//------------------------------//
// Chapter 13 - Focus 
// Story: Hope and Changeling 
// by FrontSevens 
//------------------------------//

It wasn’t terrible for an inn.
 
I had been in a hotel once or twice, and it was much nicer than the room I had chosen for the night.  This room was tattered like the bar, with a mirror; a simple, wrinkled, queen-sized bed with a nightstand; a tiny closet with a squeaky door; and a dresser with chipped legs and a sagging top. However, it would do for a place to sleep. 
 
When I entered the room, I inspected my new self in the mirror.  Copper Flash was his name, apparently.  Just as I had remembered him, he had black fur, green hair, purple eyes….  Purple?  I had thought his eyes were blue.  Huh.
 
I stared at Copper as he watched me, his face weary and aloof.  It never got any less unnerving looking at anypony – or anybody, for that matter – that wasn’t the human me.  I looked down at my hooves and felt a sudden fear that I would forget how fingers worked when I returned to the human world.  Assuming I would revert to my human form upon returning, that is.  I shook the thought of that possibility out of my head; that was a worry that could wait until tomorrow.
 
Still looking over Copper, I noticed a tattoo on his hip.  It was a rectangle divided in the middle by a wavy line, with a brown colour on one side and a silver colour on the other.  All of these ponies had tattoos on their hips.  I’d have to ask somepony about that later.  Was getting inked a coming-of-age ritual or something?
 
”Yes, that’s Copper Flash,” I heard Lucid say, accompanied by the door slamming.
 
I rubbed an itch near my eye as I watched him unfasten his satchel and let it slide to the ground.  Before I could ask what he was doing in my room, he said, “I’m sharing with you tonight.”
 
“Why?”  I didn’t want a roommate.
 
“Only three rooms in this place, if you can believe it.  Whole Grain made it clear she wanted to share with her sister, and had no preference otherwise.”  He rubbed his back.  “I don’t want the pegasus or the changeling, so here I am.”
 
Well, okay.  I didn’t have much choice if I wanted a bed.  Now, to get to the bottom of this Copper Flash business.  “Did you know Copper Flash, by any chance?”  He wasn’t another ex-boyfriend of Whole Grain, was he?
 
“I did,” he said.  “Barely.  He’s something of a loner.”
 
“A loner?”
 
“Yes.  Was a student of mine, graduating soon with a degree in magic engineering.  Quiet fellow: never asked any questions, but never needed to, it seemed.  He aced any test I put in front of him,” he explained.
 
Wow, that… kind of sounded like me.  I wasn’t a half-bad student, getting straight ‘A’s in high school and respectable grades in college.  It wasn’t that hard – programming just came naturally to me.  But I still wasn’t very social.  Socializing was a waste of time; I wasn’t going to see any of my classmates again, so what was the point?  I kept to myself in school.
 
Lucid continued as he sat on the bed.  “He was one of the few students that ‘got it’.  He could relate concepts in one class and apply them to others, even concurrent classes.  Such a bright, young lad.  He’s even taking summer courses.”
 
I looked at his hip tattoo, which depicted a magical white blob with a square cut out of it.  I was about to ask about that, but that question was pushed aside for later by a more pressing question.  “Lucid, are you a changeling?”
 
He took off his glasses, setting them on the bedside table and rubbing the bridge of his nose.  “I’m going to say no, but that won’t be enough, will it?”

No, not really.  “No.  I need you to prove it to me.”  Somehow.
 
Hooking his legs to the foot of the bed, he lied back and reached up to the headboard, rolling side to side to stretch.  “Would it be enough if I told you how you got here?”
 
“You could be making it up,” I replied.  If 4 N 7 could do it, why couldn’t Lucid?
 
He sat up and ran his hooves through his white, unkempt hair, which seemed to have little effect in correcting it.  “How about if I show you how you got here?”
 
That… might do it.  Depends on how he would show me.  “Okay.”  I sat down.
 
He shifted on the bed.  “I guess I’ll begin with how dreams work.  When a pony goes to sleep, their mind attracts a certain kind of energy.  This energy comes from everywhere; it’s a sort of magic hanging in the air.  And as a pony sleeps, that magic collects in the mind and dreams occur.  Does that make sense so far?”
 
At any minute, I was expecting him to pull out a crystal ball.  This sounded like spiritual banter, but I humoured him anyway.  Magic was a real thing here, after all.  “Yeah, go on.”
 
“Well, I wondered, what would happen if I mimicked this kind of magic?  So, I performed a few studies on this, monitoring subjects’ brains as they slept, making observations, reverse engineering a collection of magic based on the observations, and doing trial and error until something worked.”
 
“Something worked?” I repeated.  “How did you know when ‘something worked’?”
 
He chuckled.  “Well, when something blows up and throws you clear to the other side of the room, that ‘doesn’t work’ in my book.  And I finally found something that does work after five years of study.  I created a spell that could summon a dream.”
 
“Okay… so you can summon a dream,” I said.  “What does this have to do with dimensions?”
 
“You like to get straight to the point, eh?”  He smirked.  “Well, I tried this spell, and I had a dream that I remember much more clearly than I have before.  Not a lot of it made sense – you probably know how dreams are – but I realized something.
 
“I realized that dreams can actually traverse dimensions, forwards and backwards.  Dreams are ‘what ifs’:  What if you fell off of a cliff?  What if the Olden Pony was real?  What if you had emerged from your bed on your right this morning instead of your left?  The thing is, though, is these aren’t just ‘what ifs’ – they are windows into other dimensions.”  He pointed at me.  “When you have a dream, you are observing another dimension, another universe where something different has happened or will happen.  And with strong enough magic, travel to these other universes is possible.”
 
Wait a minute.  Then….  “Then you lied to me before?  You said before that you didn’t know the meaning of dreams.”
 
He nodded and looked down.  “I don’t.  I’m a scientist, not a historian.  I’m… like a farmer.  Although I ponder it on occasion, I know not why the seed grows.  My concern is to learn what makes it grow.”
 
“Okay, sure.”  I shut my eyes and tried to remember where he left off.  “So, travel.  Universes.”
 
“Yes, quite.  A couple of weeks ago, I published the results of my research in VIMA’s journal – that’s the university where we first met.  Every university in Equestria shares their journals and such, and talk was about that I could be the discoverer of a new field of magic.  One day, I received a scroll from Princess Celestia herself, requesting an audience with me in Canterlot concerning my research.  I had little interest, initially, so I declined.  But then she sent another scroll, offering a rather… handsome reward.”
 
“Go on,” I said.
 
“Well, I packed up my things and went to see the princess.  She wanted to discuss my research with me, but only if I did not tell a soul the nature of our discussion.  And that discussion took place the night you came to this world.”
 
That was vague.  “Okay.  What did you discuss?”
 
He brought a hoof up to his chest.  “Like I said, I’m a pony of my word.  I cannot tell a soul.  I can, however, summon a dream spell for you, but if you somehow manage to find the event that occurred exactly four days ago in the Royal Palace in Canterlot-”  He shrugged.  “-it would be sheer coincidence.”
 
Wait, what was that?  “Four days ago, in the…?”
 
“Royal Palace in Canterlot – the throne room, more specifically.  Again, if you were to somehow find that event, it would be pure coincidence.”
 
Oh, I saw what he was doing.  Clever.  Coincidences could be a good thing after all.
 
“Now, I’ll cast the spell.”  He retrieved his glasses from the bedside table and slipped them on.
 
I glimpsed back in the mirror at my unicorn self.  Changelings had horns, too.  And if they could do magic, what would this prove?  “So how does this prove you’re not a changeling, again?”
 
“This is a complicated spell.  Not just anypony can do it, nor any changeling, for that matter.  The fact that it works will be enough.”
 
But wouldn’t a carbon copy of Lucid know the same spells he did?  “How do I know that the ‘you’ before is the same as the ‘you’ now?”
 
He glanced at me before returning to his spell-casting stance.  “What you see there would match my story.”
 
Not what I meant, but… okay.  Motioning for me to step back, he turned to the door and closed his eyes.  His horn began to sparkle and glow a faint white, which became a brighter white as he concentrated.  I stepped back a little further until I felt the soft curtains behind me and sat down.
 
Magical strands left his horn and spun around in a stout whirlwind.  The strands grew wider, until they touched each other and formed a milky white orb.  The orb filled in as more magic streamed into it.  Once the orb had become completely opaque, Lucid stepped back and it remained hanging midair, giving off a soft hum.
 
He looked back at me and smiled.  “Beautiful, isn’t it?”
 
I wouldn’t have used the word “beautiful”.  “Weird” perhaps, or “eerie”.  A floating, humming ball of magic light wasn’t something I’d keep in my house.  “Okay, now what?”
 
“All you have to do is walk into it, and stick your head in there.”  He stepped out of the way so that I had a clear path to the orb.
 
Walk into it.  Simple enough.  Uh, walk into it?  “Wait… what’s it going to do?”
 
He marveled at it, each lens of his glasses reflecting the orb.  “It’ll take you into a dream, essentially.  It’s a generic spell: not specific to any one pony, like with normal dreams.  It might get a tad overwhelming once you’re in there.  Just… focus.”
 
I swallowed and took small steps towards the orb.  As I approached it, my vision started to turn white.  Frightened, I backed up.  I looked at Lucid as he stood there, watching the orb.  “How do I know this isn’t a trick?”
 
“I promise you won’t be hurt,” he said.
 
I looked back into the bright orb of white.  If Lucid was a changeling, I could be walking into my death.  I stayed put.  “I can’t.  I can’t do it.”
 
He frowned.  “I understand it may be hard to believe me, but I don’t know how else to prove it to you.”
 
I took one more step, and then another.  My vision was still turning white.  “I d- don’t…”  I needed to clear my mind.  I backed up and considered my options.
 
Yes, it very well could’ve been an orb of death.  But there could’ve been answers in there.  How I arrived in this universe was still one big mystery to me, and it was at that moment that I realized that not knowing was bugging me.
 
I looked at Lucid and thought about him.  He had never come across as the type to lie.  And that whole explanation didn’t seem to be improvised.  It was a legitimate recollection with no pauses and barely any breaks to think.  So, maybe there was truth in this.  And if there was, there could’ve potentially been a lot of truth.  And although I still didn’t understand how all this hand-wavy magic stuff worked, there was enough potential for truth to risk it.  I could trust him before, so maybe I could trust him again.
 
I took small steps forward.  Even as my vision turned white, I kept walking.  Slowly.  When everything went completely white, I still kept walking.  I needed to get back home.
 
And then, I was everywhere and anywhere at once.  A park.  Everything, everybody.  A meadow.  I could see it all.  Lavender pony.  A cave.  It became a blur that was clear at times, but at other times blended with the images before it.  A backyard.  Time was moving at light speed.  A gorge.  Blue pony.
 
It was too much.  A forest.  I began to hyperventilate.  Black clouds.  Orange pony.  Was I even breathing?  Bridge.  Pony.  Air!  I needed air.  Fire.  Dragon.  I closed my eyes.  Black.  I needed to focus.  Focus.  Lucid had told me to focus… on the castle.  Focus!  Lucid.  Castle.  Focus.  Open.
 
I felt the unchanging soft ground beneath me and opened my eyes, taking in as much air as I could.  The air tasted sweet as it rushed back into my lungs, and I relaxed.  I checked my body to make sure I was still all… there….
 
I was… human again?

I was human again!
 
Oh, my wonderful hands and feet and legs and arms and face!  I was me again!  I wiggled the fingers on the ends of my arms, helping them remember how good they felt, and then used them to feel my stubby little nose.  Even my regular clothes were back on me: khakis and a polo shirt.  Formal enough that they still complied with the dress code at work, and comfortable enough that I didn’t have to change at the end of the day.
 
I looked up, expecting to see my house or Minnesota or Earth or at least a small amount of the detail that matched that of myself and my clothing.  But no, it was back to full and simple technicolours.  It looked like a throne room, though, so I had at least found the right place.
 
The first thing I noticed was the carpet – which felt exquisite and quite soft under my human fingers.  It was red, but a soft red.  I followed it up with my eyes to two grand doors, surrounded by large stained-glass windows.  Each one depicted a different image, some of them with clouds or sky or nature stuff, but some of them had ponies on them.  The room definitely looked like it belonged to a palace.
 
“Leave us and stand guard,” a voice commanded – no, it was gentler.  Requested, perhaps?
 
I turned around to the other end of the carpet.  Two ponies with uniforms were facing me, and Lucid was in between them, facing the opposite direction.  The soldier ponies walked towards me.  Towards me!  Uh oh.  I froze, hoping they wouldn’t nab me and lock me up, but they walked right past me, as if I didn’t exist. 
 
The one who had spoken was huge, perhaps twice the size of Lucid.  She (I think) had a really long horn, flowing multicoloured hair, and a crown atop her head.  She must have been the ruler of something.  And she was – this was Princess Celestia, was it not?
 
When the doors behind me slammed shut, she nodded to Lucid.  “This way,” she said as she stood up from her throne.
 
I started to follow, but then realized that I was still on all fours.  Carefully, I straightened up onto my legs.  After being a four-legged creature for so long, I felt some dizziness going up.  But, I was able to regain my balance after a few seconds.
 
I followed them as she stepped down off of her throne.  She pulled back a curtain beside her throne, revealing a small door.  It was a simple door that matched the colours and shape of the double doors at the other end of the room, but was smaller and sort of tucked in the corner.  An iron ring ran through a latch next to the knob.  Using her yellow magic, the princess evaporated the iron ring and swung open the door.  Once Lucid and she were both inside, she closed the door behind her, and the ring magically reappeared.
 
Darn, I should’ve slipped in when I had had the chance.  There was, in fact, a keyhole for the ring, perhaps if she had forgotten the magic spell or something.  I looked around the door, in case she had left a spare set of keys or pair of bolt cutters lying around.  I knelt down to check under the carpet, but I couldn’t find an edge to lift.
 
I put my hands on my hips and sighed.  Where was that key?
 
I looked around the throne.  The flowerbed looked like a likely hiding spot.  I knelt down and ran my fingers into the dirt, but the dirt didn’t sift.  Hmm.
 
I brought my fingers out and examined them.  Not a spot of soil on them.  Did ponies invent clean dirt?  I reached down to touch one of the flowers…
 
…and my hand went right through!
 
It was if the flower didn’t exist.  Or… I didn’t exist.  Nopony had noticed me: the guards, the princess, none of them.  I was like a ghost – not there to interact, but observe.  And that’s exactly what I needed.
 
I stood up and walked to the door, curious to see if my ghost powers would work on it as well.  I brought my hand down to the iron ring and watched as it passed right through.  Now for the real test.
 
Slowly, I pushed my hand into the door and it disappeared, but I could still feel it.  I thrust my other hand through, and soon both my arms vanished into the door.  Holding my breath and closing my eyes, I pushed my face through.  I opened my eyes and saw my arms on the other side, still intact and functioning, so I pushed the rest of my body through.
 
I looked around the room I had just entered, which was dark and only dimly lit by candles.  It was a large study: much smaller compared to the enormous throne room, but still fit for royalty.  There was a desk towards the back of the room, with a pillow lying in front of it.  One bookshelf ran around the length of the room in a semicircle.  There was an empty space at the right end, waiting to collect more books.  And standing in the middle of it all were Lucid and the princess, facing each other.
 
“Nopony must know about this, not even my sister,” the princess was saying in a low voice.  “You understand why?”
 
“Yes,” Lucid said, nodding.  “I understand.”
 
“And you promise not to speak a word of this to anypony?”
 
He didn’t blink.  “I promise.”
 
She nodded.  “Then let us begin.”
 
He stepped back, summoning a white glow out of his horn.  As he went through the same process as he had before, I studied the princess.
 
With the light from the orb, I was able to see her face clearly.  She watched the orb intently as it formed.  Her expression was blank, except her eyes were a tad wider than normal.  Well, what was normal for other ponies.  She may have been an exception, being a princess and all.  She looked ready for something, that’s for sure.
 
“Done,” Lucid said.  The orb was complete, identical to the one he had made in the inn.  “Now, see if you can pour some magic into it.”
 
Celestia nodded.  She readied her horn and concentrated.  Yellow light flowed like a stream of water from her horn to the orb.  The floating sphere got bigger as more magic entered it.  She ended the flow of magic and looked past me to Lucid.  “Is that enough?” she asked.
 
“Should be,” he said.  “It’s ready.  Just touch your head to it.”
 
She took a moment to straighten her neck and glided toward it, like a princess.  Then, as soon as her head touched the orb, her legs gave out from under her, and she slumped to the ground.  The orb remained hanging in midair above her, casting a yellow glow on the princess’s face.
 
It was quiet for a few seconds.  Lucid floated a pocket watch out of his satchel and checked the time.  After looking around the room and past me, he set his glasses down on the ground and curled into a ball.  I wasn’t tired, so I explored the rest of the room.
 
I examined the books on the shelves, starting with the leftmost section.  I couldn’t touch them, but I thought it best not to, anyway.  Many were tattered and tearing at the edges, and some were threatening to fall apart at the smallest sneeze.  The titles were either worn away or non-existent, and it wasn’t until I reached the center of the shelves that I could read them.  Lots of books on magic and astronomy.  There were glossaries and encyclopedia on stars and planets and the sun and moon and magic and spells and whatnot.
 
Having a good idea of the types of books her library contained, I detoured to the thing I was most curious about: the desk.  It was antique, and dust was collecting on the back and sides, but not the top.  The top looked like it had recently been cleaned, and only a candle, a short stack of books, and a folded pair of reading glasses neatly rested in the corner.  I wanted to open the drawers out of pure curiosity, but I couldn’t touch them.  Plus, my thoughts were interrupted by groaning.
 
I turned around and noticed it was coming from Celestia as she lay on the floor.  Her brows furrowed, and she groaned louder.  Lucid got up and walked over to her.  “Princess?” he asked, looking worried.  I joined him, curious to see what was happening.
 
Her moaning turned into grunts and yells as her hooves started to kick.  Lucid, trying to avoid the pulsating orb above her, nudged her with a hoof.  “Princess?  Wake up!”
 
She didn’t, though.  The orb was almost flashing on and off, flickering wildly.  A slight breeze swirled through the room, seeming to originate from the orb.  Lucid grabbed her with another hoof and shook her.  “Wake up!  Wake up!” he shouted.
 
Then, all at the same moment, Celestia woke up, Lucid stopped shouting, and the orb stopped flickering and stabilized.  The room went dim and silent.  In that moment, I lost focus of everything else but the princess.  The look on her face when she had awoken….  Her mouth was a tad agape and her eyes were wide open.  I wasn’t sure if it was in surprise, awe, or fear.  It sent chills through me as I stared at it.
 
And that’s when I woke up.
 
Morning light was coming through the plain green curtains.  I was sprawled on the ground, in the same spot I had been in since the previous night.  And, like in the previous night, I was a pony again.  I flexed my invisible fingers and pouted as my hoof remained motionless.  I’ll be home, soon.  Eventually.
 
There was a body in the bed, whom I assumed to be Lucid.  This was the first place that had a real bed, and I had slept on the ground again.  Lovely.
 
I got up gingerly, both from lethargy and from not wanting to wake up Lucid.  However, he was already awake.  When he turned and saw me, he jumped out of bed and rushed over.  “I’ll lend you a hoof.  It puts you in the deepest sleep of your life, it does.”
 
He helped me to my feet.  My legs felt remarkably relaxed, which was odd.  I figured if I had kicked and screamed like the princess, I would’ve felt hot or woken up or something.  “Did I make any commotion during the night?”
 
“Commotion?  No.”  He paused to think.  “That only happens when you travel for a long distance.  You only travelled four days.  The farther back you try to go, the less stable it is.  My guess is that she… that if too much power is supplied, it can become too overwhelming.”
 
I licked my lips.  “What was she doing?”
 
He cocked his head.  “She explained it fairly well.  You were there, were you not?”
 
“Yes, I was,” I said, looking down as he put on his bag.  “I guess I missed it.”
 
“I’m sorry you did.  We can try again tonight, if you like.”  He levitated his glasses over from the nightstand and paused.  “Do you… believe me now?  That I’m not a changeling?”
 
I looked down at my hooves.  I was still intact after that ordeal in the dream, so he had kept his promise.  But there was still that one lingering possibility that he was a changeling.  I supposed a pony could never definitively prove that they aren’t; they could be a pony, or they could be a changeling that never reveals its true identity.  I shrugged.  “If you’re a changeling, you’re one of your word.”
 
He smirked.  “I suppose I can live with that.”  He turned and opened the door for me.  “Let’s be off.  I smell breakfast.”