane, his cutie mark is covered by his wings and I wasn't about to ask him to show it to me. “I like that you’re willing to speak your mind, I was almost convinced that no one here knew how to do that anymore.”

He didn't say anything but he did stand a little taller.

“Hmm… Windsor?” I asked after another moment of inspecting the groom.

“Sir?”

“See if we can get him assigned to me on a more permanent basis, I’m tired of the yes-ponies that follow me around. I need someone other than you and Luna to tell me when I’m being stupid.”

“Yes sir.”

“Good,” I nodded at my butler and then turn to the gaping pegasus. “That work for you son?”

“Y-yes sir!”

“Good. I’ll see you after my shift ends. We’ll need to find a good place for you to remind me how to fly. Windsor?”

“Yes, Master Stroke?”

“Try and get him used to my eccentricities, would you?”

“I can try, sir. Usually shock therapy works best.”

“Maybe, I don’t want to break him though.”

“Uh… What?”

My butler and I both turned to the groom, he was blushing and his feathers ruffled.

I knew immediately what he was thinking, hell, if I didn’t know me I would have thought the same thing.

“Oh, sorry Thunder,” I said, giving him what I hope was a reassuring smile. “Not that, no.”

“I would say so, sir, “ Added Windsor, a faint blush spreading over his cheeks as he caught on to what the colt was thinking. “No Mister Cloud, Master Stroke here just has no respect for authority nor titles, at least not in private. You’ll get used to it.”

“Oh.”

I honestly can’t tell if he’s relieved or disappointed and I didn't really want to know.

“Yes, well,” I sighed hoping beyond hope that it doesn’t sound as awkward to them as it did to me and stepped over to the door. “Thank you Thunder Cloud, I look forward to working with you again.”

As I close the door, I heard the young colt ask my butler:

“Can he read minds, Mister Windsor?”

/＼ ^._.^ ／\

I saluted the foremare as I entered the construction area, grabbing my hard hat from the hook, the yellow number nine brightly contrasting with the grey that made up the hard resin shell.

“‘Bout time you got here colt,” she shouted from down the hall. “Get your butt over here and show these fillies how to haul.”

I huffed and trot over to her, she’s already covered in enough white dust that I can’t see her plum coat anymore. There are four mares with ropes in their teeth pulling at a large section of a collapsed archway.

“Ladies, if you would please step to one side,” I said after taking one of the ropes from them.

“Are you sure?” one of them asked, I didn’t see which one. “Shouldn’t we help?”

“Naw,” The foremare laughed. “Feather here can take care of himself, don’t you worry about that.”

“But, but-” said another, she had a higher pitched voice. “He’s a stallion. He shouldn’t be doing this!”

Oh yes, I had forgotten for a few precious days, things were different here in Equestria, and I wasn’t even talking about being a quadruped either. The herding part of their society was a little strange, but you get used to that pretty quickly. The swapped gender roles take a little more time to fully internalize.

Generally speaking, fillies and mares were expected to be the more assertive and dominant ones while colts and stallions played the role of eye candy and were to be protected. Sure, there were the outliers here and there, like the Solar Praetorians, traditionally stallion dominated regiment of the Equestrian armed forces, but that was the generally accepted status quo.

I had heard loads of different reasons for this societal norm, some of them more believable than others and just shrugged and went on with my life. It got irritating sometimes, but you do, eventually, get used to it.

I took the slack from the rope, situated it over my back, braced it against the steel plate between my withers and shoulder, and began pulling.

With a rumble, the broken arch pulled away from the pile of rubble that it had been resting against, sending a fresh cloud of powdered stone into the air and covering everyone in the hall.

After a fifty feet or so, I stopped and dropped the rope, panting, that archway was bigger and heavier than I thought that it was.

The foremare walked over to me after directing the mares that had been pulling on the thing to start with the other pieces of rock that were under the arch.

“You alright there big guy?”

“Gimmie a min and I’ll be good to go.”

“Hmmph,” She huffed and looked at her clipboard, checking something off on a list. “Sorry about that, by the way, they were being a bit mouthy when they saw you in your armor. I don’t abide by that kind of talk, not on my job site.”

“No worries Hard, no worries. Anything I should be concerned with?”

“Not after that little show you just put on. I’ve actually got you helping out Smooth today, he insists that you’re the only one to show his statues the proper respect or some horseapples.”

I couldn’t help the grimace that made its way across my face. Smooth Stone was the master sculptor in charge of repairing and replacing the numerous carved edifices all over Canterlot Palace.

“Wonderful, thanks Hard.”

“You’ll be fine, he’s only got three to move today.”

I grunted in response and walked over to the cart that I knew Hard Hat had set up for me, there were two mares waiting to help hitch me to the wagon.

It was going to be a long day.

/＼ ^._.^ ／\

With a final grunt of effort, I shoved the last statue into place with my shoulder. It was a magnificent piece, both princesses carved form a singular block of marble. From what Smooth Stone was telling me as I lugged the thing from his shop to the palace entry way, he had found this particular section of stone in his master’s stores. At first, he had thought it was a simple, if massive, block of pure white stone but, as he began to cut and carve through it, the white had given way to a large black marble seam running the majority of one half of the entire block.

I looked back up at the stone faces of the Princesses, both carved with exceptional skill and beauty, the figures might as well have actually been them. Each feather in their massive outstretched wings was perfectly in place and their tiaras and peytrals delicately inlaid with matching gems and gold filigree.

Smooth slapped his hoof on my withers with a laugh.

“Ha!” he exclaimed with a huge grin splitting his face. “Not so correct now is it Feather?”

“Hmm,” I hummed in reply. “Give it a few more years and she might look the part.”

He laughed again.

“What say we go get ourselves a cold drink, eh Feather? Celebrate a job well done.”

I looked up at the sky and noted the position of Celestia’s sun.

“I’ll have to take a rain-check, Smooth, I’m still on duty tonight.”

“Ehh? It’s Friday! Nopony is coming to court tonight of all nights.”

“You know that, I know that, the Princess knows that.” I replied, as I tried to roll the kink out of my shoulder. “But the court has to open anyways.”

He studied me for a long moment before shaking his great, bearded head.

“You work too hard Feather, take a night off, enjoy yourself.”

I ignored him, and wave one wing at him in farewell.

After a quick stop off at Hard Hat’s office to hang up my protective headgear, I began the trot back up to my rooms.

/＼ ^._.^ ／\

Windsor was there waiting for me, Thunder Cloud nowhere to be seen.

“Scare him off already?” I asked, stepping into my foyer and wiping the dust from my hooves and fetlocks.

“No, Master Stroke,” my butler replied as his horn ignited and the ties on the metal around my shoulders came loose. “Mister Cloud is still a young stallion and could not wait for you to return, his masters also insisted that you have an older groom assigned to you if you wished a personal one.”

“Basically, we tried to keep him up past his bedtime and the Stable Master still doesn’t like me?”

“Quite so, sir.”

“Ponyfeathers.”

“Hmm,” Windsor hummed, his magic taking hold of the wing guards and gently pulling them off as I approached the dais. “I can still arrange to have a groom here in the evenings if you would like sir.”

“Nah, I appreciate the thought though, Windsor.”

Working in tandem, without a third pony, to get the barding off was always a mixture of gymnastics and hilarity. I have to turn this way and that way for some pieces to come loose, even with my butler pulling on them with his magic.

It takes a few extra minutes to pull the sweaty and amazingly dusty armor from my large frame, I’m actually kinda glad that the kid didn’t have a chance to see me like this: My barrel, frontlegs, and wings are my usual burgundy color while the rest of me, even my mane and tail, are a fine grey-white.

I take another couple of moments to take a long look at myself in the mirror on one side of the dais.

My reflection stares back at me with orange-yellow eyes. The maroon thestral in the silvered glass is huge for a race of smaller ponies, easily two-and-a-half heads taller than Windsor and he’s a big unicorn. I ruffle my wings, not the wings that I would have chosen for myself but they’re what I have. Maroon fur covers their backs and the fingerbones while the inner membrane is a dark wine purple.

With a sigh, I hopped down from the raised stonework and, before I could ask, Windsor interrupts me.

“Your bath is drawn and waiting for you sir. I will have fresh towels sent in in a few moments after I fetch your regalia.”

“I don’t have regalia, Windsor,” I snorted as I began trotting over to the large bathroom. “I have a sash and a fancy necklace.”

“A torc is much more than a necklace, sir.”

“Tomato - tomahto. At least you agree with me about the sash.”

I could hear him grumbling behind my back as I entered the bathroom. Unlike most rooms in the palace, this one was fashioned almost entirely out of slate, shale, and obsidian, not a single hint of white or bright stone anywhere.

Just the way that I liked it.

There was a fire burning in the room’s hearth and a small brazier near where I liked to rest my head on the tub’s edge, I could smell the faintest hint of citrus and clove wafting from the hanging bronze fire.

I quickly washed the dirt and grime from my fur, mane and tail using the shower to the left of the tub and hop up the small steps leading to the tub to lower myself into the warm and scented water.

Apparently Windsor wanted to impress somepony tonight.

The warm water, familiar scents, and my aching muscles pulled at me to sleep, just to nod off and let Luna handle the court that night by herself.

“Master Stroke, sir?”

“Hmm?” I looked up, Windsor sent in one of the three maids that look after the rooms themselves. This one, Orchid, a pegasus with a pale pink with a cream and cinnamon mane, was one of the newer ponies to my retinue. She and her husband work for the crown. She, as my maid, and her husband, as a groom in the Lunar Sentinel stables. “Oh, Orchid, how are you this fine evening?”

“Doing well, sir,” she replied with a smile, setting the fluffy towel down and within easy reach. “Thank you so much for asking, sir.”

“Think nothing of it Orchid, mi casa es tu casa.”

“Sir?”

“Don’t worry about it Orchid, just a stupid saying from back home.”

“Ah.”

“Yup, been a while since I slipped like that, sorry.”

“It’s no trouble sir.”

“Hmm… oh! When’s Rose due?” Her herd-mate was expecting, Orchid had been so excited when she came to work the next day, bouncing up and down and everything.

“In the next couple of weeks, sir, she’s fit to burst any time now.”

“Ha! I remember when my sister was pregnant, She would complain and complain all the time about how big she was, her bo-coltfriend would often come and hide out at my place just to get a little shuteye.”

“Too right,” she giggled, one hoof delicately over her muzzle. “Brass is convinced that the foal will be a little unicorn filly, Rose believes another pegasus just like her grandpa.”

“And you?”

“Oh I don’t care one way or the other, I love all foals and this one is special.”

“They’re going to have the best parents in all of Equus, I’m sure.”

“Ummm… Master Stroke, can I ask something of you?”

“Of course!” I replied, raising my head from the side of the tub and looking right at her. “Always!”

“Would- would you come to The Naming?”

The Naming ceremony was a big thing in Equestrian culture, it was when the parents announced their foal’s name to the wider world, there was even a section in the newspapers for namings. Mothers always knew the name of their foal, usually in the first moment that they held them in their arms, but it was never shared outside of family until The Naming.

“I would be honored, Orchid. Touched and honored.”

“Thank you, sir,” she said with a happy smile. “Rose and Brass would like to meet the stallion that I work for, they’ve heard all about you.”

“Oof,” I winced. “Are you sure you want me there? Are you sure that they want me there?”

“Mister Stallion of mystery, the Savior of Princess Luna? Everypony who is anypony wants to meet you!”

I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at her antics and she giggled again.

“I’ll be there, make sure to give the date to Windsor and he’ll make sure of it.”

“The invitations will go out as soon as they’re born,” She said with another smile and turned to leave. “I’ll make sure that you get yours, Master Stroke.”

I smiled back at her and returned to my relaxing bath for another few moments before, grumbling, I got to my hooves and splashed out of the warm water and over to the towel that Orchid had brought me.

/＼ ^._.^ ／\

Windsor was waiting for me when I exited the bathroom, towel around my withers and my mane still damp. He had lit the main fireplace in my chambers and the room was more than pleasantly warm, it was like walking into a warm hug.

“I really need to give you a raise,” I said as he took the towel from me and passed it off to a waiting maid, one that I don’t recognize.

“Only doing my job to make sure that you’re comfortable and presentable, Master Stroke,” he replied with a sniff. “I take it your bath was enjoyable?”

“I didn’t even want to get out. Thank you for the new incense.”

“You mentioned that you liked the scent from before, it took a little while to locate a quality supply, but you’re welcome, sir.”

I shook my head at my butler, I had mentioned that, in passing, five years ago and had never brought it up again.

“Are you going to let us brush your mane tonight, sir?”

“If you must.”

“We must.”

I sighed and tried my best to not wince as two other maids and Windsor descended on me with brushes, combs, and other grooming implements.

Author's Note

It has been just over eight long years since I started PonyFall: The Dawning of Twilight. As I'm sure that many of you can tell, life hasn't been the best.

Here's to a new story and thank you for reading.

Chapter 2 - Night Court, Wings, and Breakfast

The doors to the Throne Room antechamber are guarded by two of the Lunar Sentinels when I approached, both of them bowed respectfully before giving me the same scan that I received earlier in the day.

The two of them clear me and opened the door, allowing me to enter the antechamber.

“Evening Feather,” High Marshal Evening Song greeted with a cocky salute of her wing. “How are you this fine night?”

“I’ve been better,” I replied, giving her a wave with my own wing, a behavior that I picked up from the High Marshal and the other thestrals among the Lunar Sentinels. “And I’ve been worse. Anything on the docket that I should be concerned with?”

“It's Friday, Feather,” the mare deadpanned. “There’s never anything on Fridays.”

“True, true.” I replied with a shrug and a half smile.

“Then why are you even here?”

“I don’t follow.” I said, cocking my head to one side.

“Nothing happens on Fridays, Feather.”

“Yes, and?”

“There are no petitioners to the Night Court this evening, no revisions to Tax Law, nor anything else. There’s nothing for you to do.”

“Ah,” I replied, giving Evening Song what I hope came across as a wry grin. “I see what you’re getting at now.”

None of the other ponies say anything as Evening Song let my statement hang between us in silence.

The High Marshal is a spunky, self-assured, and boisterous thing with a razor sharp wit and even sharper tongue. I’d put her at about the same height, at the shoulders, as my mid barrel with her head and mane just able to be seen over my shoulders. Her coat is a uniform amethyst purple with silver and teal mane. As the High Marshal, her armor did not mask her natural coloring like the armor of the rest of Luna's guard regiment.

“You’re still going to go in there aren’t you?” She sighed, putting a hoof to her forehead.

“Of course I am. It is my duty and honor.”

“And there’s nothing that we can say or do to stop you?”

“Not unless you plan on breaking my legs and wings, no.”

“Hmm…” Evening Song hummed and looked at me for a long moment, rubbing her chin with one hoof. “There’s an idea.”

I rolled my eyes, another old argument that this mare and I have been having for a long time, at least she’s funnier than Windsor.

Sure, I tower over her and the rest of her cadre of Lunar Sentinel thestrals but she’s got the combat experience and knowledge. After all, Evening Song is the High Marshal and I’m just Luna’s over glorified secretary. She outranks me by so many orders of magnitude that I could get a nosebleed from thinking about it too hard, she could just order me back to my rooms.

But she won’t.

I rolled my eyes at her, again, and made my way over to the inner doors, preparing to shoulder them open when she stoped me by pulling on my tail.

“You’re not going in there looking like that.” Evening Song snapped, her mouth full of my tail.

“Are you going to break me this time?” I asked, looking back at her and cocking one eyebrow.

“No you foal!” She shouted, spitting my tail out of her mouth in the process and looking somewhat embarrassed. “Just - ugh. Just come here.”

“Okay?” I trot over to her and sat on my haunches in front of her.

She didn't say anything, just reached up with her two forelegs and readjusts the torc around my neck so that the Crest is directly in the middle of the shining silver metal. From there, she made me stand and brushed her wings over the velvet sash so that the midnight blue and black material’s pile is all lying in the same direction.

Both adornments were gifts from Luna when she appointed me as her advisor. The sash, she claimed, was woven by her own magic millennia ago, during the First Age of Unity. The Torc was crafted out of shimmering silver metal strands, braided and plaited until it formed a large circle to go around my neck, almost like a collar but much larger. From the center, hung a medallion, made of the same metal, the image of the Lunar Crest carefully chased and repousséd into its face.

Evening Song stepped back and looks over me one more time before nodding.

“Thank you,” I said dryly. “Am I free to enter the Throne Room now?”

“Fine, fine,” she sighed, rolling her eyes as the rest of her cadre snicker into their wings. “I won’t help you look your best for the Princess ever again.”

“As if Windsor doesn’t do that already.”

“Oh! Remind me to thank him for your new shampoo.”

I pretended to not hear that nor the guffawing that followed me into the Throne Room and I certainly wasn’t blushing.

/＼ ^._.^ ／\

I climbed the steps onto the large center dais and took my place to the right of the central throne. From what I’d been told by Evening Song and Morning Glory, Praetorian General of the Solar Guard, in times of peace and harmony, both thrones would be perched upon the center dais rather than swapping one out for the other.

The Fall of Harmony had forced a state of semi-martial law throughout the Kingdom of Equestria and when, through unknown means, Celestia had finally returned to her Palace, she had approved of those decisions. She’d gone so far as to call the reserve guard forces to muster, arm, and deploy to the border garrisons.

I was broken out of my musings as the doors to the Antechamber opened and Luna pranced in, freshly bathed and groomed, the scent of lilac and vanilla accompanying her arrival. Her regalia was polished to a mirror shine, catching each flicker of the torches and magical lights along the walls and the crescent moon-shaped opal set in the center of her peytral glimmered with its own inner light. As was the custom, she was flanked by two Praetorian guards from the Solar Praetorians with two of her own Lunar Sentinels to her front right and left; at her shoulder was High Marshal Evening Song.

I rose to my hooves and formally bow to her, appearances have to be maintained. At this moment, she is a Princess of Equestria and I am her advisor and secretary. She nodded in my direction and bade the two Praetorians a good night.

The two Lunar Guards took their place at the foot of the dais, one either side of the plush scarlet and gold runner that led from the main doors all the way to the throne.

“By the will of Her Majesty, Princess Luna, Lady of the Night and Guardian of Dreams,” exclaimed Evening Song, her voice reverberating around the Throne Room. “We declare this Court of the Night open to any and all who wish to petition the crown.”

She then slammed one of her silver shod hooves down and the main doors swung open, revealing an empty Petitioner’s Hall.

Formalities over and done with, Luna flung herself onto the throne, lounging lazily, taking a large bite out of a peach, and rested one of her hooves atop my head.

“Must you?” I sighed, slouching so that her hoof slides off of my head and onto my withers.

The Princess nickered at me through a mouthful of fruit and replaced her hoof on my head.

We continued this stupid dance for several more minutes before the laughing of the two Sentinels made us stop; playing around in private is one thing, playing around in public, especially during court, was another.

“How was work?” The Princess asked after arranging herself in a more presentable sitting position.

“Hot, dusty, and exhausting.”

She nodded before leaning on the throne towards me, her short, lapis colored mane falling in front of her eyes.

“You didn’t need to come tonight, you know that right?”

“I have never missed a Night Court in the last five years,” I snorted back at her. “And I don’t plan on missing any either. Princess Celestia would have my wings for her mantle if I weren’t here when you needed me.”

“How many times have I needed you here?” she asked after snorting derisively at the formal mention of her sister.

“There was that time when your sister was having trouble raising the moon with you and you were about to cry.”

“That was four weeks after we got back!”

“Or that time some petitioners thought you were Nightmare Moon again and I had to talk you down from atomizing them.”

“It wasn’t a good day.”

“What about the Noodle Incident?”

“We agreed never to speak of that again!”

I couldn’t help it, I started laughing and, after a few moments of a fierce blush, crossed forelegs, and an adorable pout, Luna joined me.

“You’re forgetting one.” she said after getting her merriment under control.

“Oh, which?” I jokingly replied, still grinning at her. “I’m sure that I can keep going.”

“I’m sure you can, but you forget that social worker -” She then says two words that aren’t possible to understand, sending ripples of something bouncing off the walls. Human names, apparently, do not mesh well with the fabric of Harmonious Reality on Equus. It was the reason that I had abandoned my old name.

Every pony in the Throne Room, even Luna herself, recoiled and flattened their ears against their skulls.

“Can you really not do that?”

“My apologies Feather, guards, ‘twon’t happen again.”

The rest of the Night Court passed in relative quiet and peace. It was, as expected, an empty night. Few petitioners came to Day Court on Fridays and it was the exception rather than the rule when anypony came to Friday’s Night Court.

High Marshal Evening Song returned to the Throne Room at around four in the morning and formally closed the court for the week.

The five of us, the Princess, Evening Song, the two Lunar Sentinels, and myself then retreated into the antechamber.

/＼ ^._.^ ／\

“High Marshal,” I called out before she could leave the antechamber with the Princess. “A moment of your time please.”

She stopped and cocked one eyebrow at me before dismissing her cadre to escort the Princess to her Dream Alcove.

“What’s up big guy?”

“I, uh, have been informed,” I started, not really knowing how to word this request. “By one of the stables’ arming grooms that I need to fly more. Something about my wings and flight muscles. He said that-”

“Show me.” She interrupted after watching me for a long moment, processing, as I bumble my way through and not asking the question that I need to ask.

“Show you?” I asked, tilting my head to one side. “Show you what?”

“Your wings foal,” She snorted, walking around me in a quick circle. “Spread ‘em, let me see your wingspan. Full extension and hold it until I say stop.”

I rolled my shoulders and extended my wings as far as I was able and hold them there.

“Higher!” She snapped.

I raised my head, dug deep, force my wings past what I thought was their fullest.

Have you ever done that exercise where you hold two weights, one in each hand, raise your arms out to either side of your body in a t-pose, and then hold it until you can’t do it anymore? Think that, only with two limbs that you’ve never had before.

It didn't take long before my wings were trembling and I’ve squeezed my eyes shut, trying with every fiber of my being to keep them up. I could feel Evening Song poking at the base of my wings muttering and I couldn't tell what she’s saying, everything that I have is hyper-focused on my wings..

I don’t know how long I held them up, it felt like hours.

“Feather,” Her voice broke through my concentration, there’s a hoof on my right wing, gently pressing it down. “You can let them down now Feather, relax, breathe.”

With a gust of a sigh, my wings dropped, I couldn't feel my flight muscles enough to pull them back up to my sides.

“Moon and stars above, Feather, you should have told me you were in that much pain.”

“You said *pant* to keep them up. *wheeze* I kept them *gulp* up.”

She gave me a look that I can’t quite place, I didn't notice her moving in front of me, before shaking her head and trotted back to my side, being careful to avoid stepping on the burgundy and wine drapes that were my wings.

“Lay down.”

“Uh?”

“Lay down. You’re going to cramp something awful if I don’t do something.”

I didn’t need any more encouragement than that and slumped to the floor, I was barely standing as it was.

“This is going to be awkward.” I heard her mutter.

I didn't get a chance to question that statement when, after a pump of her wings, she landed on my back, straddling me.

“You say one word about this,” she snarled into my ear. “To anypony, and no pony will find your body.”

Sporting a furious blush, I pantomimed zipping my lips shut and continued staring straight ahead.

With a nicker, she gently placed her hooves on the joints where my wings meet my back and began to apply pressure in small, circular movements.

“He was right,” she said after several minutes of rubbing my right wing socket. “You do need to fly more, I’ve never seen flight muscles this week.”

“It would help if I knew how to.” I grumbled at her.

She stopped rubbing and I could feel her eyes boring into the back of my skull.

“Come again?”

“I don’t know how to fly.” I said again, louder, trying in vain to not let my shame color my words. I had lied to Thunder Cloud when I said 'remind' me how to fly, I couldn't. Never had gotten the hang of it as a thestral.

“That can’t be right, I’ve seen you fly.”

“You’ve seen me glide.”

“How do you not know how to fly?” She continued as if she hadn’t heard me. “By the stars, you're a thestral for crying out loud, your paren- oh.”

“Yeah, oh.”

“I’m sorry Feather, I forgot.”

“Happens all the time Song, I’m used to it.”

I could tell that she wanted to say something else, probably to apologize, but didn't, she just moved onto rubbing my left flight muscle group.

“Try and fold your wings back up.”

With a lot less effort than I anticipated, I was able to pull my wings back up against my barrel. She gave the muscles a few last push-knead motions before sliding off of my back.

“Feel better?”

“Like you have no idea, thank you.”

I got to my hooves with her watching, head tilted to one side, her keen, amber eyes taking in every movement that I made.

“Do you want to learn?”

“Can I assume that you mean ‘learn how to fly’?”

She gave me a look that spoke volumes.

“Yes, I would very much appreciate it.”

“Good. We’ll start tomorrow night.”

“We?”

“Yes we.” She said with a roll of her eyes. “I’m not going to have a pegasus try and teach a thestral how to fly, not on my watch.”

“Don’t you have better things to do besides teaching an overgrown bat how to fly?”

“We’re not bats.” She snarled. “And don’t call yourself one either. It's derogatory and vile.”

“Oh, sorr-”

“Just say ‘thank you ma’am’ and shut up.”

“Thank you ma’am.” My teeth clicked audibly on the clipped response, the High Marshal watchd me for another few moments before nodding.

“You’re welcome,” she finally said after another long moment. “Do you think that you can make it back to your rooms or should I have someone escort you?”

“I’m a gown stallion Song, I don’t need an escort.” I huffed at her. “And I’m not going back to my rooms. Not yet anyways.”

“You’re not?”

“No, tomorrow’s Saturday. Princess Celestia likes to have breakfast with her sister on the weekends, and expects a weekly report of the Night Court from me first thing, during breakfast is her preferred time.”

“Ah.”

“And that doesn’t even count out all of the other work that I’m behind on with recent history and trying to help with rebuilding.”

“You really should beg off tomorrow, your wings will be Tartarus in a few hours, the Princesses will understand.”

“The work’s gotta be done, Song,” I answered with a shake of my head. “It’s my job.”

“Fine,” she grunted after opening the door leading out into the hallway. “Where to then? I’ll walk you.”

“I just told you that I didn’t need an escort.”

“I’m not escorting you anywhere, I’m just walking with a friend.”

I should have protested more, but I didn't have it in me at that moment.

“The archives, Windsor will have already arranged for coffee and a bagel or three if you’d like some.”

“Nah, I’m still on duty, ‘preciate the offer though.”

/＼ ^._.^ ／\

Evening Song hung out with me in the archives for a few hours, correcting my abysmal Equuish and generally making fun of the scrawl that constituted my writing. At around six or seven, she bade me good morning and left to complete paperwork of her own.

The rebuilding process had been slow and arduous. There were so many ponies and other beings that were too injured to work or just simply missing. Hospitals were full past capacity, even with extra beds lining the halls. Thaumatological scientists and researchers have been investigating the Chaos magic tears and storms that plague the entire kingdom. They theorized that there could be entire families trapped within but have yet to ascertain a method to dispel or heal the rifts.

I reviewed and collated the various status update memos that Hard Hat and Plumb Line have sent to the crown, marking careful notes on a rapidly filling sheet of parchment

From the rebuilding notes and projections, I moved to the weekly records of the Night Court. Comparing this week’s totals with last week’s and last year’s numbers; everything broken down into three main tribes and a miscellaneous category. Any citizen, general resident, or visitor to Equestria has the right to petition the crown.

There are other, minor reports, from mayors and governors, most notable being the one from Ponyville. According to Mayor Mare, Everfree forest is attempting to encroach upon the town proper, again. I quickly penned a letter to Praetorian General Morning Glory, requesting a small detachment of unicorn and pegasi to make their way and assist with driving the forest back to its defined lands.

The reports from our garrisons along the borders are some of the last reports that I needed to review. There were reports of yak and minotaur scouts approaching but neither race had opened lines of communication nor did they seem to be inclined to do so. According to the reports, the scouts only appeared lightly armed and hadn't come close enough to our borders to be considered a threat.

Thank goodness for small mercies.

Equestria, while still strong and resolute, would be hard pressed to fend off an invasion from any empire or kingdom. We would be more than able to outlast any kind of siege laid upon us, but thousands upon thousands of ponies would be injured, killed, or worse.

/＼ ^._.^ ／\

“Good morning, sir,” greeted Windsor as he approved my table, a cup of coffee floating towards me.

“I love you,” I moaned, taking the warm mug from his magic and swallowing a gulp, the burn of the hot drink helping me wake up just a little. “Remind me to put you in for a raise.”

“Long night?”

“Ehh, just a lot of reports that I needed to catch up on. Did you know that ponies actually do work during the day?”

Windsor gave me a deadpan stare and I chuckled at him.

“What time is it anyways?”

“Just past eight in the morning, sir, you’re due in the Family Dining Room in twenty minutes.”

“Wonderful, thank you Windsor.”

“My pleasure, sir.”

I lost myself in my coffee and the last page of the report in front of me, it was from the northern borders and the Saddle Arabian Sultanate. Ever since the return of Princess Luna, Equestria’s relationship with them had been tense, as far as I could ascertain from our ambassador that had been ousted a few months back, they were convinced that The Fall was a plot by a reemergent Nightmare Moon.

Luna had cried for hours upon hearing that.

The tinkling chime of Windsor’s magic and the feeling of a stiff brush running over my scalp almost made me drop the mug.

“Woah,” I whinnied, jumping out of my seat and away from the offending brush. “What the hell Windsor? You know I don’t like ponies touching my head.”

“Yes, sir, I’m well aware.”

“Then why are brushing my mane?”

“You’re going to meet with Princess Celestia this morning.”

“Yes? And? I meet with her every Saturday, you’ve never brushed my mane on Saturdays before.”

“Sir,” My butler sighed, and floated a mirror out of his suit jacket’s pocket. “Take a look at yourself.”

I snatched the mirror out of his magic and glare at it before taking stock of my appearance.

I’d certainly looked better.

There were bags under my eyes, giving testimony to the lack of sleep I had gotten yesterday, thanks to Luna. The fur on my face and muzzle had lost its luster and there are small sweat-salt crystals clinging to my cheekbones.

My mane would have been better described as a bird's nest. How it got that bad without any real physical exertion was beyond me.

“Oh.”

“Yes, oh, sir.”

I grimace and passed the mirror back to my butler, who, after taking the mirror, floated the brush back over to me.

The sensation of the bristles running through my mane and scraping my scalp are not pleasant.

/＼ ^._.^ ／\

Princess Celestia was already seated at the table when I enter, quietly sipping from a dainty porcelain cup of tea, her eyes unfocused.

“Good morning your Highness,” I said softly, walking forward and nodding to the two Solar Praetorians at the door on the opposite side of the room.

“Good morning Feather Stroke,” The Princess replied, not looking up from her cup of tea.

“Did you sleep well?” I asked, giving her a small bow before taking a seat to the left of Luna’s usual one.

“Well enough Feather Stroke, well enough.”

The Princess of the Sun and I had a strange detente, she, even after six years of loyal service to her sister, still views me as other; I was not one of her ponies.

That realization had hurt.

The two of us sat together for a few awkward and silent minutes before Luna dragged herself in, flopped herself into her seat next to her sister, to my right, and used her magic to quickly fill a bowl with diced fruit.

“Good morning dear sister,” greeted Celestia as she looks up from her tea with a smile.

Luna grunted her reply as she spooned a hunk of melon into her mouth.

“Such a morning birdy, aren’t you Lulu?” Celestia snarked at her sister, taking a muffin from one of the platters in front of her and biting into it.

I refused to flinch as her magenta eyes found my own and lost all good humor.

“Report.” Celestia ordered, her voice cold and commanding.

“The Night Court saw a twenty-one point eight percent increase in petitioners over the last week, Your Highness.” I reported as I stand and pull the folder with my notes out from under one wing and spread them out on the table in front of me. “Your sister, Princess Luna, also finished reviewing the Equestrian Tax statute number four-eight-three with special emphasis on subsection Gamma-Beta, concerning the importation of iron from our allies within the Griffin commonwealth and the Gold and Silver trade coming in from Zebrica to our south.”

I looked up to the Solar Princess who nodded through a mouthful of muffin and waves me to continue.

“Of the petitioners, fifty-eight percent were of the unicorn tribe, an even thirty percent were pegasi, with the remaining twelve percent being a mix of earth ponies, griffins, and other tribes and races that have taken up residence within your city. A more accurate representation is included with the full report that I have here.”

“Please pass it to my assistant and the two of us will look over it later this morning. Anything else that I should be apprised of?”

“Of the Palace and Canterlot reconstruction,” I continued, shifting one page out of the way and looking down at one of the notes I had made. “Nearly sixty-seven percent of the rubble has been cleared away, Foremare Hard Hat believes that we will be done before the Heartwarming celebration in a few months.”

Celestia hummed at that, frowning ever-so-slightly, then said: “That long? I was assured that they would be done with the hauling before Nightmare Night.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I replied, pulling yet another sheet of parchment from the stack in the folder. “The report from Hard Hat states that, had it only been the rubble on the ground when she was contracted, the work would have been done by then. According to master mason Plumb Line, there are several sections of the Palace and the city that are only standing due to the rubble. As soon as we move the rubble, the structure comes crashing down. Thus far, fifteen ponies have been injured, though not too seriously, and there aren’t enough unicorn heavy lifters to cover the entire city. Hard Hat believes that taking things slowly will minimize the chance for more injuries.”

“Of course, yes, I understand, please pass my thanks to Hard Hat for her due diligence in keeping my ponies safe.”

I could almost hear her inner monologue excluding me from that statement.

“The last new development that bears mentioning now would be that the Royal College of Arcanists wish to begin testing their ideas for closing the rifts.”

“Have they worked out a method to determine if there is somepony trapped within?”

“I don’t think so,” I replied, quickly scanning the parchment that had been given to me on my way here. “No, they have not, but that is one of their main goals with this round of testing.”

“Have them write up their testing strategy as well as the thaumaturgical equations that they plan on using in this test. I will not put my ponies in danger over a misplaced rune or a poorly written spell.”

“Of course Your Highness,” I confirmed, jotting down her instructions and folding the Arcanists’ note up and tucking it under my wing. “I will send word to them as soon as possible.”

“Thank you, Feather Stroke.” Princess Celestia acknowledged as she poured a fresh cup of tea from a delicate teapot, the amber liquid steaming up from her cup.

“My pleasure, Your Highness, I live to serve.” I repled with a bow.

My report given, I waited to be dismissed. I am not invited to a sisterly breakfast, no matter how highly Luna thinks of me.

“Please sit Feather Stroke, there are a few things that we need to discuss.” Celestia ordered, gesturing to my seat with a huge ivory wing.

“Your Majesty?” I asked, retaking my seat and closing my folder.

“You have been my sister’s advisor for how long?”

“Coming up on five years now, ma’am.”

“And how long have you been in my kingdom?”

“It will be six years this coming April.”

“And in all tha-”

THUMP

The two of us jumped at the sudden noise and whirled to the source of the sound.

Luna had fallen asleep into her fruit bowl and is snoring softly into a hunk of pineapple.

Princess Celestia and I stared, dumbfounded, for a few seconds before turning to face each other again, our eyes lock together and, after a few seconds of total silence in the dining room, we both started giggling.

In that moment, I am was a human turned into a pony, I am just another one of her subjects, a family friend, maybe even a favored uncle, and the youngest of the three of us has literally fallen asleep in her breakfast.

“Oh dear,” Celetia managed through her giggles and gently reached out with one of her wings and gave her sister a nudge. “Lulu, sister, please don’t suffocate on that pineapple.”

Still chuckling softly, I closed the folder with my reports, tucked it back under my wing and said: “It is rather late for her to be up, if you don’t mind Your Highness, I’ll see about getting her to bed.”

And before the Solar Diarch could stop me, I gently lifted Luna’s head out of her breakfast bowl and roll her onto my back.

“I will have the reports to Silver Quill in a few minutes, Princess.” I continue after making sure that Luna is securely tucked between my shoulder blades. “Please excuse me, good morning.”

I could feel her eyes on me the entire distance from the table to the door.

/＼ ^._.^ ／\

The two guards stationed at Luna’s chamber doors gave me odd looks as I approached them with their charge slung across my back and drooling into my mane.

“Shhhh…” I whispered to them, putting one wing tip in front of my mouth.

They nodded to me and opened the doors and allowed the two of us to pass inside.

Luna’s personal chambers look like a hurricane hit them, reminding me of my old room at my mom’s place. I never could keep in clean.

With a soft snort, I stopped that train of thought before it could leave the station, no use in crying over spilt milk.

I deposited my folder onto the coffee table in front of the large hearth that takes up the most of the southernmost wall. I then trod over to Luna’s massive and unmade bed and, after making sure that the Princess on my back doesn’t slip off, climbed the two steps up and onto the platform that is dominated by the huge bed.

Working gently and quietly, I maneuvered myself so that I am parallel to the side of the bed and slid Luna onto the cloud mattress.

The navy blue princess mumbled something in her sleep and rolled so that she’s facing away from me.

I rolled my eyes at her sleeping form and pulled the large blanket up and over her, tucking her in.

My charge situated and looking comfortable, I couldn't help but pause and gaze down at her. Without thinking, I use my right wing to tenderly brush her bobbed mane out of her face, smiling back at her as she smiled in her sleep.

I still fondly remember the day that I met the littlest princess, if one were to look closely enough, they would be able to just see the faintest hint of a scar over her right eyebrow.

My last few weeks on Earth had been stressful, hectic, and terrifying. Meeting Twilight Sparkle, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, the Cutie Mark Crusaders, Angle Bunny, and even Discord had been one of the most rewarding experiences in my entire life.

It had also been one of my worst.

I had to leave everything behind: My home, my job, my dog, and even my literal humanity all to do the right thing.

When dad told me that there would come a moment in my life, a choice that I would have to make, that would change everything that I knew about myself and my world forever, I don’t think he would have expected this turn of events.

Especially what happened between Star Shine and I.

I snorted again and shook my head at the memory of her. I can’t even think of her human name, there’s too much risk. Using a Human name, even in Equuish, does strange things to ambient magic that permeates everything in Equestria. Princess Celestia theorized that saying the “real” names of Star Shine or myself could open a new rift right here in Canterlot. Given what had happened with the social worker’s name during Night Court, I don’t even want to think what could happen if somepony tried to use my name.

My eyes refocused on the sleeping princess and I couldn't help the fond smile that broke across my face.

Acting on a whim, I leaned down and pressed a small kiss to her forehead, just under her horn and whispered:

“Good night little one.”

Chapter 3 - A Memory

“We happened, my dear little princess,” cooed Discord, still behind us. “Now, I believe that you have some catching up with you sister to do au revoir! Arrivederci!”

“Wha-”

The three of us were thrown bodily through the portal and onto the grass of Equestria. I was on my feet fast enough to see the portal slam shut, Discord laughing at his trick.

“Bastard” I snarled, pure and unbridled fury burning, roiling through my veins.

Michelle was still sprawled on the ground, staring at where the portal used to be, disbelief evident on her face.

Luna wasn’t the small human child she had just been, not anymore.

In her place was a navy blue filly with a full mane and tale of pure lapis lazuli.

She’s staring at Michelle and I, both wings fully extended, wonderment and confusion on her small face, and I didn’t know what she’s staring at.

Looking around, I saw the desolation that Ponyville had become. The crater where the library had once stood. Houses floating in the air, upside down. The remains of a large balloon looking thing draped over the town hall.

It was even more terrible seeing it in person. The reality of it had been distant when viewed through the portal and in the heat of things.

“Wha-” I start, my voice echoing oddly in the remains of the small town. “What happened?”

“D-d-d-iscord.” Luna stuttered, her eyes even wider than before. She leapt to her hooves and scamped around and behind my leg, clutching at it and peering out from around it, her wings fluttering. “He d-d-d-d-did t-t-this.”

“I should be surprised,” Michelle said after picking herself up off the ground and brushing the dust off of her clothes. “But I’m not, not anymore.”

I looked at my fiancée and she just shook her head.

I wanted to press her for a voal answer, but a twinge at the back of my neck stopped me, I rubbed at it with a wince.

“Wuh-wuh-what-t-tt d-do w-wwe d-d-d-do now?” Luna managed to say, her stutter getting worse.

Michelle and I shared another quick look before I turned and knelt down to the filly and put my hand on her cheek, smiling softly down at her.

“Now?” I said, gently brushing away a tear from her teal eyes. “Now we get you back to your sister, just like I promised.”

“Ruh-ruh-really?”

“Of course Luna,” said Michelle, leaning over my shoulder and giving the diminutive princess a pat on her head. “He did promise, didn’t he?”

Luna looked at us both before leaping into my arms and hugging me, now crying in earnest.

I rocked back with her and held her close while I sat down, my legs out in front of me, Michelle whispering soft, comforting words to her while I rubbed her back.

It took several minutes for Luna to regain her composure.

“Thuh-thuh-thank-k-k you,” she murmured into my neck, giving me one last squeeze.

“Of course little one,” I said as I set her back on her hooves, stood, and reached for Michelle’s hand. My fiancée grasped my hand and gave it a quick squeeze before letting go.

Together, the three of us made our way through the remains of Ponyville, quietly astonished at the level of destruction the poor town had taken.

Some buildings were on fire but not burning, some were frozen in smoking blocks of ice, others were inside out, there was even one that was upside down, on fire and frozen.

We climbed and clambered over upturned ground, carefully avoiding the multi-colored tears that fouled the town proper.

Michelle and I shared a look, we could hear voices coming from the tears, the small wince that crossed her face told me that her head was pounding just as hard as mine was.

Oddly, there was no one around. No ponies, no animals, not a single living thing other than the tree of us. Even after numerous disasters I had seen on the show, I had never seen Ponyville as deserted as this.

Eventually, Luna led us over a smallish building with a thatched roof next to train tracks, the location and the painted image of a train on a sign above the thatch told us that this was the station. Michelle hopped up onto the platform and went to look around as I lifted Luna up and onto the platform, hopping up after her.

“Is that Noodle?” I asked, looking down at the Princess and just now noticing the stuffed animal on her back.

“Yup!” she chirped, lifting the stuffed anteater in her magic and hugging it.

“I didn’t even know you had him with you,” Michelle remarked with a cocked eyebrow, she had just rounded the corner of the station and was looking down at the two of them, coming to a stop a little ways off to my side. I noticed that her voice sounded as strange as mine did, like there was a delay in the movements of her mouth and the sound reaching my ears; there was that same echo from earlier as well.

“Nuh-Noodle is always wuh-wuh-wuh-with muh-muh-me,” Luna stated simply.

“Hello?” called a voice from within the station before either Michelle or I could respond to Luna’s declaration. “Is somepony out there?”

Michelle and I whipped around, placing ourselves between this newcomer and Luna.

I was only just able to stop my recoil of disgust as what was supposed to be a pony, a stallion if I judged his voice correctly, lurched out of the station.

He was a misshapen and wretched thing, fused with what was probably some of his desk and a large clock. His head twitched in time with one of the four second hands on the clock face and his entire back half was a mishmash of carved legs, brass gears, and gold chain.

The four of us stood in silence for several minutes, him still twitching and bobbing to the timepiece and Michelle and I simply staring in horror.

Before I could stop her, Luna stepped around my legs and gasped, drawing his attention to her.

“Your Highness,” he gasped, a small dribble of ink or oil rolling down from the corner of his mouth. “Oh my goodness, we’ve been looking all over for you.”

Michelle and I looked at each other, he had forgotten about us.

“I’ll send word to the Palace immediately, wait here,” he continued, not letting Luna say anything before lurching back into the station and letting the door slam shut behind him.

A few seconds later there was the sound of glass breaking and the “woomph” of a small explosion.

“Should we, uh,” started Michelle, looking uneasily at the shut door after a long moment of bewilderment. “Should we check on him?”

“Don’t worry about me,” the stallion called from inside. “I just dropped my mug of warm ink. Please take a seat, the chariot should be arriving any moment to take you ponies to Her Majesty.”

“Ponies?” I whispered at Michelle.

“I don’t know,” she replied with a shrug. “I’m so beyond questioning things right now.”

“Muh-me tuh-tuh-tuh-tuh-tuh-too,” squeaked Luna through her stutter.

With no better option, the three of us settled onto the shaded platform to wait and watch. Luna, cuddling Noodle to her chest, draped herself over my outstretched legs and hummed to herself as I ran my fingers through her mane.

Michelle sat down a little off to my side, and rubbed at her brow, scowling to herself.

“Headache?” I asked.

“Migraine.”

“Yeah,” I mutter. “Me too.”

“It’s like there’s a small construction crew behind my eyes, jackhammering at my sinuses.”

“I’ve got a timpani player going to town on my temples and a vice at the base of my neck.”

“Are you gon-nuh-nuh-a be alright-tt-t?” Luna asked, turning her head to look at the two of us.

“Nothing a good night’s sleep in a real bed won’t cure,” Michelle said comfortingly to the diminutive Princess. “That and a good cup of coffee.”

“Amen to that.”

Luna cocked her head to one side before shaking it and snuggling down into my leg again.

I put my hand on her head, just behind her ear, and leaned against the wall with a sigh.

/＼ ^._.^ ／\

For the record, it wasn’t just two guards and the chariot, like I expected, that arrived to gather the Princess and her rescuers, but twenty guards and three chariots.

They fell out of the sky like a blazing comet, landing and deploying a phalanx of magical shields and very sharp spears, all directed at Michelle and I.

“Hand over The Princess!” Bellowed one of them, her spear directly at my neck.

“What the fu-” I start to say before the spear is against my throat, applying just enough pressure to emphasize the blade’s sharpness.

“Hand over The Princess! NOW!”

Staring wide eyed at the forest of blades, Michelle and I slowly raised our hands in front of us, showing these guards that we don’t have anything on us.

“Here,” I said quickly, looking down at Luna. “She’s right here. Perfectly fine. I swear.”

The guard pulled her spear back a couple of inches, her eyes darting down to Luna and then back up to me, confused.

“Not our fault,” I said quickly before she can ask. “Discord did it.”

I can tell he’s about to growl something at me by the way his jaw clenched, but he’s interrupted:

“HOW DARE YOU?” exploded Luna, her voice much too big to come from her tiny body.

Every single one of the twenty guards flinched back at the sound, their ears flat against their heads; my own ears rang with the echo as well.

The pain in my head increased ten-fold.

“THESE TWO SAVED ME AND YOU DARE THREATEN THEM?” The Princess continued, really laying into them. Calling their parentage and intelligence into question as well as a number of other vulgarities that really should not have come from the tiny filly’s mouth.

She stood between Michelle and I, putting herself between this lead guard and the two of us, her stuffed anteater astride her back like a knight.

Michelle and I shared a look as the spears are lowered and the shields pop under the tirade that Luna is volleying at them.

“THEY THREW AWAY THEIR ENTIRE LIVES ON EA- eep!”

Before she could go any further, Michelle leaned forward, snatched the little Princess off her hooves, dropped her into her lap belly up and proceeded to tickle her until she couldn’t breathe.

“No!” Luna cried between squeals of laughter. “No! I wasn’t done!”

I couldn’t help it, I started laughing right along with Luna, I could feel the tension bleed out of the guards surrounding us, some of them even joined me in chuckling.

Finally, after several minutes, a wheezing and hiccuping Luna is carried into the large, ornate chariot at the center of the formation by Michelle, followed quickly by the lead guard and myself.

We took off shortly after more two pegasi hitched themselves to the chariot.

/＼ ^._.^ ／\

Our arrival to the city of Canterlot and the Palace itself was much sooner than I expected.

As we approached the gleaming white marble city of Canterlot, several detachments of pegasi and bat-ponies dropped out of the clouds and fell into formation around us, each one of them in full battle plate and armed, literally, to the teeth.

Princess Celestia, apparently, was taking no chances with Luna’s safe return.

Michelle and I had spent most of the flight to The Palace grimacing and rubbing our eyes, temples, and the backs of our necks, the pounding in our brains getting worse and worse with every mile we covered.

I didn’t even notice our landing until Luna tugged at my hand with her magic, gesturing with her head at the white marble platform the chariot had landed on.

I give her a small smile through the pain beating a mighty crescendo behind my eyes and help Michelle out of the chariot, she looks as bad as I feel.

As we exited the vehicle, more guards approached, many of them with spears levelled at us.

The lead guard neighed at them and gestured with a series of quick head, shoulder, and hoof movements. The approaching guards immediately halted, hitched their spears to their pauldrons and formed a neat circle around the four of us.

Luna nickered softly at this and looked more than a little smug.

Around us, several of the pegasi and bat-ponies landed, the latter of which formed another circle around the first, putting yet another wall between us and everyone else.

Michelle and I stood there for several long moments, trying to get our wits behind us when both our hands were grabbed by Luna’s magic and were, unceremoniously, dragged through the doors and into the Palace proper.

The Palace itself passed by in a blur, Luna chattering and stuttering a mile a minute, prancing circles around between mine and Michelle’s legs, Noodle still riding on her back.

Word had spread throughout the Palace, ponies of all kinds were lined against the walls, watching our strange group march down the halls. I heard several gasps and whinnies of terror as they got good looks at us, but, through the ever increasing pain in my head and strange feeling suffusing my limbs, I didn’t pay them much heed.

I felt like lead. It got harder and harder and harder to put one foot after the other. There was fire where my blood was supposed to be. My head ached and the world swam every time we took a corner.

I stumbled more than once over numb feet catching the plush red runner. After one particularly bad fall, two of our encircling guards took pity on me and helped me to my feet, I could see the worry in their eyes, even as I tried to placate the Princess’s and their own worries.

As we approached two enormous doors of red-lacquered wood and gold inlays, the guardsmare made to stop Michelle and I from moving any further, only to be bodily shoved out of the way by Luna shouldering her way between her and me. The Princess then took both of our hands in her magic and tugged, almost needing to carry the two of us through the doors.

I felt, more than heard, the gasp that echoed through the massive chamber.

“Lulu!” cried Princess Celestia as she dove off her throne and galloped for the three of us.

“Tia!” Luna exclaimed in return, dropping her hold on Michelle and I and rushing at her sister.

The two of them met in the middle of the chamber, gloriously relieved smiles and tears of joy on both their faces. Celetia whipped Luna’s tiny body off the floor, twirling her sister around her head and neck for a few moments before crushing her in an embrace with her hooves and wings, crying.

I could see the two of them babbling and laughing at each other.

I wanted to smile, to do anything, but I had lost control of my body. There was a roaring sound filling my ears and the headache had gone from pounding to thundering. I held one of my hands before my face, I could see three hands, all swirling around and out of focus. My breath caught in my chest as my heart skipped a beat and I couldn’t breathe.

Then, Michelle collapsed as she stood beside me, her eyes rolling up in her head and seizing violently.

I was only able to get a half-choked cry of my own before I felt my legs go under my weight. My head cracked on the marble flooring and everything went black.

/＼ ^._.^ ／\

Blinding and impossibly pure light floods my eyes, even through my attempt to clamp them shut.

Then, my vision returned as warmth suffused my entire being, every ache and pain that I had ever suffered fell away, leaving me more relaxed than I had ever been.

I could hear a voice chuckling, pleased and comforting.

“I am so proud of you.”

A thousand questions raced through my mind: ‘Proud? Where am I? Where’s my Mi-’

The warmth fled from me as I tried, and failed, to make her name appear in my thoughts. I could see it, spell it, even visualize her face and everything that I knew and loved about her, but the name would not come.

‘Where’s my fiancée? Where’s Luna!?!’

I felt the warmth return at the mention of the Princess, like great wings of the softest feathers that I had ever experienced. They held me close, enclosing my very essence within.

I realized that I was nothing more than a floating concept, no body, no physicality in this place.

I could feel panic and fear rise, threatening to overcome what little I had become.

“Shhhh, shhhh, shhhh,” the presence cooed down and into me, pulling me even closer to its breast. “You have nothing to fear.”

I could only think one thing: ‘Are you God?’

At first there was nothing, then a great rumbling laughter erupted. I could feel life bloom and flourish in the mirth.

“No small one, I am not god.” There was genuine, all encompassing love in the voice, soothing what little fear remained.

‘Oh.’

The laughter continued for several eternities.

“Your kind always surprises me, small one. So full of curiosity and wonder and the most excellent questions.”

‘Where am I?’

“You are with me.”

‘Why?’

“Your kind cannot survive in Harmony, small one. It would tear your very essence apart and cast you into the ethereal drift. I will not have one who has done so much for my creations suffer so.”

‘So you are a god.’

“In a way, perhaps.”

‘Are you going to send us home?’

“I cannot.”

I could feel the fear start to rise again as I thought my next question: ‘Am I dead?’

“In a way, yes.” The voice hummed, I could feel something stroking the top of me, like a gentle hand running through my hair. “In another way, no. I caught you, and the other. This is your reward for everything that you’ve done for me and mine.”

‘I just did what I thought was right.’ I could feel my fear slowly dissipate. ‘They didn’t belong in our world.’

“I know. You, the other, and still more have done everything that you could possibly do, selflessly and without thought of reward. All for my creations.”

I could feel the smile in the voice. She, for I could only think of the voice as female for some reason, really was proud.

‘What happens now?’ I thought-asked, relaxing even more into her embrace.

“I am almost done.”

‘Done with what?’

“Your reward, small one. A new life. A new purpose.”

‘What does that even mean?’

The joyful laughter returned to her voice, “That is something that you will have to find out for yourself, small one.”

I feel the unmistakable feeling of a kiss being pressed to my forehead as the light, and presence faded, her last words lingering in my head:

“All will be well.”

/＼ ^._.^ ／\

Things were tense in the first few days after we woke up.

My fiancée and I had been changed, transformed into ponies.

Learning how to walk again wasn’t fun, neither was learning how to use my hooves, nor any of the other little things that I took for granted as a human.

We changed shape often as well.

I spent a few days as an Earth Pony, then as a unicorn, a pegasus, griffon, back to unicorn and then on to other shapes. The few days that I had spent as a griffin had been awesome, I had opposable thumbs again.

I’d woken up one particularly dark and rainy day as an alicorn.

That hadn’t been pleasant.

Harmony rebelled against that change and I was stuck in the middle, in pure agony, for several hours before Celestia arrived and spelled me into a dreamless slumber.

Star Shine, as she’d taken to calling herself, eventually settled into a beautiful unicorn with celeste fur, grape and lavender mane, and turquoise eyes.

She’d held herself apart from me for a while and I had thought that she was just trying to cope with the change. After all, I wasn’t dealing with everything well either and she’d kept wearing the engagement ring that I had gotten her on a small gold chain around her neck.

I went through several weeks as a pegasus and, thinking I had finally settled, took the name Feather Stroke.

The next day, I woke up as a thestral, the proper name for bat-ponies.

/＼ ^._.^ ／\

The three of us, Star Shine, Luna, and myself were sitting on the Princess’s balcony one night, gazing up at the night sky, Star Shine telling Luna the story of some of the constellations we had on Earth. After one particularly funny story about me trying to impress her on one of our early dates, a small flash interrupted us.

Star Shine had gained her cutie mark.

Luna, after realizing, had pranced and skipped around us, giggling and laughing while I looked at my fiancée, smiling warmly.

Star took it in stride and, after looking at the constellation that now adorned her flanks for a moment, grabbed Luna with her magic and plopped the Princess down in her forelegs and blew a massive raspberry into her belly.

Luna had positively shrieked with laughter.

Later that night, after tucking the Princess into bed, I had kissed Star Shine on the cheek, whispering to her: “I’m so happy for you.”

She refused to meet my eyes, instead she turned and trotted into our bedroom and threw herself onto the bed.

The changes in Star’s behavior had started small. Every now and then she would refuse the invitation to have a meal with the Princesses and I. She’d spend more and more time in the archives, and any gesture of affection I would give her, nuzzles and the like, she wouldn’t return.

After several weeks, Star would make excuses as to why she couldn’t go to sleep when I did, insisting that she had something to do or check in on.

Even her visits to Princess Luna with me to read bedtime stories became less and less frequent and they were her idea to begin with.

More than once, I had awoken to her missing from our bed only to find her, asleep, on a couch near our rooms’ hearth.

After a few nights of this in a row, I confronted her about it.

I was expecting anger or embarrassment. I expected tears or frustration. I expected anything other than what I got: Apathy.

Cold indifference.

No apology.

No attempts at apologizing.

No platitudes that she’d stop doing whatever it is that she’s doing.

Nothing.

There was a new wall between us and I didn’t understand what happened. Any time I tried to talk to her, I got one, maybe two, word answers.

It got so bad that I went to Princess Celestia for her opinion as to what I should do but found little assistance from the elder diarch. It was my problem, she wouldn’t get involved, even in the abstract.

I read books on relationships, talked to other ponies, sought counsel from the few therapist ponies that I could find within the Palace’s hospital.

I tried flowers, taking her on dates, gifts, giving her more affection, and anything else that I could give. I looked back at my parent’s marriage and tried to emulate them. Did my best to not be lazy nor selfish, to make sure that I put my best hoof forward every morning and to greet my days with her with as much positivity as I could muster. I got better at communicating with everypony, and did my best to pick my words before I said them. I even tried to get her to go to therapy with me. I dropped the physical side of our relationship and worked solely on trying to repair our emotional connection.

Nothing worked.

Flowers went uneaten and wilted in vases, gifts unopened, dates lackluster and depressing, and affection went unreturned. The offer of therapy, for the both of us, only had Star Shine walk away from me with a huff. All my attempts to improve myself were ignored and my positivity met with unfeeling apathy.

I fought hoof, tooth, and wing to fix things.

Luna asked after Star Shine often and it broke my heart to have to lie to her.

I told her that Star Shine wasn’t feeling well or was working on a project for her sister.

I just couldn’t tell the Princess what was really happening.

/＼ ^._.^ ／\

Star Shine left Canterlot, and me, about eight months after our arrival to Equestria.

I woke up that day to her levitating a few trunks out of our rooms, dawn just barely speaking over the horizon.

“Are you really leaving?” I asked, feeling my world drop out from under me.

“Yes,” she replied, refusing to look at me.

“Where will you go?”

“Away.”

“Away?” I parroted back at her, climbing out of bed and approaching slowly and stopping a few feet away from her turned back. “Away from what? Canterlot? The Princesses?” Then, in a much smaller voice, “Me?”

“Everything.”

“Why?” I hated how small my voice was and the hitch that caught in my throat.

“Why? You have the gall to ask me that, of all questions! You took everything from me.” She rounded on me, her nostrils flaring and eyes blazing. I could still see the ring around her neck. “You took my choice, my home, my family, everything. Just so you could play with your fucking ponies. You never stopped to think. You never stopped to ask. You. Just. Did. Like everything in your miserable life, you just did.”

“I did ask, several time-”

“In front of Twilight!” She snarled, cutting me off, the magic holding her trucks snapping with an angry pop, dropping the luggage to the floor. “You put me in a lose-lose situation, I had no choice but to go along with your stupid plan.”

“You didn’t have to come.”

“Yes I damn-well did you fool. What do you think that the feds would have done with me?” Her words cut me as easily as if they were blades. “They would have wanted to know everything. What would I tell them? That a cartoon came to life and that’s why we kidnapped a child? I would have been locked up for the rest of my life.”

“You could have left me in Australia, we had more than enough supplies.” I tried to reason with her, I was desperate. “You could have taken the rest of the money and left.”

She growled at me, her lip twitching in a fierce snarl and her horn popping with barely restrained rage. Wordlessly she whirled around, snatched up her luggage, and marched out of our rooms.

“I love you.” I called after her, tears running down my cheeks.

My only answer was the door slamming shut.

“Please,” I whimpered, sobbing. “Please don’t leave.”

I told Luna that Star Shine just wanted to see the rest of Equus, to see if there was anything that she could really help with, and I didn’t know when she would be back.

Princess Luna didn’t believe me.

/＼ ^._.^ ／\

There was a plain brown box sitting on my desk, no address on it, just my name.

I reached for it, my hooves shook violently as I opened it.

There, with no padding, letter, or adornment, was the ring and necklace.

As I stared, shattered and unable to do anything, something shifted and the world broke.

Like panes of glass, everything around me fell away into nothingness, even the box and ring crumbled and vanished into the void, leaving me alone.

I could only hear my labored breathing, hitching and ragged as the memory of those days faded into a familiar dull ache in my heart.

Then, softly at first, growing louder and closer, came hoofsteps.

“You can’t keep doing this to yourself, Feather,” said Princess Luna, Guardian of Dreams, as she finally broke one of my nightmares. “You can’t.”

Author's Note

This chapter is dedicated to my friend and brother in all but blood: Josh.

Gone too early and dearly missed.

Chapter 4 - Misery Loves Company

The night air was crisp, the smell of fall slowly turning to winter ticked the back of my nose. Calm and clear skies, twinkling stars set in a sea of night, the moon, a lighthouse.

I took several deep breaths, letting the tension in my withers slowly ebb away.

A small smile wormed its way across my muzzle, it was Sunday, my last evening off for the week and I was giving it up for flying lessons. Again.

High Marshal Evening Song had taken it very personally when I told her that I didn’t know how to fly and had rearranged her entire schedule to teach me.

We’d had to call off yesterday’s lesson thanks to a wild rainstorm that had floated over the city and the High Marshal, along with the Praetorian General, was called in to help organize the weather ponies in clearing the skies. The operation had taken hours and more than one pegasus had been struck by lightning. Thankfully, no injuries, just some burnt feathers and damaged egos.

“Hi!” chirped a small voice from right behind me, breaking me out of my thoughts and almost startling me out of my skin.

“Um… Hello,” I said slowly, picking myself up off the ground after regathering my wits, and took a good long look at the foal that had snuck up on me.

He was a small thing, the tips of his ears would have just brushed the bottom of my barrel if I were standing over him. He was a deep magenta-like color with a charcoal mane and sky blue eyes, one bright, silver, fang protruded out over the right side of his mouth. He cocked his head at me, taking his own look at me.

We sat there, in silence, just staring at each other.

“Are you looking for somepony?” I asked after I couldn’t take our impromptu staring contest anymore.

“Nope.”

“Can I help you with something?”

“I dunno.”

I heaved a sigh and the colt giggled at me.

Being the adult that I am, I blew a raspberry at him.

“You’re funny,” he said as he scratched at his ear with his rear hoof.

“Am not.”

“Are too,” he replied, taking one of his wings in his mouth and nibbling at the ridge of one of the finger bones.

A thestral!

“Silver Fang,” called a voice from a little ways away. “What did I say about chewing on your wings?”

“Don’t ‘cause it's gross,” he grumbled, dropping the appendage from his mouth. “But it itches!”

“Feather Stroke,” Evening Song greeted, trotting up to the colt and I, pointedly ignoring his last comment. “I see you’ve met Silver Fang.”

“Yeeessss,” I said slowly, trying to figure out how she knew this colt. “Just now.”

“He’s funny,” giggled the now named Silver Fang as he rubbed himself against Evening Song’s legs.

“He is a silly pony isn’t he?” the mare chuckled, giving him a nuzzle of her own. “Now, go play for a few minutes while I talk with Feather Stroke.”

“Okay!” Silver Fang shouted, taking off in a gallop.

“Stay where I can see you!”

“Yes momma!” he called back, already neck deep in the palace garden’s flowers.

Momma?

“I didn’t know that you had a son, Song,” I said, grinning and trotting over to her before sitting back on my haunches, she watched her foal run around the gardens fondly, warming his flight muscles with every step. “Who’s the lucky stallion?”

Her smile fell off her muzzle, leaving only a sudden and deep melancholy; it was like I had blown out a candle.

“He’s not around anymore,” she replied, refusing to meet my eyes, her voice forlorn.

“Oh, ponyfeathers, Song, I-”

“Don’t worry about it Feather. It’s a long story.”

“Well, if you want to talk, my door is always open.”

“That’s rich,” She snorted. “Coming from you of all ponies.”

I winced.

The silence between us stretched awkwardly. I was about to open my mouth to apologize again, when:

“Momma momma,” Cried Silver Fang, rushing over to us at a full gallop. “Look what I caught!”

He had a small moth on his hoof.

“I see it, honey,” His mother cooed at him, giving him a small nuzzle. “Do you know what it is?”

“Yeah!” he chirped, careful not to send the bug fluttering away. “Itsa Biston betularia, the peppered moth!”

“Very good. Now, what do we say?”

“Frauen und Bier immer von unten!” He exclaimed, pushing his little chest out proudly.

My Germane might have been more than a little rusty, but I was one hundred percent sure that that was not what Evening Song meant.

“No, Silver Fang,” Evening Song sighed, one hoof rubbing her forehead. “Try again.”

“Dank sei der Nachtmutter?’ The colt asked, his ears drooping.

“Closer. That’s what we say when we’re eating. What do we say when we’ve caught something and somepony hasn’t?”

“Oh!” Silver Fang immediately perked up and turned to me, the hoof with the moth on it extended. “Willst du ein bisschen?”

“Uh,” I started, wrong-hooved. “No, Silver Fang, it’s all yours. Thank you.”

The colt didn’t hesitate in popping the moth into his mouth, crunching down happily.

Evening Song gave me an odd look.

“What?” I asked, turning to look at her with one brow raised.

“Nothing,” she said quickly, returning her gaze to her son. “I’ll tell you later.”

I didn’t press her. By the moon and the stars, there was no telling what cultural gaff I had just made.

We started out with drills that Silver Fang already knew and he complained, loudly, about having to do them with me at my pace. First, the three of us trotted out laps around the gardens, pumping our wings with every step. Then was galloping and flapping, following the same pattern. After that was more galloping, holding our wings out flat, parallel to the ground, and trying to generate lift. Silver Fang was successful with getting off the ground, I floundered like a winged hippo.

Finally, we "cooled down" by trotting up one of the Palace’s towers and glided down into the gardens. That was Silver Fang’s favorite part, he raced up the tower steps at least three times as many as I was able to drag my tired carcass up those stairs.

/＼ ^._.^ ／\

My wings still hurt a night later and I didn’t even get off the ground.

Luna was still giggling about it three hours later.

Night Court had begun quietly, two petitioners had approached the crown with minor concerns. One sought priority placement on the repairs list, an arch in their gardens had destroyed their west most conservatory, denied. The other wished for a royal appeal in their suit against another business. I took their request paperwork, made sure that it was filled out properly while Luna told him that his request would be looked into once she and her sister had reviewed all of the relevant court documents.

At the moment, it looked like evening would close without another petitioner.

Fine by me.

I wanted out of Court as soon as possible, I already knew that the next few days weren’t going to be fun, even with all of the time off that I had arranged with Hard Hat.

Luna was lounging on the throne, idly flipping through a paperback and chewing on another peach.

I had finished my lunch some time ago and was sitting stiffly next to the throne, doing my best to appear anything other than what I felt.

Our Day was coming.

My nightmares always got worse around this time of year, and despite what Luna liked to preach, I always thought that they helped, a righteous punishment for what I did.

Now though?

Luna was flexing her newfound ability to break through and stop them.

I loved her for that.

And I hated her for it too.

I found my thoughts taking dark turns more and more often and I couldn’t sleep. Memories of happier times were my constant companion: My dog Emma, Mom, even working at the hospital. I had a purpose back home, a productive life.

Here? In Equestria?

I was an over-glorified secretary to a Princess that had numerous other subjects, servants, and employees that could do what I did so much better than I.

Shifting on my cushion, I glanced at my reflection in the golden throne, my eyes lingering on my own, markless flanks.

I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at myself. Six years in and I still didn’t have a special talent, what kind of pony was I?

“Stop looking for one,” Luna remarked, breaking into my thoughts. “It will come when it comes.”

“How do you know what I was thinking?”

“Normally, body language. With you? I can just tell.”

“Am I that easy?”

“Yes.”

I opened my mouth to verbally jab back at her when the Sentinel at the entrance banged his spear on the marble floor.

“Announcing petitioner Full Harvest, and her foals Green Spring and Bubbling Brook.”

Luna and I sat up and watched the three ponies approach: A middle aged mare with a pale yellow coat and a forest green mane with a shockingly pumpkin orange streak. The foals were a nut brown earth pony filly with a lime green mane and a pegasus colt with cool blue coat and silver mane.

The three of them bowed deeply before the throne, the colt coughed loudly as he knelt down.

“Rise, please,” said Luna with a regal smile, her voice calm and comforting. “How may the crown assist you?”

“Your Highness,” Full Harvest began as she sat and gathered the colt into her forelegs, rocking him gently. “I know that you’re busy with keep-”

“Nay,” nickered Luna, interrupting the mare. “There is no task, no situation that would keep us from helping our ponies. Please, tell us what is wrong.”

“Timberwolves!” the little filly shouted, exploded really. “They attacked our farm!”

“Babbling Brook!” admonished her mother. “That is no way to speak to the Princess!”

“Yes-uh!” countered the little filly. “Daddy always says that you don’t get nowhere beatin’ aroun’ no bush.”

Luna and I sat, stunned, for a moment while the mother and daughter argued.

“Miss Harvest,” Luna interrupted, ignoring my chuckling and stepped off of the dais and closer to the three of them. “If you would please give Us the details of your farm, We will ensure your safety. The timberwolves have long forgotten their place.”

“We have just a small farm, your majesty,” Fully Harvest replied after a moment, she was obviously uncomfortable with the casual nature of Luna’s Court. “Just west of Manehattan, near the Hollow Shades forest.”

Luna and I inhaled, loudly, together.

Hollow Shades was ancestral home of some of the original thestral clans, many of them still kept estates within the dark wood. It was also where the Solar Praetorians and Lunar Sentinels regularly ran drills and war games.

“High Marshal!” cried Luna, whirling and beckoning to mare that appeared with her cry. “Lord Feather Stroke.”

I stood and approached the Princess and her petitioners, High Marshal Evening Song trotting over alongside me.

“My Princess,” I said as I came to a stop.

“You will gather all information relevant to this attack on our ponies and coordinate with the High Marshal on how best We will respond.”

“Yes, my Princess,” I agreed, bowing as the Princess turned and began to trot back to her throne, Evening Song saluted.

“Ma’am,” I said as I turned to Full Harvest and her foals, Luna began to make her way back to her throne, her anger and frustration clearly visible on her young face. “If you wou-”

“Wait!” shouted Bubbling Brook again, making my ears ring with the volume. “What about Artie?”

Who?

“Brook,” admonished her mother, giving her a sharp look.

“You said that I could ask!”

“Babbling Brook, the Princess has already heard us, we won’t bother her with that.”

“But you promised!”

“I did no such thing. Apologize to the Princess and these nice ponies. Now.”

I watched as the small filly deflated.

Luna turned back to the small family, a curious smile on her face.

“Nay,” She interrupted, stopping the apology before it could even leave the foal’s mouth. “There is no need to apologize.”

The Princess trotted back over to us, taking a seat close to the filly and gently drew Babbling Brook to her side with one wing.

“Tell us.”

Those two words, accompanied with the wing hug, broke the dam that had been failing to keep the small girl quiet.

“It’s Artie, Princess,” She started, tears gathering in her eyes. “He was hurt. We were out in the fields helpin’ daddy when they came. Hic Daddy yell’d for us tuh run. Me and Artie ran fast’r than we ever had b’fore. Artie tripped and one of the wolves got ‘im.”

Whatever was left of the filly’s control broke and she started crying in earnest, sobbing and wailing into Luna’s side.

“Paint Brush is fine, Lord Feather Stroke,” said Full Harvest after tapping my shoulder and getting my attention. “The doctor’s say that he’ll make a full recovery.”

“Artie?” I asked, nodding and giving the mare a small smile.

“Her name for her middle brother,” Full Harvest replied with a fond roll of her eyes. “Ever since he got his cutie mark, she’s been calling him ‘Artie’ and there’s nothing that her father nor I can do to stop her.”

Evening Song and I quickly gathered the name of her family’s farm, the address, and the names of any other families that had had problems with the nature spirits.

It broke my heart to hear that at least one whole family was no longer with us.

“Of course, my little pony,” Cooed Luna down to the no-longer-crying Babbling Brook. “We will make sure of it.”

“Thank you!” the filly giggled, throwing her forelegs around Luna.

The High Marshal and I shared another look.

“Ma’am,” Evening Song said, turning to look at the mare who was busy patting her young son on the back, the poor colt was in the middle of a coughing fit. “What hospital is ‘Artie’ at?”

“Manehattan General, why?”

“We take care of our own, Ma’am,” was the High Marshal’s only reply as she made note of the name on the report. I knew full well that, by the time that the moon set, all of "Artie's" bills would be paid and there would be at least two Lunar Sentinel honor guard stationed outside of the colt's room.

Harmony help those poor timberwolves, the Sentinels would have no mercy.

When Luna had finished chatting with Babbling Brook and Evening Song and I had started working on the Lunar Sentinels’ response to the timberwolf threat, the three petitioners made their leave, begging exhaustion as well as a long trip back home the following morning.

I took a quick glance at the clock hanging in a small alcove, out of site of any petitioning pony. It was almost three in the morning.

Perfect.

“My Princess,” I said, leaving Evening Song to her maps and muster reports for the Hallow Shades garrison.

“Lord Feather Stroke?” Luna replied, looking over a piece of parchment floating in her magic.

“I’m afraid that I will be taking my leave for the rest of the night, I will see you on the morrow.”

Her eyes searched mine for several moments before widening ever-so-slightly.

“Oh! Of course Lord Feather Stroke,” she said, dropping the parchment on the arm of her throne and flew over, landing next to me and pressing close. She then said, in a much quieter voice: “Is there anything that I can do for you?”

“No Lu,” I sighed back to her, giving her a small nuzzle. “I just need to be alone for a while.”

She didn’t reply, just looked up at me sadly and nodded.

I couldn’t help but wonder how much longer would I be taller than her? A year? Three? No matter, she was a growing princess, but, if I were being honest with myself, I would miss it. It wouldn’t be too much longer before she didn’t need me around anymore.

/＼ ^._.^ ／\

The next few nights passed in a blur of happy memories turned dark and a bleak emptiness filled my heart.

I still attended Night Court, Celestia expected me to be at Luna’s side at all times when she was available to her subjects. My nightly reports of the proceedings went to Silver Quill, on time, and in triplicate, as required.

But I did nothing else.

Windsor arranged to have meals brought to me rather than me having to go to the Palace’s dining rooms with the other members of the staff.

My butler is a saint among ponies. He never once chastised me for shutting myself in my rooms for those two days. Windsor forwent his normal assistants in keeping up appearance for Night Court, attending me by himself, he even left my mane alone.

I took long baths in scented water, slept, and repeated for two whole, dark days; the crackle of the fires in the hearth my only accompaniment.

On the third day, Windsor came into my rooms, announcing that I had a visitor.

“Tell them to go away,” I said, not lifting my head from my pillow, he had just woken me from another nap.

“They’re rather insistent on seeing you, sir.”

“I don’t want to see anypony.”

“I understand sir.”

I waited for the tell tale sound of his hooves on the obsidian floor to indicate that he had left, but no such sound came

“Are you going to go tell them?”

“Ah, no, sir.”

“And why not?” I said as I picked myself up from my nest of blankets and pillows.

“Because you’re being a horseapple, Feather,” stated High Marshal Evening Song as she trotted into my room and gave Windsor a shoulder bump.

“Evening Song,” I said slowly, giving the mare a deadpan look. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“I asked the Princess what was up. I wondered why my friend was acting like a zombie.” She snarked at me before hopping up and into my nest with a small flap of her wings. “Little did I know how much he was hurting.”

“I didn’t want ponies knowing.”

“Why?”

“There’s enough going on without me heaping my issues on top of it all, I can take care of myself.”

“That’s a load of horseapples, and you know it. What do you think friends are for?”

I ignored her and hopped out of bed trying to put space between us, she followed right on my heels.

“Hey! What the hay is your problem? I’m trying to help you!”

“I don’t need help.”

“Yes,” she snorted, walking around to look me in the eyes. I kept turning away from her, I didn't want to look at her. “You do.”

“I don’t want help.”

“Well, too bad, you’re going to get it.”

“Did Luna put you up to this?”

“No, I came as soon as she told me what day was yesterday.”

“Of course she told you,” I rolled my eyes. “Never could keep her mouth shut.”

“She told me that this is some ritual that you do every year, how I never noticed is beyond me. Every year you lock yourself up in your room, miserable and hating yourself, and you’re impossible for weeks after too.”

“I’m on duty three hundred-and-sixty-two days of the year, I just want a break. Is that too much to ask?”

“Of course it isn't, Feather," she murmured, putting a hoof on my shoulder. "Night Mother knows that the rest of the staff takes more time off than you do. Tartarus, Silver Quill takes four weeks every year. You take three days and even then, you only take three days off of your second job.”

“Then why are you here interrupting my time off?”

“Because you need somepony to buck some sense into your thick head.”

“And you volunteered?”

“That’s not what I meant and you know it.”

“Then why did you say it?”

“Why are you being such a jerk, Feather? This isn’t like you.”

“Then you don’t know me that well.”

“I think I know you better than you think I do.”

“What else did Luna tell you about me?”

“Hah,” she huffed. “Nothing actually. She and I know that you are an incredibly private pony. I learned everything that I know just from knowing you.”

“What do you know then, Song? What?”

“I know that you love Princess Luna,” she started, holding up a hoof to stop me when I opened my mouth to reply. “Don’t. Yes, all ponies love our Princesses, but not like you do, and I’m not talking romantically either, don’t try and get offended.”

I nickered at her wordlessly and turned my head away from her, glaring into the fire that Windsor was stoking into a roaring blaze.

“I know that you had a fiancée when you returned with Princess Luna, a fiancée that left several months later without any warning.”

I tensed, every muscle in my body as taught as iron. Song was treading on very delicate ice.

“I also know that you are an incredibly patient, giving, and understanding pony that puts up with so much garbage from Princess Celestia that I don’t know how you survive.”

I huffed, not saying anything.

“Look at me,” She grabbed my head with both of her hooves and made me meet her eyes. “Star Shine leaving wasn’t your fault.”

“Yes it was.”

“I didn’t know her all that well, I admit, but I did see how much you loved her. We all did. You bent yourself into knots trying to keep her.”

I pulled my head out of her hooves and turned bodily away from her.

“Please leave.”

“Whatever happened isn’t-”

“It is my fault!” I shouted, rounding on her, causing her to recoil, the emptiness in my heart filling with fire and rage. “And I deserve to feel miserable!”

“You don’t get it do you?” Bellowed Evening Song right back at me, she got inches from my face, hot with anger. “You aren’t the only one to have screwed up! You aren’t the only one to have lost a loved one thanks to something that you did!”

“How simple do you think that I am, High Marshal?” I snarled with a step back. “I know that I’m not the only one. But I am-”

Evening Song opened her mouth to cut me off but I barreled through her.

“I am the only one to have destroyed another pony's life by simply doing what I thought was the right thing. Thanks to me, Star Shine is stuck here. Forever. Thanks to me, she’ll never see her family again. Thanks to me, she’ll never see her friends again either. Not only did I throw away my life, I threw hers away too.”

“How do you think Princess Luna feels about what she did?” she roared, her wings flaring. “How do you think I think of Silver Fang?!”

I took a step back, ears flat against my head, my anger fleeing in light of her admittance.

I had no idea how to respond to that.

“My son,” She continued softly, looking down, her entire body wilting. “My only son. The one pony that I love more than any other pony. My little light in the night.”

She glared back up at me, a real fire in her eyes.

“You didn’t see the look on his father’s face when he was born. You didn’t see how my herdmates rejected him and me for having him. They knew that I was a Lunar Sentinel and that was bad enough. They didn’t trust the Princess, she’d been gone for a thousand years! We were trying to work through it, but after Silver Fang…”

She trailed off, our eyes still locked and I couldn’t look away.

“You don’t know do you?” she asked after a long moment.

“Know what?”

“How we see the Princess.”

“We?”

“We, us, thestrals.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

She sighed and shook her head.

“We love Princess Luna, Feather. Probably as much as you do. Almost as much as she loves you seeing as how you're her father and all. As an entire tribe, we love her. She saved us. Without the Princess there would be no thestrals around anymore, we would have been lost to the cold and the dark.”

“I’m not-”

“Let me finish.” She cut me off, again. “Back then, after the first Hearth's Warming and the windigos were banished to the Frozen North, the Three Tribes still had things to work out to truly get along. It was rough. Nopony agreed on anything. Except their fear and hatred of thestrals. And why wouldn’t they? We were organized and ruthless and they were not. It wasn’t until the sisters arrived and took control of the Three and taught them the magic of friendship that they had any chance against us. They hunted us. Hunted. Drove us out of our ancestral homes and into the light.”

“I can’t see Princess Celestia or Luna allowing that.”

“It was a different time, Feather. They were different too. Both Princesses were foaled and grew up in times of war.”

“Oh.”

“It wasn’t long before we were but a shell of our former selves, scavenging what little that we could, running from skirmishes, retreating and fleeing as the Three carved out their new kingdom out of what remained of ours.”

I sat, taking everything that Evening Song was telling me, shocked.

“The commander and chief of the United Pony Coalition pushed for our extermination. We were too dangerous to be left alone. Neither Princess would hear of it, they said that it would make them not better than the windigos. Celestia forbade such an attack, they were to leave us alone.”

“But wouldn’t that…?”

“Yes, we would have been prey to anything else out there. Celestia’s proclamation was taken literally rather than how it was meant. Instead of not attacking us, Equestria cut all ties with the few thestral families that managed to last as long as they did. Without the trade and assistance of the few towns that we had managed to find refuge in, we were excommunicated, an entire race of ponies written off as nothing more than a bad dream.”

Evening Song looked up and out the window, gazing intently at the moon shining through.

“Princess Luna heard our prayers and came to us. She fought for our place in Equestria, by her side. She gave us lands, helped us rebuild, gave us purpose, created her own, personal, guard made up entirely of thestrals to show everypony that we were not to be feared nor mistrusted. She loved us and we loved her.”

I watched as a shiver ran through the mar in front of me and I could see Windsor wince.

“Then Nightmare Moon happened.” Evening Son snarled. “We were her first targets. That monster could sense our ancestral memory of pride and exploited our old hurt as much as she exploited the fears and depression of Princess Luna. We were her puppets in the war against her sister, pawns and tools to be used to hurt and kill.”

“But Princess Celestia stopped her.”

“Aye, that she did. Banished our beloved Night Mother and imprisoned her in her moon for a thousand years. But the damage had been done. We weren’t her loyal subjects anymore, we were traitors to the crown, the fact that we had been controlled meant nothing. As one, the Lunar Sentinels resigned and hung up their barding. We retreated back into our caves and hollows to lick our wounds and recover.”

“What happened?” I asked gently, wanting to hear more.

“When the Princess returned at the Nightmare was vanquished for good by Twilight Sparkle, you mean?”

“Yes.”

“We threw the celebration to end all celebrations. Our Night Mother had returned.”

“But that’s not all, is it?”

“No, it’s not.” She said, deflating even further and sinking to her haunches. “We weren’t the same and neither was she. Gone was the confident ruler of the night skies. She was still as honest and loyal as she had been, but the laughter was gone. She was still our Night Mother and she always would be.”

She paused a moment, I could tell that she was picking her next words carefully.

“There are some of us that can’t see beyond the monster that was Nightmare Moon. Oh, they still love and revere the Princess, she is still our Princess.”

“I still don’t understand. I appreciate the history lesson, but I don’t see-”

“Did you know that a thestral always breeds true?”

“What?”

“No matter the mother or the father, if one of them is a thestral, the foal will always be a thestral.”

“What?”

“Nightmare Moon was not our progenitor like the legends say, but she did change us. She wanted more troops, more tools to subjugate. It’s like a curse. One so deep and intermingled with our magic that the Elements of Harmony weren’t able to break it. No pony knows how she did it. We are proud of what we are, make no mistake Feather, but that’s not something that’s easy to forgive. Some of us won’t.”

“I still don’t see what that has to do with anything.”

“I’m getting there. When I joined up with the Lunar Sentinels I was cast out of my clan. They stripped me of my possessions, my family, my friends, even my name. Evening Song isn’t the name that I was foaled with, I don’t even remember what my name was.”

“Jeeze, Song-”

“No. Don’t.”

I stopped the apology that was on the tip of my tongue.

“I don’t regret a single thing about my decision and I don’t want any apologies. Princess Luna herself gave me my name and I couldn’t be happier with it. I worked my flank off to get where I am today, and I don’t give a damn what any pony has to say about the Night Mother.”

She paused again and I didn’t know what to say.

“A few years into my service, I joined a small herd. A pegasus stallion and two unicorn mares. I was so happy, they loved me and I loved them. They already had four foals, a pair of twins and two older fillies. I was Mommy Song. And then I had to go and buck everything up by getting pregnant.”

I reached out and put a hoof on her shoulder.

“You don’t have to go on, I get it.”

“No,” she gasped, almost a sob, as she put one of her hooves over mine and gave me a grateful look. “I need to tell somepony.”

I gave her a small nod, letting her continue in her own time.

“I knew all about our curse or whatever you want to call it. They knew about it too, I told them as soon as I knew I was pregnant. Sure, they all said that it was wonderful to have another thestral in our herd. I believed them. When the day arrived, I was on desk duty and I gave birth to my son in the palace hospital, Luna was right there with me, holding my hoof and encouraging. His father didn’t arrive until hours later despite the Princess sending a runner as soon as I went into labor.”

She sniffed and rubbed her nose with one leg.

“He didn’t even look at Silver Fang, he barely made the effort to be in the room with us. Our other foals didn’t want to see him either. When I had to work, I couldn’t trust them to look after him. They gave him a bottle and left him in his crib, crying and wailing for hours, Feather, hours. Then, when he started teething, and nipped at his father’s hoof, I had to stop the stupid stallion from striking my little boy.”

I was dumbstruck. Sure, I may not have been the biggest fan of toddlers, especially when teeth started getting involved, but that didn’t mean that I could ever raise a hoof to one.

“I said things, shouted really, and left. Flew straight to the Princess, Silver Fang in my hooves and cried into her coat all night long. She took the two of us into her personal chambers for weeks, sent three of her personal guards to gather my things from their flat, and even babysat Silver Fang on multiple occasions, she even took him to Night Court. Strapped him right to her chest and everything.”

She broke down, sobbing, her wounds opened afresh.

I didn’t say anything, there was nothing that I could say that hadn’t been said. Just gathered her into my chest, forelegs and wings wrapping around her and let her cry.

Cry for the life that she’d lost with her herd. Her lost family. But, most of all, for Silver Fang.

No, her situation wasn’t the same as mine, nothing could be, I was an anomaly.

But that didn’t matter, not really.

What did matter was Evening Song. in that moment, she wasn't Evening Song, High Marshal of the Lunar Sentinels, she was just Evening Song, mother to a colt named Silver Fang. My friend.

And she was hurting.

“I’m not her father,” I said after a long while of holding and gently rocking her.

“What?”

“Luna, I’m not her father.”

“Yes you are.”

“What? No I’m not.”

“You still don’t see her like we do, do you? I’m not talking about thestrals either, I’m talking about everypony else.”

I shook my head, confused.

“We all see the Princess, co-ruler of Equestria. The Guardian of Dreams. The Night Mother. You don’t see any of that. You see her as that little filly you rescued six years ago, the foal you tucked into bed and read bedtime stories to.”

I opened my mouth to refute her statement, but found that I couldn’t, it was true.

“And the moon only knows how many times I’ve seen you carry the Princess back to her rooms after she fell asleep while the two of you were out on your field trips.”

“So? I’m not the only one that would have done that, she was just a little filly the last time we had one.”

“Maybe, but would any pony else have forbidden her ice cream when she was being a brat?”

“Not my word, but probably.”

“Okay, maybe, but would any other pony have gotten the kitchens to follow that ban?”

I winced, she was making too many good points.

“Okay, maybe I act like her father, but that doesn’t mean anything.”

She sighed, shook her head and leaned into me, still wrapped in my wings and forelegs.

We were quiet for a long time, just basking on the comfort that we offered each other. Two broken souls with enough baggage to fill the Canterlot Express.

“Did you really call Her Majesty, Princess Luna, a ‘brat’?” asked Windsor from his seat near the fireplace. I had forgotten that he was even there.

“Ehh,” I sighed, giving Evening Song another squeeze before letting go and stepping away from her. “She deserved it.”

Windsor rolled his eyes and Evening song giggled.

“I suppose you have some tragic backstory too, don’t you Windsor?” I asked my butler, giving him a wry grin.

“Don’t look at me,” he sniffed, pointing his nose to the sky. “I’m a bachelor.”

Chapter 5 - Paging Dr. Manner

Luna was far too chipper in the evenings, her mornings.

I had been up for several hours and had just gotten off my shift, Smooth Stone was still putting the finishing touches on one of the final replacement statues and it wouldn’t be done until the end of next week.

Thank goodness. Even with a small team of unicorns and the sculptor himself helping out, those statues were incredibly heavy.

The two of us made our way down to the communal dining room where most of the palace staff took their meals, Luna skipping and humming to herself by my side. She had insisted on eating with me before court and I didn’t have a good reason to tell her no.

The palace staff was more than used to Luna’s eating with me, most of them had even stopped bowing the moment that they saw her. We were greeted with friendly waves and smiles.

“Good evening, Master Stoke, Princess,” said Windsor, appearing at my side silently.

“How do you do that?” I gasped after my heart rate returned to something within the normal range. “You have hooves and the floor is marble!”

He didn’t reply, just gave me a patronizing smile.

“Good evening Windsor,” Luna chuckled. “I see you still enjoy terrorizing Feather here.”

“My father always said to relish life’s simple pleasures, your Highness,” my butler replied primly.

“Traitors, the both of you,” I grumbled.

The two of them laughed at my expense.

“If you don’t mind, Princess, I have already taken the liberty of arranging your breakfast.”

“Wonderful, thank you Windsor.”

My butler led us over to a small table with four chairs. A pristine white linen covered the surface and there were three places set with delicate and silver inlaid china. The princess took the seat closest, Windsor holding the chair out for her and pushing it in as she sat.

The moment that I took my seat to the right of the princess, two smartly dressed unicorns approached the table, each with a plate held aloft in their magic. For Luna, they provided a plate with a massive stack of pancakes, drenched in buttered maple syrup and honey, just as she liked them.

“Thank you,” I said as a relatively simple bowl was placed before me, filled to the brim with diced cantaloupe, my personal favorite.

“Are you going to join us?” Luna asked Windsor as he stood at my shoulder.

“Please,” I added.

My butler smiled at the two of us and took the seat across from me and quickly asked one of the waiting grooms to bring him a cup of tea, which was brought promptly.

He sipped at his drink as Luna and I dug into our meals, all three of us enjoying the comfortable quiet that descended between us.

In that moment, we didn’t need conversation, just our presence, with each other, was more than enough. The two of them knew that the past few days had been difficult, especially after Evening Song’s visit the other night.

Luna hadn’t asked what we discussed and I didn’t tell her, but I could tell that she knew that something had happened.

As much as I hated to admit it, I felt better after speaking with the High Marshal. She and I had talked for hours and hours, deep into the morning. It was like floodgates had been opened. I couldn’t stop talking.

And I told her everything.

There had been more crying, more yelling, she swore a lot, and I felt like I had been put through a blender. When I tried to obfuscate or avoid a subject, she made me confront it.

“Good evening, dear sister,” came a voice over our shoulders, breaking my train of thought and causing all conversation in the dining room to die around us as ponies took notice of our visitor. “Feather Stroke.”

“Your Highness,” I replied, standing and giving Princess Celesita a formal bow.

She gave me a small nod and sat herself across the small table from her sister, on my left.

“Can I get you something to eat, your Highness?” asked Windsor, getting up from his seat as well and looking decidedly uncomfortable.

I knew how he felt, I just hoped I was hiding it better.

“No, thank you my little pony,” replied the Solar Diarch, giving him a small smile. “I just wish to have a conversation with your master and my sister.”

I winced as I saw the scowl cross Luna’s face.

“Tia,” growled Luna, her turquoise eyes narrowed.

Princess Celestia ignored Luna, focusing her magenta eyes directly on me as I retook my seat.

“Feather Stroke,” she began after searching my face for a long moment. “How have you been? I know that this time of year is difficult for you.”

“About as well as can be expected,” I replied evenly as Luna audibly ground her teeth. I took a bite out of the diced cantaloupe still in my bowl.

“I see,” Celestia sighed. “I was wondering if you had heard from-”

“Tia!” exploded Luna, interrupting her sister with real anger in her voice. “Really? This is what you want to speak with Feather Stroke about? Now?”

“It’s okay Lu,” I sighed, putting a hoof on her withers. “For the record, no, Princess, I have not heard from Star Shine. Not since she left.”

“Ah,” Celestia replied, suddenly finding one of her golden shoes very interesting. “Thank you, but that wasn’t what I was going to ask.”

“Oh,” Luna and I said together, Luna looked more than a little sheepish.

“Really Luna,” Celestia scowled, giving her sister a dirty look. “I am not so heartless as to ask that.”

“Could have fooled me,” Luna snarked, her wings flaring.

“Who are you looking for, Princess?” I interrupted before tempers could rise any further.

I saw Luna roll her eyes at my use of her sister’s formal title.

“High Marshal Evening Song, Feather Stroke. From the reports that Silver Quill has passed to me, from the both of you, there are several members of the combined guard that have taken ill.”

“Song’s sick?”

“I’m afraid so,” confirmed Celestia with a nod. “The High Marshal has simply been the most recent and most prominent member in the chain of command. I was wondering if you had heard from her.”

I had seen the disclosures from the Lunar Sentinels and the Solar Praetorians, they were impossible to miss. At first, I hadn’t thought too much of the reports, given the current calamity, ponies, even the guard forces, were bound to fall ill.

“I didn’t know that she was sick. What about Silver Fang? Is he okay?”

“I do not know the whereabouts of her son at the moment, I hadn’t looked too deeply into the matter until I read today’s reports. I was hoping that, given your relationship with the High Marshal, you would know more.”

My what?

“Our relationship? Your Highness, we’re just friends. Colleagues, really. She’s teaching me how to fly, that’s all. I’m sure that there are several Lunar Sentinels that could claim to know her better than I do.”

“And not a single one of them knew that she had taken ill.”

“To be fair, I didn’t either,” I frowned, trying to remember the past few nights since Evening Song and Windsor had confronted me about my self-destructive behavior. Now that the Princess had mentioned it, Song hadn’t been looking well, paler and somewhat shaky on her hooves.

“I should have noticed that the High Marshal was under the weather,” grumbled Luna. She had crossed her forelegs over her chest and was pouting adorably.

“How many of the guard forces have reported as unable to fulfill their duties?” I asked both Princesses.

“At least forty-five percent of the Lunar Sentinels,” said Windsor, drawing all of our attention to him, effectively reminding the three of us that he was there. “And thirty percent of the Solar Praetorians.”

That was way too many and way too fast, even for a common cold or the flu to have taken root in a population of very healthy and fit ponies.

“Where did you see that information?” Celestia asked before I could say anything.

“It was in the daily roster reports that Master Feather Stroke receives from Silver Quill, your Highness.”

The two of them broke off and continued to discuss the roster reports, the princess asking more and more detailed questions and my butler answering with precision; my mind raced.

Could it be food poisoning? Something in the water?

Unlikely, but possible. There would be way more than just thirty and forty-five percent of the guard, not to mention the rest of the palace staff and the pampered nobles.

“Windsor,” I interrupted, cutting Princess Celestia off mid-sentence. “Sorry for interrupting, your Highness, but I need more information.” I turned to my butler, really looking at him for the first time in what felt like years. He was decidedly a paler shade of grey than his usual warm pewter, a little green around the gills too. “Who else has said anything about feeling unwell? Palace staff? Nobles? I need to know everything that you know.”

Windsor looked between the princess and I, she nodded at him, clearly studying our interaction.

“Several, Master Feather Stroke, several,” He started, then coughed into his napkin. “The absence notices aren’t as detailed as the ones from the guard, but the numbers are more than a little worrying.”

“When did this all start?”

“Earlier this week, Master Feather Stroke.”

“Day, please Windsor.”

“I believe it was Tuesday.”

He coughed again, and sniffled.

My eyes widened. Several things slid into place in my mind.

“What’s your temperature Windsor?”

“W-what?”

“Your temperature, what is it?”

He gave me a long and very tired look before sighing, barely stifling another cough.

“Just over one hundred and four degrees.”

“And what is the average body temperature for an adult unicorn stallion of your age?”

“One hundred-point-five.”

I wanted to swear. I wanted to rush everypony out of the room right that instant. Away from my butler.

Then I heard it.

There were other ponies in that room coughing, sniffling, and, now that I really looked, most of them looked terrible.

“Princesses Celestia and Luna,” I said evenly, not taking my eyes off of Windsor. “Please magic yourselves into a bubble or something. I would ask you to leave here right away, but I have a feeling that I’m going to need your help.”

For once, neither of them questioned me, blue and gold bubbles sprung into existence around Luna and Celestia’s respective heads.

“Windsor, my butler and friend,” I sighed, still pinning him to his seat with my eyes. “Why on Equus did you not say anything?”

“You had enough on your mind, sir, I didn’t want you to worry.”

Touché.

“Well, I’m worried now,” I insisted, putting my hoof on his withers. “Are any of the others sick? Orchid? Cherry? Swift?”

“No, sir!” he exclaimed. “I sent them away as soon as I felt unwell. Orchid’s herd is still expecting and I cou-”

“It’s fine Windsor, I understand. I would have done the same thing had I been paying attention.”

I sat back in my chair, still watching my butler as he blew his nose into a new napkin, his horn sparked.

“What are we going to do?” Luna asked, her voice oddly modulated by her magic bubble.

“Until we know whatever this is, I have no idea.” I turned to the Solar Princess. “Do you have any ideas, your Highness?”

“A few,” she replied, closing her eyes and sighing. “But I fully admit to not being the most medically knowledgeable pony, what little I did know is centuries out of date by now.”

I hummed to myself, trying to wrap my head around our situation.

“I think we can rule out food borne toxins,” I thought outloud. “Way more ponies would be ill, and they probably wouldn’t be unable to work for longer than a couple of days, at the most. Plus there’s the coughing and other respiratory symptoms to consider.”

Both Princesses nodded along with my reasoning.

I used my fork to spear another bite of melon before I looked at it and put it back on my plate and pushed the entire thing away from me.

Neither Princess made to touch anything on the table, not even with their magic.

“I think that the best course of action, until I can get back, would be to place the entire palace on lockdown. Send everypony to their rooms and have them stay there until further notice. If they don’t live in the palace, we should find them rooms to stay in.” I turned to the two Princesses, the both of them giving me incredulous looks. “The two of you especially.”

“I do not think that the situation is that bad, Feather Stroke,” Celesita said through a fierce scowl. “That would only send ponies into a panic.”

I sighed and had to stop myself from rubbing my eyes.

“I understand the reluctance, your Highness, I really do.” I paused and then continued. “Harmony only knows what this is.” I stood from my chair and looked away from them, turning to my butler. “Windsor, I need you to get to bed and rest.”

“What is it that you plan on doing?” Celestia asked, her scowl having morphed into a frown behind her bubble of golden magic as I started to walk away from them, Windsor at my side.

“I plan on going to the nearest hospital and finding out everything that I can, hopefully I’ll understand some of what they tell me.”

“That’s right, you are a medical professional.”

“I was, yes.”

“Did you not think to pursue that upon your arrival here?”

“No, Princess, I did not.”

“Why not? Surely it could be your special talent!”

“It was a job, Princess. Sure, I enjoyed it and helping children was always a joy, but it was just a job. A job that brought in good money. Kept us well fed, put a roof over our heads, and paid the bills. That was all.”

Her frown deepened.

“I don’t understand you, Feather Stroke.” She said after a while. “Even Star Shine got her cutie mark, shortly after your arrival, if I recall correctly. A constellation, right?”

“Yes, that particular one was special to her back home.” I answered, a familiar dead weight settling in my heart. “She was always so obsessed with astronomy, it was her passion.”

“Surely you must have something similar?”

“Is now really the best time, sister?” Luna interjected.

“I’m just trying to understand your regent Lulu, he confuses me. I want to know him better. It's very hard to do that without knowing what he’s good at.”

I sighed and waved for Windsor to continue on without me with one wing. The two of them were going to start arguing, again.

“You want to know what I’m good at, Princess?” I asked, not looking at either of them.

She turned to me from her sister and I could see her nod from the corner of my eye.

“I’d like to know as well,” I admitted, restarting my trot away from the diarchs. “If you find out, be sure to tell me.”

I didn’t hear either of them say anything more as I headed towards the nearest Palace exit.

/＼ ^._.^ ／\

The Royal Canterlot Medical and Trauma Center was in total pandemonium by the time I arrived. Outside of each entry way, there were at least four or five Canterlot Regulars, the general police force, preventing ponies from entering the hospital.

No pony stopped me, they even saluted.

Within the main foyer, I was given a scan, had my temperature taken, and had a protective bubble placed around my head.

I had barely placed a hoof past the secondary checkpoint when I was accosted by a very harried looking doctor.

“Finally!” he cried, rushing over to me, several nurses following him. “You’re here!”

I gave him a questioning look as he and his entourage began herding me away from the checkpoint.

“Lord Feather Stroke,” he began once we had secluded ourselves in a conference room. The nurses with him casting what I assumed were cleansing spells all over us and the room at large, when they finished, the protective bubbles were dispelled. “We have been sending message after message to the palace, trying to get someone out here to make a proclamation.”

All of them looked at me with hopeful eyes.

“Wait, wait, what?” I asked, confused.

“We have been overrun by sick ponies, my lord,” continued the Doctor, he had bags upon bags under his eyes. “We’ve run out of room, we’re sending sick ponies away.”

I stared at him.

“What!?”

It was their turn to look confused and I continued:

“No messages have made it to the Night Court, Doctor…?”

“Bedside Manner,” he clarified. “We’ve been sending messages to the Palace for days now, since Tuesday.”

“It's been bad since Tuesday?” I queried, shock and worry writ large upon my face.

That shouldn’t have been possible. There was no way that an illness could have spread that fast and been that serious for them to have run out of beds on the very same day that we’d had our first reports.

“Yes!” one of the nurses cried.

The doctor gave him a severe look before turning back to me.

“As nurse Healing Hoof just said, yes,” he said tiredly. “Though it started small, just a couple of sniffles and minor burns, it turned into a frenzy in our emergency department. When I arrived for my shift, we already had thirty-three cases, all of them in isolation rooms. All of them with frighteningly similar symptoms.

He then started rattling off a laundry list of, very basic, descriptors and even explained several things to me. Some of the terminology was different than what I was used to, but I understood it.

“Doc,” I said, interrupting him as he started in on explaining the varying temperatures in each tribe. “I was a nurse before coming here, give it to me straight. What is going on?”

“Feather Flu, or, more accurately Sub-Arcanic Disharmony,” he replied as he readjusted the stethoscope around his neck.

“When you say ‘sub’,” I stared, the familiar feeling of professional detachment settling over me as my years old training came crawling back. “Do you mean ‘less-than-normal’ or ‘below the usual’ amount?”

“A little of both actually.” If he was surprised by my question, he didn’t show it.

“Can you elaborate please?”

“Sub-Arcanic Disharmony usually, as ‘disharmony’ in the name implies, affects the base level harmonies in all ponies. It hinders their connection to their internal magics by pulling them out of sync with Harmony.”

“So we just need a big enough tuning fork, right?”

The doctor and the nurses give me deadpan stares.

Nice to see that my bedside manner hasn’t improved.

“It’s a magical disease,” I said, moving on from my gaff. “As in something that can be dispelled?”

“Oh, no, not at all Lord Feather Stroke, Sub-Arcanic Disharmony is just the name for the condition that the Streptococcus Equi bacteria causes.”

I knew what Streptococcus meant back home, it was part of our natural fauna and it could cause some very nasty infections.

“O-o-okay, then it’s just a round of antibiotics then?”

“Normally, yes, it would be a simple matter of sending the High Marshal home with specific instructions on limiting her interactions with other ponies, to come back if her fever ever went over one hundred and seven degrees, and a few prescriptions.”

“You just said ‘normally,’” I interrupted, not liking where my thoughts went. “What does that mean in this context?”

“I was getting there, please, Lord Feather Stroke, let me finish.”

“Sorry.”

“As I was saying, the High Marshal is in excellent physical and thaumaturgical condition, SAD should not be able to keep her off her hooves for long.”

“That is an incredibly unfortunate acronym, I can see why ponies call it ‘feather flu’,” I chucked with a shake of my head.

“Indeed. Now, there is that complication that takes this illness out of the ‘normal’.”

“I don’t like the sound of that.” I said through a wince.

“To be frank with you, my Lord, we don’t either, but the High Marshal insisted that we give you as much information as possible.”

“She’s here!?” I all but shouted. It hadn’t been my plan to find her at the moment, it was only second to getting this information back to the Palace.

“I thought that you knew, we assumed that since you were here, instead of somepony else, that you knew.”

“I didn’t know, Doc, if I had known, I would have been here much much sooner.”

One of the nurses behind the doctor rolled her eyes and muttered something about thestrals. She was silenced by the two nearest her giving her extremely dirty looks.

“She insisted?” I asked, ignoring the nurse and returning my full focus to the doctor.

He gave me a look.

“Did you not have laws governing the privacy of patients where you came from? Even a direct order from either of the Princess’s own hooves would not have been enough to circumvent those laws.”

“Oh, yes.” I apologized. “I’m sorry, I totally forgot my place here. I’m not family, just a friend, I get it. Thank you for being forthwrite with me.”

He nodded, taking a clipboard from a waiting nurse.

“You are not ‘just a friend’ in this case, my Lord, but I digress. The High Marshal requested that we run as many tests as possible on her when her son brought her in after a fall and instructed us to give as much information to the Royal Representative as we could when they arrived. Hence, we are telling you.”

Both he and I knew that I wasn’t the literal royal representative that the hospital was waiting for but neither of us commented on that. I was as good as they were going to get at the moment, probably better than they expected actually.

“Streptococcus Equi is a natural bacteria and SAD is a common enough condition,” the doctor explained. “Generally seen in foals under ten years of age.”

“I’m following you,” I stated when he looked up over the clipboard at me.

“In the case of the High Marshal,” He continued, lowering a pair of glasses over his muzzle and flipping through a few pages. “Streptococcus Equi is only part of the problem.”

“Let me guess,” I drawled as I rubbed the bridge of my snout with a hoof. “All of the chaos rifts have mutated this thing into some superbug, right?”

“Correct.”

I took a step back, shocked.

“Really? I was being sarcastic.”

“Sarcasm or not, you are correct.” The doctor then sighed and floated the clipboard over to me. There were charts and thaumaturgical equations all over it. “This particular strain of the bacteria has, and I hate to use this word, harmonized with the extreme amounts of discordic magic bathing Equestria and, probably, all of Equus right now.”

I sat back on my haunches and rubbed both of my eyes with my hooves.

“By Luna’s left legs, this is not my day.” I swore under my breath.

“To further elaborate, the High Marshal is, without a doubt, suffering from Sub-Arcanic Disharmony.” He pressed on having either not heard my mutterings or doing me the courtesy of ignoring them. “She is also suffering a mild case of flightlessness and bilateral subcutaneous plumage generation of the patagium between her second and fourth autopod.”

I held up a hoof to stop him, my brow furrowed.

“You mean to tell me that she’s growing feathers?”

“That is what I said, yes.”

“She’s a thestral, doc.”

“Sub-Arcanic Disharmony does strange things to everypony. Earth ponies become delirious and weak, pegasi lose their weather control magics as well as severe rachisitis. With unicorns, like myself, well, you learn to duck.”

“Huh?”

“We unicorns lose basic, primary control of our expressed magical traits.”

“So, things tend to explode?”

“Not unheard of.”

“Wonderful.”

We were silent a few moments while I flipped through the doctor’s notes on Evening Song.

“I have two questions for you, Doctor Manner, if you have a few more moments to spare.”

He nodded.

“How contagious are we talking here? As in a common cold or a full blown pandemic?”

“We don’t know, but I’m going to have to lean toward the latter. Every single one of our main isolation rooms are filled by ponies with similar symptoms as the High Marshal and I suspect that that number is going to continue to rise before it ever goes down. We’re scrambling, every single unicorn on staff, from the surgeons down to the janitors are being taught isolation and cleansing spells. We even have beds lining the halls.”

“Make it three questions, prognosis?”

“Most ponies will be fine after a week or two of being miserable. Even with the discordic element altering the biomechanics of the bacteria.”

“You said ‘most’ again.”

“Sad to say that not everypony will be able to fight this off.” He paused and his eyes widened and he looked panicked. “That’s not to say that we won’t do everything in our power to help them, nonononon-”

I stopped him with a raised hoof.

“Doctor Bedside Manner,” I said firmly. “If there was any doubt in your and your colleagues skill and dedication to the ponies under your charge, I would be arranging to have had Evening Song moved into the Palace’s infirmary at this very moment. As you can plainly see, I am not doing that, nor do I plan to.”

He and the nurses looked relieved.

“Last question, I promise, you said that Evening Song was brought in by her son, where is he?”

“In the bed next to her,” he replied sadly.

Detachment fled, burning away as worry and anxiety took its place.

“What?”

/＼ ^._.^ ／\

Nopony would let me into Evening Song and Silver Fang’s room and, as much as I wanted to be angry with the nurses and doctors that barred my way, I couldn’t blame them. Even with the protective bubble back around my head and the ward over the door, there was too much risk of my catching SAD.

So, I parked my butt outside of their room and requested that they bring me every bit of information that they could.

From their combined notes as well as the interviews that I conducted from my bench, this current infection of SAD had gone from zero to sixty in the span of a few hours.

If I had been back home, I would have insisted that I was staring in one of those bad medical dramas that I loved to watch.

But I wasn’t back home.

And this was frighteningly real.

I was broken out of my thoughts as a clanging bell rang from down the hall and at least a dozen ponies galloped at full tilt towards it. There was shouting and the familiar sound of spells being fired off one after the other.

I had to stop myself from getting up and investigating.

If it were anything like our ‘Doctor Strongarm’ procedures, the Regulars would be here any second.

There was a knock at the door behind me and, when I looked, I saw Evening Song’s face looking at me worriedly from behind the inset window. Her eyes were bloodshot and her normally glorious amethyst coat had dulled to a grey-lavender. I could see the top of Silver Fang’s head from his perch atop her head, he was sleeping fitfully and, though I couldn't hear it, I could see his shoulders and withers shudder as he coughed.

I put my hoof on the glass, right over hers and gave her an encouraging smile.

“It’s gonna be okay,” I mouthed at her.

She gave me a small smile in return then coughed, almost hard enough to dislodge her son.

I gestured with my head, nickering, my wings inadvertently flaring at my sides. I wanted her to get back in bed and rest.

Evening Song didn’t have anything to worry about as long as I was there.

The mare put her hoof back on the unseen ground and heaved a massive sigh. She turned and, before trotting back to her bed, she looked over her shoulder and mouthed at me:

“Thank you.”

I stood there for another several moments, just watching them.

Evening Song gently pulled her son off of her head and placed him on her bed. I noticed that his wings were covered by something that looked like over-sized oven mitts, they were a sky blue and had little sunflowers on them, no doubt there to stop him from chewing on his itchy appendages.

Once situated, Evening Song gave me another warm smile before hopping onto the bed herself and curled around her son, draping her own covered wing over his sleeping form.

I don’t know how long I stood there, watching the two of them, hating the fact that I couldn’t be in there, with them, more than anything.

“My Lord?” came a voice from behind me. I turned and Doctor Bedside Manner was there, by himself, and looking more exhausted then he had a few hours ago when I interviewed him. He had rushed off to continue his work after greeting me upon my arrival and had only had time for a very quick secondary meeting.

“How can I help you, doctor?” I asked, backing away from the door and turning to face him.

He didn’t reply, just floated a black folder over to me.

I recoiled away from it.

“No,” I gasped. “How?”

“They were older,” he sighed gently and led me back over to my bench. “Earth Pony, eighty seven years old, retired baker. They were already here after they took a bad fall in their home.”

I sat down heavily, my breath gusting out of me. Doctor Manner sat beside me, one hoof rubbing my back.

“How many?” I croaked.

“They make four,” he replied, his voice soft.

The number echoed in my mind. Four ponies that would never see their families again. Never see the moonlight again. The sunshine.

Gone.

“How?”

The doctor sighed and leaned back, resting his back on the padded seat.

“It was just too much all at the same time. We did everything we could do. From emergency injections to manual respiration and arcano-cardiac massage.”

Unable to reply, I watched as the doctor added the black folder to the ever-growing stack on the table next to me.

He turned to look at me with a serious look on his face.

“My Lord,” he began, his eyes roaming over my tired form. “How long have you been here?”

“Since you first saw me and gave me the rundown.”

His eyes widened.

“Have you slept since then?”

“When would I do that?” I snorted with a shake of my head. “And where?”

“My Lord, it’s been two days!”

“No,” I said with a wave of my hoof. “There’s no way. It’s been half a day at most.”

“What day do you think that it is?”

“Saturday.”

“Try Monday, or at least it’s Monday now.”

I opened my mouth to reply and he shoved a newspaper in my face.

The date on the cover of the Nightly Dispatch, sure enough, read Monday.

I stared at the paper in shock.

“Respectfully, my Lord,” started the Doctor in a grave voice. “I’m ordering you out of his hospital and back to the Palace. You need to look after your own health. It is a wonder that you haven’t gotten sick as it is and I will not allow you to do so while under this roof.”

I wanted to argue, to say that I couldn’t leave Evening Song and Silver Fang here, alone.

He silenced me with a fierce look.

“I understand that you want to be here for the High Marshal and her son, but you have to look after yourself as well. Neither of them would want you to join them.”

That didn’t mean that I didn’t want to join them.

“And no, you won’t want to join them either, my Lord,” he continued, reading my mind. “Misery does not love company.”

“Is everypony a mind reader around here?” I asked with a tired chuckle. “First it was my butler, then the princess, and now you.”

“I see it all the time,” The doctor replied, helping me gather the stack of folders and reports and used his magic to tie it all together before placing it on my back. “Especially when it involves special someponies.”

I sorted and shook my head. First Princess Celestia and now him.

“I’ll be expecting updates on their condition, doc.”

“And I’ll have them sent.”

“Directly to the desk of Princess Luna this time, I don’t want the messages to go to the wrong pony again.”

“Of course, my Lord.”

/＼ ^._.^ ／\

If I thought that the Royal Canterlot Medical and Trauma Center had been chaotic when I arrived, nothing had prepared me for the insanity that gripped the Palace upon my return.

Four different guard unicorns ran cleansing spells over my coat and threw overlapping bubble spells around my head. They, immediately, marched me into the palace proper and hurried me into the Throne Room.

There, my ever loyal butler, Windsor was waiting for me.

He looked terrible.

His normally pressed and starched shirt and jacket were missing and he was holding what looked like a back of ice against his forehead.

“Where have you been?!” he cried as soon as he laid eyes on me. Even his voice wasn’t his own, a raspy and hollow shell of the tenor I had known.

“At the hospital,” I replied as I hurried over to him.

He stopped me before I got too close.

“We sent runners all over the city, we thought that something had happened to you.”

“What’s going on?” I asked before he could work himself up even more.

“It's the Princesses,” came a voice from my left, his right.

We turned and Princess Celestia’s assistant, Silver Quill, limped over to us and blew her nose into a handkerchief. Her mane, normally tied back in a neat bun, was loose and frazzled. Her bloodshot eyes looked at me from a sallow face.

There was a rumble from off in the distance, the entire palace shuddered and one of the last remaining stained glass windows shattered.

Outside, through the broken panes of glass and frame, the sun and the moon hung in the sky. Together.

“They’re sick.”

Chapter 6 - Unwanted Promotion

“You have got to be kidding me.”

Both Silver Quill and Windsor were still standing a little ways from me in the Throne Room. My butler held a handkerchief in front of his muzzle with one hoof, his magic still holding the ice pack to the base of his horn.

“No, my Lord Regent,” croaked Silver Quill, using a formal title that I’d never heard from her before.

Sitting on the ground, between them and I, are my torc and sash.

I turned pleading eyes to my butler, but he was already shaking his head.

“It's true, Master Stroke, sir,” he coughed. “I thought that you knew.”

“Of course I didn’t know,” I shot back, taking another step away from the two items and the two of them. “How would I have known?”

“Have you ever seen me sit at Princess Celestia’s side as you do?” asked Silver Quill incredulously.

“No,” I admitted. “But she did threaten-”

“Because of your elevated position!” she shouted before lapsing into another coughing fit. I took several more steps back, quadruple layered protection spells or not, I was taking no chances.

I was just able to keep myself from bolting.

Windsor helped the still coughing mare to the floor, rubbing her back, before turning his face back to me.

Whatever he was going to say was interrupted by the arrival of several Solar Praetorian stallions. At the head of their number was the Praetorian General, Morning Glory. Behind them, a small continent of Lunar Sentinels.

Morning Glory approached, removed her violet helm, and bowed to me as she shook her cropped mane loose of the magical tie that held it in place.

“Your orders, my Lord?”

“Not you too,” I groaned.

The new arrival cocked her head to one side and looked to Windsor and Silver Quill.

“Apparently,” croaked my butler. “Nopony told Master Stroke his actual position.”

The Praetorian General turned back to look at me, a serious look in her cold and sharp emerald eyes. She was a powerfully built mare with a cerulean mane and sculpted muscles coiled under her cream coat. She, like me, had a multi-layer bubble around her head.

The two of us would not ever be considered friends, but we were, at least, cordial to one another.

“Lord Regent,” she started, her voice hard and commanding. “The Solar Praetorians and Lunar Sentinels await your word.”

Regent.

There was that word again.

Not just Regent either, I was Regent of the Moon, sole representative of Her Shimmering Royal Majesty, Princess Luna, Lady of the Night and Guardian of Dreams, The Night Mother. The Lunar Herald and Adjudicator Primus.

When I still didn’t reply, Morning Glory snorted derisively and grabbed up my torc in her azure magic.

For a moment, I thought that she was going to slip it over her own head and take responsibility for herself.

No such luck.

She, unceremoniously, looped it over my muzzle and dropped the heavy silver metal collar around my neck, the Lunar crest jangling loudly.

“You are Princess Luna’s Regent, Lord Stroke,” the Praetorian General snarled. “Mare up and act like it.”

I turned and looked at all the ponies gathered in the Throne Room, taking the time to look each and every one of them in the eye, watching their reactions, their postures, everything.

As a whole, they were scared.

Of course, many were fighting the effects of the illness, I could see suppression rings around several horns, coverings over thestral and pegasi wings, and still others with uncomfortable looking urticaria.

Princess Celestia had been gone for months before her return and Chaos had almost broken Equestria.

I would not let that happen again.

“Evacuate the Palace,” I ordered after clearing my throat. “Every pony, other than myself and the Princesses, is to be out of the castle by nigh- nine this evening.”

I had almost said ‘nightfall’.

“From there, the entire city of Canterlot is to be quarantined, no pony in, no pony out.”

I turned to Morning Glory.

“Praetorian General, send your fastest fliers with messages to every city within Equestria, and our allies, apologizing for the unusual patterns of the Sun and Moon for the next few weeks. Further apologize to our allies for the temporary cessation of trade, we do not want to run the risk of spreading this further than it has to go.”

“Sir-”

“These fliers are then to gather reports from mayors and governors on the local health of every city that they go to. Should they encounter any indication of illness similar to what we face here, they are to fully quarantine the city. Should we be so lucky as to find the illness localized to Canterlot and our surroundings, they should impose regulations so as to control the spread of SAD.”

The Praetorian General looked decidedly uncomfortable.

“From there, I want you and your guard to open the food stores and make sure that everypony within the city has food and clean water. Medications and help will be provided to everypony in need.”

I paused, trying to remember my old pandemic training and several similar situations in the fiction books that I had read.

“What about you, Lord Regent?” Silver Quill wheezed.

I turned to her, cocking my head to one side.

“What about me?”

“Why are you staying?”

“My medical training might be old and for an entirely different species,” I sighed. “But I do know enough to get the Princesses through this.”

Morning Glory opened her mouth to say something, I cut her off.

“I do not want power, Praetorian General. I don’t want to be in charge at all. Trust me when I say this: Once Princess Luna is no longer ill, I will be having words with her about this position that I find myself in.”

She snorted and shook her head.

“Not what I was going to ask,” the armored mare nickered at me. “Nor do I think that is what Silver Quill meant either.”

“It wasn’t,” confirmed the other mare.

“Then ask the right question,” I scowled.

“Fine,” my butler cut in with a roll of his eyes. “Why are you the only pony staying?”

“I don’t follow.”

“You are Regent, Lord Stroke,” Morning Glory said, as though it explained everything.

It probably did, but I still didn’t understand.

“You are, in all intents and purposes,” she continued, sneering. “The Ruler of Equestria, you cannot be left here alone, defenseless.”

Oh.

“At the moment,” I said after a long moment. “I don’t think that that matters.”

“Explain.”

It wasn’t a question.

I opened my mouth and was promptly cut off.

“Actually, don’t.” Morning Glory scowled, stamping her right hoof. “You’re just going to spout off some horseapples that I don’t care about.” She then added after a moment. “Lord Regent.”

My teeth clicked together audibly as I snapped my mouth shut.

“You don’t get to make this decision,” she continued, marching up and inspecting several members of both guard forces that had attended her. “You, you, and you,” She pointed at three healthy pegasi, “Stay here and await the Lord Regent’s message to our allies and cities. The rest of you are with me.”

She then rounded on me.

“In matters of the Princess’s safety, and yours for that matter, you don’t get to make the decisions, I do.”

“The risk of infection for untrained ponies is too high!” I countered.

“Then I’ll find you field medics to stay as well.”

I snarled wordlessly at her and flared my wings. For her part, she growled back at me and got as in my face as the magical bubbles around our heads would allow.

We stayed like that, posturing for a position of dominance, for several long minutes, our anger and frustration with each other plain for everypony to see.

Then, Windsor coughed.

Suddenly, the two of us were very aware of our audience and we backed away from each other.

“Praetorian General,” I ground out through clenched teeth, letting my wings fold themselves back against my barrel.. “A word. Everypony else,” I paused and looked around, breaking eye contact with the mare in front of me. “Get out. Now.”

Many of the guard didn’t move, but one look from Morning Glory got them trooping out in good order. Windsor and Silver Quill needed assistance in leaving, two of the Lunar Sentinels scooped them both up on their backs and marched them out.

“Lord Stroke?” She Solar mare said bemusedly, giving me a cocky grin, her anger seemingly forgotten.

“Drop the horseapples Glory,” I ground out through still clenched teeth. “You don’t buy this ‘Regent’ business anymore than I do.”

“You’re wrong.”

“What?” I asked, wrong-hooved.

“I do ‘buy it’ as you said, I don’t like it, have no fear of that, but I do ‘buy it.’” She shook her head and gave me the most real expression that I’d ever seen on her face.

She wasn’t being formal, she wasn’t being derisive, and she wasn’t filtering.

Morning Glory, The Praetorian General, was just as terrified as the others had been.

“You are, without a doubt, the most un-pony pony that I’ve ever met,” she continued, ignoring the way that I was studying her face. “You’re formal when others are informal and vice versa. You don’t socialize, you don’t sing, you don’t fly despite having wings,” she held up a hoof to stop me interrupting her. “I know you’re working on that last one, but it took you six years to get there. You’re also closer to Her Majesty, Princess Luna, than any pony, other than her sister, ever in written history. She looks up to and trusts you with everything that she has.”

She dropped her hoof and leveled an intense glare right into my eyes.

“In short, you are a threat.”

I recoiled from the accusation.

“But,” she continued, her expression softening. “Despite literally having all of the power of a High Noble of Canterlot with none of the responsibilities, you don’t do anything with it. In fact, you seek out extra menial and, frankly, exhausting work. You haul and push and work yourself to the point of dropping dead, and then, on top of that, you take a bath and stay up the entire night performing the duties as secretary rather than assigning somepony else.”

She shook her head.

“You know, at first, I was with her Royal Highness, Princess Celestia, in not trusting you. You had my Praetorians following you everywhere you went, just waiting for you to set one hoof out of line. Did you know that?”

I hadn’t, but given how shut off I had been, I wasn’t surprised.

“Do you know what we found?” Morning Glory hadn’t stopped, it was like a dam had finally burst within her breast and all of this was finally coming out. “We didn’t find a single thing. Nothing. Eventually, I had to refuse the order of the Princess to continue the vigil. It was a waste of time and resources that could be put to better use.” She chuckled under her breath. “Almost lost my job because of that.”

She looked back up at me.

“But it was worth it,” She actually smiled at me. “You are a good pony. As much as you don’t act like it, you are.”

“I don’t know what to say to that,” I replied awkwardly, looking down and poking at the scarlet and gold runner on the floor.

“You wouldn’t,” she snorted. “Most stallions would have fallen over themselves if a mare told them all that.”

I took a step back, unsure of how to process that statement.

“Oh, come off it,” She laughed. “I have a very nice herd to go home to, I’m not about to try to add a stallion into the mix.”

With a nervous chuckle of my own, I rubbed the back of my neck.

“Now,” she continued, the mirth fading from her face and voice. “I believe you wanted a word, Lord Regent.”

She was right, I did, but, for the life of me, I couldn’t remember what it was.

“You forgot, didn’t you?” she asked after several long minutes of silence.

“It had something to do with your insistence on putting guards on me,” I admitted, rubbing my chin with the back of one wing. “But I don’t remember the specifics.”

“You have a few hours before we seal the palace,” she said as she turned and started to trot towards the doors that her Solar Praetorians had walked out of. “I’m sure that you’ll remember between then and now, just send a runner.”

“Thank you,” I called after her, before she could leave the Throne Room.

“For what?”

“For trusting me. For everything you said.”

She gave me a small smile and a nod before leaving.

/＼ ^._.^ ／\

I could hear the sound of hooves on the marble floor in the Throne Room from my hiding place in the antechamber.

In the time since my return to The Palace, Morning Glory and I had talked, argued and fought over almost every single detail regarding the quarantining of Canterlot and, potentially, every city from here all the way to The Frozen North.

The Praetorian General gathered several members of both guard forces into the Throne Room for a formal charging of duty. I was told that it was tradition that the Princess, or, in my case, Regent, would give a small speech to new guards before taking their oaths to protect Equestria.

This wasn’t the same thing, but I was still expected to say a few words.

My reflection stared back at me from the large, gold-framed mirror set into one wall.

Like usual, the pony in the mirror was tired, worn-out, and slumped. His coat was a dull burgundy and his coal-black mane was in shambles. The only thing that looked like it was in order was the torc hung around his neck and the midnight blue and black sash draped around his barrel.

I shifted my bat-like wings and sighed, there really was no use in putting it off any longer.

Turning and approaching the door, I squared my shoulders and held my head high. As I entered the Throne Room proper, magical isolation bubbles snapped into place over my head; I nodded my thanks to the casters.

“Atten-shun!” bellowed the mare nearest the door I had walked through, her voice echoing throughout the entire chamber.

In perfect unison, one hundred armored and armed ponies came to attention and saluted.

My hooves clicked against the marble steps as I climbed the dais and turned to look out over the sea of Sentinels and Praetorians. To the head of the Lunar Sentinels were Evening Song’s twelve secondary commanders, the Custodi Mare, wardens of the Lunar Seas. Their opposite stood in formation around Praetorian General Morning Glory, Celestia’s personal Coronal Aegis.

“As you were,” my voice rang out in the silent room.

In less than perfect unison, they relaxed into parade rest. There was the shuffling of wings, the stamping of hooves, and more than a little coughing and sneezing.

Unable to help myself, I found myself watching them.

I knew that Morning Glory expected something short and quick, probably along the lines of “You have your orders, do your Princesses proud,” and for me to just send them out.

Moon and stars above, I knew that’s what Princess Celestia would have expected me to do.

Princess Luna wouldn’t have blamed me if that was all that I did.

I even opened my mouth to do just that.

But, right as those words were on the tip of my tongue, Evening Song’s face flashed into my mind, and the silent promise that I had made.

Evening Song didn’t have anything to worry about as long as I was there.

“You know,” I started with a chuckle, my voice easily carrying out over the sea of ponies staring up at me. “This is not a situation that I thought that I would ever find myself in, being in charge, sending ponies out into danger.”

A nervous giggle ran through them and I could see Morning Glory’s head cock just slightly to one side.

“That’s not something that I take lightly,” I continued. “And it's certainly not something that I want to do either, not without being there with you all; helping and doing my part.”

I held up one hoof to stop the Morning Glory from interjecting.

“I know that the Praetorian General would prefer if I kept this short, and I had originally planned to,” I sighed and sat back on my haunches. “But as I look at all of you, and knowing that there are more of you all that couldn’t be here with us, I feel like I need to say a few more words.”

“Look at me,” I got back to my hooves and stretched out both of my wings, pushing my barrel forward and my head back. “I’m a simple thestral, not an alicorn, not royalty of any kind. Just like every single one of you.”

They exchanged glances with each other and whispering broke out.

“And like all of you, no matter if you admit it to yourselves or not, I’m just as afraid as you are.”

Morning Glory’s eyes widened, she was unable to stop herself from doing it.

“I’m afraid that our world will never be the same, that our beloved Princesses won’t get better, or that I’ll lose somepony that I care about. I’m not judging, you’d all be fools to not have similar thoughts running through your heads somewhere.”

The Custodi Mare watched, silent, their eyes searching my face, confused expressions on their own.

“And you’re not fools.”

I let that statement hang in the air, silencing their whispers.

“Fear is going to be a player in the next few weeks ahead,” I continued. “Make no mistake about that. Fear of the unknown, fear of the sickness running throughout your fellow ponies, fear for your loved ones.”

Despite being trained and well conditioned guards, I could see panic rising in them.

“But,” I modified, catching the eyes of the guards standing in the front. “You get to decide how much that fear is going to control you. You can spend these days, these weeks, maybe even months, worrying about the pathway to the future. Making rash and split decisions based on that primal feeling that you don’t know what blow is going to come next nor where it is going to come from.”

No pony made a sound as I paused again.

“In those moments, when all you can see is darkness, I want you to pause.”

Heads cocked and eyebrows raised as I paused.

“I want you to pause and take a deep breath,” I took a deep breath, pulling one hoof up in front of my muzzle as I did so and lowering it as I breathed out. “Refocus on the moment. The pony in front of you, the pony to your side, and the ponies that you have waiting for you at home, all of them are going through the same thing that you are. They are just as afraid as you or I am, and they are afraid for the exact same reasons.”

“What happens then, what happens right in front of your face, is the only thing that matters, it is the only thing that will ever matter.” I could see that they were starting to understand my point, heads were nodding and a few of them had smiles on their faces. “The decisions that you make in that moment, which are either based on fear or on love, will change Equestria forever.”

I paused again and closed my eyes, the words were there, I just had to let them flow through me.

“My father was an engineer, he moved from his homelands to where I was born, all for the opportunity to build and design. He was a hard stallion,” Brows furrowed at the non sequitur, they didn’t see the point of my mentioning my sire. “Always expected the absolute best from me and my sister, he taught me that it was hard work and dedication that made the world turn.”

I didn’t like talking about my past nor the family that I had left behind, it was a painful subject that I didn’t feel had a purpose here. That life was gone.

“But that wasn’t the only thing that he taught me,” I snorted at myself, dad would have kicked my flanks if he’d ever heard this. “Father would say that there would come a moment in my life, a choice that I would have to make, that would change everything that I knew about myself and my world forever.”

I could see further looks dawning comprehension appear on faces. Even Morning Glory had stopped looking like she wanted to interrupt me.

“Each and every one of you will have one of those moments while on this duty, probably more than one.”

Huffing, I shook my head and readjusted my wings before continuing.

“I watched the effect of my father’s love and generosity towards his fellows, literally change the world around him. And I thought to myself ‘that’s something I want to do someday.’ I want to be able to help ponies. So, every day, while on duty, I want you to think to yourselves: ‘What do these ponies need that my talent can provide?’”

“That is all that you have to figure out.”

Smiles stretched over the faces of the Custodi Mare, they had caught on to my point first.

“I may not have done exactly what you are about to go out and do, physically go, physically go and stand as a shield for friends and family, but I was on the frontlines for different battles. Battles of the body, of sickness, and pain. Armed, not with sword, spear and shield, but with a stethoscope and a thermometer.”

I looked up and over them, jumping as The Palace shook violently with a magical surge from one of the Princesses.

“And I can tell you,” I continued, regathering their lost attention back to myself. “The effect that you will have on others when choosing love over fear, is the single most valuable thing there is.”

“When you are faced with that choice, remember, it’s not your fame, your rank, nor your power that will outlast you. It will be what was in your heart that gets etched across the stars.”

I closed my eyes, taking a few breaths before spreading my wings open with a snap and held them at full extension.

“When you walk through those doors today, you will only ever have two choices: Love or Fear.”

When I opened my eyes, I took a very long time to meet the eyes of every single pony, holding them firm in place. They were still scared, and I wanted to make sure that they knew that that was okay. Fear is not the mind killer, fear is an obstacle to overcome.

“Choose to rise above fear. Choose Love.”

/＼ ^._.^ ／\

As soon as the last guard left the Throne Room, I crumpled to the dais, my legs totally unable to hold me up a moment longer.

The soft swooshing sound of Morning Glory’s magic pulled me up to my haunches and pressed a goblet of cool water into my hooves.

“Are you alright, Lord Regent?” She asked. She and the Coronal Aegis had approached the dais but only the Praetorian General had placed a hoof up on the steps leading towards the throne.

“No formalities Morning Glory, please,” I said after draining the goblet and waving a hoof in her general direction. “I’ve just had enough formalities to last the rest of my life.”

“As you say, Feather,” she continued, a hint of uncertainty in her voice.

“Let’s never, ever do that again,” I groaned. “You can give the next speech, Morning.”

“You weren’t really supposed to give a speech, Lord Regent,” explained the Custodi Mare Crisium, a thestral stallion whose name escaped me.

“I know,” I chuckled as I rolled onto my side.

“Then why did you?”

“Don’t know,” I admitted, resting my head on the cool marble. “I have no idea where those words came from. One minute I was just going to say four, maybe six words, the next, all of that was there and coming out of my mouth.”

I took a few moments in the silence that hung in the air to stretch mightily against the astonishingly cool stone beneath me, sighing as I felt the vertebrae in my spine pop.

“Oh yeah,” I moaned. “That’s the stuff.”

Several of the Custodi snickered behind their hooves and I could feel the eye rolls of the Coronal Aegis.

“Are you done?” asked Morning Glory.

“Just about,” I groaned as I twisted my neck with a quick jerk, the popping of those joints felt like heaven. I got back to my hooves and had to fight the grin that almost spread to my cheeks at the disgusted looks I was getting from the Morning Glory and the rest of her cadre. “Okay, I’m done.”

“About the guard force to remain behind…” Started the Praetorian General.

“I already told you, Morning,” I cut in, holding a wing up to stop her. “No more than eight from the Sentinels and another eight from the Praetorians. I will not budge on that.”

“It’s not enough.”

“It’s perfectly enough. A rotating eight hour shift of two for each princess, that leaves a pair of ponies to have a full day off before rejoining their peers. Plus it also minimizes the chances for possible infection vectors spreading to a larger force.”

“What about you?”

“I’m going to be spending the vast majority of my time within their chambers, I will be well within the protection of anypony standing guard outside.”

“And the times that you aren’t there?”

“I’ll manage.”

She gave me a look that expressed just how little she thought of my management capabilities.

“You’re still getting your own eight.”

I opened my mouth to argue that I wasn’t important enough to have one guard, let alone eight, but let the matter drop.

“Fine,” I conceded. “Fine.”

“Good,” she nodded, and turned to the Coronal Aegis. “You’re learning.”

“But no officers.”

“WHAT?” roared Morning Glory, the Custodi Mare, and the Coronal Aegis all at the same time.

“You heard me. No officers.”

“You don-”

“You’re right, I don’t make those decisions,” I countered before the Praetorian General could really get going. “But let me explain my reasoning.”

Morning Glory ground her teeth audibly, but nodded for me to continue.

“Officers are, by and large, better trained and more capable in terms of administration and logistics, right?”

The nod that I received was angry and reluctant.

“Good,” I nodded back. “That’s exactly the kind of pony that we need out there.” I gestured with my hoof at doors. “They’ll do way more good out there, helping and being useful rather than standing around in a hallway or looking after my sorry flanks.”

“There are more than enough officers to-”

“No, there aren’t,” I interrupted again. “Once the Palace is sealed, which you will be doing as soon as we’re done here, you will need everypony on the ground to police and control the general populace of Canterlot in addition to assisting with the medical personnel. You will need ponies that are used to acting upon their own recognisance and able to take initiative.”

She met my eyes, her gaze steely. I was convinced that she was going to argue with me, to fight me.

“Fine,” she sighed. “Fine. No officers.”

“Did you send out the fliers like I asked?”

“They’ve already left, your message and directives will be in every city before morning.”

“Good.”

/＼ ^._.^ ／\

Two Lunar Sentinel thestrals flanked me on either side as I watched the concert of unicorns cast the layered sealing spell over the doors to the Palace.

The doors flashed a brilliant, almost blinding, white runes sprung into being and crawled their way over and through the massive oak and gilded steel doors. I could almost hear the groan as they sunk deep into the wood, metal, and stone; locking everything into place.

Job done, I watched Morning Glory and her cadre start shouting, sending ponies this way and that.

I knew that, within the hour, a massive bubble would form around The Palace and another would spring up around Canterlot as a whole, locking us in and keeping others out.

It wasn’t an elegant solution, but it was the only one available to us without the magical prowess of the Princesses to back up the unicorns within the Praetorians and Sentinels.

“What now, sir?” asked one of the thestrals behind me, his spear resting against his shoulder.

I opened my mouth to reply when The Palace shook again, a tapestry along one wall began to smoke. Without needing to be ordered, the other thestral rushed over, tore the ancient cloth from the wall and stamped on it repeatedly, quashing the purple smoke.

“Now?” I coughed, the smoke was acrid and had filled the room very quickly, sticking to the back of my throat. “We get to work.”

Author's Note

Y'all almost didn't get a chapter this week and, to be honest, I'm not super happy with how this one turned out. in my original outline, this chapter probably should have been rolled into the next one but, given the amount of of detail that I want to put in the next chapter, I couldn't let this chapter end up at two thousand words.

Writing that speech was not fun. Special thanks to Jim Carrey's 2013 Commencement Address at Maharishi University for many of the words and general idea that I got from listening to him.

As always, I am eternally grateful to anyone reading this. I appreciate your time and patience with me as I write this story and use it to unpack and examine my own mental baggage and issues.

I love each and every one of you.

Chapter 7 - Will the Circle Be Unbroken

The pot on the stove bubbled gently as I stirred fresh ground black pepper into the vegetable broth. I would add salt to the soup closer to it being done.

“Are you sure that you should be doing this, Lord Regent?” asked Silent Night, one of the Lunar Sentinels currently on my protection detail.

“I do know why way around a kitchen Nacht,” I replied without looking back at him and using the Germane translation of his name.

Thestrals, as it turned out, claimed Germane as their ancestral language, something about their particular proto-Equuish dialect being the true root of the modern version of what was spoken today.

The Solar Praetorian stallion seated at the bench next to him snorted.

“I don’t think that Night’s ever seen a noble cook before, sir,” he commented before taking a long pull from the mug of coffee in front of him. “I hadn’t either until my first turn with you.”

Silent Night grumbled something unintelligible before turning back to his own coffee.

“You two do realize that I’ve only been ‘regent’ for five years, right?” I asked as I turned back to them and arranged several washed and peeled carrots, some celery, and an onion on the cutting board. “I used to cook all the time before I came here.”

Both of them nodded.

“Then I don’t see what the big deal is.”

“You could order us to do it.”

“Pfft,” I nickered at him. “As if I would do that.”

“You might not, but our commander would have.”

“I said that I would take care of the princesses right? That means that I’m going to do it.”

The two of them exchanged glances as I picked up the knife and began chopping, I ignored them.

It wasn’t the first meal that I cooked for the princesses, nor would it be the last, and I expected this exact scene to play out everytime I had a new pair of guards accompany me into the actual kitchens.

For the first few days into our isolation, we had been able to get by with what The Palace kitchen staff already had prepared: Breads, stews, salads, and other dishes held under kitchen specialized stasis spells. After those supplies had run out, we resorted to the canned and preserved foods, and those had lasted a week.

Now, well into our second week, I had grown tired of plain raw fruit and had appointed myself our cook.

Both Sentinels and Praetorians had put up some health-hearted attempts to stop me, but none of them actually stepped up to do the cooking.

Truth be told, I think that they were grateful to have fresh and warm cooked food again, stasis spells may keep the dish from spoiling but they left a tingly sensation in your mouth.

Of course, none of that applied to the food and drink that I fed the princesses.

Royal Canterlot Medical and Trauma Center, courtesy of Doctor Bedside Manner, had provided me with a treatment plan for both Princesses along with a large satchel of medications and a few instruments to keep logs of how Sub-Arcanic Disharmony progressed in Alicorns.

Their first week was mainly focused on keeping the Princesses hydrated and their electrolyte intake as high as possible, keeping solid food to a minimum until vomiting and diarrhea had stopped.

My train of thought was derailed when the timer on the oven dinged.

I sat the knife down, trot over to the oven, pulled protective mit-sock things over my hooves and opened the oven’s door. The smell of fresh oat and seed cakes filled the kitchen, I heard my two guards inhale deeply and one of their stomachs rumbled. Chuckling to myself, I pulled the trays out of the oven one by one and set them on the cooling racks until all five trays were out.

Twenty five cakes, one for each guard and another for me, there was clover honey in the pantries and butter in the refrigerators. The cakes along with a vegetarian version of the shepherd’s pie would be a wonderful dinner for all of us.

I turned around and almost ran right into the two guards.

They were both gazing at the cakes hungrily.

“Don’t even think about it,” I grumbled, using my wings to block the cooling bread from their vision. “Those are for all of us.”

“Are you sure that your special talent isn’t in baking, Lord Regent,” asked Silent Night, his eyes still locked on the cakes. “After smelling those I wouldn’t be surprised.”

"I’m sure,” I replied with a roll of my eyes. “It's just something that I like to do, I’m actually not that good at it.”

“I disagree.”

“You only say that because you haven’t had anything fresh in over a week. Once this is all over and you have something made by somepony that actually knows what they’re doing, you’ll forget all about my attempts at cooking.”

/＼ ^._.^ ／\

It was half-past seven in the evening when I pushed one of the double doors leading into Princess Celestia’s chambers, a tray balanced on my back.

The faint scent of burnt wood and singed cotton wafted over me with small wisps of pink-purple smoke. It was impossible to miss the wad of blackened sheets and blankets piled at the foot of the massive bed.

At least they weren’t currently on fire.

Moving as quietly as possible, I sat the tray with the Princess’s dinner on her nightstand and turned to her sleeping form.

Nestled under my wing was a small kit of medical instruments: A temperature probe-wand, a stethoscope, and a small crystal plinth that measured the amount of chaotic magic in the immediate surroundings.

Gently, I sat the kit on Celestia’s bed, and pulled out the wand and ran it over the still sleeping Princess’s forehead, just under her horn, took note of the reading, and then tucked it under her wing for a more accurate core temperature.

While waiting for the wand to chime, I busied myself with gathering the pillows Princess Celestia had kicked off and replaced them back on the bed.

When I rose, the wand had chimed and I found her magenta eyes staring at me blearily.

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” I murmured with a small smile. “I’ve brought you some broth.”

The Solar Princess moaned weekly and tried to force herself into a sitting position, her limbs shaky and trembling.

When it became obvious that she was about to fall, I jumped onto the bed with her, catching her on my withers and propped her up against her pillows and headboard.

“There,” I commented idly, pushing a few more pillows and cushions around her, giving her some bracing so that she would be able to stay upright. Nodding to myself, I hurried to the other side of her bed and set the finely carved breakfast tray in front of the princess, the broth and a mug of cool water following soon after.

I hopped off the bed and took a few steps back, giving the Princess her space.

A look of concentration with a very visible undercurrent of pain fell over her face. Her horn sparked.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

On the third spark, her large cushion near the fireplace exploded in a cloud of torn fabric and cloud fluff.

I winced.

At least it wasn’t another bookshelf.

With a huff of frustration, Celestia collapsed back against the pillows I had piled up behind her, a flush of embarrassment tinting her cheeks.

“None of that now,” I chided gently, hopping back up onto the bed and settling down on my haunches faceing her and next to the tray. “Doctor said that this might happen and that you need to keep trying.”

She glared at me.

“Hey, at least you didn’t set me on fire again.”

Her ears folded back against her skull and she looked away, the blush on her cheeks deepened and crept down her neck.

I was unable to stop myself from chuckling.

“I already told you, Princess,” I managed through my mirth, spooning some of the broth up to her. “No harm, no foul. I don’t blame you for that, it was an accident.”

Magenta eyes searched my face for a very long moment before she opened her mouth, letting me help her eat.

I don’t know what came over me at that moment, but I felt something stir deep within my heart, a moving of something deep within my very soul.

Placing the spoon back into the broth and holding the glass of water to Celestia’s lips, I started humming. Softly at first, just a few bars of an old hymn, letting the warmth of the lyrics and imaginary guitar accompaniment fill the back of my mind.

I wasn’t a natural born singer, nor was I musically inclined as what I had been before becoming a pony. I enjoyed music as much as the next pony, loved listening to it, jamming right along with an air guitar, and, if nopony was around, lip syncing in the bath, a bottle of shampoo as my mic.

Singing wasn’t something that I consciously avoided, it just wasn’t something that was part of day-to-day life at the Palace.

The Princess watched me as the first few bars of the song’s tune floated around her bedchambers, I spooned out another helping of the broth with my hoof, let it cool, and then brought it to her mouth.

Hesitantly, she accepted the spoon, her eyes still searching my face.

I ignored her staring and continued to help her eat her dinner. Once the bowl was empty, I used the napkin to gently dab at her chin, letting the hummed hymn fade out.

The Princess yawned and sagged against her pillows.

With a small smile, I eased her body onto its side, pulling pillows out from behind her, dismantling the makeshift chair out from behind her.

She groaned and opened her mouth to say something.

“Shhhh,” I whispered, pressing a wingtip to her lips and preventing her from trying to speak. “Try to get some sleep, did you want me to light the hearth for you?”

Celestia, already more than half asleep, shook her head.

As expected, her fever was still high, but I felt like I needed to ask.

I moved the tray over near the door and trotted off over to the large armoire. Inside were numerous piles of blankets and top-sheets. I snorted to myself, remembering that I needed to change her bedsheets in their entirety.

Oh well, it would have to wait.

I pulled out two large and fluffy blankets and one sheet and returned to The Princess’s bedside.

The large white mare was already snoring softly.

As quietly as I could, I threw the sheet and blankets over her and tucked them around her and under the mattress.

With the princess suitably arranged in her bed and ensconced in a dream, I went about gathering the remains of her previous bed coverings and the debris from the exploded cushion, and placing them on the tray nearest the door. They were already magically burnt, but, for the sake of preventing possible cross infection to the guard, I would have them incinerated.

/＼ ^._.^ ／\

“Not good,” I grumbled to myself, pulling my thermometer from out of my mouth and tucking another one under my own wing. According to the oral thermometer, I was sitting at an uncomfortable one hundred and three-point-seven degrees, just shy of four degrees over normal.

Pegasi and thestrals may not be as susceptible to temperature changes as a unicorn or an earth pony, but when ours did vary, it never meant anything good.

We had been sequestered within the Palace for three weeks at that point and I knew that it was an impossible dream to hope that no pony else got sick. I wasn’t the first either, three of the twenty four total guards had fallen ill, two shortly after we had sealed The Palace, and the other finally succumbing in the middle of our second week.

The wand tucked up against my barrel chimed, the readout confirming the reading from the thermometer.

With a sigh, I dropped both instruments onto the table and jotted both readings into my notebook.

There were a total of four notebooks. One for each princess, one for me, and one for the guards.

My notebook contained most of my personal notes and suggestions to propose to the Princesses on how to continue the quarantine until such time as the doctors figured out a cure or until SAD ran its course.

Hopefully, without too much more loss of life.

Flipping a few pages past my last entry on future plans, I made note of the day and time, my temperature readings from my mouth and my barrel as well as noted any other, personal, observations.

Thankfully, my wings didn’t itch nor did I seem to have any of the weakness and/or delirium that some winged ponies experienced.

I did, however, have the cough.

I coughed so hard and so often that I felt my ribs creak and groan. It was like the worst kind of pneumonia, I couldn’t get full lungs when I breathed and everything hurt.

“Lord Regent?”

I looked up, a unicorn mare in the silver of the Lunar Sentinels had poked her bubble shielded head in the office that I had commandeered to be nearer the princess.

“What can I do for you, Bright Eyes?” I asked, desperately trying to ignore the scratch in the back of my throat.

“I’ve got your dinner, sir,” She replied, stepping fully into the office, a bowl of something steaming floating in her seal grey magic. “Silent Night decided that it was his turn to cook this evening.”

“He didn’t use anything that I touched did he?”

“No, sir, he didn’t,” the bowl sat itself in front of me, spoon already in it, the smell hit me like the Canterlot Express. Warm, creamy, thick, and peppery. “We’ve moved most of everything that we dared salvage out of that kitchen and have been using the one on this floor.”

“You mean to tell me that there was a kitchen on this floor and I didn’t have to trek all the way from the staff wing with hot food?”

“We thought you knew, sir. We assumed that you just had a preference for that kitchen.”

“I didn’t know,” I said, shaking my head, feeling more than a little stupid. Of course there was more than one kitchen. In a palace this large, there would have to be more than one. “Was there anything already prepared in there?”

“A few things,” she replied, taking it upon herself to dunk the two thermometers in the alcohol bath I hadn’t had time to drop them in. “I sent some of the others to scrounge the other kitchens and pantries to check those stores. We’ll probably end up consolidating everything into the current one.”

“Good idea, Bright,” I mumbled around the spoonful of stew I had just put in my mouth. It was delicious, tasted even better than it had smelled. “That food should last us a while as long as we don’t let Spot try his hoof at cooking again.

Bright Eyes winced and nodded in agreement.

The less said about Sun Spot’s cooking, the better.

“How is everypony taking things?”

“As well as can be expected, sir. They’re getting a little stir crazy.”

“I’ll bet, I know exactly how they feel.”

She snorted and stamped a hoof.

“They should know better, we all volunteered for this.”

“Volunteering and actually doing are two entirely different things, Bright, you know that.”

She rolled her eyes and gave me a half-glare.

I had a suspicion that Bright Eyes was actually an officer, but had nothing other than my intuition to go off of. None of the other ponies would say anything, but there was a slight deference to her.

And I couldn’t even say that it was due to her being a mare either, there were four other mares in the volunteers and they didn’t seem to get the same level of respect that Bright Eyes received.

Whatever. I was too tired to really worry about that.

Unable to stop myself, I coughed. Hard.

Bright Eyes took another step back, her eyes widening.

“I know, Bright,” I grated, honked, really. “I know.”

“You sound worse, sir.”

“I’m getting worse,” I wheezed, rubbing my nose with a tissue. “Probably going to get even worse before I get better. How are the others doing?”

“Corporal Packed Soil was able to walk to dinner and his fever has come down two and a half degrees. Privates Whispering Breeze and Hidden Grove remain the same as yesterday.”

I opened my mouth to reply, but Bright Eyes continued.

“I’ve already noted the changes in their conditions in the log, sir.”

“... Thank you, Bright Eyes.”

I looked over at the clock and sighed.

“Bubble me, Bright, it’s time to check in on the Princesses.”

“Are you sure that you should be doing that, sir?”

“Probably not,” I agreed with a small nod. “But at the same time, unless there is a qualified medic or another pony with similar experience, I cannot allow that.”

“Don’t you risk re-infecting them?” Bright Eyes asked with a frown. “Shouldn’t you remove yourself from the equation?”

“If this were a perfect situation, yes, I absolutely should. Or, if this was just going in, helping somepony eat, take temperatures, or even just to make sure that they’re alive, I would happily delegate this task to anypony else. But it’s not.”

“I don’t follow.”

“I do all of those things, true.” I continued, standing and gathering my instruments, notebook, and quill. “But there are subtleties in how both Princesses act, subtleties that get even more minor and hard to spot when they’re around ponies that they don’t know as well as I know them. Sure, Princess Celesita may not like me, but she does know me well enough to really show me how she feels. As for Luna...”

I trailed off, not really knowing how to describe Luna’s actions.

Bright Eyes expression softened and she smiled at me, her horn glowed again and a bubble popped into place around my head.

“Thank you, Bright.”

“I’ll go gather a few more, you should have at least four before going into their rooms.”

“I appreciate it, I’ll meet-”

“You’ll be right here, in this office, we’ll come to you.”

“....I’ll be right here.”

/＼ ^._.^ ／\

Luna’s room was dark and quiet when I entered it, another tray on my back and a series of bubbles around my head. Bright Eyes and Risen Dawn, a Solar Praetorian stallion, had accompanied me to the door.

The two of them had relieved my scheduled guards and helped my trek from my office to Luna’s bedrooms.

Thankfully, Risen Dawn was carrying the tray with Luna’s food on it when I tripped over the scarlet carpet lining the halls. Bright Eyes caught me before I face planted.

Unlike usual, Luna’s room was spotless. The chaotic mess of books, blankets, and other detritus cleaned and put away.

Unable to stop myself after setting the tray on the coffee table nearest the hearth, my eyes roamed the room, taking in all of the details and decorations.

On the shelf nearest her desk were two objects that I had an intimate knowledge of.

There, under a glass dome and missing an eye, was the ratty and disgusting anteater that Star Shine and Twilight had gotten her back home. Noodle had been through some rough times since arriving in Equestria, but little Luna refused to let the stuffed animal go, or go anywhere without ‘him.’

The Noodle Incident had happened around three years ago, an irate noble had grabbed the poor thing up in his magic thinking it was rubbish, and, thinking that she was making a point about misused tax bits, tore him in half.

The Princess, having only just taken up her duties to the Court of the Night, had reacted poorly to say the least, ejecting the noble through the Throne Room’s doors. She then snatched up Noddle’s remains and bolted.

Evening Song and I had found her, sobbing and wailing, under her blankets. Between the two of us, the High Marshal and I were able to stitch the anteater back together.

You could still see the clumsy stitching all around his middle.

I chuckled softly to myself upon reading the brass plate affixed to the glass dome.

Sir Noodle I

To the right of the glass dome was yet another stuffed anteater, a gift from her sister. This stuffed toy was much cleaner and of much better quality than the one that we had given her back home.

This anteater wasn’t under glass, but was sitting on a small wooden disk. No nameplate, no decoration.

I was touched at the reverence.

I shouldn’t have been, it had been Star Shine’s idea to get the stuffed animal and Twilight’s for said toy to not be a bear. But she still kept him, even after all the terrible things that happened after being given to her.

I turned away from the shelf and blinked several times to clear my eyes of unshed tears.

After giving myself several moments, I gathered the tray up back on my back with my wings and approached the still sleeping princess.

Just like her sister, Luna was snoring quietly, the flush of fever tinted her cheeks and she had kicked her blankets and sheets to the foot of her bed.

I deposited her meal on the breakfast tray and quickly washed my hooves in her dark bathroom, not bothering to turn on the lights and risking waking her.

Washing done, I returned to her bedside and ran the wand over her forehead, noted the temperature, and then tucked it under her wing, just like I had done for her sister. While waiting for the small chime to sound, I pulled out her notebook and jotted down the date, time, and her temperature in their appropriate columns.

The wand chimed and, unlike her sister, Luna didn’t wake as I retrieved it.

Thankfully, the readings were trending downwards.

I stood there for several more minutes longer, watching her sleep, a smile on my muzzle.

I could just tell that she was having a good dream. Her own smile, the lightness in her limbs, and the small coos and murmurs that came between the snores.

Hopping up onto her bed and sitting beside her, I wasn’t able to stop myself from running a hoof over her mane.

For several minutes we sat together, alone in all of Equus, my hoof never stopping the soothing motion down her neck and withers. I let my eyes wander around the room again, just content to keep sitting with Luna, and, for the moment, forget that I had responsibilities.

Her nightstand caught my eye.

Upon it were two framed pictures.

The first was of her and her sister. The larger mare was holding Luna close to her barrel, the two of them hugging each other tightly, smiling with sparkling eyes.

My breath caught at the second.

There was Luna, tiny and adorable, nestled deeply into my back, right between my wings, fast asleep and clutching Noodle to her barrel. I had my own head turned around to nuzzle at her ear, the softest smile that I had ever seen on my own face.

A moan broke me off from staring at the picture.

“Hey there, Lulu-Bell,” I cooed at the princess as she roused. “I’ve got dinner for you.”

“Don’ wanna,” she moaned, batting at my hoof with one of her own.

“I know you don’t,” I replied, coaxing her up into a sitting position and piling cushions and pillows behind her, just like I had done for her sister. “But you gotta, you need to stay hydrated.”

She gave me a baleful look before settling back and letting me fuss over her. I pulled her blanket up and over her lap and set her breakfast tray in front of her, the still gently steaming stew and water following quickly.

She opened her mouth expectantly.

“Lulu…” I warned with a mock scowl. “You’ve got to start using your magic again.”

The Princess closed her mouth and pouted at me.

“Don’t give me that young lady, you know the doctor’s orders.”

The pout intensified.

I raised one eyebrow and cocked my head to one side.

The stand off lasted another few moments before Luna huffed out a sigh and closed her eyes, a faint ice-blue glow began to emit from her horn and encircled the spoon. Shakily, the spoon dipped into the stew, picking up a good few hunks of carrot and potato, and floated over to her mouth.

I watched, intently, as beads of perspiration formed on her brow.

The spoon finally made it to her mouth and she ate, humming happily as the warm stew slipped down her throat.

“Good stuff, huh?” I asked with a smile, it was only the second time she had managed to hold the spoon that long.

“Mm-hmm.”

“Might have to get Silent Knight in the kitchens on a more permanent basis.”

She giggled.

The Princess was able to get another three spoonfuls of stew with her magic alone before she coughed and the magic holding the, thankfully, empty spoon failed with a pop and dropped to the blanket covering her lap.

I winced and covered my face with a wing, bracing unnecessarily.

“Not that bad,” the Princess croaked accusingly.

“No, you’re not,” I agreed. “But you did turn my fur blue.”

The Princess turned a lovely shade of purple and she jerked her head away from my chuckling.

“Now, now,” I continued, still chuckling and holding her spoon. On a whim, I started weaving it back and forth. “Open wide, here comes the train.”

The Princess snapped her head back to me and looked highly offended.

I held the spoon in front of her mouth and, eventually, reluctantly, she accepted it.

Her glare spoke volumes.

“I’ll stop.”

After a few more spoonfuls of stew, I asked: “Do you want a story?”

Her eyes sparkled as she nodded excitedly.

“Hmm, but which one?”

“Happy.” she croaked before eating another bite.

“A happy story?”

She nodded.

I racked my brains for a story that I could tell her. Admittedly, I stole most of the stories I told her from video games or pop culture back home, most of those ended well enough for most of the characters; maybe not the bad guy though.

I eventually settled on one of my favorite myths from the Prose Edda.

“In a long lost time,” I began, trying to keep the rasp out of my voice and ignoring the grit in the back of my throat. “In a country far far away, two stallions were riding a chariot on their way to meet the king. The owner of the chariot was a huge earth pony, blonde furred and a fiery red mane, tail, and bushy beard. The other was a thin and lank unicorn, much smaller than his friend, with sage fur and a mane of wheat. They had been traveling for days and nights without rest…”

Giants and gods and normal ponies all being tricked and played by one another. Nopony died and there wasn’t any bloodshed, I counted it as happy.

Luna giggled and laughed as the giant Grand Illusion’s servants toyed with Swift Hoof, Powerful Hammer, and Mischief Maker. Gasped as the extent of the giant’s machinations were revealed, and nodded along with Grand Illision’s decision to never allow the three of them back into his home.

With the stew and story finished, I took the bowl and spoon and set them on the tray that I had brought in with me and then placed the still mostly full goblet of water on her nightstand, well within her easy reach.

“There,” I murmured, helping her lay down completely and pulling her covers over her. “Feel better?”

The Princess nodded, her eyes half closing.

“Stay?” she whispered, I could tell that her throat still hurt.

“Of course, Lulu-Bell,” I murmured, brushing her mane off of her forehead with a wing. “You don’t even need to ask.”

She reached out and clutched at my nearest foreleg, wrapping her own around mine and pulled me closer to her.

That same feeling from a week ago, when I had hummed to Luna’s sister, fell over me. Stronger and far more insistent. Like a wellspring bubbling up from deep within the earth, flooding my entire being with warmth. The very same hymn coming to my mind.

Humming softly, I slowly ran my free hoof over Luna’s mane, brushing it ever-so-gently, smiling down as her eyelids drooped.

I blinked and the teenaged princess was gone, before me was the tiny filly that I had brought to the Palace all those years ago. A fresh, feverish flush, spread over her muzzle and an ice pack was perched over her hornless forehead. Standing at the side of her bed was another pegasus filly, slightly older, with alabaster fur and a mane the color of water lilies.

Behind the filly was a large mare, ivory furred and a mane and tail of pure star-fire.

Looking to my own hooves, my burgundy fur was gone, replaced with fur the shade of the evening sky

I blinked again, and the teenager was back, along with my burgundy fur.

Luna was looking up at me, a worried look on her face, I had stopped humming

“Shh,” I whispered before she could try to speak. “It’s okay, just got lost in thought for a second.”

As the Princess settled back down, the feeling welled back up inside me and, for the first time, I let it flow through me. I could hear a guitar in the back of my mind and I hummed along with it.

“There are loved ones,” I crooned, my own voice scratchy and hoarse. “All around you.”

Her eyes widened as the song filled her ears, shocked.

“Whose dear love you’ll never miss,” I continued, my hoof resuming the petting motion that I had stopped. “When you close your eyes tonight, will they join you in your dreams?”

I felt her hoof squeeze my own and I watched as a small smile formed on her lips.

“Will the circle be unbroken, by and by, by and by? Is a better home awaiting, in the sky, in the sky?”

I smiled back down at Luna, letting the warmth of the song fill my heart.

“In the joyous days of foalhood, oft they told of wondrous love, looking to the shining sister; now they dwell with us at night.”

I let the hymn’s chorus slip past my lips, gently rocking from one side to the other. Had I not had the bubble around my head, I would have held Luna close and rocked her off to sleep.

“You can picture happy gath'rings, ‘round the fireside long ago, do you think of tearful partings, when we left them all alone.”

Luna cringed and tried to pull away from me, I held onto her hoof, my eyes searching hers. She looked away and I put my hoof on her chin and pulled her gaze back to mine, gently brushing the tear off of her cheek with my fetlock.

“One by one their seats are filling, and one by one their love returns; now our family is home now fin’lly back, to us this day.”

I could feel the tension slowly ease from her neck as I held onto Luna’s face, the final chorus flowing out of my muzzle like warm honey.

“Now the circle is unbroken, by and by, oh by and by,” I sang, a familiar bronzey timbre finding its way back into my voice. “There’s no better home awaiting, in the sky, in the sky.”

As the last notes of the song faded away, Luna, in a feat of strength that had eluded her in the past couple of weeks, threw her forelegs around my middle and sobbed into my barrel.

I wrapped her up in my forelegs and wings, holding her as close as I dared, taking special care to not allow her horn to horn to pierce the protective bubble around my head. I crooned and cooed to her as she wailed, knowing the pain that she was feeling all too well.

/＼ ^._.^ ／\

The groan that made it past my lips was hoarse and ran sandpaper up and down the back of my throat.

I rolled out of the cot that Bright Eyes had procured for my temporary office and trudged over to the kettle perched in the small wet bar. After keying the small gem set into its handle, I went about mixing and preparing a powdered potion and my ‘morning’ tea.

Between taking care of the two Princesses and their day-night oddities, time of day had lost all meaning. Whenever Celesia was more ‘awake’, Luna was ‘sleeping’ and vice versa. Granted, the two of them still slept large swaths of the day and night away, but I could tell that their strength was beginning to return.

Luna stayed awake for all of my stories and could finish her entire meal without my help. Celestia was getting there and, thankfully, had stopped exploding furniture or setting ponies on fire.

There was a knock at the door.

“Come,” I croaked as I slumped into the chair at my desk.

Bright Eyes pushed the door open, another unicorn behind her. I recognized the second unicorn, a Solar Praetorian stallion, but his name escaped me.

“You look terrible, Lord Regent,” the stallion commented, using his tangerine magic to set a bowl of warm broth on my desk.

I gave him a deadpan look.

“Solid’s right, Feather,” commented Bright, sharing a look with the stallion. “You do look terrible.”

“Feel terrible,” I replied in a rasp.

Whatever either of them were about to say was cut off as the magical kettle began to whistle.

I made to get up but was pressed back into my chair by Bright Eyes’ seal magic. I watched as the stallion grabbed the kettle with his magic and turned to Bright Eyes, gesturing with his head to the mug and teapot I had set out for myself.

“To the midline on the mug, and the rest into the pot, Solid,” the mare ordered.

The stallion nodded and poured the water as instructed and, after setting the kettle down, floated the tea service over to me.

I nodded my thanks and took a tentative sip from the mug.

The hot liquid had totally dissolved the potion without any need to stir. It cascaded over my tongue and down my throat, spreading a soothing warm numbness down my aching esophagus.

It tasted like a worn out gym sock.

With a grimace, I threw the entire concoction back in a quick gulp and shivered as the sweaty, cottony, fungal taste wormed its way down my throat and settled in a warm pool in my stomach.

“By the moon and stars,” I bit out, still tasting the foul medicine. “That’s nasty.”

Neither unicorn said a word as the stallion, Stolid something, floated a mug of tea over to me.

One of them had been taking notes on how I liked my tea, it was sweet as candy and black as night, strong enough to stand a spoon upright; heavenly.

“Thank you, Solid,” I said after a few moments of letting the tea’s sweetness and caffeine work its way through my brain. “Perfect.”

“That will be all Solid Spear,” Bright Eyes commanded, dismissing the stallion, who, in turn, saluted with a hoof over his breast and left, closing the door behind him.

She turned her ice blue eyes on me, they were hard and cold as the Frozen North.

“You need to get back to bed.”

“I should, yes,” I agreed immediately. “But you know I can’t, not yet. Princess Celestia has been unable to-”

“I think that we’ve hit the point where one of the unicorns or I can finish taking care of the Princesses.”

“No, not yet.”

“Beg pardon?”

“You’re right, I’m a massive reinfection risk to the both of them, especially now that they’re starting to get better,” The wand chimed as I explained, picking up my notebook and jotting down the temperature read out. “Their immune systems and arcanic networks are overtaxed and weakened, they’re both prime candidates for reinfection.”

“Then why?”

“Like I told you before, they’ll act differently with you or any other guard than they’ll act with me. To you, they’ll believe that they have to act like the immortal goddesses that they are, immovable and untouchable, even if we all know that they aren’t. They don’t have those masks with me, they know they’re safe to be as sick as they are with me.”

Bright Eyes opened her mouth to argue and I cut her off.

“Yes, I know its stupid. Especially when you and your compatriots are bound to them as protectors and the like. It's your duty and, unless I’m very much mistaken, your honor to do so. It’s an obligation that you’ve taken upon yourselves.”

Bright Eyes nodded and gestured at me to continue my point.

“I’m not like you.”

“What do you mean?” she asked as she tilted her head to one side.

“I have no oaths or promises or anything to bind me to their service, I just do it. The Princesses, really, don't need protection. They move the sun and the moon every day with no help. They’ve lived through the Unification Wars and everything after, weathered every trial and tribulation that fate and Harmony have thrown at them and have come out on the other side alive and well.”

There was a small smile on the mare’s muzzle, a look of pride for her rulers.

“So, when the Lunar Sentinels and Solar Praetorians take their oaths to serve the Princesses and Equestria, they’re letting you take care of things that they could, by right, deal with on their own. They have an obligation to you. They have to be the rock on which the entire world rests.”

I paused, watching Bright Eyes’s expression. She was still processing but I could tell that she was following me.

“Okay,” she said after a moment, rubbing her chin. “I get it, but you still haven’t explained why it has to be you doing all of this.”

“Tell me,” I asked after taking a deep breath. “If you saw them completely and utterly unmade by sickness or an injury, not dead or dying mind, but hurt in a way that you could not immediately better, what would you do? For that matter, what would either regiment do?”

“I don’t know, sir,” Bright Eyes whispered, wilting.

“That’s right. It would unnerve you, shake the very foundations of your worldview. You would never be able to look at the two of them again in the same light. It would start small, overthinking every one of your orders and interactions with them. Eventually, you would start second guessing them and then distructing them.”

“I would never.”

“Maybe not outwardly,” I agreed. “But the seeds of doubt would be placed and there would be nothing that you could do about it.”

I looked her right in the eyes, amber meeting ice blue.

“Think of it like our quarantine. The idea of it wasn’t too bad, but the reality has been so much worse than anypony could have ever imagined, right?

“Yes.”

“So, extend that same feeling to the Princesses being sick. Knowing and imagining it is one thing, seeing it and experiencing it is something else.”

She sighed and sank down to her haunches.

“That’s why I can’t stop, that’s why I have to be the one taking the risk. I don’t like it anymore than you do, the risk is far too high to be comfortable with, but it has to be me.”

“You’re only going to make yourself sicker.”

“I know”

“You could die.”

“I know”

“Why? Princess Celestia hates you!” she shouted, finally giving a name to the real emotion that Morning Glory had been hinting at all those weeks ago.

“That’s why.”

“I don’t follow.”

“If I, the only pony on Equus that Princess Celestia hates,” I mused, staring into the last swallow of tea in my mug. “Is willing to risk my life to make sure that the integrity of her guard and the face of the Crown is maintained, to make sure that they heal comfortably and without interruption from overzealous Palace staff…”

I trailed off.

“Yes?” the mare pressed as she stood back up on all four hooves and took a step forward. “Why?”

“Maybe she’ll leave me alone.”

Bright Eyes recoiled.

“That's all I want, a little bit of room to breathe,” I swallowed the last gulp of tea, it was surprisingly cold. “I feel like I'm constantly under scrutiny, and it's killing me. I won't be around forever - I know that. I just want to enjoy my time with her sister, and just do some good, you know? Do you have any idea how intimidating it is for a literal Goddess to be watching your every move? Documenting everything you do, just waiting for you to slip up?”

The mare shook her head.

“I’m tired Bright, I’m so very very tired.” I confessed as I put the empty mug back on my desk. “I never wanted the responsibility - being Regent, I thought it was a joke, something Luna liked to say just to annoy her sister.”

I looked away from her, turning my attention to the still warm broth.

“Now that I’ve done everything that I could think of for her country and her ponies, maybe, I’ll get the peace that I’ve been looking for.”

Neither of us said another word until I finished my liquid dinner and she returned my bowl and spoon to the kitchen.

/＼ ^._.^ ／\

The sixth week of our sequestered vigil dawned over the Palace, rousing me out of a fitful sleep.

My cot, sheets, blankets, and pillow were soaked through with sweat.

Unlike the Princesses, my temperature had risen, day by day, getting higher and then, finally plateauing at just over one hundred and six degrees. It had held there for the last week.

I rolled out of my makeshift bed, and flopped onto the floor, not even bothering to try to catch myself.

Everything was uncomfortable or in pain. My chest and barrel ached with every breath, my legs tingled with numbness, my head was fuzzy, and my wings itched like nothing else. Small pustules and sores the leathery membranes between my ‘fingers’, open to the air where they weren’t covered by ragged and downy feathers.

I was more than a little certain that I looked ridiculous.

My daily temperature regimen reported no change in temperature and I noted the same in my notebook. I took special care to breathe as little as possible onto the small book, I wanted to make sure that it was usable to somepony after this was all over.

Pulling myself to my unsteady hooves, I stumbled and limped over to the door. I didn’t trust myself to stand on just three legs at the moment, so I settled on thumping the door with my forehead, letting the posted guards know that I was awake.

From there, after hearing one of them acknowledge my ‘knock’, I fumbled my back back over to the desk and slumped into the chair, exhausted after having only gone, maybe, four or five body lengths.

Wheezing in and out, trying desperately to catch my breath, I knew what needed to be done.

I was in no condition to continue my personal care for either Luna or her sister.

It pained me to admit it, and it would pain me to have to ask Bright Eyes to take over for me, especially after telling her why I didn’t want her to do so.

I pulled a sheet of paper and began writing out a note to her, detailing what would need to be done after I passed command off to her: How to take of the sisters, notes on sterilizing my office and to burn everything that wasn’t important enough to save.

The mare in question opened the door to the office, a series of bubbles around her head already, and recoiled as the smell of my sweat and sick hit her nose.

I shrugged apologetically to her.

“By Celestia's flowing mane, Feather,” she muttered, gritting her teeth and shutting the door behind her. “What happened?”

I weakly flexed a wing in her general direction.

“You took the covers off?”

I nodded with another shrug.

“Ponyfeathers, Feather,” she snarled. “You know better than that.”

I did know better, doesn’t mean that they didn’t feel better without the covers on.

“You could lose them if you get an infection in there,” she continued, already pulling a clean pair of covers from her saddlebags. “Give.”

I held my wings out to both sides and she slipped the all-to-hot fabric over them, sticked them in place with a well placed series of runes.

I nodded my thanks to her and pushed the paper I had been writing on towards her.

She took it up in her magic and gave it a quick glance before smiling at me.

“You haven’t looked out the window yet, have you?”

I shook my head and raised an eyebrow at her.

She just pointed towards the large bay window that made up a large portion of the wall behind me. It was covered by a thick curtain.

I rolled my eyes and gave her a pleading look.

Her now familiar seal colored magic grabbed one edge of the thick fabric and yanked it back and away from the glass.

I hissed in pain as the sunlight stabbed through my eyes and directly into my brain.

“Sorry,” she mumbled, obviously embarrassed.

After my eyes adjusted to the blasphemous amount of light assaulting them, I looked to the sky and gasped.

There, shining brightly, was the sun.

And just the sun.

I jerked around to stare dumbfounded at the smiling Bright Eyes.

“We didn’t notice it last night, but the Moon was there by itself as well,” She stated, joy and comfort coloring her words. “The Princesses had control again.”

The wave of pure, unadulterated, relief hit me like a tsunami. I sagged into my chair and put my face into my hooves, not wanting the mare to see the tears welling up in my eyes. My breath caught in my lungs and a sob wormed its way out of my clenched teeth.

Bright Eyes, bless her soul, stood nearby and didn’t say a word for several long minutes as I fought to get my emotions back under control.

“Orders, sir?” she asked once my shoulders had stopped heaving.

Right, I needed to be strong for just a few minutes more.

“Stand down,” I rasped, unable to raise my voice above a harsh whisper. “Await royal orders. Give them books.”

“And you, sir?” she asked while nodding.

I shook my head and stood to my hooves, almost buckling under my own weight.

“Sir?” She asked again, concern now filling her voice.

“Princesses come first.” I reaffirmed, trudging to the door.

By instinct, Bright Eyes cast a bubble over my head and I knew that any unicorn that I met in the hallways would cast their own over me.

“You aren’t going to them in your conduction, Feather,” she ordered, her magic now holding the door closed even though I was nowhere near it yet.

“Not going to,” I coughed, my lungs rattled and ribs hurt.

“Then where are you going then?”

“Getting… out of the way.”

The magic holding the door slowly faded when I approached and it only took a few moments of fumbling with the knob before I was able to shoulder it open enough to stumble out into the hallway.

Immediately, two more bubbles snapped into place around my face and I nodded to the two unicorns standing sentry outside of the office.

Bright Eyes followed close on my heels.

“Don’t need... escort,” I muttered at her with a lackluster glare.

“You’re going to get one, Lord Regent,” she replied primly. “Especially since I don’t know what you’re up to. The sun only knows what kind of trouble I would be in if something happened to you.”

The two of us had just turned a corner, finally out of sight of the two other guards.

My front-left hoof caught the edge of my front-right and I stumbled into the stone wall, Bright Eyes let out a small exclamation of concern, her magic cushioning my body.

“Do you need me to carry you?” she asked, her magic still between me and the wall.

I huffed at her and shook my head, an action I immediately regretted as the world swam in front of my eyes.

“Don’t think that I won’t pick you up and plant you back on your cot.”

I rolled my eyes and stood back on my own four legs.

“I’ll do it.”

With a sigh, I nodded down the hallway.

“I see that's the direction that you want to go in, but you still haven’t told me where.”

I took one step down the hall and she put herself in front of me, her horn already clowning.

“Where are you going?”

“Bed,” I finally admitted.

“And why didn’t you just stay back with your cot?”

“Out of the way. Too close to them.”

“So now you’re listening to me?”

I gave her a sour look. She knew my reasons as well as I did. It may not have been the best reasoning, it was a point of contention between the mare and I.

The unicorn returned my look ten-fold.

The worst part of my reasoning was that Bright was absolutely correct. Especially as I got sicker and sicker. I should have delegated and I hadn’t done so due to being selfish.

We stared at each other for a long moment, before she heaved a huge sigh and moved out of my way.

I nodded to her and continued the long and arduous trek down to my rooms and my bed.

Author's Note

Nearly eight and a half thousand words and two weeks of writing and rewriting this chapter. I think I ended up with four total complete rewrites.

For anyone that didn't read my blog post, I'm very sorry that I didn't have a chapter last week, there was an attempted break in of my apartment and I was too stressed to work on this monsters.

This is probably going to be the chapter this week, but I will get to work on the next one starting tomorrow/later today.

We're in the home stretch now, maybe three or four more chapters after this one.