On the Fine Art of Giving Yourself Advice

by McPoodle


Chapter 17B: Seeing the Light, Part 2 (P. Celestia, H. Twilight Sparkle, P. Trixie)

P. Celestia. Canterlot’s Royal Hospital. Early evening.

Princess Celestia strode purposefully down the corridors of the hospital, with the faithful unicorn Raven matching every step at her side. The duo were surrounded by eight marching guards, who ensured that their Princess would have their privacy. A “pay no attention” spell hovered over the pair.

“After interviewing thirty-seven of the most-perceptive unicorns in Canterlot,” Raven reported, “I was only able to find two who detected any trace of the magical surge that affected Twilight Sparkle, and even they only saw some ‘pretty colors in the sky’. The group of those who failed to detect the surge included all four of Twilight’s examiners—they were convinced that the power they witnessed, and experienced, must have come from the filly, and from no other source. The fact that nopony but yourself detected such a massive magical surge should be an impossibility.”

“Unless it was a Harmony Manifestation,” concluded Princess Celestia.

“Indeed, Your Highness. And that would strongly imply that Harmony was using the surge to inform you that She had chosen Twilight to be the future bearer of the Element of Magic.”

“Yes, but if that were the case, why would She then cripple Her Bearer immediately afterwards? There must have been some sort of interference, something even I could not detect.”

“A saboteur?” Raven asked.

“Perhaps. Turn your attention to the school. Search it top to bottom for suspicious artifacts. Examine the files of everypony known to be in the school at the moment of the incident to determine if any of them had a grievance against us, and knowledge of the Elements.”

“Will do,” Raven said, stopping and dismissing the spell. After the Princess and her guards walked past her, she turned around and walked away, turning right down a corridor that led to the hospital exit closest to the School of Magic.

A few moments later, Celestia arrived at the door of Waiting Room 7, where a pink earth pony mare with an orange mane and a gray unicorn stallion with a dark blue mane were waiting. Both of them were wearing light blue surgical scrubs. “Thank you both for waiting for me,” she told them.

The two of them briefly bowed their heads in deference. “Of course, Your Highness,” the mare said. “If I may ask your opinion: how honest do we need to be with the family?”

“An admission of uncertainty is sure to be unsettling, especially considering the possible consequences,” the stallion quickly added before the Princess had a chance to respond.

“I advise you to be completely honest,” Celestia told them. “The family has been kept waiting without a firm diagnosis for more than a full day, and the patient is still unconscious. But I will not enforce that opinion in any way. The case is still yours, Doctors.”

“Of course, Your Highness,” said the mare.

“Thank you for your trust, Your Highness,” said the stallion. He gestured towards the door. “Shall we?”

Celestia looked to the head of her guards. “Stay out here,” she instructed.

“Yes, Your Highness,” the guard responded.

The Princess knocked on the door...


H. Twilight Sparkle.

In her special hospital room, Twilight Sparkle woke up. She was still a unicorn, which to her meant that she must still be trapped inside her delusions.

Something additional was off about her. With her eyes closed, patches of color drifted here and there in her visual field. Her equilibrium was at about 80%. And she couldn’t quite feel the sheets under her.

Twilight Sparkle was an expert in the field of her own brain chemistry. Over the past decade she had experimented with every legal means of altering her consciousness, all with the constant goal of increasing her comprehension of the mysteries of the universe, a quest that had frequently landed her in the hospital in Canterlot City. As a result, she knew the exact effects that every standard sedative had upon her. What she was experiencing now was like no drug she had ever received.

Twilight opened her eyes. The colors did not entirely go away, and her eyes stubbornly refused to entirely focus. Carefully, Twilight sat up; as a quadruped, she settled for sitting as a dog does rather than as a human. She was in a standard hospital gown, white with blue polka dots. ‘Why do I even need to wear a gown?’ she asked herself. ‘I’ve got fur.’ The room in most respects reflected the standards of a couple of decades before she was born. ‘Perhaps I’ve been dosed with something that is banned on contemporary Earth. If we go with the fiction, that is.

The walls of the room, as well as the floor and ceiling, were all made of glass. The floor was mostly covered with a rug, and the walls and two doors were covered with drapes. These drapes were designed so they could be slid around on the rods they were hung from. The wall behind Twilight’s head was mostly devoid of any equipment, and there was a comfortable-looking rug placed in front of it, of the right size for a single pony to sit on, facing the window. ‘Am I some sort of exhibit?’ Twilight thought, darting her eyes around in fear as she imagined a group of cruel and hideous mad scientist ponies on the other side of the curtain, waiting on bleachers for the show to start. The one thing she dreaded the most about being trapped in her own mind was that the fantasy would inevitably turn against her, and the darker parts of her personality would take the opportunity to torture her in retaliation for the many times her experiments had accidentally threatened the lives of millions, despite her best intentions.

Twilight turned away from what she had dubbed ‘the viewing wall’, banging her muzzle against the adjoining wall, which acted to push the curtain aside. “Ouch!” she exclaimed, and then “ouch!” again when her attempt to put a soft hand over her hurt nose ended with her slamming a hard hoof into it instead. When she removed her hoof she saw something odd about the exposed glass wall, which had a regular white plaster wall behind it. Twilight turned her head sideways and leaned towards the wall to get a better look at it. As she focused, little equations appeared before her, dancing gently with her subtle bobbing motions. The equations were familiar to her, and described the physical properties of glass, including the rate at which the amorphous solid was flowing at a glacial rate. Focusing further, she saw the surface resolve into its component molecules, with further formulae describing the chemical properties of the glass. Another mental push showed her the subatomic level.

“Yes!” she exclaimed. “Somehow the combination of the mental breakdown and whatever experimental drug they are giving me in the real world have unlocked this new superpower! Thank you, Guiseman!”

She failed to notice the knocking on the door...


P. Celestia.

“Come in,” Twilight Velvet said, in response to the knocking on the door. She, her husband and her son then curtsied or bowed on the entrance of Princess Celestia.

The newly hatched dragonling in the basket on the table failed to rise, because it was asleep.

“Rise, ponies,” Celestia said gently, moving aside to allow the doctors’ entrance. “Have you been introduced yet to the physicians working on Twilight’s case?”

“We’ve met Doctor Teeter,” Night Light said, referring to the earth pony mare.

“And I am Doctor Totter,” said the unicorn stallion. “I am an expert on magical diseases and accidents, but in the case of a cracked horn I cannot directly interact with the patient, as my magical field would exacerbate her symptoms. I have been examining all of my partner’s observations, and I find them rather unusual.”

Dr. Teeter pointed to an open folder on the table before Twilight’s family, one that contained brochures for a place called Mustangia Ranch. “When I initially told you about the consequences of Twilight’s injury, I said she would need to be isolated from unicorns for as much as five years in order for her horn to properly heal.” The brochures depicted a quaint Western town occupied exclusively by earth ponies and pegasi, with non-patient unicorns only allowed to visit by staying in a building with specially-treated glass walls, communicating with those patients via an intercom system. “The trouble is, Twilight is not showing any sensitivity to magic whatsoever.”

“Do you know if she has abnormally-high pain resistance?” Dr. Totter asked.

The family members looked at each other, shaking their heads. “No, she’s got a normal reaction to pain,” Shining Armor answered for the three of them.

“Then I do not know what is actually going on in this case,” Dr. Totter said. “We used every precaution in protecting your daughter from pain, but there was no avoiding the fact that she was injured in the presence of the most-powerful magic user in the land, a pony known to induce headaches after only an hour in exceptionally sensitive unicorns.”

Princess Celestia looked away at the comment, feeling a little guilty. She knew how to hide her magic away, but her subjects expected her to always have her magic on full display, even the very unicorns she hurt by doing so. In all of the cases, the unicorns had stayed around her despite knowing the consequences, just for the opportunity to be in the presence of a pony they adored.

“In addition, she was in the School of Magic, surrounded by foals and fillies that had trouble controlling their magic,” said Dr. Totter. “Unicorns, once they start channeling magic, cannot stop themselves from doing so, 24/7. So even while unconscious, Twilight should have shown a reaction. If I didn’t know any better, I would say she had never used magic in her life. If that were true—and of course it isn’t, but if it were—that would mean she could recover in months instead of years. So you see the situation we’re in.”

Twilight’s family members looked at each other with uncertainty. “Then what do you propose?” Night Light asked.

Just then there was a very insistent knocking at the door...


P. Trixie.

Trixie knocked on the door to Twilight’s room. She had separated from the Princess when she learned that she was going to talk to Twilight’s family first.

Trixie didn’t feel particularly close to Twilight’s family, and thought such a conversation would be awkward. So she decided to see the patient first.

A pegasus nurse seeing this rushed forward. “Stop!” the nurse cried. “Can’t you read the sign?”

The sign on the door read “No unicorns shall be admitted under any circumstances!”

Trixie sighed. “Non-functioning horn,” she said, pointing at it with a hoof.

“We’ll see about that!” the nurse said, walking over to a nearby table and picking up a magimeter. She ran the device all over Trixie. Upon seeing a zero reading, she tapped the meter a few times, then walked over to a neighboring room to check the device on a unicorn patient before returning to check Trixie one more time. “Alright...” she said with a scowl, before realizing the consequences of the reading. “Oh, I’m so sorry!”

Trixie shuddered in revulsion at the pity. “It’s alright,” she said through clenched teeth. “May I go in?”

“Yes, go ahead. But be quiet—Miss Sparkle is still sleeping off her sedative.”

Trixie nodded silently in acknowledgement, then opened the door.

Inside was a small antechamber. Trixie realized this was to keep outside magic from affecting the patient. She closed the door.

A glass plate lit up, with the words, “Please wait for the results of the magic scan” written upon it.

Trixie stood still as yet another magimeter examined her. There was a pleasant beep as the scanning message turned off and the door before her unlocked. Trixie knocked yet again, and on hearing no response, cautiously opened the door.

Twilight was awake. She was standing on her bed, and staring at the wall with one eye.

“Twilight?” Trixie said cautiously. “Are you alright?”

There was no response, other than Twilight turning her head around so she could stare at the wall with her other eye.

“Well that’s the weirdest response to a sedative that I’ve ever seen,” Trixie said sarcastically. “Twilight! Wake up! I want to tell you about my dinner with the Princess last night.” As these words still had no effect, Trixie walked over and gently touched Twilight’s leg.

Twilight whipped her head around. “A biological subject!” she exclaimed.

Trixie’s blood turned cold. Before she had a chance to turn away, Twilight was suddenly upon her, holding her in place with her front hooves while running her eye up and down her coat. “Twilight, what are you doing?” she asked.

“Drat, I don’t know half of these equations!” Twilight exclaimed. “Biology never was my strong suit—but it can be now!”

“Twilight Sparkle!” Trixie exclaimed, pushing Twilight away from her. “What is wrong with you?!” She noticed that her friend’s eyes were highly dilated.

And then suddenly those eyes were back to normal. “Oh!” Twilight exclaimed. “Sorry about that. I was just exploring my mark-related talent.”

Trixie frowned. With the lone exception of herself, every unicorn’s special talent was tied to their functioning horn. “Well, you did get your mark,” she said, pointing at it.

Twilight turned her head to see the symbol on her flank, depicting one large star surrounded by six different astronomical objects, including planets, nebulae and other stars. “Oh, that’s an interesting place for one to show up,” she exclaimed. “Too bad my examination power doesn’t work on myself.” She pointed at Trixie’s cutie mark. “Can I examine yours?”

Trixie rotated to move her flank out of view. “That’s rather private. Are you alright?”

Twilight shrugged. “As well as I can be. Oh, you’ve got a horn! I haven’t figured out how to use mine. Mind giving me a demonstration?”

“What?!” Trixie exclaimed, before an awful suspicion occurred to her. “Say my name.”

“What?” asked Twilight.

“I’m your best friend,” Trixie told Twilight. “Tell me my name.”

Twilight backed up in fear at the intensity of Trixie’s expression. “I...I forgot it. Because of the sedatives.”

And you forgot that you broke my magic?!” Trixie said, getting in Twilight’s face. “No. You don’t know because we’ve never met. Because you’re not the pony Twilight Sparkle at all! You’re the reason my best friend broke her horn, showing up in her brain at the worst possible time! Give her back!” Trixie grabbed onto Twilight’s shoulders and shook her. “Give me back my best friend!

“I...I don’t know...I can’t...” Twilight pleaded.

Trixie stopped, suddenly calm. “Then I’ll get the Princess, so she can rip you out of that body.” She pulled open the curtain that was covering the wall behind Twilight’s bed, revealing Waiting Room 25 on the other side, before walking over to the door and looking back at Twilight with a cruel expression. “You might know her as your Goddess.” And then she walked out of the door.

After exiting the antechamber, Trixie sought out the royal guard who had been assigned to her for the day by Princess Celestia. “I need to see the Princess, immediately,” she told him. “It’s about Twilight Sparkle.”

The guard nodded. “She told me to keep her informed on any developments in her case. Come with me.”

As soon as they reached Waiting Room 7, Trixie’s guard explained the situation to the Princess’ guards, who allowed her to pass. Trixie knocked insistently on the door...


H. Twilight Sparkle.

Back in her room, Twilight dropped into a sitting position in shock. “‘Our counterparts in the Perfect World wear their marks on their bodies,’” she said, quoting the Elements of Harmony. “My fantasy put me in the Perfect World, in the presence of the Creator Goddess! And she’s coming to smite me!”

There was a sudden flash, and then Princess Celestia stood in Waiting Room 25 in all her majesty...and fury. “Twilight Sparkle of Earth!” her voice resonated from a speaker. “You will surrender control of my little pony immediately!

Twilight dropped fully down on the ground and covered her head with her hooves. “I’m too young to be smote!” she cried. “Or...smitten? But that sounds too much like falling in love.”

The Princess rolled her eyes. Based on Trixie’s stories last night about her, it appeared that she was definitely dealing with a Twilight Sparkle. “Perhaps I am over-reacting, a bit,” she said over the intercom, visibly calming herself. “You couldn’t have known the consequences of your actions. Nevertheless, your quest to obtain your cutie mark before you were ready has had incalculable consequences for the pony Twilight Sparkle.

Twilight was going to respond, when the door to Waiting Room 25 opened, and six ponies entered. Twilight recognized one of them as the mare who had gotten her in trouble with the Goddess. Three others looked strangely familiar. In front of one of them floated a covered basket.

The Princess looked over at two of the ponies, and in a flash they...disintegrated? No, there was no visible residue. Teleported perhaps? Twilight hoped the latter was true, considering the lack of emotional response to the act from the other ponies.

Is it true?” a gray unicorn mare with a striped white purple and white mane said as she came up to the glass wall and put her hoof against it. “Have you taken our daughter?” Her tone was more sorrowful than angry. (She was the one with the basket.)

Who are you?” asked a white unicorn stallion with a striped dark- and light-blue mane. He definitely was a lot angrier than the mare.

She’s the Twilight Sparkle from a parallel world without most forms of magic,” the Princess calmly explained. (Twilight mouthed the word “most” to herself in confusion.) “And she likely had no idea what she was doing when she abused the marking ritual to take over our Twilight.

“I’m sorry, Goddess, ma’am, but I wasn’t getting my mark, at least not directly. And I definitely wasn’t doing the Ritual. Something went wrong at the Science Fair, although I sincerely doubt that that oven had trans-dimensional capabilities.”

The family members looked at each other. “Twilight Sparkle,” they said in unison as they nodded their heads.

Meanwhile Trixie was nodding to herself in understanding. Thanks to her human counterpart, she knew exactly what Celestia was talking about.


P. Celestia.

The Princess walked over to the door of the waiting room, and opened it to look out at the two confused doctors.

“Why did you teleport us out of the room?” Dr. Totter asked.

“Twilight had brought up sensitive matters of State right before you entered,” Celestia replied. “I’m going to have to swear the Twilight family to secrecy as it is, and I didn’t want you two burdened as well.”

“Well, alright,” Dr. Teeter said, not very happy with that answer.

“I have just learned the special circumstance that explains why Twilight is not being harmed by magic,” Celestia said. “It is a short-term effect, and I will be able to tell you precisely when it stops protecting her. In the meantime, I need to have a private interview with her. Right now.”

Dr. Totter frowned. “If you’re wrong, you could make a complete recovery impossible.”

“I am absolutely confident that I will not harm her, but feel free to test her first.”

The doctors looked past the Princess to Twilight’s family. “Do you authorize this?” Dr. Teeter asked.

Princess Celestia looked back at them. “Unfortunately, I’m the only one who can reverse this,” she explained.

The doctors did not know what she was referring to, but saw that the family members did.

“After the test,” said Twilight Velvet firmly, after getting non-verbal confirmation from her husband and son. “We won’t condone any creature coming to harm, even if it’s the only way we can get our daughter back.”

The Princess smiled. “I wouldn’t want it any other way.”


H. Twilight Sparkle.

After the door of the waiting room closed, Princess Celestia walked over to the glass wall and looked down at Twilight. “Rise, Twilight Sparkle,” she gently commanded.

Twilight reluctantly did as she was told.

I must speak quickly, before the doctors enter your room. You are not the first human who has taken over one of my ponies through the years. I have been working with the priests of your religion to try and limit the number of cases, but there are always a couple each decade who manage to figure out what to do. You appear to have stumbled upon yet another way to do it. Look in the mirror on that wall; do you see the condition of your horn?

Twilight silently walked over and looked. “There’s this discolored section right here...” She reached up with a hoof.

Don’t touch it!” Princess Celestia exclaimed.

Twilight quickly withdrew her hoof.

Your horn...the horn of your pony counterpart, became damaged by a spell misfire at the moment when you took possession. The only reason you are not in crippling pain right now is because you do not know how to use that horn. At least, that is the working hypothesis.

There was a noise, and Twilight and Celestia both looked over at the door to Twilight’s room. A lit sign indicated that a magical scan was in progress.

The doctors, who I do not want to learn what you really are, are going to see if you are sensitive to magic. Please tell them if you feel anything unusual. Do you have any questions?

“Do you have to call it ‘magic’?” Twilight asked with a pout. “It is completely uncredible. Only in cases where all scientific explanations have failed is the use warranted, and frankly I don’t believe such cases exist. Surely you have a more accurate term for such an important phenomenon.”

Trixie, who had been observing everything to this point in silence, shook her head in wonder. “I’m still mad at you,” she told Twilight. “But I think I’d like to get to know this you on top of the one I already know.

We appropriated the term,” Celestia said, answering Twilight’s question.

“Cheeky,” Twilight quipped, before remembering that she was talking to her Goddess. “Oops, sorry. Wrong tone entirely.”

By this time the door had opened, and both doctors had walked into the room. “Are you feeling anything unpleasant right now?” Dr. Totter asked.

Twilight thought for a moment. “No,” she said.

“Hold out your left forehoof,” Dr. Teeter instructed. After this had been done, she took Twilight’s pulse. “A bit high,” she said.

“I had a bit of a fright,” Twilight explained. “I let my imagination of possible bad consequences get to me.”

She does that a lot,” said the white unicorn stallion on the other side of the glass.

“Nice way to sell me out, Shining,” Twilight said with a roll of her eyes. She reviewed her words. “Well, I did suspect you might be my family. ...Her family.” She looked over at the confused Dr. Teeter. “Heh. I mean my family.”

“Please calm yourself,” Dr. Teeter instructed.

Twilight looked helplessly at her family.

The light blue stallion with a dark blue mane—Twilight’s father—chuckled. “Life would be a lot simpler if Twilight was capable of that,” he observed, before thinking of something. “Twilight, recite the periodic table of chemical elements. Just the prime numbers, in reverse order, each one followed by its double.

“Nihonium, atomic number 113,” Twilight quickly recited. “Atomic number 226...I don’t even want to think of the properties of an atom with that many protons. Meitnerium, atomic number 109. 218 is also too high for the chart. Bohrium, atomic number 107...”

Dr. Teeter nodded in approval at the lowering of his patient’s pulse rate.


Twilight Velvet looked over at her husband. “I never heard of those first two,” she whispered, referring to Twilight Sparkle’s list.

This is the Twilight from a world without magic,” Night Light replied, “Maybe they have more advanced science and technology to compensate.


Twilight Sparkle had finally gotten down to elements with doubles in the chart when Dr. Totter, standing outside of her field of vision, had lit up his horn with a light spell.

“Silver, atomic number 47 and its double plutonium, atomic number 94...”

“Still not feeling anything?” Dr. Teeter interrupted.

“Some slight irritation at being interrupted, but otherwise no,” Twilight answered testily. “Where was I? Silver, atomic...”

You did that one already,” Shining Armor pointed out.

Twilight growled. “Technetium, atomic number 43...”

“Well, other than her reaction to me, she appears to have no negative reaction to magic,” Dr. Teeter observed.

“Will you stop interrupting!” Twilight exclaimed.

I think you can stop now,” the voice of Night Light said over the intercom.

“Oh, right,” Twilight said, remembering the reason behind the assignment. “So how did I do?”

100%,” Night Light replied.

Twilight beamed. And then she cried out when a bright light shone in her eye.

“Pupil dilation checks out as well,” Dr. Teeter observed, lowering an otoscope held in one hoof.

Are you satisfied?” Princess Celestia asked.

The two doctors looked at each other, then nodded. “You may visit the patient,” Dr. Totter said.

Dr. Teeter put the scope back in a bag, and balanced it on his back. The two doctors then exited the room.

There was a flash of light, and Princess Celestia had disappeared from the waiting room.

“Was that seriously teleportation?” Twilight asked.

It was,” Trixie replied.

“Where does she get the energy? Err...‘She’, not ‘she’. I’m not sure that you can hear the difference in capitalization.”

She doesn’t like that,” Trixie observed. “You’re the ones that foisted godhood on her, not us. Not...most of us.

Twilight was about to ask the first of many questions about Trixie’s remark when she was interrupted by the wailing of an alarm. She looked over at the door, where a flashing sign informed her that an abnormally-high magic source was entering the room. The door opened, and Princess Celestia walked in. Twilight frowned. “And how do you make your mane flow like—Aah!” With a loud cry, Twilight reeled back, her arm over her eyes.

“I’m sorry!” the Princess cried, retreating towards the antechamber. “I thought it would be safe to—”

“You’re beautiful!” Twilight exclaimed, lowering her arm and approaching the alicorn, her eyes strangely focused.

Trixie ran up to the glass, realizing that Twilight had activated her special talent. “What do you see?” she asked insistently.

“An immense outpouring of light in several frequencies I could not see as a human,” Twilight said, walking slowly around the Princess. “Her shine is...indescribably beautiful. Fine lines connect Her with...Her subjects? They cannot pierce the glass, but I can see them leave my room and go into your room to connect with each of you. There are enough of them for tens of thousands of connections. ...And none going to me. Hmm. I see Her connection with...the sun? The parts of the equations I can comprehend look very solar to me. And with the planet...” Twilight turned to address Celestia directly. “You are the medium between the universe and Your subjects, protecting, nurturing...” She bowed down. “A most worthy Goddess.”

Celestia sighed. “No, Twilight. I may have some mysterious connection to your world, but on this one, I am merely an outstanding example of my kind. I have to earn the right to rule over my ponies every day, and at any time I should...I must be overthrown, if ever I abuse the tremendous powers I command. I do not know all, I do not see all, and my power is far from infinite.”

Twilight thought for a few moments. “You know what? That makes you an even better object of worship. Just without the capital letters.”

Celestia smiled. “That’s...a rather unique point of view.”

How are you able to augment your vision?” Trixie asked from the other side of the glass. “You just said you can’t wield magic.

“I’m not sure,” Twilight replied. “It must be some combination of the brain chemistry alterations caused by the multiple times I drove myself to the utter brink of madness, seeking answers in a meaningless universe, combined with whatever chemical cocktail the doctors currently have running through my veins.”

And your parents let you do that to yourself?” Twilight’s mother asked imploringly.

“Well, they weren’t able to stop me,” Twilight said simply. “Nothing will stand between me and the complete comprehension of the universe.”

Twilight’s parents looked helplessly between each other, pitying the tortured experiences of their human counterparts.

Celestia frowned. “I will definitely make it a priority after you are returned to your body to suggest something be done about this situation.”

Twilight shrugged. “Good luck. It’s kind of an addiction to me. Not even I can stop it.”

Celestia sighed. “I am not dropping this, but first I have to deal with the matter of your pony alternate. Twilight, I need to perform an examination. When you took over this body, you shoved its original occupant into a corner of your mind.”

“I didn’t mean to!”

“I believe you. Now hold still.”

Twilight stood there during the exam, her “examination eyes” roving about Celestia’s form, finding more and more properties to her magical signature and to the beam that was coming out of her horn and into Twilight’s head. Twilight tried to stop her eyes from roving, in case it interfered with the impromptu brain scan, but she found she couldn’t. Like she had said, Twilight Sparkle was addicted to the acts of accumulating and processing data.

“She’s...she’s not there,” Celestia said after a few minutes.

“Have you checked this?” Twilight asked, lifting up a hoof as if it were supporting something.

Celestia blinked. “What is that?”

“It’s some sort of cord coming out of my head,” Twilight answered. “At least, I think it is. It moves with me, but I can’t see where it attaches.”

“Do you know where it leads?”

“Out of the room. I can’t see past the walls.”

The Princess opened the door. “Well, let’s go outside then.”

The antechamber did not like this, not one bit. But the Princess knew the override code.

“Seriously?” asked Twilight on seeing what the code was.

“Don’t tell another soul,” Celestia said mock-seriously.

When Twilight walked out of the antechamber, she looked all around her, seeing the magical threads linking Celestia to all of the doctors and nurses walking around not just this floor of the hospital, but all of the others. Not to mention all of the ponies in this large city. This...this was way too complex, even for her enormous intellect. “You know what?” she said with a touch of awe. “I have been a bit self-centered. There’s no way this can be a fantasy, so I really must be inhabiting the body of my counterpart in an alternate universe.” Twilight then remembered herself, and traced the cord. “It...goes to the basement of that building over there.”

“That’s the School,” said Raven.

“Where did you come from?” asked Twilight.

Raven frowned. “I was right over there,” she said, pointing.

“No you weren’t.”

Raven decided to change the subject. “Please don’t say it came from the mirror.”

Twilight looked at the cord again. “It did come from the mirror.”

By this time Twilight’s other visitors had exited Waiting Room 25 to stand in the hallway in front of Twilight’s room.

“You know,” Twilight said, rubbing her chin with a hoof. “If I focus just right, I can see your thoughts! This is so perfect! Now there will be nothing between me and knowing absolutely everything!” She turned a predatory, crazy-eyed stare on Shining Armor. “I think I’ll start with you, Brother. You keep ever so many secrets from me!”

Shining backed away in fear. Bumping into his mother and the basket she was carrying, he reached down, picked up the baby dragon, and presented it to Twilight. The creature opened its eyes and made a sort of mewing sound.

“Oh, that’s so cute!” Twilight exclaimed, snapped out of her mania.

“It’s a baby dragon,” Shining told her.

“Really? Can I hold it?”

Shining handed the creature over.

Twilight sat down so she could hold the dragon in her forehooves. “Aren’t you the cutest thing?” she asked it in a babying voice. “Do you have a name? Because if you don’t, I’m going to call you Spike. We’ll go on adventures together...” She thought for a bit. “OK, since I’m fifteen, replace ‘adventures’ with ‘study the universe’. And on second thought...” She handed the dragon back. “I think I need to take a nap.” And then she collapsed.


P. Celestia.

A couple of nurses converged to pick up Twilight’s unconscious form and take her back into her room.

“This Twilight scares me,” Trixie remarked.

Night Light sighed. “She is recognizably Twilight Sparkle, just turned up to fifty on a ten-point scale.” He looked over at his wife. “Is this what we have to look forward to in five years?”

“Shouldn’t you be harsher than that?” Trixie asked. “She was threatening to pull all the thoughts out of our heads!”

“Twily has a love-hate relationship with secrets,” Shining explained.

“She loves having lots of them herself, and hates anypony else having any whatsoever?” Trixie quipped.

“Yeah,” Shining admitted. “But she’s going to be so apologetic when she wakes up.”

Trixie looked sadly at the ground. “Yeah, I’ve seen that myself.”

Celestia turned to the two doctors. “Was Twilight on sedation?” Celestia asked them. “She mentioned something about that just now.”

“Yes, as a matter of fact she was,” Doctor Totter replied. “It’s an experimental blend designed to be used long-term for ponies with magical sensitivity.”

“Please discontinue that regimen, and put a note on her permanent record never to have it administered to her again. With any luck, that compound will turn out to be the key to her strange power,” Celestia replied. “The privacy of the ponies of Equestria would not be safe if either her or the pony Twilight ever came into contact with it, ever again.”

Celestia then looked in the direction Twilight had pointed—the location of the School of Magic’s basement. “We have the clue we need to find the source of Twilight’s problem,” she explained, keeping her words deliberately vague in the presence of so many witnesses. “We’ll get back to you as soon as we know more.” To the doctors she said, “you might as well keep her in the magic-proof room. I should have that ‘blocking condition’ I mentioned removed within the next twenty-four hours.”

“Do you have to remove it?” Dr. Teeter asked. “If she can heal her horn naturally, without having to be isolated from her family or separated from her intended instruction at the School, she would be much happier. And her horn would heal 100%, something I cannot guarantee for a unicorn with a normal thaumic system.”

Celestia sighed. If this were any other pony, then she would be willing to break her centuries-long policy of non-interference with Earth, and allow the two Twilights to remain switched, so that the pony body could be cured completely, quickly and surely, and then allow the pair to switch back the next time the portal opened. But two things stood in the way: The pony Twilight was Harmony’s chosen Element of Magic. And there was no way that the two families would agree to being separated from their Twilight.

“Unfortunately, that is not possible,” Celestia answered firmly. “The long-term consequences would not be tolerable.” She looked over at her secretary. “Raven, with me.”


Celestia spent the walk to the School of Magic (once again surrounded by a ring of guards) telling Raven of Trixie’s performance during their dinner the night before, praising Trixie’s poise and cleverness. She said nothing of the recent therapy session.

“When she’s old enough I’m sure she’ll be able to take on some of your duties,” the Princess concluded as she and the guard walked into the building.

Raven stood there before the closing door in shock. “Must she give you her soul as well?” she asked herself in a whisper, before shaking her head with a start and hurrying to catch up.

Once again, the guards were left outside as Celestia and her secretary entered the basement.

Once she was face-to-face with the glowing mirror, Raven broke down. “I am so sorry,” she said quietly. “The date of the Mirror’s next activation completely slipped my mind. I was even the one who had it moved here in the first place.”

“It’s not your fault,” said Celestia. “I was the one who issued the order to move the Mirror, and I should have remembered the activation date as well. Neither of us could have anticipated that it would have reacted so negatively to Harmony magic.”

“So the other Twilight is in the human world, in possession of her counterpart,” Raven concluded, before turning to her mistress. “Let me go after her,” she said, reaching a hoof for the Mirror.

“No, Raven,” Celestia ordered. “That could be taken as a hostile act by the Church. Besides, I doubt that Twilight’s human parents would accept your explanation of why you had to ponynap her. No, I will contact my counterpart tonight in my dreams, and together we will work out the best way to perform the transfer. Besides...” (A magical beam from her swept over the mirror.) “We don’t know exactly why it malfunctioned. Maybe using the Mirror might make matters worse.”

“Worse?” Raven asked incredulously. “Even after we get the two back to their proper bodies, our future Bearer of Magic will still be unable to use her horn for years while she heals out in...in...” She couldn’t bear to say the name of the town out loud.

Mustangia’, Celestia thought sadly to herself. “You don’t have to say it.”

“It’s just...how could things possibly get any worse?!”

Celestia sighed. “Well, you asked ‘the question’,” she said. “So that means we will soon learn the answer.”