Too tall, too thin. Words that hand around in Fleur-de-Lis’s head everytime she looks at herself in the mirror.

Quiet words, usually overtaken by compliments and encouragement, her beauty praised all across Canterlot and the places she visits outside it.

But she remembers.

Too tall, too thin.

She began that way. Almost too tall and too thin to survive.

Almost too tall and too thin for her mother to survive.

Florentine Wafer’s birthing problems revealed her foal to possess a rare and quite serious condition that left her limbs and neck overdeveloped and her body fat dangerously low for a new-born foal.

Fleur-de-Lis emerged barely conscious, unable to see or hear. And her mother suffered bleeding as a result of her baby’s complicated exit.

Here, Bourbon Blend, terrified and confused, holds his newborn daughter in the first hours of her life as he waits, powerless, as his wife is given emergency treatment.

Nurse Redheart approaches.

Florentine Wafer and Fleur-de-Lis will survive but it will only be through a long and arduous few days in hospital, undergoing many tests and treatments.

And Fleur herself?

They’ll have to take her as she is.

It’s a bit of a sad and scary start to her life but it mostly gets better from hereon out.