Twilight tried several spells that she said she'd devised when working with other mirror universes, but Bómù's mirror continued to do nothing but sit silently. When Mèng Huàn began to smell the molten-metal stink of her frustration, though, the tip of her horn glowing like a white-hot ember, he touched her shoulder and asked if the mirror would be safe to move.
Panting slightly, she nodded. "I can detect a fair amount of residual magic in this room, but none of it seems to be connected to the mirror."
"Very well." Mèng Huàn lit his own horn and sent out a blue summoning sphere. "I'll have the guards take it to my laboratory. I have a few grimoires and assorted magical books, and all the libraries here in Yuè Mǎ Jīng will be at your disposal, too, of course."
"Bómù's library." Bits of the lost look that had come over her when she'd first touched the mirror still flitted about the edges of Twilight's face, but just about the edges. "I'm guessing he has a castle out in a little town not far from here?"
"In Xiǎo Mǎ Chéng," Mèng Huàn said, not sure if he was still capable of feeling surprise that she knew so much about their lives. "Any notes he made will certainly be there." And because Bómù in a situation like this would want specific problems he could focus on— "Could the spell have malfunctioned? I'm not getting any aroma of material burnout, so it can't be that the mirror cracked. But magical feedback always makes my hide tingle, and I'm not—"
"Please, Prince Mèng Huàn." She rubbed the space between her eyes. "Let's not conjecture in advance of the facts. Also, I...I need to start making some check lists as quickly as possible."
"Of course." Reaching through the spaces between space to his workroom, Mèng Huàn caused a blank notebook, a quill, and an inkwell to materialize in front of her.
"Thank you," she said tersely, and she was still writing in the book when the guards arrived. Giving them their instructions, Mèng Huàn gently herded Twilight along after them, her head down and her pen jotting the whole time.
The clock above the fireplace in Mèng Huàn's workroom was striking midnight as they entered: an hour since the mirror should have opened, and it hadn't given so much as a crackle. Mèng Huàn thanked the guards, dismissed them, turned to Twilight and asked, "What can I do to help?"
A faint smile pulled her lips, and she looked up from the notebook for the first time, about half the pages filled with a very Bómù-like scrawl. "Don't take this the wrong way, Mèng Huàn, but I think I'd be more comfortable right now if you went about your business." She raised a hoof when he opened his mouth to complain. "If you're anything like Luna, you have duties you need to see to each night, and I've been keeping you from those duties." The way she looked at the bookcases around the room made Mèng Huàn nervous, but she nodded instead of frowning. "I'd say there's enough here for me to get started, so do what you have to do, and I'll do the same."
Wanting to argue with her, he instead found that he couldn't. "Can I at least have the kitchen send up a snack for you?" he asked after silently sputtering for several heartbeats.
"Anything but quesadillas," she muttered, making notes again in the book.
He blinked at her. "What?"
She waved a hoof. "Two flat disks of cooked corn meal or wheat paste served with melted cheese between them." She shuddered.
Mèng Huàn did some more blinking. "I've never even heard of such a thing!"
Twilight's pen skittered to a stop, and the huge smile she turned toward him made his chest fill with butterflies. "Mèng Huàn, I'm liking this universe more and more."
He left her scratching away at the book, popped downstairs to ask the night chefs to send a plate of assorted dainties to his workroom, then launched himself into the dreamscape in the hopes that some nightgaunts or other bogeys might be lurking about for him to vent his frustrations upon. Or not frustrations so much as...as—
Uncertainty prickling the base of his mane, he snorted, galloping through the silver fog that separated the civilized dreams of his little ponies from the wilder lands beyond. Yes, she was the first female alicorn he'd ever even heard of, the scent of her as sweet and intoxicating as the smoothest of rice wines, but, well, she was also Bómù, wasn't she? Or not Bómù so much as an impossible reflection of him, every bit as strong and smart and accomplished as Mèng Huàn's young friend but also modest, fascinating, witty, empathetic—
A sharp odor jabbed him; flaring his nostrils, Mèng Huàn wheeled, leaped sideways, and sliced through the clouds into a darkened clearing. Whistling shrieks rose up ahead, and a dozen fire-eyed guǐ guài, each about as big as a pony's head, spun on their spidery legs away from the hole they'd been digging through the embankment Mèng Huàn had erected here specifically to keep the nasty little things out.
He let his lips pull back from his teeth, but he couldn't decide whether it was a smile or a sneer. Not that it mattered much: letting his magic blaze out through his silver shoes, he spent several wonderfully strenuous hours driving the gibbering monstrosities back into the stagnant effluvium from which they'd sprung. He didn't neglect his other duties, of course, and stretched his senses out to touch the rest of his realm every fifteen or twenty minutes during the battle just as a precaution.
Nothing reached him, however, but quiet, lolling slumber, and that was all to the good. It allowed him to be extra thorough eradicating the vermin, after all. And allowed him to focus on something other than his sudden, distracting visitor...
Still, he dealt with the infestation, shored up the barriers, and finished the whole of his rounds with two hours remaining until sun up. All else seemed well among those dreaming, so he stepped from the night's shadows into the corridor outside his workroom to see how Twilight was getting along.
The place was hardly recognizable. She seemed to have dismantled all his furniture and rebuilt it into a giant wooden, metal, and granite framework that surrounded the mirror and changed shape, he was certain, every time he glanced away from it. All his meticulously organized books had been moved into a dozen piles scattered across the floor, and Twilight herself stood before the mirror with her whole body glowing, the tip of her tongue curled out to touch her upper lip and sweat dripping from the edge of her mane.
Mèng Huàn had seen Bómù in this state more than once, so he settled beside the empty snack tray just inside the door to wait. Twilight held the pose for some minutes longer before her horn sputtered; then with a snarling sort of grunt, she wrenched herself sideways, the place where she'd been standing marked by four smoking hoofprints etched into the stone.
Refusing to let his jaw drop, Mèng Huàn conjured up a glass of water, moved quickly to her side, and offered it to her.
She nodded as if in thanks, grabbed the glass in her own magic, and swigged down its contents. "It's impossible!" she said, holding the empty glass out. "And I know impossible: I mean, the last few years, I've managed to do six or seven things that Starswirl specifically says can't be done! But that mirror—!" She waved a shaking hoof at it. "It keeps turning back on itself, every trail I follow leading me out again right where I started! I don't know if I want to collaborate on a series of treatises with this Bómù of yours or kick him in the head as hard as I can!"
It took some effort not to laugh. "You're hardly the first to feel that way." Her shoulders under her smooth hide looked as clenched and solid as stone; without thinking, Mèng Huàn draped a wing around her and began sending the warmth of sweet dreams to soothe the tension from her muscles. "I've a room you can use to get some sleep. In the morning, I'll introduce you to Tiān Shàng, then we'll head to Xiǎo Mǎ Chéng and see what we can find in Bómù's notes."
For another moment, she might as well have been a statue beneath his feathers, but with a sigh, she softened all at once and slumped against his side, every one of Mèng Huàn's nerve endings lighting up like a sky full of stars. "I'm sorry," she murmured. "But I just...I just don't understand what's going on..."
"You will." He stroked her back, suddenly realized that it was entirely inappropriate for him to be doing so, but couldn't bring himself to stop; the salty stink of her unhappiness, after all, was also softening with each stroke, and anything that helped her to relax, he thought, could only be for the good. "Don't worry," he murmured. "You'll disentangle whatever Bómù's done, open the gate, step through, and all will once again be well." The odd hollowness behind his words made his ears fold, but, well, it had been a long and eventful evening...
"Thank you." She rose to her hooves, her head drooping and her eyes closed. "Just...just an hour or two to lie down would...would be great..."
Nodding, he guided her to the guest room across the hall, Twilight clambering into bed and dropping instantly to sleep—and the silence that surrounded Mèng Huàn suddenly seemed thicker and colder than any fog he'd ever met in the darkness of the Realms Beyond. Shaking his head, he used his magic to pull a blanket over her before stepping back out into the hallway, closing the door, and rushing through the last few tasks he'd had scheduled for tonight before Bómù had thrown the entire world into such intriguing disarray.
At dawn, he arrived at Tiān Shàng's balcony just in time to lower the moon, his elder brother not saying a word till the sun was rising steadily into the warm blue of a summer morning. "Rough night?" Tiān Shàng asked then.
Mèng Huàn had been thinking for some hours how best to bring Tiān Shàng up to speed on the situation, but nothing had occurred to him except— "Bómù," he said simply and gestured for his brother to follow.
They winged across the spires of Yuè Mǎ Jīng Palace, and Mèng Huàn led the way to the room where he'd left Twilight sleeping. "I can't prepare you for this," he said and pushed open the door.
Dawn's golden light washed through the drawn curtains, the sight of Twilight relaxed in sleep making Mèng Huàn catch his breath. "That's not Bómù," Tiān Shàng rumbled softly. "And yet...she is, isn't she?"
"Exactly." Mèng Huàn told Tiān Shàng of the night's events—as much as he understood them himself, at least—and finished just as Twilight began stirring.
Tiān placed his shoulder against Mèng Huàn's chest, pushed him out into the hallway and followed, closing the door behind them. "Rule number one, little brother." Tiān Shàng tapped the tip of his horn against Mèng Huàn's. "A gentlecolt knocks before entering a mare's boudoir, especially when that mare is an unaccountably long way from home."
He gestured to the door. Mèng Huàn blinked at it. Tiān Shàng rolled his eyes, raised a hoof, mimed knocking, then pointed at the door again.
Unable to stop his blush, Mèng Huàn stepped up and rapped on the door. "Princess Twilight? It's Prince Mèng Huàn. Are you—?"
The door glowed purple and slammed open, Twilight standing there with wide eyes. "Then...it wasn't a dream? Everything really—?" She froze, her eyes going even wider, and Mèng Huàn realized that she was looking past him at Tiān Shàng.
Glancing over his shoulder, Mèng Huàn couldn't help but see his brother with new eyes: a tall, broad-chested, snow-white stallion, his mane and tail flowing with the sky blue and sunburst gold of a cloudless morning, his blonde mustache and goatee as carefully trimmed as always. He bowed his head and spoke in that resonant tenor of his: "Princess Twilight? I'm Tiān Shàng. I'm sorry that your first visit to Cōng Mǎ Guó has proven to be problematical. Rest assured, we will provide any and all assistance we can muster toward helping you resolve this situation."
A tiny flare of the old jealousy ignited in Mèng Huàn's gut, but he swallowed against it. It wasn't Tiān Shàng's fault that he was perfect in every—
Laughter barked through the hallway, and Twilight clapped a hoof over her mouth. "I...I'm sorry, Your Highness! It's just that—" Her grin grew huge and infectious. "I've got to get that portal fixed so Celestia can meet you!" She turned to Mèng Huàn, and he was sure that her eyes shone in a way they hadn't while looking at Tiān Shàng. "So! Breakfast, then Bómù's castle: is that still the plan?"
Breakfast was amazing, dumplings and sweet buns covering the round mahogany table, but Twilight found it hard to keep a straight face whenever she looked at Tiān Shàng. It was just that, while Mèng Huàn resembled Luna in a lot of ways—the starry mane and tail; the sad and serious expression that lit up every time he smiled; a stillness that Twilight found very comforting under the circumstances—the overall impression that Twilight got from him was something like Luna's brother or cousin or some other close male relative.
Tiān Shàng, on the other hoof, couldn't have been anypony other than Celestia's mirror universe duplicate. The light swirled around him the same way it swirled around her, his smile every bit as enigmatic, his voice precisely as warm and reassuring as hers. She had to get the two of them together, Twilight silently vowed, if only to sing a duet.
Fortunately, Tiān Shàng only asked a few questions during the meal, and Twilight managed to answer them without embarrassing herself. She was glad to focus on Mèng Huàn, exchanging more stories and comparisons of their worlds until Tiān Shàng rose and excused himself: "Keep me apprised of your progress, though from what I've seen here, I have every expectation that the two of you will soon have both universes set to rights." He bowed his head—wearing, Twilight couldn't help but notice, the exact pleasant-but-ultimately-unknowable expression that she'd come to know so well from her student days—and left the breakfast room.
Once she and Mèng Huàn were alone, Twilight couldn't help blowing out a breath. "Please don't take this the wrong way, Mèng Huàn, but meeting your brother was maybe the strangest thing that's ever happened to me."
"Indeed?" Mèng Huàn gave one of those slow smiles. "You've always been closer to your Princess Celestia than to your Princess Luna, I take it?"
Tightness gripped Twilight's throat, but she swallowed against it. "Celestia taught me everything I know. But Luna—" Twilight tried to find the right words. "Luna's been the one who's really shown me why Celestia taught me what she did." She shrugged. "If that makes sense."
"It does." He sighed. "I love my brother more than life itself, but our relationship has ever been one of peaks and valleys. Getting to know Tiān Shàng's student, however, from the moment that Bómù and his friends saved me to the moment of his coronation and beyond—" He stopped, dropped his gaze to focus on his puffed rice. "Well, I'm sure your Luna has let you know how much she appreciates everything you've done for her."
The silence that followed felt a little prickily. Twilight started to reach across the table to touch his hoof and ask if he'd ever let Bómù know how much he appreciated him, but then Mèng Huàn was rising from his place. "As it is, however, Twilight, we'd best be on our way. Shall I summon a chariot while you finish your breakfast?"
"Actually?" Twilight swallowed the last bite of the sticky little rice ball on her plate and stood as well. "Would it be all right if we just, well, if your Ponyville's no farther from here than the Ponyville back home, could we maybe just fly there? All the pomp and circumstance of being a princess just makes me twitch sometimes..."
After several blinks, Mèng Huàn cocked his head. "You know, I can't think of the last time I went flying during the day." He nodded crisply. "We can depart at once, then." His horn glowed, and the gauzy curtains parted from the nearest of the big windows along the side of the room; its decorated glass panels swung open, and Twilight saw blue sky outside. "After you," he said.
Twilight stepped to the window, hopped over the sill, spread her wings, took one look at the city stretching out beneath her—
And almost dropped from the sky.
"Twilight?" Mèng Huàn was beside her instantly, a piece of the night come to life in the brilliant morning sky. "Are you all right?"
"The city!" She waved a hoof at the sight before her. "It's...incredible! I mean, Canterlot is the most beautiful city in Equestria, but—" She did some more gaping: not towers of alabaster and marble like back home, but multilevel, geometric pagodas rising from tree-lined streets, pavilions of red and gold set among grassy parks, most of the buildings seeming to be made of some translucent stone. "Is that white jade?" she asked.
"It is." Quiet pride shone in Mèng Huàn's voice. "Yuè Mǎ Jīng was the most beautiful city in Cōng Mǎ Guó even before my brother made it our capital during my exile." He gestured toward the rising sun. "Of course, Xiǎo Mǎ Chéng is a lovely town as well."
"Of course." Forcing her gaze away from the dazzling sight, she swooped in the direction he indicated and glanced over at him as he fell into place beside her. "Again, I hope you don't mind me asking, but, well, I can't help wondering about the names here. I mean, it constantly astonishes me how all mirror universes I've visited have shared the same language, but your names seem to derive from some other source entirely."
"As well they should." His wings seemed more to caress the air than flap against it; Twilight found she had to make an effort to pay attention to what he was saying. "Jīng Pò Yǔ has been the language of names since before my brother and I were young. It draws upon a very deep and ancient magic, and we use is as a sign of the respect we ponies hold for each other and for the world around us." He shrugged and gave her a glancing grin. "It's also a fine way to confuse our griffon and minotaur neighbors."
Twilight couldn't stop a laugh at that. "Do griffon names here all begin with 'g,' too?"
Mèng Huàn shivered. "It's horrible! The words just lie there! It's like limp celery: no spring nor crunch nor any saltiness whatsoever!" He cocked his head. "But what did you call Yuè Mǎ Jīng? 'Canterlot'? That's got a certain ring to it..."
The discussion that followed made the rest of the flight pass so quickly, Twilight barely noticed. The subject fascinated her—she'd glanced at a few studies on the magic of names years ago but had never delved very deeply into the concepts involved—and her companion fascinated her almost as much. It was odd: lately, she'd found herself getting tongue-tied around stallions way too often, but talking to Mèng Huàn, she felt as if she'd known him for years.
Which made sense, she guessed. In a very real way, she had.
So it was with a little prickle of a frown that she looked past the forest they'd been flying beside—to her, the Everfree Forest; to him, Yǒng Yě Sēn Lín—to see several familiar-looking turrets rising up over the hills ahead. She opened her mouth to ask if that was Bómù's palace, but then they were gliding over the crest of the hill into sight of the town lying snug in the valley beyond.
The same thatched cottages, yes, but painted in colors that were more vibrant and less pastel; the same sod-covered lanes, yes, but there seemed to be more of them—and more buildings, too, now that she was looking carefully; the same mid-morning traffic, yes, but she couldn't quite recall everything being quite so bustling: it was Ponyville, yes, but not Ponyville at the same time.
But if seeing the transformed Canterlot had almost knocked her out of the sky, the changes here perked her ears and made her want to get down in the streets and explore. Especially when she heard a baritone drawl calling out from the direction of the town square, "Git'cher apples here! Straight from Tián Píng Mǔ and ready for eating!"
A large orange stallion in a battered hat stood beside a cart filled with brilliant red fruit, and Twilight couldn't keep from grinning. "Oh, now, this I've got to see!" she practically squealed.
"Twilight?" Mèng Huàn asked. "What are you—?"
But she was already diving, landing a few paces from the stallion and not bothering to stop her jaw from dropping. All she could think of was the trick they'd pulled on Trixie during the Alicorn Amulet incident, the way they'd done Big McIntosh up in Applejack's colors and cutie mark.
"Well, now!" the stallion said, pushing back his hat and turning with a grin. "Morning, Bómù, Mèng Huàn. Can't recall the last time I's seen either of you up and about this...early..." His grin began wilting, his forehead creasing.
Mèng Huàn had settled to the ground beside Twilight, but he stepped forward quickly. "Píng Guǒ Jiǔ, this is Princess Twilight Sparkle. She and Bómù are, umm..." The words petered out, more ponies glancing over from the surrounding stalls.
Thinking quickly, Twilight jumped in. "You might say that Bómù and I are doppelgangers," she said, then realized that the Applejack she knew probably wouldn't have any idea what that word meant. "You see, Prince Bómù opened a path through a magic mirror to my universe, and he's visiting there while I visit here!"
Píng Guǒ Jiǔ blinked. "Uh-huh." Tipping his head back, he shouted, "Hóng!"
"Huh?" a scratchy voice asked from above, and a rainbow streak spun down from a drifting cloud to become a sky-blue stallion standing beside the apple cart. "What's up, Píng?"
"Don't gimme that!" Píng Guǒ Jiǔ aimed a shaking hoof at Twilight. "Did you put Bómù up to this? 'Cause it's a prank stupid enough to have your dang hoofprints all over it!"
"What?" The pegasus blinked, then stared.
Mèng Huàn puffed out a sigh. "Hóng Ruì Qì, this is Princess Twilight Sparkle. She and Bómù have exchanged places in their respective universes as something of a cultural exchange. Princess, this is Hóng Ruì Qì , the head of the local weather team."
"Call me Hóng!" Hóng Ruì Qì brushed at the stripes of his unruly mane. "A lady Bómù, huh?" He waggled his eyebrows at her. "And how're you doin'?"
Twilight had felt her grin growing wider and wider as this scene had been playing out in front of her, but that was the last straw; trying to hold back her laughter just made it burst out about ten times louder than she would've liked. "Oh, my gosh! Rainbow is gonna die when I tell her about this! Just plain die!"
Both Hóng and Píng's ears folded flat against their heads, and the uncomfortable look on Mèng Huàn's face got Twilight laughing even harder, clutching her sides and stomping the ground, the citizens of Xiǎo Mǎ Chéng starting to notice. "Uh..." Hóng's voice even took on that same nasal quality as Rainbow's did when she got confused. "Is she all right?"
Laughing even harder, Twilight couldn't manage to form a single word, but Mèng Huàn seemed to have regained enough of his poise to began explaining the events of the previous night to the crowd growing around them. Unfortunately, every time Twilight felt recovered enough to step in and help, one or two reversed-gender versions of her friends would arrive. Mèng Huàn would interrupt himself to introduce them, and Twilight would find herself again grinning too broadly to even try speaking.
By the time he got to the end, though, Twilight had more or less gotten used to the strange stallions who were somehow also her dearest friends. "A moment, please," Lín Láng said, the tailor's deep blue eyes darting back and forth between Mèng Huàn and Twilight. "Surely you're not saying that Bómù's trapped in this other universe?"
"No, no, no!" Twilight scented the salty-sour stink of fear and held up a front hoof quickly, ice shivering along her spine. "Nopony's trapped anywhere! Yes, something's happened to the connection, but, well, that's always a problem when working with mirror universes! I mean, more than once, we've had to forcibly break all connections between our universe and another before everything collapsed and destroyed both!"
Lín Láng gasped. Beside him, Wēi Fēng Fǔ pressed his front hooves to his snout, the veterinarian turning an even paler shade of yellow, while Fěn Hóng Bǐng's tangled mane drooped around his shoulders like a strawberry waterfall.
A blush of realization boiled away all the ice in Twilight's body. "Not that there's any danger of that happening in this case!"
Mèng Huàn cleared his throat and spread his wings, a touch of the Canterlot voice deepening his already basso tone. "Prince Bómù is undoubtedly working with their Princess Luna just as Princess Twilight and I are working together here, and I have every confidence that all will be well! For now, however, let us extend the hoof of friendship to our visiting princess and welcome her to Cōng Mǎ Guó!"
That got ears at least partially raised around the town square, and Twilight found scores of semi-familiar ponies lining up to greet her. Mèng Huàn sat beside her the whole time as did the others of Bómù's friends, and an hour or so went by quite pleasantly, she thought. At least, the tension she'd felt earlier largely stopped tugging at her mane.
"Land sakes!" Píng Guǒ Jiǔ said when the crowd had finally thinned out—and Píng had sold most of his apples, Twilight noticed. "The things Bómù gets hisself into! Not that we ain't glad to have you, Princess, but I reckon we'll be shoving this into that boy's face for more'n a little while when he gets back."
"I'll say!" Hóng rubbed his hooves together. "No hurry, though, right?" He arched his eyebrows again. "'Cause, I mean, you need anypony to show you around, Princess, just stop by my place, and I'll be happy to give you the grand tour."
Ping scowled at the pegasus. "Simmer down, RQ."
"I'm just saying!"
Smiling, Twilight shook her head. "No matter the universe, some things are a constant." She looked over at Mèng Huàn and tried to keep her smile from fading. "And speaking of that..."
"Yes." Mèng Huàn spread his wings again. "If you'll pardon us, gentlecolts, we have to gather up Bómù's notes."
The castle looked almost exactly like hers—a little taller, maybe, but she couldn't really be sure just walking up the steps and through the front doors. Inside, though, she froze with a gasp at the sight of a little dragon, thinner and smoother than Spike but still purple and green, padding across the vestibule with a bowl of gems covered in sugar held in her claws.
"Ah." Mèng Huàn cleared his throat. "Dào Gōu, this is Princess Twilight Sparkle. She and Bómù—"
"Whoa." Dào Gōu's voice wasn't that much higher than Spike's, but her eyes seemed to open wider. "Is this some sorta mirror universe thing?"
Unable to look away from the bowl, Twilight snorted. "Never mind that!" She stomped up to Dào Gōu and glared down at her. "How much sugar do you have on there, anyway?"
"What's that s'pposed to mean?" Dào Gōu glared right back. "There's hardly any!"
"Oh, really?" Activating her horn, Twilight conjured a bubble the size of a bowling ball that sucked powder off the gems till it was nearly halfway full. "There!" Twilight nodded and sent the bubble drifting toward the kitchen. "That's more like it!"
Dào Gōu's chin jutted out for a moment, but then she gave a snort and said, "You look weird as a girl."
"Well, so do you." Twilight had to smile as she imagined how Spike might react to meeting her stallion counterpart. "But Bómù's lucky he has you to take care of him."
"Yeah, yeah." Dào Gōu turned away with a wave of her claws. "And you're lucky stuff like this happens all the time in the comics, or you might have a hard time getting ponies to believe it."
Chuckling, Twilight made a note to increase Spike's comic-buying allowance when she got back home and headed down the hallway toward the castle's east wing. Unless— She looked back at Mèng Huàn. "First door on the right for Bómù's study?"
He had that bemused little smile on his snout again. "It's as if you've been here before."
She smiled back, touched her magic to the knob, pushed the door open—
And froze again at the sight. "No!"
With a flapping of wings, Mèng Huàn was at her side immediately. "What is it, Twilight?"
Unable to find any words, she pointed at the large metal brazier standing in front of a desk that looked every bit as cluttered with books and scrolls and notebooks as hers was, the charred smell in the air and the ashes filling the thing telling her exactly what must've happened here. "He burned his notes," she whispered.
"We don't know that." Squeezing past her, Mèng Huàn advanced into the room, his horn glowing.
"What else would he burn?" She could almost hear the dominoes falling into patterns in her head, everything that had happened since last night coming clear. "He knew we'd come here after the portal failed, so he put the remains right there where we wouldn't miss them." She could barely get the words out past the tightness in her throat. "He built the mirror to work only the one time. He...he wasn't planning on coming back."
Mèng Huàn whirled on her. "We don't know that!"
The raw anger in his voice and face made her wince, and her control slipped, all the fears she'd been trying so hard to keep down—she was trapped here, would never see home again, was cut off from everything that made her life worthwhile—suddenly crashing over her. Hearing someone sob, she knew it was her and didn't even try to keep her knees from giving way and buckling her to the floor.
"Twilight!" Warmth wrapped her forelegs, and she blinked through her tears to see Mèng Huàn stretched out on the floor in front of her, his hooves holding hers. "There's got to be something we're missing! I mean, Bómù wouldn't do this! He couldn't any more than you could! It's not possible that he would lock another pony out of her world so she could never return! That's—!"
"Lock?" An entirely different set of thought-dominoes, ones Twilight hadn't even noticed till now, all toppled over at once, ideas crackling through her and making her leap up. "Of course!" Suddenly ablaze, she grabbed Mèng Huàn's head. "You're a genius, and I'm an idiot!" Without even thinking, she leaned forward, pressed her lips to his, spun away, and blasted out the strongest teleportation spell she knew.
Purple lightning enveloped her, and she became a bolt of fire and electricity arcing through the aethersphere back toward Mèng Huàn's workroom. A part of her brain made a note that this was approximately three-and-a-half times farther than she'd ever teleported before, but she couldn't focus on that now; popping into the hoofprints she'd burned into the floor last night, she faced the decryption matrix she'd built and sent one tiny glittering ball of a spell out to touch the top of the the mirror's original frame.
"Twilight?" Mèng Huàn had appeared as silently as nightfall behind her.
She nodded, her eyes fastened on the spell as it seeped into the mirror. "It's the first thing I should've tried," she said, wanting to kick herself for not thinking of it till now. "I guess I was just so excited or distracted or sleep-deprived or—"
A bell pinged from the mirror's surface, and a circle immediately appeared on the glass, a circle with regularly spaced marks along the outer rim and a pointer reaching out from the center.
Mèng Huàn took a breath. "Is that a timer?"
"Yep." Twilight turned to look at him, and the sudden memory of his lips warm and firm against hers almost made her knees buckle again. Had she really—?
No. No thinking about that right now. She took a breath of her own and went on: "Not a lot of portals use timers, but the first mirror I traveled through had one that only allowed it to open for three days every thirty moons."
"Thirty moons?" Mèng Huàn's gaze moved several times between her and the mirror, his ears flicking quickly from perked to flat to perked again, and while Twilight couldn't be sure in the ozone stink both their teleportation spells had left behind, she thought she picked up the slight musky shimmer of excitement in his scent. "Are...are you saying you'll be here with us for two-and-a-half years?"
"No, no." Again, she forced herself to stay on topic and nodded at the mirror. "From the amount of time that's ticked by since last night, I'd guess it'll open in another twenty-eight days." With a swallow and half a smile, she cocked her head at him. "Looks like I'm your Princess of Friendship for the next moon."