Twilight Sparkle sits in the same booth that Lyra and Bon Bon recently occupied, though she does not realise it. The alicorn is well disguised, visibly lacking both her horn and wings, with a different palette to her coat and even a few subtle shifts to her cutie-mark. As such she is enjoying a hayburger in relative peace and quiet, though, even with the subtle disguise weaved around her ponies can sense she is not all that she seems. Colours seem brighter around the alicorn of friendship and magic, laughter comes easier and the food tastes sweeter. I am somewhat impressed by how strong her aura has grown in such a short space of time.
“Thanks again for agreeing to talk to me, Twilight.”
She swallows a bite of her burger and smiles. “No problem, Sandy. It’s lucky you caught me. I was going to travel later today, but Rainbow Dash insisted I look around the Exchange for some ‘mysterious interviewer pony’.” She rolls her eyes and shakes her head. “I don’t suppose you’ve seen anything like that?”
I glance down at my notepad, then up at Twilight’s warm, guileless smile. “No, I can’t say I have. So you have plans on Earth?”
“Well, damage control to perform at least,” she says, with a long suffering sigh. “Lyra is going on TV again, and that means somepony needs to be on call for when she causes another international incident.”
“This happens often?”
“Often enough,” Twilight mutters, and takes another bite of her burger. “I shouldn’t really blame her. Lyra has always been... impulsive, if I’m being diplomatic about it. She’s a pony that leaps before she looks and has been as long as I’ve known her. When she was a filly it was just harmless fun, but she’s a full grown mare now and one that’s constantly in the public spotlight. She needs to act more responsibly.”
I arch my eyebrow. “Some might say you’re still sore she beat you to revealing Equestria.”
Twilight shakes her head. “No, I’m not jealous. What she did was dangerous. In the end everything worked out, but what if it hadn’t? Lyra wilfully and knowingly endangered Equestria due to her own impatience. We had time. Humanity wasn’t aware of Equestria or the portal; for once we didn’t have a crisis to solve or a world ending threat to face.”
“And ponies such as Lyra would argue that you were happy to let that situation continue,” I point out.
“Earth was going to find out about us,” Twilight says, after another bite. “We knew we were on a clock. There were too many magical showdowns in too short a space of time for the governments of Earth to ignore us forever. It wasn’t an immediate threat, however, and we could learn so much in the meantime. There was an opportunity to understand humanity’s culture, their beliefs and their technology, but Lyra took that away from us and we had to go in blind.”
“Some would say that’s the best way to explore,” I point out.
“Well, they aren’t Princesses,” Twilight shoots back. “I have a responsibility to provide ponies with the best I can hope to achieve and Lyra undermined my efforts to smoothly introduce us to a world that, and let's be fair to humanity, does not have a great reputation for making friends with cultures they perceive as being primitive.”
“But you can argue that delaying was dangerous in its own way.” I set down my notepad. “The addition of a mobile network alone has revolutionised Equestria and, you could argue, saved hundreds of lives from various disasters. Surely that exchange of technology and ideas is a better use of the portal than a place to dump prisoners and malcontents?”
“Which is why we built more portals,” she says, shrugging.
“Heh. Yeah, I was surprised by that. I thought there would be a good chance you’d just take a hammer to it.”
Twilight frowns. “It was tempting. I couldn’t though. Partly, because leaving humanity with no way to get to Equestria would have just encouraged them to find their own. Mostly, though, I couldn’t destroy a work of art like that.”
“Art?” The shocked reply escapes me before I can stop it.
“Oh yes,” Twilight says, brightening. “I’ve spent a long time studying the original mirror and it is really fascinating. To be honest, even though the portals we have now are built to a different scale, they’re really pale copies of the original work. The original used just the solar cycle to power a bridge across worlds, a passive disguise spell, a language adaptation spell along with half a dozen little charms that made it almost impossible to notice. Sure, thirty moons charging time was a large price to pay, but even that was easily circumvented if one wanted to. In fact, I’d even say it was designed to be held open if somepony wanted to.”
I smile, leaning back in my chair. “Well, sounds like old Star Swirl has another notch for his beard.”
“Oh, it wasn’t Star Swirl,” Twilight says, causing me to choke in surprise. “As much as I admire his legacy, there’s a historical tendency to attribute everything to him. Crossing dimensions, however, is not part of any spell Star Swirl ever wrote. Sure, he knew about the mirror and even wrote extensively about his experiments with it, but it’s not his work.”
“So whose work is it?” I ask, trying and failing to keep my voice neutral.
“I don’t know. It feels... It feels like when Celestia raises the sun, or when Luna walks into a dream. It feels like somepony took the world and twisted it, making the impossible possible through sheer force of will.” Twilight smiles fondly. “Sunset showed me a human TV program called Stargate, where humanity finds an ancient gate to other worlds. The mirror is like that: ancient, alien, a fragment of a lost alicorn’s soul.” She lets out a pent up breath and a spark runs down the length of her, suddenly visible, horn.
I swallow the lump in my throat. “I wonder if that lost alicorn would appreciate all the people tramping through her portal.”
Twilight smiles. “I think she would. Nopony puts so much time and effort into something like that just to see it gather dust. She’d want to see how it works. She’d want to talk to the people using it and learn what they discovered on the other side of the mirror.”
She turns to look at me and for just a moment, our eyes meet through my veil of illusion magic. “Who are you, Sandy?” she asks, frowning.
I hold up my notebook. “Just somepony who collects stories, I’m writing a book, you see.”
“Yes, and I’m a librarian,” Twilight points out. Her horn begins to glow with magic and the pressure of her aura doubles in an instant. My veil wavers, but doesn’t fall. “That’s not exactly the whole story, is it?”
“You never get the whole story,” I point out, casting around for an exit. “You just get these little snippets of lives told through a haze of memory, nostalgia and lies. Fascinating in their own way, but never fully true.”
Her frown deepens, forming a furrow between her brows. The pressure of magic redoubles and ponies start to look our way. They can’t see the struggle of wills, but they can feel it, in the same way a pegasus can feel a wild storm building.
“Who are you?” she repeats, planting her hooves firmly on the table.
“Sandy Hooves.” I hold out my hoof to shake, she doesn’t take it. “It’s a pleasure–”
I slam my hoof down, catching the edge of the metal tray. Through more luck than judgement, it flips into the air smacking Twilight right in the face. The moment of distraction is just enough for me to vault out of the booth and break into a wild gallop towards the back of the restaurant.
“Wait!” Twilight cries, as I barge through a door and into a restroom. “I just want to... huh?”
She finds herself staring at an empty room. The restroom is deserted, save for a few unoccupied stalls and a broad mirror.