The big day had finally come; the day the three finalists of Twilight's contest would be announced. Recollecting all the various submissions her fans had written and turned in, it made Twilight happy to know she had a following of such good, loyal, and above all passionate humares. With every entry she had read she could tell the writer had poured their heart and soul into it; even the ones that were unusable. She was also excited by the variety of ideas that had been presented to her; everything from war and the apocalypse to grand celebrations and royal weddings. In the end though, Twilight had to choose but three finalists, and she made sure that only the best three ideas would be chosen.
The first finalist was MLP: FiM by Lyra; Twilight had been fascinated with the idea of making humans ponykind's gods back then, and her fascination only grew over time. The second finalist was Dead Calling by a mare named Nyx; the story was about a necromancer who works for the United Nations reviving recently deceased humans upon request, which Twilight liked because it provided a great moral dilemma in addition to endless story possibilities. The third finalist was Erased by a stallion named Shady; the story was about an acidic plasma that disintegrates all non bio-organic matter it touches, which Twilight liked because she made humans dependent on their technology in the absence of magic and the loss of it would create all kinds of interesting situations to work from. Popularity would decide the final winner, however, and Twilight hoped that her final HUMAN book ended up being the most beloved of the trilogy.
She heard a knock on the front door. Knowing who it was, Twilight inserted the three finalist entries into an envelope and sealed it before making her way to the door and opening it with her magic.
"Hi Twilight, you called for me?"
"Hello Ditzy. I need you to deliver this ASAP to the publisher in Canterlot. Can I trust you not to peek inside?"
The gray mailmare held up a hoof and performed the motions for a Pinkie Promise before grabbing the envelope in her mouth and taking flight towards Canterlot. As Twilight watched her fly away towards the capitol, she silently prayed that Lyra wouldn't bombard her with thanks for being chosen. She closed the library's front door and trotted up to her desk. From now until the final winner was decided, she was free to catch up on her various projects; princess-assigned or otherwise. She picked up a quill and began writing her essay on Inherent Magic vs Acquired Magic.
After about a half hour of writing, Twilight thought she heard a soft thudding sound coming from up in her room. Shrugging it off as nothing at first, curiosity won out when the sound was followed by footsteps moving across the wooden floor before stopping at the door leading downstairs. Twilight put the quill down and looked to the stairs.
"Hello!?" she called. "Is that you Spike?"
Silence was all that answered.
With a resounding sigh, Twilight trotted up to the stairway and began ascending them. She knew it wasn't a pony upstairs on account of the rhythm to the steps being that of a bipedal creature. To that effect, Spike was the only one who could be upstairs. But just as the top of the stairs came into view, Twilight remembered that Spike was out helping Rarity collect gems. With that realization, Twilight fearfully looked up to see what exactly had invaded her tree home. Her jaw dropped at what she saw.
A human stood atop the staircase, looking down at her with a stoic expression. It wore white socks and black & gray shoes over its feet, a brown sweatshirt and blue pants over its body, and what appeared to be a black jacket of sorts that came down to its waist; it also wore shaded transitional eyeglasses on its face. Its mane was short and brown while its eyes were blue. It had a cream colored skin tone that seemed unnaturally pale; probably a result of too little time spent in the sun.
Twilight stared at the human in a mix of awe and horror. She was amazed to see something of her creation in the flesh. That is, until realization hit her full force and she took a battle stance.
"If you're a changeling, you'd better get out of my house before I send for Princess Celestia. I mean it!" she shouted at it.
The human didn't say anything. Instead, it turned around and walked back into her room. Confused at first, Twilight composed herself and ran up the rest of the stairs into her room, where she found the human wannabe holding her copy of HUMAN in its hands, looking at the front cover with wide eyes. As Twilight cautiously approached, a sense of familiarity washed over her from observing it. Its clothing, its physique, and especially its mannerisms; Twilight couldn't help but feel she knew this particular human from somewhere. Then, once again, realization hit her with full force.
"Warren?"
The human jerked its head at the mention of the name. Twilight stared in shock as a look of hatred adorned the thing's face. Afraid, Twilight tried to backpedal away from her creation, but tripped over a discarded book and landed hard on her rump.
"Owww."
Rubbing her rump with her hoof, she got up to catch a split second glance of Warren charging at her before he grabbed her shoulders and pinned her to the wooden floor. Twilight was about to use her magic on him when she felt a drop on her cheek. Looking up at Warren's face, she saw that he was crying very lightly, and that he had a pained frown on his face. Twilight lost concentration of her magic as she became confused as to Warren's new (uncharacteristic) behavior. It took all of two seconds for it to dawn on Twilight that Warren had realized what her book was about from the title, and that it must've shattered his perception of reality.
"Warren," Twilight said solemnly, bringing a hoof up to wipe away a tear. "It's alright; everything's alright."
Warren turned his head away and muttered something unintelligible.
"What was that?" Twilight asked.
Warren slowly turned his head back to face Twilight. He opened his mouth, and . . .
"PSYCHE!!!
All of a sudden, Warren let go of Twilight and fell backwards onto the floor, bawling with laughter as tears of not pain, but joy rained from his eyes. To say Twilight was dumbfounded at the (even more) uncharacteristic behavior from the human she personally created would be an understatement.
". . . Warren?" she said, a hint of nervousness lacing her tone.
Warren managed to stop laughing after a minute and sat up, wiping away his tears. "Okay, that's enough," he said to seemingly no one. "Let's show her."
Twilight watched dumbstruck as the convoluted serpentine form of Discord materialized out of the wall right behind Warren.
"I must say, Dash," he said to him, "I was quite skeptical of this fooling her at first, but I guess it really IS all in the acting."
"You bet it is," Warren replied. "Now how about changing me back?"
With a snap of Discord's talon, the form of Warren was blotted out like paint thinner and redrawn as that of Rainbow Dash like paint.
"That felt weird," she muttered.
"Eh, don't think about it," Discord replied.
"So Twili-" Dash's sentence was cut short as a stream of purple magic shot past her and Discord. Turning her head, Dash saw a VERY pissed off Twilight, breathing heavily, and charging up her horn for another shot.
"Should we . . . ?" she heard Discord say.
"Yes," Dash replied.
And with that, the prankster duo flew out the nearby window/phased through the floor just as Twilight fired her second shot, which tore a hole straight through the wooden wall of her room.
"Don't you EVER do something like that again!" Twilight yelled. She then proceeded downstairs to complete her studies before contacting the library's contractor to get the hole she'd just made fixed.
It had been two weeks since the finalists were announced. Voting had commenced the day after, and it quickly became apparent there would be no clear cut winner. The second votes started being mailed in, a steady climb for all three entries was observed by the publisher, with no one entry gaining more than a few hours worth of a lead over the others. The poll was kept secret from the public to prevent undecided voters from being influenced. As the voting neared its end, Twilight started receiving more and more visits from Lyra, as well as letters from the other two finalists; Nyx and Shady. They were all eager to get started on HUMAN 3 (tentative title) and Twilight grew tired of having to remind them that they could only start collaborating once the winner was announced.
That time had finally come, however, and Twilight waited with baited breath as the last votes were accounted for and the winner was determined. She was to get the announcement along with whoever won; it was a given that the press would get wind of the results and inform the public as to who won straight away. Eventually, she heard a knock on her library door, and upon opening it saw Ditzy holding a letter in her mouth.
"You didn't peek, did you?" Twilight asked the wall eyed mailmare as she levitated the letter over to her.
Ditzy shook her head and took off. Twilight closed the door and proceeded to open the envelope with her magic. She then took out the letter and read its contents, smiling as soon as she finished.
"Congratulations, Lyra."
It was the following day, and Twilight was waiting for Lyra to show up at Golden Oaks to begin brainstorming ideas for HUMAN 3. To her surprise, as well as slight annoyance, the mint green unicorn was late for their meeting. Twilight glanced at a nearby clock to see that it was a little past 10:00 am. She had told Lyra to be there at precisely 9:30 am, and if there was one thing Twilight hated it was tardiness. Lyra would need a pretty good excuse for being so late, because there was no way she could get lost or forget about the session with how much enthusiasm she boasted.
Eventually, Twilight heard a knock on the front door. She opened it to see Lyra with a sheepish smile on her face, as well as a horde of scrolls in her telekinetic grip.
"You're late," Twilight said flatly.
"Sorry Twi," Lyra said, her sheepish smile not faltering one bit. "I was so caught up in the excitement of being the winner that I wasn't really paying attention when you gave the time to come here."
Twilight sighed. "Well, come on in so we can get started."
Lyra did so, taking a moment to place her scrolls onto the center table before sitting down on a cushion Twilight had prepared in advance; the lavender mare sat down on the cushion opposite from her.
"What're those?" Twilight asked, looking at the scrolls.
"Well, I took a little time to do some solo brainstorming before I came here," Lyra replied as she levitated one of the scrolls over to Twilight who enveloped it in her own magic and began reading it.
Even just from skimming over the lines of writing, Twilight was astonished to see how much detail Lyra went into with this one scroll alone. It described how MLP: FiM came to be, who voiced her and her friends, and even the human equivalent of the humare movement, the bronies. Once she was done, Twilight looked up to see Lyra staring expectantly at her.
"Well, this is pretty good, Lyra," Twilight said, hoofing the scroll back over to her. "Now, let's get started."
And so for the next few hours the two unicorns brainstormed ideas for the final HUMAN book. The first thing they decided on was the title, HUMAN: Friendship is Meta; symbolic of the very nature of the book itself as well as what it was about. Other things they worked out were the lives of everyone who would end up working on the show, including Lauren Faust, Tara Strong, Jayson Thiessen, and so on, as well as the cultural impact the show would have on humankind and how it would be beloved by some and despised by others. They continued brainstorming well past lunchtime, and it wasn't until a sudden growl erupted from Lyra's stomach that the two mares decided to take a much needed lunch break.
"Would you like to stay here for lunch?" Twilight asked, pushing aside a bunch of used scrolls to make room for food. "I could make us a whole tray of daisy sandwiches."
"Yeah, thanks," Lyra replied, sitting up from her cushion. "Hey, uh, where's the little filly's room at?"
Twilight pointed upstairs. "Only door in my room; you can't miss it."
Lyra nodded and cantered up the stairs. Twilight sat up and stretched a little before making way toward the kitchen. She hadn't taken more than five steps when an idea formed in the dark recesses of her mind; one which took root in all the meta-physical musings she'd poured over since first reading Lyra's submission. Wanting to get her idea down on parchment before she forgot it, Twilight levitated over a quill and blank scroll and quickly jotted it down.
One particular brony would not just fall in love with MLP: FiM, he would attempt to bridge his world with that of the show in a way no person in history had thought of before. One day, in early January, Warren sat down at his computer and began typing out a most interesting fan fiction for MLP: FiM. In it, he described how Twilight Sparkle, the main protagonist of the show, was inspired by her many trips through the Everfree Forest to write a story about an entire world that operated under the Everfree's laws of nature and physics. With help from Twilight's friends, however, this world would end up resembling the world he himself lived in. His fan fiction would be named HUMAN: By Twilight Sparkle, while Twilight's story would be named HUMAN. This wouldn't be the last MLP: FiM fan fiction Warren ever wrote, not by a long shot. He would go on to write many more for the world to read, always feeling genuine happiness whenever their existence was acknowledged.
Once done writing, Twilight set the quill down and headed to the kitchen, smiling wryly the whole way.
It'd been a week since Twilight submitted HUMAN: Friendship is Meta to her publisher in Canterlot, and she'd waited since then for a confirmatory letter announcing the contract was resolved. As glad as she was to have made so many ponies happy with her HUMAN series, Twilight was ever eager to move onto other projects. The letter came in the mail at week's end, along with a check for fifty thousand bits, which Twilight made a mental note to evenly distribute between she and her friends come the next day.
She was doing some last minute book re-shelving before bed when a knock sounded at the front door. "Coming!" she called, and trotted over.
Twilight opened the door to find a mailpony wearing a brown saddlebag.
"Special delivery from her royal highness, Princess Celestia of Equestria," he said.
Twilight took a moment to let his words register in her brain before beaming in delight. The mailpony reached into his saddlebag and pulled out a brown package bearing the royal seal. Twilight immediately levitated it in her magic and shut the door behind her. She opened the package with her magic and pulled out its contents; a parchment and a black covered book.
She eyed both with slight worry, wondering what Celestia had to send through the regular mail system rather than Spike's dragon fire. Holding the letter out in front of her, she began to read aloud:
"Dear Twilight Sparkle; the spell contained on the last page of this book is Starswirl the Bearded's secret, unfinished masterpiece . . ."