//------------------------------//
// Questions 
// Story: Wings 
// by timidfantasist 
//------------------------------//

	Twilight’s eyes cracked open, and she started to her feet, but her own voice stopped her. Her mouth wasn’t moving; how was she speaking?
“Can you hear me? Twilight!” Twilight jumped, and found herself staring at a small purple pony that bore more than a passing resemblance to…well, to herself. She even had the bright magenta streak in her mane, which parted around a small horn, but otherwise fell the same way Twilight’s own hair did.
“Twilight, listen to me. I need you to find Sunset Shimmer and tell her something’s wrong with the Elements. Can you do that? Tell her the journal’s broken, the mirror’s down, it’s all…” The Twilight-pony cut herself off with obvious difficulty and bowed her head. “Just find her. Please. She’ll help you. Find Sunset Shimmer. I hope they’re all okay…And, Twilight, I’m sorry.” Her image broke apart in a haze of pink sparkles, and a moment later, the world around Twilight dissolved.
Twilight’s eyes opened, and she immediately jumped to her feet. Almost immediately, she felt an extra pair of arms flare up behind her, heard a shh-shh noise on the floor as she rose, and brought the extra ‘arm’ forward to curve around her left shoulder, where she could get a good look at it.
It was a huge, magnificent, perfect wing. Twilight closed her eyes, rubbed them, and reopened them…no luck, still there. Detaching herself from the multitude of emotions that were running through her, she allowed herself to examine the wings. Primaries, secondaries, tertials, even an alula. No tail; I wonder if these actually work. How would I steer? The tops of the wings appeared to be outfitted with some sort of metal—Twilight hadn’t noticed it was there, it was incredibly light, though it did restrain the wing’s range of motion a tad when she flexed it. Looking down, she realized the rest of her was fitted with a light set of armor as well; it was a silver color, and she could see a warm pink tint to it. A slim sword hung by her side, complete with a lavender sheath that twisted like the Twilight-pony’s horn had. The hilt, when she drew it, had an etched starburst in it.
Find Sunset Shimmer. Twilight frowned, remembering her dream. Had that been her? She had been a firm believer in alternate realities since childhood, even after outgrowing her brief obsession with the idea of magic, but the idea that a world with her as a tiny, purple pony existed seemed completely ridiculous.
…Then again, so did this entire situation. Twilight brushed a hand over the longest primary feather on her left wing, just to reassure herself that they were really still there. It felt soft, like a bird’s feather, just much bigger. Was this really her answer? Was there another version of her who had gotten into this world somehow? She remembered the little Twilight-pony mentioning a mirror—perhaps there was some way of crossing between worlds after all, some trick that the other world had mastered before this one.
Now, though, something had gone wrong. The Twilight-pony had seemed desperately upset, especially over the broken mirror she’d mentioned. Twilight had no idea how to even begin hiding the huge wings she’d sprouted—not even her school backpack would hide them, the outer primaries went down to below her knees. She could at least fix the armor, but once she got it off, she would either have to cut up one of her blouses or rig up a toga. Thankfully tomorrow was at least a weekend—not tomorrow, it’s early in the morning, she thought, looking at her clock. The sun will be up soon.
Twilight sighed. Magic, alternate universes, and possibly, tiny-pony-me. That’s…a lot to take in for one day…She gave up trying to make sense of the situation, and contented herself with flopping stomach down on her bed (the wings got in the way if she tried flopping on her back). The armor was a bit pokey, but Twilight didn’t care. She focused on taking deep breaths and letting herself process all of this information. Once she had it all catalogued, she could figure out what to do.
Besides ignore that voice in her head that was insisting she was the Princess of Friendship. Because normal, sane people, even ones with wings, did not hear voices about friendship being magic. That would be ridiculous.
~Equestria~
Princess Twilight Sparkle’s eyes opened, and she sighed, looking down at Sunset’s journal. Luna’s dream communication seemed to be the only way to talk to her other self, and she couldn’t connect with anyone else, muttering something about conscious links across universes. Even connecting Twilight to her alternate self had nearly drained her; she was fast asleep across the room, her flanks gently heaving up and down.
More than anything else, Princess Twilight hoped that her human self’s surge of magic was temporary, or at least not overly inconveniencing her. She’d never thought about even having an alternate self; saving the world tended to drive the natural questions out of one’s head. Now that she thought back, she hadn’t even really questioned why the Elements of Harmony-plus-Sunset could now use magic and ‘pony up’. If she’d just stopped to think, she would have realized that obviously there was another Twilight Sparkle, and obviously she would have been affected by the same magic as the others. And now, because she’d been reckless—well, okay, mostly Sunset had been reckless in introducing magic to the world in the first place, but Twilight should have realized that a shift that fundamental had far-reaching effects. She was just lucky the human version of her had sprouted wings and not a horn.
Twilight managed to stop herself pacing and worrying before she wore a trench through her castle's floor, and a pang of homesickness for the worn floor of Golden Oaks went through her. She'd done all she could; it was up to her counterpart to find Sunset and save their two worlds, now.