//------------------------------// // Her Mirror Match // Story: U-Harmony // by Ebon Mane //------------------------------// TIME: 7:00 PM CST LOCATION: ZE GUILDED PLATE, MELBRIDLE, AUSPONIA REASON FOR MATCH: EXTREMELY HIGH COMPATIBILITY Twilight shook off the shock of teleportation quickly, and found herself sitting in a booth staring at her reflection. The image looked somehow... off... in the dim light. She leaned forward to get a better view, careful not to disturb the silverware and glass of her place setting; the reflection matched her movement. As she got closer, she realized the problem: the colors were wrong. It showed a teal coat and pink mane, with a yellow stripe where her pink and purple ones should have been. Otherwise, the reflection was indistinguishable from the one in her mirror in the library. She tilted her head, and her twin did the same. She wondered what enchantment caused the color shift, and why it didn't seem to affect the purple of her eyes. What use could such a thing possibly have? She was leaning forward more, curiosity demanding a more thorough examination of the phenomenon, when a pointed cough from her side drew her attention. She paused, just a few centimeters from touching the glass. Twilight turned toward the source of the interruption: a grey unicorn pony waiter, impeccably dressed and looking as snooty as any she'd ever seen. When he had her attention, he spoke with a thick accent, "Excuse moi, mademoiselles, but no public displays of ze affection are allowed in ze restaurant. If I may take ze orders, instead?" He levitated over a pitcher of water, and filled the empty glass in front of her. And then he filled the glass in front of the purple mare's teal reflection. Twilight Sparkle blinked. For a moment, she didn't understand. And then it hit her. "It's not...," she began. "...a mirror?" The mare across from her finished. Twilight's only consolation was that her doppelganger looked just as mortified as she felt. "What?" They asked in unison. The waiter looked from one to the other, "I weel be back to take ze order after you ladies are done with ze existential crisis, yes?" He walked away, though neither mare was paying any attention. Even knowing that it was a separate pony, Twilight couldn't find any noticeable differences in their appearance, aside from the obvious palate swap in coloring. The whole situation was just too surreal; she wondered if she was dreaming. Even so, her desire to understand the situation overwhelmed all other concerns as she spoke, "We should...." "...make sure that we don't have the same name?" "Yeah. I'm Twilight Sparkle." "I'm Dewdrop Dazzle." "Nice to meet you," They said in unison, beaming at each other. Despite the fact that the two got along extremely well, the initial strangeness never seemed to fade. Neither mare could mention anything about themselves without the other chiming in with their own eerily similar experience. Eventually, over their twin orders of daisy sandwiches, the discussion dissolved into rapid-fire comparison of their pasts, friends, and personal lives. Each unicorn tried desperately to find some aspect of themselves that the other couldn't match. Twilight learned that Dewdrop lived in a library in Ponyton with her baby sea dragon assistant. She regularly sent reports on friendship to her mentor Princess Aqua, alicorn ruler of Ausponlia, who had sent her to Ponyton on one fateful Autumn Tide Celebration day. There she had met five ponies who would eventually become her best friends, and together with them and the powerful magic of the Principles of Togetherness, she had defeated the evil Inferno Core. In a twist that by that time in Dewdrop's story Twilight had seen coming, Inferno Core turned out to be Princess Aqua's sister, Terra. Every detail of the other mare's life seemed to be just a minor variation on her own. Twilight Sparkle wondered if the universe was screwing with her mind just to watch her squirm. Eventually, dinner was complete, and the mares had grown tired of exchanging life stories. Dewdrop Dazzle leaned forward and dropped her voice, and Twilight moved closer to hear. The teal unicorn said, "So... I was reading something just this morning that applies to the situation we find ourselves in. The piece asserted that you could tell a lot about a pony by what answer they gave to this question: If you met an exact duplicate of yourself, which would you do, fuck or fight? Those are the only two options that take full advantage of such a situation. I don't think either of us is likely to find anypony more like ourselves. So instead of relying on thought to attempt a prediction of the results, we can just see what happens. No doubt the results will be fascinating. So what'll it be, Twilight...," she raised an eyebrow, "Fight... or fuck?" Twilight Sparkle smiled knowingly. She saw exactly what her strange twin was getting at. She responded with just two words, shouted at the waiter. "Check please!" *** Spike was curling up for bed when he heard the bang and saw the flash of teleportation magic. Lights began to flick on in the library and the dragon sat up and shouted, "Hey Twilight, how did the date go?" He got up and walked to the edge of the landing to look down at the mare. He gasped when he saw her; Twilight's mane was disheveled, and she was covered in dirt, cuts, and bruises. "I don't want to talk about it," the unicorn said. She groaned as she rubbed her swollen left cheek with a hoof, "But I'll tell you one thing, Spike. I throw a mean right hook."