AUTHOR'S NOTE: Much thanks to my lovely beta Watercolourwings 3 We'll start to get into the Flutterdash next chapter, promise ;)
Twilight Sparkle was lead through the castle to a spacious room. Half-empty coffee mugs lined the desks and gave the room and dull and musty odor. The walls were covered with charts and graphs, all visual representations of statistical information of Equestria. This room was typically a meeting room for the princess to discuss any matters concerning the ponies of Equestria, now it was turned into a workplace for the actuary and statistician ponies.
"These ponies work very hard all year long gathering information about the ponies of Equestria. Usually everything is perfectly alright, but recently they discovered a shocking trend relating to the Pegasus ponies of Cloudsdale," Princess Celestia said to Twilight and Spike.
Twilight began to worry even more than before; two of her best friends were from Cloudsdale. Her heart sank a little further as she glanced around at the graphs and noticed a reverse J-curve denoting a rapid drop in the population of the Pegasus ponies from Cloudsdale.
"Why has the population of Pegasus ponies dropped so much, Princess?" Twilight asked.
"It seems that over the past decade all of the male Pegasus ponies have become sterile. We have no idea why, but we do know that we are losing Pegasus ponies fast." A frown drew itself across Princess Celestia's muzzle as she spoke those words.
"That's awful!" Twilight gasped. "What can we do to help them?"
"That is why I've summoned you here, Twilight. We need to find a spell to fix this problem or there will be no more Pegasus ponies. You are my most bright and promising student, if anyone can help me, it's you."
Twilight was stunned. She hadn't really noticed the population drop since most of the Pegasus ponies remained in Cloudsdale and she couldn't go there. Her mind reeled trying to come up with a solution for this problem.
Possibilities flew through her brain and were quickly discarded by her logical mind. What if we took sperm from an Earth pony and infused it with that of the Pegasus ponies? No. What if we cloned the Pegasus ponies? No. What if we bred the Pegasus ponies to Earth ponies and see if the offspring can fly? No. What if we combined the DNA of two mares instead of a mare and a stallion? No.
But then again, magic wasn't logical or rational. The little purple pony shook her head, hoping for an Etch-a-Sketch effect and have all the negativity disappear. She needed to remember that it was magic that she was dealing with and she had defied the improbable in the past. She skimmed over the ideas in her head again and tried to match them up with corresponding spells that she already knew. Unfortunately, her area of expertise wasn't in Pegasus fertility. She had no prior knowledge of any spells that could work for her ideas.
"Twilight Sparkle," Princess Celestia said gently, noticing her student deep in thought.
Twilight was startled to lucidity. "Sorry Princess Celestia, I'm trying to think of ways to help," Twilight responded.
"Quite alright, Twilight," the princess chuckled softly. "Would you care to share some of your thoughts?"
"Sure!" Twilight began enthusiastically. "Well, at first I was thinking that maybe would could infuse an Earth pony's sperm with a male Pegasus pony and then see if it would breed a full Pegasus. Then I realized that even with all the magic in the world we couldn't turn an Earth pony into a Pegasus pony. Then I thought: what if we combined the reproductive DNA of two female ponies?"
"Hmm," Princess Celestia mused. "You know what, that might actually work. Theoretically we would just need to alter a few minor things that could be easily achieved with a physiological matter spell."
Twilight Sparkle seemed very hopeful at the Princess's encouragement. "Spike," Twilight called. "Can you find me a physiological matter or biological spell book in the library?"
"Absolutely, Twi," the little dragon replied, and was off like a flash to the royal library.
As Twilight was waiting she took the opportunity to glance over the graphs. What could possibly cause such a mass sterilization of the Pegasus stallions? She pondered as she meandered around the room. The graphs indicated that the first major population drop was about five years ago and in the years to follow it dropped exponentially.
Twilight saw a light gray pony with a double helix cutie mark and made her way over to him. "Excuse me, sir," Twilight said politely as she approached the pony. "My name is Twilight Sparkle, I'm helping the Princess with the crisis in Cloudsdale. I was wondering if you know how this happened?"
"Hello Twilight, my name is Gnosis," the gray pony introduced himself. "I'm not entirely sure what would have caused this. I've been working tirelessly to try to find out, but no success so far."
"Okay, well, please keep me informed if and when you find out," Twilight said, a bit disappointed.
"Absolutely," Gnosis replied as he turned back to his work.
Twilight Sparkle couldn't help but notice how tired Gnosis and all the other ponies looked. They must have been working very hard for a very long time. The little purple unicorn knew she would probably fit in with the group of listless ponies soon.
Spike returned very quickly after he was sent on his task. Twilight Sparkle rejoined the princess at her side when she saw the baby dragon enter the room. He had a rather large stack of books teetering in his claws. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, Twilight counted.
"These are all the books on physiological matter and biology," Spike announced, sounding a bit winded.
"That's great, Spike! I'm sure I'll be able to find something," Twilight said tenaciously.
"Shall we begin?" The princess questioned.
"Yes, the quicker we find a spell, the quicker we can save the Pegasus ponies of Cloudsdale."
The elegant princess motioned at a large mahogany desk. Twilight and Princess Celestia approached the table as Spike placed the books in the center. Both student and teacher chose a book and began reading. The first book that Twilight read yielded nothing for the current situation that they were presented with, but she was beginning to learn a lot more about biology and physiology.
"Any luck yet, Princess?" Twilight queried.
"I'm afraid not, Twilight. We'll have to keep reading," responded the princess.
Twilight and Princess Celestia continued to flip through book after book. The sun that shone like an eternal ball of fire began its descent through the heavens. Soon a bright waning moon shone in the sun's place. Night had fallen upon the ponies and still there was no success. When Twilight finished off her second book, she looked up and took a quick survey of her surroundings. She hadn't noticed that most of the other ponies had gone home, including Gnosis. Someone -presumably Spike- had lit a few lanterns to provide them with reading light.
Twilight and the princess were both starting their third books; this was not promising. They had already gone through four books between them and turned up nothing. Twilight yawned loudly as she turned a page in the most recent book she picked up. She could hear the princess yawn beside her and knew they both needed some sleep... well, maybe after this chapter.
Twilight had started reading a chapter on reproduction in avian equines. Her heart sped up a bit as she read further through the chapter. It began with detailed diagrams of both male and female reproductive organs and information on when breeding season was, fertility rates, etc. After a bit of background information on avian equines, the spell book introduced a number of fertility spells for Pegasus ponies. Twilight glanced through all the spells quickly before she stopped on one that looked like it might work.
"Princess Celestia, I think I might have found a spell!" Twilight called to the sleepy royal pony.
Princess Celestia went over to where Twilight was reading and glanced over the spell for herself. She also thought that it could work. If it was successful, the spell would do exactly what Twilight had suggested by taking the reproductive DNA from two mares to make a foal.
"This is wonderful, Twilight Sparkle," the princess praised. "Lets get some sleep and in the morning we'll figure out how to precede from here."
"Good idea," Twilight responded with a yawn. "Hey Spike," Twilight began, then noticed that the baby dragon had fallen asleep slumped against the desk. The purple unicorn went over and lifted Spike onto her back, and with that the ponies went off to bed.