In Equestria’s Canterlot, Minutte knocks on the door of her bookworm friend, Moon Dancer. She lets the knocking unicorn in with a magic grab and turn of the door knob.
“Did you hear the royal proclamation?” Minuette asks right as she goes through the front door.
Moon Dancer rises from the study desk to see her visiting neighbor. “Apologies for not catching up these days. I’ve been devouring this rare copy of Marechia Whinny’s political treatise, The Princess!”
“Uh, no offense, but this is much bigger than some dead mare’s out-of-school essay.”
Moon Dancer frowns half-seriously as she closes the old tome. “What is it?”
Minuette then levitates a short scroll from her saddle bag for her friend to read. As it unfurls, Moon Dancer could espy a royal seal on it as well as the hoofprint of Princess Twilight herself.
“In short, Twilight and her Ponyville friends know about an alternate world without magic,” says Minuette as Moon Dancer checks out the announcement with a push of her glasses. “Something went wrong that made our magic leak into their world. Now, they’ve turned into Equestrians like us, they can’t turn back, and they don’t have a clue about how magic works.”
Moon Dancer does a double-taking blink. “Oh, boy. That’s a lot to take in.” She squints at the final paragraph. “And… we can volunteer, right?”
“Yup.” Her bright teeth carry a little light in the darkness. “We can help any way we can to keep their society from falling apart. Lemon Hearts is already organizing the Canterlot effort of giving them resources on magic.”
The bespectacled unicorn shakes her head in wonder. “Wow… this is big. Really big. Like… since Twilight’s the Princess of Friendship, does this mean we’ll be friends with a whole new world?”
“Seems like it. The scroll did say she has friends there.”
A pensive expression washes over Moon Dancer’s face. “Okay, but how am I supposed to help? I still have no good idea what a ‘human’ is. I don’t even know what it’s like there.” She looks out the window as if she could see the portal to the other world from here. “Do I need a special uniform or something?”
“It’s all in the attached note,” Minuette says, levitating a piece of paper on the scroll which Moon Dancer has not noticed yet. “No special uniform or anything though: For starters, they need unicorns like us to train the humans who turned into more unicorns. If you’re not up for that, we could go in and help make things Equestrian-friendly—things like their weird technology and simple things like chairs and tables. Even something as easy as sending over a couple bits and spell books would do.”
But Minuette is taken aback at the giggle Moon Dancer makes when she finishes the note. “Of course,” Moon Dancer says, pleased with herself, “the most important bit is to ‘befriend them and be there for them through this unusual time.’” Her smile then falls over. “What did it say?—magicless bipedal ape-like creatures? This is going to be such a tough time for them….”
Minuette could not help but give a moment of silence for the former humans. “I’ve already arranged my schedule over the weekend for a trip to one of their far-off cities. What about you?”
Deep brainwork fills Moon Dancer at first, especially with such a bombshell of an announcement dumped on her.
But her eyes glance over her old rare book, and she could not hide her giddy grin.
“Alright, every pony!” Moon Dancer announces in a high school at the edge of Amareica’s West Coast. “Today, we’re going to be learning more about the Fundamental Theory of Magic according to Newtrot in his famous spell-books! This time, we’ve got textbook copies for every student courtesy of Princess Twilight’s book-copying spell. So, let us now turn to page 255 where we’ll learn about the construction of magic amulets!”
The class of former human unicorns groan at the exciting lesson, unaware that Moon Dancer is finally sharing her decades of knowledge with dozens of ponies, and no one is going to stop her.
And, who knows? She might just strike a life-long friendship with a student enthusiastic over the arcane magic arts. Somehow.
Truly, this is her moment!
Mmm. Wonder how Moondancer meeting Moondancer went? I bet Moondancer would be excited, but I'm not so sure what Moondancer's reaction would be.
What?
You've got wands growing out of your foreheads, people. You're going to learn how to use them and you're going to like it. And Bookhorse 2: Book Horsier will make sure of it.
(Sunset and Starlight both qualify as Bookhorse 3: Horse Books with a Vengeance.)
Ah, the enthusiasm of a nerd whose nerdiness is finally called upon. I know that feeling well.
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In the immortal words of Claude von Riegan, "MY MOMENT HAS ARRIVED!"
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For a nerd, the glorious day when there knowledge is needed is when they can convince themselves they haven't wasted their life.
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I remember a scrapped line for this chapter which sums it up, to paraphrase: "The Change has been a new start for many of us." It seems to be a common trope where a worldwide transformation is taken for the many bad things it can bring about, and I guess this chapter (and this fic in general) turns it upside-down. Although, I could dip into the more negative side of things for this story once in a while....
Also, it is interesting to wonder just what Abacus Cinch has been up to after the Friendship Games. Officially, it's left vague whether she left voluntarily or was forced out, but either way, her age and her actions would make it hard for strangers to trust her. Thus, I would like to see her redeemed, even if somewhat off-screen.
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As reformed (in a way) as Moon Dancer is now, I have yet to see her gush about the things she reads about. The Point of No Return is the closest we get for an enthusiastic Moon Dancer over books, and even then, it's just her having a friendly meal with First Folio.
So, of course, she gets to express her excitement to a bunch of former humans who never really cared about magic until now.
As for this world's Moon Dancer: I am not sure where she would be, if she would even be in Canterlot City to begin with. Though, with her Equestrian version's obsession with literature on magic, I could entertain the idea of Earth's Moon Dancer being a futurist techie who reads TechCrunch every day.
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Well, for what it's worth, she showed up in the Forgotten Friendship movie in a library scene. So, she's definitely in Canterlot City.