Hitch rushed into the Tree’s infirmary and looked to see what shape in the darkness might be a bed, Sunny limp upon his broad back. She was burning up so hot that it was uncomfortable for him to have her on his back. Their mixed sweat dripped down from his midsection. Izzy ran in next, followed by Regan.
“J-jus a sec! Jus a sec!” Regan stammered. He ran from one spot of the room to the next tapping on the wall. A moment later a crystal on the wall at each spot where he had tapped glowed a bright white. Eventually enough crystals glowed to reveal the medium-sized infirmary, though Hitch was focused on the bed. He put Sunny down as quickly yet gently as he could, and Regan was to her side immediately.
“I knew it… aye, look at her nose… it’s like the book said…”
Hitch and Izzy got closer. Sunny’s nose throbbed a sore red. Her breathing, both the sound and the rise and fall of her chest, was clearly hampered. Her eyelids were closed shut and underneath dark dreams made her eyes flutter.
“Come on! What do we do to help her?” Hitch shouted. Izzy paced back and forth, tears filling her eyes.
“Oh Sunny… is it my fault? I’m so sorry… I gave you some kind of Unicorn illness. That’s it, right Regan? This is why we’re divided, this is why, because we get the others sick… it’s all our—”
Regan held out a hoof to stop the mare. Hitch was about to throttle him but stopped when Regan turned stern and determined.
“Hol it lass.” He turned to Hitch, and the face Hitch saw made him straighten up with purpose. “Lad, go into that drawer over there with tha red X tape on it. That’s tha really important medicine in there.” He turned to Izzy, whose tears streamed past her puffy, wobbling lower lip. “I need ye to run up to my chambers, I can’t give ye good advice on how ta get there right now, ye gotta find yer way up there! When ye do, go inta my bedside table and bring me tha li’l lockbox! Go fast!” He turned back around to instruct Hitch as Izzy hesitated, hopped in place, then ran off out of the room. “You, lad, grab me tha li’l vial o’ gre—”
Hitch was already there, a clear vial of a forest green liquid in his mouth. Regan took it.
“Treesap Tincture, right? This was the strongest potion in there I saw for healing.”
Regan nodded and uncorked it with his teeth, then hovered it over Sunny’s mouth.
“Lad, ye need to open her mouth an’ get her ta drink it.”
Hitch swallowed hard and did as instructed. Sunny’s flesh burnt to his touch. Her entire face flushed a deep scarlet. Still, Hitch maintained his cool. Regan hovered the Tincture over Sunny’s mouth and administered a few drops at a time, some minutes later having emptied the entire bottle. Hitch looked to Regan.
“Was that it? Will that heal her?”
Regan was solemn.
“’Fraid not, not withou’ what tha Unicorn lass is ganna get. That’s what Sunny really needs.”
“And what is that exactly?”
Regan walked over to another cabinet and took out a blue vial. He returned and with a knowing flick of his head toward Hitch, the two worked to get Sunny to drink the newest potion, just as slow as before. A satisfying mist of cyan came out of the bottle. It was as clear as the clearest water imaginable. Hitch let his held in stress and breath come out at once.
“Aqua Viva. Okay.”
Sunny’s breathing slowly but surely calmed down and her flush seemed to lessen. Hitch started to smile but when he looked at the continuously somber Regan he frowned.
“T-Tell me what’s wrong! Isn’t she getting better?”
“Aye perhaps… but I’d feel better if tha Unicorn lass got back with tha Harmony Seed.”
“Harmony Seed?”
An exasperated Izzy burst into the infirmary, mane frazzled and eyes wide, lungs burning hotter than Sunny’s temperature. A tiny black lockbox was fixed into her hair. She collapsed with her tongue flopping out and Regan removed the lockbox with a quick nod.
“Bless ye lass, ye found it. Sorry ‘bout that, but emergencies an’ all.”
Hitch tended to Izzy while Regan brought the lockbox up to his mouth. He opened his mouth and revealed his jagged lower tooth that stuck out somewhat from the rest. He positioned it with the lock on the box and shoved it inside – the box clicked after that.
When it opened, Hitch and a partially recovered Izzy got up to take a look.
“Ooo…” Izzy said in aww. Hitch cocked his head.
“Is that some sort of cure-all?”
Just the tiniest little mound of seeds sat in the middle of the box’s inside, surrounded by white cotton. The seeds faintly glowed a mesmerizing pinkish white. Regan gingerly placed the box over on a portion of the white, pristine countertop and motioned back with his hoof.
“Can one a’ ye grab, out of tha drawer there by those incubatin’ flowers, a new vial for me and then a mortar n’ pestle?”
Regan set to work crushing up the seeds and mixing a new potion once he had what he needed. Hitch and Izzy stood near Sunny, who looked more peaceful than before albeit still sicker than the average cold stricken mare. Izzy whimpered quietly as she put her hooves onto the bed and stared at Sunny’s sleeping face like a dog awaiting its friend.
Finally, Regan turned around, a fresh vial of potion in his left hoof.
“Make way – this potion is more valuable than a hundred Blackmire Brews.”
He tentatively stepped forward. Hitch chewed his hoof, while Izzy bit her lip until it turned white. Regan, as slow as a dry snail, placed the vial near Sunny’s mouth.
“Lad… some help.”
Hitch tip-hoofed over and opened Sunny’s mouth and adjusted her head position. Regan poured the meagre potion inside. The deep hot pink glow of the potion was almost blinding. It ran down Sunny’s throat and her body involuntarily swallowed. Hitch laid her head back down.
“Alright…” Regan breathed, letting out his held-in air. “Let me explain…”
He fell forward onto his knees, coughing. Hitch helped him up.
“Not you too! Tell us what’s going on first so we can help!”
“Ack it’s not like that, lad. I’m just still sick from the side-effects of tha Liquid Power earlier… don’t worry. As for Sunny, she should be fine now. But let’s sit down and I’ll tell ye what’s goin’ on.”
And so they did. On one side of the infirmary were chairs, luckily three of them. Regan sat down slowly, exhaling in a pained way when he finally got comfortable.
“Not as young as I used to be, if ye didn’t notice.”
Izzy was in better spirits and smiled.
“I didn’t sir! The way you zipped around and did all that – you saved Sunny! Thank you! Sorry that I couldn’t be more help…”
Regan managed a smile despite his discomfort. He nodded.
“I wasn’t about to let Sunny Starscout pass into the Other World. No, no, that was necessary. You see…” Regan adjusted himself so he was leaning into the other two, who leaned closer as a result. “What Sunny must be going through is called alicorn sickness, or more to the point, an illness on account of her voice powers.”
Hitch raised an eyebrow; Izzy’s face lit up.
“Alicorn?”
“ALICORN!?”
Regan tried to calm the Unicorn down with a wave of his hoof.
“Aye aye. Ye’ve heard of them before, no doubt?”
Izzy nodded so many times all at once Hitch was sure her head was going to fly off. She looked back at him as she explained.
“The alicorns used to rule Equestria. They had the magic of Unicorns, the power of flight of the Pegasi, and the ability to tend nature like the Earth Ponies. But their powers were taken from them by jealous Earth Ponies and Pegasi” — seeing Regan’s and Hitch’s faces made her clear her throat, blush, and correct herself — “S-sorry, that’s just how the story goes from the Unicorn perspective!” She smiled a toothy grin. “Are you saying Sunny is an alicorn? Is she magical?!”
Hitch rubbed his head.
“Guess that would explain the voice thing… but Sunny Starscout? Magical?!”
Regan shook his head.
“That’s not it, silly. Well I don’t claim to know what it is, but if Sunny were an alicorn she’d have a horn and wings, dontcha think?!” Izzy put a hoof to her chin and looked away. She looked back up and giggled.
“Oh yeah!”
Hitch spoke.
“So, she’s sick because of that voice magic power thing, right?”
“Right. I don’t know why she has that power, but I do know that Gusty the Great described in her diary long, long ago that she saw young alicorns using their voice projection for the first time and getting deathly ill afterward. Only much rest and the help of Drink of Harmony, made from those seeds you saw earlier, could truly make them better. Not all the young reacted that way, but some did. It was a great and terrible power they had been given, the alicorns.”
Hitch put a hoof against his forehead and shook it.
“I’m not even going to try to figure all of that out but, essentially, you think Sunny’s voice magic and that alicorn voice magic is the same?”
“What else could it be, lad?”
Izzy looked up to the ceiling quizzically.
“I thought I heard of all the famous figures of the past, at least Unicorn ones, but I haven’t heard of a Gusty the Great.”
“Wouldn’t a’ thought so, lass. We in tha Society only know of her through a recording of some diary entries that Star Swirl had access to. The originals are long forgotten. But luckily for us, Star Swirl wrote as many books as he did! He’s the foremost scholar from the old times – there’s even evidence he lived to be over a thousand years old!”
Izzy nearly fell out of her chair, and Regan shared in her enthusiasm, his aged smile becoming wide and gleaming. Hitch placed his things beside his chair and Izzy did the same, remembering her large saddle bags. When they smacked with a loud metal thud, Regan’s eyes widened.
“G-Got yerself quite a load of bits, huh?”
Izzy nodded.
“Yeppers! Oh umm I mean…” she sucked in her lips and looked to Hitch. He exhaled as if holding in a great question. Regan looked up, worried.
“Listen, Regan… we’re a bit… on edge still. After what happened at Sunny’s family’s place. This is all happening pretty fast.”
Regan scrambled up and out of his chair.
“Say no more, say no more! Please uhhh I’ll get out of yer manes so ye can be in peace!”
Hitch waved his hooves.
“No, I didn’t really mean that, what I meant was, we don’t exactly… trust you. Completely.”
Regan looked to his hooves.
“Oh… I see…”
He looked back up with a smile.
“Not sure what I can do ta convince ye. I suspect Sunny is a good judge of character – ask her when she wakes up. If she says we can’t be trusted, we won’t keep ye. We can let ye out through a path that leads outside of town, toward Vanhoover way. OR there’s a path that leads closer to the Luna Ocean.”
That seemed to satisfy Hitch and excite Izzy again.
“Wow there’s a sea over here named after Princess Luna?”
“Earth Ponies don’t call it that no more; now it’s Ragnar’s Ocean, named after a famous sailor from a few centuries back. A Rockhoof-type; all muscle, no brains, as it were.” He winked at Izzy. “But I like to keep the nomenclature to the historical, proper terms.” Izzy’s tail wagged. Regan cleared his throat.
“I’ll leave you ponies to it for now! Firecracker an’ Jay are probably wonderin’ what the fuss was about. Sunny should be up and about in three hours, give or take. If not, I trust ye can come find me?”
Hitch and Izzy nodded.
“Will do,” Hitch added. “Could you uhh maybe send up some food too? We don’t want to leave her side even for a minute.”
Regan smiled truly from the heart, and it was so warm and grandfatherly that Hitch blushed and had to look away.
“Aye lad, I can do that.”
No colorful dreams of fields or dead relatives filled Sunny’s head – instead, a constant thumping bombardment and low-pitched whir filled her darkened thoughts. It was as if everything that she knew ceased to exist, and in its place was a realm of uncomfortable visions. Her body in that void throbbed like the environment it floated in – a throb of pain that felt like it reached into her soul itself. She wanted to cry out, and to shed tears, though there was no way she could without having a face.
But light eventually came, a slow trickle at first, then a pouring of soft glowing pink. It had the appearance of runny goop. Sunny saw herself come into shape and take form in the void, which turned from pitch black to pure white. The river of pink was like a silk soup – she giggled as she ran her hoof in the knee-deep substance too thick to be called water.
She gasped and jumped up when she saw another creature staring at her from a stone’s throw away. It seemed to float above the pink, and while it looked vaguely like a pony, it was much larger than any Sunny had seen (even compared to Bastion). Its eyes were bigger than a pony’s with nothing inside them save for black sclera and two tiny white pupils, and it had a longer, larger mouth which was drawn into an unflinching smile. It had four legs with fetlocks shaven at the ends near its golden hooves. A giant, sharp horn grew out of the middle of its white head, and fluffy wings like great big clouds hung at its side. Its mane was a trailing of stars and tiny hot suns contained within an outline of prismatic clarity. Something like an aura or a glow of faint white light formed a circle around the creature, as if some spotlight was aimed at it. No features gave away if it was a male or a female.
Sunny couldn’t help but smile back, although it quickly became an awkward affair as the creature was unmoving like a statue. It didn’t even blink, but it did calmly breath in and out. A voice, which was all at once high pitched like a filly but deep like a stallion, came from its unmoving mouth.
“Wake up. You passed the test, with a little help from your friends.”
As a screech entered Sunny’s ears, like the ringing from suffering a blow to the head, she watched the realm and the creature disappear and heard the strange voice one final time.
“There will be more. Be ready.”
Instantly Sunny was gasping for air in some strange room. She looked to the left and the right in quick succession, her eyes drawn to the crystals on the walls. A gentle hoof held her in place.
“Calm, lass, calm.”
It was Regan. Sunny had never been happier to see his old olive-green face, his wrinkles muted but present when somepony like Sunny was so close. His orange-red facial hair and mane were rather prominent, Sunny realized. Hairs stuck out at odd places giving him a rough sort of appearance, but his smile was so “grandpa” that there could be no mistake he was a kind soul. That image was made complete by the checkered cap that he wore, its forest green and mahogany red matching the appearance of his chest sash. He chuckled.
“Gave us a scare, ye did. Yer friends haven’t left yer side – look.”
Sunny was sweating, her chest heaving. But she could sit up and turn her head. Izzy and Hitch were resting on a couch that looked out of place in what must have been an infirmary, a long blanket covering their slowly breathing forms. Plates of mostly eaten food were nearby on a shiny countertop. Sunny spotted one plate that had yet to be touched.
“Hungry? Fixed ye a plate too, I think ye noticed.”
Sunny felt the moisture on her lips. She made some light smacking noises and her brow furrowed.
“Actually… yeah. I’m starving. Wow I am REALLY hungry!”
She jumped out of the bed and gobbled up as much of the vegetables and oats and wheat as she could within a five second span. Regan’s eye twitched.
“L-Lass ye didn’t have ta…”
Sunny turned back around, panting.
“WOW I can’t believe how much I just” — she burped— “ate!”
Regan lit up.
“That’s good lass, that’s good! Means yer recoverin’!”
“Yeah!” she looked back at her friends sleeping, then to Regan. “So, what happened to me? I had this weird dream while I was passed out…”
Regan explained same as he had to Izzy and Hitch. By the end of it, Sunny was pacing, trying to figure it all out.
“Does that mean I’m magical?” A realization hit her and a smile consumed her face, her tail flopping up and down like a motorized featherduster. “Wait I’m magical Regan!”
Regan tried his best to calm her with a motion of his hoof.
“Now now, Sunny, we don’t know what’s goin’ on, but ye definitely need ta control yer use of ‘the voice’ or learn how ta use it without getting’ sick. Anyway, let me finish, would ye?”
Sunny sat on the ground and nodded, assuming a perfectly postured stance like a schoolfilly sitting in class. Her ears flicked every now and again. Regan quietly cleared his old throat.
“What I can say for certain is that old Rutabaga has told me your great-grandfather, Argyle, once used that same voice magic as a youth. But that fact has been repressed, and those who saw and heard it sworn to secrecy. All else who speak of it are written off as crazy.”
“Old… Rutabaga?” Sunny’s head cocked. Regan chuckled.
“Ack, ye’ll have to meet her. She’ll tell ye about yer dad and all sorts of things it ain’t my place to say. Ye can go see her after, she—” Sunny cut him off.
“Before that, I NEED to know what’s going on with my family. What was all that at the house about? And for that matter, what’s this tree, and who are you? Also WHY is my dad’s name also Argyle? My head’s going to EXPLODE!”
Regan flicked his head toward Sunny’s friends.
“Alright but, suppose we should let them sleep in peace, and go somewhere more comfortable to discuss?”
“Fine. I don’t want to actually explode and wake them up.”
Regan laughed with a high pitch typical of an old soul hearing a youthful remark. Sunny turned before departing the room and smiled a giant crescent toward her sleeping friends.
“Wow I can’t believe they care that much! My friends…”
She hopped out of the room. Regan led her out of the infirmary.
“Oh, better make it a bit dimmer fer them.”
He doubled back and gently rubbed the crystals to lower the brightness of their light to almost nothing. They were off again. They followed the long, wooden path inside the tree around its circumference. Faintly glowing crystals now and again lit up the paths just enough so one could navigate, but not bright enough to bother the eyes. Then they went closer to the center of the tree down a path that led to a small chamber with a single bed, a nightside table, and two hoofchairs. A bookshelf with some books stood across from the chairs. All throughout the tree and in the room, too, the walls and ceiling reflected the fact that they were indeed inside a tree.
Regan flopped into a hoofchair with a heavy sigh. He closed his eyes and laid his head back.
“Oh, I’m gonna miss this, let me tell ye…”
Sunny sat down too, her brows causing creases of confusion on her forehead.
“Why, where are you going?”
Regan put his hooves behind his head and inhaled. He smiled. Sunny’s patience wore thin quickly and she grunted.
“Never mind then, have your secrets! But tell me about my family already! I can’t be held responsible if I do explode and you’re caught up in it!”
“Alright, alright, let’s see… ahhh, first thing’s first...”