Sick Little Ponies II: The Multiseries Virus Vector

Chapters

Cadance: Wake Up, Go To Crib, Save The Empire
Luna: Diplomacy's Other (Treatment) Option
Sunny: The Plight Of The Ailicorn
Hitch: Substiconfusion

Cadance: Wake Up, Go To Crib, Save The Empire

Even a relatively-new spouse would quickly learn to judge every way her partner possessed of simply looking at her, and Cadance considered herself to be a fast learner. Especially when it came to Shining, who had multiple ways of being Extremely Military and sometimes seemed to regard even emotional subterfuge as something which was best left to the reconnaissance units. But when it came to the act of evaluation... there were multiple styles available.

She'd probably missed some portion for the original appearance of the first one, which would have included the lowered head and scraping forehooves associated with 'It's a great daydream, but there's no actual chance'. But she'd gotten to witness some of its frequent return performances, and it had taken a lot of careful effort to get Shining into Stage Two. The second stage had mostly been represented by a still-disbelieving '...maybe this could work?'

Time, dedication, and striving to move forward even when so much of her Extremely Military husband was still wondering whether he needed to find the best moment for a strategic retreat, and -- she'd had her own worries regarding Ultimate Consequences: one of those was currently on the other side of the nearby, heavily-reinforced crystal door.

It had taken so much for both ponies to reach the proposal phase, and that had left Shining staggering around in a stage of 'I can't believe that actually happened' for the better part of a moon.

Concerns to overcome. Differences which had to be reconciled. Points of view, and those would never fully overlap because they were very different ponies: a great deal of what they had in common was their mutual affection, and the rest was also on the other side of the door. But there had been so many times when he'd looked at her after the wedding, and... even the world's newest bride had been able to figure out the message within that evaluation. It silently said 'This is my heart, my core, and my life. I will dedicate my existence to making sure none of that ever changes.' And the Princess of love knew the emotions were true.

The current evaluation style, which was being directed at her through a weary blue gaze as they both stood so close to the vital door -- within what the palace employees had taken to calling Last Chance Hall, where just about no crystal pony would venture without a trio of Equestrian companions -- was very easy to read. It was the face of a commanding officer in the presence of a wounded soldier, and the only question remaining was exactly how loud the summoning shout for a medic was going to be.

She was fully aware of how she looked: a consequence of living in a building where the majority of natural surfaces could provide a reflection and you couldn't always pretend that any given facet had been modeled on a funhouse mirror. Absorbed sweat had discolored her fur. Her skin tone was off: something which was very easy to spot because every last one of those fur strands was currently out of grain. The colors within her mane were twisted around each other to the point where there was some question as to whether they were about to start flowing on their own. The tail was trying to blend into itself or, given how limply it was hanging, the floor. Light purple eyes were demonstrating a perfect three hundred body length stare, but that was mostly because she was about to enter an environment where the act of blinking posed a very real risk. And the bags under them could have served for luggage.

(There were also two swollen protuberances on her belly, dangling roughly a hoof-height down from their position just in front of her hind legs. But in biological terms, those were both natural and, for a mare, strictly temporary.)

For even a fully-neutral observer to regard Cadance in her current state was to demand that the battlefield triage tent be pitched around her, because she clearly shouldn't be moved.

"You're not going in there," Shining ordered.

There was a moment in which she pitied him, because it had emerged as an order and she knew he hadn't really meant that way. It was a plea which was trying to back itself with imaginary authority and a rather sad dose of physical presence, because he'd positioned himself to block the door.

There was a soft, somewhat miserable sound from the other side of that door. It passed easily through the walls, because the crystal ponies knew how to create materials which conducted sound, light, and so much else. Everything around that room had been rebuilt to give the majority of sonics free passage, because the palace staff needed that extra crucial split-second of warning.

The sound hadn't been a happy one. They didn't have very long, and even a relatively new parent could hear the clock ticking down.

"I'm the only one," Cadance stated. A moment of concentration stilled her tail after the third twitch.

"You're sick," he tried to insist. "Anypony can see that you're sick. And it's night. You need sleep. You shouldn't be doing this --"

"-- and who else can?" she cut him off, because this argument was only going to end one way and she just wanted to reach it quickly. Trade one durance for another.

"We've got enough Equestrians in the Empire to substitute --"

"-- none of them are strong enough," Cadance simply told him. "Not by themselves."

"So we'll pack the room --"

"-- and she's not good with strangers. She's going to see and scent at least three completely unfamiliar ponies, and then it's going to be that much worse, Shining. All of it will get worse, especially with so many more potential targets in the area. It has to be me."

"It doesn't," he tried to insist. "We can think of something else, together. We just need a little more time. Katydid, I know you could manage this by yourself when you're healthy, but right now --"

The crystal-conducted sound repeated. It was becoming steadily more upset.

Running out of time... And to have him use the personal nickname felt like cheating. "There are," Cadance wearily established, "four ponies in the world who could try to do this. Which means there's three who might take over for a while. We can't reach any of them. I'm the one who's here. So it has to be me."

"It shouldn't be. You need rest, recovery... I know it's not supposed to be anything major, but you're sick, Cadance. A sick alicorn, and when an alicorn gets sick..."

She could hear the concern, and it hadn't been layered thickly enough to fully conceal the panic.

"What about when two alicorns get sick?"

The question brought something new to his expression: a flicker of fear and reluctant acknowledgment of personal helplessness, both quickly buried under a desperate need to protect those he loved. And she knew that love was true. "Give me a few minutes, just a few. We'll think of something else. It still shouldn't be you."

Her lips quirked, which mostly made the sides of her mouth ache. "Then somepony else should have gotten pregnant. Move out of the way, Shining."

Cadance's Extremely Military Spouse had his own way of responding to that. To (lack of) wit, his horn ignited.

There was a flash of pinkish light, an almost-exact match for his sister's hue. And then there was a shield blocking the door.

It was a dome shape, because it almost had to be. He just hadn't anchored it to the floor. The base had been planted against the walls around the door, and that meant the fast-solidifying energies curved forward into the hallway. Part of Shining's last-ditch attempt at blockade was currently jamming into his dock.

"Make me," her desperate husband Mistaked. "And you still can't teleport, so --"

Weary, half-bloodshot eyes simply looked at him.

Cadance hadn't been a parent for very long. Nowhere near as much time as she'd been a spouse, and it had taken some very careful use of birth control herbs to prevent those periods from having significantly more overlap. But there were some kinds of knowledge which appeared in the soul at the moment labor ended, and one of those was resonating within her.

A mother had to answer the call.
Every time.
No matter what.

So she simply looked at him, as a pale, slightly-flickering blue area moved up her horn.

The shield dome popped. A secondary projection of her energies surrounded her protesting spouse, then hoisted him up and pressed his body against the ceiling. The third opened the door.

Cadance trotted under Shining, ducking her head to clear four hard-flailing legs, and locked the door behind her.

Of course, that last action cut the corona connection between her horn and the ceiling press, but she wasn't particularly worried about the resulting noise from the half-musical !THUD!. Her husband was military. He knew how to drop.

To foalproof an area...

The normal goal was to protect the foal from the world, and that was a problem for a trio of species whose infants could be walking less than a minute after birth. And it became that much worse for the pegasi, because the Surges produced by wild infant magic were more than enough to get a foal into the air. With unicorns and earth ponies, Surges meant up to two years of parents trying to deal with uncontrolled, usually unintentional effects -- but a pegasus infant added mobility. They flew on instinct alone, guided by a power which couldn't be fully stopped by anything except time. And even then, it was just waiting on puberty to unleash it again.

So there were foal sacks: swaddles of soft cloth which covered the back legs, making it a little harder for newborns to freely explore. The parents of a pegasus would add wing sleeves, fully covering every last feather while ruining airflow. And once that was done...

The typical means of foalproofing a room were to make sure that nothing within it could hurt the child. This meant softening corners. Removing any object small enough to be swallowed, because the default pony manipulator was 'mouth' and in the name of learning how to use it, infants bit down on just about everything. Medication needed to be secured. You had to consider every last place a foal could reach: for pegasi, this meant going all the way up and with earth ponies, there was a perpetual concern about objects being vibrated into jaw range. And no crib had ever been found which could fully block a newborn unicorn corona, because you really needed air holes -- but it was best to put toys away at night. Typically in a safe.

That was the normal way of doing things. Protect the foal from the world.

The current bedroom represented a desperate, mostly-improvised attempt at inversion.

In the Empire, the default nature of just about every surface was 'crystal'. It was what the natives had, and what their magic allowed them to easily work with. There was wood and metal about, but it had never been in true fashion for construction and if you ever saw either material in truly large quantities, then the supplies had probably been imported. It just so happened that there were certain consequences which came from crystal and in order to try warding off a few, every square hoofwidth of the room's walls, floor, and ceiling had been covered in thick, impact-absorbing white cloth padding. This made every exposed surface somewhat bouncy. To truly jump on the floor was to feel as if you might come a little too close to the ceiling, and Cadance thought it also made the hanging protuberances sway a little too much.

Shelves were also covered in padding, as was a very small emergency cooler which, under Cadance's direction, had been installed earlier in the day. All toys were soft, and fully out in the open. There was very little point to using a safe when the room's occupant was capable of sundering steel.

Strategic places within the room used pegasus magic to keep small sections of the padding permanently damp, and those were located directly above carefully-planted plates of heat-resistant metal.

The crib itself, as was traditional for winged foals, had a roof. (This was largely considered to be a token gesture at best, because rendering that out of steel wasn't going to make a difference either. But the good intentions might have counted for something.) There was also a platform attached to one side, next to a little door. The soft level surface offered enough room for a mare to lie down on her side, although the back legs were going to wind up in a fairly awkward position. The carefully-aligned door was just large enough to let a baby's head poke out.

There were no heavy barriers. In theory, bringing them in would have given visitors something to hide behind during emergencies: the reality was that the resident had no more trouble wrenching those up and getting them accelerated than she did with the unwelcome visitors. Instead, each corner of the room held what was essentially an igloo made from the thick padding, with just enough of a hollow for a pony to cower within. The resident couldn't move what she couldn't see, so a pony who managed to completely work their body into the center would have a degree of protection. Nopony tried to think about what might happen if the igloos themselves were simply wrenched out of the floor. Which was to say that they all tried not to think about it, and everypony failed.

To enter the room was like going into the ward for the world's smallest asylum patient, only it was Cadance's sanity which was under question.

The room's occupant, who was still making the sort of noises associated with steadily-increasing unhappiness, raised her head. Spotted who was in the room, because some of the padding had been enchanted to produce a soft glow. Disgruntled half-whinnies were replaced by a curious, somewhat raspy coo.

The resident was wearing a foal sack and wing sleeves. The head was bare, because the hollow bejeweled metal cones of horn restraints were seldom made in infant sizes, Cadance hadn't been able to get any imports, and she believed that nothing which could be found would be strong enough -- but with the other two measures, every tenth-bit theoretically helped.

A typical nursery tried to protect the foal from the world.

"Hello, Princess Of Explosions," Cadance managed to smile.

This one was attempting to protect the world from the foal.

Flurry, who still responded to a loving tone instead of actual words, responded with an innocent smile. Then she coughed.

Her mother repressed most of the sigh.

Both of them sick. (Cadance had fallen ill first.) For the infant, it was fairly mild: elevated temperature, some respiratory issues, and both parents were keeping a weary eye out for the first signs of colic. But Flurry, as an infant, wasn't capable of understanding why this horrible thing was happening to her. Admittedly, the majority of adults weren't much better at that.

She was just a little sick.

But she was also the world's first naturally-born alicorn.

Ponies tended to freak out when any of the other three mares was publicly ill: Cadance had only escaped setting off an Empire-wide panic because the natives didn't know enough to worry. In Flurry's case... there was a host of foalhood diseases in the world, and nopony knew how an alicorn body would respond to any of them. Not the illness, or the treatments. It meant that for anything which both started and appeared to remain minor, it was arguably best to just let her recover naturally -- and that still had both parents terrified.

It was a mother's duty to stay with her sick foal. Trying to defend her, when the first layer of defenses had already been breached. And that was why she was going to be not-sleeping in her daughter's room for the whole of the night. Doing whatever was necessary to protect.

But with Flurry, any attempt to protect was going to be double-sided.

The foal made a soft, uneven nickering sound. Pale blue eyes looked past Cadance, tried to search the shelves.

"You want something," the mother immediately guessed. "A little more company than just me. A favorite toy..."

Her infant burbled. Cadance nodded, then redirected her half-bouncing path towards the shelves. Temporary anatomy swayed in a disconcerting manner.

She reached the storage area, then started to look for exactly the right plushie: this currently meant the snail. But she didn't spot it immediately. Her corona lifted other objects, went for a soft rendition of a rather large male deer in the hopes that the snail was hidden behind it. That wasn't the case.

"Big buck," Cadance's light fever muttered. "No Whammy -- oh, there he is!" The first spotting had been of blue spots, and she didn't laugh because she wasn't sure a non-ill mare would have found that funny. A fully-well one probably would have had an easier time finding the snail. "Here you go, baby..." Her corona carefully lifted the plushie, quaveringly floated it towards the crib and eventually got the whole thing past the roof.

Flurry cooed. A sore body did its best to snuggle against the squishy shell.

"I'm going to stay with you tonight," the parent promised. "All night." There was an adult bathroom attached to the nursery -- or rather, there was one now. They'd had to do a hasty installation after discovering just how much could happen during the short gallop required to reach the formerly-nearest toilet trench.

It got her a faint giggle. But the infant still didn't look fully content.

Cadance examined her daughter's features. Noticed the pursing of tiny lips, and took an extremely accurate guess.

"You're hungry," she sighed. "Because of course you are..." Foals: sleep, eat, then release the contents of every meal. That last took place according to schedule: it was just that Flurry wasn't telling anypony what the schedule was. "Okay, baby. I'll take care of it..."

Which, under normal circumstances, would have meant getting the temporary anatomy involved. And the mere thought had her nipples starting to ache.

She didn't know how minotaurs did it. When it came to the females, ageládas developed breasts at puberty and kept them for the rest of their lives. With ponies, the display of visible mammary glands began shortly before giving birth, lasted through the nursing period -- and then everything simply involuted. Going back to normal over a few days, until the tiny nubs of shrunken nipples were once again hidden under fur.

Cadance had only possessed (temporary) breasts for a few moons, and they would probably be gone well before Flurry's final Surge. It had been more than enough time for her to discover just how many positions had them disconcertingly squashed against the floor, or a bench, or simply have her legs knocking into the things. There had been two occasions when that last had somehow wound up involving her forelegs. It was uncomfortable at best, offered all sorts of opportunities for actual pain, she'd found odd ways of hitting them against objects and the sheer pressure of having the glands fill up...

Ageládas only nursed after a birth. But their breasts were full-time. Forever present and therefore, always in the way. Cadance was still trying to figure out how the female half of an entire species was managing to put up with it.

Of course, there were positive aspects. The doctors had told her that there was nothing better than mother's milk for nourishing a foal, and she felt that the experience helped her grow closer to Flurry. They'd even arranged for a nursing crib, and that was the reason for the crib's side platform. Saddle Arabians, who had different body proportions starting from birth, could stand upright and have a foal nurse. Pony infants were a little too short for that. A mother typically had to lie down.

Normally, she would have been happy to nurse Flurry. There was a certain warmth in it, and the joy which came from the fulfillment of duty. Bonding. But tonight...

Cadance sighed.

"Give me a minute, baby," she told her foal. (Flurry, who was too young to recognize the concept of 'delayed gratification', was already starting to fuss again.) Then she walked over to the cooler, opened it, and blue glow extracted the first of the contents.

"Here we are," Cadance softly told the room as the cooler door closed again. "It'll be ready in less than a minute, Flurry." With a warm smile, "Trust pegasi to enchant a self-heating bottle --" hastily "-- no, don't fuss, do not get upset, this just takes a little longer. Okay, let me check the temperature..." A drop of nearly-white fluid was splashed against sweat-saturated fur. "That feels about right..."

There was a very soft, semi-rumbly, completely familiar sound in the room. An empty stomach. Her daughter was very hungry.

"Coming," Cadance told her and trotted over as quickly as she could without bouncing (or swaying) too much. The bottle, held within blue glow, stood out readily within the room.

Flurry looked at it. Kept looking at it with fast-narrowing eyes, as a secondary projection of her mother's light started working on getting the crib's roof flipped back.

The infant's head visibly tilted towards the side platform, and all youthful attention viciously focused upon emptiness. Waiting for the crib's little side door to open, so she could stick her head through and start on a late dinner.

Cadance immediately saw where her daughter was looking.

"I can't," she sighed. (Words weren't understood: tone was. Shining indulged in foal talk: Cadance was hoping to lay down the foundations for an early vocabulary.) "I asked the doctors. You're usually supposed to nurse, even when you're sick. Because the milk gives foals resistance to a lot of illnesses. But... we're both alicorns, Flurry. And there are a few diseases which can be passed on through nursing. We don't have the same thing, so I know I didn't get you sick before this --" a small comfort "-- but I don't want you to get what I have, on top of what you're dealing with already. And when it's alicorn to alicorn -- the doctors didn't know. Nopony does. We're having a hard enough time in filtering the palace's air enough to fend off silicosis. So I got you the best formula I could find. They all said it's really good..."

She tested the temperature again, because it didn't hurt to check twice. Then the crib's roof was flipped back, and she floated the bottle towards her daughter's mouth. Contacting Flurry's lips with the soft tip triggered an automatic suckling reaction.

Flurry drank.
Pale blue eyes went wide with the freshly-discovered emotion of horror.
Then she spit.

The foal glared at her mother. Flipped onto her back, kicked at the bottle to make it go away, and then rather pointedly looked at the crib's side platform again.

"I can't..." Cadance helplessly said. "Flurry, please try a little more --"

A hungry infant began to cry, and the wails didn't produce quite enough sound to cover up the rumbling of the tiny stomach.

Then the soft toys began to dance on the shelves.

The crib itself jumped a half-hoofwidth to the right, and did so at the same moment when the floor began to rumble. Which meant that somewhere below them, the ground...

Cadance dropped down, as quickly as she could. All four knees instantly ached, and hanging anatomy awkwardly, uncomfortably pressed into the padding. But it was instinct. Get low. Minimize the space you were taking up, Make sure nothing nearby was in a position to fall on you.

And as long as she was that much closer to the earth, start countering her daughter. Quickly. While hoping the tiny bit of gained range advantage actually meant something.

Deep within her soul, Princess Mi Amore Cadenza began to frantically sing.

It was all about Surges.

Every pony infant had those uncontrolled expresses of inherent magic, and every last parent of a foal had to deal with them. For those whose foals matched at least one parent's birth race, where their strengths were fairly comparable, it was a little easier: there would be an adult on guard at all times, trying to feel the building power -- and when it erupted, the parent countered, unwove, or debated the results into silence. For those occasions when, say, you had two unicorn parents and a pegasus foal, or the child was considerably stronger than the adult -- you asked for help. Neighbors were generally glad to assist, especially when live-in professional help was expensive, the one Equestrian business which had attempted to use untrained adolescents for the job had gone under from the sheer weight of lawsuits (mostly filed by injured adolescents), and offering adult aid was so much easier than dealing with the results of a Surge. Besides, they'd all been through it.

Get a pegasus adult to stop a pegasus foal. That was normal. Cadance had been born as a pegasus, and her mother had dealt with all of her Surges. That was the natural way. She presumed crystal pony foals had Surges, but the freed adults among the natives were slowly rediscovering the concept of 'sex life' and most of the consequences hadn't been born yet.

Flurry was the first naturally-born alicorn foal.
Flurry's Surges were capable of kicking out up to three kinds of magic. (It wasn't always one form at a time. Plurals quickly dropped by, then decided to move in.)
She didn't always like strangers. To have a completely unfamiliar crystal come into the nursery could trigger a Surge. So could a loud noise. Say, a scream from the pony who'd been on the receiving end of the last Surge.
And Flurry was strong.

When operating as a solo effort, there were only four mares in the world who were potentially capable of shutting Flurry down. (Shining tried, especially when his spouse was exhausted -- but he could only deal with unicorn magic, and Flurry's most powerful efforts were well beyond what he could manage.) Cadance wasn't sure Celestia knew how to really deal with infants, for the oldest mare in the world had settled for birthing a nation. The chill of Luna's temper was best avoided. Twilight... was probably willing to learn, and Flurry had some natural fondness for her aunt -- but Twilight was also a very long way off, and had never tried to push her teleportation range beyond 'Now I can get across the whole of Ponyville!'

Flurry would experience Surges for up to two years after her birth. (Both parents were hoping for a final tally which was well under the normal maximum.) Full teams of powerful Equestrians couldn't be posted in the nursery on shift-ready standby, because instinct had her lashing out at strangers.

It was just Cadance.

It was always just Cadance. And her own illness didn't matter.

Because a mother had to answer the call.
Every time.
No matter what.

All first-time parents faced challenges. Hers just happened to include keeping most of a refractive nation from being razed to the shard-strewn ground.

So, Cadance's slightly-fevered mind kicked out, Flurry not liking formula and being upset over an empty, rumbling stomach? Equals earthquake.

Good to know.

...she could have just accelerated the growth of any grass in the area, trying to get something else to eat. But her Surge decided to go for the full production number...

Her magic was lancing through the soil, trying to limit the vibrational spread prior to shutting it down entirely. From what she'd been able to determine, the Empire wasn't anywhere close to a major fault line -- but this was Flurry. And the fact that the natives hadn't needed to deal with natural tremors had been a definite influence on the local construction guidelines. Cadance was fully certain that it wasn't a good idea to let an earthquake run wild in the arctic. Crystalline structures possessed a certain susceptibility to vibration, and if the effects went too far...

It occurred to Cadance that in her and the crystal pony members of the ruling Cabinet having taken over from Sombra, she was effectively trying to play leader for a nation in which every last native was still trying to recover from post-traumatic stress disorder.

Also that Flurry wasn't exactly helping with that.

The older alicorn's soul sang to the earth, picked up her volume and used notes which her daughter's instincts hadn't learned. The vibrations stilled. Shelves ceased in their shaking. Whammy stopped dancing around the crib, which had been more rapid movement than the living variety of snail ever managed.

Flurry, whose Surge had just been debated into nothing, looked oddly -- disappointed.

Also hungry.

"It's going to be the formula," Cadance stated as she forced herself to stand up again, just barely managing to keep the crossness down to a half-musical stinger at the end. Her breasts were sore from the drop, and she wanted to get into the bathroom and express the milk just to get rid of the increasingly-uncomfortable pressure. It was possible for her to get the liquid out through careful use of her corona and using it to... squeeze. Of course, it was also extremely awkward for anypony with unicorn magic to use it on something they couldn't clearly see, so she was either about to put her aching body through some very strange positions, or she was going to need a rather strangely-positioned mirror.

Mammary glands. Seriously: who thought that was a good idea?

"And don't give me that look, Flurry," the new mother said as she levitated the bottle for the second time. "I don't have a choice. If I don't, then neither do you. Because I might be able to find a nursing mother in the Empire, but I feel like a baby alicorn should have alicorn milk. Also, I don't know what's in crystal mare milk." With a soft sigh, "I'm not expecting tiny fragments, but the nutritional balance might be a little different. The formula is safe. And I really don't want to find out what happens when you see a strange mare displaying her belly for you. Okay. Round two. The formula's still at the right temperature." She checked again, just in case. "So if I rub your throat with my corona this time, make you swallow..."

There was an ideal humidity level for infants. If at all possible, you wanted to keep it between fifty and sixty percent: with ponies, anything over eighty had to be avoided. But pegasus magic existed, it was the category which Cadance knew best, and she had set the nursery for perfection. Because she loved her daughter, and wanted to be the best mother possible.

It just so happened that the ideal humidity level for a foal was also that which was required for a disgust-produced Surge to reach towards the ceiling so it could get a fairly small, extremely dark, and decidedly electrical cloud together.

Lightning went off in all directions. Every last strike grounded itself in deliberately-damped padding, then worked out the voltage on the metal hidden underneath.

Flurry wailed her discontent. A tiny horn ignited.

And then the glowing plushies attacked.

By the time Cadance left the room, Sun had been raised. She took a moment to regard the effects of normal radiance coming in through the windows to reflect and refract against crystal, then tried to figure out just how many hours the appearance of Sun in this portion of the arctic represented. Cadance couldn't seem to remember the exact amount of time required at the current point in the year, but was hoping it was something below two moons. Her illness-wracked body was still arguing for three.

Shining was on the floor, just barely clear of where an opening door would have impacted the low body. She would have internally described him as having rested there the entire night, but a single glimpse of his features told her that no actual rest had been involved.

He's been listening the whole time.
Trying to figure out whether he had to break in to help me.
Worrying himself sick.
...that may be literal.
I'm the head of the Cabinet. I could summon a medical team for him in less than three minutes.

The weary white head forced itself up against the triple weight of mane, exhaustion, and concern. Her love looked at her.

"She's asleep," Cadance forced out through a sore throat. "She'll stay down for at least three hours."

"Then you need to do the same," Shining quickly said. "Three hours of sleep. At least." He started to stand up, and she watched two of his legs cramp. "I'm getting you to bed."

"I can sleep in her room," she told him. "In case she needs me."

He sighed. Slowly shook his head, while visibly knowing it would do no good.

The new parents looked at each other for a while. Love flowed across the gap, carried on a current of deep mutual exasperation.

"...how bad?" Shining finally asked.

"It calmed down a little after I realized that the plushies were trying to destroy the bottle," Cadance sighed. "Then I made the mistake of trying for another one. That let Flurry figure out what the cooler was for. But once I got the teething chews out of their attack formation, that round was pretty much over."

"That round," her spouse carefully emphasized.

Cadance, with the expertise which arrived in every new mother's soul at the moment labor ended, maintained her silence for one full minute.

"Did she eat?" Shining surrendered.

"Eventually."

Her spouse sighed again.

"Anything I can do?" asked her love.

And then Cadance had a thought.

It was a thought which was, in part, produced by illness. Exhaustion. Fever and stress working as one. But she didn't realize that. She didn't even examine the idea too closely, because it felt like such a good one...

"Do you remember telling me about that letter you got four days ago?"

He briefly frowned. "The one from Spearhead, right?" And followed that with a faint shrug. "I'm sort of surprised it got here as quickly as it did. The trains are getting a lot better about bringing the international mail in, but to see anything in under a moon..."

She nodded. "You told me that you sort of wished you could be there for his art exhibit. Support an old friend." Her twisted mane tilted in concert with her head, fell to the right as she smiled. "So why don't we do that?"

Shining blinked at her.

"...you want to travel? Leave the Empire for a while?"

"We've got enough lead time," Cadance judged. "I can wrap up my schedule, make sure the Cabinet is ready to fully manage the Empire until we get back. It'll be good practice for them. But once Flurry and I recover... I think we could both use a vacation, Shining. At least a little one. So let's start putting that together."

"And what about Flurry?" the stallion immediately asked. "A Surging infant at an art exhibit wouldn't be a good idea when the foal wasn't an alicorn. So unless you're both staying away from the actual show..."

There's only three other mares in the world who are potentially capable of shutting Flurry down...

(It felt like such a good idea. The light fever had told her so.)

Cadance smiled.

"We'll go to the exhibit together," she told her love. "But before we do that -- why don't we drop in on Twilight?"

Luna: Diplomacy's Other (Treatment) Option

In soon-to-come retrospect, Luna would quickly locate the irony of it all: namely, that she had already been experiencing some degree of false illness. The nausea of anticipation.

It wasn't the Open Palace session, for the palace hosted the event for the Lunar shift once per moon. Ordinary citizens stood in lines which wound about the marble halls, waiting for their chance to speak directly with a Princess -- generally in hopes of discovering exactly how a single word from royalty would magically solve all of their troubles. Strictly speaking, Luna didn't always enjoy the meetings: too much pettiness trotted into her throne room, and even when it temporarily stepped aside to let another have a turn -- so many such encounters were about personal problems, and she was fully aware that when it came to matters of heart, family, and love, the powers of a Princess were strictly limited. But there were times when she did find solutions, and... it was a chance for her subjects to know her a little better. Perhaps a few would even begin to perceive her as a pony, as opposed to a source of endless intimidation or -- worse.

Still... the encounters had been going on for hours. The session had, in fact, stretched out well past its usual deadline. By design.

She was tired. Weary on the emotional level which arose when she once again realized that there were self-labeled sapients in the realm who could perceive no solution to their dilemmas other than royal intervention, because surely a Princess would be able to order their neighbor into nibbling the unruly lawn down to a proper height. Somewhat achy, but that was probably to be expected after remaining upon her throne for such a long time. The headache was easily put down to the sheer number of idiots she'd been forced to deal with --

-- and I should look at that as being what the cinema calls a 'sneak preview' --

-- and on a very real level, the thing she currently wanted second-most in the world was the comforting coolness of her own bedsheets. The final barrier against the heat of an early summer Sun, as she slept and hoped to find a better world when Moon was raised once again.

Claiming the desire which occupied first place was presently seen as impossible.

"You look tired, Princess," Moonstone openly noted, and Nightwatch silently nodded. (There were Guards in the room for all such sessions, and they generally remained in place for the same reason each visitor to the Open Palace meetings was carefully screened: the sisters weren't stupid.)

"I suppose I would," Luna carefully failed to yawn. "Given the -- temporal circumstances."

"Are you up for a few more?" Nightwatch asked, and black feathers rustled from nerves. "Um. Obviously that's your decision, but if you do want to stop, then it won't be any trouble to clear out the rest of the line. Especially since we've gotten so much deeper into it than the usual."

"At this point," Luna told them, "meeting an additional number would be mandatory. That is the plan, Nightwatch. Bring the next to greet me."

The pegasus nodded, then nosed the Moonrise Gate open and stepped into the hallway.

A few seconds passed. The alicorn felt every last one of them dragging a trench through her fur.

Finally, the doors opened again, and a rather young, slender fuchsia earth pony mare stepped in. Four half-knocking knees forced themselves to approach the base of the throne, and Luna carefully considered the effort involved. It was actually rather impressive to see how the feat was being managed, especially when the joints were visibly trying to make the journey without the rest of the legs.

Pale green eyes slowly looked up at her. Blinked a few times in an attempt to fight back weariness, stress, and a fully-unexpected source of illumination.

A very nervous "...Princess?" finally drifted up to her on a less than subtle current of sweat.

Which wasn't exactly the least common opener. "Greetings, citizen," Luna steadily said. (Her head swam. She crossly instructed it to wait until she could reach her bath, along with ordering the skull to stand by for the whole of the body.) "Your name?"

The mare thought about the query for a while. No answers came to mind.

"Princess?" was repeated, only with double the anxiousness. Both Guards watched with well-masked pity.

"Yes," a significant amount of weariness noted, followed by partially spreading oddly-sore wings as a touch of darkness briefly danced on the tip of her horn. (The world's most skilled illusionist briefly considered creating a false animation as further proof, perhaps springing something on a tapestry into life -- but the mare was already unnerved.) "The observation would be correct. I have been identified. However, as I am still somewhat less familiar with you, I once again inquire as to your name --"

"-- I can leave," the mare hastily said. "Right now. If that's okay."

"This is an Open Palace session," Luna softly told the nervous pony. "All are welcome. You have stood in line for hours, citizen, all under Moon. Simply to speak with me. Surely there must be some topic which you felt was worth the time. Such as the offering of your name?"

"But it's not your time," the mare helplessly told her. "Not any more. So I should leave. I can come back next moon --"

Royalty blinked.

"Not my time?" Luna asked. "What, exactly, do you mean?"

The mare's head tilted to the left. Luna looked.

There were heavy blackout curtains over the high-set windows. There had also been an intense argument between two pegasi earlier in the session, and the anger-created wind had shifted the fabric.

A beam of sunlight was in her throne room.

Luna regarded the illumination for a few seconds. There was dust dancing in the beam, because dust always danced within sunlight. She didn't find the presence of the dust offensive. The palace was old, and any structure so ancient was difficult to clean completely. You couldn't truly eliminate the dust of age, and you certainly couldn't keep it away from sunlight.

Which meant that dust should be coming off her sister's fur at all times. And dancing.

(She was allowed to have such thoughts. Her sister was the oldest mare in the world. The fact that Luna was a whole two years younger entitled her to endlessly mock the elder for that.)

"I am aware that it is morning," the alicorn wearily said. "And that the session generally terminates somewhat before this. I also possess a distinct recollection of having lowered Moon at some point. However, this particular Open Palace was intended to proceed through a portion of Princess Celestia's hours, as my goal is to eventually be awake much deeper into the day. You may stay --"

"-- you're trying to stay awake under Sun?" the stunned mare broke in. "Why?"

The Guards silently, motionlessly watched. Luna considered the question.

Well... at least she's talking...

"There is a -- diplomatic function of sorts," she finally said. "Which will take place a week from today. Meeting certain -- personages from the other nations. The full Diarchy shall be in attendance, and the gathering only ends when the last guest leaves. And as it is a luncheon, there is a certain need to be conscious."

Even if sleeping is the better option.
The one where I don't have to put up with any of it.
...unless the stupid thing manifests in my dreams again, because of course I can't control my own nightscape and I wind up being bored to death while I'm asleep...

"So I am attempting to slowly -- and temporarily -- alter my schedule," Luna finished. "All the better to go about in some degree of comfort under Sun --"

The mare blinked.

"-- you can be directly under Sun?"

Luna didn't shout. She didn't raise her voice, nor did she allow that odd weariness to touch her voice. It was a question which had been asked too many times. "Yes," generally sufficed, although the followup "If you wish, I can stand within that stray beam and demonstrate how I do not catch fire," was new.

"A diplomatic luncheon," the mare thoughtfully considered.

"Correct."

"That sounds exciting!"

It isn't.

Maybe if it was the ambassadors, it would be. Official envoys from the other nations... the ones who last in the position need to be social. They understand how to interact. Some of them even know how to laugh.

But I looked at the guest list. I kept looking at it, just in case it transmuted into something else. These are politicians. The ones who perceive Honesty as the enemy. They won't believe any truth because they never speak it. Most of them have utter faith in the power of lies, and a number keep trying to make their own falsehoods replace the sin of facts. Rumormongers and fear spreaders, none of whom have ever found a tale they wouldn't believe as long as it cranks the terror all the higher. Even when doing so scares themselves. And I'm tired of those who'll put their trust in any lie. Especially when it's about me.

...although there are times when it's useful...

This is the first such luncheon I'll attend since my Return. And they collectively demanded that it be held at noon, likely to catch me at what they decided was my weakest and most vulnerable. And Tia is insisting that we have to be there together.

I don't want to go.

But it didn't matter. There were ways in which a Princess had very little power, and even less in the way of choices.

"It is not," Luna simply said, and briefly regarded the dance of the dust again. The patterns were almost hypnotic. "Let that suffice. So, as we are clearly speaking to each other -- may I gain the knowledge of your name --"

Her snout twitched.
Ribs convulsed.
Wings, which generally didn't know what to do in such situations, tightly folded and thus got to enjoy the enhanced effect of the first muscle spasm.
Luna sneezed. Half-clear droplets flew everywhere, dampening a few wall hangings.

Then she coughed. Several times, to the point where her own left forehoof tried to rap on her sternum to make it stop. The regalia got in the way.

Eventually, the attack eased.

"...my apologies," she tried to restart. "So, as to continue with the previous inquiry --"

The Moonset Gate opened.
Then it closed.
And there was one Guard in the room.

Nightwatch's silver eyes blinked helplessly at Luna. Moonstone was now only present as the echo of fast-moving hooves.

"...Princess?" asked a very worried earth pony mare. "We can stop. Maybe we should stop. I think you need to stop. Right now."

Oh no...

"We proceed," Luna firmly said, and tried not to think about whether the new rasp in her throat was diluting the royal tones. "Your name?"

"...Candlelight," the mare finally admitted. "...where did the other Guard go?"

"Out," Luna technically failed to lie. "And your issue?"

She listened. And as she did so, she wrapped her soul in armor of dread. She knew where Moonstone was going.

Her Guards were present to protect her. And in the name of that goal, Moonstone had galloped off to tattle. Looking for a pony who had authority.

A day is never so bad that it can't get worse.
It's going to be one of the Bears...

An incident which had taken place slightly over two years into the Return had seen the long-defunct post of Royal Physician revived, and the post was now occupied by a pair of medical professionals. But as Luna clearly had no need of the surgeon, her forced interaction was with the diagnostician.

He was a middle aged unicorn with white fur, oddly-intense blue eyes, and a well-known tendency to get lost within the endless depths of his own imagination: any member of the palace staff who encountered him in a frozen state was advised to steer around the body until the latest fantasy finally resolved.

There was something attractive about his features, but -- not in a conventional way. He sometimes came across as the product of a sculptor who had run low on material and decided to compensate with a mix of parts from previous first drafts: a mouth which was somewhat too wide, a bit of a point at the end of the snout, and too many unicorns already presented the appearance of being 50% forehead: the additional tenth wasn't helping. The build was almost waifish, with what felt like a nearly-fatal lack of muscle tone. He didn't appear to have the strength to hold up the weight of the palace's highest-piled mane, and Luna generally assumed that one of the many homemade tonics was producing an antigravity effect.

The voice was higher-pitched than the average stallion. He was prone to episodes of stress, most of which were self-imposed. The physician seemed to eat very little, and mostly lived off his nerves.

"This is the last sample," Doctor Vanilla Bear very probably lied.

"The truly final confiscation," Luna inquired with completely false patience, "or the 'final until the moment when you think of something else' version?"

There was a too-close rumble of thunder. The section of the palace gardens which had been themed to the region of the doctor's medical school suffered through the fifth hit.

"...two more," Vanilla finally admitted.

"Do you know what this is?" Luna crossly checked, and shifted her position on the examination bed. Her left wing was trying to tell her that the recently-confiscated pinion had been essential in some way. It wasn't. Keeping the electrical expression of her frustrations directed away from the doctor was, but he made it so hard...

"Very likely," he quickly assured her. "I've been fairly certain about the diagnosis since you trotted in."

Seven more unseen dark clouds instantly coalesced over the gardens.

"Then if you have been 'fairly certain' this whole time," Luna forced out, "why is any of this necessary?"

"Because it's the same for any patient," he told her. "I want to be completely certain. A little more, Princess."

Two more samples were collected. (It took a spark-filled glare to keep it from becoming three.) He busied himself with potions and chemicals for a time, examining shaved fur and little vials of half-clear mucus. Luna, whose link to Moon provided her with supernatural immunity to cold, irritably wondered if the examination bed was ever going to start warming up. Maybe she needed to adjust the palace's climate system. In summer.

Of course, properly tweaking the weave of pegasus magic would mean leaving the offices. The physicians had set up within the palace, all the better to guarantee patient privacy -- but the medical rooms were nowhere near the heart of the loom.

"Equufluenza," the physician finally pronounced. And to Luna, the most amazing part was that he did so with a smile.

Luna blinked.

"I am familiar with the condition," she told him. "It existed prior to my abeyance. I also know there was very little which could be done about it. Several nights spent in low-key misery --"

"-- but science and magic have advanced, Princess," Vanilla broke in. He was still smiling. "We can do things which weren't considered possible before you --" the pause was exceptionally awkward, and the mane swayed accordingly "-- had to... step away..."

"Advances."

Which got her a rather enthused "Yes!"

"Such as with the cream?" the alicorn half-spat.

Her body wasn't perfectly adapted to a mostly-nocturnal existence. In particular, she was prone to conditions which could arise from a lack of sunlight exposure. One of those was a stubborn, almost paranormally-itchy fungal infection of the skin. Treatment required either obnoxious amounts of Sun time, having Tia effectively burn it off her, or the cream.

"...yes," the doctor reluctantly admitted. "But... well, it's the selenium base, Princess. It's hard to keep it from stinking."

"And clearing out a room."

"...yes."

"Along with a portion of the palace's Lunar wing --"

"-- it still works," said an oddly defensive stallion. "Eventually. Not every solution is perfect, Princess. You know that better than most. But this --" the blue eyes were bright, as if lit from within "-- things change, Princess. And that's not just medicine. Species change. They evolve."

Luna bitterly wondered whether professional politicians needed to be considered as their own species and, if so, just how close she would come to disproving evolution. Or rather, demonstrating its potential to either select for the least viable traits or kick the entire process into reverse --

-- increasing irritation from all the time under Sun and then the stupid luncheon on top of it --

"And diseases can change," Vanilla added. "We're starting to believe that each one may effectively be its own species. And they do adapt, Princess: we've seen that. They might try to resist the cures we create. Or they find themselves in a host which they normally couldn't affect, and -- mutate. Change, until they're capable of causing illness again in the new body. It's why the battle never completely ends, and --" his tone dropped "-- it's one of the reasons we're always worried about the two of you. Because an alicorn body is like nothing else in the world, and if one of you --"

He stopped.
Blue eyes spontaneously unfocused.
His head tilted up, and slightly to the right.

After a few seconds, Luna carefully waved her left forehoof in front of his face. There was no reaction.

She sighed. Counted to herself, checked her own timing against the clock, and then forced her sore body off the examination bed. This was clearly going to be one of the longer daydreams, and that made it a good time to stretch --

-- which was when she heard the knock at the outer door.

"Excuse me?" asked a slightly worried mare voice. "Is anyone in there? I have a delivery, and the door is locked..."

Ah. Well, of course the doors were locked: an alicorn patient required privacy. But she saw no reason to turn the deliverypony away. Getting this deep into the palace when you weren't a member of the staff required significant effort, multiple clearances, and a few checkpoints. It would be unfair to put somepony through it twice in one day.

"I am coming," she told the unseen mare, and carefully trotted towards the door. Sore muscles protested, and she sent her corona ahead to the lock. Saving some space.

The door opened. The pegasus on the other side stared.

"...you're Princess Luna."

It wasn't the least common observation. "Yes," the alicorn patiently said, and regarded the delivery basket which had been balanced on the mare's back. It seemed to be full of vials.

"...I..." considered lightly trembling feathers, "need to deliver these to the doctors..."

"I shall take custody," Luna offered.

"They have to be signed for," declared a fast-increasing amount of stress. "By the doctors. Or... a ranking member of the palace staff..."

"I believe," the returned Princess said, "I would qualify for the latter. Enter." Perhaps Vanilla Bear would return to the real world in time to sign for the vials himself.

The mare timidly followed her in, then paused to stare at the frozen stallion. Luna's corona ignited again, carefully unloading the contents of the basket onto a nearby table.

"Do you have an inventory form?"

"...yes."

"A receipt document?"

"...yes."

"And a quill."

"...yes."

"I am aware that there are numerous quills in this office," Luna added. "For some reason, any such implement which is kept here becomes incapable of producing a legible signature. But perhaps the effect has yet to saturate yours. Let us see. Yes, this count looks correct. I believe I can sign in safety. So if you happen to see a bottle of ink about --"

The doctor's head dipped. Blue eyes blinked.

"...and you'd need to find a tiebreaker before you knew whether the phlegm actually won..." he non-sequitured.

The pegasus, who wasn't within his current visual field, froze. Luna, who was more or less used to it, waited for the rest.

"Anyway," Vanilla continued as if nothing had happened at all, "imagine if a disease found itself in an alicorn body for the first time! Maybe it wouldn't affect you at all, even if it can target every other species of pony. But it might also start to change. Mutate, trying to become something which could make you ill. Or you could wind up immune, but the disease might shift into something which could make somepony else sick. It might even evolve to the point where it had the ability to affect someone. There's a theory which says that just about anything could happen, and when we already know that you're ill --"

There was a gasp.
Wings flared. Flapped. The usual backblast of wind kicked the unsigned receipt form into an anatomy chart.
They both heard the door slam.

Vanilla frowned.

"That was odd," the unicorn decided. "Did something happen to the acoustics in here? We usually don't get noises from outside -- wait." He frowned at Luna. "When did you get off the bed?"

She held back the sigh, climbed back into place. "Do not concern yourself." She'd have to have the signed paperwork sent back by palace courier. "Continue with the current topic?"

"I was just about to say that it's highly unlikely," Vanilla told her. "Your body isn't a hospitable place for a lot of diseases. It's why you've never had Rhynorn's Flu, even when both of you can use unicorn magic." He shrugged. "Low-probability at at best. Probably almost impossible. But with diseases, you never know. There are things you can catch, and this is one of them. So we worry."

"And when it comes to -- advances? For equufluenza?" Which she'd had before, and should have recognized. Multiple cycles of doing almost nothing but waiting until she felt better...

"One dose," Vanilla smiled. "And it's over."

Dark eyes stared at the doctor.

"A single dose," Luna carefully said.

"That's it."

"Side effects?"

"Does feeling better within ten minutes count?"

"...as that would be the intended central purpose," Luna considered, "no."

He was still smiling.

"I'll just go prep the treatment," he told her. "It won't take long. The mix is standard. And we already know it's safe for alicorns. The records say Princess Celestia had to get a dose two centuries ago, and there weren't any problems. There's just one minor bad part, but -- it's fast."

She immediately presumed it tasted horrible, which seemed to be medication's default prerogative. The wonders of the modern age. Which were generally rather less wondrous than advertised -- but there were times when the new world surprised her.

Luna tried to settle onto the bed. The ridiculously thin padding fought back.

The stallion moved out of sight. She heard vials begin to clink.

Ten minutes. As opposed to several nights. Possibly more if I truly exerted myself. Nights in which I'd just be sick --
-- wait.

Because she'd just thought of something.

I'm sick

She could hear liquids being poured. A fizzing as they mixed.

I'm sick.

"I have just recalled a vital duty," Luna declared.

The clinking stopped. Most of the fizzing kept going.

"Princess," Vanilla said, and there was an odd tone to it. It wasn't a query. Technically, she wasn't even being addressed. It was... a lead-in. The opener for the rest of the sentence. Something which only two ponies in the world could say. Or, far worse, do.

"I need to attend to my duties," the younger alicorn kept going. "They are, as you are well-aware, rather vital." The repetition was for emphasis. "So we will have to continue this at another time. Of my choosing. But as my schedule is decidedly crowded, I will have to let you know when I am available --"

"-- Princess." On the verge of doing it now, as the thin body fully straightened against the burden of its own minimal mass -- and another, far greater weight.

The post of Royal Physician came with certain responsibilities. And in order to fulfill them, a number of powers had been granted. None of them were magical, and the greatest remained within what most citizens would have seen as the realm of mysticism.

Either doctor, in the name of keeping the Princesses healthy, could give the alicorns orders.

He could tell her to stay right where she was. And she would have to do it. There would be no choice. In matters of medicine, Vanilla and Chocolate Bear (no relation and (somehow) unmarried) were the ultimate override.

But Luna had been a Princess for nearly three centuries before abeyance. A term which, in the deep past, had also equated to 'General'. And before that... a soldier of sorts, in the war to determine the nature of reality. A proper soldier understood that a sensible order had to be obeyed, at least when it couldn't be creatively misinterpreted.

"Farewell!"

Her horn ignited. Light flashed.

But for all intents and purposes, an order you'd never heard didn't exist.

The area used to train rookie Guards was located well beyond Canterlot proper, fairly far around the curve of the mountain. Classes of fresh recruits would see it reserved for their exclusive use, especially since nopony else wanted to get close enough to hear the Sergeant yelling -- and with Emery Board, that safety margin required staying in Canterlot. And even when there wasn't a session in progress, the locker rooms and equipment storage were restricted to palace staff.

But the rest of the grounds... there were ways in which they were open to the public. Just about anypony could wander into the area, look at the mockup wooden combat dummies and try a few kicks. Youths liked to pretend they were protecting the Princesses, and some of those who truly embraced the dream would find those visions of heroism reflected in brightly-manifesting marks.

Or you could just use the track.

There was a dark form galloping around the perimeter. When measured against ponies, it had a land speed greater than that of all of but one. The muscles moved, sweat glistened on fur because most of the strands had absorbed too much to take in any more, and she ran. She occasionally moaned as she did so, winced frequently because her body wasn't currently meant for this and the movement came with some pain -- but she maintained the gallop.

Galloping under Sun, at a time -- she glanced up at the orb -- very close to noon. Had she still been inflicted with the luncheon, she would be very close to her temporal goal...

Luna smiled. Forced herself to accelerate, came around the curve, found a new section of the perimeter opening itself to her vision --

-- and there was a decidedly large white body standing in the observation area. A place which was usually reserved for the Sergeant. Luna assumed the slow, steady tapping of huge forehooves came along with the patch of ground.

Teleport? Fly? Run?

Instinctive queries when spotting many intruders, especially when it was an individual who had broken the protections Luna had placed around the training grounds -- and done so without triggering magical notice. But this was somepony she loved.

It still brought up the question of how she'd been found. Process of elimination, perhaps.

Luna, mindful that stopping too quickly could do its own damage, gradually slowed across the length of an additional circuit. Most of the observer gave off the appearance of patient watching. But the hoof taps accelerated.

The dark body came to a stop in front of the white one. Looked up.

"Sister," Luna greeted as sweat dripped off her sore form -- and followed by turning her head, just before the sneeze. "My apologies, but I have no desire to place mucus onto -- or into -- your snout. And there may be similar interruptions. I hardly wish to pass this on to you --"

"-- I was just reviewing the newspapers," Celestia quietly said. "The commodities market didn't have too much of a dip."

Luna shook out her wings. Sweat droplets flew off to the sides.

"Commodities?"

"I... used to do everything I could not to show signs of illness in public, while you were -- gone," the elder softly told her. "Because it was just me, and -- ponies were afraid of what might happen. The world could panic." The sigh was barely audible. "Of course, in those days, by the time the news reached the other nations, I was usually better. So it was a sort of rolling economic depression. Moving outwards in a wave. But with both of us here... the markets don't react the same way."

"Ah," was the only reply Luna could initially muster. And then the old guilt began to close in. "I did not consider economic effects. I offer apologies --"

"-- most of the articles," Celestia carefully cut her off, "are about the same subject. But 'articles' may be going too far. It's conjecture crystalized in ink. Rumors written down so they can be pinned to the page for a while. And then they leap from the text and embed themselves in the reader's brain."

"I have not been keeping up with the publications," Luna reluctantly admitted. She'd been -- busy. "If there is something significant which I missed --"

The huge right forehoof came up, gestured: wait. "Let's see if I can gallop this down for you." Purple eyes narrowed. "For starters, one of the more persistent rumors is that the Nightmare was actually a disease --"

"...what?"

"-- which is now potentially capable of spreading. Then there's the one about how if you get us within five body lengths of somepony with metritis, then anypony we come into contact with after might just melt." Far too patiently, "I know you didn't read that one. I would have heard the laughter. Or the lightning. At any rate, the commonality seems to be the prospect of alicorn diseases. Or diseases which change when inside an alicorn body. There's been a lot of opinion columns on the subject. The central qualification for getting published seems to be having no actual medical training."

Luna stood very still. Several varieties of pain worked deeper in.

"...there was a delivery mare," she finally said. "In the offices. Vanilla Bear --"

"-- it doesn't matter," Celestia quietly broke in. "This isn't the first time for that kind of wild conjecture. It'll fade. Again. I'm not angry with you. Not for that. It's nothing you did, and it'll go away. In a few weeks, at the most. Since nopony's melting." A little ruefully, "I'm speaking from experience."

"Another reason not to show illness in public," Luna expertly deduced.

"Yes." The elder sighed. "But that's not the real reason I came looking for you."

"Then...?" the younger carefully probed.

"It's been two days," Celestia reminded her. "Two days in which you've been literally galloping around with equufluenza. And flying, given that you personally decided to launch the last Wonderbolts show. From the head of the formation. You haven't been back to either of the Bears. You're too busy for one dose and somehow, whenever either of them starts to get close to you, there's an alicorn who has to be somewhere else. For that matter, your staff seems to be losing a lot of medical memos sent directly to you. By order. Yours. And they are not happy about it. Some of them are coming up on 'terrified', and others are already there."

The younger was silent.

"You've never been afraid of medicine, Luna -- well, some of the taste, and the untried stuff in our era -- everypony had reason to be nervous there. But you were willing to take risks. And even if that's somehow changed -- you know this disease. We've both had it, before and after. Even if you don't want the treatment for some reason, you know what your body needs. Rest. And I found you out at the training grounds, galloping at what was just about your full speed. Straining yourself. You're just making it worse. And..."

The elder's eyes narrowed more. Then they gave up and outright closed, as the white head dipped.

"...if you're trying to hurt yourself -- if this is --"

"-- it is not!" emerged as something perilously close to a bark. "I simply have other considerations, ones I have no obligation to explain because it is my life, my health, and I am doing nothing to truly endanger either one --"

"-- if you don't rest, you'll just stay sick, and even if that somehow doesn't have any long-term effects, you'll have to start missing things --"

Luna smirked.

There was no way for the other mare to have seen it. But they had been sisters for a long time, and some things could be felt by the soul.

Celestia's head shot up, and parted eyelids provided a window onto open fury. The flowing, half-tangible mane twisted against itself, and a quasi-solid tail lashed.

"-- that's it!" the elder nearly shouted. "That's what you're trying to do! You're trying to get out of something -- it's the luncheon, isn't it? You're doing everything you can to miss the luncheon! Because I can't ask you to go if you're sick, you're dodging the Royal Physicians so they can't apply the fast treatment, and you're out here doing personal speed trials to make sure you stay sick! So you won't recover in time to go!"

"That," Luna calmly said, "is a rather interesting theory. Very well-formed. Interestingly reasoned. Only slightly insane. I suggest passing it on to a party who has more interest in hearing it. Perhaps if we mutually agree that the staff now requires a Royal Therapist --"

"-- you're playing games with your health to get out of a diplomatic meeting --"

"-- a forced short-term imprisonment with non-convicted criminals -- no, wait: I misspoke. One of the yaks did have that felony --"

"-- and you don't know what the consequences could be --"

"-- trading one kind of illness for a lesser form?" Luna proposed. "Assuming we wish to give your 'theory' that much validity."

Celestia took a very, very deep breath. Two crucial vocal chords aligned.

"LUNA INVICTUS --"

"-- I invented the Royal Voice, sister," Luna evenly interrupted. "It does not work on me. Good day to you. And in the event that I do not recover fully in time for the luncheon, a good meal. One spent with rather poor company."

Her horn ignited. The dark corona flashed, and the younger alicorn vanished.

Anypony attempting to approach this particular occupied palace bedroom at three in the afternoon would have needed to get past seven Guards, multiple security checkpoints, and then defeat an incredible number of spells just to get the door open. The two intruders were more or less trotting up. The senior of the invaders was just that good and in the event that she hadn't been, nopony on the Lunar staff seemed to be in the mood to mount a challenge.

The entrance slowly opened. A minor effect kept all of the noise down, while pushing the majority of unwelcome light to the hallway side. There was just enough to make out shadows, and that very much included the rather large one on the bed.

It was a plain sort of bedroom. The sheets and mattress were quality, but.. the designs were nothing special. Ordinary shelves held books both new and ancient, and the desk had been a functional desk for so long that it was questionable as to whether it even knew how to become firewood. A framed sketch, ancient and precious, held a prominent place of honor on one corner. Both invaders left it alone.

The resident liked to keep things on the cool side, even in winter. Summer had the bedroom as a chill oasis within the palace, and magical immunity to cold meant the blankets were mostly present because the fabric was pleasant against fur. The greatest initial risk imposed to those who entered was a shiver fit, and the thinner set of legs was trying not to vibrate.

A mare's body was curled up on the mattress: something which was just possible to see. Heavy blackout curtains denied the entrance of sunlight, while failing to do the same for the existence of Sun.

She breathed. Ribs shifted. Feathers rustled.

A soft burst of warm yellow went off in the room. The blankets were yanked off, and hit the wall at the same moment when a blue corona pressed a thin razor against fur. Strands fell away, and a liquid-dipped cloth wiped the tiny patch of bare skin --

-- the resident had been born in the Discordian Era. Survival required the ability to wake up in something of a hurry, and the changing conditions already had dark eyes starting to open as a near anti-light of fast-approaching violence began to climb up the horn. The intruders had less than two seconds --

"-- OW!"

Luna's wings unfolded as all four legs pushed: the combination left her awkwardly spinning in midair before almost managing a rotated landing on the mattress again. Most of the half-collapse took place in a total lack of dignity, and also with a decidedly sore left buttock.

"HOW DARE YOU --"

The thin stallion pulled back slightly, moving closer to the huge white mare. But he didn't run, and his corona simply put the expended needle away.

"I told you there was one bad part," Vanilla Bear said. "I also said it was quick."

"I DID NOT DESIRE --"

"Stop."

The word hadn't come from the giant mare. The elder wouldn't have been able to make it into an order.

Luna stopped.

She could see perfectly in the dark: another one of the gifts granted by her Moon-link. It made it easy to glare at their faces, although she wasn't sure whether they even knew.

"No games," were Celestia's first words. "I know you don't want to be at the luncheon, Luna. I'd rather not go, especially when I'm stuck with all of them until the last guest leaves. But if I have to face it, I want you there with me."

"And neither of us," Vanilla added, "is willing to let you play games with your health. Because ponies shouldn't try to stay sick. This is a disease which is supposed to pass naturally in a few days, with rest. To keep it in your body for a week, deliberately straining yourself... nopony should take that risk. Not even an alicorn. Especially an alicorn. And if you try to pull this kind of stunt again, I am going to have you confined to the offices until you heal. No matter what that takes. Do you understand?"

"It is my life," declared an angry mare, speaking from the heart of the insult which had given her so few choices about how that life could go. "Mine --"

The elder didn't move. The stallion ignored the sounds produced by the five simultaneous lightning strikes in the gardens. He simply lunged.

Thin legs jumped. Put him on the mattress, staring up at her. The stupid mane nearly went into her snout, blocked some of her vision -- but there was enough left to truly see him. To witness the utter fury in his expression, and recognize that he was confronting her without fear.

She was intimidating. (There were times when she used it. Others when she hated that state.) Powerful. Capable of destroying just about anypony in an instant.

He was a physician.
He'd seen worse.

"-- then let me keep you alive."

She blinked.

Wings refolded. Multiple unseen clouds broke up.

"...yes."

He jumped down. Minimal body mass began to stomp its way out of the bedroom --

-- Vanilla Bear turned.

"You'll be better in a few minutes," he said. "Or you would be, for a normal pony who'd come to me with a normal case. But you deliberately strained yourself. So you're on bed rest for the next two days. And once I clear you, you're going to the luncheon. Got it?"

"...understood."

He looked away from her. Oriented on the door, and both mares watched him go.

The food was horrible. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough to induce vomiting. That kind of illness would have given Luna an excuse.

...and it might have helped if Tia had mentioned that we were doing this outdoors...

A noon summer Sun did its best to beat down upon her. Having to work through several layers of an stupidly-elaborate dress didn't seem to be slowing it down much. But at least the shaved patch was covered.

"...rigged court!" the convicted yak told her. "All rigged. Charges. Judge. Good judge would have broken charges."

As opposed to your just breaking the law. The yak magical portfolio was for destruction -- but making a statue meant shattering a rock. This one had just decided that the rights of others were chains. And yet he was here.

Professional politicians. Fear spreaders, rumormongers, those who saw one of the fundamental pony virtues as a grievous insult and Luna didn't think the yak would have appreciated Kindness either...

Celestia was over by the buffet table, reluctantly engaging in conversation with a delegate from one of the more restrictive zebra kraals. Luna was briefly amazed that the attendee had lowered himself to speaking with a pony who could both spell and define 'freedom'. Then again, given that he'd jumped onto a bench before speaking at all, maybe lowering wasn't in play.

The crowd milled around the dark alicorn. Many of the attendees seemed to be keeping their distance. Others watched her out of the corner of their eyes.

"All better now?" the yak abruptly asked.

"You refer to my recent illness," Luna said, and the politician nodded. "Yes." Despite her best efforts to turn her last pre-luncheon bath into an outright waterlogging.

"Wanted to check," the yak told her.

"Considerate of you --"

"-- funny stories in papers," he continued. "Some worries. But you look fine. For pony."

Half-lidded eyes went over her again. They didn't pause at the dress. Fabric wasn't all that much fun to break.

Luna looked away from him and, for the first time, truly examined the crowd.

At least a dozen species -- although there were no minotaurs in attendance: Mazein had a true democracy, and having every citizen as a voting part of the government had effectively eliminated politicians. A Referee for the debates, and no more. But beyond that... criminals convicted, not yet caught, or stalling out their courts. Ne'er-do-wells. Those riding an endless power high. All looking to take advantage of her at what they saw as her weakest --

-- except that few of them were getting too close.

All of the stories in the newspapers.
They believe no truth because they never speak it.
Utter faith in lies...

"My pardon," Luna said. "I need to speak with my sibling for a moment."

She made her way through the crowd, and found much of it parting before her. Wove her way around benches, noticed that the edges of the outdoor eatery had partial walls and windows. A decorative touch.

Sun streamed through the colorful glass. Dust particles, lent hues by the staining of the silicon, danced a pattern of drifting rainbows.

Eventually, the zebra decided to stop talking. Luna waited until he'd jumped down and stalked away, then closed in. Lowered her voice.

"This continues until the last guest leaves," she checked. "Correct?"

The elder managed a very soft sigh. "Yes. By my estimation, we've got at least four hours to go." Purple eyes surveyed the rest of the buffet table. "Especially since we've got kudu here. Kudu and food..."

Luna nodded. "Sister... are you enjoying yourself?"

Celestia made an expert show of not looking around. No answer came.

The younger sibling allowed herself to drift away. Noticed how many attendees were keeping their distance. One held her breath as she passed: another tried to filter oxygen through a tablecloth.

Faith in lies.
Valuing themselves above all else...

She stopped near one of the partial walls. Looked at the sunlight, and the dust.

And to all outside appearances, that was all she initially did. Because if the world's most skilled illusionist didn't want you to see that she'd just ignited her horn, then you weren't going to perceive anything.

Luna leaned into the irritation of direct noon sunlight. Took a deep breath of the dust, because the best illusions benefited from a degree of reality.

Particulates swarmed into her lungs. Tickled her snout.

She turned to look at the luncheon gathering. Counted the number she wished to associate with, contented herself with having the total at 'one', noticed just how many were still watching her, and --

-- sneezed.

Several hundred rather noticeable, somewhat liquid, and decidedly bright green-glowing globules of something flew out of her snout.

The majority of them hit attendees.

Green didn't quite soak into fur. Luna could manage the look of it -- but doing so with so many subjects would have made the final result awkward, and nothing she did with unicorn illusion magic would have replicated the dampness.

It didn't matter. They were politicians. Actually thinking about what had happened was right out.

Screams erupted from a dozen kinds of throats. And then the professionals did what they felt their occupation was truly about. They protected themselves.

There was movement, and there was a lot of it. A quick flare of wings brought Luna above the majority.

Things got a lot easier after two of the yaks took out the partial walls.

Tables had fallen. Benches were in pieces. Most of the pastries had been trampled, and the younger sibling instinctively prepared a line about this being the world's means of telling Tia to go on a diet.

The only other remaining sapient standing within the debris took a very, very deep breath.

"LUNA INVICTUS --"

"-- it was a boring luncheon anyway," the younger smirked. "One which ends when the last guests leave, and that would appear to be us. And quite frankly, I was already -- sick of it. I am seldom awake at this hour and I have already thought of fifteen better things we could do together. Shall we go?"

The elder fumed. The air around the huge white mare burned with heat haze. But there was nothing she could say, and the siblings finally fell into hoofstep next to each other. Started towards one of the newly-created exits --

-- Celestia sneezed.

Luna looked up at her.

With open concern, "Tia?"

"...I swear it's from being in your bedroom," the elder muttered. "You keep it too cold..."

"Ah. Well. Then before we go out on the town, I suppose our first stop should be the Doctors Bear. If only to prevent any strictly accidental riots --"

"-- oh, shut up."

Sunny: The Plight Of The Ailicorn

One of the first thoughts to successfully pass through Sunny's moderately-fevered brain was that if there was any dubious benefit to having fallen ill, then it was probably going to be the accommodations. To wit, it might be nice to have her own bedroom again. For a little while.

She'd lived on her own for just about the whole of her adult life. Her father had been... gone. She'd never really thought about roommates and given her prior reputation in the Bay, it was probably safe to say that anypony who proposed rooming with her was doing so as the lead-in to telling a future horror story for free drinks. Something about what had happened to the last nonexistent pony who'd tried to take up quarters with the crazy mare. And when it came to the other traditional method of getting somepony to move in... her three-stage disaster with Hitch had never gotten that far, and nopony else had ever chanced expressing public interest: for lack of details, see 'with the crazy mare'. So she'd gotten used to the solo routine. She cooked for herself, cleaned the same way, decorated to personal taste and if anypony had a complaint about the way Sunny lived, then she'd just file it with all of the other complaints regarding her existence.

Sunny had become accustomed to living alone. She'd even begun the slow, emotionally-wearying process of trying to reconcile its potential permanency.

And then a unicorn had trotted into the Bay.

There had been a certain amount of fallout. One of the more locally significant portions had placed four extra beds into the Brighthouse, and Sunny had joined her guests in what was now a common sleeping area.

It had taken some getting used to and in truth, she wasn't completely there yet. She still wasn't sure how to deal with everypony else's habits, and it felt like you had to live with a quartet of mares for a long time before you truly recognized just how well the group could tie up any and all available bathrooms. But simply trying to sleep while her ears were constantly picking up on four additional breathing patterns, hearing all the shifts of limbs plus the rustling of feathers and by the way, Izzy snored...

But on this day, Sunny woken up with a fever. So all of the others were collectively bundling her off to the same room Pipp had used during the last bout with illness. Giving her some isolation and privacy.

"We're sure it's just the flu?" Izzy asked from somewhere behind Sunny, and the horn came a little too close to prodding the earth pony's backside.

"It's not the first time," Sunny sighed. When your first job included making deliveries -- doing so in every kind of weather which the ocean could kick at the Bay -- it was easy to get sick. Especially in winter, and the cold had closed in again. If she listened closely, she could hear near-arctic winds testing the Brighthouse windows. "I know what the symptoms look like." Felt like, for that matter. "So I just need somepony to take a gallop down to the pharm --"

A little too urgently, with heavy overtones of worry, "But you're an alicorn!"

Sunny paused. A lowered horn went into her left buttock.

"OW!"

"Sorry -- !"

"-- what does being an alicorn have to do with it?"

There were circumstances under which the next sound qualified as a horrible one. It was a slow inhale which entered the lungs after being pulled in between teeth, and it was the audio cue which said Zipp was starting to think.

"Well," the older princess thoughtfully considered, "we all have our own diseases, right? That's part of why the hospitals and emergency departments are having so much trouble when the ponies who moved need medical help. I'm pretty sure pegasi are the only ones who get psittacosis. You need wings for that. So maybe alicorns get sick in ways other ponies don't."

"...um..." said Misty, because she was still trying to figure out how to live with the heir and when Zipp really got going, '...um...' was about the best anypony could hope for.

This was followed by a high-pitched, slightly annoyed (and very musical) whistle of frustration. "Look, everypony," Pipp groaned, "we just need to get her into bed. Nopony around here needs Round Two, and I'm saying that as the mare who got to go through Round One --"

"-- I can't get any alicorn diseases!" Sunny's heated neurons fired off.

"Why?" Izzy curiously asked. It was possible to hear the overlong mane swaying with concentration.

"Because a disease infects biology! My wings aren't made of cells! They aren't even solid!" Which once again begged the question of how they were catching the air at all, but... "They're made of magic! Magic can't get sick! And I'm an earth pony!" Which, since the Second Age Of Unity had officially begun, seemed to come with some degree of enhanced stamina -- but that had already failed her. "Biologically. Earth ponies illnesses are the only kinds I could get!" Although there were a lot of isolation wards in those overwhelmed hospitals, because nopony was entirely sure just how much could be passed on between species.

Nopony said anything for a moment. Sixteen hooves continued their attempt to corral the last four towards the proper door. And then a one-of-a-kind brain, which had a tendency to take every possibility to what its owner saw as the logical conclusion, came up with "Unless it's a magical disease."

The silence which temporarily followed represented one of the more typical reactions to an Izzy Moonbow pronouncement: 50% sincere attempt to figure out what she'd meant, 50% desperate concentration on a failed attempt to fend off the incoming headache.

"...what?" Zipp finally expressed for the group.

"If you can have wings made of light," Izzy innocently explained, "then why can't you have viruses made of magic? Tiny bits of floating light, too small to see without help! And they would only be able to infect magical things!" She thought that over for a few extra seconds. "Somepony needs to get a really good magnifying glass and check the sickroom. We'll need to remove any suspicious sparkles."

The next level of skull pain registered behind Sunny's eyes, then settled in for a long stay.

"...um..." Misty technically contributed.

"We'll worry about that," Zipp firmly stated, "when we come to it. Okay, I recognize this door. Let's get her inside..."

They boosted her into the bed. Some of this involved leverage and, with the two unicorns involved, more horn pokes.

"...okay," Sunny finally exhaled, and tried to settle in under the blankets. "Thanks, everypony. So if anypony has the chance, there's a few things I could really use right now." Write up a list, send somepony to the pharmacy. That would be easy enough. "For starters --"

She glanced up to see who could be recruited. An activist always wanted volunteers, but Sunny had a natural attraction to lost causes and was still trying to figure out the process of volunteering somepony else. She was always sure they would see the benefit of working with her, just as soon as she got them lashed to the same tree. And then they could defy the incoming bulldozers together --

-- Izzy, Pipp, and Misty were gone. Zipp was looking at her.

"I know what you need," the heir stated.

Sunny's hot-feeling eyes needed a little extra effort to manage the blink.

"You do?"

"I know I do!"

She's enthusiastic.
She's almost never --

"Just wait right there!" Zipp declared. "I'm going to bring in exactly what you need to feel better!"

Sunny hadn't really intended to look at the books. There were more than thirty tomes on the rolling bookshelf and when you got many hardcovers together in one place, the ink started to collapse in on itself with a sort of literary gravity. It pulled in attention. And when the books were all from the same series, it also collapsed all hopes of actually getting through anything.

She didn't want to look at the books. But to look away from them would have meant looking at Zipp.

The older princess didn't smile much. She found the vast majority of the world to be decidedly annoying. The heir to a throne and future leader of a nation generally treated society as something which could go on without her. On the other side of that door. The one which never opened and, just to make the status a little more official, didn't actually have a lock. Or hinges. Actually, upon closer inspection, it looked a lot like a wall.

It was hard to engage Zipp's attention. But if you did happen to find a subject of interest... everything flipped. She fixated. Hyper-focused. There was a possibility of pictures and if those turned up, having a spiderweb of red strings connecting the images was just about mandatory.

If Zephyrina Storm could be made to actually enjoy something...

The heir was currently beaming, and it was utterly terrifying.

"I know you're going to love Chevalia," Zipp decided in advance. "Anypony with taste does."

Sunny looked at the books. Then she tried properly counting them, and stopped when the sheer weight of the number began to drill into her skull.

"...where do I start?"

"Volume One, of course!" the pegasus guessed. "But..." She glanced at the rolling unit. "Huh..."

"'Huh'?" Sunny's well-justified Fear Of Ten Thousand Pages inquired. "What's 'Huh'?"

"I just thought about it," Zipp announced. "I could arrange everything in the ideal order for you!"

"One," Sunny tried, "is usually followed by two..."

"Bookmarks," the heir clarified. "Color-coded. When you reach a red one, you pull the right supplemental material volume and turn right to the matching tab. That'll give you more than the footnotes ever could!" Helpfully, "The books have their own footnotes. But there's only so much the publisher can do with them."

"...oh."

"The font size is kind of a limit."

"...oh?"

"Three paragraphs is the max." With open happiness, "Oh, and I could bring in some of the things I've been writing down! For submission!"

"For..." was about as verbose as the looming literary terror wanted to be. Besides, the room was already overflowing with words. There might have barely been enough room to get a 'for' in.

"There's rumors that the author is going to start publishing volumes of fan material," Zipp gushed. (Gushed. Sunny hadn't even told the others about her father's notes on changelings and she desperately wanted to make sure she wasn't dealing with one.) "Officially sanctioned! So I've been writing down my own conjectures and figuring out how to submit them. Under a false name."

"Why under --"

"-- I don't want to get published just because a princess wrote it."

"Oh."

"My deductions are solid enough on their own," Zipp added. "They should be more than capable of speaking for themselves. Especially after I've spent so much time working out what the author actually means. As opposed to what she wrote. So on the first round, I won't use my own name."

"The -- first --"

"I know my theories are good," the pegasus ecstatically declared. "Better than anypony else's! I used to dominate in the fan forums. Under a false name. But there's going to be hundreds of ponies sending in material, Sunny. So no matter how brilliant my work is, it could get buried in the landslide. First round is anonymous submission. But if that doesn't get me through, then nopony can ignore a palace postmark!"

She kept beaming. It was the bright expression of somepony who truly adored something and felt that everypony around her was sure to care about it just as much. It was a very happy face, and it was also a face which hosted a list of future inquiries. Because Zipp would want to know just how much Sunny had loved the books. Specific chapters. Paragraphs. Individual lines. If there was laughter, how long did it last? One box of tissues for the tears or two? And if the action had the reader on the edge of her bed, then which edge had it been? Also, name twelve minor characters. Just to see if you were paying attention. And what did you think of the stunning foreshadowing which only came into true view around Cumulative Chapter #290?

"I know you're going to love the originals, though," Zipp enthused. "All of them!"

It was an expression of utter delight, and it came with the promise of an exacting quiz.

"Um," the earth pony said.

She looked at the books.
She wrenched her gaze away from the books.
She hadn't even reached Word One and she was deep into archive panic.

The intense, heartfelt, and somehow half-unnatural smile began to fade.

"It's really dry in here," Zipp noted. "The air, I mean."

"Well, winter," Sunny sighed -- which was when her body decided to kick in a few coughs, as if for emphasis. "We usually don't get humidity this low, not when the ocean's right there. But when it's cold enough, most of it drops out of the air. It happens."

Thoughtfully, "Humid air helps with the flu, doesn't it?"

"With congestion," Sunny agreed. "And clogged throats." Which was when her heated mind recognized that an opportunity had just arisen. "Zipp, I'm going to need some things. But when it comes to a humidifier, I'm pretty sure mine is in the --"

"-- I was thinking about your dad's notes."

Which immediately refocused the whole of Sunny's attention onto the most important topic in the world.

"...you were?"

"I think about them a lot," Zipp solemnly stated. "Like how he said the ancient pegasi were capable of weather control."

The faintest alarm bell began to go off at the back of Sunny's brain and found the sound blocked by the towering image of a lost stallion.

"I know," Sunny sighed. "And it's been seasons since the beacon originally went off. I'm starting to realize, Zipp -- some things may come back slowly. It's possible that others might never return at all. I know at least one of the old rules changed, because the old earth ponies could never grow plants this fast --"

"-- humidity," Zipp openly observed, "would be part of weather control. And that's how the ancients set up climates in buildings, right? This much here, a little less over there, maybe get a sauna going somewhere..."

"There were magic-powered spas," said a rather confused mare. "But we all had to find substitutions through science. So the last time I saw my unit, it was under --"

"-- I'm going to try something," the heir decided, and did so with the air of a pony whose usual authority had exactly one living override. Who was a rather long way off.

"What?"

Zipp's wings unfolded to their full span.

Then they began to flap.

Hitch paused as he trotted in, then glanced around the room. The small cart being towed behind him wasn't quite ready for the stop, and the base nearly jammed his pasterns.

"How are you feeling?" the sheriff asked his ex.

"...tired."

"Is that a new bed?"

"Yes," Sunny sighed.

"Bad mattress?"

"Not really," the mare wearily decided. "Not if you like waterbeds."

The streaked forehead creased. "Waterbed..."

"It held the rain very well," Sunny announced. "Ever after we got everything else dried out. And we couldn't exactly stick it outside in the sunlight during winter, so it wound up in the basement. And then we swapped beds. Because a waterbed is seasickness, but a waterlogged one is just cold and squishy" She thought it over. "Maybe the damage wouldn't have been so bad if Zipp hadn't prioritized for getting the books to safety."

Local law enforcement, which had just heard a bale-ton of evidence being nosed over, looked confused.

"...never mind," Sunny said, and then sneezed. "What's in the cart? I can't see past your tail."

The sheriff tentatively nodded, then unfastened himself from the harness and stepped again.

"Boswellia," Hitch announced as Sunny carefully looked over the little cutting, which had been tenderly placed and propped up in the pot. "The others told me what happened. I thought you'd want something to chew for any joint pain."

"Thank you!" And she meant it. A few of the fernlike leaves would help. "But what I really need is for somepony to gallop to the pharm --"

Sunny squinted. Looked more closely at the tiny planting.

"Hitch?"

"Present and on medical duty, ma'am," the stallion announced with a smile.

"Isn't boswellia usually a tree?" And this wasn't even a bonsai. "That looks like you stuck the end of a branch in soil. It's not going to last long." Not that she was complaining about having gotten some form of medicine, but there weren't all that many leaves and the source was going to die.

He nodded. "It's all Copia would let me have. One cutting."

Oh. Copia. It had probably taken the flash of a badge to get that much out of the Bay's premier greenhouse miser. "Better than nothing," Sunny weakly smiled. "I'll take all the help I can get. Starting with, if you don't need to go back to the station house right away, a bottle of --"

"-- you know," Hitch thoughtfully cut her off with that calendar smile, "I don't think Copia's really gotten the idea of the Second Age yet."

"What do you mean?"

The stallion grinned.

"You're the one always telling me to consider this as a possible solution..." he reminded her.

The soil in the pot began to glow green.

Pipp, who'd balanced the steaming serving tray on her back, carefully stepped around several stray pieces of shed bark.

"Where did all of this come from?"

It was a slow process. Some of them took up more floor space than she did.

"Hitch," Sunny wearily announced from the center of her half-curl on the bed.

Her snout twitched. There was a familiar scent in the room...

"...Hitch," the younger princess repeated, and then looked around a little more. "And the giant leaf impressions in the wall?"

"Also Hitch."

The pegasus looked up.

"So I'm guessing the ceiling damage --"

"-- I still told him to use magic more than he does," Sunny sighed. "For practice. Because it turns out that when it comes to turning a branch cutting into a bonsai tree, he doesn't have a lot of fine control." Paused. "Also, there's firewood stacked up behind the Brighthouse. For the rest of the winter."

The royal slowly nodded. Most of the tiara failed to shift.

"Can you give me a little help?" the princess asked. "It's hard to take something off my own back."

Sunny nodded, uncurled, then scooted over to the edge of the mattress. She looked down at the little royal, then inhaled deeply of the teapot's unfurling steam.

"...spearmint," she finally said, because it took that long for the scent molecules to filter past the congestion. "With -- honey?"

"And a little lemon," Pipp confirmed. "Drink it."

Sunny took a mug, carefully sipped. Some of the soreness in her throat began to ease.

"Is this a pegasus medicine blend?" Because Pipp hadn't asked for anything like this when she'd been sick.

The royal shook her head. "It's for professional singers."

Sunny blinked. Set the mug down on the endtable.

"You should drink all of it," Pipp said. "I made sure it was balanced --"

"-- it's for what?"

"Singers," Pipp repeated. "You've got a cough and a sore throat. It's going to put a lot of strain on your voice."

Three visitors.

I had to get out of bed to help Zipp clean up after the downpour, and then she left.

Then I overworked getting the tree broken up with Hitch. And he left. Pretty much all of the leaves wound up outside, and what was left in here was too wrecked to chew.

This is my third visitor and I haven't had one pill. Or had somepony fetch the humidifier. Go to the pharmacy. Anything.

She brought tea.

A little desperately, "Pipp --"

The little princess shook her head. Sunny stopped.

"I looked it up after I got better the last time," Pipp told her. "Refreshing my memory on the mix." And now there was a faint note of sadness in the younger mare's words. "I'm not a doctor, Sunny. I don't want to try guessing at how to treat an earth pony. And I didn't go back to the Heights for the Number Twelve soup with extra carrots, because... that's not from your mom. It doesn't have the same associations. It would just be soup."

I went all the way to the palace for her soup.

I could have gone to a Zephyr Heights pharmacy. Found the palace physician, whispered the situation to him, and filled a few scrips. Because the species-specific medicines are still being distributed, and a lot of doctors are trying to improvise.

I'm an earth pony and we're in the Bay. Everything I need is right here.

And she made spearmint tea.

Which didn't change the fact that Pipp had done something for her. Pipp didn't always do a lot around the Brighthouse. Requesting basic cleaning usually got a look which suggested that the royal was still waiting for the servants to show up and in their unexplained absence, Sunny could go get a mop.

Pipp's head tilted slightly to the right. But she kept looking at Sunny.

"I know what happened with Zipp," she said. "A little, anyway. Zipp usually goes for detail on somepony else's mistakes. And Hitch didn't exactly help your mood. You already look grumpy." The tilt increased. "You've got a great grump face. Very memeable. I thought about using it for some base images."

"Very --"

"-- I don't deal well with being sick," Pipp solemnly understated. "I'm guessing you're worse. I hardly ever see you when you're not doing something. Maybe that comes from being an activist. Staying busy. And I have the salon, songs, keeping all of my social media accounts going, publicity and interviews and staying connected with the fans -- but you're just busy. So we've got that in common, I guess. And I don't want to be like Zipp. I don't play around with magic --"

-- and stopped, because nopony could have missed the expression of 120% Supersaturated Dubious which had just taken over Sunny's features.

"I don't play with pegasus magic," Pipp firmly said. "I tried something in the palace before Mom sent us here, and that was it. Mixing mane tonics and hoof creams shouldn't count. All that stuff is from plants, and anything which happens is the plant's fault. Besides, a plant should know how to be a plant. It's an expert. The way I'm an expert on acoustics and sound design and viewcount manipulation and getting memes started and..."

Her head came back to center. Leaf-green eyes dipped.

"...not much else," the princess slowly finished. "But I know about singing, Sunny. How to take care of my voice, my throat. And I don't want to mess with things I don't understand. But I know what Zipp did, and now I know what Hitch tried. So I made you some tea. So it would be a little easier for you to speak. And at some point... you might need to scream."

And with that, Pipp turned and left.

Eventually, Sunny finished the tea blend. Then she got off the bed and finished cleaning up the bark.

It made her muscles ache all the more. But Hitch had needed to return to the station house, and nopony else was doing it.

"I was thinking," was a typical way for Izzy to innocently present the start for her own round of horror

Sunny instinctively checked the availability of all exits. This included the windows. The sickroom was fairly high up on the Brighthouse's redesign, but that just gave her more time to manifest the wings before hitting the ground.

"...about what?" Because it usually didn't help to know what Izzy had been thinking about, excepting the potential for having fear lend any listeners some extra speed.

"You're an alicorn! And you're ill." The large mare's head tilted slightly to the left, and the long curtain of mane shifted. "'Ill' is also known as 'ailing'. So right now, you're an ailicorn!"

Silence filled the room, then shoved aside a few volumes on the returned rolling bookshelf and began to browse through the closest index.

"Is it because I explained the joke?" the unicorn politely asked. "I didn't think anypony would get it unless I explained it. Even if I said the new word really carefully. Because everypony here has an accent and that means they don't hear words right. Why is there a different bed in here? Did something happen to the old one?"

Sunny carefully possessed her soul in patience, which didn't do a lot for the fast-intensifying headache.

"You get quiet when you're sick," Izzy decided. "Maybe it's the fever." The unicorn came closer to the bed, reared up on her hind legs and briefly pressed her chin against Sunny's forehead before dropping down again. "You're just too hot. We need to bring that down."

Finally. "Izzy, I need some paper. I've got to write this down for you, because I don't want you trying to spell it -- actually, does Bridlewood have them?" Because she didn't know anything about the forest's medical capabilities. "Tell me if you recognize any of these names. Phenylbutazone. Flunixin meglumine --"

Izzy's eyes had just forfeited a certain degree of focus. The one-of-a-kind brain was lost in thought.

"-- I think," the crafter considered, "those are supposed to be medical sorts of names." (Sunny urgently, desperately nodded.) "Bridlewood's a little weird about medicine."

Words which, upon reaching a fevered mind, temporarily distracted it. "How?"

"Well, it's just about all plants, for starters," Izzy said, and sniffed the air. "Is it like that for earth ponies? Because that would explain why it smells like boswellia in here. With hints of spearmint tea. Anyway, we don't really have the manufacturing for most of the drugs. So it's mostly about what kinds of plants you can eat to feel better. Only most unicorns used to put that off for as long as they could, because being sick makes you feel miserable and the more miserable you are, the more you would fit into Bridlewood."

"...oh."

"The latest thing is leeches."

"...what?"

"I'm not sure it works," Izzy placidly added. "They suck out blood, right? And I don't think there's any blood in a horn." Thoughtfully, "I'd rather not break mine to find out. But that's what ponies are doing."

"THEY'RE --"

"-- not breaking horns, because that's stupid." No change of volume, not a single visible sign that she'd picked up on the half-shout. "They're putting leeches on the tips of their horns. And saying that the bad vibes are being sucked out."

Superstitious.
Remember that they're just about all superstitious.
It doesn't have to make sense. If it did, they wouldn't be doing it.
...don't picture a leech on a horn.
...don't...
...I think I need a bucket...

"I guess nopony tried it before because they wanted all the bad vibes they could get," the crafter offhoofedly mentioned. "But, Sunny... when I see everything Maretime Bay has, and Zephyr Heights... I know we're behind on medicine." A little sadly, "We were so wrapped up in being sad about not having magic that nopony really tried science instead. And now we're mostly buying everypony else's. Because what we come up with is leeches. On horns."

"Science is important," was what Sunny's strained sanity decided to treat as the takeaway. "Especially in medicine." Back to the important part. "Paper. Pen. Or just borrow a phone and tap in the list --" stopped, recognized that she was talking to the Brighthouse's resident techbane, and belatedly remembered that Izzy's last attempt to create a schedule calendar had somehow wiped out the phone's operating system. "-- paper. I think you spell the first one as p-h-e --"

"But we have to bring your fever down," said an extremely worried and caring unicorn, because she had good intentions.

"-- n-y-l --"

Izzy always had good intentions.

Almost placidly, "I thought of a way to do that."

It was the consequences which didn't care.

Sunny stopped again.

"...you did?"

The crafter possessed a singular sort of mind. She thought of things. Some of them worked. Others provided cause for reviewing the acceleration math on a just-cleared-the-broken-window falling body. Oh, and then there was that one which had basically overturned the world...

"It's not tea," Izzy casually mentioned. "I tried tea with Pipp. And it was all good tea, because we have a lot of plants and you get used to steeping them. Getting into hot water is sort of what Bridlewood is all about, only on the social level. But I couldn't get magic to work with the tea. And maybe that's because of my mark. I don't have one for medicine. My personal magic is about fixing things. Not ponies."

All right, considered the part of Sunny's brain which wasn't in a position to see it coming: the rest was lining up on the window. So at least that means she isn't going to try casting anything --

"But that's my personal magic," the unicorn happily added. "I don't need that to get your temperature down! I just have to do what we can all do!"

Two brain hemispheres set off their respective alarms. The panic signals collided in the corpus callosum and tumbled into the cerebellum, which twitched.

A frantic "Izzy --" was as far as Sunny got.

The crafter took a deep breath.

"Frosty shivers! Frosty shivers! Frosty shivers! Frosty shivers --"

Sunny had been thinking about shields.

She'd first read about them in her father's notebook, and then she'd seen the real thing in the fight against Opaline. A shield meant turning hornlight into something solid. The energy became a barrier. Protection, a quick way to imprison ponies...

"Your forehead is sparking," Misty timidly said as she visibly forced each leg forward. "Why?"

...a great way to block the door...

"Just thinking," Sunny sighed, and forced the sparks to stop.

"And the floor's really cold."

"Izzy put the chipped-out slabs of ice next to the firewood."

"...sorry?" was, perhaps, Misty's most natural vocalization.

"Forget it. Misty, how well do you know the Bay now? And I mean for finding things. There's a building over on Pharlap Street. And you have to go there, because they don't deliver no matter how many times you call and beg. I'm up to seven. It's got a sign with a mortar and pestle hanging over the door --" and realized she was dealing with Misty. "Do you know what a mortar is?"

But the shy mare didn't seem to be listening.

"I was thinking," Misty shyly said. "About medicine, and alicorns getting sick. Treatments. I think... I might be able to do something." Hastily, "Maybe. If that's okay with you. And I'll go slow, and I'll concentrate really hard..."

Sunny blinked. Her eyelids felt hot.

"You know how to use magic in medicine?" Nopony had worked out --

"Sort of," Misty timidly quasi-decided. "I mean... I was on the receiving end a few times."

"Receiving..." She knew what Misty meant. Whom. But her fevered brain refused to create the image. Not when it came to something which meant caring for another.

"Opaline," the unicorn softly said, and her eyes briefly closed as forehooves scraped at the cold floor. "I was a filly when she found me, Sunny. Kids get sick. And there wasn't anypony else. So she mixed things for me. She wasn't always happy about it. She'd tell me to stop being so weak. But... she always made the medicine. Every time. And made sure it was by my bed when I needed it."

Sunny went silent. It was rare for Misty to talk about the true alicorn of her own accord, and every bit of pain which finally drifted to the surface was something they could finally try to deal with. That was one very good reason to just let Misty talk.

The other was shock.

Opaline.
Looking after somepony.

She still couldn't picture it.

"And she got sick," Misty added. Mint-hued eyes went down. "Not very often, and she'd always deny it. ...almost. Once, she said it was the natural expectation from having to be around an inferior all the time. To feel ill. But then she'd give me a recipe book, and -- I'd have to do the mixing for her."

Natural-born biological alicorns can become ill.

There was a point in the near-past when that would have truly mattered. It could have meant everything. But... not any more.

"I saw some of the spells she used," Misty went on, mostly looking at the floor. "I don't know how to cast them. I could make my hornlight form the same shapes, but I don't know if it would do anything. But I remember the plant mixes. The ones where she didn't use any magic at all. I can't really go back to the castle to check the recipes, because it'll take so long and most of the books were probably destroyed. But I'm sure on what every plant looked like, because I saw the samples in the storage cupboards all the time. I think I know something which can help you. I... want to help..."

The forehooves scraped again. The mare tried to find the strength to lift her head against the weight of curls and self-imposed expectations, then failed.

And Sunny thought.

Her second instinct was to just send the unicorn to the pharmacy. But... it was hard for Misty to put herself forward. The mare had been taught that she was weak in all things. Forever inferior, perpetually existing a heartbeat away from total failure. It made her reluctant to attempt more than the most basic activities, because a deep-planted seed of poison knew it would all go wrong.

For Misty to openly offer assistance was a sign of possible healing. It was precious. Sunny couldn't just shove that aside.

"Go around to the greenhouses and get the plants you need," Sunny gently said. "Try not to use Copia's unless you can't avoid it. I'll be right here."

Misty forced her head to raise. Gave Sunny a weak smile, and slowly left the room.

"Um," Misty said.

Sunny didn't move.

"I... think I know what happened."

Individual strands of fur were moving. Twisting against each other, as was most of the hair in her mane and tail. The prismatic streaks felt as if they were trying to make a break for it.

"I was supposed to get lesser celandine," the unicorn timidly tried. "Which -- looks almost exactly like... buttercups?"

The fur moved on its own. Hairs shifted. But she would not let her muscles twitch.

"...and that's why you're having the reaction."

There was no way she was going to give in to the itching.

"I think it'll pass in a couple of hours," Misty openly hoped. "The... splotchy look in your fur might last longer. I don't know how long. I..."

She looked simultaneously miserable and apologetic. A talent which was both natural and honed.

"...I know you're mad," Misty finally whispered.

"I'm not," Sunny did her best to lie.

"You look mad," the unicorn just barely managed. "Or grumpy. Pipp said I'd know when you were grumpy. And that it was -- very memeable."

Silence.

"...what's a meme?"

The sickroom was cold. There were still some splinters on the floor, and in most of the ceiling. There was a scent of boswellia bark, peppermint, old books, dampness, and some of the things Sunny had needed a bucket for.

Nopony had come in to see her for over an hour. There had been no pills. No humidifier. She would have settled for the Number Twelve soup, carrots or no. The pharmacy was no longer answering her calls.

The earth pony mare slowly, achingly forced herself out from under the blankets, waited two minutes until the shiver fit finally eased, and then began her search.

Sunny heard them before she saw them. They had gathered near the source of magic, perhaps to see if it could somehow enchant their words into making sense. And in that, they had failed.

"Maybe if we put her right next to the beacon?" Zipp proposed. "She could try to sort of soak up the magic, right?"

"It's the same amount everypony receives," Misty timidly tried to counter. "...isn't it?"

A unique mind considered the problem.

"Maybe we could try to blast her with the lights!"

It was just possible to hear three mares blinking.

"...Izzy," Pipp carefully said, "what do you think that would do?"

"I'm not sure," the crafter admitted. "But her dad's notes said blasting people with magic used to do a lot of things. To make them better. So if it gets any worse, we could just try hitting her with the rainbow!"

Sunny was starting to feel more hot than before.

"And how," Zipp's open disbelief asked, "would we even know it was working?"

This was beyond feverish.

"She'd tell us that she felt better! If she was still conscious." Izzy thought it over a little more. "Does her flu hurt her sense of taste? Because that might come back first. She'd tell us that she was tasting the rainbow!"

"...taste a rainbow..." Misty just barely voiced.

She felt as if she was on the verge of boiling...

"You don't know she wouldn't!"

Sunny crossed the last bit of ramp, reached the proper level. Four heads turned at the sound of hooves.

"Sunny!"
"You shouldn't be out of bed --"
"-- you're sweating, I can see your fur getting darker -- or is that the blotches?"
"...I can go back to the castle and look for --"
"I JUST WANTED SOMEPONY TO MAKE A PHARMACY GALLOP FOR ME!"

Her four originally-unrequested roommates, with expressions and hues distorted by the radiance of the beacon, abruptly, collectively, and completely shut up.

"CAN'T WE JUST USE SCIENCE?" shouted the last of Sunny's strength, channeled into her voice and reaching eight laid-back ears courtesy of a very effective throat tonic. "Good old reliable, proven medicine! Why is everypony trying magic and mixes and the silliest things imaginable? Why can't I just get a pill? WHY ARE YOU All ACTING LIKE THIS --"

"...because we're scared," Misty whispered.

Thirty decibels met ninety, and won.

Sunny's mouth closed.

"We're worried about you," Zipp firmly said. "We need you."

"They're trying everything they can," Pipp softly sighed. "Even when that means new things."

"...anything which happens with you," Misty forced out, "is new. I knew how Opaline got sick. It's not the same with you. You're so different. Even your dad's notes don't have anything on anypony like you. It's scary. And when you're scared all the time, you do dumb things... I'm sorry..."

"We care," Izzy's unique mind vocalized. "We're your friends..."

Slowly, carefully, Sunny sat down. Part of it was from the shock. The rest was because her hind legs didn't seem to be interested in doing much of anything else.

She closed her eyes. Thought about being sick in a big building, hearing the echoes of her coughs bouncing off the walls.

Again.
Alone.

She wasn't looking at them. Closed eyes had fresh tears forcing their way out from between the lids, and also meant she only knew of their approach through hearing the slow, timid taps of sixteen hooves.

Then she felt the cool nuzzles against her hot skin.

Eventually, she nuzzled back.

"I'll get this list to the pharmacy," Zipp said as Pipp placed the paper in the older sibling's left saddlebag. "I'll be back as soon as I have it filled."

"I can make sure your dosages are timed," Izzy offered. "I'm used to timing things! Glue drying, paint..."

"Music," Pipp suggested. "Something soft. Relaxing. To take your mind off being sick."

"The Chevalia books can do it," protested the older sibling. "That's the best distraction from illness --"

"-- music."

Sunny, back in the slow-warming bed, gratefully nodded to all of it. And then she looked at Misty, whose hooves were once again scraping at the floor.

"...I could try to make dinner," Misty shyly proposed. "You shouldn't have to cook. I remember a lot of recipes. Things from her cookbooks, which nopony else knows. I just have to get the right ingredients..."

"Please," the earth pony gently said.

Books were, in fact, a decently good distraction from illness. Sunny tried to focus all of her concentration on the pages, and found that it helped to take her mind off the newest symptoms. And while she was sure that Zipp would have preferred for her to be prepping for the quiz, the Chevalia tomes had to wait. Sunny was much more interested in reading the freshly-borrowed mycology text, because that was what had just taught her that the culinary delight which was the King Bolete mushroom looked almost exactly like the wonder of gastrointestinal distress represented by the Lilac version. And the more she concentrated on that, the longer she could potentially hope to hold the vomit down until she reached the toilet trench.

It had to be the toilet trench. Every bucket and sink had been collectively used. But there was going to be something of a wait. Having five mares in a house could really tie up all of the bathrooms.

Misty had sobbed her way through most of it: something which had only initially stopped when the circle of nuzzles had gathered around the unicorn. And they had to keep going back to her. Telling her that mistakes were made, because nopony was perfect and you couldn't ask them to be. But then they were fixed, and never repeated.

It was okay. It really was.

Illness passed. Friendships continued.

They were all learning.

Author's Note

The leeches bit was originally suggested by Vinylshadow, and is credited here with thanks.

Hitch: Substiconfusion

It wasn't unusual for Hitch to not drop by the Brighthouse for several days, and most of that could be put down to the workload. When it came to law enforcement, Bridlewood had found some way of making a citizen's brigade actually function. Zephyr Heights had multiple precincts. Maretime Bay was currently at 'Hitch', and that didn't seem likely to change for a long time. Local government wasn't particularly interested in shoring up law enforcement. Not when the newborn tourism industry had the potential to bring so much foreign money into the Bay, and 'If you do something wrong, you may be arrested' didn't feel like much of a selling point for the commercials. And no matter how much trouble the visitors caused, regardless of how ragged Hitch sometimes looked, with all of the sweat in his coat converting to froth and froth was usually about three minutes away from triggering a faint...

There were several vital things to understand about the City Council. The foundation stone was that just about every last pony on it had been personally chosen for their jobs by Phyllis Cloverleaf -- whose top priority was 'Find those who are willing to let me continue getting away with everything'. The result was a local government which was currently debating a statute which said that while taking money from lobbyists before holding a vote might legally be considered as a bribe, accepting cash after the final tally was merely accepting a tip for a job well done. Ponies like that generally didn't want to have a lot of law enforcement around, just in case it decided to try arresting them.

So it was just Hitch, and was likely to remain so unless a truly major crisis threatened the Council with the only consequence they personally understood -- losing their authority -- or the next election actually managed to accomplish something. And with the sheer workload he had to deal with, it truly wasn't unusual to not see him at the Brighthouse for the better part of a week. But the resident mares could always call him. Pipp, who was slowly learning about the princess-perceived horrors of the old days, had shuddered at the thought of an age where checking on somepony would have meant having to actually visit their house.

The true worry began when he stopped answering his phone.

The five mares didn't panic immediately. It was possible that the charge had just run out, or that Hitch had stumbled into one of the Bay's dead zones. (The network was being upgraded to accommodate for pegasus models and transmissions: the first side effect of the process was to create multiple regions which, for transmission speed, struggled to reach dialup.) But after a few additional hours passed with no hint of stallion...

Pipp, who sometimes had issues with the whole 'in person' thing, had proposed trying to tap every security camera in the Bay. Sunny had rather more sensibly pulled out a map and started dividing the city into search districts.

It was Izzy who found his unconscious form, splayed across the stoop of a fully paid-off home. The mane was limp, with the tail having gone completely still. Breathing was ragged. Most of the froth had already slid away from his overheated coat, followed by evaporating in the rays of a summer sun.

The right foreleg was outstretched, with the hoof almost up to the door. Straining to make contact.

Trying to reach Sparky.

It was his first word when he finally woke up.

"...Sparky..." just barely croaked out of a dry throat, and did so before he'd even opened his eyes.

"Is staying with your grandmother," a familiar voice softly said. "I used my key to go in and get him, and then Zipp flew him over in the Marestream. He was just a little hungry. He'll be fine, Hitch."

"...Sunny?"

"Right here." With the sort of faint laugh which was only incidentally devoid of all actual humor, "I've been here for a few hours. The others have been in and out. Zipp should drop by again once she gets back." Perhaps a little too carefully, "She's... very worried about you, Hitch. We all are."

"...where am I...?" Because everything stank of cotton and chemicals, with the latter registering as the stench which only came when you were desperate to make every other smell go away.

Hearing her say "The hospital," didn't create all that much of a shock.

Hitch opened his eyes. An amber gaze slowly moved across the IV port on his left foreleg, then gradually tracked it back to the hanging bag.

He'd been given a solo room. There was that, at least. No having to worry about physicians scrambling in and out to treat another patient. It also meant that all of the assigned space for visitors -- two whole benches -- could be used by anypony coming to see him. Sunny, whose expression was presenting concern and exhaustion in equal measure, had definitely been there for some time. A small amount of shed white down on the empty specimen offered proof of Pipp's previous attendance.

Also, the blanket was too thin, the mattress had the smell which indicated that somepony was trying to conceal how many other patients had used it, there was yellowed grass on a tray near the bed, and the television remote displayed the damage of an object which had been kicked at the wall after not working during the last twenty attempts. Add that to all of the dull-white and snooze-beige paint, and you had a hospital.

Slowly, Sunny stood up.

"Don't try to talk for a few seconds," she told him. "You're rasping. The IV is keeping you hydrated, but your throat is dry. I'll get you some ice chips."

She did. He carefully let the trickle of cold water work its way down.

"How did I get here?" he finally asked.

"Izzy. She managed to load you onto the scooter."

"So it wasn't an ambulance," the stallion exhaled. "Good..."

"Why is that good?"

"The Council would have made me pay for the ride."

The mare's expression went tight. Locked. Every strand of fur appeared to go rigid.

"...they would what?" Sunny far too carefully said.

"I don't get sick leave. Or very much medical coverage from the job." And very quickly, because they were exes and he could see the storm clouds gathering in her eyes, "But I do have some private insurance -- which doesn't cover ambulances -- so I should be fine for this stay. Besides, once the house was paid off and Sparky's college fund got established, I had to save up for something --"

A little too softly, "I swear they're trying to make you quit."

"Some of them think anarchy is a potential tourism draw," Hitch sighed. "The ones who don't understand how consequences work any more. Because it's been years since they've personally experienced one. I keep telling myself that elections are coming up..."

And then he tried to get out of bed.

Maroon forehooves instantly pinned him down.

"Hitch...!"

"I have to get back to work --"

"-- you have to get better --"

He struggled, to no effect. Earth pony strength had been gradually increasing since magic had returned, but -- she had the leverage. He didn't. And while there had also been a gradual bump in endurance over the last few seasons, Hitch's had already failed him.

The stallion stopped trying to move. Sunny, who knew him a little too well, kept her forehooves planted against his back.

"You were unconscious! The doctors..." Open frustration, "Well, you know how it is: if you're not family, you can hardly get them to tell you anything. But Zipp had your grandmother call, and then she told us. Hitch, you literally worked yourself sick. You need fluids. Bed rest. Time where you're not doing anything except getting better. So you're staying right here." Softly -- far too softly, "Because if you won't stay in a bed, then I can promise that you will stay in a coffin."

He was silent for a few seconds. She held the reared-up position, waiting.

"I'm it," Hitch finally said. "When it comes to enforcing the law around here, I'm it, Sunny. And I'm in here. Without me --"

The stallion looked up just in time to see his ex smile.

(He was sick. Feverish. Not thinking clearly. All things which, when regarded from the perspective of the near-future, explained why he hadn't seen the smile as the first warning.)

"-- deputize us," the activist offered her solution. And just kept smiling.

Hitch, in what a fully rational mind would have treated as the first sign of just how sick he was, thought about it.

"Us," he tried.

"All of us," Sunny clarified. "Everypony in the Brighthouse."

He slowly shook his head. "I checked the books once, remember? I can't temporarily deputize outside of a major crisis --"

"-- and what would you call having the Bay's entire police force in the hospital? Your being down is the crisis, Hitch. So deputize us. I already talked to the others. They're okay with trying to take over until you're better." She hesitated. "...mostly okay. Misty isn't sure she can -- well, exert authority. But she's willing to try."

Hitch kept thinking.

I've thought about this before, haven't I?
There was some reason I never wanted Sunny to have a badge. Or any of the others.
...can't remember...
...focus. Just Sunny. Why didn't I want Sunny to...?
'NEVER give Sunny the power...'

And that was all he could come up with. He knew it was something he'd considered before, and he'd definitely rejected the prospect at that time. But now the crisis was upon them, and... he couldn't remember why the idea had been pushed aside.

"All of you?"

"As volunteers," the activist declared, and did so with open satisfaction. "The Council can't complain about the expenses if we're doing it for free. I've been in your office --" she winced "-- and the cells more than often enough to understand how the basics operate. Including some of the paperwork. And we all reviewed the laws together when we were trying to figure out how to create a tourist code of conduct for the Bay, remember? We'll be okay."

He was still trying to think. But most of what went through his head were faint memories. Because there were five mares living in the Brighthouse, and a lot of ponies had asked Hitch what it was like to live with them.

He didn't. It wasn't proper. Half of the Bay could (and seemingly did) believe he was the lone stallion for the world's first (newest?) multi-species miniherd, but Hitch had his own house and the paid-off mortgage document was framed. No matter how many ponies tried to congratulate him on having secured so many beautiful mares for himself --

-- were they beautiful? It was actually a subject of some debate among the Bay's populace, because earth pony standards for unicorn and pegasus beauty were still being settled. What was the ideal length for a horn? Should Pipp's wings have lost the whole of their down already? And for the one mare he was qualified to judge... that hadn't worked out. It hadn't worked out with such force as to have the conclusion kick them right back into being friends.

He wasn't the lone stallion in a six-pony miniherd. It was more like being a single father who kept getting stuck with extra foalsitting duties.

"Let us try," Sunny gently encouraged him. "I know we don't have full training. But there's five of us, Hitch. Five are going to be more efficient than one."

Or, for that matter, two. Then again, his original second had been Sprout and when he truly considered that, zero might have been a bare improvement over two.

"None of you have the mark for the job. I don't know if there's another law enforcement mark in the entire Bay."

"It's not an absolute requirement," Sunny emphasized. "It's not like I have a mark for making smoothies."

Which may be why you keep insisting that some of your blends make sense.

But the Bay needed somepony.

"I can't formally swear the group in," Hitch said. "Not without all of you here."

"...oh...?" said a mare who'd just spotted the first crack in the armor.

Sunny kept telling him that he was effectively allergic to change.

Maybe it was time to change his mind.

"So I'll have to write it up. Or you write it, and I'll sign."

"Oh!" was almost a peal of delight. "Sure! I can do that --"

"-- after you take your hooves off my back."

She dropped down. Paper was found, filled out, and signed.

They talked for a little while. She berated him for not taking better care of himself. He tried to explain that the job never went away, she insisted that it was at least going to wait outside the hospital for a few days, and they eventually decided to mutually end the discussion before Debate graduated into Very Old Fight.

Sunny headed for the door, promising to visit when she could. Glanced back --

"Pipp," she told him, "has your phone. And you're not getting it back until you're better."

Amber eyes frantically blinked. "Sunny...!"

"No," the activist insisted. "Because I know how the Council operates, Hitch. There's one sheriff, and he's never off-duty. The phone is how they call you in. Pipp's going to get you a burner, so you can talk to ponies normally. But the Council only knows the number for your phone. And I already gave the hospital a complete list of their names. They're not getting into this room. Not in person, and not by voice or text or email." With a faint smile, "We haven't had the chance to get any pegasi elected to the Council, so nopony's going to be hovering outside your window. And all of your critters are going to give you some space, instead of scouting the city and reporting emergencies to the station house. You'll get your own phone back when you're out of here, Hitch. Not before. Deal with it."

And that was it. Because Sunny wanted to help. She needed to change the world.

But she loved getting the last word.

The others visited. Misty, who wasn't any more familiar with hospitals than she was with anything else, spent about a third of her time tentatively asking about what some of the equipment did: another third was used for openly regretting having gotten the answers.

Zipp tried to express both consolation and condolences, and did just about as well at that as she did at expressing anything else. The older royal simply wasn't good with social interaction, but... there was something awkwardly endearing in watching her try. It was almost adorable.

Pipp brought in the burner phone and shortly after, his grandmother called. Sparky was brought in front of the camera, and the highlight of Hitch's day became a five-minute broadcast demonstration of every funny face he knew, until his son finally giggled himself onto the edge of sleep.

Medical personnel were in and out, hemming and hawing around his bed. (Doctor hemmed: nurses tended to haw.) His IV bag was changed. Hitch was offered a plate of items which qualified as 'food' on substance and nutritional balance, while utterly failing on taste.

He tried to sleep. But it was hard to rest in a hospital. Normally, he would have been kept awake by stress over Sparky, but he trusted his grandmother. It was the hospital itself which turned sleep into a fitful thing. The darkness of recovery was regularly chased away by the sounds produced from the equipment, along with noises produced by hooves moving through the hallway and the simple knowledge that the entire building could turn into a crisis center at any time.

There was also a certain nagging concern.

Why didn't I want Sunny to have a badge?

But the fever wouldn't let him remember.

The remote failed to work as scuff-advertised. Hitch tried to think of something he could do in a hospital, considered what the life of a single parent and Law Enforcement's Only Option had done to his personal leisure time, and then asked a nurse for a book. A book, as opposed to the few dozen hardcovers which Zipp had tried to wheel in.

It took him fifty pages to realize that the horror element in the very old story came from the prospect of having magically-disguised unicorns infiltrating an earth pony town. Hitch asked for another book.

Finally, the night truly closed in.

None of the Brighthouse mares came by in the morning. The natural presumption was that they were trying to set up their new schedules and would check in when they could.

His grandmother called. Hitch gratefully used a few minutes to talk Sparky into not being quite so fussy over breakfast.

Medications were issued. His temperature was checked. Several hours passed, along with a number of chapters.

And then he got his first visitor of the day.

"Your cousin Hika," the nurse announced as the dark blue earth pony mare tentatively made her way into the room.

Hitch blinked.

He was about to say something. He had to say something. But the nurse stepped away from the door, and the mare responded by accelerating her pace, virtually racing up to his bedside.

The stallion got ready to call out. The other, extremely available option was to start kicking.

"Sheriff!" the mare gasped. "I needed to --"

"-- I don't have a cousin named Hika," Hitch said. Loudly.

It was just possible to hear hooves coming to a complete stop in the hallway. Then they started to turn around.

"I know!" the mare frantically told him. "I had to lie at the reception desk! It was the only way they'd let me come in here! Sheriff, you don't know what's going on out there! What they're all doing! You have to --"

Which was when the nurse, head lowered and eyes blazing, raced into the room.

Her jaw snapped. Teeth clamped down on the end of the startled mare's tail, and a slow backwards pace began to drag the intruder out.

"NO!" the mare shouted. "You have to let me speak with him! Somepony has to do something --"

Which was all she was able to say before the steady pull removed her from the room.

He wasn't quite sure what had happened. The initial theory was that the hospital's psychiatric evaluation area had just suffered a breach. Of course, the mare had told him that she'd come in through the reception desk, but an escaped patient would have lied.

Hitch thought about talking to the security personnel. A tentative plan was formed to go look at the evaluation section before departure, just to see if anything could be improved. And then he tried to rest again, because that was apparently the only way he was going to get better.

That plan held up until the moment when the second stranger of the day got into the room.

The new stallion didn't offer a name. He didn't try to claim a false relationship in front of the nurse, nor did she have the chance to announce one on his behalf. The dull red earth pony just tried to call for the sheriff's help at the instant his head cleared the door frame, and that meant it was as far as he got before the removal efforts closed in.

Based on sound alone, nopony among the next three managed to get any farther than the nurses' station.

Then the staff closed his door.

He didn't know what was going on.

One breach could have been believed. Two felt like a slim chance. Five would have required the entire psych section to empty out at once, and he was sure there would have been alarms going off all over the hospital.

Hitch pulled out the burner phone. Called the Brighthouse mares, one by one. Four of the attempts produced no answer.

Zipp picked up.

"Hey, sheriff! I'm glad you called, but I'm kind of busy right now. I can try to call you back in --"

She paused, likely to consider her answer. The sudden silence allowed him to pick up on some of the background noise.

"Zipp," Hitch carefully began, "why do I hear ponies shouting?"

"You can hear that?" The shrug was almost audible. "Well, trust Pipp to pick out a phone."

"Why are they --"

"-- it's just work stuff," the heir cut him off. "Your work, I mean. Nothing serious. All part of the job, right? You don't need to worry about it. You just get better. Anyway, I'll call you after my shift is over. Or maybe I'll drop by the hospital."

He tried to talk, did everything he could to push the words out in time -- but Zipp had the same opinion regarding phone protocols as she did just about every other kind, and the call simply disconnected on the spot.

Hitch took as much time as he dared for staring at the screen: about half a second. And then he turned his body to face the bed's railing before ramming a forehoof into the Call Nurse button.

It took seven minutes before anypony actually came in and by that point, he'd just about finished removing the IV on his own.

It took a lot of work to get out of the hospital, especially when the medical response to being told he was leaving started with a threat to reassign him into Psychiatric Evaluation.

They wanted him to stay. They kept telling him about all of the things which could happen if he left. At one point, with malice aforethought, the doctor who knew him best invoked Sparky. Telling Hitch that he had to get better for his son. And it was almost enough -- but the little dragon also needed a town to grow up in. Being a father was one responsibility: being the sheriff was another. It wasn't a question of choosing; it was just seeing how they went together.

Ultimately, the only reason he got free was that he had the legal right to leave. Anypony could tell the hospital that they were refusing treatment, or stopping whatever they'd been receiving. Dr. Michu could yell, stomp hooves, and say 'I insist' with ever-increasing volume -- but couldn't stop him. The most Hitch was willing to give the staff was a promise: that once matters were resolved, he would evaluate his own health and if he didn't feel better, he would come back. He had to heal for his son -- but nopony was telling him anything real (while quoting 'stress' as their reason for withholding information), and that meant he had to get out there for the sake of the Bay. On hoof.

The hospital responded to this through informing him that due to insurance reasons, he wasn't allowed to trot the doors under his own power.

And then they loaded him onto a cart.

Hitch waited until the exact second the flat-topped humiliation had cleared the front doors, then jumped down to street level and tried to break into a full gallop --

-- three muscles cramped at the same time.

He froze. Nearly dropped. Waited for the pain to fade. And then Hitch, driven by duty and mark, limped away under the summer sun.

The first stop was the station house. He'd been hoping to catch at least one of the mares there. Find out what was going on. But the initial part of the plan didn't work. Hitch forced himself through the opened doors, and found nopony behind the desk.

The work area was empty.

"SHERIFF!"
"You have to get us out --"
"-- they didn't understand --"
"-- I swear I care, I do, I just didn't have time --"
"-- I didn't do anything, I didn't, she's crazy, just open the door and I can --"

The cells were full.

He'd... never seen them like this, not even after town festivals with alcohol involved or the inevitable family fights which were triggered by any gathering holiday. Cells which had been made for, at most, double occupancy had been crowded to at least three times that. There would have theoretically been some space available closer to the ceiling, but hovering was difficult to maintain and an active wingspan took up a lot of room. The pegasi among the imprisoned had no realistic means of claiming the high ground.

"HELP US --"

"-- stop."

It had been the voice of Authority. Every prisoner went silent.

"Tell me what you're all in for," Hitch instructed, and that was a mistake: the babbling started up immediately, overlapped into indistinctiveness, and then quickly degenerated into shouting. "Cancel that! I'm just going to review the paperwork. It'll be faster."

He did his best to scramble for the filing cabinets, straining another muscle along the way --

-- where is it?

Or rather, given the sheer quantity of forms which should have been involved, 'where are they?' But there was no fresh paperwork anywhere in the cabinets. The natural conclusion was that the Brighthouse mares had instantly taken on one bad habit of just about every rookie officer: putting off all bureaucracy until the end of the shift. He couldn't trust the prisoners to give the full truth, and without the forms --

-- a small, enthusiastic tail repeatedly rapped against his back left pastern.

Hitch looked down.

The mares hadn't left the station house completely undefended. It was current under the rather dubious guardianship of a small, white, mostly-spherical dog.

The sheriff carefully lowered himself to the floor, Most of his body used the motion as an opportunity to request that he not get up against for at least two days.

Hitch looked directly at Cloudpuff.

"Tell me."

The little dog didn't know much. Dogs generally didn't.

There had been mares going in and out. Some of them brought other ponies with them, and then those ponies went into the cells. Nopony had given the dog a treat. He'd been intermittently barking at the cell occupants, along with just looking hungry and wagging his tail. No treats had resulted. Cloudpuff didn't understand what charges were, but a total lack of snacks had him ready to press all of them.

Hitch moved directly for the safe.

The little vault contained a gift, granted to him by Queen Haven in the open hopes that he would never have to use the thing. It was a tracker, capable of tapping into the modified cellular network. It had been designed to get past the security employed by Bestie and Zipp's tablet, because the queen had understood -- and dreaded -- that there might be a time when somepony would desperately need to find her daughters. It would be capable of locating every Brighthouse mare -- as long as they were carrying their phones, weren't occupying a dead zone, and Izzy hadn't found a new way to short out her battery.

He donned the neck-mounted cradle, then turned the tracker on. The screen lit, and Hitch glanced at the frantic prisoners.

"I'm going to find out what's going on," he promised them. "If anypony's been put into the cells without a good reason, you'll be released. The rest of you will be held over for court -- no, do not start arguing! This has to be sorted out, and the only way to do that is dealing with --" the words felt oddly slippery on his tongue "-- the arresting officers. You can manage in there for a few more hours. I'm going to bring you some water, and then I have to get out there." And he had the option to wait until one or more of the mares came back -- but that left them out in the Bay. Doing whatever had been happening to put so many ponies in the cells.

Was it possible that every last arrest had been legitimate? Was there that much crime in Maretime Bay, and he'd missed nearly all of it because a single stallion could only cover so much? Or had all of the criminals simply been waiting until he'd been effectively locked away?

"You need a drink," one of the older prisoners quickly said. "You don't look well --"

"-- no time."

With the tracker active...

...don't approach directly. Not at first.
Get close. Avoid having them see me, because they'll probably just try to shuttle me back into the hospital room.
See how they're interacting with the public.
Assess and evaluate.
...and don't pass out.

He found Zipp on the boardwalk. She was actually rather easy to spot, at least once he managed to peer through the milling, confused, and tightly-packed wall of bodies which (technically) surrounded her. The herd did a lot to conceal his presence, while still leaving her completely out in the open.

She was very easy to see. The only thing simpler was hearing.

There was a certain contrast between the royal siblings...

You couldn't really describe Zipp as being antisocial, because there was a fundamental requirement for being against something: acknowledging its existence. As far as Zipp was concerned, the whole of society could go stand over there. And stay there. Forever.

She loved her sister. She was capable of making friends, and it was just barely possible to talk her into hosting flying lessons without using a stake and rope to keep her in place. But the future ruler of a nation regarded the vast majority of other ponies as something which needed to exist a long way off. Hitch didn't feel her eventual ascension to the throne posed any threat of conquest -- but he knew that the reign of Queen Zephyrina was still going to redraw at least one border, and it would be around the throne room.

In Zephyr Heights... that was where Zipp had some degree of power. Even when just about all true sovereignty had been consolidated within the central throne, Zipp could give a few orders to pegasus citizens. But she'd left just about everything associated with her title at the border. While within the Bay, she was effectively a Princess In Name Only. When it came to enforcing her wishes, she had no authority. Not as a royal.

"I don't feel like some of you understand how this works!" emerged in a near-bark. "I am an officer of the law! I need to have clear vision at all times, so I can tell if anypony is breaking those laws! So I want a clear radius of eight body lengths maintained around me at all times! Violating that is Interference With An Officer In The Fulfillment Of Her Duties! And I will arrest!"

She had no royal authority in Maretime Bay.
And then Sunny had given her a substitute.

Crossly, "This isn't complicated, people. I don't know why so many ponies are having problems with this."

"It's the boardwalk," one of the natives managed. "You're on the boardwalk --"

"Patrolling the boardwalk," Zipp automatically corrected.

"-- we're just trying to get by you..."

"Then you can get by," Zipp pointed out, "by skirting the border. Where I can see you."

She looked satisfied at her own pronouncement. And that wasn't the worst of it.

The Brighthouse mares didn't have a lot of things in common, and very few traits came close to being universal. But multiple ponies in the group had trouble expressing themselves -- or rather, they couldn't do so in ways which were recognized as being fully normal. Izzy, who'd been determined to show Bridlewood that positive emotions were allowed to publicly exist, had never truly learned to moderate herself. She was simply too intense, and some portion of that emotional fierceness remained even when she was at rest. Izzy, when calm, defaulted to what Hitch thought of as Resting Serial Killer Face. And if she was happy...

Ponies tended to keep a very close eye on Izzy, especially when she was smiling. It was a good way to see just how close her teeth were to their throats.

Zipp had a different issue, and Hitch wasn't sure the older princess was even aware of it. Because when viewed by an outside observer, the visible emotional base state of Zephyrina Storm came across as being (falsely) set to 'smug'.

White ears perked. The regal head lifted.

"I heard those wingbeats!" Zipp half-roared. "I said eight body lengths in all directions! That includes straight up! And if any of you earth ponies are thinking about using your magic to burrow a tunnel under me --"

The locals within the crowd were staring at her again.

"-- okay," Zipp conceded. "So maybe nopony's tried that yet. But you shouldn't try it today. Not here. And not if you're trying to slip under the boardwalk while I'm on patrol, because I call that Suspicious Activity and you'd better believe I'm going to detain a few ponies for it." She looked around, jabbed a purple forehoof at a random local. "You. You're a native. There's a public restroom two blocks up the boardwalk, right?"

"...yes..." the local reluctantly tried.

"I thought so." Zipp thoughtfully nodded to herself. "The law is going to require a toilet trench. Gallop ahead and clear the place out."

Izzy's head automatically turned as Hitch approached.

It was possible that there was some level of magical instinct in play, telling her that somepony was coming -- but it was much easier to blame the alleyway. There were wide, flat paving stones in the narrow space, and they combined with the close-pressing walls to effectively amplify sound. It had certainly made it easier for Hitch to hear the screaming.

Her attention focused on him. The object which was currently surrounded by her hornlight bobbed somewhat at the bottom of the attaching loop. Portions of glow intensified here and there, while others dimmed.

"Oh, hi!" she casually greeted him, and did so with one of those too-wide smiles -- which quickly inverted. "Should you be out of the hospital this soon? Because you don't look well. Tired. Kind of hot, and I don't mean in the calendar way. And you're limping! Sunny's going to be really mad if she finds out that you left before you were better. So if you aren't better -- are you? -- then right after I wrap up here, I can take you back --"

"HELP US!" the youngest-looking of the three cloth-bound stallions screamed. "WE DIDN'T DO ANYTHING! SHE'S CRAZY! SHE JUST GALLOPED IN HERE AND TIED US UP --!"

"-- oh, stop it already," Izzy crossly requested. "Nopony's buying this. Well, nopony who saw it happen, which doesn't include Hitch. But I think he'll believe me before he believes you." With a sudden worry which made the hornlight briefly dim, "You will believe me, won't you? Or you'll at least listen?"

"-- LOOK AT HER FACE! SHE'S GOING TO --"

Luminescent heliotrope clamped around three jaws.

"-- I don't know why I didn't do this in the first place," the unicorn muttered. Three lengths of cloth floated forward, wrapped themselves around snouts before finishing off with the sort of knot which came with an inherent double-loop of near-malice. "Much better! So let me just finish what I'm doing, and then I should really put these three in the cells before I try anything else. Like taking you back. I'm sure you shouldn't be sweating that much. Sort of sure. How much do earth ponies sweat? Oh, and you don't smell like fish. Just to mention."

He attempted to recover. It wasn't the illness. Trying to feel normal in Izzy's presence was an ongoing challenge.

"I tried calling you," he told her. "All of you."

"Pipp set our phones to only ring for emergency or police-related calls," Izzy informed him. "Anything which comes in through that server. Is a server like a switchboard? But she said it's to keep them from going off all the time. Even though they pretty much do that anyway."

But Zipp picked up...

The hornlight, along with Izzy's attention, mutually refocused on their original target. It rattled, and Hitch heard a small click. Izzy smiled.

"What happened?" Hitch forced himself to ask.

It was a necessary inquiry. But there were certain risks associated with asking Izzy a question.

"They were trying to break in," the mare casually replied. "I was passing by on patrol and heard them. This alley makes it really easy to hear things. And I checked the other side of the building. There's a shop there -- and you already knew that because you've lived here your whole life." Politely, "But did you know the owners went on vacation? Maybe they did that because there's finally places to take vacations in. They left a sign on the door. It says they'll be back in two weeks. So what I think happened is that these three saw the sign and decided they'd get into the shop when nopony was going to be here."

He briefly wondered where she'd gotten the binding fabric. Then he realized that she'd probably been patrolling on her scooter, which had the supply cabinet attached --

-- actually, when regarded from that perspective, the thieves had gotten off easy, because the crafter effectively carried weapons at all times. She had sharp-tipped screws, thin nails, an interesting selection of splinters which served for wood color samples -- and that was just what was probably secured within the overlong mane. The supply cabinet was worse. A very large number of horrible things could be done with buttons, especially if Izzy made an interesting choice on where she was going to put them.

"So you stopped a crime in progress," Hitch tried.

She nodded without looking at him. There were two more clicks. "I caught them trying to get the padlock open."

"And... what are you trying to do now?"

There were certain risks associated with asking Izzy a question.

With a sort of merry politeness, "Trying to get the lock open."

One of them was the possibility of having her answer it.

"...what?"

"Trying to get the lock open!" the crafter repeated for the benefit of the nearby stunned -- then thoughtfully added "Locks are kind of a paradox, aren't they? Or maybe it's a conundrum. Because you want them to stay closed -- but you also have to be capable of getting them open. What would happen if you lost the key and the lock just stayed shut forever, because it was so good that nopony could ever pick it? You'd never be able to get in again! Not unless you took out everything around the lock, and that would be really hard on the door. So you should never make a lock which can't be picked, and doing that is what locksmiths are for! Except that none of these three are locksmiths." Rather considerately, "I asked. So what I'm doing is seeing how hard this lock is to open. With my hornlight. They were using tools, but I think it's about the same for results. Anyway, I've got most of the tumblers pressed already, and I think that means it isn't a very good lock. So once I'm finished here, we'll drop off these three at the station house, maybe take you back to the hospital -- I can take them in myself if you'll just promise to go back, or flag a hansom in front of me -- and I'll write up a report about the lock. I can leave it in the mailbox and the owners will see it when they get back. Replace this one with something better."

Hitch experienced what probably would have been the standard reaction to an extended Izzy speech from a healthy stallion. He stood very still, let his mind reel, and hoped that it didn't crash into the ground without him.

"And after that," Izzy casually added, "I'm going to come back and test all of the other locks on the street. But only as long as there's still daylight. I don't want ponies to see me checking anypony's security at night! They might think I was trying to break in. And I'm not. Getting the lock off is just making sure ponies are safe. Breaking in means going through the door afterwards. You really don't look well. Do you need some water? I think I should get you some water. Maybe there's some inside the shop? Because Sunny was telling me about this really old loophole called the sufficiency clause..."

There was a certain contrast between the princesses...

"I'm going to explain this one more time," the little mare said with not-at-all-disguised impatience. "Because I don't feel like you're all getting it. I am an officer of the law. When I give an instruction, it has to be obeyed. If I tell you to move, you move. If I ask a question, you answer. Is everypony with me so far?"

Several dozen watching ponies, whose confused presence was providing Hitch with just enough natural camouflage to stay hidden, collectively forced a nod.

"So if I sing," Pipp instructed the herd, "strictly in the name of keeping myself focused while I'm trying to do all of this boring work -- then you either listen, or you sing along with me." In open self-satisfaction, "And that is an official roy -- legal. An official legal instruction. From an officer of the law." Thoughtfully, "But if we're going to do a chorus, then I really need to know what I'm working with. So let's get some sample notes. I think I'll start with -- you. The earth pony wearing the... hat. The one with the black band." Frowning now. "Hang on. I can almost remember your name..."

"This isn't about mobs again, is it?" the stallion nervously asked.

Pipp blinked. "Why would it be about mobs?"

"Because I really don't do well with group musical numbers --"

"-- oh, shut up, Rob," the little mare muttered -- then abruptly beamed. "See? I remembered! Look at that stallion, everypony! His name is Rob! Now let's hear what you can do! Give an A0."

"A..." was as far as Rob got.

"The lowest note on a piano," Pipp sniffed. "Let me hear your A0. Or as close as you can come. You do know you're a natural tenor, right?"

It arguably wasn't his day for getting close to unicorn mares without being spotted. But then, by that point, he was sweating so much as to create a very real chance that Misty had simply smelled him coming. It was a hot day, he was still running a fever, and he hadn't been able to stop for a drink once...

The watching crowd automatically parted as he approached. This was put down to their having heard approaching hoofsteps, because none of them looked at him. Everypony was simply staring at the tree.

"...hi, Hitch," Misty finally mustered. Pink hooves nervously scraped against the soil. "Um... should you be out of the -- hospital?" A small, uncertain nod, as if she'd just checked herself and was still unwilling to believe she'd come up with the right answer. "Hospital. Because you really don't look very good. Um. Other ponies say you usually look good, but I don't know. I guess you wouldn't have the calendars if you didn't, but..."

The herd was fixedly staring at a mangrove. There were a few in the Bay, because it was a species which thrived close to water. This one was an exceptionally sturdy specimen, with thick branches in the upper part of the structure.

The tree groaned. Nopony blinked.

"What happened?" Hitch asked.

Silence. The dirt trenches got deeper.

Remember that I'm talking to Misty.
Be careful.
Be gentle.
Just let her talk.

"Misty," Hitch softly said, "please..."

Her eyes briefly squeezed shut. The tail curled in towards her right flank. He gave her time.

"It was a shoplifter," the unicorn finally began. "I know she was stealing, because she came galloping out of the store with the jewelry in her mouth and the owner was screaming. So I... tried telling her to stop."

"And?" Hitch carefully tried to advance the plot.

Her head went down, leaving him staring at a hopeless riot of curls.

"I... tried to tell her..."

Right. Misty.
She has real trouble talking to strangers. There's times when she can barely speak to us.
There might have been a squeak.

"And then?" Hitch gently said. Waited.

Eventually, with the first wet sniffle which indicated that misery had settled in behind the manefall, "I... thought I could -- try to make her stop..."

Hitch thought about Misty.

She doesn't understand society, because she spent half of her life away from it and doesn't remember the early years.
Feels, deep down, that just about everything she does it wrong.
Still recovering from years of emotional abuse. (Misty claimed that the alicorn had never kicked her. Hitch had doubts.)
Forever trying, while terrified of what she sees as inevitable failure.

The tree groaned again.

And she considers herself to be the weakest pony in the world.
A mare who casually opened off-balance half-baleton doors in Queen Haven's palace truly believes that about herself.
Because the only pony she'll compare herself against is Opaline.

Misty's head slowly raised. Wet green eyes came into view, blinked away the tears. And then they all looked at the tree.

The mare within the branches was actually rather hard to spot -- at first. Her natural mane and coat colors blended into those of the mangrove rather well. But once you saw her, she couldn't be missed. There were certain aspects which stood out. Like the necklace which was hanging over one branch. Or the bark which had cracked from impact. And if you somehow failed to recognize any of that, there was always the fact that she had been flung about three stories into the air and had wound up partially embedded against a tree.

"Um..." Misty miserably summarized. "I... probably shouldn't try to levitate her down again..."

Eventually, somepony found a rolling ramp.

He hadn't really spoken to either of the sisters. But both unicorns had been available, and they'd told him about their own arrests. Prior to intercepting the break-in, Izzy had found a single traffic violation: one badly-parked cart, ticketed accordingly. For Misty... arresting somepony would have meant interaction. But she'd also said that the shoplifter was the first crime she'd spotted, and Hitch believed her.

It was possible that the princesses were responsible for some of the cell occupants: in particular, it was easy to picture Zipp enforcing her personal restraining order against the world through relocating certain trotting sections of it. But that didn't account for the whole.

And he was tired. His body was fighting against his willpower, and doing its best to win. Mark and duty drove him forward, but... they needed to be housed in a healthy shell.

(He hadn't really eaten or drank since leaving the hospital. There were other priorities in play.)

Ponies kept stopping him on the street. Asking what was going on. (None of them had any details.) How he was going to stop it. But for the most part, they took one look at his face, went for their phones, and tried to call an ambulance.

He'd had to stop every last summons. An ambulance meant starting all over again and besides, he didn't need the extra kick to his savings.

Hitch forced himself onward as the sun dipped and night began to close in, broken up by the little pools of illumination from the streetlights. Tracking the last signal. Fighting to stay conscious until it was all fixed.

And then he found the final mare.

There had been a reason why he'd never wanted Sunny to have a badge...

It finally came back to his fevered brain, as he watched the playlet begin from his convenient patch of shadow.

'NEVER give Sunny the power to enforce or write laws.'

"Excuse me, sir," the apricot-hued mare told the senior off-yellow stallion.

"Oh, it's you," muttered the stallion. "What do you want? Because I'm not signing any petitions. And I don't care how many glowing body parts you can manifest: you're not getting into my office again --"

'She will be arresting EVERYPONY.'

"-- that mare who's huddled in the doorway three buildings down," Sunny mercilessly said. "The unicorn. You looked directly at her as she was trying to settle in. Curling up, because that's where she's going to sleep tonight. Because some of the visitors don't bring enough money, or they can't figure out the twisting exchange rates because nopony can figure those out, or they get robbed and don't know where to go. Maybe she just came looking for a job and couldn't find one. I know you saw her --"

"-- I am going home," the stallion said. "I look from side to side as I walk, because there might be crime in this area and I heard a rumor that our useless sheriff is sick."

Do not move.

Not that Hitch really wanted to.

The senior snorted. "Which just proves how useless he is, I suppose. That'll be something to bring up at the next mee --"

"You went right by her," Sunny darkly continued. "Without speaking to her. But your back right leg did kick some trash in her direction."

"Litter on the street," the senior half-snarled, "accidentally directed towards refuse in the doorway. If you're quite done wasting my time --"

"-- you're under arrest."

He stared at her. She didn't move.

"I don't honor citizen's arrests," he finally said. "'Alicorn' is meaningless, just as long as I want it to be. You have no real authority --"

Sunny moved. Light glinted off the badge.

The "-- oh no..." was brief. The desperate rally immediately followed. "On whose -- who gave you --"

"Officially deputized while the sheriff is ill," Sunny smiled. There was no humor in it. "Come with me, please."

"...what... what's the charge? What do you think I did?"

'Not Speaking Out For The Cause. Social violations, which is going to turn into a Charge Of Not Being More Involved In Changing Society For The Better. Because if you're not part of the solution, you're clearly part of the crime...'

"It's what you didn't do."

"What I... didn't..."

"Insufficient compassion," said a smile verging into snarl. "I'm bringing you in on a charge of Not Caring Enough."

"YOU CAN'T DO --"

"Are you trying to stall me, sir?"

"I'M TRYING TO MAKE YOU SEE SENSE --"

"-- you're stalling," Sunny decided. "So let's kick in Wasting An Officer's Time." The pause was almost evil. "Of course, you could go over to that poor mare in the doorway. And offer her some money. Food. A real place to sleep. And then I might decide to be lenient."

"...she's just a transient! The ones with money are the tourists! It's the tourists who matter --"

Golden sparks flew from Sunny's forehead and flanks. The senior shut up.

He just didn't do so in time.

"Thank you for clearing that up," Sunny calmly told him as a glowing horn and two intangible wings appeared in a near-soundless explosion of light. "I personally disagree, of course. Ponies do disagree about things. Tonight, I disagree with your going home. I'm going to send that mare to the Brighthouse and in the morning, after she's had a good meal and a decent night's sleep, I'll see if she needs to go to her home. But you? Are going to the cells."

"You can't do this!" represented the last-ditch attempt of the desperate. "I'M A CITY COUNCILOR --"

Gold clamped around his jaw. A sparkling lasso of glow pulled all four legs together, and then the hornlight bubble lifted him off the ground.

"Thank you again," Sunny offered. "That saves me from having to ask your occupation when I fill out the forms. Now you just float right there while I talk to her, and then we'll --"

Hitch forced himself into the light.

"Sunny," a dry throat croaked out. "Stop..."

She froze. Bright green eyes stared at him, and the end of the braid seemed to twitch.

"Hitch? Why are you out of the hospital? You look like you're about to faint --"

His body decided to treat it as advice.

All of the doctors had told him that he needed some rest. It was a warm night. The street looked oddly comfortable.

Hitch passed out.

Two days had passed and thanks to the strain he'd put on his body, it was going to be at least three more before the doctors would let him leave the hospital again. The homeless unicorn mare had been offered a job in one of the Oddtrot's specialty shops and was staying at the Brighthouse until she had her rent deposit together: another two weeks. Sunny, who'd been verbally dressed down by the City Council so many times as to turn the sonic dance into more of a dressage, had finally ventured back into Hitch's hospital room. Head down, tail tucked between her legs, and with the strange prismatic streaks seemingly dulled.

"So what's been happening out there?" Hitch asked.

The sigh lingered for a while.

"Most of what we -- I did was overturned," Sunny miserably told him. "Hitch, this is... I..."

He waited for her, as both ears went flat against her skull. She had to force them aloft again.

"...I can't be trusted with power," she finally said. "This proves it. I was corrupted in less than a day..."

"You've been able to summon the horn and wings for a few seasons now --"

"-- sometimes summon --" was automatic.

"-- and you haven't changed. Not even when those mares tried talking you into using them for getting -- everything." Hitch sighed. "You weren't corrupted, Sunny. You've always wanted to make changes, make the world better. And for what an officer can do-- you went outside the letter of the job."

She wouldn't look at him. The orange stripe was now two thin shades away from henna.

They'd been friends for years. They'd tried dating for a while, and -- that had been a mistake. Each had claimed the other's virginity, and that had required some time for both recovery and reconciliation. He'd also arrested her so many times in the course of his duties as to potentially give her squatter's rights on at least one cell. And then he'd chased her and a unicorn invader out of the Bay.

They'd been through all of that.

"The letter," Hitch said. "Not the spirit."

But they were still friends.

She looked up. Her eyes were damp.

"...you think so?"

"I wish I could do more than I can," he sighed. "A lot. But I still would have brought the mare to the Brighthouse. You have a good heart, Sunny. You always have. It... just overrides your head most of the time. Power hasn't corrupted you. You're always trying to make things better. You just chose the wrong outlet." And because they were honest with each other, "And because of how the Council's treated you, especially since they lost the Canterlogic backing... there might have been just a little revenge in there..."

She giggled, and his heart warmed.

"But you can't be a deputy again," he stated. "Not after that. You're lucky not to be up on charges. Or in a lawsuit."

It got him a slow, abashed nod. "Not that the councilor came off looking very good," she told him. "He tried to beat me to the press. And succeeded. And then they televised everything he said during the interview. Unedited. The polls already shifted."

"So with the group de-deputized..."

"They actually asked Misty to keep going," Sunny said. "Maybe because they were afraid to tell her she should leave. But it's too much for her. We were all so busy. It's just too much work, Hitch." She sighed. "And it's still too much when it's all divided by five. But the Council is a little skittish right now, because you can deputize and they don't know who you might pick next. And no law enforcement means they can't call anypony if I try to get into an office. So -- they actually sent out for temporary help."

They... "Where?"

"Zephyr Heights. Queen Haven loaned us ten officers." She paused. "It's down to nine now."

"Why?"

"I don't want to think she was a bigot," Sunny sighed. "It's possible that she just got very confused, because she'd never left the Heights before. But there were forty arrests before anypony stepped in."

"What were the charges?"

"One charge."

A little too carefully, "Which was...?"

"'Being an earth pony'."

"...oh."

"But the Bay is more stable now." She hesitated, and he knew that it had gone on a little too long. "They're all going back once you're out of here, though. And the Council really doesn't want to give you any more officers, Hitch." Miserably, "Especially now that I've reminded them that they can be arrested. You're still on your own..."

"Maybe after the elections," he told her. "We'll get changes from the new council." Which wasn't guaranteed -- but maybe the polls would stay shifted.

She forced a nod. But she still looked sad, and he hated that.

He had to cheer her up. At least get her to smile...

"One of them visited before you came in," Hitch told Sunny.

She blinked. "Seriously?"

"He did have to lie about his name to get into the room. But I think they want to make sure I'm on the incumbents' side," he went on. "For all of the ones you'd rather have out. So he told me that they'd voted on two changes to my contract."

The "...what?" was extremely cautious.

"I get sick leave now. Ten days a year --"

"-- Hitch, that's wonderful, you can finally get some rest when you really need it --"

"-- dating back to when I started on the job. Cumulative." And deliberately paused. "The full amount is applied on the day of retirement."

She thought it over.

"So you have sick leave," Sunny finally said, "as long as you stay healthy for the rest of your life and never actually use it."

He nodded.

"How much sick leave does the Council --"

"-- one full season per year. City pays all medical expenses. From tourism taxes."

She giggled.

"Blatant," Sunny said. "It's all so blatant. As if some of them believe nopony will ever vote again... So what's the second change?"

"Remember how I had to pay for my own ambulance? Oh, and thanks for floating me back here."

Sunny carefully nodded. Waited.

"The Bay is going to cover three percent."

"Three whole percent."

"Well..." The pause felt artful. "...now."

"Well, obviously now..."

"It took me an hour to talk the councilor up from two."

And she laughed.