A bedroom is supposed to be a sanctuary to sleep, be alone, and to otherwise unwind after a long, stressful day. I found it a bit counterproductive that I was using mine to handle everything work related; by the time I went back up to my room after having breakfast on Saturday morning, I found my desk piled with parchment and scrolls detailing expenditures, damage reports, accrued bills, debts owed, and various other incident reports, mostly relating to Mercy.
I really wanted to power through the work on my desk to have time to enjoy the rest of the weekend, but Celestia was more concerned how the previous day’s diamond dog invasion impacted her ‘little sister’, and despite my incessant insistence that I was fine and could manage things, she was adamant that I take the rest of the weekend to myself while she handled Saturday’s petitioners and related work.
Officially, I had my hooves tied, but there was a small loophole. Celestia said she didn’t want me working, she but didn’t say anything about studying! Wanting to continue studying more powerful and more useful incantations, I grabbed the spell I was working on, and took it up to the suite I let Nebula and Hayseed stay in; I felt like giving them a bit of company, and so I wasn’t being disturbed too much while I had some down time to study.
“Watcha doing?”
Having gotten so engrossed in writing out a complicates pell, I jumped in my seat at Hayseed’s sudden question, scratching my quill and ink halfway across the complicated array I was writing and clutched a hoof to my chest. “Hayseed!” I gasped, putting on a smile as I looked down to the colt sitting next to me. “Don’t frighten me like that!”
“I’m sorry,” he said, ears flattening against his head. “I just wanted to know what you were doing…”
I spun around to face him proper, tousling his mane to show I wasn’t mad at him. “It’s OK, I was just studying.”
“Come on Hayseed, let the Princess work,” Nebula playfully scolded.
I waved off her comment. “It’s fine, I needed to take a break anyway.”
“So what are you working on, if you don’t mind me asking?” Nebula said, knitting needles clacking away.
Shaking off the fatigue from sitting down for over two hours, I took the large parchment over to the mare so she could have a look. Her knitting slowed down as her eyes focused on the spell. “Gravity magic… Shrinking spells… Dark magic…” Her eyes widened and shot up to me. “What is this? Is dark magic even legal to use?”
“Any magic is perfectly legal to use, but don’t go stealing or, uh…” I looked to Hayseed a moment. “Un-aliving anyone. That’s illegal. Dark Magic is just the inverse form of Light Magic,” I explained cooly, rolling up the parchment and put it on the suite’s desk I was using. “The spell itself is an infinite gravity well; it allows the user to control the density of either magic or matter into a singularity for offensive or defensive purposes.”
“What’s a gravity well?” Hayseed asked.
Nebula chewed the inside of her cheek over how to explain it to her son. “You know how heavy a brick is? Now imagine the weight of two bricks the same size as the first put together. If you keep doing that, the brick will get heavier but the size will remain the same.”
“So it hurts more when you throw it?”
“Well, no,” I said with a small chuckle. “I can use it to make shields stronger by making the mana more dense. That way, anypony throwing bricks will get very tired very fast.”
Hayseed scrunched his face as if he’d just taken a bite out of a lemon, trying to understand what he’d been told.
“It’s alright, maybe I could teach you a thing or two about magic one day,” I said.
That made him perk up. “Really?! Princess Luna teaching me!?”
“When I’ve got some spare time, I don’t see why I can’t make the effort.”
Hayseed launched himself off the couch and latched his forelegs around my neck. “Luna is best Princess!”
I put a foreleg around him and pulled him closer, but the embrace didn’t last long. A few heavy thumps I recognised as Bastille’s knocking came from the suite’s door. I almost forgot that I had asked Radiant to come give Nebula a check up after what happened yesterday.
I reluctantly let Hayseed down with an “excuse me”, then went to open the door. On the other side were the two expected ponies.
“Greetings, Princess,” Radiant said with a short bow. “I’m here to give Nebula a check up, and to inform you that Harvest has woken. Fortunately, there won’t be any lasting damage. He’ll be alright in a couple days.”
“Daddy’s awake?!” Hayseed beamed.
“Would you like to go see him?” Radiant asked, tousling the colt’s mane with a smile. “While you do that, I can make sure mommy’s baby is OK.”
Before I knew what happened, Hayseed zoomed out the door, his little hooves skidding over the floor as he disappeared down the hall.
I looked at Nebula, and we both shared a small laugh at Hayseed’s expense. “I’d better go get him before he gets lost.”
I left Bastille with Nebula and Radiant while she did her thing. Not too far down the hall, I found Hayseed at a junction in the halls, trying to decide which way to go. I decided to teleport him to the infirmary, and found my nose curling at the unpleasant aroma of antiseptic and other remedies and medicines wafting around the room when we arrived. A nurse - who dropped a clipboard in shock at seeing her princess materialize before her - was quick to show us to Harvest’s cot, where he was lying, groggy and with a linen bandage wrapped around an ice pack on his head. He blinked a few times before realizing who we were.
“Hey buddy,” the stallion raspily said, reaching out with his forelegs toward Hayseed. The colt trotted over and embraced his dad, breathing a sigh of relief.
“How are you feeling, Daddy?” Hayseed asked.
“Things are a little fuzzy, but the nurse said I’d get better. How is your mum and the baby?”
“Momma’s fine.”
“That’s my boy, keeping her safe for me. Looks like you’re the stallion of the house now,” Harvest said with a prideful grin, a foreleg around his son’s withers.
Hayseed couldn’t help but beam at that, getting all misty-eyed as he leaned into his dad’s hug.
I didn’t say or do anything as they had their moment. Despite Mercy being half destroyed and numerous families displaced, the one consolation I had was that, like Harvest and Hayseed, everyone in the town still had each other.
My ears flicked back when I heard a set of hoofsteps coming up behind. I looked over my shoulder, seeing Radiant wearing a stern expression as she hurried to me. “Can I speak to you in private for a moment please, Princess?” Radiant asked. “Perhaps in Nebula’s room?”
“Excuse me a moment, Harvest,” I said. “Business calls.” I then teleported the two of us to the suite, where I discovered Nebula crying and sniffling.
I immediately went over to the mare and put a hoof behind her head as a comforting gesture. “Hey there, what’s the matter?” I said softly, trying to calm her down.
“R-R-Radiant said t-that–” She broke down with another bout of sobs, turning away from me.
“When I performed my exam,” Radiant said, “I discovered there is an anomaly that will make delivering the baby difficult. I…” Radiant paused, ears pinned against her head. “There’s a chance the foal or Nebula might not survive the delivery.”
My ears instinctively pinned themselves to the side of my head, and my gut dropped like a lead weight. “Why are you telling me this instead of Harvest?” I asked Radiant.
“Harvest isn’t in any shape to get out of bed right now, let alone help,” Radiant said matter-of-factly. “I thought it better to inform you.” She shook her head, swallowing a lump. “We’ll just have to wait for Nebula’s water to break and hope for the best.”
“What kind of anomaly is it, Radiant?” I asked.
“It’s easier if I just show you,” Radiant said as she pulled out a device that looked similar to the one used on me when I first woke up in the castle, except it had two stethoscope-like cups, and a circular gauge depicting a horn, wing, and hoof. “By measuring passive mana absorption during development, this device has a high accuracy at determining if a foal will be a unicorn, pegasus, or earth pony.” She put the probes either side of Nebula’s stomach, and my eyes just about bugged out of my head.
The needle of the device was dancing all over the place, aggressively vibrating between the unicorn and earth pony readouts, as if it couldn’t make up its mind.
“I’ve never come across something like this,” Radiant said.
“You said it’s an anomaly, Radiant, so you’ve got to know something.” I turned to Nebula. “Nebula, I know this may sound cold-hearted, but do you have any ideas on what might have caused this? Anything odd you might have eaten? Any spells someone cast on you?”
Nebula sobbed a few more times, managed a few deep, calming breaths, wiping her tears away with the back of her hoof. “I-I honestly don’t know… Well, there… there is something.”
I cocked my head. “What do you mean?”
Nebula took a long breath. “Twenty years ago, I woke up in the middle of a desert with nothing but a map and a full water canteen in my saddlebags. My memory was completely blank, as if someone had wiped it clean. But, things slowly came back to me over the weeks I kept walking. All I could remember from that time is my name, my talent, and my mother’s name, Aurora.
“Then, one day after wandering for several weeks, I stumbled upon Harvest’s farm. I saw all the delicious food he was growing, so I gorged myself on all the fruits and vegetables I could eat. He must’ve heard me, because he came out, shouting and waving a pitchfork at me. But then he saw my ribs through my coat, and realized I needed help.
“He took me into his home, and nursed me back to health.” Nebula sniffled again, wiping it on the back of her hoof. “I reasoned that there must’ve been a good reason why I can’t remember the first eighteen years of my life, so I moved forward to make a new one. I was so grateful for what Harvest had done to help me; one thing lead to another, and I just settled down with him, and eventually we had Hayseed without any sort of complication.”
Radiant and I were quiet for a long time after hearing that story. While it did give us some insight, it didn’t really do much in the way of explaining her situation.
“If... I may make a suggestion?” I carefully asked.
“Will it make me remember?” Nebula said hopefully, her expression lighting up a fraction.
“Maybe. Amnesia is your brain’s way of sealing off certain memories or experiences so it doesn’t overload with trauma. Memory Magic will allow me to sift through those experiences and see if I can find a cause and solution for your situation.”
“Are… are you sure that’s a good idea?” Nebula asked, nervously eying her stomach..
I figured it was best to be honest with her. “Nothing’s going to happen to your baby; I’m just going to put you to sleep, then enter your subconscious to see what I can find. The thing is, I have absolutely no way of knowing what I’ll come across, or what will happen to you if those memories are restored.”
“Can you… Is it possible to be selective about what memories you restore?” Nebula said.
I shook my head. “It’s all or nothing”
“OK,” she heaved with a sigh, “Let’s get this over with.”
“Princess, what if something goes wrong?” Radiant interjected as I leaned closer to Nebula.
“I’ll handle it. Try to avoid intervening unless absolutely necessary. Being startled awake is unpleasant enough, even more so during a spell like this.”
Leaning in close, I touched my lit horn to Nebula’s, and she promptly fell into a deep sleep. I increased the intensity of my spell, and soon followed after.
Memory Magic was a subclass of Dream Magic, Luna’s specialty, and since dreams are memories pieced together almost like pieces in a puzzle, I would be able to discover which pieces were missing and put them back in place. If anyone had intentionally put a spell on Nebula when she was eighteen, I had the ability to reverse it. However, if magic wasn’t involved, that left two possibilities: brain damage, which was practically impossible for me to fix, or there was a very, very good reason why her psyche refused to let her remember anything.
To begin, I started at the previous day when the dogs ran through town. Seeing how it all unfolded from Nebula’s point of view was an experience unlike anything you could imagine, yet there I was, listening to her pleas as the dogs began to pick her up… Quickly deciding the relative success on that memory, I took things back to a week. Much to my amusement, Nebula was knitting away, making her baby’s outfits as her magic manipulated pots and pans to prepare dinner from the other side of the room.
I went from a week to a month, then three months, and then six; skipping large chunks of time was a way to make sure the spell was working the way it was supposed to, since I hadn’t been that far deep in someone before.
Five years. Seven. Ten.
Everything was going smoothly, but I became nervous the deeper I got, simply because being that deep in someone’s psyche was uncharted territory; I could still see complete memories, but there were more and more hazy ones, fragments showing parties, trips, random dinners, and the like.
Fifteen. Seventeen. Eighteen.
I got to twenty, then I realized something wasn’t right; I could barely make out anything, just random fragments here and there, details that Nebula recounted to me earlier. But every time I tried to push my way deeper, I felt another kind magic looping my spell back into itself. It was like opening a door to a room, only the room you went into was the one you stepped out of. No matter how hard I tried, I kept getting pushed away. Something, or someone had stronger magic than I did, enough to cast an enchantment to completely seal off the first eighteen years of Nebula’s life.
I growled in frustration; I had come this far, and I wasn’t going to let myself be stopped by one spell! With magic channeling through my horn, I tried one last time.
Oh, how I should’ve taken the hint and backed off.
There was some kind of protective ward woven into the enchantment that violently ejected me from Nebula’s memories. From my kneeling on the floor in front of the mare, I was thrown across the room, crashing into a very expensive Saddle Arabian armoire as Nebula was knocked in the opposite direction against the wall.
“Oowww,” I groaned as Bastille rushed over to pick me out from the pile of mahogany. “Nebula, are you alri–”
I was cut off by Nebula’s high pitched shriek. She clutched a foreleg over her stomach and gasped as her eyes went wide as I heard the unmistakable sound of water dripping onto the floor.
“Her water broke!” Radiant shouted, rushing over to the mare, glaring at me.
Uh oh… “I’m, sorry, I don’t know what happened!”
That was the last thing Radiant needed to worry about. “I need you to teleport us to the infirmary now!”
I did exactly that without another word, leaving Bastille behind. Calling out for more help, Radiant had me put the gasping, writhing Nebula on a bed, where she hung some stirrups from hooks in the ceiling, while Radiant rushed over to a cupboard to pull out medical instruments.
“Sorry, Princess, but I need you to leave right now. I’ll send for you when things settle down,” Radiant blurted as she hastily filled a syringe.
I couldn’t blame Radiant for being short with me, so I teleported back to the suite, still in shock. I just sat in the middle of the room staring off into space, thinking about what the hell just happened. Had I accidentally sent Nebula into labor? The thought was too horrifying to contemplate, so I shoved it aside, deciding to focus on the other, more pressing question: Someone with stronger magic was actively blocking me from digging into Nebula’s memories. But who, and, more importantly, why?
“Princess?”
Bastille startled me out of my daydream. “Wha-huh?”
“Are you alright?” he asked, blinking in concern. “What happened?”
“I’m uh… not quite sure.” I shook myself of the shock and cleared my throat. “I... need some air. Yeah, that’s it. I’ll be in my room, on the dais if you need me. Resume your post for now.”
I was back in my room before Bastille left the suite. A quick shower was needed to straighten myself up, and wash out any remaining slivers of wood that got stuck in my coat and mane. I retrieved the spell I was working on from the suite, then levitated my desk outside to the dais so I could enjoy the mid-afternoon sun. Doing that reminded me of the time my mum told me to go play outside when I’d been playing video games on a sunny day. An hour later, she was less than amused to discover that I’d taken my TV and console outside, running the power cord out the window.
The ink that got all over the scroll had already dried by the time I got to it. As annoying as that was, I was thankful I’d been using parchment instead of paper, so I simply used a penknife to meticulously scratch off the spilt ink. Since parchment is made from animal skin, it can withstand many erasures of that nature.
A good couple hours doing that, I had the incomplete array tidied up, re-treated any scuffed areas with pumice stone, then I was in the middle of dusting with pounce powder to continue my work when I heard Boreas’ soft knocking coming from my door. I was miffed I didn’t get to make way on my spell, but I reasoned I had the rest of the day, then Sunday to get it done.
I suppressed a groan before making my way over to the door, and opening it. “You knocked?”
“I’ve been informed that Gill and crew plus Jackal have arrived. Jackal is currently resting. Should I invite them in, Princess?”
“Is Celestia still using the conference room?” I said.
“She’s currently busy with petitioners,” Boreas replied.
“If I may suggest the War Room, Your Majesty?” Bastille said. “It gets the least use out of all the other rooms.”
“Hmmm…” I tapped my chin a moment. The debacle with the dragon did seem to warrant the use of the War Room, but I was far from treating the situation as such. Why Celestia and Luna had one when there hadn’t been a war since post-unification I don’t know. “An excellent suggestion for an alternative, Bastille. Could you please accompany me to the war room while Boreas escorts Gill and company where they need to go?”
“On your leave, I will fetch them,” Boreas said.
“Once you’ve done that, could you send for Veloce to join us?”
“Of course, Princess.”
“Thank you. You’ll know where to find me.” From the map I made of the castle, I managed to teleport Bastille and I to the war room despite never having been there before. I was surprised that it was still kept in good nick for not having been used much, if at all.
With nothing better to do until dinner, I just sat around and waited for Gilleasbuig and his crew of dragon hunters to show up. Five minutes later, there was more knocking at the door.
“Enter!” I proclaimed as royally as I could.
Boreas opened the door, and half a dozen very well built thestral stallions strode in, with one of them stopping right before me as the others fell in line behind him.
“Gilleasbuig, I presume?” I said, looking the leader up and down.
“Aye, lassy. Or should I be callin’ ye Princess?” he replied in a deliciously thick accent. Hopefully it wouldn’t be too difficult to understand. He sported an aged, battle-worn physique with toned muscles, a mane of light blue, a silvery coat, and glistening emerald green eyes. If scars were stories, he had a lot of stories to tell.
“I would hope your arrival wasn’t too unpleasant?”
“Goin’ from mah village halfway o'er the land in an instant was jarrin’. Like getting up after rolling doon a hill, I just hud tae git mah bearings.”
I hoped that was a good thing. Was it?
“Yer feathered flyer friend said ye had a wee bit o’ a dragon problem?” the stallion continued.
“Ah yes, straight down to brass tacks.” With a business like clap, I teleported in a couple of the steel scales I collected from the cavern, and set them down on the table in front of us. “Take a seat if you don’t mind.”
Completely ignoring my last statement, all assembled thestrals began to huddle around Gill, looking over one another’s shoulders at the scales with rapt fascination. All eyes followed a scale as Gill picked it up, wordlessly turning it over to inspect from every conceivable angle. He went so far as to lick, bite, smell, then tap it against one of his fangs. I was rather perplexed, but who was I to question the experts?
Gill cracked an imperceptible grin before saying; “Where did ye find this?”
“Couple miles underground, in a canyon to the south-east.”
“Ye think it’s a wyrm?” one of the other thestral stallions said, only to be interrupted by more knocking at the door before he could continue.
The door inched open. “Luna, you sent for m– eeeeeeeeeeeeee, daddy!” Veloce screeched joyously, throwing herself across the room and colliding with her father, sending them both onto the floor.
“Well if it ain’t ma wee bonnie lass!” Gill was reduced from a stalwart professional dragon hunter to an affectionate marshmallow in under a second as he peppered his daughter with kisses. “How’s ya mum been, Vel?”
“Mum’s fine last I saw, and I send her letters every month. I’m working with Princess Luna now!”
“Well that explains how the lass heard o' me!”
“She took me, and a couple other guards underground to look for a dragon. I told her about what you did, and she decided to hire you!”
“Looks like I’ve taught ye well!” With a pat on Veloce’s back, Gil added; “Mind lettin’ me up so I c’n do mah job?”
With a slightly awkward giggle, Velo hopped off her dad, sitting beside him and beaming.
“Righty’o, then. Looks like a class o’ elder dragon, possibly a wyrm,” he said, turning the scale on its horizontal to look at the cross section. “Roughly nine-thousand year auld at the very least. Ah would jalouse it bides off a diet o' ore 'n' coal as opposed tae traditional fair.”
I blinked in confusion, looking to Veloce for the translation. “I caught the first part.”
“He says it eats metal and coal.”
“Did ye happen tae find a giant pile o' precious crystals?” Gill asked.
“Woah woah woah, backup a tick. You said it eats metal and coal?” Alongside the precious gems and metals, there could be a veritable treasure trove of valuables underneath that caldera!
“Aye lassy, that's what I said. Whatdo ye think an ice dragon eats?”
“Uhm, ice?”
“Nae, an aberdonian`s burd!” Gill retorted, earning a bout of raucous laughter from his companions.
I was at a complete loss for words. “I beg your pardon?”
“He means sheep,” Veloce intoned.
“Ye didnae answer if ye found a pile o' crystals.”
I face-hoofed. I could barely keep up with what Gill was saying. “Yes, I did,” I said impatiently. I only managed to pick out ‘pile’ and ‘crystals’. “Let me show you.” I pulled out the hard light map, unfurled the scroll and let it shimmer into appearance. I enlarged the section where I fell through the floor-slash-ceiling, and pointed out the similar sized rooms. “Each one had a giant pile, and some weird lumps of metal about your size.”
“Och sweet mercy, ye bolted right intae its nest,” Gill said with a heavy, almost hopeless exhale.
Hearing him say ‘nest’ made me go rigid. “I’m sorry, I what?!”
Veloce was in complete disbelief at what her dad said. “Daddy, are you sure that’s what those things were?”
“Aye, Ah'm positive. Different dragons lay different kinds o' eggs. This one just so happens tae lay steel eggs.” Taking a breath and clearing his throat, Gill then said; “Now whit's it y’ need us tae do?”
I took a deep breath and gathered my wits. Finally, back on track. “Celestia and I plan on establishing a mining front. Unbeknownst to us prior to doing so, it’s near this dragon’s den. Veloce tells me you’re in the business of draconic disposal services?”
“This dragon might be a muckle numpty, bit A'm sure tis nuttin’ we cannae handle. Right, lassies?”
The unanimous cheer of “Aye!” made me jump. I was glad I could make out the majority of what was said at that time.
“My main concern is that this dragon will do harm to the miners, so I need it removed.”
I cleared my throat. “I uh… Is there anything at all you can do?”
“‘Av ye tried talking tae it?”
“We were too busy running, daddy,” Velo piped up.
“And besides,” I added, “we don’t know if it can even understand us, let alone talk!”
“Th' princess is hauf right, lassie. Maist dragons kin flap thair gums, some dinnae bother, 'n' ithers ur just feral.”
“So if I’m understanding you correctly: some do, some don’t, and others are just a menace?”
“Aye. Noo we juist hae tae figure oot which.”
“And what if it’s feral?” I ventured.
“Kill it afore it kills ye.”
“Well that is reassuring.”
“Hmmm…” Gil sucked the inside of his cheek a moment. “Wid ye mind if Ah spoke tae mah daughter a moment?”
“By all means. If you need something, I’ll be in my room until dinner is served, and you’re welcome to join us, so have Veloce fetch me.”
“Cheers, Princess,” Gill said with a short bow.
“Oh, Luna! Daddy could help dragon-proof the castle and mine, and give tips and pointers.”
“Hmm…” It was a nice idea, and it would mean Jackal’s trip wouldn’t be in vain. “Gill, your thoughts?”
“A mighty fine idea! We c’n give ye a crash course in a' things dragon, even write ye a manual oan how tae deal with the numpties.”
I blinked for the Nth time. “I, uhm… What does ‘numpty’ mean?”
Before Gill could open his mouth Veloce said; “Usually one of two things, typically it’s an idiot.”
“...And the other?” I said tentatively.
“Trust me when I say you don’t want to know.”
“It’s vulgar, isn’t it?” I deadpanned.
“Yup,” she added with a sneaking grin.
“Oh. Well, anyway,” I said in a bid to change the topic. “Gill, we’re a bit short on space at the moment, but I think I can wrangle you and your friends some accommodations.”
“Much appreciated, but I think me 'n' the wee colts behin’ me will give the castle 'n' area a once o’er tae see what c’n be improved if ye dinnae mind me saying.”
“Great! I’ll set you up with my guard Captain, Comet, he’ll show you around. If you need anything in particular, just ask Comet to fill out the necessary requisition forms so I can keep track of everything.”
“Do ye have any writing material we could use?” Gill said.
“I can set you up with as much as you need. For now, here’s something to get you started,” I said as I teleported in some blank paper, quill, and ink.
“Jackie!” Gill hollered.
“Aye sir!” the rear most thestral exclaimed, making his way to the front. A few nicks and grazes on his dark green coat, light grey mane largely un-ruffled, he seemed to be a bit too clean cut compared to Gill. Probably a newbie.
“Grats, ye just won th' award for scribe t'day,” Gill said, shoving the things into the stallion’s chest. “C’n ye keep up, ye galoot?”
“Aye sir!” he said again.
“Veloce, would you mind escorting Gil and company to Comet and giving him the run-down?” I said.
“After that, I’ll organise accommodations, then dinner will be served.”
“Sure thing, Luna!” Velo said with a salute.
Looking at the clock on my way out, only about thirty minutes had passed. What a colourful half hour that was. Taking stock: Celestia was helping me out; I was getting some use out of Gill, even if it was the next best thing instead of permanent removal. Things were on track, but Murphy’s Law made me wonder when the next derailment was due.
And then I realised something I forgot. With my mind trying to keep up with and decipher what Gill was saying, I’d neglected to ask him about the ice dragon ashe I found, and where it could’ve come from. Regardless, there’d be plenty of time in the future to talk to him about it since he would be here a while. Gill having a career as a dragon hunter made me wonder how many ashes he’d accrued, and what he’d done with them over the years.
Considering the castle was still rather full, it took me less time than I had anticipated to find a spare room, something to be glad for. A couple unicorn staff turned the pair of bunk beds into triple bunks without the ladders, since thestrals can fly to the top and middle bunks.
As dinner crept closer while I worked on my spell, my thoughts bouncing back and forth between everything that was happening, one event kept coming to the forefront: Nebula. I hadn’t heard anything about her for hours, and that was worrying me. Still, I figured she was probably fine. After all, the Royal Palace employed some of the best doctors and nurses in all of Equestria. If a mare went into unexpected labor, there was no safer place to be.
Still, I was worried, telling myself again and again that Nebula was just fine.
She had to be.