H. Trixie—Earth, Lulamoon residence. Late morning of Day Four.
Taped to the front door of Trixie Lulamoon’s room was a reproduction of a poster advertising Nineteenth-Century stage magician Alexander Hermann. Under a lightning-writ heading of “HERMANN THE GREAT” stood the mustached- and bearded performer, dressed as Mephistopheles, all in red on the stage. He pointed a glowing sword at a large basket, from which emerged two venomous snakes. Flying above the basket were two imps, playing cymbals and a horn. Other monsters gathered around the magician, one of them sitting on the severed head of a giant. The audience was made up of dragons and demons.
Hoofdini the escape artist was the magician that Trixie the Pony most wished to emulate. Hermann the devil and monster-conjurer was Trixie the Human’s model.
Standing nervously before the door was Trixie’s mother, the legal assistant Catherine “Cat” Lulamoon—forever an outsider as a lapsed Catholic in Markist Canterlot. She was the counterpart of Pony Trixie’s mother Spectacle, but since she was not born a Markist and never converted, she did not get Spectacle’s colors, her name, or her mark. She did share Spectacle’s talent for organization, though.
Cat Lulamoon knew that her daughter was in a particularly foul mood, and that any conversation with the girl in this state would only lead to an ugly shouting match over the price of sugar, or something equally ridiculous. But Trixie had been stonewalling her for three days now over the reason why finally getting her mark in magic was so emotionally devastating for her. And this latest development...it had to be addressed. So with a resigned sigh she knocked. “Trixie?” she called out.
“Beep! Trixie, otherwise known as The Great and Powerful, is not available this weekend. Please come back on Monday morning. Beep!”
So at least she was retaining her sense of humor.
“I’m coming in!” Cat warned. After a moment, she opened the door.
The inside of the bedroom was mostly dark, except for the power-light glow of multiple pieces of electronics. Not just the expected pieces, but also a host of unidentifiable and partially-disassembled items as well. Trixie was buried under the blankets in the bed at the far end of the room.
“I just got an invitation to go to the Church of the Goddess in an hour, for a ‘debriefing’,” Cat told her.
“Oh,” said the voice under the blankets. “Trixie should have expected that.”
“It was hand-delivered, Trixie. By the Markist Archbishop of Baltimore!”
“Baltimare,” Trixie’s voice corrected. “It’s ‘Baltimare’ in Markist contexts. And you should definitely go. There’s a lot you need to hear.”
“Why can’t I hear it from you?” Cat asked quietly.
“Because you wouldn’t believe Trixie!” the voice snarled from the bed. “No sane person would believe what’s been happening over the past three days. I’ve been waiting for the day when you’d turn your back on Trixie, betray Trixie like her mother betrayed her!”
A stunned Catherine said nothing.
“So go,” the voice concluded bitterly. “Hear the truth from someone you have no choice but to believe. And then, when Trixie is less...‘Trixie’...we can talk.”
As Trixie’s mother tried to formulate a response, the kitchen telephone rang. There were actually several land line telephones in the house, but only the kitchen one had the ringer turned on. Cat therefore walked over to the white trimline telephone sitting on Trixie’s nightstand and answered it.
“Hello? ... No, this is her mother. Who is this? ... Trixie is not feeling well right now. ... Oh. Well...I...” Cat put a hand over the mic and looked helplessly at her daughter.
Trixie’s eyes had slowly emerged from under the sheets during the conversation, staring fixedly at the phone. Her hair was an absolute mess, and her skin was pale. “It’s Twilight Sparkle, isn’t it?” she asked in a dull voice.
“Yes,” said Cat. “She says she needs you at Sugarcube Corner at noon for ‘emotional support’. Do you know her? I...I mean I barely know who she is, and I thought Canterlot High and Crystal Prep students never mingled.”
“She knows Trixie. Trixie doesn’t know her,” Trixie said. “And yes, Trixie knows how odd that sounds.” She leaned back her head to rest on the back wall, looking up at the ceiling as she thought. She could be seen to be wearing a white nightgown adorned with stars and comets. “Trixie will go,” she said at last. “However, Trixie will be late. Because Trixie without Applejack would be the exact opposite of what Twilight is hoping to get out of Trixie’s presence.”
“Applejack will be there?” Cat asked with enthusiasm. “I...I mean, at least that means that your best friend will be there,” she quickly back-tracked. One of Trixie’s favorite accusations to throw at her mother in arguments was the assertion that Cat would much prefer Applejack to Trixie to be her daughter.
Trixie waved a blue hand dismissively, not bothering to rise to the temptation.
# # #
A few minutes later a figure in a purple cloak strode confidently down the street, passing the four people waiting for the bus to stand at the head of line. With a toss of her head, she flipped the hood of the cloak down, revealing herself to be Trixie. “Worry not, poor citizens!” she proclaimed. “For the premiere entertainer of the age is here to lift your troubled hearts with her feats of legendary renown!”
The passengers groaned in unison. This was not their first performance.
Trixie rolled her eyes. “Then I will make this short. Bus of transit, I order you to appear!” She raised one hand into the air, made sure she had everyone’s attention, and then snapped her fingers.
The bus turned the corner at that very moment, stopping right in front of Trixie and opening the door.
Her audience gave her an unenthusiastic round of applause, then boarded the bus while she was repeatedly bowing.
With her nose in the air, Trixie boarded the bus, ran her pass through the reader, and then turned to the woman in the front seat. “Driver!” she ordered. “Take me to Sugarcube Corner!”
The driver glanced over at the large sign listing the stops. “After the library,” she told Trixie.
Trixie paused dramatically, before saying, “Trixie magnanimously allows the diversion. Just this once.”
One of the passengers made to stand up and call out Trixie for delaying everyone, but was pulled down by her partner. “Don’t,” she ordered in a whisper. “I tried that once, and the bus was delayed another half hour while she debated every single passenger from the door.”
The woman shook her head. “Somebody needs to stand up to that brat someday.”
H. Celestia—Outside Sugarcube Corner. Noon.
Principal Celestia waited on a bench outside Sugarcube Corner. She had greeted each of the students who had decided to meet here as they walked into the building. The last of them was Twilight Sparkle.
Twilight stood nervously before the Principal, playing with the hem of her dress with the fingers of one hand.
“Welcome, Twilight,” Celestia said with a welcoming smile.
Twilight winced for a moment, the voice invoking the Princess far more than the sight. “H...hi,” she said. “Is Trixie here yet?”
“Was she supposed to be?”
“Yes. Sunset called me and said that...that the Princess wanted her to be here. And...and I want her to be here. So I invited her, with my communication artifact.”
“It’s called a cell phone, Twilight.”
“I know. I just get nervous around royalty. I mean! Around you. Sorry.”
“It’s all right, Twilight,” Celestia said soothingly. “It will take you a few days to adjust. But in answer to your question, Trixie is not here. Would you like me to call her as well?”
“No. She said she was going to be late. I just thought...never mind what I thought.” Twilight peered into the open door of the building.
“Everyone else is here, Twilight. I’m waiting for Sunset Shimmer.”
Twilight looked around her nervously, hoping not to see Sunset anywhere near her. “I’m a little bit scared of her.”
“And why is that?” Celestia asked. “Is it her face?”
“No, it’s not her face. All of you humans look scary to me...um, no offense...it’s the tiny, in-front eyes. It’s because she was the Princess’ personal student. Her first in over two hundred years. And then, the day after she betrayed the Princess, the Princess made me her personal student. That should have made her mad.”
“I’ll make sure nothing happens, Twilight. And afterwards, I’ll have a talk with her, and let you know where you stand with her.”
Most of the trembling left Twilight’s frame with that statement. “You can do that?”
“I am her principal, Twilight. It’s not like being a princess, but it counts for something.”
“O...OK,” she said. “I’m going in now.”
“I’ll see you, and the others, when Sunset arrives.”
“OK,” Twilight repeated. Then, after taking a deep breath to gather her nerves, she walked into the diner.
A few seconds later, a taxi dropped off an infuriated Sunset Shimmer.
For a moment, Celestia feared that there would indeed be a heated confrontation between the two students of the Princess, but then Sunset shoved her magic book into Celestia’s stomach.
“I need you to read this,” Sunset said. She opened the book to the latest written page and pointed at one particular paragraph.
Celestia noticed that the page had plenty of notes written in the Princesses’ horn-writing, each addressed to a different individual. She read the one addressed to Sunset: Hopefully, you’ve had a night to come down from your initial bout of irrational anger after learning what I did for your own good. Actually, I’m somewhat surprised you didn’t see through my ploy. After all, you are a genius, as you’ve told me on frequent occasions. Oh well. Live and learn.
“Can you believe this?” Sunset asked Principal Celestia. “She wasn’t satisfied to take away my special ability, she has the nerve to rub it in! And not even a trace of an apology. The Princess apologizes to every last mad unicorn who destroys themselves trying to overthrow her, and she can’t spare an ‘I’m sorry’ for the student who did so much for her?!”
Celestia sighed in deep disappointment of her counterpart. “She’s sorry, Sunset, I’m absolutely certain of that. Her pride won’t let her say it though.”
“Oh I know,” countered Sunset. “She’ll probably get around to apologizing in full...two hundred years after I’m dead! And...she taught me the spell! She actually taught me the switching spell as if I’d ever have the opportunity to cast it! Uh, I hate her!” She calmed herself down with a visible effort. “But not you.”
“I’m glad you see me as someone separate from her,” Principal Celestia said.
Sunset smiled. “I do. And frankly, I give all the credit for the positive difference to your sister.”
Celestia frowned. “I’ll be sure to let her know.” She looked over the other notes. “I’m going to have to read each of these to the girls inside. If you don’t have anything better to do, I’d like you to read this one when the time comes.”
Sunset leaned over to look at the passage that the Principal was indicating. “Oh yeah, that one. It would be my pleasure.”
Seven humans and two ponies—Inside Sugarcube Corner.
Twilight walked cautiously into the building. She looked around her at the booths with talking and laughing humans in them, one arm hanging down at her side, and the other anxiously gripping it at the elbow.
“Twilight!” the voice of Rainbow Dash called. “We’re over here!”
Twilight blinked, then walked quietly to the table closest to the counter, where five teenagers sat around a couple open boxes of pizza.
“Do they have pizza in Equestria?” Rainbow asked. “I don’t remember seeing any.”
“Well if they don’t, our counterparts are probably about to ‘invent’ it,” said Pinkie Pie around a slice of cheese pizza.
“We have pizza,” Twilight replied. After a moment, she changed her statement. “They. They have pizza. I’m a human now.”
Fluttershy quietly gestured for Twilight to sit beside her and Rainbow Dash. She gave the newcomer a small reassuring smile when she did so. “We’re here for you,” Fluttershy told Twilight as she passed over a paper plate. “That’s what this meeting is all about.”
Twilight smiled, nodded, and pulled a slice of veggie pizza into the paper plate. Rainbow Dash poured out some generic diet soda into a paper cup and passed it over. “Soda pop too?” she asked.
“Soda pop too,” Twilight replied. Staring at the cup, she made it lift into the air with her magic and float towards her, where she took a sip. With a cough, she put it down. “Not this flavor, though.”
“Are we all present?” Principal Celestia said, walking up to the table. (An unnoticed Sunset Shimmer slipped into a booth within sight of the others. She pulled her hoodie tight around her face.) Celestia surveyed the group. “Twilight,” she said, “I encourage you to use your hands instead of magic whenever possible. Both because we’re in a public place, and because you only have so much magic left.”
Nodding, Twilight used both hands to pick up the slice of New York-style pizza and fold in half like a pro. “Actually, I’ve got a ridiculous quantity of mana stored within me. Maybe I’ll figure out how to give some of it to you.”
“I never got any,” Applejack said with a shrug, pushing her grease-stained plate aside. “A pity. I would have liked to see what earth pony magic was capable of.” She turned to her left to address Pinkie Pie. “You didn’t get any magic either, right?”
“No,” Pinkie said with a frown. The others thought it was because she too was deprived of a chance to use earth pony magic, but the real reason is that she had just lost her excuse to pretend to have earth pony magic.
“Was Trixie going to be here?” Fluttershy asked Celestia.
“She’s going to be late,” Twilight said.
Suddenly there was a puff of acrid purple smoke at the entrance of the diner.
“Behold! The Great...and Powerful...Trixie...has arrived!” For the first time in several days, the pauses were for drama as opposed to because the young woman had run herself breathless trying to catch a bus. Her hood was lowered and the cloak was parted, revealing the long-sleeve blue blouse, vest and skirt underneath. The top of the cloak was still held together by a large silver brooch depicting Trixie’s mark. A purple star-shaped golden pin held the side of her neatly-fashioned hair up. Her skin was pale, and her pupils were somewhat dilated. Seeing Celestia, Trixie strode over, nose in the air, and making sure the sound of her boot heels striking the floor with each step were clearly heard. “Shall Trixie put on a command performance for the Goddess Herself?” she asked eagerly.
Celestia looked about nervously, but it soon became clear to her that nobody was taking Trixie seriously. “I’m not that Celestia,” she whispered. She gave Applejack a significant glance, who in turn looked over at Rarity beside her and jerked her head towards the other side of the table.
Rarity responded to the cue, getting up, crossing in front of Celestia, and sitting on the other side of Twilight. “I hope you don’t mind, Twilight,” she said as she did so.
“Come sit next to me, Trixie,” Applejack then said. “We’ve saved some lunch for you.”
“Ah!” Trixie exclaimed as she sat. “My stunningly-beautiful assistant Applejack! Trixie accepts her offer of hospitality.”
Twilight Sparkle leaned forward to examine Applejack, in order to figure out human standards of beauty.
Rarity found something to do with her hands. (She had actually sat next to Applejack earlier so she’d have an excuse not to stare into those bottomless green eyes for the next couple of hours.)
“So, how should we begin?” asked Celestia.
“Trixie will begin, of course! Now...what are we doing?”
“Alright,” said Celestia with a smile. “Trixie, please tell us about your relationship with Equestria.”
Trixie froze. “Oh. Is that what we’re talking about: origin stories?” She looked over at Applejack with a touch of uncertainty.
“You’ve got this, sis,” Applejack said reassuringly.
“It’s time, isn’t it?” she asked Applejack, then took in a big breath. “In her frightening and uncertain infancy, the future legend that would one day be known as the Great and Powerful Trixie discovered that she had a great gift: in her dreams she could speak with a magical unicorn also known as Trixie.” Her eyes lost focus. “A...pure...and innocent little mare.” She sighed. “But Trixie didn’t care about that. Trixie was hurting, Trixie’s father had abandoned her, and this other Trixie had the nerve to be happy! It wasn’t fair! And so Trixie punished the foolish little pony. Over. And over. And over again. Because she wasn’t real.”
Trixie gritted her teeth more and more as she forced herself to continue. “Only...the unicorn acted like a poor innocent soul being abused. And after she had been damaged enough, she started to fight back. And then...this pony lost her magic, the one thing she loved more than anything, because it connected her to her father.” (Twilight looked away, biting a knuckle.) “Connected her to her father who she still loved despite being just as worthless as Trixie’s father! And Pony Trixie’s mother... Pony Trixie’s mother, who received nothing but lies from Pony Trixie because that’s what she learned from Human Trixie’s lies and abuse... Pony Trixie’s mother sided with the bullies, and told Pony Trixie that she was responsible for losing her own magic. She...and Pony Twilight Sparkle. And...Pony Trixie broke.”
Twilight sniffled. The others were silent, taking this all in.
“I...she never told me...” Twilight whispered to herself.
Applejack reached out and took Trixie’s hand.
The magician continued. “And Trixie...” She gripped her face with her free hand. “And...I saw what I had done. And it broke me, too. I pulled her into every dream after that, and held her while she cried and cried. And after that, I put together what I had broken. Time was going so fast for her, and so slowly for me.” (Trixie herself was speaking faster and faster.) “I spent my days fearfully wondering what I might see the next night, if she might suddenly be a cold and evil adult, if I had turned this pure and perfect pony into a mirror of my father. That’s when the third-person stuff turned into an excuse, at least with me: it was Trixie who was to blame for all of those awful things, while I was the one who was against the abuse from the start.” She looked up at the others, her eyes shining clearer through her tears than they had ever seen from her. “I never managed to completely convince myself. As for my waking nightmare, I wasn’t too late, and I saved my pony counterpart. And along the way, she saved me, too. I stopped being Applejack’s horrible sister. I came back to my mother, and now I could be there for her when she needed me.” She closed her eyes, her chin sinking into her chest. “Trixie got better, but she will never be perfect, and neither will that pony. That...‘imaginary’ pony.
“There was one thing that Trixie feared, an inevitable occurrence that would make her imaginary crime into a real one. For Pony Trixie had her mark, and Human Trixie knew what it was. And no human knew their mark before they got it. If Human Trixie should go to the Church and get the exact same mark, that meant that Equestria was real, that Pony Trixie was real. And that meant that Human Trixie was a monster. A recovering monster, but a monster nonetheless.”
She looked up at the waiting faces. “All of you have been on incredible adventures in Equestria over the past three days. Seen and done things that I will never see or do. All I did was get my mark, and lend the Princess my pip boy.”
“Actually she still has it,” Celestia told Trixie.
“Trixie, could you tell us what happened in the Church?” Applejack asked. “I was switched right after you left the truck. And if you talked to Father Gnosi or Mother Meridiem, neither of them are here anymore to tell the story.”
Trixie took a few moments to examine her nails. “Alright,” she said finally. “I went in there, and asked for Father Gnosi to make a confession to. After swearing him to secrecy, I told him I knew most of the details of the Ceremony, and asked if the hay smoke was to bring the human and the Perfect World counterpart closer together, to pass over the knowledge of the mark, and he said yes. I told him I couldn’t go through with it, because if my counterpart and I were put any closer together, we’d merge into a pony-human monstrosity. In response to me saying ‘pony’ he brought over a blank plate. I grabbed it, and the mark I expected appeared.
“I became an emotional mess after that, and I’m honestly not sure how much he was able to understand out of my blubbering. I reconciled with Pony Trixie that night, kept her from telling me some really important news that she wanted to tell me, and left her wondering if maybe I was real. I went back to Father Gnosi the next day to catch him up, and saw Rarity on the way out.” On seeing Rarity’s expression she added, “Pony Rarity. She wasn’t doing a very good job of covering up her true nature. I figured everything out by the end of that day. And when Pony Trixie told me about her friend Twilight being switched, I decided to run over to the school first thing to try and help everybody out. But I woke up late, and was late to the bus, and got rushed to my class by Cheerilee the second I arrived. And so I didn’t get to help until the Principal called for me.
“And that is Trixie’s story.” Her face twitched violently. “Trixie’s unforgivable story.”
Fluttershy reached forward to take the hand that Applejack was no longer holding. “I forgive you, Trixie.”
Trixie jerked back the hand. “Trixie...” she started sharply, but then stopped herself. “Trixie doesn’t need your pity.”
“Then will you take my kindness?”
Trixie put on a sad little smile. “Yeah,” she said. “Trixie would like that.” She winced. “But I’m having a mini-withdrawal headache right now.” Leaning back, she pulled the cloak of her hood up and over her face. “If you don’t mind, Trixie would rather not talk to anyone anymore.”
“You don’t have to talk,” said Celestia. “But I hope you will listen to the words that Princess Celestia wrote to me this morning.” She gestured to Sunset Shimmer, who had walked over while Trixie was talking.
Positioning herself so that Celestia’s body blocked her face from the others, Sunset opened her Zero-X book, and read the words in a mild impersonation of the Princess’ “I’m not mad; I’m just disappointed” speech pattern: “‘Trixie, your counterpart has told me what you did to her, and what happened afterwards. To be honest, I’m not surprised: I’ve had the unfortunate opportunity to see the worst of human behavior over the centuries since our two worlds became linked together. In lashing out at your pony self, you displayed the raw petty nature your species evolved from.
“‘But in what you did afterwards, you demonstrated your dedication to rise above your nature, the desire to remake your sad world into your dream instead of your nightmare. The pony Trixie will never be the pony she could have been without your actions. No, she is better, smarter, more empathetic. A pony dedicated to ensuring that no pony suffers as she suffered even before you first brought her into your dreams. You turned my Trixie from a potential bane into a benefit. I have more than enough Pot Shots in Equestria. Thank you for giving me a Trixie the Compassionate, Trixie the Clever, in the best sense of that word: clever in service to Equestria instead of at its expense; a Trixie as worthy of the title of Clever as Clover ever was.”
As Sunset had been speaking, Trixie had allowed her hood to gradually open, revealing her tear-stained face. At hearing the comparison to Clover, Trixie quietly keened in happiness.
(On Earth, Clover the Clever was the court astronomer for English monarch Blue Belle I, now known as Elizabeth I. Clover was a man, like Starswirl the Bearded a generation later, who had one foot in the world of Medieval magic, and the other in the realm of Renaissance science. Clover created the discipline of stage magic, so as to disguise one’s real magical abilities from one’s enemies, both mortal and supernatural. And at the time of his death in 1609 he was convinced that his use of stage magic was essential to stopping the conquest of Earth by the forces of Tirek in a titanic magical battle in Prague in 1585.)
“Alright,” Celestia said after allowing Trixie a few moments. “Sunset, you go next.”
Sunset drew herself up into an approximation of a military attention stance. “I’m a unicorn pony,” she told the others simply. “Twenty-five years of age. Personal student of Princess Celestia, and the most brilliant spellcaster of the past five hundred years.
“The Princess and I had a falling out as to my part to play in Equestria. When our relationship reached the breaking point, I decided to spend a few days on the other side of the mirror portal. I am the reason why you all were swapped into pony bodies and were nearly trapped in Equestria. It was the direct result of my use of the mirror. I have done a great many things that I’ve been told I should feel guilty over. That is the only one where I do indeed feel guilty.”
The girls looked at each other.
“So you knew that the Lensmare Effect would apply, and you used the mirror anyway?” Twilight asked. “That’s what caused the mirror to go screwy when she...and later I...passed through it from Earth to Equestria while still possessing our magic.”
“Well...no, because I had no idea that this world would be nearly completely lacking in magic.”
“How could you have found out?” Twilight asked.
“I could have asked the Princess.”
“But you were running away from her,” said Rarity.
“I don’t think she’s guilty,” said Twilight. “In fact, you made me feel a lot better, because I thought my using the free magic is what caused all of this.”
The others nodded. “We don’t blame you, Sunset,” Applejack said, speaking for all of them. “Although that doesn’t get you off the hook for anything else you did.”
Sunset frowned. “I’m still not exactly sure what happened. Unlike the switched ponies, I could no longer access my magic when I became human.”
Twilight motioned for Rarity to get up so she could as well. She walked behind Celestia to directly face Sunset. “And now you never will, because you can never go back,” she told her. “That’s what I overheard from your conversation with the Princess.” She looked aside, her eyes wide. “She made a mistake,” she was heard to whisper. “The Princess made a mistake.” She looked up once again at Sunset. “You don’t deserve this,” she said firmly. “A student of Princess Celestia doesn’t deserve to lose her magic. And you don’t deserve...that.” She pointed over at Rarity, who had cringed on taking a peek at Sunset. “You’re in a new world, you should be able to start over. It’s what I want for myself. Come down here.” She gestured for Sunset to kneel.
Confused, Sunset did as she was told. “I’m not asking for help,” she said, a quavering voice trying to maintain her pride. “I never ask for help.”
“Well, too bad, because you’re getting it,” Twilight said. She raised two glowing hands and passed them over Sunset’s face. “There. Now you’re like me.” She took out her cell phone and used it to show Sunset her restored human face.
“H...how?” asked a stunned Sunset. “You just got your mark! And you only saw the spell being cast once.”
“And it’s a good thing I did see it,” a smiling Twilight told her. “That’s my special talent, Sunset: the ability to understand any spell I see being cast. I’ll give you half of my magic, and we can cast spells together.”
“I...I don’t...I don’t understand,” Sunset forced out around her tears. “Is it because you’re lonely? It’s got to be that, because if you think you can get anything useful out of my previous rank you can forget it. Or maybe it’s so you can see my spells? It’s the natural role of the strong to exploit the weak.”
Twilight shook her head. “Sunset for a student of Harmony, you’ve got a lot to learn. I didn’t help you for any of those reasons. I did it because you’re a bully. And so was I.
“I was so full of myself because I was smarter than anypony else in my class, and so much better at levitation than them. I was insufferable. And that’s why those jocks teamed up on me after class to cut my horn.”
“It may explain it, but it doesn’t excuse it,” commented Celestia.
“Trixie stood up for me. A pony I mocked all the time because her brags never measured up to her abilities. She stood up for me, and it cost her her magic. Forever. I just paid that forward to you, Sunset. And all I ask for in return is your friendship. Not power over you.”
“I...I...what? You just want my friendship? But... It’s just...Alright, you have it,” Sunset said, flabbergasted, as she sat down on the ground. “I’ll consider you my first friend. Oh and while I’m at it? I was the one who gave your brother Shining Armor magical tinnitus.”
“I forgive you,” said Twilight. Looking at the stunned looks of the others she said, “He got over it quickly.”
Trixie meanwhile was very quiet, taking this in. Pony Trixie’s story to her about how she and Twilight had become friends was now revealed to have been full of very significant holes.
Celestia smiled at seeing how all this had resolved. “Who wants to go next?” she asked, as Sunset pulled up a chair to be fully a part of this group, and Twilight and Rarity got back into their seats. Trixie passed Sunset a paper plate with a slice of cheese pizza on it, which she placed on top of her closed magic book.
Rarity looked over at Pinkie. “How about you, Pinkie?” she suggested.
“There’s not much to tell,” Pinkie said simply. “I ended up on a rock farm, which is not too different from my family’s business if you first think about it and then apply Equestrian magic to that thing you just thought of. Princess Celestia’s assistant found me at the start of the third day, the Pony Maud and I took a train to Canterlot, and then I waited until my chance to be switched.”
“No,” said Rarity simply. “I mean the other part. The part about Pinkamena.”
“Oh,” said Pinkie, her curls deflating somewhat. “That part. There was...” She looked off in the distance, gathering her thoughts. (Or perhaps having a lengthy internal conversation.) She looked down at her fingertip as she continued, as it looped around and around the surface of the table like a figure skater. “There was a way I used to look at the world, turning everything I saw and experienced as proof of my own worthlessness. I was unfitted for the family business and the family stood outside Markist society, so that made me a mistake. Wednesday morning, at 2:43 p.m., I reached the end of that line of thought. And I decided that I didn’t like where that line led. So I decided to flip that line on its head.” She looked back up with a wan smile. “Instead of making it all about me, I’d make it all about everybody else. So many people were sad for reasons so much more real than mine. I couldn’t fix their problems permanently, but I could make them happy. And if I could do that, if only for a little while, then that would give them the time to turn themselves around. After that thought, everything changed about me. I put everything I associated with ‘Pinkamena’ away, I became a different person. And that person is named ‘Pinkie Pie’.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t see it sooner,” said Rarity.
“Don’t blame yourself,” said Pinkie. “I was really good at not being noticed.”
(In a dark corner of the diner, a lone young woman, green-skinned and darker-green-haired, sat and ate her slice of grasshopper pie. She contemplated just getting up and not paying the bill. After all, it’s not like anybody would notice one way or the other.)
“I’ll go next,” said Applejack. “The pony Applejack had gone to Manehattan to deal with her grief over losing her parents.” She looked over at the Crystal Prep students. “They’re not dead in this world. I headed back to Ponyville, faced off against the wolves responsible for their deaths in Equestria and forgave them, then traveled with Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie to Canterlot. I switched back, and reunited with my family.” She said this all very simply, keeping her emotions off by force of will. “And that’s all that needs to be said about that,” she concluded.
Rarity next entertained the group with her elaborate tale, with Pinkie commenting that “the plot sounded pretty familiar”, followed by Rainbow Dash narrating for both herself and Fluttershy. “Dean Cadance told us last night that she’ll fast-track our transfer to Canterlot High. We technically won’t start until Wednesday, but we’ll be auditing classes until then.”
“We’ll be sure to give you a fond welcome,” said Rarity.
“‘Fond welcome’?” asked Pinkie Pie. “You’ll be getting a party! I’ll have everything arranged in the cafeteria by lunch on Monday, you can count on it!”
“We look forward to it,” said Fluttershy.
Celestia turned to the only student not to speak; at least, not to the group. “Alright, Twilight, it’s your turn,” she prodded.
Twilight sighed, looking down as she took one hand in the other. “I was taking the entrance exam for Princess Celestia’s School of Magic,” she told her hands. “And I cheated, for the first time in my entire life. That’s how I broke my horn.” She looked up at Sunset. “Even if you did get us all switched, I was the one who made it so I have to live on another world until that mirror opens up again.”
Celestia reached out and took the magic book away from Sunset. “Actually, your princess had another message, which she wished me to convey to you personally: ‘Twilight, I failed to communicate something very important to you on the day you first left Equestria for Earth. The test ended when you told me what you would do in the situation. When you decided to try out your abilities, the restriction not to rely on outside help no longer applied. In fact, that ‘outside help’ rule was not applied to any other student other than you. I just wanted to see what you could do without your parents’ help. I’m sorry that my arbitrary use and silent dismissal of that rule had such tragic consequences to you. I know that the next thirty moons will be hard ones for you on Earth, but I am confident that you will find happiness anyway, for you are not alone. As you hear these words, you are surrounded by those that you don’t have to keep any secrets from, and who will gladly be your friends if you’ll let them.’ Will you let them, Twilight? Will you agree to have more friends than just Sunset?”
“If...if you’ll have this filly in a too-old human body,” answered Twilight. “I know I can be oblivious most of the time, and annoying some of the time... And I used to be a bully. Also, my counterpart kind of scares me, and that’s what I might turn into... So I—”
Rarity opened her mouth to speak.
“Me!” Pinkie said, speaking over Rarity. “I want to be your friend.”
“And I,” said Rarity. “I would love to be your friend.”
“Here, here!” proclaimed Applejack.
Trixie allowed her eyes to emerge from the gloom inside her hood. “You realize that I’m not your Trixie,” she said. “Our friendship would be completely different.”
“OK,” said Twilight. She looked around her at the two who hadn’t spoken up yet, uncertainty in her eyes.
“...I think we would have a lot to share with each other,” said Fluttershy.
“I can take you flying, if you’d like,” offered Rainbow Dash.
Celestia consulted another part of the same page of Sunset’s journal. “About that,” she told them, closing the book. “The pony Rarity and human Gnosi Augur developed a theory that all of your magical abilities would diminish over time, regardless of whether you used them or not. You would end up like you were before you visited Equestria. The Archbishop and I have agreed that every one of you are now to be considered Initiates in the Markist religion. You already know about our most-guarded secret: the existence of Equestria. And so we will give you access to the Solarium, a building that allows all Markists to completely manifest the abilities of their pony counterparts.”
Trixie’s hood dropped. Her once-flushed skin was back to normal, as were her once-dilated eyes. “What?” she asked in a whisper to rival Fluttershy’s.
Applejack turned to her, beaming. “You can use your magic, Trixie. Your Equestrian magic. Just like you always dreamed.”
Trixie broke out into tears of joy. “Come here!” she cried, reaching out to the other teenagers (and one appearing-to-be-a-teenager). “I love all of you!” They leaned forward so she could pull them all into a group hug.
Sunset watched all of this, feeling uncertain. For her entire life, she had considered friendship a crutch for lesser beings. Princess Celestia had no friends, after all, Sunset knew. Princess Celestia was secretly miserable, Sunset also knew. Princess Cadance wasn’t miserable, but she was new to being a princess. Sunset had thought that misery was simply the cost of power. And after all, Sunset hadn’t been happy since the day when she stopped being Celestia’s adopted daughter, and started being her star student.
But now, Sunset was powerless. Despite Twilight lifting her curse, she’d never be able to return to Equestria as long as its Princess hated her. She was still trapped on Earth. Sunset would never be a princess of Earth. She’d never rule. And, if she was powerless, if she was normal now, then maybe...
“Am I included in that offer?” she asked in a small voice.
“You are,” Celestia told her. “But I remind you, all of you, that your powers will only be available to you in the Solarium. They will not be a part of your daily life. You will have to define yourself without them. This adventure gave you your marks, they may have changed your perspective and made you new friends, but they didn’t give you superpowers. Not in the long term. Sunset, it’s a pretty small building, and you’ll probably only be able to use it for an hour per day at the most. Are you willing to put up with being around these other students for the chance to use your magic? Would you consider being their friend, as well as Twilight’s?”
Sunset thought about the prospect of only using her magic, her reason for existence, in a small building for an hour a day. During her feverish research of the past three days, Sunset had learned that most humans didn’t even have cutie marks. They went through their lives unburdened by a terrible purpose. And Sunset...maybe she could live with that. “With our age differences, me being your friend is about as weird as Twilight being your friend,” she said. “But I still think of myself as a student. When it comes to friendship, I’m a screw up...”
“Me too!” chimed in Trixie with a wide smile.
“Me three!” added Twilight.
“But...I wouldn’t mind it.”
She looked out at the welcoming smiles of the others.
T H E _ E N D