Un-Conscious Motion
Warm, so warm...
Where am I?
Why...?
What's going on?
Everything...
What? Why is everything so...dark?
...turns..ash...ash...to ash...turns to...
Twil...sh...time to wake up...
*****
Twilight slowly opened her eyes. A pair of vermillion eyes stared back. She jerked up, hitting Rainbow accidently.
"Ow!" Rainbow Dash clutched her forehead. "Hey Ash, she awake."
...turns...to...
Twilight closed her eyes and shook her head. She groaned as she removed the blanket draped over her and sat up. A wave a nausea rolled over her, forcing her back down.
"Don't move. Try to relax."
Twilight looked up. A young man stood over her. Despite his age, messy white hair stuck out at odd areas. His brown eyes were filled with both concern and fear.
Why did he look so similar?
The man knelt next to her. "Do you know who you are?"
"Uh, Ash?"
The youth silenced the cerulean Pegasus with a shush. Ignoring her glares, he repeated the question: "Do you know who you are?"
"Ye-wait." Twilight grit her teeth and clutched her head. "Nnh, I...I..."
"Take your time," the white-haired man said patiently.
"Twilight...Twilight Sparkle!" She leapt to her feet. "That's my name, right?"
The man nodded-wait, wasn't that...
"What's going on?" Twilight sat back down. "What's wrong with me? How did I forget my own name?"
"Wait, you forgot your name?" Rainbow grabbed Twilight by the shoulders. Panic filled her voice. "What about me? Please tell me you remember me at least!"
"S-stop shaking me, R-Rainbow Dash."
The Pegasus let out a breath of relief. "Okay, it's all good, it's all good."
Ash grabbed Rainbow by the tall and pulled her off of Twilight. "Wonderful," he said. "Now go get the others. I'm sure they're just as worried as you were."
"Aw, c'mon," Rainbow Dash whined. "I'm tired. Can't it wait 'til morning?"
"Wait, what time is it?" Twilight glanced over to the clock in the corner. "Rainbow Dash, what are you doing here so early?"
"Ah, you know...just looking out for-" The rest of Rainbow's sentence was swallowed up by a yawn.
"Bed's upstairs." Ash pointed to the flight of stairs behind him with a thumb. "Twilight'll be fine. Go take a nap, then gather everyone else in the morning."
The Pegasus was in no mood to argue. "Kay...see ya in the morning," she mumbled as she dragged herself up.
"You've got a real loyal friend right there. Stayed up all night getting in my way," Ash exclaimed. The Pegasus had gotten up half of the stairs before collapsing and began to snore away. "Of course, it's a little easier when you don't have work the next day. All your other friends wanted to stay with you but, well..."
"Yeah, I understand. No really, I do," Twilight added quickly. "Applejack's got the farm, Rarity's got her shop, Fluttershy has her animals to take care of, and Pinkie Pie works at Sugar Cube Corner. I couldn't ask them to just drop everything because...what exactly happened to me anyways?"
"You blacked out at the party," Ash answered. He crossed his arms and leaned against the book shelf. He raised a hand to stop the stream of questions that stood at the tip of Twilight's tongue.
"Don't worry," he told her, closing his eyes. "I've got an explanation but I'd rather wait for everyone to be here so I can explain it to everyone once. It's complicated so I don't want to go through it anymore than I need to."
Twilight frowned. "It can't be that complicated. You could just explain it to me and I could just explain it to everypony else." Her mood brightened at the opportunity of sharing a lecture with her friends.
Without opening his eyes, Ash pointed at the chalkboard that had been pushed to the side. "If you can interpret it, be my guest. Me, I've been up all night." He covered his yawn with a hand. "Sorry but I need to get some sleep too."
Twilight got to her feet and made her way to the other side of the library. Once again the floor was a jungle to navigate through, with books and loose papers everywhere. Silently she wondered if her library would ever be restored to its former, organized state.
Spike laid beneath the blackboard, his claws white with chalk. Carefully, Twilight removed the book he used to prop his head up and replaced it with the pillow she had been using. The dragon mumbled something in his sleep. Twilight resisted the urge to cradle him; her Human size made Spike seem so much smaller and adorable.
Instead she turned to the board before her. Twilight wondered if Cheerilee would begin charging for the use of school equipment. She certainly hoped not, noticing the dozens of empty chalk boxes that littered the floor.
There was more white than black on the blackboard. A lengthy equation had covered the entire right side. Twilight recognized some of it as the oneirological monitorization/astro-self interjection, though she couldn't understand why it had the constant cubed and divided by the subject variable when the entire thing should have been squared. There were other minor differences as well but the greatest change was an additional variable with its own function at the end.
Twilight turned to the left side, hoping to discover a clue for figuring what the variation of the oneirological monitorization and astro-self interjection equation was to mean.
It was chaotic collage of unfamiliar symbols mashed together. It wasn't written in any readable fashion, with lines of code seemingly twisting from a linear format into a spiral and split off, like the rays of the sun or the petals of a flower. Those extensions would then create more petals. To make matters worse, the bottom left corner had been erased and replaced with a crude drawing of a cat and the phrase "RD = Awesum."
Twilight picked up a chalky snub and with shaky hands, corrected the error. While the quality was not ideal (heck, Rainbow's original message was better written and the Pegasus had the disadvantage of having to hold the chalk between her teeth) at least awesome was now spelled correctly. The small correction brought a small smile to Twilight's face but what comfort and satisfaction her correction brought was like a cup of water compared to the sea of frustration within her.
"What does-"
She was interrupted by a loud snore. Surprised, Twilight turned and searched for the source.
She chuckled when she found it. She had forgotten how loud Ash as a human was when he slept. He was much quieter as a pony. Perhaps it had to do with the change in anatomy.
The Mage let out another nasally roar. He had propped himself up against a bookshelf so that he stood with his head down and arms folded under it.
Twilight considered waking Ash up so that he could position himself more comfortably but choose not to. If he was this tired, it would be better if she left him alone. Strange, she had only been out for some hours, at the most ten. Twilight had seen Ash up much longer with little sign of fatigue.
Another rumble interrupted her thoughts. It didn't matter, Twilight decided. Perhaps whatever he was working on was far more taxing. If it was as complex and mind-boggling as what was written on the blackboard, he probably needed his sleep more than he was willing to admit.
Twilight yawned. It seemed like she needed a nap too, despite all her time out cold. She crawled next to her little scaly assistant and laid her head next to his. She gently stroked his head and gave Ash one last glance over her shoulder, noting how awkward position he would find himself would be when he transformed back into a pony, and soon, she too fell asleep.
*****
Rainbow Dash groaned, too tired to muster any resistance as Rarity combed and dressed her multi-colored mane.
"Heh, an' Ah thought yer hair looked bad normally," Applejack teased.
"Argh. I didn't get any sleep last night," the Pegasus griped. "Ash kept me up all night with his snoring."
"No one else is complaining," Ash said, holding an icepack to his head. A small imprint of the Unicorn's face was in the wooden floorboards in front of the bookshelf.
"Geez, I can't believe you got through the night," Rainbow said to Spike, who had been distributing cookies and miniature cakes. She was too exhausted to joke about the dragon's apron.
Spike shrugged. "Too tired to notice," he said, stretching his arms to the ceiling. He handed the Pegasus a cupcake and laid an entire tray of cookies complemented with a tea pot and cups before Rarity.
"Geez, is it just me or does the little guy give you some sort of special treatment?" Rainbow asked, too low for Spike to hear.
Rarity flipped her mane over her shoulder. "Whatever do you mean, dear?" she responded innocently.
Rainbow Dash was interrupted by a impatient groan. She turned abruptly, wincing as her hair was caught by the teeth of Rarity's comb. Her surprise grew as she discovered her source was Twilight. The Unicorn-turned-Human sat cross legged, drumming her fingers on the table in front of her. A large piece of parchment laid on the table, next to a quill and ink set.
"Can we start yet?" she asked, half pleading, half whining.
Ash shook his head. "Not until everyon-pony is here." A yawn leaked out of him as he struggled to keep a straight, focused face.
Twilight bit back another groan, instead slamming her face onto the table. The inkwell wobbled slightly, slipping a few drops of dark ink on the wood.
"Now, here's sumthin' yah don' see everyday," Applejack exclaimed. "What's got yah so revved up? Ah don' think Ah've evar saw yah so impatient before. Not even durin' cider season."
"You should see her during book season. Or exam month," Spike said, rolling his eyes. "She like this whenever she sees a learning opportunity. She once camped out in front of a lecture hall two nights in advance just because some professor was going to introduce some new theory."
"That professor happened to have had his doctorate personally presented to him by Princess Celestia herself," Twilight stated defensively. "And the Quantum Ponymer Field-Force theory was nothing new. It was a revision and revisit."
Spike rolled his eyes again. "Whatever."
A soft knock at the door drew everypony's attention to the library entrance.
"Is it-" began Rarity before the door was blasted in by a wave of confetti.
"Guess what?" Pinkie Pie asked bubbly from the side. "I got a new party cannon!"
"Didn't your old one break yesterday?" Rainbow asked.
"Yep! Just came in this morning. I was kinda worried I wouldn't be able to set up a 'Welcome-Back-from-Coma-land'' party for Twilight in time but then I found this in the mailbox and I was like, 'Yay, now I can set up a Welcome-Back-from-Coma-land party for Twilight in time'." The pink pony gave the large gun a pat, spraying the entire library with bits of colored paper and streamers. Each pony now wore a cone party hat and a large banner attached itself to the blackboard. "Oops, guess this thing has a pretty light trigger. Fluttershy?" Pinkie called over behind her. "More ammo!"
"Urgh, we just cleaned this place yesterday," groaned Spike as Fluttershy crawled in, burdened by dozens of bright bags filled to the brink of candy and decorations.
Rarity and Applejack quickly ran over to assist Fluttershy as Ash removed the banner from the blackboard. "We'll have to have the party some other time," he said, folding the large sheet and setting it to the side. "It's time to get serious."
"Aww..."
"Don't worry, dear," Rarity assured. "I'm sure you'll get the chance to try your new cannon soon. Ash must have some good news if it was so necessary for us come so urgently."
"Or bad news-ow!" Rainbow winced. "Hey, no pulling!"
"Speaking of which..." Twilight dipped her pen into the inkwell and looked up, expectantly.
"Alright, alright, I can take a hint." The grey Unicorn tossed the melted icepack aside. "Now that everypony is here, I guess I can start explaining what's up."
The chalkboard was engulfed in a grey-ish light and was slowly dragged to the center of the room. Ash sweated in concentration as he tried to minimize the painful scuffing sounds as the board scraped across the wooden floor.
At last, the board was in position. Ash took a deep breath to steady himself and began...
*****
"Alright, first off: Twilight became a Human shortly after performing a spell which allowed her to see into my dreams. We can safely assume that the two are in some way connected, correct?"
"What does that have to do with Twilight fainting in the middle of the day?" Rainbow asked as everyone else nodded, indicating their understanding.
"I'm getting there. Anyways, in addition to her change in form, Twilight began having nightmares, similar to those I've been having."
"Shoot, Twi, why didn' yah tell us?" Applejack laid a hoof on Twilight's knee.
The Unicorn-turned-Human blushed, embarrassed. "I didn't want anypony to worry," she muttered. "I guess I can understand why you kept it a secret," she said to Ash.
The grey Unicorn nodded and continued, saying, "At the time I had no idea what had happened. My first theory was that because of the unique situation, the spell Twilight performed was mutated into a transformation spell. After hearing about Twilight's visions, however, I thought of something else."
The stallion gestured to board. "This looks familiar, doesn't it Twilight?"
Recalling her observations from last night, Twilight nodded. "It looks a lot like my oneirological monitorization/astro-self interjection spell. Only, it's...different."
Ash picked up one of the texts that laid beneath the board and flipped it open. "The spell Twilight is referring to is on this page. And yes, the spell here is very similar to the spell on the board. But like Twilight said, it is different."
"Hold on," Rainbow interrupted. "I thought you couldn't read or write yet."
"Gee, thanks for bring that up."
"So how'd you create a totally new spell when you can't even read the original? Hay, I can't even read this thing."
"Two things: one, it's not totally new, it's just a bit different; and two, I can read it."
A collective gasp spread through the library.
"Wait," Pinkie said after a moment of silence, "I don't get it."
"It means he can read now," Spike explained. "Duh."
"Wrong."
"Huh?"
Ash shook his head. "I can't read Equestrian any better than a newborn foal but I'm pretty fluent in the language of magic..."
Twilight gasped. "You mean...the magic format in this world is the same as in your world?"
"Yes. Surprisingly, the lexicon is similar to my old world, though it may explain how and why I can still perform magic as a Human. This in fact..." Ash pointed at the complex formula on the right side of the board. "...is a very special, very complicated magic from my world. It allows the user to inject his or her conscious into another's." He shook his head. "I never bothered taking a look at these theoretical magic books so I didn't notice this until recently. Wish I did."
"Hold on," Applejack said. "What do yah mean, inject yer conscious?"
"The mind, or at least, an avatar or a manifestation of the mind, can theoretically be, in part, removed temporarily and housed in the mind of another," Ash explained. "This avatar is called the conscious when referred to as such."
"Why would you ever want to do that?" Rainbow Dash wondered.
"You know that little voice that sometimes tells you of something is wrong? Called a conscience? A foreign conscious can act the same way, influencing your thoughts and decisions. It is also possible to read the thoughts of the person your conscious is in and in some extreme cases, mind control is possible."
"Wait, how is that possible?" This time Twilight had interrupted. "Even if you could safely transfer your brain into another pony-"
"The mind is not the brain. The brain is an organ while the mind is less tangible. And as for how it is possible..." The grey stallion gestured to the spell book. "Well, you're probably the second most experienced in this field."
"But wh-"
"This has everything to do with why Twilight is a Human and why she blacked out yesterday," Ash said impatiently cutting Rainbow's question off. "These kinds of spells are difficult and if not controlled or properly used, there can be some consequences."
"Is becoming a giant hairless ape monster one of them?" asked Pinkie Pie.
"No. But blackouts, loss of memory, and unwilling changes in physical appearance are possiblities. Twilight, when your conscious left my mind, it took something with it."
"Took something?" Twilight set her pen down and stared at Ash questioningly. "Like what? How?"
He shrugged. "Could be a memory, an idea, something vivid yet physical untouchable like that. Something purely mental. And like I said, this type of magic is difficult to do and if there is an unexpected variable, like performing it on a Human-turned-pony, leaving either mind entirely unscathed is unlikely."
"So Twilight has a memory of yours in her head?" Rarity thought for a moment. "I have to say, that doesn't sound too dire."
"Tell me, what happens when you consume something you shouldn't? Like dirt."
"Dirt? The very idea of eating dirt! Why, what foal would do such a thing?" Rainbow shuffled slightly as Rarity spoke.
"Why not?"
"Well, it's dirt. It would be redundant to say the process would be a messy one."
"Anything else."
"It's not healthy, not sanitary. Goodness knows where that dirt has been."
"And neither is having a foreign memory." Ash took a moment to consider another metaphor. "Better yet, imagine an illness. When you get sick, if the illness isn't contained, it will spread. So will a memory. It will spread though the mind and twists the host to fit its environment, replacing even the conscious. And through the mind, the body is twisted as well. That's why Twilight is a Human. That's why she's been having the same nightmare night after night. That's why she blacked out and couldn't remember things at first. That's why she has brown eyes."
"Brown eyes? But I have..." Twilight leaped to her feet and hurried to the mirror that was in the corner. A small stream of dark ink followed her.
"That memory or whatever souvenir she took with her found a place in her mind and is trying to take control," Ash continued. "It was part of me and is shaping its environment to best suit itself. Normally we'd have plenty of time to take care of it but this scenario is too different, too unique, to be considered 'normal'. Physical changes are too quick, it's already replacing her memories with mine...I count us lucky Twilight only lost a little of her memory for only temporary."
"Hold on now, are yah saying..." Applejack hesitated. "Twilight could've forget everything?"
"...She'll live entirely in a vision. That's all that would remain if the foreign piece of my conscious stays. I estimate at the most half a week before Twilight's nothing more than a shell that looks just like me, reliving a dream for eternity."
The gravity of the situation hit everypony hard in the gut. The sound of a balloon deflating could be heard as a certain pink mane flattened out. Nopony spoke, though several times Rainbow opened her mouth only to shut it, her teeth grinding against her gums.
"But you can fix it, can't you?"
Nopony expected Fluttershy to break the silence, to ask the burning question. The Pegasus walked over to Ash. For a moment, she kept her down, refusing to meet the Unicorn's eyes. Suddenly she lifted her head and her aqua eyes peered into brown ones. Ash held the gaze.
"You can fix this, can't you?"