Twilight Sparkle the Dragon

by PlutoMilo


Through the Mirror

Getting into the portal room was so laughably easy, Twilight was determined to have a talk with Buckler when she came back. All she had to do was stroll up to the guards and whisper conspiratorially about some new experiment she was going to do and wished not to be disturbed and the guards let her in with a grin.
Twilight rolled her eyes and charmed the door to be unopenable, taking extra care to make sure she would be able to un-charm it at a later date. (She really didn’t want to bust through the wall to get out). Placing the journal on the floor, Twilight sat and waited for it to ring. As she waited, she ate the fried mushroom sandwich she made for herself before leaving the house.
Twenty minutes later, the book buzzed and Twilight took a deep breath. She opened the book to make sure and saw the scrawled Ready from Sunset, she shut the book. Patting herself down, she folded her wings and pressed a claw into the mirror. Her claws sank into the mirror like it was molasses. While not unpleasant, it was cool and rippled like a pool. She steeled her nerves and pressed forward. Something powerful latched onto the hand in the mirror, causing her to freeze in alarm, and yanked her forward so suddenly, her entire body lurched and fell into the portal.
Twilight let out a muffled shriek as her head went into the mirror and then gravity lost meaning. She fell down the portal despite very clearly entering it sideways. Her wings scraped against something invisible since they flared open in shock. Then she was falling up, or was that now down? No, sideways was going down.
As her eyes banged around inside her skull, she wondered if this was what it was like to get blasted by the Elements of Harmony. Her body felt like it was getting stretched like taffy as a kaleidoscope of colors flashed past. Twilight was sure she was screaming but there was no sound as she was pulled further forward. Wind buffered her face and the light shone even brighter before she was abruptly thrown to the ground. 
A small scream had her jumping to her paws as she blinked the stars out of her eyes. Only when she did, she noticed something was very very wrong. She was a lot closer to the ground than she remembered and the fur on her back prickled uncomfortably. Twilight groaned when the world tilted on its axis. Sharp panicked breaths near her made her look up. A tall ape-like creature with long red and blond hair clutched at their chest with a hand and gazed with large eyes at her. Well, at least she knew why Sunset knew what a hand was now.
“Miss Shimmer?” Twilight probed cautiously. She sounded the same as usual, good.
They stumbled back and leaned against the side of the statue to stay upright as their legs seemingly lost their strength. The thing let out a tiny whimper and their grip on their pack strap tightened until their knuckles turned white. Looking down, Twilight stared at herself in shock as her claws were much hairier than she last remembered. Lifting it gently verified that the paw was hers.
It had purple fur and the digits were shorter, less flexible. The claws were nothing new so she dismissed them easily. Her thumb was placed weirdly since it was higher on the arm than before and didn’t touch the ground. The paw was hefty and the pads were thicker, more calloused. Twilight assumed that the rest of her new body was the same. She certainly felt heavier at least.
Another thing that Twilight immediately felt was the complete absence of Magic. If there was any trace of it at all, it was near the base of the portal and nowhere else. This entire world was built out of Void Titanium. Everywhere she looked, she couldn’t peer through the ground to find the leylines or pick out where Magic was the strongest. Everywhere she sniffed, there wasn’t the comforting scent of Magic. Everywhere was absolutely silent, no rumbles of old leylines, there was just nothing.


Meanwhile, Sunset tried to get a hold of herself as a small purple bear flew through the portal to land at her feet and then proceed to talk. Sunset clutched onto the alabaster like a lifeline. She was surely dreaming. Of all the things she expected tonight, a talking purple bear wasn’t one that made the list.
Her shuddering lessened as she gulped for air and looked at the bear again. It was observing itself with far more intelligence than a normal bear and it looked positively fascinated by its own paws. Its eyes were too calculating and Sunset could almost see the burning questions it might have. Taking a closer look revealed that what she thought was a bear wasn’t exactly a bear.
At first glance, it looked bear-like, but the longer she took in the features, she became more and more unsure of what exactly the creature in front of her was. It was missing the distinct shoulder bumps and its neck was a little too long. The fur was too short and the face too narrow. It was too small to be a real bear. The shaking of her legs came back when her brain helpfully supplied that the creature looked to be a cross between a dire wolf and a grizzly bear.
“What in Tartarus,” The bear-thing growled, “What happened to me?”
It took Sunset far too long to process what was said and then even longer to formulate a proper reply. The bear hummed the ‘M’ sounds in the back of her throat and her ‘B’s sounded more like ‘G’s. ‘P’s were hissed and her ‘S’s were too sharp. Logically, the only thing coming through the portal should be Headmage Sparkle.
“I- You’re not a pony on the other side are you?” Sunset weakly asked, grip tightening on the statue.
“Ah,” The bear huffed, “That explains it. No, I’m not. Good to see you in the flesh, Miss Shimmer,”
Sunset slowly let out a breath, “Of all the things-” she muttered to herself before announcing, “Ok, this just got a lot harder. I was going to bring you to my apartment, but I’m not sure how I’ll manage to get you there now,”
There was a beat of silence and then the bear-thing asked tentatively, “Are dogs acceptable in this world?”
Sunset barked out an incredulously high-pitched, bordering on a hysterical laugh, “Buddy, if anyone believes for a second that you’re a dog, I’m going to eat my shirt,”
Just as Sunset pushed herself off of the statue and stood on her own two feet, a familiar voice shouted across the street, “Holy Hell! Miss Sunset, what is that?!”
Sunset spun on the spot so fast that she lost her balance and had to flail her arms to stay upright. Her boots loudly thumped against the concrete as she attempted to reorient herself. She ended up leaning rather lamely against the statue base with her arms crossed defensively across her chest and blurted out, “My dog!”
She unattractively spat her hair out of her mouth as she readjusted herself. Her face was probably red at that point, but she had bigger things to worry about. She flailed again in alarm when Headmage Sparkle let out a thunderous bark that shook the pavement. Headmage was having too much fun with this. Sunset’s grin was too wide to be natural as she fixed her hair obsessively and fought the urge to giggle nervously.
“Woah, what’s his name?” Scootaloo crossed the street without looking both ways and walked fearlessly up to the ‘dog’ that was only a little shorter than eye level with her.
“Er, Sparkles! Yep, that’s her name, haha,” The unimpressed look that Headmage gave her didn’t make her feel any better about the situation. How was this nearly four-foot… thing… passing for a dog?!
Scootaloo reached up and began to pet the Head Archmage of Equestria and Sunset was sure she just lost her marbles. A short tail began to beat against the sidewalk. “OK! Me and Sparkles really gotta get to the vet now. Get home safe!”
The newly dubbed Sparkles let herself get herded away down the street. When Scootaloo was finally out of sight, Sunset let herself have a mini breakdown.
“Oh my God. That was close,” She pulled at her hair, fixed it, and then pulled at it again.
“Perhaps now would be a good time to ‘eat your shirt’,” Sparkles hummed humorously, “Being a dog is weird, but not too different,”
Sparkles spoke strangely.  Half of her words were slurred and Sunset had to use her brilliant deduction skills to guess what Sparkles meant.
“Shut it Sparkles. That was really too close,” Sunset groaned. She wished it was still last week when she didn’t have to deal with talking bear-dogs, portals, and students that could be the Sirens. She needed a coffee. One that was as dark as her soul. (Her students would probably argue that she couldn’t just drink straight cream, but she disagrees).
“Really now. What kind of name is Sparkles?” Sunset could tell Sparkles rolled her eyes.
“The name of my new service dog. Now shut up before someone hears you,” Sunset hissed as another stranger across the street eyed her oddly. Roaming around at sundown with a huge animal that barely passed as a dog and was purple would probably get a few looks.
Sparkles snickered and let out another booming bark.
“This is fun,” she whispered.
Yep, Sunset had definitely lost her marbles.