Chapter 1: Shorely Shippable.
About a year prior to the birth of Trixie Lulamoon:
The storm had passed, and Midnight Shadow could finally see the moon in all it's glory. Full and inviting, the face of the Mare in the Moon looked down on a battered ship with tattered sails, clouds scudding away from it as if afraid. Crewponies swarmed over the decks and masts, frantically checking to see if creaks had led to cracks or worse.
"I should have stuck with the tropical island circuit!", thought the black-coated mare. A blue pointy hat flopped over her face, drips of leftover rain wringing themselves from the fabric and emptying into the sea as a silver glow squeezed the brim. "But noooo, I had to fall for this handsome mainlander and listen to his stories about what kind of hit we'd be in Los Pegasus and Applewood...".
A gentle jar to the rump nearly made Midnight jump headfirst over the railing.
"Hellooooo, my dusky trrrrropical breeze!"
"OK, so that story had a great plot..."
Snatching her hat before it floated into the sea, she turned to find the reason for leaving success and most of her life behind- Lucky Clover. Blue as the summer skies, with those big dark eyes she just was falling...falling...ooh. This story was good from the beginning, too.
"I know, beautiful. Hasn't been the best honeymoon cruise, but the captain says we've passed the storm and we're sailing like seaponies the rest of the way. Strange, what with the full moon and all but the waves just flattened out and we pushed right through it!"
"It was the moon, dear."
The stallion looked confused. "Umm....what?"
"Mahina Lia, beloved. The Mare in the Moon. When the storms are wild and the tides are angry, it is when Mahina Lia feels that she is lonely and the kahuna have not brushed her starry mane enough. You make an offering, toss it into the sky so it goes where the sea meets the moon. If Mahina Lia accepts it, the waves calm and the rain passes."
"You didn't...but, that comb! The one you wore in your mane at the wedding? It was two hundred bits! Oh, what a waste!"
Midnight Shadow frowned. "Husband, we are here and the seas are kind again. I would have thrown every piece of my dowry into the sea if it meant I would see another night with you, and you should speak better below the moon- I asked her for two favors. And one of those means you, and I should see if our cabin hasn't sprung any leaks. That all the doors are closed. And the pillows haven't gotten wet."
A powdery azure veil drifted across Lucky Clover's eyes as his wife turned around and headed for the stairs, a stray tuft of tail leaving him blinking for a moment before he trotted after. Only the silvery wand of her cutie mark could be seen disappearing into the shadows below deck, but he chased it like a dragon's hoard.
Behind them, the eye of a trapped alicorn glittered in the night sky. Or perhaps it was a falling star. Who may know?
Nearly a year later, at Celestian Mercy Hospital, Canterlot:
A blurry-eyed new mother made her way to the maternity ward, bumping into the occasional passerby and nurse on the way.
Midnight Shadow was a long way from home, a long way from "dearest" and "husband", and a long way from healthy...but she was happy in the way only someone who has their first child in the world could be.
Lucky Clover hadn't turned out to be anything more than a smooth talking hustle-herder in the end. Three months after the cruise when it was obvious he was to be a father...off he'd vanished in the middle of their first show run in Los Pegasus, without a word, just a hastily scrawled note about not being ready for the responsibility. While the stallion had turned out a gelding, the run was golden- and she had shows lined up for MONTHS after the Coconut Clop had been a runaway hit.
A month later in mid-show for the Amareican Medical Association's gala, her luck turned the other way- doing her bows for the finale and the fade to black, she fainted and landed in the front row, right off that bending palm tree she always made out of a seed for the final trick. Right on top of a table full of doctors, though, including one talented pegasus by the name of Speedy Delivery. A gynecologist out of Canterlot, and one smart enough to realize that the spraddled mare in his rose flower souffle was expecting and not doing so well.
Mother mare found herself on a medical chariot express, eastbound to Celestian Mercy the next day, with an IV full of blood pressure medication and Speedy with her wing over the blanket the entire way. The diagnosis? Preeclampsia, serious- and when the patient falls in your lap, you take her. The silver lining to Midnight's cloud, because motherhood rode roughshod over her the entire stay. Her face swelled and she went mostly blind from complications (something Speedy assured her would pass after she gave birth), until in the end, Midnight Shadow found herself falling asleep with a mask over her face as she found out exactly how speedy her doctor COULD deliver a premature foal, having induced labor a month early for the sake of the mare bearing her. A brief cuddle and tears with the newborn filly was all the strength she had before falling back to sleep from the aftereffects of the anesthesia. Although small, Speedy pronounced the child was lucky and going to do fine, no matter HOW quick she'd stampeded into the maternal ward- and this was the third day afterwards, the first where mother and daughter could spend some real time together. Wobbly but determined, Midnight had made the short trip down the hall on her own hooves, the occasional nurse lending a bit of support when she stumbled.
"Midnight Shadow, miss- can you tell me where my daughter is?"
The duty nurse looked up with a smile.
"Mrs. Shadow? She's sleeping, but I think she'd sleep even easier if you were holding her. Third row down, fifth over. I'll sign you in, just let me slip this bracelet over your hoof...", wrapping the sticky ends together to form a paper loop around a fetlock. "...there. If you need anything, just ask any nurse attending, they'll be happy to get you blankets or a bottle, whatever you need. Let us change them though, you'll be doing enough of that soon!"
The third row was packed, with a team of nurses heading for the door just as she slowly ambled to the line. Compared to the rest, it seemed...crowded. She looked into the bassinet. Tucked into the blankets was a blue-fuzzy part of her heart, and close at hand was a comfy-looking spot to lay a weary mama mare down. "Come to mama, my little pêpê", she sighed as she levitated the bundled baby, curled into a semicircle on the maternity pillow, and nuzzled her treasure. A stray hoof bumped into the empty bassinet, rolling it into the next one over and knocking a few cards loose. Endearments settled into murmurs and a mix of nursing noises and gently snoring mare.
Half an hour passed. The duty nurse passed by the peaceful scene and lifted pillow, sleeping mother, and suckling filly onto a stretcher cart and had them wheeled back to her room. They could both use the rest, after all! She replaced the cards- 'Shadow, Midnight' in the empty one, then 'Velvet, Twilight' in the second and trotted back to her desk to gossip with her replacement.
"Oh, it's been a WILD couple of nights at the ward, Silver Shoes!"
"Oh, what with the early delivery and those twin fillies Doctor Blackhollow was surprised with, we had to add an extra space in just to make sure everypony had a spot to sleep in! It was a tight fit, but..."
Three rows down, Midnight Shadow's filly quietly stopped breathing while she slept, un-noticed for the moment. The little purple filly belonging to Twilight Velvet next blanket over wasn't up to telling anyone yet, since she'd only been there six hours at most herself. In her room, Midnight dozed happily away with a little blue foal, now blissfully full of her first real meal and about to fill her diaper. The door was closed. The ward was peaceful. Another ten or so minutes passed as Silver made her way through two rows of infants, cooing and changing and feeding as she went.
Then Silver Shoes found a too-blue baby on the third row and screamed bloody murder as she hammered on the code alarm. Sawbones Blackhollow and Speedy Delivery nearly killed each other colliding at the door after hearing the code, and the two frantically worked to try to revive the breathless child as Silver galloped to the waiting room.
She returned with two stallions as Sawbones covered the tiny bundle with a blanket and looked up to see them arriving...then shook his head as he dragged his hoof over the exit button. The younger stallion tried to look past Sawbones, but the older one wrapped a hoof around him and pulled him back.
"Go back with your mother, Shining. The doctor wants to talk with me about your sister.". Unwilling, Shining Armor found himself being firmly but irresistibly dragged back by the scruff of his mane by Silver Shoes, murmuring through his hair about how his mother was really looking forward to seeing him now that she was awake. The second Night Light was sure his son was gone, his face collapsed into a mask of expectant misery.
"Mister Light...the smaller of the two foals stopped breathing at about ten after seven this evening. Miss Shoes summoned me immediately, and we did all we could, and...she's under Celestia's wing now. The first one, the filly we expected is doing fine. We were about to bring them both to see the mother...Mrs. Velvet when we found your daughter in arrest. I- I'm so sorry." Blackhollow shuddered as if someone had hacked through his spine. "Do...do you want us to bring them both out?", he managed to choke out through a rapidly failing mask of professionalism.
Night Light stared through the doctor as his fellow laid a wing protectively over the teary-eyed pediatrician. "Foals die, but nobody's ready to lose one they brought into the world", thought Speedy- then spoke up.
"We can bring as much of your family into the maternity ward as you want, Mr. Light. There's a side room we can use, for privacy. If you want your son to be there...or if you think he's not ready to understand, I'll have Silver Hooves stay with him until you've had all the time with...both of your daughters.". The two stallions broke off their thousand-length stares, a thoughtful expression briefly breaking through Night Light's grief.
"I think you have the right idea, Doctor Delivery. She'll want to see them both, and...we have a lot of hellos and goodbyes to make, more than we knew. Keep Shining in the room where his mother is. We'll take that offer."
A few minutes later a dazed-looking Twilight Velvet was wheeled into the maternity ward, past a a door marked "Outpatient Room", and two nurses followed with life and death in their carts. What happened there, let us leave to a mother, a father, a little filly named Twilight Sparkle, and a second one who would sleep under a stone named "Dusk" until the last of days. It is not ours to know, nor Shining Armor, nor even Twilight Sparkle (for bright as she was, she slept through the whole thing). Midnight Shadow fed the child she had, and Twilight Velvet the other two, the days passed and children grew under the sun and moon.
"Mama, wut's "Loolawoon" mean?", said a little blue filly, looking at the white orb seeming to float just above her head, close and full in the autumn night. "Is it pawt of a twick, too?". Part of the night moved, rubbing a silver-sparkling wand against the unicorn.
"I have always thought that you were my best trick ever, pêpê. I would have ridden across the whole moon to have you, and I told Mahina Lia that. She gave me you, and I love you more than anything under the moon and stars. That's what Lulamoon means- "the length of the moon"."
The moon said nothing over the mare and filly, and merely watched them as they fell asleep together under the stars. The moon is very broad and so is Equestria, and both of them needed their sleep as they crossed it.
