Upon exiting into the common room of Ponyville Hospital’s low security mental wing, I can’t help but shudder slightly. Oh yeah, just the thought of breaking out on Christmas Eve has me all quivery. The excitement of doing something I’m not supposed to—yet totally am—and breaking routine to do something other than what I am told to ‘for the sake of my mental health’. As nice as it’s been not getting raped, attacked, psychologically abused by my own mind, or being even slightly in the public spotlight, being a mental patient is boring.

See, something I noticed real quick-like when I got here is that the patient gowns don’t have any pockets, so you can’t really bring novels or magazines back to your quarters unless it’s approved. Anything you can do during your free periods is dependent on the say-so of the staff. Getting them to allow me to work on my alchemy studies? I don’t even want to get into that. But I digress.

The lack of pockets makes it rather difficult to, er, carry things you’re not supposed to. I suppose that’s another reason I’m shuddering slightly. As it happens, my alchemical storage flasks are little more than enchanted test tubes with stoppers on which you can etch a glowing symbol with your hoof. Being of tubular shape, they’re the perfect size to fit in... well. Let’s just say that the untitled cockatrice-eye and Mother’s Kiss potions are safely hidden in the pocket my rebirth gave me.

Keys are a lot easier to hide, thankfully. Just tuck it beneath a wing and nobody even notices, unless the orderlies have a reason to search you. That’s something that doesn’t really happen with me, though. Most of the orderlies are stallions, and most of them know what happened to me. It helps that the first time one of the ones who didn’t know tried flirting with me—why, I will never know, because I’m in a fucking asylum; don’t stick your dick in the crazy!—I had a miniature panic attack and pissed myself. They give me a wide berth now, for the most part.

It still amazes me how much this place is unlike what I had convinced myself living in an asylum would be like. Maybe it’s all the movies, games, and books in my memories of Earth that painted them in such a dark relief in my mind. After all, isn’t it in the asylums where patients are used in cruel and horrific psychological or scientific experiments? Isn’t it the orderlies who sexually abuse the patients when nobody is looking? Isn’t it the staff that physically disciplines them for things out of their control?

I see none of that here. I mean, yeah, you get the occasional inappropriate flirtation from orderlies, but I’ve never been struck for misbehavior, nor have I been treated in any way that made me uncomfortable; they’ve respected all of my personal boundaries, including my thaumaphobia, and treated me like an actual person instead of some sort of incompetent! What’s more, most of the staff is just the right amount of friendly. Not condescendingly saccharine, but at the same time, they aren’t complete dicks, either.

They’re incredibly good to everypony here, especially Pastel. They maybe spoil her just a bit, given that she’s only six, but they recognize that this bubbly little earth pony’s energy brightens up the lives of those around her. Sure, they’re hesitant to leave her to paint murals unattended, given her history with strange mediums and disturbing imagery, but when she’s happy, she tries her hardest to make others happy. She’s almost so Pinkie-like that I have some doubts as to whether or not they’re related. Is it any wonder that she makes the perfect distraction?

Okay, I know how evil it seems, encouraging another patient to do things that will get her into trouble—and a young filly, no less—so that I don’t get caught, but I am fully willing to take the blame if—no, when!—I get back. And what’s the saying? Sometimes you have to do wrong things for the right reasons. It’s most certainly getting myself and somepony else into trouble if it means I can get this right.

That’s probably why I experience very little guilt when I spot the little pink filly in the corner, drawing a charcoal sketch of one of the other patients as he reads. “Hi there, Pastel,” I say while trotting up to her, taking care not to get in her light. “How are you today?”

“I’m okay, Miz Script,” she replies, not looking up from her drawing, in a voice that doesn’t really seem all that okay. The crayon falls adorably from her mouth as she speaks. “Just miss my mommy is all. I wanna spend Hearth’s Warming with her, not here.”

I nod solemnly at her sentiment, but give her a bright smile. “You know, where I come from, we give the ponies we care about gifts on Hearth’s Warming,” I continue. “You make so many ponies happy here, and it sucks that you can’t spend the time with your mom, so I spoke with the doctors—” Oh, that is such a horrible lie. “—and while they couldn’t let you go home for the holiday, they agreed we could give you something almost as good.”

Her ears perk up, and she immediately fixes me with a wide-eyed stare. “A gift?” she asks enthusiastically, switching gears in that way only children can manage. “What’s almost good as going home?”

I open my left wing, allowing the key to fall to the floor just in front of her paper. If Pastel’s eyes were wide before, they’re practically bulging from their sockets now. “I thought you might recognize this key.” I chuckle and nudge it towards her with my hoof. “I want you to get some of the big canvases and make a Hearth’s Warming mural showing everything about the holiday that makes you and others happy!”

Pastel’s mouth broadened into a grin, and her eyes were practically twinkling with childish glee. “You mean it?” she squealed. “I get to go into the art supply closet and pick anything I need?”

My chuckling evolves into full-fledged laughter. “Just don’t go overboard. We don’t want to use up the hospital’s art supply budget all at once now, you hear?” I turned to eye the ward door. I’d have to move soon, while the orderlies changed shift. “Oh, and remember what the doctors say. The only fluids should be paint or ink, hon.”

The pink filly eagerly snatches up the key between her teeth. “Okay!” she says, scampering toward the closet.

“Don’t forget to tell anybody who asks that I put you up to this,” I tell her before she’s out of earshot. I shook my head. She might get in trouble later, but for now, it’s nice to see a little girl excited about her Christmas gift. Nothing is more valuable than that glee, except maybe the happiness in the eyes of a mother reunited with her son...

For all the things I’ve been through, one would think that I would be in some high security mental institution like Helping Hooves up in Canterlot. Maybe it’s out of respect for those incidents, or because my admission was not involuntary, that they grant me leniency, but regardless of the reason, I’m glad Ponyville Hospital isn’t one of those supermax prison-like places. My ‘escape’ literally consists of me slipping out into the courtyard when nopony is looking, shedding my gown, and taking flight. There’s no wing harnesses or primary clipping to keep me grounded, or any kind of binding hex, like the one Twilight cast so long ago, in order to keep me from getting far.

It feels good to stretch my wings, at any rate. They don’t exactly forbid pegasus patients from flying here, but unless accompanied by an orderly of the same winged inclination, you can’t exactly get what would be considered regular flight time in. Doing wing push-ups where there’s space just can’t compare to actually taking flight.

Flying into Ponyville also has the added bonus of not having the two tubes teasing me inside as vigorously as they would were I walking. Oh, sure, getting off is fine so long as I don’t start thinking about certain things, but I’d rather not get all hot and bothered right now. It’s bad enough that I’m going to be showing up where I’m still technically unwanted. If I showed up smelling like a bitch in heat... well. I’m pretty sure Missus Cake will murder me.

She very well might, anyway. When you’re whacked out of your gourd, challenging ponies to duels the day after their son ‘died’, it doesn’t leave a fantastic impression. When you tell a mother that you’re challenging that pony to a duel because the one in question is to blame for her son’s death and it is the only way to assuage your own soul, that mom definitely starts to dislike you. Unless I’m mistaken, I’m pretty sure there’s still a picture of me behind the counter that says ‘Do not serve’.

I have no reason to think that all this time later, she’s got any less reason to dislike me, even though I’ve saved two other children of the town. If anything, she might even resent me more over it. I know that I would certainly resent the pony who saved two children but had failed to save my own. Then again, I think it’s well established that I’m kinda fucked in the head.

The only problem with flight at this time of year is that it is really cold without a scarf, a jacket or boots, and that I could run into someone who could recognize me. Chiefly, Rainbow Dash is my concern on this matter. Even though she’s been attending the Wonderbolts Academy, she still finds the time to manage the Ponyville weather team. With the cloud front scheduled to dissipate this afternoon, there’s a very real chance of encountering her before I even get to Sugarcube Corner, thus ruining my plan.

The plan... I call it that, but really, all I’ve ‘planned’ is to wing it. I could go straight to the graveyard and dig up Pound’s casket. Only problem is that feasibly someone could see me and report me to the guard before I can do the job, and suddenly, I’ll be labeled criminally insane and transferred back to Canterlot to live in Helping Hooves. That’s not beneficial to my plan.

A wave of nausea washes over me as I pass over a mare carrying her bundled up baby—shit, is that Bon-Bon and Honeydew?—and I’m reminded of the day I found out that I’m pregnant...

It’s still hard to believe it’s only been four days since I found out. I mean, living in the mental wing of a small town’s hospital means one has easy access to health care. You know how it goes: I start feeling tired all the time, the odd abdominal cramping, and I’m urinating frequently. My breasts are swollen, and I’m unable to keep any food down. Fearing that there’s some complication with my medication, I ask to be seen by a doctor, and am taken to the outpatient clinic by one of the orderlies.

Not too many ponies are looking for medical care since it’s the holidays, so I’m seen to pretty quickly. A nurse escorts me from the waiting room to an exam room, and they’re good enough to give me some privacy, asking the orderly to wait outside the door.

“The doctor will be in shortly,” the nurse says, ushering me to take a seat on the examination table.

No sooner than I’m up on the table does a doctor, the very one that treated me after the whole lamia affair, stand in the doorway. “Good morning, Miss Script,” he greets with a jovial smile. “What seems to be the trouble today?”

I look at him from atop my paper-covered perch, rubbing one fetlock along the back of my neck. “Well, Doc,” I say with a tired groan, “You remember how my heart ain’t the greatest, yeah? Well, I’ve been having some side effects with my medication...”

The quizzical look on his face says it all. “I don’t follow, Miss Script,” he says after a moment’s awkward stare. “If your medication in the mental health ward is causing you trouble, haven’t you spoken to your therapist about alternative treatment?”

My ears flop down to the sides of my head, and I look away. “It’s not like I don’t trust O’Hannigan’s judgment; it’s just that... after all I’ve been through, I don’t trust my own constitution.” I return my gaze to the doctor. “If getting symptoms like frequent urination, cramping, fatigue, nausea and vomiting, and of course some sort of hormonal imbalance causing my teats to swell are all going on in the foreground, what’s going on that I don’t know about? Something like persistent tachycardia could put too much stress on my heart. All I want is a physical examination to make sure I’m not going to keel over tomorrow.”

Both doctor and nurse share a look of confusion. “You know, that might not be your medication, causing that,” the nurse offers in a regretful tone. “Have you—”

“No! Nope, can’t be!” I interject almost too quickly. “Doctors in Canterlot believed... hell, Princess Celestia told me my tubes were too scarred... that I’m infertile. I can’t be pregnant.”

Again, the two share a look. “Miss Script, please understand that you’ve just come out of a very confusing time,” he says in an ever-so-soft voice. “You can’t be sure of everything you thought you heard at that time.” He pauses for a moment, pulling a file from... somewhere, and looks it over. “None of the medical records we’ve received from Canterlot show any record of tubal scarring.”

“No, no, no,” I reply. “I may have hallucinated a lot of things, but I did not hallucinate that.”

He nods and returns the file to wherever it is he pulled it from. “It could very well be that you are right, and it’s simply an oversight on your record,” he says. “But if it would please you, we can have a sonography machine brought down from radiology...”

“Please... please do.” I want them to know that I’m not completely crazy... that there are lingering scars.

With a shake of my head, I veer slightly off course to place a rooftop between Bon-Bon and myself. I can’t be thinking about friends and family right now. The only things that need to be on my mind are getting to Sugarcube Corner and not getting caught. The order doesn’t matter in the least because they’re effectively the same plan, but it’s easier to split it all up into multiple objectives.

Even with the slight delay, the bakery is not far off. As I pass over the thatched roof of a two-story home, grazing it with my hoof, I can make out the finer details of the upper portion of the building. The three candle lamps atop the cupcake loft are glazed with a fine sheet of ice, probably from melting snow during the night. The pony weathervane’s candy cane sports a nice dusting of snow and some very holiday-esque icicles. But is that snow or decorative icing lining the branching chimney? Oh look; there’s Pinkie up in the loft wind—oh fuck!

I drop closer to street level out of reflex so quickly that I barely notice that her back is to the window. That doesn’t reassure me much, in all honesty. Her preternatural sense of precognition is a variable that I hadn’t even thought about; what if she has a Pinkie Sense for ‘escaped mental patient showing up to attempt to depetrify the boss’s son’? Would she warn them before I can get anything done? Or might she sneak out the back to get help once I’m in? The hairs along the back of my neck bristle with alarm at the thought.

No, Pinkie isn’t like that at all. Thinking about her like that is only begging for her to have a Pinkie Sense about me. I’m just being paranoid, which admittedly is partially why I was in the mental care wing of the hospital to begin with. Not that there’s anything ill about wanting to help a pony, right?

As I close the last bit of distance to the front step of the fanciful bakery, I drop the rest of the way to the ground, blending in with the crowd as best I can. At least with a white mane and gray coat, I don’t really stick out much in a crowd during winter. Hell, if I didn’t have such piercing blue eyes and color on my cutie mark, I’m pretty sure I could just stand still and pretend to be a snowpony someone erected in the middle of the terrace.

One hoof in front of the other, that’s all there is to it. Just walk with my head low; don’t bump into anypony, and I can ignore the flasks grinding against each other inside me. It’s honestly easier than it sounds. Ponies are polite enough to give each other some space as they go about their business, and there’s always gaps in the herd to slip through.

Upon reaching the door, my heart begins to pound. “I’m actually doing this!” I whisper excitedly to myself. For more than a year, this has been in the back of my mind, a goal that I had thought I’d never actually achieve; and now here I am, about to either achieve it or die trying.

I pull open the door with some trepidation and step inside, grateful for the warmth of the bakery. It might only be a physical warmth given that I’m not particularly welcome, but it beats the cold outside by miles. Once I’m in, I politely pull the door closed once more, before any snow can trail in behind me.

Any warmth the room is breathing into me is stolen in one fell turn; my blood goes icy when a small voice reaches my ears as I turn back to face the shop’s relatively empty cafe area. “Momma, is Pound come home dis year?”

My head swivels in the direction of the voice, and my heart leaps into my throat. There, at a table in the far corner sits the pudgy matron of the business, Cup Cake, and a little yellow and orange unicorn that could only be Pumpkin, cuddled against her side. Missus Cake looks down at her daughter with a heartbroken expression that tells me this isn’t the first time that question’s been asked lately.

“Oh dearie,” she says as she leans down to nuzzle the toddler. “He’s gone to the Elysian Fields to be with Nana and Poppy.”

Pumpkin clutches something against her chest—a little pegasus doll—and whimpers. “But he never visits...”

“I know, baby, I know,” she murmurs, pulling her daughter into a tight hug so not to let her see the tears forming in her eyes.

For a moment, I cannot breathe. For all the time I spend thinking about fixing Pound, what his mother and father are going through, or what they might do if I ever show up here in the bakery, it’s never once occurred to me that Pumpkin would suffer from his loss too. What is it like at that age to have someone with you every day of your life, only for him to just vanish? How does it feel to not understand that he isn’t coming home?

At least she isn’t going to have to find out that mommy’s been lying about her brother because she was too young to understand death.

I watch the display on the machine as the nurse glides a probe across my belly. In grainy black and white, I can see shapes that might be the uterine horn, but damned if I can make heads or tails of what I’m actually seeing. Still, the doctor and nurse seem to be able to understand it. Better, they seem satisfied with whatever they’re seeing.

“No indication of a developing embryo present in her uterus,” the nurse states, looking from the monitor to the doctor. “She does not appear to be—”

Something catches the doctor’s eye, and he shushes the nurse. “Go back an inch,” he says curiously. As the nurse complies, a white mass resolves itself on the display. “Hmm, there’s the scarring she mentioned, but...” A curious sound other than my own heartbeat comes through the display. Is that another heartbeat? “Can you get that from a different angle, nurse?”

The nurse complies without a word, and leads the probe around to my side, and struggles to find the mass once more. There, on the display, is something among the scarring. It doesn’t quite look like a pony, but... it definitely has that shape. Then there’s that unmistakable heartbeat, pulsing away surprisingly quickly.

“An ectopic pregnancy,” the doctor mutters. He looks from the machine to meet my eyes. “You certainly don’t seem to get many breaks, do you, Miss Script?”

I barely hear his words as I stare at the display. There’s a tiny little pony growing in one of my fallopian tubes, and it doesn’t take a genius to know that this sort of thing is risky. If it’s growing there, it means that an ovum was fertilized when I was raped, but had nowhere else to go. It will continue to grow, until it ruptures the space it’s growing in.

The nurse speaking to the doctor, however, does catch my attention. “Doctor, I don’t think that’s a single heartbeat.” I snap my eyes away from the doctor as she leads the probe from my side to my belly, keeping the fetus in focus. The heartbeat is still there, but it’s not nearly as frequent. I watch the screen as it pans across my abdomen, noting the heartbeat fading as it leaves the focus, and another scarred area comes into view. Another fetal heartbeat can be heard over a whispered prayer from the nurse. “Dear Celestia...”

Even the doctor seems taken aback by this. I’m not just pregnant; I’m pregnant with fraternal twins, and both of them are growing in my fallopian tubes. “Holy shit,” I finally say with a gasp. “I’m... pregnant? I’m really pregnant?” My stomach churns, and I begin to feel queasy. “I’m pregnant with my rapist’s...”

“Yes,” the doctor manages. There’s a lot of concern in that single word. “Miss Script... Silver, this is an incredibly risky situation. Without intervention, you could be facing—”

I glare at the doctor from the corner of my eyes before I shake my head slowly. “I know enough biology to understand that this will tear me apart inside if nothing is done,” I hiss between clenched teeth as tears begin to form in the corners of my eyes, “but don’t you dare even mention termination.”

Much to my surprise, the concern on his face contorts into anger. “Why I never!” he said. “I don’t know what it’s like where you came from, but here in Equestria, this sort of thing is easily treated with... with magic.” He looks almost apologetic when the word slips free of his mouth. Could thaumaphobia be noted on my medical record? “Admittedly, we will offer a mare the option to terminate the pregnancy before the three month mark if it is clear that she doesn’t want to follow through, or if it’s deemed high-risk, but never has anypony in this hospital ever broached the subject immediately after telling a pony she’s with foal.”

I blink at the doctor before wilting slightly. “I-I’m sorry, Doctor.” I look away in shame. “I shouldn’t have snapped like that,” I say after a moment’s pause. “It’s just... the way I was raised... abortion was as mortal of a sin as murder, if not worse. Even if I stopped believing, some things just stuck with me.

“On the one hoof, I’m pregnant with the children of the pony who raped me,” I mutter, sniffling. “I don’t want to feel this way, but if I carry them to term, am I not letting the bastard win in the end by sticking to the beliefs I grew up with?”

The nurse places a comforting hoof on my shoulder and smiles softly. “We...” She pauses, as though struggling or the proper word. “We understand that this is a difficult time for you, but you mustn’t think about it like that.” She squeezes my shoulder gently. “If you think like that, he’s already won.”

I nod numbly. Even if I do carry them to term, how do I go about my days without being reminded of what happened? Can I really go through with this when I know I’ll find myself wishing they’d been Blossom’s? Will I end up hating them for who sired them? Am I even cut out for motherhood?

Before I can stop it, I pull the nurse into a hug and began sobbing into her shoulder. “I don’t want them to die, but I’m scared,” I whisper. “Is magic really the only way? Isn’t there surgery that can do it?”

The nurse shakes her head, though from where I sit, it feels more like a nuzzle.

“By this point, the embryos have already implanted in your oviducts because of the scarring,” the doctor says. “With magic, the bonds can be momentarily broken as the embryos are relocated to the uterus. Surgically, the only course of action available will be an oophorectomy, the partial or complete removal of the ovaries and fallopian tubes.”

I look to him, crestfallen. “Can I at least be put under for the procedure?”

Quietly, I make my way around the edge of the room, my head down. Is now really the time? Should I really bother her while she’s with her daughter, when they are clearly upset? I could always come back later, right?

No, I really can’t. If I fail at this once, I’m pretty much guaranteed that I’ll never get another chance to do this before I get out, if I ever do. Any other time, and it loses some of the symbolism, too. In a time of great giving, what greater gift is there to give than to return her son to the realm of the living? It’s got to be today!

I stop in front of the table and nervously clear my throat. “Um... excuse me, Missus Cake?”

The older mare looks up from her now weeping daughter in confusion. It’s not that she’s surprised by an interruption in her family time; rather, it seems to be a complete lack of recognition. “I’m sorry, dear,” she says softly after sitting quietly for about a minute, “I’m on my break right now, but if you ring the bell on the counter there, my husband will be right out to serve you.”

Her insinuation that her husband is the only one currently working catches me off-guard, and I almost find myself asking why Pinkie isn’t helping out, but one thing at a time. I’m here to talk to her about her son, and talk to her I will. “Actually, ma’am, I was hoping I could talk to you.”

Her eyebrow arches upward, and her eyes narrow slightly, but her facial expression stays fixed. “I’m sorry, what is this about, Miss...”

“Script, ma’am. Silver Script.”

I watch as her eyebrow lowers and her lips part just enough to reveal some teeth. Not looking away from me, she says in a firm voice, “Pumpkin, honey, go upstairs and tell Pinkie that Miss Silver is here, and then stay upstairs until I say it’s okay.”

Adorable little Pumpkin looks uneasily from her mother to me, and then back to her mother. She repeats this twice before the urgent tone of her mother’s voice sinks in. With its ear between her teeth, she hauls the doll after her as she scampers into a doorway around back of the counter. She even manages to make her travel up the stairs, audible in that way that only children can be.

“Again, what is this about?”

“It’s about your son, Missus Cake. I...” My tongue drags across my lips. “I think I can bring him back.”

Her eye twitches, and her lips pull into a full snarl. “Is this some kind of sick joke?” she shouts, rising to her hooves. Despite her cushioning layer of pudge, there’s undoubtedly an earth pony beneath all that, and the rippling muscles as her body tenses proves that. “My baby is dead; do you think that’s funny? This is the second Hearth’s Warming without my little boy—another year of loneliness ahead of my daughter, who is too young to understand—and you come here, today of all days, pulling this?”

I shake my head, not breaking eye contact. “Pound isn’t dead!” I say, my voice raising from a whisper to a harsh croak.

She flinches as if she’s just been slapped before returning her glare to me. “Don’t mess with me!” she yells. “Princess Twilight Sparkle, the local expert on magic itself told us that he couldn’t be fixed! Princesses Celestia and Luna told us that it was even outside their power!”

Rather than yelling back, I take a deep breath to steady myself. “They didn’t have all of the data. They didn’t know there was another way,” I state flatly, my right eye darting to the door. Did I just see Pinkie Pie dart by? “The cockatrice is dangerous to be around even as a full-grown pony. Nopony had ever attempted to put a pony near a cockatrice other than the one that petrified them.

“I’ve seen a cockatrice feed, really feed.” I lower my hips to sit, pausing just long enough to ease the muscles gripping the flasks enough for them to slide out and roll to sit by my front hoof, hoping she doesn’t notice. “Their prey doesn’t just die and turn to stone! He’s in stasis, because they very much like their food alive while they eat.

“It’s a hunting and self-defense mechanism, if I had to guess,” I explain frantically, a mad glint in my eye, no doubt. “Their small size and cumbersome gait make it difficult catching prey and competing with apex predators, so they use their petrifying gaze to catch smaller prey while hunting to incapacitate prey and predator alike. The thing is that they also compete for food against other cockatrices. Months ago, I saw a cockatrice in captivity depetrify and eat a mouse frozen by another.”

Some of the anger bleeds from the mare’s face as her eyes widen in shock. “If you knew how to save him all this time—” She narrows her eyes once more and continues to glare at me. Still, the hope building in her voice is encouraging. “—then why tell me now? I could have had my baby back!”

I look down in shame, letting the fringe of my mane cover my eyes. “I wasn’t sure it would be safe,” I lie. Well, sort of lie. It’s only a lie in that I didn’t tell her then, because at the time, I was pretty sure she hated me and wouldn’t have listened to a word I said. “A cockatrice once petrified Twilight, and she should have been able to recognize the danger and not make eye contact. Because they can even get the drop on a pony one might consider an expert, I don’t think there’s such thing as a controlled setting with a cockatrice. Even with unicorns present, they would have to be lightning-fast with their spellcasting to safely remove him from harm’s way, because it would have to be practically on top of him. I couldn’t forgive myself if my advice brought him out of stasis, only to be maimed or killed in front of your eyes.”

“Then why bring it up at all?” That building hope comes crumbling down in a mere moment. To say she sounds even more heartbroken than when she was dealing with her daughter is an understatement. The defeated quaver in her voice brings tears to my eyes. “Did you just come here to taunt me?”

I shake my head as I look up to her with a smile, tears streaming down my cheeks. “No,” I say firmly. With one hoof, I grab both flasks from the floor and hold them up to show her. “I’m an alchemist... a problem solver, I guess you could say. It was dangerous to work with a live cockatrice, so I made a potion to give me its eyes. Unless I completely fucked up, I should be able to free him.”

Silence stretches on as she stares at me. Cup Cake eyes the flasks, her mouth agape. It’s clear by the look in her eyes that the gears in her brain are pulling some serious RPMs. Her mouth works itself open and closed as she struggles with her thoughts. More interestingly, a flame of... desire... hope, alights in her eyes.

“Prove it,” she says desperately at last.

I’m a little tipsy when the nice guardian pony wheels me away on the marvelous rotating-disk affixed bench, more commonly known as the wheelchair. This is the greatest thing about ponyland; they have some amazing drugs here. I feel awesome, and I only just woke up after the doctors used their scary magic on my insides to move my little bundles of joy around so that I don’t pop like an overfilled balloon.

Still, I like to think that even with the sedative in my system, I’m lucid enough to deal with whatever comes my way. Take the orderly behind me for example. There’s absolutely nothing to stop me from striking up conversation, and no filter between brain and mouth!

“Saaaaay, buddy,” I drawl, leaning to one side in my mobile chair. “You have any kids?”

The stallion pushing the chair lets out a surprised little sound, as though he wasn’t expecting me to be awake enough to converse. “Yeah,” he says. “A son. He was about your age.”

I smile and giggle before tilting my head enough to look at his face. Normally, looking him in the eye would be the objective, but I’m nowhere near as flexible as Twilight’s freaky owl. “I bet you just love him to bits all the same!” I purr. “I’m gonna have babies too, you know. Two of them! Just n—eleven, wait, nine months away!”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he says in a serious tone that doesn’t really invite conversation. Is he thinking about the late nights? Or is he one of the guys who regularly works with me? I can never tell in this bloody world because uniforms apparently equate anonymity for his type.

“Don’t be!” I reply, my drug induced smiling not abating in the least. “So what if I was raped and my babies will never have a father? That just means I have to love them extra hard. I’m gonna make sure they don’t just get the love they deserve, but the love their donor never got as a child, too!”

The orderly only nods in response. He doesn’t seem to be of the sort to be talkative, but that might just be that his job description doesn’t include small talk. He just pushes the wheelchair through the hospital corridors all serious-like. Wait... maybe I upset him? Did he say his son was my age? Oooh, and here I am talking about babies.

My ears droop, and I glance away. “I, uh, I didn’t mean to upset you,” I say hesitantly. “I’d like to say it’s the drugs, and maybe it is, but I should have picked up on the past tense about your son... It was really insensitive of me to go all mommy-squee about being pregnant after hearing that, and I’m sorry.”

Much to my surprise, the corner of his mouth pulls up into a smile. “Don’t be,” he parrots back to me, not quite matching my insanely cheery tone. “He gave his life to ensure other ponies could live safely and happily; ran into a burning building a few years back to save a little filly, and got her out alive. When he was in the hospital with all of his burns and smoke inhalation, I told him I’d never been more proud to call him my son than right then and there.

“You know what he told me?” he asks with misty eyes, knowing full well he intends to tell me anyway. “He said, ‘Dad, don’t be proud of me for doing what anypony would. If I have the power to help a pony in need, I should use it, no matter the cost.’”

“He sounds like one hell of a guy.” I nod as I turn my head so that my neck doesn’t develop a crick, resting my cheek on one of the arm—foreleg?—rests. He might not know it, but his fond memory resonates with something inside me. Oh no, I’m getting ideas now... very dangerous ideas. “Somepony has to do what everypony thinks anypony would do, lest everypony gets angry because nopony does.”

“That’s the gist of it,” he concludes. I tilt my head just enough to catch him winking when I peer at him from my peripheral “Now, somepony has to have a discussion with her doctor when she gets back.”

“Ma’am, I can’t do that right here,” I reply. “If I drink the potion now, it’ll kill me before we have time to dig up your son.” Her confident look falters momentarily, and just as she opens her mouth to speak, I hold up a hoof to stop her. “The draught is made with a high toxicity ingredient—” No need to tell her what. “—that makes the entire thing in itself toxic.

“It might not put me into cardiac arrest within a minute like that one time I nearly died because of a typo in class, but it’ll still kill me if I don’t drink this,” I say, holding up the flask of alchemical purgative. “But if I do drink it, it flushes all of the magic out of my system in addition to the toxic elements, and I don’t have access to the supplies necessary to make a second ba—”

You know how sometimes on the show, ponies silence each other by putting their hooves on or in the mouth? Never in all my years would I ever expect a pudgy blue pony to put her hoof on my mouth. I mean, I know she’s probably clean as all fuck, being a baker and whatnot, but still. Feet. “That won’t be necessary,” she interrupts. Her own ears are low, and her cheeks are red with... shame? Embarrassment? “We couldn’t bring ourselves to bury him—what if he’s still alive, we kept asking ourselves out of hope—so we made a small shrine in the basement.”

That kind of brings a horribly depressing mental image to mind. There she is, in a dark corner of their basement, where I can imagine there is a heck of a lot of baking supplies stored, reading to her petrified baby boy by candlelight. Maybe her gangly husband, Carrot, is right there with her, or maybe he’s upstairs reading a bedtime story to Pumpkin. Pinkie might even avoid the basement altogether out of her own sense of guilt.

Did Pinkie ever accidentally walk in on one of those sessions? Did she run out crying? Would Cup Cake head upstairs to comfort her, and then maybe tuck her in, after she finishes Pound’s story? What... if...

“I still wish I’d gotten a chance for some kind of animal testing, just a little white mouse or something,” I grumble, staring down at the floor. “I could have, too, but I was afraid... and then...” No! Do not think about that—not now! “Things happened.”

When I look back up, the matron of the place has this kind of guilty, excited, and slightly dispepsic expression. Like, how do you even do that? How do you look guiltily excited while simultaneously ill? Fuckin’ ponies, turning all green in the cheeks, smiling, and breaking eye contact.

“If you promise not to tell Fluttershy,” she whispers conspiratorially as she rises to her hooves. Without really inviting me, she just starts walking toward the front door. She pulls open the door and flips the wooden placard hanging from the door to read closed before turning back to me. “We caught one of her wicked little critters breaking into our pantry this morning. We trapped it in a little mason jar in the kitchen, and we were going to have Pinkie take it to Fluttershy this evening, but...”

“Then I showed up,” I offered. “So what you’re saying is that you want me to freeze and unfreeze a mouse or something before you let me near your son.”

That queer guilty look returns to her face, and she frowns. “Don’t put it that way, dearie; it makes me sound... evil.”

“Not evil, just skeptical, and that’s a good thing.” I glance at the flasks still sitting on my hoof. “Um, so just in the kitchen then?”

She nods and darts behind the counter, vanishing into the kitchen door. Not wanting to get left behind, I tuck the flasks beneath my wing—the thought momentarily occurs to me to just carry them in my mouth, but now’s really not the time to be tasting myself—and I canter anxiously after her. Is this really happening?

When I step into the kitchen, my senses are immediately overpowered by the smell of baked goods. There are stacks of chocolate chip cookies cooling on racks on one countertop. On another is something that looked suspiciously like tapioca, reminding me that I skimped on breakfast this morning. And there’s Missus Cake whispering excitedly to her husband as he pulls a basket of crullers from a deep fryer.

I can’t hear what she’s telling him, but when you’re a former writer like me, your imagination fills in the blanks. No doubt she’s saying something about how I sincerely believe that I can free Pound from his stony cage, and her idea about me proving it first. Judging by the suspicious, and rather angry look from him as he sets the crullers aside, he’s probably heatedly whispering that I’m an escaped mental patient, scolding her on indulging my delusions, and then asking if she thinks I might be dangerous.

“Even if she can’t,” she pipes up as she turns to me, “it won’t hurt if we keep her occupied until Pinkie gets back with some orderlies from the hospital.”

“I assure you that I’m quite lucid, Mister Cake,” I say, wilting away from his suspicious glare. “If you would allow it, I would like to help return something precious to you. If you won’t, I... I’ll allow you both to do whatever you think is necessary to keep me here until Pinkie returns—no resistance. Just... please let me try.”

The tall stallion stares at me suspiciously before letting out a snort. “If she thinks she can do this, there’s no harm in letting her try.” He nods toward a small cupboard. “Your test patient is in that bottom cupboard over there.”

I nod and walk over to a cupboard with an L-corner in it. The workspace on the countertop is surprisingly barren, except for a single overturned sack of sugar. As I look closer at the mess of sugar on the surface, I can see spots where tiny paw-prints displaced some of the granules. Definitely a small critter, but I’m no ranger. That could be a field mouse or a bloody hedgehog for all I know.

Putting aside the tracks for now, I lower my head to the cupboard door and close my teeth around the handle. It’s stupid to think that some monstrous little rodent is going to burst out of the cupboard like some horror movie jump-scare. There’s no need to steel myself for what’s inside, nor is there any sense in prolonging it, but my entire body is tense from the excitement.

The door opens with a twitch of my neck to reveal a rather obese looking gray squirrel trapped in a jam jar with some sort of slotted straining lid so that he—or she—still has air. My eyes widen as it hits me. I’m about to petrify this squirrel, one of Fluttershy’s woodland friends, with no guarantee that I can break the spell. What if the cure was in a gland in the cockatrice’s lungs, secreted into its very breath? Nope, I can’t think like that now. I’ve come too far for self doubt. This has to work because I need it to work!

“Hey little fella,” I whisper with a voice of forced calm. “Have you been in here long?” To my amazement, the squirrel nods vigorously. “You know, I doubted whether or not Fluttershy was full of it when she made you little critters out to be as smart as ponies.”

My little test subject begins gesturing wildly with its tiny little paws. Upward pointing, wringing strangling motion, point at me... Wait, is that one of those goofy-ass gangsta poses? Oh, wait... I think I get it. Let me out, and I’ll hug you... or that might be screw-up poser. I honestly can’t tell if I should be offended or not.

“Well, little guy, here’s the thing,” I say in a louder tone. “Missus Cake says you were caught stealing from her pantry.” It—no, he, I decide—makes a very good effort of not making eye contact as he falls to his rump. “Fluttershy is going to be very disappointed in you, isn’t she?”

His shoulders slump, and I hear a very loud sigh from such a little creature. Dude, fuckin’ relax; you’re getting a scolding from Fluttershy, not Pyramid Head. It’s not like she’s going to flay you alive for stealing. Still, with the way he’s acting, you’d swear getting a scolding from the world’s most cowardly pegasus is the worst thing in the world. Definitely something to capitalize on.

“Relax, bud,” I soothe. “I’ve worked out an arrangement with the Cakes to cover the costs of your scoundrelly foraging.” His black, beady eyes go wide, and a smile splits his face. “You just have to help me with an experiment. All you have to do is sit there. How about it? Easiest job and free meal ever, right?” In spite of the rather cruel way I’m leading him on, I manage a genuine chuckle as I reach into the cupboard and pull the jar. “So I’ll get you out in just a sec, and then you’ll be on your way.”

Placing the squirrel jar on the floor, something I heard months ago floats up from the pool of my memories. “You could safely look them in the eyes because their petrification works on mutual, uninterrupted eye contact,” I murmur, remembering Flam’s words. Would I have to remove the top, or would the slots in the lid suffice?

Carefully, I remove both flasks from beneath my wing. The purgative I place on the floor, just inside my reach. A bubble of anxiety works its way up my throat as I pop the top off of the cockatrice potion, and I very nearly spill it when I find myself coughing. Rather than risk some shaky hooves spilling everything, I knock it back like a shot and close my eyes. “I really wish I could make these things taste better.”

More out of caution than anything else, I extend my wings, allowing the air flows to give me a picture of the room without sight. I haven’t had the opportunity to do this in ages, but with this body, it’s like riding a bike. The heated air flows away from an open oven behind the cakes, painting them firmly behind me on the other side of the kitchen. Good.

When I sense the bakers creep closer to observe, I warn them back. “Alright, Mister Cake, Missus Cake? Under no circumstance are you to look me in the eye until I drink the contents of the second flask, okay?” I shudder slightly as I feel the potion’s primary effects take hold. At first, it’s just an... itching along my optic nerve. Then, my eyes begin to water as a burning sensation washes over them repeatedly for what feels like hours.

As quickly as the pain begins, it recedes into a minor headache—one that I know will worsen as the toxicity builds up in my system. Unlike with poison, regular potion-based alchemical toxicity effects are a lot more gradual. Whereas the lethal dose of the poison nearly killed me within two minutes, I should, in this case, have at least ten minutes before I’m incapacitated, and another three before I croak. Should, however, is the operative word.

I grab the jar between my hooves and point its top toward me. “So, my little friend,” I whisper to the squirrel. “All you have to do is have a staring contest with me.”

Opening my eyes, I cringe as I try to understand what I’m seeing. Almost everything in my vision is a burnt red color, making it hard to distinguish what is what. However, when I discern that I’m looking through the lid of the jar, I notice a hazy blue aura where the gray squirrel should have been... and something else: a bright pinpoint of light, like a sun in miniature. An eye, I belatedly realize. I tilt the jar slowly until I see a second sun appear from behind the lid.

Something in my mind almost tangibly clenches, and a single word floats past the headache, petra. The squirrel’s blue aura begins to gray, radiating out from the fading suns of its eyes. Part of me wishes I could observe like the Cakes are now, curious to see whether the petrification is actually beginning around the eyes, or if it starts from the base up.

It’s all so fascinating, so where is this sense of dread coming fro—oh. Oh no. Say it isn’t so. Am... I really feeling the squirrel’s fear as it comes to terms with its fate? Are cockatrices really so vile?

My stomach churns and cramps as the alchemical poisoning takes hold and combats my growing disgust in both myself and the species itself. “This is so wrong,” I can’t help but whimper. “Why can’t I block it out?”

Eventually, the critter’s empathic link breaks from my mind, and I hear a horrified gasp from one of the Cakes. The jar slips free from my hooves, breaking on the ground, sending shards of glass dancing every which way. Not the squirrel, though. He’s much more solid than some flimsy glass, some instinctual part of me giggles. He must be if he’s to be preserved and eaten.

“So this is how they see,” I murmur aloud, looking down at the petrified squirrel, and catching sight of my own hooves, glowing every bit as blue as the squirrel had before. “They don’t perceive the world so much by sight as they do by... life. They see life.” The squirrel before me still glows a muted gray among the near invisible shards of glass. “Even when petrified, I can see his lifeforce...”

Rather than letting myself get swept up in the implications of a cockatrice’s sight and whether or not they could see invisible ponies, I lean down and nuzzle the squirrel. “Hey, little guy. You gotta stop being stoned now, okay?” Nothing happens. I breathe heavily on him, but to no avail. Though I breathe his aura remains gray. My head throbs in tune with my pulse. “Come on, this isn’t funny. Please don’t tell me I gave myself the ability to petrify but not depetrify.”

Shaking my aching head, I think back to what I saw at the Flim Flam monster menagerie in hopes of clues. I know I saw the rat’s stony glaze crumble away when the cockatrice went to eat it. Was it something in the saliva? The touch? Or do I have to convince myself that I’m really going to eat my first squirrel?

My stomach heaves violently, and I begin to feel something trickle down my lips and chin from my nose. Shit, I don’t have near enough time as I thought. “Forgive me what I am about to do,” I croak numbly as I bat the petrified rodent onto its belly with one hoof. Rapidly leaning down, my eyes clenched shut, I slam my teeth closed over the squirrel’s tail, hoping and praying desperately that it’s just fur I’m biting into.

Rather than the crunch of tiny petrified hairs shattering, my teeth click together, painfully catching the inside of my cheek. There’s something else in my mouth in addition to blood and flakes of dust though—fur. I open my eyes, and I can see the gray haze about the squirrel blow away like fog, leaving only the vibrant blue form of the squirrel’s back as it tries to scramble away, having just found itself with its tail in my teeth.

“She did it, dear!” I hear Cup Cake cheer. “Go get Pound, quick!”

Though my eyes are still open, it is with my perception of the air flow in the room that I watch the stallion move off toward the back. He tweaks something on the floor—a trapdoor, no doubt—and then he’s gone. I just hope he hurries.

I close my eyes again and let the squirrel’s tail go. “Go on, little hero,” I say haltingly, unable to say much more with the cramping spreading outward from my stomach. Even my legs ache something fierce. “You are now part of a very... important day in history.”

Before I can catch myself, my legs give out, and I sink to the floor. With all the cramping and pains shooting throughout my body, I don’t even notice if any glass from the broken jar pierces my belly. All I can really do is lie here, breathing heavily, and praying Carrot isn’t late.

“Are you okay?” the baker’s wife asks, interrupting my observation of how a squirrel flees a confusing situation with the air flows. It’s actually getting kind of hard to interpret it now that my wings are spasming violently from the cramping. “You really don’t look too well.”

“I’m not,” I say, expelling all air in a single breath. “Very painful. Is he—”

Something rather heavy clunks to the floor before me, and I don’t really need to guess what. I open my eyes, and before me I see the vibrant white glow of the petrified Pound. Not just gray, but completely white. I almost want to ponder what it means, but there’s not much time.

“Hurry,” she pleads, recognizing now that this is quite literally killing me.

A fresh wave of pain from my head surges tears into my eyes, obscuring my vision. With one forehoof, I wipe my eyes, noting that there seems to be something... other masking the blue aura of my hoof, before spinning Pound so that his tail is facing my way. There’s no time to wonder why my eyes are bleeding. I haven’t much time left.

I drag myself forward, cringing as, yes, glass bites into my undercarriage and forelimbs, and level my head with his tail. “Merry Christmas,” I mumble, biting into the petrified mass of tail fur.

Click. “Ow.” Once more, my teeth meet only fur and the inside of my cheek. “Did I do it? Did I—”

A terrified wail shrills in my ears, spurring on my headache and encouraging my heart to beat harder.

At first, I mistake it for Cup Cake, thinking that I’ve buggered up somehow, and only his tail unfrozen, falling off like a bloody tree limb. I say at first because before I can ponder that line of thought any further, a small hoof collides with my face, and a small buzzing of wings fills the room.

“Maa!” I hear Pound cry out. “Mama!”

Even without the Wind Sight or my own two eyes, it’s not hard to see what is happening with my mind’s eye. The young colt bolts immediately for his mother, who sweeps him up into a tight, tearful hug. His father closes in to join the hug, as though afraid that his little boy might leave him again if not restrained.

“Oh Pound, my darling baby, I missed you so much!” she cries. “I’ll never let you out of my sight again if it’s the last thing I do.”

Now, if it weren’t for the fact that I’m dying quite painfully from poisoning here, I might even allow them to have their little moment. As it stands, though, it’s too painful to move, and the strain with which my heart is beating now worries me a lot. She got her baby back; I should get to live too, right?

“Missus Cake,” I wheeze, waving a trembling hoof in the direction of her voice. “Flask... help... ‘m pregnant... don’t want... die...”

Now, I can see how it’s kind of sick not to tell her that I’m pregnant before I poison myself, but rather after I’m nearly dead already. In my defense, I have enough respect for the mare to know that she isn’t the sort of mother who would want to endanger unborn foals just to get her own little one back. There’s also the fact that in many documented alchemical poisonings, fetuses have outlasted the mother for minutes after her heart has stopped and she’s officially been declared brain dead. Some kind of bullshit magical nonsense that would never work in the human world. It’s fuckin’ Equestria, so I’ve kinda been operating on the assumption that I’m not going to die.

Much to my surprise though, somepony else beats her to it—a very princessly somebody I didn’t ever want to see again, judging by the voice and the telltale tinkle of magic in use. “Silver Script, you foolish mare,” I hear her voice, soft as a whisper in my ear, as a flask is pressed to my lips. “You really did it.” A sweet liquid forces its way past my lips and down my throat, sending a tingling sensation burning throughout my body.

I can hear Cup Cake’s shocked voice too. “Pinkie! I told you to get staff from the hospital! She needs medical assistance!”

Why does my body feel suddenly cold? I... Where’s my heartbeat? Oh fuck, when did it stop?

“I did! They were right behind me!” Pinkie rebuts. “See? There they are!”

Someone, help me. My heart has stopped and I don’t have the strength to tell any of you. Please... I don’t want to die. I don’t want my babies to die. I just want to live and be a good mommy. Is that so much to ask?

The voices grow more distant and strained in my ears. “Why isn’t she getting better, Princess L—”

I promise I’ll never do anything stupid again! I’ll be good! I’ll donate to more charity! I’ll do community service! I’ll even make peace with the Princesses if I have to, just please don’t let me die.

“She doesn’t have a pulse!”

Please, Luna, save me!

Author's Notes:

And so we have it. The goal she has waited upon for so long has been accomplished. Will she die? Will she live? Why did Luna show up? Will Seven ever stop ending things with evil cliffhangers?

Find out in the next exciting episode of Dragon Ball Z. Oh, wait. Wrong thing. Find out in the next chapter of The Alchemist's Heart.

Thanks go to Fourpony, NightmareKnight, and E3gner for the edit runs this time around; you didn't get ALL of it, but it was enough that I didn't have a huge mess on my own pass. ;) I hope Refro's feeling back to normal soon.

Edit: ReFro's feeling better. He helped me with an edit run just now, and helped me pick out a few more fixes. Thanks mate.