//------------------------------// // What did you do on your 500th Birthday, Twilight? // Story: Mush Story // by Dafaddah //------------------------------// Mush Story by Dafaddah Chapter one: What did you do on your 500th birthday, Twilight? Edited by Sharp Logic, TotallyNotaBrony and Mythee Prologue “Who was your first special somepony?” asked the little unicorn filly. The classroom behind her exploded in a fit of excited tittering. Most of the twenty of so foals would never have considered asking such a daring question, but Ginger Snap was more daring than the average filly. Their teacher, a young earth pony stallion pale of coat and mane, practically glowed red in embarrassment. The filly tried to hide her own giggles behind a dainty orange hoof. Twilight thought it was all so very cute! She hadn’t lost her smile despite the awkward question. After five hundred years of being a Princess of Equestria, Twilight’s control over her ‘public face’ – as Celestia called it – was rock solid. She scanned the eager young faces gazing towards her expectantly. Looking into those innocent eyes she saw much of herself at that age, and she knew she couldn’t lie to them. Besides, she had offered to answer any questions they had. “Uh, children," said their teacher, "we shouldn’t ask Her Majesty such personal things that are long past and surely forgotten.” “Nonsense!” Twilight gently chided the stallion. “After all these years of life I can personally attest that the past is never gone, it’s all around us.” She gestured at the pictures of the princesses and the bearers of the Elements of Harmony that covered the walls of the tiny classroom. “This is especially true of those you have loved and those who loved you.” She looked into her past and gathered her thoughts. Names, faces, and feelings rushed back into her awareness. The joy and the hurt. Sight, scent, touch. Him. How incredibly precious it all seemed to her now. “It was not long after Tirek tried to take over Equestria...” Part one: Ambassador Sparkle Princess Celestia’s office felt a bit crowded with all four princesses, Discord and the ambassadors of the Dragon, Gryphon, Minotaur, and Diamond Dog nations all standing in a rough circle before her huge desk. Bright daylight came in through the floor-to-ceiling windows, the cheerful light a stark contrast to the serious expressions on all their faces. “This is a historic moment for all the inhabitants of this world,” said Princess Celestia. “For today we send an emissary to another planet, in the spirit of Friendship and Harmony.” She glanced at Discord. “You have all been made aware of my involuntary visit to the world of the humans, instigated by Discord, –” she waved a hoof in his direction “– who has since wisely chosen to reconcile with us, offering his assistance in establishing peaceful contact with the humans, and in making it possible for us to create a bridge between our two universes.” Discord grinned sheepishly. "Really, Celestia, you must admit some good did come of my little prank." When Celestia raised an eyebrow in his direction he quickly added: "And of course I promise to never do it again." Celestia continued. “You have also been made aware of certain reservations I have regarding the establishment of such a link. The humans are both more technologically advanced and far more numerous than we are. Consequently, we have worked closely with Princess Twilight Sparkle to ensure that this gateway between our worlds will allow mutually beneficial exchanges and trade, while limiting the potential dangers inherent in dealing with such powerful beings.” She turned to Twilight Sparkle. “Twilight, are you sure you want to do this?” The young princess swallowed. Her mentor hadn’t been smiling when she asked the question, a sure sign she thought that the road ahead might not be an easy one. She nodded, and grinned nervously. “I just hope I’m ready for it.” Celestia regarded her a moment, her eyes searching for something in Twilight’s own. Then the corners of her mouth curled upwards and Twilight basked in the radiant warmth of a full-on Sun Princess smile. “Yes, Twilight, I’m sure you are.” She nodded to Discord. He rolled his eyes and held up his paw. “Very well! Let’s do this before this scene gets any more maudling.” “Wait! I haven’t –” Twilight began just as Discord snapped the digits of the paw and... ... rushing blackness filled Twilight’s senses. As she fell, her entire body was wracked in pain all the way to her core. It felt like her body was being ripped apart, which wasn’t very far from the truth. Despite Celestia’s warning about how this would feel, her mouth flew open with a shriek of anguish that terminated suddenly as she landed on her back.   Twilight gasped, slowly catching her breath. She opened her eyes. She was lying on her back on a soft surface. A quick glance down revealed exactly what she expected: the body of the Alice Scrivello, the human with whom Princess Celestia had swapped bodies involuntarily for that first visit to Earth, and who had now done the same thing with Twilight, but this time voluntarily. Several humans stood around her bed. One, an elderly mare... uh, woman, leaned closer. “Princess Sparkle?” she enquired gently. Twilight bent at the waist and pushed herself up into a sitting position with her forelimbs. She looked down and saw the rather unsightly collection of digits now supporting her instead of hooves. The urge to wriggle and experiment with them was almost irresistible. Remember your mission, Twilight! She turned her head to face the woman who had spoken. “Yes, indeed,” she said with a smile. She quickly scanned the room. As expected she sat on a bed in a hospital room with several people looking intently at her. Remembering Celestia and Alice’s protocol briefings, she held out her right hand. It took her a moment to figure out how to position her fingers the way Alice had described she should. “And you must be Secretary of State Rosemary Pinchaunt.” The woman took the proffered limb in her own and pumped it up and down firmly, although certainly not as vigorously as Applejack did when she shook hooves. It’s so weird that they have the same greeting gestures as we do! she thought. She turned her gaze back up to the human’s face. “So I am,” said the woman. “Welcome to the United States of America, Princess, and to planet Earth!” She let go of Twilight’s limb and stood back a bit, waving a hand at the humans on the other side of the bed. "These fine gentlemen are Mr. Hiro Takehashi, –” the man who had dark hair and eyes, and a golden tinge to his complexion, bowed “– special envoy from the United Nations, Mr. Jason Redfield, –” an older man with a white beard nodded his head “– the Secretary of Commerce, and this –" she pointed to the man standing next to her "– is Richard Lyon, whom I've appointed special liaison to Equestria. He will be assisting you during your stay on our world." Lyon smiled. “I’ve been told you might need some assistance to walk at first...” He offered her a foreleg. No, Twi, the forelimbs are called arms, she reminded herself. She grinned back and dropped her hind legs over the side of the bed. Just legs, Twi. “Don’t worry, Mr. Lyon, I practiced walking upright extensively before I left Equestria, –” she slid onto the floor “– so I should have no difficulty in getting around.” She took a confident step forward, squealed as she overbalanced, bumped her head on something hard, and promptly found herself lying on her back on the floor. Secretary Pinchaunt was bent over her, concern written all over her face, but hesitating to touch her. “Are you alright, Princess?” Twilight wiggled a bit. Nothing felt damaged or or particularly painful, although she did feel a flush of heat spreading from her face. So, humans blush just like ponies do! Twilight grinned sheepishly up at her. “I take that back. Maybe I need just a teensy bit more practice. Staying balanced without a tail is trickier than I thought it would be!” She glanced at Lyon and saw blood dripping from the human’s chin. “Oh my gosh! And I think Mr. Lyon needs to see a doctor.” The Secretary looked up at her assistant. Her eyes grew wide as she took in his bloodied countenance. “Richard! You’re injured!” she said. He straightened up slightly, dripping red down his white dress shirt. He held a tooth in one hand. “Etter ake tha a dentis,” he remarked and then hunched over, so that the blood dripped to the floor instead of onto his clothing. Pinchaunt kneeled and offered Twilight a hand, which she gratefully accepted. Once upright she noticed the gap in Lyon's teeth. And his swollen lip. And the flash of resentment in the man’s eyes. She felt her heart sink in her upright human chest.  Great first impression, Twi, she thought. Ready? My hoof! Twilight stared at her Ceasar Salad and tried not to hyperventilate. The morning had been an endless sequence of small disasters as Twilight tripped, inadvertently kicked, stepped on people’s feet, and generally fell off of chairs, sofas and even the commode in the bathroom when she needed to go. Her only luck had been the fact that the stalls to either side of hers had been unoccupied at the time. These feet things are awful! she thought. They project in front of everypony, and worst of all me!   After being driven to a large glass and steel office building, her agenda had mostly consisted of introductions, and a re-reading of the preliminary gateway accord between Equestria, the United Nations of Earth, and the US government, as that was where the initial portal would be set up. During all of this Mr. Lyon had been to visit a dental clinic. If Alice had been there she could have helped him, thought Twilight ruefully. The human was a dental medicine technician on a huge human warship. She had even taken a job as assistant to Ponyville's dentist, Colgate, during her involuntary stint as a pony in Equestria. But then she wouldn’t have knocked the poor man’s tooth out with her forehead to start off with. She sighed. They had finally broken for lunch and carefully walked to a neighboring restaurant.  Now I have to eat with utensils using these hands instead of magic, and without utterly embarrassing myself – again! “Is there a problem, Twilight?” asked the Secretary of Commerce, Mr. Redfield – he had invited her to call him Jason – to which she had reciprocated with her own first name. His attitude was very straightforward and matter-of-fact, traits that Twilight appreciated all the more since her coronation. “No, Jason.” She grinned nervously. “It’s just that being human is harder than I thought it would be.” Under his friendly gaze her own smile grew warmer. “I thought the negotiations for setting up the portal would be the real challenge here, but trust me, bilateral inter-universal trade agreements are easy-peasy compared to using fingers to hold salad forks. I mean, stuff like that is so much easier to do using magic.” He raised an eyebrow. “You’ve mentioned magic more than once this morning. Forgive me, but it’s a bit hard for me to imagine that such a thing exists.” Twilight grinned at him. “Would you like a small demonstration?” “Sure. What did you have in mind?” Twilight licked her lips in anticipation. “Watch my salad fork.” Her brows furrowed, and nothing happened. “Uh, Princess Celestia warned me that it was harder to do magic without a horn to focus it. Let me try that again.” Her face scrunched up, and she stared at the fork until a bead of sweat appeared on her brow. A purple glow erupted around the utensil. Slowly, it levitated into the air, and then suddenly shot upwards, embedding itself in the plaster ceiling. Several guests at nearby tables stared at it, and then at Twilight. Two rose from their tables and left the room. She grinned sheepishly. “Princess Celestia also warned me that without a horn it’s hard to control intensity. Sorry!” All four of them still had their eyes on the fork’s handle protruding from the ceiling when a movement to her left caused Twilight to look down. A somewhat puffy faced Richard Lyon sat down to her immediate left. “Mr. Lyon,” she said hesitantly, “I’m so glad they could repair the... damage I did. It doesn’t hurt anymore, does it?” His attempt at a smile would have been friendly enough, if it wasn’t for the daggers projecting from his eyes. “I don’t feel a thing since I’m still frozen from the novocain. The doctor gave me painkillers for when it wears off, Your Majesty.” Twilight leaned closer to him. “I know several really good painkiller spells. I could –” she stopped mid-sentence when Lyon leaned away from her. Blushing, she lowered her head and she mumbled “– leave bad enough alone.” The advantage of being at a table full of diplomats is that they can be very... diplomatic, she thought, as the others pointedly began eating. She hesitantly picked up another fork and tried to hold it like Madame Pinchaunt did. She speared a leaf of Romaine lettuce and brought it to her mouth. Or at least she thought she did. “Is there a problem with the salad?” asked Lyon. “Er, no,” she replied. “Then why aren’t you putting it into your mouth?” Twilight stared down past her almost non-existent nose at the leaf hovering in front of it. Why is it still so far from my mouth? Suddenly it hit her. “Er, I’m kinda used to having a muzzle, so my mouth isn’t in the same position relative to my eyes anymore. I’m going to have to remember to bring the food in closer.” She tried not to look at her hand and carefully brought the fork closer until she felt the lettuce strike her tongue. Closing her mouth she cautiously pulled the fork away and chewed. Her eyes widened. “Hey! This salad’s actually pretty good!” “Why wouldn’t it be?” Lyon raised an eyebrow. “Well,” said Twilight, “I wasn’t expecting carnivores to be as skilled in preparing vegetable dishes as we ponies –” “– And why wouldn’t we be?” interjected Lyon. Twilight felt the heat of her blush double as she reviewed her last words in her mind. Not again! “Richard?” said Madame Pinchaunt, “Perhaps the Novocain is already beginning to wear off.” Lyon’s eyes widened and he blushed in turn. “Of course, you’re right Madame Secretary. I should take my pill.” He took a small plastic bottle out of his pocket and carefully opened it, extracting a bright yellow capsule. Placing it in his mouth, he grabbed a glass of water and brought it to his lips. The coolness of the glass felt so good on his swollen lips that he let it linger a moment before he tilted the glass. He swallowed half of the water while the other half dribbled down his chin to splatter on the table. His eyes widened as he noticed. Glancing down, he saw the spill and turned a bright red as it spread over the table. Twilight hastily reached for her napkin with the same hand that held her fork, which unfortunately struck the edge of her plate and sent it flying off of the table. There was a loud crash as it broke into pieces on the floor. Simultaneously, much of her salad ended up on Lyon, who still held the half empty glass of water against his lips. When he lowered it back onto the table a long line of drool extended from his lips to the glass.  There was absolute silence as everyone, even the nearby tables, froze. Lyon was the first to move, raising his napkin to wipe the drool from his lips. He brought it close to the glass to do the same when there was a slight noise from above. Gravity had pulled Twilight’s first salad fork from the ceiling's fragile plaster. It landed handle first in Lyon’s glass, which split into several pieces, liberating a small Tsunami of water that ended up mostly onto his lap. The only shard of the glass still standing was the part that anchored the other end of the drool strand that still extended to Lyon's napkin. The deathly quiet held for another long moment. Then someone started laughing. It was Jason, the Secretary of Commerce. He looked at Lyon’s water stained, salad covered suit topped by his drug-addled expression, and laughed even harder. Takehashi added his own unexpectedly deep laugh, and then finally Madame Pinchaunt joined in. Twilight and Lyon sat unmoving as the others laughed. The two were blushing furiously. Finally, they looked towards each other. Their expressions softened simultaneously. Both started to chuckle and then paused. “I’m sorr..." they exclaimed at the same time. This only set everyone else to laughing again. It was close to a minute before they managed to calm themselves down. Lyon brushed the salad off of his clothing. Twilight did her best to help. When he was reasonably clean, she got a focused look in her eyes. There was a purple flash and Lyon stared down at his lap in amazement. His clothes were dry. "Was that you?" he asked. Twilight nodded. Lyon looked at her shyly and extended his hand. “Let’s try this again. It's truly a pleasure to meet you, Princess Sparkle. And please, call me Richard.” Twilight felt incredibly relieved. The handshake felt so more more natural and relaxed this time. “And I would be honoured, Richard, if you would call me Twilight.” The rest of lunch was quite happily uneventful. Twilight sat on the huge hotel room bed, pen held in one hand and her ‘special pad’ in the other. Somehow Discord had been able to link it magically to a similar notepad in Equestria. Well, she thought, let’s see if this works as advertized. She began to write. Dear fellow Princesses, I’m glad to report that the day went pretty much as planned, although the start was a bit rockier than I would have hoped for! Bipedal locomotion is not as easy as I thought it would be and I was just a total klutz, falling over everything and everypony everyone around me. Well not everyone, actually, mostly just the diplomat called Richard Lyon – and before you ask, no, he’s not a lion, that’s just his name! The poor man was assigned to be my “host” while I’m here on the world of humans, and the first thing I did was knock out one of his teeth with my forehead! Just thinking about it makes me want to “facepalm”. That’s what humans do instead of a facehoof – it’s amazing how much body language ponies and humans share! Things improved after lunch, thank Harmony! I was able to nail down most of the import/export processes, legal jurisdiction issues and commercial terms for setting up trade via the portal. I also finally got the hang of moving around on two legs, and just in time, as poor Mr. Lyon’s local anesthetic had worn off and the medication he took made him rather woozy and unsteady on his feet. For most of the afternoon it was me helping Richard to walk around and preventing him from falling down! I also gave him just a little magical healing push and his face was looking decidedly better by the time he left to go home. Oh, that reminds me! I’ve made an interesting discovery. We went to a Chinese restaurant for dinner – by the way, I could have sworn from the decor it was an Equestrian Chineighs restaurant, yet another interesting parallel. However, that’s wasn’t the discovery. That came about because I got frustrated trying to use the chopsticks (another parallel) with my hands, so I tried holding them with magic as I would in Equestria, and guess what? It was much easier than my earlier experience with the fork! It turns out that somehow ivory chopsticks actually allow me to focus my magic, just like my horn would: I just hold a chopstick and point. At first Richard was amazed, and then he laughed, calling it my magic wand! He said that now I even looked the part of a magical princess. Even better, the restaurant graciously gave me the chopsticks when I enquired where I could buy them. I was really lucky. According to Richard ivory pieces that can be bought legally aren’t easy to come by. Well, that brings me to the conclusion of this first day. I figure it will take three or four more days tops to finish up and get permission to set up the portal, and maybe ten days to get it operational. Now I’m going to get ready for my first night’s sleep as a human. The rituals are about the same as for ponies: wash your face, brush your teeth, clean your hooves... well, I guess I don’t have to clean my feet. Humans wear socks and shoes that cover the entire lower part of their legs, so they never actually touch the ground. Toes, by the way, are truly disgusting. They wriggle like tiny pink maggots. Gross! With that inspiring image, I end this report and look forward to a more productive (and less accident prone!) tomorrow. Your faithful friend, fellow Princess of Equestria, and Ambassador Plenipotentiary to the Nations of the Human Earth, Twilight Sparkle Twilight took the pad and pinched the lower left corner for two seconds. The ink magically lifted itself from the pad’s surface and dissolved into nothingness, as it was supposed to do. It barely took a minute for new words to magically appear on the pad’s surface: Dear Princess Twilight Sparkle, We knew you could do it! Congratulations, and here’s looking to another successful day tomorrow! Princesses Cadence, Celestia and Luna P.S. We all think this Richard Lyon sounds like a really nice stallion. Does he already have a special somepony? Twilight got a warm fuzzy feeling reading the first part and then felt herself blushing as she read the postscript. That must have been Cadence.  Then she recalled the first part and smiled. I passed the test! She put the pad down, lay down in bed, and with her magic wand turned off the lights. A lot to do tomorrow, she thought, fading. Richard and I will be so busy! She smiled and fell asleep.