~ 1 ~
In Where There Are Explosions and Shock
“Ugh…my head…” Luna groaned. She kept her eyes closed in pain as she put her hooves to her temples, trying to wiggle the ringing out of her ears.
“Oh dear Faust I’m sorry!” Twilight screamed as she ran up to the fallen moon princess, the front half of her body covered entirely in soot. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, imsorryimsorryimsorry!...”
“Silence!” Luna roared in the Royal Canterlot Voice. “Mine ears are ringing more than the warning bells, I would desire to have peace and quiet!”
Luna continued rubbing her temples until the ringing finally subsided. The ringing from Twilight’s constant apologies, however, never stopped.
“Imsorryimsorryimsorryimsorryim…” Twilight paused. Luna thanked the higher powers that be that she could have all the ringing peacefully subside…
“Luna? Is that you?”
Oh dear Faust, what did she do NOW?
“Yes, Twilight, it is your princess, Luna. Has some aspect of myself changed for you to not...” Luna stopped speaking. Either her ears were still not working correctly…
…Or something about her voice had changed.
“Twilight, is that my voice that I hear?” Luna asked in confusion. “Or have one of the guards sat down next to me without my knowledge?”
If her ears were right, then it was a decidedly male voice that was speaking her words.
“Oh no…” Twilight said worriedly. “Luna, the experiment went wrong. Completely and utterly wrong.”
“As we have concluded with the explosion, but what else has happened?”
Luna finally opened her eyes. A very exasperated Twilight was staring at her with wide eyes and thin pupils.
“Luna, I don’t want you to panic right now, but…” Twilight trailed off. She took a deep breath, “But you appear to be a stallion…”
“I am a WHAT?!” Luna gathered her footing and sat up in shock. She quickly stood up and ran to the nearest reflective surface in the room, which was a window near where the explosive experiment had taken place in her quarters.
She gasped at the reflection. There, standing in her place, was a gasping stallion, with a shorter and not flowing starry blue mane, a dark blue coat reminiscent of the night sky (and slightly marred with soot from the explosion), and a broader build with a longer muzzle to accentuate the fact she kept trying to deny.
She was a stallion instead of a mare. She was a Prince instead of a Princess.
“CHANGE US BACK CHANGE US BACK CHANGE US BACK!” Luna yelled, the Royal Canterlot Voice in full blast.
“Calm down, Luna! I’m sorry-“
“THOU STATE YOUR APOLOGY ONE MORE TIME AND WE SHALL HAVE YOUR HORN IMPALED THROUGH THINE EYES!”
“Listen to me! You’re not thinking correctly right now. Please, calm down!” Twilight’s own special yell, the Royal Ponyville Voice, was still something she needed to work on. However, the message was clear, and after a couple of breathing tricks courtesy of Princess Cadence, the princess/prince of the night did calm down.
Though she, or rather he, was still angry.
“Twilight…What has happened to the artifact?”
“It… it’s gone. Starswirl’s Sphere is gone! Oh no, this wasn’t supposed to happen! You must believe me, I never thought that-” Twilight began.
“The Sphere? It’s gone?!” Luna was getting furious again, and Twilight kept hoping she wasn’t going to be banished for this. Or banished when she fixes this.
“This wasn’t in the notes. The Sphere was supposed to only change the color of your coat, not explode. I don’t understand, how could it change a pony’s gender instead of their coat? A biological change like that shouldn’t be possible!”
“Tis magic, Twilight Sparkle,” Luna scoffed. “You should understand that where science can never hope to tread water, magic floats with ease. Starswirl and I would debate and argue for months on end over these matters. Some of his artifacts I stowed away more out of spite in losing said arguments than for the safety of Equestria.”
Luna, to Twilight’s relief, appeared to have calmed down again after her second outburst. She released a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding, then met the critical eye of the lunar princess/prince. “You did read and study over the notes for the spell, yes?”
“Of course I did!” Twilight exclaimed. “I was Princess Celestia’s student, I know how to prepare for new spells!”
“Celestia did teach you how to read Starswirl’s notes, yes? You have studied other artifacts of his that weren’t taken?”
Twilight smiled sheepishly. “I, uh, I never actually learned how to read Starswirl’s script. I just tried to translate it when I studied some of the spells he invented…”
The lunar prince lifted a hoof to his eyes. “Blasted sister… let me see the notes.”
Twilight looked around and found some documents on the floor, slightly singed around the edges from the explosion, but more or less intact and readable. She smiled awkwardly and handed over the notes, meeting Luna’s disappointed gaze.
“Hwaet…” Luna began in the Old Equiish script written in the notes. Starswirl was the first unicorn to actively transcribe magical runes into a dialect easier to understand, so magic users in his time could understand more spells than what the high-class unicorns were allowed to teach. He wrote his spells in a poetic form, believing that magic was a concept that can be used for both studies and every-day life.
Luna silently thought that try as he had, Starswirl’s intellect could never have truly realized the vast potential of magic, which was rather hilarious to see him constantly become frustrated over.
Finally, he recited one section that made him stop and re-read, a confused look on his face. He looked at Twilight’s translation, and sighed loudly. “You mistranslated a rather important section. Rather than using a being’s magical force to enact outward changes, such as a changing the colors of a coat as you hypothesized, the spell would use the being’s nature to change their bodies. Did my sister never teach you how to properly translate old Equiish? I know the language was dying even as I was turning into the Nightmare many moons ago, but has the language been so warped so as perfect translations are all lost to time?”
“She…” Twilight hesitated, “…admitted to me that not even she could remember all of the language. She said I could study the language as a side project, and we skipped it during our lessons…”
Luna stared forward, not daring to blink for 20 solid seconds, before again setting his hoof on his forehead. “Twilight, please remind me, after I use some anti-body magic shampoo, to start creating a translation spell that will utilize my knowledge of Old Equiish, and have it readily available for scholars of this era to use and fix whatever spells they may have mis-cast in the ages since my banishment…”
“Oh, uh,” Twilight reeled back in slight shock, “Of, um, of course princess. Or should I call you-”
“We are a princess, and we shall always be a princess, never a prince!” Luna yelled unexpectedly. He quickly trotted over to his washroom, slightly blushing at the ridiculousness of the whole situation. “And for the love of Faust, please do not tell our sister of this, or we shall never hear the end of ‘Prince Luna’ from her…”
After Luna closed the door, Twilight picked up Starswirl’s notes again, and began casting a spell to try and repair the singed documents. “Why would Starswirl create a magical artifact in order to change genders? Was there something in the kingdom that warranted magical gender changes? Maybe a far-away land was suffering from a severely skewed gender ratio, and had asked him for help?”
She pondered over the implications of the Sphere while looking over the notes again, making sure to closely read over the script to fix any translations she mistakenly made. Finally, after a period of time, Luna came out of her washroom, steam rolling out from the door.
Except she was still a he.
“It would seem Starswirl meant for the artifact's power to last beyond conventional methods of cleaning magic…” Luna stated. He was still in the process of drying himself off from the shower, water trickling down the front of his chest, as massive in power and stature as a royal could sculpt themselves to be, his legs bulging with strong muscles that looked to be able to move mountains now…
…Twilight not so subtly tried to slap away the blush rising to her face. Luna didn’t notice.
Luna stepped over to the window again to see his reflection. “It would seem my mane has reverted to their original form, instead of the royal form,” she noted. Twilight realized that Luna’s hair was now a pale blue color, instead of showing a visage of the night sky that was a trademark for regal Luna.
“Maybe it was the magic shampoo?” Twilight suggested.
“Possibly, yes. But my mane stems from my power, perhaps…”
Luna lit up his horn, and soon enough his mane started to glow dark blue. However, while the starry night did come back, it was not flowing as his sister’s mane would.
“Hmph. Tis better than nothing, and slightly better than my regular mane,” Luna said.
“What’s wrong with your regular mane? It looked nice on you,” Twilight replied.
“It is not something you would need, even as an alicorn yourself. But as for us, we are the embodiment of the heavens, and we must show the appearance of being in tune with the night. Although, with my mane now being shorter, along with this form…” Luna sighed, “It would seem we may have to answer to Celestia to see if she can help us change back before any of our citizens see us-”
“Luna! Twilight!” Just then, Princess Celestia slammed the door open and quickly trotted in, a worried expression plastered over all her features. “I heard an explosion in the palace, and the guards said it appeared to come from your quarters. They said they thought it was something of Twilight’s doing, but when you two didn’t answer the guards outside asking if you were okay, they went to tell me something may have went wrong. What in Equestria haaaaa….”
Celestia, once she trotted up to the duo, finally fully gazed at Luna for the first time since she came into the room. After a second of silence, Twilight noticed that the Princess’s cheeks were steadily growing red, and her legs backed up.
Celestia’s wings shot out, standing at attention for all to see.