P. Rarity—Earth, Pie Residence. Before the dawn.
Rarity really enjoyed sleeping in. However, waking up in the middle of the night and discovering that the whole “human” thing was not a dream made it hard to go back to sleep. That, and the Pie family got up before dawn to start up the extremely-noisy refinery.
The first thing Rarity did when she got out of bed was examine her pajamas. She noted their function for hairless creatures desiring comfort while sleeping, but also reflected that they could sport colorful designs for slumber parties. When she got back home and got her career in fashion going, she would have to look into starting a line of holiday clothes. Maybe something as simple as a special hat for the Summer Sun Celebration.
She looked over at Pinkie Pie, who had also just gotten out of bed and was now sitting on it. Rarity noted that she had Pinkamena’s flat hairstyle and shadowed skin color.
“Um...Pinkie...” she gestured towards her hair.
“Oh?” Pinkamena said, reaching up to tap the top of her head. “Hey, watch this.” She stuck her thumb in her mouth and puffed out her cheeks, pretending to blow into her thumb. With a burst of confetti, her hair sprang back into shape and her skin lightened. Pinkamena became Pinkie again.
Rarity shook her head wordlessly. “So, I had two ideas after I went to sleep,” she said. “The first one is for you, Pinkie: how can you be sure that you didn’t accidentally switch us?”
“Good question,” said Pinkie. “Believe it or not, I do have limits, and this is definitely beyond me. Gray and I tried combining our powers, and were completely unable to contact anybody in the Equestrian universe.”
“Gray?”
“Maud’s symbiote.”
“Oh.” It kind of amazed Rarity that she was taking all of this so calmly.
# # #
Rarity did not have the envious ability to set her coiffure by putting her thumb in her mouth and blowing. And she could not cast her telekinesis spell. So she had to resort to doing it by hand. In this way she learned exactly how useful her hands could be, as well as their primary limitation: they could only do two things at once. As a unicorn, Rarity had worked her way up to being able to work three different strands of mane at once, and could almost handle four.
# # #
Breakfast that morning was bacon and eggs.
“Well that certainly smells unusual,” Rarity said, gesturing towards the bacon.
“Do ponies eat meat?” Maud asked. “Horses on our world are omnivores.”
Rarity withdrew her hand. “Technically, I suppose ponies are omnivores as well. But we choose not to eat it, because most sources on our world are sentient. The closest we get is unfertilized chicken eggs.”
“Well good, because that’s what this is,” Limestone stated bluntly, dumping some scrambled eggs on Rarity’s plate.
“Pegasi eat fish,” Pinkie Pie added between shoveling forkfuls of eggs and buttered toast into her mouth.
Rarity shuddered. “So I’ve heard.”
“So what was the second thing you came up with in your sleep?” Pinkie asked.
“Hmm? Oh yes.” Rarity looked over the whole family, waiting to get their attention. “You told me that Princess Celestia has the ability to contact Principal Celestia any time she wants. Do you know if the reverse is possible?”
The Pies looked at each other. “We don’t know,” Igneous admitted.
“Well in that case,” Rarity told them, “I have a plan. But first, you’ll have to tell me more about your religion.”
P. Rainbow Dash—Earth, Outside Fluttershy’s house. Just before dawn.
Rainbow Dash looked up at the second floor of the house, then over at the tree growing alongside it and sighed.
“This looked a lot easier when I was up there looking down,” she said to herself.
Rainbow had found herself unable to sleep in the guest room after the lights went out. Something about the walls being solid instead of being made of cloud. Something about the house being on the ground instead of being in the sky. Something about not being able to fly. Something about a giant earthquake collapsing the building right on top of her, where she would be squished into paste with no possible way to escape!
And so she had snuck out of the house, shimmied down the tree, and gone exploring. After a few hours she had come back, picked a secluded spot between the tree and the house, and gone to sleep.
She had spent an entire late September night outdoors, and not gotten anywhere close to feeling cold. She never bothered to question this.
In the end she decided to just trust that her current body was good at tree climbing, and easily made her way back into the guest room.
# # #
Dawn.
“Do we really have to go to class?” Rainbow Dash pleaded from the breakfast table.
“I’m afraid so,” Posey said. “I don’t think school regulations have any sort of exemption for being in the wrong body.”
She said this with a completely straight face.
Just then the doorbell rang. Mr. Fluffy popped his head up above the surface of the table to see who it was. Fluttershy quickly pushed the head back down again before she could get in trouble.
Cloud Cover got up and answered the door. Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy could hear a muted conversation between Cloud and an adult female. Cloud then returned to the kitchen nook, a puzzled look on his face. “Rainbow Dash? Mother Meridiem is at the door for you.”
“Who’s that?” Rainbow Dash asked as she got up.
“She’s one of the two people who run the Markist Church in Canterlot,” said Posey in a hushed voice.
“Am I in trouble?” Rainbow Dash asked over her shoulder as she walked towards the door. “I just got here yesterday!”
P. Rarity—Earth, Canterlot Church of the Goddess. Twenty-five minutes before class.
Rarity stepped out of the bus at the stop opposite the church. She was carrying a backpack with the items the Pies had told her she would need for class. If she had stayed on the bus, it would have arrived at Canterlot High twenty minutes from now, and five minutes before First Period began.
The Church of the Goddess was a long, tall building, painted in a bright red and gleaming white and decorated with gold leaf along the eaves. Abstract paintings composed of stained glass could be found along the upper story, and the roof was mostly a skylight. In shape, it was a glorified stable. Rather appropriate for a religion that mostly didn’t know it was worshipping the horse goddess of the sun.
Inside, the building was mostly one large room, with two rows of pews leading from the door to an altar at the far end. The stained glass windows were behind it, with the sunlight shining through creating a mosaic of color on the floor. High up on the wall Rarity saw a blinding light shining into her eyes. The effect faded the moment she looked slightly away. There must have been a particular set of crystals embedded in the ceiling to create the effect. Rarity wondered, if she had had the time to study the crystals she had found in the geode back on Equestria, if she might have found out how the effect worked, and how she might be able to use it to adorn the school pageant dresses.
The pageant. That was tonight. There was no possible way she was going to get home in time to get those dresses done in time. She sighed in disappointment.
“Can I help you, Rarity?” a young woman asked. She was wearing a simple white smock, embroidered with her mark.
Rarity pushed aside thoughts on the use of clothing for ceremonial purposes to answer her. “Yes, I would like to see one of the bishops,” she said.
“Mother Meridiem is out on Church business. As for Father Gnosi, follow me.” She led Rarity down the aisle, past several people who were kneeling in front of their pews, praying to the stained glass. Rarity and the robed woman stopped before a door set in the side wall. “He’s seeing a parishioner now.”
At that moment, the door opened, and Trixie walked out, a genuine smile on her face.
“Your usual is here,” the young woman told the man inside the room. “I see that he is on the phone; please wait for him to let you in,” she told Rarity, closing the door. And with that, the deacon left to return to the flock.
Rarity waited for Trixie to walk past her.
“You’re going to be late for class,” Trixie told her.
“Needs must, Darling,” Rarity said with a toss of her hair. “And...you may have missed your bus.”
“Shoot!” Trixie exclaimed, racing down the aisle and out the door.
Rarity smiled, but not at Trixie’s bad luck with bus schedules. It had been the first time she had used “Darling” since arriving on Earth. She really was getting used to this place. And then she frowned on realizing that she had been called “the usual.” Did the human Rarity need to confess to the Bishop on a regular basis?
“Ah Rarity, come in,” a voice of a man came from inside the room.
Rarity walked through the door, closing it behind her. Once she had gotten far enough into the room, she saw a tall pale yellow man with yellow-orange hair sitting behind an ornate desk. He was wearing a white cassock, with a starched collar around his neck. Over this was a yellow vest. He was facing a large window looking out at a field. A short distance out in that field was what looked like an oversized greenhouse, only the green glass walls of that building were completely opaque. Rarity took her place in a comfortable chair facing the desk. The plaque facing her informed her that this was Father Gnosi Augur, co-bishop of the Markist religion for the state of New Brass Sky and surrounding areas.
“So how was your day?” Father Gnosi asked her. “Did Ms. Hemline like your dress? And how about the Freshman Fair? Did you make any new friends?”
“Oh my day went wonderfully!” Rarity exclaimed, beaming. “I even got my cutie mark!”
“Congratulations!” the bishop said, reaching forward to shake Rarity’s hand. There had been a moment of uncertainty on his face on hearing the word “cutie” before “mark”. “When do you plan to schedule your Ceremony? Have you had the Dream yet?”
“Oh, I don’t need any of that!” Rarity replied. “I’ll find out what my cutie mark is when I get back home, and Rarity can go through with the ceremony on her own. I must say, I’m beginning to see the reason why she comes to you on a daily basis—it’s really nice to have somebody you can confess all your secrets to.”
Father Gnosi now looked quite concerned. “Have you been taking some of Trixie’s medications?” he asked. “You’re referring to yourself in the third person.”
“Not exactly,” Rarity said. “You see, through no fault of my own, I find myself in occupation of this body. I’m Rarity the Pony, Darling, not Rarity the Human.”
“I see,” Gnosi said, ashen faced. He glanced down at the largest drawer of his desk. “Look, normally I’d take you on your word, Rarity. Because I know you’re a...an individual of her word. But I really need to be sure...”
“Oh of course, Father. I would certainly do the same, in your hooves.” She used that last word with deliberation.
“Yes, well...in order to believe you, I need you to tell me something of your world, something that the human Rarity could not possibly know.”
“Oh dear,” Rarity said. “You mean besides the obvious ‘our ruler is Princess Celestia’? Because I figure that one is so obvious that every would-be pony would have trotted it out on you already. Well...I’m a unicorn from Ponyville, which apparently is a very obscure name for a neighborhood in your Canterlot. I’ve been trying for years to get a spot watching the Princess raise the sun at the Summer Sun Celebration, but poor planning on the part of certain individuals has always seemed to get in the way. The last griffon invasion of Equestria was during the Third Triangular Crisis of 1313, and was stopped by General Farrago’s forces at the Battle of Bull Pen—I just picked that one up at school. Although, would you even know about that?”
“That’s enough evidence,” Father Gnosi said. He opened the large drawer and withdrew a stack of five small plates to put on the desktop, followed by a sixth plate which came from a different drawer. He picked up the extra plate, which was plain in appearance, and tan in color. “This is how Markists learn what their pony counterpart’s cutie marks are,” he said. “There is a special ceremony that puts the person in a trance that connects them, and a particular dream that tells us that they are ready for that ceremony. We put their hand on one of these blank plates, and it turns into something like that.” He gestured to the wall behind him, where one of the plates was in a frame. It was shiny where the other plate was dull, it was the same color as the bishop’s skin, and it showed an eye in the center of a star shape.
“Last night we discovered that six of our inactivated plates in storage had spontaneously changed color, something that had never happened before.” He pushed forward the stack of plates, each of which was a different color; all of them had a shiny appearance like the one on the wall. He made a separate pile out of two of them. “Three of them had marks: these two, and a blue plate with the symbol of a rainbow-colored lightning bolt coming out of a cloud. Mother Meridiem and I were fairly certain that plate belonged to Rainbow Dash, which is why she, and that plate, aren’t here. As I just found out, we were right, and she and Fluttershy are also from Equestria.” He separated a pale, light grayish gold plate out of the pile of two and put it aside. “So we now know who three of you are.”
“I don’t know either of those ponies you just named.” Rarity picked up the remaining plate with a mark on it. It was a sort of pale, light grayish mulberry in color, and depicted a large six-pointed magenta star with a white star behind it, surrounded by five smaller white five-pointed stars. “So you’re saying that there are six of us in total who crossed over from Equestria,” she said. “Myself, this Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy, and three more.”
“That seems like the most reasonable conclusion,” Gnosi told her. “Do you by any chance recognize that mark?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “The star represents unspecialized magic, I can tell you that much. I would like to speak with this Rainbow Dash pony. The magical phenomenon responsible for what happened to me was a rainbow-colored explosion. Now since one of these is reserved for me...” She pulled out the light gray plate. As soon as she touched it, three cornflower-blue diamond shapes appeared upon it, each one a different cut. “Ah, I thought it would be something like that.”
“It’s probably asking a bit much of you, but is there any chance you can take a guess about the identities of the ponies associated with these two remaining unmarked plates?” the bishop asked.
Rarity removed the pale, light grayish raspberry plate. “This one belongs to Pinkie Pie. I met her yesterday, and she’s a pony. Oh, her legal name is Pinkamena. I don’t know if she’ll be asking you to legally change her name whenever we all get switched back or not.”
Father Gnosi wrote something down on a Post-It note. “I’ll be sure to let my staff know which name to address her by for the immediate future.”
Rarity looked at the last, brilliant gamboge plate very carefully... “This...looks like Applejack’s color, but that’s impossible.”
“There’s an Applejack in Canterlot,” Father Gnosi said.
“Yes I know,” Rarity replied. “The problem is, Pinkie Pie and I were in the extreme southwest of Equestria when the explosion occurred, and were directly under it. Applejack, the pony version, is staying in Manehattan, which is in the extreme northeast corner of Equestria. If Applejack was affected, then more than half of Equestria would be affected, and you only have six plates that changed color.”
“Rainbow Dash said that she and Fluttershy were from a place named Cloudsdale,” Father Gnosi said, consulting a notepad.
“And Cloudsdale was directly over Rockville at the time, confirming my theory,” said Rarity. “No, this plate, and the marked one, must belong to ponies that either lived in Cloudsdale, or near Pinkie Pie—I was just visiting the area, and so am not familiar with its inhabitants. I’ll ask Pinkie to tell you what she knows when she comes by to collect her plate.
“Now to get to the million bit question, Darling: Do you know how to get us back to Equestria?”
“No,” Father Gnosi said simply. “But I know of some resources I can consult with.”
Rarity was fairly certain she knew who one of those “resources” was—after all, that was the whole point of her plan.
“They might not know how to get you home, either, but at least it will be a start. Frankly, my expectation is that your Princess will be the one to resolve this matter. The best we can do is expedite the process.”
Rarity nodded her head. “Yes, that was what I was expecting as well.” She got up from her chair. “Still, it never hurts to ask for help.”
Father Gnosi rose as well. “That’s a core tenant of our religion,” he said with a grin. “Well let me say that it’s an honor to finally meet a pony, although I’m sorry that it was not with one who chose to visit our world by their own choice, and who was forced to kidnap one of my...parishioners...”
“Is there a problem, Father?” Rarity asked.
“Do you know what happened to the spirit of the human Rarity?” he asked.
“Well, I believe that she is currently occupying my pony body. I certainly haven’t heard any voices in my head claiming to be her.”
“But you don’t know for sure,” he said, looking out the window. “Would you mind if I try something with you? I have a way of being absolutely certain that the human Rarity is not trapped inside your head. I would really like to know, for not only my piece of mind, but hers.”
“Oh of course!” Rarity exclaimed. “If you do find her inside of me, would we be able to talk to her? She might not even know what is going on.”
“Yes, we should be able to do that. Please follow me.”
# # #
After telling the young woman in the smock to take care of any official affairs while they were gone, Father Gnosi led Rarity around the side of the church and over to the greenhouse-shaped building. As Rarity watched, he opened a box mounted next to the locked door and stuck one eye up against a black rubber ring designed to enclose it. A bit of light escaped as his retina was scanned. The door opened.
“Just as I would ask you to please not tell anybody who doesn’t need to know about your identity and about Equestria in general, I also ask that you not tell anyone what you’re about to see inside the Solarium,” he told her. “I am in no position of authority over you, so this is just a courtesy. I suppose I should also mention that your Princess is also in favor of keeping the relationship between our two worlds a secret.”
Rarity nodded mutely. She followed Gnosi into an antechamber, then had to avert her eyes from a blinding light that was being emitted around the sides of the door that led into the rest of the Solarium. “What is that light?!” she exclaimed.
“Oh,” the bishop said, “I guess you’re not immune to sunlight like Markists are. That’s going to make this tricky.” He walked over to a bank of lockers on one wall. After examining several of them, he finally opened one to reveal an orange-colored baggy suit. “You’ll need to put this on to protect yourself from second-degree sunburns,” he said. Taking out a pocket knife from a shelf in the locker, he proceeded to cut a slit in the neck of the suit. “I’ll have to touch you directly,” he explained.
“Are you sure all this is necessary?” Rarity asked.
“The concentrated sunlight in the Solarium allows us to manifest the full powers of our pony counterparts. Somewhere in Equestria is a pony named Gnosi with limited mental abilities. If I’m going to take a look in your mind, we have to go in there.”
Rarity was intrigued. “Alright,” she said finally. “Now turn around. I may not need to disrobe to put this suit on, but I will have to get into some undignified postures, and I am a lady.”
“Oh, of course,” the abashed bishop said, facing the far corner.
The suit was equipped with welder’s goggles, leaving Rarity completely sightless. Once she told Father Gnosi that he could look at her again, he had to guide her through the door, and into the Solarium itself.
Once she was there, she no longer needed help. The room, even through the smoked glass, was painfully bright. She watched as Gnosi walked around a bit—she could see him soaking in the sunlight.
Finally he walked over to her. “It just occurred to me that I’m practically a stranger to you. Do you trust me to walk around in your head?”
“First of all, your pleasant demeanor has earned my trust, along with knowing that your job depends on you being trustworthy. And second, I’m a unicorn—I’ve already been forced into a group mind already. It’s practically the first thing any mad unicorn tries to do. Luckily I was four at the time, so there were no secrets of mine worth sharing with the world. As a matter of fact, I believe the mad unicorn in question...was named Gnosi Augur.”
“... I wish to deeply apologize for the actions of my counterpart. I...I had no idea that ponies were subject to such indignities. Were...capable of performing such indignities...”
“Oh, don’t even think of apologizing!” Rarity exclaimed with a rosy smile. “I have already gathered plenty of evidence to show that counterparts do not have to exactly mirror each other in every respect. Like I said, I trust you, the individual. As for the rest, I suppose that is the cost of raising us into the subject of a religion. Ponies are just as fallible as any other class of creature. I haven’t had too much exposure to humanity, but I have certainly seen a fair number of wonderful examples to remember fondly when I return to my home and my body.” She gently bent her neck, presenting it to him.
Father Gnosi blushed, having nothing to say. He then gently reached his hand through the slit in Rarity’s suit.
Rarity turned her head away, to keep from being blinded by the light that was coming in around the hand. Nevertheless, she was able to see out of the corner of her eye that the hand itself was glowing, with motes of light gently floating away from his skin to dance inside the close confines of the suit. The hand touched the side of her head...
Rarity suddenly found herself in a bedroom, one that shared a few elements with her bedroom back home, including color combinations. She supposed this was the bedroom of her human counterpart. What made it unusual was its extreme height. She soon realized the reason for this: she was back in her pony body. She turned, to see Father Gnosi towering over her, dressed in a formal suit. He was the correct height for the room.
“Greetings Rarity, Citizen of Equestria,” Gnosi said, kneeling before her.
Rarity curtsied. “Is this a representation of human Rarity’s mind?” she asked.
“It is,” Gnosi said. “Now let’s take a look around.”
The pair spent the subjective span of twenty minutes searching through the various closets, cabinets, hope chests and cubby holes in the room. They even went through the contents of the bigger-on-the-inside recycling bin. I will not be regaling you with a list of their discoveries, as each one of them represented some aspect of Rarity’s personality that she did not wish to publicize. Several of their discoveries led Rarity to stare at Gnosi in shame, grotesquely fascinated by how he would react. But he managed to repress any sort of reaction whatsoever, remaining the perfect gentleman.
At no point in their examination did they discover another Rarity, not even an itty bitty one.
They also did not find a Pinkie Pie. Rarity had been dreading that particular discovery.
After that, Gnosi returned the pair of them to the Solarium. Rarity looked around her at the half-dozen other people using the room. A couple of them were flying like pegasi, and others were practicing unicorn spells or simply meditating.
They returned to the antechamber, and Rarity removed the suit. Gnosi rolled it up to throw it away—he would order another one, for the next unlikely occasion when an unbeliever needed to use it.
Rarity followed Gnosi back to his office in the church.
“Was there anything else?” Gnosi asked.
Rarity closed the door. “I was wondering why I didn’t inherit the physical abilities of this body when I occupied it, including resistance to concentrated sunlight,” she told him. “That’s when I realized: your concentrated sunlight is the same color as unfiltered mana.” She put a hand to her temple and concentrated on her mark plate.
Gnosi watched in amazement as Rarity’s eyes glowed. The same glow surrounded the plate, which slowly rose into the air. She then lowered it.
“You see?” she asked him. “I brought my magic with me!”
“That’s incredible, Rarity,” Gnosi said in praise. “But you should conserve yourself. You’re not capable of converting sunlight into magic, and this world is otherwise devoid of it. The magic you brought with you is all that you have.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Rarity said, picking up her plate. “Well, I’ll go back to school now.”
“Hold on, let me write you a permission slip,” Gnosi said. “I wish you the best of luck on your first day with the school. In case you didn’t know, the principal of your school is Celestia, but she’s not the Princess. She’s mortal, and should be treated...well, like a principal.”
“I will, Darling. And thank you, for everything you’ve done for me so far.”
P. Rainbow Dash & P. Fluttershy
Rainbow Dash was easily able to talk Mother Meridiem into writing out excuses why she and Fluttershy could skip school today, especially after she revealed that she was actually several years younger than her human body, and therefore completely unequipped to be attending Ninth grade classes. Meridiem even offered to deliver the notes to Principal Cinch directly, so there would be no chance that the wily administrator could pull the truth out of the two of them.
“For now, I accept complete responsibility for the two of you,” Meridiem said. This was a great relief for Cloud Cover and Posey Shy, as they had jobs to go to. “Is there anywhere you’d like me to take you?”
“I saw some flying machines on the television,” Rainbow Dash said. “Is there any way I can see one up close?”
“Well, I can take you to the private airport, but I can’t guarantee that I can get you closer than a hundred feet.”
Rainbow shrugged. “I’ll take what I can get.”
“And what about you, Fluttershy?”
“Umm...”
“Do you have any animal sanctuaries?” Rainbow asked on her behalf.
“We have a zoo.” In response to the confused look on the two ex-pegasi, she added, “it’s close enough to a sanctuary.”
“Alright,” Fluttershy said.
“We’ll just have to stop by Crystal Prep first, but after that I promise you a fun day of seeing what this human world has to offer.”
# # #
At the school, Fluttershy ducked down in her seat, and so Rainbow Dash did the same. After a few minutes, Meridiem returned, and the trio drove off to the zoo.
It was there that Father Gnosi got through to them, and they learned about Rarity and Pinkie Pie.
Abacus Cinch.
Principal Abacus Cinch sat in her darkened office, fuming.
She did this a lot.
Due to the power wielded by Mother Meridiem, and the Markist Church in general, she had no choice but to accept the notices that they were being removed from class for “religious reasons” for the immediate future, and was denied the opportunity to interview them directly, despite seeing the two of them obviously hiding in the back of the bishop’s car through her window.
Abacus did not really believe in the religion she had been born into. She had largely succeeded in life by ignoring the teachings of the Markists, and hewing more to the proven wisdom of Machiavelli.
Fluttershy was a liability to Crystal Prep. She had been since Day 1. The only reason she had been admitted is because it was the only way to secure the admission of her best friend Rainbow Dash. And the only reason Rainbow Dash was accepted was because the parents of American high school students—regardless of religion—had an illogical attachment to sports prowess. Rainbow Dash would never fit the ideal of the Crystal Prep graduate: someone who pushed the world into Progress, kicking and screaming if need be.
But now, with her humiliating performance after her victory in the Junior Varsity game, her usefulness to the Academy was considerably diminished. She might be able to win games, but no girl who suffered from panic attacks was worthy of belonging to the premiere pre-university academic establishment of New Brass Sky. Well...someone who suffered from panic attacks really wasn’t worthy of being a member of the human race, but sadly, Abacus Finch was not in charge of the culling of humanity. At least, not outside of her daydreams.
This religious business...that was suspicious. If Rainbow Dash wanted to defect to the defective public school...let her. For the little time she would have after making such a foolish decision. So long as Abacus had the time to set up the proper narrative, make it clear to all that Abacus’ error was too much generosity to a troubled child who rewarded opportunity with petty vengeance. She had a crew on speed dial with complete instructions on how to vandalize Crystal Prep in a way that looked horrible...but was cheap to clean up, and impossible to trace to the correct party.
Unless the Church was actually up to something? Abacus pulled a burn phone out of a drawer and speed-dialed a different number. “Hello Jeremiah?” she asked after engaging the voice-altering app. “I need you to follow Mother Meridiem Tempest’s car around for the day. I’m less interested in what she does than the activities of her two teenage guests: Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy.”