Thrumming vibrations of Sunset’s own spellcraft massaged her senses as they worked through her horn. Raw potential transmuted to an actualised effect by her will and power alone. A content sigh voiced itself as she shamelessly revelled in the rightness of the moment. That one little sound poked a small hole in her mental focus. Through that breach, a body that had been unmoving for far too long voiced its grievances.
Eyes still closed, Sunset rose from her meditation and stretched like a cat. Her stiff joints complained, but they were nothing but an afterthought. One by one, she lifted each hoof and fully extended each limb. Every muscle flexed just right as her perfectly proportioned body moved.
Finally, she opened her eyes. The orange coated muzzle in her vision was just another reminder of the return of her equine perfection. For a moment, she remembered all gifts and compliments just because of who she was. She snorted in amused self-derision. Thats enough of that, your not Celestia's perfect student anymore.
Shaking her head, she turned her attention back to the fruits of her labours. She slowly walked around the room. Her horn traced the most difficult parts of the linked enchantments. Each was in place, at least. Some of the flows rattled a little, but at least there was no sharp shards fracturing off and not a single leek.
Sunset rested her horn on the central control enchantment. A simple push of power, and it all came alive. Nothing exploded, nothing fizzled. She let out a breath she did not know she was holding. “Not my finest work, but at least I’m finally done.” The accepted minimum for ‘civilised’ accommodation of forty-two interwoven spells now was laced into her home.
Her stomach rumbled, announcing that yes, magic burnt through calories just like physical exercises. She ignored it. It was not like she was going to starve any time soon.
The clockface pronounced just how long her efforts had taken. “Eight hours?” Her eyes flicked to her horn. “I’m rusty.” She snorted. Well, at least I should save at least half on my utility bills.
She inhaled. Only clean mountain air embraced her senses. None of the background stink of the human world remained. It's amazing what you can get used to.
A fond smile formed on her muzzle. With only the blue sky in view out of the window, one could almost imagine, one could almost believe. She sat back on her haunches and let her eyes close. A car's engine turned over. The mechanical growl far too loud to ignore with her pony ears. The fragments of happy remembrances fell away from her mind.
As if pulled by a magnet, her hooves found their place on the window sill. Despite knowing what she would see, her still heart fell. For just a single moment, she could have believed she was back in her Canterlot tower.
Sunset’s eyes locked on the mere ball of plasma illuminating the land. Earth’s cold sun lacked the warmth and true majesty of Celestia's. Just that flicker of remembrance brought a smile to her lips as it filled her stomach with the leaden weight of worry. It was far too soon to be thinking on Celestia, especially with everything Nightmare Moon revealed.
Her horn lit with a simple cantrip, and summer flowers with hints of incense filled the air. Each breath banished the lingering memories that the hauntingly familiar scent manifested.
As she turned back to her room, it only took a moment to adjust from the sun's brightness to the relative dimness inside. Her large equine eyes examed the sum of all processed and took everything in. The flat-screen television, the computer, the game consoles, her electric guitars all had been works of wonder when she had first arrived. She could just not believe what could be achieved just with mundane artifice. Oh, how naive she had been.
She reached out with her aura grasping her meal. A box of granola and half a dozen apples floated after her following her to the Television. As she settled down, she turned it on with the slightest touch of telekinesis. A smile flickered on her face. It was the little things that made all the difference. The small things everypony took for granted that they never even thought about until they were gone.
The hum of electronics and the slight click as the screen flashed on would have been inaudible to her human ears. To her pony ears, they were demands for attention.
The news reporter prattled with so many words about things that did not matter and spared far too few for what was truly important. She shook her head, letting her mane settle comfortably and banished the broadcast to background noise.
With two books open before her and her notes to one side, her aura claimed her pen and began to write. She lounged as her magic turned thoughts to words upon the page. Honey-coated oats, chopped nuts, seeds and dried fruit were eagerly munched though, a sacrifice to the altar of her returned magic use.
With practised ease, she fell into old habits, the report might not be an assignment from the Princess, but she attacked it as if it were. The pen danced over the paper with a speed her hand could never have matched. Literally by magic, the words she thought were scribed upon the page.
Thoughts organised and edited themselves in her mind and before long she was looking at the finished document.
She gathered the pages together and put them with the rest of her homework. Now she was done, her magic gleefully called that fresh apple over she had been keeping as a reward for herself.
Tidying away her notes, she almost snorted at how poor her horn writing looked. She paused and then retrieved a page of her report. She placed it next to the top sheet of her notes.
Her eyes flicked between the two pages as she bit down into the sweet, crisp flesh of an apple. The first was clearly marked by her human handwriting, and on the second elegant curls and swirls marked a very different script. She facehooved. “I’m going to have to rewrite this…”
She pushed her now draft copy away and finished her apple in a single chomp. Her magic lifted the controller for her game console. The analogue sticks and all the small buttons presented a daunting task for hooves alone. Lucky for me, I have a horn. She thought as she browsed her collection of games.
The words ‘mystery’ and ‘unexplained’ had one of Sunset's ears swivel to the television. So many times, they had been an indication that some new Equestrian magic was on the loose.
“Some people claim aliens, others magic. Most assume this is some sort of large scale prank. The experts are still baffled how this was done without a single witness or security recording. Police are still investigating the mass theft of books from the midtown library.”
Sunset looked at the screen. There was only one person who could have done it. Or, more accurately, one pony. “Oh, Twilight…”
Her eyes found the drawer that held her Equestrian bits and gems collections. Sunset had only managed to sell a couple of coins as novelty items. It was a fortune she could never spend. Precisely the same problem Twilight had. “Well, at least you came with the intent of buying them.”
With Twilight in her thoughts, another mare came to mind. Carefully setting aside her school work, Sunset levitated over her other homework.
Spells and magical theory looked out of place upon mass-produced lined paper. Pages of crossed-out notes joined it. After staring at the main spell array for minutes, she still could not complete her task. The seemingly pointless artistic additions still evaded her comprehension. It was clear enough it was a subtle modification, but as for what these secondary functions were, she had no clue. The whole runic style was new to her. Its artistic brush strokes made zero sense.
Brush strokes? She followed the lines, how they flowed and how the thickness changed. She had seen this before. Realisation struck, she had done this before. The phantom of a half-remembered blue wing reached forward. The non-existent primary feathers traced through graceful curves. A smug smile formed. “Gotcha.” Arcane magic through your wings? No wonder this made no sense. No normal pony could cast that spell. She tilted her head. Well, not in a conventional way. Three or more ponies might be able to improvise.
Muscles shifted along her back to reposition limbs she did not have. The ghostly sensations of wings brushing against her coat answered. Sunset craned her neck and looked along her bear side. Is Night trying to tempt me to become an Alicorn? Suspicion now awakened, Sunset focused internally. She closed her eyes as she focused on what she was feeling and why. Just a lingering memory from the vision… or a subtle compulsion.
One by one, memories of old lessons returned, little tricks and tips to protect herself from the darker side of mind magic Celestia ensured she mastered. A seed of doubt gnawed at her, her internal reflection slowed to a stop. Just how valid are these methods? The causal use of mind magic the Nightmare had insisted Celestia used raised implications. If I were in her place, the smart thing to do would be to leave a hole in my faithful student's defences. One that only I could exploit. An old familiar glee at having a magical problem to solve rose in her. No problem could stop her. If she could not brute force her way through it with intellect or raw magical power, she would find a way around it. Now, how would I do it?
Ring!
"Gah!" Sunset flinched back from the sudden assault on her senses. A moment later, her mind puzzled out what the unexpected but familiar noise was.
She flattened her ears to her head as her aura dragged her phone to her. Twilight’s name and image displayed on the still vibrating mobile phone.
She almost went to tap answer with her hoof but shook her head and lifted a stylus first.
"Hello, Twilight."
“Sunset, something terrible has happened.”
“The library?”
“Yes, the library. So you saw the news report?”
Sunset flicked her ear in agreement.
“Sunset?”
Sunset slowly faced hoofed. Of course Twilight would not notice equine body language over an audio-only phone call. "Yes, had it on as I was working on the history assignment. "
“So, do you think this is another bit of lost magic from Equestria?”
“You could say that,” Sunset mumbled.
“What was that?”
“It's nothing we need to worry about.”
“Sunset, a library has been stripped bare. An institute of knowledge has been defiled. We can't let this stand.”
“I imagine the books will mysteriously show back up when she's finished with them.” Sunset half muttered.
“She?” Twilight demanded to know.
Sunset faced hoofed and took a moment to center her thoughts. “Princess Twilight.”
“My double stole from a library!? I … this… what…” were the last words to escape before the sounds of hyperventilation replaced any understandable form of communication.
“Twilight, take a breath. It's going to be alright”.
“Alright? Alright? My alternative reality counterpart is a criminal. I'm going to jail.” Twilight wailed.
Sunset muted her side of the call and sighed.
“As a princess of a foreign nation, this might even count as an act of war…”
Sunset unmuted. “Twilight, she was trying to get information to heal her friend.”
“Then why did she take all the books?” Twilight's voice almost returned to its normal rational tone, with only a hint of the panic still lurked beneath.
“Expediency, I expect.”
“So she just teleported all the books away in one go?”
“She is the Element of Magic.”
“But how did she use magic as a human?” More curiosity crept into Twilight’s voice.
“She has a much better understanding of what it means to be an Alicorn now.”
“That’s the winged unicorn princess?”
“An Alicorn is far more than just a winged unicorn.” Sunset paused in indecision. “Twilight, want to come over and study some magic?”
“Last time we tried that, there was more than a few explosions and fires. Are you sure you don't want to do this at the lab?”
“Trust me, everything is in hoof now.”
“In hoof?”
Sunset held up her hoof. The old usage of language was just too easy to fall into in this form “In hand.”
“So, am I right in assuming there are a lot of replacements in the common diction on the other side of the mirror?”
“Most of them are simply using hoof instead of hand and pony instead of person.”
“So things like everypony and anypony?”
“That's right.”
“This alone could be an interesting field of study.”
“So interested in…”
“Yes, just so long as it is definitely safe.”
“I promise it is.”
“I’ll be there in… forty-six minutes.”
“See you soon.”
The phone beep announced the end of the call. Sunset let her eyes trail over her own form. “I can’t greet her like this.” She pivoted on her hooves and trotted into the bathroom.
Sunset’s pony eyes looked back at her from the surface of the mirror. Yet in her mind's eye, she made herself see her human face with its smaller windows to the soul.
With tendrils of will, she reached past the bonfire of her unicorn wellspring to the nightmare's gift. Each breath came as a deliberate act. Slowly, oh so carefully, she crafted her will, envisioned her objective. A single mistake and she could end up horribly misshapen again, trapped somewhere between the two species.
Her magic rippled. A small surge leapt the gap between the two wellsprings. As if tinder touched by a match, it ignited. Teal flames consumed her vision as scalding heat engulfed her.
Buck! Rusty but well-honed reflexes sprung into action. Power surged, a quick and dirty spell formed in her horn. A burst of sparks blinded her yet again. The world crashed in around her, every bit of magic in her home simply gone from her senses. My horn? Cold dread filled her as she lifted her hoof hoping she was wrong. The palm and fingers of her bare hand pressed against her forehead, grasping for the horn that was no longer there.
“I’m ok?” Sunset started shakely. “I’m ok.” She finished with far more confidence examining the smooth coatless form of a human. “That was new…” She examined the room. “Nothing’s burnt or heat warped…” The mirror revealed her human form just how she envisioned it. “Once is just a conicnence.”
She flexed her hands. Moving each finger one by one, she regarded them. They were such mundane things and yet one of the biological advantages that allowed humanity great achievements. Snatching up a pen, she recorded every sensation, every thought and theory she could think of.
The doorbell sounded. The sheer volume of text she had written lay before her. Well, that's where the time went.
"I really need to work out how the mirror creates clothes." She mused aloud as she added it to her to-do list before she rapidly dressed and headed to greet her guest.