Twilight softly cleared her throat before she rose to her full height. "Actually, assemble the girls. They should all meet our guests. They've come to us, as friends, in a time of great need. I'll explain when everyone's here."
Rarity shifted gears internally from the look on her face as she turned back towards the exit. "Fluttershy's at her cottage, why don't you fetch Rainbow, she's up above and you know I can't fly without that darling wing spell of yours. We'll have the girls gathered in two shakes of a tail." She proved herself wrong by swaying her tail twice on the way out.
Twilight nodded to us. "Make yourself at home, I'll be back with the rest of them, and I'll explain my mistake." She unfurled her wings and took off into the air. Despite being gravid, she gracefully got herself outside and vanished from sight in a twinkle of magic.
Sandra watched her go and huffed softly. "I want to look around a little. This castle is amazing and all, but we're on a whole alien world of colorful ponies that seem to barely know what the idea of war or struggle is. I want to see that. I bet they're adorable."
Crystal looked towards Spike. "How is it?"
Spike blinked in surprise at being addressed. "Huh? Oh, it's pretty nice, I guess? But I live here, so that makes me a little biased."
Cindy grinned. "Maybe we'll get a chance. We're not so easily infectious now." She stepped up beside me and we held hands. Twilight's little procedure hadn't dulled our connection, and peace flowed between us. I thought about Karen and Neon. They didn't seem to have the same bond, when Neon allowed any. I had a feeling Karen was playing to Neon's joy of power, and it was slowly working. Every time they touched for a while, Neon would become closer to her old self, when she was a princess. He also used that term quite specifically.
Crystal settled beside Cindy and I. "Do you know who she's rushing off to get?"
Spike answered that with a shrug. "The girls. They're Twi's best friends, and kind of the local heroes. Together they've battled all kinds of crazy bad guys and saved the nation a few times."
Neon perked up. "Are they all female?" Spike nodded. "Are they all... available?" Spike looked confused, then blinked owlishly and scowled at her. "Just asking. They can say no if they want to. They are adult ponies, aren't they?"
Karen moved up beside Neon and brushed along her side. "We are still members of a herd, don't forget. It's impolite to go hunting for others." Neon began to glow with their contact and she didn't shove him away or flee that time. They sat side-by-side as she argued her side of the right to 'browse' the 'local selection' with him.
Spike rubbed behind his head a moment. "It shouldn't take them too long, but you should be polite, especially to Rarity! She's a refined and proper lady." His words practically dripped with fondness, but he sounded too young to follow through with those love-sick tones.
Cindy sent her quiet agreement with my assessment, and gently reminded me it wasn't our job to play matchmaker or psychiatrist to our guests. I started a little. It often surprised me when our thoughts flowed like that, without words, but more as ideas. It was sometimes all-too-easy to confuse the other's thoughts for our own when we passed down to that level and I brought it up a notch.
~Why do you think she suddenly wants all of her friends?~
Cindy tilted her head a little. ~She's guilty, I think, and she wants to confess her mistake to everyone at once, and introduce us. Nothing more than that.~
Logical enough. I leaned over and kissed her cheek. ~I get the idea they're heroes, but not royalty. I wonder how friendship got started properly with a huge divide like that.~
Cindy's ears perked as she looked thoughtful a moment. ~Do you suppose she's like us? Maybe she wasn't always royalty, and became friends before she got her crown.~
~That'd be too wild a coincidence.~
As Spike promised, they soon returned. The new mares looked at us with curiosity and some confusion. The pink one had no confusion. She rushed up to each of us and looked us over with a big grin. "Hi! Heya! Hello! Bienvenido!" Did she just talk Spanish? Do they even have Spanish? How did she know to greet Neon specifically in Spanish? She didn't stop until every one of us was greeted and threw her hooves wide, streamers exploding outwards with no apparent source. "Welcome to Equestria! My name's Pinkie Pie, and this is Applejack." The orange pony with the stetson tipped her hat towards us. "This is Fluttershy." She nodded but shyly edged away a little. "Here's Rarity." She smiled gently at us from beneath a new wide-brimmed hat. "And R--"
The cyan pony with rainbow colored mane rushed forward on agile wings. "Rainbow Dash, pleased to be here. So, Twilight, what's up?"
Twilight nodded lightly and gestured to the seats. "Everypony take their seat, and I'll explain the situation." She vanished, only to reappear on the chair that had her cutie mark emblazoned on it. "I made a mistake, a big one, and I'll start there."
The girls moved up to their chairs, matching their marks with the chairs quickly. Rainbow pointed at us. "Did you turn them all into crazy freaks with your magic?"
Twilight tensed and shot us an apologetic look. "Actually... that's.. not entirely wrong." She hung her head. "They're not from here, or anywhere in Equestria. When I tried to reach Silver's home world, my magic ran into something I couldn't see, bounced off, and collided with a different world entirely."
Applejack blinked. "Ya mean ya done blasted a whole world with all their magic? Is that why those two holdin' hands like that look like Cadance, and maybe a little Princess Celestia mixed in?"
Twilight drew in a loud breath before letting it out. "Yes... Yes exactly. I turned their world upside down and bathed a planet full of humans with two things." She held up both forehooves. She held one up higher. "First, all the equine magic that was in the castle that day. You remember it, right? Everyone got sick for a while afterwards."
Pinkie bobbed her head. "All those poor guards. I had to play nurse for some of them. They're really nice when you get to know them."
Fluttershy swallowed nervously before speaking up. "Why do... Why do some of them not look quite... right?"
Twilight lowered the highest hoof and raised the other. "Well, the other half was that energy my spell collided with. I kind of shoved a whole other species right on top of them."
Rarity gasped and put a hoof over her snout. "How dreadful, dear. Were they hurt?"
Karen shook his head. "We were not." All eyes turned to him. "I am one of those other species. I am fine, and I'm proud to be a pony now." He gently brushed against Neon. "And to chase love and family as I never would have, in my original life."
Twilight waved a hoof as the other settled back on her chair. "Thank you, but let's not get too distracted. They came here to ask for our help putting things right. It's been a while since then."
Rainbow huffed. "If it's since when you did that experiment, yeah, that was a while ago, almost a year." She suddenly lifted from her chair and pointed at Karen. "Hey, big guy! You any good with those wings?"
He spread them out and stood up. "I haven't had too much practice with them yet."
Rainbow flew over his head. "Well, come on, let's get some practice then." Karen followed her out with ungainly but eager flaps.
Twilight put a hoof on her head. "Well, she took it well... That's about it, as far as the story goes. I messed up. I'm sorry. I even tried to play it off, but then I experienced first hoof the horror that I unleashed. It was... It was awful. I'm sorry." She dipped her head low towards the table.
Applejack hopped down and moved over to pat Twilight on the shoulder, and soon the rest were gathered around her with gentle words of encouragement. They truly were good friends from the support I saw. I also appreciated that Twilight understood exactly what she did.
Twilight sat up and nodded. "Alright, so, here's the plan. We hurt their world, and I mean to help fix things. This isn't the most ideal meeting of our species, but we owe it to them to lend all the support we can."
I raised a hand. "Twilight, excuse me, but you don't have to physically go there, especially not all of you. We have people, and that's good. We're recovering, and from what little I gathered, there are more of us, even after what happened, than there are ponies. Your magical know how would be useful. We're like children with matches when it comes to that."
Twilight spread her wings with alarm. "I should think so! What a mess... Are there a lot of unicorns, and... do you know what you are?"
I didn't, and shrugged. She sighed. "You are an alicorn, a combination of the three major tribes. They are typically royalty, here. Like me. I'm a princess."
That term again. "We've come to start calling our most powerful princesses, but they're not always hybrids."
Sandra nodded. "And duchesses for the second tier."
Applejack tilted her head. "Never heard ah one of those before."
Pinkie rubbed her hooves together. "I wanna see. I can come see, right right? Twilight got to go see the other world all the other times. I call dibs! I'll be good, promise!" She was adorably eager, but I didn't understand her either, and neither did Cindy from the feel of it.
Twilight smiled patiently. "They just said they didn't need more hooves, Pinkie."
Pinkie shook her head quickly. "I don't have to go for that, but I can go to put some smiles on some faces, and see everything. I wanna see it all. Come on, Twilight, pleeeease?!" She threw herself forward onto the table with her hooves clasped together. "Let me be the one going to another world for a change. Come onnnnn!"'
Rarity glanced between Pinkie and Twilight. "Twilight, darling, I happen to agree with you, but that look in her eyes. If you say no, she'll find a way, somehow."
Twilight let out a breath with an extension of a hoof. "Pinkie... if I let you go, and I'm not saying I will just yet, would you stay with our friends and not get into any trouble?"
Pinkie bounced up to her hooves and suddenly pulled out a trench coat that she slipped into quickly. "They won't even know I'm there!"
This couldn't end well.