~~*The Infiltrator*~~
The world of dreams shifted and swirled around the Infiltrator as it moved, the colors and shapes that represented the real world fuzzy and indistinct. Around it, the Dreamers swarmed through the sky and along the ground, going on their lazy way.
The Infiltrator saw none of that. Though it existed primarily in the dream, its senses were tuned to the real world; every blade of grass, every mote of dust leaving an impression as it etched itself indelibly on the Infiltrator’s mind and soul.
It moved through the shifting dream until it found a place defined by a sense of wrongness, two worlds trying to mesh into one spot. This was the gateway. On the other side, its mission awaited.
The Infiltrator wasn’t capable of fear. It flitted through the gateway without hesitation, as insubstantial as a dream and going unnoticed by any of the beings standing on the other side.
Every sense was wide open, measuring and recording every detail it could find. Some time after it began, a jarring sensation indicated the closing of the gateway. It was now cut off from its home world.
The Infiltrator discovered quickly that the intruders called themselves “human.” Bipedal, with slim-fingered hands and binocular vision. The Infiltrator flitted around, unseen, taking in physical characteristics and noting the differences in height and gender, coloration and clothing. No detail was too small, none went unrecorded.
The Infiltrator tried to interface with the nervous systems of these beings on multiple attempts, slowly and gently so as to avoid notice. For its trouble, it received nothing but chaos and a welter of sensations in return. The humans were simply too alien. It logged these impressions as best it could.
It moved on to the machinery, which existed in amazing abundance and variety. The electron flows that made up what passed for the “minds” of the machines were found to be cold, inflexible and utterly logical. Some form of thought moved through the electronic switches and relays, but it was beyond the Infiltrator’s ability to decipher it at all. Again, it simply recorded what it found.
Progress was slow. There was a great deal of information to record. With very little in the way of context to determine what was important what was not, it resorted to recording very nearly everything.
The day faded to night as it toured the complex it found itself in. The structures were made of metals, woods and a variety of shaped silicates, some solid and some transparent. Electrical currents surged everywhere, powering lights, doorways and other devices.
Surrounding the complex was a wilderness. It recognized alien varieties of trees, plants and insect life. Directives implanted in the Infiltrator’s consciousness dismissed these as momentarily unimportant, and it returned to the complex to gather more information.
More data was collected, organized and stored. In one of the smaller structures, there was a small mass, semi-organic and placed in the center of some sort of translucent cage. The Infiltrator studied it, then attempted to access it. Unlike the machines from earlier, this was cold, lifeless and inert. No impressions to be gained. It left to explore further.
It was during the third day of slow, methodical exploration that it found a true oddity. If the Infiltrator had been designed with the capacity to be surprised, it would have been. The Infiltrator studied the new being it found most carefully. It was quadrupedal, with two each of eyes and ears. And, unlike the original beings, this one had a spiralling horn protruding from its head. This one called itself “pony”, specifically a “unicorn pony.”
Of critical importance was the fact that these new unicorn ponies—it eventually found a second one—wore devices containing a small reservoir of aether, which the creatures could manipulate in an extremely flexible fashion. That fact was flagged as critical, as per the Caretaker’s directives.
Again, it tried to interface with the creature that it had found. Again, it received only a chaos of incomprehensible flickering thoughts and emotions, gone too quickly to leave more than the briefest of impressions.
On the fourth day, it had explored the facility as best as it could, and had moved outside once again. It examined trees, grasses and wild plants. It catalogued fungi, viruses and bacteria. Each animal it came across, it studied and then tried to interface with. For the most part, it received even worse results than it had with the beings in the complex. However, it seemed to have an affinity for insect life, particularly those that lived in their underground colonies.
Only so much can be learned from insects, however. Eventually, it moved on, drifting slowly down the side of the mountain.
It was on the sixth day that it felt a familiar sense of convergence. The gateway had been opened once again. The Infiltrator abandoned its cataloging and returned quickly to the complex. The data it had needed to be returned to the Caretaker as quickly as possible.
It was here that the Infiltrator ran into something unforeseen by the methodical instructions left to it by the Caretaker—the gateway led to a different world, one that bled magic into this world the way sunlight filtered through a window.
Through the new portal came a host of creatures, nearly all of them quadrupeds, though some had a pair of wings in addition to the four legs. And, though the Infiltrator did its duty to catalogue each and every one, it was also caught in confusion, unable to determine which course of action to follow next.
Two of its primary directives were in conflict: It was a top priority for it to gather data. It was a top priority for it to retain the ability to return home and report. It needed to gather data from the world on the other side of this new gateway, but it also needed to stay in the current world in order to be able to return to its own.
The Infiltrator was frozen with indecision for nearly two entire days, though it still catalogued everything it could during that time. That new portal remained open throughout. And then, on the third day, something happened that broke the deadlock.
A new type of creature came through, blazing with active magic. The Infiltrator approached, cataloguing everything about this new being that it could detect. Then, as it had with every other life form it had encountered, it tried to interface with the creature’s nervous system.
Disorientation. A sense of falling while staying still. Being compressed and expanded all at once. And then, minds, tens of thousands of them, all of them aware of the Infiltrator’s presence, studying it like a spider might study a fly in it’s web.
One mind stood out amongst the teeming multitude. It was stronger by far, holding the threads of all the other minds in an uncompromising grip. This mind examined the Infiltrator as closely as the Infiltrator had examined the subjects of this world.
And then the mind spoke. The language was unknown, but the concepts came across directly from the other mind, bypassing language completely. It asked a question:
What are you?
~~*Luna*~~
Princess Luna’s sitting room often surprised the ponies who visited her chambers. Though, outside of castle staff and guards, there weren’t very many of those who made the effort; being a thousand years out of your own time could make it difficult to adjust and make friends.
The room was circular, typically arranged with low couches, tables and a desk. The ceiling was a hemisphere, painted a sky blue. What had enchanted Luna the most about the room was that it also functioned as a clock; currently, the miniature sun was beginning its descent along a nearly-hidden rail, indicating that it was now getting to be later in the afternoon. The ticking of clockwork was an ever-present background noise, which Luna found somewhat comforting; time was moving with her, now, rather than leaving her behind.
At night, the brightest and most consistent of the stars would make an appearance across the clockwork sky, running across the ceiling along with a mechanical moon that accurately represented the current moon phase, even centuries after it had been built. The room-clock was a work of pure genius, and Luna regretted that she’d never been able to meet the stallion responsible for the design of it.
The nature of the room meant that there were no external windows. If desired, the mechanical sun had an enchanted crystal that would glow at whatever brightness the occupant wished for. This suited Luna well, as she more often used the room for meditation or reading than she did for receiving guests.
Today, though, she had prepared the room for her first student in centuries, making miniscule adjustments to the cushions and tables in between bouts of pacing while glancing at the false sun to estimate the time.
The tea had been brewed, the tiny glazed cakes were arranged on their elegant silver platter, and the candles were lit. Luna was in the process of rearranging the cushions once again when a knock sounded, causing her to half-spread her wings while her heart began climbing up into her throat. The door opened, and Twilight Sparkle came trotting into the room, bringing with her a set of modest saddlebags and an eager smile.
Princess Luna cleared her throat and smoothed her feathers. “Welcome, Twilight Sparkle,” she said with what she hoped was a welcoming smile.
“Thank you, Princess!” Twilight looked around the room, glancing at the candles first, and then the cushions. “Is this where the lessons will take place?”
“For now, yes. Once enough of the applicants are approved, we will move these lessons to a larger venue.” Luna allowed herself a small smile at that. Being a princess meant being able to delegate unpleasant and repetitive tasks, such as reviewing the applications for the Dreamguard that had already begun to pour in. She extended a wing, taking in the circle of cushions with a gesture. “Please, have a seat wherever you like.”
The young unicorn folded her legs underneath her as she lay down on the cushion. Luna knelt down on a similar cushion directly across from Twilight. She looked up, noting with some surprise that Twilight’s horn was glowing, and that she had already armed herself with several blank scrolls, quills and ink-pots from her saddlebags, all suspended in her lavender aura.
Luna chuckled. “You may put those away, Twilight. You will be learning by doing, not by writing.”
Twilight’s eyes widened while her ears drooped. “I… I won’t be taking notes?”
“No need, though of course you may write down your impressions after the lesson is over.” Luna’s mouth curled up in a small smile. “Dream magic is taught by doing, not by reading.”
“Oh...” Twilight somehow managed to pack a great deal of uncertainty and disappointment into that one syllable. After a moment of hesitation, the scrolls started rolling back up as the inkwells capped themselves.
A rising panic in Luna’s throat prompted her to cough uncomfortably. She’d barely begun, and now her sister’s student was already disappointed in the lesson she was providing.
"Ah... well, perhaps it would be appropriate for me to explain, briefly, what the Dreamrealm actually is. You could take notes on that. Would that be sufficient?"
A look of pure joy suffused Twilight's face as she broke into a beaming smile. Her horn glowed, and once again her stationery made an appearance. Luna eyed the quills poised eagerly over parchment with a wary eye.
"This will simply be a summary, Twilight. There are several books from my private section of the Royal Library that I can assign as reading for further detail. Is that acceptable?"
Twilight's eyes widened at the mention of books, followed by an eager squeak at the mention of a "private section". She gave an eager nod.
"Very well." Luna broke out a quill and paper, quickly scrawling down the names of several books. Two of those were well-preserved copies of works she had written herself a millenia ago. She signed it, then stamped it with her personal seal before passing it over to Twilight, who took it with a gleeful smile, scanned it briefly, then stowed it carefully in her saddlebag.
When Twilight was done securing the list of books, Luna cleared her throat and began speaking, trying not to be unnerved by the scratching of Twilight's quill as she took notes.
"There is the physical world, the one which we inhabit and see with our waking eyes. There is the magical field, which encompasses all life and energy that make up our world. And, between those two, there is the realm of dreams. Every awareness, from the most simple to the most complex, has a place there. If it dreams, it has a presence.
"I can not tell you if the Dreamrealm already existed before consciousness, or if consciousness somehow called it into being. All I can tell you is that, as long as there have been minds capable of dreaming, there has been a Dreamrealm, connecting every sentient creature to one another. It is a place where our consciousness roams."
The scratching quills stopped. Luna looked over to see that Twilight had raised a hoof. "Yes, Twilight?"
"Do you mean 'subconscious'?" Twilight asked. "You know... dreams, and all?"
Luna smiled. "The subconscious is a subset of the consciousness. It is often the most open part of a pony's mind. However, it is not the subconscious mind which will be the target of my lessons. To learn dream magic, I must teach you how to reach it with the conscious mind."
"Oooh..!" Twilight said as the scribbling resumed.
Luna smiled. Teaching her sister's protegee was going better than she had thought it would. "A word of warning, Twilight Sparkle. The Dreamrealm is a world all its own, with its own rules and dangers. There are creatures that can live there without ever once touching the physical world. I have visited there nearly every night that I have lived, and I have seen things of such unimaginable beauty that it staggered my very soul. I have also seen things of such unimaginable horror that even the thought of it today makes me wish to hide myself.
"Beauty and danger often go side-by-side in the Dreamrealm. Sometimes they are the same thing. You must promise me before we begin that you will not enter this place on your own until I tell you that you are ready.”
Twilight gulped visibly and nodded. "I promise, Princess."
"While we are alone together, you may call me simply 'Luna'," Luna replied with an encouraging smile. Twilight returned a bashful smile of her own. "Now, I believe that is sufficient notes to get you started, along with the reading I will assign you later. Shall we get started?"
"Um..." Twilight glanced at the scant few lines she'd written on her parchment. "Are you sure?"
“Trust me,” Luna said quickly, “there is much to learn, but you won’t be in the correct frame of mind to learn it if you are writing at the same time.”
Twilight blinked. “Really?”
“Yes,” Luna replied with a nod. “Writing requires concentration, whereas Dream Magic, at least in the beginning, requires an inward focus. A much different kind of focus than writing requires. Are you prepared to begin?”
Any hesitation or disappointment that might have been in Twilight’s expression vanished instantly, as the mare perked up and her eyes widened. “Yes!”
“Very good. First, we must attend to your breathing…”
~~*Erin*~~
“Cloudsdale, Cloudsdale!” Dinky sang out, standing on her hind hooves with her little muzzle pressed up against the portal set into the airship’s passenger section. Her rear hooves pranced on the back seat, her tail swishing excitedly. “I can see it! Can you see it?”
“Yes!” Erin exclaimed, her own muzzle pressed against another porthole. “Oh, wow, it’s amazing!”
The airship was on its final approach, coming in towards a dock-like structure that was constructed out of what Erin recognized to be cloudstone. The fact that they’d been approaching the city had been evident for a while now. The great mass of clouds had first been spotted within minutes of their departure from Canterlot, but now they filled the entire sky. They’d been passing clusters of cloud-homes—somewhat similar to Rainbow Dash’s—for the last ten minutes or so, which Erin assumed were some sort of cloud-based suburbs.
But it wasn’t until the airship began to turn for its final approach that Erin could clearly make out the entirety of the city itself. Erin gaped as the city came into view, her eyes flicking everywhere as she tried to take it all in at once.
Great masses of white cloud stretched as far as she could see, some of them natural and others sculpted and shaped to make buildings and roadways. Waterfalls, some made of what looked like liquid rainbows, cascaded towards the ground from many different locations, often diffusing into nothingness before they reached the ground.
The city wasn't made up of a singular mass of clouds as Erin had expected. Instead, there were “islands” of various sizes and shapes, many of them connected by bridges made of cloudstone. Some of the cloud islands were higher than others, making Cloudsdale a multi-layered city.
What amazed Erin the most was the fact that there were apparently parks with actual grass and trees here and there. For a moment, the exact how of it escaped her until she realized that it would be easy enough to pile some soil on top of cloudstone in order to grow plants.
For Erin, all of this only served to make her enthusiasm grow. The airship, which had seemed fast enough before, now seemed painfully slow. As the dock crept closer and closer, Erin began fidgeting at the window, muttering under her breath and trying to will the airship to move faster.
“Kind of eager to get there, huh?” Ditzy asked. Unlike Erin and Dinky, the grey pegasus was sitting calmly in her seat, though she had a fond smile for her daughter’s antics.
“Ha, you could say that!” Erin managed to tear her eyes away from the vista before her to flash a grin at her newest friend. “It’s even more amazing than I thought it would be!”
Several other passengers chuckled at that, and a couple of them snorted derisively, but Erin couldn't even begin to care. Cloudsdale was just outside!
When the airship finally docked, Erin couldn’t stop herself from prancing in place. Dinky picked up on her enthusiasm and was doing a little dance of her own, much to Ditzy’s amusement.
At long last, the doors were opened, letting in a gust of cold air. Erin joined the general rush of passengers making their way out past a pair of unicorns, who were busily casting a cloud-walking spell on every non-pegasus who exited the ship. Erin, still in her green sundress, considered telling them not to bother. Then she remembered how far down the ground was and decided to keep her mouth shut.
The spell tingled, causing the hairs on her coat to stand on edge. Under her dress, her wings twitched and her feathers ruffled. Erin shook her head and trotted outside, her hooves bouncing along the springy cloudstone. The wind was the first thing she noticed as it tangled up in her mane and snapped at the hem of her dress. Ditzy and Dinky were right behind her. The three of them stopped a little ways out, standing off to one side in order to let the other passengers past them.
“Well, I think we’ll head to my aunt’s house, first,” Ditzy said as she tied the string of her white straw hat under her chin to keep it from blowing off. “And then we can go out and see the sights.”
“Sounds good!” Erin replied.
One of the first things that Erin noticed was that very few ponies actually walked in Cloudsdale. At least, not for very long. They would stand around chatting, sure. But as soon as they wanted to actually get somewhere they’d take off and start flying. She also learned to stay well away from the edges of the clouds they walked on. There were rarely safety railings, and the drop to the sparkling lake below caused Erin a bout of nauseous vertigo.
The three of them walked off together, moving slowly and talking the whole way. This suited Erin just fine, as she was too busy gaping at all the sights around her. Then she realized that she’d forgotten to take pictures and pulled out her tablet.
Dinky and Ditzy both stared at the device, having never seen anything like it before, and Erin had to take a quick break from her sightseeing in order to summarize some of the functions of it. Their pace slowed even further, as Erin stopped every few feet to order her tablet to snap a photo, or to take a video of a rainbow falls or flying pegasi.
It was worth it, though. Both Ditzy and Dinky were thrilled to see themselves on the tablet, and not just in photos. Erin managed to capture a video of Dinky singing an adorable little song about “dancing dancey clouds”.
“Is there any way I can get a copy of that?” Ditzy asked. “I have an old projector that works, uh… sometimes. Can it be put on film, somehow?”
“Hmm… maybe,” Erin said. “I can check on it next week, if you want?”
“That would be great, thanks!”
Erin smiled, knowing that there was no chance that she’d bother converting Dinky’s little dance and song to any type of film, especially since she had no idea if Earth and Equestria had compatible film formats. But she couldn't tell Ditzy that she had her own tablet on the way, or it would completely ruin the surprise.
They took some more pictures as the sun crept steadily lower. Finally, Ditzy sighed. “This is taking a lot longer than I thought it would. We should really get to my aunt’s house.”
“Oh, sorry,” Erin replied. “I’m just a little excited!”
“I hadn’t guessed,” Ditzy said wryly.
“I hadn’t guessed, neither,” Dinky added.
The three of them shared a laugh as they walked the path that would eventually lead to their destination.
~~*Twilight*~~
There was a spot on Twilight’s back that was itching. Right in the center, at the base of her neck. She cracked an eye open and looked across the circle of cushions on the floor. Across from her, Luna was breathing slowly and steadily with her eyes closed.
Twilight decided to risk it. Her horn glowed a soft lavender, lifting up one of the quills from her saddlebags and bringing it back around behind her. A moment later, the nib of the quill was scritching delightfully along the itchy spot.
“You’ve lost focus once again,” Luna noted without opening her eyes.
Twilight swallowed a guilty yelp of surprise and dropped the quill. “Sorry, Princess! I had an itch. It was distracting me.”
“I understand, Twilight Sparkle. But to enter the Dreamrealm, you must be able to put physical sensations behind you.” Luna still hadn’t opened her eyes, but she did smile slightly. “I know you can do this. You are a talented mare.”
Twilight glowed briefly before forcing her joy down. Clearing her throat, she settled back down on her cushion, sitting on her rump with her forelegs planted in front of her. It was a pose she could hold comfortably for hours, according to Luna. And, for the first few minutes, that had seemed to be the case. Then the twitches and aches had started, along with the itches.
Her back left leg started to feel uncomfortable, but she stifled the urge to shift her weight. Instead, she focused on her breathing. A deep breath in, hold, exhale through the mouth. Then again. This same pattern repeated, with the exact rhythm Princess Luna had instructed her to follow, with Twilight counting the time off between the different parts of the exercise while trying to think of nothing else.
Breathe in through the nostrils and hold. Exhale through the mouth.. Breathe in, hold, exhale… Am I doing this right? she wondered as she kept breathing in the same pattern. There has to be more to it than just this, but Luna hasn’t said anything yet. How will I know without her telling me? Maybe she has some special sense of when the time is right.
Maybe I should look and see if she… No, I shouldn’t look. Breathe in, hold, exhale.... Again. Okay. Good. I’m doing well. I just wish that my leg didn’t feel like it was going asleep. Maybe Luna wouldn’t notice if I just… no, of course she would. Concentrate, Twilight! Just breathe. Right.
I wonder what it’s like to walk in the Dreamrealms? There aren’t any books on it that I ever found, at least not that described what it was actually like to be there. I wonder if Princess Luna’s books will tell me… oh, shoot, I opened my eyes.
Okay, Twilight. Focus on the breathing, just like Princess Luna said. Don’t think of anything. Especially don’t think about how your tail is going numb. Good. Just breathe. Good.
I sure hope I’m doing this right…
It seemed like hours of this to Twilight before Luna finally sighed and stood. Twilight opened her eyes and looked at the Lunar Princess. A little thrill passed through her as she saw that Luna was smiling at her.
“Well, I think that’s all the further we can go for now,” Luna said. “I was hoping that I could guide you into the Dreamrealms today, but perhaps next time.”
Any good feelings that Twilight had felt suddenly dried up and vanished. It felt like the floor had opened up beneath her and sent her tumbling. “I… I failed?” she asked, her voice small and disbelieving.
“Nay, Twilight Sparkle,” Luna intoned, shaking her head. “If anypony failed today, t’was I.” Oddly enough, that didn’t help Twilight to feel any better. “There is a key to getting your mind to relax, I know there is. However, breathing exercises is apparently not it. Or, at least, not without further practice.”
Twilight’s lips felt numb as she spoke. “I don’t understand. I breathed just like you said to! I know I did! I timed it and everything.”
“The breathing is but one aspect, Twilight Sparkle. The key is to achieve the correct state of mind.” Luna smiled and placed a hoof on her shoulder. “Your mind races. I could almost feel it galloping along the entire time we were attempting to meditate.”
“My leg was feeling a little stiff,” Twilight said defensively. “And my tail went numb. And, okay, I had some itches, but—”
“That was not all, Twilight.” The gentle way Princess Luna said that brought the sting of tears to Twilight’s eyes. It sounded like dissapointment to her. “You were concentrating when I told you to relax.”
“But you told me to focus on my breathing!” Twilight stood up, her heart lurching. “That’s what I did! I focused and I breathed!”
Now Luna frowned. It was just a tiny one, barely noticeable, but Twilight still flinched back, expecting more disappointment from the princess.
“Yes, but only until it becomes automatic,” Luna said. “At that point, you should begin to enter a meditative state that would allow me to guide you through your first steps into the Dreamrealms.”
“But I can try again! I know I was close. Please, Princess Luna, I know I can—”
“‘Tis enough for one day, Twilight Sparkle,” Luna said. To Twilight, it felt like her heart was dissolving. “As I said, the fault is not yours. I shall consider alternate methods of getting you into the correct state of mind. Perhaps music. Do you like music?”
“I do,” Twilight said, her voice sounding small and tinny in her ears.
“Then, for our next session, I shall bring in some players. Something soothing and repetitive, I think.” Luna nodded. “Yes. That may work.”
“Okay,” Twilight replied.
“Worry not, Twilight Sparkle. Everypony is different in this way. We shall succeed eventually, I am certain!” Luna’s horn glowed, and the door to her sitting room opened. “In the meanwhile, continue to practice your breathing exercises in your spare time. Being able to enter a meditative state in that fashion is by far the most simple. You may not always have music available, hmm?”
“Yes, Princess,” Twilight mumbled. “Thank you, Princess.”
She left the room. For a time, Twilight simply wandered, her mind running over the entire session, trying to find the flaw that had kept her from succeeding. She didn’t know how much later it was when she finally came back to herself, but when she did, she found herself in front of a very familiar door.
“Of course I’d end up here,” Twilight said with a chuckle. Her horn lit up and opened the door to the Royal Canterlot Library. Twenty minutes later, Twilight was sitting at one of the large black oak tables with a stack of books, all of the ones on Luna’s list as well as several on the subject of meditation. The first of them, A Beginner’s Guide to Meditation, was cracked open in front of her.
~~*Rose Quartz*~~
“Equestria to Rosie. Come in, Rosie.”
Rose Quartz blinked and looked around at the solidly-built earth pony mare next to her. It took a moment for her to remember where they were: in the Harmonics compound’s reception area, on the Earth side of the gateway.
“Oh, good, you are awake,” Mintie said. “I was starting to get worried!”
Rose Quartz shook her head to clear it. “Sorry, Mintie. I was, uh… I was just a little distracted, is all.”
“No kidding?” Mintie nudged her with a shoulder, which sent the much smaller unicorn staggering. “You’ve been out of it since you got back from that vacation of yours.” She leaned in and whispered into Rose’s ear, “Are you sure you didn’t meet a nice stallion while on vacation?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Really? No eyes meeting across a crowded buffet line? No whirlwind romance?” Mintie grinned and waggled her eyebrows. “No ‘making the six-legged pony’?”
Rose stared at her for a moment until Mintie’s implication sunk in. Then she reacted the only way she knew how. “What?! No!” Rose glanced around, acutely aware of all the surrounding humans and ponies staring at her. In a fierce whisper, she added, “I had a plain old boring vacation. Nothing happened, I swear. Stop being vulgar.”
“Well, something happened, kiddo,” Mintie said. Then she shrugged and began walking away. “Eh, tell me about him later if you want.”
Rose stared after her, gaping incredulously after the infuriating mare before trotting to catch up. “There’s no ‘him’, okay? Can we drop it?”
“Well, why else would you have spent the last five minutes staring blankly at a wall?” Mintie asked.
“It wasn’t five minutes, and I had something on my mind,” Rose replied. “Look, can we just stop talking about this?”
“Okay, fine.” Mintie chuckled. “I bet he’s cute, though.”
“Ugh.” Rosie trotted ahead, leaving the irritating mare behind her. The problem was, she really was having a hard time concentrating at the moment. But the last pony she wanted to know about it was Mintie. She was better off being by herself to work things through.
Fortunately, that wasn’t difficult to arrange. The humans had set up a buffet table of light vegetarian snacks. Mintie made a beeline over to the table and began helping herself, heaping piles of fruit, cheese and crackers onto a tray. Rose sighed at the sight of it. As obnoxious as the mare could be, Rose knew for a fact that Mintie cared about her very deeply.
Still, she needed some time to herself. Something unexpected had happened after the two of them had crossed through the gateway and onto Earth, and Rose needed some peace and quiet to work her way through it.
It was only a few minutes later when Mintie approached her, walking three-legged and with the heavily-laden tray of snacks balanced in her right forehoof. Rose shook her head as the earth pony offered the tray to her.
“Well, I hope that whatever’s on your mind hasn’t made you forget anything,” Mintie said. “They’re about to close the gateway until next week.”
Rose grimaced. A little more time would have been nice, but it wasn’t like she could do anything to convince the humans to leave the gateway open just for her sake. She forced a smile onto her face and tried to sound unworried. “I’m pretty sure I packed everything I needed.”
“Well, that’s something I always admired about you, Rosie. Always so organized, never missing anything.”
There was something in Mintie’s expression that seemed far too amused. Rose cocked her head and studied the mare, trying to figure out what was going on.
“Do I have something on my face?” she ventured to guess.
“Nope.” Mintie’s gleefulness cranked up another couple of notches.
“Then… I didn’t forget any of the paperwork, did I?”
“You’re on the wrong track,” Mintie replied. “Think… more magical.”
“Magical?”
Mintie’s voice was bubbling with laughter when she replied. “You forgot to pick up a torc so you can cast magic, you ninny!”
Rose froze in place as icy panic instantly overwhelmed her. Her head snapped around towards the gateway, but it was already too late. She could feel it close. The magic that had been flooding into the Earth from Equestria quickly began dwindling to nothing.
“I need a torc,” Rose said, desperately prancing in place. There were a large number of fully-charged torcs packed into her personal luggage, but the humans had moved those to the room they’d be staying in tonight. Much too far away. The panic surged up, overwhelming her reason. “Mintie, I need a torc!”
The amusement faded from Mintie’s eyes, replaced with genuine concern. “Hey, hey, don’t freak out about it. It’s okay. I know the humans have some on this side, we can get you one.”
“No, you don’t understand!” The last wisps of Equestrian magic were already gone. Rose began burning through her personal reserves at a truly alarming rate. “I need one now! Let me use yours.”
“What? No!” Mintie backed away. “We can get one for you later, it’s not a big deal.”
“That won’t work!” Rose’s horn lit up, her aura reaching towards the torc around Mintie’s neck.
“Hey, quit it,” Mintie snapped, arching her neck to keep the torc in place. “You’re scaring me. I said we can get one for you—”
The attempt at telekinesis drained what little reserves Rose had left. Her spells failed, both the telekinesis and the other one. Green fire rippled down Rose’s body, ripping away the illusion of the light pink unicorn mare with the lavender mane.
For a tense moment, Mintie just stared at her with huge, shocked eyes. No one else in the room seemed to have noticed, yet. If she could just get Mintie’s torc—
The silver tray tumbled off of Mintie’s hoof, landing on the floor with a resounding clang and scattering fruit and cubes of cheese all over the floor. If that weren’t enough to gain everyone’s attention, Mintie’s horrified shriek would certainly have done so.
All activity in the room ground to a complete stop. The changeling that had called itself Rose Quartz looked around with glowing blue eyes, noting that pretty much everyone was staring directly at it.
The changeling forced a smile and addressed the room at large. “Um, hi?”
~~*Infiltrator*~~
What are you? the strongest of the voices asked.
The Infiltrator found itself momentarily at a loss. There was nothing in the Caretaker’s directives which indicated what it should do in this type of situation. The creature it had interfaced with, currently magically disguised as a unicorn, seemed to be overwhelmed as well, staring blankly at the wall in front of it while other creatures went about their business.
Still, the directives required it to gather information. Communication could provide information. Thus resolved, the Infiltrator replied.
This one is named ‘Infiltrator’.
Amusement rolled back towards it across the connected minds. Infiltrator? Indeed. That can be an apt description of ourselves, as well. I am called Chrysalis. Or Queen. Whichever you prefer.
The Infiltrator sent a thought back. There is no preference, only data.
Curiosity came through the link.
You are not native to my world the Queen noted. And I doubt you are from the humans’ world. What is your purpose?
Gather data. Return home. Report data to Caretaker.
There was a long silence. What is the Caretaker’s purpose in gathering data?
Eventual expulsion of foreign elements from home world.
I see.
There was another long silence. The Infiltrator waited. It didn’t occur to it to do anything else.
A gift for you, then, the Queen said. Information began flooding the link; facts regarding biology, magic, geography and more, all relating to the world on the other side of the new portal. Consider it a gesture of goodwill. And when you return to your Caretaker, tell him this: the humans are strong enough on their own, but they have an allegiance with the ponies. This makes both the ponies and the humans much stronger, and much more dangerous. If the Caretaker wishes to aid me, I will aid him in return. I can drive a wedge between humans and ponies. But I will not do it for free. We must discuss a price. Tell him that, and then return with your answer.
Message received and recorded, the Infiltrator replied.
Good. In that case, release my drone. It’s already starting to draw attention to itself.
Understood.
The Infiltrator released its hold on the drone that it had interfaced with. A moment later, one of the ponies walked up to the drone and said, “Equestria to Rosie. Come in, Rosie.”