//------------------------------//
// In the Blood 
// Story: Luna's Daughters 
// by SockPuppet 
//------------------------------//


1

After Luna cried herself to sleep in front of Tranquility's tomb, Celestia teleported her back into the Palace, and put her to bed. 

Celestia stood on her balcony as she lowered the Sun that evening. Luna's hoofsteps approached behind her.

Celestia asked, "Can you raise the moon, Luna?"

"I am weakened, but I shall attempt." Luna flapped into a hover, but only a minute or two behind schedule, the moon popped over the eastern horizon.

"Good work!"

"I wish to return to the Reliquary of the Heroes, Tia."

"That's not wise. I do not wish to overwhelm you, so soon after–"

Luna teleported out. 

Celestia smiled. Her sister's magic was returning rapidly. She teleported, following.

Thunder rumbled nearby. Many ordinary Canterlot ponies abandoned their evening strolls and galloped for the Sculpture Gardens' exit. Picnic blankets and baskets laid on the grass.

Celestia trotted past an open bottle of champagne and an engagement ring abandoned on one blanket. She would ask a Guard to look after that, later. She would also send a nice apology present to the eventual wedding....

Luna stood in front of another statue, this one carved from black marble. The unicorn was smaller than Tranquility, but still taller than average, and very slim. Instead of the haughty glare-down-the-muzzle of Tranquility, this unicorn smiled.

"She looks as I imagined," Luna said. "Did her colors change as she grew?"

"Medium-blue coat, unchanged. Her socks and blaze grew sharper as a teen, turning purest white. The colts! She spent much effort keeping them at hooves' length. They lost their minds at the sight of her. Her mane was the same color as yours, but had hints of gray when she passed."

Luna's horn brightened. "The artist carved crows-feet around her eyes. She... she did not die young?"

"She died three days before she would have become a grandmother," Celestia said. "She reached middle age."

"How many foals did she have?"

"You had three grandfillies–a unicorn, a pegasus, and an earth pony. Nopony knows quite how that happened: your son-in-law was a unicorn. He lived to old age, so your grandfoals were not orphans. You had fifteen great-grandfoals, and fifty great-great-grandfoals. I lost count after that."

Luna wiped a feather across her nose, and sniffled. Waving a foreleg at the statues, she asked, "How many of mine are interred in this hallowed place, honored for their... their suffering?"

"Heroism ran in their blood," Celestia said. "And much shed blood it cost them. We shall discuss that later."

Luna winced, her wings flexing.

The plinth under Equinox's likeness was the same polished black obsidian as Tranquility's. "Are my daughter's bones here?"

"No. The victims of the plague were burned, and the ashes committed to the sea. A plinth stands in Vanhoover, as well, memorial to all who died. An identical statue tops it."

Luna bowed her head, and tears dripped down her muzzle to the grass.

Celestia read the inscription out loud:


"HERE WE REMEMBER
HER MERCIFUL HIGHNESS
PRINCESS EQUINOX
PROFESSOR OF MEDICINE
SHE BROKE THE PLAGUE
1st month, 29th day, 138th year"


"There is no epic poem," Luna noted.

"Books have been written. I can give them to you."

"Not tonight. Can you tell me the story?"

Celestia nodded. "I was there."

Luna looked expectantly at her sister. "Tell me. Tell me every word, and leave out not a single detail, no matter how painful."





A distinctive knock sounded on Professor Equinox's door. She looked up from her desk, ran a hoof through her mane, and shouted, "Come in, Aunt Tia."

The door opened, and Princess Celestia entered, followed by two praetorians, and then the Minister of Health, a tan earth pony mare.

Equinox stood, and dipped her head. "Aunt Tia. Minister Strong Medicine. Aunt Tia, please sit."

"We won't be that long," Celestia replied.

The minister bowed deeply. "Princess Equinox."

"Ahem," Equinox said. She levitated a labcoat off of a hook on her wall, and donned it.

"Apologies, Professor Equinox. The initial reports out of Vanhoover were incorrect."

Equinox's mouth parched, and she looked from her aunt to the minister and back. Her ears flattened, and she tried to perk them back up, without any success. "What's the latest report?"

"I sent my son," Celestia said, "because he can make the teleport in one jump." Celestia flicked her ears. "Your cousin carried back a note from Assistant Minister Field Surgery, and it was... bad."

Minister Strong Medicine nodded. "'Bad' is one way to phrase it, highness. Vanhoover is reaching a panic. The disease is burning through the slums, and no section of the town is without cases."

Equinox snorted, "So, the decent ponies start getting sick, and the ministry takes notice?"

Strong Medicine's face turned splotchy red. "You know it's not like–"

Celestia's horn discharged, and both Equinox and Strong Medicine turned their heads away from the light and covered their ears. 

"Children," Celestia said, "We've no time. My niece, I'm sorry your stint with the ministry ended so poorly, but I call on you to serve. I beg you to serve. Equestria needs you."

Equinox's stomach churned, and the coffee she'd drunk earlier that day burned in the back of her throat, trying to come back up.

"Of course I'll serve, if you call on me. But I will not serve under her."

Celestia glared. "Equinox, you'll accomplish nothing without working through the Ministry. Through their infrastructure, their field teams, their... security."

She cocked her head, and frowned at her aunt. "Why do you say that?"

"Because," Strong Medicine explained, "the locals are so terrified of the plague, they've started lynching outside medical teams. Rumors claim the plague was brought in from Canterlot. Unicorns, especially, are in danger."

Celestia asked, "Are you still willing to go?"

"On the contrary–now that you've said that, I have to go. Count me in."





Vanhoover sat on hundreds of closely spaced islands in a marshy river delta, surrounded by bayous and swamps.

It had always suffered more disease than any other town in Equestria.

Equinox smashed a mosquito with her tail.

A hasty fortification blocked the causeway bridge, and memories came of her sister and another bridge forty years in the past. Her magic pulled at her collar, her breathing difficult for some reason. Stupid tight collars.

"You're treating the Vanhoovers like invaders," Equinox snarled.

"They're being treated as well as possible," Celestia replied, and pointed a hoof at the tents behind the wooden stockades, and the pegasi guards patrolling the sky perimeter. 

The brick chimney of a crematorium spewed vile smoke, and Equinox blinked ashes from her eyes.

Equinox cast a prophylactic spell over herself, and a soft lime-green shimmer surrounded her. "First. Where's the hospice tent?"





A few nurses and orderlies in heavy healer's masks and leather suits staffed the tent, but no doctors. These plague-stricken ponies were beyond care as their bodies melted and blood and ichor seeped from eyes, ears, mouths, noses, and genitals.

Celestia walked among them, her jaw tight, wearing only her usual regalia. Equinox shimmered with her protective spell, silent tears dripping down her blaze and off her muzzle. Minister Strong Medicine wore a hearler's mask and leather suit.

Equinox leaned in close to a lavender pegasus filly, probably preschool- or kindergarten-aged. Her feathers were crusted with her own blood, and she stank with unwiped excrement. Her bloody eyes stared blindly at the ceiling, and she whimpered softly in the back of her throat. 

Professor Equinox grabbed a towel and basin of warm water, wiped the filly's face clean of blood, and then wiped the caked diarrhea from her thighs and dock. Her feathers were glued to the bed sheets with blood, so Equinox didn't even try to clean them. No reason to hurt her. "Sweetheart, can you hear me?"

"Mommy?"

Equinox looked at the nearest nurse and raised an eyebrow. The nurse shook her head, and pointed at the crematorium.

"Yes, sweetheart, mommy's here."

"Thirsty."

She levitated a cup to the filly's mouth, and tilted it to give her a few drops. 

"Thanks...." she swallowed, working her jaw. Some blood seeped from cracked lips. "Mommy, how much longer? It hurts."

Equinox closed her eyes, and saw her own daughter, also a pegasus. Remembered when Posey had suffered feather flu at this age, and nearly died.

Nearly died, but eventually healed, grew up, thrived, and was now married and massively pregnant, due any minute.

This filly had five hours left, at most.

Blinking, eyes burning, Equinox wiped the filly's face with a fresh towel. "Try to sleep, sweetheart. It won't be long."

Equinox left the tent at a trot, and released her shield spell as soon as she was clear.

Celestia stood next to her, and wrapped a wing over Equinox. Several minutes later, Minister Strong Medicine joined them, shed of the leather suit and healer's mask and smelling of soap and mixed disinfecting herbs. The afterglow of a potion radiated from her. Few unicorns could have sensed that magical echo, but Equinox was not an ordinary unicorn.





"Her magic was so strong?" interrupted Luna.

"Unmatched in history," Celestia said. "Common tricks, like teleportation, she never bothered to master–but her mark ran so deep. She could diagnose a disease by a single glance, and a single sniff of a new herb would tell her what ailments it could cure, magical or mundane. Her magic was unlike any other. It was deep in her blood."

Luna bit her lip, looked at the ground, and nodded.





Assistant Health Minister Field Surgery flapped over. 

"That tent is sweltering," Equinox snarled. "You're baking the patients to death."

Field Surgery flicked his wings angrily. "We're expending our unicorns' magic on the ponies who might survive."

Equinox stomped, and flipped her tail. "I will go down in history as the hardest-hearted pony who ever lived. I curse the day I coined the word 'triage.'"

"It's letting us save those who can be saved," said Minister Strong Medicine. "We're saving almost forty percent."

"Arrange for me to go into the city," Equinox said. "I need to find the source of this contagion. We can brew a potion of immunity from that."

Celestia clenched her eyes shut, her ears flattening to her head.

"Impossible," said Strong Medicine. "The town is on the verge of anarchy. A strange pony—especially a unicorn—is likely to get hurt. If you walk around under your protection spell, nopony will trust you. That's magic beyond belief. It marks you as... as..."

"As?" Equinox snapped.

"Marks you as the progeny of an alicorn. You sneeze more magic than ten ordinary unicorns could draw upon in desperate need. Most of the unicorns have fled Vanhoover, or swing from its lampposts."

"I'll wear a tall hood, and not use my spell."

"No!" Strong Medicine shook her head. "We need you here, trying to find a treatment. Some herb, some incantation, some fermented squeezing of freshwater crustaceans, something. Your skills are the greatest in Equestria."

"Pffft. You are a better potion brewer than I. Any doctor can desperately try different drugs on dying patients. We need something more than that.... Goodness, I wish Meadowbrook was still here.... No, we need to find something from which we can brew an elixir of immunity, and give it to the population. Once enough of the herd is treated and immune, the disease will burn itself out."

Assistant Minister Field Surgery whickered. "No. It's far too dang–"

"You take after your sister," Celestia whispered. "I promised her, as she died, as she bled out onto my coat, that I would not allow you follow in her hoofsteps."

Equinox nodded. "I fear that, this time, it must be so, aunt. My bloodline owes much penance, and this is a burden that I, and no other of all Equestria's millions, can lift. It is in my blood."





Luna keened, softly and high-pitched. Celestia nuzzled her, cheek to cheek.





"You are one of the most valuable pieces on my chessboard," Celestia told Equinox. "I would not sacrifice you lightly.... and I love you. You are like a daughter to me."

The Minister and Assistant Minister backed up a few hoofsteps, and looked at each other, eyes widening. This was a discussion internal to the Royal Family, not a debate of Government policy.

"What is the population of Vanhoover?" Equinox asked. "How many will die when the plague escapes the river delta, into Equestria proper?"

"Your teleportation is too imprecise."

"True. I've not spent enough time practicing. I require line-of-sight."

Celestia nodded, staring at the high sun. "Wait until dark, and we'll provide you a blacked-out pegasus chariot."





2


Equinox craned her neck to look over the edge of the chariot. The wind stung her eyes, but she squinted down at the dark countryside. "Circle once or twice more!" she shouted at the two pegasi Guards. "Let the moon get a little higher. I can't see anything."

She huddled down, out of the wind. The humidity on the river delta made the daytime heat unbearable, but at altitude and with a sharp wind off the Western Ocean, the chill bit.

After thirty minutes, she craned her neck again. The moon glinted off the lazy streams of the delta that enveloped and penetrated the city. Bridges–thousands of bridges–crisscrossed the water, and the narrow buildings of both the slums and the nice sections of town stood black against the silver water.

"There's a greenway," Equinox shouted. "West side. Can you set down there?"

"No ma'am!" replied the commanding pegasus. Her assistant shook his head. "Too many tree branches overhanging. I don't see any open space to put down. We'll head back to camp and drop you back off."

"Hover over the water, and I'll swim in."

"You're loaded too heavy to swim, Princess. We're returning to camp."

"What?!? No! I'm not going back. I need to get into town before sunrise."
 
"Our orders are to put you down safe, on dry land, or not at all, Princess."

Equinox levitated her saddle bags over her hips, cinched the strap, released her safety harness, and stepped off the chariot.





Luna smiled. She actually smiled. 

Celestia asked, "May I ask what makes you so happy?"

Luna nodded. "I once caught Equinox jumping over a railing in the Grand Hall, three stories up. She was perhaps... four? Maybe five, and just coming into her magic. I got my levitation around her before she could smite herself against the marble, and brought her to me. She... she kicked me in the shin and proclaimed she would have caught herself just fine! I levitated her up by the tail and paddled her hiney with my scabbard, and she didn't attempt such a stunt again......." 

Luna's face twisted into a snarl. "...at least, not before I abandoned her, anyway..."

Celestia wiped a tear from her own eyes. "I'm surprised she pursued medicine, instead of joining a circus. She was a daredevil."

She slung a wing over her little sister, hugged her tightly, and continued the tale.





The two pegasi bleated in horrror as their princess—their Royal charge—plummeted down, down, down, toward the darkness and the hard buildings and soppy ground of Vanhoover, plummeting several thousand feet to a sure death for any unicorn stupid enough to leap from such a height, this was suicide, how would they convince Celestia, bucking Celestia, that the princess had jumped and–

Lime-green spell light flared as her levitation grabbed around her body, her fall slowed, and a silvery column of water rose high in the moonlight as she splashed down.

The two pegasi flapped forward, looking down toward the surely-dead princess.

Far below, hornlight blinked three times, paused, three times, paused, three times: the prearranged signal for safe.





Equinox paddled to shore, her heavy saddlebags tipping her rump down and forequarters up. Muddy water stung her eyes, and she blinked constantly.

Her hooves touched bottom, and she dragged herself onto muddy ground matted with beach grass. "Stupid," she said to herself. "Stupid, stupid...." and flopped down to pant for a minute. "Stupid princess..."

Sitting up, she levitated off her cloak and used a simple spell to dry it, but it remained caked with mud. 

She then took her items, one by one, from her saddlebags, drying and checking them. Nothing was damaged, nothing was opened. 

The stench of rotten food, open-air cesspools, and crushing poverty surrounded her. Mosquitos landed on her nose, and she swatted one with her left forehoof. 

Looking at the tiny smear it left behind, she wondered, How is this disease spread....?

Snoring wafted from open windows in the shanties, along with a foal's sobbing from a third or fourth floor.

She looked at the moon, and allowed a moment of melancholy.

About an hour until midnight, maybe eight hours until dawn.

She donned her now-filthy cloak, pulled her hood over her horn, slung her saddlebags, and trotted into the poorly lit slums of Vanhoover.





3


"Princess!" hissed the pegasus as he landed, about ten minutes later. "What's wrong with you?!?"

Equinox raised a hoof to her lips. "Ssshhh! What are you doing here?"

"After you jumped, we dumped the chariot in the river. The Sergeant went back to report in to Her Highness, and sent me to pick you up and carry you back to base."

Equinox's horn sparked. "If you try, I'll teleport you to Baltimare."

"You can't teleport," he said, "or you wouldn't have needed the chariot."

She blinked at him. "Okay, fine. Toss your armor in the river. Do you know what you look like?"

He glanced down at his blackened armor. "What?"

"A Royal Guard. You can help me."

He started shaking. "What? Stay here–with the plague?"

"I'm not going anywhere," Equinox said. "You can help me, or you can go back to camp and report that I refused to go with you. You can't make me go back." Her horn sparked again underneath her tall hood. "If it would help sell your story to your colonel, I could singe off half your coat and feathers."

He swallowed several times, and Equinox looked at him. Slowly, he nodded. "I don't want ponies to say I ran scared. Can I hide my armor? They'll garnish my pay if I lose it."

"I'll pay your fine from my Royal Allowance. Besides, neither of us are likely to live long enough for that to matter."

"Is... is this a suicide mission, Princess?"

"Probably. Very probably. Not certainly. Do you want to go back to camp?"

"No, Princess." His tail flicked, and he pawed at the mud with a forehoof, then snapped to attention. "My life or death is at your command, Princess."

"If you call me 'Princess' again, you'll get us both killed."

He started pulling off the armor, untying the straps with his teeth. "What should I call you?"

Equinox cocked her head. "How old are you?"

"Twenty-two, Prin.... twenty-two."

"Call me 'mom.' Your dad, my husband, was a pegasus, and he died last week from the plague. What's your name?"

"Flight Feather. We don't look very much alike. That's a hard story to sell."

"That's not a Vanhoover name. You're River Feather, got it? I'll call you 'Feather.'"

The last of his armor dropped to the muddy road. "Yes... mom."

"Your dead dad was named River Follower." Equinox levitated up the armor and dropped it off the nearest bridge. It splashed, and Feather whimpered.

"Ma'am... eh, mom? You're a unicorn."

"Yes. But I'm hoping the hood and my size will let me pass for an earth pony, at least casually."

"Mom... Vanhoover doesn't have inter-tribe marriage. It's against their law."

".......Really? Well, we weren't married, then. You never knew your dad, and I'm a slut. That should be an easy enough story to keep straight, Feather, honey. Follow me and be quiet."





She hurried from shadow to shadow, and they sprinted across the many bridges that spanned the slow-flowing fingers of the delta, and wished for a dark new moon.

Every hundred steps or so, she stopped, raised her head to the sky, and sniffed deeply.

"Ma'am... mom... what are you doing?"

"Sniffing."

"For what?"

Equinox looked past him, and shuffled her hooves. "I'm.... I... it's hard to describe."

"This is a princess thing, isn't it?" he whispered.

She nodded. "I'm less than an alicorn.... but I'm more than a unicorn. I... I don't know how to describe it... did you see my cutie mark?"

"Bandage and potion bottle?"

"Yes.... I can... well, not smell... but somehow, disease... I can find it. I use my nose, but it's not smell like you smell a hot meal, out of the oven." She flicked her ears and tail. "My magic is thick. A sense for disease, it's deep in my blood. The only pony who understood was my sister, but she... died."

Feather's ears went flat. "That day is a whole lesson in boot camp."

"I miss her...." The breeze shifted and Equinox squeaked. "Got it!" She trotted off, to the south, deeper into the city.

Following her, Feather looked at his hooves. "There are paving stones. This is the nicer part of town."

"If the plague is coming from the expensive districts, it would explain the... social stress."

Two stallions strode across their path and lowered makeshift spears.





"No entry," said the larger one, an earth pony. 

The smaller, a pegasus, flicked his tail. Equinox stared at him. He was a teenager, still school-aged. Too young for this. 

"I'm a doctor," Equinox said.

"There are no doctors left," said the earth pony.

"There's one."

"Liar. Who's your friend?"

"My son."

The pegasus teenager tilted his head. His voice shook as he spoke. "No way. Your coat colors are too different." 

"I am a doctor."

The earth pony banged the butt of his spear on the cobblestones. "Be gone! Go."

"Wait," said the pegasus teenager. "My sister is coming down with it. Are you really...?"

Equinox nodded. "When did her symptoms start?"

"This afternoon," said the teenager.

"It's that early? I can save her. Take me to her."

"No!" snarled the earth pony, lowering his spear. "Nopony cross–"

Flight Feather leaped and landed on the spear, breaking its shaft, and kicked the earth pony under the chin. He flew backwards and landed, unconscious, jaw broken, legs twitching.

"Feather!" gasped Equinox.

"I am sworn to defend you... mom."

The teenage pegasus's eyes boggled as he stared at his crumpled companion. His wings flared in instinctive challenge.

Feather turned on him and crouched low, into a fighting stance, his Guard's muscles knotted and tense, and the teenager collapsed down to his rump, dropped his wings and spear, and raised his forehooves in surrender.

Equinox threw back her hood, revealing her long horn and aristocrat's face. In the heaviest Canterlot Nobility accent she could affect, she said, "Take Us to thine sister."

The teen nodded, swallowed, and trotted into the night.





Solidly upper-middle-class, the rowhouse wasn't a mansion, but it wasn't a tenement, either. Fine tapestries hung on the walls, and the floors in the public corridors and stairwells were dirt free and freshly varnished. 

They quietly trotted to the fifth floor and the teen–his name was Bayou Flier–knocked a hoof onto a door.

"Mother?" he said. "Are you there?"

"Shhhhh!" came a hiss through the door.

Bayou reached his right wing and opened the door. "Mother?" he whispered. 

A dark-brown pegasus sat next to a bed, and a tiny filly–maybe a first or second grader–thrashed on top of the covers, sweating and whimpering.

Blood caked the filly's face, and the stench of feces filled the tiny room. Equinox cast her shield spell over herself.

The older pegasus mare looked at Equinox, and then snarled at her son. "Who are these ponies? Why aren't you at your duty?"

Bayou pointed at Equinox. "She's a doctor, mother. She can help Sea Breeze."

The mare glared at her son.

The filly coughed.

The mare nodded, and stepped back from the bed.

"Feather?" said Equinox. "Stay in the hallway."

"But Prin–"

"Ahem!"

"No, mom. I will stand here."

Bayou and his mother looked at each other, eyes widening.

Equinox kneeled down and began levitating items out of her bags. She found an ivory sphere, a clear quartz crystal, and a platinum planchet. She placed the ivory on the filly's lower belly, the quartz on her throat, and the platinum halfway between, on her heart.

She sniffed deeply as she worked. Whatever the princess's sixth sense was–she didn't know, and Celestia simply hmmmmmmed when she tried to discuss it–the sense burned with a fire in the back of her mind. This filly was sick, sick, sick, and would break into the bloody, contagious, wet phase of the disease within hours. 

It was in her blood.

The filly's lungs already rattled with phlegm at every exhalation. The other ponies couldn't hear that noise... but Equinox wasn't other ponies, now was she? Her marks burned on her flanks as her magic rose, Mercy preparing to do battle with Death.

Equinox spread her hooves wide and drew on the magic that swirled around her. Her ears and tail drooped, and her lime-green aura filled the room. Bayou and his mother turned their heads, and covered their eyes with wings. Feather squinted his eyes and stood ready.

The quartz, platinum, and ivory glowed as the spell enveloped the filly. 





Something underneath the waking world, currents of the primordial chaos, battered at Equinox like a sailor on deck in a gale, but she bit her tongue and spread her hooves, grinding her metal shoes into the carpeting, and leaned forward. The universe itself fought against her, the plague deep into the filly's blood and innards, forces beyond vision fighting Equinox for the foal's life, shadows from beyond the veil had their hooks into the child's liver and spleen, already turning them from life-giving organs into puddles of new virus, ready to sally forth and take more ponies, death from death, life interrupted before it had begun, and Equinox bit down, drew her own blood from her tongue, tasted her own magic, drew into the reserves that ran so deep in her blood, in her marrow, the reserves of determination that had allowed her mother and aunt to face down Discord, the persistence that allowed her sister to face down an entire army while she bled out from a shattered leg, Equinox screamed against the void I am Princess of the Blood and you will bend to my will! and then–

–her talismans, the ivory, the quartz, and the platinum, flashed to ash, the spell light died, and the filly sat up in bed with a shout.

"Mother! Mother, what–?"

Equinox collapsed to the floor, flopped onto her left flank, and passed out.





4


Equinox nursed a mug of warm beer at the family's kitchen table. "Burn the bedsheets," she said, "and the mattress. Don't even touch them–I will levitate them out, for you. Give her a bath, with boiled water and soap." She pointed her horn at the beer. "Try to drink beer instead of water.... I am suspicious of the wells."

"We can't give foals beer!" shouted Mrs. Flier.

"You can, and you will. I'm a doctor, and I prescribe it. If you must drink water, boil it."

Bayou cocked his head. "You talk funny. And he nearly called you 'Princess.' And while you cast your spell... you mumbled..."

Equinox raised an eyebrow and sipped her beer. 

"You mumbled, 'I am Princess of the Blood.' There's only one your age, who's also the only princess who's also a professor of medicine..." He stood, bowed his head, and flared his wings. "Princess Equinox."

"You," Equinox grumped, "are irritatingly smart."

Mrs. Flier–holding the weak Sea Breeze asleep in her lap–stared at Equinox. "What's a Canterlot princess doing here?"

She drained her beer mug, and placed it back on the table. "I intend to break the plague."

"But–how?"

Equinox pointed her horn at the sleeping filly. "First, I need to talk to her."





Sea Breeze was six years old and held no comprehension of how close to death she had come. All she understood was that her father had died the week before, but she didn't seem to fully comprehend what that meant.

She flapped her wings. "Why won't daddy come home? He promised to finish readin' me that book. I miss him."

Bayou and Mrs. Flier looked into each other's eyes.

Equinox closed her eyes and breathed deeply. "You probably got sick two days ago. Do you remember what you did?"

"School's closed," Sea Breeze declared, "because of the sickies. I wanted to go swimming in the river, but mommy said I couldn't." She huffed with her tiny wings.

"So, sweetheart," Equinox asked, "what did you do?"

"It was so hot, we didn't do nothin'. My friends and I sat around the Square."

Equinox looked up at the filly's mother. 

"The neighborhood square," said Mrs. Flier.

"Are her friends sick?" asked Equinox.

Bayou nodded. "Yes. My friend Pecan Orchard, his little brother broke with it yesterday. Can you save him....?"

Equinox nodded. "No. My magic's blown out for another few hours, until after I rest. That took a lot of magic, I don't think you understand... and it's too late for him, already, if he broke yesterday. This accursed plague moves fast. Another hour and I couldn't have saved her."

The brother's and mother's faces paled. The filly just sighed.

"Tell me about this neighborhood square," commanded Equinox.

"It's a block in size," Bayou said. "Paved with stones. Some gardens, fresh veggies and herbs. The foals play hopscotch, we play hoofball."

Dizziness hit Equinox, like a buck to the face, and she leaned her elbows on the table and cradled her head on her forehooves. Already knowing the answer, she asked, "What do the little ones do when it gets too hot?"

"Why, the little ones splash around in the fountain," Bayou said. "It's too hot in the summer to do anything else."

"They splash each other in the face?"

"Well, yeah!" Sea Breeze shouthed. "Duh, Princess."

Equinox stood, and pointed a hoof at Feather. "Let's go. Bayou, lead us there."

Feather shook his head. "Highness, it's nearly sunrise, and you said yourself, you need to rest. We can go after dark, tonight."

Bayou nodded his head. "Ma'am... this plague is magic, not mundane. Everypony knows that. There aren't any unicorns left, ponies got... crazy. And it's getting worse. You don't want to be seen. You can't be seen."

Equinox looked out the window. "We have thirty minutes before dawn. Let's go, fast. How many dozens or hundreds will be infected if I sleep away this day? I value my life, but it is not so valuable as that."

She flipped her hood up, over her horn, and strode to the door.





Bayou led the way, down the stairs, out the back, and through dark alleyways. It took fifteen minutes, and the sun was nearing the horizon, the city now gloomy instead of dark.

He held up a wing, stopping Equinox and Feather in the shadows of an alley. "Here. The square."

Equinox said, "I don't want you to suffer for helping us. Can you get back to your post? Your companion won't wake up anytime soon."

"Yes... but what do I say?" He started shaking. "I've been off guard for hours."

Feather lifted his forehoof and punched the teenager in the eye, the iron shoe cracking cheekbones and sinuses with a loud crunch. Bayou went down, gasping and cursing, holding his face with both forehooves and both wings.

"You were unconscious, too," Feather said, "and just woke up. Fly low, through the alleys, back to your post before your relief arrives. Then play possum."

Bayou stood, shakily. "Thanks... for saving my sister." He took to his wings. A small pool of blood glistened in the dawn light where he had dropped.

"I hope you didn't blind him," Equinox snapped. "That hit was right on his eye."

"I hope I did," Feather replied. "If they think he worked with you, mom, they'll lynch him on the lamppost between yours and mine. A blinded eye makes a better cover story."

The princess flicked her ears, then trotted across the square.

Two unicorns, their corpses bloated and blackened from the heat, swung from lampposts on the far side of the square.

Sea Breeze hadn't mentioned the corpses. 

So... the foals were so inured to the violence that they could play underneath bodies and find it unremarkable.

Damn this plague!

Equinox kept her head low to disguise the bulge of her horn.





A few steps short of the fountain, Equinox stopped. Feather kept trotting, and she grabbed his tail in her teeth and pulled him back.

"No! Can't you smell it?"

"Smell what, uh, mom? All I smell are those two corpses."

"It's far beyond stench. It's so thick... it's like walking though honey. It's like fighting chest-deep snow without snowshoes. It's... it permates me, it's in my mind and my horn and my belly and in my blood and... and... and it's here. The plague is in the water. The wells. They've been boiling the water to drink, but it's bathing and washing and playing with raw water that's killing them."

Feather nodded. "Can I carry you back to base camp, now? Celestia needs to know."

"I'm bigger than you."

"I can carry you two miles. You're tall, but you're scrawny. Ma'am."

"Hmmm.... Let me work, then I'll take that under advisement."

Her spine itched. She looked left and right, all around the square. There were no other ponies out and about, but she could feel eyes in the dark windows watching her...

...or was that her imagination? 

The fountain stood about two feet high and fifteen feet around, made from red bricks and gray mortar, and a hoof pump at the edge allowed the fountain to be refilled. 

The princess and guard stood ten feet short of the fountain. The... not stench, but some other sense, that sixth sense of hers... it assaulted her, pounded her, pushed her back. Every step dragging, slowly, slowly, her iron shoes scratching against the paving stones, she trudged closer. Her tail drooped and her head bowed. Sweat broke out across her skin and soaked her cloak, nearing a froth.

Her horn hurt, actually hurt, like somepony had taken sandpaper to it. This was no ordinary plague, but something magical and foul. Some residue of Discord, perhaps, or simply a magical anomaly. The death magic surrounded her. She suspected many of the Vanhoover unicorns had lost their minds to the swirling foulness, but had lacked the magical refinement to understand what was driving them mad. No wonder the entire unicorn tribe had suffered.

Standing less than two feet from the fountain, she used her hooves–instead of her magic–to dig into her saddlebags, and extracted an empty potion flask. 

"Feather?"

"Yes, eh, mom?"

"Can you feel them watching us?"

"Yes."

"I need to use my horn."

"You'll get us both killed," Feather stated.

"That's fine, if we can get this flask to Minster Strong Medicine. As much as I loathe her as a bureaucrat, she once was Equestria's master apothecary."

"No Guard considers the death of a Princess 'fine.' I must object."

"Have you a sword, or an axe?"

"I have a knife under my belt."

Equinox nodded. "Fine. Instead of my levitation, I'll scoop water out with my left hoof, then put the flask in my saddle bag. Then, use your knife to cut off my left leg at the fetlock, cut through the knee joint, before the contagion can get up my leg into my body. I can clamp the artery with my levitation so I don't bleed out immediately."

"What???"

"It's how not to use magic."

"No, I refuse."

Equinox looked at him, frowning, and chewed her lower lip. "Can you outfly these pegasi?"

"Not while I carry you."

"What if you just carry the flask?"

"I'm not leaving you."

"You will," Equinox said, "if I issue you a Royal Command."

"Her Highness Celestia ordered me to keep you safe. Your command cannot supersede hers."

Equinox set the flask on the ground, next to the wall of the fountain, and dumped out her saddlebags. Flasks, magical talismans, notebooks, quills, a sealed inkpot, and medical instruments sat in a pile. She hoofed a few of the talismans into her pockets, leaving the rest heaped upon the paving stones. 

She placed the empty saddlebags onto Feather and cinched them tight with her teeth.

"We're wasting time, Feather. We're wasting the last of the night, arguing. I'm getting us this sample. You will carry it back to Celestia and the Minister, and I will make my own way back."

"Princess! I cannot–"

She tossed back her cowl and lit her horn. Water spiraled up from the fountain and into the flask, filling it, and then she levitated a stopper into it with a plunk. Another flash of magic and the flask glowed green. "There–unbreakable. Only Celestia can open that spell."

With her hooves, she dropped the flask into the saddlebag on Feather's left hip.

"Now what?" he snapped.

"Now? We run."

Shouting echoed from the tall houses around the square.





"Daredevil," Luna said, with a sad nod.

"She was as brave as Tranquility," Celestia replied, "in her own way. She also very much had a surgeon's mindset: attack the problem right away, with the sharpest scalpel at hoof. To sit and contemplate was to lose the patient, in her mind."





They galloped for the edge of the square, and then into the alleyways, and crossed a rickety bridge over a thin stream. Once deep in the shadows, about a mile from the square, Equinox slowed to a lope, gasping.

"You're not even winded," she said.

"Royal Guard, ma'am. A one mile gallop is barely a warmup."

She stopped, and place a forehoof against a stitch in her flank. "I need... I need to exercise more, but it's so hard to find time... I'll be a grandmother any day now, how can I help watch an infant if I haven't any stamina?"

"Pegasus foal?"

"My daughter is a pegasus, but her husband is an earth pony, and my husband and I are unicorns, and my mother an alicorn, so.... no telling."

"Pegasus foals are... exhausting." His eyes glazed with memories. "My son is three months. This is my first deployment since his birth. My wife... I hope she's doing well."

Equinox nodded, and continued at a slow walk. 

Noise sounded behind them, crowds and commotion.

"They're hunting us," Feather said. He looked up. "It's full daylight, now. I dare not fly you out."

"We'll try to cross the boundary into another neighborhood, and hope that breaks their pursuit."

"Then what?" 

"I'll go to ground, try to hide through the day, and make my way back to camp tonight."

"I will not leave you."

"You will," commanded Equinox. "You'll fly for the causeway. The guards will recognize you, and you can give the flask to my aunt."

"I will not abandon you."

"I think you are deaf."

"I will die before I abandon a scion of the Royal Line."

Equinox gritted her teeth. "I am not a princess right now–I am a Professor of Medicine, and that is what Equestria needs. Royals are a tenth-bit a dozen."

"The dishonor–"

From the shadows came a harsh whisper: "Princess!"

Equinox and Feather spun to look. Feather crouched into a fighting stance, and Equinox lit her horn. The lime-green light flooded the alley.

Bayou dropped to his belly and covered his face with his forelegs and wings. "No no no no NO! It's me!"

Unicorn light died, and the guard relaxed his stance. 

The colt staggered to his hooves. His left eye was blackened and bloody, but he bleared through the swelling. "I–thank you. Thank you. You saved my sister, and me."

"Why aren't you at your post, soldier?" snarled Feather.

"The relief shift told me to go home. As soon as I was out of sight, I looked for you two. What will you do?"

"Feather was about to fly the specimen back to the camp," Equinox said.

"Was not."

Equinox raised her nose into the air and closed her eyes as she sniffed, head cocked. 

Eyes still closed, she lit her horn, and a pile of trash began to disassemble itself, fifty feet down the alleyway. 

A decayed body–it appeared to have been an adult earth pony, but who could tell, anymore?–was revealed as the trash moved away.

"Look at that!" Equinox ordered. "Look! The organs melt, the eyeballs bleed, the skin sloughs off the vulva. The testicles turn black and inflate. The bowels run with blood and tissue. And every drop of the ichor can kill a dozen more ponies. Eventually, the bones liquify inside the body. Look at that! Every minute we wait, is another chance for that to escape into Equestria."

Bayou vomited onto his own hooves. Feather swallowed several times and turned pale.

"Feather," Equinox said, placing a hoof on his withers, "your loyalty is honorable. But think more deeply. Why do Guards swear fealty to the Crown and the Realm? Why isn't your oath to the Royal family, instead?"

"Because... because... we're guards."

"No. The Crown rests on my aunt's head, because she is powerful and wise–but where is her loyalty? What does Celestia value? What would she trade her life for?"

He stood, biting his lip, thinking.

"The Crown, and the Royal House: our loyalty is to the ponies of our realm. Think about that, Feather. Think of my sister–you said her last stand was a lesson? If Royal blood was more valuable than that of ordinary ponies', would my sister have stood at the head of that bridge, or instead would she have cowered in the tunnels with the foals and the elderly?"

Slowly, Feather's head shook.

"Royal blood is but a coin–a valuable coin, yes, but a coin to be spent on behalf of the ponies of this land. If this plague escapes the quarantine, it will burn through Equestria. The Griffons or Dragons or Minotaurs or Hippogriffs, or all of them together, will see opportunity. What do you think will happen after three-quarters of the population melts into ichorous puddles?"

"But... princess..."

"Go to my aunt, Flight Feather. In your saddlebag is the key to the plague. I will go to ground, and make my way back to the camp tonight. But if I die because you are not here to protect me–that is a price I accept. My Royal blood does not outweigh all the lives that can be saved. My blood is meant to serve Equestria; Equestria does not serve me!"

"Princess–will you really hide out the daylight? Will you really sneak back tonight? I've only known you for a few hours, but your reputation... I've visited your sister's grave. I think you'll try to find a hospital, and work until your eyeballs begin to bleed and your bowels begin to run."

Equinox smiled. "You are damnably smart, too. That's exactly my plan."

"I can't leave you, knowing you intend to lay down your life." Feather closed his eyes, stomped, flattened his ears. He knew she was correct, how could a guard leave his princess behind?

"I'll raise a magical ruckus, and that will be your opportunity to fly without interference."

He sook his head, no, no, no, no.

"Feather–ask yourself this. Ask yourself, 'Is my loyalty to this flesh and blood standing in front of me, or is my loyalty to what she stands for? The millions of other ponies across Equestria?' Think of your wife and foal. I am willing to die here, so that they may live there."

Slowly, Flight Feather nodded. "Celestia will have my wings clipped if anything happens to you. I will carry the flask to the Princess and the Minister, but then I'll return for you."

"But you have a son!" Equinox replied. "An infant you hardly know."

"Nopony will tell him his father lived a coward. Let them say his father died a Guard. My entire generation names themselves accursed that we were not at the Bridge with Tranquility, to be one of the Three. We hold our honor cheap when any veteran who was there speaks. To die at the side of Tranquility's sister? That is a legacy my wife and my son can be proud of."





"And," Celestia said, "Flight Feather carried the flask to me. Equinox threw fireworks from her horn, which attracted the pegasi of my Guard and the Vanhoover militias."

"The flask–was it sufficient?"

Celestia nodded. "It took many days, but yes, we brewed a potion of immunity. Hundreds more died, but the Guard all took the vaccine, and then carried it into Vanhoover, and spread it across Western Equestria. Over the next five months, the plague burned out. Eight thousand more died, but the plague ended."

"What of Flight Feather?"

"I interrogated him. I didn't even need a truth spell!" Celestia giggled. "He was terrified beyond the capacity of his brain to hold. He also had an excellent memory, and a scribe took down his story. I reread it every few decades, when I miss Equinox..."

Luna leaned into Celestia, cuddled up in a way they had not since their foalhood. 

They sat in silence for perhaps a half-hour.

"You know what I am about to ask," Luna said.

Celestia hugged her sister tighter, until the smaller alicorn pressed into her own ribs. "Can you stand the end of the story?"

Thunder rumbled distantly. "I must know."

"True to his word," Celestia continued, "Flight Feather returned to the city. It was dusk when he took to his wings. Being the middle of summer, days were long, so many hours had passed since..."





5


Feather flew over the city, about a thousand feet up. Unencumbered by armor or saddlebags, conditioned by Guard training, no Vanhoover civilian could catch him. The few that attempted simply allowed him to go, once he crossed from their neighborhoods.

A flash of lime-green light to the southwest caught his attention. He tucked wings, banked, dove, landed hard.

The building–brick, like the rest of Vanhoover–appeared to be a school. Nopony stood guard outside, but he feared an ambush just inside the doors. 

He jumped, tucked, rolled, covered his eyes and clenched his ears, the glass of a window shattered–

–and he hit on all fours, ready to fight, landing inside a large open room.

"Sssshhhhh!" hissed an earth pony in a healer's mask. 

Feather gagged deep in his throat and his guts clenched, almost liquifying, at the stench. 

Perhaps two or three dozen cots filled the room, lit by skylights and magical flames in sconces. 

Patients in various stages of the disease lay on the cots. Blood, feces, vomit, and sweat soured the thick air. The room had been the school's cafeteria, perhaps. 

Feather's eyes poured tears.

Equinox trotted to him, wearing white lab coat, but with no mask.

"Did you get the flask to Aunt Celestia?" she whispered.

"Yes, ma'am. I did."

"Did she think it would be enough?"

"Perhaps. They're already drilling a new well into the same aquifer, and Minister Strong Medicine suspects they can get as much of the contaminated water as they need from it."

Equinox nodded. "Excellent."

"I will carry you back to the camp," he said, and reached out a hoof.

She skittered backward, three steps, and her magic lashed out, pushing him away. "No!" Equinox stomped. "No, no, no. First, there are sick patients here, and I am sworn to the Healer's Oath. I will not leave them."

"I am authorized by Celestia Herself to hit you over the horn and carry you unconscious. Or to summon a squad, if necessary."

Equinox sighed, and looked at her hooves, tail thrashing. "No. You can't."

His flicked his wings nervously, and then pulled himself up to his full height. He was large for a pegasus, but Equinox was the tallest unicorn he had ever met, and he looked up at her eyes. "I have never fought an alicorn's daughter before, but I will fulfill my orders unless you render me unconscious."

The Princess of the Blood looked at the loyal guard, stared into his eyes, and began to cry. "You can't. I got vomited on about two hours ago. It got into my eyes, nose, mouth. I'm dead. I. Am. Dead. There is no hope. I'll stay here and work until I collapse. Then.... well," she waved a hoof at the other caretakers circulating around the cots, "they know who I am. What I am. They promised to write a note about where my body ends up, in case Aunt Tia wants to... to build a plinth, or something....."

Equinox hung her head, and tears dripped to the floor, rolling down her white blaze and off her nose.

"I'll never see my grandfoal, but this is the price I choose to pay. It's in my blood."

Feather took a step toward her, hoof reaching up, and her magic pushed him back again. "I'm already potentially infectious. Don't come near me. Go. Carry a message to my daughters and husband, that I love them. Return to Aunt Tia, and tell her I shall make my last stand here, treating my patients. It is not the Bridge and the Maretruscan Horde.... but it is my last stand. I follow in sister's hoofsteps, after all. Tell her... I'm sorry."

Feather shook his head. "No. I can change bedsheets and give patients water. I will stay here until I, too, fall. You are my Princess, and I will not leave your side. I will hark to thy right mark."

Equinox nodded. "You've learned from history, I see. The back room has extra masks and leather suits. Get dressed, then report to the head nurse."





6


Luna burrowed deeper into Celestia's flank. "How... how... Equinox's shield spell? Her prophylaxis against contagion?"

Celestia dipped her head, and kissed Luna between the eyes. She tasted the wet salt of her sister's tears. "She blew out her magic, curing another filly who was in the early stages of the disease. Equinox was smart, Luna. There is no possibility she did not know exactly what she was doing, and the danger she risked. The filly was a dead-ringer for your unicorn grandfilly Cerulean Star, Equinox's youngest, an adolescent at the time of these events. The sick filly was already an orphan, her family dead of disease or violence. Equinox knowingly traded her life for this foal."

Luna's body spasmed with quiet sobs, and Celestia's own eyes grew wet. "Equinox stayed on her hooves five more days. Nopony else lasted so long between infection and collapse. Her endurance, her determination, is a legend. Tranquility's legacy resonates down the Guard's traditions to today, and in the same way, the Ministry of Health's highest medal for valor–which is only awarded posthumously–still bears Equinox's name and image. Two thousand healers died in the Vanhoover plague, and by commemorating Equinox, we commemorate all their sacrifices."

Luna raised her head to the moon and howled.

"An identical statue stands in Vanhoover," Celestia whispered, pointing to Equinox's likeness. "Every summer, the population holds a festival, and remembers her. They name Equinox the patroness of their city, and Flight Feather as the city father."

"He became Baron Vanhoover?"

"The previous Baron Vanhoover, and all his issue, swung from lamp posts outside City Hall. I knew that with... proper husbandry... the story of the lone Guard to brave the plague could be turned into a legend. Feather's home village was not twenty miles upriver, so he spoke with the correct accent to be accepted by the populace. The forty-third Baroness Vanhoover, Feather's descendant, our vassal, recently named her first foal 'Equinox.' An awkward name for a pegasus, but an honored one in Vanhoover."

"Baron Vanhoover? Flight Feather? After he refused to leave Equinox's side?"

Celestia rubbed her nose. "He got infected, spent sixty days in bed, and recovered. The young and strong sometimes survived. He wore the scars for the rest of his life, and eventually carried Equinox's last message to her husband and foals."

"Tia...." Luna gasped, "Tia... what of Equinox's foals? And their foals? And their foals?"

Luna staggered to her hooves, and waved a wing to encompass the Reliquary of the Heroes. "How many are buried here, in sepulchers of glory and pain? I asked that question already; you said we would discuss it later. Tell me now."

"Of those first few generations? Of your two foals, three grandfoals, fifteen great-grandfoals, and fifty great-great-grandfoals? Forty-three are remembered in this garden. Which is to say, half."

Luna dipped her head and moaned low in her throat, her wings flapping.

"Many were warriors," Celestia explained, "but also healers, scientists, explorers, and every other sort of hero that words can describe."

Celestia walked a few steps to the left, and pointed at a plinth that bore a marble statue of a tall pegasus mare wearing a life vest and helmet. "For instance, your eldest great-grandfilly, Gale Glider, born three days after Equinox's death, founded the Equestrian Coast Guard."

Celestia bowed her head in reverence. "Gale Glider died saving a colt from a shipwreck. Her body was lost in the maelstrom, but we raised this memorial here." Celestia raised her head and stood silently for a few moments, staring at the long-dead hero. "The colt she rescued created the spell, still used to this day, that cures gangrene in a wounded limb. Over the last nine hundred years, I imagine one million or more amputations have been avoided, thanks to your descendant's sacrifice."

Luna lay down and closed her eyes. "Had I known the price to be paid, I would never have accepted the elevation to royalty."

"Gale Glider's last words remain the Coast Guard's sacred oath for nine hundred and more years now: 'We have to go out. We don't have to come back.' You raised two incomparable foals, Luna, and your lessons rang across entire generations. Your legacy is not Nightmare Moon, your true legacy is this long line of heroes." 

"I should have run from the coronation. My legacy is a garden of bones and marble. Tragedy is in my blood, and these fine ponies suffered for it."

"Somepony needed to serve, Luna, lest Equestria fall into chaos even without Discord. Service is in our blood, and you know it."

"What of Corona? My nephew? Your son? He was but an infant when I......"

Celestia gasped once, and looked away. "He died in battle, commanding the kidnapping of the infant Crown Prince of Griffonstone, whom we then held ransom. The ransom we demanded was an end to the war, a peace treaty, and repatriation of prisoners. Our relationship with the Griffons has had its ups and downs, but they have honored their treaty, and war has never again resumed. My son died on a foreign field, far from home... but he bought a millennium of peace with his blood." Celestia gestured to another obsidian plinth and marble statue, fifty yards away. "I visit his bones at the first snow of every year."

"Did you bear more foals?" whispered Luna.

"Five more," Celestia said. "My last, I named her Silent Night, for her coat was darkest black, passed seven centuries ago. After watching the cancer take two years to devour her from the inside out... I have used precautions against pregnancy ever since. To be unaging, but bear mortal children, to love mortal spouses, is the greatest curse you and I carry. It is the cruelest affliction in the universe."

Luna nuzzled Celestia, cheek-to-cheek, for several seconds, and this time, Celestia's tears wet Luna's coat.

"What of our line, sister?" Luna asked. "How many descendants have we?"

"Follow," Celestia ordered, and took to her wings.

Luna frowned, then flapped after her sister. As they gained altitude, frigid wind bit into her coat and feathers, and froze the tears that still wet her muzzle.

They landed on the very peak of Mount Canterlot, and stood next to each other for several minutes, breath fogging.

As they stared at the distant horizon, their lungs strained against the thin air. Towns and cities sparkled across the landscape. Cloudsdale and minor pegasus cities shined at altitude. 

"Behold," Celestia said, and waved a hoof to all of Equestria. "Your children, and mine. After three or four dozen generations, I suspect every last pony has at least one drop of our blood. That is why I serve Equestria, no matter the cost to myself."

Luna nodded her head. "Sister–I allowed the Nightmare to take me. I abandoned my daughters to their fates of pain and legend. I will not abandon their offspring. Sister, I understand now. I understand why you showed me my daughters' plinths. I have returned, I will never allow the Nightmare to retake me, and I will stand at your side for eternity, to protect these ponies, and honor those who have fallen. It is... in my blood."

"I love you. I missed you. Welcome back."

The two alicorns stood in silence on the mountaintop for the rest of the night, watching over their children.