Chapter One: An Ailing Wonderbolt
There came the white-hot pain. The pegasus mare writhed spastically on the bed, her teeth ground together. A grey-green mist began to cloud her vision as every inch of her body felt as though invisible flames were consuming it. Stifled gasps of agony rose from her mouth.
Then, as always, the pain subsided, leaving in its stead a dull, ever-present throb in her wings and a feeling of general malaise. As her eyes cleared, she took in her surroundings once more. She lay in a hospital room with a white, shiny tiled floor and cool blue-green walls. The steady hum and beep of medical machinery surrounded her. In the corner, she could just make out the other pony in the room: a stallion with navy blue fur, a light blue mane, and a white lab coat. She could see that he was reading something.
This stallion, a unicorn named Illness Cure, was the mare’s doctor. He looked down at the clipboard held in his magic and read:
Patient Name: Spitfire
Date admitted: July 1st [two weeks ago, Illness noted]
Symptoms: Severe pain, lethargy, advanced atrophy of wing muscles
There followed a list of all the tests she had had, which Illness read with a heaviness of heart. Every single one had failed to yield a conclusive result. He sighed and rubbed his temple with a hoof. Determined as he was to help this (and every) patient, this was a mystery that looked to be unsolvable.
Illness felt the overwhelming urge to comfort the mare in the bed as another wave of pain contorted her body. He had been taught in medical school no to feel this way, but he couldn’t help it; everypony meant something to somepony.
Before this emotion could overpower him, he backed out of the room and started down the hall toward the break room. Once there, he poured himself a cup of coffee and added a bit of sugar to it. He sat down at the small table that was in the room and sipped his hot beverage. He racked his brain, trying to think of a test he had not yet performed on poor Spitfire, but came up with nothing.
The sound of hooves brought him out of his thoughts. He looked and saw a pale rose mare with a mane of lilac purple. Her name was Health Restore, he knew, and she was fifteen years his senior. She poured some coffee, added nothing to it, and joined him at the table.
“Hello, Illness,” she said.
“Hello, Health,” he responded.
“How are things?”
“As good as they can be, I suppose, considering...”
“Ah, yes,” Health said knowingly, “and how is our girl Spitfire today?”
“Not very well, I’m afraid.”
“Hmm, that’s quite unfortunate,” said Health dryly. “I expect the press will have quite the feeding frenzy if she were to die in our hospital.”
“We don’t know for sure she’s going to die,” he said quietly, but defiantly.
“I’m simply talking hypothetically, Illness.” She sipped her coffee. “If she died—you know who she is, don’t you?”
“Of course, she’s the captain of the Wonderbolts.”
“Precisely. Such a young, high-profile pony dying in our hospital could be terrible for business.”
“Well, she’s not going to die if I can help it.” As he said this, his voice choked subtly with emotion.
“I hope not,” said Health. She seemed to have caught the hitch in his voice, because she then added, “And you should stop being so weepy. Take it from me, you don’t get far in this business if you mourn every patient you lose.”
Illness took a deep breath. “I try, Health,” he said shakily.
She drained the last of her coffee. “I know.” She then stood and walked out of the room.
Illness finished his drink in silence, wondering how Health Cure could be so cold. Maybe it came with time, he thought, but he could not picture a circumstance where he would ever face a patient’s death so stoically.
He spent the rest of the day hovering around Spitfire’s room, stepping out whenever it became too much to handle. On these occasions, he scolded himself. He felt weak. He wanted to be analytical and distant like all the other doctors he knew, but he could not. All he could do was think of the misery Spitfire was going through, and how he, the one whose job it was to help her, was himself helpless. He was going to find some way to help her, he told himself, no matter what he had to do.
After work, Illness went home to the apartment he lived in alone. He lay in his bed, brooding, until a very rash idea struck him. He knew it was far-fetched, but he couldn’t not do it. He got up and grabbed a pen and paper. He began to write: Dear Princess Celestia...
He finished the letter in fifteen minutes, looked it over once more, and prepared to send it. There was a spell few ponies knew that could get a letter to its destination almost instantly. It required a lot of magical energy, and all of one’s concentration. He screwed up his eyes and cast it; it left him panting and dizzy afterwards.
He hoped fervently that the princess would read his letter. He knew she wasn’t a doctor, but at over a thousand years old, his mind told him that she had to know something.
The next day, Illness could tell that Spitfire was worse. The attacks of pain were becoming more frequent, and between them, she spoke in incoherent babble, and seemed to be hallucinating. This was most definitely a bad sign, as she had been largely lucid up to this point.
At a loss, Illness ordered another MRI scan. As expected, it showed nothing to reveal the underlying cause of her malady, though it did tell him that the atrophy in her wings was getting much worse. He formed a picture in his mind of Celestia, elsewhere in Canterlot, receiving his letter in what he was sure was a large pile of royal mail. He could only hope that all the stories he had ever heard of her loving, wise nature would ring true, and she would answer the lament of her desperate subject.
He found himself once again in the break room. He stared languidly at himself, reflected in the surface of a cup of coffee he had allowed to go cold.
The sound of hooves broke his trance. He looked up and got the shock of his life. Standing before him, her large stature dominating the room, was the Sun Goddess of Equestria.
“You—Your Majesty,” he said breathlessly, scrambling to his hooves.
“Are you Illness Cure?” she said.
“I am.”
“I have read your letter. Where is Spitfire?” Celestia asked urgently.
“Right this way, Your Majesty.”
He led her down the dim corridor to Spitfire’s room. The Wonderbolt was sleeping fitfully, tossing about, cold sweat glistening on her forehead. Celestia walked slowly forward and stared at Spitfire intently for a full five minutes, until a spasm of agony wracked her sleeping form. Upon seeing this, Celestia’s face set into a look of pure, stony terror. She turned back to Illness and asked for Spitfire’s chart. Reading it seemed to confirm her worst fears; as she finished, the look on her face darkened even more.
“You were right to summon me,” she said grimly. “I know what this is.”
“You do?” said Illness, happy that his hunch had proven to be worthwhile. “Can you tell me?”
Celestia took a deep breath. “It is a very rare, deadly illness that affects only pegasi. I would tell you the name, but so few ponies know about it, it doesn’t have one. I last encountered it over seven hundred years ago. It’s been so long that I thought it had gone extinct.”
Illness was silent for a few moments, then he voiced the foremost question in his mind. “Is there any cure?”
Celestia looked at him sadly. “There used to be. An ancient artifact called the Fire-Feather Amulet held enough magic to cure the disease; that’s how the plague was contained last time.” She shook her head and concluded, “But sadly, that object has been lost to the ages.”
“It just... just disappeared?” Illness spluttered.
Celestia nodded defeatedly. “Nopony knows how, or why, but it vanished without a trace almost a century ago.”
Illness absorbed this. “You’re saying there’s no hope whatsoever?” he gasped.
“As horrible as it sounds, yes. The Fire-Feather Amulet is irretrievable.”
Illness fought back tears of sadness mixed with indignation. “So Spitfire’s going to die?”
“Not just Spitfire, Illness. This disease is highly contagious. I’m afraid Equestria may need to configure another way to control its weather.” She began to walk from the room.
Illness moved in front of her. He felt terrible disrespecting the princess, but he couldn’t let her leave, not if it meant he would have to watch thousands more ponies wither away.
“You’re just going to let your subjects die?” he said flatly.
Celestia fixed him with a steely glare. Illness could tell she was experiencing some sort of internal strife. At length, she said, “If it means that much to you, I can provide you with two things: a map to the Amulet’s last known location; and Equestria’s most powerful weapon, the Elements of Harmony.”
“Thank you, Your Majesty,” Illness said. He then began to ponder. Elements of Harmony. He knew he had heard that somewhere before.