4. Realities
Spike was in the kitchen upstairs making daffodil sandwiches, with pickles just the way Twilight liked it. The baby dragon figured they would be hungry when they got back from all that adventuring. Everypony else had left a few hours ago, shortly after Twilight and Rainbow Dash had departed.
“Pinkie Pie? Derpy?”
They’re back! What about Pinkie and Derpy? As Spike listened in to the argument downstairs, he fetched his pre-written note and breathed green fire on it, sending it on its way. He then made his way to the curved stairway along the wall.
“We can use their help and indulging them will help us get it,” Twilight patiently explained. “Where would I even keep that doll? I can’t risk bringing it here or destroying it. Besides, a Pinkie Promise is a good insurance policy if you ask me.”
“You don’t even know she can enforce it there!”
“They don’t know she can’t,” she said, as she walked over to her desk, with the pegasus hovering right behind her. “It’s enough they think I believe she can.”
That was evidently a little too complicated for Rainbow Dash to parse. “Well… what about Derpy? She did drop a piano on you once, in case you forgot.”
“You know I was investigating Pinkie Sense at the time.” She levitated the human book onto her desk. “I already had a shield up by then, so no harm done. Being chased by that hydra was much worse.” By now, her saddlebags were also on her desk. “Besides, that’s all ancient history,” she concluded.
Rainbow Dash had run out of objections, and in the silence that followed Twilight’s anxiety resurfaced. “What do I tell Celestia about all this?”
“Uh, Twilight?” The two ponies looked up at Spike, who was halfway down the stairs. “She’s on her way now.”
“What!?” Sheer terror gripped the alicorn’s face.
“After you left, she sent me a note asking me to inform her when you returned.”
Twilight was really starting to freak out, nervously hopping on her hooves. She’s so good at it, Spike thought, what with all the practice she’s had. “Did you accidentally make the hole bigger or something?” he speculated.
That caught Twilight off guard, interrupting her anxiety attack. She stopped her nervous hopping and took a breath. “No… no, nothing like that. We actually made a little progress on that front.”
At that moment, Princess Celestia teleported into the library.
Everypony bowed to the Solar Diarch. “Princess Twilight Sparkle, you should know by now you do not need to bow before me,” she kindly reminded her.
“Sorry…” she sheepishly said as she stood up. “It’s just that I wasn’t expecting you to check up on me so soon. You wrote that you trusted my judgement.”
“And I do trust your judgement,” she assured her, “but this isn’t one of my tests. With the future of Equestria at stake, I am obligated to stay on top of the situation and offer what guidance I can.”
“Yes, of course.”
“Discord informed me of the assistance he provided.” She pointed to the dispenser, now on a top shelf. Spike figured it would be best if it was out of the way. “Those are the pills?”
“Yes,” Twilight replied with some bitterness. “They worked, though Discord couldn’t restrain himself from pulling a prank on us.”
Celestia was surprised by that. “Are you certain?”
“Our invisibility went away, making us visible to two of the inhabitants of that realm while inside their home.”
“Would that happen to be where you found the hole?”
Twilight’s mane was getting quite frazzled by now. Clearly, she had already had one too many surprises that day. What had happened in that other realm to do this to her?
“How did you guess?” she weakly said.
“It was my understanding that the pill could not generate a contained magical field in the presence of a sufficiently strong ambient magical field. Didn’t you read the instruction manual? It was uncharacteristically orderly of him to—” Twilight face-hoofed. “…is something wrong?”
“I didn’t know that was an instruction manual.”
Celestia changed the subject. “Tell me about your contact with the natives. Unplanned it may have been, but I hope it was fruitful.”
“We did learn much from them and they are willing to help us.” Twilight gave her report. Spike was amazed at what he heard. Dolls of Equestrian ponies? Cartoons that accurately showed what happened here? But with musicals? Hard restrictions on unicorn magic? Similarities but also differences to the mirror realm? The popularity of Derpy? Spike wondered if he was popular there, too. Maybe I’ll get to go there and find out!
Celestia took it all in without interrupting, barely reacting only when Twilight described watching her ascension in that cartoon.
Having concluded her report, Twilight now sought guidance. “Do you think it’s a good idea to bring Pinkie Pie or Derpy there?”
Rainbow Dash did not, if her scowl was any indication. Celestia took a moment to compose her response. “I think you are practicing the art of diplomacy, as a princess should. It has its risks and rewards; the rewards ought to outweigh the risks.”
“I think that’s true for Pinkie Pie, but I’m not sure about Derpy. It’s a lot to ask of her and I’m not sure she’s up to it.”
Rainbow Dash added, “Let’s just say she’s not the brightest pony around.”
“Perhaps she would benefit from rising up to the challenge? She did participate in the Equestria Games, if I recall.”
“I suppose. It certainly would be nice to know why she’s so popular there. I’ll sleep on it.” Twilight lifted a huge book. “This is the book Steve loaned me.” She flipped through the pages. “It describes the physics of their realm.” She quickly scanned a page at random. “I definitely must read this. I’d sure like to know how their Sun moves without your magic—any magic!”
“I could sleep in late if it could be applied here,” joked the Princess of the Sun, but her demeanor then became serious. “There is a possibility these humans may wish to come here.”
Twilight looked up at her mentor. “If they do, is the correct answer to allow it?”
“As I said, this isn’t a test,” Celestia said in a sympathetic tone. “There is no right or wrong answer, just difficult choices. All things being equal, I’d prefer they stay in their realm; but having said that, I leave it up to you.”
Celestia bowed to Twilight, emphasizing the point; the others quickly followed suit. She then teleported away as Twilight nervously shifted her weight from hoof to hoof. Spike felt sympathy for her. She hates it when Celestia does that.
“I’m sure glad I don’t have to make those decisions,” said Rainbow Dash.
Nor I, thought Spike. Clearly Princess Celestia wants Twilight to take the next step in being a princess.
Twilight decided to change the subject. “Spike, by any chance do you have something for us to eat? I could use some food right now.”
“You know I do!”
“Did that just happen?” Meg blankly stared at the spot just occupied by two ponies.
“Uh… well…” Shifting his eyes to the bookshelf, her husband observed, “The physics book I loaned her is still gone.”
There was silence for several seconds. Meg put the doll on the desk and walked over to where the ponies had been. “I guess we can’t both hallucinate the same thing,” she said with a lack of conviction. She got on her hands and knees and started to carefully examine the off-white carpet.
“What do you expect to find?”
“I dunno. Maybe they’d shed a feather or some fur,” she said as she continued her search. Cyan and lavender hairs ought to stand out. After fruitlessly inspecting several square feet, she said, “We should’ve taken a picture.”
“Not that that would convince anyone,” Steve said. “We’d simply be praised for the photorealistic CGI skills we’d suddenly acquired.” He then added, as an afterthought, “And criticized for giving them realistic proportions.”
“Yeah, well, if they really had eyes that big, there’d be no room left in their skulls for their brains,” she said as she continued searching. “Anyway, the pictures would be for us. It’d be some kind of proof we’re not crazy.” She got up off the floor. “I can’t find anything.” Unnecessarily dusting herself off, she said, “Besides, sharing those pictures would break our upcoming Pinkie Promise.”
“There you go,” he said. “We’ll have our proof when they show up tomorrow.”
There was silence as that sank in. “Wow. Pinkie Pie will be here.” Meg stared at the doll. “Could she possibly be as she’s portrayed in the show?”
“The evidence suggests it,” Steve reasoned, folding his arms. “Twilight and Rainbow Dash are as portrayed. There’s such a thing as a Pinkie Promise. They refer to Derpy and Daring Do in ways that are consistent with the show. We know that Winter Wrap-up is real, that Twilight’s ascension happened more or less as depicted.” He took a breath. “And don’t forget their reaction to discovering that the doll was the other side of their ‘hole.’”
Meg said, trying to mimic Rainbow Dash, “She’s not even here and she’s still being Pinkie Pie!” She started slowly pacing back and forth across the room, trying to digest it all. “It’s all real. It’s a brony dream come true. But why our doll, out of all the dolls in the world? Why any doll, never mind a Pinkie Pie doll?”
There was no answer to that; it was obvious the ponies had no answer to that. Steve watched his wife pace for a few moments in silence. “Would you go there if you could?”
She stopped pacing and looked at him. “To Equestria, you mean?”
“Yeah.”
“Sure,” she said, stating the obvious. “Too bad Twilight wasn’t handing out visa applications.”
Steve went over and picked up the doll, holding it out. “Luckily we’re in possession of a Pinkie Pie doll that is spewing out magic like there’s no tomorrow,” he said half-seriously. “Maybe there’ll be a random cosmic accident that mysteriously transports us to the Everfree Forest. We’ll be attacked by timberwolves, or maybe manticores, and just in the nick of time the Mane Six will show up to save us and become our instant best friends, dedicated to making our Equestrian fantasies come true!”
“Really?” she retorted.
“Who knows?” he said with a straight face. “There’s enough fan fiction that follows that formula. Maybe there’s something to it.”
Meg wasn’t interested in playing that game. “One small problem… we’ve already met two of them and the self-proclaimed Princess of Friendship did not become our friend, ‘instant’ or ‘best’ or otherwise.”
“Isn’t that a little unfair?”
“Is it? I think the whole Pinkie Promise business says it all. She sees us as a nuisance, to be tolerated only out of necessity. You weren’t there, but her first words made it clear she thought she was invisible. They never intended to deal with us natives.”
Steve mulled that over. “Maybe so, but she’s still willing to make lemonade out of lemons. She is asking for our help.” He shrugged. “Perhaps season four didn’t happen yet?”
“Sure, why not?” she said mockingly. “Plenty of fan fiction ignores the later seasons, after all. Twilight’s an alicorn, so at least season three happened.” She resumed pacing, reconsidering. “Seriously, though. What if that was true? How do we even find out without potentially altering the future? We can’t just ask, ‘Have you fought Tirek yet?’”
Steve went up to her and held her. “Let’s just take it one step at a time and see what happens tomorrow, okay? If we’re lucky, we can even put fan-fiction-consensus to the test.”
“Huh?”
“The consensus is that Derpy is a mailmare. Maybe we’ll get to ask her ourselves.”
The hours flew by as Twilight buried herself in the borrowed physics book. It focused on breadth rather than depth, including, amongst many others, topics such as particle dynamics, conservation laws, fluid mechanics, kinetic theory of gasses, thermodynamics, electromagnetism, and optics. Most of it was already familiar to her, allowing her to breeze right through the chapters. She noted that they had mathematical notation in common too; the equations were just as comprehensible as the words.
There were only two notable differences between this book and an Equestrian equivalent. The first was that they frequently used names that were similar to but different from the ones she was familiar with. It’s like they were parodying them, replacing syllables such as “mare” or “neigh” or “oats” and the like with apparently arbitrary sequences of letters. “Newton” instead of “Neighton?” What sort of cosmic joke was being played here?
The second was the assumption that the equations provided described reality unconditionally, no exceptions even being conceivable. An Equestrian physics book would devote much attention to how magic could modify those equations—or make them irrelevant. This was a book on physics for a realm that had no magic.
But the final chapters blew her mind. Twilight had never encountered anything resembling Relativity and Quantum Mechanics before. The structure of reality implied at absurdly small or absurdly large scales was just… hard to swallow. Did any of it apply here? Was it a consequence of the absence of magic? Did ponydom’s understandable preoccupation with magic blind them to other avenues of research? Was this how their machines could do stuff impossible to even the most powerful magic?
It was getting late. Only Owlowiscious kept her silent company, Spike having gone to bed a while ago. “I should call it a night,” she told him. “I have a full day tomorrow.” The owl blinked in reply.
Twilight took one last look at her collection of notes and checklists she wrote up earlier, making sure she hadn’t forgotten to write down anything. Satisfied she had not, she extinguished the light and walked towards the stairway.
As she climbed the stairs to her bedroom, she thought about the humans. I didn’t exactly live up to being the Princess of Friendship, but what could I’ve realistically done differently? This was territory as uncharted as it gets and the stakes were too high. Could friendship be magic where magic doesn’t even exist? Regardless, she needed at least a working relationship with the humans for the foreseeable future. But once the hole has been plugged, then what?
The newest princess climbed into bed and slipped under the covers. As she drifted off to sleep, she felt slightly envious of a certain pegasus’ inability to overthink problems—but just slightly.
Twilight saw Sugarcube Corner in the distance and began her descent. Rainbow Dash had told her there was a good chance she’d find Derpy there most mornings. Pinkie Pie would be there too, obviously, as she lived and worked there.
Not yet skilled at multitasking while flying, Twilight had to choose between looking for Derpy or landing. It made her aware, again, of her need to get in lots of flying time—but then, that’s why she wasn’t walking to Sugarcube Corner. She choose landing.
Once on the ground, she quickly determined the pegasus wasn’t outside. She went inside and found Derpy ordering something from Pinkie Pie at the counter. Pinkie immediately noticed her.
“Hi, Twilight!” said Pinkie as she bounced and beamed. “When do we meet our biggest fans?”
How did she… never mind, that way lies madness, she groaned internally. Derpy turned around and saw her.
“Princess!” she said, as she quickly bowed.
Twilight still wasn’t used to that. At least it didn’t happen much in Ponyville, where everypony remembers when she was just a pony like everypony else. That castle, though, was starting to have an effect.
“Hi, Derpy,” she greeted her cheerfully. “I’m here to talk to you, actually, and this concerns you, too, Pinkie Pie,”—her voice acquiring a slight edge—”though you seem to already know that… somehow.” She looked Pinkie in the eye, but of course that didn’t faze her.
“Just a hunch,” she chirped with a big smile.
Sigh… “Derpy, why don’t you finish ordering first. It’s on me.”
After she got a blueberry muffin, they all went into the back party room so they could talk in private. Mrs. Cake was quite understanding after Twilight explained she needed Pinkie’s services.
Although Derpy regularly delivered mail to her at the castle, Twilight had never before really held a conversation with the gray pegasus. She started off with small talk, asking Derpy about her job delivering mail and her participation in the Equestria Games. She did her best, as usual, not to pay too much attention to the pegasus’ eyes; it didn’t seem much of an impediment anyway. Derpy’s personality was as bubbly as her cutie mark.
But they weren’t there just for the smalltalk and Derpy was clearly getting nervous over the other horseshoe yet to drop; she wasn’t an idiot, despite what some might think. It was time to get down to business.
“About why I want to talk to you…” Twilight began. How am I going to explain this to her? “Before I say anything, I want to make it crystal clear you don’t have to do what I’m about to ask of you.”
“Okay?” Derpy said, her eyes slowly drifting apart.
“It involves traveling to an… exotic place. You’ll be there for a few hours, preferably this morning.” Pinkie started bouncing with excitement, but Derpy…
“Today?!” she exclaimed, the shock causing her eyes to suddenly realign. “I don’t think I can take the day off on such short notice.”
“Tomorrow is fine, too,” Twilight quickly assured her. “Regardless, I’ll take care of that. The mail service will be informed you are on royal business.” Spike already had the letter written and ready to go.
That impressed the gray pegasus, at first, but then common sense kicked in. “Why do you need me?”
Twilight could no longer beat around the bush. She looked briefly at Pinkie to let her know she needed to pay attention too. “We are going to another realm. The inhabitants there are not ponies; they’re not like anything we have here. We need their help with a serious problem. Two of them are willing to help and have agreed to Pinkie Promise to a set of conditions.” Looking at Pinkie, she said, “That’s why I need you to come along.”
At hearing the words “Pinkie Promise” the pink pony’s smile vanished. “They do know I take Pinkie Promises very seriously?”
“They do,” Twilight confirmed.
“Okay!” Pinkie said as her smile returned and her bouncing resumed.
Derpy was no less perplexed. “I still don’t get why you need me.”
Twilight was starting to regret ever getting the pegasus involved with this, but then Celestia’s words came back to her. She should have the opportunity to rise up to the challenge. “The two who agreed to help us have asked for a favor in return.” No turning back now… “They would like to meet you.”
Derpy blinked. “Meet me?” she asked hesitantly. “Why? How could they even know I exist?”
Twilight sighed. “They do. They know about all of us, myself included. I don’t really understand how it’s possible either. Just accept that it is. They’re such big fans, they even have dolls of each of you.”
“They have a Pinkie Pie doll?!” Pinkie practically exploded. “Does it talk? I’d love to have one that talks then I’ll always have somepony to talk to. But once I made many copies of myself and my copies could talk and that was no fun at all—”
Twilight stuck her hoof in her mouth. “Pinkie, please.” Derpy merely gave a small laugh at Pinkie being Pinkie.
“Sorry,” the pink pony giggled, “I got carried away. I do that sometimes!”
You think? Twilight looked at Derpy. “It’s your choice. You don’t have to do this.” She waited patiently for her answer.
“Let me get this straight…” That did not sound promising. “There are these mysterious ponies who really like me even though they’ve never met me and they want to meet me now and they aren’t in Equestria—they actually have a doll of me?”
“I know it sounds crazy—believe me, I know.” They weren’t ponies, but she didn’t bother correcting her. It was not looking good at all, not the way Derpy was looking creeped out. Not that I can blame her. Do they also have dolls of me?
“Where would they even get a doll of me?” she demanded.
Given her understanding of the situation, Twilight’s guess would be that they simply bought it at a store. Somehow, she doubted that would be a productive response to her question. “I don’t really know.” It technically was an honest answer.
Derpy slowly shook her head. “I’m sorry, Princess. My answer is ‘no.’”
Twilight waited as Pinkie Pie packed her saddlebags with various confections. Whether the humans will enjoy them—can even eat them—was an open question, one that would be answered soon enough. Regardless, she had advised Pinkie to avoid anything with hay or flowers.
The two went on hoof back to the castle. Once inside, they went straight to Twilight’s private library. Spike was there but not Rainbow Dash. Her absence was annoying; she was supposed to be there. Pinkie was fairly certain Dashie had to be in the castle somewhere, and on her hunch they first checked throne room. Sure enough, there she was, sitting smugly on her throne, insufferably pleased with herself.
“I can’t get enough of this awesomeness!” she said as they approached her.
Really, Rainbow Dash? thought Twilight with some irritation. That isn’t what these thrones are for.
“Do you think they have dolls of you too?” Pinkie Pie asked the smug pegasus.
Rainbow Dash was unprepared for that question. After giving it some thought, she said, “Why not? I’d make an awesome doll! I bet there’s a Twilight doll too.”
“Unicorn or alicorn?” asked Pinkie.
“Argh… let’s get going,” Twilight said, rolling her eyes, as she led them back to the library.
“What about a Spike doll?” Spike asked a little too casually.
“How about a castle play set?” suggested Pinkie.
Once in the library, Twilight lost no time in preparing for the trip. She put on her saddlebags, and into that Discord’s instruction manual. Yesterday, she had read it after dinner and was pleasantly surprised to find that it was actually quite thorough and organized. He really did make an effort to keep his chaotic nature under control. We ought to find some way to harmlessly indulge his chaos, she had thought as she put it into a saddlebag. Turns out those bubbles had some interesting features. The invisibility can be turned on and off, and the size of the bubble was adjustable too.
Twilight took four pills out of the dispenser and set them aside. She reminded Pinkie and Spike how the pills worked—and warned them about the taste. Twilight had everypony stand in a circle and for Spike to get on her back. A pill was levitated into the open mouth of each traveler. Once that was done, she thought of their destination and gave word for everypony to swallow their pill.
They were in the office in the home of the humans. Spike checked himself to see if he was a dragon or a dog, was satisfied he was still a dragon and hopped to the floor.
“I look so happy!” Pinkie Pie chirped. “Does it talk?”
The party pony happened to be facing her doll. Both dolls were left on the edge of a chair, evidently put there for their return. Twilight levitated them to the floor, got out her magic probe and checked the doll. “It’s still the exit point of the hole.”
“What are the odds it’d be my doll?” Pinkie innocently asked. A pin drop could be heard as they all stared at her. “Does it at least listen?”
“And there you are… again.” Meg was standing in the doorway, with her husband off to the side and behind her, still not quite believing her eyes. “I see you brought Pinkie Pie and also your number one assistant.”
Spike stood that much taller upon hearing his reputation preceded him. “She’d be lost without me!”
Twilight noticed that Steve was focusing his attention on something rectangular he was holding in his hand. He apparently touched it on the side she couldn’t see, and it made some kind of chirping sound in response. He then put it into a pocket. Did he just take a picture? Not that it matters if they go through with the Pinkie Promise. Maybe they just wanted proof they weren’t going crazy. She found she could actually empathize with their situation. Was it really that different when she herself discovered that Daring Do wasn’t fictional? But at least that pegasus wasn’t an impossible creature from a different realm.
“We’re still real,” Twilight tried to say flippantly. Might as well address the ursa minor in the room. “You’ve probably noticed Derpy isn’t with us. I did ask her, but I’m sorry to say she declined.”
Meg looked disappointed. “Oh.” She shrugged, saying, “Well, at least you tried.” She turned to Steve then back again. “Should we get the Pinkie Promise out of the way?”
That was her cue; Pinkie Pie was all business. The pink pony hopped on to a chair then on to the desk, the better to look them in the eyes. “Go for it, Twilight.”
Twilight adopted her best regal stance, flaring her wings, but decided against practicing her Royal Canterlot Voice, so as to not disturb the neighbors. “Do you, Meg and Steve, Pinkie Promise, first, that you have not already revealed our presence or our mission or the significance of that doll to other inhabitants of this realm, nor shall you do so; and, second, to not hinder our mission to stop the flow of magic into your realm?” Pinkie Pie’s stare was fixated on them now. To their credit, the humans stared right back at her, though not without some visible trepidation.
“We do,” they said in unison. “Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.”
“Awesome! Pinkie Promise party!” she yelled, leaping for joy.
But oddly enough, Twilight noticed, there were no balloons or streamers—and no party cannon. Whatever the hay kind of magic Pinkie had, like unicorn magic it, too, was being impaired. Not that she seemed to notice or care. She emptied her saddlebag onto the desk, revealing various confections and one baby alligator.
“Gummy!” Pinkie scolded. “I said you couldn’t come!” But she just couldn’t stay mad at her pet baby alligator for long and gave him a hug. “But since you’re here, go enjoy yourself!” she said as she released him. Gummy stood there on his short, stubby legs, blinking first one eye then the other.
Steve carefully avoided Gummy as he reached for a chocolate cupcake. It seemed a bit small in his hand, having been made for ponies. He gave it a sniff, and satisfied that it smelled quite edible, took a small bite. “This really is delicious,” he said after savoring the taste. “From Sugarcube Corner, right?”
“That’s right!” beamed Pinkie Pie. “I made them myself.” She picked up a blueberry muffin and hoofed it to Meg. “By the way, this is Derpy’s favorite. I gave her one from this same batch like an hour ago.”
“Now that I gotta try!” But Meg didn’t take the muffin right away, instead scrutinizing how Pinkie was holding the muffin with her hoof. Lacking magic, Twilight contemplated, humans would find that curious.
After having satisfied her curiosity, Meg carefully grasped the muffin with finger and thumb and brought it to her mouth. She took a large bite. “Mmmmm.” For several seconds she masticated before finally swallowing. “I can see why.” The rest of the muffin quickly followed.
Having finished off the blueberry muffin, Meg looked over the remaining confections. “Ooooo.” Her hand reached out to pick up a cupcake with vanilla frosting with several—Twilight’s pupils shrank to pinpoints as she realized what they were.
“Don’t eat that!” she warned her. Meg looked at her questioningly. “That has gems in it.” That got Spike’s attention. He held out a hand, giving his best puppy dog eyes impression. It took only seconds for Meg to crumble.
“Okay, but only if you’ll show us how you send letters to Princess Celestia.” Spike eagerly nodded his head, and soon the sounds of crunching gems filled the room. Meg watched in fascination; the baby dragon was too focused on the cupcake to notice the attention.
Twilight gave Pinkie a harsh look. Pinkie shrugged. “You said no hay or flowers,” the pink pony said. “You didn’t say anything about gems!” There was no point in pointing out that ponies don’t eat gems either.
“You actually have cupcakes and muffins made with hay and flowers?” asked Steve.
“Well, duh!” Pinkie replied. “They add nice, savory flavors.”
“I’ll take your word for it. We humans can’t eat those things.”
Pinkie put a hoof to her chin. “Hmm… that must be why Twilight told me to not to bring those.”
Steve gave the alicorn a penetrating look. “Interesting. I wonder how you would know that.”
Twilight could not help feeling that he knew exactly how she would know that, but she had so far avoided mentioning The Mirror and its connection to the current situation, and she didn’t care to mention it now. “I have my ways,” she merely said.
Looking to quickly change the subject, Twilight remembered what Spike had agreed to in exchange for the cupcake. Could he do that here? That would be something worth finding out. Spike had finished the cupcake, so Twilight took out a sheet of paper and a quill and sent it over to the baby dragon. “Now it’s your turn to keep up your end of the agreement.”
After Spike grabbed the floating items out of the air, Twilight started dictating. “Princess Celestia, I am writing to you from the other realm, in Steve and Meg’s home, to see if it’s possible. They have Pinkie Promised as planned. Derpy decided not to come. Princess Twilight Sparkle.” The humans seemed impressed that she had talked to Celestia about them, which is what she was rather hoping for. I might be getting the hang of diplomacy.
Spike made a show out of rolling up the sheet of paper, holding it in the air and breathing his green flame onto it. The turned-to-smoke letter wandered aimlessly. It didn’t look promising. But then it settled on a direction, heading towards the Pinkie Pie doll, and upon reaching it, the smoke went into the doll and vanished.
“That looks promising,” Twilight commented. They all stared at the doll, as if waiting for it to come to life.
“Uh, should we be expecting an immediate response?” All heads turned to Twilight for an answer.
“It’s hard to say, Meg.” She could be tied up in some meeting.
“Well, while we’re waiting, could you answer a question about Derpy, since she couldn’t be here?”
Twilight quickly glanced at Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash. Either of them would be better able to answer questions about her; neither seemed unwilling to do so. It would be interesting to find out what they wanted to know. “We can certainly try.”
Meg pulled up a chair in front of the ponies and sat down. “What’s her job?”
“She works for the Royal Equestrian Mail as a mailmare,” Twilight replied. A knowing smile blossomed on the woman’s face. She apparently expected that answer; why ask the question? “Her occupation was shown in the cartoon?”
“Not exactly… there was one episode where she was shown working for a pegasus delivery service but she dropped—uh… well she was never shown to be a mailmare.”
“Let me guess,” said Rainbow Dash as she gave Twilight as self-satisfied look. “A piano?”
“Among other things, yeah,” Meg confirmed. “Quite honestly, it looked rather fatal. How did you survive?”
Looked fatal? Huh? The former unicorn recounted what happened. “After a potted plant fell a few feet from me, I looked up, saw what was coming, and immediately raised a shield. Other than a minor bruise from a piece of that shattered pot, I was unharmed.” Oh, yeah… better make that point, too. “I don’t blame Derpy for what happened. I was investigating Pinkie Sense at the time.”
“She sure was!” confirmed Pinkie Pie. “We even got chased by a hydra!” Rainbow Dash just snickered.
“That’s interesting… in the show you made no attempt to shield yourself or even get out of the way.”
Twilight’s jaw went slack for several seconds. “I’m glad I’m smarter than that in real life.”
Meg responded with a quick, nervous smile. “Uh, speaking of the hydra, when you came to a chasm, and the hydra destroyed what sorta passed for a bridge, why didn’t you simply teleport across?”
“Uh… I did teleport.” It was farther than she had ever teleported before, and she was terrified to attempt it, and she hesitated until the last possible second, but she did teleport. Jumping would have been suicide. “What do you think I did?” she asked. That cartoon appears to be less than perfectly accurate.
“Well… you jumped, fell to the bottom, bounced off a giant mud bubble that happened to just form, and wound up on the other side.”
Twilight blinked. “Bounced off a giant mud bubble,” she droned.
“The bubble did burst after you bounced off it,” Meg sheepishly added. She looked at Pinkie Pie and Spike, knowing they witnessed the event, but they also blankly looked at her like she was spouting nonsense.
The alicorn slightly tilted her head. “That’s the silliest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“I’m sure I’ve said sillier things!” protested Pinkie Pie.
Twilight had to suppress a chuckle as she looked at the offended earth pony. “Yes,” she sighed. “Yes, you certainly have.”
“We can show you the scene…”
Should I watch it? There was no reason to think they were making this up. Who could possibly make up stuff like this? It was bizarre how that cartoon could both be so accurate and yet… take poetic license with certain events. “No, that won’t be necessary.”
Nopony spoke. The silence was becoming awkward. I might as well explore this a little further. “Any other misconceptions I can clear up?” she tried to ask cheerfully.
The two humans looked at each other and, by some unspoken agreement, Steve went next. “What was the most recent major event to have happened in Equestria? Before this ‘hole,’ of course.”
Twilight pondered the purpose of that question. Obviously they wanted to determine how close the most recent cartoon is to the present. But why not just state the most recent event they know of? There’s no reason to keep that a secret; on the contrary, they’d want to know what has transpired since. Or—her eyes widened—they’re afraid they know our future! Is that even possible? Only one way to find out. “That would be the defeat of Tirek about two months ago.”
He let out a sigh of relief. “That was the most recent episode. It aired a month ago.”
That kept things uncomplicated; Twilight hated time loops. She had to give them credit, though, for considering that. Bad as it was that they knew so much about their past, it’d be even worse if they knew their future! Twilight thought it prudent to gather more data points. “Anything else?”
“Well…” began Meg, “in the episode about the recent Equestria Games there seems to be a huge plot hole…”
Rainbow Dash said, “What do you mean?”
“The unicorn magic disabling spell…”
“To prevent cheating. What of it?”
“Surely Celestia did not have her magic disabled.”
“Duh, princesses were exempt, right, Twilight?”
“I did cast the spell to light the—” She looked at Spike.
“I’m past that,” he dismissed with a nonchalant wave of his claw. But then he began fidgeting with those claws. He must be realizing his faking of the Cloudsdale anthem was seen by many more than just the entire stadium. That was far more embarrassing. Terribly, painfully, soul-crushingly embarrassing. Oh, Spike…
Meg continued. “Then when that cloud was hit by an ice arrow, why did no princess do anything about it?”
“You honestly don’t know?” asked Twilight, genuinely surprised. That was hardly an insignificant detail…
“As it was shown, it never occurred to you or any other princess to do something about it. Nor do we know if Derpy placed or not in—what was it?—air sprinting?”
That made Rainbow Dash’s day. “Nopony tell them, got that?” she ordered. “It’s nice to know we got some secrets!”
“That includes you, Gummy,” warned Pinkie Pie, wagging her hoof at the baby alligator. Gummy stood there on his short, stubby legs, blinking first one eye then the other.
Eh, why not? They’re not entitled to know everything. “Let’s just say us princesses aren’t morons,” smirked Twilight. Nonetheless it gave her food for thought. That was an odd omission. It did make them look like idiots if that’s how it was portrayed.
“I guess you get to have some secrets,” Steve conceded half-jokingly.
Spike burped up a letter. He caught it and started reading it aloud. “Princess Twilight Sparkle. Apparently, we can communicate between realms. Give my regards to Meg and Steve. Princess Celestia.”
Twilight levitated it over to Steve. “You may keep this as a souvenir. You shouldn’t show it to others, though I suspect nopony would believe you if you did.”
“No, you’re quite right,” he mused, as he took hold of it. “Our sanity would be questioned if we claimed it was real.”
Rainbow Dash flew to the window and looked outside. “This trip down memory lane is nice and all, but I think I’m gonna fly around for a bit and see what’s out there. Twilight, could you teleport me outside?”
“Before you go…” The pegasus turned her head towards Steve. “Stay away from airplanes—flying machines. I’m serious.”
“Yeah, we saw those. Really noisy. How do they fly without magic? They don’t even flap their wings!”
“It’d take too long to explain. Just… stay away from them. Their engines—the noisy bits—can suck you in and kill you.” Rainbow Dash grimaced in response.
I hope she keeps her recklessness under control, even if “danger” is her middle name. The alicorn quietly sighed. Oh, who am I kidding…
“They leave behind a lot of air turbulence too.”
“Okay, sheesh, I get the message.” She looked out the window again. “Looks like the coast is clear. Twilight?”
“Coming,” she said as she flew over. They hovered, facing each other, front hooves touching. Her horn flashed brightly and they were on the other side of the window. Rainbow Dash broke contact, turned to face upwards and outwards, and with one powerful flap of her wings vanished, leaving behind a rainbow contrail—that ended after a few dozen feet, the point at which the magical field got too diluted to sustain it. Twilight teleported back inside.
The humans stood with their mouths open, not believing what they just saw.
“You two just broke so many laws of physics,” Steve said. “I can’t believe the universe let you get away with that.”
Twilight mulled that over for a moment. “We need to talk about that. There are some things I can’t do and I don’t understand why.”
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I like this. Can't wait for more!!!!
5402842
The next chapter shall be Physics Kindergarten. Unfortunately, it needs a bit more work than the earlier chapters, and with the holidays and all… I'll try to post it next week, but no promises.
How does everypony feel about physics lectures? I've seen stories that have gone overboard on the whole "explaining our world to Twilight" thing, and I'm trying hard to strike the right balance. I know better than to subject you all to a wall of expository text.
5406177 I am fine with a physics lecture to Twilight, but make sure to put a funny reaction in somewhere.
Wow, looks like these two have quite a lot to understand about the actual MLP universe
Actually she has. During "It's About Time", Twilight's doing special relativity.
https://derpibooru.org/406579
Wait, so the ponies look like normal horses in this story? Huh. Must've missed that. Kinda disappointing, but okay.
Looking forward to reading the rest!
Cross this over with Story Thieves and you've got something awesome(er).
Oh Twilight...if only you knew...
You're always popular to me, dude