SAPR

by Scipio Smith

Equestria (Rewritten)

Equestria

The airship rattled a little as Penny bounced up and down upon the balls of her feet — and on the floor.

"Settle down, Penny," Rainbow instructed her, calling over her shoulder from where she sat in the cockpit, guiding The Bus down towards the landing pads at the back of the school.

"Sorry!" Penny cried. "I just … I'm just so excited!"

Rainbow grinned. "I get it, believe me," she replied. "Just try not to rip the belly out from the airship, okay? We'll be there in just a little while longer."

"Right," Penny said. She paused for a moment. "Thank you, Rainbow Dash, for bringing me out here."

"What else was I going to do?" Rainbow asked. "Make you walk all the way from Atlas to Canterlot?"

"You're really looking forward to this, huh?" Blake asked. Rainbow couldn't see her in the central section, any more than she could see Penny, but her voice carried into the cockpit, as did her fondly amused tone of voice.

"I … I don't know if I've ever been so excited," Penny confessed. "I mean, we're talking about a whole new world, about magic, about wondrous and wonderful things like I've never seen before! Like no one's ever seen before! A world where…"

There was a moment of silence, a moment where Blake must have been waiting for Penny to continue before realising that she would not. Only then did Blake say, "I have to admit, it does sound idyllic, doesn't it? A world without grimm, without war, without hatred."

"A world where you can be anything you want," Penny murmured.

"That can be this world too, if you want it to be," Blake murmured.

"Maybe," Penny replied. "My father said … he told me that I'd need to come back to Atlas, to get repairs or maintenance. That I'd never be free if that. But in Equestria—"

“Hey, Penny,” Rainbow said, cutting Penny off.

She guided The Bus the last few feet down to the ground, feeling only the slightest bump as she set the airship down upon the landing platform. She unbuckled herself and got up out of the pilot’s seat, moving to stand in the entrance to the main section where she could see Blake and Penny. Blake was sitting down on one of the benches near the door, while Penny was standing up in the centre of the airship.

“Listen, Penny,” Rainbow started again, “don’t get your hopes up too much, okay?”

Penny looked at her, her big green eyes blinking. “What do you mean, Rainbow Dash?”

“I mean,” Rainbow said, “that it’s great to be excited. It feels great. Even when you can’t sleep because you’re so excited about what tomorrow will bring, so you just lie awake waiting for the morning to come so that you can rush downstairs, that kind of excited; there’s nothing wrong with that. The problem is that, when whatever it was that you rushed downstairs for doesn’t live up to your expectations, then … then you can get really disappointed. More disappointed than you would have been if you had more realistic expectations about what it was going to be like.”

“What are you saying?” Blake murmured. “That you don’t think Equestria can live up to Sunset’s hype?”

“I think if Equestria is that great, then what’s Sunset doing living here with us?” Rainbow asked. “I’m sure that it’s a great place, but it can’t possibly be so much better than what we have here, right? I’m just saying … I want you to enjoy this, Penny; I don’t want you to come away disappointed because you were expecting the moon, and you only got a piece of the sky.”

Penny was silent for a moment. “I understand,” she said softly. “But it’s still a world of magic, so it’s bound to be pretty cool, right?”

Rainbow grinned. “Yeah, it does sound cool, I admit,” she said. “And here we are. Now to find out what we need to do next.”

Sunset had told them to go to Canterlot, to the combat school there, and that she would tell them what to do once they got there; Rainbow didn’t understand the need for secrecy, but maybe Sunset wanted to keep track of where they were so that she could make the arrangements for Penny and Blake to be met and welcomed on the other side.

Either that, or she just enjoyed keeping them in suspense.

Or maybe both.

Whatever it was, Rainbow got out her scroll and called Sunset, holding out one hand to lean against the frame of the airship as she waited for Sunset to answer.

Penny leaned forward a little, as though she were hoping for a better look at Sunset when she answered; Blake remained seated.

Sunset answered, her face appearing on Rainbow’s screen. “Hey,” she said. “Are you at Canterlot?”

“We just landed,” Rainbow said.

“Are Blake and Penny with you?”

“No, I flew all this way without them,” Rainbow said.

“Hey, Sunset!” Penny cried.

“Hi, Sunset,” Blake called out.

Sunset smiled. “Is everyone looking forward to a trip to a magical land?”

“YES!” Penny shouted loudly, her voice echoing inside The Bus.

“Sure am,” Blake agreed. “We’ve been discussing if it’s going to live up to the hype.”

“What, you don’t trust me?” Sunset asked.

“Nostalgia can give us rose-coloured glasses,” Blake pointed out.

“I guess,” Sunset acknowledged. “But in this case, just trust me. You’re going to love it. Now, just let me let Twilight know that you’re here.”

“Twilight?” Penny asked.

“Princess Twilight Sparkle, she’s the one who is going to activate the portal so that you can use it. Hang on.” Sunset must have put down her scroll, because the view changed to the ceiling of Team SAPR’s dorm room at Beacon, while Sunset’s face disappeared from the sight of Rainbow’s screen. “The reason I wanted you to call me,” Sunset went on, her voice disembodied now as it emerged from Rainbow’s device, “is that I didn’t want the portal to be opened up for too long before you were there, otherwise it could have been discovered accidentally, and anyone could have fallen through into Equestria, and we don’t want that, do we? But, now that you’re there, I can tell Twilight to activate the portal, and we should be okay. I’ve just told her now.”

“Told her how?” Rainbow asked.

“I’ve got a magic book that I can write things down in, and the words appear in another book in Equestria,” Sunset said.

Rainbow blinked. “Really?”

Sunset poked her head into view on the screen. “Yeah. Blake and Penny are about to travel to a new world, but the idea of a magic book surprises you? It’s just like a scroll.”

“A magic, interdimensional scroll,” Rainbow replied.

“I guess,” Sunset acknowledged. “Anyway, Twilight has just told me that she’s going to start activating the portal now. She can’t tell me when it’s actually been activated because she needs to use the book to power the portal itself — I won’t bore you with the technical details as to why — but I’m sure that by the time you get over there, the portal will be open for you.”

“Get over where?” Penny asked.

“Go to the Wondercolt Statue in the yard,” Sunset told them. “You remember where that is, don’t you, Rainbow Dash?”

“Sure,” Rainbow said, and with her free hand — straightening up first so that she didn’t fall over — she hit the button on the wall that caused the side door of the airship to open up, exposing Canterlot to view. It was morning, but not too early: the skies were blue and clear, the sun was high in the sky without approaching the height of noon, the birds were singing. It was a lovely day.

Not that Penny and Blake would be enjoying it for long.

Rainbow leapt down out of The Bus; Penny swiftly followed, with Blake getting up from her seat to follow on after that.

Rainbow locked the door behind her — she meant to go back there and wait for them … well, probably she meant to go back to the airship and wait for them, but in the meantime, she felt it best to shut the airship up anyway.

“It’s this way,” she said, gesturing with her free hand, holding her scroll up in the other, looking left and right as she walked briskly but quietly — trying to be quiet, anyway — across the school grounds.

“Is everything okay?” Blake asked, glancing around herself.

“Yeah, everything’s fine,” Rainbow replied. “I just don’t want to get caught, that’s all.”

“Does it matter if we get caught?” inquired Penny. “We’re not doing anything wrong.”

“Maybe not,” Rainbow allowed. “But I don’t want to explain to Principal Celestia that you two were on your way to visit a magical kingdom.”

“There are worse things that you could be doing,” Sunset pointed out.

“They wouldn’t sound insane to anyone we tried to tell about them,” Rainbow replied.

“Is anyone else there?” asked Penny, as the three of them walked around the side of the combat school.

“Here in the room? No,” Sunset answered. “Pyrrha and Jaune left this morning; they’re going to visit Jaune’s folks.”

“That sounds nice,” Penny declared.

“We’ll see,” Sunset muttered. “Ruby’s having a private meeting with Professor Ozpin.”

“How do you feel about that?” asked Blake.

“Not bad, actually,” Sunset replied. “I hope that she gets what she’s looking for out of it.”

Blake’s eyebrows rose. “Are you feeling okay?”

“Yes,” Sunset said emphatically. “I’ve had a chance to think about things. To reflect. To realise that I have made misjudgements. And one of those misjudgements concerned Professor Ozpin. He’s a better man that I gave him credit for. Anyway, once Ruby’s done with him, then we’re going to go out and do … something. I owe her some time.”

Rainbow looked up from her scroll. The Wondercolt statue stood directly before her, the marble stallion rearing up on its plinth.

“We’re here,” she said.

“Great,” Sunset said. “Now, Blake, Penny, do you see what looks like a mirror built into the side of the plinth facing the school?”

“I see it,” Penny answered.

“Me too,” Blake added.

“You need to step through it,” Sunset said.

“Excuse me?” Blake asked. “You want us to step into a mirror?”

“It’s not a real mirror; it’s the magic portal disguised as a mirror,” Sunset explained. “Once you step into it, you'll be sucked through and transported to Equestria, emerging out of another mirror in Canterlot — my Canterlot, Equestria’s Canterlot. Then you go through that mirror at the end of the day to come back again.”

Rainbow looked at the mirror. It looked very mirror-like, and not like a magic portal at all.

“That’s all we have to do?” asked Penny. “We just go through the mirror?”

Sunset smiled. “There’s not a little dance you have to do beforehand, Penny.”

Penny nodded. “Okay then,” she said. She clasped her hands together for a moment, then smiled and began to walk up to the mirror.

Rainbow and Blake followed, trailing closely behind her as Penny approached the mirror without stopping, without slowing.

The mirror continued to look like a sheet of glass, and Rainbow couldn’t help but half expect that Penny was going to smack into it as she—

There was a flash of light as Penny reached the mirror. Bright light, blinding light, light that made Rainbow turn away for a moment, her eyes closing.

When she opened her eyes and looked again, Penny was gone.

Penny was gone, and there was a slight rippling of the mirror before it settled again.

“My gods,” Rainbow murmured. “Penny?”

“On her way to Equestria by now,” Sunset said. “I told you.”

“Yeah, you did,” Blake murmured. She glanced at Rainbow Dash. “I guess I’ll see you later then.”

The corner of Rainbow’s mouth twitched upwards into a smile. “Have fun,” she said.

Blake nodded. “Sunset.”

“Have a great time,” Sunset instructed her.

Blake turned away, and a momentary sudden breeze blew through her long, wild black hair as she too approached the portal.

There was another flash of light, and when Rainbow looked for her, Blake too had disappeared.

“Huh,” Rainbow murmured.

“So,” Sunset said from out of the scroll. “What are you going to do while you wait for them?”

“I’m going to have to call you back,” Rainbow replied, without really replying at all. “Later, Sunset.”

“Rainbow—” Sunset was cut off as Rainbow snapped her scroll shut and put it in her pocket.

She walked towards the portal, more slowly than Blake or Penny had, more cautiously; she tilted her head sideways a little as though that would help her to get a better look at it.

It occurred to Rainbow that this wasn’t unlike what Doctor Pietro had been talking about when Rainbow went down to see him, that Ground Bridge thing he had been working on, the way to transport people over huge distances.

To transport people across whole worlds.

Rainbow reached out her fingertips towards the mirror, then drew back. She hadn’t been invited.

But at the same time…

A world of magic.

A world without war.

A world without grimm.

Rainbow glanced left and right, and over her shoulder too. There was no one around, nobody watching.

She hadn’t been invited.

But what was one more visitor? What was the difference between two and three?

Rainbow took one more glance around, took a deep breath, and plunged headfirst into the portal.

---

Blake was surrounded by a sea of colours; they danced around her in pink and blue and green and yellow, pulsing as she was pulled along, circling like food going down a drain. She heard someone crying out — it might even have been her — but she couldn’t be sure because her head was spinning even more than she was. She only knew that she was being sucked along, being pulled to somewhere down this tunnel of light.

And then, suddenly, everything went black.

It took Blake half a second to come to her senses and realise that was because she had her eyes closed.

“I really, really hope that you’re Penny and Blake, or else this is going to be really awkward for everypony.”

“Twilight?” Blake murmured as she started to open her eyes.

As her eyes opened so, they beheld a dark blue chamber, with a purple carpet upon the floor on which she lay, soft to the touch of her … why couldn’t she feel her fingers? Blake’s panic started to rise up in her throat like bile; where were her fingers? Why couldn’t she feel them? Why was there just this stump on the end of her arm and why didn’t it feel like an arm at all and—

“I’m telling you this because I want you to know the truth, the whole truth, which is—”

“That you’re a horse.”

“A pony, a unicorn, to be exact.”

“But you—”

“Assumed this form, adjusted for age, obviously, when I passed through the mirror. Equestria … Equestria is a magical land full of magical, talking ponies … and so am I.”

That was what Sunset had told them, in the dorm room, the night before they had set off for Mountain Glenn. She had told them that the mirror — Blake should have remembered the mirror, instead of being so surprised — had transformed her from a unicorn into a faunus. It made sense, then — eminent amounts of sense, so much sense that she ought to have seen it coming — that the transformation would work both ways, that she, coming the other way, would be transformed into a … into a pony.

Am I a unicorn now?

Can I do magic?

Blake’s thoughts were interrupted by a squeal of delight from Penny.

“We look,” she cried, “so CUTE!”

Blake turned her head to look at Penny, who did indeed look very cute — and not at all what Blake had been expecting.

Sunset had told her — and told Penny too, presumably — that Equestria was a world of ponies. Yes, it was a magical world, and some of the ponies were unicorns or pegasi who could do magic, and yes, Sunset had even admitted that she had an amber coat, but still … ponies. Horses. Small horses, but horses nonetheless.

And so, if she had thought about it, if she had considered the fact that she might be transformed into another species by this journey, then Blake might have expected to come out — and for Penny to come out — looking like a horse.

Penny did not really look like a horse.

Yes, she was on four legs, but so was a dog and a cat, and you wouldn’t call either of them horses; it wasn’t even the fact that Penny had a coat of very pale green, the colour of the green stripes on her smock which had mysteriously disappeared, leaving her naked.

No, it wasn’t that — that, at least, Blake could have prepared for, given what Sunset had already told them. No, it was everything else.

Penny’s eyes were the same colour as they had been, but they seemed to have gotten much, much bigger, until they took up most of her face; or perhaps her eyes had stayed the same size but the rest of her head had just gotten a lot smaller. Her face did not seem particularly equine to Blake; it rose up above the neck rather the descending from it, it was round and soft instead of long, and Penny’s nose — or snout — protruded outwards from her face like … like a nose.

Albeit it did not protrude very far; it was rather small, like a button nose. Small and, it had to be admitted, rather cute.

Penny’s hair — or should that be her mane? — had come through the mirror completely unchanged: it was the same shade of red that it had been, it had the same well-combed bangs coming down over her eyebrows, it was the same length and was rolled in just the same way at the ends, curling around her face. The pink bow that she wore in her hair seemed to have been the only part of her outfit to make the transition to Equestria intact, although Blake couldn’t imagine why it should be so.

Penny’s tail was the same colour, and like her hair, it was rolled up at the end before it touched the floor.

A little horn, as green as her coat, softer and rounder at the tip than Blake might have been expecting, emerged from out of Penny’s copper-coloured hair — or mane.

She did, indeed, look very cute.

Blake picked herself up — her hooves felt softer than she had been expecting, if indeed you could really call them hooves at all and not simple continuations of her legs — and turned to face the mirror out of which she had emerged into this new world. Unlike the mirror set into the plinth at Canterlot, this mirror was freestanding, a big, old-fashioned sort of mirror that towered over Blake and made her wonder who in this world was so big as to need a mirror this size. It was surrounded by various objects and items — a bellows pump, a large copper canister, wires and tubes, a couple of metal poles glowing with lavender light — that Blake could not guess the use of except that it involved magic somehow. In any case, she found herself less interested in them than she was in her own reflection in the magic mirror.

In body and shape of face, she looked the same as Penny. She looked exactly the same as Penny, all differences between them in height and build having been shaved away in the transformation process. In colour, eye, mane, and tail, they were different, however, as was emphasised when Penny came to stand next to Blake so that they could look at their reflections together.

Blake’s coat was a moderate grey, while her eyes were as golden as they had ever been — although, as with Penny, either her eyes had gotten bigger, or the rest of her face had gotten smaller. Her mane was jet black, long and wild and tangled, draping down across her back and down her forelegs almost to the floor. Her tail was shorter, else it really would have been on the floor, but no less wild and unruly to look at.

Blake, like Penny, was naked, but like Penny, it seemed that one accessory had come through the mirror with her unaffected by the magic: the silver honour band Sienna Khan had given her, which yet gleamed upon her foreleg just below her shoulder.

A pair of wings, as grey as the rest of her coat, sprouted from her sides, although 'sprouting' might be a bit of a misnomer considering that they were presently tucked in against her sides.

“This,” Blake said, “is not what I was expecting.”

“But it’s great, isn’t it?” Penny said, her eyes seeming to grow ever wider — if that was possible — and gleam with eager gleefulness.

“I—” Blake began, but she was interrupted by their reflections disappearing from view as the mirror began to ripple before them like a pool of water. There was a flash of light, bright light mingled with a blue blur, and as Blake turned her face away from the light, she felt something slam into her hard enough to knock her across the room.

Her eyes were closed, but Blake felt herself hit the floor back first, then bounce upwards, her wings spreading out involuntarily on either side of her before she landed on her belly, legs splaying out on all sides.

She groaned wordlessly.

She wasn’t the only one.

“Sorry about that,” Rainbow moaned. “I didn’t realise that I was going to come out so fast.”

“Ugh,” Blake murmured. “It’s fine, I don’t think…” She paused while her brain caught up with her ears. “Rainbow Dash?”

“Rainbow Dash?!” Twilight cried. “What are you…? Wait, you’re Remnant’s Rainbow Dash, aren’t you?”

Blake opened her eyes, and for the first time, she was in a position to see not only Rainbow Dash, but also Twilight Sparkle — Princess Twilight Sparkle, the Twilight Sparkle of Equestria, the Twilight Sparkle who had made it possible for them to be here.

She was familiar in some respects; her eyes were the same shade of violet, although Princess Twilight didn’t seem to need to wear glasses — possibly because she didn’t spend so much time looking at a screen — and her mane was the same dark purple, with streaks of a lighter shade of the same and a touch of raspberry pink just above one eye — the same colouration applied to her long tail, as well, where it rose upwards in a sort of crescent before descending again. Her mane was even cut the same at the front, with those square bangs precisely sheared off just above her eyes, although at the back, it was not as long as Blake might have expected. Twilight’s hair — Blake’s Twilight, Remnant’s Twilight — was, when she wasn’t wearing it up in some form of bun, so long as to reach down to her waist, after all, but Princess Twilight’s mane seemed shorter, curling around her ears in a way that the other Twilight’s hair never did. Her coat was lavender, and the horn that emerged out of her mane was longer and sharper at the point than Penny’s was, while the wings that were unfurled behind her seemed bigger than Blake’s.

In fact, Princess Twilight seemed to be taller than they were; she was quite possibly the tallest pony in the room.

She was certainly taller than Rainbow Dash, if not by much; it was possible to compare their heights as Rainbow got up, and Twilight was definitely bigger, which seemed wrong somehow. Rainbow seemed to have been made into the same height as Blake and Penny, given the same build as them besides in a way that seemed to Blake almost unnatural, if that word had any meaning in their current situation.

Rainbow Dash was blue, cyan possibly, and like Blake, she had a pair of wings tucked in on her flanks. Her eyes were magenta, and she had retained the rainbow colours of her mane — and her new tail — and the same style too, spiky and messy and reaching down to just below her neck.

She had only one set of ears, Blake realised; she and Rainbow Dash each had only one set of ears, equine ears rising up out of their hair.

At least I don’t seem to have any trouble hearing anybody.

“Guilty,” Rainbow said. “Hey, Twi.” She paused. “No, wait, we haven’t actually met before, have we?”

“Uh, no, we haven’t,” Twilight murmured. “What are you—?”

“What are you doing here?” Blake asked.

Rainbow glanced at her. “Well, it didn’t seem fair that I flew you both out here and I don’t get to see this place for myself just because Sunset doesn’t think I deserve a field trip.”

“Well, I guess the more the merrier,” Twilight said, with a touch of — slightly nervous, perhaps — laughter in her voice. “There’s no one else you’re expecting to come through, is there?”

“Not that I know of,” Rainbow said.

“Great,” Twilight said. “Then let’s shut this portal off for now so that that stays the case.”

Her horn began to glow, a purple light surrounding it in the same way that Sunset’s hands would light up whenever she used her magic — so they didn’t use their hooves for magic, huh? As Twilight’s horn glowed, so too did the brown leatherbound volume emblazoned with Sunset’s emblem on the cover, which Twilight levitated out of its perch on top of the mirror and onto a gleaming white table in the corner of the room.

Twilight cleared her throat, and smiled at them. “So, welcome to Equestria! I recognise Rainbow Dash, but which of you is Penny, and which of you is Blake? You are Penny and Blake, right? I asked earlier, but you didn’t answer.”

“Salutations! I’m Penny! It’s a pleasure to meet you!” she said with a wave of her hoof.

“And I’m Blake,” Blake said. “Blake Belladonna. Thank you for having us.”

Twilight’s smile faltered slightly. “Sunset’s told me about what you’ve been through; to be honest, I can hardly imagine it, or what it must have felt like. Sunset thinks that coming here, if only for a little while, can help you, and I hope that’s true.

Penny raised one hoof, swaying a little on her remaining three legs but ultimately keeping her balance. “Excuse me, Princess Twilight?”

“Just Twilight will be fine, Penny,” Twilight said. “There’s no need to stand on ceremony.”

“Twilight,” Penny said, “why do Rainbow and Blake have those marks on them but I don’t?”

Blake looked around for the mark to which Penny was referring, finding it on the thigh of her rear leg: her emblem, the black belladonna flower, although to be honest, she had always thought it looked as much like a dark flame as it did a plant.

Rainbow had her symbol too, in the same place: the cloud, with the streak of rainbow lightning shooting jaggedly out of it. Twilight had a mark too: the six-pointed star, with five lesser stars arrayed around it like consorts.

But on Penny’s flank, there was nothing, nothing at all, just a pale green coat.

“Interesting,” Twilight murmured.

“Do you know why it is?” Penny asked. “Is it because I … because I’m not … because I’m a—”

“I’m sure that isn’t it, Penny,” Rainbow said with a glance at Twilight.

“Indeed, I think there’s a much simpler explanation,” Twilight declared. “Those symbols are called cutie marks, and ponies aren’t born with them. We’re all born like you, Penny, with a blank flank. Cutie marks manifest sometime in foalhood, although exactly when varies; some ponies develop faster than others; the point is that a cutie mark appears when a pony discovers their…”

Penny leaned forward a little. “Their what?”

“Their special talent is the usual way to phrase it,” Twilight explained. “For example, my special talent is magic.”

“That’s rather broad,” Blake murmured. “I thought this was a land awash with magic.”

“It is,” Twilight replied. “But for most unicorns, the limits of their magic are defined by and related to their special talent as defined and represented by their cutie mark; so, my friend Rarity has a talent for—”

“Beautifying things,” Rainbow said.

Twilight smiled. “Of course, you know a Rarity in your world too, don’t you? Yes, and so, that talent informs the nature of her magic: she can use it to find precious gems hidden under the earth, and she possesses an incredibly deft and precise telekinesis that she can use to stitch together stunningly elegant and finely detailed dresses. I, on the other hoof, because my talent is magic, have access to a much wider possible range of magical abilities. Pretty much any kind of unicorn magic is open to me, if I’m willing to study it.”

“Which you are, because you’re Twilight Sparkle,” Rainbow said. “A Twilight Sparkle, anyway.”

“So I have a blank flank because I haven’t figured out what my talent is?” Penny asked.

“That could be it,” Twilight allowed. “Although I’ve come to find that the standard formulation around special talents is … a little limiting, and not altogether precise. It puts more focus upon the discovery than I think is warranted; it seems to me that what is really important in the acquisition is not discovery, but rather, acceptance; acceptance of who you are, of the path that you want to follow, of what you want to give to the world around you. If you’re still a blank flank, Penny, I think the most logical explanation is that you haven’t found out who you want to be just yet.”

“I … I see,” Penny murmured. “It must be nice to have something that tells you that you’ve made the right choice.”

“When you make your choice,” Twilight replied, “I think you’ll know, even if a cutie mark doesn’t appear on your thigh.”

Rainbow scratched the back of her head with one hoof. “So … Penny … how do you … feel?”

“What do you mean, Rainbow Dash?” Penny responded. “I feel fine.”

Rainbow frowned. “I mean, are you … did the magic mirror … are you still a robot?”

Penny didn’t answer for a moment. “I … yes, yes, I think I am, but … I’m not the same robot, if that makes sense. It’s as though my systems have been rerouted, or my pathways have become redundant; I don’t have access to some systems, but I have access to other whole new systems. I can…” She screwed up her face, wrinkling her nose, scrunching her expression up in concentration, as her horn began to glow with a green light.

It was faint at first, nothing like the light that had illuminated Twilight’s horn, nothing like the like that surrounded Sunset’s hands, but as Penny concentrated, as a wordless noise emerged from out of her mouth, a growl of effort, the light around her horn grew brighter and stronger. Soon, the light had spread, surrounding the book with Sunset’s emblem on it, the book that Twilight had placed upon the table.

Penny closed her eyes, and the book was lifted off the table, lifted by no hand but by magic, up into the air.

Rainbow gasped. “Yeah! Open your eyes, Penny, you’re doing it!”

“I am,” Penny whispered, opening her eyes. “I am! I am !”

She began to laugh for joy, laugh like a child as she began to wave the book around the room, turning it in lazy circles around her head like a bird seeking a mouse in the field. Her eyes were wide, and a bright light shone within them.

The glow of her magic was reflected in those eyes and made them sparkle.

“I am,” Penny repeated. “I’m doing magic.”

“Yeah, you are,” Rainbow murmured, a smile growing upon her face.

Twilight chuckled. “So,” she said, “are you ready to get out of this room and see a little bit of Equestria?”

“Just a moment,” Blake said. “So, you’re not the Twilight Sparkle that we know in Remnant; you’re a different Twilight Sparkle.”

Twilight nodded. “That’s correct.”

“Right,” Blake murmured. “So does that mean that we all have counterparts in Equestria? Is that something that we need to worry about? What if we run into our counterparts? Is it going to—?”

“Cause a paradox that will destroy the world?” Rainbow guessed.

“I was going to say ‘will it cause anyone to freak out,’” Blake said with a glance at Rainbow Dash, but then her head whipped around with a severely concerned expression back to Twilight. “Will it cause a world-ending paradox?”

“I wouldn’t have let you come here if it would,” Twilight pointed out. “I’d like to help you and do Sunset a favour, but not to that extent.”

Rainbow let out a nervous laugh. “Yeah, of course.”

“Fortunately, Equestria’s Rainbow Dash is a friend of mine,” Twilight said.

“Really?” Rainbow asked. “Even in another world, we found each other?”

Twilight nodded. “We all did. Me and y— me and my Rainbow Dash, I mean, and Fluttershy and Pinkie and Rarity and Applejack. As I say, since Rainbow Dash is my friend, I think she’ll be okay with meeting another version of herself, which is good, because I asked her to join us later. She’ll probably think that it’s pretty cool, actually. As for you two … I did some research, some looking around as to who your counterparts were, but I’m afraid I couldn’t find any information about a Penny Polendina. But I was able to find out about your counterpart, Blake, and we won’t have to worry about meeting the other Blake.”

“Won’t we?” Blake responded. “Why? Does she live somewhere else?”

It was strange; objectively speaking, it made absolutely no difference to her what this other person, this pony who just so happened to bear the name Blake Belladonna, did or thought or who she was or how she lived. And yet, at the same time, she wanted to know. She wanted to know very much because, even though this was someone else, a different person with their own life who had grown up in a completely different world, at the same time, it was still her. She had the name Blake Belladonna, she looked like her … their souls shared a common root. All right, Blake had no proof of that, it was pure speculation, but it was speculation informed by … well, look at Rainbow Dash! Look at Twilight! Rainbow had said it herself: even in another world, they found each other.

Blake wasn’t the kind of person to believe in destiny; her parents and Sienna Khan might have brought her up in a manner that was at least partly Mistralian, might have passed onto her certain elements of the Mistralian culture alongside the ‘native’ culture of the faunus that had been preserved or recreated by historians and antiquarians after the war, but the Mistralian sense of destiny was lost upon her. She would make her own fate, for herself and her people, by her actions. But Twilight, Rainbow Dash, the fact that they had found each other even in another world … if that didn’t suggest some numinous force at work, then what would?

Finding out about this other Blake, her other self … it felt like discovering the outcome of the road not taken. Another life she could have had, a life she might have known if she had … if things had been different, if she had been born not into a world of struggle but of peace.

Twilight’s horn flared with a lavender aura that enveloped it, and also enveloped the folded-up newspaper sitting on the table by the door, the newspaper that rose at Twilight’s magical command and floated over to Blake. “I found this in a Manehatten newspaper. To be honest, it wasn’t particularly hard to find.”

Blake looked at the paper that was being held up before her eyes. Twilight had already conveniently highlighted around the edge of the relevant article, circling it in bold red pen.

Heiress to Wed Corporate Successor

The business world and Manehatten society were delighted by the announcement yesterday of the engagement of Miss Blake Belladonna and Mister Adam Taurus.

Blake froze. Her eyes widened. Engagement? The other her was marrying Adam? The other Adam, another Adam true, but still … marrying Adam? Didn’t she realise what he was? Couldn’t she see? Why was the other Blake being so foolish?

Even as her eyes continued to read, Blake’s mind was halfway to planning a rescue mission.

Miss Belladonna is the only daughter of the steel magnate Ghira Belladonna

Magnate? My father is Jacques Schnee in this world?

and has been a darling of the Manehatten scene since making her debut last year; she has often been seen in the company of Mister Taurus, and friends described the news of the engagement as far from unexpected.

I’m Weiss in this world?

Adam Taurus started with the firm as elevator boy and, with grim determination, worked his way up to the top. It was also announced that, following the wedding, planned to take place next summer, he will become general manager of the entire vast Belladonna Corporation; Mister Belladonna intends to take a step back from the day-to-day business of the organisation and devote his time to his philanthropic ventures.

Adam is the Jacques Schnee of this world? Blake thought, remembering what Weiss had told her about her father.

There was a picture underneath the article. It was a photograph of the other Blake — who looked exactly like Blake did now, except that her hair was arranged into a controlled and elegant beehive on top of her head — and a scarlet unicorn with Adam’s eyes. They looked like they were at some kind of party; Adam was wearing an old-fashioned suit, with a carnation in his buttonhole; Blake was wearing a purple gown that billowed out around her hindquarters, and a necklace of black pearls clasped around her grey neck.

There was no brand on Adam’s face. There didn’t look — and Blake admitted it was hard to tell from a single photograph — to be any of the scars on his soul that had so ruined the once good man that she had known. The Adam and Blake in this picture looked as though they hadn’t a care in the world. They were smiling, no, laughing at something that one or the other had said. And the way they looked at one another, with Adam looking down at Blake and Blake looking up at Adam, and in their eyes, Blake saw nothing but adoration for one another and contented happiness in one another’s presence.

This Adam Taurus of Equestria had not been born into darkness, brutalised in the mines, had his dreams crushed before his very eyes. He might not have been born to great wealth and station — not if he had started as an elevator boy at least — but he had worked hard, and his hard work had paid off: he had won the kingdom and the hand of the princess, and it was difficult at this remove to say whether it was his wooing or his work ethic which had paid the greater dividends in winning both. This Adam Taurus would not die in the same darkness that had birthed him, consumed by hatred and resentment; this Adam would never be forced to take up arms against a sea of sufferings because, in this world, there had been space for him to thrive.

And what of the other Blake, this Blake who reminded the Blake who stood and read of her more of a kind of Weiss Schnee than she did of herself? This other Blake, the other her that Blake didn’t know and would never meet, had never had to learn to fight or kill; she had never grown up in a world where it was kill or be killed, never had to worry about the twin menaces of the grimm and the Atlesian military. What did she do all day, in this world where there were neither monsters nor prejudices to be fought? What would Weiss do if all the grimm in Remnant were suddenly to disappear in a snap? Did this other Blake support her father in his philanthropy? Did she devote herself to music, art, literature? Did she simply sit around all day looking pretty? Whatever the choice, the point was that she — the other Blake — had a choice in a way that Blake never had. Had possibilities in a way that Blake never had.

Blake realised she was crying. Tears fell from her eyes down her little snout.

“Blake,” Twilight murmured, as she put the newspaper away. “I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

Blake shook her head. “It’s not like that,” she said quickly. She smiled, even as her eyes continued to water. “She’s happy. She looks so happy.”

Penny reached out and placed a hoof upon Blake’s shoulder. Rainbow watched her, but at times seemed not to want Blake to notice that she was watching her, turning her head away and glancing at Blake out of the corners of her eyes.

Twilight smiled gently. “Welcome to Equestria. All of you. Now, what do you say that we get out of here, and I show you a little more of Canterlot?”

“That sounds wonderful,” Penny said.

“Sounds good to me,” Rainbow added.

Blake wiped at her eyes with one hoof. “That … yes, of course. Let’s do that. Let’s see if this place is all that Sunset made it out to be.”

Twilight laughed. “I’m not sure what she’s been telling you, but I hope you like what you find out here.”

Her horn flared again, and the door opposite the mirror opened, revealing a corridor decorated in the same dark blue as the room in which they stood.

“If you’ll follow me,” Twilight said, and turned away from the three visitors from Remnant to walk out into the corridor. Penny followed eagerly, a beaming smile upon her face.

Blake found herself hesitating for a moment, remaining where she was, taking a moment to compose herself. She took a deep breath, and then another.

Rainbow Dash approached. “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” Blake assured. “Yes, I’m fine, I just … if you knew that if things were different, you could have had a completely different life, free from hardship—”

“What makes you think I didn’t?” Rainbow asked. “You don’t think this other Rainbow Dash grew up in a slum, do you? I mean, I hope not, after all that Sunset talked up how great this place is.”

Blake snorted. “That’s a very good point,” she conceded.

“It happens from time to time,” Rainbow said. She reached out and booped Blake on the snout with one hoof.

“Hey!” Blake cried, recoiling slightly. “What did you do that for?”

Rainbow shrugged. “I don’t know, it just … it seemed like the right thing to do at the time.”

Blake’s eyes narrowed.

“I just wanted to see what it would feel like, okay?” Rainbow said.

Blake shook her head. “We should probably catch up with Penny and Princess Twilight.”

“SALUTATIONS!”

“Yeah,” Rainbow said. “Yeah, that’s probably a good idea.”

They emerged out of the room and trotted swiftly down the corridor, following the sound of Penny’s cry until they came across her, having cornered the equine equivalents of Pyrrha and Ruby.

The magical mirror had erased all height differences between Blake, Penny, and Rainbow Dash, rendering them exactly the same in body shape, distinguished only by whether they had horn or wings, but it appeared that Pyrrha Nikos was a statuesque stunner in any dimension.

She was a cream-coloured unicorn, tall and slender, noticeably taller not only than Penny, but also the taller Princess Twilight too; she towered over Penny, over every pony in the vicinity; even her horn was longer, and sharper at the point besides. She also had a noticeably slender build which Blake found strange. Pyrrha might not be the strongest girl in their year physically, but only Rainbow Dash had more visible definition on the muscles of her arms. And yet, this Pyrrha, the pony Pyrrha, had incredibly thin, stick-like legs, as though that was the trade off that she had to make for being so tall. And yet, it was unmistakably Pyrrha; her long red hair proved that, tied back into a ponytail that flowed behind her, resting on her back a little before cascading down her flank to almost touch the floor. That, and her vivid green eyes. That, and the fact that she was wearing a gleaming golden circlet upon her brow.

Ruby, on the other hand — or other hoof, in this particular world — was wearing a helmet, a gilded helmet with a blue crest which made her look a bit like Flash Sentry and made it difficult to see her mane. You could see her eyes though: eyes of pure silver, gleaming in a coat of red.

They both wore gleaming gilded cuirasses, covering their chests and backs.

They were both always backing away ever so slightly, confused and apprehensive looks in their eyes as Penny followed them. She had managed to get herself up onto her hind legs, and her snout was pressed against Pyrrha’s.

“I can’t believe I get the chance to meet other versions of the two of you!” Penny cried. “And you both became… whatever the right word is, but it shows that you both still want to help people and that’s so cool! Are you dating Jaune in this world too, Pyrrha? Is he taking you to visit his family?”

“J-Jaune?!” Pyrrha cried. “D-dating? Visit Jaune’s family?”

“It’s so good to see both of you!” Penny declared, wrapping her forelegs around their necks and pulling them into an embrace.

Ruby let out a strangled sound, her own forelegs waving. “Princess Twilight,” she said, her voice strangled and strained. “What’s going on?”

“Uh,” Twilight murmured. “You see, um—”

“Penny,” Rainbow said, as she and Blake drew near. “Come on, Penny, let them breathe. Remember, just because you recognise them doesn’t mean that they recognise you.”

Penny looked at her. “What do you mean? Why would … oh. Oh! Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry!” she yelped, releasing Pyrrha and Ruby and backing away from both of them. “I’m so, so sorry, I… I thought that you were someone else!”

“'Someone else'?” Pyrrha repeated. “But … but Jaune—”

“It’s very complicated,” Twilight said, stepping in. “Please, don’t tell anyone about this; it’s … it’s something of a secret. And it would be best if it stayed that way.”

Pyrrha and Ruby glanced at one another.

“You can rely on our discretion, Princess Twilight,” Pyrrha said, bowing her head.

“Not a word will pass our lips!” Ruby added.

“Thank you,” Twilight said. “I, uh, yes, thank you. Um … come along, everypony.” She turned away and continued on down the corridor.

Penny followed, glancing apologetically towards the pony Pyrrha and Ruby.

And this time, Blake and Rainbow followed on afterwards.

---

Pyrrha and Ruby watched them go.

“One of those was Rainbow Dash,” Ruby observed. “The Element of Loyalty. I didn’t recognise the other two, though.”

“I’m sure that Princess Twilight has many friends besides the bearers of the Elements,” Pyrrha murmured. “She is the Princess of Friendship after all.”

“Yeah,” Ruby agreed. “I wonder what that was about though.”

“I’ve no idea,” Pyrrha said softly. “And we probably shouldn’t ask.” She looked away from the Princess and her companions.

“Jaune’s family,” she whispered.

“Huh?”

“Hmm?” Pyrrha asked, realising abruptly that she’d said that out loud.

Ruby grinned. “You were thinking about what she said, weren’t you?”

“N-no, I…” Pyrrha sighed, hanging her head a little. “It would be wonderful,” she murmured, “to be taken to see his family.”

It would mean … it would mean that he valued her, saw her as somepony who could become a part of his family.

Of course, it would help if she could work up the nerve to ask him out first.

But he didn’t see her in that way. She was too tall, perhaps.

“We should continue with our patrol,” she said, turning away and leading Ruby in the opposite direction to the princess, her friends, and the strange words that she had spoken.

---

“So,” Rainbow said, “is this your palace, Twilight?”

“No,” Twilight said, “my palace isn’t nearly as big as this. Not that it isn’t quite big and grand enough; I still get lost there sometimes. Although that might have something to do with the fact that I just don’t go into large parts of it unless I have to, and so I’ve never really learned the layout of a lot of it. I can find my way between the rooms that I visit, but I guess that when I’m asked to venture off the beaten path, I’m still a little hopeless.”

“Why are you leaving parts of your own palace empty and unused?” Blake asked.

Rainbow grinned. “Must be nice to have so many rooms that you don’t need to use loads of them.”

“You’d think,” Twilight said, with a slight sigh in her voice.

“Is something wrong, Princess Twilight?” asked Penny, uncertainly.

“No,” Twilight said. “I mean, not anymore. There was a time when the whole palace felt wrong. Not this palace, of course; I’m talking about my palace.”

“What was wrong with it?” inquired Rainbow Dash.

“It didn’t feel like my home,” Twilight replied. “The library was my home; it was where I lived when I first came to live in Ponyville—”

“'Ponyville'?” Blake repeated.

“It’s a town, not too far from Canterlot; it’s where I spend most of my time,” Twilight explained. “It’s where I was sent by Princess Celestia to study the magic of friendship. And I did that from the Golden Oaks Library, until it was destroyed, and I got my palace — it’s a bit of a long story. Anyway, the point is … the palace didn’t feel like my home. It didn’t have the bed that I used to sleep in, it didn’t have the books that had surrounded me, it didn’t have the memories that I’d made there; it was just … it was just a big, cold, palace that I had to live in now.”

“But now?” Penny pressed. “Things changed, didn’t they?”

“Yeah,” Twilight said, a smile blossoming upon her face. “My friends changed things.”

“Yeah, they did,” Rainbow said, as though she had been one of the friends in question.

“You realise you’re not included in this, right?” Blake murmured.

“I know,” Rainbow replied.

“What did they do?” inquired Penny.

“Got me out of the palace for a spa day and then secretly fixed up the place while I was out,” Twilight explained. “I think it took them a while, although they could tell the story of this event far better than I could, because I wasn’t there, obviously, but when I got back … they’d made my castle a home.” She chuckled. “And that’s why I’m the proud owner of the only palace in Equestria with a tree stump for a chandelier.”

Rainbow frowned. “A tree stump? I don’t follow.”

“The library was a tree,” Twilight explained. “Sorry, I should have mentioned that earlier.”

The three visitors from Remnant looked at one another.

“You lived in a tree?” Blake said.

“It was a rather big tree,” Twilight said.

“Well, I suppose that makes all the difference, doesn’t it?” Blake murmured dryly.

“What was it like?” Penny demanded. “Living in a tree, I mean?”

“It wasn’t actually something I noticed from day to day,” Twilight said. “I mean, it wasn’t like I was sharing it with woodlice or anything else. It wasn’t like living in the nasty, cold, draughty, jagged edges inside of a tree, no, this was a pony house, and that means comfort. It just so happened to be a home carved out of a hollow tree. But it still had walls and bookshelves and a cellar and an upper floor and a balcony where I could stargaze with my telescope.”

She chuckled again. “Although I ended up carrying my telescope out to one of the hills around Ponyville as often as not, because the balcony wasn’t that big, and stargazing is one of the many things that it turns out is better with friends. I remember this one time, a shower of meteors was due in the night sky overhead, and so we all got together on top of the highest hill close by Ponyville, a beautiful view of the whole town, except that most of the village was actually around the hillside with us. All my friends were there, and Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo, and for a long time, we just stood or sat, and we ate the snacks that Applejack and Pinkie had made, and we talked about … about nothing really. About nothing and yet about everything at the same time. And then the shooting stars began to blaze across the sky, shining so bright, even as she shined so briefly. I remember Scootaloo climbed up onto you— onto Rainbow Dash’s back so that she could get a better view of them.” She paused for a moment. “Sorry, that story doesn’t really have much of a point to it; it’s just a pleasant memory.”

“Don’t worry,” Rainbow assured her. “I get it. I think we all do.”

Twilight glanced at her. She cleared her throat. “Anyway, the answer to your original question is no, this is not my palace; this palace belongs to Princess Celestia, and to her sister Princess Luna.”

“'Princess Celestia'?” Blake repeated. “She’s the one who taught Sunset, right?” Blake didn’t add that she was the same one, in that case, whom Sunset had run away from.

“The very same,” Twilight confirmed. “She taught Sunset, and then when Sunset had … gone away, she taught me too.”

“Twi, um, Princess Twilight, can I ask something?” Rainbow said. “Without meaning to be rude or anything, but what are you? Penny is a unicorn, and Blake and I are pegasi, but what are you? You’ve got wings and a horn.”

“I’m an alicorn,” Twilight said.

“A what?” Blake asked.

“An alicorn,” Twilight repeated. “A… alicorns combine the strengths of all three pony races, unicorns, pegasi, and earth ponies; that’s why I have the horn of a unicorn, the wings of a pegasus, and—”

“And you’re bigger than the rest of us like an earth pony?” Penny guessed.

“Not all earth ponies are larger,” Twilight corrected. “But I suppose you could say that it’s representative of that aspect of me now.”

“That sounds very special,” Penny declared.

A faint blush rose to Twilight’s cheeks. “I suppose you could say that. Thanks to Princess Celestia’s tutelage, and to the lessons that I learned from my friends in Ponyville, I was able to ascend to become an alicorn, and a princess.”

“Are all princesses alicorns?” Penny asked.

“At the moment, yes.”

“Including Princess Celestia?”

“That’s right,” Twilight confirmed. “Princess Celestia and Princess Luna are both alicorns, of much greater lineage and power than myself. Princess Celestia not only taught Sunset and I, but has ruled over the whole of Equestria for over a thousand years.”

“What?!” Rainbow exclaimed. “Seriously?”

“You sound so surprised,” Twilight noted.

“It is a thousand years,” Blake pointed out. “People don’t usually live that long in Remnant.”

“Ponies don’t usually live that long here in Equestria either,” Twilight said. “But Princess Celestia — and Princess Luna — are exceptions. They’re immortal, as far as I know.” She paused for a moment. “All that we have, all that we are, all that is good and wonderful in Equestria is testament to the success of Princess Celestia’s rule and how fortunate we are to have her watching over us. Oh! Here we are!”

They had come to the end of the corridor, with a door guarded by two ponies whom Blake did not recognise, but who bowed to Twilight as she drew near. Twilight gave them a slightly strained smile, before her horn flared, and she pushed open the dark doors.

The now open doorway revealed a room that was both long and narrow and at the same time absurdly spacious. It was narrow in the sense that it was much longer than it was wide, and so seemed from this angle to form rectangle, but even though it was much longer than it was wide, one had only to look at the size of it — one had only to consider what little of it Blake could see from here — to realise that there was no dangerous of running out of space. And that was before one stopped to consider the height of the ceiling, which was enormously high, especially by the standards of the ponies that they had all become, but even if they were small by the standards of their kind — which it did not seem they were — twenty pony Pyrrhas stacked on top of one another like the tiers of a cake could not have gotten anywhere near that vaulted ceiling.

Columns of marble, or perhaps a pale porphyry, lined the walls, while the floor gleamed, save for where it was covered by the long red carpet that ran lengthwise across it to the raised dais upon which sat the throne.

The throne which was, at the moment, empty. In fact, the whole room was empty, bereft of any ponies but them, silent as a crypt as Twilight led them in.

Between the columns, upon the walls, were many windows of stained glass, some depicting geometric shapes that might — Blake had no way of knowing for sure — reflect the moment of sun and stars, some depicting the sun shining down upon rolling green fields or equally rolling and rollocking blue waves. And others still—

“That’s you!” Rainbow exclaimed, pointing at one particular window. “That’s all of … that’s all of you. All of your friends.”

Blake followed Rainbow’s pointed hoof. She heard Penny gasp softly behind her as they beheld the object of Rainbow’s surprise.

The window did indeed depict Princess Twilight Sparkle, and the pony Rainbow Dash, and the equine counterparts to Rarity, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, and Applejack as well. They were all easily recognised by their manes, which they wore in much the same style as the people Blake knew wore their hair. The ponies were all depicted upon a field of green, each surrounded by a halo of lavender, a halo which was shooting forth beams of energy towards the most ungainly creature that Blake had ever set eyes upon, a creature that was an amalgam of many different animals, with the body of a serpent and one claw of a bird and other bits and pieces that Blake couldn’t even begin to guess at. He was surrounded by what looked like an explosion of lavender as the beams struck him, and his pose and expression made it seem as though he had been shocked.

Twilight let out a little nervous laugh. “Yeah,” she murmured. “Yeah, that’s me. Princess Celestia likes to celebrate my accomplishments. Our accomplishments.”

“What are you doing?” asked Penny.

“That’s my friends and I … defeating Discord,” Twilight explained.

“‘Defeating’?” Rainbow repeated.

“Who is Discord?” asked Blake.

“He was an enemy; now he’s a friend. I’d rather not go into too much detail,” Twilight said.

“‘Enemy’?” Rainbow quoted. “‘Defeated’? Sunset said this place was safe. Sunset made this place out to be some kind of peaceful paradise.”

“Compared to what Sunset has told me about Remnant, I’d say that’s not wholly unfair,” Twilight said, only a little defensively. “But it isn’t entirely true, either. I would say that Equestria is perfectly calm and peaceful … twenty-two twenty-sixths of the time.”

“That’s very specific,” Penny pointed out.

“I like to be precise,” Twilight replied.

“And the other four twenty-sixths of the time?” Blake asked.

Twilight hesitated for a moment. “Then there are problems,” she admitted. “And we deal with them.”

“You’ve dealt with a few problems,” Rainbow muttered, drawing Blake’s attention to the fact that several of the stained glass depicted Twilight in some form or another, usually accompanied by her friends.

“Like I said, Princess Celestia likes to celebrate my accomplishments.”

“So you’re a soldier too, huh?” Rainbow asked. Blake was surprised to hear regret in her voice.

“No,” Twilight said, her own voice quick and sharp, cracking like a whip. “No, I … I was a librarian. I am a princess. I’m a princess and a scholar and a bookworm and a philosopher of magic and a friend. But I’m not a soldier, and I’m not a hero.” She paused for a moment. “Being a hero … to me, it’s not about what I’ve done or how many times I’ve saved Equestria; it’s … it’s a state of mind. A state of—”

“Of putting others over yourself,” Rainbow murmured. “No, even over those closest to you, even if the people you're putting over them aren’t people you know, even if they don’t matter to you at all.”

Twilight was silent for a moment, but she nodded. “Exactly. And that’s why I’m not a hero. Why I’m not sure that I’d want to be.”

“There’s nothing wrong with that,” Rainbow replied. “Maybe … maybe being a hero is overrated anyway.”

Twilight’s mouth twitched in a slight smile. “I’ve saved Equestria … five and a half times now,” she said.

“How do you save a place half a time?” Blake asked.

“Well, Cadance and Shining Armor took care of Chrysalis in the end,” Twilight said, “but they wouldn’t have been able to if I hadn’t rescued Cadance first, so I think I deserve a little credit.” She laughed softly. “But none of it, or all it, none of these windows or getting praised by Celestia in front of the court, wings or crown, or any of the rest of it means so much to me as the memory of us all on the hillside that night, watching the shooting stars. That might not make sense to you—”

“It makes perfect sense,” Blake and Rainbow Dash said in unison.

They both glanced at each other.

Twilight covered her mouth with one hoof as she giggled. “Anyway,” she said, “why don’t we get out of here, and I can show you the rest of the city?”

Twilight, despite having brought them into the throne room, seemed relieved now to get them out of it, leading through more corridors, with walls of white and carpets of red, where the guards bowed to Princess Twilight as she passed by. Eventually, they came out of the palace, emerging onto a balcony — a set of stairs led down from it, winding around the outside of a tall round tower towards the ground — from which they could behold a great city spread out before them.

“And this,” Twilight declared, “is Canterlot.”

“Wow,” Rainbow said, approaching the edge of the balcony, resting her forehooves upon the rail. “It … it’s bigger than our Canterlot for sure.”

“It’s … beautiful,” murmured Blake in awe.

Canterlot was a sight to behold: a great city, a beautiful city, a city built not upon the steep slopes of the mountain as Mistral was, but rather, jutting out of it, expanding out onto the empty air as though magic enabled it to defy physics — and perhaps it did; who was Blake to say that it did not? It was a city of gleaming spires, tipped with golden domes burnished bright and appearing brighter still by the light of the sun. It was a city of streets paved with green stones of unequal size, a city of white walls and purple-tiled roofs and striped awnings in many bright and brilliant colours. It was a city of hanging baskets and al fresco dining tables with spindly metal legs and flags of many colours fluttering in the wind.

It was a city where nothing seemed ugly; whether they were great palaces and mansions or the less opulent cafes and shops that lined the city boulevards, there was a beauty or at least a charm to all of them, and though Blake found the prevalence of hearts in the decoration a little much, she found that that, too, had its own appeal, in the way that a girl can wear flowers or ribbons in her hair in ways that a woman cannot.

Whether the city was as archaic by the standards of Remnant as it appeared or whether, like Mistral, this was a city hiding its advancement behind old clothes as though innovation were a thing to be ashamed of, Blake could not tell, but she could tell that this was a metropolis as bustling as Atlas or Mistral, for all that it was inhabited by a very different kind of denizen. It was hard to see exactly who was moving around in the streets below, but in the skies before them, Blake could see pegasi flitting across the blue, darting between the colourful but cumbersome dirigibles that floated between the clouds.

“What do you think, Penny?” Rainbow asked.

Penny ran forwards, joining Rainbow Dash at the balcony rail, looking out across the gleaming spires. Her eyes were wide — even by the standards of the unusually wide eyes that they possessed as ponies — and her mouth was open in a beaming.

“I think … I feel…” She trailed off, and as she trailed off, it was the strangest thing, but Blake thought that she could hear music from somewhere: a low bass and a steadily building beat.

Without a word, Penny darted away from them, plunging down the stairs that circled the tower, leaving the other ponies to run after her.

And as she descended the stairs, Penny started to sing.

“Good morning, Sun,

No time to chat, I’ve gotta run,

Cause I’ve got places to be.

So much to do,

Excited, yes, and nervous too,

A change is starting with me!”

“Is this a song you know?” Blake asked.

“No, I think she’s extemporising” Rainbow said. “But we can still back her up when she gets to the chorus.”

“How will you know-”

“We’ll know,” Trust me,” Rainbow said. “I’ve got a good feeling about this.”

Penny had almost reached the bottom of the stairs, but paused just before that, before she plunged into the streets and the teeming mass of ponies moving along them.

“I used to worry about upsetting carts, hardened hearts,

I’d wonder ‘will I belong?’”

Penny dived into the crowd, darting nimbly between the moving ponies to leap up onto the edge of a fountain.

“I’ve heard it enough,

I’m calling their bluff,

I’ll never get lost in the grey!

There’s something inside,

Burns bigger than pride,

Shines out of me lighting the way!

Gonna be, gonna be, gonna be my day!”

“Be my day!” Rainbow echoed.

Blake stared at her, eyebrows rising.

“Gonna be, gonna be, gonna be my day!”

“Oh-oh-oh!” Rainbow and Twilight chorused, bringing their heads together as though they were both singing into the same microphone.

“Gonna be, gonna be, gonna be my day!”

There was a crack and a flash of lavender light as Twilight teleported herself, Blake, and Rainbow Dash onto the sides of the fountain to join Penny.

At this point, Blake decided that she’d probably have more fun joining in than wondering what was going on, and so added her voice to the others for, “Be my day!”

In fact, no sooner had she joined in than Blake found herself … seized by something, possessed by a sudden force, because no sooner had the chorus ended than it was not Penny who continued to sing, but rather, Blake herself.

The whole world seemed to go dark around her, as though night had suddenly descended and only a single spot of light remained, illuminating Blake herself as she sang.

“Everyone’s afraid,

Always judgin’, never budgin’,

Ain’t it time we made,

The team, the dream,

Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh ooooh!”

Penny took over once again as light returned to the world.

“Let’s cross a new aisle,

Let’s flash a new smile,

Let’s sparkle right out of the grey,

We’ll open our eyes,

Sun starting to rise,

And finally able to say:”

And this time, every pony around them, every pony who had been going about their business a moment ago, joined in as they thronged about them.

“Gonna be, gonna be, gonna be my day,

Gonna be my day,

Gonna be, gonna be, gonna be my day,

Gonna be my day,

Gonna be, gonna be, gonna be my day,

Gonna be my day,

Gonna be my day,

Be my day!”

And then … it was over. The music stopped and every pony resumed what they were doing as though it hadn’t happened.

“That … that did really just happen, didn’t it?” Blake asked.

“Yep,” Twilight confirmed. “It just … it just comes over you sometimes. It’s a lot of fun, isn’t it?”

“That was amazing!” Penny cried. “Can we do it again?”

“Unfortunately, it doesn’t work like that,” Twilight said. “It happens when it happens, and you can’t force it. To be honest, I feel like it’s been happening to me less and less, which is … a little disappointing.”

Canterlot was not a perfect city, as Blake observed as the tour continued; it was beautiful to look at, but it also became clear that it was a city home to no small amount of snobbery and classism: ponies in old-fashioned gowns with puffy shoulders, or else with frock coats and tall hats, sneered at the ponies who were less well-attired — who were, presumably, less well-off as they were less well-dressed — as they went by. That was not good, obviously, but at the same time, Blake took hope from the fact that those doing the sneering were unicorns, earth ponies, and pegasi, while those being sneered at were likewise unicorns, earth ponies, and pegasi.

Twilight must have picked up on what Blake was thinking, because she launched into a story about the Rarity of this world and how she had once been forced by circumstances to pass herself off as a Canterlot socialite, for fear that being known to have originated in Ponyville would have been the social ruin of her, unicorn or no.

“What about after?” Blake asked. “I mean, the truth came out eventually, didn’t it?”

“Yes,” Twilight admitted. “But Rarity just opened her boutique here in Canterlot — Rarity For You; we’re going to stop there to pick her up before lunch — and business is booming, so I think that she’s doing okay, Ponyville or not.”

Rainbow’s eyes widened. “Rarity just opened a boutique?”

“Her second actually; she already had one in Ponyville,” Twilight said.

“Rarity has two boutiques!” Rainbow cried. “Okay, how old are you? How are you so much more accomplished than us, and come to think of it, how come Sunset is younger than me when she was Princess Celestia’s student before you?”

“Remember, they aren’t human,” Blake pointed out. “It’s quite possible that they age and mature at a different rate to us.”

“Yes, I’m sure that’s it,” Twilight said, and very pointedly did not answer any question about her age.

Canterlot may not have been the perfect paradise free of vice that Sunset had said, it may not have been completely free from war or conflict as Sunset had said, but it was certainly a peaceful city, the most peaceful place that Blake had ever known. Even in Vale, which was not exactly a city of war, you could never quite forget that you were sitting in a fortress of light and life, and of course, for the last semester, the skyline had been taken up by the cruisers of General Ironwood’s fleet, the same kind of ships which dominated the skyline of Atlas in the exact same way. Even in Mistral, where Blake had spent a little time before Adam had been assigned to lead the Vale chapter, she could see people carrying weapons out on the streets, there were job boards where huntsmen could get work, and of course, the city walls that kept the grimm at bay.

There was none of that here. No pony went armed, not even the guards in their gilded armour — and they were few in number at any rate, compared to the number of other ponies on the streets. There was no wall, no gate, no airships armed for battle. This was not a city that was enjoying peace but prepared for war; this was a city that knew true peace — if only twenty-two twenty-sixths of the time.

Blake was, quite frankly, envious.

And yet, at the same time, she felt invigorated. It was not just a dream, what she and Weiss and Rainbow Dash had talked about. It was real, it existed, it was right here before their eyes, and if it existed here, then it could be built in Remnant too, could it not?

They were the same people, after all; the same names, the same eyes, the same hair … the same souls too, perhaps. It seemed that there were connections between them stretching across space. Why, then, could they not achieve all that their counterparts had achieved? Maybe not the peace — that was more difficult with Salem around — but the equality? The harmony between races?

Why should they suffer while their counterparts were blessed?

They met up with some of Twilight’s friends for lunch outside of Rarity For You, the Canterlot boutique owned by the pony Rarity. Amongst those friends was the other Rainbow Dash, the pony Rainbow Dash of this world, who jumped a little at the sight of her other self.

“Twilight! You didn’t tell me that the other me was going to be coming!” cried Pony Rainbow Dash.

“It was kind of a last-second impulse decision,” said Rainbow.

Pony Rainbow chuckled. “That does kind of sound like me.”

“It sure does,” said Applejack.

Pony Rainbow blinked. “So … if we touch, will it end the world?”

“No!” Twilight said firmly. “Why do you both think that?”

They retired to a nice restaurant, where Twilight and her friends told the story of how they had all met up in this world.

“Princess Celestia had asked me to supervise the preparations for the Summer Sun Celebration,” Twilight explained.

“What’s the Summer Sun Celebration?” asked Penny eagerly.

“It’s a festival held every year to celebrate Princess Celestia,” Twilight said. “Ponies celebrate all night, and then at dawn, the sun and moon briefly share the same sky as Princess L— well, at the time this happened, Princess Celestia lowered the moon and raised the sun up into the sky.”

“'Raised the sun'?” Rainbow said. “'Lowered the moon'?”

“Did Sunset not tell you that Princess Celestia raises the sun each morning?” Twilight asked.

“No,” Rainbow said. “No, she didn’t.”

“Oh,” Twilight murmured. “Well, she does.”

Rainbow blinked. “Huh. This really is a magical place, isn’t it?”

Twilight smiled. “Anyway, the focus of the celebration is always where Princess Celestia herself is, and anypony there can watch her rise into the sky, silhouetted against the sun as she raises it to its zenith. And I was charged by the princess to supervise the preparations, which just so happened to include each of my friends — except for Pinkie Pie.”

“Although I was the first to meet Twilight,” said Pinkie. “We got off to a great start.”

“I said ‘hello,’ and you gasped at me and ran away,” Twilight reminded her.

“To throw you a really awesome party!” Pinkie insisted.

“Ah believe Ah was the next one you met,” Applejack declared. “And we saw you nice and well fed, didn’t we?”

“You certainly did,” Twilight agreed, rubbing her stomach reflexively. “And then it was Rainbow Dash, who was supposed to have cleared the sky ready for the ceremony.”

“I would have gotten around to it eventually,” Pony Rainbow said. “I was busy.”

“Busy napping?” Applejack suggested.

“Busy saving my strength,” Rainbow insisted. “But I cleared the whole sky in ten seconds flat, just like I told you I could, so why does it matter that I was taking my time getting to it?” She grinned. “I still remember the way your mane looked when I was done!”

“I remember that too, darling; I had to fix it,” Rarity murmured.

“Why don’t we tell them what happened after that?” Pony Rainbow suggested. “When we stopped Nightmare Moon?”

“No, let’s not get into that,” Twilight said quickly, with the same modesty that she had demonstrated in the throne room earlier.

After lunch, they watched an air show, in which the Pony Rainbow Dash was part of a team of stunt flyers, the Wonderbolts, dressed in flight suits of blue lycra emblazoned with flashes of yellow lightning. The event was not particularly well attended, at least it didn’t seem to be so, but Twilight explained that ponies valued one another’s personal space, and so, they didn’t pack in crowds as tightly as might have been the case.

Blake wasn’t sure if she was just saying that to cover up the fact that there weren’t many ponies here to watch the show.

Regardless, there should have been more ponies here to watch the show, since it was a spectacular sight to see the ponies soaring through the sky not only with speed, but with grace too, swooping and diving through hoops that seemed to be made of cloud, cloud that was not disturbed at all by the beating of their wings. As they watched, Blake noticed Rainbow Dash leaning forwards more and more, her magenta eyes growing wider and wider, flickering back and forth as she muttered under her breath.

“Are you—?” Blake began, but Rainbow held up one hoof for quiet.

Once the show was concluded, they retired to Twilight’s old room, a somewhat dusty place with a great many books, where Twilight showed Penny some more magic — which ended up just watching Penny move things around the room, taking glee in every act of telekinesis that she performed.

It was like … it was like watching a child learn to walk, and no less charming.

The sun set with abrupt speed, descending from its zenith to out of sight in mere moments — Blake supposed that made sense, if it was being lowered by Princess Celestia, but at the same, it was no less disconcerting to witness. It was like one of those old myths that suggested the sun was being pulled across the sky by a celestial charioteer, but even they had had the grace to imply that it took said charioteer a whole day to move the thing. What Princess Celestia had done was more akin to flicking a light switch, although perhaps it had taken more effort from her perspective.

In any case, it was the signal that their day was over, and the time had come for them to leave.

And so, they returned to the room in which they had first emerged into this world, the room with the mirror and all its attendant magical equipment.

As she levitated the book into its place above the mirror, and as all the tanks and tubes and everything else began to pulse and vibrate with magical energy, Twilight turned to the three of them and said, “Have you had a good time today?”

“Absolutely!” Penny cried. “I only wish that it could have gone on longer.”

Twilight smiled. “Rainbow Dash?”

“Hmm?” Rainbow said. “Yeah, it’s been great! That display of flying … the other me has some serious skills.”

“She’ll be very happy to hear that.”

“No, she won’t,” Rainbow said. “She already knows that she’s got skills.”

Twilight chuckled. “That’s very true. Blake?”

“I still have one question,” Blake murmured. “How did you do all this? How did you make this world so … so…”

“Harmonious?” Twilight guessed.

“Yes, exactly,” Blake declared. “Was it always like this?”

“Oh, no,” Twilight replied. “In fact, there was a time in our history when the three tribes of ponies were bitterly divided by hatred.”

“I’m finding that a little hard to believe,” Blake said.

“But it’s true all the same,” Twilight insisted. “In fact, the reason why our ancestors came into Equestria—”

“They didn’t always live here?” asked Rainbow Dash.

“No, they migrated here,” Twilight informed her, “after their old home was frozen over by the windigos, forces of nature empowered by hatred and conflict. That’s how bad things were in the past; the three tribes literally destroyed their world because they couldn’t live with one another.”

“Then what changed?” Blake demanded. “What led you from that to this?”

Twilight said, “The story goes that the leaders of the three tribes, accompanied by their faithful lieutenants, went on ahead to scout for new homes for their people. That journey led them to Equestria, a green and fertile land which each tribe claimed for their own. That renewed conflict brought the windigos after them, but as they huddled in a cave for warmth and a little protection, the three lieutenants were able to bond with one another over their shared experiences. And as the ice closed in around them, they declared that no matter what happened next, they were glad to have met one another. That bond, that spark of friendship, ignited a fire that drove away the windigos and was the first step towards unity between all three tribes.”

Blake frowned a little. “That really happened?”

“Do you think that Twilight Sparkle would lie to you?”

Twilight gasped. “Princess Celestia!”

Celestia. Blake turned to look upon Equestria's princess and Sunset's teacher, and she stopped. She stared in awe. Princess Celestia's coat was shimmering samite, which glowed more brilliantly than the gold and amethyst-set necklace clasped about her throat or the gilded slippers set upon her hooves. Her hair, a myriad of complementing colours, flowed behind her like a great river. Her flank bore the mark of the sun, and in the Equestrian night, she was the sun, she shone so brightly on this balcony. She did not give light; rather, she almost was the light, and Blake could not look away though she be blinded by it. Majesty radiated from her like aura, and wisdom lay within the depths of her eyes. How could Sunset have ever borne to be parted from such, Blake wondered? But of course, the sundering was not by Sunset's own choice, in which case, Blake did not and could not blame her for wishing to put as much distance — a world's distance — between them.

She bowed her head. "Princess Celestia."

Princess Celestia chuckled. “You have no need to bow to me; I am not your princess, after all.” She paused. “Rainbow Dash, I am surprised to see you here.”

Rainbow coughed. “I … I’m not the Rainbow Dash that you know, Princess.”

Princess Celestia’s mouth opened slightly. “Oh! Oh, I see. You have also come from Remnant! Forgive me; I thought there would only be two of you.”

“That … was the plan,” Rainbow murmured.

Princess Celestia laughed. “Well, never mind that now. Have you enjoyed your visit to our land? Have you found what you were looking for?”

“I … I’ve found something, Princess,” Rainbow murmured. “I don’t know if it was what I was looking for, but I’ve found it.”

“I might have,” Blake said. “I didn’t mean to accuse you of lying, Twilight, but that story … it sounds like the sort of story that might be told by mythmakers looking to create a history.”

“And yet it is as true as we stand here,” Princess Celestia told her.

“Then it is a pity that there are no windigos in Remnant to impose cooperation,” said Blake softly.

“I would not wish for any additional monsters in your world,” Princess Celestia said. “It seems that you have enough already.”

“That’s true,” Rainbow muttered.

“And yet it hasn’t brought us any closer together,” Blake said.

“The Hearthswarming was the beginning of the story, not the end,” Princess Celestia informed. “To make Equestria the land we live in now, to bring about the harmony in which my little ponies live, that was the work of many hooves, over many generations. And yet it all began with the friendship of three ponies, and that, I find, is a very encouraging thing.”

Blake glanced across at Rainbow Dash and thought about Twilight and their other friends back in Atlas, and about Weiss Schnee. “Yes,” she whispered. “Yes, it is. Thank you, Princess. Thank you, Twilight, for letting us come here.”

“Yes, thank you so much,” Penny added.

“Who knows?” Twilight asked. “Maybe we’ll see each other again someday?”

“I hope so,” Penny replied.

Nevertheless, for the moment, they all turned away and faced the magic mirror. They lined up facing it, their reflections visible in the glass.

And then, as one, they plunged through.

Once more, the lights swirled around them; once more, Blake felt herself pulled inexorably onwards through the tunnel, spinning round and round until she staggered out, with Penny and Rainbow on either side of her.

Clothed and faunus once again.

The sky was dark. The moon was up. And two women stood in front of them, one of them bearing in hair and eyes a striking resemblance to the Princess Celestia they had just left behind.

“Principal Celestia, Vice Principal Luna,” Rainbow said. “Um, I can—”

“So,” Principal Celestia said, folding her arms. “How was Equestria?”

Author's Note:

Rewrite notes: The fact that Sun is no longer in this chapter, but Penny and Rainbow Dash are, necessitated a complete rewrite of this chapter, about the only thing that has really stayed the same was that Pony!Blake is marrying Pony!Adam. Everything else is pretty new.

This chapter... is a lot less heavy than it was in the original, there's less important or portentous things discussed, whether that's good or bad I can't say, but it's mainly a function that the characters are not as down on themselves as they were before.

Comments

[Nightsclaw]

An interesting chapter, it was good to find out a little more about what is going on and seeing the other side of the mirror.

[Anachronon]

"If you want to fight the good fight, there is no better place than under Professor Ozpin's auspices," Luna said. "The battle remains the same, but Ozpin fights the battles that really matter, and holds the lines that must be held. But take care; there is a difference between being his warrior and being under his power. The former will give you purpose, the latter will...it will not be pleasant."

And that’s a good reason why Sunset has every right to be suspicious of him and his closer allies. They all think he knows better than everybody else how one can “serve the good fight”, though at the same time, if he deems it necessary, you may very well end up in a position you never wanted to be before it all started. Some may call it “duty”, others “fate”, but fate is poisonous, you let other people or “higher powers” decide what will happen to you and your life. Luna wanted to see the world, now she is stuck in Canterlot, a living target of a shadow war between “good” and “evil”.

Sunset believes in destiny. You can decide on your own how to shape your life, and nobody and nothing can take these choices, the free will, away from you. You can work for your goal and eventually achieve it, because of hard work and true dedication.

I think it is bittersweet for Blake to know that there is another world where she and Adam never had to endure a cruel life, as Celestia mentioned, most ponies seem to take their peace for granted. Meanwhile she lost Adam to his own madness and to what Remnant had made him.

[Mastermind4892]

This... was so beautiful. A magnificent gem in this wonderful story. So warm and heartfelt for Blake in the land of magic and harmony. Well done!

i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/413/624/8eb.jpg

[Dark Feather]

Principal Celestia and Vice Principal Luna watched as Rainbow Dawn's plane flew away, bearing her two companions returned from Equestria away within it.

Wait!! Rainbow DAWN stole Rainbow DASH plane!

Hehe, jokes aside, I'm glade that you showed that Equestria is not perfect. It would have been easy to do so unintentionaly.
Good chapter and looking farward to more.

[Curtis Wildcat]

What would Weiss do if all the grimm in Remnant were suddenly to disappear in a snap?

In which case, she'd be feeling a lot better than they were.

...Okay, that was in poor taste. Sorry. ()^_^

[RolkFlameraven]

Crap, Luna is going is going to be the end goal now, isn't she?

That is three of the four now known after all.

[HowMuchWood]

This was so heartwarming. I can feel Blake really needed this trip.

[WanderingPony]

Now I wonder what happens if a Maiden is exiled, rather than....ruder methods of defeat. If you tossed Vice Principal Luna through the portal, would the mantle follow?

[lordelliott]

I think when the crew learns about the "problems" sent over, Equestria will be convinced to get involved, one way or another. It's good that Vice Principal Luna is wrong about them sending all their foes over, or Remnant would probably just be Tirek's domain.

I'm also wondering if the gods will take renewed interest in either place. They might not like the cross-contamination of experiments getting to the point that they notice. Or maybe they'll see friendship like the guy that discovered penicillin, mold that fell onto another plate and happened to be useful.

[Shalifi]

Interesting chapter. I like the visit to Equestria. A part of me was thinking Blake/Sunset might be a thing. Still might be I suppose. Not sure. Great story.
As far as Sunset's Semblance goes I could see her getting eventually an evolved form of it. Precognition for example so she can predict her enemies actions.

[Boltstrike58]

I was kinda hoping Blake would turn into a creature like Capper, but this works too.

[Purple Pony]

Celestia placed a hand on Luke's shoulder. "If the maidens powers are not to fall into the hands of evil then they must be held, and there is no one worthier or better suited to hold the mantle of winter than you."

Holy spellcheck error!

[howelll]

I really would like to see Oz's reaction to Blake retelling what she learned in Equestria. Two goddesses told the brother gods to gtfo, installed themselves as immortal absolute rulers (taking away some choice in the process) and created a near utopia. There are so many parallels between that and Salem it has to be intentional. Also greatly enjoyed the showing of the faults in both societies: ponies banishing a problem not dealing with it, and the discontent about Oz from his underlings/pawns (depending how you see them). You well show that there is no absolute good/best, everything is imperfect grays. Keep up the good work.

[Mastermind4892]

Again, I can't help but wonder if Summer Rose is alive in Equestria.

And I'll bet that Equestrian Ozpin is living a simple life because he was never 'called' by Ozma.

9650883
I'm actually waiting to hear Sunset's reaction when Blake tells her about what Luna told her.

[Crystonian]

Huh, I espected Blake to be an abyssinian

[ButtonMash]

Ah, some major deviations between this and the canon. The climax of an arc is altered by the fact you’ve put the maiden’s power elsewhere. I wonder where else to look for interference.

[Corascal]

“It wasn’t actually something I noticed from day to day,” Twilight said. “I mean, it wasn’t like I was sharing it with woodlice or anything else. It wasn’t like living in the nasty, cold, draughty, jagged edges inside of a tree, no, this was a pony house, and that means comfort. It just so happened to be a home carved out of a hollow tree. But it still had walls and bookshelves and a cellar and an upper floor and a balcony where I could stargaze with my telescope.”

This is either a brilliant homage to Tolkien's The Hobbit, or a blatant ripoff.

I'm leaning toward the former.

“Compared to what Sunset has told me about Remnant, I’d say that’s not wholly unfair,” Twilight said, only a little defensively. “But it isn’t entirely true, either. I would say that Equestria is perfectly calm and peaceful … twenty-two twenty-sixths of the time.”

HA!

Great chapter!

[Lancerguy]

“It wasn’t actually something I noticed from day to day,” Twilight said. “I mean, it wasn’t like I was sharing it with woodlice or anything else. It wasn’t like living in the nasty, cold, draughty, jagged edges inside of a tree, no, this was a pony house, and that means comfort.

I mean, given how the story went and was supposed to keep going this is not an inappropriate comparison

“Compared to what Sunset has told me about Remnant, I’d say that’s not wholly unfair,” Twilight said, only a little defensively. “But it isn’t entirely true, either. I would say that Equestria is perfectly calm and peaceful … twenty-two twenty-sixths of the time.”

She would (although being Twilight she would probably simplify to 11/13) but I still obligated to say stop it Twilight, that's Pinkie's turf

All in all, great rewritten chapter and great song for Penny. The only disappointment is that Blake was not an earth pony, since that would have given each of the tribes representation in this chapter

[Aemon Targaryen]

“Rarity has two boutiques!” Rainbow cried. “Okay, how old are you? How are you so much more accomplished than us, and come to think of it, how come Sunset is younger than me when she was Princess Celestia’s student before you?”

I really hope than it's due to Sunset being made younger and therefore would actually had been like 7 years older if she had her proper age when on Remnant.

“Then it is a pity that there are no windigos in Remnant to impose cooperation,” said Blake softly.

Frankly it's more than the humans are more stupid and viles, so they didn't united either between themselves or/and alongside the Faunus.

Seriously, Windigos and Grimms really are similar.

[Mastermind4892]

This was definitely lighter and more heartfelt than the original! Well done!

I'm delighted that Rainbow Dash of Remnant also found her way to Equestria. There are a number of things she can learn here. For example, she's the only one of the visiting trio who got to meet her counterpart, which can always work wonders for character development. For example, her Equestrian counterpart is (obviously) more relaxed and even less disciplined. It's amazing to see her counterpart doesn't have to worry about the Grimm and other things, but she can also see her own flaws reflected in Equestrian RD who is considerably more laid back and doesn't take things even half as seriously as she does. This concerns many of the things Sunset criticized her for back at Mt. Glenn. She had to grow up and mature faster on Remnant than in Equestria.

On a brighter note, Rainbow Dash likely had her mind blown to hear that Daring Do is real, and therefore is likely real in Remnant as well.

My only question for this chapter is the removal of Princess Luna originally revealing that she and her sister stood against the Brother Gods. Is this something I should no longer consider 'canon' to SAPR?

[Mastermind4892]

11291061
No, there's still substantial progress despite all the road bumps. A common goal can unite the most unlikely of allies, but a common enemy can unite a great deal more. The real problem is that Salem has waited for the four kingdoms to become too lax and not take the Grimm as seriously anymore. This is why the Breach has shocked the world so much.

As for the Faunus, to play the devil's advocate, the Remnant Lore videos point the origins out pretty clearly.

"Early man was scared to death of the Faunus. And honestly, it's not too hard to sympathize with that. Seeing something that looks like you and acts like you walk out of the forest and reveal a pair of Grimm-like fangs can be a little... upsetting."

It also reveals that everything changed during the Battle of Sanus, where everyone only survived because humans and faunus fought the grimm side-by-side. It didn't fix everything, but it was a step in the right direction.

[Cody MacArthur Fett]

11291713
I hasn't been canon since before the rewrite started. Every time it's been brought up I've reminded people of that. Now that it's no longer in the story I can definitively say, "Forget about it."

[New Rebellion]

“Anyway, once Ruby’s done with him, then we’re going to go out and do … something. I owe her some time.”

You're damn right you do! Sunset has got to be the most absentee partner ever! She spends more time with Pyrrha than her own actual partner.

[Lancerguy]

11292590
Have you met Blake?

[New Rebellion]

Although HIGHLY unlikely, I wish we could get the whole main cast of the story over to Equestria. I wonder how the various people/ponies would handle meeting their doubles?

Oh! Since this story is happening about midway through the MLP series, maybe such a thing could happen during the Storm King's attack? Give Equestria a taste of what REAL warriors can do, without having to resort to one-shotting the main villains with overpowered trinkets?

[Raul]

“Twilight?” Penny asked.

Didn’t she overhear this is a phone call a few chapters ago? When she was mad and Rainbow?

Rainbow took one more glance around, took a deep breath, and plunged headfirst into the portal

OH MY GOD YES! I AM HERE FOR THIS CHANGE! She got got robbed last go around!

“Yes, I’m sure that’s it,” Twilight said, and very pointedly did not answer any question about her age.

How fitting considering what I only happened to ask last chapter… alright, I’ll let that slide.

This chapter... is a lot less heavy than it was in the original, there's less important or portentous things discussed, whether that's good or bad I can't say, but it's mainly a function that the characters are not as down on themselves as they were before.

You know, that is fair, and i have mentioned for a while now that this was my old favorite chapter, but admittedly, a large part of that was Blake, and how central it was to her coping with everything.
I still very much enjoyed this, although my absolute dismay when towards the end you started to do more of the telling us what happened over showing us, which I know why you did it of course, but it is in sharp contrast to the rest of your story, and it really stood out that suddenly you were fast forwarding, which is honestly a shame, i was smiling this entire chapter just enjoying it considering how much hardship our characters go through, even if they weren’t absolutely depressed wrecks going into it this go around. I woulda enjoyed the trip to be more detailed.

[Luviere]

Hold up hold up. I have a feeling about this. Please don't let them get into magical shenanigans. I don't want them to fight Chrysalis, i don't want them to fight Sombra or some other villain. I want them to have a nice relaxing visit. they deserve it. Please let it be so. They DESERVE IT.

[Lamplighter]

“It wasn’t actually something I noticed from day to day,” Twilight said. “I mean, it wasn’t like I was sharing it with woodlice or anything else. It wasn’t like living in the nasty, cold, draughty, jagged edges inside of a tree, no, this was a pony house, and that means comfort. It just so happened to be a home carved out of a hollow tree. But it still had walls and bookshelves and a cellar and an upper floor and a balcony where I could stargaze with my telescope.”

You're Bilbo Baggins is showing.