Two Weeks Later (Week 20)-

“I still think it’s an even split,” said Cadance. “Two boys, two girls.”

Gleaming shook her head. “It’s just not that likely. Three girls, one boy.”

The ultrasound room hadn’t changed since Gleaming’s session three months ago. Same sterile white walls, same unnaturally-bright lights with nasty glare, same unnerving pictures of mare and fetal anatomy. Gleaming was lying on her side upon the bed, and Cadance was sitting on a stool with wheels while idly scooting around the room.

“It’s plenty likely!” Cadance had been spending the majority of the time either fiddling with her mane, messing with her regalia, or playing with various things in the room. “Call it a mare’s intuition.”

Gleaming raised an eyebrow.

Cadance giggled. “Guess that one doesn’t work so well right now. But still!”

Gleaming ran her hoof along the edge of her lady bits. Even though she hadn’t had a sheath down there for five months, it still felt weird to her. “I’m still gonna stick with the odds.”

Cadance blew a raspberry at her. “What about species, then? We haven’t talked about that much. Think one of them could be an alicorn?”

Gleaming chewed on her lip. She looked down at her hefty belly, which’d been growing over half a centimeter a day. She’d been gaining about half a pound along with it, and the result was she looked damn near full term already.

“We might?” she said slowly. “I don’t know the odds there. Not even Twily seemed to.”

Cadance came over to rub Gleaming’s side. “Have you felt anything at all? Any particularly strong kicks? Prodding too small to be a hoof?”

Gleaming thought a moment. “Prods, pokes, flutterings, I’ve felt all those things. But unicorn horns don’t get hard until a few weeks after birth, and I’ve no idea what wings feel like. About all I can tell is when they’re awake.”

Cadance leaned down to plant a kiss on Gleaming’s tummy. “And they do like to be awake.”

Sleeping had been proved to be a bit of a challenge. It seemed like at least one of them liked to squirm around at all times, particularly when Gleaming laid down at night. It’d gotten so bad that Cadance had had to start using love magic in order to pacify them.

Gleaming stifled a yawn and rubbed her eyes. “Eh, I’m getting used to it.”

Knock, knock, knock.

“Come in!” Cadance called.

Two ponies came inside. The first was Doctor Endo—Gleaming and Cadance’s primary doctor and obstetrician. He smiled warmly as he entered.

“Good afternoon, Majesties,” he said. “How’s everything going?”

The second however, was a stranger. An old, old unicorn, short and thin, with a snow-white mane in a bun and a pale blue coat. Her cutie mark was a staff with a white snake wrapped around it, and her wrinkled face looked like it had been chiseled out of stone.

The newcomer’s expression was impassive as she bowed to Cadance. But as soon as she saw Gleaming in all her pregnant glory, her watery eyes lit up bright.

“Ho, you’re a big one!” she said in a dry, deep alto. “And here I thought Endo was exaggerating like always. You got knocked up real good there, didn’t ya?”

Gleaming blinked several times. “Come again?”

“Heh, lemme get a good look’atcha.” She pulled out a pair of half-moon spectacles and limped over with a slow gait. “How’ve ya been feelin’ so far? Tired? Woozy? Chest feel tight ever? Light-headed at all? I’ll bet you haven’t gotten much sleep with all them kids kickin’ ya.”

Gleaming noticed that Endo was trying not to laugh. Cadance seemed just confused as she was… until she saw the old mare’s cutie mark.

“Your Highnesses,” said Endo. “You recall our discussion about bringing in a specialist from Canterlot? Allow me to introduce my former mentor, Doctor Natal. She’s the most knowledgeable scientist alive in pony gestation and genetics.”

“Most call me Talia.” She pulled a stethoscope out from her bags and listened to Gleaming’s chest. “And I’m retired, Endo. Only reason I’m here is because you put such a tantalizin’ carrot in front of my nose. Oh, and don’t listen to him, Majesties. I’ve worked on teams with ponies ten times smarter than I’ll ever be. They all just happen to be dead now, that’s all... breathe in deep for me, would ya? Just like that, yeah… now take another one, but this time, hold it in. That’s it...”

Gleaming was a bit taken aback by the dive straight into an examination, but at the same time, something about Talia immediately set Gleaming at ease.

“Doctor Natal?” Cadance’s eyes went wide. “The Doctor Natal? The Neighbel Prize winner and obstetrics guru?!”

Endo nodded. “In the flesh.”

Cadance went pale. “I-I… you… buh…”

“Oh, for Luna’s sake.” Talia took off the stethoscope and set about taking Gleaming’s pulse. “Don’t get all starry eyed on me, Cadance... can I call ya Cadance? Yeah? Good. I’m here to make sure your foals get a chance at life, not to have my ego stroked. And for stars sake, Endo, stop messing with the poor mare’s nerves! I’m too old to be wasting time.”

Endo lowered his head. “Sorry.”

Cadance fidgeted back and forth. Her inner fangirl was straining hard, doing a little happy dance and squeeing in her mind.

“Breathing’s nice and steady,” Talia mumbled. “Good… good… that’s almost always a problem with multiples, but you’ve got a good set o’lungs on ya. Skin’s a healthy color too, so circulation’s good… you go by Gleaming Shield at the moment, correct?”

Gleaming put a hoof behind her head. “Er, yeah. Just seemed easier to—”

“Don’t need to justify it.” Talia pulled out a piece of ribbon with measurements and laid it atop Gleaming’s belly. “My late wife was born a stallion, so I understand these things better than most… forty-three centimeters already, eh? That’s a bit large, even for four foals. How’ve your eating habits been?”

“Er, well... I have been eating a lot,” Gleaming admitted. “Endo’s said he’d like me to gain about ninety pounds, so we’ve upped my meals to five a day.”

Endo spoke up. “I actually made that assessment before your sister came and did her alterations. Now that she’s compensated for several risk factors, it’d actually be better if you gained more than that.”

Gleaming stared at him. “How much more?”

Endo shrugged. “Ideal foal weight is eight to ten pounds. Placenta, amniotic fluid and breast tissue are all usually two to three apiece, additional blood supply is four to five, stored fat for delivery and breastfeeding is five to nine, and the larger uterus is two to five. Multiply all of that by four, and you’ve got a median of about a hundred and twenty pounds. That’s not usually how a multiple pregnancy works, mind you, but I’ve no reason to see why it shouldn’t in this case. Each mare’s body adapts to pregnancy in a different way, and your weight seems to be going to all the right places.”

Gleaming suddenly felt dizzy. “A hundred and twenty… oof...”

“More like unf,” Cadance whispered.

“So some spells are in place already,” said Talia. “Which ones?”

“You should be able to see them in a scan,” Endo said. “I didn’t cast any myself, but I’ve been keeping an eye on their integrity.”

Talia’s horn glowed a deep, piercing blue, the same color as her eyes. “Vitals?”

“Steady.” Endo pulled out a clipboard and gave it to Talia. “Weight gain and fundal height measurements have been consistent. No signs of gestational diabetes, hypertension, anemia, or UTI.”

Gleaming felt a slight tingling as Talia’s magic felt around, the old doctor muttering to herself all the while. “Some kind of Greater Irongut, Appetite, and—what the... ah, this is that modified transmog spell you mentioned back in the office. I recognize two of the matrices, but the others... who cast this on her?”

“Princess Twilight Sparkle,” Endo said. “Shame she went into politics. She’d have made a great scientist.”

“Princess...” Talia trailed off, chuckling. “She’s about the only one who could pull something this complex off, ain’t she? Stars above, there ain’t a single unused spell thread or wasted magic conduit in here! It’s a bloomin’ work of art!”

Endo came over to stand beside her. “The Princess explained some of it before she returned to Ponyville, but I’ll admit it went over my head. I’ve never even seen such complicated magic before, much less worked with it in a patient! It’s working far as I can tell... but even if it wasn’t, the seventeen failsafes built into it would catch any errant effects.”

Talia met Gleaming’s eyes with a kind smile. “Your sister loves ya something fierce, don’t she?”

Gleaming blushed. “Y-Yeah. We’ve always been close.”

“Um, Doctor,” Cadance cut in. “Gleamy and I were… um, just discussing something regarding genetics and race before you came in. Could we get your input on it?”

Talia regarded her. “Lemme guess, you wanna know the probability of one or more of your kids bein’ an honest-to-goodness alicorn.”

“You wrote half the books Twilight and I have been using for reference,” Cadance said in a rush. “So much of what we’ve done has been based on your work! If there’s anypony who can give us an answer, it’s you.”

Talia yawned and scratched the side of her face. “We could just do the ultrasound and find out rather than have me prattle on, y’know. Or did ya want to hear my thoughts for a different reason?”

Cadance suddenly looked like a filly who’d got caught with her hoof in the cookie jar. “I, er… w-well… maybe you can tell us your thoughts while you’re doing the scan? I know you’ll make it interesting...”

Talia laughed softly. “Silly girl. Not even five minutes and I can already tell you’ve got the baby bug.” She gave Gleaming a sidelong glance. “Ya both do. Normally I’d advise against plans for more kids ‘til you’ve had a chance to see what it’s like with just one—or four in this case, but seein’ you could probably just order me, I suppose it can’t be helped.”

Cadance was taken aback. “What? We’d never—”

“Forgive Talia’s manners.” Endo gave his old mentor a pointed look. “She’s always been a bit brusque when meeting new ponies. Isn’t that right?”

Talia returned his glare for only a moment, but it was long enough for something to pass between them.

“Yeah, yeah, o’course,” said Talia after a time. “Apologies, Princess Cadance. Seems my bedside manner’s slipped a bit in retirement. I’ll share what I know while we do the ultrasound, alright, and you can decide what you wanna do from there, alright?”

Talia hobbled over to the ultrasound machine while Endo helped Gleaming onto her back. “The records we have on alicorn offspring are all from Starswirl’s journals. There’s not much seeing as modern genetics weren’t discovered, but from the studies he did then, we know that Princess Celestia’s and Princess Luna’s parents were a unicorn and a pegasus, and there are strong earth pony bloodlines in their immediate lineage.”

“Starswirl also suspected it’s impossible for natural alicorns to be male,” Endo added. “We’ve never found evidence to support this, but since Princess Celestia and Princess Luna are unable to have foals of their own, we do suspect whatever causes a natural alicorn also results in sterility.”

Talia grunted. “Studies since then haven’t yielded much else. There’ve been plenty theories over what could possibly cause a naturally-born alicorn, but there ain’t been any new alicorn births to test it. We’ve done tests on the Canterlot Princesses here and there and found they do got a different genome, but not how to isolate or recreate it. We’ve also run the same tests on your sister just to see if there’s any difference between natural alicorns and ascended ones, and we found something interesting. Did she tell either of ya about that?”

Gleaming and Cadance shook their heads. This was certainly news to them.

Talia cracked her neck with a loud pop! “Well, I won’t blab too much, but to be honest, there ain’t really much to tell. Turns out natural and ascended alicorns are identical... save one key difference. Think you can figure out what it is?”

Gleaming reflected on what she knew about the princesses and genetics in general. She wasn’t very familiar with the latter, but if Talia thought they could figure it out, then it must be something obvious—

“Ascended alicorns can still have kids,” said Cadance.

Oh. Duh.

“Bingo,” Talia said. “There’s no mention of ascended alicorns in Starswirl’s journals, but there wouldn’t be, as ascension’s something of a recent development. But mark my words, I’ve no he’d be spending all his time researching what makes ‘em tick if he was around today. Celestia knows I have the last twenty years.”

Endo turned to Cadance. “I initially thought your sterility was somehow related to this. However, your medical tests from before the Crystal Empire’s return showed you in perfect health with no sign of decline, so I decided to dig a little deeper. That’s how I found the curse in your system.”

Cadance sucked on her teeth. “But what about that thing you mentioned about alicorns having a different genome, Talia? I think I remember reading about a paper you published about what you called the ‘alicorn gene’. That’s what you’re talking about, right?”

“Yessir.” Talia started up the ultrasound machine with a soft whum. “In a nutshell, I think there’s a rare recessive gene residing in some ponies that’ll allow ‘em to ascend into alicorns so long as the right requirements are met. We’ve yet to find that gene, let alone discover what causes it to activate, but you, Cadance, are obviously a carrier seeing as you’ve already ascended. And as for you, Gleaming, Princess Twilight’s your biological sibling, so there a good chance you’ve got it, too.”

Endo showed a diagram with squares on it to Cadance. “Look here. If both of you and Princess Gleaming are carriers, not only is it guaranteed all four of your children will inherit the recessive alicorn gene, but the combination of an activated one and a recessive one has a one in six chance of a naturally-born alicorn. If Princess Gleaming’s not a carrier, your children will have about a one-in-eight chance of just getting the recessive alicorn gene. All things considered though, those aren’t terrible odds.”

Cadance and Gleaming stared. A potential one-in-six chance? Those were better odds than they’d expected!

“But that ain’t all,” Talia took a bottle of heated gel and began slathering it all over Gleaming’s giant swell of a womb. “There’s another side to all of this that convinced me to come up here. Somethin’ I think the both of ya are gonna be mighty surprised by.”

Endo frowned. “I didn’t think we were going to discuss that just yet.”

Talia glanced over. “Why not? It’s on topic.”

Endo swished his tail. “I already told you, it’s better if we confirm our suspicions before going on about anything more.”

Talia rolled her eyes. “Fine, fine…”

Endo turned back to the royal couple. “Your Majesties, do you mind if we hold off on further explanations until after the ultrasound? I promise it’ll be better for all parties involved.”

Gleaming and Cadance exchanged a look. Neither one of them seemed to hold any objection, so they both nodded and gestured for them to carry on.

“Alright, then.” Talia picked up the wand in her magic. “Let’s have a look see.”

She pushed it into the side of Gleaming’s stomach, then flipped on the monitor while adjusting settings here and there.

Gleaming felt a pleasant shudder run through her from the wand’s touch. Her belly was getting more and more sensitive as time went on, and it was getting to the point that even a simple touch could get her motor running. She could feel the foals wiggling at the sudden change in pressure, and the sensation never failed to give her a warm glow in her chest.

“Couple things to note,” Endo said as they all (save Gleaming) watched the monitor. “The image will show things like the foals’ faces and limbs, but it’ll also show the insides of their bodies. We’ll see spines, kidneys, bladders, hearts, those kinds of things. That’s all normal.”

Cadance came over and held Gleaming’s hoof. “We’ll see their genders too, right?”

Endo nodded. “If you want to know what they are.”

“We do,” they said together.

Talia snorted. “Not on the fence there.”

Cadance gave Gleaming’s hoof a squeeze. “We’ve something of a bet going.”

Endo shrugged. “We’ll be checking other things first before we get to that, but we’ll let you know. There are a lot of other things we’d like to get a read on.”

“Like what?” Gleaming asked.

“Oh, amount of amniotic fluid in the uterus, head and abdominal circumference, umbilical cord positioning, placenta size, overall fetal size, that kinda thing,” said Talia. “There’s a lot of workin’ parts in a pregnancy, and we wanna make sure that they’re all working properly. S’pretty easy to tell gender, though. Girl parts look like three lines, and boy parts look… well, how you’d expect.”

Gleaming and Cadance laughed.

“I think that’s about as clear as I’m gonna get this thing.” Talia pushed her glasses up a bit. “Let’s meet the royal family.”

The screen flickered, going from black, to… well, a slightly lighter shade of black. Speckled blobs of gray and white hovered in and out of view for a moment, until suddenly, the fuzzy distorted image of a tiny pony came into view.

“There,” said Endo.

“I see ‘em.” Talia moved the wand over a bit to try and get a better view. “Annnnnnd it’s a boy. Heh, told ya it’s easy to tell. Lemme see if I can get him to move a bit…”

Cadance stared at the image on the screen. It was blurry and colorless and only just discernible, but there was no mistaking the silhouette on the screen for anything but a foal. Her son fidgeted a bit and turned onto his side, then curled into a ball and lay still.

Her son.

She was looking at her son.

It was an odd feeling. She’d expected to have some kind of swell of emotion, maybe burst into tears or something, but instead all she felt was a sense of… ownership? Responsibility? Pride? It was positive to be sure, but it wasn’t the reaction she’d expected.

Gleaming, on the other hoof, had a somewhat different reaction.

“YES!” She thrust a hoof into the air. “We got one! We got a boy! WOOOOO!”

Endo couldn’t help but smirk. “What, you didn’t want all girls? Think of how easy it would’ve been to get them all the same Hearth’s Warming gifts.”

Gleaming gave him a flat look. “One. Freaking. Boy. I don’t care what race he is—he can be a seapony for all I care!”

“Well, he ain’t a seapony, but he’s certainly somethin’ else,” said Talia. “No horn… annnnnnd no wings. Looks like he’s an earth pony... crystal pony? Not sure how to tell the difference there. Is there a way to tell?”

“Here.” Endo moved around to the other side of the bed, then lowered his horn to where Talia was holding the wand. His horn glowed a dull green, and Gleaming felt a sudden crackling within her womb.

The screen flashed pure white.

“AH!” Everypony shielded their eyes. Gleaming was the only one who wasn’t blinded, and so she was the only one who saw her belly glitter and shine like an iridescent orb.

The flash left as quickly as it’d come, leaving everyone gingerly rubbing their eyes.

“That... was supposed to just cause a small sparkle,” Endo said. “I’ve never seen a response that strong.”

“Well, congratulations on burning out my retinas,” Talia said dryly. She blinked several times to try and get out the white spots. “Does that at least mean he’s a crystal pony?”

Endo coughed. “Er, yes. Most definitely! A crystal pony colt.”

Gleaming and Cadance took in that information with a long pause. They didn’t say as much, but they separately had the thought that this little boy was going to be interesting one.

“Kiddo looks healthy, so let’s get a peek at the others,” Talia murmured after a few minutes of taking notes. She moved the wand up the crest of Gleaming’s belly right next to her navel to start looking around. Indistinct shapes moved in and out of the screen, none of them focused or indicative. There was a few moment’s silence as everypony was lost in their own thoughts, and Gleaming began to hum softly, her mind falling into a dull haze.

“Aha! Got two of ‘em.” Talia moved the monitor over so Gleaming could see. “Take a look.”

Gleaming examined the monitor. It was wavy, but on the screen were the images of two little faces, one of which was sucking on its hoof.

“Awww,” Gleaming and Cadance cooed.

“Right one’s got a horn.” Endo tilted his head and squinted. “Doesn’t look malformed… and overall body size on each of them is good! I believe that the left one’s a… pegasus? Not totally sure...”

Talia pressed the wand a touch harder into Gleaming’s skin. “Come on, darlins, roll over…”

The foals squirmed from the prodding. Talia kept at it, though, and about a minute later, they shuffled around to give everypony a clear view of what they were trying to see.

An extremely clear view.

“Ya got another boy!” Talia said, cackling. “No doubts on that one... right one’s a girl, looks like.”

Gleaming hardly knew what to say. They had two boys?! This was better than she could’ve dreamed! I mean yeah, she wanted girls too, but boys were harder to get! She looked over at Cadance, whose eyes were fixed on the screen.

“Two boys!” Gleaming whispered. “I think you were right!”

Cadance replied with a soft kiss.

“So a unicorn filly, and the colt iiiiiiiis—ah, I was right! He’s a pegasus.” Endo pointed at the tiny wings at the colt’s sides. “You’ve got quite the mix here, Your Majesties.”

A couple more minutes passed while Endo and Talia took more notes on babies two and three, writing down numbers and muttering between themselves.

“Alright, let’s hunt down that last one,” said Talia. She moved the wand to Gleaming’s other side. “I’ll bet the lil’ bugger’s at the bottom. That’s usually where they like to hide…”

Gleaming and Cadance looked on without comment. Neither of them were really sure what to expect at this point, so they kept their thoughts to themselves while the doctors worked. They were both a little disappointed that none of their children were alicorns, but even with the odds supposedly as good as they were, it still depended whether or not Gleaming had this mysterious alicorn gene… which they were starting to suspect she didn’t.

“Hmm.” Talia moved the wand around to and fro. “I see the crystal pony colt, the pegasus colt, the unicorn filly... But I’m not—waaaait, wait, wait. Lemme try somethin’…”

She moved the wand up to the very top of Gleaming’s womb, right underneath her ribcage.

“Ha! Found ya!” Talia exclaimed. “If they’re not at the bottom, they’re almost always… at... “

Beside her, Endo went slack-jawed. Cadance’s hooves flew in front of her mouth, and Gleaming, well...

“Huh,” she said. “No wonder I’m measuring large.”

On the screen were not one, but two little fillies, curled up side by side with their little eyes shut tight. Their tails were curled together to ensure they didn’t drift apart, and their position made them almost look like they were hugging. It might’ve been possible that one of them was a foal that they’d already seen, but a crucial factor shot down that idea straightaway:

They both had horns and wings.

“Stars above,” Endo breathed. “You do have the gene…”

“Wh-Wh…” Cadance found herself suddenly short of breath. “F-Five? I don’t—did… b-but the nurse before said...”

“Hot DAMN!” Talia said with a whoop. “You really did get knocked up good, girlie! Forget gaining one hundred and twenty pounds, more like a hundred’n fifty! Tack on another meal a day or up those portions, ‘cause you’re gonna need it!”

Gleaming looked down at her bulging belly. She was already so big she couldn’t see her rear hooves anymore, and she wasn’t even halfway through! What the hay were the final months of term going to be like?!

“Just a minute, just a minute,” Endo said. He lowered his horn again. “There’s a way to be sure about this.”

“What’re you doing now?” Talia asked.

“The localized spell that detects heartbeats,” he replied. “Easiest way to search for multiples, correct?”

Talia pursed her lips. “That spell’s gonna wipe ya plum out.”

“We can’t afford any more mistakes, Talia,” he replied. “We need to be absolutely sure.”

Talia exhaled out her nose. “Stubborn dumbass like always… fine, go ahead’n do it.”

Endo’s horn flashed again. Seconds later, a dull, much softer dot of light than before began to shine out of Gleaming’s womb, followed by a second dot…

...a third...

..a fourth...

…

…

…

...and finally a fifth.

Endo sat down roughly as his horn shorted out. “Well! That is indeed quintuplets. Ugh… it seems the technician was indeed mistaken before, Majesties.! You’re having five children when you feared that you wouldn’t be able to have any! Congratulations.”

Surprisingly, Gleaming wasn’t all that panicked. Shocked, certainly, but nothing like during the first ultrasound. This was a more like she was walking on air!

“Now can I tell ‘em?” Talia asked.

Endo grunted as he staggered towards the door. “I suppose you may as well. You don’t need me for that though, so if you’ll excuse me, Your Majesties. I’m going to leave you in Doctor Natal’s extremely capable hooves from now on. I’ll make the necessary adjustments to your medical file, and I wish you both luck in the remainder of this pregnancy. Good day…”

And with that he left the room.

Talia’s gaze lingered on the door. “Damn fool’s more stubborn than any mule. Gonna run himself into the ground one of these days, mark my words…”

Cadance’s wings fluttered at her sides. “E-Erm, I’m sorry about that, Talia. I’ve never seen him do anything like that before with anypony, least of all us! It’s not like him to just walk out and dump his responsibilities...”

“He didn’t dump anythin’, honey.” Talia turned back around to begin wiping off Gleaming’s stomach with a cloth. “This is well beyond his expertise, and his time’s better spent with cases in his skill range. I don’t like tootin’ my own horn, but he was right when he said I’m the most qualified to help ya. I can give him updates and see if he can stop in every so often if ya like, but he ain’t gonna be much use otherwise.”

Gleaming sat up a bit. “But he’s been great working with us so far! He’s been extremely knowledgeable—”

“—by burnin’ up scrying crystals left and right asking for my advice every night for the past two months,” Talia finished for her. “He’s just been doing what I’ve been telling him to do, sweetheart. You’re gonna wanna stick with me, especially now that we know you’ve got the alicorn gene.”

Gleaming tilted her head. “Why would that matter? I don’t see how that would change the pregnancy.”

Natal met her eyes. “You ain’t caught on, have you? You’ve got a biological sibling that’s tapped into her recessive alicorn gene, and we’ve just confirmed you got it as well. This the first time we’ve ever been able to isolate it in any way, and we might be able to finally make some real progress on figuring out how alicorns work because of it!!”

Gleaming was silent. She could certainly see the scientific repercussions of that, but...

“What do you want to do?” Cadance asked Talia.

Talia weathered face lit up. “Tests! Tests, tests, tests. Gonna be lookin’ at Miss Gleaming Shield’s DNA a whole lot. I don’t need ya around for that though—I just need a couple samples from ya. Hair, skin, buccal swab, blood if you’re willing. Maybe stool and urine just to cover my bases… I’ve been doin’ research on this for forty years, so I know how to recognize signs of complications, and my experience in obstetrics should help me be able to spot any problems with them little alicorn fillies. I’m hoping I’ll find differences in your genetic code as time goes on, but we’ll just hafta see about that. Oh, and don’t you worry none—you and your kids’ health is my first priority. This is just a side project.”

Gleaming could see the fiery glint in Talia’s eyes now, a glint that she’d seen so many times in Twily. She didn’t still quite understand what was to be gained by looking at her DNA, but there was a very distinct possibility Talia didn’t, either.

“No ulterior motives?” Cadance asked playfully. “No hidden plans to create an army of superponies so you can take over Equestria? No secret formula based off Gleamy’s DNA to turn you into an immortal demigoddess despot?”

Talia pretended like she’d been shot. “Oh no, ya caught me, my master plan of world domination has been exposed. Curses, foiled again, I must now retreat to plot my dastardly revenge. I would’ve gotten away with it if weren’t for you meddling foals, blah, blah, blah, monologue, blah, blah, blah, tragic past, blah, blah, blah, nopony understands my genius. Was that what you were expectin’ to hear?”

Cadance snickered. “Something like that.”

“I’ll be sure to thank you along with the Academy.” Talia put her bags back on and started hobbling towards the door. “Cadance, I understand you already know about the need for alicorn magic infusions, so start giving ‘em twice a day. A nurse’ll be in shortly to get those samples I mentioned... oh, and don’t hesitate to contact me if’n ya need somethin’, alright? I don’t care if it’s three a.m. on a holiday Sunday. You need me, you send for me. Got it?”

Cadance saluted. “Got it.”

Talia opened the door. “I’ll be looking over your records the next day or so to get caught up. I’ll be in touch.”

Gleaming waved. “Thank you, Doctor.”

Talia started to walk out, but then stopped and looked back at them. “Oh, and one more thing…”

Cadance and Gleaming looked up.

Talia casually examined her fetlock. “Curious, ain’t it? A unicorn with a recessive alicorn gene, pregnant with three foals with recessive alicorn genes and two natural alicorns, all who’re about to be exposed regularly to doses of raw alicorn magic. Not only that, but said pregnant unicorn has a biological sibling who’s already unlocked their alicorn gene and ascended without a hitch...”

The chill that ran up Gleaming’s spine was like ice. She looked over at Cadance, whose wide eyes mirrored her own.

Talia shrugged as she strolled out the door. “I wonder what might happen in the months to come?”

There was a dead silence. Thoughts raced through both Cadance and Gleaming’s minds a mile a minute, a whirlwind of emotions raging in the blink of an eye. Gleaming put a hoof on her belly and rubbed it slowly, her eyes lingering on the spot where two little dots had pulsed side-by-side.

“We need to get a hold of Twily,” she muttered.

“Yes,” Cadance said in a faint voice. “That we do.”