<Earlier that day…>
"Can't this train go any faster? Applebloom needs me."
Cheerilee tried to tune out the stallion sitting beside her. Tender Taps was in full on anxiety mode, and it wasn't helping hers. While he was hoping that the train would somehow go faster, she was silently begging for something else to delay them. She wouldn't admit it to anycreature… except maybe Stygian, but she'd been relieved when the train had to come to a screeching halt because the track in front of them had been destroyed, and she'd silently cursed when Celestia and Luna had shown up out of the blue to fix it.
She took a deep breath. It was just one day in Ponyville. She could manage it. Just meet Dinky at the train station, go and help Dinky get the old school records from her house, maybe eat lunch with the mare-- if she was pressured into it, and then hop on the first train back to Vanhoover. She'd even hoped when she left that everything would be fine now, after having some time away. She'd been very wrong about that.
Everything had been fine up until the stop in Canterlot. No feelings of wrongness, no weird deja vu, no crushing sense of familiarity. Then Tender Taps got on the train. At first she'd been thrilled to see a familiar friendly face, and he'd been thrilled to see her as well. It had all gone wrong when he told her that Applebloom had just given birth to three foals, and was in the hospital now.
She'd of course been very worried about her old friend having had such a difficult birth, but with the news the feelings started again; the crippling anxiety, the feeling that this had all happened before. She couldn't describe to anycreature how much panic these feelings gave her. It made no sense, everycreature had an occasional feeling like that, but for her they seemed so much more intense, and like she was unsure when and where she was. She'd be going through the day fine, and then they'd just start out of nowhere, and she'd get terrified. She knew she should talk to her friends, or somecreature about them, but it all seemed so crazy, and she didn't want them to think she was crazy.
It got so bad it was hard to function, and just kept increasing in frequency. She felt if she could just go somewhere unfamiliar it would be fine, so she ran off to somewhere far from Ponyville, with not much explanation, and in Vanhoover it had finally stopped. She had a chance to be herself again in Vanhoover, instead of the mare with the unexplained panic attacks she'd been turning into in Ponyville. There'd even been a bright silver lining; she'd met Stygian, and over the last few months she'd been enjoying the first real long-term relationship in her life. He was smart, kind, debonair, somepony she could hold a conversation with for hours, and he had an accent that she just found extremely sexy-- she'd always had a thing for listening to interesting accents. Sure, he was a little short, but everything else was perfect about him.
Everything had been going great. Yes, she missed her friends a great deal, but she felt safe and happy, and she was in love. Then, in just the last week, the letters had come pouring in from Ponyville. There had been a letter here and there before, which she ignored, but there had been a deluge of them in the last week. Stygian had noticed her tossing them and had confronted her about it. After a long talk, and a lot of crying, she'd agreed that she'd try to go back to Ponyville for just a day; just to see if it really was still as bad as it was. Stygian had offered to come with her, but she said that if she was going to do this, it was on her own. He told her that if it ended up still being that bad he'd help her find therapy and answers.
She gave herself a gentle recrimination that she was trying to shorten this trip, after he had told her to try her best. The feeling of unease was clearly still there, but she could try to push through and visit some old friends and attend to several things she had left undone when she left, instead of just taking off right back to Vanhoover as soon as the most critical task was done.
"Next stop, Ponyville, coming up! Get your luggage ready!"
She wished she'd told him he could come along, she really needed him right now. Deep breaths, she could do this.
Tender was all but dancing in the isle, ready to take off. She glanced up at the baggage compartment. "Um, Tender, you're about to forget your-" The train stopped, and Tender took off like he was shot out of a canon. "--your luggage."
She sighed to herself, and propped herself up to get his luggage down. At least it was another delay, but she'd need to track him down and give him his luggage. Maybe she would get lucky and Dinky would do it as a favor. She hoped Dinky was waiting right at the train station, but the odd train schedule today might have made the younger mare leave and go home. What was she going to do if Dinky wasn't there? She'd have to go and search out the other pony, and that meant wandering even more around town. If things hadn't gotten any better…
Deep breaths.
She put his saddlebags on her back, adding them to her smaller ones. She wasn't carrying much of her own. Only a few of the letters that were sent to her, the key to her house, along with a small gift for her nephew. It was her plan to try to see to the questions and concerns of the writers if each of the letters she carried today, if she could keep it together.
The gift for Mint Cherry was a book on the origins of noble families of Equestria. She hoped it might inspire him to try to do something himself that would earn him a title instead of trying to marry into one. She knew he had set his eyes on Candy Apple last year as a potential future bride, with the hopes that Candy would eventually rise to being a noble and get him a title by extension. So young, and already planning out being a gold digger. Her sister had always wanted to be around nobles, but she at least had always tried to earn her way into their ranks, and she couldn't be faulted for putting in good and honest work towards a dream. Cherry Tea really needed to better drill that lesson into her son.
The brief thought of Candy Apple brought to mind the odd letter that she had received from Doctor Marble Pie. She didn't know what she could do to help the confused filly, but felt empathy for the foal. Her own mental health problems had started not long after Candy's, even though they were completely different in nature. The filly at least seemed to be getting some professional help now; the type Cheerilee should have sought out herself, but had been too ashamed and embarrassed to do. If she could keep her anxiety under control she might try to visit the unfortunate filly. Maybe seeing the real Cheerilee would break the delusion Candy was under.
She carefully stepped off the train and was greeted by an official looking unicorn stallion. "We from the train department want to apologize for the inconvenience that all our passengers suffered. Please accept this voucher for a free train trip anywhere in Equestria to make up for your patience and understanding. We hope you continue to use the Equestrian train service in the future."
He floated a slip of paper over to her, which she took in her mouth, and quickly put into her saddlebags. She then turned back to him and gave him a smile. "Thank you. I'll try not to let it cloud my views of your service." In truth, she had felt no inconvenience by the delay, but she wasn't going to turn down a free train ride in the future.
The stallion nodded and then immediately went off after the next passenger coming off the train. She looked around, and let off a relieved breath when she saw Dinky coming at a brisk trot towards her.
"You made it!" Dinky said happily as the younger mare reached her. "I thought it might be late tonight when you would finally get here. Amethyst told me just a few minutes ago that the track had been repaired, and that you'd be arriving soon. I'm glad I was in the right place to get the news."
She smiled back to her heir as principal. "I'm glad you are here. I don't know what I would have done if you weren't. It's good to see you again Dinky. How is everything at the school? I like your new earrings by the way."
Dinky blinked. "Um, we might need to have a talk about how things are going at the school. We have a very troubling school board meeting tomorrow that I would really appreciate your advice on. Thank you for the compliment, but these are my same old earrings that I've been wearing for years."
She looked at the earrings again. They were indeed the same ones, but she could have sworn she had just seen… She shook her head. Seeing things that weren't there was never a good sign. She hadn't had that problem last time she was here, maybe her anxiety was making her see things.
The younger mare gave her a strange look. "This might seem like a strange question, but did you just see smiling faces on my earrings? If you did, please tell me, it might be really important."
She blinked rapidly a few times. "Yes! I was afraid I was seeing things that weren't there. You don't know how much of a relief it is to hear you say I might not be seeing things. Why'd I see the faces and now I don't?"
"What do you know…" Dinky whispered to herself. She then shook her head and gave Cheerilee a grim expression. "What do you know about Candy Apple?"
"I got a letter from a psychologist saying that Candy thought she was me, which is definitely not the case. I remember she was taking pretending to be other creatures to extremes before I left, but the psychologist seemed to indicate it might be a bit more extreme than just pretend. I feel sorry for the filly, she had shown such promise."
Dinky let out an exasperated sigh. "Well, I was hoping that you'd remember being in her body, but I guess that's not the case. I'm not sure if that would have helped anything, but it might have."
She gave a lopsided frown in response. "What do you mean? This is all some sort of delusion on her part. I would know if I had spent time in her body."
Dinky raised a hoof up and tapped a muffin earring. "Except Candy, believing that she is you, had been seeing smiling faces on my earrings as well. That's too specific and odd a thing to be a coincidence. I know you're mainly here to help me get the old school records, but I really think you need to talk to Starlight Glimmer. That filly is facing permanent expulsion from school tomorrow, and if there is anything that connects the two of you it might help save her from that if we find out what."
Candy's troubles had started around the same time as hers. They were so different that there was nothing that would seem to connect them. Were her own mental health problems somehow linked to Candy?
"If Starlight can figure something out then we should go see her right away," she said, after a brief moment of hesitation. "If there is anything I can do to help a foal in need I'll do it. This might help me too."
She might finally have the answers about why everything felt so overfamiliar, to the point it was panic inducing. She'd might also save one of her former students from unjust punishment. For those two things she could spend as much time as she needed in Ponyville.
"Okay, I think I have everything hooked up. Sorry this took so long. I didn't realize Luster had gone off with friends," Starlight said, as she put a helmet on Cheerilee's head.
Dinky looked at the device in confusion. "And this is the thing you hooked Candy Apple to?"
"Yep," Starlight replied, then turned to Flurry Heart with a serious expression. "Flurry, don't overdo it with magic. I don't want her resonance readings drowned out by your magic feedback. I'd have preferred Sweetie Belle or Luster to be doing this, since they know how to be gentle, but they're both unavailable."
Flurry snorted. "I can be gentle when I need to be. I'm not all explosions and disintegration."
"Explosions and disintegration?!" Cheerilee squeaked. "Maybe we could wait for Sweetie Belle, or maybe Dinky could do it."
Dinky shook her head rapidly. "I have no clue how to do any of this stuff. My spell list consists of levitation, reheating food, shining a beam of light, a very weak shield, a very weak energy blast, and being able to remove ink from paper when I make a mistake. That last one is the most complicated spell I know. My magic is pretty rinky-dink. This is mage stuff."
"I'm not going to blow anycreature up!" Flurry protested. "And Professor Sweetie Belle said she was going to be helping Professor Applebloom all day."
"Which leaves Flurry Heart as my best on-hoof option," Starlight concluded. "Don't worry. I trust Flurry knows what she is doing. She's been trained by some of the best mages in Equestria, that includes Princess Twilight and yours truly. The worst that could happen is her strong magic causes feedback in the readings, that won't hurt you. That feedback is all I'm worried about."
"If you say so," Cherrilee said in a whisper.
"So let's begin," Starlight announced. "Flurry, very gently help the device get a feel for her resonances."
Flurry saluted like a guard would. "Yes, Headmare Starlight." The alicorn lit up her horn, and Cheerilee could feel a tingling sensation all over her body as it was surrounded with a golden glow.
Starlight for her part was observing a crystal that was attached by long chords to the helmet. "Doing well, so far. I'm not seeing any major feedback. Good job, Flurry."
"Told you I could do it," Flurry said with a hint of smugness.
The headmare nodded and gave a small whistle. "There are a lot of resonances here. I think you have more ponies that have left resonances on you over time than almost any pony I have ever seen."
"Is that bad?" Cheerilee asked worriedly.
Starlight shook her head. "Quite the opposite of bad. It just means there are a lot of important creatures in your life that have left impressions. Also good news, you don't have a lot of rogue resonances in you. There are some, but not a lot of them. That will make it easier to narrow down anything similar to Candy's."
"Rogue resonances?" Cherrilee asked. This was all gibberish to her.
The unicorn nodded and pointed. "Like this one here. I recognize that as a leftover from Sombra using his magic on you years ago, it is a pretty common one from ponies in Canterlot, the Crystal Empire, and Ponyville. Just an old impression. This one here is very uncommon, but I recognize it as being under the influence of a love poison at some point-- very potent stuff. This one here is exposure to Discord's magic, again, common enough in Ponyville. I see Luna's magic impression as well. None of these will hurt you. They're like records of what you've been through."
"Oh, okay," she whispered again, not sure how she felt about leftover impressions from Sombra, Discord, or the love poison still being in her.
Starlight squinted. "Hold on… what the heck is that? It isn't behaving normally. It's like one of the echo resonances that Candy has, but it isn't behaving the same. It seems… entangled."
"Entangled?" Dinky asked.
"Quantum entanglement," Starlight clarified. "It is responding with a resonance elsewhere, not in you. This might be it. If Candy's mirror resonance corresponding with you is quantumly entangled with this one, that might explain some things."
"Does anycreature know what the words she is saying mean?" Cheerilee asked in frustration.
"I just got that some foreign magic is doing something to you through a quantum bridge," Flurry replied, not being any more clear. "I'll go ahead and break that bridge, then it will be all better."
Starlight whipped her head around. "Flurry, no! We don't know what effect breaking that entanglement will have on-" Flurry pulsed her horn, and Cheerilee felt a massive wave of magic flow through her. "-either of them."
She suddenly felt very lightheaded and heavy. Her thoughts became too muddied and confused for her to even form words. The last thing she remembered before blacking out was Starlight and Dinky rushing over to her.