It Was Just Supposed To Be Lunch

by FanOfMostEverything

Chapter 5 — Silver Needle

It was not every day that the Princess chose to honour a restaurant with her presence. Shocked whispers and gasps of awe flew around the room as she entered, accompanied by the sound of somepony dropping their cutlery in surprise. Foals craned their necks to stare, many older ponies did the same. For her part, Princess Celestia handled the attention with the poise and grace of a professional. She smiled at them as she drifted past, long enough for them to feel the genuine care she felt for her subjects, brief enough for them to understand that she had business to attend to, that she was not here for them. It was a skill she had practised for hundreds of years, a balancing act of compassion and profession that simultaneously drew ponies towards her while also setting herself out of their reach.

The effect was lost slightly when she caught sight of Luna and promptly tripped over a table leg.

“S-sister?” The royal crown came dangerously close to falling from its perch as Celestia reeled in shock. “What- what’s happened to your wings?”

“Mine wings are fine,” Luna stated, before giving a rather pointed look at Sunset. “They hath simply been… misplaced.”

Celestia for the first time seemed to notice the others gathered there. Her widening eyes drifted across the group of mismatched ponies, some comprehension dawning within as she reached both of the Twilight Sparkles.

“I think,” she said, taking a deep breath, “That you had better start from the beginning.”

The two Twilights started to talk together, explaining to the princess what had happened with the portal mishap, resulting in the mixed-up ponies currently sitting before her. Every now and then, Sunset and Luna would chime in with an addition, resulting in a chronologically upended explanation which made less and less sense the more was said. Luckily the Princess seemed to be able to follow the general gist of it.

“Well, I’m sorry that I can’t offer any immediate help but I’m afraid I’ve never encountered anything like this,” The monarch confessed, as she tended to a slice of cake. “The situation is unprecedented to say the least. The mirror connecting our two worlds is a very powerful magical artefact as you well know, and although I had no hoof in its design, Starswirl assured me that above all else, it was built to be stable.”

The wingless Rainbow Dash snickered at this, whispering something about a ‘horse pun’ to the purple-horned Pinkie Pie next to her. One of the Twilights rolled her eyes.

“What do you mean by that, Princess?” the other Twilight asked.

“The safety of those who looked into the mirror, and those who travelled through it, was always the priority during its design. Starswirl wouldn’t let anypony else touch it until he was absolutely certain it was perfectly secure. Not even me.”

“I remember that,” Luna snorted. “He denied me access no matter how much I asked.”

“Suffice to say,” Celestia concluded, “Your current… state cannot be attributed to any simple fault with the magical workings of the portal. Some other force is at play here. Something more sinister than an inconvenient mishap. Though I hate to raise the suggestion after all of the improvements he has shown of late, Discord-”

“Ah, I was just about to get to that,” the wingless Twilight interrupted. “That was our first thought too, actually. It seemed enough like his hoofdiwork that it was worth a shot. But when we asked, he said that it had nothing to do with him. He couldn’t even fix our mixed up parts when he tried.”

“Is it really all that bad anyway?” Rarity asked, flexing her cyan wings experimentally. “Of course, we all look a little out of place, but it’s nothing that couldn’t be hidden with a brief shopping trip to purchase a small cloak or hat. If I’m completely honest, I feel like I could do with more clothes in general actually.”

The rest of the human-turned-ponies made murmuring noises of assent, but the princess frowned and shook her head, sending ripples through her flowing mane.

“Though I may not have any prior experience with your current condition, It is certainly not a matter which we can afford to hesitate on. The swapping of horns and wings is more worrisome than it initially appears. As anyone who has studied the transplanting of equimagical superanatomy would know-”

“Oh feathers,” Pony-Twilight said, turning pale. “Magical nerve fusion.”

“Precisely,” Celestia gravely replied. “Your time is limited, if you ever wish to return to normal.”

There was a moment of silence.

“And for those few of us who haven’t happened to have studied… magical anatomy?” Rarity asked.

“Oh, yes, sorry.” Pony-Twilight had the decency to look embarrassed. “Um… simply put, unless we do something about our situation very soon, then the magic in each of our respective pony-parts is going to become entangled with the magic in the body of the pony they’re on.”

“And that’s… a bad thing?” Applejack asked, cocking her head. A few sparks flew from her white horn.

“Yes. That’s a very bad thing.” Twilight bit her lip. “At best, we all become permanently stuck like this. At worst… violent internal magical rejection.”

Luna and Celestia winced. The rest of the assembled group decided it would be better not to ask for further elaboration.

“Well this is just great,” Sunset groaned, her recently acquired large dusky wings flapping in distress. “We still have zero leads on how we got like this, and now there’s a time limit we have to worry about too?”

“I am truly sorry.” Princess Celestia bowed her head. “But as I said before, this situation is unlike any I have seen before.”

She got to her hooves. “I will search the royal archives myself. The journey is too long, and your time too short for all of you to accompany me.”

“W-wait, so what are we all meant to do then?” the yellow winged Twilight asked. “We’ve got nothing to go on regarding the cause of our current morphological-mixup, but you surely can’t expect us to just sit around and wait?”

“No, that would be a poor use of time.” Princess Celestia was already halfway to the door, but she turned to give them some final words. “It is not out of the question that your condition can be fixed in a different manner to that by which it was caused. While traditional magic certainly holds no answers as far as I am aware, there exist other avenues that you could pursue. The more medicinal side of magic was always more studied by the zebra than our own healers. I seem to recall you mentioning a zebra who resided in the local area in one of your earlier letters, Twilight? Perhaps it would be worth a visit.”

And then she was off.

Rainbow sighed in relief. “I still can’t get over how she sounds exactly like the Principle but looks like a swan.”

“To seek out the aid of a zebra…” Luna mused. “Not a bad idea, certainly. And yet… I cannot shake the idea that chaos magic was involved somehow.”

She turned to look at Fluttershy, who shrank under the attention. “Do you believe that Discord was telling the truth?”

“Uh-um. I’ve… I’ve never seen him before, Miss. I mean- ah- y-your majesty, um. Princess.”

“Regardless, I would welcome your opinion. Though you may not be the Fluttershy of our world, I have no doubt that you share her insight when it comes to seeing directly to the heart of chaos.”

“T-thank you?” Fluttershy would have been hiding behind her wings had she possessed them. As it was, she had to settle for sinking further under the table. “He didn’t… look like he was lying? I-in fact, he seemed more scared than anything else. Um, in my opinion, at least.”

“Discord, scared?” Luna’s brow furrowed, deep in thought. “That old goat isn’t truly scared of anything. He sees life as a joke, and its inhabitants as passing amusements.”

“He was a weird one, that’s for sure.” Rainbow Dash shivered. “Never seen anything like him before. If he’s all chaos-y, maybe he’s afraid of science? I know I am. I mean, with the results I got last midterm-”

“Rainbow, no one could be afraid of science,” the glasses-wearing Twilight scoffed. “Or if they are, they just don’t understand how wonderful it truly is-”

Luna suddenly wheeled on Rainbow, making everypony jump, and sending the blue pegasus under the table to join Fluttershy in hiding.

“What was it thou just said?!”

“Um.” Came the reply from beneath them. “My midterm results?”

“No, before that.”

“Oh er…” Rainbow’s head poked out. “That Discord dude was well freaky. And that… I’d never seen something like that before?”

“Never?” Luna echoed. She turned to look at the assembled group of human-turned-ponies. “Forgive me, my familiarity with thy realm is few and far between, but I was under the impression that for everypony on this side of the mirror, there was a counterpart on the other?”

Sunset piped up. “That’s the case from what I’ve seen.”

“And yet you have never once seen a single soul who even resembles Discord?”

Silence fell on the group, wordlessly answering her question.

“He’s scared of nothing…” Twilight whispered.

“So what could ever truly frighten him, save for himself?” Luna finished.

Author's Note:

Included below by author request are Silver's meticulous notes taken while putting this chapter together:

Comments

[Speckle]

Dun dun DUN!

(I LOVE that sketch at the end )

[Uz Naimat]

Spike and un-misplaced Fluttershy in the sketch made my day more than anything. Spike’s face is pure gold.

[Dashie04]

“Oh feathers,” Pony-Twilight said, turning pale. “Magical nerve fusion.”

Me trying to write a lighthearted comedy:

The exquisite corpse:

“He was a weird one, that’s for sure.” Rainbow Dash shivered. “Never seen anything like him before. If he’s all chaos-y, maybe he’s afraid of science? I know I am. I mean, with the results I got last midterm-”

Me too, human!RD

And thank you for including SilverNeedle’s notes, they are essential to the understanding of this story.