Earth to Twilight

by terrycloth

Chapter 1: A Modest Proposal

Twilight Sparkle stood before Princess Celestia in chains, her hooves weighted down, the hammer of a clockwork inhibitor wobbling above her horn. To one side, Princess Luna looked away from Twilight, refusing to speak up and protest her innocence. To the other, Pinkie Pie was busy making out with Shining Armor, and didn’t seem to notice that Twilight was in trouble. The rest of her friends were absent – it was just her and Celestia, and Celestia was not amused.

“Twilight Sparkle,” Celestia intoned, in a grim voice. “For crimes against ponykind – the possession of weapons of mass destruction, the attempted muder of myself and everypony in Canterlot and Manehattan, and the use of the want-it-need-it spell to steal the will of more than one hundred ponies – you are hereby sentenced to the three most severe punishments available under Equestrian law. You are to be banished from Equestria, placed into a dungeon to guard against your return, and turned to stone in order to secure your dangerous and uncontrollable magical powers. Does the rest of the tribunal concur?”

Luna sighed heavily, while her bat-winged guards shuffled their hooves – as guilty as Twilight, but they hadn’t been caught. “Far be it from me to interfere with the punishment of your faithful student.”

“Huh?” Pinkie Pie said, prying herself away from Twilight’s brother as she realized Celestia was looking at her. “I wasn’t paying attention. Can you start over from ‘order in the court’?”

“Pinkie!” Twilight protested. “You’re going to make Rainbow Dash miss her cue! She’s supposed to rush in and blast me with the Elements of…”

Twilight Sparkle sat up in bed, clutching the covers to herself tightly with her hooves, her hindlegs tightly bound by her own tossing and turning during the night. “Harmony…” she muttered, blinking as she recognized her surroundings. She was back in Ponyville, back in her library, and that horrible nightmare was just that. Celestia had never ordered her banished and imprisoned and turned to stone.

Concentrating on what had become one of her signature spells, Twilight completely failed to teleport anywhere, or indeed summon any magical power at all. She sighed. She’d hoped that maybe all of it had been a dream, but no such luck. Celestia had never pronounced her sentence, because just as she was about to, Rainbow Dash had run in with the reformed Elements of Harmony and blasted Twilight with a full-power rainbow of light.

Turning her into an earth pony.

On the plus side, her sentence had been commuted to 30 days house arrest in Canterlot Castle, followed by eternity as an earth pony. She’d been back in Ponyville for a week, now.

She wondered if she’d ever stop having that stupid nightmare.

===

The important thing was to be methodical. There was always a way to accomplish any task without her magic. Sometimes, it took extra time and effort, but she still had plenty of time for her studies, most days. Sometimes, all it took was the proper tools, and fortunately for her there were generations of earth ponies before her who’d invented all of the really *important* tools, like mugs with extra-large handles that a hoof could slip through, or soap on a rope so that you didn’t have to literally wash out your mouth when you were soaping up the scrub-brush-on-a-stick.

It would have been awful if she’d had to invent those tools herself – could you imagine? A unicorn turned earth pony who in a matter of mere months solved the problems they hadn’t even known they’d had? That would have been fatally embarrassing.

Worse, what if she hadn’t been able to invent them? Nopony had let her in on the secret of soap on a rope until she’d gotten back to Ponyville, which had meant a month at a castle built for unicorns and the occasional Princess, where the best solution they could come up with was for a maid to levitate the soap for her. She’d learned to tolerate the taste, instead.

And no, stubbornness was not an earth pony trait.

Sometimes, though, just getting help from her friends was really the best solution. It would have been nice if she still had any. Then maybe she wouldn’t be balanced precariously on top of this ladder, trying to toss the books from the high shelves onto the right stacks for their new category without knocking everything over. Balancing now on three legs, as she dropped the next book onto her hoof, gripping it as tightly as she could with her frog as she read the title.

“Amniomorphics, by Starswirl the Bearded. The abridged version.” Twilight Sparkle scowled, and tossed the book carefully onto the stack of ‘magic’ books – by far the largest of the stacks set out on the floor in the middle of the room. “Just because it was written in the pre-classical era doesn’t make it a classic,” she grumbled. “What was I thinking last time I re-shelved the library?”

“Is it really appropriate for a librarian to let her personal preferences determine the organization of her collection?” asked a voice from below. “After all, this is a public library, is it not?”

“It is, Trixie,” Twilight said. “But as long as the categories are well-labeled, and the librarian on duty is able to use them to quickly locate books on subjects requested by library patrons, the exact division of those sections has always been up to the discretion of the library staff.” She grabbed another book off the shelf, briefly savoring the taste of glue and paper, and tossed it onto the pile for ‘fiction, historical’. It landed with a gentle ‘paf’, despite the distance it had to fall, perfectly aligned with the tome below it.

Trixie raised an eyebrow appreciatively. “You’re getting good at that. Have you finally unlocked the mysterious secrets of the Earth Pony?”

“I was playing with books long before I ever learned to use magic,” Twilight said, with a chuckle. “This is just relearning some old habits.” She glanced at the remaining books on the shelf, and smiled to herself. “Watch this,” she said, sweeping them all off the shelf with her hoof, aiming for the ‘fiction, historical’ section that most of them belonged in. All except that one – she kicked out with a hind hoof to redirect the lone outlier…

Then her other rear hoof slipped, her remaining forehoof – only providing balance – scraped off the top of the ladder, and a desperate lunge with her teeth clacked together on thin air. “Eeeeep!” she squeaked, as she fell towards the piles of books…

Which were not soft, taken as individuals, but the collapse of the orderly piles she’d spent several hours building did act as a significant energy sink, protecting her from taking any serious injury, except to her pride. And her re-shelving project. She groaned from what was now a heap of books, and struggled to her feet, her good mood dispelled as if by magic.

Trixie was still staring at her, expectantly.

“Why didn’t you catch me?” Twilight asked, a bit snappishly. “I know you don’t have any real magical power, but you’re supposed to be clever. I can think of half a dozen ways you could have kept me from falling.”

Trixie blinked. “That wasn’t part of the trick? I thought perhaps you were branching out into comedy – Celestia knows Cherry Berry still hasn’t quite found her stride as the new Element of Laughter.”

“No,” Twilight groused. “It wasn’t. And now I have to start all over,” she added, looking around at the chaos in dismay.

“That’s what you get for being so haphazard about it,” Trixie replied, levitating a book out of the pile and glancing at its cover, which featured the sharp fangs and glowing blue eyes of a changeling. “It might go more smoothly if you tried to be a little more methodical.”

“Why are you here,” Twilight hissed. “I don’t have any more friends for you to steal—“

“That’s a shame,” Trixie said. “Applejack and Rarity are starting to wear on me, and I was hoping I could trade them in for somepony new.”

“If you’re here for Spike, he’s staying over at Rarity’s. Again,” Twilight replied. “Do you want a book? We have plenty of books!”

“Actually,” Trixie said, “this one looks –“

“No books for you!” Twilight said, leaping across the small gap between her and Trixie and knocking the book right out of the unicorn’s magic.

Trixie shook her head sadly. Patiently. Twilight had to consciously stop herself from grinding her teeth. “That isn’t the reason for this visit. I was asked to relay a message for you – somepony who wishes to remain anonymous wants to offer you a once in a lifetime deal,” Trixie said. “And I’m sorry if you think I’m stealing your friends, but it was under Celestia’s direct orders. After all, I’m the new Element of Magic, and you’re just a librarian now. Librarians don’t need friends.”

Twilight felt a familiar fire burning inside her, and imagined her mane and tail beginning to smoulder – and ran through an abbreviated version of one of the meditation exercises she’d been studying lately, as part of her attempt to unlock the elusive magic of the earth pony. It wasn’t that she believed she could actually burst into flames – despite Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, and Applejack’s testimony that she most certainly could – but she was standing on top of a huge mound of paper that, as Spike periodically demonstrated, had never been properly fireproofed. There was no sense taking chances.

“Nopony needs friends,” Twilight said, letting the calm thoughts flow through her. “And at the same time, everypony needs them. Celestia’s orders were to reform the elements without me, you were my brother’s choice to replace me. So it’s true that you had no choice but to make friends with them,” Twilight said. “You didn’t have to take them all on tour for a month while I was under house arrest in Canterlot. That was your choice.”

Trixie smirked. “The road calls, and the performer answers – choice has little to do with it. Still, we invited you to our parties once you were set free.”

“And I stopped showing up after seeing how unbearably awkward it was with me there,” Twilight said.

Trixie laughed, a long grating cackle. “But you haven’t seen how unbearably awkward it is without you.”

Twilight was taken a bit aback. Had she jumped to conclusions? Did her friends still hold some feelings for her? Well, okay, that was a silly question – of course they did. As individuals. It was only as a group that the chemistry was gone, and maybe that was just because they were missing Pinkie Pie, and not because Twilight was a failure as a student of friendship, and deserved to suffer in solitude for the rest of her natural life.

“But I did not come here to criticize your organizational skills or to speak of our… mutual friends,” Trixie said, levitating a small, cloth-wrapped package over to Twilight, who caught it in her mouth. “I was asked to give this to you, a present from a secret admirer, who has a proposition for you. I don’t know what exactly he intends to offer, but I can vouch for his… let’s just say, his access to unusual resources.”

Twilight narrowed her eyes suspiciously, then crossed them to try to look at the package in her mouth.

Trixie nodded her head, tipping her hat briefly with her magic. “And so I’m off. Good luck with the re-shelving!”

===

toNIghT at MIdNigHT…

The night was cold and dark. It was almost time for Spring, but in Equestria being ‘almost’ at the change of the season didn’t count for much. The snow and clouds would be cleared away in a single day of Winter Wrap Up, and until then winter was in full force. Twilight’s hooves crunched through the snow in a quick triple rhythm as she cantered along the road out of town, a plain grey cloak clinched tight around her body to hold in the warmth. The hood hung a little too low over her eyes – she’d bought the thing when she was a unicorn, and it was tailored for her missing horn – but it was the warmest thing she owned.

Not quite warm enough, thus the brisk pace. Twilight Sparkle’s eyes focused on the icy road before her, or what she could see of it in the dim glow of the firefly lantern she held in her mouth. Beyond the edge of its pale greenish glow, Equestria was swallowed into the sort of starless darkness that one only found in the country.

She kept imagining she saw movement out of the corner of her eyes, regardless – was that a glint of her lantern’s light off some nocturnal creature’s eyes? She didn’t let it unnerve her. Her pet owl’s eyes were better than hers, and she trusted him to warn her of any danger. Not that danger was likely – the Everfree Forest was close, but she was not in it, and Equestria was generally safe, even at night.

cOMe To tHe ToP Of tHe dAM…

She slowed as she came to the rocky, treacherous terrain near the hydro-thaumatic dam. Equestria was safe from monster attacks, not from the sort of misadventure one was likely to suffer running along the edge of a slippery cliff in the middle of a dark winter night. At any rate, it was a little warmer here, thanks to the dam’s emanations, and the glow of the magical transformers lit up the canyon beside her. The dam itself would be brightly lit – although the top, and her mysterious would-be benefactor, would remain in shadow.

aLoNE

Twilight paused as she reached the top of the path, staring into the darkness atop the dam, which was deeper than ever with her night vision now ruined by the transformers’ glow. “Whooo…” came a plaintive call from behind her, and a pair of taloned feet landed on her back.

“Thank you, Owlowiscious,” she said, in a bright cheerful voice entirely at odds with the surroundings. “I’m afraid I have to go the rest of the way alone. Stay nearby, though, if you will – I’ll probably want your company for the trip home after I meet with Trixie’s friend.”

“Who?” the owl asked.

“I guess I’m about to find out,” she said, trotting cautiously towards the darkened span. With a soft flutter of wings, her pet left to find a nearby perch, and wait. Or at least, she hoped he was waiting. Trixie may have vouched for her friend…

iF You eVEr WaNT to seE yOUr hORn AgaIN

… but what kind of pony wrote an invitation in the form of a ransom note, complete with cut-and-paste letters from newspaper clippings?

Twilight laughed out loud as she set foot on the slick stones of the dam itself. It was the sort of thing Pinkie Pie would have done, if she hadn’t gotten herself lost in the past.

A chittering noise seemed to echo her laugh from the darkness before her, and a dark shape swept past, barely illuminated by the glow from the transformers, too fast for her to make out. Twilight paused, looking behind her and seeing nothing, then quickly to the high-water side of the dam as a splash came from the reservoir. “Who’s there?” she asked.

There was a thump as something landed on the dam behind her, and without thinking she ran forwards into the darkness, stumbling and slipping on the icy stone and sliding along the surface for a few dozen feet, spinning around as she drifted until she looked directly into a pair of blue glowing eyes from the dark form following her. A hoof on the small of her back steadied her, and she leapt to her feet, glancing quickly back and forth between the two black-shelled, blue-eyed, insect-winged monsters hedging her in.

The changeling in front of her flashed with a brief green fire, turning into a copy of Pinkie Pie. “You should see the look on your face!” it said, in her voice.

The one behind her transformed into Applejack. “Relax, sugarcube. We were just havin’ a bit of fun.”

The fake Pinkie Pie giggled. “You’re tasty when you’re scared.”

“I’m not scared,” Twilight said, and realized it was true. Changelings might be insidious infiltrators, but they were physically weak, and a pair of drones was hardly a threat to anypony. The only thing that made the situation even slightly dangerous was the danger of accidentally falling off the dam. “I take it you’re Trixie’s ‘friends’? Who are you?”

“Hello?” Pinkie Pie said, waving a hoof in front of Twilight’s face. “Changeling.”

“That covers ‘what’,” Twilight said. “Do you have a name?”

“’Course we’ve got names,” ‘Applejack’ replied. “We’re not about to tell ‘em, though. Safer for everypony involved if we keep this discreet.”

“We already had to pull up stakes once this season after that stupid mess in Canterlot,” Pinkie Pie said, pouting. “If it wasn’t for Princess Pinkie Pie we’d still be rotting in Canterlot’s dungeons, if they’d hadn’t hoofed us over to the School For Gifted Vivisectionists.”

“Pinkie,” Applejack said. “She doesn’t need to know your life story.”

“Well, maybe I want her to know it!” Pinkie Pie snapped. “It was her stupid brother that decided on random changeling sweeps just in case his spell missed anypony from the hive. Here’s a hint,” she said, poking at Twilight with her hoof. “It didn’t. And yet, the dungeon filled up with changelings. Innocent changelings.”

“You couldn’t be completely innocent,” Twilight Sparkle said. “You had to have been impersonating somepony.”

“Nopony but ourselves,” Applejack replied. “Well, mostly just ourselves. No sense havin’ the power to change shapes if you don’t have a little fun with it.”

“And now we can’t go back, even if we wouldn’t be arrested,” Pinkie Pie said, sitting down and pouting. “Our friends and family – former friends and former family – know we’re fakes, and everypony thinks we’re monsters.”

“Wow,” Twilight said, eyes widening as she imagined that happening to her. “That’s terrible! Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Nah,” Applejack said. “It’ll all blow over on its own. That big kerfluffle with the Moon Cannon helped a lot already, got ponies’ minds off the ‘changeling threat’. And Princess Pinkie Pie let us out of prison, so there’s that. The way we figure it, you’ve helped us enough already, and now it’s our turn to help you.”

“Right,” Pinkie Pie said. “We can give you your horn back.”

Twilight blinked. “But that’s –“ she started. “You can’t – What –“ She took a deep breath, and focused on saying something coherent. “How?” she managed to ask.

With a quick sweep of green fire, the Pinkie Pie changeling transformed into a copy of Twilight herself, only as she used to be, horn and all. Her horn glowed faintly, and with a ‘pop’ a moustache appeared on Twilight’s face.

“You’re going to toss me into the freezing reservoir and replace me?” Twilight said, twitching her new whiskers.

“What?” the unicorn Twilight asked, indignant. “No!”

“We’re going to make you into an awesome changeling, just like us!” said Rainbow Dash’s voice from behind her – apparently, the other changeling had also shifted form. “Then you’ll be able to turn into a unicorn or a pegasus or stay as an earth pony, whatever you want!”

“There are other benefits, as well,” said the unicorn changeling, levitating a scroll with a bulleted list. “Night vision. The ability to sense emotion. Poisonous fangs for self-defense. Secretion of adhesive goo—“

“Ew,” Twilight said.

“It comes in handy more than you’d think,” the changeling with the list said, looking a bit insulted.

“Um, look,” Twilight Sparkle said, setting down the lantern. It wasn’t hard to talk around the handle, but it was making her lip sore. “Don’t think I don’t appreciate the offer, because I do! It’s touching, really.” She glanced between them. “But… ew. I don’t want to be a bug.”

“That’s the dumbest reason I’ve ever heard,” ‘Rainbow Dash’ snapped. “We’re not ‘bugs’.”

“Technically –“ began the Twilight changeling.

Twilight cut her off. “Also, this is a terrible time to be a changeling. And it’s not like I could hide it, not if I actually wanted to use magic. Green magic isn’t really very common among unicorns, and my own has always stayed in the purple-to-pink range.”

“Nopony will notice. Nopony ever notices,” Rainbow Dash said. “Not until they find out you were a changeling some other way.”

Twilight stared at the hovering list held up by her changeling duplicate. In the light of her firefly lantern, it almost looked like it was glowing green instead of – she took a deep breath, and focused. Green. It was glowing green, because it was being levitated by a changeling. “That’s kind of creepy.”

“But convenient,” the changeling Rainbow Dash said. “There’s one more thing you’d get out of joining us, though. Something you’ve been missing lately.”

“Uh huh,” Twilight Sparkle said, nosing under her cloak to get at her saddlebags. She’d already decided not to take them up on their offer, but that didn’t mean the night had to be a total loss.

“Friends!” said her doppleganger, ambushing her with a hug. Twilight froze, tensed up – it felt just like a pony hugging her. For pony’s sake, it even smelled like her. How had the changelings learned what she smelled like? “No hugs?” the changeling asked, a tingling sensation washing over Twilight Sparkle’s shoulder and neck as it morphed into Fluttershy. The list fluttered to the ground, forgotten.

“Now now, dear,” said the other, this time with Rarity’s voice. “Let’s not rush the poor thing. She may be the mare we’ve set our sights on, but she barely knows us – physical contact is a big step for some ponies.”

Twilight Sparkle put a hoof on Fluttershy’s chest – which felt just like Fluttershy’s chest – and pushed the changeling back a few steps. Its wings were folded tightly to its sides, just like Fluttershy’s would have been. She pulled her notepad out of her saddlebag, and tossed it onto her hoof, then ducked back in for something to write with. “Can you explain the conversion process?” she asked, around the pencil, as she jotted down some preliminary notes.

The two changelings looked at her suspiciously. “Do you actually have any intention of joining us, or are we just research subjects to you?” Rarity asked.

Twilight winced. “Well, I’m not going to dissect you,” she said, wedging the pencil into the spiral binding of the notepad so that she could talk more freely. “But I’m not sure what you expect me to say – I can’t just meet some strange… ponies out on the edge of town in the middle of the night and decide to throw my whole life away for a new one as a giant bug. I don’t even like bugs! I mean, I don’t not like you, since you don’t normally look like bugs, but when you do it’s kind of creepy and honestly changing to look like all my friends is kind of creepy too especially since you seem to be doing such a good job of it that I have to wonder how long you’ve been stalking us!”

“That’s okay,” Fluttershy said, looking down. “We understand. Of course you’re just like all the other ponies –“

“What I’m saying is that I need some time to think,” Twilight said. “And some notes, to think about. I can’t decide to take you up on your offer right now, but if you tell me absolutely everything you know about being a changeling, then when I get back to the library I can carefully weigh the pros and cons and come up with the rational answer instead of just going with my gut reaction which is ‘ew’ followed by a long sequence of ‘no’s. Then we can meet again – in, say, a week or two? After Winter Wrap Up? – and I can give you my decision.”

“You don’t have to lie, Twilight,” Rarity said. “We’re not going to hurt you if you say no. Or kidnap you and hold you in a cave until you change your mind, or convert you against your will and hope that you’ll forgive us. We’ll just leave, and you’ll never see us again.”

“Well, you will see us,” Fluttershy said, “but you won’t notice.”

Rarity nodded. “But I’m afraid we can’t afford to schedule another meeting. If you knew that you were meeting us, would you have come here alone? Or would you have brought the guard to arrest us and throw us back into the dungeon?”

“I probably would have brought Rainbow Dash, and had her hide on a cloud in case of trouble,” Twilight admitted. “She’s good at high-speed extractions, and has a black-belt in Kung Fu if it came to that. She’s also fiercely protective of her friends, and did I mention that she still comes to my book club meetings?” She glanced over at the treeline, where Owlowiscious was waiting. If she screamed loud enough, he’d probably hear her, but could he bring help in time?

The changelings seemed to take her glance the wrong way. Rarity turned back into Rainbow Dash, and both of them hovered up into the air, ready to bolt.

“Actually,” Twilight said. “That could be a solution.”

“Having Rainbow Dash attack us?” Fluttershy said, looking around nervously.

Twilight sighed. “No, the book club.” They stared at her blankly. “It has regular meetings, and is open to the public. I’ve put up invitations all over town. You two could show up in pony form, and nopony would think anything of it. Then, if I wanted you to convert me, I’d give some sort of signal, and you could stay late and, um, do it. In the meantime, it’d be a way for all of us to make a few more friends.”

“It sounds risky,” Rainbow Dash said.

“Well, you don’t have to show up,” Twilight said. “You don’t even have to tell me if you’re going to show up. If I make the signal and nothing happens, well… I guess I’ll have to live with being an earth pony. It’s probably not going to happen anyway,” she said, glancing at her mostly blank notebook. “Especially with this little information about the whole procedure.” She wiggled the notebook to draw attention to it, and picked up the pencil again. “Hint hint.”

“I guess we can tell you a little more about it,” Rainbow Dash said, still sounding suspicious. “We can start with the procedure itself. It’s really simple –“

“Actually,” Twilight said, shivering as a cold breeze blew off the reservoir, “Would you mind if we took this somewhere warmer? At least out of the wind?”

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. “Come on, there’s a cave nearby…”

===

A few days later, Twilight Sparkle was reading a book with Rainbow Dash – the real Rainbow Dash, she was pretty sure. ‘Her’ changelings had been much better actors than Queen Chrysalis, but she was pretty sure she’d still be able to recognize her own friends.

“I don’t see why we have to call it a ‘book club’,” Rainbow Dash said. “That’s just about the nerdiest name I can think of for a bunch of ponies meeting to read books. I mean, it’s not like we’re here to read books on boring stuff like history or…” she peeked over at what Twilight was reading. “…changelings?”

“It’s a new young adult series by a brand new author, recommended for fans of Daring Do,” Twilight said. “It’s very popular in Canterlot – a sort of adventure/romance hybrid. I thought it might be a good idea to start fresh with a new series, since I’m expecting some new ponies to show up.”

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. “You put up posters again?” Twilight nodded. “Did they say ‘book club’ on them?” Twilight gave Rainbow a look. “Then nopony’s going to show up, Twilight,” Rainbow Dash said. “We need to call it something cooler. Like – the Adventure Club! No, the Super Adventure Club!”

“Wouldn’t that attract ponies who wanted to actually go on adventures?” Twilight said.

Rainbow Dash grinned. “It’s a risk I’m willing to take!”

“Did somepony say adventure?” came a voice from the door.

“Yeah, come on in!” Rainbow Dash said. “You here for the… thing with the books that Twilight’s running?” she asked. “I’m sorry, Twilight, I just can’t say it.”

“The book club,” Twilight said for her.

“Yeah, I hope it’s not too…” said a white unicorn with a purple mane, and a cutie mark of the letter ‘pony’ repeated over and over in increasingly faint green. “…crowded,” he finished, looking around the empty room.

A pink pegasus mare with a curly mane of a dozen different shades of green followed him in. Her cutie mark was the sun setting across the ocean, with a wavey reflected sun beneath the line representing the horizon. “Are we early? Did we get the right day?”

“You’re just on time! This is the right day, and we were just about to start,” Twilight said cheerfully, running over to the ‘new fiction’ shelf and getting a copy of the book for each of her guests. “And if you like adventure, boy are you in for a treat!”

The unicorn walked over to the table in the center of the room and sat down, looking around the library as if expecting more ponies to leap out of the woodwork. “I just thought there’d be more ponies here. We saw the posters up all over town…”

“It’s because she named it the ‘book club’,” Rainbow Dash said. “Who wants to go to a book club?”

“Ignore her,” Twilight said. “Rainbow Dash is just a little embarrassed about anypony finding out she likes to read. Even though everypony knows.” The pegasi joined them at the table, and Twilight passed out the books. “Before we start in on our exploration of the brand new genre of Changeling Romance, why doesn’t everypony say a few words about themselves? I’m Twilight Sparkle, the librarian here in Ponyville and the personal student of Princess Celestia.”

“You might know her as public enemy number one,” Rainbow Dash said.

“Those charges were dropped!”

“And I’m Rainbow Dash, savior of Equestria, first non-princess pony on the moon,” Rainbow Dash said proudly. “I don’t sign autographs anymore. It was kind of fun for a while, but after being on tour with Trixie I think I have show business out of my system.”

“Seaside,” said the pegasus. “I haven’t saved Equestria yet, but one day the beach ball apocalypse will come, and I’ll be ready!”

“Cool, another athlete?” Rainbow Dash asked. Seaside nodded, and the two bumped hooves.

“Ditto,” said the unicorn, looking around nervously.

“Your name’s also Seaside?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“Yeah, ha ha, I’ve never heard that one before,” Ditto said. “I work in the print room at the Ponyville Times. It’s, um, really boring to talk about, although I find it kind of fascinating myself. So if I start geeking out about the bindings in your books, just stick a hoof in my mouth.”

Twilight giggled. “Will do! I’m just so happy to see both of you here! I know we’re going to be the best of friends.”

Comments

[archonix]

Well I... haven't actually read the previous story, but this is a... a good start, lets say. If nothing else, Twilight wanting her magic back is a good reason to at least consider being a changeling.

[Harwick]

I like the general concept quite a bit, but I too hadn't read the prior story... So while you have an idea here that is very interesting an appealing on its own to new readers, you've left me kind of lost as to why any of this is happening. I don't know who this Twilight is... She seems mostly like regular Twilight, but she apparently tried mass-murder and to kill Celestia? In which case, she's nothing like normal Twilight. Pinkie was either there when she was sentenced, or is lost in time, or is the Princess now and letting Changelings out of jail... I really don't know.

The concept of this story is completely appealing in it's own right, but it needs some more set-up or recap to be fully accessible to new readers.

[Rowyn]

Oh dear. Surely picking Changeling Romance as the series to read is the signal that Twilight wants to be converted!

[terrycloth]

1520986 She didn't actually try to mass-murder everypony *on purpose*. It was basically a huge misunderstanding, but it did involve her being careless with powerful magical stuff that she didn't understand. And some powerful magical stuff that she did understand, namely the want-it-need-it spell. As far as her personality is concerned it's supposed to be like regular Twilight.

Pinkie Pie's situation is more confusing -- she's either lost in time or is Princess Cadance now. I can try to, uh, more clearly delineate the confusion I guess? The important thing is that she's missing.

1521006 It's an excuse to discuss the pros and cons of being converted anyway.

[Harwick]

1521517
As it's a lazy Sunday afternoon I've been reviewing the prior story anyway, so I now at least get the broad strokes. Still, as I think others who haven't read that one might enjoy reading this one, I would suggest working a bit more of that explanation of her intentions into this story so as not to confuse or frustrate them.

Poor Twilight's suffering quite a bit of punishment for a well-intentioned pony who was only trying to rescue everyone from the surface of the moon, losing her magic, her element and her friends. AJ, Rarity and Fluttershy seem to have moved on from her quite easily. Celestia seems to be lacking any affection for her as well. It's a rather harsh set up, and I'm curious to see what you make of it.

[Crimson Dawn]

What I wonder is what of her and Pinkie/Cadence? Cadence was now her baby sitter, friend,, sister in law, and pony partly responsible (at least indirectly) for her losing her horn. All of that together (plus I would think she would be even more curious about the alicorn thing so I am sure she wants to look into that for her own curiosity's sake) and we really need to have some conversations between the two.

Also I do not remember if you did but in the other story you so HAVE to go back and foreshadow the event with Pinkie saying things like Shining Armor is cute and the like. It would drive Twilight crazy (thus funny) and would foreshadow that Pinkie is Cadence. That is if you have not done that already and I just forgot.

[terrycloth]

1522706 Pinkie/Cadence doesn't have a big part in this fic for roughly the same reason the moon ponies don't -- it'd be a little too confusing and also kind of beside the point (of this fic). The plan is to address that more fully in the actual sequel (and only talk about it a little in this one where it relates to the main point).

The excuse is probably that they're busy. Actually, Twilight probably talked to Cadence while she was in Canterlot.

It'd be kind of cute if Pinkie Pie was attracted to Shining Armor, but really the only contact she had with him was in the Canterlot Wedding episode of the actual show. Where she certainly seemed taken by the thought of him and Cadence marrying! The way I think of it is really that Pinkie Pie even as an 'adult' is still basically a kid. Cadence would certainly look at her that way!

[ColdGoldLazarus]

So I'm very confused, but I like the idea. The changeling!pony is painfully obvious when trying to create his(her?) own identity; the 'ponyponypony...' cutie mark was just hilarious.

[PinkPearl]

i don't even have to finish reading the first chapter to know this is going awfully bad and out of control. not even half way through the first chapter. at first i thought it was her over reacting in a dream but...this just...wow. i'm not gonna say anything. if i say it's bad, people will jump on me, if i say it's good, i'd only be lying.

....wow...

[LittleSallyDigby]

Yeah, I'm not sure trying to make this accessible to new readers was a good idea. If it were just "Twilight is an earth pony now and has to deal with that", that could work, but with everything else that's changed about Twilight (and Trixie, and Pinkie Pie, and so on) I think it might be best to just call this a regular old sequel and tell people to start at the beginning.