"Argent, come with me," Twilight requested. I nodded and she turned to the drake. "Spike, make her a plate of pancakes and bring it to the basement." I stumbled after the mare. My vision was still a little blurry from tears and pain. Said pain was also ruining any attempt at focusing on my walking. Pain that I had earned by clipping the damn crystal growing out of my forehead on the underside of a chair.
After the third time I tripped, I suddenly felt myself covered in a warm glow that then picked me up and brought me to hover beside Twilight. "Are you okay?" She asked. I rubbed my eyes and nodded, she apparently didn't believe me, as she shook her head and set me down on her back gently. "Hold on for just a little while, my little pony. We will find out what's going on." She reassured. We reached the bottom of the basement stairs, entering a room where all manner of machines were strewn about.
Twilight set me down on a cushion, taking the piece of my painful protrusion that I had apparently chipped off in my attempt to sit on a chair. She set it on a Petri dish and put that into what looked like a mini CAT scanner with a screen attached. The machine whirred to life and strange symbols appeared on the screen. Twilight's eyes narrowed as she sifted through the information. A scroll popped into existence next to her and she compared the screen to it. "Hmmm." Twilight came over to me. "Alright Argent, I'm going to need a sample." She said. I clutched/held-my-hooves-over the crystal rooted in my cranium.
Twilight winced in response. "No! no, not from that. Just some hair, a little blood." She said in calming tones. I lowered my forelimbs uneasily. She lifted a single strand of hair from my mane and cut it with some magic scissors. She then grasped a needle from a nearby table and drew an amount of blood. She ran each of these through a different machine. She compared the symbols that the machines spat out against the scroll and the screen. The "Hmmmm."-ing intensified. Another scroll popped into existence, this one sealed with a wax version of the mark on her flank. "Hmmmmm." She repeated once more. Before her eyes widened. "Th-thats almost like..." She turned back to me.
"Argent I need you to do me a favor." She layed down on her barrel, eyes level with mine. "Can you stand up?"
The pain had dulled greatly, to the point that I felt confident in my ability to walk again. "Mhm." I nodded.
Twilight smiled. "Great, I just need you to step into this thing here and stand still, alright?" She gestured to a magi-tech contraption that looked big enough to fit a per-pony inside. I nodded and stumbled over to it, stepping inside once I was sure of my footing. "Alright, im just going to turn this on, it's goiing to make a few noises, some lights, and then it will be done, okay?" I nodded, sniffing, finally getting my emotions back under control.
She flipped a switch on the control board and turned a dial. A blue scanning light that looked like it came straight out of a sci-fi movie moved up and down the pod, it turned purple after moving past my ears and came back down again, resting on my shoulders. It repeated the smaller scan three more times before turning green. After scanning a similarly sized section about my feet, turning red, it powered back down.
"All traces of the Gaean duct are..." Twilight murmured, comparing all the papers and test results. "So then that would make you a... And that would be your... but that can't be."
"T-Twilight. What is it?" I asked. Twilight glanced at me, checked everything again, then turned back to me.
"Well..." She began, "it would seem that you're a unicorn." She sounded as though she wasn't believing it herself. But the tests were, apparently, conclusive.
"... what?" My voice still had a tremble, so it didn't get across the tone I wanted. ...what? Why? How? I thought I was supposed to be an earth pony?
"Well, it is unkown if you were for certain an earth pony before, these results certainly dispute that, but the fact of the matter is, you're most definitely a unicorn now. Even if your horn is a little, odd." Twilight said, scrutinizing the crystaline growth.
I reached up to gingerly touch a hoof to it, rewarded with a dull lance of pain, I winced. "Ow. Its... I have a- I'm a... what?" I looked to the unicorn, specifically her horn, then to mine. "But why is it, so different?" I asked.
"I... I don't know." Twilight said, astonished. "Tell me, do unicorns usually have horns like this where you're from?" I shook my head in the negative, simply avoiding the fact that I'm not native. "I'm going to have to write the princess about this, she will know what to do."
Spike opened the door and made his way downstairs. "Spike! Take down a note." Twilight began, not taking her eyes off of me. I looked down at the plate of pancakes that had just been set before me. Spike took a piece of parchment and quill from nowhere.
"Dear Princess Celestia.
"In my last letter I mentioned that the filly that we discovered in the Everfree has recovered, but she has come to an unusual state. While she seems to be healthy in a broader use of the term, where before we believed her to be an earth pony, it has come to light that she may actually be a unicorn. But the trouble with this is the fact that her horn grew from nothing to 3 inches overnight, and is comprised mainly of crystallized DNA and magic, as opposed to standard unicorn horns."
Twilight paused in her dictation, what sounded like glass cracking in reverse drawing her attention. She stared in amazement at what was apparently my horn replacing the chipped matter it had lost.
"Furthermore the horn seems to be able to repair itself in a matter of minutes. I'll be sending over a copy of the results from her tests. I request if you know anything on this subject to help us understand these troubling changes.
"Your faithful student,
"Twilight Sparkle"
Upon finishing the letter Spike rolled it up and blew green flames upon it. Burning it away and sending a small plume of smoke out the door, seemingly on a mission.
"So, what now?" I asked, confused as to why Spike burned the letter he spent the time to write down.
Twilight smiled reassuringly. "Now we wait for the princess to respond, and you eat your breakfast."
I looked at the pancakes, the fork, and my hooves, I know I've already pulled feats of dexterity that should be impossible with these things, but I wasn't willing to risk looking like an idiot. "How long do you think that will take?" Surely this princess had to be a busy mare.
"It depends really, this is a rather urgent matter, so it shou-" she was interrupted by Spike belching, out a... A letter?
How does that w- magic, chalk it up to magic and spare my sanity
"Ah, see? Now then, let's see what she has on the subject!" Twilight took the message in her aura and unrolled it.
"Dear Twilight Sparkle.
"While I am happy to hear that she is healthy, I regret to inform you that I have never heard of a tribe of ponies with crystal horns.
"I have gone over the results on my end and see no reason to take drastic measures to remove it, and if she truly is a unicorn, it would be cruel to do so. Please keep us updated on the child's well-being.
"Princess Celestia.
"P.S. my sister can't help-""... oh whoops, wasn't supposed to read that part."
Twilight turned to me. "Well, I suppose you're just a unique case then. If you'd like I could try and teach you a bit of magic." She offered.
"I... sure." I said, looking down at my pancakes. I pressed my hoof to the fork and lifted, surprised that the fork came with. To test how much pressure it could take I started cutting into one of my three pancakes.
"Hey, its gonna be okay. Both me and the princess both confirmed that the cr- I mean, your horn, isn't hazardous to your health. You just learned the hard way, like most unicorn foals, that it can hurt really bad if it gets hit." She said putting a hoof on my withers. "You've just gotta be more careful with it, that's all." I nodded, only half listening.
Wonderfull, I'm not a guy anymore, but I still have a crippling weak spot that anyone could easily exploit. I sighed, sticking a piece of pancake in my mouth.
Twilight smiled, patting my shoulder. "I'm gonna run a few more tests on what I all ready have, you enjoy your breakfast." With that she turned back to her equipment.
After I finished my delicious pancake breakfast that I couldn't properly enjoy, I went back upstairs to see spike cleaning the dishes. Not wanting to converse at the moment I headed back to the loft and stared out the window. I let time pass for a while like that. Eventually Twilight came back upstairs. "Hey..."She began, getting my attention out of the window. "You doing okay?"
"I'm fine, I just wasn't expecting this." I said with a sigh. "This week is just full of firsts and I was not prepared."
Twilight nodded. "Yeah, I can understand that. You woke up in some strange place and the next thing you know you're told you are a unicorn now? You are sure you weren't one before by the way?" She said, but only scratched the surface of my own list.
"Believe me, I was most definitely not a unicorn before." I stated.
Twilight nodded. "I can see how that could be stressfull." She said sitting down beside me. She placed a hoof on my withers and continued. "But my offer still stands, I would be more than happy to teach you magic."
I nodded. "Since I'm a unicorn now, it'd certainly be helpful to know."
"It's more than just helpful, its the birthright of unicorns! It's a way to express yourself and your talent!" I smiled at the twinkle in her eyes.
"Well, before you get me to sold on the idea we should probably make sure I Can use magic, right?" I said.
"Oh but I did! I ran the full battery of magic conductivity tests on the chipped piece and have confirmed that it should work just like any other unicorn's." She said proudly.
I blinked. "That's what you were doing all this time?" At Twilight's affirmative I smiled at her. "Thank you."
"Alright my little pony, let's get started!" Twilight exclaimed.
"Wait you mean right now?" I asked at the sudden start.
"Well yeah. There is no time like the present! Also do you have anything else to do right now?" She inquired. I glanced back out the window, it must have been about ten in the morning.
"No, I dont. Alright, so what's first?" I asked, ready to learn a new skill.
"First, just do whatever you think you should. The way you think of magic should help me get a baseline on where about you are." She picked up a quill from the study and placed it on the floor a meter away from me. "All you've gotta do is make this move, and we'll go from there. It's easy." She picked it back up with her magic and put it down again to demonstrate "It's the most basic spell a unicorn learns, and the one they use most often."
"Okay." I said calmly, I focused my eyes on the feather. Holy crap! I'm gonna learn magic! This is going to be fun. I tried the first thing I could think of, simply willing it to move. If I had expected my very first attempt to work I would have been disappointed. I looked to Twilight. Whenever she uses magic her horn lights up, how do I get that to happen? I closed my eyes. I let my focus drift to my horn, any sensations I felt from it, anything I could think of as magical.
At first there was nothing. Come on, think, she said it was easy. Then again she was born here, I was raised in a world without magic. But she also said my horn should work like any other. I shook my head to rid myself of the circular argument.
I felt an itch in the front of my barrel beginning to grow but ignored it. Instead focusing on all the things outside of myself. I imagined the loft, and where the beds would all be. I imagined where the windows were, where the quill was, and where Twilight was. I slowly edited my mental picture of the room to house finer details. Once I felt I had a clear enough picture, I reached out with what I thought to be magic. I could feel something, it was a faint, but I could feel something happening around the base of my horn. I tried to grab the quill in my metaphysical grasp but nothing happened.
"No need to rush, just feel it out." Twilight said.
Twilight.
I turned my mental map to focus on her. I could imagine a faint purple glow coursing throughout her body and coming to a brighter focus around her horn.
Is that magic or am I imagining it? If I could just copy what she does.
I turned the view onto myself. I could see a faint blueish glow, similar to Twilight's, but weaker, and less focused. Hers was like a nervous system, mine was just a muddy blob. Suddenly, I could feel this light as it passed through my horn, before flowing back into the reservoir. The more I focused on this image of myself, the weirder it got, there was something else there, something like the magic I could feel, but it was different.
I decided to let my mental map go back to focusing on the quill. Just, magic it into happening. I tried. Once again no luck. My subsequent attempts were met with as much success.
"It-its all right if you can't get it. Do you want me to give you some pointers?" Twilight offered.
"No, just let me... lemme try just one more time." I requested. One last attempt, just do it. Move the feather. nothing. Budge It just a bit. A nudge will do.
The magic wouldn't focus in my horn. Come on! Just use your magic! the feeling of magic swelled, and I could hear the noise magic made when it danced around a unicorn's horn. A smile parted my lips as I heard Twilight gasp. I reached out with the suddenly working magic and grasped the feather. I attempted to turn it over, opening one eye a crack to see. My horn was indeed lit up, the magic I was using was more of a deep periwinkle color than the sky blue I was imagining. The feather was also wrapped in the same magical glow, I watched as the quill slowly turned, little by little, nearly end over end, and failed. With a pop the magic stopped and the feather fell back to the floor.
"Aww, I was so close!" I bemoaned.
"No no, that was great! You did it!" Twilight congratulated.
"But I didn't even get it to flip over." I said, defeated.
"But the point of this exercise was to have you move the quill even a little bit. Honestly for your first time using magic the fact that you got more than a few sparks from your horn is quite good. Especially since you weren't even born a unicorn." She said.
"So what was like that for you?" I asked.
Twilight took a moment before responding. "Well, my special talent is magic, I was born a natural at this." She said, turning and gesturing to the mark on her flank.
"Oh."
"What about you?" She asked.
"Huh? What about me?" I asked, confused.
"Your cutie mark, how did you get it? What's your talent?" She clarified.
I, however, was only more confused. "My what now? What's a cutie mark?"
"It's the mark on your flank. You really don't know?" She asked, a little supprised.
"This thing's called a cutie mark? That's odd, I thought it was just more of my outlandish patterning." I admitted, pawing at the mark agian.
"So, you don't remember getting your cutie mark? Perhaps you were born with it?" Twilight hypothesized.
For some reason, the thought of lying to her and saying, Yes I was indeed born with it. like a normal person would when they are given an out, just made my hoof itch. So instead I went with a sort of half truth. "For as long as I have been a pony yes." That passed the hoof-itch test.
"That's interesting, I've heard of some ponies being born with their cutie marks, but its very, extremely rare." Twilight rubbed a hoof under her chin.
"Can we get back to the magic lesson?" I asked, knowing two things. One she is a rather wordy mare, if the library is anything to go by, and I didn't need a lecture on butt marks right now. And two, if she thought too hard on the subject I'm sure she could find a few holes to poke in my story, even if it wasn't very long yet.
"Oh sure!" Twilight went on to explain the basics of magic. Said Basics took the remaining morning and subsequent few hours. Most of it went over my head, and at the end of it all she gave me a bunch of assigned readings. While I wasn't overly happy to be given homework again, it was for magic so I was okay with it.
I found a cushion to lay my equine form on. I think I'm adapting to this way too fast, but it spares me my sanity so I'll just let that slide.
I opened up the first book. And stared at it. I turned a few pages. Then I went to the next one on the stack, and the next, and the next. "Crap..." I stared at the alien symbols on the page before me. First I get taken to another world, then I'm turned into a fricken pony, then I chipped my brand new horn on a chair which hurt like hell, now I find that I can't even read!? This can't get any worse. I grumbled.
"STAMPEDE!!" Rainbow Dash shouted.
I grumbled. You never say things like that, and yet I did. I stacked the books and headed outside to see an oncoming cloud of dust. "Yup, that's a stampede alright, "I observed. The town was in panic. Twilight came up the stairs and ushered me inside. Once she left, I simply came back outside again.
I just caught sight of Applejack and a dog coming up either side of the herd of cows currently bound for Ponyville. I watched as the mare turned the herd away from town with some very impressive mouth lasso skills. The town was cheering, Applejack reared back and rode off into the sunset. My back hoof itched as I watched her leave dramatically. What kinda random western insert stuff was that? That was awesome and I definitely need to thank her somehow, I should go be helpful to her in anyway I can. I thought, nodding.