There's an old trope in cowboy movies where the comic relief character mistakes the sound of stampeding hooves for incoming thunder. On Earth, it’s nothing more than a quick gag to lead into an action-packed scene. In Equestria, it’s an all too real phenomenon. And thanks to magic, it only takes a single pony to pull off the effect, and they don't even have to be a pegasus.
Only sufficiently peeved.
Twilight's ears perked up as they caught a not-so-distant rumble. "I didn't think we had a storm scheduled today."
The thunder of hooves came to an abrupt halt as the unnecessarily massive doors to the Friendship Map room slammed open like the Gates of Perdition.
"I have had it!"
The-artist-formerly-known-as-Rarity stormed in with thunder on her brow and bloody murder on her face.
Twilight Sparkle (née Kirby) glanced up from the rat's nest of wires, crystals, and miscellaneous metal shapes spread out over her portion of the table, but said nothing. Applejack, seated to her left, also said nothing, but that was because her mouth was full of noodles.
They continued to say nothing as the distressed unicorn crossed the room in a huff, sank into her throne, and buried her face in the recently upholstered armrests like she was trying to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest herself.
As the silence stretched on, one eye peeked out from behind its shields to gauge her friends' nonreaction. Eventually Applejack chose to nobly sacrifice herself and take the plunge.
"Morning, Rares." She said before catching herself with a flinch. "Sorry, habit. Mary. Everything okay?"
Everything was, in fact, not okay, and she was more than eager to share. Mary sat up a little too quickly and nearly unbalanced herself. "No," she growled, as best one could growl with a voice that most would describe as 'musical’ at best and 'flute-like' at worst. "I've had it just about up to here. My nerves are worn down to the last... last... nerve, and if I can't find a way to let off some steam soon I'm going to rip somebody's head off."
Still focused on her project, Twilight lit her horn. A moment later, two half gallon cartons of ice cream and a set of spoons manifested on the table. "Triple Chocolate Deluxe or Neapolitan Cookie Dough?"
Mary glared at her. "On one hand, I hate how that's your first response. On the other..." She grabbed the second carton and pulled it close, popping the lid off like Popeye with a can of spinach.
"Bad day?" Applejack ventured.
"Bad week, more like," she sighed. "Maybe even a bad month. It's been weeks since my interview with Equestria Weekly was published, but despite their assurances it hasn't done a spot of good. If anything, it's made things worse." She stabbed her spoon into the ice cream like it had personally offended her. "Some people just can't seem to get it through their thick"—stab!—“skulls”—stab!—"that I'm not Rarity."
It was not the first time she’d made such a complaint. The riot outside her house when she'd decided to step back from the Rarity brand had made the papers… which had really only exacerbated the problem and alerted a wider audience to her decision, leading to a second, even larger riot. She'd very nearly stripped the Rarity name off the brand entirely just to spite them
Twilight took the news with an even keel, half her focus still directed towards precisely winding a loop of wire around a crystal. Applejack wore a small grin, which she hid poorly behind another chopstick-full of not-quite-ramen. Mary slumped forward and shoveled a choking-hazard-size scoop of ice cream into her mouth. "Why couldn't I have been Maud?" she muttered. "That'd have been nice. Simple. I could've just picked up my geology career right where I left off. No mess. No fuss. No dresses. Just me and dozens of new types of crystal."
Twilight offered a pitying, yet understanding gaze. "They're still showing up at your house?"
"In droves. And they all come in one of four unoriginal flavors. The ones that want a dress." She took another heaping spoonful. "The ones tha' wan' me to quote something." Another scoop. "Cree'e 'erver's." A third one that dwarfed the rest. "An' t' uns 'at 'ay ahm 'eein 'aar'i'y ahng."
Twilight blinked. "You want to run that by me again in English?"
"It's fine, I speak Mouthful," Applejack cut in. "She said 'And the ones that say I'm being Rarity wrong', right?"
Mary swallowed. "Precisely." They were the ones who had made up the majority of the rioters. People who, despite everything, still believed wholeheartedly that canon should be preserved as purely as possible. At least when it came to their 'waifus'. As one may expect, there was decent overlap between those and the Creepy Pervert group.
Twilight nodded in comprehension. "I can understand getting mad at people insisting you should stay in character, but isn't selling dresses... kind of your job?"
"Selling dresses, certainly. And I'd be more than happy to rake in the bits from owning a popular business and just push all the work onto Sassy—she genuinely loves the work, you know—but nobody wants a dress by Sassy Saddles. All they want are Rarity Originals, hand stitched by Fashion Horse herself." She groaned and rubbed her eyes. "I feel like I can't get a moment's peace outside my house without someone demanding I call them 'daaaahling~'. It's driving me crazy!"
"Welcome to the party," the farmer chuckled dryly, finally letting her amusement show. "There's cookies and punch by the door. Or, at the very least, ice cream. Mind passing me that triple chocolate tub? I think I put too much spice in these. Need to soothe my tongue."
Mary obliged, a quick magic push sliding the carton across the table. "You too?"
"You don't have to sound so surprised." Applejack rolled her eyes as she dug in. "You're not the only main character here; I too suffer from protagonist syndrome. Not a day goes by I don't have to put up with a couple fans, gawkers, self-proclaimed distant relatives, and people angry at me for things canon Applejack did. Sometimes I even get fans sending me apples in the mail. What do they think I'm going to do with more apples?"
Mary wondered if it might be the same fans that mailed her gems and fabric swatches. Not that she minded the gems, she just wished whoever it was had a better eye for quality. "What do you do with them?"
She grinned. "Sign 'em for the guests that are polite, throw 'em at the ones that aren't. I may not have Twilight-level fame, but it's not all anonymous peaches and cream over here either."
Twilight's ears perked up at her name as she extracted herself from her focused fugue. She blinked a few times as she reviewed the conversation she'd only half been paying attention to, and frowned.
"Oh you do not want to drag me into this," the alicorn said as she set down her project. Applejack gave it a curious look and pulled it closer, adopting the task of fiddling with the arrangement of wires. "I've got it twice as bad as either of you."
What angry tension Mary was still holding in her posture quickly dwindled away at the declaration, as some small, schadenfreudian part of her took grim satisfaction in knowing that her friends had it just as bad as she did. It wasn't a pleasant realization, but misery loves company. She did her best not to let the satisfaction show.
"Twice? Do tell."
Twilight leaned back as her voice took on a tired tone. Clearly Mary hadn't been the only one in need of a good vent session. "It's bad enough that I have randos dropping by wanting to see Twilight Sparkle; I'm... well, not used to it, but I've made my peace with that. It comes with the whole princess package. But now I also have to deal with a whole new crowd who thinks I'm the inventor of comic books."
A memory clicked and Mary's eyes widened as recognition dawned. "Wait are you-?"
"No." Her deadpan reply couldn't have been flatter if she'd had a level and a mallet. "No relation whatsoever. I don't even read comic books. I thought I'd finally escaped the curse of my old name and left it behind, but apparently not even crossing dimensions is enough to escape superhero fanboys." A pair of levitating spoons stole a scoop each from her friends' ice creams and brought them to her mouth.
It was an interesting stance, but not an unusual one. It was an ongoing talking point across the country about how to best address everyone's dual-identities. Many people (mostly those who'd had a few years to acclimate to life in Equestria) didn't bother with a distinction. They chose to respond equally to either their pony or human name. On the other hand, some ponies had, like Mary, chosen to eschew their pony identities entirely and make a distinct divide between who they are and who they'd pretended to be. Usually these were those who'd arrived most recently.
Then there was the smallest group who, like Twilight, took the opposite route and leaned in hard into their pony identities. They acknowledged that they had been human, of course, but considered that part of their lives past and not worth revisiting. This group was primarily reincarnators who'd been born in Equestria and grown up there, but also a few who had their own private reasons.
"Speaking of which..."
Twilight tapped the table, the Friendship Map quickly springing to life at her touch and rendering the familiar dragon's eye view of Equestria. She swiped her hooves across the surface and the image began to zoom in and in until the Friendship Castle alone occupied the space. That, and a teacup-sized pony standing outside with a sign and a megaphone.
"I swear he's like clockwork," she muttered before pressing a nearly-invisible button on the arm of her throne. "Iron Bagel." The tiny figure jumped and fell over in alarm. "If I have to tell you one more time to get off my property I'm calling the cops!"
The hologram raised its megaphone, but the sound came through the windows above, faint and distant. "But I love you! Hashtag Twi4lyfe! Step on me, Queen!"
"Tell it to the judge." She tapped another hidden button and the figure of Iron Bagel collapsed with a sudden high-pitched yelp and a sharp *pi-twip* noise. "He's a perfect example of one twice as bad," she offered in way of explanation as she dismissed the illusion. "A Twilight stan and a Raven simp all in one."
Mary narrowed her eyes. "Twilight. Please tell me you did not install an automated sniper rifle on the Castle of Friendship."
The alicorn scoffed. "Of course I didn't." Mary heaved a sigh of relief at- "It's a turret! I just didn't turn on the full auto. Don't give me that look. It's non-lethal. Stun spells only."
Mary let out the breath that she- "Unless I activate Siege mode, but that's only for season finale level threats."
"...Right." That much she could grant. No one knew what monsters may come after canon, but it wouldn't hurt her peace of mind to have a little more firepower on hand if something showed up that made Tirek look like Trixie.
"Still need to put that through a full test run. Get it calibrated," Applejack muttered. "Quick question." Twilight glanced over as the earth pony nudged her with an elbow. The mare had turned the back end of her spoon into a makeshift screwdriver and was using it to attach two wires to some round component while she gestured to a third. "Is this the ground wire?"
The unicorn traced it back with her eyes. "No, ground is there. That's the antenna line."
"Antenna? Then why does it lead into this metal plate?"
"Flip it over. See that engraving? That's the runic form of a resonance spell. Antenna wire connects there."
"Ah, gotcha. You've worked magic into the design. So it functions like a gain booster?"
"More like a signal repeater. The more units there are in range, the clearer the signal should be."
"Clever. Very clever. I might have to borrow some of your magic textbooks if I'm going to keep up with these new advancements."
"Excuse me." Both mares looked up as Mary tapped her spoon on the table. "Is this a private scientific seminar, or can anyone join?"
"Right! My bad," Twilight said sheepishly, "you probably haven't seen one of these yet. This is a—"
"Yee-Ouch!" Applejack snatched her hoof away as a snap and crackle of plasma sparked across it. Her eyes shot to Twilight, bright with accusatory intent. "It's live?!"
Twilight shrugged. "Just a lightning attuned crystal. Can't exactly plug it into the wall." At Applejack's continued glare, she carried on. "Come on, there's no need to get all bent out of shape. It's low... not 'voltage' exactly, but it's harmless." After a final stern look, Applejack nodded and returned to her work, visibly more cautious, and Twilight picked up where she'd left off. "Anyway. I've been tinkering with this prototype the Science Council sent me. They wanted my input on where magic might be able to shortcut where our tech is lagging behind."
Mary resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Despite the whole country turning on its head, some things never changed. Twilight could still motormouth on about technical details without actually answering the question. It was impossible to tell if that was a trait she'd adopted from pretending to be Twilight for so long, or just a convenient personality overlap from her human life, but it was a moot point anyway. "Yes, but what is it?"
"Got it!" Applejack's cry came alongside a crackle of electricity and a buzz of static. She twisted a knob on the front and the noise slowly resolved into the familiar sound of a harmonica and piano. "Ladies and gentlemen, we have music!"
"Oh! A radio. Why didn't you just say so?"
"I was getting there."
Now that she knew what she was looking at, it was easy to ignore the messy jury-rigged bits and spot the familiar tuning knobs and speaker. "This looks rather a lot bigger than the ones in the shops."
"That's because those are mark ones, maybe a few early mark twos. They're just simple crystal radios; the kind you could build out of scrap in the trenches. This is six generations better, maybe seven if my modifications work out. Oh, perfect timing, here comes the news."
Three faces turned to the little radio as the last echoing chords faded away, only to be quickly replaced with the crystal clear sound of the disc jockey's upbeat voice.
And that was Piano Man by Billy Joel covered by the local band Never Better Man. The time is two in the afternoon and you're listening to Equestria Radio One, your one-stop shop for all the latest tunes, hottest interviews, and freshest news. Literally, since this is the first and only station we've got up and running. As always, I am Vinyl Scratch, your host, and you are my rockin' audience. I've got the hourly news for you in just a minute, but first, a word from our sponsors.
Her voice clipped out a syllable early, replaced a moment later by the scratchy sound of a record being played into the microphone.
This program is brought to you by FlimFlam Industries.
All ears in the room perked up as a pair of unforgettably distinct voices came across the airwaves.
Are you tired of dirty feet?
Disgusted at eating good food with filthy hooves?
Fed up with stumbling around on two legs as you try to keep your front ones clean?
Presenting the latest solution from your friends at FlimFlim. New self-cleaning horseshoes!
That's right folks! No longer need you be concerned with dirt in your hamburger or the flu in your fries. FlimFlam Self-cleaning Horseshoes are dirt-repellent!
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FlimFlam Industries: We're Legit Now, We Swear!
That's their actual slogan, by the way. Vinyl Scratch's voice returned with a hint of amused disbelief. And it seems like they actually are. I've got one of their automatic coat brushes and I gotta say I am lovin' it. Cuts like half an hour out of my morning routine.
"I wonder why they're still in character," Mary mused.
"Brand recognition, I figure. Can you hear anyone talk like that and not think of those two?" Twilight shrugged. "Or maybe they actually were carnival barkers before they were ponies. Who knows."
"I'm still not completely convinced they've gone straight." Applejack crossed her forelegs and frowned. "Maybe it's just some leftover prejudices from pretending to hate them for so long, but even knowing that it's not actually, you know, them, I still can't quite trust them."
"You should give them a chance,” Mary commented. “I picked up a set of their enchanted dish scrubbers recently and those things are a marvel. Such a clever mix of magic and simple technology." She chuckled. "Sometimes I like to let them loose on the floor and watch them scurry around and bump into each other like sudzy roombas."
Applejack smirked. "I bet you named them, haven't you?"
She blushed. "Just the extra large pot scrubber. Cinderhexa."
It was a lie. She’d named all of them and assigned them a family tree.
"Just goes to show,” Twilight interjected, “humans will pack-bond with anything."
"True enough. On a related note, did you hear there's a team trying to domesticate Timberwolves? I bet we'll have foal-sized Groot-Puppies in a year or two."
"If they can breed out the rotting-corpse breath, sure." The alicorn in the room turned back to Applejack. "Even if you don't like them personally it wouldn't hurt to give their products a try. It's not really fair to hold grudges over something they did in the name of canon."
A single eyebrow arched in iconic Applejack fashion. "...Are you trying to turn this into a friendship lesson?"
Twilight gave her a friendly shove. "Shut up, the ads are done."
But you didn't tune in to listen to me ramble about everyone who's given me money, so let's jump right into the news.
First off, we've got a declaration from the princesses. It's like five pages long but there's a note at the top saying I'm allowed to summarize, so I will. Basically, if you wanna keep partying and celebrating, that's cool, but don't come crying if your boss tells you to come in to work or some cops tell you to move your block party out of a major intersection. You had a whole government-sanctioned week to get it out of your system and if that wasn't enough for you then either do it at home or fill out the paperwork at your local mayor's office or whatever.
"Not like that'll stop Pinkie," Mary joked. Cherie sometimes seemed to be even more Pinkie than canon Pinkie. While some, like Mary, had struggled to distance themselves from their pony personas, others had embraced them wholeheartedly.
"It wouldn't anyway. She has a whole stack of prefilled forms ready to be finished and filed at a moment's notice. I think the Mayor lets her get away with it cause she considers her a tourist attraction."
Next up, there's a special broadcast tonight at nine. We'll be livestreaming direct from the Canterlot Amphitheater where Dr. String Theory will be debating his popular "Junk Drawer" theory against Dr. Varadkar and his "Dimensional Cheesecloth" theorem. Maybe one of them will prove why we're all here, maybe not. Personally, I think it's gonna be a real snoozefest unless you're really interested in that kind of thing, but if they end up duking it out my money's on Professor Infinite Integration who's moderating it. I had one of her classes at Canterlot U and that old mare is tough as nails. Anyhow, that's tonight at nine if you can't make it in person.
In national news, five ponies were hospitalized today after a botched attempt to create and cast a human transformation spell. All of them are in intensive care but are expected to survive. Be glad this isn't a TV show because even if it was I don't think I'd be allowed to air the photos. Folks, I didn't think this needed saying but apparently some of you need to hear it anyway. There's a reason Living Transmutation is a restricted subject that requires a six year degree to get licensed in. It's not like turning teacakes into teacups; when it goes wrong, it goes wrong hard. This ain't Fullmetal Alchemist. And even then, it didn't go so well for the Elrics either, did it? So don't try messing with it on your own.
Three ponies exchanged somber looks. There were very few who could honestly claim that they'd never once thought about trying to find a way to turn back. Most had the good sense not to get reckless with dangerous magic.
Putting that aside for some happy news, this coming Friday the Changeling Theater Troupe is proud to present Shrek Live! A faithful reproduction of the first five movies in the franchise complete with full musical accompaniment by a variety of local groups. Catch it in person at their simultaneous showings in Las Pegasus, Canterlot, Ponyville, Manehattan, and Pegasopolis.
"Five movies?" Applejack asked.
"I might watch, assuming they're avoiding the prequels," Mary mused. "Not even Matt Foley's brilliant performance could save those trash fires."
"I think I had Shrek for the PS2, but I didn't know they made a movie out of it," was Twilight's contribution.
And lastly, There came a sound of rustling paper. A special bulletin that the station manager has just handed me literally right now. This... huh. It's a message directly for Princess Twilight Sparkle
"Oh?"
It says, and I quote: "Twilight. Somehow you have a broadcast model. We can all hear you and AJ and Rarity. Please disable your transmission override.
Color drained from her face so fast it looked like she'd been dunked in milk. "What?! Ah Ffff-"
"Live on air!" Mary hissed.
"...udge," she finished lamely. After a moment spent stewing in regret she sighed and shook it off. "Well...uh... Sorry? Everyone. Not sure how that happened."
Suddenly, her expression brightened and she got an odd gleam in her eye. "But since I've got this platform I might as well use it." She picked up the radio and, seeing as she had no idea what part was acting as a microphone, brought the whole unit as close to her face as she dared. "People listening at home: stop coming to me about the comic book thing. I'm not that guy, I don't know that guy, I'm not related to that guy. My father was just a nerd. Thank you. Twilight out."
Several wires detached themselves in her magic grip and the background hum of the crystals died down to nothing as the device shut off. Twilight set it back on the table and leaned back with a look of satisfaction on her face, tinged with lingering embarrassment.
“And that takes care of that. Not how I'd have liked to deal with it, but whatever works works."
Both Mary and Applejack gave her a concerned side-eye. "So I see you felt like bringing the Streisand effect to Equestria."
Twilight blinked at her. "The what?"
Mary shook her head. "Never mind. I'm sure you'll find out soon enough."
"Speaking of things from back home..." came a voice from nowhere, "So, O Mistress of Magic Jacklight Sparklby, should I be getting ready to have hands by this summer, or do you consider them more of a Hearths Warming present?"
The group looked upward to the source of the unexpected voice. High above, it wasn't hard to spot Pinkie lounging like a cat on one of the many roots of the Treebrary-turned-chandelier.
"Pinkie? When did you get up there?"
"I've always been up here," she laughed. "Pinkie Powers are a lot easier to use when I don't have to worry about being discreet." She walked along the limb and into one of the many knotholes on the trunk only to immediately step out from around the back of her throne and take a seat. "Really makes getting around a piece of cake." She extracted a slice from her mane, plate and all. "Cake?"
When no one moved to accept it, she shrugged and tucked it back away.
"Pinkie, what on earth are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about you cracking the human equation. Obviously if anybody is going to figure out how to do it it'll be you, so I figure it's just a matter of time until I can play the piano again."
"Can't you play the piano now?" Mary asked, remembering a certain adventure in Appaloosa.
"Ask me again after you hear me try to play Listz’s Hungarian Rhapsody no. 2 with these pink chopsticks I have for arms."
Twilight took a deep breath before sitting up straight and looking her pink friend dead in the eye. Everyone else sat up a little straighter too, sensing the change in the atmosphere. "Sorry to break it to you, but I don't think it's going to happen. I've been trying since," she paused as she traced her memories back through countless failed attempts. "About when the Crystal Empire returned, but even I couldn't get it to work."
"Reeeeeeally?" Pinkie pressed, her eyes narrowed in exaggerated suspicion. "But you're the protagonist. You can't fail. You've got the power of Faust and anime on your side. You're the Element of Magic."
"The Scion of Sorcery," Mary added.
"The Mage of Miracles," Applejack chuckled with a small grin.
"The Princess of Plot Convenience!" Pinkie declared.
"More like the Jack of Winging It," Twilight corrected, a little good humor trickling back into her serious tone. “But seriously, don’t start investing in gloves. Trying to make a transformation spell from scratch without a living subject to base it on is like trying to write down all the Harry Potter books word-for-word perfectly from memory. And if you get anything wrong, maybe nothing happens, maybe you get super cancer, maybe you transform without skin. Bodies are complicated.”
Mary shuddered at the thought. Memories of a dozen different horror movies flashed through her mind, reminding her of all the many many ways the human body could be put together not-quite-right.
“Maybe a research team of all the best doctors and biologists we have could pull it off,” Twilight continued, “but it'd still take years. Decades even. Spike can’t even get it right with Changeling magic."
The room fell silent. No one wanted to admit it, but even after so many years and having eventually come to accept that there was no going home, they'd all held on to some degree of hope that a magical macguffin or long lost spell would one day let them experience what it felt like to be human again. Even if only for a brief time.
Pinkie, however, was not one to lose hope easily and had come prepared.
"What about the Equestria Girls Mirror?"
Faces around the room started to brighten before they noticed Twilight's remaining unchanged.
"I knew someone would bring that up eventually, so I've prepared a demonstration."
With a flash of magic, the alicorn disappeared and a tall purple-skinned biped in preppy clothes took her place.
Mary shrieked.
"Sweet mother of all things holy! Go back! Go back! Undo!"
The Thing That Was Not Human vanished the same way it had arrived, leaving behind a pony rubbing her midsection. "Not so pleasant, is it?"
"What the holy heckarooni-and-cheese was that?" Pinkie's eyes had gone wide with fear and hadn't so much as shrunk an inch since. Applejack had dropped into some kind of combat position, and even after standing back up her muscles were taut as bowstrings.
"That is what happens when you try and make a living creature based on a drawing."
"You looked like you were about to snap in half!"
She nodded. "An eight inch waist with a giant head will give that impression." She cracked her neck as though she could still feel its phantom weight on spindly shoulders. "The mirror is not an option because, as it turns out, canon lied." She paused as everyone gasped. "Or at least, misled. The mirror was never a portal, it was Starswirl's security system. Sort of halfway between the Mirror of Erised and a holodeck. It's a pocket dimension designed to trap thieves by making a space filled with whatever they desired most; which, according to his notes, would presumably be an unlocked vault filled with valuables."
“So how did it turn into a school full of humans?” Applejack asked.
Twilight shrugged. "Simple. Sunset Shimmer. A human who, when faced with the mirror, desired for it to work exactly like she remembered from the movie and take her to a place she had very specific memories of. And it did exactly that. It even created brand new creatures that looked and acted exactly like her memories, biologically-impossible Barbie figures and all."
"So... no hands then?" Pinkie asked.
"No. Not unless Daring Do digs up a wish-granting relic or a scientist manages to figure out how to reverse whatever bought some of us here."
"Phooey," she cursed, crossing her forelegs. "And I already commissioned some baking tins to make hand-shaped cupcakes."
It was a disappointment to all of them, but not a great one. Like finding out a sweepstakes they'd entered had been canceled. They lost by default, but there'd never been that much of a chance of winning in the first place.
Mary was no exception to the mood. She wanted hands. Wanted to be able to gesture and gesticulate to drive her points home. To feel that satisfaction of a proper follow-through as she throws a fist-sized diamond at the trespasser of the day. She could do without the legs, even. She’d settle for hands and a familiar face.
With that thought, a spark of an idea flickered to life in the depths of her mind.
Was it really that important to have all the trappings of humanity? Why despair over the cost of a solid gold statue when all you really needed was gold plating?
“If transformations are out…” she started hesitantly as everyone’s attention turned to her, “What about illusions?”
"Illusions? Those are a piece of cake." Twilight lit her horn and a pink-tinted semi-transparent girl appeared beside her. "It's just bending light. Any random unicorn could probably do this much with a bit of training.”
“Can you make it move?”
"That takes a bit more effort, but sure." The figure raised its arm and waved in a jerky, mechanical motion.
The spark of an idea was singing. Still weak, but quickly growing stronger as it fed on her hope. “Could you rig it to mimic something else's movement? Like a puppet?”
“That's... huh." Twilight hesitated. The ghostly figure froze again as she lost concentration on making it wave. "I suppose it's not impossible. I don’t know a dedicated spell for that, but I can see how it might work. I’d probably need to consult with Trixie or someone else with that magic specialization, but it could be doable.”
“Aaah!” Applejack’s warm gasp of realization filled the room as she shot Mary a conspiratorial smirk. “Are you suggesting what I think you're suggesting?”
Mary felt her grin grow to match. “I think I may be.”
“Ooh this is gonna be great!” Pinkie cheered. “I always wanted to be a V-tuber!”
Mary opened her mouth to disagree, but changed her mind and closed it. It wasn’t exactly what she’d been going for, but it wasn’t a terribly inaccurate analogy either. Her little idea had clearly taken root in the others, as Applejack and Pinkie began tossing suggestions back and forth as quickly as Twilight could note them down alongside a list of spellcasting specialists she might need to contact. It was a familiar scene that reminded her of earlier days, back when they thought ponies were the be-all end-all of their existence. It was a warm feeling, to see how little had changed despite everything.
But there was something not quite right.
A small knot in the bottom of her stomach like she’d left the kettle on.
“Does anyone else feel like we're forgetting something?”
“No.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Always, but no more today than usual.”
“Hm.” Mary racked her brain. With everything that had been going on, she hadn't checked her day planner in weeks (especially since most of the entries were just 'make another stupid dress'). "I feel like there’s something important, but I can’t put my finger on it.” She shrugged. “Oh well. I'm sure if it's important it'll come to me."
“Hello? Anycreature home?”
“Yona not like empty school.”
“I think it's neat! Listen to the great echo I can get! Echo! Echo!”
“Where'd you think everybody is?”
“Pfft. Search me.”
“Ooh! Ooh! Maybe they decided to extend summer break by a few weeks cause it's such fantastic sunshiney weather outside, only our letters telling us not to come back yet all got lost in the mail!”
“...Somehow I doubt that.”
“Yes. Yak post office is best post office. Never lose letter in ten generations.”
“Yeah, even when everything else in Griffonstone falls apart, the mail always shows up.”
“Okay, so where are all the ponies then?”
"I don't know, but they gotta be somewhere!"