Through the Well of Pirene

by Ether Echoes

Chapter 9: Turning a Page

Chapter 9: Turning a Page

“I place my faith in fools; self-confidence, my friends call it.” Edgar Allen Poe

Leit Motif

“What part of ‘as soon as possible’ does this qualify as?” I growled.

Lyra rubbed her chin as she considered the menu posted over the counter of the pizzeria she had dragged us into. Ponies ran back and forth between large ovens, while a stallion with a spectacular mustache was flipping dough into a round pie overhead with the benefit of a glowing horn. “The part where it is absolutely impossible for me to take you two to see Twilight until I have a few slices of pineapple and garlic pizza,” she said, attention still rapt upon the pizzeria’s selection.

Steam filled my head. “Lyra, I’m—!” Ponies turned to look at the shout. I winced and lowered my voice to a more acceptable tone. “I thought we were simply going to pick something up on the way.”

Lyra turned and gestured outside. “This is on the way! It’s between your house and the library.” Her eyes were far too wide and innocent for her actions to have been anything other than deliberate. After using the same excuse an untold number of times to get me out of our dorm, one would think that I’d be wise to it.

I pointed to the ovens. “But this has to be cooked. We could have grabbed fruit, or a sandwich, or something.”

My ear twitched, and Daphne stared at me out of the corner of my eye. The server behind the counter—a scrawny, orange-maned teenager in a paper hat that was stamped with the proprietor's pizza cutie mark—cleared his throat, making her jump. “Welcome to Linguini’s, home of Linguini’s famous pies. Could I take your order?” he asked in a nasally voice.

Daphne blushed and worried at her mane, her jaw tight. “Oh, right, thanks.” She turned her gaze up to look at the menu. It was doubtful she was aware of it, but her awkward side-to-side shuffling suggested a foal waiting at the doctor’s office. Other ponies waiting behind us were starting to grow impatient, with one blue mare trying to bore into the back of Daphne’s head with her eyes.

Can’t these ponies see that she’s been through Tartarus and back? I thought, narrowing my eyes at the offending mare. She quickly found something else to occupy her attention.

Lyra giggled. I rounded on her, asking with a snort, “What?”

She covered her mouth, though she failed to hide her tremendous grin. “Nothing.” She pointed her raised hoof toward Daphne and her anxious ministrations. “It’s just that dance she’s doing is kinda adorable.”

I set myself before Lyra, my voice a scathing hiss as I chastised her. “She scarcely knows how to use her legs! I can’t imagine what you were thinking, taking her out in public—” I pointedly glanced around, “—when she hardly knows the first thing about our world.”

My glare had been much more effective on the mare behind us than it had been on Lyra. She simply turned her head and continued to study Daphne. “I don’t know about that. She knew about Canterlot when we met. Not enough about it for it to be believable, but you know what they say about hindsight.”

I stamped my hoof. “That is not what I meant, and you know it! We should be taking her to Twilight as soon as possible!”

“We’re just a pizza away, now.” Lyra tilted her head. “So, do you think humans ever get cutie marks, or is it like how mules are blank for life?”

My teeth ground against one another. “Often times I can’t tell if your head is empty, or if you’re deliberately ignoring me.”

“Never attribute to malice what can be better explained by stupidity.” She quirked a smile, still looking at Daphne rather than me. “Also, you’re terrifying the locals.”

My cheeks darkened as I glanced around. Ponies were staring at the two of us, muttering among themselves and trying to hide the fact that they were pointing my way. It was enough to kill my momentum dead.

It was impossible to argue with Lyra. She got her way far too often—certainly, her success at school had been hard-won, but such an endeavor required more than just a little luck and charisma. A pretty face, a quick song here and there, and a somewhat oblivious nature had opened every door for her while I had been forced to scrape and claw for every possible advantage.

Worst of all, I couldn’t muster any honest hate for her.

“We still ought to get moving,” I said, though with little heat remaining. “Her sister is in danger.”

Daphne had apparently overheard us at that point and took a step toward the two of us. “Look, it’s okay, you two. The trail is pretty cold, and I could use a breather anyway.”

“See? Daph agrees! I can call you Daph, right?” Lyra trotted forward to the counter without waiting for a response. “I’ll take a medium pizza. Make half pineapple, garlic, and sprinkle on some of that really sharp cheddar. Leit, what do you want on your half? I’m buying for you and Daph after all.”

“H-half?” I spluttered. “No, look, I’ll…” I examined the counter and pointed at a glass case. “Just reheat one of those cheese slices over there.”

“Make her half spinach and artichoke, she loves that,” Lyra told the colt. “Throw in two big drinks.” Turning to Daphne, she asked, “What’ll you have, Daphne?”

“Oh, uh…” She took another quick glance at the menu. “Tomato, extra cheese.”

“Small tomato with extra cheese then!” Lyra informed the clerk before levitating out a stack of silver bits, flicking one into the tip jar by the register before joining us.

“That wasn’t actual silver, was it?” Daphne asked as she watched an earth pony reach into her saddlebags and toss her coins with her teeth.

That had been a curious remark. I could swear that Daphne had mentioned gold and silver in our little games as children. I realized then that I hadn’t paid even a single thought to what her world was like since she had returned. Questions formulated in my mind, and I carefully considered what I might ask her. It would have to be well-phrased, of course—I was making first contact with an unknown civilization and I wanted to cover as many contingencies as possible. Some delicate precision would be required so that she would feel comfortable answering them.

Lyra, of course, simply barged in. “Sure it was! Now, sit your butt down and tell me all about yourself.” She put her head to Daphne’s side and pushed her into a booth.

I sighed. Might as well resign myself to the present reality, rather than the one in my head. Sliding in next to Daphne, I folded my hooves under my belly and looked at my old friend with a shrug.

She frowned. “Uh…” As predicted, Daphne didn’t exactly look pleased, given the way she scrunched her face up. Still, her features smoothed after a moment. “I’m going to school right now, though I’ll be missing a few days at least while this is going on.”

Lyra watched intently as she started in on her soda, popping a straw through the top. “You’re probably going to some sort of human magic school huh?”

Daphne winced and glanced around, but it didn’t seem as if the other ponies nearby were paying us any heed. Lyra had chosen a booth that was fairly lonely—normally a difficult task, but, as it was mid-afternoon, it fell squarely between the lunch and dinner rushes. “Not really. We don’t have magic, let alone schools for it.”

Lyra sputtered. “No magic?” she asked. “How does that… no… what? You need magic!”

“Well, that’s not true,” I said. “There’s plenty of people—that aren’t ponies—who don’t use magic, right here in Equestria.”

“Sure, but even griffins and earth ponies and minotaurs have some kind of magic. They have magic lying around if nothing else.” She shook her head, putting her hooves on the table and squinting at Daphne. “So, that spike on your head; you don't even know how to use it, huh?”

“I thought you deduced that with your little test,” I muttered. “Risking my collection in the process, I might add.”

“Hush, you.”

Daphne blushed and glanced between us. This seemed like it could be a potentially touchy subject. I tried to shake my head to warn Lyra off, but Daphne spoke up on her own behalf. “Before yesterday, I didn't even really believe in magic anymore. I no more know how to use my horn than I do... well, anything, actually.” She nudged the cup Lyra had bought her. Presently unfilled, it tipped over easily.

With a casual touch, Lyra righted the cup again. Daphne paid intense attention to the act, as if she expected to find a cleverly concealed electromagnet within Lyra’s single hoof. I tried not to look pitying, but I don’t believe I succeeded based upon Daphne’s deepening blush, and she had begun to worry at her mane again.

I can’t even imagine what you must be going through, Daphne, I wanted to say, but the words caught in my throat. Her discomfort didn’t appear to stem from our current surroundings, at the very least. In fact, Daphne had seemed oddly comfortable placing an order, only to slip back into her previous anxieties. Perhaps there were pizzerias where she came from, or something remarkably similar. What that meant for our two disparate worlds, our two disparate species, and us two disparate children, however, was beyond my reckoning.

Of course, I could have simply asked Daphne about it, but I was having difficulty finding my voice, watching Daphne fret as she did.

The silence was deepened by the arrival of our food, the orange-maned teen from before depositing the plates on our table before hurrying back towards the kitchens. Daphne stared down at her slices—which were heaped with far more molten cheese than I felt anypony could eat alone—with trepidation, and I slapped a hoof to my temple.

“Maybe they can cut the cheese out of my hair. Wouldn’t that be grand?” Daphne muttered to herself.

I kicked myself metaphorically. She had come here for my help and I wasn’t going to let her down. Especially on something so simple.

With a nudge at her shoulder with my hoof, she turned to look at me. I gave her a smile and gestured down to the plate. “It's not difficult. Just like this.” I reached down to my own plate and picked up a spinach-covered slice. I sat up and took a bite before looking to her expectantly. That should be easy enough to follow; even a recently restored paraplegic could manage that much.

Carefully, Daphne set her hoof against the fluffy crust.

No dice.

She mustered her willpower, but it left no impact aside from an impression in the cheese. I frowned.

While she licked the sauce from her hoof, Lyra stared at her. “You can't even—?”

“Voice down!” I hissed. My ears were alert as I checked the nearby tables. That orange-maned busboy was giving us a funny look. He fled at once at my glare.

Lyra coughed and lowered her voice almost to a whisper. “You can't even use your hooves?”

“Rub it in, why don't you?” Daphne muttered. “Besides, didn’t you notice it back at the house? You threw a cake at me.”

“But… you just pick things up,” Lyra said in a tone of wonderment, her eyes wide.

Daphne’s face scrunched up. “Don't you think I've tried that? Though, I'm not really sure what you mean. I've tried everything I can think of!”

“It's just... basic, really. You pick things up with your hooves; that's all you need to do.” Lyra teleported a bit to the table with a flash of golden magic and then pulled it up with a hoof. She held it out for Daphne to see.

The awe on Daphne’s face was palpable. The coin could have been a bar of gold. She reached out and felt around Lyra’s hoof. It looked as though Daphne was trying to take the coin, but all she could manage was to push it around the surface of Lyra’s hoof with the tip of her own.

Lyra squirmed and jerked her hoof back. “He-e-ey! That tickles!”

Quite without warning, Daphne slammed her forelegs into the table. That did manage to attract attention, and several heads turned our way. Her face turned stricken with the sort of pallor that could only come from immediate post-fact regret.

My heart went out to her—I wanted nothing more than to show her how to use her hooves, to fit in and feel comfortable in her new body. Perhaps I could teach her magic, too, and then she’d get her cutie mark once she figured out what her special talent was meant to be. She would need a place to stay, too, of course. I would be more than happy to fix her up a room. Knowing her, she’d insist on paying back rent once she got a job, and we’d be able to live together as we’d always dreamed.

Of course, it wouldn’t be in a palace in Canterlot with a rocketship or whatever that was, but at least we would be together again.

“I'm sorry.” She rubbed her head and sat up. “It's been a really rough time and this grabby hooves thing is killing me.” While glaring morosely at a spot above Lyra’s head, she reached down, picked up a slice with a hoof, and stuffed her face as if she had been doing it all her life.

“I think I met somepony named Grabby Hooves in Canterlot. He wasn't a nice fellow. In fact, he would get on the commuter trains to—wait a tick.” Lyra blinked. “What are you doing?”

“Whuf?” Daphne blinked in turn at her. She swallowed. “I mean… I’m giving up. Maybe I’m a defective unicorn anyway; no horn, no hooves. I can swish my tail and walk and that’s about all. Though this pizza is great, let me tell you. Just the right amount of garlic.”

I coughed. “Daphne…” I pointed to the half-eaten slice.

Her gaze followed mine, and she looked at the slice in her hoof as though she had never seen such a thing before, or it were somepony else’s beige hoof holding it up to her. She began to choke and beat upon her chest until her throat cleared.

Just then, however, a screaming voice echoed in from the street. “Ogre!”

The pizza slid off Daphne’s hoof and landed, face down, with a sad splattering noise. Daphne’s ears drooped, but Lyra’s perked up as she pushed open the window at the end of the booth to listen.

A dark-coated pegasus stallion skid into the square outside the pizzeria, bouncing a little from the rough landing. “There’s a red ogre attacking the town; it’s going to eat some foals!” His eyes were wide as he stared around frantically, muscles tensed and ready to fly again.

There was a beat as everypony stared at him blankly. Then the screaming started. Ponies ran every which way, fleeing for cover.

Listening to the thunder of hooves pounding outside, Daphne sighed and covered her face. “Wrap mine to go. I’ve got to go save my friends.”

* * *

To say that the streets of Ponyville were in full panic would have been unfair. We had responded to enough monster attacks in recent years that the news of an ogre attacking wasn’t something that could stir the entire town into shock like a bunny stampede might have in quieter years. This side of town, however, was convinced that it was about to be under imminent threat, so ponies were rushing to and fro to reach their homes or the nearest shelter and rounding up frightened foals.

Lyra, nonchalant with a pair of pizza boxes on her back, trotted along behind us, speaking to Daphne as she made for the south edge of town. “So, you’re friends with an ogre? That’s pretty cool. Does she normally attack rural towns, or does she think you’re in danger or something? Or was the ogre chasing you, and your friends are now in danger because they’re foals?”

“There is no ogre,” Daphne said as she pushed a blonde mare—Lily—aside. Lily was screaming her head off, but,she was always an excitable sort. “Probably. And Naomi would never attack the town.” She paused to think that one over more carefully. “Probably.”

Only one thought worked its way through my mind as we ran. She brought a friend along?

This day was putting me out of sorts in so many ways.

With my attention wavering, I only barely noticed a cart careening towards us as the driver slipped in a muddy puddle. I leapt clear and shoved Daphne with me. The cart crashed into the wall next to us thunderously and sent boxes flying.

“You crazy jerk, watch where you’re going!” I shouted as I stood back up. The stallion who had lost control of the cart squeaked like a little filly and galloped away.

Daphne crawled back to her hooves and stared around wildly. “Lyra? Lyra!” Daphne shouted. “I… oh, Leit, I think she got hit! She was right behind us!”

The wagon was quickly snared in my magic, and I shuddered as it began to lift, produce being shaken off.

Just as I was about to fling the wagon aside, there was a flash, and a ball of golden light appeared between us, a silhouette of a pony contained within. The light winked away, and Lyra craned her neck around to check on the pizza boxes. “Hah! Didn’t lose anything important that time.”

Daphne gaped.

“What?” Lyra said with a grin. “You’re acting like you’ve never seen somepony teleport out of danger before. Come on, let’s go! I’m really excited now.” She turned and prodded me in the side. “Hey, Leit, bet I can teleport us the rest of the way.”

I glowered at her. “Don’t you even think about thinking of trying. I remember how long it took Amethyst Star to regrow her tail.”

“Yeah, she did look pretty hilarious like that.” Lyra laughed and then started galloping down the street, which had finally cleared itself of frantic pedestrians.

“Everything she does is charmed,” I muttered under my breath.

Daphne gave me a look but said nothing as we raced along after her.

The houses melted away to reveal the small farms and cottages that lay between town and the Everfree forest. A pang of nostalgia swept over me. It was on this very road that I would strike out once a day to go meet Daphne. It had been summer then, with a bright, hot sun and damp meadows full of insects. The land had a different character in autumn, with once-ripe fields of hay and vegetables swept clean from the final harvest of the year.

We passed by one cottage up on a hill, leaping over the back fence and dodging the chickens in the yard before racing on. Daphne put on a burst of speed and darted ahead of us as we came into sight of a large swimming hole, but she was forced to skid to a halt when a grizzled, older pegasus landed in front of her and spread his wings.

“Hold on!” he barked. “There’s a dangerous monster up ahead. She’s holding some foals hostage and looks mighty fierce. Her whole head was on fire!”

“Look, this is all just a misunderstanding—” Daphne tried to explain as Lyra and I drew near.

“I know, right?” The pegasus laughed. “You’d think monsters would have gotten the message not to mess with us here in Ponyville! Me and some of the boys are getting together to rush her position and take the foals back by force. Hopefully not too many of us will die horribly in the process.”

I blinked at him. “You sound unreasonably cheerful about that prospect.”

“Well, sure. I’m not too worried. Insurance will cover my injuries—”

By the manner in which he began to backpedal, I deduced that I had donned my “work face” as I said, “You’re aware that not all coverage includes willful exposure to injury.” It was not the sort of habit I wanted to get into, though it would be nice if Lyra reacted in like fashion, if only just once.

“Well, I… haven’t really examined my contract all that closely…” he said uneasily, continuing to back up until he nearly fell into the watering hole.

The three of us bypassed him, circling around the pond until we came to the line of ponies watching the thicket beyond. Daphne, clearly itching to get to her friends, made to shove past them, but I lay a hoof on her shoulder. She gave me a quick look and nodded for the two of us to lead the way.

“What’s going on here, Ambrosia?” I asked one of the mares talking quietly with the others, a comely earth pony with a creme mane.

Ambrosia turned to look at me with some surprise. “Hello! Uh… Leit Motif, right? Yes! I remember when you came by after the whole Mare Do Well thing last year? Thank you so much, by the way.” She grabbed my hoof in two of hers, shaking me hard enough to wobble me. “You may have saved my whole business.”

I pried my hoof free with some effort, shrinking back from her honest enthusiasm. She beamed expectantly, which had me backing up a half a step. “Uhm… y-you’re welcome. I… well, I try to look out for my clients…”

“We’re just trying to figure out what to do about this whole ‘ogre’ problem. Normally, I’d try to flag Rainbow Dash down, but no pony has seen her for a few days now. Can you believe that?” Ambrosia shook her head. “Fluttershy just barricaded herself in her house back there, and I think Applejack and Big Macintosh must be in town because no pony at Sweet Apple answered except Granny Smith.” She brightened again, ears pricking up. “But, hey, what are heroes for if not to set an example? So I figured we’d come up with a plan that doesn’t involve all of us being… horribly injured.”

“I’m glad to see you’ve got a little more sense than some ponies around here,” I muttered, glancing back at the pegasus stallion from before. “You don’t need to worry, though. I’m going to go in there and talk to her.”

Ambrosia stared at me. “You?”

A little taken aback, I blinked at her.

“Well, I mean… I haven’t really seen you out and about since, well, ever. Why are you suddenly throwing yourself into danger for no reason?” She gave a little gasp, and quickly covered her mouth. “Oh! Not that I, uh, meant to imply anything. Gosh, Leit Motif, that sounded awful. I’m sorry.”

Unsure of how to respond to that, I motioned a hoof for her to step aside. “Well, I’ll just get going then.”

Ambrosia frowned. “While that is a really sweet sentiment, I’m not sure. They said she was at least seven feet tall and covered in black hair like a panther. I know you were at Canterlot, but this might be a bit much for just a couple ponies to handle. Somepony—I think he was a guardspony—already went ahead, and we haven’t heard from him. I’d really rather something awful didn’t happen to you.”

Lyra stepped forward, directing her attention to a handsome, young pegasus with a spiky red mane and white coat who was loitering with the crowd. “Hey, cutie. Think you can hold on to my pizzas for a while?”

The stallion turned and met the full force of Lyra’s most appealing smile. For a moment, I wondered if she had overdone it—the poor fellow seized up so hard it seemed as if he had gone catatonic. Then he nodded vigorously and moved his side to hers for her to slide the boxes onto his back.

“Great! Thanks.” She waved in passing as she trotted forward. I joined her and Daphne with an exasperated sigh while the other ponies who had been listening cleared a space to let us pass. They were all looking at the three of us as though they were sizing up our coffins, which did little to settle my nerves.

“Just what kind of friends did you bring, Daphne?” I asked her, wondering what sort of creature involved being as tall as Princess Celestia and wreathed in fire to boot.

“Normal friends. They’re exaggerating.” She flicked her tail, then called ahead. “Hey, guys? It’s me, Daphne. I’m coming through with some friends—don’t panic.”

A young, male voice answered. “Gee, am I ever glad to hear you have full confidence in our ability to keep things under control, Daph.” That gave me some pause. I squinted through the leaves of the thicket—that could have been the voice of any young stallion our age, but, even tinged with sarcasm, it had a sort of confident strength to it which was uncommon in anypony so young.

It was possible Daphne had found another pony along the way who was helping her, as well. Were that the case, he should have simply come out into the open and cleared everything up.

“Yeah, Marcus.” Daphne rolled her eyes. Her tone shifted to nearly match his in biting sarcasm. “You have this so under control. All of those ponies staring this way are absolutely part of your plan.”

Lyra bounced on her heels with eagerness as we came around the thicket. “I can’t wait! My first glimpse of demented rabbit-people and… they…”

To say that the sight was a peculiar one would have been a grotesque understatement. There, in a cleared space, sat a circle of foals around a peculiar—yet familiar—creature. From the explosive red curls of sun-touched hair cascading to the earth around her, I could only assume that this was the “red ogre” everypony had been shouting about. There was nothing about her that was all that spectacular. She had soft, nearly hairless skin and a slender build that didn’t suggest anything dangerous. In her arms, she held a filly so tenderly it could have been her own baby. Even that foal didn’t seem terrified—indeed, she was curled up rather comfortably.

I remembered what Daphne had looked like as a child, but this was my first glimpse of an adult human. Their manes were certainly a lot more impressive than I had originally given credit for, certainly, though they were scrawnier than I had hoped. Daphne had always painted a mental picture of towering, imposing beings.

The guardspony—or whoever he was, he certainly looked tough, with hard muscles over his bulky frame—sat with the foals, looking bewildered at the Everfree monster, as if he didn’t quite know how he had ended up there. There was a cup of tea in one of his hooves.

“So what happened to the princess then, Miss Naomi?” one of the fillies asked, her eyes bright.

“Well, she left the prison cell to find that the evil stormtroopers had them all blocked in! Bolts of fire exploded all around them, but she wasn’t afraid. She said ‘Someone needs to find us a way out of this!’ and grabbed the wand from Luke and used it to blow a hatch to smithereens so they could—Oh, hey Daphne!” The young woman half-rose, smiling towards us. “I’d wave, but my arms are full now. This poor little thing is still trembling from her ordeal.”

“I thought I might drown,” the filly in her arms said, her eyes wide. Her bright green-and-red tail was dripping onto the young woman’s clothing, but she—Naomi—paid it no heed.

“It’s all right. There’s no way I could stand by while something like that happened.” Naomi cooed, beaming down at the foal. “Can you believe it, Daphne? Equestrian foals are just the perfect size for cuddling!”

It was hard not to look away; she was as radiant as the sun when she smiled like that.

“Just when I thought you couldn’t get more sappy, Naomi,” the man from before said, so close behind me that I froze, “you find some way to shatter my expectations.” It wasn’t that he was moving all that quietly so much as I had been too focused on the girl. “So. Might as well give us a round of introductions, Daphne. I’m getting my fill of pretty pastel ponies already.”

Feeling my ears burn, I rounded to find the source of the voice. I had to assume that he was a male from the voice, though it was hard to tell from appearance alone. Certainly, he was taller than the girl and had a certain broadness about his shoulders that suggested masculinity to me, but for all I knew this was a deep-voiced young lady. There was a certain cast about his face that was different from Naomi’s was and Daphne’s had been, too—something I don’t believe I would have picked up on were it not for my time spent with Daphne as children. The faintest fold about the eyes, the way the bones of his face stood in contrast—perhaps this was another type of human? I had always suspected that Daphne was the rough equivalent of an earth pony for her kind; perhaps he was like a pegasus or a unicorn. Magicless, mind. He wore a black jacket made of some sort of hide, and a black, polished tool made of some unidentified material hung over one shoulder.

“Well!” Naomi said, nodding to each foal in turn. “This is Red June, Archer, Sunny Daze, Cotton Cloudy, Rainy Feather, Apple Mint, Shady Daze, Chowder, Rumble, and, of course, Patch!” She tickled the filly in her arms, who squealed enthusiastically. “Oh, and Mister Blue Skies. He came to rescue the foals, and we had a nice chat.”

The man—Marcus?—groaned. “I meant… nevermind.” He glanced down at me and thumbed at Naomi. “There’s no stopping her when she’s like this. She’s going to be uncontrollable the whole time we’re here.”

I reddened, taking a cautious step back. I came up to his chest and probably weighed twice what he did, but he was still awfully forward.

Daphne strode into their midst. For once, her smile was unforced as she swept a hoof around. “These are my friends from Earth. The pretty one squealing over the foals is Naomi. She’s one of my dearest friends. This is Marcus, he’s a pain—” she caught herself as her tone began to turn bitter, ameliorating it. “He’s a friend of ours, who came when he heard my kid sister was in danger.”

Her words echoed in my head. One of her dearest friends? I looked more closely at Naomi, and my eyes narrowed. If this woman was one of Daphne’s dearest friends, then she had much to answer for. Certainly, she had crossed entire worlds to help her friend, but here she was making trouble for Daphne. Admittedly, that was to help a drowning foal, but surely she could have defused the situation better.

It was more than that, though. Where was she when Daphne’s parents tore her life apart? Just what kind of friend allows that sort of thing to happen?

“Guys, this…” Daphne came up to me, drawing my attention again. She slid her hooves around my neck, holding me close. My vision swam. “This is Leit Motif. We’ve been apart so long, it’s almost hard to believe we’re here, together.” I couldn’t answer but to slide my own hoof around her and squeeze her back. My cheeks flamed with the knowledge that others were privy to her display of affection, but I couldn’t have protested even if I wanted to.

“And I’m a third wheel!” Lyra announced, waving.

Marcus gave her a flat look. “Please don’t tell me your name is Third Wheel.”

“Nah, it’s Lyra.” She shook her haunch at him, displaying the golden harp. “I’m Leit Motif’s caretaker.”

“You are not…!” I snapped at her, or tried to. I was feeling a little choked up. In an effort to conceal my swelling emotions, I idly scuffed a hoof.

“Why is that pony shaking her butt at me?” Marcus demanded.

Lyra grinned and looked between Marcus and Naomi, her eyes narrowing thoughtfully. She flicked her tail a few times. “Still, I’m unimpressed. These are your mysterious monster friends from across the Everfree? Sure, one of them is wearing the skin of a dead animal, but I was expecting something a little more, I dunno… spectacular.”

“Oh, that’s hardly fair.” Marcus leaned the strange tool against a tree and crossed his arms. “You’ve barely gotten to know us.”

Lyra smirked at him. “A minotaur is twice as tall as I am and can throw a fully-grown pony across a field. What can you do, breathe fire?”

He glanced at the tool and gave a slight smirk. “When properly motivated.”

Daphne pulled away, and I rubbed surreptitiously at my face. “Knock it off, Marcus,” she said and poked him in the side. “I’m not letting you start a diplomatic incident.” He swatted at her hoof and they glared at one another for a moment. I swear I could feel the sparks shooting between them.

“So, uh,” I interrupted. “We should probably let the gawkers know that everypony is okay.”

Daphne jerked away from her friends, looking at me. “Oh, right. Well… everyone up, I guess. Time to face the new world.” She glanced around. “Where’s Hector, anyway?”

“Oh, I tied him up a little deeper in,” Naomi said as she stood up. Patch remained precisely where she was. “Marcus, could you fetch him? My arms are a little occupied.”

“You tied one of your friends up?” I frowned at Daphne. Lyra walked over to the foals, chivvying them into a rough semblance of order and herding them back towards open ground.

“Ah… well…” Daphne coughed. “I’m not sure I’d call Hector a friend, precisely.”

The excited foals raced ahead and danced around the relieved adults. More ponies had arrived, all of them watching the thicket, eagerly jockeying for position. When Naomi stepped into the open, there was an excited gasp—from both sides. If anything, Naomi looked happier than ever.

“Everypony!” Lyra stood up on her back hooves and spread her forelegs. “Have no fear! The terrible fire-ogress comes not to destroy and terrorize, but to make friends! Behold, for she has saved this tiny filly from drowning! Welcome her not with violence, but with your love and fellowship!”

“Why me?” I begged the sky and planted a hoof into my face.

The crowd didn’t see it the same way I did, however. Instead, they stamped their hooves and cheered before rushing forward to greet the “terrible fire-ogress.”

Daphne watched this display with an expression that sat somewhere between relief and wry amusement. “You stamp your hooves to clap? That’s really kind of adorable.”

I chuckled. “Welcome to Ponyville, Daphne. It can be a little silly, but it’s a nice enough town, I suppose.”

Lyra trotted back over to us, grinning. “Well, not a bad introduction if I… don’t… say so…” Her grin slid off her face as she stared past the two of us.

Turning, I saw the largest pony I had ever seen in my life. No, not a pony, but a horse, tall and proud and powerful. With his head held high, he strode towards us, hoofs beating the ground. A saddle graced his back, and he wore a bridle. Marcus dropped his reins and went ahead to pry Naomi off Ambrosia’s neck.

“Is… is that a Saddle Arabian?” Lyra hissed to the two of us. “Oh, Daphne. I take it back. You have all the right sorts of friends, all right.”

I frowned. He did indeed look like a Saddle Arabian, if a little large. He was the right height and build, but there was something about him that seemed off. Even in my own travels, I had only seen a few of that kind, and only at a distance, but he still struck me as a little strange. “He’s not wearing traditional Saddle Arabian garb.”

“Who cares?” Lyra scoffed and smoothed her mane back. “Look at him, he’s gorgeous! Hector, right? I’m going to say ‘hi!’”

Daphne muttered under her breath. “Saddle Arabia? Seriously?”

“Yes, it’s a country far away, occupied by horses.”

For some reason, Daphne seemed to find that idea alarming, if her widened eyes were any indication. Her ears pricked up suddenly and she whipped her head around to Lyra. “Uh, wait…”

Lyra sauntered up to the horse, who was standing beside the watering hole and watching the ponies with what seemed a dubious glance. “Hello there, Hector,” she greeted him in a low voice. “Welcome to Ponyville. You must have come a very long way indeed to help your friend Daphne.”

Hector turned to regard her, tilting his head slightly. He said nothing.

“That’s really noble of you. But, of course, a Saddle Arabian stallion must know all about honor. I’ve always… oh!” She jumped as Hector bent down to sniff at her. He whickered, sniffing down her back and nosing at her saddlebags. “Sir!” She giggled. “You are very—uh—forward!”

I glanced at Daphne. She shook her head, a mortified grin crossing her lips.

“Uh, Lyra,” I called. “Could I talk to you? Now?”

“Oh! Excuse me, sir.” Lyra backed up, extracting herself from Hector. “We’ll have to talk another time. It was very nice meeting you!” She trotted back towards us and flicked her tail at him. “Wow. He’s… something,” she said as she approached and ran her hoof through her mane again. “Silent type, huh? I can work with that.”

“I see your tastes haven’t changed much, but, uh, Lyra…” I glanced over her shoulder to where Hector was browsing at the grass. “Out of curiosity, what do you have in your saddlebags?”

“Well, my harp case, some snack flowers, my money, and those cakes.”

“Sugary sweets? Oh, boy.” Daphne rubbed her nose. “Lyra, I have something to tell you about Hector…”

“No, no, I’d rather figure it out from him. Is he a warrior with an oath of silence? Oh! Maybe he’s an exiled prince?” She bounced on the spot. “Hee! I can’t wait to find out! Let’s get going to Twilight’s already! Come on!”

As she trotted off to extract Marcus and Naomi from the curious gaggle of ponies, I looked towards Daphne and asked, “So, uh… tell me, on your world, you don’t really have sapient animals, do you?”

She shook her head. “Not really, no. Dubiously sapient, maybe.”

I glanced towards Hector. “And horses and ponies where you’re from, they’re in the same boat?”

“That’s right. I know that probably sounds a little, uh… disturbing.”

I frowned. “It brings up a lot of questions. I… I would really like a chance to talk to you privately, soon.”

“Me too.” She grinned at me. “So—want to see how long it takes the ponies here to figure it out on their own?”

It was a thought that wouldn’t have occurred to me alone. Mischief was Lyra’s schtick, not mine. Still, as I glanced at Lyra bouncing away, I felt a smirk creeping up on me. Turning to look back at Daphne, I saw in her face the little girl who had lit up my world. “Absolutely. Ready to go?”

“Yeah. Let’s go see your princess.”

---

Daphne

If Ponyville was an interesting experience for someone traveling alone, arriving with a trio of strange creatures in tow made it almost harrowing. Where ponies weren’t crowding in the street to watch, they were hanging out of windows or hovering overhead. Marcus and I gaped as we saw a pair of pegasi laying on a low-hanging cloud.

“Leit,” Marcus said, turning to look at Leit Motif, “how the heck are they doing that?”

Leit, however, didn’t look like she was in a mood to answer anything. She had her head ducked low and was staring firmly at the road in front of her. I frowned and nudged up against her with my shoulder, but she shivered and shied away.

“Are you okay?” Marcus asked, stealing the words right out of my mouth.

“I’m fine,” she muttered, but, when she glanced up and spotted the ponies staring at her, she shuddered again. Her eyes returned to the ground and she trotted along behind us.

“What, you’ve never seen birds perch on a cloud before?” Lyra asked as she pulled away from admiring Hector’s side. He was drawing as many—if not more—eyes as Naomi.

Marcus gave her a vexed look. “Uh. That would be a no.”

“Really?” Lyra tilted her head. “Huh, weird.”

“Clouds are insubstantial mist. Nothing can stand on them.”

“Well, yeah.” Lyra shrugged. “That’s what cloudwalking spells are for. Most winged creatures just natively produce a similar effect.”

“Didn’t Daphne explain the whole no magic thing to you?” He scowled at the pegasi overhead, who pointed at him and whispered among themselves. “This place is already starting to get on my nerves, and they aren’t as nice as advertised, either.” He turned back to Leit, frowning. “Can’t they find something else to stare at?”

Lyra laughed. It didn’t seem as if she noticed Leit Motif’s distress—of course, Leit was trying to make herself as small and unnoticeable as possible. “Sorry, you’re the coolest thing we’ve seen all week. Do you think we could walk through one of your towns without drawing eyes?”

I grimaced, remembering my terrified imaginings back in my own hometown. “No.”

“Give it a couple days, though, and it’ll be like you’ve always lived here,” Lyra said. “Once ponies understand that you’re just like us in all the most important ways, they’ll accept you.”

Marcus snorted. “All right, but if I start saying ‘anypony,’ I’m going to drown myself.”

As we continued north through town, I kept close to Leit Motif with the hope my presence would lend her some comfort. My attention, however, was settled on Naomi. Her eyes had a glint in them that worried me, and I wondered if I might have to keep an eye on her during our stay. The last thing I wanted to hear about would be her kidnapping and brainwashing any of the locals. At first, the way she was cradling Patch concerned me greatly, but, as we went along, I started to have trouble telling who was manipulating whom. Whenever Naomi set her down, Patch became suspiciously miserable, staring up at her new ride with wide eyes and a pouty lower lip until she was picked up again.

Even as I watched, Patch pointed a yellow hoof at an ice cream stand. “Miss Naomi? Would it be too much trouble to ask if you could get me some of that? I wouldn’t ask, but… I-I haven’t had butter pecan in so long, and I-I was worried I’d never get to taste it again…”

“Seriously?” I asked, nonplussed, and raised an eyebrow.

“Oh, you poor thing!” Naomi smiled winsomely at Lyra. “Could I bum a few coins off you? I’ll find a way to pay it off.”

“Ice cream? Yes, please!” Lyra strode over to the vendor and came back hovering a pair of cones. Patch took one and cradled it between her forehooves, which was so saccharine I had to look away.

Marcus stared at the cone still hovering in front of Lyra as they walked. She was licking it casually—unlike Leit Motif, she seemed to bloom rather than wilt under the stares we were getting. “Okay,” he said, pointing at the glow. “That’s kind of awesome. You got any more tricks like that, little horse?”

“More than you’d know what to do with, rabbit. I’m a top graduate of a magic school. For magic. Top.”

He rolled his eyes. “You’re ‘top’ something, all right.”

As the buildings thinned out, forming little clusters in the grassy fields, we came upon a great tree, easily forty meters across at the base and with branches that must have shaded an acre or two. A balcony jutted out near the top of the trunk and airy windows dotted its side. It was hard to tell if it had been grown first and then carved to become a house, or patiently molded through its life into the form that it was in now.

Lyra paused in front of a sign near the door that displayed an open book and turned back to the crowd. “All right, everypony. Thanks for coming—show’s over now.”

There was a general grumble of disappointment, and one colt shouted, “Aww, come on! At least breathe fire or something!”

Lyra’s horn flared and she spat a gout of flame from her mouth that curled and smoked in the afternoon air.

“Well.” The boy considered that for a moment. “Fair enough.”

There was scattered laughter and most of the crowd dispersed, leaving only a few onlookers.

“So…” I stepped forward to peer curiously at the front door. “What’s the proper protocol for meeting a princess?” If I hadn’t known it was a royal residence, I might have mistaken it for a bookshop or public library. What I could see of the interior from outside showed packed shelves crawling up the interior walls.

Lyra gestured to the door. “I normally just barge in and say ‘hello,’ but I figure we can be reasonably polite and knock.”

Naomi’s head jerked up. “Whoa. Whoa. No pony said anything about meeting a pony princess.” Her eyes might as well have been blue fire for all the intensity they gave the door.

“Eh, I wouldn’t get your expectations up, kid. Twilight is pretty much the same pony who I went to school with.” Lyra tilted her head. “Okay, to be fair, she’ll actually give you the time of day instead of absent-mindedly blowing you off like you don’t even exist or—” She grated her teeth. “Ahem, sorry. She’s pretty nice, really; humble even. Somepony who’s saved the world a few times could probably stand to gloat a little more, but I wonder if she even notices the sort of attention she gets these days.”

“Saved the world?” Marcus’ brows shot up.

“Oh, yeah. Few times. Kind of makes us fellow alumni look underaccomplished.”

Spotting Leit Motif leaning against the sign, I went over to her side and gently touched her shoulder. She shied away again. “Leit, it’s okay. It’s just me.” I flicked my tail in helpless agitation as I watched her shrink in on herself. Leit had seemed to be in high spirits as we entered town, but it was as if all those eyes had battered her down again.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. Carefully, she leaned into my touch.

Not for the first time, I wondered if I had made a mistake drawing Leit Motif out of the safety of her house. The story I had pulled out of her and Lyra seemed to confirm that some awful things had happened to her in the past. Compounding her trauma with my own problems may have been not only a terrible idea, but a selfish one, as well. I shook my head, dismissing the thought—I had to believe that my friend had the capacity to pull through.

“Hey, kid. You plan on going home any time soon?” I heard Marcus ask.

“I’m good,” Patch answered. “Could you shift your arms a bit, miss? My neck’s getting a little cramped.”

Naomi giggled. “Of course.”

I gave Leit a nervous smile while my hoof gently rubbed her back. “You know, there’s something I’ve never told anybody. For a long time after we were separated, I, well… sometimes I’d get really anxious.” She looked up at me, her eyes mossy pools. “Sometimes I’d be surrounded by people, sometimes I’d be on my own, and I just… couldn’t deal with life. My breath would cut short, I’d feel closed in, trapped…”

“H-how… how did you cope?” Leit asked.

“Often? I didn’t. I just tried to avoid thinking about things that bothered me.” I shook my head. “It wasn’t healthy. I kept things bottled up…” I trailed off and glanced at Marcus briefly. “Exploded a few times I didn’t mean to. Sometimes I’d just ignore people. The only thing that really helped was breathing exercises and curling up with something I cared about.”

“Breathing exercises?”

“I don’t know how well it would work for a pony, but… breathe with your stomach in a measured count. Inhale slowly with your stomach for five seconds—good, like that—then hold it for two seconds, then slowly exhale for five seconds. Keep doing that twice more.” I smiled, continuing to rub her back as she did just that. “Great. Now breathe normally, in and out, until you’ve exhaled five times.”

Leit’s trembling eased under my hoof. We kept that up for a few cycles until Leit eased herself up off the sign and gave me a wan smile. Her breathing had steadied, and some of the color had returned to the skin under her coat. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Are you ready?”

Leit nodded. “As I’ll ever be.” We joined the others. Hector had been tied up to a low-hanging branch that was as thick as a leg, and Lyra had stepped up to the door. Her hoof tapped out a staccato rhythm, and we waited.

“Library’s open!” a boy’s voice called. “Sheesh. What part of ‘public’ is so confusing?”

“Why do I even bother?” Lyra asked the air.

Leit gave her a scowl. “I know that was directed at me. Don’t even pretend you didn’t mean it that way.”

Marcus gestured between them as Lyra shoved the door open, striding into the library as if she owned the place. “Is this a thing? Was that a thing that I just witnessed?”

Leit Motif grimaced and trotted in after her. “Lyra’s treatment of private space can be a little… cavalier. We’ve skirmished over that in the past.”

Stepping inside the library was a bit like walking into a dream. In place of the rustic charm that seemed to pervade the rest of Ponyville was an almost fairy tale simplicity. Shelves, tables, stairs, and passages were arrayed with organic grace, making the space feel not so much like a library as it did a bower. It wasn’t hard at all to picture my younger self curling up in one of those window spaces to read away a lazy afternoon. It must have been fine competition for the miles of park space that filled the town. I wondered how much ponies read—whether there was a grand passion for it, or if ponies took their libraries for granted as much as mankind did.

If the wisteria unicorn mare seated on a plush cushion near the back was any indication, the former was more likely. She had a stack of thick, wood-bound tomes taller than she was on either side of her, with her nose buried in another.

“Is that you, Lyra?” she called in a distant tone, so engrossed in her reading that she didn’t bother to turn around or even so much as lift her head at our entrance. “You’re not here to check out more books again, are you? I told you, you need to return the books you’ve already borrowed before you can check out anything else. This is a library. That’s kind of how they work.”

“Twilight Sparkle!” Lyra trotted around the table in the center, a stock of wood that extended straight out of the floor. “Is that any way to greet a pair of old school friends? We hardly even see each other!”

“You were here just yesterday,” Twilight said, her tone acerbic, but she quickly ameliorated. “I said I was sorry for being so distant back in Canterlot, and—” She paused in the midst of turning a page to look up at Lyra. “Wait, pair? Is Amethyst Star with you?”

“Nope.”

“Did Moondancer come down from Canterlot?”

“Also nope.”

Twilight tapped her hoof on the floor.

Lyra gestured behind her. “You know, you can just turn around.”

“Oh…! Oh, right.” Twilight chuckled uneasily as she rose, and I blinked as a pair of wings that had been tucked up against her sides gently unfurled.

There was an air of precision about her—her indigo, rose-striped mane and tail looked as though they had been trimmed with a paper cutter, and her wings had been impeccably groomed to remove even the slightest crooked feather. It wasn’t the sort of precision that spoke of fashion so much as a keen sense of fastidiousness, a desire to control her personal environment.

Evidently, it also came with a fair-sized dollop of absent-mindedness. She turned to view her guests and focused first on Leit. “Oh! Leit Motif! It’s been… wow, months now! How have you been?” She peered more closely at her. “You know ink isn’t really a recommended mane conditioner, right?”

Leit lifted a hoof, waggling it uncertainly. “Uh. I’m not… bad. And yes I… nevermind, these, uhm…” She glanced over towards myself and my human friends. “I’ve, uh… brought some people who want to see you.”

“I’m terribly sorry. I’m usually better at this, but I’ve just received a shipment of fascinating books on griffin history, and I’ve been so focused I’ve… just…” Twilight Sparkle’s eyes widened as she at last regarded the remaining visitors to her library.

Marcus waved. “Greetings, pony-ling. Take us to your leader.” He contained a yelp when I stamped my rear hoof on his foot.

I stepped forward and extended a leg. “Hello, Twilight Sparkle. My name is Daphne, and I’m told you can help me and my friends.”

Twilight took my leg. To her credit, she was recovering from the intrusion rather quickly. I could almost see the surprise turning to interest in her eyes as she looked more closely at myself and my friends. “You must have come a long way.”

“Further than I really know how to express.” I laughed nervously. “These are my friends, Marcus and Naomi. They’re humans, and so was I until a few days ago. We come from a world we call Earth and we’ve traveled to Equestria in order to rescue my little sister, Amelia. She was kidnapped, and we don’t know how to find her in your world.”

Turning, I gestured to encompass Leit Motif and Lyra. “Leit and Lyra have been helping us since we arrived in Ponyville. Leit Motif is actually a very old friend of mine, but… well, we can explain the details later. In any case, they said that you, of all the ponies in town, could help us save my sister.”

Looking Twilight Sparkle in the eyes, I lifted my leg again, this time imploringly. “Please. I am scared sick and don’t know what else to do. If you can do anything, even just pointing us in the way we need to go, I would be grateful.”

Twilight glanced among us, her feathers ruffling slightly. She gave me a warm smile and lowered her head in a compassionate nod. “Of course. You don’t even need to ask. If I can help you at all, I will.”

* * *

We soon found ourselves sitting in a loose circle of cushions, all facing Twilight Sparkle. She sat up attentively, while myself and Leit Motif lay across one large cushion together. Marcus and Naomi sat together, cross legged, while Patch sat on Naomi’s lap and submitted to the ministrations of her brush. Lyra completed the circle, and she laid out the pizza boxes.

Lyra floated a slice Twilight’s way, who shook her head. “You want some of this?”

Marcus raised his hand. “I’ll take some.”

“Hold on!” the male voice from earlier called. I glanced towards one of the smaller doors to see an upright, purple-and-green scaled reptile that I could only surmise was a very tiny—and somewhat cherubic—dragon. “You’re not going to eat that over the floor, are you?”

“Well…” Lyra looked thoughtfully at her piece. A globule of cheese dribbled into the box and I felt my mouth watering. I reached out and hoofed my box closer. Let people stare at me if they liked; I didn’t care at that point.

“Ugh. Hold on. At least let me get some plates and napkins, okay?” He waddled away, grumbling.

Twilight smiled and waved a hoof. “Don’t mind Spike. He’s a bit of a grouch, but a very efficient assistant. Please, go ahead with your story.”

“I suppose that’s me, then,” I said and sat up. “So, I’ll try to be brief, but I think you should hear all of it. Some of you here have only gotten part of the story anyway, so now is as good a time as any to get it all out.”

My hoof ran through my mane in an effort to settle my nerves, and I took a deep breath. “It all started eight years ago. I was the sort of child who ran wild in the woods behind my house—back then I was a little too energetic for my own good, I guess.”

Marcus sneaked a glance my way as he listened and ate. Not that surprising—he didn’t know me until we were both teens. As far as he was concerned, I could have been talking about someone else entirely.

“I didn’t have anyone else to play with at first. I never thought about it, honestly. I’ve always had a pretty good imagination, so I made up whole worlds to play in. It was…” I glanced into the distance. “It was almost as if I were seeing different places, far away. Peoples and things that were just over the horizon. When I met Leit Motif for the first time, I thought she was one of those imaginings, but she didn’t react the same way—dreams can do unexpected things, but they’re a lot easier to bring to heel than living, breathing little girls.”

“What were you even doing out there?” Lyra asked as she peered Leit Motif’s way. Leit scrunched her face up, and Lyra narrowed her eyes thoughtfully as she turned back to me. “Eight years ago, you say? When, exactly?”

“We met in the summer.” I tilted my head, digging into my memory. “I don’t know if you guys have a similar calendar to ours…”

Lyra tilted her head. “Twelve months in a year, begins on the winter solstice, months are about thirty days give or take a couple?”

I nodded. “All right. Pretty close; not exactly, but close enough.” The calendar from that day appeared before me, conjured up from the depths of my memories. A vista from a sunny Hawai’ian beach was folded over the month of June. “The fourteenth day of the sixth month.”

Lyra stared at me. “Well, I can’t say I was expecting a precise day, but, okay, I can work with that. I seem to recall something strange happening one summer eight years ago. Heck, most of Equestria saw it.”

Twilight’s eyes widened.

Beside me, Leit kneaded the pillow with her hooves. I was about to speak up to spare her, but she spoke anyway. “A flash of rainbow light across the sky. It swept over Ponyville and into the Everfree.”

“Everypony everywhere has a special magical connection with her friends, maybe even before she's met them,” Twilight murmured distantly. It didn’t sound as if she intended others to hear, but she didn’t seem to notice when she spoke too loudly.

Leit Motif was staring at the floor, and I let it pass. Alone of the others, Lyra was looking at Leit Motif with concern, but no one needed to know that Leit had been packed heavily enough to survive a month or more on her own.

“After that, we were together every day,” I said. “For a month, I led her up and down my part of the woods—which are a fair bit safer than yours, by the way. I can’t say I’ve ever had a tree attempt to murder me before coming here.” I grimaced. “That’s when my parents took me away from there. They stuck me in therapy, and… well, I suppose you’d say I shut down. I couldn’t bear to be imaginative anymore.”

I, too, glanced towards the floor at this point. Pity was not an emotion I really wanted to see just then. The pain was too raw and personal to share with anyone except Leit Motif. “Flash forward eight years later… I, well… I’d mostly forgotten about everything.”

Marcus leaned back and scowled. He’d gone ahead and eaten his pizza without benefit of a plate—which didn’t bother me. It was on his head if that dragon set him on fire. “I didn’t think you forgot much of anything.”

“Ah… no.” I shook my head. “I do forget some things, especially things I am not really paying attention to, or that I just didn’t care enough to really dwell on. I’m sure at least some of my details are off, too. You might say that I didn’t forget Leit Motif so much as I had become conditioned not to think of her.” I laid a hoof on her back, and she tensed briefly before relaxing again.

“It’s all right,” Leit said quietly. “I tried to push you out of my mind, too.”

I continued. “Going back there exposed me to all of that again. It came back, hard, and I neglected my sister, whom I had brought with me. I kept blowing her off, and eventually she got so mad she stormed off and… and I let her.” Personal recrimination would not hold me back, and I forced myself to face my audience again. “I chased after her, as best I could. I found her with a group of strange men and one really strange cat.”

“From the sounds of it,” Twilight said, “you won’t have any trouble describing her kidnappers.”

I smiled wanly. “No. I could paint you a picture, if I knew how to paint.”

She gestured with a hoof towards me. “You can show me.”

“Show… you?” I frowned. It clicked even as I asked. “Oh! With… magic?” I reached up to gently touch my horn. “I’m sorry, I haven’t any idea how this thing is supposed to work.”

Twilight had the grace to look embarrassed, nodding. “Oh, no, there’s no need to apologize. I shouldn’t have presumed. Please, go on.”

“All right.” I concentrated on the space just before Twilight, pulling up the images of the three men. “They’re about as tall as you are standing. They resemble humans, but they’re a lot heavier than Marcus. Sort of grayish-green skin. They’ve got a lumpy, misshapen appearance.”

Marcus tapped a boot against the floor. “You know, don’t we have some of their writing, too?”

“Oh, hey! We do.”

Twilight perked at once, her tail straightening and her ears cupping forward. “Writing?”

I nodded. “Just a few pages that looked like they were torn out of an old book. They helped us get across into Equestria, which was, uh… harder than I had imagined. Sorry, I’m getting ahead of myself… anyway, the leader of the three men had this big, gnarly wand, and I saw him perform… I suppose the only word for it is magic, though it looked nothing like the sort of magic you unicorns do.”

That put a thoughtful frown on the faces of all three of those unicorns. None of them interrupted, however, as they stared at me intently.

“Whenever he used it, there would be a white flash so bright it was almost blinding. I tried to fight him for it, and wherever it shot, things… changed. It was so hectic I barely remember what happened, but I do recall a hit turning the leaves on the ground into a flock of birds, and then there were logs bouncing around us… that’s when he shot me.” I rubbed at the spot on my chest where the beam had struck. There was nothing there, as far as I could tell, but the scene had been seared into my memory rather strongly, such that it felt as if I had been branded. Little wonder there’d be some psychosomatic relic.

“I fell into a nearby river and must have passed out. I can kind of remember changing, but I honestly thought I was dead until I washed up on a shore.”

“Complete transmogrification,” Twilight said in a breath. “I’ve performed transformation spells, but… either this man with the wand was very gifted, or he has some radically different powers than I’m familiar with.”

“Can you do anything about it?” I asked.

“I’m not sure.” She shook her head lightly. “We’ll definitely see about trying, though it’s not something I want to delve into lightly. I’ve barely graduated from turning fruit into other kinds of fruit. Restructuring mineral and crystalline objects is hard enough, but organic material? Let alone living creatures?”

Spike grumbled as he returned, shoving plates and cups in front of each of us. “Mixed results there, let me tell you.” He paused in front of Marcus and narrowed his gaze to slits, then threw a pile of napkins down and went to sit on the stairs to listen.

Twilight gave Spike a cross look before coughing and ruffling her feathers. “Yes, well, even if I can’t do anything, I’m sure we can ask Princess Celestia or Princess Luna. Maybe the Elements could help, if it’s some form of dark magic.”

I filed those names away and decided not to ask about them just yet, electing instead to continue. “After that, I went to Naomi for help and worked my way around town, careful to avoid eyes. I didn’t want to know what would happen if people saw me—we’re, uh… not used to species other than our own.”

“You’re the only sapient race on your world?” Twilight asked.

“As far as I know.” I glanced down at Leit Motif. “I’m starting to question that. Your Everfree Forest… it seems to have more than one way to go. The way to get into Equestria is guarded, though.”

Leit lifted her head, frowning. “Guarded? I’ve been back and forth through there dozens of times.”

“Do you remember a narrow river that seems to sparkle with silver?”

She nodded. “I just waded through it.”

“Well, when a human tries to pass, it pretty much instantly tries to kill them.” I shuddered. “The entire river surges violently, like it’s possessed.”

Marcus lifted his hand. “Would-be river victim, right here.”

“How did you get around it?” Lyra asked.

I reddened and gestured towards Naomi and Marcus. “We found a bag one of the men had left behind. It had some, ah… curious images on it.”

Naomi nodded her head towards Marcus. “They’re tucked between the pages of my sketchbook for safekeeping.”

He glowered at her. “Why can’t you get them?”

“My hands are busy!” she protested. Patch squirmed and flicked her tail, laying it over Naomi’s leg. Naomi giggled, obligingly brushing it out.

Marcus sighed. “You see what I have to deal with?” Muttering to himself, he dug through Naomi’s shoulderbag until he found a plain book, then carefully extracted the yellowed pages of text we’d found.

Spike took them and delivered them over to Twilight to view. Her face almost immediately turned sour. “They’re riding ponies?” she asked as she glanced up at me.

My ears flattened against my head. “As near as we can tell. We made kind of a stupid gamble and supposed that if Naomi was riding me while, uh, bridled, we’d get across. It worked.”

Lyra peered over Twilight’s shoulder. “That’s kind of a pathetic security system.”

“I know.” I furrowed my brows. “The people on it look like ancient Greeks, from over two thousand years ago. Back then, horses on earth were largely comparable in size to you Equestrians, if longer—”

Twilight raised a hoof. “Wait. I thought you said you didn’t have any other sapient species.”

“Ah… I almost hate to say it, but a ‘pony’ where we’re from is basically just an animal. We, uh… breed and ride them as beasts of burden.” Their eyes widened and they shot alarmed looks at Marcus and Naomi. I nodded. “Yeah. I know, it’s a little weird for me, too. That’s kind of a funny thing, though, because unicorns have been mentioned as far back as… well, the Greeks, and earlier, I think.”

“The Indus Valley civilization also mentioned unicorns,” Naomi said brightly, not bothering to look up from her ministrations.

“It’s pretty much universally agreed that they were all magically powerful and intelligent,” I said as I glanced around. “There’s also mention of pegasi—well, a pegasus. The Pegasus.”

“There are winged horses in Hindu and Norse Mythology as well,” Naomi piped in.

I gave her a flat look. “Who’s telling this story?”

She giggled. “Somepony who isn’t telling it very well.”

Twilight tapped her hoof on the floor. “I’m sorry. This is all rather sudden. You’ve presented a lot of things I’ve never even heard of before.” A beat passed, and Twilight’s eyes darted to the right. “Well, maybe.”

Lyra scuffed her hoof on the floor thoughtfully. “There’s something to this… I don’t know what books you read in Canterlot, Twilight, but I’ve studied compositions from around the world. There are epic poems from the griffins that remember a race of upright peoples clad in armor who fought with them. Minotaurs all claim a common heritage from a bull and some upright, tool-using progenitor.”

“We have legends of both of those,” I said. “Again, from the Greek narratives.”

Marcus leaned forward. “Twilight’s right—this is getting a little complicated.” He glanced around us as we looked towards him. “I mean… think about it. In just a few minutes here, we’ve pretty definitively established that your world and our world were and are connected in some really significant ways. Even I can tell you that the implications for human history are huge.”

“For pony history as well,” Leit Motif said. “There’s so much of the pre-Classical era that was lost after the collapse of the three tribes, the Discordian years, and more.” She sat up, much of the malaise that had overcome her seeming to fall away, and she shook her inky mane out of her face. “Marcus is right, though. Right now, we should stay focused on the task at hand. Whatever time we waste is more time for something bad to happen to Daphne’s sister.”

Twilight nodded. “Agreed. While I’m fascinated to learn more about the implications, they can wait.”

“All right,” I said. “Well. That is kind of the end. Naomi bridled me and we rode across without a complaint.”

“That is still a ridiculous loophole,” Lyra groused. “It’s so easy.”

I shrugged. “It took us a couple more days to get from there to Ponyville—actually.” I frowned at Leit Motif. “I wanted to ask about that. How did you get to me so fast every day?”

She tilted her head. “You didn’t take a straight east-to-west route, did you?”

I shuffled my hooves.

“It’s quite easy. You just circle south for a bit, following the trail around the swamp, and it takes you right to the river. If you went straight as the crow flies, there are two massive ravines that force you to detour.”

Marcus turned a glare towards Naomi.

Naomi shrugged. “Hey, I just told you guys which way west was. It’s not my fault it took us two days to go a couple miles.”

I tapped a hoof to draw attention again. “And that’s how we ended up in Ponyville. I came to find Leit Motif—” I glanced to her and Lyra “—retrieved my friends, and came here.”

Twilight rocked back. “That’s… quite a story. Of course, I’ll help as much as I can, though it does sound like it might be difficult to find any relevant information on these attackers. There’s always the Royal Library at Canterlot, though! And who knows what other libraries might have. Oh, this is so exciting!” She smiled. “Don’t worry, Daphne. Even if you hadn’t of brought me one of the most seminal finds in history, I wouldn’t let the kidnapping of a foal stand.”

I gave her a grateful smile in return. “Thank you. That’s all… no, that’s more than I could ask. I’ve already imposed on your people so much.”

She waved a hoof. “Think nothing of it.” She then lit up as her eyes swept across the shelves. “Spike! We have a research project!”

“I’m on it,” he said, going to collect the pages from her. He examined them thoughtfully. “I’m thinking ancient history.”

Twilight ticked off ideas. “Everfree Forest. Species of Equestria.”

Lyra got to her hooves. “Legends, folktales, and songs.”

Leit rose as well, her eyes brightening. “There’s books on foreign magic, isn’t there? I’ll see if I can’t rummage anything up.”

Marcus pulled one of the pizza boxes closer. “I’m going to eat dinner.”

The rest of us gave him steady looks.

“What? We may speak the same language, but I had a look at those signs on the way here. The three of us are more likely to get in the way.” He waved a hand dismissively. “Go do unicorn things for a while. Unicorn it up.”

“I’d like to learn,” Naomi said.

I nodded with her. “Me too. I hate to it admit it, though, but Marcus is right.”

Already, Spike, Twilight, and Lyra were moving into action, pulling books from shelves with magic and claw. Leit Motif smiled at me. “It’s all right. I’ll teach you as we go.”

I returned her smile. “Thanks.” Taking in the library, a spark of hope wormed its way back into my chest. The flame that caught from it was small, but it would grow with time.

* * *

Pizza and books were devoured with equal measure. Lyra and Twilight Sparkle were plowing through tomes and volumes like there was no tomorrow, with the latter of them flipping through three books at once and the former skimming and chucking volumes carelessly aside. Spike had his arms full pretty much continuously, racing up and downstairs to dig up new stacks.

“So that’s a ‘th’ sound?” I asked Leit as I pointed at an odd collection of bars and lines. It was less out of need for a reminder than it was for a confirmation.

She nodded, her horn turning green again as she highlighted a sentence. “Yes. Try it out.”

“‘In this way the zebra people have thoroughly exploited their environment, from the tops of the acacia tree to the deepest roots of the sorghum grasses,’” I read aloud.

“That’s… a little incredible.” Leit considered the page for a moment before examining me more closely. “Are you sure you’ve never read Equestrian before? I always assumed you knew it, since you speak it, but…”

I turned that over in my head as I looked at the page. “No. I think it’s just a memory and imagination thing. Once you told me what a letter meant I could attach it to a sound. I can look at that anytime I want for a reference from that point.”

“What about a whole page? Can you remember that exactly?”

I shook my head. “No. I mean… I have before, but that’s a lot harder. If I want to memorize a lot of information, like a whole text, I have to go through it slowly and carefully to make sure I’m getting all of it down. Otherwise, I only remember the meaning and context, and maybe a few phrases that stood out to me.”

“So when you really want to remember something, you make a little symbol for it in your mind?” she asked.

I nodded. “Yeah, it’s like I said; I think of a place and I assign a location to everything. If I want to look at memories of you and me together, I know right where to go every time. I was able to follow that back to find the memory of the calendar on the day we first met, too.”

Leit Motif snorted. “That’s far more efficient than my method. I just read things until they burn themselves in.”

I laughed. “Don’t be too jealous. Frankly, I wish I could turn it off sometimes. Makes it hard to forget embarrassing myself.”

“So that one time you fell on an anthill and cried like a baby—”

“Hey!”

“—or how you had to ask Naomi for help eating your pizza and she fed you like a baby—”

I swatted her with a hoof. “Shut u-u-up! Once I work out my hooves, I swear I’m going to hog tie you and give you to her as a present.”

Leit Motif shot an alarmed glance towards Naomi. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“Try me.” I giggled.

Leit gave a little chuckle and looked thoughtfully down at the book. “I wonder if you might be able to pick magic up as well.”

My ears pricked forward. This was a possibility that had, of course, occurred to me, but I didn’t have the faintest idea of how to start it. It probably should have been obvious that I could ask a roomful of unicorns. “Do you think I can?”

“You’re a unicorn. You were born to magic—” She coughed. “Ah. Well. You’re still a unicorn.” She gave me a considering look. “You didn’t grow up trying to use magic, though. There’s a lot of youthful growth and experimentation that is important for development.”

“Oh.” I sighed. “I haven’t had anything since I changed, either. Not so much as a little spark.”

“I’m sorry. I may be getting your hopes up for nothing.” Leit rubbed my shoulder. “It may not hurt to try, though. If we can’t turn you back, knowing a few basic spells could be useful while we’re rescuing your sister.”

“I would like to.” I glanced up between my bangs. The horn jutting out of my head felt like little more than a useless lump. It was always there at the top of my vision—a continuous reminder that I wasn’t myself. I reached up to touch it gently. There was a tingle as my hoof ran down the length of it, a pressure that would have been difficult at best to describe to someone without one. Like an antenna, really—you wave an aerial and it thrums as it picks up the radio.

Leit Motif winced. “Could you please not do that? A good hit on your horn stings.”

“Oh!” I snatched my hoof back. “Sorry.”

“All right. Exercises.” She glanced down at the book between her hooves. “Lyra might be someone to talk to, actually. She had remedial tutoring as a filly. I’m just trying to think of how a unicorn foal first starts… normally, your first magic is when you’re a baby, and it’s uncontrolled and powerful. Later, well—every unicorn foal tries to do magic as early as she can. It’s one of those things where everypony wants to run as soon as she can walk. It’s something that takes years to build up, normally, but since you’re already almost an adult… well, none of your muscles have atrophied, so maybe you’ve been given an adult’s strength in magic, too?”

“I’ve smashed my face into the ground enough lately trying to walk. It’s like I have four left hooves.”

Leit giggled. “Well, if you’re going to try magic, you might have to smash your face a few more times. Considering some unknown magic turned you into a unicorn in the first place, I can’t even guess at what’s required.” She tilted her head, then lifted one of the last slices of my extra-cheese pizza onto the table nearby. “While I’m reading, try this: close your eyes and think about wanting the pizza. Don’t think about how to get it—that’s trying too hard. Just hold it in your mind and want it.”

I gave her a strained smile. “Leit, hon, I’m not a bottomless pit. I’m stuffed.”

“I don’t know. You’ve eaten nearly three full meals since I’ve seen you again.” She wiggled the slice at me. “Surely you can find room in there for one more slice?”

Rolling my eyes, I turned to regard the pizza for a moment. Once I had it fixed firmly in mind, I shut my eyes.

I’ve often wondered what it’s like to be someone who doesn’t have an imagination as vivid as I do. Ironically, that’s something that’s nearly impossible to visualize. When I close my eyes and picture a scene, the only difference is that there’s a lot less distracting me. In other people’s imaginings, do dimensions change? Colors? Can whole events be swapped around without the person viewing knowing?

Ultimately, such questions didn’t matter. I closed my eyes and saw the same scene I had when they were open. That’s just how these things work.

Leit Motif hadn’t been entirely wrong. I had been pushing myself rather hard and building up a fierce hunger, and staring at a slice heaped with mouth-wateringly good mozzarella was starting to make me a little antsy. Temptation abounded, too—it would be very easy indeed to imagine a glowing aura of my own surrounding it and lifting it towards my waiting mouth. Leit had said not to do any such thing, though.

Time ticked by. I pictured a clock like Leit’s on the wall, and then dismissed it.

This was something I’d never read about in an adventure story: someone staring at pizza until their mind shrieks with boredom.

“Hey, guys?” Lyra called. I snapped my eyes open and looked towards her, grateful for the interruption.

She was peering down at a book. It had the look of a journal—the writing was sloppy and there was a clasp on the cover. The others crowded around. Even Patch climbed up on Lyra’s back to peer down at it.

“So,” Marcus said as he leaned over Leit Motif, “what are we looking for?”

Lyra rolled her eyes and pointed to a passage, reading aloud. “‘The goblins came again to the farm. They had a new wagon this time, and new passengers as well. Granny said not to stray too close to their wagons without Ma or Pa with me, but I couldn’t help myself. The others had looked so ugly, upright and coarse, like someone had shaped them out of dough.’” Those words hung in the air for a moment, a bit of extra emphasis behind them. “‘This new one was bright and colorful, though, and she walked on all four legs, not just two. Her name was Cascade and she had feathers like a pegasus that shimmered in the sunlight like kingfisher feathers, all along her back. She told me a secret—that she had been a pony once, just like me, until she got lost and they found her. She called me a very special little filly and asked if I wanted to know how they made such wonderful tools, like the ever-sharp knife Granny had bought last time, or the rope that always stayed dry. She said I was to come back at night, before they left, and she’d tell me everything. I drew a picture of her; she was so lovely.’”

The page was turned to reveal a reasonably detailed sketch of a creature that looked an awful lot like a pony. Feathers covered her back in a long crest that ran from her mane down her tail, which was long and prehensile. There did not seem to be any further entries. Small wonder.

“Who did this belong to, Lyra?” Twilight asked.

“Name at the front page says ‘Marble Stone.’” Lyra flipped a couple pages to a bookmark she’d left. “She was only seven by the time of the final entry, and it’s dated a little over ten years back. It was down in the archives.”

“Could we trace it back to the family?”

Lyra shook her head. “I know the area she’s talking about. It’s right up against the Everfree, near Fluttershy’s cottage, and that area has grown wild since I was a filly. Her family must have packed up and left. We could try questioning the neighbors, but…”

Leit Motif shook her head. “No, keep looking. We can try tomorrow if we don’t find anything, but if there’s one mention, there must be more. We even have a name now: goblins.”

“A creature who was once a pony…” Lyra murmured. “Could have been lying. Poor kid.” She caught herself and jerked her gaze up to me, stricken. “I’m sorry, Daphne, I wasn’t thinking… your sister…”

I shook my head. “Let’s focus on this right now,” I said, tapping the journal. “Don’t worry about me.”

As it turned out, there were other mentions of goblins. Digging through again, the three unicorns found spotty mention of them throughout Ponyville’s history. Strangers of myriad shape, who all identified by one common term. There were traveling performers who stopped by to display their skill. There were wandering smiths who made crafts that wowed and amazed the locals. Not all of the contact had been peaceful, however.

“Big surprise.” Marcus shook his head. “Not if they’re foal-stealers.”

Lyra pointed at a particularly old book. “They were the aggressors, too. A giant ‘goblin’ attacked the town back near its founding and ate an entire grain silo before being driven off. It said ‘the Sword King will make ye all pay,’ and fled with its back stuck with spears. Cool.”

“All very fascinating, but what does that tell us?” I asked, my tail twitching in agitation. “That they’re creatures who come from—or maybe through—the Everfree and steal children? We already knew that much.”

Naomi reached over and stroked my mane back. I sighed, leaning into her hand.

“I think we can work with this,” Twilight said, giving me a sympathetic smile. “I… think we’ve nearly exhausted our resources here, though. I know there was one book we had with Goblin in the name—Ghosts, Goblins, and Ghoulish Figures—but the girls never returned it. Technically it’s loaned out to Scootaloo, but she and the girls are out camping last I heard.” She glanced around. Most of the books that weren’t about wildly inappropriate topics had been arrayed in enormous piles all around the main floor. “I can send to Canterlot for more. I’m positive that they’ll have a lot more information than we do.”

“How long will that take?” I asked.

“Only a day… or two.”

I nodded, sighing heavily. “All right. Again, thank you, Twilight. What about Scootaloo and that other book?”

“We can look for her.” Twilight nodded. “Maybe she left it at her house. We can go there right now and talk to her parents.”

“What about that cat you mentioned?” Marcus asked. “What did you call it, a Mog?”

“No. Morgwyn,” I said. “It looked like a panther, but different in a lot of ways, bulkier.” I stared to Twilight’s left, concentrating.

Bringing forth the image of the thing called “the Morgwyn” was strangely difficult, especially after the ease I’d had earlier. My own thoughts on how other people must see their memories came floating back. The creature resolved in my imagination like a cloud of smoke, melding into a vaguely feline shape with curious ridges along its back. It seemed to ripple, as if it wasn’t entirely under my control, the muscles shifting as it tried to get a look at me.

“It had claws. They were white, and glowed faintly on their own.”

I got to the face, and its blue eyes looked back into mine. They shone like bright stars, twinkling with some terrible purpose. It made eye contact with me and smiled with bright, shining teeth. I felt suddenly hot, and shut the creature out of my mind.

“‘Devil’s blue eyes,’ they called it,” I said in a strained tone. “Seems very appropriate.”

Twilight Sparkle frowned, looking to Spike. “I seem to remember seeing something when I was digging through Creatures of Myth and Folklore, but I don’t recall where I put the book down.”

“On it.” With a grin, he dove into one of the piles and popped out a moment later with a book in claw. Twilight swept it towards her with her magic and flipped through it. “M… M… oh, right, this one isn’t alphabetized… and it’s also not mentioned by name, but…” She read the text. “‘...the ancient earth ponies described it as a harbinger, a black omen of plague and misfortune. In folklore passed down through generations, long before written records were kept, it was said that it came from a time when the world was new. It spoke to some, to say that it had seen the mountains rise and would see them torn asunder in an age that is to come. It said that it would be there to guide that end, and would set a flame that would consume all worlds.’”

Twilight floated the book in front of us. All eyes fixed on the illustration. It was clear it had been by description only, but that was enough. The artist, in his or her fevered imagination, had depicted it as a smoky cat heaped atop a pile of bones as ravens circled overhead. Its claws shone with moonlight, and its eyes were twin pits of azure flame.

* * * * * * *

Author's Note:

This is very much a transitional chapter, but it has some important revelations in it, as well as an appearance by Starbutt, Princess of Science!

With the help of Purple Smart, Daphne will find the information she needs to continue her quest. It'll just take a couple days to do it – and now Daphne is pretty much caught up with Amelia's timeline.
Here's a fun hint: the author of that diary has already appeared in this story.

Will Marcus keep his sanity in a land of technicolor ponies? Will Naomi be arrested for corrupting the youth? Will Daphne ever get to use her hooves? Find out!

Stay tuned for the next update, wherein Amelia finds some new allies.

Remember to comment below!

Since this is our first update after making it on Equestria Daily, I'd like to thank everyone again for their patronage and help. Welcome, new readers!

Comments

[Solitair]

I have no words.

[Sky Hooves]

I'm sorry, but all i can say is... AGAIN A AWESOME CHAPTER!!!

[Not a red spy]

Thanks for the update, this is one of my favorite stories!

[Gordon_Freemane]

*Morgwyn description in book*

Well shit.

[Caelus Storm]

Loved it! Why is it that every other thing Lyra does either made me smile or outright laugh? And Naomi....oh dear. I don't know who is going to die of pony overdose first, me from reading this awesomeness, or Naomi for being surrounded by lethal amounts of D'aaww.
Keep up the amazing work.
-C.Storm

[Ether Echoes]

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It's really more that I strangle him.

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The LD 50 of ponies is about 500 kilograms.

[Verequus]

Great chapter as always. Still found a typo here: "nevmrmind".

[James Washburn]

Bloody Morgwyn. I was just starting to like it, too. Unless it's been the victim of some serious prejudice it looks like everyone is in deep, deep trouble.

Although the description of it sounded a heck of a lot like a metal album cover. Maybe the book was just a scrapbook of record sleeves.

[Parametric Ponymorphism]

Lyra turned and guested outside.

Gestured?

I'm thinking of trying to pull off a Daphne maneuver and forget that this story ever existed. And then, after some months I'll stumble upon it again and go 'Holy crap, an awesome story! And it's complete!'

Though I wonder if a few months would be enough. The bits and pieces of world building that you keep revealing hint at a very deep and complex setting. This combined with the level of detail make me think that the story is going to end up rather massive. (And that's a good thing if true!)

This chapter had a more science-fictiony feel to it. The characters firmly stepped into Equestria and started noticing and wondering about the parallels between realities and it no longer feels like a distant and dreamy fairy-tale realm. I wonder how far will you go into exploring the 'real world' consequences of contact between two worlds. I'm rather sure that the end won't involve the worlds getting separated because that would make this fic more cruel than Cupcakes, but what exactly will it be? Will everyone involved keep it a secret with only Daphne and Leit occasionally sneaking in visits to each other or will there be full-blown contact between civilizations with all the accompanying political tediousness?

Also, usually the more science-fictiony a fic feels, the more I'm puzzled why none of the characters are flipping out over the fact that magic exists, is awesome and humans can't use it. Seriously, if I ever learned that, I'd be furious.

[Ether Echoes]

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Also, usually the more science-fictiony a fic feels, the more I'm puzzled why none of the characters are flipping out over the fact that magic exists, is awesome and humans can't use it. Seriously, if I ever learned that, I'd be furious.

Marcus puts it rather succinctly: the implications are huge, but they have an important purpose right now.

[morning_angles]

3334256

Ugh.

I can't keep using the "I'm overworked" excuse for these errors slipping through. There's going to be a reupload for a few other grammatical things—missing commas and the like, nothing anyone should really notice—so that'll get picked up in the sweep. Thanks for pointing it out.

Thankfully, now that I have my school affairs in order, I have two weeks ahead of me for the next chapter to actually try and take my time with this stuff and do it right. I hate that these keep slipping through.

Hate. Hate. Haaate~.

[Aariadon]

Yay for gratuitous Star Wars references!

Also "Starbutt, Princess of Science" "Purple Smart" lol.

Oh and there is a "hadn't of". Should be "hadn't have". Or hadn't've but that's a bit too many 's.

No reaction towards the baby dragon? And Daphne figured out he was a dragon just by glance? Why not a lizard? Hrm.

[Bronetheus]

"Worst of all, I couldn’t muster any honest hate for her."
I feel your pain, Leit.

"My heart went out to her—I wanted nothing more than to show her how to use her hooves, to fit in and feel comfortable in her new body. Perhaps I could teach her magic, too, and then she’d get her cutie mark once she figured out what her special talent was meant to be. She would need a place to stay, too, of course. I would be more than happy to fix her up a room. Knowing her, she’d insist on paying back rent once she got a job, and we’d be able to live together as we’d always dreamed."

Speaking of which, it's great how Leit's outward aloofness hides such a rich inner world. Besides making her much easier for you to write POV chapters for, it also lets her go on these wonderful, heart-felt tangents, sweet little things that, for now, the world will never know about.

“She’s holding some foals hostage and looks mighty fierce. Her whole head was on fire!”
Shit-eating-grin mode was engaged pretty much constantly from this point on. I love you, Naomi.

Thanks to - "There was a cup of tea in one of his hooves." , and,
“Well, she left the prison cell to find that the evil stormtroopers had them all blocked in! Bolts of fire exploded all around them, but she wasn’t afraid. She said ‘Someone needs to find us a way out of this!’ and grabbed the wand from Luke and used it to blow a hatch to smithereens so they could “
Yeah, I'm not going to stop smiling for hours.

“Is he a warrior with an oath of silence?”
That would be so awesome. Just when I thought this whole scene couldn't get any more diabetes-inducing, you had to go and bring in Hector.

So anyway, if I interpreted the chapter correctly, Dash's Sonic Rainboom is responsible for bringing Leit Motif and Daphne together too? Just when I thought she couldn't get any more awesome. [Edit: so much so that she made me unconsciously use the word "awesome" at least three other times in this comment.]

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Morgwyn even sounds like the name of a heavy metal band, probably the kind that does songs about The Lord of the Rings and Dungeons & Dragons. That would be awesome.

[Ether Echoes]

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When I look at Spike, I automatically think 'dragon,' and did even before I saw the show.
He's also entirely unimpressive.

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Leit is alllll about the inner life.

So anyway, if I interpreted the chapter correctly, Dash's Sonic Rainboom is responsible for bringing Leit Motif and Daphne together too?

Indeed, it did!

[Ranakastrasz]

This is one of the story types I love.
Actually, it is unique, so far as I know, and has quite a few elements I enjoy.

~Imperfect Equestria. (As in, War and death actually possible, as well as actual flawed charactors, at least as much as the show. Too many fics totally ignore canon and make it excessively pure)
~Partial Ponification (Mainly because it is extremely rare for only some people to get ponified, aside from TCB: which has it's own set of issues)
~Full Portal
~Prepared Expedition (Use of guns, which is not the most common thing. Most fantasy in modern times tends to ignore any modern tech, or most of it)
~A Third world in contact. Actually never seen this before, so it gets a bonus for being Unique so far as I know.
~Actors.. From a fantasy land, playing roles of the elements.... For unclear reasons... For a Ponified little Girl, From eart. (not really sure, hasn't quite been revealed yet)
~Stereotype Breaking, Because yes, some little girls might end up researching castles, and end up asking about Murder holes......

Gotta Say, looking forward to more. What is here is already really good.

[Derpmind]

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Gotta agree with you here; this is one of my (actual) favorite stories and I'd even argue that it's objectively one of the most unique in the fandom.

[Always Breakfast]

So Cool Cat is really Apocalypse Cat. Lovely.

[Ether Echoes]

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I take great pride in having a certain amount of logic and sense in my story!

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Also in offering more of an experience than a basic Human in Equestria plot!

[Breaking News]

Ah pizza, good to know Lyra's got her priorities straight. Then she starts flashing her butt at Marcus and flirting with Hector, oui. Maybe she should pair off with Thunderlane and we can dodge all the interspecies action.

Nice to see Leit and Daphne really reconnecting in this chapter. I wouldn't start expecting her to pay half the rent just yet Leit but nice to see her planning ahead. Should be some good adventure later, hopefully Daphne gets her horn going eventually...unless Marcus just "shoots the swordsman."

Disney would like Naomi to know they aren't impressed with her story to the foals. Sadly their copyrights don't extend to fictional worlds created by their rivals, they shall have to let her live...for now.

Twilight's in character, good contrast to her faker from earlier.

[Derpmind]

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It's a late hour where I'm at, so take my word for it when I say that I'm running out of uh, good thinking stuff, so I'm just gonna say "You should be a published author that's famous and stuff" and skip any attempts to justify that statement. And anyways it's self-evident because you're brilliant.

[Ether Echoes]

3335081
Marcus wishes he was Indiana Jones. At least then maybe he'd get an admirer who isn't a mare.

3335082
Flattery gets you everywhere.

[my_little_medic]

Another EPIC and attention grabbing chapter!!! Just exactly what I've come to expect from you 3333491 ! keep it up and can't wait for the next one!!!

[dargondarkfire]

Weirdly enough, I was at Old Chicago's Pizza When I started reading this chapter... and I was in a book store in their cafe When I finished it X'D

now.. did I just read that Twilight has indigo, rose-striped mane?
4.bp.blogspot.com/-0EWGDTsr3yQ/UiNfb1cZQhI/AAAAAAAAIaQ/FYNpad2llGA/s1600/ts16.png
.... I see midnight purple, purple or indigo (which ever you prefer to call it), and pink.....

Oh well, at least it's not as bad as the people who claim Applejack is brown and not orange.

sorry just being picky.

Anyways very good chapter. I'm very impressed that you got onto EQD Since the ones who choose stories to add are very very anti human. (or they replaced the old pcikers and they take human stories now?)

I think when you finish this story, if you go and have a printing done of it I will buy a copy.

[Lamplighter]

Great chapter, as always. I liked how you went into more detail about Daphne ability for almost eidetic memory. I'm guessing that its not just there as a crutch to the story, but will most likely play a role later on. The "Red Oger" was a good one to, although missing a perfect chance for a Godzilla pun was sad, but anyway This chapter felt a little different then you're others, I'm not sure why exactly, just off a little. Perhaps its just the fact that they are really there, real people in a town of magic ponies -and I do emphasize the real part, as in really well made, with real reactions, and really believable emotions- It adds a sense of... Surrealism isn't the right word, but its the first word that comes to mind. Anyway, moving on.
I'm glad you didn't fall into the trap so many people do when writing about magic, or magic worlds. The one where they try to explain every single aspect of every single thing about... EVERYTHING!
Can't wait to get back to Amelia and see how she plays the poor goblins next.

[Ether Echoes]

3335301
Don't ask me, Morning Angles does the blue/purple color decisions. I'm frelling colorblind.

3335378

This chapter felt a little different then you're others, I'm not sure why exactly, just off a little. Perhaps its just the fact that they are really there, real people in a town of magic ponies -and I do emphasize the real part, as in really well made, with real reactions, and really believable emotions- It adds a sense of... Surrealism isn't the right word, but its the first word that comes to mind. Anyway, moving on.

That's really what I'm going for here. These aren't silly cartoon ponies, these are real people having real lives.

Okay, so Lyra is silly, but - shut up!

[dargondarkfire]

3335447
Really? Sorry.

[Ether Echoes]

3335513
Aww, no way you could know~!

[dargondarkfire]

3335536
Thank you, I will double the cupcake offering I send next.

[Ether Echoes]

3335588
Glee~!

[Sasha Nein]

“Welcome to Linguini’s, home of Linguini’s famous pies. Could I take your order?”

... first thing that comes to my mind?

[Ether Echoes]

3335938

[TickleGremlin]

“Everypony!” Lyra stood up on her back hooves and spread her forelegs. “Have no fear! The terrible fire-ogress comes not to destroy and terrorize, but to make friends! Behold, for she has saved this tiny filly from drowning! Welcome her not with violence, but with your love and fellowship!”

Oh my. Almost died to laughter.

[Phantom Pantomime]

This fanfiction is currently jockeying with Blue Skies for position at the top of my list of favorite fanfics of all time.
It's not a short list.
At the risk of sounding conceited, well done.

[morning_angles]

3335301
3335447

Color is extremely subjective, especially when you get down to the seventh and eighth blends of primaries. They'll change from day to day for me—one instance Twilight will be lavender, another she'll be periwinkle, the next she'll be wisteria. Depends on the quality of the picture I find on any given comparison. They're all branches of "light purple," which I refuse to use, especially for a character so precocious as Daphne or Amelia. The same goes for her mane and tail. Indigo, navy blue, dark blue. Pink, rose, cerise. Take your picks. It's all purple, blue, and pink.

Wisteria and indigo was the closest named color I could find on this outing, and will likely remain a constant for Daphne's point of view.

Blame it on the multiverse.

[Ether Echoes]

3337587
Lyra: "I've always wanted to say 'Behold.'"

3337834
Once I get bionic eyes, you will all pay.

[morning_angles]

3337968

Once you get bionic eyes, I'll be next in line.

[dargondarkfire]

3337834I follow cannon images thank you.

[morning_angles]

3338162

You're more than welcome to. I did, as well. And when I compared her coat to colors I could find, it came up wisteria. She has a deepness to her coat's color that lavender and periwinkle don't convey for me. If you don't agree with that, I apologize, but try not to let it color your opinion of things.

*ba-dum-tish*

You can think of it as simply Daphne's interpretation of Twilight's coat color, or a trick of a dimly lit library if it helps any.

[dargondarkfire]

3338243
I can tell I'm not going to win this argument. Just promise me your not going to color Applejack blond fur with orange mane like I read in one fic.

[morning_angles]

3338359

I'm not going to say that Applejack has a blonde coat and orange mane. Ether would hang me, for starters, and Applejack has already appeared in the story, so we're rather past that potential pit fall. I don't see the world through some kind of bizarre, inverted color scheme.

You feel like you're losing an argument. I feel as though you're not really listening to me. I guess we're even, but we should probably leave it at that. I'm going to leave it at that.

[Escrime]

3338408
SImple way to resolve the colour debate. Rather than specifying a specific name for the colour just specify the spectrum of the light reflected off the pnoy's coat.

[Firebirdbtops]

Sorry, Lyra. You and he can never be.

[Ether Echoes]

3338893
I'm glad someone noticed that spell!

3339045
"Nooo!" Lyra screamed. "Our love is for-ev-er!"

[Red Bomber]

What a great chapter it flows so well and ended at the appropriate time that I felt that it could be just a story all by itself Though I have to wonder if the diary that Lyra read in the library was a trick to make some people thinking that was Applejack at first. Also, I really like how Daph's friends were introduced to Ponyville and especially the stares they got as they trudged through town, it's really something when characters take more notice of people looking at them.

[Ether Echoes]

3339148
No, but you're surprisingly close to the truth, there. Indeed, we (the readers) have already met the author of that diary.

[FloydienSlip]

Lyra wins this chapter. Absolutely.

Now, there are a couple of hypotheses that I wish to state, and I think both are accurate. The first is that this Twilight (the one we meet here) is not the same one that Amelia met, which makes this entire plot exponentially more complex. How do you even get these ideas, man?

The second (forgive me, for this may have been discussed in great detail one or two chapters ago) is that the Rainbow Amelia meets is the one that's currently been unseen in the true Ponyville for several weeks now, which creates yet another mysterious subplot. The complexity is killing me!

Nicely done, Ether.

[Ether Echoes]

3339350
Both are correct.

[Escrime]

3339153
Marble? Pinkie's sister gone got Goblined?

[Ether Echoes]

3340886
No. A character in this story.
I also wrote that character long before Pinkie's sister's official name was confirmed
Oh well, they just had the same first name, no biggie!

[djthomp]

“So what happened to the princess then, Miss Naomi?” one of the fillies asked, her eyes bright.
“Well, she left the prison cell to find that the evil stormtroopers had them all blocked in! Bolts of fire exploded all around them, but she wasn’t afraid. She said ‘Someone needs to find us a way out of this!’ and grabbed the wand from Luke and used it to blow a hatch to smithereens so they could—Oh, hey Daphne!”

Best sneaky Star Wars reference ever.

First Lyra shakes her flank at Marcus, them she gets all hot and bothered over Hector. Oh lordy.

Lyra sauntered up to the horse, who was standing beside the watering hole and watching the ponies with what seemed a dubious glance. “Hello there, Hector,” she greeted him in a low voice. “Welcome to Ponyville. You must have come a very long way indeed to help your friend Daphne.”
Hector turned to regard her, tilting his head slightly. He said nothing.
“That’s really noble of you. But, of course, a Saddle Arabian stallion must know all about honor. I’ve always… oh!” She jumped as Hector bent down to sniff at her. He whickered, sniffing down her back and nosing at her saddlebags. “Sir!” She giggled. “You are very—uh—forward!”

Bwahahahahahah! I could barely breathe at this point I was laughing so hard.

There was a general grumble of disappointment, and one colt shouted, “Aww, come on! At least breathe fire or something!”
Lyra’s horn flared and she spat a gout of flame from her mouth that curled and smoked in the afternoon air.
“Well.” The boy considered that for a moment. “Fair enough.”

That's it, Lyra just won best pony. Sorry Twi, Rarity, Dash.

Youch, guess that cat is seriously bad news, as is whatever he is up to.

3339153 So, we've seen this 'Marble Stone' pony already in the story? Bet she ended up getting foalnapped and was one of the goblins that Amelia met.