Fluttershy had barely finished mumbling something about Pinkie being at the Canterlot hospital and Ember leaped off the cloud like a panther. I would have asked her about what exactly was going on, but if I materialized in front of her she would probably just faint, so I went after him.
I had never seen him fly that fast, even I was having trouble keeping up. We could see the Canterlot Castle so we wouldn’t get lost, but still, it could be seen from miles away, and any pegasus would take about two hours to get there. The night was already falling, and Ember’s wings looked like two meteors crossing the sky.
Half an hour later we were right above the city, looking around frantically for the right place. Ember spotted a tall white building with a large red cross on top of the roof. It was a landing pad for emergencies, when patients needed to be carried by pegasi.
Without thinking twice, Ember charged towards it as fast as he could. It must have been quite a hellish sight for the few ponies that were around when he landed; an enraged “alicorn”, with bright burning wings, patches of burned skin and fur all over his back and an enraged look that could stare a wall into submission.
As he tried to get into the hospital, one of the ponies snapped out of the shock and tried to block his way, being quickly joined by the others.
Ember stopped walking and flexed his hind legs, preparing to charge headfirst onto them, but before he could actually do it, a bright light flashed around him, and he fell down to the ground.
--//--
The ponies on the roof tried to stop me from breaking into the place. There were five of them, and I could have probably flown right over them. in hindsight, I could just probably explain the entire situation to them, and they would probably just let me in. But I wasn’t thinking at the time. If anypony had harmed Pinkie, I would break all his bones then feed him to a manticore.
But just as I prepared to charge, a flash of light surrounded me, and pain shot through my entire body. I felt all my strength leaving me, and I just dropped to the ground. Before fainting, the last thing I saw were the ponies bowing down, and a voice I didn’t recognize at the time, speaking to them.
“Don’t worry, he’s with me, I’ll take care of him.”
--//--
As I woke up startled, I lost my balance and fell right on my back. The fall was agonizing and every move I made to get back up felt like a dozen knives slashing at my back. I screamed in pain, and a purple aura surrounded my body, and slowly an unknown force put me back up.
“Sorry! I thought it would be a good idea to lay you down on that bench. One of the doctors bandaged you up but some of the burns were pretty bad so I think you should stay off your back for a few weeks.”
I slowly regained my balance, and looked up to whoever was talking to me.
“Princess Twilight? Where am I? What are you doing here?” I didn’t bow down but she didn’t seem to mind.
“We’re at the hospital, and this is a waiting room. I believe I’m here for the same reason as you are. Didn’t Fluttershy tell you what happened?”
I looked around the sterile white room with a few benches on it, slowly trying to remember what exactly was happening before I fainted.
“Pinkie! Is she alright? What happened to her? What about the foal?” I asked, shouting without even noticing.
“Calm down, Pinkie’s fine, I promise you. But, there’s only one problem…” She rubbed her hooves uneasily.
“Just tell me already! What’s wrong!?”
She took a deep breath and sighed, looking at me with concern.
“I don’t really know the details Ember. Pinkie had an accident, from what the cakes told me she fell down a flight of stairs at Sugarcube Corner. Luckily Rarity was there with her, so she called me. I teleported them here, and the doctors had to perform an emergency procedure. The foal was born, but almost two months too early. I’m sorry Ember.” She tried to keep her composure, but seemed on the verge of tears.
I barely managed to sit down without falling to the ground again. I just stood there, staring at the ceiling.
“What happens now?”
“I don’t know. The doctors told me she has less than 30% chance to survive.”
She. My own daughter. There could be no worse way to find out your child’s gender.
“I want to see her.”
--//--
It was already three in the morning, so it was already long past visiting time, but the Princess was with me so the doctors had no choice but to allow me in.
The room was filled with incubators, but most of them were empty. I walked through every one of them, while Quill followed me in silence. In the left side of the room, right next to the wall, was a tiny mare with her eyes closed, not bigger than a doll, with a white coat, a bright pink mane;
and a pair of little white wings.
I looked at her; she was so fragile, breathing with difficulty through a tube, and with a needle stuck in her leg. I wanted to touch her, but she looked like she could break if I weren’t careful.
I left the room. My eyes were moist as I walked back into the same waiting room, where the Princess was. I sat beside her in silence. We stood there for about half an hour, before I broke the silence.
“Why can’t you do something about this?”
“What do you mean?” She looked at me confused.
“You know exactly what I mean.” I turned and looked towards her “You’re a goddess, you move the damn Sun for buck’s sake! Why can’t you just heal our daughter?! Isn’t she your friend?”
She sighed and stood there in silence. Before I decided to ask again, she got up and her horn flashed. The whole room was enveloped in light, and runes covered the walls. When the glow stopped, only the runes remained. I looked at her confused.
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to hurt you. I sealed this entire room so nopony can hear us or enter as long as I want.”
“Why did you do that for? What are you going to do?”
“I want you to know something Ember. Pinkie is one of my best friends. I owe my life to her, just as much as I do to all of them. Me and the rest of Equestria. But as much as it pains me to know what is going to happen, I can’t help you. Because I am not a goddess. Nor is Luna or was Celestia.”
“What do you mean? You can control the Sun, and you govern the entire land, how is that possible?”
“This is why I put up the barrier. This is the first time I am going to tell this to anypony, and it must not leave this room, or it could undermine the authority of all the alicorns that ever govern this land. I will trust you because Pinkie trusted you. And Quill, I know you’re there. Starswirl told me about you. You can stay too.”
She sat down and I did the same, facing her, while Quill floated around in silence.
“Alicorns aren’t gods. A long time ago, before the great dragon wars, before Equestria even existed, there was only one living creature. Eventually it gave itself the name of Solaris, and it was the creator of the Sun, the Moon and all the living things. I met him once, and he told me the entire story of creation, of how the world was made until Celestia and Luna, who were the first ponies to walk the land and that created all others. But he was the one true god, and the only one that existed.
“So you can speak to him? Why doesn’t anypony else know about him?”
“That is because he no longer exists in this plane. He dispersed his own consciousness over the world, creating the laws that bind everything together, from gravity to the very base of every living being. He isn’t dead, but he is also not alive.”
“So in the end it is all up to us.”
“In fact it is, but that’s what good friends are for.”
This time Quill was the one to ask.
“But there’s one thing I don’t understand. How did you become an alicorn? As far as I know you used to be Celestia’s pupil, and you were just a normal unicorn.”
“That’s because before she died, she gave me her powers and her very essence. According to what she had told me, this is the way that she and her sister found to choose the successor for the throne. Apparently, only alicorns can do that” She looked out of the window with a worried look on her face “I’m sorry for this Ember, but it is almost time for me to raise the Sun. I need to go, but I need you to promise me that you will never tell anypony what you heard here.”
“I promise.” I said without much enthusiasm. The princess then, teleported away from the room without another word. The runes on the walls slowly faded away.
Suddenly, I had an idea. Maybe, just maybe, I could save her. But I needed to sleep first. I needed all the energy I could get, so I laid down on the bench. I was exhausted, and as soon as I put my head down, everything blacked out.
--//--
A few hours later, a pony entered the waiting room with a small cart full of cleaning materials, forcing me out of sleep. I rubbed my eyes and looked around. I left the room in silence and Quill followed right after.
I walked towards the room with the incubators again. This time, I made sure that nopony had spotted me walking in. it wasn’t hard, it was just a hospital, not a bank. And once again I found my daughter. She was in the same exact position than she was the previous day, only her breathing had become even weaker.
Quill seemed to know exactly what I was about to do.
“Are you really going to do this? Don’t you think you might be pushing your luck a tad bit?” He said sternly.
“I don’t know. But I have to try it. Celestia did it, and it worked. And technically, I am an alicorn. I just can’t stand knowing that this is the only thing I can possibly do, and not do it.”
“What if it doesn’t work? What if you die? I know you don’t want Pinkie to suffer.”
“That’s right, I don’t. But even if it doesn’t work, she’ll know that I tried. This is my redemption Quill. I’ve done bad things. If I die now, I deserved it. But she doesn’t deserve this. She deserves to live.”
Quill moved back in silence. He knew there was no way to talk me out of this.
I took a deep breath and concentrated. I didn’t know exactly what to do so I just went with the flow of things. I was going to give all of my energy, my lifeforce, my essence as Twilight put it. I focused all of it in the pony in front of me. My daughter. I was going to save her.
Then I felt pain. I couldn’t expect anything else. I was forcing all that kept me alive into somepony else’s body. I just hoped she would resist it. My legs were shaky, and I fell down to the ground midway through, but I didn’t stop.
In the end, I fell down completely, felling the world cool down around me as everything went black. But the last thing I heard was a deep breath, and the sound of a foal crying.
I did it.