//------------------------------// // 4. Dream little, nightmare high. // Story: 2/1 Person - A new Perspective // by Feynna //------------------------------// The next morning I awoke feeling great with Lux and totally more miserable than before on Sol. Just great. That’s what you get when you run yourself ragged in a dark forest while being chased during a storm, having to go through malnutrition and passing out in the middle of the street.  I groaned my dismay to the heavens, while the nurse checked up on my half in the hospital. Meanwhile, I got up with Lux in the library I’d gotten access to, due to my being successful in argumenting with the mayor of the town the last day.  Picking up the little bag from my reward at modeling for Rarity, I made my way to the ground level, trying to remember what I dreamed of last night. You know what they say, dreams are like sand and once you try to remember them upon awakening, they slip through your fingers. One feeling remained, though. I felt everything would work out just great. Going about the busy morning rush in the market, I bought myself some fruit for breakfast. Taking note of a little café, I tried to remember the location for the afternoon to get myself some tea and something to eat for that time. Greeting the people with a smile, I skipped with a little hop through the streets. Time for some major things to get done! The doors of the town hall opened just as I was about to push them open, I almost collided with the woman I was seeking right now. Said woman was carrying a few scrolls under her arms, likely on the way to the post office to get them delivered to their respective receivers. “Oh, hello there, Lux!” she said, holding a hand to her frantically beating heart. “Almost ran right into you, young lady.” “I’m sorry about giving you a fright. I was hoping I could have a word with you?” I said apologetically, offering to carry the scrolls for her as a second thought. The least I could do to make up for that. “Well, if you need to. We need to do that on the walk, though. As long as it isn’t something confidential?” Mayor Madam answered me as we made our way through the town. “No, it isn’t. It’s about some funding to get the library a bit more up to speed on the modern times with plumbing and so forth,” I told her, being mindful to sidestep some people on the way to her destination. It actually was the post office, as I had thought. “Yes, that was actually something I asked Pinkie to look into a few weeks ago. Where’s the young lady, actually?” she grumbled, looking around in search of the person she was talking about. The mayor spotted something out of the corner of her eye and turned around to wave a dark pink haired girl over. “Hello, mayor Mayor Madam!” said girl greeted her. The bubbly girl giggled as she bounced up to us. Before she could land back on her feet, something truly weird and terrifying happened. She stopped in midair. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up in record time as my eyelid twitched. There was a girl about a year younger than me, hanging in the air with a face splitting smile working its way on her face. I felt incredibly small in the presence of the aura this girl emitted. She was on a whole new level of eldritch horror, so great that I was rooted there on the spot in fear. I just knew getting on the bad side of this person was the worst mistake one could ever make in their life and the following afterlife. There would be no escape from her wrath, I felt it in my bones. She also smelled oddly of popcorn and cotton candy. “Are you new here?!” the girl screamed in glee, making me very afraid for my continued health. Her feet landed back on the ground as if gravity got a reminder that nothing should be able to avoid its grasp. There is no way that this being had no relation to a god of some kind. She just couldn’t be a mere mortal, man. “Eh..?” I dumbly mumbled, staring at her stretching smile. It shouldn’t be physically possible. This girl, whatever she was, was not possible. “Yes, well Pinkie, new person aside, have you looked into the task I gave you to get the library ready for Princess Celestia’s student?” Mayor Madam interjected, drawing the attention of the eldritch horror to her instead. How nobody else was quivering in fear, I had no idea. “Hmm? Oh, that rings a bell, yeah,” Pinkie said, putting on a thinking face, not unlike the one Winnie the Pooh made. Oh, hello childhood memory! “Well, could you escort Lux and make sure you get it done this time around?” the mayor asked, taking the scrolls from me. She handed me one back, telling me it was actually for myself. Must be the response from Canterlot. That’s some fast mail service here. A quick look left me grinning as I got approval to work together with the pupil of the ruler of this fair country. Celestia said it would be an excellent way to teach her student some very necessary teamwork and how to make compromises with us living together under one roof. Somewhere there was a troll inside that woman. She told me ‘Make sure Twilight gets her rest’ together with a ‘And don’t let stay cooped up for long’. I really had no idea what to make of that. Or how old her protégé was. One would guess a little child. “Yes, indeedely!” Pinkie said, nodding in this silly fashion were you just needed to imagine the jiggling sound of a cartoon while watching her. “I’ll be on my way then, good day to you!” the mayor said, entering the building to get her messages on the way.  “So, Lux, huh?” Pinkie said, grinning inches away from my face suddenly. “When did you get here?” “Um... sometime last week?” I meekly asked unsure of my statement. I didn’t even ask how long I was out of it in the hospital before regaining consciousness. Not that it mattered, anyway. “Oh! You were the ones Rarity rushed to the hospital!” Pinkie nodded to herself. “I wanted to throw you a surprise ‘Welcome-and-get-well-soon!’ party in the hospital, but the nurse threw me out.” Oh man, that pouty lip was just too much. Quick, change the subject!  “You could throw one the day before the Summer Sun Celebration?” I asked, not so sure I actually wanted a party at all.  “Oh my gosh! I actually planned one that day! I don’t know for what reason, but my Pinkie Sense told me that it would be an excellent time to throw one! There must be a pretty important thing happening on that day, like a new friend that has no friends yet! Wouldn’t that be amazing? Those are the best parties! I go all like, gasp really loud and stuff! Meeting new people that become your bestestest friends is so exciting!” she said, without stopping to breathe. Man, these lungs she must be sporting. “Can you see into the future?!” “Ehrm, what?” I asked confused, the girl just continued to bounce before me, leaving me completely stumped.  “We’re here!” she suddenly yelled into my ears, making me look around. How did we get here so fast?! My poor mind whimpered at the sheer impossibility of this girl. Okay, let’s get this done with fast. Entering the workshop, the smell of wood, metal, and burned fuses hit my nose as we made our way to the counter. Pinkie took out an envelope from her poofy hair, giving it to the clerk standing behind the desk. The man looked over the list, while his eyebrow rose up. “We’ll come by later around one o’clock, make sure someone is there to let us in,” he told us and left for the backroom yelling for his coworkers to get the materials and tools ready.  This was way easier than I thought this would go. “Come on, I’ll show you around the town!” Pinkie pulled my back out by my arm. How much sugar runs through her veins to allow her to be this energetic, man.  She dragged me to all kinds of corners of Ponyville, showing me some joke parlor, a gym, a bowling point, the spa, some gingerbread house I vowed to never go into, the post office from where we originally came from, a fancy restaurant, the post office again for some reason and many other locations. “... and that’s how Equestria was made!” she said and ended her endless rant of random things that I blocked out for the most part. “Huh?” I sputtered as she pressed a cupcake into my mouth, sending me into a coughing fit on both of my bodies. At least it didn’t look weird with Sol being sick and whatnot. The only thing I got out of it was the name of this country, man. Sticking with the horse theme, obviously. We were actually standing in front of that café I wanted to visit after I got done with the work order for the library. This Pinkie character was either really good at guessing, or she knew beforehand. I could do with a calming blend of tea right now or I might begin snapping at the poor girl. I treated her to a cup for her troubles and in hopes of shutting her up. We took a seat at a table under one of these sun umbrellas, her going on about something to do with a rock farm. I had no idea if she meant a quarry by that or not. By the sounds of her excited blabbering, she made it seem like they grew them like these sugar crystal experiments you did as a little kid. Magic, just pretend it is... magic. I had a hard time following my own advice as she drowned her cup in sugar and grinned like a mad lady while she was at it. Wonderland was her playground, I had a feeling. No normal person could end up like that, if they didn’t come from there in the first place. I imagined her as the mad hatter, finding it oddly amusing. Some of these things she said made me wonder how sane she really was. I mean, a toothless alligator? There is no such thing. It was aptly named, though. I wasn’t looking forward to meeting her pet and she made him sound like the most harmless thing in the world. No idea how you can classify the snapping jaw of her pet as harmless. For her sake, I really wished it was true what she said about it having no teeth. As ridiculous as that sounded. I just sighed into my cup as I let the liquid trickle down my throat in a pleasant warmness. God, I couldn’t wait for this day to be over. Looking at the clock showed me that it was barely reaching the ten o’clock point. Another three hours to go, I sighed in despair. Every time you wanted time to fly by, it suddenly went over even more slowly than before, making it feel like torture. This sucked, man. Drinking the tea to the last drop, I left the pay on the table signaling the server we were leaving and got on our way. Pinkie showed me around the local park, producing a ball from somewhere. Now, I’m totally the worst person to play soccer with, but it had the benefit of making time go by faster as we kicked the ball back and forth to each other. At some point a short girl with a literal rainbow of colors for hair landed by our side. Her wings disappeared in a flash of light as we started to chase the ball around the big grassy field. Eventually we started to play against each other with one of us standing between two trees that stood close enough together. I didn’t get one goal in, so bad was I at this. To each their own, I guess.  Panting, we fell into a heap on the ground laughing ourselves silly.     “Man, that was great,” the rainbow-haired girl said with her scratchy voice. “We totally should do this more often.” “Yeah...” I doubtfully breathed, watching the clouds go by overhead. “Rainbow, by the way,” she introduced herself. “The name’s Rainbow Dash. Fastest flier around Equestria.” “Lux,” I said, bumping her fist with mine. “Well, as fun as this was, I need to get back to the library, see you around.” “Until next time!” she shouted after me, as I made my way back to the big tree in the distance. A shower would be really nice right now.  With that in mind, I opened the door to the library, getting up into the bathroom with only a big tub with a pump as my way to get clean. I groaned as I pressed down and down again on the lever to fill the water in the tub. This will be cold as fuck. Sighing, I stipped my clothes away and settled myself slowly in the tub. Maybe I should’ve cooked some water up on the stove for this. Chattering with my teeth from the cold, I scrubbed myself down with a bar of soap. Being mindful of my chest and crotch area, I soaked my long hair and rinsed myself off with a small bucket. God, it was awkward to bathe as a girl. Drying off with a towel after I felt fresh and clean again, I looked at my clothes and grimaced at the smell of sweat coming from them. That would be a pain to wash out without a washing machine. Looking out a window, I estimated it was about to get a bit close considering the place where the sun was, but running around in dirty clothes wasn’t an option either. So, with a bit of reluctance I went to work with the bar of soap. Hopefully, these wouldn’t shrink down, I haven’t ever washed my clothes by hand before. It wasn’t good on my hands either, ending up with soggy and shriveled fingers afterward.  Running back to the living room I threw some wood in the fireplace. I really hoped this tree was warded against spreading fire, I wasn’t to keen to burn this beautiful library down.      Lighting a fire was a pain in the behind, too. But in the end, I got there and I left my clothes on the ground to dry off while I sat there staring at the fire with only a towel around me. Thankfully I wasn’t a shivering mess anymore. Wouldn’t want to get sick just after getting out of the hospital with Lux.  At last the knock came just as my clothes got dry, so I spurted myself to get dressed and went to answer the door. Greeting the men and the few women that hauled their equipment in, I showed them what needed to be done. Without further ado, they taped some of these plastic sheets over the doors to keep the dust in and got started with their noisemaking. I told them they could find me in the basement, the last place I needed to clean, in case they needed me for something. That was why I was currently standing before the open door and gulped at the dark abyss that was the lower floor of the library. Looking around, I could use some lighting for this or it would get unpleasant to do without.  Luckily, there were some candles in a cabinet. Grabbing one candle, I lit the wick with the fire from the fireplace and went to get to work on cleaning up the rest of the filth. I really hope they would get the bathroom done first, I thought with a grimace.  With my trusty tools Sir Broom and Walter the Bucket, I repeated the routine like the last times. Ignoring the racket from up above, I decided to sing while working to make this a bit less of a chore. It wasn’t the best song and I butchered the notes up more often than I could count, but judging by the pause of the noise from up above, I wasn’t half bad. There were still better singers than me, but I was proud to say that I could cause others to pause what they were doing. It was a bit more of a mess down here because some places were a lot more uneven with the roots from the tree going through the basement. And it was cold as fuck down here. Coupled that with the bad lighting from only one meager candle, it left me with a flimsy feeling in my gut. This place was way too scary, man. On most of the shelves were these glasses with weird organic parts in ammoniac, be they from plants or some crazy frightening creatures. I was half afraid to touch them, but I swallowed my disgust and cleaned the cobwebs away. For all I know, these things could be some important ingredients for potions and the like. Any second I expected Professor Snape to storm in through the door and reprimand me for whatever I was doing. Some glass bottles had interesting fluids in them. For example, one of them held a fluid that was pitch black and twinkled with some sparks randomly that gave me the shivers for some reason. I really hoped it wasn’t a demon in a jar, man. Another had a red fluid and what seemed to be scratch marks on the inside of the bottle, which left me hoping that the reason for that wasn’t because of the liquid in it. Oh, and I found a necronomicon between the shelves. I promptly decided to forget it was ever there in the first place and ran back up the stairs once I got done in that creepy place. Hopefully I would never have to step into that place again for the next decade. Looking at how the progress was coming along in the kitchen, I saw half the stuff ripped out of the wall left in a corner and some shiny new counter made of stone getting installed by the workers. It looked heavy enough to crush your skull if it ever landed on you. And then cave in the floor you were standing on. But the people working on it seemed to lift it like it was nothing to them, so I was a bit jealous of that. The bathroom looked better already, though. They even put the damn bathtub a bit into the ground, man. And a new sparkling shower was in the process of being set up, so I was glad for that. The toilet and the mirror plus washbasin were already done, too.  Man, these guys worked fast. But it was already getting late, so there was that. I asked them how long it would take for everything to be done and they told me it would take a few more days to get the powerline from the grid to the library and then set up the cables for the electricity. Once evening rolled up, they told me to let them in the following morning to resume their work. The technician would arrive sometime the day after that, but first they would get the kitchen done the next day and bring all the appliances over, like an oven and dishwasher, a washer and a dryer, and all these things you would see in most households. A boiler for warm water, the most important thing to me. Couldn’t wait for that. I went out and locked the door behind me after they were gone and made my way to Rarity’s. Spare clothes were more on my mind than money for food at the moment, but hopefully she could help me out with that. She was a tailor, after all. Knocking on her front door, I heard a ‘Come in!’ from inside and opened the door, closing it behind me again. Seeing Rarity over at a mannequin setting up some new summer collection, I greeted her with a smile and a hello. “Could you help me with that, dear?” she asked me and pointed to a few more dresses and outfits lying on a couch.  “No problem, I’m glad to help,” I said and got to work next to her. She looked over to me and watched me as I gleefully mixed up a few things here and there, making it look like the mannequins were talking to each other. She smiled at my antics but said nothing, so I took that somewhat as a go-ahead to do so. “I was wondering if you could help me with a little problem, Rarity,” I said after a while of working on my little scene. It certainly put a fresh new look to the collection. “Oh?” she asked, not looking up from her mannequin. “I’m in need of some spare clothes, this is all I have at the...” I began and was promptly assaulted on a whiny shrill squeak from her as she looked at me aghast. “You don’t have anything else with you? Not even in that bag of yours?” she asked me in disbelief “Eh... no. The clothes were with the bag in my tent I lost in the forest,” I lied smoothly, glad for that little cover-up story that wasn’t too far from the truth. “That simply cannot stand as it is, come with me!” she said determinedly and dragged me away. Rarity asked me a few things, wanting to know my preferences and I told her she could go with some outfits that were casual, but looked also a bit fancy. I mostly stuck to variants of green, seeing that it went well with my eyes and hair, some black pants and leggings and a few short skirts, because why the heck not. She was generous enough to offer me to let me work it off with her if I helped her set up the town hall for the Summer Sun Celebration. Knowing how big the hall is, she was certainly happy that I agreed, but it felt like it was only a small thing compared to what she gave me in return for it. Over the evening, we talked a bit more about what I did over the day and became fast friends over different topics as we idly chatted about this and that. I was starting to consider her as my best friend, already. Not that I had many friends, to begin with, and the ones from Earth sadly didn’t count anymore. As her little sister came back from a friend of hers, we started to make dinner together in her kitchen. Sure, I could’ve gone to a restaurant and not leeched off of her, but she offered me to stay, so I helped prepare the ingredients for some vegetable stir-fry. It was friggin’ delicious, I had the decency to restrain myself from shoving my face into the food. It was hard, but I did it. Rarity was glad it was to my liking, telling me she learned to cook to avoid the food her parents made. She was apparently the only decent cook in her family. I stared at Sweetie Belle across from me, glad that we didn’t let her help us. She gave me a confused look, not having paid attention to the conversation. That kid, man. I really hoped she would never learn to what lengths her adorableness could go, or the whole world would be in grave danger. Adorable danger, but danger nonetheless. As it got dark, Rarity and I packed up my new clothing and stood by the door. I was ready for some well-needed sleep after all the excitement today. We hugged each other and I promised I would come back with Sol for his measurements to get him a new wardrobe too. You know, sitting in the hospital and being out and about at the same time took some ‘Oomph!’ out of the sickness. It still felt crappy, but it was way better than being subjected to boredom. And so another day went by in this strange new world. Tomorrow I could at least take a shower first thing in the morning, even if it was ice cold, and I couldn’t wait for some electricity to charge my phones up.  Getting back into my bedroom, I stipped out of my clothes and hit the hay with a grateful groan of content. Not soon after I was asleep finding myself in a strange little nightmare that was just too cute to be scary. It was about Sweetie Belle taking over the world with cuteness, and I really hoped that it would never come to pass, man. As fun as it was to watch, out in the world it would only lead to disaster. Not because of the ecological horror, but because I was subjected to be her ever-faithful servant in a maid outfit. Yeah, it was a weird dream. On the next morning I awoke with a cute little yawn that totally didn’t happen, as I stretched my arms and legs out. After showering I grabbed the last few coins for some breakfast at the café, I had about an hour until the crew came back to the library for some more noisemaking.  My plan got ruined as I found Pinkie waiting for me outside the door of the library for some reason, getting promptly dragged through town by the hyper girl. And here I hoped I would get a quiet and nice day with a good start at my new favorite café, but no, it was not to be. Instead, we found ourselves in front of the building I swore to never enter and had no choice but to get thrown in against my protests. It, at least, wasn’t the kind of building where you get thrown into the furnace, but a nightmare for anyone with diabetes. Everywhere you looked, you saw sweets of all kinds and the decoration represented the same in every way. And no, it wasn’t real gingerbread if you were asking. That would be just stupid and structurally impossible. Pink menace would find a way to build a house out of something edible in some way, though, I was sure. I just knew by the end of the day I would have an aching tummy from too much sugar. The lady with the hair resembling that of cherry frosting swirling up took our orders and I tried to get something with the least amount of sugar in it. So, I ended up with a cream strudel and a milkshake, while Pinkie got herself some cake and a bubbly drink I was sure was ninety percent made out of sugar.  It was a bit strange to see her eat it in a few bites. “Are you excited yet?!” Pinkie Pie asked me out of the blue as I chewed slowly in the half-awake state I was in. “Um... for what?” I asked dumbfounded. “Duh, the Summer Sun Celebration and your ‘Welcome-to-Ponyville’-party and ‘We’re-happy-you-survived’-party!” she said in the tone that implied that it was totally obvious. “Uh... I guess?” I said unsure. “Wait, are these two separate parties or one for two reasons?” “You can celebrate two parties at once?!” she gasped and I got the impression that she just wanted to mess with me. I wasn’t so sure about that, though. You never knew with that girl, man. It was like talking to a six-year-old child in the body of an adolescent. A six-year-old child in the body of an adolescent with the power of a god. Rainbow Dash came in at some point, taking a seat in our booth with a muffin in hand. We talked about some unimportant things, got to know each other a bit more, and laughed about some jokes.  She was the local weather captain here, so that was a thing. Not even the weather was a thing that happened naturally around here. I wasn’t going to mention how the weather was supposed to work, seeing that this was a practice for more than a thousand years here. The Everfree Forest was an exception to the rule, I learned. As well as the wildlife, as strange as it sounded. Here you had your regular vets and stuff, but also animal caretakers that overlooked the wildlife of this country, because apparently, animals were too lazy to kill each other like they were supposed to.  Natural selection was merely a suggestion than the rule here. The animal caretaker of this town resided just near the outskirts of the damn forest and was called Fluttershy. Either that girl had some major guts, or was seriously stupid. Whatever her secret was to not get eaten by the monsters in that place, I had massive respect for her for that alone. I decided to stay away if I could help it, though. It wasn’t like I had something against her, but I was plainly too afraid to get close to the forest anymore. Understandable with what lurked in there. Rainbow told me that there were even friggin’ hydras there in the bog surrounded by the trees. And monster hunters weren’t a thing here, either. That was the job of the royal guard as they told me. Not that they would get near the place in a hundred years either, it seemed. Even they were too afraid to go in there. How the princesses could’ve called that forest home at one point, I didn’t even begin to fathom. Either they were stupidly powerful, or had a deathwish themselves. The first option was more likely, though, judging by the big murals in their old castle. All the more reason to hide the fact that I was the fucking Chosen One if you asked me. If I went and let that little fact slip, I would be dead within the week, because someone expected me to solve their friggin’ monster problem. And the Everfree Forest wasn’t the only place like that in this world, either. There were several more places, each more dangerous than the other. Somewhere near the equivalent of Germany and France was a forest like the one from Harry Potter where all kinds of monsters lived, that were all bigger than a house. Oh, and giants, not to forget. Yeah, they existed here too, apparently. Rainbow had a horror story for every kind of monster there was, as she proudly boasted. I didn’t believe her when she told me there was a headless horseman in the region that resembled Great Britain. A map of this world would be kinda nice, I thought. Maybe there was one in the library somewhere. After our breakfast we went our separate ways, and I was relieved to be away from the exuberant joyful pink-haired girl that went by the name of Pinkie Pie.  Greeting the guys setting all the machines up to the front door, I let them in and watched as they set the stuff in a corner to get installed the next day with the technician. They got back to work on fixing up the kitchen with some new cupboards and the waterwork for the sink and left them to it as I got some books from the shelves. Sitting down on my favorite spot on the balcony, I began studying the geography and solar system of this word. Boy, was I surprised as I looked at the drawing of the heavenly bodies. This was some messed up world, I could tell.  The whole system was unlike any I had ever seen. The sun was tiny compared to the planet, making the world be the center of the system in this case. There were no other planets in this system either, as far as the astronomers could tell and it just baffled me.  Sun and moon circled around this planet in a way that was like a stab to everything I believed to be true and left my view of reality as a bleeding lump in the corner of the room. Gravity didn’t dictate the movement of sun and moon in this corner of the universe like I was used to, but was controlled by god-tier magic. The reason for that? Someone evidently played around with chaos magic some two thousand years ago and left the world with a broken solar and lunar cycle. The history books tell of a council of mages that took the responsibility upon themselves to uphold the cycle for more than five hundred years until the next mess-up with a chaos mage happened that left the weather system a wreck like no other.  Before that happened, something called Hearth’s Warming happened that was the equivalent to Christmas on Earth in its own way with the first recorded appearance of the celestial sisters at that time. They took over the charge of keeping the sun and moon on their course and earned their talent marks for that. After that it got a bit muddled up history-wise with no one being sure how long the chaos lasted. It was estimated to be about ten to twenty years, not that long of a stretch, but the damage was done.  Some idiot tried to correct everything with order magic and ended up damaging the ecosystem even more, so there is that. I guess that is the reason why everything needed to be micromanaged on the surface of the planet, too.  Weather just didn’t happen anymore in the natural way, only in places with a high concentration of chaos magic, like the Everfree Forest. Animals lost the will to hunt in the very same way, except for places like the afore-mentioned forest. What a messed up history, man.  And I could tell that it was heavily censored for some reason, leaving out any mention of Celestia’s sister. If I didn’t know better, Luna never existed to begin with, according to the books. The things I saw on the murals in the castle were also mostly unmentioned, leading me to believe that the older sister didn’t want to be reminded of the loss of her sister and the hard times they faced. Well, there were wacky theories about the Face on the Moon like there were conspiracies on Earth about the Man in the Moon, but they were all mostly outlandish tales. This planet was also called Equis and looked eerily similar to Earth, sticking with the equine puns. Equestria was where the U.S.A. would be, Mexico was replaced with the Badlands, Southern America was the home to the dragons (I was glad they were that far away, but I had a feeling some lived here, too), Europe was a bit deformed and had only Germany (it was called Germa-’neigh’ here, seriously) and France (also named Prance here) with Great Britain off to the coast of the mainland (called Great ‘Bit’-ain, man), Africa was a pun with a zebra, Russia was simply the Griffon Empire (the first one without a horse pun), while the rest of Asia was divided by ‘Saddle Arabia’ and ‘Chi-Pon’ with ‘Neigh-Pon’ off the coast like it was the case of Japan on Earth. Australia was missing, though. Maybe it wasn’t discovered yet. That left the Frozen North and ‘Neigh’-tica as the polar ice caps of this world. Only the outline of the South Pole was on the map for Neightica, though. Most likely because no one wanted to go poking about around there, as the note on the map suggested that no one ever returned from there previously. It was an unspoken rule to leave that place alone. Now then, back to history for a bit. Some guy dumb enough to brew a love poison was the reason for the local Valentine’s Day sometime during the Pre-Unification Day of this nation, something that occurred a bit after Hearth’s Warming that united the fighting tribes of people with the different blessings. It was a bit like the history of the United States in that regard, just without the whole Britain part. Unicorn-blessed lived in the mountains in castle cities at the time, while the Pegasus-blessed made their home in the friggin’ clouds and the ‘Terra’-blessed lived in the valleys. Also some major racism happened, so there was constant fighting between each other. Another thing that came to be was called the Nightmare Night, something akin to Halloween on Earth. It started some nine-hundred and odd years ago, leading me to be a bit suspicious of a very particular reason for that.  I went without another meal that day as I read the day away on my little balcony, well into the night. At some point I must’ve nodded off to dreamland as I found myself in another nightmare again. This time it was of the Pre-Unification Era with a full-blown civil war right around me. Hearing screaming from all sides, I ducked for cover with both of my bodies. God, the history books didn’t make it out to be this heavy of a fight!  “Feathered Fiends from the north!” someone shouted and I suppressed the urge to cry out ‘Racist!’ as much as I could. This really was moronic on so many accounts. Wishing for a change of scenery wasn’t successful, either. I would have to live with this dream, then. “That is just bloody fantastic!” a gruff voice shouted in the distance, almost swallowed in the sound of the fight. “We’re already hard-pressed from all sides with the Glow Hands!” Wait, really? Glow Hands? That is such a lame insult, man. “Sir, they’re gaining on us fast!” the scout reported and I almost cried out as the ground shook around. What were these idiots casting?! They could rip out a hole as big as the Red Sea with that! These people must have really sturdy fortification if they could stop something on that scale of artillery spells. “We’re never going to get the evacuation done in time!” another voice cried out in fear. Yeah, that made sense. You couldn’t fight magic with just bow and arrows, of course, they would seek to flee instead. That was a major disadvantage for the Terra-blessed for ranged fighting. I felt sorry for them for that. I don’t know if guns would have helped them in that regard. You would need to have someone as powerful as an archmage to stop the force of a bullet with a shield. But seeing that a whole army of spellcasters was knocking on their front door, I wasn’t so sure they would’ve had a chance with modern weaponry. “Are the young ones all safely through the tunnel?!” the older voice shouted back, probably the commander of their military.  “As far as I know!” one of the cadets answered back in a panic as I could hear him scream out in pain a moment later. “Fall back!” the commander shouted just as I saw the Unicorn-blessed break through their defenses, storming their way through. One of them spotted me huddled away and pulled their sword out in a gleeful way, hatred burning in his eyes. I cried out as I raised my hands in fear, wanting to flee, but I was rooted on the spot. The sound of the heartbeats of both of my bodies hammered in my ear, time slowing down in my dream. Dying in a dream was always frightening, even though nothing would happen to you that much. I wasn’t sure if you could die of fear, though. And I didn’t want to find out, either. I cursed my bloody imagination for landing me always in these type of dreams. The sword got raised into the air, ready to strike. I didn’t have my bracelet with me, so fighting back with bare hands wasn’t an option. Being cut to death was a more recent fear, what with finding these damn weapons in the chamber below the castle courtyard. Closing my eyes as the soldier swung down their sword, I waited to awaken from my nightmare in a last bit of hope.  A second went by. Then another. Slowly opening my eyes, I saw a shimmering dome of light intercepting the sword of the man standing just an arm's length away from me. The man stared at us in incredulity and renewed hatred. “You dare defend a Featherbrain?!” he shouted at me. I looked at him confused, then looked at each of my bodies. While Lux’s fingernails were alight in a green glow, icy blue wings shimmered on the back of Sol’s shoulders. That wasn’t a sight you ever expected to see. The tingling in my bodies was an entirely new feeling I had no words of. I instinctively associated that feeling with mana, the energy powering most casted magic. It was like a dam broke down inside of me, allowing for the free flow of drawing in the energy and using it. The shock of seeing myself do these things caused me to awaken with a scream. The nurse in the hospital checked on Sol, while I was laughing madly with Lux in my bedroom in the library. This was just the thing I needed. The friggin’ tip of the iceberg my life had become. On some level I was glad I could use magic and learn how to fly, but that came with entirely new consequences. How would I explain that I couldn’t fly as an adult? Sure, learning levitation and such was awesome, but how would I justify myself to someone that I hadn’t learned that in kindergarten? I would need to practice this in secret until I could reliably go about these things in daily life scenarios. But hey, magic. Seeing that I couldn’t get back to sleep, and my friggin’ hands were still glowing in that green light I first saw in my dream (that steadily got hazier to remember), I made my way down to the main lobby of the library, shining like a Jack O’Lantern. It at least helped in the way of not stumbling through the dark like an idiot. In the stealth department the glow would be seriously easy to spot, making magic entirely unusable for jobs like espionage. I really hoped I would get it to stop before morning came, though. Frustrating as it was, it took me until sunrise and a lot of reading through the tomes to cut off the flow of magic. Doing so wasn’t just a simple thing to do with just a command in your mind or trying really hard to cut off the flow in your arms like you could do with your blood if you were determined enough to bind them with a strip of cloth. It all had something to do with inner sight and, of course, the ley lines running through the world. Your state of mind and the emotions you were feeling, how you went about to try to limit the flow, from fast to slow, and so on. Frustration only led to you taking longer than necessary. No wonder controlling the flow of mana was the very first lesson you had to learn to become a mage. Banishing wings on the other hand was only a matter of how much you really wanted to stay in one spot or not. If you wanted to flee, your wings would come out no matter what. It was significantly easier to get them to disappear on Sol than it was to cut off the flow of mana on Lux. Getting the wings to move was another thing entirely, though. I was sure that that would cost me my sanity once I got to the stage of learning how to fly. Just because there were some shiny shimmering see-through wings on your back, didn’t mean you felt a friggin’ thing in them without a lot of concentration. Imagine them as phantom limbs, if you will. With more experience such a thing would become a thing you could do in your sleep, though. At least that was what the beginner flier book said on it. Great, right? And man, was I tired as I greeted the workers on the morn again. A bit cranky, too. Some glimmer of hope showed itself, though. I wasn’t coughing my lungs out as hard anymore on Sol. That was a relief in itself, I tell you. I decided to refine the organization of the magic section of the library shelves that day as we waited on the electrician to come around as the workers got the appliances to their respective places, only needing to get connected to power outlets now. Around nine o’clock two men came in with the cables and the tools necessary for their work. One of them was a Terra-blessed, molding the wood of the tree-like friggin’ clay. It was fascinating to watch, for sure. It took the better part of the day to set up the kitchen alone, so I was a bit doubtful everything would be done in the next two days from now. The day after that would herald the Summer Sun Celebration at sunrise, with a night full of partying before that. Time was running short, it seemed. In the late afternoon I left the crew to their devices, trusting them to not steal half of the library and went to Rarity for some more modeling work. I needed some more money because I was getting hungry and had no coin in my bag anymore or a paycheck from the town yet. Mayor Madam was the next thing I was in need to meet again the next day, I mentally told myself. We needed to work out how and when I would receive payment working for the town as the librarian together with this Twilight Sparkle that would arrive a day before the Summer Sun Celebration if everything went to plan. In three days we would get to welcome Princess Celestia at dawn and I really didn’t want to make her protégé uncomfortable. If I did, I would probably get dragged up to her mentor, and then it was only a matter of time she would see I was the Chosen One, and we couldn’t have that, now do we? I was the mouse hiding from the cat. And the cat was guided by fate, at that. Like a lion cub following the pride mother. And some other obscure analogy following something like destiny. And crap like that. You get the idea. So, the third last day went by in the blink of an eye. Two more to go before the big day.