//------------------------------//
// 3 - Sān 
// Story: Wànlǐ Chángchéng / A Great Wall 
// by Baal Bunny 
//------------------------------//

Mèng Huàn's immediate impulse—offering to juggle the heavens in an attempt to trick Bómù's timer—just got a smile from Twilight and a shake of her head. "Thank you," she said, her horn glowing to light various parts of the framework she'd built around the mirror. "But from what you've said, this was Bómù's first attempt at dimensional travel, and I don't remember Luna ever mentioning that she was interested in this stuff. So it might not be a good idea to push their creation anywhere near the breaking point."

She turned to look at Mèng Huàn, and while he expected to see her ears folded and her eyes wavering at the thought of being cut off from home, she instead had a small but definite smile on her muzzle. "Four weeks isn't that long," she went on. "And it's not like either Equestria or Cōng Mǎ Guó is going to be short-staffed while I'm here and he's there. It'll just be...different for a while." She shrugged.

"Yes." Mèng Huàn had to swallow, not at all sure why his throat had gone so tight. "Different." He motioned toward the doorway. "We'd best present our findings to Tiān Shàng, however."

His brother nodded gravely from the Day Throne at their report and agreed with their recommendation that they stick to Bómù's original plan: quiet and low-key. So Mèng Huàn flew with Twilight once more to Xiǎo Mǎ Chéng and announced that, as part of their cultural exchange, Twilight would be staying in the castle and carrying out Bómù's duties for the next four weeks.

That got tails tucking and even a few snorts from the townsponies gathered around them in the marketplace, but Twilight spread her wings beside him, everything about her radiating excitement and enthusiasm. "It's such a remarkable opportunity!" she said. "Your town is just so beautiful, and I can hardly wait to meet you all and learn how different and how similar it is here when compared to the Ponyville I know so well."

Smiles started appearing then, and a warmth spread through Mèng Huàn's chest the same way it did whenever Bómù began speaking about friendship. There was more to this feeling, though, and watching Twilight continue to speak, Mèng Huàn couldn't help wondering if the guǐ guài from last night might need a little more stomping.

Then the crowds were pattering their hooves against the ground in applause—Twilight had apparently finished her impromptu oration—and they began drifting away. But— "Okay!" a rough voice called out, and Hóng Ruì Qì came strutting up, Píng Guǒ Jiǔ with a half grin beside him. "This is gonna be so great!" Hóng folded one foreleg across the other, planted the tip of its hoof in the hard-packed soil, and Mèng Huàn could only stare as the wiry pegasus started flexing. "'Cause I'm betting, Twilight, that you'll be wanting to get to know some of us real well."

All the warmth vanishing around him, Mèng Huàn suddenly found that he wanted nothing more than to rear back on his hind legs and smack Hóng Ruì Qì across the face.

But Twilight's soft chuckle stopped him; she stepped up to Hóng, her eyes dancing, put a hoof on his shoulder, and said, "There's a concept we have back where I come from, and while I don't know what you might call it here, in Equestria, it's known as 'the friend zone.'"

Hóng winced, and Píng gave a big laugh. "Lemme tell you, Princess: that's one place RQ's way too familiar with."

"I dunno what it is." Hóng raised a wing and sniffed at the base. "I mean, I shower, like, every three or four days and hardly ever burp so loud I break windows." He aimed a smile, as innocent as it was phony, at Píng. "Your sister never seems to mind."

Píng grimaced and gave Twilight a sideways glance. "Hǎi Táng Huā's my older sister, and the only thing she's likely to do to RQ if'n he ever looks at her funny again is snap him half in two. Or is she don't, Grampa Bīnzǐ will."

Her grin spreading even wider, Twilight clapped her hooves. "I've got to meet them all! Oh, and your little brother, too! The one who hangs around with Lín Láng's brother and a pegasus who idolizes Hóng! The three of them even got their cutie marks all at the same time not too long ago, right?"

Their jaws dropping, both stallion began talking at once, but Mèng Huàn had ceased paying attention, still struggling to swallow his surge of anger. He'd not had many dealings with Hóng Ruì Qì, but until this very moment, he'd felt nothing but gratitude to him for his part in helping break the madness that had sent Mèng Huàn into exile— Well, gratitude and the occasional bit of wry amusement at the pegasus's antics...

Now, though, Mèng Huàn focused on his breathing and tried not to think about the anger that had gripped him in the years before he'd exploded into Mèng Yǎn Yuè, how that anger had grown in him steadily for decades a thousand years ago before the darkness had at last risen up to subsume him. Was he in danger of falling once more now that Bómù was gone? Was this the first symptom of his relapse into—?

"Mèng Huàn?" Twilight's voice made him start back. She and the two stallions were staring at him, their ears wavering. "Are you all right?" she asked.

Opening his mouth to answer but unsure what he was going to say, Mèng Huàn found his snout stretching into a giant yawn. "Excuse me!" he said when he could, blinking several times to clear the fuzziness from his vision. "I didn't mean to—"

"Oh!" Twilight rushed over to him, and the concern on her face made ever trace of his anger vanish. "I'm so sorry! I've been keeping you here when you should be in bed!" Planting three hooves in the hard-packed soil of the marketplace, she poked the other hoof into his chest. "You need to get back to Yuè Mǎ Jīng and get some sleep, or you'll be in no shape to carry out your duties tonight!"

It took another few blinks for Mèng Huàn to realize what she was saying. "I...I'm tired!" Relief swept over him, and he gave the other three a grin. "Of course! After everything last night and this morning, I simply need to get some rest!" He looked down at Twilight's smile, and his own faltered. "But I...I can't abandon you! We need to get you settled in Bómù's castle, make sure the news of your situation here gets spread all about town, see if—"

"Whoa, now." Píng Guǒ Jiǔ held up a hoof. "You done more'n your fair share, Prince Mèng Huàn. The rest of us're Bómù's friends, too, so how 'bout you let us pitch in a little afore you falls over sideways right here in the square?"

Still uncertain, Mèng Huàn looked back and forth between Píng and Twilight till Twilight said, "Thank you for everything, Mèng Huàn. I know I'll be needing more of your help over the next 28 days, but, well, you've got to take care of yourself, too."

And for the third or fourth time in the twelve or so hours since he'd met her, Mèng Huàn found that he couldn't argue her point. "Very well," he got out with some effort. "I shall call upon you this evening after I've raised the moon."

Twilight gave a nod. "It's a date!"

Hóng was rubbing his front hooves together. "And bring your party hat, Mèng Huàn! 'Cause if I know Bǐng, he'll be wanting to throw some kinda 'Welcome to Our Universe' party for you, Princess."

"Call me Twilight." She turned back to face Mèng Huàn, and that warmth came over him again. "Rest well," she said, her voice quieter and gentler. "I'll see you later."

"Yes, you will." Giving her a little bow, he leaped upward and let his wings dig into the air, let himself surge and strain till he'd gained enough altitude to feel coolness against his coat once more. The urge struck him then to just keep flying till he hit the coast, till he crossed the ocean, till everything below him became places he hadn't seen in hundreds and hundreds of years, lands that he'd known in better days.

Except that they hadn't been better days, had they? They'd been days that had driven him beyond the brink of madness, days where he'd watched himself become a pony he no longer recognized, a pony who—

He shook his head quickly, pumped his wings harder, stretched his neck and tucked his legs until he was streaming through the sky, his mane like a comet's tail behind him. The wind slicked his ears back, the roaring in his head oddly soothing, the sheer weight of sound almost the same as silence; hurtling toward Yuè Mǎ Jīng, he squinted through the blurriness, his speed causing his cheeks to dry almost before he could feel the dampness against them.

At what he judged to be the proper distance, he pulled out of his dive, angled his pinions precisely, backflapped, and flared enough magic from his horn to bend the very space around him. The shockwave of his passage wrapped around itself, the peaks interfering both constructively and destructively, and the resulting force whirled him in a cyclonic pirouette high above the city's towers before it raced away into the blue midmorning above and left him floating there alone.

Drifting down to land lightly upon the parapet of the palace, Mèng Huàn took a breath, and it seemed somehow deeper and more filling than any he'd taken in years. He turned, acknowledged the salutes of the guards along the wall, pushed the nearest doorway open, and stepped into the upper hallway—

Only to find Tiān Shàng waiting for him, his characteristic smile half-curling his perfectly trimmed moustache. "Well met, brother," he said.

"Indeed." Mèng Huàn couldn't stop a smile of his own, and what was more, he didn't want to stop it. "It's a lovely morning you and our weather teams have put together. I must remember to convey my compliments to them."

"They'll love to have them." Tiān Shàng nodded toward the doorway. "It's been some time since I last felt you essay that particular spell." He cocked his head. "Some special occasion I should know about?"

Mèng Huàn shrugged. "I merely find it suitable for clearing my mind."

"I see." Curiosity hung in the air around his brother like the scent of freshly baked cinnamon rolls, but the aroma soured quickly in Mèng Huàn's nose, Tiān Shàng turning away. "I would probe further, but perhaps it would be best that I mind my own business considering my track record of failure when it comes to you."

"Failure?" Mèng Huàn's fuzzy warmth puffed away like dandelion fluff. "When have you ever failed at anything?"

Tiān Shàng snapped his head back, a brittle sharpness in his eyes that Mèng Huàn didn't think he'd ever seen there before. "I missed every sign of your rage and despair a thousand years ago, didn't I? And even with a millennium to take that lesson to heart, I had no idea that you were continuing to punish yourself  with that nightmarish Yè Biān Zǐ after your return! Bones and blood, Mèng Huàn! How can I not set these to my account as failures?"

It took Mèng Huàn several blinks to find his voice. "In the first instance, I purposefully hid my anger from you as part of my plan to depose you and take our joint kingdom to myself, and had you not contained me when you did, I would certainly have destroyed this world and all life upon it." He tried for a smile but wasn't quite sure he made it. "We should all hope for failures as successful as that, brother. And as for the Yè Biān Zǐ—"

He had to stop and swallow, the thought of how close he'd come to unleashing that darkness over the world still too freshly scabbed over. "Once again, Bómù and his friends showed me that I was in error. I don't deserve to be tortured for deeds after I have truly repented of them."

Head bowed into the silence, Mèng Huàn felt more than saw the shadows shift around him, and a warm hoof touched his shoulder. "And because I am apparently incapable of minding my own business, Mèng Huàn, I will suggest an additional point. Yes, you don't deserve to be tortured, but more than that, you deserve to be happy."

Mèng Huàn had to look up then, nothing halfway about Tiān Shàng's smile. "That is what drew me from the Throne Room this morning and brought me here to the top of the palace: the wonderful and unaccustomed scent of your happiness in the air." Tiān Shàng touched the tip of his horn to Mèng Huàn's. "Is it possible we might be getting more of that aroma in the near future?"

The laugh that bubbled up in Mèng Huàn's chest felt too good not to let out. So he did, bending his neck back and forth a few times to whap both sides of his brother's horn gently with this own. "I wouldn't be at all surprised, Tiān Shàng. I wouldn't be at all surprised."





The day in Hóng and Píng's company flew by, and more than once, Twilight almost called them Dash and AJ, they were so much like her friends back home.

Except that, at exactly the same time, they weren't like them, too. Bigger, of course, they maybe laughed a little louder, and she couldn't ignore the musky-but-not-at-all-unpleasant smell of stallion that followed everywhere they went. But trotting along the streets between them, she couldn't decide which was weirder: the similarities or the differences.

It was the same all over town. Lín Láng's tailor shop, which everyone called Jì Xiāng Yī Xuān, was set up very much like Rarity's Carousel Boutique but with fewer dresses and more suit coats. Fāng Táng Diàn, the town bakery, served a nearly identical selection of sweets and fountain drinks as Sugar Cube Corner, but looking at the short and tubby Mr. Dàn Gāo beside the tall and thin Mrs. Dàn Gāo made Twilight feel like her eyes were crossed. At city hall, the bookstore, the quill and sofa shop, all her regular haunts, she could almost imagine a quiet but insistent musical tone. Not loud or harsh enough to get her wincing, it still prodded her constantly, reminding her not only that she wasn't at home but that she wasn't even in a universe where her home existed...

So when she started feeling a little weak in the knees after lunch, she figured it was likely her own lack of sleep—Mèng Huàn's giant yawn earlier had suddenly reminded her that she'd barely shut her own eyes all night—and maybe just the slightest bit of culture shock. "Listen, guys," she told Píng and Hóng after settling their debate over who was going to pick up the check by telling the waitress to charge the meal to Bómù's account, "I think I'll try to get a nap in before Bǐng's party tonight." She gave Hóng about half a glare. "And if you make any kind of double entendre out of that..."

With a hoot, Píng smacked Hóng's shoulder. "Go on! Call her a prude like you do Bómù when he complains 'bout your stupid comments! I double dares you!"

Hóng folded his front legs across his chest. "Mare or stallion, you just don't appreciate quality humor, do you?"

"Yes." Twilight reached up and patted him between the ears. "That's exactly it." She stood to another hoot from Píng. "I'll see you later."

Crossing town, she kept the slightly out-of-focus feeling at bay by fixing her gaze as much as she could on the palace. It looked just as peculiar as her palace back in Ponyville, and that had the odd effect of steadying her steps. The front door crackled against her magic as she pushed it open just like her front door did at home, and the clean, airy scent of the crystalline foyer got the clench in her shoulders to start loosening.

"You finally back, Bómù?" a semi-familiar voice called. Dào Gōu padded around the corner and stopped, her claws scraping the floor, her eyes widening, and her face falling. "Princess? What're you—? I mean, I thought— Didn't you—? Is...is everything okay?"

The obvious distress in Dào Gōu's voice drove all thought of napping straight out of Twilight's head. "Everything's fine," she said quickly. She went on to tell the little dragon about the timer on the mirror and ended with, "It's like Bómù decided to take a vacation without telling anypony, and I'll be trying to help out around here till he gets back."

Dào Gōu was nodding, but the droop of her green spines and the way her right foreclaws plucked at the back of her left hand told Twilight all she needed to know. "Back in Ponyville," she said, bending down to nuzzle Dào Gōu's shoulder, "my friend Spike will do everything he can to keep Bómù from getting into trouble. He's always reminding me when I need to stop studying and eat, and if it wasn't for him, my castle'd be fetlock deep in dust and books I've forgotten to put away."

A tiny smile creased Dào Gōu's cheeks. "Twenty-eight days," she murmured. "That's not too long, I guess..." She pulled in a breath and blew it out. "But you should probably know that Bómù lets me have ice cream for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snack time."

"Uh-huh." Twilight poked a hoof at Dào Gōu's belly. "How 'bout this: at Fěn Hóng Bǐng's party tonight, you can have cake and ice cream, and we'll talk about the rest tomorrow." She tried to stifle a yawn and ended up making her own ears pop. "Is there anywhere I need to be today? I mean, anything on Bómù's schedule I should be taking care of?"

"Nope." Dào Gōu touched a claw to her chin. "I remember thinking it was weird that he'd clear a whole day like this."

"For me," Twilight muttered, several thoughts sparking through her head. Then realizing she'd said it out loud, she forced a laugh. "Lucky for me, I mean." She started for the west wing corridor and the stairway. "I'll just be resting in my room, but if anypony comes in with a friendship problem, let me know, okay?"

"Sure thing, Bó— Uhhh..." Dào Gōu's embarrassment smelled sharp as cayenne pepper to Twilight. "I'm sorry, but I've forgotten who you said you were again."

"Call me Twilight." She grinned back over her shoulder.

Dào Gōu's mouth went sideways. "Does everything in your world have weird names?"

"Pretty much." At the stairwell, Twilight spread her wings and flapped up to the second floor landing. Fortunately, the transitive properties of the mirror universe proved as accurate as ever: opening the first door on the right led her straight into her room.

Or rather into Bómù's room, and she stopped halfway across the carpet, part of her wondering if this counted as her first time in a stallion's bedroom. Shaking her head, she made her way to the big picture window that looked out over Ponyville—Xiǎo Mǎ Chéng, she meant, of course—where a desk that looked very much like her own sat against the wall. With a flare of her horn, she pulled open the second drawer on the left and peered in to see nothing but empty space where her journal usually sat.

With a sigh, Twilight added that to her mental list. Because as much as she didn't like thinking it, the evidence so far was pointing toward Bómù having done all this on purpose.

The timer alone didn't prove a thing. Timers were a natural part of mirror magic, after all, since they were the best way to stop two connected universes from bleeding into each other and possibly rupturing the membranes that kept all of time and space properly aligned. As far as she knew, in fact, the only two ponies who had ever built mirror portals without timers were her and Starswirl the Bearded.

Bómù clearing his schedule for the day after his transit through the mirror, on the other hoof, not to mention the way he'd burned his notes and possibly his journal...

Had he really planned this four week long switch? But why? Bómù was supposed to be her double, and she couldn't begin to imagine anything that would've led her to do all this!

Sighing again, Twilight looked at the bed, larger than hers, she thought, but with the same canopy, the same blankets and pillows as far as she could tell. A few steps brought her to it, and she climbed in, the firmness of the mattress just right, the flannel sheets every bit as soft and warm as she—

And then she was blinking awake, a tapping at her door, Spike's voice saying, "Twilight? Mèng Huàn's here, and Bǐng's party starts in, like, half an hour."

"Who?" she asked out loud before her brain kicked in and reminded her that it wasn't Spike speaking at all. "Uhh, right! Yes! Thank you, Dào Gōu! I...I'll be right down!"

A few splashes of water cleared her eyes enough so she could recognize her face in the bathroom mirror. She reached her magic out for a towel, and that was when Dào Gōu's words registered, panic quickly setting in.

Mèng Huàn was here? Now?

Rushing out into the bedroom, she threw her closet door open to grab a dress—and of course it wasn't her closet, several very nice coats and jackets hanging there, but all of them at least one size too big for her. And besides, this wasn't the sort of party where they'd all be dressed up, was it? Fěn Hóng Bǐng was Pinkie Pie here, after all, and Rarity was the only one who ever tried wearing an outfit to a Pinkie party.

But Mèng Huàn was here! And that meant she had to—!

Had to what, exactly? It wasn't like this was a date or anything!

Was it?

Did she want it to be?

"Gaaah!" Stomping all four hooves into the carpet, Twilight closed her eyes, pressed a front leg to her chest while breathing in, then swept her hoof away while breathing out. She hadn't even been here for 24 of the 672 hours she was going to be spending in Cōng Mǎ Guó: losing her mind this early on simply wasn't an option.

The thought made her smile, and she stepped to the bedroom door, opened it, flew down the hall, down the stairs, and landed outside the library, her ears pricking to Mèng Huàn's deep and silky voice: "...been so brave," he was saying. "Had I been the one thrust into the situation she now finds herself confronting, I doubt I would be reacting with anywhere near the aplomb she's so far displayed."

"The problem," Dào Gōu's squeakier voice replied, "is that you don't read enough comic books."

That got a laugh so wonderful and full rolling out over Twilight that she decided then and there that getting Mèng Huàn to laugh more often was going to be one of her missions while she was in this universe. Tucking her wings to her sides, she stepped through the doorway and nodded to the big, dark stallion and the little purple dragon. "Comic books?" She gestured to the shelves on her left. "Where I come from, those're filed under 741.5."

Instead of laughing, Mèng Huàn blushed, and Twilight very nearly decided that the second of her missions would be to make sure that happened more often. But no: knowing how seriously Luna took herself most of the time, forcing her counterpart to blush might lead to hurt feelings.

Twilight shook herself. "Sorry to keep you waiting," she said. "I wasn't sure how formal an occasion this might be, but then nothing in Bómù's closet much appealed to me anyway."

"Formal?" Dào Gōu's snout wrinkled. "Bǐng doesn't really do 'formal.'"

"Indeed," Mèng Huàn said with a smile. "Some scholars aren't certain that the things Fěn Hóng Bǐng does are entirely possible within the laws of physics as we know them."

"Okay!" Twilight looked from one to the other. "Sounds like my kinda party!"

And it was pretty fun, too. Most of the town seemed to be there, milling around Fāng Táng Diàn or dancing on the floor set up in the square, a white stallion with sunglasses and a spiky blue mane bobbing his head behind the turntables and sound system there. Twilight didn't risk it, though, especially after asking Lín Láng if Bómù was known for his dancing. "If by 'known,'" the tailor said, flicking a cake crumb from the sleeve of his dapper gray tuxedo coat, "you mean 'infamous.' I think the world of Bómù, but, well, 'four left hooves' is a euphemism when it comes to him."

Beside Twilight, Mèng Huàn nodded. "I've been meaning to ask Tiān Shàng about that. My brother's an excellent dancer, after all, and I find it difficult to fathom why he neglected training Bómù in such a basic element of proper deportment."

Laughing, Twilight levitated another cupcake from the table. "Well, in my case, Princess Celestia tried her best. But I proved to be pretty much immune to—"

A shriek from the town square, and the music scratched to a stop. Her mane bristling, Twilight dropped her cupcake and raced for the corner of the bakery, Mèng Huàn still beside her. But when they came around the corner, she had to screech to a halt at what she saw there.

A huge black dog, at least twice as big as any of the ponies backing away from it, stood at the edge of the dance floor. Silver bracelets curled in spirals around its forelegs from just above its paws to its elbows, and its eyes glowed like pale moonlight. They weren't animal eyes either, Twilight realized with a start, an intelligence in the way they moved to take in the scene before it—or 'him,' she guessed, judging by certain anatomical features she was now noticing...

"Forgive me, please!" a baritone voice called, but the dog's mouth wasn't moving. Instead, a pony stepped out from behind the dog, a unicorn stallion with a honey-gold hide. "Tiāngǒu and I didn't mean to interrupt the festivities." The stallion moved further into the light, and the red stripes in his close-cropped blonde mane made the cold around Twilight deepen. "I'm Yúhuī Yì Yào, and we're just here to pick up something my friend was promised some time ago."

"Indeed?" Mèng Huàn advanced through the crowd, his mane billowing behind him, but Twilight found her body still frozen, her mind racing. "I am Prince Mèng Huàn of Cōng Mǎ Guó," he was going on, "and if you have any petition to present, I will happily receive you when Night Court convenes later this evening."

The smile on Yúhuī Yì Yào's muzzle didn't reach his ice-blue eyes at all. "Prince Mèng Huàn." He bowed his head ever so slightly. "I was Tiān Shàng's student for many years before we had a bit of a falling-out, but then I'm sure you of all ponies understand how that can happen."

Twilight forced herself to start forward. Because without mirror magic in this world, this had to be Sunset Shimmer's counterpart, still as smart and angry and hungry for power as the Sunset Twilight had met on her first transdimensional journey. And if Tiān Shàng was as much like Celestia as he seemed—

With a snort, Mèng Huàn tossed his head. "Bómù Guāng Shǎn is the only student my brother has ever mentioned to me!"

"Yes, well." Yúhuī Yì Yào shrugged. "We both know how good Tiān Shàng is at sweeping away those subjects he finds uncomfortable.  And speaking of uncomfortable..." His eyes narrowed, and Twilight could almost feel his gaze washing over her as she squeezed out of the crowd to take up a stance next to Mèng Huàn. "I've been keeping a watch on young Bómù, and the vibrations I've been picking up all day through the aethersphere have gotten me concerned as to his well-being." He waved a hoof at Twilight. "Or haven't you noticed that he is now a she?"

Mind still racing through the possibilities, Twilight couldn't figure out what this Yúhuī might want. After all, Bómù had his castle, so the local version of the Tree of Harmony must have absorbed the Elements including the equivalent of the crown Sunset Shimmer had stolen. But hadn't he mentioned something about—?

"Princess Twilight," Mèng Huàn was saying, the stars in his mane and tail shining both brighter and colder, "is of no concern to you!"

"Princess?" Yúhuī's smile seemed to tighten. "Yes, I thought I detected weakness here."

Mèng Huàn's stomped a front hoof, and as much as Twilight wanted to do the same, she instead stepped forward, tried to keep her expression soft and gentle. "This promise to your friend." She nodded to the giant dog. "We'll certainly be happy to help the two of you collect whatever you might think you're owed if you'll—"

"Not think." This time, the dog's mouth definitely moved, words coming out as rough as a rock slide. "Know. It's been a long time since I last exercised my rights, but if you look them up, you'll find that those rights are still owed to Tiāngǒu according to every law and statute in Tiān Shàng's ledgers."

His voice was so jagged, it made Twilight want to clear her own throat. "Your rights to what exactly, if I might ask, sir?"

"The moon." Tiāngǒu licked his lips. "And I'm here to collect."