Now, Spike would never say that having opposable thumbs and a bipedal gait was in any way a bad thing. It suited his dragon-self across the mirror in Equestria quite well, and it certainly made reading comic books a lot easier. But there was a simple… simplicity to being a dog that he’d missed on his extended vacation with Twilight into the land of magical ponies, and as the sun began to crest the hills around Canterlot City, it was time for him to get back to it.
He stretched out languidly in the soft fuzz of his little bed, set out in the kitchen near his water, kibble, and dog-door. Spike was up just before the rest of the family, and he had a lot to get done before it got too late. He had a schedule to keep, after all.
First, he checked out the kitchen, taking several good, long sniffs. No intruders, some stale cheese in the fridge, maybe Mom would give him some. Good. Next, he lapped up some water. Check. Finally, he went out into the backyard, ran in circles for twenty minutes, and raised such a bedlam over the squirrels he just knew were there because he could smell you, you little… before happily trotting back inside for breakfast.
His daily checklist complete, he could finally get to his final, and most important task; being a dog. And what was a dog’s first job, if not being man’s… or in this case, girl’s best friend? It was time to awaken the household.
Yet, just as Spike was about to let loose a howl to remind everyone it was time to wake up… he heard a rap-rap-rapping at the front door. An intruder? No, he hadn’t heard the mailman’s squeaky shoe coming up the road. The light knocking continued.
Eventually, Spike ran up to the door, and pressed one floppy ear against the purple wood. He could hear someone scratching at the lock. It took a lot longer than usual for whoever it was to unlock the door, so Spike stepped back and readied himself.
The door swung inward, only to jam immediately from the still-bolted chain.
“Ponyfeathers,” Cadance snorted. The tall, gorgeous, pink-and-gold haired woman glanced down at Spike as he began chuckling. “Oh? Um, good morning Spike.”
“Morning, Your Highness,” he smiled back.
Cadance shrugged at the dog’s antics. He’d always been a weird one, even before he could talk. She grinned, chagrined, and held up a bent-up set of hairclips, “Shiny left me a key, but I forgot it at home. I don’t suppose you could…?”
“Got it,” The purple-and-green dog said as he stepped forward, only to press the door shut with one paw.
Then, after giving himself ten feet of space, he ran towards the door, and catapulted himself up the wall as he reached it. His momentum carried the pup just high enough to catch the chain in his teeth and give it just the right amount of yank to free the bolt from the door.
When Cadance opened the door a moment later, she came upon a stunned Spike, who lay right where he’d landed on his own face. He was slow to rise again from that embarrassment.
But there was a gentle scratching behind his ears, so it was alright after all.
“I suppose I should stop being so surprised at how capable you are, Spike,” said Cadance as she knelt down and rubbed down the adorable doggy.
He beamed back at her as he reached his paws and stood up, “Nah! I’m always surprising.”
Spike took a few careful sniffs at the Principal’s hand as she finished ruffling his fur. Cadance had, as long as Spike had known her, a warm and fuzzy smell. To a dog’s nose, her smell was like a fluffy blanket after a bath, and she usually added a little bit of vanilla perfume to this, which always made Spike just a bit hungrier after passing by her.
Today, she also had a hint of a chocolate éclair on her, from breakfast no doubt, and something else. A biting, artificial cherry smell…
“Test scores came back today?” he asked.
Cadance’s eyes snapped wide open, and she stood back up. “H-how did you know?”
“You always wear that cherry perfume when you need to ‘feel powerful’,” he waved one paw around dismissively, “and you usually avoid sweets for breakfast unless some nasty paperwork is hounding you back at the school.”
When she stared, dumbfounded, Spike tapped his nose with the same paw. “Can’t lie to this old boy. You did the same thing about a month after Twilight transferred out of Crystal Prep.”
“Yeah,” Cadance sighed, though wistfully, “Her leaving really tanked the averages. Anyone else up?” she asked with a raised eyebrow. She smiled as he shook his head, “Great! I’ll get things set up!”
And with that, Cadance ran off to the kitchen, and soon a pot of coffee was brewing and a pile of eggs were scrambling. Spike was always amazed at how Cadance could instantly switch between capable educator, goofy babysitter, and super-cook houseperson. If Shining Armor was smart, he’d have married her already.
Still, with breakfast on the way, the Sparkle family was sure to follow. And so, Spike, the Brave and Glorious Dog that he was, decided to meet them as they came down the stairs.
First down was Twilight Velvet, mother of Twilight, Shining, and technically, Midnight. The grey-skinned woman with a head of long purple and white striped hair moved like a zombie, drawn directly towards the coffee pot. She always smelled of it, with a strong undercurrent of printer ink, a scent that always perked up Spike when she walked past him. This morning, a page of her latest mystery novel was still sticking to the underside of her slipper, evidence of a long night in front of a computer screen.
Night Light, Velvet’s husband, was down next. The completely blue human followed his wife closely… Spike hesitated to say ‘like a puppy’ since that sounded vaguely insulting, but it was also entirely accurate. Spike always thought Night Light smelled like chamomile tea mixed with hot chocolate, a sort of soothing aura that could calm down anyone within seconds.
And finally, Shining Armor. White-skinned, topped with blue hair currently styled and combed, and dressed in his pressed policing-uniform, Shining smelled like a gallon of mint leaves and cologne.
Of course. He’d seen Cadance’s car in the driveway.
“Hey furball,” he laughed, “go and check on the sleeping beauties up there.”
“No problem,” Spike said as he sailed up the stairs with practiced ease, barely whispering as he passed, “Your Majesty…”
Shining masked his fear well with another cough, but said nothing.
Talking had come easily for Spike, at least once he’d been hit with a little Equestrian magic. In fact, it’d been terribly simple. And once he could put words to things, a lot of other tricks had come easily, just like the locked door. He’d also noticed how those written scribbly things humans put in their books and beneath their movie screens for stuff from far off places actually said things. Some of Shining’s comic books had them too, and they were an awfully fun thing to read as his dragon-self had shown him.
He sometimes wondered at the relationship between him talking, and him suddenly… knowing things. But then, Spike was a dog, and dogs are blessed with an abundance of joy and a lack of care to overanalyze things, especially things like that, which often caused Twilight to stare at a wall for several minutes whenever it came up. And besides, right now, all that mattered was that Spike could open a door.
Spike nudged the bedroom door open after getting the knob to spin with a well-placed jump. Inside, he could see sunlight streaming in from the large, circular window just above Twilight’s bed. His oldest, and best friend looked about as tangled up in her sheets as was possible, like she was in a cocoon. She whimpered softly in her sleep, like how Spike sometimes did when he thought the mailman was coming to get him.
Spike usually loved the scent of his owner. Twilight always smelled like sweet flowers. Maybe that would explain why he loved to roll through Velvet’s garden, but at the moment Spike was focused on the way Twilight’s anxieties and fears were tainting that sweet smell. Spike hated that. It reminded him too much of how Twilight was while she went to Crystal Prep…
But there was someone else in this room, for once. And her scent… it drove Spike up the walls, though not literally in this case. Imagine, he would explain to a willing audience, that to smell a thing was to know a thing. Imagine having a friend, a best friend, or even a close sibling. Imagine knowing everything about them and being with them all the time, forever. No one could be closer than you and your friend.
And then, one day, there was another one. A perfect copy. They even smelled the same… but not. There was a subtle difference, a singular difference that even a dog’s nose could not fully explain. It felt wrong, like hearing two instruments try to hit the same note, but when one turned out flat, you couldn’t tell which one was wrong!
That was Midnight Sparkle. A scent just off enough to make him aware of it, a note just off enough to throw a musician for a loop. All the worse for being so close, so similar to his beloved owner and friend, Twilight. She was also tangled in her sheets, but unlike Twilight, Midnight had slumped off her bed in the night, and was now sleepily laying with her nose a few inches from the burn-mark left in their carpet.
Spike worked his way towards Twilight, and gave her exposed and dangling arm an experimental lick. And then another. After a few more, he could hear her stir. And, eerily, she and Midnight seemed to awaken simultaneously with a snort.
“Cadance is making breakfast, so you two better come down before I get it all,” he said, simply, then made his way out the room as quick as he could. That smell was really getting to him…
Midnight groaned as she realized where she was. Specifically, the floor. More generally, the living, physical, human world. The last few hours were a haze… was this how everyone else dreamed? Why would they subject themselves to this?
She shifted her weight and tried to stand, only to roll over onto her back, her blankets coiled tight around her legs. Well, that at least explained why she couldn’t move in the dream. Having used to live in Twilight’s head, Midnight had usually free reign over their shared dreamrealm. Not having control there, and only having her own thoughts to deal with, had been strange. It was like being invited to a big house… and then the other guests disappeared.
Across the room, Midnight heard Twilight groan and rise from her own bed. Her sister flailed her arms about, eventually snatching up her glasses and returning them to the bridge of her nose.
“Welp,” she sighed, “I suppose the hope of a sound slumber was a forlorn one after all.”
Midnight struggled to remove the sheets still wrapped around her, “Bad dreams?”
“Yeah, and no alicorn of the night in sight,” Twilight twisted this way and that, working the knots and cricks that had formed in her back as she fretfully slept. “I was stuck at some sort of family reunion, but everyone was replaced with that doll…”
Midnight nearly choked as she listened, “Smarty Pants?”
Twilight stared down at the tangled mass of sheets that was her sister “How…?”
“Same dream,” Midnight sighed. “It was some sort of dinner, and everyone was Smarty Pants. And they were pretty upset that I couldn’t name any of them.”
Twilight bit her lip. “I… don’t suppose they called you Midnight at any point…?”
“No,” Midnight finally sat back down on her bed, “Twilight. They seemed… insistent on that point.”
Both sisters sat in the stillness of the early morning. Everything in the room had that crisp feeling as full wakefulness seeped back into the girls’ reality with the slow oozing of sunlight through the circular window in their room.
“Do…” Twilight said slowly, hopefully, “… do you want to talk about it? The dream?”
“Not particularly,” Midnight looked away, “I’ll probably be talking all day long, in any case. Why waste energy on it now?”
Twilight nodded, “Oh, right. Mom and Dad are taking you out for lunch today. Sorry.”
“Sorry?” Midnight threw her sister a sidelong glance.
“Well… while you probably remember everything about them, not having Mom and Dad already know you… I can only imagine going through that myself,” Twilight swallowed what could have been a teary breakdown, and soldiered on. “And then there’s the other thing…”
Midnight’s attention locked onto her sister now. “What other thing?”
Twilight winced. “It’s just that… you’ll have to miss school today…” she turned a warm, sympathetic look towards her sister, pain and sorrow evidenced in…
Midnight was struggling not to laugh.
“Was that why you were sad for me?” she covered her mouth, snorts of laughter slipping out with every breath. “I… I think that might be a you problem…”
“You’re…” Twilight’s world began to spin, “You’re not sad about missing school? What sort of a monster are you!?”
Not able to hold it in any longer, Midnight fell backward onto her bed, laughing hysterically at her sister. Twilight sat, frowning for what felt like minutes before deciding to take advantage of Midnight’s giggle fit and take the first shower.
Midnight was positively peeved to find Twilight had snagged their mostly light-blue blouse and purple skirt, but second shower meant second pick of the combined closet, so she settled for the dark-violet polo and skirt instead. Which didn’t matter too much since nothing in the closet seemed to fit right.
She could literally remember Twilight wearing these clothes last week! But everything felt impossibly uncomfortable, a slight size too big or too small! The worst part was she couldn’t tell which.
The Sparkle sisters reached the kitchen at the same time.
Twilight Velvet greeted them first, “Good morning… dears,” she only slightly hesitated, a good sign.
“Hope you slept well, Twi- er, girls?” Night Light almost got it down, also a good sign.
Twilight nudged Midnight in the ribs, and offered a smile and a nod. It was time.
“Greetings… parents?” Midnight cast an unconvincing smile towards her new family, and an awkward glance over to Twilight.
“Nailed it?” she whispered.
“No…”
Shining, hiding a guilty smirk, just nodded and took another sip of coffee before he tilted his head towards the kitchen. And, predictably, Twilight rushed over to meet her favorite sitter, dragging Midnight along by her wrist.
“Sunshine! Sunshine! Ladybugs awake!” Cadance and Twilight hopped merrily before an embarrassed Midnight, sing-songing their traditional greeting.
Nerds, Midnight thought. They were both tremendous nerds.
“Clap your hands and do a little shake!”
The two were left giggling together in the kitchen around the central island-table with Midnight looking on while the rest of the family got right to the business of chowing down. Midnight herself merely looked on, idly wondering what there was to eat, but before she knew better, she felt Twilight’s hand on her shoulder.
The bespectacled sister looked concerned.
“What?”
“Do… do you remember the ladybug dance?” the sudden worry in Twilight’s voice even gave Cadance pause, no doubt wondering what this was all about.
Midnight raised an eyebrow in confusion, but it took another second for what Twilight asked to click into place. “Oh!” she said, eyes wide, “No! No, I remember the song and dance, it’s fine.”
She crossed her arms and gave the other two girls a sour look, “Though it’s clear that I inherited all of our shame from the Split.”
Cadance wore a worried frown as she glanced back and forth between the two girls. “Memories? Split? I… I know this whole situation involves magic, but what is going on?”
Twilight, bless her nerdy little heart, began to wrap her fingers around themselves and half-stammer, half-babble a response. “Well, you see… um, Midnight used to be… oh no, that’s too much… I had this… um…”
Midnight, by contrast, knew precisely what to say. “Magical lobotomy.”
Silverware clattered in the kitchen-dining room, and Shining Armor nearly choked on his toast. Two horrified Sparkle parents stared into the kitchen proper, eyes wider than their plates. Cadance’s face was a mixture of disgust and terror as she clearly began shooting her eyes across Twilight’s features, possibly searching for medical scars or what she did not know.
“Midnight!” Twilight sputtered, “It wasn’t a lobotomy!”
“Fine!” Midnight laughed, a wicked grin suddenly flashing across her face, “Then I suppose I cut our brain in half and gave one part to a golem I made with magic. That would be you,” she added, stabbing Twilight’s shoulder with a pointing finger.
Twilight growled back, “It was an even split after a full Intellect-Duplication spell! I am not a golem!”
Midnight folder her arms and lifted her chin, “Are too.”
“Am not!”
“Are too!” Midnight playfully shook her hips.
All eyes swapped between the new sisters as they continued. Night Light and Velvet silently wondered where their… their newest daughter got all her energy… and attitude. Shining just wondered who would win. Cadance was trapped in the bewildering position of listening to Twilight Sparkle argue with herself in stereo.
“You are a child!”
“I was born yesterday, what’s your excuse?”
“Are you trying to drive me insane?”
“It’s been a day,” Midnight chuckled, “Did you really expect me to give up my favorite hobby so quickly?”
Twilight seemed ready for a comeback, her cheeks flushed red as she built up breath for another verbal assault… but then she simply let it go, before turning an upraised eyebrow at her sister.
“You’re messing with me.”
Midnight smiled back, “Guilty,” and then reached out to touch Twilight’s shoulder. “Forgive me?”
Twilight’s frown struggled to remain as a smile crept back onto her face. “Well, I suppose I can hold off asking Princess Twilight how to banish you to the moon… this time.”
The Sparkle Sisters’ giggling seemed to set the rest of the family at ease. Midnight turned back towards Cadance after a moment.
“When we… split, we used an untested magic…”
Twilight interrupted, “It was fine, in theory.”
“But the end result,” said Midnight, lightly pushing against her twin, “was that we were split into two bodies… though now we’ve found that not every memory from before was shared equally.”
“Midnight is basically me,” said Twilight, then smugly, “Though with far fewer inhibitions or stability.”
Midnight chuckled, “And Twilight is me, just not nearly as cool.”
“Alright…” Cadance pursed her lips, “And the memory thing?”
“So far, it’s… pretty random,” Midnight shrugged, “Like, I don’t remember… Twilight going to Camp Everfree,” she shifted midsentence before the topic of Timber Spruce came up. Best not to tempt the girl who could build a death ray… and had tried at least once.
Twilight blushed. “And I don’t seem to have any memories of… Smarty Pants.”
A second round of clattering silverware, possibly louder than before, rang through the house. Even Spike, hungrily tearing into his kibble mixed with eggs, yelped as Twilight made her pronouncement.
Midnight just returned the wide-eyed stare of her parents and older brother, “I know, right?”
“It’s not that important!” Twilight adjusted her glasses, “We spent part of yesterday afternoon making sure all our memories of academics were retained, and last night we made sure we both remembered friends and family. It seems incidental and secondary memories might suffer some… attrition from the process, however. It’s nothing to be concerned about.”
Midnight whispered, “Your boyfriend is incidental?” only to realize, with mounting horror, that a whisper in a silent room… wasn’t. At least Shining and Cadance had the good sense to look away, unlike Night Light and Velvet, who took a sudden and intensive interest in their daughters.
Before Midnight could tap into her magic to remove all of the sharpened objects in the kitchen from Twilight’s reach, the muffled tone of a cell phone interrupted the rapidly approaching homicide. Twilight pulled hers from a pocket hidden in her skirt folds* and seemed to try very, very hard not to throw the expensive device right at Midnight’s head.
She read the text. Then, aloud, “Oh! Sunset’s here!”
“Sunset?” Midnight’s heart dropped like a stone directly into her stomach, “W-what is she doing here?”
Twilight tapped out a text reply while speaking, “She’s my ride. We agreed to an early-morning planning session with Principal Celestia.”
Midnight frowned, “Planning session?”
Twilight turned a grin on her sister that was every bit as wicked as the one Midnight once had while tearing down the world around them. “Oh… your Curriculum.”
“Friendship Curriculum, no doubt,” the grumpier sister huffed, “Don’t you think I should be there for something like that?”
“Nope!” Twilight dumped a sunny-side egg in-between two pieces of toast, and then turned towards Cadance, “Well, we better get going! School waits for no student, nor Principal!”
“Actually,” Cadance chuckled, “Crystal Prep has a late-start today. A reward for the effort they put forward during this year’s state testing.”
Midnight flinched, “Oh… did they fail that badly?”
Cadance and Twilight gave her a look, the former surprised, the latter puzzled.
“What?” Twilight asked. “Failed? Testing? How do you fail testing at Crystal Prep?”
Cadance asked her own question, “How did you know? Did Spike…?”
“You always wore cherry perfume when something didn’t go your way,” Midnight said matter-of-factly, “and right after we… Twilight left Crystal Prep, I bet the test score averages tanked.”
Twilight, texting once again to stall for time, scoffed without looking up, “That’s ridiculous! Why would wearing different perfume matter…?”
“Good guess,” Cadance admitted. “We’re down eleven points right now, but we dropped a full fifteen when you… when Twilight left.”
Twilight’s jaw dropped. “Really? Wait… the averages dropped because of me? Cadance wears perfume because of…” She hesitated, “I don’t remember any of that… do you think…?”
Midnight shook her head quickly, “Oh, I’m sure you do. You just never cared. Remember, I inherited all the social awareness between us,” she grinned.
“Did not,” Twilight pouted.
Midnight blew a raspberry, “Did too.”
“As much fun as this is,” Cadance had to step in between the suddenly sparring sisters, “Didn’t you need to get going, Twilight?”
The teenager squeaked, swallowed her toast-and-egg whole, and then dove out the front door. Midnight could just catch a glimpse of Sunset on her motorcycle idling in the street. The girl was wearing her leather jacket, and a full-visor black helmet. She tossed Twilight her spare, and then they…
Did… did Sunset see her? It almost looked like she paused to look at Midnight before roaring off on her bike. Crazy talk, what with the angles, distances, and coverage involved… but still. After the stunt Midnight had pulled yesterday morning… even if it saved the world, she wasn’t sure if Sunset would take being potentially turned into an alicorn personally.
Sunset seemed to have a hang up over that subject. One more thing for Midnight to feel terrible about… even if she wasn’t sure why.
Cadance was still watching Midnight a minute later when the newly minted human being finally noticed her.
She didn’t like how Cadance was watching her. “What?”
“Is everything alright, Midnight?” she asked, pointing at Midnight’s entwined fingers, “Between you and Sunset?”
Midnight unfolded her hands and tried to regain her composure. “Everything’s fine.”
Cadance nodded, but was clearly unconvinced. She picked up her plate, and a plate of eggs meant for Midnight, then tilted her head towards the back door.
“Care to join me on the porch?”
“Uh, sure?” Midnight followed, throwing a suspicious glance Shining’s way. The older brother just shrugged, then bid his goodbyes before setting out for work.
Now alone in the kitchen, except for Spike, Velvet and Night Light sighed.
Night Light picked at his eggs, “Well, breakfast was certainly interesting.”
“And for lunch,” Velvet smiled, chagrined, “we get to have a full conversation with our new daughter.”
“Hate to say it,” said Night Light, shaking his head, “but we might have to fall back on those ‘small talk’ flashcards Cadance got Twilight for last Hearth’s Warming.”
“See,” Spike lifted his head out of his food bowl, “This is why dogs have it easy. All I gotta do to learn something about a new dog is sniff their…”
“Thank you Spike!” Velvet interrupted, “We… we got this… I think.”
The sun had just broken through the treetops around the Sparkle property when Midnight and Cadance came outside into the backyard. The porch, an old design with a full roof, wooden railings and columns, featured a few wicker chairs around a small table, where the two took their seats and watched the golden morning light fall upon the grass.
Midnight sat uncomfortably, tugging this way and that at her clothes. She swore, if Twilight had cast some sort of size-changing spell on their clothes just to spite her, Midnight would… would… darnit, when she was an evil splice of Twilight’s mind, she was so much better at coming up with threats. She settled for spearing her toast and eggs angrily with a fork.
And then she waited for the Inquisition to begin…
The pink-haired principal took a bite of toast with jam, then turned her warm smile onto the girl who looked so much like her little sort-of sister.
“How are you doing, Midnight?”
Through a mouthful of egg, Midnight responded, “That’s a vague question.”
Cadance coughed, “Fair. Then, how are you feeling? Right now?”
No eye-contact. “Less hungry than before.”
The pink principal narrowed her eyes. Midnight wondered what was going through her head just then. Oh, she could probably check herself with a spell… but she was at least nominally trying to be better. And besides, she wasn’t sure yet what would happen if she tried using magic without Twilight around. Splitting the geode had been a wild shot in the dark, and far bolder a move than Midnight had originally thought Twilight capable of. No telling what could…
Uh oh. Cadance smirked. She had something.
“So, is this how you really are,” she almost purred with that delighted grin, “or are you just trying to be as different from Twilight as possible?”
Midnight finished chewing a mouthful of eggs, then pushed the plate away. “Catch 22.”
“You’re as smart as her,” Cadance smiled. “You’re either just a copy of her, or you’re so different you think I shouldn’t care?”
Midnight glowered, “Isn’t that what you were thinking?”
Cadance shook her head softly, “No,” she said. “I just wanted to know if you were alright. Yesterday sounded traumatic… and we both know you and Twilight had a bit of a fraught relationship before that.”
“You have no idea,” Midnight chuckled, darkly. She really, really didn’t.
Cadance nodded, “I know. So, tell me.”
That… wait.
“No,” said Midnight, waving off the older woman, “that’s a bad idea.”
Cadance smelled blood. “Why?”
“You…” Midnight turned away. Don’t engage. Cadance likes it when you engage.
Looking away wasn’t going to help, it seemed. The woman would just sit there, staring forever. She had patience, that was certain. But giving in wasn’t the way out of this. No, nothing good would come from the truth right now.
But the dam was leaking…
Midnight finally said, flatly, “You.”
“Me?”
Midnight gripped her skirt with a white-knuckle grip. “Do you know what I am? What I was?”
Cadance met the girl’s eye, and slowly shook her head. She said nothing. She was an observer here, a listener only. She would let Midnight speak her peace.
That alone infuriated Midnight. It was too familiar.
“I was a tulpa,” Midnight looked away. “A… well, a piece of Twilight’s mind. I became… me, when she absorbed her future friends’ magic…”
“Was this during the Friendship Games?” Cadance asked.
“Kind of.”
“Kind of?”
Midnight mulled it over. How to explain? No, that wasn’t the right question. How to turn this from an inquisition, into a witch-hunt? Preferably a hunt for pink-witches…
She stood up, and made her way to the porch-rails, “How much did you know about Cinch before the games?”
“I…” the question took Cadance off her guard, “I didn’t really know what she’d been up to until after the games and just before her transfer. I know she,” Cadance took a breath, “I know she tried to blackmail you to participate…”
“Twilight,” said Midnight, back tensing, “Let’s keep the lines clear.”
She heard Cadance shift in her seat. Uncomfortable? Good. Favor returned.
“Twilight never talked about it,” Cadance said, slowly, “I knew something was going on, but I was busy. Cinch made sure I was busy at every possible moment. But…”
Midnight spun around, “But what?” she leaned up against the railing. “But you didn’t notice whenever Twilight’s glasses were broken from a supposed fall? Or whenever she was late for class and her hands looked like they had to rip open a locker from the inside!?”
Cadance’s eyes were open, but she still said nothing.
Midnight was suddenly fine with that. She had plenty to say. “Everyone at Crystal Prep hated her. Everyone at that school had been conditioned to go for blood, to show no mercy. So when some transfer student suddenly shows up and starts destroying the school’s academic records and knocking the grading curve into a tailspin, what do they do?”
Midnight scowled as the dam broke. She could feel her magic, like a little flame down deep in her heart, flare to life. It raced through her veins like a fever, and flowed out in crackling flames along the porch rail. They raced up the little wooden porch columns, and hung down from the roof, framing a large rectangle of blue fire.
And then the memories came. Like a television screen, the flames began to take the shape of Midnight’s memories of being Twilight at Crystal Prep. Memories of being pushed and shoved in the halls, and of the name-calling. Those were tame, the tinny voices of her peers seeping out of Midnight’s impromptu spell. She could have shown the loneliness, the eternal pain of being alone, but that wasn’t what this was for. This wasn’t for sympathy, but vengeance. The memories were only about what had been done to her.
Midnight didn’t need to watch them herself. She was feeding the spell her memories, while all of her attention was focused onto Cadance, and the startled look that came across the pink woman’s face.
Then, more memories played. That time Indigo Zap stole her clothes while she’d been in the gym shower. Oh, how they’d laughed when sh- Twilight had made it to class still in her PE clothes. That time Sunny Flare locked her in the bathroom and almost cost Midnight… Twilight her perfect attendance record. Nearly broke her hand getting out of there.
Or when Lemon Zest blew out all the windows and glass in her lab with an obnoxiously loud music file she snuck onto Twilight’s computer. Explaining the cost of that to Cinch had been a rotten afternoon. And as for that poor excuse for a human being, Midnight almost snarled as the former Principal’s voice echoed behind her… that talk in the darkened office about Everton and how she would use her powers to block Midnight’s dreams…
Twilight’s dreams… Twilight’s…
But Midnight’s tears.
“Do you know why Twilight never talked about this?” Midnight hissed. “Because she had me. She’s pretty bad at coping with trauma, you know? But she was an expert at repressing. So once she made me, she stuck me with all the baggage you ignored because it might threaten your job! Or because Shining Armor was in front of you, so you just couldn’t be bothered!”
The flames behind her began to shift, until the Friendship Games were replaying before Cadance’s eyes… deep, purple eyes brimming with tears. Eyes that dared not look away as Cinch and the Shadowbolts closed in. Eyes that did not blink as she watched her little sister become a monster.
“I was born from her curiosity,” Midnight continued, “We wanted to learn! To understand this magic we’d found! In that moment,” her voice cracked, hold it together, “In that moment, she let go…”
The flames burned out, just as Midnight herself appeared, leaving the girl in the flesh to slide down the cool wood of the porch fence.
What was she doing?
“Twilight got over it,” she whispered, as much to herself as the Principal. “She just… once she had this mystery to solve, she let go of all that anger… but I couldn’t. I spent… I spent over a year in her subconscious, with nothing but that… hatred.”
She felt Cadance slide down the railing to sit besides her. She still said nothing.
“I’m… I’m just so angry,” Midnight wiped at her eyes, “I don’t know what to do with it all. I never had a chance to… talk to anyone. Or get over it. I just kept using it… thinking about what I’d do to them when I got out… what I’d do to you…”
An arm wrapped around her shoulders. Still, Cadance said nothing.
Oh, the hay with pride. Midnight reached out and pulled herself as tightly up against her babysitter as she could.
“Sunshine, sunshine,” she half-sobbed, “ladybugs awake. Clap your hands and do a little shake… I remember… I remember…”
They sat together like this, in a tight, sisterly embrace for several dragging minutes. Eventually, Midnight’s soft cries became hiccups, and then silence. There was nothing more to say.
Except for Cadance. Cadance knew what to say.
“Midnight? I know it can’t be easy holding onto that anger. And…” she laid her forehead on top of Midnight’s head, “… and I know some of it is my fault. And for that, I’m so sorry.”
She stood up again, and helped Midnight to her feet. Cadance helped wipe her eyes and clear the damage her tears had done.
“If you ever want to talk to me about this stuff, all you have to do is call.”
Midnight shook her head, “I… I don’t have a phone.”
A mischievous smirk came to Cadance’s otherwise angelic face. “Well, don’t let it on that I told you, but Velvet and Night Light might be giving you something at lunch today…”
“They’d…?” Midnight frowned, “They hardly know me.”
“Not yet,” Cadance held her little sort-of sister’s hand, “but like me, they want to. But I think,” she fixed Midnight with a steady gaze, “you’ve got to answer one question for yourself, if you want to really deal with your anger.”
“Which is?” Midnight hesitated to ask.
“Do you consider those memories,” she indicated the porch’s wooden frame that once held blue fire, “yours? Or Twilight’s?”
Midnight looked away… but only so she didn’t have to keep her eyes locked on Cadance’s. “Mine. Twilight and I are… closer than most. Those memories… the ones I remember, are still mine.”
“Then,” Cadance said, “You should find the ones who hurt you, and confront them.”
The freshly-minted teenager laughed, “What? So, if I meet Cinch on the street, I should… what? Turn her into a frog?”
Cadance smiled back, “I was thinking you could ask to talk to some of your old classmates about it. Though, with Cinch… if a judge asked me anything, I’d deny encouraging you…”
As they giggled together, the tension finally flowing out of their hearts, Cadance checked her watch.
“And like that, I have to get going.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Midnight slipped into a perfect imitation of Twilight, saying, “School waits for no student, nor Principal!” She then slipped into a fit of snorting laughter.
She was interrupted by a feeling, a light tap on the top of her head.
“Be nice,” Cadance said warningly as she rose up from kissing her sort-of sister’s head, “And take care, alright?”
The pink-haired principal strode away, only to pause at the door to the kitchen. She looked over her shoulder at Midnight, this girl she was only now getting to know.
“Um…” for all her years and experience, Cadance could become quite the tongue-tied post-adolescent herself. “So, Twilight mentioned there are… pony versions of ourselves across the portal? I was just wondering if, last time you were there… you might have…?”
“Spoilers,” Midnight smirked, “That world tends to be ahead by a few years. But I will say…”
A predatory grin flashed. “The baby is adorable.”
The Principal’s face went scarlet. She spun, opened the door, and was practically skipping down the Sparkle hallways towards the door, her car, and as much distance as she could put between her and her sheer, unbridled embarrassment from asking that stupid, stupid question...
Midnight snickered and chuckled on the porch, a sudden lightness in her voice and a weight off her heart. She was almost lightheaded from it all. The sun hadn’t yet risen enough to shine directly on her, but she felt so… warm. It was an intoxicating feeling.
She was so distracted that she almost missed Spike walking out onto the porch. When he appeared, she knelt down and held out one hand, a smile spreading across her face.
Spike sniffed, once… and then turned around, and went inside.
Midnight stared a while, before standing back up. Her own dog…
Baby steps, she thought to herself. Baby steps.