One day per moon. No meetings, no paperwork, no interruptions, no distractions. Not from the nobles or my Ministry leaders or Horolog. For me, the day is as sanctimonious as any national holiday. At the Castle, it's become something of a de facto holiday as well since the staff know they can't make any requests of me and I won't of them. We'll see if it spreads to the rest of Canterlot.
Council of Friendship Day.
We split the day between governing on friendship issues and just being friends. My friends have certainly become more ingrained into the politics of Canterlot—Applejack has become something of a voice for Equestria's rural agriculture industry, and Rarity networks with nobles so frequently she has more insight into their machinations than I do—but we're always sure to set aside time to just talk, catch up, and enjoy each other's company.
They'll never be politicians or ministers or co-rulers. They're friends. And that's the highest title they'd want or need.
"So you're not considering the continuous slipstream from Cloudsdale to Canterlot?"
"No, Rainbow Dash. You know that prevailing winds can make weather management difficult for the towns in between. There aren't a lot of citizens there, but there are some, and they're under Canterlot's weather jurisdiction. Besides, I ratified a high-speed rail line from Cloudsdale to Canterlot. Pegasi will need to get to ground level first, but when the line is complete, they'll be able to make it to Canterlot faster than any pegasus could fly."
"Except me, you mean."
I roll my eyes good-naturedly as light giggles echo around the room. "Yes, except you."
Rainbow Dash ruffles her feathers. "Well, I guess they'll have to live with that. I don't mind taking the train if it means I can be with the rest of my friends." Always the quickest to get impatient, she gets up and takes a quick lap around the throne room. The Council throne room, that is—it's a recreation of the same one in Ponyville's castle, though it's missing the Map and other familiar amenities, making it feel a bit more sterile. "Was that the last one? I'm starving!"
I swallow. It was the last one . . . were it not for the extra subject I wanted to talk about today, one I've been both anticipating and dreading.
All my friends seem to catch onto my sudden drop in mood as the room goes quiet. Even Rainbow Dash takes notice and flies back to her seat.
"Twilight? Is there something wrong?" Fluttershy asks quietly.
I sigh. "Yeah. It's about Tempest."
I fill everypony in on her situation. Given I was mentoring and rehabilitating her for a time, they're not as close to her as I was, but we're all still her friends, and we all still care about her well-being. She saved our lives at a time when it mattered most, and it's our turn to help her now, however we can. Pinkie, Applejack, and Rarity all gasp when I tell them about her condition and her prognosis. Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash seem almost angry at it.
I also tell them about the research I've done thus far. I've gone through about three-quarters of the literature I could find on the subject, and I've interviewed most of the doctors at Canterlot General who know anything about it. The more I read, the more I'm convinced the answer doesn't lie in standard established medicine. It has to be somewhere else, in the quirky, the unbelievable, the miraculous. The world has a lot of undiscovered magic. Tempest was searching—it's why she found the Staff of Sacanas in the first place—and now I am too.
"So that's the situation," I say to a silent room. It remains so for an uncomfortably long time.
"I'm so sorry, Twilight. That's simply horrible news," Rarity says, her words dramatic but entirely appropriate. "Horrible" is a horribly apt descriptor. "I saw her on the way here, and she looked just fine! I'd never have guessed she was struggling so. Is there anything at all we can do for her? I refuse to believe all we can do is watch and worry."
"I asked, Rarity. Tempest has never asked for help from anypony, and she still isn't now. I'm not going to press, or she'll just think I'm being patronizing."
"Can't we throw Fizzy a 'get well soon' party? Those always work for the Cake twins when they're feeling sniffly. There was this one time Mrs. Cake was sooooo worried she'd have to bring Pound Cake to the hospital, he was feeling so bad. But then I threw a party and fed him soup and the next day he was so much better!"
I catch a few of my friends wincing, but I try to hide my own emotions. Pinkie's still grinning at us like she heard none of what we were discussing, like she genuinely believes a simple party is the panacea Tempest needs. Her positivity is cloying, tone-deaf, and right now, it comes across as very nearly offensive. Like laughing at a funeral.
And I know that Pinkie knows this.
She isn't oblivious; she must know there are some problems that Laughter alone can't solve. But right now, she's like me: anxious. Powerless. She doesn't want to believe there's nothing she can do, so she casts her smile as a pane of glass over top the rest of her roiling emotions. Selfish as it sounds, her party idea isn't so much for Tempest's sake as it is for hers.
I'm sorry. I wish I could be on the other side too, Pinkie. I morosely shake my head. I feel the glass break as her smile turns stricken. The façade remains, but the dam is cracked.
"Well, there must be something we can do!" Rainbow Dash exclaims, jumping out of her seat and hovering once again. "She's our friend, and we're not going to leave her to deal with this herself."
"I know, I know, I just . . ." I sigh in frustration. "It's been weeks now. I've spent essentially every spare moment I had doing research. Even the most advanced pony medicine doesn't say her condition is treatable, much less curable.
"I found one lead, I guess, if you could call it that. It's one that Tempest said she had looked into once before but passed off as too unbelievable. She didn't think it actually existed. The Stream of Silence. Applejack, I think you and Fluttershy know something about it?"
They both nod. Applejack grimaces. "It definitely exists, I c'n tell you that."
"There's . . . pretty much no information I can find about it in the Canterlot Archives. The rest of Equestria's libraries don't have much information on it either, owing to it being, well, outside of Equestria. My thought is that the Stream has to have a mental and a biological effect on the kirin that go into it, and ponies too, I'd guess. Kirin must have thaum like every other living being, and from what I've figured out so far, it's at least partially responsible for nirik transformation. It probably helps power their limbic system, and the Stream therefore must be a neurotransmitter antagonist that helps . . ."
I stop as I see the collective blank faces on my friends. "Sorry. What I mean is if the Stream can suppress kirin from transforming into nirik, it could probably suppress whatever's happening to Tempest, too. I think it might be the key to curing her! Naturally, I wouldn't want to just toss her in or subject her to all the effects of the Stream, but it definitely does something that pony magic can't. Maybe we can get a sample and extract the useful parts of it!"
"Well, why didn't you tell us sooner? We could've gone to the Peaks and come back with some Stream water lickety-split!" Applejack rotates her foreleg in her shoulder like she's getting ready to punch something.
I shake my head. "It's just a hypothesis right now, Applejack. The only one I have, and I only came up with it yesterday. The Stream could help, but I don't know how. Like I said, there's barely anything in Equestria's libraries that discusses kirin or the Stream."
I take out a large wizened volume and open it about two-thirds in. "But I found a foreign encyclopedia volume from the Crystal Empire that claims to contain information on all things kirin, and given what I can glean from the pictures and the odd Ponish word, this section might be just what we need. But most of it is written in some really ancient logographs that I can't make heads or tails of. The librarian doesn't know how to translate it either."
I drop the book onto the table in front of us, and we all lean in to examine it. It's filled with complicated, meticulous characters arranged in columns, not rows. Their dancing lines convey a wealth of information, but it's lost to all of us.
Applejack looks at the book, then at Fluttershy. "Didn't you show me that mural o' the kirin transformin' into nirik? It all looked like pictures t' me, but there was a lot of 'em, an' a lot more than about just the one thing. And they kinda looked like these folk, least from what I c'n remember."
Fluttershy doesn't respond. She nods, but she doesn't look at Applejack or the book. Her frown deepens.
Applejack taps her hoof on the table a couple of times. "Probably a language, then. I'm bettin' the kirin got mighty good an' efficient at writing, owin' to their years o' silence. How else would they communicate with others? Maybe we can talk t' them and get them t' help translate." Applejack puts a hoof to her chin. "Tell y'what: lemme write a letter t' Autumn Blaze. She's a kirin we met at the Peaks o' Peril, and we still keep in touch every now n' again. I know she understands written Ponish—maybe she understands written Kirin too."
For the first time in a long while, I feel that flame of curiosity inside me ignite. There's something to discover, something to dig my teeth into—there's a new branch of knowledge to investigate, and something down that way is the key to helping Tempest. There's so much to learn—and now I have the first step to start. "Thanks, Applejack," I say, smiling at her. "This is great! I think I'll actually get somewhere with this one."
"Don't mention it!" she says. "That's what friends 'r for, right?"
"Definitely." Score one for friends. I don't know why I didn't come to them first.
Applejack leans back to pick up her Stetson and flip it on her head. "Well, give my best t' Tempest. I'm sure it can't be easy for her, dealing with all this shenanigans. But now you c'n say we got something for her, right?"
My smile falters, but just for a moment. "Well, not yet. It's just a lead. But soon!"
Applejack gets up. "We got a place picked out f'r today? I think I'm with Rainbow on this on being totally council'd out."
My smile returns as I put matters of state and matters of Tempest out of my head, at least for a few hours. "A new place opened up on the west side that I wanted to try. Chigan's Glen. Get it? It's an anagram of 'changelings'! Did you know changelings don't always consume love straight from the source? They can bake it into food, too! I don't know if ponies can taste it, but I'm excited to see."
"Sounds awesome!" Rainbow Dash says, once again circling the room, wings twitching. "Let's go!"
One by one, my friends file out, eager to get on with the more pleasant part of our day. Even Pinkie seems a bit perkier. Today, we're spending the day in Canterlot, though we'll often go back to Ponyville to hang out. True, Canterlot is my home now, but Ponyville has always felt more "home-y." And it's nice to catch up with Starlight, Cheerilee, and my other old friends.
"Fluttershy? Are you coming?" I ask. She hasn't left her seat.
She looks up, seemingly hearing me for the first time. "Oh. Right, I'm sorry." She gets up slowly.
"Is something wrong? You've been awfully quiet about Tempest. Well, quiet-er." Given she went with Applejack to the kirin lands, I would have expected her to have more to say about it.
Fluttershy pauses. She frowns again. "Do you know Copernicus?"
I blink. "U-uh, I don't think so? Unless you're talking about the philosopher. Is that the name of one of your animals?"
She nods. "A squirrel. He died last week."
"Oh, I-I'm sorry," I say, sympathetic but a little confused why she's bringing up this topic and so matter-of-fact-ly.
"It's okay. I've seen a lot of cases like his. It was a blight that passed around a few squirrels in Ponyville. I knew he had it when he started getting blue spots and refused to drink water. There's nothing we can do about it, at least as far as I know. So I just . . . hugged him a lot, made sure his family was nearby, and gave him a nice cozy bed to relax in. It's . . . not nice whenever an animal friend passes away, but when there's nothing else I can do, I try to make it easy and peaceful for them. There's a kind of beauty in death, too. Not all animals, especially those in the wild, get to go peacefully."
"O-okay. I'm glad he went peacefully, but if you don't mind me asking, why are you telling me this?"
Fluttershy pauses and shrinks back a little. "Promise me you won't get mad?"
"Of course not!"
Her voice is small, and she's looking away from me. "I remember when I first came to Ponyville, another squirrel got the same blight. I didn't know it wasn't curable at the time, so I fought. I went to the local veterinarian to ask for anything that could help. I tried to force him food and water so he'd live longer. It only ever . . . came back up. He died when he wandered out of the cottage in a bout of delirium and got caught in a snowstorm. I only found him the next season when the snow melted. He only made it a couple hooves out of the door before collapsing and freezing to death. His family got upset with me that I couldn't save him and . . . left." She brings a hoof to rub at her eyes.
"Are you—are you saying we're working too hard to save Tempest?" I very nearly raise my voice at her. It's just that . . . after all my research and work, something I've always taken pride in, somepony—and I'd never expect that somepony to be Fluttershy—tells me that I did the wrong thing and shouldn't have even started?
I snort. I've never curled up and admitted defeat. Determination and faith in my friends, even in the face of overwhelming odds, is what got me here. It's what made me a Princess. "I'm not going to give up and let her die," I say, stomping my hoof on the ground. "Tempest isn't a squirrel; I won't give up on her when there's still a chance! And Applejack just said she had a friend who would be able to help us. I'm not going to pass that chance up. We have a lead; we'll find a cure!"
She still doesn't look at me, but her eyes grow sadder. She starts slowing padding towards the door. ". . . I'm sorry. Forget I brought this up."
"Wait! Do you or do you not think we're trying too hard to save Tempest?"
She pauses. When she looks back to me, her face is filled with sadness and another emotion I can't place. Her eyes are glistening. "I don't know."