A long dark sleep was broken as white light slowly became brighter and brighter. The light was joined by a steady beeping and a dull echo of fading pain in her lungs and windpipe. Eventually, Prism groaned and rubbed her eyes before cracking them open.
She was resting on her back on a medical bed with an IV drip in her left foreleg. She felt stiff all over and let out a groggy moan. “Gah, anyone catch the number of that pain train?”
She felt chilly in the hospital air, even bundled up in her blanket. She looked around to find that she was in the isolated quarantine area of Seed One’s sickbay. She briefly noticed a trio of pictures detailing her lungs and throat hanging on the wall to her left. Their presence brought back memories of her ordeal with the giant wasp. She idly rubbed her throat, yet something felt off about how breathing felt. I know I was choking on some local air, but I hope this weird feeling doesn’t last long.
Through the glass, Prism saw about a dozen or so other ponies around who looked to be in dire shape. Many had casts, bandages, or other physical injuries. The stallion in the bed nearest to her was being suspended in midair by a pair of arcane levitators to ensure his body covering injuries had no pressure on them. Prism’s hackles rose sharply at the severity of his body encompassing wounds, and made her shiver at the sight of it. It was only then that Prism noticed her mother, Twilight Sparkle, was slowly pacing around the room, where she was currently facing the bed furthest from Prism.
~“Ah, judging by your brain waves, you must be awake,”~ said a voice directly behind her bed. Prism turned to find it was just a wall mounted speaker. The tell-tale clip clop of hooves on hard tile floors made her turn back to see a unicorn stallion doctor with a breath mask pass through the somewhat sticky isolation energy shield between her and the outside. However her mother was quick to take notice and teleported straight to her daughter’s side.
“Prism!” Twilight quickly squeezed her daughter in a crushing motherly hug. “How’s my baby filly?” Twilight separated from a flummoxed Prism to look her over. “Are you breathing okay?”
Prism flashed a brilliant smile and nodded. “I’m okay.” Prism gave herself a once over. “I don’t have as many broken bones or cuts that I thought I would have.”
“That’s because you’ve been out of it for quite some time,” Doctor Sawbones announced as he made his way into the isolation chamber. He gave Twilight the kind of exasperated stare that only a physician could get away with doing towards a sovereign. “Princess, I am obligated to remind you that Miss Flash is still under quarantine,” he grumbled from behind his face mask.
“You know as well as I do that she’s been cleared of any foreign microbes for a week, Doctor.” Twilight countered without looking away from Prism. “Keeping her here was just a formality.”
Nothing worse than an alicorn momma bear, Sawbones mused darkly before giving up on trying to reign Twilight in. “As you say, Colonial Princess.”
Without wasting any more time, Sawbones cantered up to Prism while holding a small innocuous medical scanner aloft in his magic. “If you please, your highness.”
“Oh. Of course, certainly, doctor.” Twilight backed away to allow Sawbones free access to Prism. He walked up to her and started scanning Prism’s chest with both his magic and the medical tool that was cold against her fur. The lapse in lavishing maternal concern towards her bedridden daughter gave Twilight a chance to compose herself. “Sorry, honey. You’ve been unconscious for a month, so the doctor-”
“A month?!” Prism almost yelled throwing herself into a sitting position, cutting Twilight off, but her stiff muscles decided now was the perfect time to start cramping up. She fell to her back. “Ow, ow, ow!” Twilight had to literally bite her tongue to keep from brushing Sawbones aside and hugging Prism to comfort her. Not that she had to try very long when Prism stopped yelling. “I figured I was here for a while, but a full-fledged coma?”
Twilight walked to the other side of Prism’s bed to allow Sawbones to continue his work. “Yes, a month. I personally removed the last of your casts three days ago.”
Twilight knew a stab at humor could calm Prism down. “At the very least, your long sleep saved you from repeating your last medical fiasco when you broke a wing and kept trying to fly.”
Prism fixed her mother with a stern yet harmless glare. “I know when you’re trying to distract me, and it won’t work. Why would some lung damage put me in a coma for a month?” Prism wiggled her wing tips and back legs as a test to make sure she wasn’t paralyzed. “Did I get some brain damage, the infection went poorly, or something?”
Twilight clammed up for a moment before smoothly answering, “No, you’re brain waves and CT scans all come up green. However, as I’m sure you’re well aware of, the extent of your injuries were not just physical trauma. You were asleep during an aggressive antibiotics treatment as well.”
Prism narrowed her gaze at both doctor and mother. “Is there a reason you keep saying sleep instead of coma?”
“That question should be directed at me,” Sawbones commented with renewed good humor. “But first I’d appreciate some deep breaths.”
Prism squirmed a little at the cold instrument Sawbones was pressing against her ribs upper ribs and throat. “Uh, sure.”
As she took a series of breaths, the doctor listened to his magic and instrument in silence, only giving short requests to her. Prism’s mounting impatience for answers would have been voiced were it not for something that felt off each time she took a breath. Is that some lingering damage from what the atmosphere did to me? I must have been more messed up than I thought. As her mind started churning through her observations, Prism couldn’t stand the silence another minute. “So what went weird? You didn’t need to flash-clone me for a new set of lungs did you?”
Both Sawbones and Twilight groaned at the poor reference to one of the more popular fictional hospital shows back on Equiss. “Right along with a new funny bone,” Twilight replied mockingly, glad that Prism was taking things moderately well.
“Thankfully no,” Sawbones chuckled. “There was some scar tissue that needed cleaning up, but you should be up and about shortly enough, provided if my checks reveal a clean bill of health.”
Prism’s mood soured a little at how evasive both her mother and physician were being. Okay, it didn’t help I mentioned P.A.S.H. “That’s not an answer, doc.” She growled angrily. “I should have been out of it for a few days at worst.” She briefly turned to her mother, “flying fiasco or not. So spill it!”
Sawbones was caught off guard by the shift to hostility and tried to have a placating tone of voice. “No, you’re right, it shouldn’t have.” Prism’s ire faltered as Sawbones summoned a holographic display of Prism’s body in front of her. “While the hostile atmosphere caused serious damage to your respiratory system, with some additional complications from an infection, it was the green pool you fell into that should have claimed your life.”
Prism’s various injuries where the green ooze had made contact to open cuts revealed a rapid series of growths that sprang up and died just as quickly. “I can only surmise, Miss Flash, that the pools act as an extremely potent mutagen. One that seems to treat normal pony magic as a catalyst.”
“Are… were those tumors?” Prism asked with mounting fear. She started subconsciously rubbing one of the biggest gashes she remembered the wasp had inflicted on her right foreleg.
“It was frightening to watch,” Twilight commented with a shudder. “However we think they were mutations and not simply cancers.” That got an even more alarmed and questioning look out of Prism towards Twilight, yet the alicorn continued unfazed. “Luckily for you,” and my sanity, “your body is already used to channeling alicorn magic. While the mutagenic agent fed on your pegasus magic, I was able to supplement your natural, if very limited, alicorn magic, enabling your body to fight back and destroy the… growths almost as fast as they appeared.”
“Quite so,” Sawbones added with a measured level of clinical concern if only to maintain a level of professionalism. “It was my call to keep you sedated since they would have most likely caused you horrendous pain. The growths, as her highness put it, stopped roughly a week ago, but this,” he said while having the hologram highlight Prism’s windpipe, “is why I’ve kept you sedated until today.”
The hologram revealed a series of shallow grooves with dozens of tiny channels leading from the windpipe into the esophagus. In addition, a mesh of mana channels now blanketed the exterior of those grooves. “What you have here, is an incredibly powerful filter that mimics the same respiratory structures we’ve seen in every small animal on this planet to date, yet strangely adapted to use your innate magic whereas the locals do not.”
“Are you guys being serious right now?”
“Believe me,” Twilight responded with mild yet still lingering shock, “that pool ranks fairly high on the weird things I’ve seen back on Equuis.”
“Let us hope it doesn’t become par for the course,” Sawbones added to weigh in his calming bedside manner. “The only reason we consider that pool a mutagen instead of a carcinogenic is that also developed alongside the other growths.”
Things were happening a little too fast for Prism’s still wakening brain to comprehend it all. She rubbed her scalp trying to stave off a headache, and failing. “So let me get this straight. That green muck just decided to slap a new alien throat on me because… what? It was the planet’s way of saying ‘welcome ponies, have a new body part on the house?’ This is all some big joke to see if I got brain damage right?” Prism started rubbing her neck, trying and failing to isolate that ‘off’ feeling.
“While I don’t know about it being a welcoming gift,” Twilight replied with a touch of dark humor in her tone, “I can say this is very real.” She waved at the hologram to make it zoom in on the filter. “This didn’t manifest perfectly in one fell swoop though. If anything, it looked like you underwent countless generations of evolution within the span of these three weeks.
“This filter developed a little bit correctly before it seemingly started to deviate from a useful pattern. Oddly enough, it was only during those deviations that your augmented alicorn magic stepped in to destroy the harmful misgrowth. However, unlike the mutations on the rest of your body, your alicorn magic allowed this evolution to complete.”
Sawbones marveled at how fully functional Prism’s readings were shaping up. “Alicorn magic acts subconsciously in many ways, most we still don’t know about thanks to there being so few of you,” he lamented at such a scientific blindspot. “Nevertheless, I hypothesised, correctly as it turns out, that your distress at wanting to breath is what prompted your magic to allow the mutagenic compound to build the filter while the magic acted to prune the harmful deviations.”
Prism let it all sink in as she studied the hologram of her. Part of her wanted to get rid of it, yet that voice didn’t gain much traction when an idea came to her. A crazy, yet exciting thought that she latched onto as a ghost of a smile starting to worm its way on her muzzle. “So… What? I can breath outside now? Like actually go outside with no gas mask or anything?”
Even though Twilight half expected Prism to ask this, she still looked warily at her daughter. Sawbones couldn’t bring himself to say no without lying. “Theoretically, maybe. We haven’t exactly been too keen on testing that capability.”
“Well now we can!” Prism instantly thought back to her time flying free in the skies of Equuis with only the need of thermal clothing. “Look, I know we haven’t been on this planet for long. But we’re sitting on a gold mine! I bet everypony would pay to be able to breath outside air.”
Twilight staunchly shook her head. “That rides some ethical boundaries I wasn’t expecting to see for at least a few years. I’m not against finding ways to make life easier here at the cost of pruning away some detrimental traditions and schools of thought, but we better take anything like this slowly. Not to mention we haven’t even come close to isolating all the variables that produced these results in you in the first place. So no, we’re not risking the chance to replicate this mutation for anypony, let alone everypony.”
Prism wilted a little while Sawbones nodded in agreement. “As for you personally, I want you to hold off trying to breathe outside for now, give yourself time to finish recuperating before taking the plunge, as it were.”
“And before you ask,” Twilight said quickly before Prism could open her mouth. “If, and I mean as a big if, you can breathe normally outside, then I will greenlight research into making this publically available.”
“Fine by me,” Prism said with a toothy grin. “You gotta admit we’ll all be better off if we can.”
“Hmm, yes, well, that still leaves bacteria as an issue,” Twilight countered cautiously. “You’ve been under an intensive series of antibiotics since you arrived, and we currently don’t have the facilities to reproduce such medications just yet.”
Prism was too caught up in the prospect of just trying to breath outside to let the warnings impede her good mood. “Sounds good. “Now if you’ll excuse me doc,” Prism lifted her foreleg to bite and pull the IV drip out when Sawbones stepped up to stop her.
“That’s currently out of the question. You need at least four days further convalescence before I can declare you fit for service.”
“What!? Ah come on, doc, I feel fine!” Prism gave her mother a silent, desperate plea, yet all Twilight did was shake her head.
“You should feel lucky, Primmy, back when I was young, you would have had to spend quite a bit of time on physical therapy alone. You young whippersnappers should feel privileged you only need a few days.” Prism gave her mother a flat look of steaming irritation. Twilight acted as if she didn’t notice. “Besides, I want to make sure this… mutation of yours doesn’t cause either you or anypony else any complications.
“If it proves to be nothing more than an air filter, then all is well, but if by some chance it has some hidden function we couldn’t detect while you were unconscious, I want to minimize the chance you'll be too far away to receive medical aid.” Or anypony you might inadvertently effect.
That shut down Prism’s protests, making her absently rub her throat. “Can I at least go fishing at the beach? See if there’s anything edible out there? It’s not too far away.”
“We didn’t pack any fishing poles, only repurposed nets and traps originally designed for catching scientific specimens.” Twilight replied with a sad shake of her head. She quickly picked up on Prism’s sinking spirits. “Maybe it wasn’t the brightest idea to assume nothing here would be edible in hindsight.” Twilight silently cursed the planners back on Equuis for that little nugget of wisdom. I could only fight so many battles, and poles aren’t that complicated to construct anyway. Brushing off her loathing for ponies who were probably long dead, Twilight fixed her daughter with a thin smile. “But I’m sure we can think of something for you to do around camp.”
Prism was ready to take any lifeline she could get and nodded briskly. Twilight gave a sidelong glance at Sawbones who was grinding his teeth trying to think of the best solution. “I suppose if you acquiesce to a more in-depth bio-scanner in your suit, it should be acceptable. I need at least two weeks’ worth of data to make sure there isn’t some dormant aspect to this mutation. I’m not willing to take any chances here.”
Twilight moved to help get Prism out of bed, while Sawbones initially turned to leave, only to snap back around. “And no trying to breath the outside air,” he commanded sternly. At the back of his mind, Prism’s file told him he could never stop her for long. “At least not until this trial period is over.”
Prism had her head go limp backwards and groaned in exasperation. “Fiiine, probably smells like moldy old socks anyway.” Twilight suppressed a chuckle as she telekinetically removed the IV drip and placed a small bandage over the wound.
Giving brief thanks, Prism jumped to the floor, only to nearly fall on her face at how weak her legs were. Twilight saved Prism from a faceplant with a little telekinetic assistance. “How about we take it easy for today, Little Wing? Just you and me for a while?”
Prism grumbled silently at the old pet name, but hid it well. Given how shaky she was on her hooves and that her wing felt as stiff as an over starched shirt, she didn’t put up a fight. “That does sound kinda nice actually.”
“Great,” Twilight replied with good cheer. “That will give us time to catch up and show you how the colony’s coming along.”
That perked Prism up with her giving Twilight an excited smile. “It would be nice to sleep on a real bed again…” She glanced wearily at the hospital beds in the room and the series of wounded soldiers. “Well, a bed that doesn’t remind me of this place.”
Twilight’s good humor died away at the reminder of the most recent debacle. Sawbones saw it as an excuse to return to his duties and excused himself after saying, “Well then, I suppose you’re free to go. No need for decon this time, and I’ll have the bio-scanner prepared and delivered to your quarters by this evening.”
Twilight watched him leave with a concerned frown, giving Prism time to get a little more steady on her hooves. “You ready to go?” Twilight asked at length while resurrecting her thin smile.
“Yeah. I’ll follow your lead.” Prism was painfully sluggish on her legs, but her wings were in equally bad shape and she was loath to let Twilight carry her. “I do get my own separate home right?” The question came as a welcome distraction from the injured as the pair walked through sickbay to the exit.
“In a way,” Twilight answered evasively. “I have to hoof it to Praxia,” Twilight said as she stepped out of sickbay and into the pristine hallway of the second ring. There were only a few ponies going to and fro. “She’s the most efficient worksite administrator I’ve seen for two centuries. Praxia’s been instrumental in getting the colony fully unpacked while you were laying about.”
Now that she was getting the blood flowing in her legs, Prism was feeling more confidant in her gait. “What’s the deal with the soldiers back there?”
Twilight’s feelings wrestled between despondent over the soldiers’ sacrifice, and in keeping a strong face. “We ponies had our entire history to learn and adapt to the dangers of Equuis. Here, we have to start all over again.”
“Translation: more giant aliens?” Prism deadpanned.
Twilight gave a decidedly unamused huff, as the pair reached a receiving room. “I don’t believe so, but we’re not entirely sure of that, and that’s what worries me.”
The receiving room they walked into what used to be a cargo bay that had stretched from the inner to the outer section of the second ring from the ground. New walls had been erected to narrow it down a little, yet the presence of a massive ramp leading away from the ship was the biggest addition. Prism missed the other minor changes as she tried to glean anything out of Twilight’s regal mask.
“Well there were obviously some survivors. What did they see?”
“It’s a short tale, so I might as well start at the beginning. Your comrade, Pathfinder Ruby Quartz, came across a very strange anomaly during her search for a thorium pod.” The pair started walking down the long thin tube ramp.
Prism idly noticed the walls and ceiling had the tell tale imperfections of hastily printed glass. Glad it’s functional, even if it looks ugly.
Twilight’s horn lit up and projected a hologram, small enough so it wouldn’t interfere with other passing ponies.
Thanks to her headset’s computer guiding her magic, Twilight was able to perfectly replicate the video recording. Ruby’s rover was in the middle of a red grassland with Ruby herself standing in front and directing the rover’s camera with a hoof. In the distance was a whole landscape, easily several miles in diameter, full of stone pillars with several easily being three stories tall.
Each of the stone pillars were vibrating, noticeable even from Ruby’s distance. The camera focused on the center where two smaller stone towers circled around a much larger pillar. Each of them were digging nearly straight grooves away from the rover, scaring the land all the way up to Ruby’s position.
Prism would have plastered her muzzle against the hologram had it been corporeal in an attempt to get a closer look. “Holy moly, what the heck are those?”
“The boys in blue coined the term Ruby’s Towers,” Twilight commented while canceling the hologram. “Between the stones vibrating, and the towers themselves, we’re not sure what’s causing this phenomena, be it geological or otherwise.”
Prism inwardly kicked herself for getting injured and not being out there. Damn it all, I can just see her smug face. I should be out there getting my name on crazy stuff like that too. Twilight remained silent for a time, wanting to see what her daughter would make of it all.
They made it halfway down the ramp, giving Twilight a good view of the group of prefabricated dormitories that used to be all but the bottom two rings of Seed One. Built upon solid rock and clay ground, the four rows of dormitories radiated out like a wave away from the central plaza where the ramp met the ground. Mother and daughter idly gave passing greetings to the increasing density of ponies.
“Wait a second,” Prism said as they reached the plaza. “How rare are these stone towers?” Prism asked, intentionally avoiding her rival’s name. “Because I never saw anything like them.”
“Thus far, this is the only instance we’ve seen as well,” Twilight commented with a nod.
“Do you think there might be some alien metal reacting a little too strongly to the planet’s magnetism? Those pillars might be full of metals or some other useful elements.”
“I came to the same conclusion, and the tectonic scanner on Ruby’s rover revealed numerous useful metals and rare earths I thought we’d need a mine to acquire. Sadly, those wounded soldiers in sickbay show how well that went.” Twilight left it at that.
“So you sent them to prospect the towers… So let me guess. One of the big towers fell on them?”
Twilight and Prism sat down in the rover, with Twilight signalling the driver to take them away. “You’re close enough, they figured they could treat the pillar like a lumberjack so they could break it apart at our leisure.” Twilight paused a moment. “Next time I’ll have to send out trained foresters instead. In any case, Spike was none too pleased about more wounded soldiers, what with the natives continuing to probe our defenses. As such, we’re having Ruby take a more careful approach in her investigation on the exploitability of the towers until we can afford to send a geological and mining team out there. Dangerous or not, we need access to those resources.”
Prism wasn’t able to enjoy the ride after hearing the news. Ruuuuby! I swear, I’m never going to hear the end of this when she gets back.
Wanting to get her mind off of Ruby before she exploded, Prism changed the subject. “Where’s Praxia, anyway?”
“Right there.” Twilight pointed at their destination, which was a receiving lobby for their row of dormitories. Praxia was propped up on the glass and waving at them.
As soon as the rover docked with the lobby and the doors opened, Praxia practically zipped over to Prism’s side with a massive grin and roped her into a hug. “You finally woke up! How’s your throat? It didn’t change your voice did it?” Praxia’s recently regrown wings were buzzing madly.
“Ahhh,” Prism was at a loss at Praxia being so eager. “No pony’s said anything about my voice, so I guess it’s the same.”
“Great!” Praxia giggled manically. “Princess, do you want me to show her around the dorm?”
Prism gave her mother a highly confused look, to which Twilight only gave a warm smile to both young mares. “I made sure to clear my schedule for the next hour. I have plenty of time to see Prism settle in.”
“Awesome Wassup possium! I have something that might cheer you up in my quarters, Prizzy, lemme go get it!” Praxia bolted away like greased lightning unintentionally scattering a few ponies along the way thanks to the unfamiliar sound of her buzzing wings in flight.
Prism was speechless, and silently blinked a few times in bewilderment at the fleeing bug pony. She eventually turned towards Twilight who was laughing behind a raised wing. “What in blazes was that about? Does Praxia have a twin sister I didn’t know about?”
“No, that’s the real professionalist Praxia we all know and love. Buuut… One of the resource pods Pathfinder Firefly discovered was chock full of snacks, treats, and recipes for even copyrighted junk food.
“Sent over for morale purposes, of course. At any rate, Praxia was feeling really depressed after you came back to us in such bad shape that I made sure she got a few boxes of chocolate bars from the pod.”
Twilight couldn’t stop snickering behind her wing at the memory she was trying to relay. “Well, apparently it’s been so long since Praxia had chocolate that she forgot how loopy it makes her.”
“Are you telling me, Miss Super Serious gets high off of chocolate?”
Twilight nodded in response, “yup. I guess you were too young to remember that.”
Prism started cackling in manic laughter to the point where she fell down laughing. Unfortunately she landed wrong on her bad wing, making her alternate between laughing and crying out in minor pain.
“I must say I wish there would have been more opportunities to gift chocolate to her in the past.”
Prism used her other wing tip to wipe a tear from her eyes, yet an idea came to her, snapping her crippling humor away. “Say, do you remember that first resource pod I found, the one with all the seeds?”
Twilight was puzzled by the source of that question as Prism stood back up. “Umm, yes, I remember that. Spike had it hauled in shortly after the thorium reactor was brought back up to full power. Why?”
“There wouldn’t happen to be any cocoa seeds in that pod would there?” Prism asked with a wishful spreading grin.
“There might be,” Twilight conceded, trying to reign in her enthusiasm before it got too high. “The agricultural teams catalogued everything, but even if the pod had the beans, we are in no shape to make use of them. Our greenhouses are still under construction and we simply can’t afford the time and space for what really amounts to a luxury at this point.”
“Couldn’t hurt to at least check.” Prism fussed while watching Twilight start to walk deeper into the building.
“You can do that yourself later,” Twilight called over her shoulder, prompting Prism to follow. “The findings in the pods are all public record.”
Fortunately for both of them, Prism’s quarters was nearby, along with Praxia and Twilight’s own dormitories as well. The dorms themselves were only one story tall, and judging by the narrow exterior, Prism assumed it was going to be a cramped affair. The forward exterior of the dorm was plain plastic, with only a single door and no windows. Each owner’s name was stenciled over the doorway along with a copy of the pony’s cutie mark on the left side of the door.
In Praxia’s case, there was no cutie mark. Praxia’s door was ajar and Twilight could hear the excited changeling jabbering to herself as she noisily searched her room. With Twilight’s quarters being the first, and closest to the colony ship, Prism was immediately to the left with Praxia beyond that. “Weird, I thought you’d get some kind of royal suite or something.”
Twilight couldn’t help but to wish she had. Centuries of living in a spacious palace had grown deeply on her, and Prism’s observation wasn’t helping her bout of homesickness. While she had been distracting herself with work, the very fact she’d remain in a suit or indoors for years if not decades started to weigh upon her. “Yes well… I’d have never forgiven myself for having a fully fledged prefab house sent just for me when space was already at such a drastic premium.”
Twilight deftly opened Prism’s door with a bit of magic at her horn-circlet. She smiled more for herself than for her daughter. “It’s only temporary, thankfully. Once we have the rest of the vital infrastructure in place we can start building larger, more proper homes.”
Prism paid attention while surveying her new home, if it could really be called that. There was little more than a single wall mounted bed, a small closet, a desk/chair combo, a single video screen and one window that gave Prism a spectacular view… of the domiciles ten meters away. After bounding over to the window, her heart sank a bit at barely being able to see open sky thanks to the angle of the outer protective glass causing a partial mirroring effect. Bummer view.
Twilight allowed the conversation to lapse for a short bit as Prism got acquainted with her new surroundings. “Which brings me to my next point.” Prism snapped away from the window and towards her mother by the door.
Yet before Twilight could continue, she was interrupted by a few work managers on her personal display. She gestured for Prism to wait as she quickly addressed matters of state. It wasn’t too long before Praxia almost jumped through the door, still riding high on her chocolate rush. Yet even in such a state, she quickly caught on that Twilight was talking to others, and slinked past her to approach Prism.
“Hey, Prissy, lookie this!” Praxia whispered excitedly while presenting a highly amused Prism a box.
She hasn’t said that nickname since we were kids. I like Chocolate Praxia. Refocusing on the hoof-sized cardboard box, Prism took it and pried it open. Within was a can of bug repellent and a cream vapor rub for sore throats. With one ear flopped over, Prism fixed Praxia with a supreme glower of condemnation. Praxia was trying to hide her snickering and ducked behind the chair with her head propped up on the back rest. “So I heard you hurt your throat, and had a wasp problem, so you know… For next time.”
Trying to suppress her traitorous grin, Prism took the bug spray waved it at Praxia. “Maybe I should see if this stuff works on you.”
Praxia couldn’t stop her wings from buzzing in her efforts to not disturb Twilight’s call. “Sorry, but I don’t have chitin, so it won’t work on me,” she said while flaunting her fur covered forelegs and rubbing her coat. I think…
“Where was I?” Twilight announced as a way to get attention. Both pegasus and changeling abandoned their conversation to focus on Twilight. “Ah good, you’re here too, Praxia. Though this next matter won’t affect you for some time, I feel you should hear this before my daily address tomorrow.” She turned towards Prism. “While I doubt you’ll want to take part in this… initiative, since you are an adult, I feel it’s only right to give you the chance to participate.”
Prism noticed Praxia’s enthusiasm diminished sharply as the changeling started sitting in the chair more naturally. “In what exactly, mother?”
Twilight leveraged her centuries of rule to speak strongly. “Given the loss of life we’ve suffered in barely a month’s time, I feel we can’t truly wait for nature to takes it’s course. I’m starting a breeding incentive tomorrow.” Prism’s eyes dilated in surprise while Praxia seemed to shudder a bit as her happy grin started to fade to her more professional neutral expression. “Those families or single future mothers wishing to foal will be prioritized larger housing as it is built.”
It didn’t take Prism very long to think it over. “I’m all for doing my part to save the pony race, but I think I’ll leave the foaling to the people who stick around the colony. I need to get back out there and do my job.” Not to mention I’m in no possible way, ready to be a mom.
Twilight smiled with pride. “Very well. Once Sawbones gives you a clean bill of health, I’ll send you out first thing.”
The two ponies turned to Praxia who was rubbing her eyes and moaned in painful self-directed exasperation. “Why did I eat that stuff…”
Prism flashed her trademark sarcastic smirk. “Because it makes you actually sociable to others. Seriously, you’d have a lot more success if you took your Vitamin Cocoa.”
Praxia moved one hoof off of her eye to glare at Prism. “I suppose you think that was terribly clever.” Sadly for Praxia, a chocolate high didn’t have the same side effect of amnesia that alcohol had, only a mild headache as her brain recovered. “And here I was, going to give you these.” Praxia opened the plastic bag she had brought over and pulled out a box of oatmeal cream pies. “But I think I’ll just eat them myself now.”
Prism started drooling the instant her eyes fixated on the snacks. Ignoring Praxia’s last remark, she glomped the changeling in a crushing hug and planted a sisterly kiss on her. “You actually got those for me!? You’re the best bug in two whole worlds you know that?”
Praxia tried to at least act peeved, but the flow of love drowned it away. Twilight smiled at how honest her daughter cared for Praxia. As for Praxia, she relented and dropped the box of cream pies on the desk. “Given your last run in with the local insects, that’s not necessarily high praise.”
Twilight gave up trying to hold back any laughter and chuckled as Prism let go of Praxia. “So can I have the pies now? Pleeease!”
“Fine.” Praxia replied at length while nodding at the box. Prism promptly snatched it up in her mouth and ran out of the room to devour her prize with decidedly unlady-like gusto.
Praxia followed her to the door to make sure Prism was far enough away that she wouldn’t overhear her. Satisfied, Praxia turned to Twilight. “Sensei, what are we going to do about Prism’s… mutation? Being able to breath without the need for suits would go a long way.”
“It’s too early to make an informed decision on that.” Twilight teleported both herself and Praxia into her royal quarters, which granted her only a slightly better view than her daughter’s room. “I didn’t want Prism to think too much about this, but there were several mutations that sprang up in her brain.” Praxia gasped in surprised as Twilight continued. “Her own alicorn magic along with the infusions I provided her let her body fight off and revert the changes, but if her body allowed the filter in her throat, I worry about what it might have allowed in her brain, or if the growths might have indirectly caused damage.”
“S-she sounded and acted like her usual self,” Praxia offered hopefully. “How many people know about that?”
“Aside from Prism, Sawbones is the only one outside this room.” Twilight cast her gaze at a picture of her late husband, Prism, and herself hugging each other in their old living room. The seed of maternal worry burrowed into her. “If nothing comes of it, so much the better.”
“And if there was a change?”
Twilight had to summon every second of her four centuries of experience to appear as the ruler she was expected to be. She couldn’t shake the mental image of the giant wasps and wolf beetles threatening her soldiers. “Then I will do all in power to protect the colony, and my daughter.”