//------------------------------// // Twilight's life as a newborn changeling 5: Grayshine // Story: The Many Lives Of Twilight Sparkle // by Shitbewackyo //------------------------------// The sparse clouds floated over the forest, letting the sun stream through the canopy and bathe the undergrowth in a shower of light. This patchwork of light grew and intensified until the canopy opened over a large pond, along whose shore Twilight was standing, her black body on full display. However, this was a remote corner of the forest and the search parties were called off a day ago. She was safe there. Nevertheless, she kept her silence as she stared at her reflection. Not moving an inch as the warm wind blew through the clearing, rustling the crowns of the trees and sending small waves against the shore. The waves impacted her chitinous hooves with soft splashes before receding. Zecora had left a heavy mark on her. Not only were both of her wings grotesquely eroded in many places, but the entire length of her body was covered in grooves and scars, along which she barely felt anything. Twilight reached out and tapped her hoof against the water, staring at her reflection as the ripples settled and her body remained unchanged. She did it again, but this time looked away before the water could settle. 'Not now Twilight, you have work to do.' She told herself as she laid down on the warm grass and got comfortable for what was about to come. Twilight closed her eyes and focused on her core. Deep within her were the sparkling embers of her mana and in a practiced motion she grabbed a hold of those embers and sent them circulating throughout her body. They were carried by her now alien blood through an alien body, but Twilight had done her research and thus knew where to direct the embers when she came across an intersection, where to avoid collisions with other streams and which changeling organs could tolerate what amount of mana. As magic spread through her veins soft lanes of white light grew across her skin, the strongest of which shined brightly enough to be seen through her carapace. These lines faded and intesified as Twilight repeated the process to sufficiently saturate herself. Twilight completed one last cycle and felt her mana settle into the new configuration, circulating properly from her soul and through every part of her body. ‘Good, Nothing has gone wrong so far.' She took a deep breath. ' But the dangerous part is still in front of me.' Twilight reminded herself. She could not allow herself to get careless right now. She slowly changed the nature of her Mana from embers to lulling vibrations, and her senses started fading. Her vision was the first to go, as the grey darkness she saw became a true pitch black. She remembered to keep her eyelids closed, having made that mistake before only to come back to some painfully dry eyes. Her hearing followed suit and Twilight was plunged into an abyss to which she was tethered only by the grass underneath. She fought with her instinct to clutch the ground below her. Every part of her needed to be calm and relaxed for this ritual, otherwise it wouldn't work. The next two steps came in a quick burst. First, she lost her sense of touch but before she could start falling through this abyss she turned off her inner compass too. Up and down, left and right, all of it became meaningless. What was left was only Twilight in mind: an abstract form floating aimlessly through an infinitely large and black void where almost nothing else existed. Twilight relaxed, savoring how right everything felt. Most ponies found magical meditation to be a horrifying experience. Minuette had even needed counseling after experiencing it for the first and last time. And yet, Twilight could only feel at peace as parts of her that she otherwise never felt relaxed and wound down. Every worry, every stressful item on her ever-expanding lists, every test, and every problem seemed so insignificant here where all of her senses didn’t exist. Even the thought of Zecora couldn’t bother her beyond an uncertain ache. She could focus here. In this state it would be easy for Twilight to find the bundle of memories which she had taken from the Changeling. It was in the middle of herself, an oasis of purple and pink in an oblivion. A place that she slowly became inundated in as the world shifted around her, responding to her command. The world stabilized and Twilight appeared in a magenta cosmos a million times larger than she was. Without waiting she began her journey. She would have sighed if she could as she traversed the strings of her bound and unbound memories and rejoiced at the ease of which she weaved through the ethereal harp that made her Twilight. The strings sang as memories flickered by: an angry poem, a haunting choir, a military march. For a moment she regretted not being able to improve the strings, seeing thousands of moments, seconds, minutes and hours melt into each other and leaving behind more solid but unfocused conglomerates. So many memories were lost, and yet she couldn’t, wouldn’t alter the strings. Altering one’s own mind was incredibly dangerous and at her level, moronic. She reached the packet of green-cyan. And despite being a thousand times smaller than herself and dwarfed by the cosmic pillars of her isolated mind, she could see an equal infinity spanning out inside the pond, enlarging and distorting space. The sound beyond was crude, primal, and yet it also had a certain order to it, which mimicked the equally unpolished landscape. But a part of it was frayed, the shape folding in on itself and spilling out from the edges. She knew this would happen when she tried to access the memories without meditation, but when she was turning feral she hadn’t been in the right state of mind to care. However, the damage was minimal and it would hold. She reached into the pond that was also a sea and an ocean and picked out a thread, latching onto it. She thought about change, trying to traverse the changelings' memories as if they were her own. But it realized its mistake and understood that the Changeling didn’t think, it felt. And thus it felt the chameleon hiding in the jungle, it felt the caterpillar dissolving into a butterfly, it felt the seasons, the cold winter, the rebirth of spring- It was yanked along, the memories of the feral instincts showing it the exact location of what it was looking for: the instructions on how a Changeling could change their form. The instruction was felt and the memory was triggered, starting a cascade of every moment the changeling used the spell: Ravenously feeding on a royal guard while disguised as her, playing a timberwolf pup and being cared for by its pack, luring in predators and prey with its body before feeding on their lifeforce. The scenes played over and over again as the memory streamed back and engraved its discordant melody into the purple nebulae of another mind. The purpose had been accomplished and so the senses slowly started coming back. The abyss was grounded, the mind disappeared, sound came back and light spilled onto vision. Breaths came in and out as it slowly came back to herself and Twilight regained her sense of self. “Oh, oh Celestia.” Twilight said as she hyperventilated, head falling down onto the grass. This was why she didn’t meditate despite liking it and why she hadn’t dared to do it for an entire day since embarking on her mission, not until she accepted that there was no other way. She lost herself too easily, and if something went wrong she wouldn’t be the first pony to turn into a husk from meditation. And while usually it might be reversible, becoming an identity-less husk now meant becoming Feral. And that would mean that Zecora would be doomed. Twilight clenched her teeth, now feeling the full weight of her emotions, nothing like the numbed feeling she had during meditation. Still, she needed to know how to change her body if she was to travel across Equestria, and now she knew. There was no reason to lose herself in guilt right now. She thought of the spell, and thankfully it was now copied into her mind. She gave it a few tugs with her mana, seeing if it flowed as it did in the changeling’s memories. Her horn lit up weakly as she did so and she smiled, satisfied with the result. Twilight rose from the ground and stared back into the lake. She called forth the contours of the spell, saturated it fully with mana and started casting it. The spell surged, starting to permeate her body with a comforting warmth and ringing alarm bells in her mind. Just as quickly as it came the spell fizzled out. Twilight screamed as the spell sent ripples of shock through her muscles, but she managed to keep herself on her feet even as some of her muscles hung paralyzed. Taking a moment to steady herself Twilight churned the grass under her until the earth stained her hooves to distract herself as her body returned to normalcy. All of her knowledge about magic was screaming at her to get some proper equipment when testing unknown magic, but she pushed those feelings away even as she cursed herself for doing something so dumb. She didn’t have a choice. Not one to give up Twilight analyzed her process, trying to see what went wrong. A false spell construct? No, the changeling wasn’t sapient and couldn’t have intentionally planted a whole host of false memories. Her tearing the memories causing degradation? No, in all of the changeling’s memories the construct remained the same. What if…? She gave the spell another try, her horn lighting up, but this time she held on to it without casting. Despite not feeling anything at first the spell quickly started to oscillate more and more, changing the brightness of her horn as it spiraled out of control. Twilight didn't let the spell fail catastrophically again, cutting the flow of mana into her horn bit by bit as the spell safely dissolved. A triumphant smile shined across Twilight's face, she now knew what she had done wrong. She had taken too long to cast the spell when it was meant to be an instinctive motion. This time she cast it without visualizing the spell, relying on the borrowed memories of the changeling. The mana rushed down Twilight as her horn glowed, but this time instead of a warm hug the spell was a cold chill that bit into her very bones. ‘Yes!’ She tightened her muscles in pain. ‘This is how a transformative spell should feel like.’ Despite her pain, she was still smiling. She had defeated another obstacle, and she was now standing on the edge of casting something nopony had ever done before. No matter the circumstances she couldn’t keep the wide smile off her face. ‘Oh my Celestia, Oh my Celestia, I’m really doing it!’ She bared her fangs in an unwillingly threatening way as her eyes grew in size, staring at the sky. The chill bit deeper and deeper into her carapace, piercing it and sinking its hooks into her flesh but it did nothing to break her mood. Something surfaced within her mind, and instinctively Twilight knew what it was. She couldn't believe her luck and immediately let the spell slot the thing into its construct. However, no matter how hard she pushed, how she adjusted the mana flow, the climax wouldn’t come, and as she felt the spell start to oscillate she had to conceded yet another defeat and slowly let the spell go. Giving it her all she repeated the process and put the giddy excitement out of her mind, quickly casting the spell and succesfully sending herself over the limit. Her body lit up in a bright light, before a flame went down her height, burning away scarred carapace and replacing it with soft, magenta fur and fins with purple hair. Twilight didn’t have to maintain the spell after having cast it, simply holding tight as the unfamiliar feeling traversed her body. Seeing as she now had an opportunity to study the spell she tried cataloging each development as the magic changed her. While most of the developments were minor, Twilight did notice that the cold, piercing feeling wasn’t as strong anymore as when she’d cast the spell, despite her still sensing the magic piercing her just the same. Eventually, the spell reached her hooves and Twilight let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding. Where once a roughed up Changeling drone stood there was now a healthy unicorn with a slightly frazzled mane and fur. Twilight had gotten her body back. “Hello? Hello!” Twilight repeated to herself. “She sells seashells on the seashore!” she said, savoring the soft pony-like sounds that emerged from her throat. She started to chuckle, then she laughed. There wasn’t even a hint of a buzz or reverb in her voice, it sounded right. Well, right for a pony. “But I still need to tweak the spell a bit.” She said. After all, her voice was still off. Sure, maybe an acquaintance would believe that voice to belong to Twilight, but any of her close friends would instantly notice something wrong with it. Now that she thought about it and loooked into the water she saw that her voice wasn’t the only thing that was off. Her face, her body, her color. She couldn’t fully tell, but surely her cheeks weren’t this puffy, right? She cast the spell again. But this time too, they weren’t right, and neither was her fur. She could swear that it was a different shade, yet no matter how much she thought about it she couldn’t say if it was supposed to be lighter or darker. Another time, the spell became more and more ingrained as she relied less on the foreign memories. Twilight ran through the spell a dozen more times and was left breathing heavily as her mana ran low. She looked at herself in the pond. While to a casual observer nothing might have seemed different from when she had first properly cast the spell she had been tweaking every minute detail back and forth, with no success. She was about to cast the spell again when she stopped herself. ‘Calm down Twilight, this is not the time to practice.’ and besides, she wouldn’t need her original body for what came next. Not that the emotional part of her completely accepted that. This time she didn’t try to transform herself into the form that came most naturally, instead, she tried to customize, but it fell through. It was too difficult. It was like the spell poured mana into a strict mold like a blacksmith poured metal. And no matter how much she banged or pushed on the mold it wouldn’t budge. But on one of those tries Twilight felt something, at first it was hard to tell what it was but as she tried bringing it into the changing spell she understood what it was. Another mold was inside of her, and Twilight let the spell use it. When the spell ran its course Twilight nearly jumped back from the lake as she saw Zecora staring back at her. She turned her head to look back at herself and saw grey and white stripes and a mark made out of a spiral surrounded by outward-pointing triangles. “No, no, no-” Zecora's voice said. Twilight felt dizzy and cast the spell without any mold, returning to her changeling body. No, that would definitely not do. But the fact that she had two molds gave her an idea. This time instead of letting the spell use one mold she tried forcing it to use both. And it worked, both forms seemed to come apart for her as the spell began to patiently wait for a solid mold. The molds became strings, threads that she could pull on, merge and reconfigure. ‘These must be the traits of our bodies! But what is a trait here? Is it the string or something smaller than that?’ Twilight thought. ‘So what if I…?’ She tried introducing mana into the system to create copies of the molds which she could then experiment on and alter in more radical ways. However, her attempt failed and she pulled back as she felt the spell teeter on the edge of unraveling. At least for now she would be limited in what types of bodies she could create. The unfamiliar magical movements came slowly to Twilight at first, but one didn’t become the element of magic by being unable to adapt. And thus her direction of mana across the strings improved with confidence and precision, all in the span of a fraction of the second until she was ready to cast the spell again. As the spell finished its work Twilight saw the result: her normal body but broken up by grey stripes. Exactly what she had tried to create. “Yes! It worked!” Twilight shouted, unable to contain her excitement. She felt her horn itch to grab a pen or a quill and start writing down her results, and her current lack of the necessary supplies was irritating her something fierce. Now that Twilight understood how to customize her appearance she set out constructing a proper new body for herself. First of all, she took the unicorn base from her body, after all, she didn’t want her disguise to prevent her from using magic. Next, she stripped it of color and applied Zecora’s light grey coat. Twilight moved onto the hair and tried to blend both her and Zecora’s styles. Her new instincts were telling her that the result would be short and curly light black locks. The only thing that remained was her cutie mark. Unlike the body, the strings controlling the mark seemed loose, shimmering, as if they weren’t there at all. 'I wonder why?' Twilight thought. Just from seeing them she knew that she would be able to change those strings into whatever she wanted, but here Twilight’s lack of artistic talent hindered her. So after racking her brain and feeling the spell start to strain she settled on a black crystal reminiscent of those that were on her old mark. She stopped for a moment and went over her work. ‘Yes, that should do nicely.’ Twilight finished casting the spell. This time the pony left behind by the fire was brand new, rather than a copy of an existing one. Twilight looked back into the lake and saw a black-haired, grey mare staring back at her. “Interesting, even such a minor detail as the length of the hair turned out exactly as I had imagined.” Twilight said, and then realized that she had forgotten an important detail. Her horn lit up and the fire traveled down her body once more. “This should be better.” She said, testing her voice and trying to see if it was still recognizable. It wasn’t, now coming out deeper thanks to some help from Zecora's strings. She stood in silence. “Well, at least the others won’t recognize me. That's good.” She sighed and went away from the pond, towards the treeline. Twilight stopped just as she was about to go into the trees and looked back, but this time looked above the pond, where the rocky cliff where her cave was jutted out of the forest. She had created a secret compartment deep withing the rock before leaving for the lake and teleported the book with her notes on the potion straight into the empty cube of air. She tore her eyes away, pointlessly telling herself not to worry and that nothing would find it or destroy it. Looking back into the forest Twilight didn’t move, delaying her departure yet again. “I guess I’ll need a name, huh? I can’t call myself Twilight...for now.” She thought about it for a moment. “What about Grayshine? Why not? It sounds nice, it's not foreign or noteworthy and it should let me blend in.” Twilight thought about it some more and then nodded. It fit. Twilight took a last look at the clearing, then down at herself, and finally started her walk back towards Ponyville. It was time to leave.