Hearts for Medicine: The Work of Canterlot Hospital

"Flurry" by Nurse Sweetheart

Hello, dear ponies. 

 Oh, don't mind my calling you "dear". I suppose it's become a habit. You see, I work in the maternity ward of the Canterlot Hospital. I positively LOVE my job. Some ponies think that working with newborns and their mothers would be a terrible experience. To be perfectly honest, it is really terrible sometimes. Ungrateful mothers, psycho families, sickly patients; none of that is fun. But I work for the days when I can see a new mother and baby healthy and happy. 

Like in the case of Her Crystal Highness Princess Cadance. 

I was honored to be present at the birth of the firstborn of Cadance and Shining Armor. I had traveled to the Crystal Empire upon Her Majesty's request that a nurse of our hospital in Canterlot attend her. I had never traveled so far before, or seen anything close to the splendor of the Crystal Empire. The tall spires of Canterlot were outshone by the pure gleam of the Empire. It had a way of making me feel both very, very small and very, very big. It was in the midst of the beauty of the city that the castle rose: my home and workplace until Cadance had her foal. 

The Princess and her husband welcomed me as if I were an old neighbor of theirs. Perhaps I was at some point, since both of them lived for a time in Canterlot, and I have lived elsewhere in the past. 

Two days after I arrived, Cadance went into labor. I attended her, in charge of a small army of crystal pony nurses. When the foal finally arrived, we were delighted so see that it was a filly, and a lovely creature indeed. We were surprised, however, to find that the filly was born with both wings AND a horn, denoting her an alicorn. I have delivered more than a hundred foals, but never one who was an alicorn by birth. It is said that the last alicorn to be born that way were Their Majesties Celestia and Luna, and they have never spoken about whether or not they were born as alicorns. If even the Princesses of the Sun and Moon were not born alicorns, then I held in my arms the very first of her kind, and possibly the last for a very long time. 

It was both a solemn and joyous occasion to inform the proud parents of their daughter's gift. I think, though, that Shining Armor was too frazzled to hear anything I said. Never the less, Princess Cadance extended an invitation to the Crystalling of their filly, whose name they had yet to choose. I would have loved to stay, especially since a Royal Crystalling hasn't happened for more than a thousand years. But my duty called me back to Canterlot, where new lives awaited their beginnings. I left the Crystal Empire, hearing through a news broadcast that the filly I delivered had been crystalled as Princess Flurry Heart. 

Today was the one month anniversary of Flurry Heart's birth. Princess Cadance was on a visit to the Royal Sisters in Canterlot this week with her husband and filly, and so decided to have her follow-up appointment at the Canterlot Hospital. I was once again honored to care for both the elder and the younger Princesses, each beautiful, healthy, and altogether perfect. 

As the crystalline carriage left the hospital, I remember one thing going through my mind:

This is what I live for.