Chapter Three: Snuggles And Lightning
The storm was unnatural. The clouds above were a kaleidoscope of unsettling colors that Germane couldn't have named if he were asked. As if that wasn't enough, there was the lightning to consider. And it couldn't have been normal lightning, no. It had to be plumes of greenish plasma that snaked over the ground like seizure-ridden snakes.
"I think they're windigoes," said Twilight. Germane shivered as another stream of the green plasma went through his legs. It didn't hurt, really, but it was one of the more unsettling experiences of his too-short life. He shifted his grip on Twilight, held in a pseud-bridal style, and gave thanks that she hadn't been born an earth pony. The idea of carrying 'my legs are made of steel' Applejack any distance was daunting at best.
"You'd think it would be chillier," he suggested. "I should have brought a scarf, or something. Are you sure we're alone, out here?" The unicorn looked from his face to the surrounding atmosphere and back again.
"Pretty sure, yes. But, ah, perhaps a subspecies? I can't imagine the windigos of legend being allowed to survive in the modern age. Something that hides in lightning storms, though? Nopony would notice."
"The pegasi, perhaps," mentioned Germane. He spied Sugarcube Corner. "Mind if we break? I think this stuff is taking more out of me than I thought." Twilight pouted.
"But your workshop's just a few minutes away!" The stallion-turned-human huffed.
"I'm sure you being only a few minutes away from help in all this," he said, nodding toward the ground, "will be of great comfort when your handsome lightning rod turns into a smear of charcoal."
"Deal, but you're not allowed to refer to yourself as my handsome lightning rod ever again," she compromised.
"Then life is hardly worth living." Contrary to his words, Germane pushed open the door of the bakery and eased into the kitchen beyond the counter. Though buildings were hardly proof against the wild atmosphere, between the enclosed space and the insulation of metal appliances and baking equipment, the green plasma was mostly abated. "Ready?" he asked. Twilight nodded against his chest.
"Casting it now," she confirmed. As the much thinner streams of light parted around them in a circle, Germane eased the unicorn to the floor and reached for his fuzzier half. The world snapped into a different sort of focus, and he was once again a pegacorn. Which was to say, a fairly useless pegasus with mild brain trauma. Exhaustion hit him, but not as badly as it used to. Obviously, he was getting used to the transformation.
"I want to sleep for a week," he declared, and slumped. Twilight nudged him upright against a stove and cast a quick look at his face.
"Mm. Hold on, I can fix that." Instead of performing some epic feat of magic to heal and revitalize him (which would have been wasted, anyway, when he went back to his human form), Twilight levitated over a brown cupcake with red sprinkles and deposited a gold bit on the counter at the same time.
"My treat," she said. "This is Pinkie's latest in her line of caffeinated baked goods." Germane plucked the treat out of the air with a sense of unending gratitude.
"I haven't seen these before. I figure they'd be a hit," he commented, and chowed down. Twilight shuffled nervously.
"She says the testing phase has been slow since she's not allowed to taste them herself. We... we don't let Pinkie have caffeine, anymore."
"There's a story behind that." The unicorn scowled.
"Which you'll pry out of my cold, dead hooves."
"Fine. I'll ask Miss Rarity. We're totally gossip buddies, now." Twilight sighed. Germane finished the cupcake and sighed in relief. "So... this is date number eight, is it? I expected candle light, or something." The mare checked the perimeter of her electrical grounding spell, which just barely worked, as it turned out, on magical lightning, and spoke without turning her head.
"This is not a date. It's a state of emergency!" Germane could tell she had to bite off some comment about those being the same thing, before she went on, "And date number five? Running me over in the marketplace and yelling 'sorry, sugarhooves' over your back isn't a date either!"
"In my defense," replied Germane with a hurt tone, "I thought the Crusaders had gotten into my forge. Priorities, Twilight."
To be fair, though, he wasn't quite sure just how the Crusaders armed with fire measured up against the current crisis. Roughly equal, maybe.
"But we are dating, yes? This isn't some convoluted interrogation plan that'll leave us broken-hearted and locked in some sort of rooftop battle in the rain, surrounded by giant killer robots, right?" He felt a bit better now, so he'd be able to transform again soon. The last thing he wanted to do was forget and walk out into the town with a body that wasn't immune to magical lightning. The caffeine helped, but it would be his last shift to human for the day, unless things got really desperate.
"Giant killer... whatever. And... no, I mean yes, we're dating, the interrogation is just a side benefit, I promise." As if to prove it, Twilight scooted against the stove and leaned on his shoulder. In this position, they were basically the same height. Even through the damp rain on their bodies, Germane could smell lavender and ink on her coat.
"And you think I'm handsome?" He got the expected eyeroll. "Even when I'm all furless and spooky?" A legitimate concern made its way to the forefront of his mind. "I only transformed because of the emergency. If you don't want me to, um, any other times... I mean, I don't need to. I get that I'm still basically an alien like this, and there's no reason to expect you have a biological leaning toward-" Then she kissed his cheek.
"You're not spooky. A little goofy-looking, maybe, but I don't mind that." Her voice took on a firmer tone. "Now I can hold the spell for another twenty minutes, but you have to scratch my ears." She stared at his fingers. "Do that, and I'll count this as date number... seven."
His concerns hadn't disappeared, not completely, but he felt comfortable enough to wrap an arm around her whithers and draw her closer. His hand started moving up and down the top of her head. Her ears moved with the motion of his fingers, which was just freaking adorable.
"This is the nicest thing that's ever been," she declared with her eyes closed. "I have to bribe Spike with quartz, for this," she admitted. Germane grinned wryly.
"I can do plenty more with my fingers, I'll have you know. Plenty more with my wings, too, come to that. Feathers are awesome."
"Then you'll just have to show me. Rainbow Dash has made enough dirty jokes about wings that I might have gotten some ideas..." Germane almost choked.
"Miss Sparkle! What happened to my blushing scholar? I tease, you stutter. That's how it goes, dang it!" Twilight chuckled.
"I'll feel embarrassed later. This is too nice to, you know, think about things." That was something the man had never imagined might come out of that mare's mouth, so he took it as a temporary blessing. Experimentally, Germane raked his fingers deeper into the spot just below her left ear. The unicorn shuddered. "Though that depends on us making it through today alive, otherwise it would put a damper on date number eight."
Germane considered, then, exactly how they'd gotten into this mess...
It was the previous day, and Germane had discovered that the Ponyville library had a basement. A basement filled with toys.
"I don't know what that is, but I want to disassemble it," he declared to the room at large. From behind him, Twilight tutted.
"No taking apart my equipment. And no moving! You'll stretch my electrodes." Germane sighed and waggled his fingers. Each one had an electrode. His wrists, too, had electrodes. In fact, everywhere not covered by a distressingly inadequate pair of boxers had an electrode tacked on. He was almost certain that the small, local hospital didn't have as many as Twilight just 'happened' to have at hoof.
"I figured when I offered to play guinea pig that we'd start with a friendly, gentle questions and answers session. There would be tea, or something."
"No liquids around my machinery, Germane. And we will have the survey section, as soon as I re-purpose the stress test," the unicorn assured him. The currently-human mad scientist frowned.
"A lie detector?! That's not even fair! Why would I lie about science, anyway?" A purple head ducked just into view and gave a deadpan stare.
"You prevaricate. A lot. And this time there are no trees, fillies, or crowds to get in the way. Just me, my chair of science, and a camera that had better have a fresh tape reel in it!" Spike ran into view with a heavy tripod over his head, as well as a... bucket of popcorn tucked under one elbow.
"Got it, Twilight!" The tiny dragon got to work steadying the thing and setting up a crate to reach the camera at top.
"Popcorn? Really, Spike?" Twilight's assistant shrugged.
"I've got to get my entertainment where I can." Then the little guy glared. "And you kissed my sister!"
"She kissed back."
"Guys!"
"Sorry Twilight," came two male voices in stereo.
"Good. Now, we're calibrated and ready to start the sequence. Wow, it's like your brain activity is... are you epileptic, Germane?" He coughed.
"I, um, really shouldn't be, no. Why?" Twilight trotted over with her eyes still facing the read outs which were situated just behind his head.
"No reason! Just, wow. Judging by these readings, the fact that you can walk and talk at the same time is astounding."
"Oh, ha ha." She looked at him.
"Did I tell a joke?" That was Spike's cue to fall over cackling. Germane sighed.
"I have no reason to believe my brain patterns are especially abnormal, Twilight, at least as a human. I'm sure I'm pretty messed-up as a pony, but as a human I'm just an average nerd with a brain that is not epileptic, prone to seizures, or especially... whatever. Medicine is not my thing. Can I take apart that diode, over there?" Twilight began levitating a quill over parchment.
"Subject Number One displays short attention span and passive-aggressive tendencies..." she muttered.
"Subject Number One is upset, Twilight." The unicorn kept writing.
"Also shows... disassociative behavior... speaking in the third person..." She peered up from between her bangs and grinned. "Sorry, I couldn't quite resist. Here, before we start..." She walked up and braced her forehooves on the chair's arms before giving Germane a quick, earnest kiss. He tried to follow her when she withdrew, but was still held in place by those annoying electrodes. "Better?" The young man sighed.
"I feel cheap and manipulated. But yes, better." He glared. "You're lucky you're pretty." The mare tittered, then got another look at the read-outs.
"Ooh, interesting! I'll have to pencil something in for later." Germane's mouth went dry.
"And the electrodes?" The mare looked puzzled.
"Well of course if I'm going to prove an adequate study reference I'll need to wear-"
"Twilight!"
"Eep!" She colored. "Sorry, Spike! Begin sequence!" Her horn took on a magenta glow.
"Um..."
A narrow beam of unspecified magic lanced out at him. He winced and shut his eyes tightly, but Germane didn't... feel anything. He peered out through one narrowed eyelid and looked down.
"Huh." It was going clear through him. Not completely unexpected, but the results were... trippy.
"Alright, this is sort of awesome," volunteered Spike. "It's going through your chest and out the other side!" He looked at the recorder to make sure the film was still going and grinned. "Try something else!"
"Switching to light bludgeon spell, under Canterlot archives as DEF-729-A!" Germane resisted the urge to close his eyes again and watched a pulse go through his chest.
"Intriguing. Try something with a splash effect," he suggested. "Differentiate for matter states." Twilight hummed.
"Gaseous to solid differentiation?" He nodded. Spike's jaw dropped.
"Oh Celestia, you're as bad as her."
Twilight rolled her eyes, but sent another spell. This one impacted, splashed over his torso, and-
"Hey, tingly." The mare grinned.
"That was a combat-grade sleep spell! Let's check for absorption rates!" She started slinging spells, speeding up as time went on. It was more than a little terrifying- not just because Germane was the target, but he'd never heard of a unicorn that could do that without succumbing to magical exhaustion. He shared a look with Spike.
"Is this normal?" The little guy nodded.
"It's Twilight. Do you remember the Ursa thing a few months back?" The human shook his head.
"I was out of town. I heard about it, of course, but... yikes."
"I can hear you guys," the unicorn reminded them, and then sent something that literally crackled through the air. Germane coughed.
"Weird. I'm feeling sorta..." His eyes bulged. "Twilight!" The next spell did it. The mare just managed to stop herself, but Germane could feel the Reflex trigger on its own, just like if he'd let it run for seven or eight hours. He heard wires snap, and then he tumbled out of the chair meant for something with proper knees and a distinct lack of wings.
"Oof. Oof? Oof." That was as much as he could mumble through the hard-packed dirt floor.
"Are you alright? Gemane! Oh my gosh I killed my coltfriend-"
"Gngh-fine. I'm fine, Twilight. Mostly." The winged pony stood shakily and observed himself. He didn't seem to be missing anything, and there were at least twelve electrodes that hadn't been pulled off. "Hey, cool! Did you get any readings off of the Reflex?"
"Oh, I think I did!" Germane hardly noticed Spike shaking his head in baffled awe.
"Both of you. Just, jeez."
Just three hours before the storm, in the town square, Rainbow Dash had seen an opportunity and gotten an idea. It was a good idea, and all it had taken was about an hour to convince the mayor, Twilight, and her own weather team that it was a safe one, too.
Wild storms weren't common, but with Ponyville on the border of Equestria's most dangerous forest, they happened there more than anywhere else in the populated lands. Dash's spotters had managed to pick up on this one early, so she'd had just enough time to propose the, in her words, incredibly awesome plan.
The mayor had actually been the easiest to convince. Putting on a display of what the civil servants did, how they did it, and how they dealt with the unexpected was, in a certain light, a very attractive option. Twilight had agreed, but maintained that they follow the normal (and depressingly oft-used) disaster protocols. The designated shelters, such as the town hall, school, and city auditorium were set as evacuation centers. The only real difference between this occasion and any other was that the shelters were able to order catering beforehand.
So Germane found himself with a number of familiar ponies, including the Bearers of Harmony (minus Rainbow Dash), in the town hall, and watched the sky through the open double doors.
The storm was beautiful in a way that might only appeal to an ex-human. When he and Twilight had found themselves more or less alone in the crowd, he'd quietly started describing storms on the east coast of North America.
"And sometimes we got hurricanes, too," he added nostalgically. "Tropical storms, yeah, but sometimes they followed the coast up to Maryland. I only lived there for three years, but the weather was always fun."
"Fun? Tell me again, how many feet of snow did you get during your, uh, last winter there?" Germane met Twilight's eyes with a perplexed expression.
"Six. Why?" Then he was struck with a flash of inspiration. "Hey, if we had Miss Dash do that this year, the town could just dig little, pony-size tunnels under the snow! We'd be like fuzzy, panchromatic hobbits!"
"I don't know what a hobbit is, and that..." her eyes went slightly unfocused. "That might have given me an idea. For later, I mean."
"That's what I meant, Twilight. We need to turn your stunning intellect toward fun and games. I think Miss Pie has been a good influence on you."
The horrified stare he got might, he privately considered, have been a bit much.
"Everypony," broke in one voice, "They're about to start!"
"Alright!" Shouted Germane, and beckoned Twilight forward.
"You seem a bit too excited," said the unicorn. "Are you planning something?" The stallion gave a derisive snort.
"Not today, Twilight. This is just going to be really, really cool to watch!" His face softened a bit. "I can't qualify for the weather team myself, or even go through the rescue training that Ponyville's pegasi all get. I don't get to see this up close, ever, and trying to do more than cloudwalk usually ends up with me having to make excuses to Maudlin," he explained, referring to Nurse Redheart.
"Oh. Well, let's enjoy the show, then," she replied, and gave him a quick nuzzle. It was... nice, he thought. Ponies were more casually physical than most creatures, and heaven knew he'd picked up the same instincts. In practice, though, he'd had to distance himself from just about everypony who wasn't themselves an ex-human, and they had their own lives to lead.
So, loneliness compounded loneliness and... he was self-aware enough to consider that he might, sometimes, be fishing for bad attention to take the place of good attention, sometimes. Maybe most of the time, even.
He decided to throw caution to the wind and nuzzled her right back.
"After this, I'm going to cuddle the hell out of you." Twilight let out something like a laughing snort, which made her even more adorable.
"All that dirty humor and you're just a teddy bear with feathers. Ponyville's mad scientist is a cuddlebug." Germane's eyes brightened.
"They really call me Ponyville's mad scientist? That is so cool!"
"Yup!" Pink! "Everypony was all 'he's gonna do something!' and then they'd need to get pitchforks to chase your abominable creations out of town-" more pink! "-so then I said I want Gummy to have green fire breath and be five hundred feet tall but then he might go terrorize Neighpon which would be bad but it's what you expect giant monsters to do so-" so much pink! "-and then Scootaloo pulled the lever and everything went 'boom'!"
"H...hi, Miss Pie," said Germane, once he'd regained the ability to speak. He felt inexplicably dazed, and Twilight patted his foreleg in sympathy.
"Hi, Germy! Hi Twily! The show's starting, and we've got muffins and crullers and slices of cheesy souffle!" Twilight looked over at the catering table in appraisal.
"I'm guessing you and the Cakes split up to cover each shelter?" The earth pony nodded frantically.
"Yup! Jenny Levy's serving tea n' stuff on the next table over. She gave me extra-delicious chamomile!" Germane nodded approvingly.
"Rock on, Miss Pie." She grinned.
"I know all about rocks! Ma and Pa and Inkie and Blinkie and me and all the others were the best rock farmers in the region! Were the rocks off?" she asked intently. Germane, dazed and more than a little confused, shook his head.
"It's, no, I mean, it's just a saying to... keep on doing what you're doing. Just a thing p... ponies say, some places."
"What places?"
"Pinkie!" shouted Twilight, catching the mare's rapt attention. "Can we get some of that souffle?"
"Two slices up for Twily and her studly study buddy!" she said, working frantically with a spatula, and Germane and Twilight both found themselves with a serving of warm food. "Have fun watching the show!" she said, waggling her eyebrows in a frantic, salacious motion.
"Sorry about that," said Twilight as she led them toward the cone of space in the building's center that gave the best view outdoors. "Also, making pop culture references from an alien society is sort of a give-away, don't you think?" Germane shrugged.
"Just shows that I'm eccentric. You know, like mad scientists are supposed to be." Twilight sighed and sat down on one of the large cushions set out for spectators. Germane did the same, and tentatively draped one wing over Twilight's back, which he'd seen pegasi do before with their 'special somepony'. She snuggled closer.
Fuckin' A. Victory.
There was a crack of lightning, which seemed to signal the start of the main event. Like Germane had told Twilight, the weather was entrancing. No bite-sized, manufactured clouds. These were sweeping, swirling things that darkened and roiled whenever they felt like it. Lightning flashed and crackled from one cloud to the next, all playing an infinitely complex game of tag among participants who were all invisible to all but each other.
It was, he'd later muse, weird how prophetic certain thoughts could be when one got all poetic.
"Are you ready, Miss Sparkle?" Twilight glanced back and found only feathers. She pushed them aside to reveal Mayor Mare, and they settled back on her head. She frowned, and pushed them again, and again they moved back.
"Stop that or I'll bite you," she warned.
"In public?" The feigned indignation would have been the envy of Canterlot nobles. But with a chuckle, Germane relented and revealed a snickering mare, Mayor Mare (Twilight resisted the urge to go cross-eyed, for a moment).
"We just got the signal," the official explained. "Ready to patch us through?" Twilight nodded, and got to casting.
It was actually a communications spell used by the royal guardsponies, but with only a little bit of coercion (read: pouting), her older brother had relented and taught it to her. She'd already cast the first half of the spell on Rainbow Dash before the cyan mare had made her way into the sky, earlier. This second half would broadcast her voice to the interior of the town hall. Unfortunately, setting the spell up in the other two shelters would have taken additional unicorns with the ability to cast the spell, so the auditorium and school house would have to settle for visuals, only.
"And so she says, that's not a feather duster, that's my tail!"
The voice that carried throughout the room was accompanied by two others laughing along. Twilight's eyes widened in realization. She wondered, frantically, if anyone had given the reply signal to the circling pegasi.
"Funny, chief," said one mare, "but there's no way she really said that. Not if you and she-"
"Totally true! Every word of it, even her ticklish fetlock-"
"Erm, boss?"
"What? Can't handle a little mare's talk?"
"Your throat's glowing, boss. I think the spell's already on."
"What? Aw... aw, dang it. Um, just testing, everypony! Let's, um, get to work already!"
Twilight groaned, already embarrassed on her friend's behalf. Germane coughed uncomfortably.
"So, um, that Miss Dash, I suppose she-" Twilight cut him off very quickly.
"Rainbow Dash is Rainbow Dash's business, buddy." She felt the slight shift in her mane as he nodded agreeably.
"Right. Of course. Unless she's been tickling your fetlocks and I wasn't invited, of course-" Her hoof struck just under his fourth rib.
"Nopony is tickling my fetlocks," she hissed. "Or my anything! You're doing this on purpose!"
They bickered back and forth for some time. The mayor glibly excused herself and wandered off at some point, and the room's hushed conversation gave way to the voices echoing out of the air above everypony.
Twilight suspected that Rainbow Dash had coached both herself and the others on the weather team to be overly exact in detailing their own statuses. Some of the terminology honestly went above her own head, since she'd never studied weather-manipulation in-depth, but the colorful commentary was quite fun.
She watched one distant dot detach a piece of the thunderous cloud cover and ride it ground-ward, corkscrewing madly.
"Yee-haw! We need more wild storms, do you see me surfing this thing?!"
"What?"
"Like those islander griffons, with their water boards?"
Or, the ever-entertaining:
"I'm here to kick cloud and eat cake, and I'm all out of cake."
At that point, Pinkie had to be restrained by Applejack from rushing out into the storm with a special delivery of cake for the 'poor, cakeless stallion'.
Things took a turn for the weird, though, about thirty minutes into the explosive spectacle.
A team of eight figures, just visible as being ponies, had begun circling the storm's largest mass. They circled it, tugging here and there to gradually siphon it up and away to where it could safely dissipate. Germane likened it to a reverse-tornado, and provided fascinating commentary about cyclones, ratings by some human named Fujita, and the great 'Dust Bowl' event.
"Uh... everypony? I think this cloud is... uh, watching me."
"Gale? I think you might need to take a break. Squall, take over at her position. There's some loose cirrus there that I don't like the look of."
Boss, I think Gale's right. I can see eyes. Big, uh, green eyes.
The cloud front exploded. There was a gasp from almost everypony in the group, and several screams. Twilight watched in horror as tiny, colorful dots tumbled away from the expanding front.
Celestia's teeth, move it!
Sturm! Catch Squall, he's out of it!
Rainbow Dash, it's chasing me!
Don't be crazy! I'm doing an emergency dispersal. Everypony, down! Get grounded and get to cover!
"What does she mean by emergency dispersal?" It was Rarity, gathered up close with a shaking Fluttershy. She was looking at Twilight, assuming that the bookish would be as quick to answer as she always was.
"She's doing a Sonic Rainboom," surmised the violet mare, "But I can't imagine why! Cloud fronts don't fight back, and they don't have eyes!"
"Aw, hell, shut the doors!" Twilight didn't notice until the comforting weight had disappeared from her back that Germane had bolted for the front of the room. He flapped his wings hard to go over the heads of several gawking ponies, before throwing himself at the large, wooden portal. As he pushed and bolted the left one, Twilight focused and telekinetically closed the other one. Pinkie and Applejack threw their heavier forms to either side of Twilight's stallionfriend and covered their ears.
The building shook. The whole town probably shook, for that matter. Rainbow Dash wasn't exactly subtle when she was in a hurry, let alone when she went about defying conventional physics.
Twilight pushed through the retreating crowd and rushed up to the reinforced windows (after the last time town hall had been destroyed, shatter-proof glass had been first on the list of improvements). What she saw was... not encouraging, to say the least. Instead of the chromatic burst and after-trail typical of one of Dash's stunts, she saw a wild, roiling scape that was-
"Psychedelic. What did Pinkie put in our food, again?" Twilight saw Germane and the girls approach, followed by just about everypony else.
"I'm not allowed to do that, anymore..." muttered Pinkie. "Zecora was banned from selling me herbs ever again, ever." Germane's eyes bugged.
"That was you! When I woke up in Appleloosa last Founder's Day snuggling a damned hay-bale, I thought I'd had some sort of psychotic blackout! I still can't stand the taste of raw chipmunk!" Everypony took a discrete step away from him, and he rolled his eyes. "I'm kidding." There was a collective sigh. "I have no idea if it was an actual chipmunk." Fluttershy fainted. Twilight gave thanks and praise when Rainbow Dash's voice came over the spell link and distracted everypony.
"Split up and cover the shelters! Don't let that stuff hit you! Twilight, if you can hear me, keep the townsfolk indoors and away from any windows!"
The unicorn nodded, mostly to herself since the link was only one way and audio-only on top of that, and raised her voice.
"Everypony to the basement!" She glanced outside, again. Green lightning was crashing down every few meters, snaking out soundlessly and licking at the walls of the buildings.
"We've gotta do somethin'," stated Applejack.
"You can say that, but I'm not going near that... that mess!" declared Rarity. "We should send a message to Canterlot and get the unicorn guardsponies out here." Spike stepped closer to the group, having stayed behind when the mayor and her clerks had begun ushering the gathered populace downstairs. Twilight felt a pang of pride at his determined expression.
"Right away," she said firmly, "but that could take hours." She looked out at the three weather ponies furiously circling the building, disrupting the wind and lightning. "I'm not sure how long they can hold out, out there. We need something to disperse all of that energy and stop whatever that thing was that scared them. It... it looks like it just fed off of the magic from Dash's Rainboom, somehow."
"I'll just cobble together a lightning rod from duct tape and popsicle sticks," offered Germane blankly.
"You can do that?!" asked Pinkie in astonishment. She was frantically waving air into Fluttershy's face with a paper fan she got from... somewhere.
"He was being sarcastic, Pinkie," declared Twilight. "Germane can't really build a..." she trailed off. She glanced at Germane, who suddenly looked worried.
"I, um, don't think I have enough popsicle sticks. Twilight? Sugar hooves?" The unicorn pretended not to have heard that last bit and started tugging him along.
"Spike, send that letter explaining the situation to the Princess," she called back.
"I'm not sure what the situation is!" he replied, but started searching for ink and parchment.
"I've got an idea! Germane, we'll need you to-" She broke off, realizing that the other mares, plus a newly-awakened Fluttershy had crowded up next to the pair. They had what Shining Armor would have called their 'game faces' on. Germane just still looked confused, and she was struck with a moment of panic. He'd help, she was sure of it, but she didn't want to put him in an impossible situation, either.
"Uh, girls? I've got a plan, but you all need to stay here. I can, uh, protect two ponies," which wasn't entirely a lie, probably, "and I need Germane to make my plan work. Can you keep the townsponies from panicking?"
"Ah don't like this one bit, Twi'," stated Applejack. The other three didn't seem much happier, and were casting suspicious glances at Germane.
"Now, I know you must be excited to... include your nice stallion in things, but is it truly wise to split up?" asked Rarity with an atypical hesitation. Twilight felt her insides twist with guilt. She couldn't explain without betraying a promise, and couldn't keep a promise without leaving her friends out of some things.
Maybe if I asked him, she thought, but realized that now obviously wasn't the time.
"Sorry girls, no time to explain, be back soon!" She went right back to yanking a confused pegacorn along behind her.
"Twilight, the front door's the other way!" shouted Pinkie, perplexed.
"Taking the side door!" A brief moment later, she and Germane were in a side corridor that wrapped around the northern side of the main room. While the other side of the building contained offices, this side only contained supply rooms and one neglected exit to the outside world.
"Care to explain, Twilight? I figured this'd all be, you know, super-heroine stuff. Death ray rainbows, and whatever." Twilight rolled her eyes at the very idea, even if having the Elements of Harmony on hoof at the moment might have been helpful. If they had Dash with them instead of patrolling one of the other buildings, and if they had a single idea as to what was really happening.
"We won't need all that. We already have a death ray we can use." Germane stared blankly. "Your telescope! The radio-telemetry project you were babbling about but wouldn't let me see because you're a tease?" He brightened up.
"Oh! Yeah. Good times." Then he scowled. "It's not a death ray. I don't build weapons, Twilight. Not ever. I'm not as stupidly optimistic as Tesla." The unicorn let her face soften just a hair. The minute he casually brought up 'rail guns' and began cursing in languages that didn't exist in Equestria two days ago, she'd gotten a quick glimpse at just the kind of stallion he was.
"I was being facetious, Germane. I mean, can't we use it to guide the lightning? It's big and metal, and electricity just loves metal, right? We just unfold it and-"
"Hope for the best?" He huffed. "No, I see what you mean, and I've got my own idea now, at that. I only wish I had some pre-built rockets."
They were outside again, having left behind the relative safety of Sugarcube Corner. Germane kept his eyes on either the sky above them, or on Twilight, who also had her eyes on the sky.
For good reason, too. The storm had... changed. Aside from its new, chromatic look (had it eaten a Sonic Rainboom? The mind boggled), there were distinct, living shapes within the storm. There were definitely green, sinister eyes attached to things which might have, cautiously, been labeled 'misshapen devil-beasts'. And, because that wasn't terrible enough, they were literally breathing lightning.
"Now, I get that Ponyville is a pretty... exciting place," he said, "but this here is a, what, weekly thing?"
"Sometimes we get a week off," admitted Twilight. "I'm pretty sure things have always been this... um, exciting, even before I moved here, right?" There was a note of worry in her voice. Germane chuckled.
"Yeah, I guess so. Believe it or not, Olive used to take care of the 'excitement'. Him, Granny Smith, and one or two of the Hominids Anonymous crowd. Bright Shield used to take his days off down here, 'just in case', as he put it." Twilight's face scrunched up in concentration before familiarity replaced it.
"Bright Shield? He was my brother's commanding officer! He was, um," she paused.
"Monkey with hooves. We've come up with a million almost-funny code words for everyday conversation. And yeah, he was one of us. See why I was so nervous? We get everywhere. I stay close to home, but I get letters every week from very brave ponies doing very brave things."
"I think this counts as doing something very brave," she countered. Germane looked down at his feet (still bare, as he hadn't quite figured out his shoe situation) and shuddered as the green lightning snaked into his body. He hadn't done enough testing. What were the odds that demi-windigo magic caused testicular cancer?
"That's sweet of you," he said through clenched teeth. "But brave ponies get talked about, and ponies who get talked about get their back-stories looked into by enthusiastic paparazzi. Let's have me be the costume extra in this story, alright? You, um, pulled some sort of spell out of your butt, and you brought me along to carry the bags." Reading pony body language was as instinctive as walking, for Germane (as terrible as he might be at playing poker), and that particular flop of Twilght's ears was worrying.
"Twi?" She sighed.
"Sorry. It's just, I know how important the secret is, but I'm already lying to my friends and... and I'm going to have to lie more, aren't I?" She tucked her head into his chest, keeping her eyes out of sight.
That's bad. That's... really bad, thought Germane. She only knew about humans because he had been careless, but she'd kept quiet because she was kind, and because he'd layered on the guilt.
"I could... help with that, maybe." She perked up.
"Yeah?" And then something terrible and awesome happened.
"Buck!" Germane let out a yelp and dropped to the earthen road, cradling his marefriend to keep her from touching the loose energy field. His hair was blasted to one side, and there was a thump. Germane knew, before he'd even looked, that it was exactly the noise made by a pegasus getting tossed into a building by an irate cloud monster. He was in the open, there was nowhere to go, and he was two feet taller than he should have been.
Time to go on the offensive.
"Hi, Miss Dash. Weather giving you trouble?" The cyan mare shook her head and growled at the sky, which Germane wasn't aware ponies could even do. Then she noticed him.
"What the hay?" And then she saw Twilight. Her eyes narrowed at him. The way her natural weather magic sent the magic lightning coruscating up and down her legs and along the tips of her primary feathers was terrifying. Obviously, mused Germane, Rainbow Dash's best friend was wrapped up in the arms of a monster.
He smiled, but kept his lips closed over his teeth.
"Do you like it? The transformation spell keeps me safe from the lightning, And Twilight didn't want to walk." The pegasus blinked once, twice, then bugged out her eyes.
"Transformation spe- Germane?!" She looked to the embarrassed unicorn cradled in his arms. "Twilight, why's your stallionfriend a monkey?" Twilight coughed.
"That's ape-descendant, thank you," she said, which made Germane flush a little, proudly. "And it makes him immune to magic backlash. We're going to ground the storm and either dissipate it or render it normal, again."
"I'm a lightning rod," Germane confirmed pleasantly. Rainbow Dash shook her head in confusion.
"Right. Sure. So he's an ape-monkey 'cause it makes you guys safe? Why'd you even come up with a spell like that?" Germane shrugged.
"It's got benefits," he assured her, and wiggled his fingers above Twilight's head, just in her blind spot. Dash stared, then smirked.
"Hot. Alright, I'm going back to kicking those things in the face. You do your own thing, and we'll have a party afterward." And in a flash, she was gone.
"That went well," said Germane. "About as well as we could expect, I guess. With any luck, it won't blow up in our faces like everything else has," he added optimistically.
"Um, Germane?"
"Yes, we'll save the day and then I figure, you know, I just got this new record delivered from Fillydelphia. Do you like jazz? The jazz is optional."
"Germane, seriously, you have to-" Germane smiled harder, and tried to ignore the trickle of sweat on his brow.
"I think I can repurpose my arc-welder as mood lighting, because, you know-"
"Germane!" He froze, and very gradually met the eyes of the exasperated mare in his arms. "Her spell was still on." Germane sighed.
"Yeah. I saw that just as she was taking off, too." They both hung their heads. "I'm going to get beaten with a rod. They will line up and beat me like a pinata."
"But this is basically the perfect excuse! You don't even have to lie!" Germane winced.
"Absolute secrecy means exactly what it is, Twilight. I have to explain an animal that doesn't have magic. Even the mosquitoes have magic on Equus! Then I get everypony in a high-risk magical environment thinking I don't want to fork over what amounts to the ultimate safety procedure just because I can't replicate the results at will!" He wanted to bash his head against a wall, except Twilight was in the way and he didn't want to bruise his marefriend, who was the only positive result of this fiasco of a month.
"We'll think of something. We'll make it right. Cross my heart and hope to die, stick a cupcake in my eye." Her forelegs, tucked up as they were against the chest, slowly went through the motions.
"That's still the most ridiculous solemn vow I've ever heard of," he chided her, and frowned. "Seriously, though, there are too many unknowns to make a promise that's-"
An arrow thunked into a nearby post. A sheet of paper unrolled gently with the word 'FOREVER' printed in pink icing. The couple stared at it.
"I guess... if she was still at the shelter, then..."
"Let's not discuss that ever. But, um, if you get any ideas that prevent me from getting tenderized and eaten, I'd appreciate them." Twilight's eyes widened.
"You said humans don't eat ponies! Or any sentient beings!"
"Some folks might make an exception if they were angry enough. Oh, look, we're here!" And they were. His off-center, oft-repaired and eclectic household/workshop was just a few feet away. He felt gratified that the discretely-placed parts that acted as a Faraday cage were doing their job, as the magic arced around it and not into it.
"I'm half-certain you're joking," she replied, and nudged his door open with her magic. He stepped in and kicked it closed without looking back. Free for the moment of any danger, he let Twilight down gently and stretched his arms. She rolled onto her hooves and magically lit several of his hanging lanterns. Germane was solidly of the opinion that, as fun as it was to mess with electricity, lanterns were simply awesome.
Caged fire was safe fire, after all.
"Now, my idea was to extend your telescope out, funny branch-things and all, to start drawing in lightning strikes. Does it have that capacity, or will it explode?" she asked earnestly.
"It's nice you asked before exploding my six months of hard work and expenses," he quipped. "This place has capacitors buried underneath it that could draw half of Manehattan's output for three days. The real trouble will be making enough of the storm's charge come to us. Can you ionize a couple kilometers of wire?"
"You said humans couldn't make lightning!" accused Twilight. Germane shrugged and snipped another length of copper.
"I forgot! It's not as if it's actually useful for much. And cloud seeding's still in a primitive stage, so calling up rain is iffy," he admitted. "Otherwise we'd have made the deserts fertile by now and turned Utah into a jungle. And filled it with dinosaurs, and then we could-"
"All those things are going on the list, mister," she warned him. Germane shuddered. Twilight's list thus far was about twelve scrolls thick and growing, full of questions, queries, and ideas for experiments. He was terrified that she'd start skipping out on Celestia's assignments for the sake of building a rocket ship. Which would be unbelievably cool, yes, but impractical, and would draw the attention of somepony who threw stars around as part of her morning calisthenics.
"Right. Now, remember what I said," cautioned Germane as he tied the last of the weights to the last coil of wire. He hoped it would be enough. "Expulsion, not telekinesis. I can't imagine what a live, magical connection could do once the affected mass was hitting that kind of voltage."
"I wrote the annotations to the revised manual of safety for experimental procedures," the mare huffed. Then she began inspecting the massive anchor that the copper coils all terminated at.
"Fine. Extruding antennae." He stomped on a nearby foot-pedal (made for hooves, actually) and threw four levers in concert. The building began to vibrate.
"Germane? Are you sure this is grounded well enough?"
"Of course it isn't," he called back. The ceiling, or at least a portion of it, cracked it open to reveal the untamed weather. Wide enough for their task, and wide enough to see the thin, compact tower.
Unseen machinery spun and rotated. The tower's outer shell itself did the same, settling at a speed of about five revolutions per minute. Metal straps running lengthwise sprang out like some sort of ill-conceived umbrella, and released smaller arms until they produced a series of overlapping concave dishes which would have caused brain-spasms in the designer of the Sydney Opera House.
"What is that supposed to mean?!" Germane looked over at Twilight, perplexed until he figured out how she might have taken his entirely reasonable answer.
"Grounding it would be such a waste! And also maybe make the dirt explode. Everything I'm not storing, I'm going to use!" He booted up the computer, which was more of a mechanical Turing machine with honest, paper read-outs than anything NASA might have considered respectable. It had all the processing power of a toaster, but as he'd often noted, magic made up for a lot.
"Now send out the leads before my baby explodes," he said, and lightning was already beginning to arc over the fully-deployed tower. Twilight, her curiosity denied, groaned. But she did start casting.
Fifteen tiny weights glowed in the aura of her magic, rose through the opening in the roof, and shot outward in all directions. The magic cut out almost immediately, but momentum was already carrying them over Ponyville. Germane really hoped they hadn't winged one of the weathermares in the face.
He grabbed up the protesting unicorn mare and wrapped himself around her form as tightly as possible, and not a moment too soon. Before the coils had finished feeding outward, the whole of the storm's accumulated charge began funneling toward his workshop via the wires. Something in the sky above screamed.
"For what? Use it for what?!" Germane motioned toward his tower.
"That!"
The tower radiated the same green light as did the energy feeding into it, only brighter and more regular. Germane felt his teeth buzz pleasantly as invisible power pulsed out over sixty times per second. The scribbling of ink pens over paper drums scratched nearly as loudly as the things in the sky howled. The light show lasted twenty seconds, but the equipment would keep running for well over the next hour.
"Germane?
"-ah ha ha ha ha! Er, yes, Twilight?" The mare graced him with a deadpan look.
"You're doing the evil laugh again. The same one that made Fluttershy faint three days ago?" Germane bit off his excitement and coughed, embarrassed. That time had been an accident. He'd just gotten excited! How often did you find Winter pears for three bits to the pound, after all?
"Sorry. Right. Shall we go? Er, hold on." He triggered the transformation, all weird light and inversion, and smiled tiredly. For it being his second transformation of the day, he hardly felt like collapsing at all!
"You could have stayed like that, if you wanted," suggested Twilight. "You've got a cover story now, right? A mostly true one, even."
"Yeah... sorta. There are still a lot of ways this could go wrong. I'm going to have nightmares for weeks... probably best not to sleep at all." He glanced down at his currently-fuzzy chest. "Being magically permeable isn't really a hundred percent, either- I think it shortens the time I can keep changed at any given moment to absorb too many spells. Just like our last test session, but I guess a continuous feed does the same thing."
"You can't really say you'll have weeks of nightmares, Germane," said the unicorn, helping him stand steady.
"I can catastrophize with the best of them, Twilight. Some of us internalize our obsessive compulsion and paranoia." Twilight huffed.
"I am not... um, paranoid!" She held back on any more shouting and nudged him along. "Is it alright to leave this all running?" she asked.
"Yeah. The automatic cutoffs will kick in eventually."
"If your nightmares are that bad, then I'm sure I can just send a letter to... oh, no, that won't work at all," the mare trailed off.
"What won't work?" he asked, unlatching the front door with a wingtip. Twilight bit her lip.
"Well, I'd have offered to send a letter to Princess Luna directly. I don't want to take advantage, but she keeps saying that I can ask her whenever I need anything, and she really is a good friend..."
"What could the night's Diarch do?" he asked. "I'm not sure royalty is qualified to prescribe sleep aids," he added, skeptically. He shut the door behind them, and they made their way under a much more normal-looking storm. Rainbow Dash's voice echoed down through the sky as she kicked things repeatedly, and all seemed right with the world again.
"She's also the sovereign of dreams," explained Twilight. "She helps out, sometimes, with her subjects' dreams if they turn really bad. Ever since she returned a couple years ago, in fact. It's really quite sweet of her. Germane?"
The pegacorn had frozen. The light sprinkling of rain drops went completely unheeded, as he stared into the undefinable distance that held doom, doom, and more doom. He became aware that Twilight was calling his name, but he didn't respond directly
"She knows. The secret was pointless all along. She knows. Saints and sinners, she knows and we all already lost a long time ago." He glanced up, expecting a properly dramatic swing of a heretofore-unseen ax. Nothing. Damn, but waiting was unpleasant.
"You're not making any sense," insisted Twilight. She seemed to be picking up on his nervousness, because now she was looking around frantically.
"Two years and change," he lectured, "of being back. At least two hundred of her subjects, all traumatized by remarkably similar circumstances, all having memories of a world that isn't real... Their dreams might, maybe, have something of a common thread, wouldn't they?" Twilight's eyes widened.
"Oh. Oh! I see, now. But... nothing's happened yet, right? I think you're overreacting." She offered him a grin. "And that's coming from me!" If she'd intended to cheer him up, it just wasn't working.
He sunk to the ground, hooves over his face and, damn it all, he was crying. What a way to end.
"She'd... she'd want to get us all at once. That takes time," he sniffed, "and coordination. Th-the Lunar Guard, they'll, it'll happen at night, when we're sleeping, black bags over our heads or maybe we just won't wake up at all. Twilight? You can have my lab. You'll like it, it's a good lab. I've got some savings, you can buy books with those..." He stood up and wobbled a bit. "Go see your friends, please. I'm... going to make some tea and make sure the tower's running alright. Then I guess I'll just... wait, I guess. As soon as I fall asleep, and she knows I know, that should be the signal. Bye, Twilight. You are lovely in every way."
Twilight's stallionfriend had just barricaded himself in his lab and wouldn't answer no matter how many times she knocked or yelled. She understood, really, she did, but were humans so naturally pessimistic? Then again, he'd been living in strange circumstances for years, and maybe it had all just sort of caught up to him all at once. That had happened to her, on occasion, but being so afraid of the Princesses was an absolutely alien thought to her. Fear of disappointing them, maybe, but they were fair and kind mares!
She felt conflicted. On the one hoof, Germane had trusted her with a lot.
Including the safety of, wow, over two hundred? she thought.
But on the other hoof, he was thoroughly convinced that the secrecy had been irrevocably broken, and he wasn't in a fit state for 'damage control'. Furthermore, he was convinced that it was impossible.
He'd trusted her so much, and all she could do was watch him grow increasingly more stressed-out ever since they'd started dating. Conspiring. Some weird mixture of both, maybe. And if the reactions of the other ex-humans to her finding out had been any indicator, then they couldn't be doing much better. Even if they thought they still had Germane's hasty cover-story protecting them.
Twilight, why's your stallionfriend a monkey?
So now she could do something, and none of them would have to be afraid. And Germane could be human and scratch her ears in public.
She flushed. Then, regaining her senses, she took off at a gallop for the town hall.
As she approached it, she heard the distant weather pegasi hard at work in the clouds above, this time approaching the storm more carefully. The green-eyed creatures were scattering, and the afternoon sky was starting to shine through here and there. Undoubtedly the creatures would be the subjects of endless investigations, which Twilight would be happy to help with, but that was for after the current crisis.
The doors of Ponyville's main administration building opened under her magical touch and she raced in. Some ponies had already made their way back upstairs, looking out the windows hopefully. The mayor in particular noticed the unicorn's hurried entrance and trotted over.
"Miss Sparkle, any news?" Twilight nodded.
"Yes. The disaster's over, and we should all be clear to leave as soon as the storm breaks. We could leave now, probably, but it's best to be safe and give Rainbow Dash's team time to work," she assured the mare. The mayor nodded brusquely and wandered toward the shelter, presumably to share the good news. Luckily, Twilight's friends (minus Dash, who was there in spirit via the feral shouting that came over the spell link) were already up and chatting among each other. The unicorn hurried over.
"Girls? Spike? There's sort of a situation." Concern and, from Pinkie anyway, excitement touched their expressions as Twilight took a place in the little circle.
"Ah don't think Dash havin' the time o' her life is a situation, Twi," said Applejack.
"And one to grow on!"
"Is it about your monkeysus? Monkeycorn?" Pinkie Pie quirked her head thoughtfully. "Gonna have to work on that!" Twilight worried at her lower lip.
"Sort of. Well, not even sort of, really-"
"Is he hurt?" asked Fluttershy. "Do you need me to find Nurse Redheart? I think she's still, um, downstairs. Doctor Ray and Nurse Linen are at the other shelters, I think." Twilight started to respond in the negative, until she had an idea.
"He's not... hurt," she said, "but you should get her anyway. Could you?" Confused, Fluttershy gave a tentative nod and was on her way.
"Your mother felt that one! You know she did!" Rarity rolled her eyes heavenward and sighed.
"That mare..." Then she brough herself back to the present. "Twilight? Dear, you seem rather flustered for a 'job well done'. And not the right kind of flustered, either!" Twilight sighed. Instead of responding to the bait, she addressed Spike.
"Could you send Princess Celestia the all-clear? And we'll need to send a separate letter to Princess Luna. I'll write that one," she said, grabbing paper and quill from Spike's ever-present stock.
The wording was difficult, but she was pretty sure she managed something as discrete as it was urgent.
Dear Princess Luna,
You once told me that if I ever needed anything, I could ask freely. Well, while I myself don't need anything special, I've recently made a friend who could use a few words of reassurance from you, in person.
He has dreams, the contents of which he shares in common with several other ponies, that he worries could paint him in a very unfavorable light with the crown. Even though he's one of the most responsible individuals I've ever met, and has dedicated his life to being helpful to ponies everywhere, he's afraid that the contents of those dreams might have him and those like him labeled dangerous.
He's very afraid, and I can't do anything to reassure him. Worse, I can understand how, in his position, and lacking my understanding of just how kind and reasonable both you and my teacher, your sister, are, he should feel that way.
I think you understand what I mean when I ask you to please visit at your earliest convenience to explain how, regardless of his origins, he's not any less of a pony than the rest of us. Right now I think he's afraid to let himself sleep.
Your friend,
Twilight Sparkle
"Send it quick," she asked, as soon as it was finished. Spike nodded, having already sent the missive to Celestia. The bound scroll disappeared in a flash of fire.
"Twilight, can you take this thing off already?"
"-off already?"
Four mares and a dragon turned to see the sources of the obnoxious echo. At this distance between the two spell points, Rainbow Dash's voice was trying to overpower itself awkwardly. Twilight quickly cancelled the spell.
"Thanks, Twilight. What's going on in this little knitting circle?" asked the brash athlete. She looked to have been run through a few walls and at least two different species of tree, but she was still grinning. In a timely fashion, Fluttershy and Nurse Redheart had also appeared.
"Let's take this to one of the offices," suggested Twilight. "Nurse Redheart, can you look over Rainbow when we get there?" The nurse nodded.
"Of course," she said, giving the pegasus an appraising eye. "One of my favorite patients. I do so... love the repeat customers." Pinkie chortled.
There were plenty of offices going unused, given the state of emergency, but Twilight managed to snag the small conference room just by the exit she and Germane had taken just an hour ago.
"I'm fine, dang it!" Rainbow Dash had retreated to fluttering around the ceiling, avoiding the medical professional's grasp. It was, if the expression on the others was any indication, quite the free show. Twilight would have to put a damper on it, though.
"Nurse? Dash? Could we put that off for a second? I've got serious business that we all need to hear." Both mares cut their chase short, but Rainbow Dash made sure to set down in the opposite corner of the room.
"What, is this about you and Germane's kinky transformation shenanigans? I never really thought about the kind of stuff you eggheads get up to, but dang." The nurse froze. Her eyes tracked toward Twilight nervously.
"Sort of. Germane... realized something. He just learned that Princess Luna was the sovereign of dreams, you see, and he realized she might have... probably did pick up on a pattern. Because lots of... ponies out there might have very odd, but very similar dreams. So now he's locked himself up in his house and is expecting to be executed."
"Oh," said Redheart. She glanced nervously around at Twilight and her friends and slumped. "We already surrendered, Miss Sparkle. I really don't think you needed to go through with all this secrecy."
"Surrendered?" asked Rarity. Pinkie brightened up.
"Surrender accepted! You may present the symbolic sword to General Pie!" She bounced, spun, and came down facing Twilight. "Is this about your monkeysus? Is he actually a Changeling in disguise?" She leaned in eagerly. "Is he a Changmonkeysus?"
"No! No, he's not a changeling," Twilight assured the suddenly tense group. "But... he's not really a pony, either. Girls, do not react badly, but could you give a demonstration, Nurse Redheart?" The mare sighed.
"If you're sure..." A shivering light, a flicker that made the eyes want to cross, and a tall, human woman was standing there. Or maybe she was short. Twilight didn't have much comparative data.
"Um, hello, everypony." Rainbow Dash and Applejack immediately moved in front of the others, staring hard at the woman.
"Girls, this is still Nurse Redheart. She's still the same pony we've always known, so could you please stop scaring her?" The two mares backed off slightly. Rarity looked perplexed, while Fluttershy actually looked intrigued. Twilight figured she spent a lot of time sizing up strange creatures.
"I, ah, don't understand," said the fashionista.
"I'm a pony," said Redheart, "But I used to be a human. This," she said, gesturing toward her dress-covered body. "A lot of ponies came from the same place I did. Maybe three-hundred."
"Germane said two-hundred," said Twilight, instantly noting the discrepancy. Redheart winced.
"We always wake up in the wild magic zones, Miss Sparkle. A number of us don't always make it to safety, and the dangers of Equus are strange to us. I was lucky that Simba found me."
"You... you know Simba?" asked Fluttershy. "He's very kind, for a, uh, manticore. Are you friends?" The woman, to her credit, didn't even question why Fluttershy would know the humans' pet manticore by name. She nodded, which was luckily enough a more or less universal gesture.
"Over one hundred?" asked Twilight, horrified.
"It's safer now," the nurse assured her, "with Ponies like Germane and Frost and Blueroot and the others. Some, though, just don't take really well to having new bodies and they... they think that they might be able to get back the same way they got here, you see." Twilight felt that her violet coat must have gotten a shade paler.
"And how'd ya get here, exactly?" asked Applejack suspiciously.
"I died," answered the woman. "Same as Germane, Ditzy, Olive, Leonard, River, and all the others. I died, and woke up here." The information took a moment to seep into everypony's brains.
"Oh," said Applejack, getting it. Seeing the shamed look on her face, Redheart knelt down and gently pat her head.
"It's alright, dear. I'm happily married, now, and I got to practice medicine just like I always wanted, and I got to live in one of the nicest little towns in Equestria." She gestured down with her free hand. "And Germane was nice enough to build a machine that lets us be like we used to, even if it's only for a little while at a time."
"Ooh, ooh! Can Germane turn me tall, too!?" Pinky looked a little too excited at the prospect, in Twilght's eyes.
"It only works on ex-humans," said the librarian, not bothering to break out the magical theory.
"So do you monkeys have any cool powers?" asked Rainbow Dash, suddenly nose-to-nose with Redheart. The nurse's eyes bugged at the sudden closeness, but she managed to shake her head.
"Er, no. No powers, or magic, or anything. Equestria seems like a bit of a fairy-tale land to all of us, I must admit." She twisted her torso to face Twilight. "Miss Sparkle? What now?"
But before she could answer, there was a knock on the door.
The group went instantly silent. Before anypony else could react, Pinkie bounded over their heads and swung the door wide open.
"Hi, Princess! You're just in time for the party!"
"And what party would that be, Pinkie Pie?" The dark-hued alicorn smiled gently at the pink pony.
"The 'Congratulations-On-Being-Tall-Again' party!" Confused, Princess Luna's eyes swept over the room's occupants until they settled on Nurse Redheart.
"Ah. I see." The nurse, already crouched next to Applejack, spun and went into as deep a bow as possible.
"Your highness." The alicorn sighed.
"I really wish ponies would stop doing that. I think my sister might have the right of it in having relaxed courtly customs." She nudged Redheart gently with a hoof. "You really don't have to do that."
"Yes, your highness." She didn't move. Luna sighed a second time, and Twilight realized why.
"She's not scared of you personally, Princess Luna. They thought Princess Celestia would, um, take them apart for study, or lock them away." Luna's ears flickered back in surprise.
"Tia? She would never!" She nudged Redheart again. "Excuse me, miss, but are you a bad po-, ah, person? Have you ever done anypony harm?" Redheart's head shook vigorously. "Then why do you fear me?"
"I'm an alien, pretending to be one of your people, lying about my origins." She chanced a look up. "I'd think that was reason enough to worry. It's like being a 'Red Sympathizer', but worse, I guess."
"I," declared the princess, "have no idea what that means. Though if I'm guessing right, you weren't exactly given a choice, now, were you? Please, stand up." The woman did so, slowly at first, until she was just about at eye-level with the alicorn. Her hands grasped one another at the small of her back, which looked like it should have been painful. Twilight considered just how flexible Germane's other form might be, and almost lost track of the situation.
"Can you repeat after me?" asked the alicorn. Redheart nodded, uncertainly.
"Very good. 'I', and say your own name here, please, 'do solemnly swear'-"
They appeared with a flash of teleportation magic. Not as subtly as he would have expected, but he couldn't be sure of anything. Germane put down his tea, walked over to the wall, and picked up something that he knew resembled a walnut. He turned to face the mares, one of whom was recognizably an alicorn, and felt filled with a sudden, new resolve.
"You'll never take me alive!" he called, and threw down the smoke bomb. And then he ran.
The sound of a body running head-first into a wall stud was horribly distinctive, or at least, Twilight would be able to recognize it should she ever again hear it. She and the princess remained still, slightly shocked at the turn of events, until the smoke cleared away and revealed an unconscious pegacorn. Twilight sighed.
"I'm supposed to introduce this to my parents," she grumbled, and started hauling him over to the second-hand couch he kept in his combined workshop and living space.
"What was that, friend Twilight?" The unicorn flushed.
"Well, you see, I'm sort of... dating him." Luna reared back, then grinned broadly.
"You have a paramour! Oh, how delightful! His name is Germane, yes?" Then she paused, and looked concerned. "This is the same 'Germane Craft' that you claimed was a budding threat to all ponykind, in your letters to my sister?"
"To be fair, he's really only a threat to himself," reasoned Twilight. "I was drawing the wrong conclusions. He's really quite sweet, in his own odd way. And he's smart, and he said I was lovely, and he likes to hear about my spells, and he thinks I'm pretty."
"Has he, oh, what was it they do these days," grumbled the alicorn. "Has he brought you chocolates in order to court you?" She nodded. "It seems a better option than bringing the severed wings of one of your enemies, I suppose." Twilight stared.
"I was just jesting!" insisted Luna. "We didn't do that! Stealing the banner from an enemy encampment was more than enough, and more hygienic, besides." Twilight nodded to herself.
"You two are going to get along very well," she said firmly. Luna smiled.
"You think so? It would be good to make more friends. And an alien, at that. Does he appreciate the night sky?" Twilight rolled her eyes.
"He's half nocturnal." She gestured with one hoof at a custom sign bolted over his coffee maker. 'Science takes place after noon.'
"Plus," she added, "his big project outside of the transformation spell is some kind of telescope." It couldn't hurt to butter the princess up just a bit.
"How lovely! Do you cast the spells for him?" Twilight made to answer, but stopped, thoughtfully.
"You know, I'm not entirely sure. He can't even try to cast magic anymore, because of..." Frantically, she cut herself off, but Luna had picked up where she'd left off. Slowly, the alicorn brushed back the sleeping stallion's mane and stared intently at his forehead. Without his mane hanging in place, the little depression in the fur was fairly obvious.
"I see. We called them 'little princes' in my time. It was meant, I think, ironically, but sometimes the descriptor fit quite well." She glanced back under her wing. "Would you like to kiss him awake? I always found it to make for a most pleasant morning alarm."
"What?" She almost let herself come over as flustered as she might usually have, with such a suggestion, before her better sense kicked in.
Why shouldn't I? I mean, if I was sleeping w- near him, and he wanted to wake me up, then... Her decision made, and with logic firmly on her side, she leaned over him and met his lips. She eventually broke off to breathe.
"It's not working. Usually he recovers a lot faster from concussions. Maybe I should try again?" Luna pat her back.
"Do go for it, Twilight Sparkle. Try licking his teeth." Twilight found herself staring again, and the alicorn shuffled under the scrutiny. "Do you require a demonstration? I would be more than happy to-" The unicorn leaped onto the couch and started ravaging Germane's face, not coincidentally hiding her shocked expression from the princess.
This time it worked.
"Mmph. Twi? Do I taste delicious or something?" She grinned.
"Sort of like Pinkie's souffle, still."
"Excellent technique, Twilight Sparkle!"
Germane didn't especially want to throw his marefriend off him in some ill-advised bid for escape, and judging by the pounding in his head, that tactic had already failed him. But the princess of the moon was right there. And she was smiling at him, albeit uncertainly.
"Though perhaps it is a bit forward of me to make such judgments," she continued on. "And it is quite beside the point! It would be best to get business out of the way. Do repeat after me, please."
"Bwuh?" he asked. She chose not to answer.
"I, Germane Craft," and here Twilight elbowed him so that his mouth ran on automatic and followed along just a second after, "do solemnly swear to abide by the laws and harmonious principles upon which Equestria stands. I further swear loyalty to the diarchy, and above all to the common good of all beings within the borders of the royal lands. With the skies under any light as my witness, I so promise."
"...I so promise," he finished, uncertainly. Then the alicorn clapped her hooves and smiled like a Filly one-five-hundredth of her age.
"What joyous tidings! I offer you a belated welcome to our country and, I suppose, world, and remind you to abide by our laws. You do pay taxes, yes?"
"Yes?" he squeaked. That seemed to satisfy her.
"Then tell us of this telescope. Twilight Sparkle seems uncertain of its construction, and such devices have long since been a passion of mine." The output drums of said telescope were still scribbling furiously. He must not have been unconscious very long.
"Twilight," he whispered fiercely, "What just happened?" The unicorn nuzzled him.
"You just got your citizenship," she answered. "Now be nice and tell me what the spinning things do. I see what are obviously echo pylons, but-"
And so he haltingly explained the workings of his bastardized radio telescope, which relied on something similar to but not at all like radio waves. When he later realized he wasn't going to be executed, he offered tea and donuts and frantically set about trying to be a good host.
He was staring into his mug when he blinked, hard.
"So... I'm not going to die?" Luna sighed.
"Friend Twilight, is he always so nervous?" Twilight poured a heavy serving of sugar into her mug and shrugged.
"Yes, but usually he's cockier about it." She turned and addressed Germane. "Seriously, that's it, except for the details. Redheart got her citizenship half an hour ago, and Princess Luna will open a standing invitation to her night court for all of the ex-humans. Isn't that right, Princess?" The alicorn nodded happily.
"Yes. I imagine you will want to go through your own channels, Germane, but after you've informed as many of your fellows as possible to the sincerity of your offer, we'll make a public announcement and a short educational series. That, I'm afraid, will require a great deal of help on your end, and on the end of these other 'coordinators' I've heard about, but-"
"I'll do it!" Germane leaped over the table, knocked over two mugs, and hugged the alicorn fiercely. It was probably more an odd stress reaction than anything else, and wholly automatic. Obviously he wasn't thinking very straight at the moment.
"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" Twilight cleared her throat. "I'm gonna build you the biggest telescope ever!" Twilight cleared her throat again, more loudly this time, and was clearly straining from the effort. Germane tilted his head and looked out from over the princess's awesome, ethereal mane.
"Yes, Twilight?"
"Let go of the princess, Germane," she commanded. Germane flushed.
"Yes, sorry!" he bolted back and let his wings carry him into his chair.
"Oh, no, t'was quite well, we have been offered no offense to speak of," insisted Luna, sounding a lot more antiquated than she had a second earlier. She was staring intently at her half-finished doughnut. "These, ah, pastries are rather remarkable. Much like the weather, which is rather fair. Indeed." Germane glanced from the preoccupied alicorn to his marefriend, who had the strangest look in her eye.
"Right. Well." Germane searched for any words which might be appropriate to the situation. "When can I start?"