Entry nr. 1
Why do I live?
I am far from sure what answer I am looking for, but I still feel the need to write the question down. It has left me no peace since first I thought of it. Something about that question intoxicates me, intrigue me, vexes in a way nothing else have done before. Am I looking for the philosophical answer? The biological answer, or maybe I just seek my destiny… the meaning of my cutie mark?
I don’t know what I seek, but I know I seek my answer alone.
And I know it is important somehow. I just know it.
*****
”Crystal Empire! Terminal station everypony! Connective trains to Stalliongrad and Vanhoover leaving in half an hour and forty-eight minutes respectively!”
Twilight Sparkle was not going to Stalliongrad or Vanhoover, though she made a mental note to do so at the earliest possible opportunity. Since she had read through the books she brought for this train ride faster than she had expected, she had been forced to read some of the folders she could find. Both cities were founded soon after the unification of the pony tribes and could certainly give some insight in the history and architecture from that time period.
Anyway, that was not what Twilight was here for. She levitated her small, now thoroughly read, portable library into her saddlebags and made her way through the crystal train. This was the first time she was here alone. Both during the Equestria Games and when she first helped save the empire from Sombra, she had been here with her friends. Now however, she had been asked to come alone for whatever reason. She suspected it might be because Cadence’s time was nearing. Perhaps Shining Armor wanted to spend some time with his little sister before such a momentous change in his life?
The very thought made Twilight giddy. The moment she had gotten the news she had collected the data from thousands of hospitals from all over Equestria and calculated the statistical length of Cadence’s pregnancy down to the picosecond.
According to that, the foal was due in just a few weeks. She was going to be an aunt in just a few weeks! She hopped off the train.
”Hey, Twily!”
”Shining Armor!” She smiled at her brother and hugged him quickly. ”Oh, how nice to see you again, its been too long!”
”It really has,” Shining said and started walking slowly towards the Crystal Castle. ”Sorry about that, really. Things have been hectic lately, with Cadence’s pregnancy and the Empire still needing time to adjust to a whole new world. I don’t seem to have much time left over anymore.”
”Don’t worry, I know,” Twilight said. ”Since I became a princess, I have had more things to do than ever before too.” She paused and looked around, spotting two crystal foals, a colt and a filly, running past them with grins sparkling brighter than their coats. Twilight made a contented sound at the display. ”Though I see that your time must have been well spent. Everypony looks so happy.”
Twilight had expected her brother to chuckle sheepishly and blush, like he often did when praised. She had not expected him to sigh and fold his ears slightly down and to the sides, giving him a sad expression.
”Thank you, Twilight, but… I’m sorry to say not all is as well as it seems in this empire anymore.” Shining threw a glance over his shoulder and then lowered his voice. ”In fact, that is why I asked you here. I was hoping maybe you could help with something.”
”Anything, brother, but what’s happened?” Twilight asked, frowning. It was not like her brother to worry like this. His go-getter attitude and confidence made him nearly impervious to it; he was a pony who attacked any problems head on as soon as he saw them without wasting time to worry.
”Wait a little while,” Shining said. ”I will explain at the castle, and I have an appointment too. Somepony who needs an audience.” It was not lost on Twilight that Shining Armor seemed all but distressed for a moment when he mentioned the ”appointment”. Yet another mystery she would have to ask about later.
She nodded absently and plunged her sizable intellect into trying to figure out what Shining Armor meant. The foals she had seen looked nothing but ecstatic, and most of the adults she could see looked as crystally as always, chatting with one another or eating at the cafés. Besides, she had not seen any news about something extraordinary going on in the empire. Everything seemed just… normal. Twilight tried and ultimately failed to come up with any ideas for the rest of the way to the castle.
”I will be back as soon as I can,” Shining Armor mumbled absently and left Twilight in a large, round room. Somewhat confused, she sat down behind one of the crystal tables that stood by the wall. She went back to thinking. What was Shining Armor so stressed about, and what had happened to the empire? Since when was her brother nervous about meeting somepony? Too many questions, too little information.
”Oh my! Twilight Sparkle herself? What an honor, what an honor indeed!” Twilight broke out from her thinking and saw a dark blue unicorn with amber eyes trot up to her with a confident smile on his lips. He was dressed in a sterile white doctor’s robe and had a stereoscope hanging around his neck. He took her hoof and shook it vigorously. ”I must be the luckiest pony in the Empire, meeting both you and Cadence in one day. Only Celestia and Luna left, and I will have met all the princesses in person. Not many ponies who can say that.”
”Uh… yes? Hello, mister…?” Twilight stammered, somewhat perplexed by such a lengthy, laudatory greeting from a pony she had never seen before.
Apparently her companion caught up to her uncertainty, for he continued in the same hearty, easygoing manner. ”Oh, sorry. Golden Heart’s the name! Immigrant doctor and alchemist at your service. But I’m sure you could do my job in half the time any day, of course.”
”No, Golden, I’m not a doctor or an alchemist” Twilight said with slightly flushed cheeks.”I don’t know anything about medicine.”
”And humble too, I see,” Golden Heart said heartily. ”Your brother wasn’t lying when he talked about you. I am sure you could figure out any of my procedures in a matter of days if you really put your mind to it. After all, you were hoof picked by the immortal Solar Princess herself, weren’t you?”
”My brother has been talking about me? With you?” Twilight asked, dumbfounded and uncertain how to handle all the praise she received. ”When? And what are you doing here anyway?”
”Not sure what I’m doing here to be honest,” Golden Heart said in a voice that could be both serious or joking, unclear which. ”Your brother and… sister in law? Yea, sister in law, has asked me here twice every day for the last month. Apparently they want regular checkups at their foal’s health, and that’s what I’m doing.”
”Every day for a whole month? Twice?” Twilight asked, certain that she had misheard. That sounded like something she might do herself, she could admit, but she was well aware that she could become… just a teeny bit anxious at times. Her Smartypants doll, want-it-need-it spell and the ensuing stampede quickly flashed through her head, but that was her! Shining and Cadence had always been much more down-to-Equestria than she was, so why would they worry so much?
The feeling of uncertainty returned with a vengeance. What was going on? Twilight hated not having full control over a situation, and suddenly it felt like she was fumbling in darkness. Uneasiness settled into a heavy pit in her stomach.
”Yup, every day,” Golden Heart confirmed, his tone just a little amused. ”It was fun to meet the princess and prince at first but… let’s just say that monitoring the day-to-day growth of a healthy foal is not the most interesting duty I have ever had.” It looked like Golden Heart was about to say something more, but then stopped himself. ”Then again, if I can bring some peace to them by being here, then I can only be thankful.”
”Bring peace?” Twilight asked. ”What do you mean by that?”
”Nothing,” Golden Heart said, strangely fast, his amber eyes, thus far warm and confident, had suddenly hardened, if only for a moment.
”What do you mean?” Twilight asked again. ”He is my brother. Please, I must know if there is something worrying him. He has not… exactly been himself today.”
”Sorry, Princess, but if he wants you to know, he will have to tell you himself. You can’t expect me to go behind his back, no matter how good the course might be,” Golden Heart said with a heavy sigh. ”But since this is his and Cadenza’s first foal, I imagine they want to take every precaution they can think of.”
”Precaution against what?” Twilight asked insistently. She felt her heartbeat beginning to go up, and the atmosphere had shifted from the casual, carefree tone Golden Heart’s cheerful greeting had set to a colder, more secretive one. It felt like the entire world was dressed in a cheerful, crystal blanket, obscuring her vision of what was really going on. Her brother’s strange worrying, the distress she had glimpsed briefly when he went to his appointment, and now Golden Heart’s hints at… something. It all made her wary. Of course, it could still be nothing, but…
Something felt off.
A door opened.
”Again, I am so, so sorry, Rose Quartz.” Shining Armor’s voice was somber, low and insistent. Twilight left her place and looked down the corridor. Her brother stood in a doorway, talking to a red crystal pony. Twilight could not quite place her hoof on what was strange with his companion. ”It was a strong thing to come to us with your concerns. We really do appreciate it, Cadence and I.”
”I’m sorry, my prince,” the other pony, a mare by the voice, said choppily, sobbing quietly. ”I-I sh-shouldn’t have come. Not now. Not when she is-” Her voice disintegrated in a torrent of incoherent sniffles and moans.
”Shh,” Shining Armor said and hugged the crying pony tenderly. ”I’m sorry.” He let Rose Quartz cry on his shoulder while the mare collected herself slightly. She then pushed Shining Armor away, made an awkward bow and then began walking away, stiff as if she was trying to prevent any muscle from shaking. Small moans still escaped the mare as she went away.
Twilight stared. She went up to her brother. If something had felt off before, now it felt positively malign. There was something at work here, something that had made… this foreboding scene play out in front of her. She had no clue what, and so had no idea how to prepare. She felt lost and blind; walking around aimlessly while some unknowable threat lurked over her brother, her sister-in-law and their unborn foal, ready to pounce.
”Sorry for leaving you, Twilight,” Shining Armor said, sounding tired. ”But this was something I had to do. Come, Cadence has been waiting to see you.”
”What was that all about?” Twilight asked. ”Shining… what is happening?”
”We don’t fully know,” Shining Armor mumbled. ”That’s why I asked you here.” He looked up from her eyes to something behind her. ”Golden Heart. I assume you have met my little sister?”
”I have. She is positively charming if I do say so myself,” the brazen, carefree voice of Golden Heart came from behind Twilight, causing her to startle slightly. She had not heard him come, and his voice felt out of place in the nasty atmosphere.
”I know, she is the best little sis a pony could ever have,” Shining Armor said tenderly, causing Twilight to blush. ”Anyway, come in both of you. I will explain the situation to Twilight while you do your magic.”
”I don’t know, I wouldn’t call it magic,” Golden Heart said as he went past her swiftly. ”I’m just doing my job. Or, no, actually; helping the princess with something like this is an honor, not a job.” Twilight caught a glimpse of Golden Heart’s cutie mark. It was a golden staff with a pair of snakes around it. She followed into what seemed to be a meeting room, only to quickly be ushered through it and past another door.
When she came in, Golden Heart already stood by a large, soft, backwards inclining chair, talking to Cadence. Twilight looked at the other alicorn, taking in the changes since last they met.
Cadence's belly was large, but not nearly as large as many other pregnant ponies. She still maintained the aura of grace and vigor that always followed her. If anything, her pregnancy seemed to make her even more beautiful than ever before. Her coat was more vibrant and powerful in its colors and had also taken on a glossy, smooth sheen that Twilight had never seen before. It was like her pregnancy heightened her colors and beauty beyond that of a normal pony, alicorn or no.
And Cadence’s eyes were red. She had been crying just now. Twilight even forgot their traditional greeting. ”Cadence! What’s happened, are you alright!?”
”Yes, Twilight,” Cadence said, smiling despite the sadness in her eyes. ”I am alright, there is nothing wrong with me.” The purple alicorn looked pleadingly to the doctor at her side.
”Not with the foal either from what I can hear,” Golden Heart said, nearly the same moment he put his stereoscope to Cadence’s belly. ”But you will have to wait while I perform a more… substantial study.”
”I know, I’m just so worried,” Cadence said bashfully.
”I can’t fault you for that,” Golden Heart replied and took out slim syringe from his white robe. With a practiced motion, he quickly planted it in Cadence’s left foreleg and drained a few drops of blood.
”Okay, Twilight,” Shining Armor said heavily. ”I don’t know where to start… It’s been about a year now since the empire resurfaced and Sombra was defeated. With all the love in the air and renewed hope for the future it did not take very long for some crystal ponies to fall in love with one another. Perhaps it was their way of defying their tyrant king, but for whatever the reason ponies fell in love and… uh… did that.” Shining Armor squirmed uncomfortably, like the chair he sat on suddenly had grown spikes from the seat.
”Ponies got pregnant, Twilight,” Cadence filled in for her husband. ”The rejoice for the first free foals the empire had known for a millennia was as great as you would expect… but then…” Cadence choked back a sob.
Shining Armor spoke again, his voice low and hollow. ”Stillborn. The first foal was a stillborn.” Shining blinked, and Twilight saw tears falling through the air, glittering like diamonds.
”So was the next foal. And the next one after that,” Golden Heart said gravely. ”In this last year of freedom there have been eleven pregnancies and no living foals born.”
Twilight gasped and cupped her hooves over her mouth, horrified as the full weight of Golden Heart’s statement descended upon her. No newborns meant that the spirit of the empire would soon be crushed if it weren’t already, and in time the entire crystal pony race would die out. It explained Shining Armor’s strange behavior too: of course he was jumpy and scared. This was not a problem he knew how to solve, and yet the deadline for when it had to be solved crept closer every day. Of course Cadence wanted to check up on her foal’s health every day!
”But- but how… why?” Twilight stammered, struggling to hold back her own tears. She could not cry, not now. Shining Armor must have called her for consolation and company of his oldest, closest companion. She had to be strong for him and Cadence.
”I don’t know,” Golden Heart replied. ”I can’t find any reason, and I have assisted in most of those births myself. Everything looks fine at the last checkup, just before labour sets in, but in the end… I have no idea.”
”They call it ’Sombra’s Vengeance’,” Shining Armor mumbled. ”The mares who… the mothers, they say it is Sombra cursing them from beyond the grave.”
”Nonsense, there is no such thing as curses,” Twilight said. ”The third basic theorem in magic says, quote: ’magic is an instantaneous motion of arcana potential. Once cast, a spell cannot be fundamentally undone as the difference in potential has already been applied.’”
”Care to translate that one?” Golden Heart asked in a deadpan tone.
”Magic is instantaneous,” Twilight grumbled reluctantly. ”A spell cannot be cast and then be dormant until a specific thing happens; that’s not how magic works.”
”I believe you, Twi, but it doesn’t help. Something bad is happening in the empire and… and I worry,” Cadence said meekly and placed a fore hoof over her unborn child. ”I can't… I don’t want to think about…”
”Don’t,” Twilight said and placed her own hoof on top of Cadence’s. ”I promise, I will look into this and prove that whatever happened has a rational explanation… I don’t know what yet, but I promise I will find it. Perhaps the magical feedback from when the empire resurfaced is the reason…” Twilight was unsure of that explanation herself, but she did not want to say that. Cadence needed good news.
It could, theoretically, be the magical feedback. Powerful spells did have a proven effect on ponies in their surroundings, but those effect were mostly limited to headaches and nausea. Then again, Sombra’s curse was likely one of the most powerful spells ever cast, and the crystal ponies had all suffered a direct hit from it.
Anyway, it was the best idea she had, so she should look it up.
She turned to the doctor. ”Golden Heart, is the cause of… the reason,” Twilight corrected, carefully avoiding the word ”death,” ”known at all? Do you know the medical reason it happens?”
”Yes and no,” Golden Heart replied. ”Most common seems to be necrosis in the heart, though suffocation and cardiac arrest has also been seen. Problem is that I can’t figure out why that would happen in the first place, and in less than an hour too. I don’t see how a heart can more or less decay in such a short timespan.”
Cadence gave a whimpering shudder and folded her wings over her growing child. ”Perhaps we could take that someplace else,” Shining Armor said with an angrily glare at Golden Heart. The blue unicorn nodded and left the room. Twilight wanted to throw up at the pictures her mind conjured up, but forced herself to follow him. Shining Armor stayed behind with his shaking mare.
”Why am I so dumb?” Golden Heart mumbled bitterly to himself once he was out in the meeting room they had passed earlier. ”Why didn’t I think about that myself? Some consolation I am!”
”Did you write any reports or something about this? Those should be the best lead to figure out what is happening. I would like see them myself if I can.”
”Don’t even ask,” Golden Heart said quickly. ”Whatever you want, I will help you with it any way I can. Only… you are sure it can’t be some… curse or something? I have been helping mares giving birth for nearly twenty-five years now, and I have never seen anything like this.”
”It is not a curse.” Twilight was certain. ”And I will prove it. There is a reasonable explanation, and I will find it, that I promise.”
”Thank you, Twilight Sparkle,” Golden Heart said. His amber like eyes met Twilight’s. ”If you find the reason for this, I think you will be hailed just a big a hero as Spike the Brave and Glorious is.”
Twilight cracked a minuscule smile at that. It ended when Shining Armor came out of Cadence’s room. ”Watch your mouth next time,” he hissed angrily at Golden Heart. The blue pony seemed to accept Shining’s anger and only nodded submissively. ”Twilight, what do you want to do? I think you know best what to do in this situation, so please tell me.”
”You should stay here with Cadence,” Twilight said. ”She needs you by her side more than I.”
”Both Cadence and I disagree,” Shining Armor said. ”She will hold up with her servants and nurses to keep her mind off things, and I can’t help our foal from in there. With you, maybe I can… and frankly, Twilight, I can’t sit idle anymore. It’s driving me crazy!”
”I agree,” Golden Heart said quietly. ”There are many reports to go through, so any extra pair of eyes will do us good.”
”But Cadence-”
”She is a strong mare, Twilight,” Shining Armor said. ”She will be happier to have both of us looking for a solution.”
Twilight nodded. She did not want to wast another second on this debate. ”Okay, come on! To Golden Heart’s hospital!”
*****
Entry nr. 56
I thought the answers were hidden around me. I thought that if only I searched long enough I would learn why I lived. I have never been so wrong. The answers are not around me.
The answers are inside me.
Flesh, sinew, bone, blood… all of them are filled with my life. As long as I have them, I can live. But, as with any well formulated query, an answer will lead to a new question. I wonder now, what unifies all life I see around me? Clearly we ponies live, as do the bats in the sky, the worms under my hooves and the lichen on the tombstones. But the lichen does not have any of the fundamental parts to live, and with the other creatures they are vastly different from my own.
So what is it, the common denominator? What makes life possible?