Mid Morning light filtered through the throne room windows, casting itself along the broad room and reflecting off Twilight Sparkle’s coat. She, Celestia and a third, pink unicorn mare sat alone. The mare, known as Cheery Days, who ran a local daycare not far from the castle walls, had just learned a dashing secret, and didn’t like it in the slightest.
“The mare needs to be arrested,” Cheery shouted, flailing her arms like it’d make her look more important.
Celestia rubbed her eyes. She had planned to deal with this situation, but not now, not even this year, or the next. She was too young. “I know, Cheery, but this is a… special case.”
Twilight, who had watched Celestia do court for the first time, was more than a little frazzled. So many selfish stallions and mares wanting so much of the Princess. It made her feel a little sick, but she toughed it out. “Who is the mare, Princess?” She interjected, flinching when Celestia glared at her.
“Sorry, Twilight,” Celestia said after a second, her expression softening, ”you’re not to blame for any of this.” Her voice was strained, but honest, Twilight could see the faintest trickles of sweat roll down her brow. “She’s a mother living here in Canterlot.”
“There are no such things as special cases, Princess,” Cheery shouted. She took a firm stance, like she’d literally fight the ruler of the country over this. “Any mare that leaves a filly under the age of ten for more than two hours is breaking. The. Law. She left at four in the morning and didn’t get back until four at night, WAY past a filly’s bedtime.”
Celestia rubbed her temples again. She knew it was only a matter of time, I mean, ever since Cross died… “I know-”
“And she buys her own FOOD!” Cheery interjected. To Twilight, the pink mare looked like a rather pissed off bull. She readied a shield spell, even though she knew it wasn’t needed. “No filly should have to do that. I want this mare thrown in jail!”
“I'm afraid it’s more complicated than that, Cheery,” Celestia took a deep breath. Twilight could see veins and arteries like ropes on Celestia’s neck and legs. The mare who had an unbeatable poker face, was, cracking? And over a topic that, to Twilight, seemed easily compliable. “This mare is the head surgeon in-”
“I don’t care if she’s your daughter!” Cheery once again interrupted, “she’s a menace to her own child and needs to be punished!” Cheery took a step forward, and, on reflex, Twilight put a partial paralysis spell on her legs. The mare turned, her harsh glare boring into Twilight like a hot coal. “Release me this instance!”
“I will not have you talk to my student that way,” Twilight flinched, the action coming faster than her brain could think. “the only reason Twilight put that paralysis spell on you was because she felt unsafe.”
It wasn’t that, Twilight didn’t want her mentor skewered, even though it’d never happen. Thick, steel cables pulsed on her mentor’s neck. She was angry! Celestia, the most patient mare in all of Equestria lost her cool over something as trivial as a negligent mother.
“We will take a short break from this,” Celestia calmly said, extending one of her wings to pull Twilight in. Twilight actually jumped at the touch, then, realizing how she was shaking, allowed herself to be moved. Celestia took a number of deep breaths, then said: “I will retrieve Crystal from her house. I’ve got something to tell her anyway.”
At this, Cheery calmed, “Good, may I find a room to relax in then?”
“Of course.” Celestia sighed, the tension finally bleeding away, “I take it you made arrangements with your work to stay a day or two?” Twilight looked up and saw that Celestia’s mask had come back, but, to a mare that has lived six years with the princess, noticed cracks, a small twitch, a single hair out of place, but the most prominent, a slight blush on her cheeks.
“Just one day,” Cheery replied, looking to Twilight, who flinched at the gaze. Cheery herself looked a lot calmer, although she was also unable to hide the scars. “I apologize for scaring you.” she paused, “This is just something that I… can’t let slide. I came from Stalliongrad, and there children were abused, beaten, raped, you name it.”
“Another time, Cheery,” Celestia said, releasing her wing, but not making Twilight go, “If you wish to talk about your reasons, do it in private.”
“Yes, your majesty,” Cheery bowed before making her way out to find a maid and get one of the hundreds of untaken rooms.
When the sound of hoofsteps disappeared, Twilight turned to her mentor, “What happened?” That was all she could say, but the question rang clear in Celestia’s mind. “Is it something about the filly? Why would a filly know how to buy groceries?”
“I think the real question is what cashier would buy anything other than candy from a filly,” Celestia said, then chuckled and the tension quickly died.
Celestia suddenly got serious, her expression hardening faster than Twilight could perceive, and before she knew it, she was staring at an very serious and very intimidating princess. It was an expression she only received when she had done something very bad, and marked the beginning of a very serious talk, one where the answers were absolute and nonnegotiable.
“I take it you know about dark magic,” Celestia said, her tone warm letting Twilight know she wasn’t in trouble.
Twilight sighed, but sat straight, planning to take every word her mentor spoke to heart. “Yes, Princess.”
“And you know of the Black Plague? How a single mare saved pony kind from extinction.”
“Of course,” Twilight smirked at her knowledge, but flinched when she gazed upon Celestia again. “Pac Agate, a rock farmer found mites on a rat and sacrificed her daughter to find the cause.”
“Good, good, you have been keeping up with your studies,” Celestia nodded, “but you know that what is said in these four walls will not and shall not be spoken outside them.”
Twilight stiffened “Yes, Ya-Your Majesty,” she only called Celestia your majesty when she got scared.
“Calm down, Twilight, I'm just making sure. I know you won’t tell anyone.” Celestia said, smiling, something that relieved Twilight immensely. Her long white horn flicked to life and a sound proof spell raced across the room until it reached each of the four walls. “Now, don’t be alarmed but some of the documents in those texts, the ones about the Black Plague inparticular, are false.”
Twilight gasped, “But you wrote those books yourself! How could you get something wrong?”
Celestia said nothing in response, but looked away, towards the sun lit window. “Twilight, Pac Agate wasn’t a full grown mare. She was four.”
The words hung in the air for a few minutes, Celestia staring at Twilight, judging her reaction.
Twilight burst out laughing, rolling on the stage that housed the throne. “Four! That’s a good one, Celestia” She rolled around, laughter bouncing across the walls. Only when she noticed Celestia hadn’t joined her did she look up. Celestia glared at her. “You’re serious!”
“Yes I am, Twilight. Do you think I’d put up a soundproofing spell if I wasn’t?” Her tone turned harsh, and it was Twilight’s turn to blush.
“S-Sorry, it’s just that... four?”
Celestia sat down and took Twilight under her wing. “Twilight, please have an open mind on this, but the species was dying. The extended family I built up from the ground was suffering, threatening to disappear forever, and I couldn’t do anything to stop it.”
“But you did?” Twilight said, aware of the serious sorrow in Celestia voice, and knowing that this was no joke. “You burned the fields and killed all the infected, quick and painless?”
Celestia winced at those words, Hazel Eyes popping up in her head. “Yes, Twilight, I had, but why do you think I’d resort to such, drastic measures?” She looked at Twilight, who thought intently on the question, but couldn’t come up with an answer. “Because I had no other option. Twilight, I could barely heal a broken bone at the time, and medical magic was a foreign subject. I was desperate, and turned to dark magic for help.”
“What?” Twilight’s mouth was agape and she stared. Celestia could see the gears in Twilight’s mind cranking away like they had during many a test. “That means…”
“Yes, Twilight, I used dark magic on a new born.”
Again, Twilight digested these words like water, fusing them into her very psyche. “And the filly?”
“Is Pac’s descendant and one of the last links to my utter desperation.”
“What is her name?” Twilight glared at Celestia, but not trying to be intimidating, she wanted, no needed this information.
“Crystal Agate, and the only reason I am bringing her to the castle is to tell her her sister is dead.”
2
Depending on parents, ponies normally make their first friend in the first few months of their life. This is the pony you grow up with; the one that’s always by your side. Some ponies even have more than one of these friends, but not all ponies.
In some families the children are secluded, either because the parents, mother or father, are scared. They might think that introducing new ponies to their little bundle of joy would somehow hurt it. There, however, tends to be a reason for this isolation, either the pony is bedridden and possibly infectious, but will heal, or the parents want to instil their version of right and wrong so it won’t be tainted by another filly from a different family. Both will lead to the inevitable of their child making lifelong friendships. But there’s a third, rarer, option.
What if the entire family has absolutely no intention of letting their child make any friends? One that values family ties to the nth degree and doesn’t even let the child know what a friend is. No obvious rhyme, or reason.
The third option is the family of Crystal Agate.
She’s from upper class, not upper crust, origins, with her entire family being white furred. The only way you can tell them apart is by their eye color, mane, or size. Crystal has green eyes, her sister, Cross, has blue eyes and her mother, Sterile, has purple. There’s also the mane color, blue curls for Crystal, straight blue for Cross, and purple for Sterile.
They were doctors, and by doctors, I mean best in the world. Sterile is the Head Surgeon at Canterlot hospital, a position specifically chosen by Princess Celestia herself. She’s in charge of ten of the best medical practitioners, of all fields, in the world, which makes her the best of the best. She is the only pony ever to perform a successful brain surgery on a unicorn.
Cross is a pediatrician and Crystal adored her.
Cross would wake Crystal up in the morning, around twelve, everyday of the first five years of her life. She’d carry her to breakfast, feed her, change her, even comforting her when she got scared.
Sterile had loved her, loved both her children over anything else in the world, but with her job she had to get up early, like four in the morning early, to oversee the hospital’s patients. Being head surgeon meant more than performing surgery, and would never see either of her children in the morning. Sometimes she didn’t get back home until four at night, long after they went to bed. Sometimes, Crystal slept in her bed until Sterile moved her to her own.
All around, Sterile had next to no part in Crystal’s child rearing, but still left a huge imprint on her, somewhat like a god.
No, Cross was Crystal’s mother. She’d take her outside after work and teach her exercise techniques, which could have been summed up with “Ponies need to run around,” a lot of tag, hide and seek and tree climbing. She read complex medical textbooks to her, explaining in great detail each area and specimen. When the time came, she even explained sex to Crystal, at the age of four.
If Crystal woke up to a pair of purple eyes. She’d have to restrain herself from lunging. To her, Mom was god, and you never lunge at god, even if it was just for a hug.
She’d come into Crystal’s room, eyes gleaming in the moonlight, and slowly lifted her out of bed. It was one of the rarest events in Crystal’s sheltered life. They’d talk about each other’s day, Starile would tell her daughter about the funny ponies that worked for her and Crystal would talk about her studies in return. Sometimes Sterile would quiz her daughter, and others were short visits, but everytime the two met, a gift was given.
The first gift Crystal ever got was just another cherry orange swirl lollipop, but after she turned three, and passed one of her mother’s quizzes on anatomy, she was rewarded with a book. Not a medical textbook or medical weekly, but a fictional book, one by the famous author, King Stephen, called Starter of Fires. A horror book reserved for adult readers
She loved it.
None of the horror stuff scared the three year old. A single article in Medical Weekly had more fright than that entire book, being eaten alive by insects, from inside your body? Now that’s scary.
Crystal read that book like some read the bible, over and over again, writing notes on grammar style and theming. For the next two years, the book never left her side, and Crystal never left the front gates.
Be it something instilled in her, or pony nature, but she never once left the sanctuary of her home for five years of her life. She tried once, taking a single step outside the gate, but stopped and ran back. It was too unfamiliar, like an infant cooking for themselves.
About three months before Crystal started school, Cross and Sterile met her in the living room, something that never happened, and talked about Cross adding something to her daily schedule. For those last three months, Crystal learned how to sleep in class. She only went to school for legal reasons, and the family knew that school was a joke. Crystal learned everything they’d teach before she was two.
The first day of school was terrifying, mostly because it was the first time Crystal ever left the house. She was late because of her fear. Cross had to climb the tree in the yard and physically drag her to school.
During class, Crystal slept, just as she was taught; during recess she sat under a tree, or in a tree, and read advanced medical textbooks. At first ponies wandered over, curious about the filly. They tried to be friendly, but Crystal put a stop to it, and eventually, isolated herself in a cocoon of secrecy, no one reaching out and her reaching out to no one.
Near the end of her first year, Cross ran away from home. Crystal remembered the night in tearful clarity. Cross yelled at her mother, using words that little Crystal never heard before, dark, angry words.
Later, Cross left the house with an earth shattering bang, never to be seen again, never even saying goodbye to the filly she raised. Crystal was forced to stare blankly through the window as her big sister walked the whole two acres. She didn’t even look back.
When Sterile walked into the room, Crystal saw that one of her eyes were blackened. She hurt Mom? she thought, staring in disbelief. Sterile sat on her bed and wrapped a hoof around her back. She hurt God. She touched it, just like as the book described it, and then cried into her chest.
“Cross won’t be living with us anymore,” Sterile said rubbing her daughter’s back. She ended up reading Starters of Fire to her, and also kissed Crystal’s forehead for the first time. But neither stopped Crystal from crying herself to sleep that night.
Life went on without her, month after month went by. Crystal turned six without her, started her second year of school without her, and finished memorizing every bone, muscle, organ and difference in each of the three races without her.
The hardest thing she had to do without her was cooking. Crystal could boil water and make cereal, but when it came to making sandwiches, picking the right ingredients, even finding good recipes, she was at a loss. Sterile told her to keep Cross’s disappearance a secret so she couldn’t even ask anyone for help. It surprised her to see no one call the police when they saw a six year old filly shopping for things other than candy.
Four months in her her second school and about six months after Cross disappeared, Crystal spotted something giant and white walk up her half a mile long drive way. It had been the first day in over a month that her mother took off, and she read in the tallest branch of the family tree, her tree so she could have some peace while making lunch. When she took a closer look, something closed her throat. Walking up the street was none other than Princess Celestia.