Chapter 2: Corporeal
"Come down from there at once, young lady!" her mother scolded her. Her only reaction was to giggle and stick out her tongue as she stood upside down on the ceiling. The coming of her strange new abilities was scary at first, and her parents told her that she shouldn't tell anyone about it, but in the house, she had a bit more leeway to explore the possibilities. That of course, didn't mean her mother wanted her to do anything risky, like standing on the ceiling in such a way that if her powers gave out it would land her with a broken neck.
After a few more seconds, she relented, floating down into her mother's arms and smiling. To her credit, her mother managed to maintain the scowl for twice as long as usual before the sight of her daughter's smiling face broke her defenses yet again. Another brief lecture on safety and a hug before she was free to go again, with a promise of punishment if she did it again. An assurance and a returned hug later, and she was back to playing and exploring their new house. Maybe this time they would get to stay a while before moving.
-----
Princess Luna idly shifted through a stack of papers as she contemplated what was to come with the evening. Twilight would arrive for yet another attempt at stabilizing the creature's physical form. At their last meeting, the youngest alicorn had postulated a promising theory. The entire time that Canterlot's best and brightest had been working under Twilight's supervision to solve the problem, they had been trying to discover and recover its original form, and there had been, for all intents and purposes, no progress at all. They couldn't get a sense of what the creature should look like past the burning silhouette which it currently displayed from the creature's mind (though it vaguely reminded Twilight of her adventures in the alternate universe where she had fought and befriended Sunset Shimmer), as any attempts to delve into its thoughts had been rebuked by strong wards placed by an obviously powerful unicorn. Its dreams were a bit more vulnerable, but they were so chaotic and disjointed that all Luna's dreamwalking gleaned from them was a powerful headache, leaving her to believe that what was left of their subject was probably not sane, which made it more pressing to stabilize the creature before any sort of magic surge or other disaster originated from it. The likelihood of damage being caused or anypony getting hurt was slim, but for all Luna knew the alien might dispel Twilight's work and accidentally destroy itself, and that would be just as tragic after all it had obviously been through. When it came to magical creatures, safer was better.
Everything had led Twilight to believe that the creature's old body was beyond their reach, at least for practical purposes. For that matter, judging by its current state, its old body might not have been sufficient to contain its power anyway, which raged and pushed against any container they tried to force upon it. No, their solution would come in making an entirely new body for it to inhabit. Thus, Twilight had, about a month ago, started the construction of a golem, the most ambitious and advanced of its type. Anypony who looked at it or touched it would be able to distinguish it from the real thing easily, though it still retained the general shape and look of a unicorn. Of course, the golem wasn't complete yet, lacking most movement and a working focus for performing magic, but it was complete enough to contain the creature and at least allow it to perceive and speak. This had come at no small expense to the crown, but Celestia was likely the most shrewd investor in Equestria, and the potential knowledge and diplomatic benefits of rescuing an alien were too good to pass up, along with the fact that it was simply unthinkable to leave the creature to suffer a slow death via mana burn.
Her thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the thick oaken doors on the other side of the room. Luna put aside the tax budget for this year's public works, and adopted the look of regal serenity that her sister had mastered and that she only had a decent imitation of. "Come in," she said. The door opened, and she saw her sister and Twilight Sparkle flanked by her door guards, prompting her to relax the facade that they all held for their subjects somewhat. "Oh, hello. I presume it is time?" They wouldn't be merely observing the ritual that would seal the creature inside of the golem, but powering it. Not only were they more magically powerful than any mere unicorn, but it was also much cheaper this way, saving the crown many bits on what was very expensive.
Twilight nodded. "Everything is in place. It will likely take another month to get it up and moving, but for now we can move forward with the first step." The trio then proceeded through the castle, eventually leaving behind the marble floors and lavishly decorated walls to a deeper, sturdier part of the castle, built when surviving sieges was still a concern for the then-recently-founded capitol. Nowadays, this section was used in times of trouble to evacuate citizenry, or to contain dangerous magic and creatures away from the populace. For a high-powered ritual that needed the magic of three alicorns, it would be the most ideal location to ensure that nothing went catastrophically wrong.
They arrived in the ritual chamber a few minutes later, a large, domed room made entirely of obsidian and rune-etched stone enchanted to absorb magic. In the center was the wraith-like apparition, contained in a translucent silver dome. Sustained as it was, it didn't writhe in agony like it once had, but it didn't respond to outside stimulation either. Luna hoped having a new body would change that.
The golem was wheeled in not long after, and the ritual began, Twilight leading it. She stepped up to a dais that had been placed in front of the containment field, and began to draw power from her fellow princesses. Using the magic to construct a secondary containment field that encompassed the golem and the creature, she prepared to make the transfer. Deep within the golem, she could feel the gemstone cores that held the enchantments which would power the golem. The interface had been somewhat inspired by her earlier efforts to connect the creature to Equestria's magic, shifting the magic of the enchantment to fuse with its new occupant. Satisfied that all was in order, Twilight lowered the first containment field, using her borrowed power to stream the creature's wispy form towards the golem. Like a seamstress threading so many needles, she gradually connected the swirling eddies of power to the golem's cores, letting the primary core, the 'heart', draw in the greater portion of the alien's essence. Performing one last check-up of her work before finishing, she primed the core responsible for activating the others, and finally let her magic's purple glow wink out. "There...that should do it," she said, walking towards the golem. "Hello? Can you hear and understand me?" she asked, gazing into the glowing sapphires it had in place of eyes, to which she got no response. Tilting her head in confusion, she began running a full diagnostic of her work. "I don't understand...Everything looks like it's working, but..."
Celestia hemmed and hawed for a moment before speaking up. "Perhaps it is damaged in more ways than are visible. It could be that its memories might have suffered during its transition. Maybe it forgot how to speak, or perhaps there is some deeper problem which renders it oblivious to things outside of itself."
"As good a theory as any," replied Luna, striding up towards the motionless golem and pressing her horn to it. "I shall attempt to enter its psyche. My dreamwalking should be able to find some purchase from which to examine what exactly is the problem."
Twilight balked a little, "But entering a damaged mind can be dang-" Luna didn't hear the rest, as she had already made her decision.
Entering the creature's mind was easier than expected, but much to her dismay, the disarrayed fragments of memories and feelings were indecipherable. Her ability to enter the minds of the unconscious also shielded her from most things a mind could conjure up, but that didn't even come close to solving the biggest problem. She didn't even know where to start as she was bombarded with an unfocused, unrestrained flood of everything the creature was experiencing and remembering at that moment. None of it was pleasant. Pain, confusion, loss, and rage all battled for control and guilt tied them all together. It took what seemed like an eternity, but finally, Luna found a memory cohesive enough to construct a dream around, and give some solid ground in this chaotic whirlwind.
It was a memory of a grassy field overlooking the ruins of a city. In front of her was the fuzzy, unstable projection of the creature's self that its taxed mind had conjured to fill the false memory. Luna slowly approached it, like a photographer trying not to spook a bird. "Hello? Can you understand me?" The last question was a little redundant, as language wasn't really necessary in a thought-to-thought conversation, but little mannerisms like going through the motions of talking helped make the dream seem more real and less likely to break apart.
The bipedal figure turned to Luna. It closely matched depictions of the 'humans' that Twilight had encountered while tracking Sunset Shimmer, but somehow seemed...off. A smaller head, a less slender body, different muscular proportions. It looked like a human that needed to survive a more hostile environment. Its eyes glowed a sickly blue, eerily similar to the sapphires it now had. Opening her mouth, for it seemed that if the anatomy was anything like the humans, it was a female, it let out a soundless scream before falling to its knees. The dream shifted for just a few seconds, and the city was whole again, seemingly unaware of what was coming as the first meteoric conflagration screamed down towards it. Right as it would have impacted, the dream reverted, leaving only ruins. The woman was lying on the ground, thrashing and holding her head as if she were trying to rip out her own brain. Luna frowned in sympathy. "You poor creature. You are the survivor of some cataclysm destroying your home, aren't you? You have more than enough. Rest easy, for we shall mend you." Satisfied that she had established some sort of baseline, Luna began the long task of piecing the visitor's mind back together.