Earth to Twilight

by terrycloth

Chapter 2: A Certain Chemistry

Twilight stared at the vat of sulfurous chemicals bubbling away before her, and the bowl of innocent-looking white powder sitting next to it. ‘Irritant’ was how the books had described it. ‘Irritant’, instead of ‘highly poisonous’ like the ammonia whose fumes still filled the air, ‘highly reactive’ like the four different kinds of acid she’d been struggling all day not to douse herself in, or ‘highly explosive’ like the large jug of clear liquid still slowly filling up under the filtration device. Since it was merely an ‘irritant’, she’d risked grinding up the crystals with her large mortar and pestle, which used a mouth-grip. She hadn’t inhaled much of it, but she still felt like she was going to die.

Or maybe that was the acid fumes – boiling off the hydrochloric acid in a poorly ventilated underground laboratory was probably not the smartest thing she’d ever done. But in all fairness, she’d already been feeling a bit woozy from the ammonia.

But it was okay. Everything was okay. All she had left was to dump the slightly poisonous white powder into the foul-smelling cauldron and stir, then add the explosive liquid and stir some more. Nothing was going to go wrong at this point – nothing could go wrong. All the chemical reactions were done with, so she didn’t have to worry about them suddenly going dangerously exothermic again, or finishing in half the time they should have taken and filling the air with acidic clouds. Again. It was finally, finally over. And she’d survived.

“I’m starting to see why I’ve never heard of an earth pony chemist,” she grumbled, as she picked up the bowl of powder carefully with her front teeth, and carried it over to the cauldron. “They probably all die at a young – ugh!” She let saliva bubble behind her lips to try to wash out the taste as her tongue was 'irritated' – talking with the bowl in her mouth had not been a smart decision.

She put her hooves on the edge of her worktable, stretched out her neck to get the bowl over the edge of the large cauldron, and was just about to tip the powder into the mixture when the cellar door flung open. “Twilight!” Spike called from the top of the stairs, “You’ve got a visitor!”

Twilight stood stock still – her head had instinctively jerked up to look at Spike as he came in, and now a thick dusting of white powder covered her face. She didn’t dare inhale or even open her eyes, with her face covered in ‘irritant’. Why hadn’t she been wearing goggles? Oh, right. She’d ditched the goggles after the various chemical splatters had gotten so bad that she couldn’t see through the lenses. Somehow, that had seemed like a good idea at the time.

Oh Celestia, her eyes were already burning, some had gotten in! Screaming, she dropped the bowl of dust and ran for the stairs – she didn’t have a proper eye-wash station, she’d always just teleported up to her shower and used that. A yelp interrupted her scream as her flank slammed against the side of her worktable, followed by the sound of shattering glass behind her. That was not good, but she continued on until she barreled head-first into the cellar wall where she’d expected to find stairs – the impact had thrown her off course! She coughed, having inhaled some of the dust despite her best efforts, and cried out, “Help!”

“I’m comin’, sugar!” A lasso settled around her neck, and she felt herself jerked to her feet, and to the side, stumbling after the guiding rope as she started to feel dizzy. “Pee-Yew! What happened down here?”

“It’s still happening!” Twilight squeaked, her hooves slipping on the stairs as she crawled her way towards relative safety. “I need to get to the shower…” Or was it more important to evacuate the building? She was really dizzy at this point.

“Just hold on, I gotcha,” Applejack said, and her soft muzzle and mane nosed under Twilight, lifting her onto the farm pony’s back. She clung desperately to her bouncy perch as Applejack ran her up stairs, and in a few seconds they’d arrived. She gave a little grunt as she was dumped into the porcelain tub, and flinched as cold water rained down over her. She held her face up into the freezing stream, then forced herself to open her eyes – which burned even more – and washed them out too. She opened her mouth and let the water flow inside, rinsing out the horrible taste…

And then she collapsed in the inch-deep pool of water, and started to sob, sodden and cold and still coughing every few seconds as her body tried to get the dust out of her lungs.

“Thanks, Ditto,” she croaked. “I think you might have saved my life.”

“Um… are you sure you’re alright, sugarcube?” Applejack said, looking down at the sodden purple pony. “Look me in the eyes, now. How many hooves am I holding up?”

Twilight blinked, and looked up at Applejack. “Applejack?” she asked. “What are you doing here?”

===

Once Twilight was all washed off and wrapped in a fluffy towel – and Spike was in his Hazmat suit, cleaning up the explosive chemicals in the basement before they burned down the library – she and Applejack sat down in the kitchen for tea. Applejack made the tea; Twilight’s hooves started shaking whenever she went near the stove.

“This has been a really horrible day, Applejack,” she said, leaning over to blow on her tea, then inhaling its calming scent. “I used to like chemistry, but now I don’t know if I’m going to be able to go near a flask or beaker again without getting flashbacks. I guess that’s one more subject I can cross off my list of interests.”

“I saw the chalkboard, all scribbled up with letters and numbers and fancy math,” Applejack said, taking a sniff of her tea and wrinkling her nose. She added a little extra sugar. “Granny Smith always says, when you’re followin’ a recipe, forget the numbers – you’ve got to feel your way through each step to know how much of each ingredient to add, and when it’s time to move on. ‘Course, she’s talking about baking. I reckon no pony ever had to run for the shower just ‘cause they got a little flour in their eyes.”

“Yes,” Twilight said, lifting her teacup and taking a delicate sip before setting it back down. “That sounds like something much safer to try with milk and eggs than with sulfuric acid and ammonium nitrate. Although for all the good my measurements were doing, I might as well have been winging it. Stupid hooves.” She looked down at the offending appendages accusingly.

Applejack slurped up half her tea in one sip. “Can’t say as I’m much of a fan of usin’ em for delicate work. Always more of a tongue and tail girl myself. I imagine you’re wishin’ you were a unicorn again, though.”

“Every day,” Twilight said, taking another sip. “Something happens every day to make me just… so… frustrated!” She sighed. “According to the Psychology of Contentment, it could take up to a year for me to fully adjust to my new situation, and I’m not sure I’m going to be able to hold out that long without doing something crazy.”

Applejack gave her a look. “Like blowing up the library trying to cook up...”

“Fertilizer,” Twilight said, flattening her ears as she filled in the blank.

“Compost, Twi,” Applejack said. “Look into it. Or better yet, come on over to the farm and we’ll show you a whole heap of it. That’s why I came by in the first place – it’s about that time of year when all the farmin’ ponies get together and start preparing for Winter Wrap Up. If you want to start learnin’ about growin’ stuff, there’s no better chance to talk to everypony who’s everypony in the field, ‘least in Ponyville.”

“It was for an experiment,” Twilight said. “The point isn’t to grow plants, it’s to measure how much better I can grow plants than, say, Spike, with both of us following a rigid schedule for things like water and exposure to sunlight. For the fertilizer, it was to see if making it from scratch was better than buying a bag at the store. By using a fertilizer with the same chemical composition, only made by an earth pony – me – I could see if any magical force that wasn’t directly observable was acting on the recipe.”

“And the store-bought fertilizer wasn’t made by earth ponies?” Applejack asked. “I mean, Filthy Rich didn’t just find it sitting in his cellar one day – somepony had to mix it up.”

“I picked the one brand that didn’t have ‘made by earth ponies’ proudly stamped on the packaging,” Twilight said, smiling. Then she shuddered, thinking of all the trouble she’d had following a relatively simple chemical formula. “And now I know why.”

Applejack finished the rest of her tea, then tossed the teacup into the sink, expertly sending it spinning around the edge of the basin a few times before rattling safely to the bottom. “So,” she said, setting her hooves on the table. “How about it? Want to come play farmer girl with all the real earth ponies?”

Twilight had been sort of hoping that she’d managed to change the subject. There was really only one answer she could give to an offer like that. The drawbacks were obvious – immersion in earth pony culture could only add confounding variables to her search for the basis of earth pony magic, quite aside from the time it would take up from more guided study. But it was a sincere offer from a good friend, a friend that she was in danger of losing as they drifted apart. She had to say yes.

At least this way she was a lot less likely to accidentally kill herself, or give in and get turned into a changeling.

“Ah, nevermind,” Applejack said, frowning as she stared into Twilight’s eyes. “I can tell you’re not keen on the idea.”

“No no no no no, I’ll do it,” Twilight said. “It’s just… I’m a little worn out right now, and I’m not sure I’m up to meeting a bunch of new ponies. Maybe we could – go get lunch! This tea’s really made me hungry, how about you? Why don’t we head over to Sugarcube Corner--”

“Hoo, boy. You sure you want to set hoof in that nest o’ snakes, Twi?” Applejack asked.

“Oh, right,” Twilight said. “They’re pretty torn up about Pinkie Pie, aren’t they.”

“That’s what you’d think,” Applejack said, “but it’s a mite creepier than that. If you listen to the Cakes talk, Pinkie Pie never left. I think the place might be…” she lowered her voice to a whisper, “haunted!”

Twilight stared at her. “Haunted.” Applejack nodded. “By the ghost of a pony who isn’t dead.” Applejack looked a little uncertain. “I think I know what’s going on, actually. Why don’t we head over there and take a look? Besides, I could really use a cupcake.”

===

It was actually quite a nice day out, considering that it was still winter. The sky was still blotted out by clouds, but the pegasi on the weather team had set up a series of artfully placed sunbreaks, that let vividly outlined sunbeams through to shine down across the snowy landscape. Twilight noted without surprise that one of them was placed to illuminate Rainbow Dash’s little cloud-castle.

Ponyville itself was covered in a layer of fresh, white snow, that crunched merrily under their hooves as they made their way down the street and across the square to the cupcake-topped gingerbread house where the Cakes lived and worked. It was nice to be outside in the fresh air, even if it was a little chilly – Twilight shivered a little. “I probably should have put on something warmer than this saddle.”

Applejack chuckled at that. “I’d lend you my coat, but that might give ponies the wrong idea.”

“Also, you’re not wearing any clothes.”

Twilight found herself looking surreptitiously at the ponies around them as they walked, trying to see if any of them reacted to her. A couple of them recognized her and waved; everypony seemed as friendly as ever, at least on the surface. But was it her imagination that their friendly smiles seemed forced?

Probably. It wasn’t like this had been the first time that she’d messed up and gotten dragged before Princess Celestia to answer for her actions, or the first time she’d charmed half the town with a want-it-need-it spell, or the first time she’d threatened the destruction of the town, or even the first time she’d gotten everypony in town drafted for the duration of a disaster.

It was the first time she’d done all of that at once, though. “Applejack? What do ponies think about me?”

“Gossip’s more Rarity’s thing, sugarcube,” Applejack said, “but don’t you worry none. Nopony’s going to string you up by your hind legs, cover you in honey, and leave you out for the bees. Not on my farm.”

“Yay,” Twilight said, cringing.

“Wouldn’t be no bees out in winter anyhow,” Applejack said as they pushed past the door into Sugarcube Corner, and were enveloped in blessed, pastry-scented warmth.

Twilight inhaled deeply. “Now I’m really hungry.” She trotted up to the counter. “One cupcake, please!”

After a brief delay Mrs. Cake’s swirly-maned head appeared from the kitchen, peering nervously around the corner to ask, “Twilight Sparkle? Is that you?”

“Hi, Mrs. Cake!” she replied, smiling. “I’ll have my usual.”

“Vanilla with pink frosting?” Twilight nodded, and the other pony vanished into the kitchen for a few moments, before reappearing with her treat.

“There you go, dear,” she said, as she set the cupcake down on the counter on a little saucer. “I’m so sorry for your loss.” Her eyes drifted towards Twilight’s forehead, and her lack of a horn.

“Oh, it’s…” Twilight trailed off. It wasn’t ‘nothing’. “It’s okay,” she said. “It’s disconcerting to be cut off from my special talent, but I’m sure once I figure out the secret of earth pony magic I’ll be back in business in no time.”

“Um… I’m sure you will,” Mrs. Cake said, glancing back and forth nervously.

“Applejack doesn’t think we have magic either,” Twilight said, guessing what the baker was thinking. “But this isn’t blind faith on my part, or some argument to the basic fairness of the universe. It’s been scientifically determined that the magical reserve of a pony is unrelated to their tribe. I don’t know how earth ponies use magic, but if we didn’t have any then unicorns with earth pony ancestry would be at a significant disadvantage in magical power, and if anything the reverse is true.”

Mrs. Cake smiled. “Little Pumpkin sure is a hoof full, I’ll admit.”

“So it’s just a matter of figuring out how other earth ponies access their magic, or if they don’t, how I can,” Twilight said, “because I don’t intend to live the rest of my life without magic. I’d go crazy.” She paused. “Magic is my cutie mark. If I couldn’t do magic ever again, I would literally go insane.”

“That’s, um,” Mrs. Cake looked uncomfortable. “Applejack? Is there anything I can get for you?”

“Nah, I’m good,” came Applejack’s voice, from all the way over near the door. Twilight glanced back to see her hovering just inside the entrance, looking as if she was fixed to bolt at the slightest provocation.

“It’s good to see you girls again,” Mrs. Cake remarked. “It seems like ages since we’ve had any of you over – and you used to be some of our best customers!”

“Things change,” Applejack said. “How’s Pinkie Pie?”

Mrs. Cake frowned.

“Applejack!” Twilight said, turning to glare at her.

“That’s why we’re here, ain’t it, Twi?” Applejack said.

“Well – yes, but…” she looked back to see how Mrs. Cake was reacting.

“It’s okay, dearie,” Mrs. Cake said, backing towards the kitchen. “I’m sure Pinkie Pie would be happy to see you. You’re her best friends, after all, aside from that Rainbow filly.”

“Can you… um…” Twilight said, trailing off into an uncomfortable silence. Finally, she finished with, “Call her?”

Mrs. Cake paused, then said, in a shaky voice only a little bit louder than normal conversation, “Pinkie Pie! Twilight Sparkle and Applejack are here to see you!”

A faint voice came from upstairs – Pinkie Pie’s voice. “Okay Mrs. Cake. Tell them to come on up! I’m playing with the twins.”

Applejack backed up a step, slamming her hind end into the front door, and pointed a hoof at the stairs. “Tell me that’s not a ghost, Twilight!”

“It’s not a ghost,” Twilight said, transferring the cupcake to the top of her head for safekeeping, and heading for the stairs

“Then what the hay is it?” Applejack asked.

“It’s a –“ Twilight started, then glanced over at Mrs. Cake, who was pretending not to listen. “It’s nothing for Mrs. Cake to worry about. I’ll explain more on the way upstairs.”

Applejack stared at her. Twilight stared back. “Fine,” the farmpony said, before gingerly walking over to the stairs like she was heading for the gallows. “But if we end up cast into an endless abyss of suffering and torment, I get to say I told you so.”

The two of them walked quietly up the stairs. At the top, Twilight paused, looking down the hall to where Pinkie Pie’s voice was singing a soft song to the Cake’s foals. “Alright,” she said quietly to Applejack. “You remember how Pinkie Pie let the changelings out of the Canterlot dungeon to help host her big party?”

Applejack sighed. “Yeah. That girl never had a lick of sense.”

“I’m not sure if you know, but not all of them were caught, afterwards,” Twilight said. “I think some of them might have found their way to Ponyville, hoping that –“

Applejack cut her off. “Wait a darn second – you think that there’s one of those nightmare-spawned monsters in that room there?” Twilight nodded. “With the foals?!”

“I don’t think they’re –“ Twilight tried to protest, but Applejack was already running down the hallway.

“Get your chitinous talons away from those foals, monster!” Applejack shouted, swinging around to buck open the door. “If you set one feeler on their…” She trailed off, eyes going wide in terror.

“Hi, Applejack!” came Pinkie’s cheerful voice.

“Twi…” Applejack said, in a strangled voice. “That ain’t no changeling.”

Twilight finally caught up with her, and looked into the room, where the two foals had their heads turned, staring at her and Applejack with wide, innocent eyes, while behind them, a large mirror was propped up against the wall, with a grinning Pinkie Pie – the old, earth pony Pinkie Pie – bouncing up and down inside it.

“Oh!” Twilight said, smiling at the Pinkie Pie in the mirror. “Well, that would have been my second guess.”

===

“So what y’all’re sayin’,” Applejack said, bobbing her head a little to give the tiny pegasus sitting on her hat a more exciting ride, “is that Pinkie Pie left a mess of these magic mirrors all over Ponyville, and somehow we never noticed.”

“I noticed, actually,” Twilight said, playing tug-of-war with little Pumpkin Cake’s magic, the rubber chew toy wrapped around her wrist. “One of the mirror-Pinkies showed up to scold me when I broke a Pinkie Promise not to tell about Spike’s crush on Rarity. That’s what their main job is – keeping track of Pinkie Promises.”

“You thought she was a ghost though,” Pinkie Pie said, giggling.

“Hallucination,” Twilight Sparkle said. “I thought she was a hallucination. There’s no such thing as ghosts. I didn’t realize what had really happened until Pinkie Pie explained all about her mirror-Pinkies while we were stuck on the moon.”

“That don’t explain why y’all never showed yourselves to anypony else until now,” Applejack said, giving the mirror-Pinkie a suspicious glower. Pound Cake pounded his hoof into her hat, annoyed that his ride had stopped moving.

“Well…” Pinkie Pie said, looking a little embarrassed for a second, before turning back towards the mirror with a determined glare. “Mr. and Mrs. Cake did break a Pinkie Promise. Pinkie Pie made them Pinkie Promise not to worry when she went to the moon, and they did! They worried about her big time!” She smacked her forehooves together for emphasis.

“That sounds like an excuse,” Twilight Sparkle said. “Not that I’m saying there’s anything wrong with what you’re doing, but Pinkie Pie! Is it really healthy for you to be reminding the Cakes constantly of their missing friend?”

“They’re the ones that are missing!” Pinkie Pie protested. “They’re missing Pinkie Pie! And I can’t just set them free from their Pinkie Promise just like that. It’s my duty as a mirror-Pinkie to keep reminding them that they promised not to worry until they stop worrying!”

“Or until they apologize for breaking their word,” Applejack said.

Pinkie Pie flopped onto her belly and let her head sink onto her hooves. “Is that why you’re here? To chase me away like some creepy ghost?”

Twilight Sparkle looked at the pouting pink pony, and sighed. “No,” she said. “We actually came here to get some cupcakes.” She tossed her head, and managed to catch the cupcake with her teeth on the way back down. It wasn’t a completely clean catch, but the twins giggled at the pink frosting all over her face until she wiped it onto her fetlock and licked it up. She wasn’t quite sure what Mrs. Cake put in the pink frosting, but it had always been her favorite. “Still haven’t quite got the hang of that.”

Pinkie Pie giggled too. “Maybe you should stick to floating them around with magic. It’s a lot less messy.” She blinked as Twilight and Applejack stared at her, then gasped, bouncing up off the ground and waving all four of her legs around, somehow. “Twilight! What happened to your horn!”

===

The holes in the clouds were closed, leaving the world dim and grey as Twilight and Applejack headed out to Sweet Apple Acres. A gentle snow was falling, but it was a little warmer than it had been earlier – or perhaps that was just the heat from the three boxes of fresh cupcakes balanced on her back. As they made their way past the last row of houses and out into the park, Twilight turned to watch the playful children building snowponies, having snowball fights, and sliding down the hills on sleds. She tried to ignore the flash of movement in the corner of her eye, keeping her gaze averted from the frozen puddle next to a bench.

“Psst!” came a voice from the reflective surface. Twilight turned her head the other way, and ignored it. “Heeey, Twilight!” it said, a little louder.

She walked on. This had been happening all the way from Sugarcube Corner. Applejack, for her part, had her hat wedged down over her eyes so she didn’t have to look at anything.

“Stooooooooop!” yelled the voice, in a sort-of-quiet half-whisper that reminded her of Fluttershy, although it was Twilight’s own voice trying to get her attention.

Twilight sighed, and turned on the frozen puddle viciously. “A puddle?” she said. “How did Pinkie Pie manage to enchant a puddle?”

“Well,” said the Twilight in the puddle – that Twilight Sparkle noticed still had her horn, just like every other Twilight Sparkle in all the mirrors, window-panes, and other reflective surfaces she’d passed on her path through town, “apparently the magical signature of a mirror-based pseudo-portal persists past the dissolution and re-formation of the mirror in question. There’s almost always a puddle here, and it’s right next to the bench. My Pinkie’s heard all kinds of secrets watching from this vantage point.” She looked proud of that.

“Look,” Twilight said. “I appreciate that you want to help, but I’m not interested!”

“You haven’t even heard my plan. Rejecting it a priori is unscientific.”

“I have! I have heard your plan, at least a dozen times!”

The mirror-Twilight pouted. “Mine is different!”

“So you don’t want me to convince a unicorn to bring you out into the real world so that you can merge with me and give me your horn?” Twilight asked.

“Oh,” the mirror-Twilight said. “Okay, so it isn’t different. But you should pick me!”

“It wouldn’t even work,” Twilight said. “Your horn isn’t real. If you emerged from the mirror and tried to take over my body, you’d end up as a unicorn spirit in an earth pony body and not only would you no longer be able to use unicorn magic, you’d have no hope of unlocking earth pony magic either! Also, I’d cease to exist.”

“You don’t know that,” the Twilight in the mirror said, rubbing her hooves together. “If we used a memory spell to align our experiences, we might merge into one –“

“Tried it,” Twilight said. “Didn’t work. Now, I don’t know how you all are talking to each other, but please, just tell everypony to stop. I don’t need your help.”

“Fine,” sighed the mirror-Twilight heavily. “But if you ever change your mind –“

“You’ll be the second ponies I talk to,” Twilight said, forcing a smile.

Once they were a few hundred feet away from the puddle, safely into the light woodlands near the edge of Sweet Apple Acres, Applejack asked, “You think that’ll keep ‘em off your back? Because ponies talking out of mirrors is giving me the serious heebie jeebies, and I don’t want that sort of magic nonsense infecting my farm.”

“No,” Twilight said, “that won’t stop them for long. I’ll just have to stay away from mirrors as much as I can from now on, I guess.” She laughed. “On the bright side, this means I’ve got at least a dozen mirror-me’s researching the problem and somehow comparing notes. Maybe they’ll actually come up with a workable solution.”

“I have to admit,” Applejack said. “While I appreciate your puttin’ forth the effort to be a proper earth pony and all, if I thought I could turn you back into a unicorn I’d do it in a heartbeat. You were always so happy when you were using your magic, Twi. It hurts my heart to see you like this.”

“Trust me, Applejack,” Twilight said. “The day I figure out how earth pony magic works, I’ll be bouncing around in a circle screaming ‘yes yes yes’ like the day I got my cutie mark.”

“And then what?” Applejack asked.

Twilight grinned. “And then I’ll write a book, so that nopony else has to rediscover it from scratch.”

Comments

[terrycloth]

Twilight was trying to make commercial-grade NPK fertilizer from 'scratch', by first rolling her own Potassium Sulfate:
Saltpeter + Hydrochloric Acid -> Potassium Chloride + Nitric Acid
Potassium Chloride + Sulfuric Acid -> Potassium Sulfate + Hydrochloric Acid

And then mixing it with fertilizer made using the Otter process:
Phosphate Rock + Nitric Acid -> Phosphoric Acid + Calcium Nitrate
Phosphoric Acid + Calcium Nitrate + Ammonia -> PN fertilizer
PN fertilizer + Potassium Sulfate -> NPK fertilizer
Calcium Nitrate + Ammonia -> Ammonium Nitrate + Calcium Carbonate (N fertilizer)

Seriously, how did anyone ever come up with this without killing themselves? I was worried that my original 'pulling it out of my butt' version was unreasonably dangerous, but when I went to research it the real thing was *far* worse.

[Xon]

1554451
Well there is a reason, the folklore for the longest time had Mad Scientists have chemistry equipment full of unholy horrors.

Probably because most chemists where scientists gone mad with chemistry equipment full of unholy horrors that no sane individual wants anywhere near them.

Also, I recommend reading up on:
http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/things_i_wont_work_with/

The entry covering chlorine trifluoride is morbidly amusing
> It is also hypergolic with such things as cloth, wood, and test engineers, not to mention asbestos, sand, and water-with which it reacts explosively

[Harwick]

After all this, I certainly hope that Twilight actually is an Earth Pony, and not just a unicorn without a horn.

I would think that, if she truly wanted her horn back, blasting her again with the Elements of Harmony would return it. Then again, if Trixie didn't want to be replaced, getting her to do it and getting it to work might be questionable. Moreover, it seems Twilight lost her horn in the first place because she didn't want the responsibility of that much magic hanging over her any more, as she apparently thought herself destined to end up a statue for being too dangerous to live. I'm not sure if simply being inconvenienced is enough to override that, or if she has some bigger lessons to learn.

Nice to see her relationship with AJ continuing, if a bit strained. I gather she's not gotten out much since she returned. It'll be interesting to see what the residents of Ponyville really think of her now. I'm especially curious to know what her relationship with Celestia is like at this point. She is still technically her student, correct? We haven't really gotten the Princess's take on her Faithful Student since she had declared that Equestria was at war with Twilight Sparkle.

[terrycloth]

1555044 Heh heh, I have a list of a bunch of different potential ways for her to get her horn back. 'Blast her again with the EoH' can go on the list.

Next up is meeting Ponyville's farmers, most of which were mind-controlled by her want-it-need-it spell since they were the ones the guards would have picked to draft for the jelly-jar project.

And yes, 'what would Celestia think about all this' is something Twilight would have to ask before actually acting on anypony's plan to turn her back into a unicorn, assuming she was still in control of herself and not driven insane by cutie-mark failure insanity syndrome.

[Rowyn]

I think that Twilight Sparkle needs to stay an earth pony. FOR SCIENCE!

[ColdGoldLazarus]

Mirror-ponies? Makes me wonder if any of the others are in there...

[LittleSallyDigby]

Applejack chuckled at that. “I’d lend you my coat, but that might give ponies the wrong idea.”
“Also, you’re not wearing any clothes.”

Then it would definitely give ponies the wrong idea.