After that we both fell asleep, me on the bed, her on the floor in all the clean laundry I could find for bedding. She kind of eyed the pony shirts, but didn’t say anything. I guess she just figured it out. When I woke up though, it wasn’t to my iPod blasting ‘Hearts’ “Magic Man” at 8:04 am like most mornings. Instead, it was what sounded like a war going on in my shower at 6:30.
“AAH!! DAMNEDABLE CONTRAPTION!! WE COMMAND THE TO CEASE THY SCALDING OF OUR FLANKS!!” Aah, now it made sense.
I had to stop her before she destroyed my bathroom and caused damage I had to pay for. I burst through the door to find her standing on the floor outside the shower, soaking wet, and the head of the shower in pieces on the floor. Scalding hot water was spraying everywhere, and there was a half-inch of water on the floor. She was already aiming another blast at the faucet handle when she turned to look at me. “Um, good morning?”
I ran for the handle and shut the shower off, trying not to get to scalded in the process. I needed a moment. Ok, one, Luna is soaking wet, making her 20% hotter. Two, I need a new shower head, something to mop up all the water with, and towels for both me and her. Three, I’m standing in scalding water, thinking, not reacting, so four, I’ll need something for burns. Five, Luna is soaking wet, making her 20% hotter. I’m not getting over that soon.
The hot water burns finally registered in my head, so I quickly ran back out onto the cool linoleum in the hall before turning to Luna, still wet, and looking incredibly embarrassed. I could barely get out the question, “What… the HELL!!!!… happened?”
She kind of pawed at the floor, looking sheepishly attractive. All of a sudden, the great Princess of the Night sounded like Fluttershy. “Well, I was going to take a bath, but you only have that evil spitting water snake. I didn’t know how to use it, and I didn’t want to wake you, so I tried to figure it out myself. I turned the knob to the left, like your supposed to, and the water was too hot. That’s when I yelled and retaliated and you came in.”
I tried to quickly gather myself. “So, I’m going to skip past the part where I wonder how you even fit in that shower, much less moved around so quickly in that little bathroom. I’m more surprised you don’t know how to use a shower. It’s not that different from a bath, just the water and dirt goes down the drain and doesn’t sit there. Turning the knob all the way was why it was so hot, you only turn it until it gets to the right temperature, and evil spitting water snake?? Really?” I finished off with a laugh.
She didn’t see so much humor in it I guess. I kept talking. “All right. We’re both wet, so I’m going to get dry towels for us. Stay here and please don’t blow up my fridge.”
As I turned around she asked, “What is a fridge?”
...
So, with all the excitement that morning, I knew I wasn’t going to make it to theater class, which was fine with me. What wasn’t fine was the realization that I could keep Luna locked in my room forever, partially because she would get bored, partially because I didn’t have a ton of extra room, but mostly because she was going to bring the building down on our heads. I didn’t really want to bring up the topic but I had to ask her about Canterlot and how she was going to get back, if she knew how. I went out and got some makings for salad for her and milk for cereal for me, and we sat down to eat. After a few minutes I put my spoon down and cleared my throat. “Uuh, Luna?” She looked up from her salad and waited for me to keep talking. “So, not that having you here isn’t the best thing that ever happened to me, but do you have any idea how you’re going to get back?”
Her face grew dark again and she pushed aside her food. “I’ve thought some about that, and I don’t quite know. Magic doesn’t run through this world as strongly as it does Equestria, and I don’t even know what kind of magic was used to bring me here. I think I should be able to at least figure out what kind of magic it was that brought me here, which would tell me what kind of creature used it. The best case scenario is I can recreate the spell using leftover magic from the original portal.”
I kind of gave her a blank look and asked, “How can you do that? I get that there would be residual traces left where the tear in space-time was made, but you can’t re-weave that tear, can you? That layer would already be weakened from the previous tear, especially after having been so recent, and by making it again, if you really were able to, would run the risk of breaking those already weak fibers beyond repair. Right?”
She looked at me as if I had just grown an extra head. “Well, yes, I can, but how in Tartarus can someone without the capabilities of magic understand the workings of high level magic so well? You just gave a concise explanation of the exact details that I have to precaution against.”
I just shrugged my shoulders. “Mostly imagination and thought. Anytime space-time is referred to, it’s a fabric, so there would be fibers, and since it’s strong enough to keep various universes in their place, then it has to be strong. Even so, the fibers have to be self-healing since they can only take so much change and pressure at any given time or form. Tell me if I’m wrong, because I’m making this all up as I go along.”
Her jaw dropped. “That’s all exactly right. Your just saying all that as it comes to your head?”
“Pretty much, yeah.”
“That’s incredible. It takes our scientists years of study to figure that out. You’d surely be a unicorn if you came to Equestria.”
It was my turn to be confused again. “Except I thought that if a human were to go to Equestria, we’d just stay human. And if somehow we were magically transformed to a pony, we would just be earth ponies because it was too complex to change into a pegasus or unicorn, or because we wouldn’t be able to fully develop those skills because we hadn’t been practicing since child hood. Kind of like you stayed a pony when you came here.”
Luna shook her head. “I probably stayed a pony because I’m an alicorn, and the simple immensity of my magical power kept me in my form. I could magically transform into a human if I knew how, but I would still have magical abilities and wings, which would be strange. Typically when one travels universes they are changed into a fitting resident of that universe, while keeping their natural talents and being granted new ones unique to their new form based on their abilities, special talents, or skills.”
“Oh. Sweet! Well, we should probably get to work. You need to help defend Canterlot.”
“Well, yeah, but…” She looked down at her bowl and put a cute little pout on.
“Well what? I’d think you wanted to go home. To where you belong. You know your place, you have power, and friends.”
She looked up, straight into my eyes, and I couldn’t help but shudder. It was like staring into a purely perfect night sky, and I could almost see constellations in her eyes. “If our places had been reversed, and you had fallen into my chambers, and I had given you a home, food, and kindness, even after destroying my things, would you want to leave?”
I was speechless. What do you say to that? My honest answer was no, I’d want to stay in her bedroom forever, but if someone was threatening my home, I’d want to take care of it too. She was right, though. What if she couldn’t come back? What if after she walked through the portal, she was gone forever? I just knew I’d spend a year crying myself to sleep in a living-breathing-Luna-less room. Should I tell her one truth, and risk her staying and having Canterlot attacked without one of the princesses being there, or tell her the other and ruin the chance of her wanting to come back even if she could, or try to explain both sides to her and just risk the chance of her being unable to come back? I’m beginning to ramble in my own thoughts though, and she knows it. She gave me a kind of knowing look.
“Kind of the ogre’s choice, isn’t it? ‘Damned if you do, damned if you don’t‘, I believe is the modern saying. Plus, I watched more of the show during the night. Things aren’t quite so good in Canterlot as they are portrayed. More ponies than not are still distrustful and even hateful towards me for hosting the Nightmare. I understand it, but it grates on ones nerve after a while.”
“Yeah, I guess I can understand that. Well, do you think there’s a way to be able to go back and forth between the two worlds? I mean, I’d really like it if we could still visit one another if you do go back.”
“I would like that too, but life would keep moving for you. You wouldn’t live here forever and the portal would continue to be here. If anything, I’d have to figure out a way to give you the capability to make the portal wherever you are, and that would take an incredible amount of time and work. And I don’t know where to start,” she added sadly.
“Yeah, I get that too. Well, either way, you do need to decide if you’re going to go back.”
“We both know I have to. So, we need to get to work.”
I’m not going to bore you with the nitty-gritty details of pulling space-time apart right along a previously opened tear, but it takes a lot of time and aspirin. After we got it opened though, things began happening fast. It wasn’t stable, to say the least, and before I knew it we were both sucked into the main room of the Canterlot Royal Hall, right in front of Celestia, seated on her throne. I can’t recall what she looked like or if she was upset or not before I passed out. Probably.