“It’s been a week Doc! Why in all that is holy and divine is my fur not growing back?” Sun Light scorned.
The doctor looked up from the examination report, glanced silently at Sun Light, then returned to reading the report. Sun Light groaned patience was never his virtue.
“I think I know what your problem is Sunny,” Doctor Royal Medicine said, “You are too stressed out.”
“Stressed out? Me? Why on earth would you even think of that?” Sun Light said as calmly as he could.
“Well, for starters, you can stop yelling in my face, let go of my lab coat, and climb down my desk. If you would please,” Doc Royal replied patiently.
“Oh,” Sun Light blinked before doing as the doctor said. Evening shook his head.
“The shampoo is out of your system and you have been restored to full health, however, your stress hormones are ten times the normal level. You need to calm down.”
“I am calm,” Sun Light yelled loudly before glaring angrily at the doctor.
With a sigh, Doctor Royal Medicine stood up then motioned to Sun Light to sit in his chair. Sun Light jumped immediately for the opportunity, literally, causing the chair to swirl around a couple of circles before coming to a stop.
“Comfy?” He asked while putting a hoof on Sun Light’s shoulder. Once Sun Light nodded, he continued, “Let’s talk for a bit, what’s going on in your life right now?”
“Why? I mean, you know most of the details; gossip fly around here faster than a speeding Wonderbolt,” Sun Light answered with a peeve.
“Well, yes, that is true,” the doctor stuttered a bit, “but, I still want to hear it from you.”
Sun Light sighed, “I taught Spike the alphabet this week. He still can’t talk, but his retention is astonishing.”
“That’s good,” The doctor kept nodding, “anything else?”
“Twilight can now levitate three tomes at the same time and rotate them around.”
“I see,” The doctor replied, taking note of Sun Light’s unhappiness over the issue, “That’s quite impressive for a filly her age. I can only lift one tome at a time, and I can’t really swing it without fear of it falling out of my aura.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” When Sun Light’s voice turned from bitterness to sadness, the doctor understood that it wasn’t Twilight who’s causing him grief.
“How about your old entourage?” he asked, “Anyone bothering you in particular?”
Sun Light shrugged, “Not really. Princess Celestia has been kind of mellow with me for a while, I think she’s feeling guilty about causing my current ordeal. I haven’t been seeing Princess Cadence a lot lately, Twilight told me she misses her coltfriend so she prefers to be left alone. And Prince Blueblood has been actively avoiding me for a while now,” he shot a glance at his father who looked up to the ceiling whistling nonchalantly, “for reasons unknown.”
"And your sister? Heard anything about her lately?"
Sun Light sank in his seat. "Moon Chaser is fine... I think."
The old doctor raised an eyebrow. "You think?"
This time, however, it was Evening Star who responded, "She haven't sent us a letter yet, but that is to be expected since the first few weeks are the most time-consuming."
The doctor watched as Sun Light nodded begrudgingly at his dad's words. “Well, that can’t be right!” He exclaimed, “These things shouldn’t induce the stress you’ve been having; is there anything you’re not telling me?”
Sun Light hesitated, “I have been working on a big project but it’s not going too good; I think that is what’s causing me the most stress.”
Doctor Royal nodded before standing up, “I see, and does this project have any deadline?”
“No, not really.”
“Then you can do without,” the doctor asserted, “Also I’m giving you another sick leave, and I’m circulating it throughout the castle personally so that you can’t go there whenever you want to.”
Sun Light jumped, “What?!”
The doctor needed to be strong, he shrugged off Sun Light’s pleading eyes firmly, though waveringly, “I’m also going to ask your father to restrict your movement by placing a guard over you.”
“You can’t!!” Sun Light cowered on all four begging.
And with a final hoofstomp, the doctor asserted, “And if you don’t comply with my prescription this time, I’ll…” he gulped, “I won’t invite you to Canterlot medical conference next month,” before pulling his hoof back into his mouth in guilt.
Sun Light screamed, “NOOOOO!!!!”
The doctor placed a reassuring hoof on Sun Light’s shoulder, “I am sorry, but this is for your own good,” he pulled a lollipop from his desk and gave it to him, “for being a good colt during the examination.”
Sun Light sniffed, “Can I have another?”
“Sure thing,” the doctor gave him another.
Evening facehoofed.
Doctor Royal Medicine waved his patient goodbye, “Take it easy Sunny, there is nothing in this world for you to be stressed about.”
“I will,” Sun Light waved back at the doctor.
But just as the doctor closed the door to his office, Sun Light let out an exasperated sigh, “This is going to be a pain.”
“You do realize that you just conned Doctor Medicine out of his stash, right?” His father pointed it out.
“Considering the fact that I am going to sit around doing nothing for a week, I might as well take something out of it,” he unwrapped a lollipop and placed it in his mouth.
“I know you’re furless Sun Light. I didn’t know you wanted to be toothless as well,” Evening noted, “Unless you want to be an old pony with a cane limping and yelling at foals to stop running, then be my guest.”
Sun Light looked at his father shocked, then carefully took the lollipop out of his mouth and threw it away, “Sometimes I wonder where you get most of your ideas.”
“He said you needed to relax, and having a sugar rush isn’t relaxing,” Evening explained.
“Pish posh, I am always relaxed.”
“Did you manage telekinesis yet?”
Sun Light took a deep breath before coming up with his most reasonable reply, “IT’S HARDER THAN YOU THINK, OKAY!”
“Yes, you sounded very relax,” his father quipped.
“I guess I am a little stressed out over this, aren’t I?”
“A little?”
“Okay, okay, a lot,” Sun Light finally admitted in defeat.
Not wishing for his son to remain depressed, Evening took an initiative, “Perhaps I can help, I did travel to foreign lands and have seen many things, my insight might be useful to you.”
“Okay, I have a few theories, but nothing remotely close for them to actually work,” his son explained, “If I am to take teleportation as a model; teleportation requires an enormous amount of motion to work, I need to activate my entire body, every ounce of my earth pony strength in order to work.”
“So what seems to be the problem then?”
“Telekinesis is different, you can consider it to be the opposite of teleportation; with teleportation, you gather your magic inward but you project your thoughts outward, that is called projection. Telekinesis requires you to gather your magic outward, but the projection of the weight is inward. Because of their horns acting as a conduit to that projection, unicorns can do that instinctively by focusing on a single point all the time. My conduit is motion, which is the opposite of what is required from all the books I have read.”
Inhaling, Sun Light decided to let out his deepest frustration yet, “There is nothing in the literature that can help me achieve my goal.”
“I understand your predicament perfectly,” Evening stated with pride, as hope brightened in his son’s eyes in anticipation for what to come, “You are stuck,” only to have that hope shattered in an instance.
“Thank you for stating the obvious,” Sun Light deadpanned.
“I don’t mean it like that, let me tell you a story of the time when I was a colonel in…”
“Wait,” Sun Light suddenly interrupted, “You’re going to talk about your time in the army?” glee glittering in his eyes, “You never talk about the homeland.”
“Then are you going to let me tell the story or are you going to keep gushing?”
Sun Light sat there, then zipped his hoof over his mouth, ear perked ready to absorb every detail.
“When I was still a colonel in the army of the city-state of Ramitha under the command of the celestial king Torgan, Ramitha entered a war against another city-state called Sarepta, I was tasked with taking over a key position called the fortress of White Ashes near the edge of Sarepta’s border. However Sarepta’s king, Celestial King Arthur Pendragon, wanted to avoid any advancement toward the borders of his city-state, so he sent his strongest warrior in his guard, Heracles the immortal, to stand guard and prevent the fortress from falling no matter what.”
“And was this Heracles Strong?” Sun Light asked with awe.
“Strong? That guy was a bloody titan in dragon form, a moving mountain, unstoppable, unrelenting, and an immortal to top it all; there was no way my battalion would have survived a headlong battle against him.”
“So what happened?”
“I was in command of the forward battalion, and the main army was not far behind us, we were pressed in time and every minute counted, however, if we don’t take the fortress then all our advancement would be for naught, and the army would be forced to retreat, but with Heracles guarding the gates, our mission was suicide. So I decided to do the only thing left for me to do, I took a break.”
“You took a break,” Sun Light deadpanned.
“I took a break,” Evening reaffirmed, “I ordered my guard that no one would disturb me for the next ten minutes, I took the flute and I started playing some music.”
“I’m failing to see where you are going with this.”
“Within those ten minutes, I forgot about the world outside, I cleared all my thoughts, and I rejuvenated myself in preparation for the upcoming battle, and that is when I realized what my goal really is. My goal is to take the fortress, not to defeat Heracles. So I summoned my warriors, created a squad capable of surviving a fight with the Titan then snuck the rest of my battalion toward the fortress. Surprisingly they left the front gate open, they didn’t think anyone would be able to get past Heracles so they didn’t bother with the defense, it was the easiest win in my entire career.”
“But wouldn’t Heracles have turned back and tried to take the fortress from you?”
“He did, but we were in an upward position on top of well-fortified castle walls with all our weapons pointed at him, that is what gave us the edge to drive him off. We couldn’t kill him of course, but forcing the great Heracles into a stalemate was as sweet a victory as we could have hoped.”
“That,” Sun Light held his breath, “Was amazing,” he ended up gushing over his father’s tale.
Evening looked shocked at his son for a moment, then suddenly exploded in laughter, Sun Light looked at his father quizzically, “Did I do something wrong?”
“No, no,” Evening replied, “You had the same reaction as Hera did when I first told her that story,” he finally calmed down to see his son’s eyes brighten at the mention of his mother.
“I had the same reaction as Mom?” he asked with hopefulness.
“Well, yeah, I just said so,” Evening’s smile wavered, “And this isn’t even the first time, you do things like her all the time. Didn’t Moonie ever tell you that?”
“Well, no,” Evening was taken aback by his son’s answer, “She never talked about her in front of me, and whenever I asked she would give me the same look you are giving right now, so I stopped asking.”
Evening looked at his son, “what look are you talking about?”
“Like you’re about to cry.”
Evening was at a loss for words, as memories of ashes and death rose in his mind, he felt sickened by what happened, by the curses that had befallen on him and his family, yet he could still taste the joy of happier times. He knew that someday he would have to explain everything to his son. No, he owed it to him, and at that sudden realization, a smile crept on his face.
“I’ll make you a deal,” he said, and Sun Light’s ear perked at his father words, “If you can grow back your fur in one week, I’ll tell you everything you wish to know about your mother. Everything. It will be our little family reunion,” The moment Evening proposed the visit to his son, Sun Light’s expression brightened like a morning sun, “You like the idea, don’t you?”
“Really?” Sun Light asked cheerfully, “You’ll tell me everything?”
Evening chuckled as Sun Light hopped in excitement, “However, only if you can grow your fur back,” he added sternly.
Sun Light stood his ground, then raised his hoof in a salute, “I’ll do my best.”
“Then I won’t need to place a guard to watch over, would I?”
“As I said, I’ll do my best,” Sun Light repeated.
“Good,” With a smile and a shove Evening sent his son out to his home, “then I’ll see you at home.”
“Bye.”
Evening waved off his son who was zipping through toward his house “That was easier than I expected,” he noted. But just as he continued toward his office in the castle, a single memory resurfaced in his mind:
The doctor stood at the front of their room, a smile adorning his face. Hera had been sick for a week, which made both Shalim and Artemis worried sick for her.
“{Is mommy going to be okay?}” Artemis asked in her sick Arabian language, worry clear in her eyes.
“{Mommy’s going to be better than okay,}” The doctor answered before turning to Shalim, “{Congratulations, General. Your wife is pregnant!}”
A wide smile adorned Artemis as she learned she’ll be an older sister. Her father was less enthusiastic“{Is something wrong General Shalim?}” The doctor asked.
“{That’s not possible,}” Shalim answered, “{I haven’t been in bed with my wife for months!}”
The smile on the doctor disappeared, “{Then I’m sorry.}”
Shalim pushed the doctor. Ignoring his daughter’s plea for answers, he barged into his bedroom only to find his wife drowning in tear, “[I’m sorry!]” Hera cried, “[I couldn’t stop him!]” Her cry rang as each sob felt like a stab through Shalim’s heart.
Evening stood his place, frozen in both time and space, he mumbled the only thought that came to his mind, “Dear Celestia, what have I done?”