“Ugh….”
Twilight stroked her head, feeling a headache coming on.
“Wh-What happened?” she moaned, then closed her eyes at how bright it was. “Is it n-noon alrea—wait a minute...is that…?”
She sniffed.
“Coffee?”
A worn-out groan.
“Sunset!” she shouted, fumbling around for her glasses. “This is torture! Just when I had my mind off of my number one favorite drink in the whole world, you had to bring it all over with well-roasted—woah!”
Fell off the bed with a thump.
Then, steps from outside and the door swung open. “Twilight! Oh, I’m sorry! I...I should’ve—“
“No, no!” Twilight said from the floor, waving a leg about. “I’m fine, Sunset! Y-You’re fine, but...” fumbling around again, “have you seen where my glasses are? I can’t seem to find them!”
Then, without seeing Sunset’s figure put out her arms to her face, Twilight felt the glasses fit right in front her eyes.
She blinked and saw Sunset standing before her.
As a yellow unicorn. “Uh, good morning!”
Twilight waved a hoof at her. “Oh! Good morning, Sunset!”
And then, Twilight’s smile broke.
“Sunset?!” Twilight screamed, scrambling to get on her two feet except she had four hooves so she fell to the ground again. She looked up at her, blinking but still seeing that pony in front of her.
Sunset offered a helping hoof. “Yup! It’s me!”
“It’s you!” Twilight said, pointing a hoof at her, and then she looked at that pointed purple hoof. “Agh! Why am I a pony again?!”
Sunset smirked. “I did tell you no caffeine until you go to Equestria.”
Twilight looked down on the carpeted floor as she got up with Sunset’s help. “But, it’s not even next week! But, then...if that’s the case...” and then it dawned on her. A smile grew on her face. In a quiet voice that was barely able to contain her excitement: “Tell me where I am now!”
Sunset chuckled. “Princess Twilight’s castle, Ponyville, Equestria.”
Twilight scrunched up her cheek with a squeezing hoof. “Eee!”
And Sunset hugged her, her two forehooves embracing her while standing on her hindhooves.
Twilight looked surprised under the pressure. “Uh, I-I didn’t know you ponies could hug like...that….”
“Just don’t fall, OK?” Sunset said, still hugging.
“Heh-heh...eee!”
And Twilight returned the hug with her two forehooves.
The two ponies then went back to their four legs.
Twilight then whirled her head as she inspected the room, turning around in place as she opened and closed her mouth like a goldfish in awe. She saw the details of the guest bedroom which looked ripped out of a fairy tale: huge bed, various portraits, warm fireplace, and crystal walls everywhere.
Twilight then stomped the floor in her glee, using all four hooves to do so. “Eee! This is amazing! We get to stay in a royal castle, see how the weather’s done here, study how magic works up close and personal, and see how the sun and moon act out!”
Sunset gave her a glare. “I wouldn’t call that acting out if the princesses were here.”
Twi then zipped her mouth. “A-heh-heh! Heh...I apologize for...this,” pointing at herself with a hoof, “but we’re right here! Right where everything started, where all the magic comes from!” Then, pointing at Sunset, “I know you felt weirded out and curious about our world when you came over. Now, it’s my turn to go through the same thing and experience it with you!”
Sunset made another smirk. “Don’t you mean, ‘our turn’?”
Twi flinched. “You mean the both of us?”
Sunset nodded. “Maybe? But, it’s not just the two of us who crossed the portal….”
Twi then tapped her chin with her hoof. She gasped. “Everyone’s here!”
Sunset gave her a smile.
“Eee!” She jumped in place, then almost stumbled as she landed on her four hooves. “We get to meet our other selves together! Applejack’s going to find it strange because she rides horses a lot and now she’s a horse! Rarity’s going to talk about fashion with a creature that normally doesn’t wear clothes, and I—“
Her joy disappeared as her eyes dilated.
“—will meet...myself….”
Sunset arched a brow. “What’s wrong?”
Twi sat down, all four hooves on the floor. She looked at her sitting stance, looked at Sunset who also sat down that way, and pleased herself that she was sitting correctly. Then, after a sigh: “I don’t know, Sunset. It’s like...I’m meeting a better version of myself. A better me.”
Sunset rolled her eyes. “Come on, Twi. She’s older than you, so she has a head start. You might finish college in half the time with your know—“
“That’s the thing,” Twi said as if the wind was knocked out of her. “I feel like a copy of someone else.”
Sunset gave her a sympathizing look, pursing her lips.
“I...I don’t know if you can really relate,” Twi went on, her voice starting to crack, “because...you know, you haven’t met your other self yet...but look at me and then look at my princess self.” Another sigh, eyes half-open in sadness past those glasses: “I talked this out with Starlight while she was there and she told me that I’m already different from her. We have our own d-destinies, we have our own situations, and we can make our own decisions...that I have the rest of my life to control and m-make my own.”
Sunset smiled. “Aww! I’ve heard from Twilight that Starlight’s improving her friendship skills everyday—just like Twilight herself, too—but I wasn’t expecting her to handle grievances like that!”
Twi made a weak smile as a tear streamed down her hairy cheek. “Yeah...but, what if my destiny is her destiny? Starlight pointed out how Princess Twilight’s years older than me!”
“Pfft! So?”
Twi wiped another tear away from her eyes. “I’m pretty sure my parents named me out of their free will...and their parents before them. It’s not like some magical creature came over and forced them to call me Twilight Sparkle!”
Sunset wanted to say something contrary, but decided against it.
“But, then...going to a prestigious school growing up, then having a friendless background, and then moving to another place to meet my best friends and learn what friendship really is...that’s too many coincidences to chalk up to chance!” She flailed her forehooves about like she was a sinking pony.
Sunset leaned her back, seeing Twilight cough and choke, about to burst.
“What if the princess makes a mistake?” Twi asked, her voice deeper due to a lumped throat. “Am I doomed to copy that, too? What if I change my wants...but, maybe that’s because she changed her wants first? I don’t think I’ll be a princess back home, but that’s not stopping me from suddenly getting promoted as...what, mayor of Canterlot?” She sighed. “I’m not even pursuing government studies!”
Sunset then blinked, and smiled. “There you go!” She scooted closer to her and gave her a pat. “Our Twilight had to go through government studies...well, the Equestrian equivalent of it, at least...and, without the studying part….”
Then, Twi sniffed, rubbing her nose and pulling the locks of her mane—or tried to but failed to with her lack of fingers. “But...what if I change my dream job to run for mayor or even president because my other self is now a princess? I-I want to be a leading researcher, work for a scientific institution, but if Princess Twilight’s not going that w-way….”
Sunset opened her mouth to say something.
Instead, she hugged Twilight as she finally burst into tears. The mare cried on her shoulder and embraced her with her forehooves.
“It’s gonna be OK, Twi,” Sunset reassured, hearing the sobs too well. She hoofed out a box of tissues. “It’s gonna be OK. Remember everything else Starlight told you...’cause I’m sure she told you other stuff, too, right?”
Twi got some of the tissue. She wiped her face and blew her nose. Sunset stuck out her tongue as she levitated the wet tissue out into the trashcan at the corner. Then, looking at her pony friend, she managed, “Yeah...gotta thank her...and you….”
Sunset patted her on the back, then pulled her back up on her four hooves. Now, they both stood. “Moral of the story? You can still live out a life different from hers. Similar, but still different.”
Twi rubbed her head, the smile returning to her tear-drenched face. “I’ll...I may have to get used to that.”
Sunset smiled. “You’re not the only one. Since almost everybody back in your world has an Equestrian self here, it’s safe to assume that they’re also experiencing the same situation you have. They’re just not aware of it.”
Twilight chuckled. Then, she spotted the cup of coffee standing on a desk beside the door. She watched it glow red as Sunset floated it right before Twi’s mouth.
“One advantage of magic?” Sunset asked. “You don’t have to wait for the cup to cool.”
Then, they walked out of the room and into the hallway, laughing with the floating cup of coffee.
Twilight carried her saddle bag with her as Sunset walked about, seeing and admiring the crystal corridors and their timber, glass doors.
“So, where did you keep your journal, Sunset?” Twi asked, still having the coffee cup float beside her.
“With Vice Principal Luna,” she replied, her horn still glowing red with active magic. “She has it in her office during school hours, and she brings it back home when she’s off. That way, if there’s any magical emergency, she can contact Princess Twilight and we’ll be notified.”
Twi nodded. “That’s great!” Then, looking back to her front: “Where’s everyone else again?”
“Oh, Twilight, Fluttershy, and Starlight’s teaching them how to move around and use their pony abilities in the library” Sunset made a sinister smirk. “It’s going to feel so good being the ones to help you out in our world.”
“Not in a bad way, right?” Twi said.
Sunset glanced away from her. “We’ll see about that!”
A minute or so after walking through more corridors, Twi noticed the horn on her head. “So, do I get a free pass on magic lessons since I can already do telekinesis?”
Sunset shifted the cup closer to her horn. “Getting help from your geode is one thing. Using something that’s actually a part of your body is another.”
Twi rolled her eyes. “So, we’ll have to wait and see—“
And her bag opened, revealing a small dragon breathing in the fresh air. “Huh?! Where am I? Where’s Twilight? Where’s the girls?”
Sunset looked at Spike poking out of the bag. “Should’ve known! He’s no longer a dog here!”
Twi gasped as she stopped and spun her head back. “Really?!”
Sunset floated Spike out of the bag and plopped him down on the ground, seeing him stand on four legs...and then Spike saw that his forelegs were arms and claws.
“Agh!” he shouted, yanking himself up to a standing position. “I’ve got...fingers?” He wiggled them about. Then, he looked at Twilight behind him; she gave him a tender smile. “Twi...light?”
Twi laughed, lowering her head to be at Spike’s level “None other than me, Spike!”
Spike whirled his head around to see Sunset. “What’s going on?”
“Visiting Equestria, “Sunset replied, seeing Spike’s surprised reaction on his face. “That’s all there is to it.”
Spike then rattled his head, taking it all in. “Uh...what?”
Twilight then snuggled Spike with her nuzzle. “At least you came over with us, Spike!”
Sunset then smiled at the scene before her: a pony Twilight adoring her dragon Spike. Then, flicking her head twice, “Come on! They don’t wanna leave you out for breakfast.”
Sunset used her magic to open the library’s double doors, glowing them red while doing so.
And was treated to wonderful chaos. Starlight, Fluttershy, and Princess Twilight had their hands—no, their hooves tied up with teaching their counterparts the way of being a pony.
“OK, Applejack,” the princess said to the farmpony who just fell down to the floor for the umpteenth time. “Let’s go through that again.” She raised her right forehoof. “You start with this, and then you go with your left hindhoof,” and she raised that part of her body. “You go with your left forehoof after that, and then end it with your right backhoof. Rinse and repeat!”
Applejack grumbled as she stood up, dusting her forelegs and then her cheeks which had her freckles right under her eyes. “I appreciate yer’ help an’ all, but I apologize for just not gettin’ it the first time...or the second time...or the third time….”
The princess made a smile and a chuckle. “It’s alright! Learning how to walk isn’t easy, though I was expecting you to have some know-how beforehoof.” She then pointed at her country hat.
Applejack glared at royalty. “Ya’ know I’m better at handlin’ a horse than bein’ a horse.”
The princess covered her face and, therefore, covered her sly laugh.
For Fluttershy, there was not much to work with. The Rainbow Dash from the other world was already zipping around with her wings, encouraging her Fluttershy to spread hers and fly around.
This other Fluttershy gulped and faced pony Fluttershy, straightening out her butterfly hair clip with her hooves. “Um…I-I’m still a-afraid that I m-might fall. What if I injure my wings?”
“Oh, don’t you worry!” assured pony Fluttershy, patting her other self on the back and then on her wings. “When I was your age...oh wait.” She pawed the ground, nervous at her other self who was gawking at her, both mentally considering their age differences.
Finally, there was Starlight who was dealing pretty poorly with a crazy Rarity trying to hold in her screams at being “a dirty, germ-filled equine! I can’t believe it took me more than a year to remember that horses move around with no shoes—and, no, horseshoes don’t count! I’m a unicorn now, yes, but what do other ponies do when they want to hold up their sheets of paper or their plates or their utensils?! With their mouths, you say?!”
“I didn’t say anything,” Starlight mumbled with an aside glance.
“No offense to you,” Rarity went on, twirling her hoof around and swinging her mane with her diamond-shaped hair clip unharmed, “but, pony custom or not, I shall not stoop down to such savage habits!” She planted her white and clean hoof on the floor.
Starlight sighed. “I don’t know about how your saliva works in your world, but here, our saliva’s actually pretty clean and dries up pretty fast. I mean, even I pull my furniture with my mouth from time to time—“
Rarity crossed her forehooves in disgust, almost fainting. “How dare you taint the work of interior designers!”
“You do realize that our interior designers are also ponies, right?” Starlight said. Then, pointing to her horn, “Now that I’ve hopefully pulled you away from being clean all the time, let’s get to the magic part.”
Rarity took a breath in, took a breath out. “Ready when you are, Miss Glimmer!”
Starlight smiled, then noticed Sunset and Twi just entering the library after a minute of them observing. She waved at them. “Oh, hey there!”
The unicorn duo waved back, Twi nervously so with a sheepish grin. “Uh, h-hi? A-And...I didn’t know…” as she looked at all her friends now ponies.
Who all looked back at her.
“Twilight!” they all shouted in unison as they ran—or, for Applejack’s case, stumbled—their way to her and gave her a group hug.
The princess shed a tear as she watched the hug unfold, noticing that Pinkie Pie came out of nowhere. “Aww!”
Starlight’s smile then disappeared. She poked Twilight on the cheek.“Uh, you’ve thought of a naming system for them, right?”
The princess nodded as she walked to the dispersing yet still tight group of friends. “Alright, everypony!” With all eyes on her: “Since you’ll be going out to Ponyville and possibly Canterlot later this—“
“There’s a Canterlot here, too?!” Rarity yelled, face distorted to exaggerated degrees.
“Duh!” Rainbow gave her a look. “It’s like you’re not even listening.”
“Well,” she began, “some of us are not in the right state of mind after being turned into a fantastical creature that I’ve always thought of as fictional until recently!” With a “Hmph!”, she turned away from her rainbow-maned friend.
Pinkie widened her eyes. “Wow! She’s even wordier than I am!”
The princess chuckled. “Yeah, we’re going to Canterlot barring any world-ending catastrophes which I’m assuming you’re getting used to by now.”
Applejack rolled her eyes. “Say no more, yer’ Highness.”
Sunset and Starlight gave a knowing look. “Looks like Applejack’s learning the ropes already,” Sunset remarked, garnering a snicker from Starlight.
“To make sure there’s no confusion and to not give our brains a beating,” the princess continued, eliciting a few laughs from her inter-dimensional buddies, “we’re going to give each of you nicknames!”
“Ooh! Ooh!” Pinkie Pie jumped up, raising her hoof in the air while not throwing off her own heart-shaped hair clip. “I’d like to be called...Cotton Candy!”
Everyone gave her stunned looks.
“Cotton...Candy?” Twi let out, almost dropping her glasses.
“Eh, let’s roll with that,” the princess said in a matter-of-fact way. “Cotton Candy it is!”
And so Pinkie Pie, temporarily Cotton Candy, jumped for joy. “It makes sense, doesn’t it? Like this!” She pulled out a coin from her mane. “Even I know my hair looks like cotton candy, and nobody’s called me Cotton Candy before, so here we go for Cotton Candy!” and dragged a cone of cotton candy out of her mane as well and took a bite of it.
The princess smiled then turned to Rarity, leaving Cotton Candy to her devices, or, more appropriately, her candy. “As for you...actually, you get off easy because Rarity is willing to defer to you and call herself Rare.”
Rarity placed a hoof to her chest. “Wh-What? That was unexpected!”
“She did say you were staying for a day, and she’ll still use her real name when it comes to her business, so it’s not that big of a deal. Plus, she is the Element of Generosity.”
Rarity gasped, raising a hoof to her chin, her eyes glistening.
The princess then faced Rainbow Dash and Applejack. “As for you two—“
“No way!” Rainbow said, raising her hoof and hovering to the air. “I know you’re the princess of a whole kingdom and you look and sound exactly like my friend, but, chances are, you’re going to give me a lame name.”
Twilight balked, then drooped her ears. “Fine. What do you have in mind?”
Rainbow pumped her chest, still flying. “Call me ‘Dash’! One syllable, just like the action heroes!”
“Isn’t ‘Daring Do’ three syllables?” Applejack asked.
“She’s the exception!” Dash said, landing on the ground and facing the farmpony down. She flipped her thick and cowlicked mane. “That’s because she’s exceptionally, excellently, exquisitely exceptional!”
Applejack snorted, shook her head, then turned to Twilight. “Eh, I’ll take Dash’s lead and call myself ‘AJ’, ‘cause other action heroes have initials for their superhero names.”
Then the other Fluttershy raised her hoof. “Is it OK if I can keep my name?”
The princess blinked. “Uh, sure, but what happens when we have to refer to one of you?”
“Oh.” Turning to pony Fluttershy: “Is it alright with you if you get the nickname?”
She made a wide smile, nodding as she trotted to her other self’s side and gave her a one-hoof hug. “I’ll take up ‘Flutters’. You’re visiting a foreign world, so you should feel right at home with your name.”
“We already use ‘Flutters’ for her,” Rarity pointed out.
“Just let me be hospitable for once!” Flutters growled.
Rarity then took a few steps back, terrified. “O...K?”
The princess then turned to Twi who followed her with her eyes behind those glasses. “And you...what do you think?”
Twi brightened up. “I know it’s sort of wrong and stereotypical for me to say this, but since you specialize in magic and I specialize in science...we should call each other Magic-Twi and Sci-Twi!”
The princess made an awkward grin. “’Sci-Twi’ is good for you, but...I’m not so sure about calling myself ‘Magic-Twi’.”
“Really?” Dash asked, gesturing at her. “Your full name is the longest out of all of us!”
Starlight raised her hoof. “She has fifteen letters. I got sixteen.”
“You don’t have another self to get confused with!” Cotton Candy shouted.
Starlight then rubbed her head, wiping the spit from her face and her mane. “Yeah, you’re right on that one.”
Twilight’s ears then wilted as she paced the floor. Then, they perked up. “What about I call myself just ‘Sparkle’?”
“So...Sci-Twi...Sparkle?” Fluttershy spoke up, warming up to those new names.
“Hey, that doesn’t sound so bad!” Sci-Twi said, adjusting her glasses up the bridge of her muzzle with her hoof.
Sunset smiled, having endured the naming process. “OK, we got everyone settled down?”
And all nodded their heads at her, with Cotton Candy yelling, “Settled down, we are!”
Sunset breathed a sigh of relief. “Gonna take a while for me to get the hang of it, but I will.”
Starlight raised her hoof and trotted over to Rarity. “Look, you’re staying for just a little over a day, so why not continue our brief magic lesson?”
“Sure!” Rarity said, grinning. “If only so I will not be infected by some disease from biting all those doorknobs!”
Starlight slouched her shoulders. “Why do you keep forgetting that our saliva’s clean?!”
And everyone else scattered around. Fluttershy went to Flutters as Dash sat by her and cheered the new pegasus on, Sparkle and AJ got back to walking lessons as the princess took her hat off, and Sci-Twi and Candy rested at a table as the latter picked up the cup of coffee and gulped down half of it.
Leaving Sci-Twi at a loss for words and an abundance of questions as her eyes twitched. Then: “H-How d-did you hold that with just hooves?!”
Pinkie smiled. “Easy-peasy lemon-squeezy! All you gotta do is place your hoof on the cup—“ she put it on the cup “—and lift it!” which she did so.
Sci-Twi looked unpleased. “It can’t be that simple.”
“It is that simple!” Pinkie said. “How come I was able to do it first try?” and winked as if telling her to give it a shot.
After an anxious gulp and a shudder of her lips, she wrapped her hoof around the cup. She lifted her hoof up.
Dropped the cup as it wobbled about, spilling a few drops of coffee.
As for Rarity and Starlight….
“Since you’ve already used magic before,” the latter went on, walking about, “I’m assuming you know the fundamentals.”
Rarity, smiling, shook her head vigorously. “Nope!”
Starlight dropped her jaw. “You’re telling me you’ve been using magic all this time and you don’t even know what it is?!”
Rarity scratched her mane. “Well, I do know the gist of it! It is this...ah, this force or energy...that you can use to do stuff…look, it works, adds to our lives, defeats freaky villains, and speeds up dress-making! It’s very practical!”
Starlight smacked herself on the head. “Nice try. I’m not saying you’re wrong, but—“
“It’s an inadequate description, I know,” Rarity interrupted. “But then again, do you expect our fantasy writers to know anything about real magic when they’ve never even met a magical creature from a magical land?”
Starlight sighed. “Ignoring that so we can get straight to the lesson—magic is a kind of force and energy; it’s inherent and ingrained in all creatures, not just ponies—every living thing has magic in some shape or form, not just levitating stuff and magical beams….”
Finally, Fluttershy, at Flutters’s instruction, spread her wings. Fluttershy looked at them, a bit scared at these new appendages with their feathers and all, but then she slowly flapped them. A steady rate at first, and then she began to feel less weight.
Ten more flaps and Fluttershy was floating several inches off the floor.
“That’s it!” Dash said, zipping around her hovering figure. “You’re a certified flier now!”
Fluttershy smiled, then blushed. “I already had wings before this, but...now, it feels much more natural.”
“Oh, just helping anypony in need!” Flutters said, closing her eyes and giving out a light and cute laugh.
Sunset smiled as she walked over to Sci-Twi to start up some chitchat, the zing of that coffee scent waking her up a little. “I sure hope nothing goes wrong while we’re away….”