Ever had one of those days when you wake up to find you've accidentally switched places with your counterpart in a world where you and all your friends are stallions?
Ever had one of those days where everything's just gone wrong, one problem after another?
Of course you have.
Ever had one of those days when you wake up to find you've accidentally switched places with your counterpart in a world where you and all your friends are stallions?
...No?
Maybe that's just Twilight, then.
But the Princess of Magic isn't going to let a little thing like being in the wrong universe ruin her day. She has a schedule - a checklist! - and it matches up with this Dusk Shine's perfectly. Apart from the names and the genders, everything seems to be a match, and Ponyville has seen much weirder things since she moved here.
Being stallions or mares shouldn't make her friends that different. What could possibly go wrong?
A purple pony princess yawned as she read through the book before her. It was a study of harmony, and balance, and the elements that made it up.
Even when the Elements themselves were not mentioned, harmony lay at the centre of so much of Equestria's history. Between individual ponies... between earth ponies, pegasi and unicorns... between ponies as a whole, and other species they dealt with...
She yawned again, glancing at her clock and noting the time. Study time was over. Time to go to bed. She had a big day tomorrow, all planned out and scheduled with all of her closest friends, and the day after the princesses would be visiting - nothing too formal, but she had been looking forward to it.
As she settled herself into her bed, she shifted to get comfortable with her new wings. She smiled as she thought about her status as an alicorn - a being of Harmony, a combination of all three tribes.
She snickered to herself as she suddenly remembered something she had read early on in her student life under the princess. She had found a book on the nature of alicorns that stated they represented all forms of ponies - and on top of having the features of all three tribes, also had those of both genders.
Her next encounter with the princess had been one of awkward but wide-eyed wonder as she tried to determine how the princess had concealed her additional equipment, until the princess had finally grown concerned and - with a great deal of embarrassment - finally coaxed the reason for the filly's confusion out of her. Fortunately, Celestia had been far more amused than offended, and had introduced Twilight to the novel concept that not everything written in a book could be believed.
Well, she was certainly glad that book hadn't been true now.
It was an interesting thought, though. Was balance between the genders part of Harmony too? All of the bearers were mares. Admittedly, there were far more mares than stallions in Equestria, but even with the gender ratio, if a representative sample of the population was taken, one or two of the bearers would have been male.
As she found her comfortable position and began drifting off, she added that to her mental checklist for study in the future.
Her last thought before she fell asleep was wondering if things would have been different if any of the element bearers were stallions.
To be fair, if she'd fallen asleep a few leaps of logic earlier, her morning would probably have been even more embarrassing.
~-~-~-~
Despite what many tabloids, rumours, or derivative works of fiction might suggest, none of the princesses of Equestria were known for having any difficulty getting up in the morning.
There was a persistent joke that ran the rounds among the uninformed (or at least, that portion of the uninformed who stood nowhere near the royal guards at the time) that even Celestia often had trouble rousing herself as the day broke, and often raised the sun without rising from her bed, or even in her sleep. This was decidedly false, as any who worked in the castle might attest to - whether through millennia of habit, magical inclination, or simply attention to duty, Celestia left her chambers well before dawn each day. A few years ago, this had been to get an early start on the day's work; these days, that extra time was spent with her sister whenever possible.
That very sister, of course, was no more likely to be abed at dawn than an average pony was to retire precisely at dusk, but that was somewhat cheating - regardless, she followed much the same schedule of her sister with the obvious day-night inversion, rising without complaint while the sun still hung well above the horizon, and spending well the overlap where the two sisters could be together.
The third alicorn princess, she who governed Love and the Crystal Empire, had neither hundreds of years' experience, solar or lunar responsibility, or particularly urgent tasks as an excuse to drag her from her bed at an early hour. But Princess Mi Amore Cadenza did so nonetheless, for she was that most rare and unfair of things - a natural, honest-to-Celestia morning pony, leaping out of bed and greeting each day with the joy and excitement of a filly.
And finally, there was Equestria's newest princess, she who governed Magic itself. Those who knew her habits and obsessions might expect her to be the sort to stay up until all hours of morning trying to complete a project or unable to put down a book, but this could not be further from the truth.
For while Celestia and Luna had their heavenly bodies, and Cadance had her nature, Twilight Sparkle had checklists and schedules. Her mentor had taught her from a very young age that she needed to be healthy and well-rested to study effectively, and that lesson had stuck with her. Barring (admittedly common) disaster, Twilight went to bed when she had planned to go to bed, and woke when she planned to wake, feeling refreshed and ready to start the day, if not quite with the same enthusiasm as her foalsitter.
So with those facts as a given, that Twilight had to blearily drag herself out of the depths of sleep with considerable effort just to get to a point where she could vaguely conceive of the idea of getting up and facing the day should have been the first sign that it was going to be one of those days.
Of course, at that point, any thought so complex was beyond her as she snuggled tighter under her blankets, determined to win a couple more minutes of comfortable rest in her fortress from the assembled forces that sought to drag her into the waking world.
The sun itself made up the vanguard of her enemies, shining brightly through her window, too bright for her eyelids to provide protection, and she tossed, trying to turn away from its piercing gaze, muttering instinctive apologies to Celestia as she did so.
That blended straight into the second assault on her half-awake state, as she forgot her newly-obtained appendages and turned in just the wrong way, twisting her wing beneath her - not truly painfully, but uncomfortably enough that it required her to pull her body off the bed briefly to resolve.
And after that, she just couldn't get comfortable again. She whimpered, tossing and turning, but it was like the bed was rejecting her, the old mattress not supporting her just right no matter how she tried to fit her body into the subtle mould of the bed.
Finally, the remembrance of a long and involved checklist she had written for the day's tasks struck the final blow, and she sighed. Betrayed by sun, wings, bed and schedule alike, she reluctantly lit her horn and pulled her covers aside, ready to start the day.
She staggered over to her dresser and blearily stared at herself in the mirror for a few moments before beginning the process of cleaning herself up to start the day. She was no Rarity, but she had her look, she liked her look, and having a Princess show up with mane and feathers askew would likely cause concern, comments, and inefficiency.
The next hint that it might be one of those days was when she reached out with her telekinesis without looking for some of her makeup, only for the magic to fail to grip anything. Her vanity was not as she had expected it. This was cause for consternation, as she was usually very exact with where she left things, and the things she sought were not there at all. For a long moment, she blearily stared at the table, mind ticking over but not coming up with any memories of why it might be so altered.
But in the greater scheme of things, this was a fairly minor issue with many possible explanations, and she wasn't yet awake enough to concern herself with it. She'd ask Spike about it later.
So she cheated, and used magic. In the back of her mind, an imaginary Rarity gave her a scandalised gasp and disappointed look, which she did her best to ignore, but still could not fully suppress a wince at the imagined scolding in her head.
Now physically ready to meet the day, the next step was clear and obvious. Breakfast.
She opened the door, trying to decide what she would put together for the opening meal of the day, and was immediately struck with the divine scent of berry pancakes wafting through the library. Oh, Spike... I don't deserve you. The concept of freshly-cooked pancakes right now - not to mention not having to put any effort into making them - sounded like absolute heaven to her still-drowsy mind, and she floated down the stairs - quite literally, her wings and magic supporting her, following that heavenly wafting smell.
She dropped herself down to the cushions beside the dining table in the library, letting her hooves clatter loudly against the floor before she curled them under herself to alert her number one assistant that she was awake and downstairs.
She could hear him singing a wordless tune along with the sizzle of the batter. She noted to herself that he was getting quite good at singing - he was hitting higher notes than she'd expect him to be able to reach. Admittedly, if I didn't know Spike, the idea of a dragon singing at all would be rather ridiculous, wouldn't it?
She giggled to herself at the idea of the enormous dragon they had evicted from the mountain nearby trying to sing as part of the musical numbers that rolled through Ponyville occasionally. Or dance as part of it. It might be a little rude, but it was an entertaining thought nonetheless.
She heard the clatter of pottery as her assistant prepared the last few pieces and then heard the singing grow closer, in time with his footsteps as he made his way into the library proper. Her eyes still closed, she lifted her head to savour the smell.
"Mmm, that smells delicious. Just what I need tod--"
A massive crash cut Twilight off, her eyes shooting open as she saw Spike staring at her, dumbfounded. He had dropped everything he was holding, two cups of apple juice now staining the tiles, though the plate of pancakes had landed upright.
"What happened?" She looked at the stunned dragon, concerned. "What's wrong? Actually..." She blinked, staring as she realised... "You... look different. Thinner, lighter colour... oh no, I didn't do something to you in my sleep again did I? Are you alright?"
"...Something to me?!" her assistant replied in a voice that was shocked, slightly strangled, but most importantly undeniably female. "Dusk, what have you done to you?"
For a long moment the two could only stare at each other, before Twilight let her head sink down onto the table with a long-suffering moan.
Yep. It was definitely going to be one of those days.
Princess Celestia had taken her aside shortly after her coronation to warn her, but she hadn't taken it seriously then, too excited by the whirlwind of her ascension and the related fanfare to worry.
"I couldn't be more proud of you, Twilight Sparkle. But there are some things we probably need to discuss about your new status before you return to Ponyville."
"What is it? Am I taking on new responsibilities already? I don't want to kick Mayor Mare out of a job or anything... oh no! What... what am I the princess of now?"
"Calm down, Twilight. That can all come in time. More urgent than your secular duties are some more... personal issues we need to discuss."
The problem was a simple one, in truth. The good news was that it was a problem that Twilight had some degree of prior experience with. The bad news was that it was a fairly embarrassing issue even among unicorn fillies and colts, let alone fully-grown Alicorn princesses.
Twilight had more magic than she knew how to handle, and it wasn't entirely under her control.
"Princess, I've been dealing with magic surges since before I got my cutie mark. That's how we first met! I've trained my entire life to keep my magic stable."
"You've trained to keep your unicorn magic stable. Now you have earth pony magic, pegasus magic, and most importantly, Alicorn magic. Twilight, you are the princess of Magic itself. All the magic of the world will bend to your will."
In hindsight, Celestia could have worded that better.
Twilight was too ecstatic to take heed of the concern on her mentor's face and heard only that she could hold control over all the magic. In the end, Celestia had relented with an amused smile, not willing to mar her faithful student's day with insistence on dire warnings.
When Twilight had returned to her in a panic a few days later, the solar princess had explained that the magic would not do anything to directly harm her student or her friends - after all, it was the magic of friendship that Twilight represented, and it was not a force of destruction.
"The problem is basically one of communication. Twilight, when you became a princess, your power keyed itself to that of the whole world itself, as mine does to the sun and Luna's the moon. Think of it as a brand new friend you've just met, who you get along with fine but... doesn't speak Equestrian very well. They want to get along with you, they want to make you happy. And if you explain things to them slowly and deliberately, then you'll understand each other. But if you're not careful, you might give them the wrong idea about what you want, and they'll do their best to help you and do what they think you want to do.
"As you grow alongside them, you'll learn to speak the same language and the miscommunications will happen less and less often, but right now you're going to find that stray thoughts and comments, new spells, and desires might create unexpected effects in the world around you. You're lucky enough to be tied to the magic of friendship - I almost set Equestria on fire once. I kind of lost my temper in court, and the sun decided to come down and help resolve the argument...
"One way or another, until you learn to control most of these outbursts, I think it would be best for you to stay in an environment where you have your friends to understand and support you. One step at a time, princess."
And so, Ponyville not only had to deal with having a princess living in the library, but a new set of incidents keeping everypony ready for anything.
And to be honest, it was almost embarrassing how easily everypony took this change in their stride.
~-~-~-~
"So... so let me get this straight. You... didn't turn yourself into a mare in your sleep."
"Aargh! For the fifth time! No!"
"You're trying to tell me that you've... always been a mare? Because I think I can tell you right now, you haven't. Believe me. I've lived in the same room as you for quite a few years now."
"Spike-- ugh, Spines. I already explained what happened."
"Riiiight. You come from a... another Ponyville, where what, everypony's mares?"
"Well not everypony, but all my friends are! Most of Ponyville, even. And you're a boy baby dragon. Spike."
Spines closed her eyes, taking a deep breath and trying to imagine the scene her friend painted. She got about two ponies in before she lost her poker face and burst into giggles. "Nope, sorry, I can't picture it. I still say you're just embarrassed about turning yourself into a mare."
Twilight collapsed onto the cushions, letting out a wail of frustration that caused Spines to fall back on the floor laughing. "Your voice sounds so different! Oh, you sound so weird when you do that."
After a long moment of no witty yet frustrated retort, however, Spines blinked, looking over at the alicorn with eyes scrunched closed and carefully controlling her breathing. "Look, Du-- umm, Twilight? Twilight. I believe you. I'm just messing with you. You okay?"
It took a few more carefully measured breaths before she hissed a reply between her teeth. "Just... peachy."
"Want me to run up the red flag today until you can figure this out?" Spines asked, a little more sympathy in her voice now. That idea snapped Twilight out of her frustration pretty quickly as she thought about it.
"I... no. Yellow flag. I have a lot to do today. Full schedule. I can't let a little thing like this get in my way. Friendship first, then study."
Spines tilted her head, trying to puzzle this out. "But... this isn't your home. They're kinda... not your friends?"
"Yeah, but everything seems the same here except the genders. They're still my friends, just... different. And if I'm here, that means that... Dusk Shine should be back in my Ponyville. So if I do everything I've got planned for my day here, he'll do it back on my side, and the work and friendship continues." She smiled with only the slightest trace of mania in her grin.
Spines remained somewhat more cautious. "Because, y'know, everyone else is going to think the same thing I was saying. You're gonna be getting jokes about turning yourself into a mare all day."
Twilight winced and seriously considered her options. The spell would likely take her a few hours to puzzle out. She had time set aside in the evening for herself, and surely she could reshuffle her schedule a little to fix her problems first... Her friends would understand, if she put up the red flag...
"No." She shook her head firmly. "I'm not going to abuse the system. This isn't dangerous, this isn't an emergency, this is just... a pain in the flank. And ridiculous. I can get through the schedule. And the first thing on my schedule is breakfast. At least THAT shouldn't matter what gender I am."
With a look of absolute focus, Twilight levitated the plate of pancakes over to the table from where it had fallen at the beginning of the conversation. She cast a reheating spell with the experience of a professional student and dug into the pancakes with gusto, trying to prepare her mind for the day to come.
She was distracted by Spines giving a slight titter. "What."
"Well, that's kinda a... stallion-sized stack of pancakes there, Twilight. Shouldn't you be watching your fig-- HEY!" Spines' snarky comment was cut off by having to catch one of the mugs that had fallen previously.
"Clean up the mess and go put up the flag. You're in charge of the library today."
"Sure, sure." Spines giggled and picked up the other fallen crockery and stored it in the kitchen, then headed upstairs to the top of the library's tree and a newly installed pole that stuck up above the branches.
Several flags lay in neat piles around ready to be raised on the attached string. The flags themselves were small, but enchanted to colour further banners that hung around the library tree when raised in a code that the locals of Ponyville had been quickly educated on, advising them when new magical shenanigans had occurred around the Princess - ranging from blue for those that should not interfere with daily life, to red advising potentially dangerous or concerning issues that resulted in the library being closed until further notice.
The yellow flag the dragon hooked and then raised advised of potentially confusing but effectively harmless magical effects - so, in short, Ponyville knew to be ready for weirdness today. She considered that given the rather... personal level of the issue, it probably wasn't really worth more than a blue, but Dusk... er, Twilight had final say.
By the time she came back down, Twilight had finished off the pancakes and was reading through her schedule for the day. She looked up as Spines walked in, smiling a little more confidently now that her hunger was sated and she had had a chance to regain her stability.
"Well, this is convenient - at least I've got everyone's stallion names on here. I didn't even think of that until I started reading it."
"Oh right! That would've probably been kind of embarrassing."
"Alright, Spines." She grinned, not tripping over the name this time, rolling up the schedule and storing it in her saddlebags as she slung them over her back... then winced as they fell low, throwing off her balance.
Spines giggled again at the sight of the stallion-sized bags practically dragging on the ground. Sighing, but already running behind time, Twilight moved towards the door, readjusting the straps as she went to better suit her physique. "I'd better get going. Make sure the library stays clean! Lots to do today, with the princesses visiting tomorrow!"
She paused at the door, taking a deep breath and steeling herself against the strangeness of the world beyond it... then strode through, head held high.
Behind her, Spines was frozen in the middle of saying goodbye, her mind frantically trying to come to terms with what she'd just heard.
There is a known phenomenon amongst ponies of learning - that putting a pony in a situation that was almost entirely normal but just that tiny little bit different and wrong could cause an instinctive unease that somehow exceeded even a Discord-worthy unreality.
There were many theories to what might cause such a reaction, ranging from an evolutionary protection from changelings or a magical sixth sense, back down to simple herding instinct. Even if a pony couldn't tell exactly what was setting off a warning in the back of their head, they would know that something, somewhere was not quite right.
Twilight could never be described as anything but a pony of learning, so not only was she well aware of the existence of the phenomenon, but quickly recognised its effects as she started walking through Ponyville - and again as a pony of learning, her immediate response was to attempt to quantify it and what was causing it.
For science, of course. Not because it helped distract her from that very same little queasy feeling she couldn't shake.
There was something about the town that just didn't quite fit. It wasn't the fact that she'd constantly see ponies she recognised every day, then a half second later do a double-take as the cutie mark she spotted was higher or lower, on a flank rounder or squarer than she expected; the faces changed beyond recognition, but still with similar manestyles, identical eyes, and easily-recognised expressions. That was... disconcerting, and still made her jump a little from time to time, but she could get her mind around it.
Nor was it the way those same ponies would stop briefly and stare at her as they passed - embarrassing, certainly, but for the most part they simply waved and greeted her as usual. For this town, seeing their prince had become a princess was hardly the strangest thing to occur in the last few years. A history of monster attacks, apocalypses and magical mishaps could encourage a remarkably accepting attitude towards the unexpected.
No, there was something else, something niggling at her concentration that she just couldn't quite pick that was just that tiny bit different.
So focused was she on trying to notice the difference that she almost completely ignored the first resident of the town who actually tried to start a conversation with her - of course, the fact that they were using the wrong name to call her didn't help with that either.
"Dusk? Dusk, is that you? Hello? Your highness?"
"You don't have to call m-- oh! Sorry, um..." Twilight grinned, embarrassed, as she turned to face...
It took her a moment to put a name to the cherry-coloured stallion before her, even with the curls of multi-tone pink. The gentle smile on his face - and the three more on his flank - clicked it in her head...
"Oh hi, Cheerilee..."
"...Cheeri... lee?"
...and she naturally immediately got it wrong. Cheerilee really isn't a stallion name...
With a deep breath, she calmed herself and tried her best to smile disarmingly. "Sorry, long story, magic mishap."
"Yes... I can see that." The schoolteacher nodded warily, looking Twilight over with a strange look on his face. Twilight stared as the awkward moment stretched on and on, before finally clearing her throat.
"Anyway, sorry, was there something you needed?"
The stallion jumped slightly, before turning back to meet Twilight's eyes. "Oh! Um, no. I just wanted to make sure you were alright, and... um... you're not planning on casting that spell on other ponies, are you? Or teaching it?"
"Oh! No, no. I haven't even got it down myself yet, I don't even know if I could teach it. And it's not catching or anything, it doesn't really work the way you'd expect... um..."
"Oh good... because, umm... I don't think I could handle the Crusaders as fillies."
Twilight couldn't help herself, laughing out loud at the ironic ridiculousness of the statement, getting her further strange looks from the stallion. "I... I'm sorry, I shouldn't laugh. But I'm not turning anypony else into fillies today. Wait, I mean, I'm no-- actually, nevermind. No more fillies." She gave what she hoped was a reassuring grin to the teacher.
He just kept giving her the same strange look, before backing up slightly and turning towards the schoolhouse. "Right... I'll... I'd better get going. Class starts soon."
"Alright! Take care and good luck!" Twilight turned away, continuing on her light trot into town. A few steps in, she froze for a step, realising after all that, she still hadn't got his actual name on this side, but after the strangeness of that conversation it seemed like it would be difficult to bring it up.
I'm going to need to work on a system for this. I need to find out names first if I start talking to someone, and he seemed really awkward. I suppose it is a little strange, but it's something they'd get used to - not that I'm going to be in this Ponyville long enough that anyone needs to get used to anything!
...I really need to be careful about thinking things like that.
Anyway, let's find Rainbow Da-- I mean, Rainbow Blitz.
I really hope I don't need to get used to this.
I wonder what Cheerilee was worried about... it would be kind of an interesting experiment...
And as Twilight put together theoretical frameworks for experiments to determine the reactions to unexpected gender-switches, she never even came close to the correct thoughts flitting through the stallion's head as he trotted away a little faster than he would normally move:
I am SO glad my coat hides it when I blush...
~-~-~-~
One of the most surprising things Twilight had encountered when dealing with her friend Rainbow Dash was that she was, in fact, an even earlier riser than Twilight herself.
She had laughed at first, when the pegasus made the claim, assuming that she was joking. Applejack getting up early was expected for the farmpony; It was hard to imagine Pinkie Pie sleeping at all; but the idea of Rainbow Dash - the brilliant-but-lazy pegasus more frequently seen napping or showing off than working - being one of the first in town to be up and about, when there was no light and nearly nopony awake to see her trying out her tricks?
And then Twilight learned just how embarrassingly little she knew about weather maintenance.
Weather was a job that needed constant upkeep. Clouds, winds, rain and dry spells had no respect for the preferred working hours of the average pony, especially so close to the nightmare that was the Everfree forest; and the change between daytime and night was one of the most difficult and critical periods, as the sudden change in light and temperature could throw an otherwise perfectly organised weather pattern into chaos if not carefully prepared and managed.
As the Ponyville weather manager, Rainbow did not have set hours, but did almost all of the work for both the dawn and dusk changeovers, and simply kept an eye on the local weather throughout the day and night. Twilight had been completely taken aback to learn that Rainbow's napping was much less motivated by laziness and was more of a staggered sleep schedule, ensuring she could remain reasonably rested while keeping an eye on the weather throughout day and night.
The discovery had prompted a heartfelt apology to Rainbow for making assumptions, a friendship report on the same, and a marathon study session into the intricacies of the weather system. When she had earned her wings, she had jumped on the chance to turn theory into practice - as soon as she had gotten the hang of flying, anyway - and today, she had another lesson to look forward to, as soon as she could find Rainbow Dash - or in this case, her male counterpart.
One of the least surprising things, on the other hoof, was that Rainbow found her first, and she had only a second of warning before impact.
It was an arms race of sorts. Rainbow seemed to have an unerring instinct for cushioning her crash lands with her friends' bodies - instinctive pegasus magic thankfully preventing any severe injury for either party. Long friendship with the speedster had given her an instinct of when to dodge, honed further by her newly gained instinctive sense for all forms of magic - and Rainbow's magic signature was as distinctive and loud as her mane, even if it came from behind and above.
Rainbow, when confronted, had denied up and down that she deliberately aimed for Twilight, let alone adjusting after she dodged, but her hit-miss ratio was evidence enough to the contrary for Twilight's analytical mind.
And so, in that split second when she sensed the blaze of fast-incoming pegasus magic, she feinted left then dodged backwards, and still only escaped the impact by inches, feeling a hoof nick her mane as it was blown about by the strong winds of the near miss, before the cyan-and-rainbow missile crashed hard into the road, skidding to a halt in a cloud of dust.
Twilight cheered herself on in her mind and added another mark in her mental "miss" column as she trotted forward to check her friend was alright - although the analytical part of her mind traitorously noted that if she'd been a few inches taller - say, like a stallion - she would not have been so lucky.
The dust cleared as the pegasus regained his feet, and a gravelly and somewhat familiar voice spoke out. "Hey, Dusk, everything alright? I saw the yellow flag..."
And he trailed off as their eyes met, and his mouth hung open.
Twilight took advantage of the moment to look over her friend's counterpart. The differences were... surprisingly few, truth be told, but it was hard to see past the usual striking combination of red eyes, sky-blue fur, and rainbow mane to the actual changes in her friend.
He wasn't that much taller, for starters. Rainbow Dash had always had the smallest build of the six friends, and that had apparently been emphasised as a stallion - he didn't seem to be any taller than her right now, though admittedly she had grown a little since gaining her wings.
Like his distaff counterpart, he was pretty much nothing but lean muscle, fur and feathers, on a slightly larger frame admittedly; his muzzle was less squared off than most stallions'. The mane was shorter and spikier, and his tail seemed to be styled in a jagged lightning-bolt style rather than the smooth rainbow sweep of Dash's.
Interesting... in my Ponyville, Dash has a reputation for having a rather coltish personality, whereas as a stallion he would meet the stereotypes for personality but has a somewhat feminine look...
And then, of course, Twilight was interrupted by Rainbow Blitz falling over and laughing uproariously.
She sighed, sitting on the road with a thoroughly unamused expression while Blitz convulsed with laughter, soon reduced to gasping for breath as he tried to right himself.
After a full minute with no sign of stopping any time soon, and growing attention from the early-morning populace, Twilight sighed and spread her wings, scooping her friend up in her magic and taking to the skies, trying to ignore the writhing and shaking of the stallion in her magical grip. Pointedly ignoring the stares of the few pegasi already up and in the air, she flew the cackling stallion to a high cloud, dumped him unceremoniously to its fluffy embrace, and waited.
And waited.
And then he finally seemed to be calming down... then his eyes fell on her again, and that set him off all over again.
Rolling her eyes with growing irritation, she considered taking more direct action for a moment before Blitz took the decision out of her hooves, rolling with laughter so excessively that he rolled right off the edge of the cloud.
She dove for the edge in a panic as the laughter turned into a yelp of shock, but Rainbow was still Rainbow, and by the time she spotted him he had recovered smoothly and was gliding his way back up towards the cloud. He was still chuckling slightly as he landed, using his wings to wipe tears from his eyes as he grinned at her.
"So. You totally turned yourself into a mare."
Twilight sighed heavily enough to ripple the cloud beneath them.
"No, I didn't. Look, we're... we're already running well behind schedule because you've spent the last ten minutes laughing like a hyena. Let's get going on this, and I'll explain it to you on the way."
"Sure, sure, we're working on keeping things clear on the Everfree boundary today," Blitz explained between snickering. "Don't worry, it's more subtle stuff, not cloud-bucking. Wouldn't make a mare work on that kind of heavy labour."
Twilight's feathers bristled slightly. "Really? Because I've seen a mare buck the sky clear in, oh, I don't know, ten seconds flat?"
"Hah! As if! That's my thing, as if anyone could beat my--" Blitz cut off, backing off suddenly as he saw the somewhat dangerous smirk on Twilight's face. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, you are NOT turning me into a mare. Back off." He tensed, ready to shoot off at the first sign of a purple glow around the horn.
"What?" Twilight was entirely thrown for a loop. "No! Nopony is getting turned into mares. I wouldn't do something like that without you being okay with it, Rainbow."
"So, you meant to turn yourself into a mare?"
"I didn't--"
"So I'll still be careful. Maybe it's contagious." Rainbow grinned. "It'd almost be worth it to see everypony else freaking out about it..."
"Rainbow! It's not contagious! It doesn't even work that way!"
"Well, after seeing what you did with that cloud library, sorry if I'm not taking your word that you know what your magic is doing, prince...ess." He snickered again and Twilight facehooved at the reminder.
The cloud library had been Twilight's - and by the sound of things, Dusk's - very first introduction to her new and interesting powers. As soon as she'd gotten sufficient control over her flight, Rainbow had demanded that she try napping on a cloud, eager to show the superiority of the cloud as a bedding surface.
And it had been almost as good as Rainbow had made it sound, wonderfully soft and comfortable. She'd not expected to actually fall asleep - she was a creature of the indoors for the most part, and sleeping in the outdoors - let alone hundreds of meters in the air - was not something she expected to enjoy, but the cloud had lulled her off within minutes.
But habit meant she expected to wake up in her bed at home in the library, and instead of instinctively teleporting herself home, her magic had brought the library to her, in a way - rounding up all the clouds in the area, and reforming them into a rather impressive facsimile of the library tree. In what she later learned was the characteristic dazed semiconsciousness that often followed her sleep-casting, she had wandered downstairs, made herself a cup of coffee, and picked out a book to study, and not realised anything was wrong until the coffee had disintegrated into vapour in her mouth and the book had opened to display semi-solid blankness.
Her panic increased as everything she touched began to come apart under her hooves, wings and magic. Rainbow Dash had been woken by her scream, and had been somewhat freaked out herself as she found herself suspended in branches of cloud - some of her house, including her bedroom and herself, had been sucked into the construction spell to make the house. After she had burst in to find Twilight in a bubble of magic shielding yelling not to come near her, it had taken her a few minutes to figure out what had happened, and five times that long to convince a frantic Twilight that her power wasn't going to destroy Equestria and that she could come out from the bubble.
Not her finest moment.
"You're never letting me live that down, are you."
"Well, I did have to practically rebuild my whole house."
"It took you less than half an hour."
"And it was hilarious." Blitz grinned widely. Twilight sighed, but couldn't help but smile a little - the smile given by Blitz was almost identical to Dash's same smile the last time they'd had this conversation. Even if he was abrasive, he was still the Rainbow she knew.
"Look, trust me, there is absolutely no way in Equestria this spell can end with you as a mare. Let's get going, and I'll tell you about it."
~-~-~-~
The subject for the morning was thermals and air pressure, and the effects of the sun's heat as it built up in the air and ground, across the various roof styles, terrains, and proximities to the Everfree throughout Ponyville.
Twilight smiled and turned to Rainbow as they reached the small cloud that he had set up, barely large enough for the two of them. "What now?"
"Alright, spread your wings wide, over the edge of the cloud."
"Like this?" She twitched the still-slightly-unfamiliar muscles, opening out her wings wide and clear, spreading them out as far as they could go, closing her eyes and enjoying the stretch and feel of the air as it ruffled her feathers.
After a few seconds of not receiving a response, she opened her eyes again. Her companion was staring at her wings with a somewhat distant focus, his own wings fluttering half-open to keep him balanced on the small cloud, she assumed. "Rainbow?"
He seemed to suddenly shake out of a daze and refocused on her. "Um... yeah. Mostly like that. Tilt them a bit further down though, we're dealing with air from below so you want them mostly in line with the ground. Like halfway through a flap to take off, but spread out more - you want to feel out the air, not catch it just yet."
She followed his instructions, making a few more minor adjustments at his suggestion. She finally got it as he demonstrated with his own wings, then he told her to hold position as he set things up below, and pay attention to the difference in the feel of the air.
I wonder what that was about? She thought as she settled in, concentrating on keeping her feathers spread wide and waiting for changes physical or magical to become apparent. Probably just hit home that I'm different from Dusk. Males and females have slightly different wings, mine are probably a bit shorter than his. For someone like Rainbow, that'd be something she - or he - looks at more than anything in a pegasus...
Then her thoughts cut off as she first felt the changes in the atmosphere, and that held her focus for some time after that.
~-~-~-~
Learning weather from Rainbow was a very interesting task for Twilight. She had read nearly every textbook worth mentioning on the topic, but this was almost more of a hindrance than a help when learning from a pegasus who had dropped out of school and was effectively self-taught, using nothing but finely-honed instinct and experience. The concept still boggled Twilight a little - doubly so because Rainbow was unquestionably the best Ponyville had to offer.
All the terminology Twilight had learned was useless in the face of somepony who had made up her - or his - own names for almost everything, and fifty pages of describing the effects of subtle and careful use of weather-altering pegasus magic were summed up in a few minutes as Rainbow Blitz demonstrated directly, making her spread her wings out wide and feel the differences in the air and her feathers over the various parts of the town, as he worked his craft on the air below.
She listened intently as he explained the various causes and effects of the issues with the weather, how to spot and react to each in turn, cross-referencing them against the books she had memorised and carefully noting where the two did not mesh for further study later. Rainbow's wings-on teaching techniques were very different from what she was used to, but she had learned enough from her adventures of being taught to fly to appreciate the difference, though she had to give her full attention to her friend the whole time.
However, it was surprising to note that Rainbow Blitz seemed to be returning the attention in full. Between their various lesson points, Twilight took the opportunity to explain the situation she had found herself in, and her friend paid just as much attention to her while they flew together as she did on the clouds.
While it was a surprise to get minutes of lecturing in on Rainbow without a snarky reminder or taking something strange out of context, she was hardly going to complain at her rapt audience, never taking his eyes off her and nodding along as she explained what had happened and its consequences.
Her explanation dissolved into giggles as Rainbow, concentrating so hard on her, ran headfirst into the cloud they were supposed to be working on next. She snickered as he tried to play it off as an intentional move, but it was flattering to know he was so interested in what had happened. Maybe Rainbow is more interested in magic as a stallion? I can't see how that would make a difference, but oh well!
~-~-~-~
"The whole thing is really interesting, though. I mean, it gives me a really solid chance to see how the dynamic changes when the stallions outnumber the mares, instead of vice versa. I mean, for the most part everypony seems to be in much the same position as they were previously, but it's clear that gender roles haven't been completely inverted by your previous comments. I could probably write a whole study on this - although it'd probably be problematic to include the appropriate sources for it, since they'd not really be accessible to anyone who can't cast the spell..."
They were coming to the end of their scheduled lesson, and heading towards a watch cloud hanging over the edge of town. Rainbow had again been entirely distracted and almost flown straight past it, in fact, and corrected sharply, Twilight following and settling beside her friend on the cloud, spreading her wings wide, ready for the final lesson of the day.
"Oh, and I just wanted to say, Rainbow - thanks for listening." She smiled at him, her wings still spread wide. "I know usually listening to me talk magic isn't usually your thing, but you've been really focused the whole time I've been talking. I really needed to get some of that off my chest, and I'm glad you found it so interesting. You've been really quiet, though - do you have any questions?"
Rainbow blinked, refocusing from checking her wings were ready to her eyes. "Um... questions. Yeah, I think I have one?"
"Sure!" Twilight smiled encouragingly.
"Well, I was just wondering... are you planning on taking advantage of being a mare?" Rainbow grinned widely.
Twilight froze, her thoughts completely thrown off the rails. "Take... advantage? What do you mean?"
"Well, y'know. Try it out from the other side. I know I'd try it."
"Try what out, Rainbow?"
"Geeeez you're such an egghead, even as a mare." Rainbow Blitz rolled his eyes. "Sex, Dusk. You turn yourself into a mare and the thought didn't even occur to you? What were you even thinking when you first changed yourself? Do you ever get out of that library? Have you even done it as a stallion?"
Twilight's muzzle went bright red as Rainbow's insinuations and interrogations sunk in, her face went from shock, to horror, to confusion, to flustered anger in a matter of moments. "R-Rainbow! What on Equestria-- I'm not a... I just finished explaining-- Have you not listened to a word I've been saying?"
"Hey, I tried! But I didn't really get it and you're kinda distracting, y'know?"
"What?!"
"You're really hot as a mare, okay?" He grinned. "And if you are interested in trying it out, I certainly wouldn't turn you down..."
Twilight stared in horrified fascination as her brain completely reconstructed the last hour's events. Rainbow had been entirely focused on her the entire time she had been talking... on her, not her words. And the whole thing had started... when she'd first spread her wings for him. Oh no...
And now, he was looking at her still, frozen there... looking at her wings, still spread wide.
"So... is that a yes?" Rainbow Blitz grinned, raising an eyebrow suggestively.
She gave a strangled yelp and slammed both of her front hooves down on the cloud, dissipating it instantly and leaving them both with a drop. She caught herself almost immediately before she started falling, and immediately put on some speed, shooting away from Blitz as he yelped and tried to right himself in the air.
Fortunately, he didn't give chase, but she heard him laughing behind her. "You know where my house is if you change your mind!"
She redoubled her speed, heading for the ground and out of his territory as fast as she could, trying to outfly the idea of getting ogled and hit on by one of her best friends so blatantly.
Maybe there are some differences between mares and stallions after all...
“Oh Celestia, oh Celestia how did I not notice that.”
A thoroughly flustered Twilight Sparkle wandered through the morning bustle of town, now somewhat more crowded in the late morning. Her head was still spinning and her adrenaline pumping as she muttered to herself.
“Just what kind of alternate universe did I think this was, anyway? Why would I think that Rainbow would suddenly have gained an appreciation for magical theory and the scientific method along with a—” she cut herself off with a strangled yelp and shook her head hard, trying to dislodge the image of the smirk on Blitz’s face.
She picked her pace up a little, trotting along at speed with her wings fluttering restlessly at her side. Part of her wanted to take off again, fly away faster than she could walk in the crowded street, but the idea of running into Blitz again right now was sufficient reason to stay groundbound.
“Yeah, I can just imagine it. ‘Come back already, did you? I knew you couldn’t resist the Bli—’ Ugh.” She grit her teeth, picking up her pace again, now only just shy of a full-on jog. “What was he even thinking anyway? Does he really think that if I was Dusk as a filly I’d be interested in something like that? You don’t just proposition your friends like that! I should know! Friendship is what I do!”
Half a lifetime of avoiding obstacles while wandering through the castle carrying books was all that kept Twilight from running into the ponies and structures around her, focused as she was on the ground and thinking out loud.
“I mean even if we were naturally… compatible, we’re practically opposites! The student and the athlete, the egghead and the jock, the serious librarian and the prank-loving layabout! Why would she even think I… would… wait.”
Twilight skidded to a stop in the middle of the road, blinked twice, and facehooved with all the royal dignity she could muster – which at this point was admittedly not much.
“Prank. The whole thing was a prank.” She shook her head slowly, and groaned. “Hook, line and sinker, Twilight. You’re an idiot. Of course Blitz wouldn’t be thinking like that, he’s just trying to get a rise out of you and make… well, Dusk… feel better with an uncomfortable situation. In his own weird way.”
She started walking again, much more slowly now, her flight-or-fight instinct thankfully fading away. “Knowing him, he still didn’t take in a word I was saying, but he didn’t mean what he said. I mean, since when would he find me… what did he say? ‘Really hot as a mare’?” She chuckled, rolling her eyes at the absurdity of it.
Although it was kinda nice to hear that… chimed in some treacherous thought process. Do I really want to work so hard to justify him not finding me ‘hot’?
She rolled her eyes as that sunk in. “What, seriously? I’m going to get upset now because he doesn’t think I’m attractive? This is ridiculous.” She sighed and walked on. “Of course he doesn’t. Just a huge joke to him. Rainbow Dash wouldn’t think something like that, and neither would Blitz, because they’re the same pony.”
And would Rainbow Dash have the patience to listen for an hour while I lectured on about multiverses and studies without making any snarky remarks whatsoever, if she wasn’t… distracted? Just for a prank?
Twilight skidded to a halt again, eyes wide.
“…Sure she would.”
And that look when I first opened my wings?
“He could just have been seeing the opportunity for the prank in the first place…” she whispered weakly.
And the number of times he was staring at me so hard he forgot where he was going?
“Rainbow… can be a good actor… when she wants?” It sounded about as convincing as Rainbow trying to deny her excitement over the upcoming Daring Do book, a comparison that only reinforced its own point.
“Dusk Shine! Hey, Dusk, what are you doing? You have a moment?”
Another voice broke into her argument with her own thoughts, and she latched onto it as a lifeline to drag her out of the dangerous cycle she found herself in. Putting on her best princess smile, she turned to her saviour.
“Hello! Sure I do! What can I… oh.”
Her smile dropped instantly as she spotted the figure heading towards her. Mint green coat, white stripe in mane, excessively eager smile, and horn glowing yellow with a train of books, journals and some other strange-looking objects floating in a string beside him.
“Awesome! Because I think I’ve found some new discoveries you might be interested in!” replied the stallion. And now she knew who it belonged to, the passionate exuberance in that voice was clearly identifiable even in a male register.
“Oh… um… I really… ah!” She looked around frantically, before focusing up at the sun. “Actually, it’s later than I thought! I need to meet up with Applejack all the way out at Sweet Apple Acres! Long way to go! Bye!”
Without waiting for a response, Twilight lit her horn and vanished from the market before the stallion. He sighed, looking at his collection as if to determine which of them had so offended the alicorn, then trotted back towards his house, plotting his next attempt.
~-~-~-~
The (less eccentric) townsfolk of Ponyville had watched their Prince wander the town – walking around at high speed as if in a hurry to get somewhere but ending up doing nothing but running laps around the market at random; muttering to himself in frustration, with Rainbow’s name coming up several times; randomly skidding to a halt and staring for long moments; and arguing with somepony who didn’t appear to be there.
For the most part, they followed the correct and informally agreed procedure for this course of action: They stayed out of his way, didn’t disturb him, and let him figure things out. A Dusk Shine in that state could a dangerous thing to startle or interrupt, and nopony wanted to cause any trouble for the prince.
Not that anypony believed that he would do anything spiteful, of course! It simply was a wise decision not to disturb a preoccupied demi-deity with a history of slight frustration issues and a habit of making unexpected magical effects occur.
The fact that he appeared to be a she today did little to make that decision any harder.
So it was that when he (she?) disappeared after Harpsy tried to petition her (him?) for the umpteenth time, and everything else in town remained the correct orientation, species, and gender, the village gave a collective sigh of relief.
Then, without missing a beat, followed the correct and informally agreed procedure for the period immediately following such a situation:
They started gossiping as if the fate of Equestria depended on it.
~-~-~-~
The ascension-given ability to recognise and track magical signatures was a useful one at times, but how effective it was strongly dependent on exactly which pony Twilight was hunting for, as the magic it picked up was strongly dependent on the personality of the pony who gave it off.
Rainbow had always been easy, strongly noticeable and recognisable; Pinkie Pie, also usually easy, although she’d still been given some strange false positives and negatives at times that she had to fight her instinct to investigate, as she was not nearly prepared enough for an alicorn-powered second run at understanding Pinkie Pie. Fluttershy’s signature was almost invisible, as if it tried to hide itself, making her almost impossible to locate.
Searching for Rarity had even odds of finding her or somepony wearing one of her more impressive dresses, and Applejack was fairly easy to find – so long as she wasn’t on her farm. The whole of the acres resonated with her magic, and she might as well have been one of the apple trees for all the luck Twilight would have had locating her – or, in this case, him – with that ability.
So without the ability to magically locate and teleport to her friend, and still not willing to take to the air again just yet, the best way to ensure she met up with Applejack would just be to walk in along the road from the town proper. They had simply agreed to meet up on the farm, so there was a good chance he would head out to meet Dusk – and thus her – on the way.
While this boded well for her schedule, it unfortunately meant that she was once again left alone with her thoughts, having escaped one of the few ponies she was less enthused to deal with than Blitz right now.
So, taxing her mental discipline to its limits, she switched her train of thought to a related but slightly less panic-inducing track:
Any study I do in the differences between a mostly-stallion and a mostly-mare Equestria is going to be tainted by my own presence.
This was actually a fairly serious matter. As a rather significant figure herself, the mere fact that she was the incorrect gender was going to turn heads, change reactions, and corrupt data.
Corrupting data, that’s how I’m thinking about Blitz’s proposal now?
Of course, this did mean that she could perform a number of other studies, but unfortunately that would then be tainted by the fact that she wasn’t entirely certain what the difference between the two universes was. She couldn’t isolate the study with both factors in play, and thus couldn’t be sure if the changes were due to the world’s gender difference, or her own.
The only reasonable way to actually ensure that her gender didn’t impact the study would be to find some spell to actually change it. That would mean that she could study this place as a stallion – thus, everyone would see what they would expect.
The idea of going through the process of transferring myself to another universe where everyone changes gender, and then changing my own gender, is ridiculously convoluted.
Of course, if she could figure out a spell like that, she could do the other study as well, by casting it in her own Ponyville.
And after all the trouble I’ve gone to trying to make it clear that that isn’t what I’m doing, now it’s the first thing that comes to mind?
…Wow, I got to the end of my sarcastic rejoinder without actually bringing up Rainbow Bl… damn.
I need to get myself some closure on this, or I’m gonna wake up a stallion next time my magic acts up.
She sighed, trying to align her brain back into scientist mode as she walked down the path between the rows of apple trees. Alright. Need to figure out some base rules if I’m going to get any good out of this. At the very least, I can use this trip as a baseline for future experiments. So far, matters are not encouraging, but we don’t have many data points. Pretty much just Spines and Blitz – Cheerilee or whatever-his-name-is seemed pretty much the same, and I saw enough of Lyra to think the same there.
Spines has too many unique factors to count. So, so far we have two small data points saying unchanged, and one large possible outlier saying… what exactly?
I don’t even really know what questions I’m asking yet, do I?
Well, at least I shouldn’t have to worry about—
“Well, hel-lo there, sugarcube. What brings a pretty little pegasus like you all the way out here?” a deep voice drawled behind her.
—or, maybe I do.
She turned slowly for maximum effect, giving her best unimpressed scowl to the stallion standing leaning against the tree. His relaxed, cool pose faltered almost immediately as his eyes flickered to the horn on her forehead, staring in shock. Twilight had to fight a little to keep her face straight as he stumbled – nothing like a smirk to ruin a perfectly good glare – but managed well enough.
“Would you like to try that greeting again, Applejack?”
“Dusk! Ah, hey there! Wow, Ah’m sorry, Ah didn’t, uh, recognise ya, with the whole…”
“Magic mishap.” As if that wasn’t obvious.
“No kiddin’. So, uh, you turned you—”
She cut him off rather suddenly, her magic freezing his mouth. “Oh no. I’m not going through this again.” He blinked, struggling slightly with the mystic muzzle, but she held it strong. “Listen carefully – I’m only going through this once. I did not turn myself into a mare. I’ve just moved from a parallel universe.
“I’ve always been a mare. In the Ponyville I’m from, everypony is a mare. Everypony that’s a stallion here, I mean, and vice versa. But apart from that, everything’s… mostly the same – so I still recognise everypony here, I still know you, we’re still friends, I still have the same schedule, and so I’m helping out here. I assume Dusk’s doing the same back in my home.”
She paused, trying to think if she’d missed anything. “Oh! My name’s Twilight Sparkle. You can call me Twilight. Or Dusk, I guess. I’m getting a bit used to it now. Anyway.” She released the magical hold, and Applejack worked his jaw now it was free. “Repeat it.”
“What?”
“What I just said. Who am I?”
“Umm… you’re Twilight Sparkle, you’re from, uh, some other Ponyville where we’re all mares?” Applejack said slowly.
“Thank you! That’s all I needed.” She smiled brightly, for the first time since they’d met. “Sorry, I’m just getting a little sick of the whole ‘turned yourself into a mare’ thing…”
“Fair enough, Ah s’pose!” Applejack chuckled, moving over to join Twilight on the path. “…Seriously? All mares? …Even Blitz?”
“Yeah, but it’s ‘Rainbow Dash’. Pretty much the same I think, except for a few habits and wow you’re big.”
Now that the apple farmer wasn’t amongst the trees, she could get a solid look at him. Where Rainbow had been the slightest built of the group, Applejack was the largest – the Apples were a solidly built clan if ever there was one – and she had expected that to be emphasised in her stallion counterpart; the farmer did not disappoint. Objectively, he wasn’t actually as large as Macintosh was in her own Ponyville, but she was used to Macintosh being the largest stallion in the town by a good margin – having one of her friends loom over her like this was a whole other matter.
It was actually interesting to see how much Applejack didn’t resemble Big Mac. The image of a recoloured copy must have stuck in her head when she’d used the older Apple to fake a gender-changing spell in her duel with Trixie, but the differences were quite noticeable. The colours were naturally unchanged, but unlike Big Mac’s short-cropped mane and tail, the male Applejack’s were no different, worn long and thick and bound by a band near the end of each.
He also lacked the unshorn fetlocks and rougher coat – Twilight quietly put that down to the local Rarity’s influence – giving him a surprisingly well-cultured look for a farmer, although still wrapped around a body apparently built from brick. She wouldn’t be surprised if he weighed twice what Rainbow Blitz had, and probably not far off that for herself either.
But most telling was simply the body language. There was no trace of Big Mac’s slow and careful movement or half-lidded, slowly-considering gaze – Applejack’s energy and grace were easily seen in the larger frame.
He cleared his throat loudly, making her snap her gaze back to his face. “Not that Ah don’t appreciate it, but if yer set on following Dusk’s schedule, we got work to do.”
“Yes!” Twilight nodded quickly, and turned back towards the farmhouse, blushing slightly. “Lots to do. You’ve got everything set up and ready?”
“Ready as can be! Just needs the magic touch.” He grinned, moving up to walk beside her.
“Well, I think I can convincingly claim to be able to provide that. Let’s see if we can’t get ready to set a record!”
~-~-~-~
“Do we really go through this much every Winter Wrap Up?” Twilight asked, stunned at the number of crates and barrels piled around the barn.
“Yup! Don’t feel like that much when it’s spread around the town, but put it together and it stacks up pretty high. We got the seeds and stock piled up on the left, most of the equipment on the right.” He gestured to each pile in turn.
“I’m glad I’m here for this, then…” she sighed.
“Took a lot of wranglin’ to get everypony to chip in on this, too. Ah’ll admit Ah’m still not fully convinced this is the best way of handlin’ things, havin’ everything all stored in one place.”
“It will be better, I promise. We’ve had too many little problems in the wrap-up where somepony wasn’t prepared and didn’t have the stock – this way, we’ve got everything prepared ahead of time, and we can be ready to clean it up before winter even starts!” She grinned.
“Ah know, ya already sold me on it before, otherwise Ah wouldn’t be givin’ ya a whole barn for the whole winter. It’s already built up just like you asked. Ah just gotta know, what’s your plan if something happens to the barn? That means we lose everything.”
“Don’t worry. Soon as we get everything loaded up, I’m going to load this thing up with the most powerful preservative spell I know. Even if the whole town got eaten by parasprites, flattened by an Ursa, and overrun by the Everfree Forest, this barn would still be standing at the end of it.” She grinned, thunking the side of the barn with a hoof.
“Sugarcube…” Applejack shook his head, scowling deeply. Twilight rolled her eyes.
“Oh, come on, this totally doesn’t count as using magic for Winter Wrap Up. It’s just… getting everything ready beforehand. We’ll still do the actual wrapping up by hoof.”
“Yeah, but… just wanna make sure you know what your spells are gonna do first, yeah? We don’t need another trees that buck back incident, do we?”
“Oh, come on, that’s not fair!” Twilight groaned. “I’m not gonna make the barn fight ponies for its contents.”
“Ya didn’t plan to make the trees fight us for the apples either!”
“I didn’t think they’d do that! How was I supposed to know they’d do that? Besides, we worked things out with them in the end, didn’t we?”
“Yeah, but we lost half an orchard.”
“And now there’s a whole new species of apple-pony settling the east!”
“…Ah’m not sure if that’s helpin’ your argument.”
“What? It’s fantastic!” Twilight groused. “Just because they’re a little unreasonable with us…”
“Yer still bitter that they won’t let ya study them, aren’t ya?”
“Whole new species!” she gestured wildly with both forelegs and wings, as if this explained everything. Applejack laughed, unable to keep his stern face before the flailing mare.
“Alright, alright! Just promise me no experimental magic.”
“None. It’s really advanced magic – time magic, mostly – but nothing I’ve created, it’s been in use for thousands of years. Literally, in some cases.”
“Time magic?”
“We close the doors, four months pass out here, and a few seconds pass inside. Nothing can happen, because there’s no time for anything to happen in. It’s a spell used to protect important documents, treasure hordes, artifacts and the like from the ravages of the centuries.”
“…Okay, ain’t that maybe a bit overkill for some farmin’ supplies for a few months?”
“In this town?” Twilight raised an eyebrow. “I’m already thinking of ways to improve it for next year.”
“Right, right. Just promise me you’ll have a backup if you get too interesting.”
“I promise.” Twilight smiled. “Now, if everything’s here…”
“Me and Gala did a checklist and everything.” Applejack grinned.
“Gala? Oh! As in the apple Red Gala? Wow, that’s… that works!” She took a few moments to try to imagine Macintosh as a mare, but given how wrong she’d been with Applejack, she was probably completely wrong again. No more distractions! “Bring me your checklist! Let’s get to work!”
~-~-~-~
The inside of the barn had, as Applejack had stated, been completely altered. Instead of a mostly wide open space it was now tightly packed with shelving, floor to ceiling, well supported all the way down.
It was a rather complex plan, and its efficiency relied on the fact that it was she who was doing it – there was probably nopony else who could manage this, at least not without spending far more time and effort. The loads she was dealing with would be difficult to impossible for a pegasus to lift in the space provided; a strong unicorn could probably do some of it, but they wouldn’t be able to see where everything went in the various shelving levels; A team of earth ponies might have handled it if some lift equipment was installed, but with a great deal of work. A team of all three together was the only reasonable way to wrangle this job – or, in this case, one alicorn.
Her natural talent for organisation was simply a bonus.
The two of them got into a rhythm quickly, stacking up piles of barrels and equipment onto a trolley, shifting it into the centre of the barn, and then flying them up into the various compartments according to the sorting list they had put together. Repeat until complete.
It wasn’t the most intellectually challenging work she had ever undertaken – especially with Applejack holding the diagram and directing her to the location of each item in turn – which gave her plenty of opportunity to chat with him while they worked.
~-~-~-~
“So how much trouble’re the Crusaders on your side? They’re bad enough here, but give ‘em filly eyes and they’d have all ‘f us wrapped neat around their hooves.”
“Cheerilee – err, whatever his name is here, their teacher – he already said the same thing.” Twilight laughed. “Stopped me to make sure there was no way I’d be turning them into fillies.”
“Poor stallion. Ah love my li’l brother, but having to deal with him and his friends every day, bored and adventurous… Ah don’t envy him at all. And if they were fillies… that goes fourth shelf, right near the back on the right.”
“Got it. Well, you have to remember that most of the town are mares too - it’s a little less effective on us than on stallions. Admittedly, only a little!” Both of them chuckled, remembering the many interesting trials the young trio created for themselves and those around them. “These go on the third shelf, right?”
~-~-~-~
“Y’know, sometimes Ah wonder if that power ‘f yours is anything like chaos magic?”
“Hey! What’s that supposed to mean?” Twilight glared down from the third shelf, pausing her stacking.
“Well ya gotta admit, there’s a fair bit of random to it, right? Ah mean, ‘f you was jus’ thinkin’ one day that those clouds looked like cotton candy…”
“My magic is based on friendship! Not chaos!”
“So you sayin’ you couldn’t cotton candy up clouds if you wanted to? Second shelf, far left side for these barrels.”
“Well… I could, probably. But can you imagine what he’d be like afterwards? ‘Oh, Twilight, I knew you’d grow an appreciation for the classics!’” She deepened her voice to mimic Discord with a roll of her eyes as she moved in the latest load without landing. “I have no intention of copying any of his tricks, no matter how… harmless. Where do these go?”
She floated lazily in the middle of the room, hovering between the shelves with a couple of crates held in her grip. After a moment, she looked down, seeing the stallion staring up at her blankly.
“...Applejack?”
“What? Oh! Right. Um, bottom shelf on the right.” He focused back on the list hurriedly. “Let’s get the next lot out.”
She sighed to herself, realising how pointless impersonation was when dealing in a universe where everypony’s voices were completely different. “Why do I have a feeling I’m going to be running into Discord before I get back to my Ponyville…”
~-~-~-~
“So Red Gala’s not as big as you, but you still make her do the plowing?”
“Ha! Make her! That’s funny.” Applejack barked out a laugh. “The whole Apple Family together couldn’t pry that collar offa her. Think she thinks it’s a fashion statement or somethin’. First shelf on the left.”
“I’ll admit, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Big Mac without it on…”
“Big Mac, huh?”
“Eeyup.” She giggled. “He’s even bigger than you.”
“Well, Gala’s bigger’n half the stallions in town, so that don’t surprise me. Top shelf on the right!”
“Are you just putting these on at random? Wouldn’t it be easier to do it one shelf at a time, instead of randomly grabbing a bunch of things to put in? Means I wouldn’t have to fly back and forth so much.” She flapped up to the higher shelves, cargo in tow.
“The whole idea is to get ‘em in the right order on the way out, not the way in.” Applejack chuckled. “Why, ge—”
“If the next words out of your mouth are in any way insinuating I’m getting tired because I’m not a stallion, I will let you do the next load yourself.”
“Next lot’s bottom shelf on the left!”
~-~-~-~
“So… do you actually know how those apple-ponies are going?” Twilight asked, her voice going quiet.
“Ain’t you get reports on stuff like that?”
“I’m not really supposed to. They refuse to have anything to do with me.”
“Awww, that’s no fair. Ah mean, you’re kinda their father! Er, Ah mean, mother.”
“Gah! I’m not sure which is weirder!” She shook her head, trying to dislodge more unfortunate images.
“Second shelf, right side. And hey, this ain’t the only time you’ve brought somethin’ to life.”
“It’s the only one that’s lasted… are you sure this is where this goes? It doesn’t seem to match.”
“Oh! Sorry, left side, Ah got mixed up.”
“Ah.” She tugged the snow shovels over to the opposite side, floating above. “Well, even if I can’t study them, and even though I am not their mother, they are kinda my responsibility.”
“Well, last Ah heard they’re doin’ pretty well for themselves. Heard tell from my cousins out that way it’s a bit of an interesting time gettin’ the apples through negotiatin’ rather than buckin’. Although, Ah heard ‘em suggest there might be some of that goin’ on too…”
“Huh? I thought that was part of the problem?”
“Well, y’know how everypony knows us Apple clan really love apples?”
“What do you— Euuurrrrgh!” She recoiled, as her friend burst into laughter at the look on her glowing-red face. “Applejack! Please tell me you’re joking!” She gestured at him with the stack of hay hefted in her magic.
“Third shelf on the left!” Applejack managed to gasp out between bursts of laughter.
“Ughhh.”
“...Actually, sorry, second shelf on the right.”
“Applejack!”
“Sorry!” He was still chuckling, watching as she flew across the room again.
“Are there any other mistakes you’d like to mention?”
“Well…” He looked at the diagram for a bit, then rapped a hoof against the last of the current load.. “...Ah think we got most of it right, but this next crate needs to go near the back of the fourth shelf… behind those barrels that are already in there.”
“I told you we needed to organise it better on the way in!” Twilight growled, floating up to reorganise the current contents to another shelf so she could load in the next.
“Oh, by the way, y’know any good ways to get out splinters from sensitive areas?”
“Why? Are you getting… oh, eww. Very funny. ...Also, ouch.”
~-~-~-~
“Um, this one goes top shelf on the right.”
“Got it.”
“Third on the left.”
“Here?”
“Wait, no, on the right.”
Twilight ground her teeth together, flying over to the other side and slotting the bundle of bells among other equipment. As the warehouse had filled, the final few pieces were less grouped, meaning they had to spend more attention on putting it together and less on conversation. At the same time, Applejack’s instructions were seeing increasing errors, sending her flying back and forth across the warehouse.
She wasn’t getting tired – her alicorn-granted endurance meant she could keep this up all day – but she was getting a bit frustrated.
“This one?” She lifted a barrel full of water.
“Should be some room for it on the third shelf on the left.”
“Don’t think so…”
“Move a bit more this way?”
She frowned, floating over the shelves. “I don’t think so.”
“Keep lookin’, Ah’m sure it’s around there. Maybe it’s on the other side, Ah keep getting that mixed up a bit.”
She scowled again, flapping over to the opposite shelf. There was a little more room there, but still not enough for the barrel she held.
She was about to call that out when she noticed the reflection of Applejack in the polished edge of one of the nearby plows on the shelf beside her - staring right up at her with a grin, instead of looking at the sheet or the barrel.
Why is he… Oh, no.
“I don’t think there’s much room for it. Does the plan say it’s supposed to be closer to the front of the barn?” she asked, trying to keep the suspicion out of her voice.
“Yeah, over near the front.”
He didn’t even look at the sheet.
He’s just staring at me. From below.
With pinpoint control, she moved a little closer across the barn, trying to fight the urge to tuck in her tail between her legs.
We’ll see if he’s paying attention.
“I think I see where I can put it. A little to the left?”
“Yup!” She moved herself, and the barrel, to the left.
“Back a bit?”
“Sounds good!” Both her and the barrel moved back, away from the shelves.
“And I think I can just drop it here. Sound good?”
“Great! Nearly done! What’s—”
Applejack was cut off under a deluge of water as Twilight cracked open the bottom of the barrel, letting its contents flood down onto the stallion below. She slowly drifted down in her best ‘Imperious Luna’ impression, to land carefully before Applejack, who was trying to pull his sodden mane and hat from his muzzle.
“Wh-what was that?”
“That’s where you told me to drop it!” Twilight answered with sharp sweetness. “Or were you not paying attention to where the barrel was?”
He blinked a couple times, then burst out laughing. “Yeah, that’s a fair cop. Ah mighta been a mite distracted.” He blushed, still grinning, wringing out his mane. “Ah’ll say Ah deserved that.”
The laughter did nothing to calm down Twilight. “Really?! I got this from Blitz, but I thought a bit better of you!” She growled. “I thought I explained I’m not Dusk turned into a filly!”
“Well, yeah, Ah got that.” He looked confused at that. “Ah wouldn’ta done something like that to Dusk, that’d make it all sorts of creepy. But you’ve been a mare all along, yeah? Ah’d think you’d be used to that sort of attention. Ah wasn’t kiddin’ before when Ah first saw you, y’know.” He gave her a winning grin.
Twilight opened her mouth to rebut that, but absolutely nothing came out. Three times she repeated, her expression fluctuating wildly as she tried to process a suitably scathing response, but not a sound escaped her.
“Errr, Twi?” He blinked, moving forward and reaching out to poke his semi-catatonic friend with a hoof. “Y’okay?”
Twilight’s pupils shrunk to pinpricks, and she took a deep, gasping breath in.
~-~-~-~
At the farmhouse proper, an old, green ear was flicked up as a piercing note echoed over the trees, sending rippling waves through the leaves above and birds flocking into the air.
Having lived on a farm by the Everfree for as long as Ponyville had stood made a pony well-acquainted with the noises the equine throat was capable of. Knowing the difference between a scream of terror and a squeal of joy, or the cry of various beasts of the forest, was a vital skill to master if one wanted to keep their family safe.
And thus it was, though half-deaf and with only a couple of seconds to judge the sound before the hound at his feet leapt up and howled an accompaniment, he relaxed back into his rocking chair, settled back for his nap, and mused with amusement at the games of youth, wondering what his stubborn grandson was doing to some poor mare’s mind to bring out a frustrated shriek of that caliber…
The Twilight Sparkle who walked back into town was not quite as flustered and confused as the one who had fled it an hour or so earlier, but she made up for that with an air of simmering frustration. Somehow, this quite failed to make her more approachable to the townsponies.
The fact that the majority of said ponies were stallions improved neither her mood nor her reputation, as she glared at any who came too close, muttering fiercely. The Prince… Princess of Friendship, it seems, was in no mood for friendliness today.
Unfortunately for all involved, she found herself once again unfortunately bereft of direction. Her next item on the checklist wasn’t due for another hour – for all of Applejack’s misdirected attention they had still completed the task within the allotted time, and while she had originally intended to relax at the farmhouse over an Apple family lunch…
Well, that’s probably not likely to happen anytime soon. The slightest edge of guilt threatened to nibble at the edge of her irritation, and she pushed it back down with a grunt.
…So she had an hour with nothing scheduled, and nothing to do but think about stallions and how ridiculously idiotic they were. One blasted thing on their minds, if you could even consider their minds to be what’s behind their eyes rather than between their legs. She snorted as she glared back and forth, seeing the colts all around her staring, averting their eyes quickly as they were noticed.
This version of Equestria is ridiculous. I mean, it’s not like all the stallions have to be like that! Why can’t they be more like my brother? I mean, he’s right over there and hasn’t even… looked…
…What?
She blinked, screeching to a halt again and spinning around, staring at the white-coated unicorn stallion wandering past with a wild shock of electric-blue hair, deep in conversation with a grey earth stallion.
…WHAT?!
While her mind reeled from the shock, her body seemed to take over on automatic. Her wings caught the air and carried her over the crowd to the duo, the words spilling from her mouth one after the other. “BBBFF? What are you doing here? And why are you still… a…”
“Oh! Heyyy there, Dusk! …Whoa, totally dig the new look.” Her ‘brother’ turned, grinning widely… behind a huge pair of sunglasses which covered much of his face yet still completely failed to hide the suggestive eyebrow waggle behind them.
Twilight blinked, glancing at the stallion’s music-notation cutie mark, and gave a groan as she facehooved, realising who she was talking to.
“Oh my…” The other stallion’s cultured voice cut over the awkwardness. “I… had heard the rumours around town, but…”
“Didn’t do you justice, Princey! Lookiiiiin’ goooood.” The DJ grinned, actually tilting his ever-present sunglasses up to appreciate the sight directly. “So, did you need me for something, or…”
“N-no. Just… thought you were someone else,” Twilight muttered.
“Well, since you’re here anyway… and you seem to have picked up some interesting new magic… I don’t suppose I cooaaaaaargh! Leggo, leggo!”
The earth pony beside him gave a quick bow to Twilight, resulting in a yelp and a whine as the DJ’s head was dragged down to ground level – due to his ear being between the cellist’s teeth.
“S’rry, y’maj’sty.” He smiled apologetically around the ear of the unicorn. “’ll go m’ke sure he won’ bother you.”
“Ow ow ow alright leggo this is NOT cool, Octavius! Okay, I get it, I won’t ask him to turn you into a filly OW OW OW!” His horn lit up, but extinguished a second later with a practised flick of the earth pony’s hoof.
“Turn ME ’nto a f’lly? ’m dism’ntlin’ that d’shw’sh’r when we g’t home.”
“Not my wuuuuuubs! C’moooooon!”
And Twilight watched in fascination as one stallion dragged another by the ear like a misbehaving colt, through the crowded market square, until they were both out of sight, and nopony else in town batted an eye.
…This town really is entirely crazy, isn’t it?
She sighed as she started walking again. Well, at least that’s one stallion who had the class to not say anything. Counteracted by another who didn’t even try to be subtle. And, in both cases, completely in line with what I know of them as mares. Rubbish outlier data points.
Also, how did I never notice how much my brother looks like that DJ? That is ridiculous. Note to self, look up some family trees when I get back to the library.
…I think I need something to eat, I’m not dealing with the rest of today on an empty stomach.
~-~-~-~
A few minutes later found her once again at the market stalls. At first she was expecting to be waiting a while to get anything during the lunch rush, but amazingly enough, while the stalls seemed to have a significant queue from a distance, it all seemed to clear away into ponies who just happened to be standing around nearby as she got closer. Like magic! Or friendship. Or something.
So it was, a few minutes later, she found herself standing at the Sweet Apple Acres cart, staring at Red Gala.
The eldest apple pony sibling was, as Applejack had suggested, larger than most of the stallions in town, but not nearly at the size of Macintosh or even stallion-Applejack. She wore her mane and tail a little longer, and the fetlocks a little shorter, resulting in a slightly wild-pony look that she still managed to pull off quite effectively.
Big Mac was often the talk of the mares of town as the pinnacle of masculinity – in this case, she theorised, the counterpoint attraction Red Gala held to stallions would be a challenge to be conquered, instead.
Then she realised she was getting into the heads of the stallions in town again, and scowled, putting an end to that.
Red Gala, on the other hand, looked over Twilight with her famous neutral stare, nodded once, and began packing Dusk’s usual order. “Bad day?”
“Stallions.” Twilight seethed.
That actually got a chuckle out of the normally taciturn pony. “Always. Get the barn set up?”
“Hmm? Oh. Yes. And you’ll be happy to know that your brother is… not currently trapped in a time-locked seal for the next few months.” She ground out between her teeth. “Despite probably deserving it…”
Gala’s smile faded to a rather dark look. “Somethin’ Ah should know?”
Twilight winced, remembering the mutual protectiveness of the Apple Family siblings. “Well, I may have shouted him into unconsciousness…”
No answer but a long, piercing stare.
“The whole Royal Canterlot Voice has a bit of a hair trigger on it sometimes… eh-heh…”
The stare continued unabated.
“I felt it was probably good if I made up for that by not sealing him in time, right? So no harm done?”
Green eyes bore down on her like stones. She cracked.
“He was… being a bit too free with his eyes.”
That got a reaction, her stare narrowing. “He do anythin’ you told him not to?”
“Well, no, but he was staring…” Twilight suddenly wondered why she should be feeling guilty here.
Red Gala suddenly brightened, chuckling. “Well, y’can’t expect him to not be honest with his feelin’s, can you?”
Twilight blinked, taking that in, before rolling her eyes with a snort. “…You’re no help whatsoever,” she groused, and stalked away from the stall with a huff as Gala shook her head with amusement behind.
Stallions are still jerks.
…I’ll go apologise to him later.
She huffed and took a bite from the apple, chewing thoughtfully at the delicious fruit.
…Maybe tomorrow, I’ll go apologise to my Applejack instead. That still counts, right?
~-~-~-~
“I know not if my eyes I can trust – a mighty change has befallen Prince Dusk!”
The accent and pattern of speech made the owner of the voice immediately clear to Twilight, and she smiled as she turned around. The zebra gave a wide smile, beckoning the alicorn over to his stall.
“I won’t argue that, though it’s probably not the change you’re thinking of.” She sighed. “Still takes a lot of adjusting, I’ll say that.”
The zebra’s form was still mostly covered by the thick brown cloak that Zecora usually wore, but beyond that his form was mostly as she expected – squarer jaw, slightly less prominent jewelry and mohawk, and slightly leaner than average build for a stallion. It was nice to know that she’d managed to find at least one individual who didn’t surprise her – or maybe she was just getting the hang of it now…
He chuckled. “I would not presume to know your magic’s works… let alone all of its troublesome quirks. Though zebra arts can produce such a change, I doubt through those works was your new form arranged.”
She looked up at him with interest, her scholarly mind conquering her current dilemmas. “You have a gender change potion?”
“A recipe I know, that does as you have done – to change one’s nature between mare and stallion. The magic, however, is one that must be shared – it may only exchange between a willing pair.” He blushed slightly. “A very close partner is an absolute must, with whom you can share an… unbreakable trust.”
“That’s… kind of unusual. I would have thought most potion magic is really a one-pony deal? I mean, only one pony can drink a potion, right?”
“…Such matters are best not spoken aloud, amongst the busy listening crowd?” He blushed a little deeper. Twilight stared, then sighed deeply.
“Of course. What else was I expecting? No, no, I assure you, it’s nothing like that. I’m… not even technically changed at all. It’s more of a swap between worlds – I know you as Zecora, a mare, like all my friends.”
His eyebrows raised. “A mighty magic feat you claim! But here, Zircon is my name.” He held out a hoof, and she shook it with a smile.
“Twilight Sparkle.”
“A pleasure to meet you, Princess Twilight! I hope your journey has not been a plight?”
She sighed. “Well, I’ll admit that it’s been… interesting, though perhaps not as interesting as all the stallions seem to find me.”
“To be expected, I would say – it’s hardly surprising, in multiple ways.”
“Yeah, well, it’s kind of annoying when you’re trying to make the best of it and do some study on how stallions differ from mares, and most of the difference can be summed up in the amount of drool they produce.”
“Perhaps, then, an additional change, to stop the ponies all thinking it strange? To observe the actions of stallions true, you might need to find a male point of view.”
“Yeah, I thought of that, but… wait, that sounded an awful lot like an offer.”
“Of all the ponies I might consider to share—”
“Zecor— Zircon.” Twilight’s eyes narrowed as she stared down the zebra. “Remember that we just talked about how unimpressed I’ve been with the attitude of the stallions around here. I don’t know the details of this potion of yours, but I can still see you blushing quite clearly. Tell me right now – do you think I am likely to be happy with how this conversation will end?”
“…Perhaps at this time, you are not the right mare.”
Twilight gave a long groan of frustration and turned away from the stall.
One more data point. I’d say I thought better of Zecora, but I don’t think I’ll be thinking better of anypony anytime soon…
~-~-~-~
The last of her lunch was polished off as she left the market. Equally full of apples and bile, Twilight made her way out of the town centre towards the Everfree, and the cottage on its edge. If anyone was likely to be able to calm her down from her still-simmering frustration, it was Fluttershy – or, in this case, Butterscotch. Twilight couldn’t even imagine the pegasus attempting anything approaching a lewd remark, let alone trying anything as bold as Rainbow Dash or Applejack had.
The reason for this visit was a fairly simple one – Fluttershy (and thus Butterscotch) was taking care of Owlowliscious for a short time. A couple of days ago, Twilight had been doing some fine-tuning on the same spell that she had discussed with… Applejack earlier that day, which turned trees into pony-tree hybrids.
Through a series of mishaps which everyone in the library was of the understanding would never be discussed, the result had been that her owl’s stand had been transformed into a rearing pony statue – which was then crushed as Owlowliscious was transformed into an owl-pony hybrid.
Given the spell was distinctly not prepared to do something like that, however, the result hadn’t been very neat, looking closer to Discord in its mismatched glory than any pegasus. She’d transformed him back immediately, and looked him over, finding nothing dangerously wrong, though he was quite indignant about the whole thing.
So she’d taken him to Fluttershy to check over, and then she’d insisted he stay for a while to make absolutely sure he was okay, and no amount of royal princess form or power was going to win her an argument on pet care with Fluttershy, so…
So today, hopefully she’d get her pet back.
Well, Dusk Shine’s pet.
Whatever.
And hopefully, after that, she’d be able to take a bit of time with Butterscotch and have a decent (or at the very least not indecent) conversation. She wasn’t due at her next appointment for a while after this, so some time to relax away from town would be nice… yes…
Here in the fields it was easy to imagine that everything was still normal, without any ponies to remind her of the change…
As if summoned by the thought, a familiar tingling at the edge of her senses caught her attention, and she gave a deep and long-suffering sigh just as a voice spoke behind her…
“Well hello there, my little pony! Don’t you look different today?”
…A deep, resounding, gruff and masculine voice?
She turned to face the figure behind her, and froze. The creature was… could only be Discord, but…
For starters, he was male, still. He hadn’t changed genders – indeed, it seemed that if anything, he’d gone almost as far in the opposite direction.
The normally serpentine body was shorter and stockier; the muzzle thick and square, and… very different from Discord’s usual visage. It was as if someone had tried to take the best parts of three different stallion ideal looks – maybe Bulk Biceps, Big Macintosh, and Soarin’ – and tried to blend them together, resulting in a face that you couldn’t pick out any one feature that was unattractive (except maybe that single protruding fang) but the overall result just… didn’t quite work.
His limbs had all changed – the forelimbs now resembling a gorilla’s arm and a red dragon’s talon, and the lower a white bear and a timberwolf, resulting in a much bulkier and more physically intimidating figure. His tail had changed from red to grey-green, and now bore two rows of longer spikes near the end.
And when he spoke, his voice merely filled in the rest of the image, a voice so rough and masculine it became more of a parody than anything.
“What’s wrong, Twilight? Happy to see a familiar face?” Well, the tone was still entirely Discord. Still, Twilight was still trying to process the rest of it.
“Familiar…?”
“Oh, absolutely! You didn’t think everything would change, did you? And what better to stay stable than chaos itself?” He threw a manly pose, flexing his arms, the muscles suddenly expanding and bulking them out to twice their previous size.
Twilight stared.
“And I know you were feeling a little stressed about how everything has changed, so I thought I’d come say hello, and give you something to keep your head on straight.”
Twilight stared.
“I know, devastatingly handsome as always, aren’t I? I don’t know how you ever kept your hooves off me.” He came up close, grinning
Twilight stared.
And finally, broke.
Into peals of laughter.
“HAAAAAAhahaahaha oh that’s hilarious you actually thinkahahahahaha oh I don’t even know where to start…” She flailed wildly, unable to control herself as she pounded her hooves against the closest surface, which happened to be the Draconequus’ chest. He looked down at the cackling alicorn, utterly unmoved by the strikes, but clearly perturbed.
“Not… really what I meant by not being able to keep your hooves off me…” He muttered.
“I know, I know, it’s just… ahhhh…” Twilight slowly calmed down, still chuckling, settling back to all fours. “You know I already know you’re actually female, right?”
“What? Who told you?” The form before her cried, before roaring upwards. A separate form spat out of the larger mouth, twisting around through the air like a snake before glaring directly into Twilight’s eyes, while the hyper-masculine Discord collapsed to the ground like an empty suit. “I know everypony you’ve talked to since you got here, and none of them have said a word about it.”
“You just did.” Twilight grinned smugly. The figure before her was far more how she’d imagined Discord’s counterpart to look. The limbs all matched species, the body a slightly more sinuous version of same, and the face looking like an unusually long mare’s muzzle that had been broken and reset a little crooked, with the single fang only enhancing that impression. A shock of white mane crowned her head, though she escaped the usual scraggle of beard.
Her opponent blinked, looking down at herself, then backed off a little with a pout. Twilight grinned.
“Did you actually think that’s what Discord looked like?”
“Of course!” she snorted, posing slightly. “I am, of course, the very pinnacle of femininity and grace – why would my counterpart be anything short of masculinity personified?”
Twilight snickered again and lit her horn, a small-scale image of Discord appearing above her head. The present Discord gasped in indignation.
“That is NOT what I look like!” she cried, waving a claw through the image to dispel it. It did no such thing, however, the tiny illusion wrapping around her arm like a snake and rubbing its nuzzle against her shoulder as she tried to dislodge it. Twilight smirked again – even though she had nothing to do with that manipulation of the image, it was still always entertaining to see any version of Discord looking discomforted.
“I’m interested to see you don’t know that. Not often somepony can surprise you, Discord.”
“It’s Eris, thank you very much. I will not be associated with this… this travesty any more than I have to be.” She finally managed to pry off the offending illusion, conjuring a bin and trying to toss it in, succeeding after a few missed tries as it seemed to cling to her fingers like sticky tape. “I am truly offended that that is what you would come up with for me as a male.”
“That I would come up with?”
“Oh, you don’t really still believe that you’ve switched between dimensions, do you, little Dusk Shine?” She smirked. “Honestly. Which do you think is really more plausible – that you managed to breach the barriers between two worlds and find a new world where everything is absolutely identical except for a few little in-out changes?” She made an EXTREMELY crude gesture with her hands, which Twilight immediately did her best to forget. “Or that you’d managed to just transform yourself, and mess with your own memories a little so that you remember everything being different?”
“Wait… what?” Twilight blinked.
“Oh, travel between dimensions is impossible, little pony!” Eris snickered, tearing a hole in the air and sticking her head through, coming out the other end with her colours apparently switched to negatives. “You can’t just pop over to another universe for a laugh! Or even for a good and proper conquering or other bit of fun. Can’t be done. But messing with your gender or your brain, that’s easy.”
She slithered through the hole entirely, her negative image an eye-watering counter to reality as she curved around Twilight, staring her in the eyes with cyan-on-blue orbs set in a grey-blue face. “So maybe you should stop fooling yourself and just go with the flow, hmmm?”
“Well, I’ve certainly learned a couple of things from this.” Twilight smiled, trying not to flinch away from the reality-shattering colour monstrosity before her. “One, you are way off your game. Two… you can’t travel between dimensions. And I can.” She grinned right back into Eris’s sputtering face.
“Maybe you weren’t listening when I said it’s impossible, little filly! I’m trying to do you a favour here!”
“Really? So that means you can’t jump between dimensions? Because I always thought ‘impossible’ was something that happened to other ponies – not the great spirit of Chaos him— err, herself…”
“W-well, of course I can…”
“Really now? Because you said yourself, you know everything that goes on… but you didn’t know what Discord looked like.”
“I can’t be expected to know EVERYTHING that goes on in here.” Eris rapped her on the head, and a mass of bookshelves and filing cabinets crashed down around them. Twilight looked around, seeing different shelves marked with various cutie marks – primarily those of her friends – and titles she recognised as referencing many of their adventures together; other shelves were marked with other labels like ‘Childhood memories’, ‘Useless trivia’, ‘The Life and Times of Star Whirl the Long Maned’ and ‘Best blackmail material’. Eris plucked a book from the final shelf, paging through it thoughtfully.
“This whole joint is just so orderly! A place for everything, everything in its place… I have no idea how you ever find anything. Especially a whole world you’ve just magicked into your own memories!”
“Hmm…” Even though part of her knew it was just one of Discord’s tricks, the idea of looking through the books before her was far too tempting – but not, fortunately, quite as tempting as what she was about to do.
Twilight sighed, deeply. “I… I suppose you’re right. It really does make more sense that I’d have transformed myself and my memories rather than moving between dimensions. Oh, if only I had some sort of safety spell that would let me know if something like that happened…
“Oh wait. I do.” She grinned, advancing on the female, palette-swapped Draconequus, who backed up slightly into one of the bookshelves. “I have more spells than you could count set up to detect and reset any changes that occur to my memories or body. I made absolutely sure there was no chance I would get stuck in a situation where I couldn’t cast magic to fix what I cast. And if I’d done something like that, I’d know about it. Besides, you think I couldn’t tell at least the basics of what a spell was supposed to do from the residue of it?
“So yes – I did move between dimensions. Which means… you can’t. Absolute power within the boundaries, but none beyond, hmmm?” She grinned. “I’ll have to make a note of that…”
Eris’s face fell to a dark frown as she clicked her fingers, the bookshelves falling away like cardboard cutouts, and the shadows fading with them, bringing back the light and turning her back to her usual colours in the process. “Well… I tried. Rest of it’s up to you now!” she said, a little too loudly.
Twilight tilted her head. “…What? That doesn’t even…”
“Oh, never you mind, little princess.” Eris grinned – though with noticably not quite as much carefree glee as she usually did – and hooked one arm around Twilight’s neck, mussing up her mane with the other. “You just go and have fun with little Butterscotch. Well… if you can.”
“What? What does that mean? Did you do something to him?”
“Oh, I didn’t do anything at all… just had this little chat with you. Heheheh…”
And on that note, Eris slid around as if to encircle Twilight again, but never came around the other side; and when she turned around, the Draconequus was gone, leaving only a chill in the air behind her.
“…Right. That was ominous. Perhaps no taunting the Chaos Spirit so much in future…”
~-~-~-~
Butterscotch’s cottage.
Finally she’d made it.
It seemed like she’d been trying to get to this house for months. Talking with Discord has that effect sometimes… she mused. Now to make sure my pet is fine.
And she knocked on Butterscotch’s door.
…
And she knocked on Butterscotch’s door.
“…Butterscotch? Are you there?”
…
…
“Of course not. Why would anything be easy today?”
~-~-~-~
A missing friend at an appointed meeting time was never a good thing, but like so many things it could be made much easier with a bit of deductive logic and a checklist.
So, first on the list: Was Butterscotch in trouble?
Answer: Almost certainly not.
If he was in trouble inside his cottage, his animals would be taking care of him, and one of them would almost certainly have either beckoned her in or warned her off. If he had been called out somewhere, he would have certainly left a note, or at least something, to advise of such – Fluttershy always hated being an inconvenience. If he had been kidnapped, the animals would have been in an uproar. She could see a few of the animals lounging around, but they seemed as generally sedate as ever.
Eris’s parting words gave her concern for a moment, but that wasn’t really the Chaos Spirit’s style – she wouldn’t have been able to resist giving cryptic hints if she’d actually done something to Butterscotch, and it wouldn’t be anything too drastic anyway – Twilight had to admit that the pegasus had the draconequus quite convinced to be friendly, unless there were some much greater differences between worlds beyond the obvious.
So, not urgently in trouble. Second: Was Butterscotch inside his cottage?
Answer: Almost certainly not.
She didn’t like the idea of simply bursting into her friend’s cottage – a little too Rainbow for her liking, Dash or Blitz or otherwise – so, as she had been doing increasingly often today, she cheated and used magic.
Fluttershy was always hard to sense, but even in a house so filled with nooks and crannies as the one before her, there were only so many places a pegasus could fit. So, after a minute or so of scrying, she was fairly certain that, unless Butterscotch was far more capable of concealment than she gave him credit for, he wasn’t home.
Third: If he isn’t in trouble, and isn’t home, where is he and why?
She was… fairly certain he was nearby. In the surrounding fields and trees, at least – there was that slight whisper that was all that signified his presence. But it was just a whisper, really, that was all, and virtually impossible to track.
But she couldn’t see him nearby, and he knew they had a scheduled meeting, which meant he was out for a reason. Out of his house, but staying nearby, but not clearly visible, and not with the nearby animals.
Which meant, probably hiding.
It didn’t take much to make the yellow pegasus go into hiding, but if he was, it would probably be inside the cottage. Unless he expected whatever it was would look there first. So, something had probably set the poor thing to cowering away… something that he didn’t feel his house was sufficient protection from, but not serious enough to abandon it completely. But there wasn’t anything like that around, that she could see… just…
Just a gender-switched version of a known-to-be-slightly-magically-unstable friend who stalked up the road in a clearly unhappy mood, before having an argument with Eris.
“Yeah. He’s hiding from me.” She sighed, taking wing. Time to flush out a pegasus.
~-~-~-~
If you took somepony who had never been to Ponyville, and told them that a canary-yellow pegasus with soft pink hair could be effectively camouflaged in a primarily green-and-brown environment, they’d probably laugh at you.
Of course, if you then explained the sort of places a pink-on-pink earth pony could hide and spring from without warning, they’d probably smile, avoid eye contact, and attempt to back away until some form of authority could be contacted. Ponyville wasn’t known for its ponies making sense, but that didn’t change the fact that Fluttershy – and by extension Butterscotch – had no business being as good at hiding as they were.
“Butterscotch!” she cried out, floating across the fields, eyes darting from one potential hiding spot to the next. Her eyesight had gotten a lot better when she’d picked up her wings – she wasn’t sure if that came with the pegasus power or just her ascension undoing the effects of years upon years of staring at books a couple hooves’ length from her face in questionable light – but she still couldn’t spot him.
“Please, come out, Butterscotch… I swear, I’m not going to do anything to you. I’m still your friend.”
No pegasus hid in the nearby caves and warrens; each bush and tree was bereft of Butterscotch; the underside of the bridge was quite pony-free.
“I know I look a bit different, and I was a little upset when I was coming in, but please don’t hide from me.”
She was even more sure he was in the area, though. If there had been any other ponies at all nearby she couldn’t have picked up his signature, and it was still barely there, but it was there.
How do I get him to come out? I guess I could try to scare him more, but that’d just hurt my case and with my luck he’d just freeze up totally. Also, deliberately terrifying your friends is bad and should not be considered.
Maybe I could appeal to his… oh, of course!
“Please! I’m just worried about Owlowiscious. I just want to talk to you,” she called out hopefully, standing very still and listening for…
…nothing.
…You realise that’s probably not Owlowiscious’ name on this side, right? So you’ve just actually done more to hurt your case by not knowing your own pet’s name.
She facehooved. So much for that tactic.
He was nearby, definitely, but there simply wasn’t anywhere close enough she could see that could hide a pony. And she had been hunting long enough that this was going to start eating into her next appointment, soon.
Right. Sorry, Butterscotch, but it’s dirty fighting, then.
“Well, looks like I’m going to have to ask your animals where you are. Which means I’m going to have to cast that spell that lets them speak. It might not wear off for days…” While Fluttershy had always had significant ability to understand the animals she worked with, once able to actually speak the pony tongue fluently, they were… well, crude was putting it lightly – at the very least, they did not share the pony hesitance to vocalise certain subjects. Fluttershy had been mortified when the chattering around her cottage had suddenly been fully understandable to her guests, and had refused to show her face for a week afterwards, thinking ponies would assume that she had taught them…
The squeak that came from the nearby bush sounded so much like Fluttershy that she momentarily forgot that she was dealing with a stallion – but it was more than enough to pinpoint her target.
She could have sworn that that bush could not have possibly hidden a filly, let alone a fully grown stallion, but her magic fished around and soon dragged out exactly that, and Butterscotch was soon plonked in front of her, shivering madly and curled up with hooves and wings covering his face, as if something which he couldn’t see could not see him in turn.
Now she’d pulled him out of his physical hiding place, she needed to lure him out of his emotional one.
“Butterscotch. Please look at me. You’re not going to be hurt. Open your eyes.” She tried to nudge his hooves aside with her own, but they were locked in place with that strange strength the normally weak pegasus occasionally possessed.
“Alright then.” Twilight grinned, pulling back her hoof and replacing it with a wing. Fluttershy had never been as ticklish as Rainbow, but as the speedster herself had demonstrated quickly on Twilight, any pegasus who left a wing open as Fluttershy had was exposing an impressive weak point…
Long purple feathers brushed against yellow underwing, eliciting another tiny squeak and causing him to jump to his feet rather suddenly, limbs all shooting out before leaving him standing ramrod straight for a moment, eyes wide open.
“See? That wasn’t so hard, was it?” Twilight smiled, looking over another friend, changed between universes.
Unsurprisingly, Butterscotch had the same long, thin and graceful limbs and form as Fluttershy had – or at least, they likely would be graceful when not locked in place. Although his muzzle was actually slightly more masculine than Rainbow Blitz’s if taken alone, the soft, flowing pink mane above it did much to counteract that.
His mane was about half the length of Fluttershy’s in the back, but the style was very similar, flowing down both front and back. The tail was a little shorter too, and looked shorter yet due to his increased height, though still long enough to drag on the ground if left unchecked.
All in all, the effect created was undoubtedly the least intimidating stallion ever encountered, and Twilight was entirely unsurprised.
Fortunately, once Butterscotch managed to regain control of his limbs, he didn’t try to flee, instead just whimpering, crouching slightly and hiding behind his mane – his manestyle very much designed for this purpose, despite being a little shorter.
“Why are you scared of me, Butterscotch? I’m your friend. I just look a little different today,” Twilight begged her friend.
“........” The pegasus’s mouth moved, and the vaguest hint of words could be heard, but certainly nothing comprehensible.
“I’m not a changeling or anything. They wouldn’t mess this up. Come on, please.” She tried to lift his chin slightly with a hoof, but he refused to look at her except through a curtain of pink mane.
“........” Still nothing.
“…Alright, this isn’t going to work. I’m sorry.” She sighed, disappointed and a little hurt that yet another conversation with one of her friends had been tainted by her effectively changed appearance – if in a rather inexplicable way. Fluttershy was usually wary around stallions, but she was wary around anypony she didn’t know – Twilight didn’t see why her change had brought about this sort of reaction.
“I’ll go as soon as we’re done. Can you at least tell me Owlow—” Name change, Twilight. “…My owl is okay?”
“........” Butterscotch whispered something again, still too low to hear. Twilight rolled her eyes, then closed them and lit her horn, casting a spell.
Butterscotch gave a sudden eep of surprise, freezing up again as the purple light washed over him, but there was no immediate effect. Twilight tried to smile reassuringly.
“Sorry. Could you repeat that again?”
“Umm… she’s— eek!” A yellow hoof flung to a matching muzzle as Butterscotch’s eyes went wide. Although he had whispered no more strongly than before, his voice was amplified significantly, clearly audible despite being barely breathed.
“She’s…?” Twilight prompted, getting a little anxious. Was the reason for his hiding to avoid giving bad news?
“She’s fine… umm… a little jumpy…”
“But she’s not hurt at all? She’s coming home?”
“…should be back tonight…”
“Anything I should watch out for? Avoid?”
“…No more magic on her?”
“Alright.” Twilight was really beginning to regret this, now. Seeing her friend afraid all the time was concerning enough, but for him to be so afraid of her was bordering on heartbreaking. “Look… I’m sorry. I just wanted to make sure she was okay.”
“…’sokay…”
“I won’t disturb you any further… Just… calm down, okay?”
“…’sokay…”
Twilight sighed. “Take care of yourself.” She smiled at her pegasus friend and turned to go back down the path, returning to town.
That… could have gone better. It really was sad she couldn’t work with Butterscotch. Maybe she’d be able to ask Fluttershy what that was about the next day…
She heard from behind her a long sigh, and a whisper on the wind, amplified by her still-active spell. “She’s beautiful…”
Twilight froze, and spun around as Butterscotch squeaked, his hooves flying to his mouth and his face burning red. Before she could put words together in her mind, he bolted – flashing away in a yellow-pink streak at speeds Rainbow would have been proud of, back towards the cottage.
Twilight blinked, one hoof up and mouth still open as she stared, barely a breeze remaining in the wake of the pegasus who had stood there moments ago. Finally, she sighed, bringing the hoof to her head and walking away, back towards the town…
Three for three. I’d actually almost managed to forget about it for a little while there.
…And next up… Rarity. “Elusive”.
…Maybe I should just give this up and hide in my library for the rest of the day…
She sighed. No. I’ve made it halfway through the day – I can see it through. It wouldn’t be fair on the others. And at least the others won’t be scared, like Butterscotch.
Still, he’s that scared of mares? I mean, I’m still not even as tall as him. It’s not like I’m a stallion looming over a…
Twilight’s heart skipped a beat, as did her gait on the road.
Oh no.
I’m not… but Dusk is.
And if all the other stallions are this bad here… and he went to visit Fluttershy…
…What is HE doing to MY friends, back in MY Ponyville?
The subject for the morning was thermals and air pressure, and the effects of the sun's heat as it built up in the air and ground, across the various roof styles, terrains, and proximities to the Everfree throughout Ponyville.
Dusk smiled and turned to Rainbow as they reached the small cloud that he had set up, barely large enough for the two of them. "What now?"
"Alright, spread your wings wide, over the edge of the cloud."
“Like this?” Rainbow Dash watched as the alicorn prince before him concentrated for a split second, as if trying to remember which limbs to use, before unfurling the wings to their full expanse.
Even as a mare, Twilight’s wings were enormous, larger than most stallions’; but this… the only ones even vaguely comparable to that expanse were the princesses’ themselves. Rainbow Dash stared – maybe it was an alicorn thing, or just being so close to him on the cloud, but those wings somehow seemed large enough to blot out half the world…
“Rainbow?”
She shook her head, trying to focus, bringing her eyes back to her stallion-ified friend’s face. “Um… yeah. Mostly like that. Tilt them a bit further down, though, we’re dealing with air from below…” She continued to explain, the words coming out almost on automatic, seeing Dusk changing his stance as she advised.
“Like this?” Rainbow looked them over, and it seemed to take her a few long seconds to realise the problem – Dusk had not so much tilted them down as simply fanned them out further, curling them around slightly towards her. And somehow they seemed to be just getting larger…
Wait, no, he was just getting closer.
“Rainbow? Is something wrong?” He smiled at her.
“Oh, um… you’re…” The wings were all around her, now, a wall of lavender feathers with only a slight sliver of blue sky behind, shrinking all the while. She felt somehow simultaneously claustrophobic and comforted, surrounded like that, and it was a struggle to get the words out. “You’re s-supposed to be near the edge if you’re going to f— feel the…”
“No… I think I’m exactly where I should be, don’t you?” He was leaning forward with a smile, and she somehow couldn’t bring herself to look away from those deep purple eyes as his face grew closer… was it supposed to be this hot up on a cloud?
She jumped slightly as her feathers brushed against his – When did her wings snap out like that? – and that little jolt was all it took to bring their muzzles together…
~-~-~-~
The inside of the barn had, as Applejack had stated, been completely altered. Instead of a mostly wide open space it was now tightly packed with shelving, floor to ceiling, well supported all the way down.
The two of them got into a rhythm quickly, stacking up piles of barrels and equipment onto a trolley, shifting it into the centre of the barn, and then flying them up into the various compartments according to the sorting list they had put together. Repeat until complete.
It wasn’t the most intellectually challenging work he had ever undertaken – especially with Applejack holding the diagram and directing him to the location of each item in turn – which gave her plenty of opportunity to chat with him while they worked.
Their conversation meandered between the various minor differences in their worlds as Applejack carted in more and more of the supplies. However, this had a rather unexpected side effect, as, well…
There weren’t too many pegasus stallions in Ponyville, and when they were working around the acres they tended to be a little further up than that; regardless, Applejack was fairly sure they didn’t, er, show quite as much as Dusk did. Still used to being ground-bound, most likely; although if he hadn’t explained his predicament quite as tersely as he had, she might have thought there was more equipment he wasn’t used to than just the wings...
Regardless, she found herself trying to keep her eyes down, but even so the distraction got to her, leading to her scrambling up the instructions more and more; it seemed like every time she had to look up to see what he was doing, it was at exactly the wrong time. Surely he couldn’t be doing it on purpose…
She couldn’t bring herself to comment, Element of Honesty or otherwise – it was just plain rude. Besides, he was clearly putting in the work, both magically and otherwise. When they were moving the trolley-loads in, he was beside her all the way, pushing it along with her – she could see and smell the perspiration on him, the good solid result of a hard day’s work. It was sometimes easy to forget that Twilight had the earth pony power along with her horn and wings, but it really showed when she – or he – was pushing the hard yards right beside the farmer…
Was it getting more stuffy in here?
She glanced up again and averted her gaze quickly, blushing, trying to focus on the plan in front of her, as well as keeping her breathing steady. This was supposed to be the bit where she was resting, yet it seemed to be making her heart race even more than when he was beside her, pulling together on the trolley, muscles rolling and straining under their coats, barrels brushing against each other…
“Right! I think that’s the last of it!” Applejack grasped at the end of the task with relief… though a slight pang left her still feeling somehow disappointed.
“Mmm, no, well, actually… there’s still one thing.”
“Huh? Nope, I think tha…” She turned to her friend, before trailing off and staring, her face going as red as her brother’s.
Dusk grinned, though Applejack wouldn’t have been able to tell from her angle of vision. “Can you let me know where you’d like me to put this?”
~-~-~-~
Fluttershy squeaked as she was suddenly drawn out of the bush she’d been hiding inside, the magic wrapped around her leaving her completely out of control as she was dumped out in the open. She curled up in a ball as best she could, covering her eyes, desperately praying that this was all a dream…
She heard a voice, felt hooves trying to bring her out, but she wouldn’t be moved. She’d just play dead, and the scary stallion would go away, wouldn’t keep trying to…
And then feathers brushed against her underwing, sending a rush of sensation all the way through her body, sending her leaping in the air and back onto her hooves before she knew what had happened. She blinked, trying to recover from the chills racing down every feather…
“See, that wasn’t so hard, was it?” said the stallion… so much like her friend, and yet so different, looming over her… larger than most of the stallions around, and looking her over with an appraising expression that made her shiver almost more than the touch of the wing had.
She felt locked in place by that gaze, as surely paralysed as if she had been caught in her own Stare, and could do nothing more than duck her head slightly, the pink locks offering only the slightest protection…
“Why are you scared of me, Fluttershy? I’m your friend. I just look a little different today.” He moved forward, brushing her hair aside with a wing, taking that last barrier away and making her jaw clench as the tickling sensation ran down her neck.
“……………” She tried to say something – even she wasn’t sure what – but her throat clenched, and not a peep emerged.
He moved further forward. “I’m not a changeling or anything. They wouldn’t mess this up. Come on, please?” The last word was spoken right up against her ear, his lips brushing against it, before he nuzzled gently at her neck. Her legs went from rigid to jelly, standing upright simply because that was the position she was in – if she was so much as nudged, she’d collapse…
“Alright, this isn’t going to work.” He pulled back a bit, and she nearly fell forward after him as he went. He gave her another appraising look, before it turned into a strangely compelling smile as he started to walk around beside her, sidling up. He bumped against her, and as she feared, she started to fall… only to be caught as a huge wing wrapped around her, holding her tightly against his warm, strong form...
“I think you just need to relax a little.” He whispered into her ear again, a slightly predatory tone to his voice that reverberated through her. “I think I can help you with that. Any time you want me to stop… you just say the word.”
“...........!”
~-~-~-~
“No! No no no no no no…” Twilight rapped on her head with a hoof, desperately trying to dislodge the images of her friends being seduced one after another by her counterpart.
“Right. First order of business when I get home – I am donating the library’s entire romance novel collection to Rarity and finding myself some references with a far more realistic depiction of strong mare characters...
“Hey, maybe I could even do it before I leave. That way, I should—
“Wait, what would the romance novels even be like here?” She blinked. “Would all the roles be reversed? Maybe I should—”
She hoofed herself mildly in the head again before she could continue further down that train of thought.
“Romance novels got us into this quandary in the first place! The books have betrayed us!” she condemned in her full princessly glory. “Further studies can wait until we’re not concerned about our friends. Friends over books, we learnt that lesson when we moved to Ponyville.”
She nodded to herself, then froze. “...And now we… I sound like Luna. Proclamations and personal plurals.” She sighed, looking around at the couple of ponies nearby as she approached the town proper, who seemed to be ignoring the rambling gender-switched alicorn with a somewhat suspicious intensity.. “Wandering down the street talking to myself… at least I haven’t started going third-person yet...”
She blinked, pausing. “I swear, if I run into male Trixie…”
She covered her muzzle and looked around, making sure that idle comment hadn’t summoned the showm— err, showstallion. She doubted she’d have to deal with unexpected magic for a while yet, but given her luck right now she wouldn’t have been surprised to see him wandering down the street… but for now, it seemed, she was safe – just the usual Ponyville citizenry going about their day.
Nonetheless, she refused to give a sigh of relief. Just because books had betrayed her, didn’t mean she was willing to ignore their lessons of narrative causality. Instead, she banished the thought and moved on as if she had never had it.
“Alright, Twilight. If you’re going to talk to yourself like a crazy pony in the middle of town, you can do it productively.” Singular second person was clearly more sane than plural first. “Verbal checklist. First priority is finding a way to determine that your friends are safe and well. Second priority is continuing to follow the day’s checklist.” She had to suppress a quiet shiver at pushing the daily checklist down to priority two, but this wasn’t about to become another Friendship Report incident ; she could handle it.
“Third priority is not terrorising Ponyville. Not doing so great on that so far. Fourth priority is fixing this and getting back where everypony is the right gender again. Last priority, study.” That came with a slightly larger shiver, but she pushed on.
“Prime methods of dealing with first priority: Complete spell and return home. Pros: Fixes everything, completes priorities one and four, and probably three. Cons: Wipes out priorities two and five. Not sure how long it will take. Not fair to friends. Not sure if it’ll be possible if Dusk isn’t casting the spell as well.”
She scratched her chin with a wing. “And if I did make it back when he wasn’t coming back, then we have two Twili— err, alicorns of magic in the same place at the same time. That could have all sorts of weird effects. Could be interesting to study too, though. If we didn’t explode. Exploding makes studying difficult, as interesting as studying explosions can be. Studying has to be done from the outside, otherwise you can’t get a proper read. Also, dangerous...
“No! Stop getting distracted.
“No, more likely we just both need to be casting the spell to get over. Which means… wait. If Dusk doesn’t cast the spell, he’ll stay there. What if he doesn’t want to come back? What if he’s distracted chasing my friends? Or they’ve beaten him and tied him up? Or he’s been arrested? What if he dies there, and I can never get home?! Oh no, oh no no no no...
“Hahhh... Panicking. Panicking solves none of my problems and probably violates priority three.” Twilight stopped. Or at least stopped walking and talking, the lack of forward motion allowing her to feel all the other movement in her body – her legs shaking, her wings twitching, her horn sparking; her fur standing on end, her heart racing, her breathing coming hard and fast. With long-practised discipline, she took back control of her body little by little – starting with her legs, then her breath.
Under control.
In…… a foreleg to her barrel, a long breath, hold… Out…… foreleg out, concentrating, bringing down the shaking....
In…… foreleg in, forcing her fight-or-flight instincts back down, letting her heartbeat settle… Out…… foreleg out, smoothing out her coat, smothering her magic… oh, right, don’t forget the wings…
It took a minute or so of this meditation, focusing on her body to keep from thinking on what occupied her mind. Though the fight was hard, finally it was done, pushed back down.
Twilight was under control.
“Alright. Calm. No panicking. Even if something goes wrong, it’s not beyond hope. Other methods. Need to find out what’s going on there. Scrying! Scrying spell. Sympathetic connection is easy, I belong there, I’m trying to scry myself. Just need to edit a scrying spell to look into a parallel dimension, shouldn’t be too hard…”
“Really?!” An excited voice exclaimed, right behind her.
Twilight’s hard-won control popped like a cloud beneath a vengeful pegasus as she shrieked, spinning around in a flurry of limbs that had no business ending in the stable standing position it did. Her breathing and heartbeat soared straight back up, her wings spread wide, her horn glowing with likely more magic than the rest of Ponyville’s unicorns could summon together, as she took in this new threat.
And the mint-green unicorn standing before her seemed completely oblivious to her reaction or the threat of imminent orbital banishment/incineration as he pulled out magazines and books from his saddlebags.
“I know you said you were busy but I didn’t think you were seriously trying something like that! I mean, if you’re looking into parallel dimensions – ha ha, I mean, looking into, that works like two different ways – I have so many possibilities! I can totally help out, I have done so much study into this stuff, and I have a few good places to start—”
This much can be said for Twilight Sparkle. Though she was stressed, confused, interrupted, scared for her friends, and frustrated possibly beyond mortal pony comprehension – and powerful beyond it as well – she had learnt from her error earlier in the day, and thus the Royal Canterlot Voice was not her first instinct. This was a good thing for the general structural stability of Ponyville in general, and that of its inhabitants’ eardrums in specific.
A couple of decades of being an unconscionably powerful unicorn, and a bit longer of being an even more powerful alicorn, had also drilled out magical blasts as a technique for dealing with strictly non-hostile problems, regardless of their effectiveness.
So Twilight fell back on a third option, one that did not strictly rely on her incredibly powerful heritage, but was perhaps supported by her experience in lecturing.
“No! No no no no, this is NOT your business, Lyra! I am not interested in your books, or your theories, or your so-called studies, or your monsters, or your other parallel dimensions! I am having a really bad day right now, and I am busy trying to deal with serious friendship problems, and I do not need to deal with whatever you want me to turn you into or summon or peek in on today!
“My magic is not a toy! It is not here for you to play with! So unless you have a serious issue, or have something for me that isn’t just something to get me curious enough to sleep-cast somepony into a, a seapony or a minotaur or something, I really do have important things to deal with today, and I am in no mood for you! So just go away!”
And as she yelled those last words, there was a flash of light, and a lurching sensation as something grabbed her and the world spun around her briefly, followed by the slam of something wooden, and the sound of a jangling bell…
~-~-~-~
As everypony blinked away the flash from their eyes, the scene finally resolved itself once more, showing the street almost exactly as it was, only minus one alicorn mare.
Harpsy stood just where he had, magazines and notebooks floating around in his field, various expressions battling for dominance on his face – concern, consternation, and curiosity chief among them.
Finally, with a sigh, he packed away his precious tomes carefully once more, he walked away, muttering to himself, “Something that isn’t just… hmmmm...”
The general populace of Ponyville, meanwhile, returned to gossiping, starting with why Dusk had called the crazy unicorn “Lyra”. Maybe it was some kind of nickname? Or something more?
~-~-~-~
Phenomenal cosmic power, while incredibly useful in a wide variety of situations, still has its blind spots occasionally. For instance, when panicked, in the dark, and your limbs are entangled, the world’s strongest unicorn has little more capacity to escape than the average pony; being an alicorn only meant adding another couple of limbs to the mix.
Admittedly, that wasn’t entirely true – that power could be used to blast the offending bindings to their component thaums, but after the first couple of extensive bedroom renovations, that habit dies out faster than wetting the bed.
So Twilight was left still well out of control and flailing in both mind and body, completely confused as to what in Equestria was going on.
Did Lyra just kidnap me or something? Or is it worse? Is it some villain? Oh no, did I just summon one of Lyra’s weird monsters?
She fought all the harder to escape the horrible monstrosity that was surely even now plotting to attack Equestria, determined to find out what it was and how to defeat it.
And then her foul and monstrous captor spoke unto the captured Twilight, in a voice… strained, cultured, and distinctly familiar?
“Oh, do calm down, Du— er, Twilight, rather. You’re going to break something.”
She blinked, ceasing her struggle, as a gentle blue field illuminated the tentacled thing that had her in its clutches, which quickly resolved into a tangled sheet of heavily-sequined cloth that shimmered purple in the low light of the room as it was carefully extracted from around her body. Now that her panic subsided and her eyes adjusted from the sunlight and flash, the room around her came into clearer view, along with the pony who shared it with her.
“Oh… Elusive?” Twilight rolled the name around her tongue as she gazed upon her fashionista friend’s double.
The unicorn was using his magic to clear up the cloth of dust and kinks, tsking single-mindedly as he examined the damage. “You really should be more careful. I’m going to have to wash this now before I can start working with it. It is good to know it can make an impact, though!”
Twilight took the opportunity of her friend’s distraction to look over this latest addition to her friends-as-stallions. And, much like the rest of them, there was really no mistaking Elusive for anything but Rarity’s counterpart.
The greatest difference was his mane, cut far shorter than Rarity’s flowing sweep. However, it was easy to see that just as much effort had gone into ensuring the placement of every last lock of purple, curling around his ears, horn and neck, the effect being difficult to discern as being curly, wavy or straight-but-brushed depending on which angle you looked at it. The tail, on the other hoof, was practically unchanged, matching Rarity’s long, fascinating twist closely enough that Twilight doubted she could tell them apart.
His build was lithe and tall, though in both cases not quite as much as Butterscotch’s physique.. His muzzle was quite long and thin, giving a refined look that was emphasised all the more by careful care and preparation – just like Rarity, he had an undeniable beauty that spoke of effort, grooming, poise and skill, in contrast to Butterscotch or Fluttershy’s natural (and somehow apologetic) charm.
Having finished folding and putting aside the sparkling sheet, Elusive gathered himself and turned to his guest, flashing a winning smile. “Now! Now that we’re done with that little mess…”
“Your horn!” Twilight gasped. Elusive went cross-eyed, staring up at the appendage, and the slight burnt spot visible on its tip. Looking closer, Twilight could tell now that her friend was also breathing a little heavily, though concealing it well.
“Oh, this is nothing, don’t you worry.” Elusive smiled, with barely a twitch under one eye to betray the lie. “It’ll be fine in a couple of minutes, I’ve had much worse.”
“Did you… did you try to teleport me in here?”
“Oh, nothing of the sort! No, I was simply getting ready when I heard your little… fracas with Harpsy out there – I say, that stallion really must learn when his attentions are unwanted – and took the opportunity to… well, scoop you up with some fabric.” He nodded towards the folded stack. “It reflects sunlight marvelously. The suit I have planned will likely be the talk of the town… but no. I merely… overestimated my capacity, slightly. Not that I am saying you are overweight, dear! Far from it, simply that I specialise in—”
Twilight put a hoof to his muzzle, cutting him off with a smile. “I understand. And... thank you – I was getting a little frustrated out there…”
“Indeed you were! And while I prefer more subtle methods for keeping decorum, never let it be said that I will not take action when needed.”
“Of course not!” Twilight smiled. “But still, I’m sorry you had to hurt yourself on my account…”
“Oh, it was nothing!” Elusive smiled, a slightly dangerous glint in his eye. “Besides, it’s more than worth it to see you like this…”
Twilight blinked, and took a step back, the concerns of earlier today flooding over her. “Err… anyway, I know we were going to be discussing upcoming fashion in the noble courts, but I really don’t think that’s something that’s going to transfer over... between…”
Now that she had a proper moment to look around the room instead of just checking ou— er, observing the differences in her friend, some very significant differences became apparent.
As she expected, the majority of the ponyquins in the shop were stallions, with only a few mares scattered throughout. However, what was surprising was the outfits draped across them.
The stallion models wore suits, but those suits… the closest one was a flowing pink piece, edged in light yellow and with darker strips along the sleeves, combined with long boots; one further back was a layered work of green and turquoise that covered the whole barrel, leaving the legs free but with a high collar at the back that put her in mind of wings.
They were brilliant pieces without a doubt, but nothing like any of the suits that Rarity had on display in her boutique – the detailing and designs reminded her far more of elaborate dresses. Meanwhile, the few mare-shaped ponyquins were dressed in far simpler (though of course no less well-made) pieces, dresses in form but with the sharp lines and colour of suits in function.
“Do you like what you see?”
“It’s… different. Very different.” Twilight blinked. It looked strange, very strange – the fashion sense that Rarity had drilled into her over the years didn’t mesh with these dresses at all, but they still looked amazing. She had a bit of trouble trying to imagine them on anypony she knew…
“Yes, they are different.” Elusive grinned. “And so are you.”
Twilight spun around, realising that while she had been distracted, Elusive – apparently quite recovered from his little magical strain – had scooped up a measuring tape, sketch pad and pencils in his field, and no small number of bolts of cloth – not to mention the look of divine inspiration and determination that Twilight recognised the consequences of in a heartbeat – after all, one of his closest friends had effectively just walked into the store with a completely new body shape.
She slumped slightly. “I’m not leaving this shop without at least three new dresses, am I?”
The combined gleeful laugh and squeal she received was more than answer enough.
~-~-~-~
Twilight soon found herself hustled onto the podium in the centre of the store. To say she was tense would be an understatement – for a moment she had allowed herself to relax before, but now she was being put into a position to attract comment or perversion from the stallion, with ample opportunity for looking or touching inappropriately, and she was ready to use the slightest excuse to escape.
Elusive, however, was nothing but gentlemanly and professional, if anything taking greater care than Rarity would to avoid making her feel exposed or uncomfortable, and providing a steady stream of conversation to boot as he worked.
“A world where the fashions are entirely reversed!” Elusive gushed, measuring a long piece of deep purple cloth against Twilight’s side before pulling it away and cutting expertly. “I must say, I would very much like to see that. The inspiration I could gather… oh, just imagine…”
Twilight nodded as much as she dared, knowing to keep her body as still as possible under the fashionista’s gaze as more cloth was applied, and pinned in place. “I guess it does make sense… I mean, given some of the adventures we’ve had with Rarity… there wouldn’t be much call for the argument we had with the gala dresses if— ow!”
“We don’t speak of those… things in this boutique, you know that, dear.” Elusive tutted.
“Still, the final products you made were amazing… and I’d love to see how they turned out on this side.”
“I still have the sketches! I’ll be happy to show you them once we’re done.”
“I’d like that!”
Cloth wrapped around her barrel, Elusive’s magic gently taking her wing and maneuvering it through the slit designed for it. She tensed briefly at the touch, but it lasted only long enough to guide the piece on before fading.
She was beginning to feel more relaxed than she had all day.
“And do be sure to show… err, me?”
“Rarity.” Twilight smiled.
“Indeed. I do hope that she… er, I… oh, this is difficult, isn’t it? Well, I hope she can gain some inspiration from this.” Elusive twisted Twilight to look in the mirrors.
The dress she wore was like nothing Rarity had ever designed for her. Mainly a dark purple close to the shade of her mane, but highlighted with silver and a deep blue bordering on black; even the comparatively simple pieces Twilight had requested from her friend had a certain softness and frill to them; this was a piece that hugged her curves, though not in a way that screamed ‘sexy’, but instead ‘powerful’ – the lines of it seemed to emphasise her height and larger wings.
The darker colour trailed down her forelegs but cut off at an angle around her knees; the back of the dress hem split just above her tail, and was cut to tapering points on either side of her hind legs almost like coattails. It was simple, but sharp; something she would never have imagined herself wearing, but she couldn’t deny it suited her, even as she stood taller, trying to match the figure in the mirror.
Elusive smiled as he watched the speechless princess. “Normally I’d add your cutie mark on the flanks there as well…” He put the cloth-of-silver against the point in question, giving it a thoughtful consideration a moment. “But we are on a bit of a schedule here, yes? I’m sure Rarity could handle that.”
The dress came apart suddenly in a rush of fabric under Elusive’s magic, leaving just the regular Twilight Sparkle behind staring at her bare reflection and suddenly feeling a little small and silly, falling out of the proud pose. “I’ll sew that up properly and deliver it to the library once we’re done.”
“...Thanks…” Still a little stunned, Twilight tried to recover.
“Now, for this one I’m going to try doing things your way. Oh, this feels so strange!” He chuckled lightly. “Almost a little naughty, really. A suit for a mare!”
“It is somewhat strange....” Twilight thought aloud as another rush of fabric surrounded her. “I mean, there are obviously some stereotypes that carry over on both sides. I mean, stallions are still larger than mares… so Rainbow Blitz has a somewhat mare-like figure here, but she’s still pretty small on my side as well; just the opposite for Applejack. But fashion is clearly swapped over…”
“I imagine you’ve seen more than a couple of differences.” Elusive nodded.
Twilight’s mood dropped again. “Yeah… you could say that.”
“Oh? I would have thought you would be excited at the opportunity to learn all about it! I mean, I would be… oh dear, we already went through that, didn’t we?” He chuckled, cutting through pink cloth with easy precision.
“Well, yes, I’ll admit that it’s been interesting, but…” Twilight sighed, then stopped suddenly as a thought occurred to her. “Hang on a minute. I never told you about the situation in the first place. How do you know so much about what’s going on?”
“Dear, I do keep my ear to the ground. The whole town has been talking about little else.”
Twilight rolled her eyes – not quite sure whether she felt more embarrassed, or relieved that things like this were not simply just another day in Ponyville. “Yeah, but they don’t all know about the other Ponyville. You called me Twilight when you first pulled me in.”
“Ah, you caught me,” he chuckled, pinning another layer across her back. “That you are somewhat more… fair, has been quite the talk of the town today, but Applejack came by earlier and explained your situation in greater detail.”
Twilight blinked, her expression falling quickly as she tried to read Elusive’s tone, but there was no hint of accusation in either direction as he continued. “He also asked me to pass on his apologies. He said he had no intent to make you feel so uncomfortable – and he provided no further details on that interesting tidbit, despite my best efforts. I don’t suppose you could fill in the gaps, hmm?”
Twilight felt her heart sink slightly, but shook her head. “No. I… I need to apologise to him too, a bit.”
“Mmmm?” Elusive looked at her for a long moment, but Twilight couldn’t meet his eyes. The fashionista nodded, and continued working, thankfully not prompting her for any further details, leaving her to gather her thoughts.
She really did need to apologise to Applejack. He really had no place doing what he did – she was still a little miffed about that – but he hadn’t really done anything to hurt her, and she had responded with somewhat excessive force. She really should know better than that, especially now that she was a princess.
And Butterscotch… really hadn’t done much to deserve her ire either. Really, the poor pegasus was never good at handling new or unexpected situations at the best of times, at least when animals weren’t involved, and he certainly hadn’t intended to make her uncomfortable either.
Rainbow Blitz… well, there was no real excuse for his actions, but Rainbow was hardly a paragon of proper behaviour on any day of the week. Out of all of them, she – or he – was the one she’d most expect to pull this kind of thing – if she saw something she wanted, she didn’t hesitate to go for it… although Twilight certainly never would have expected that sort of thing...
And Elusive had gone out of his way to treat her with the respect deserving of a princess… and without making her feel like she was anything other than a friend, a seemingly effortless balancing act she knew few other ponies could even attempt.
Twilight sighed heavily, earning herself a brief tsk from Elusive and a nudge to return to position. Now that she’d had a chance to calm down, it was beginning to become obvious that maybe she was overreacting a little. Dusk’s friends were perhaps a bit… single-minded at points, but they were nowhere near as bad as she had been working herself up to believe.
So…
“How does that look, dear?”
“Eh?” Twilight blinked.
“The dress!”
“Oh! Right.” Twilight looked in the mirror, and…
It was clearly inspired by her coronation dress – or suit, she supposed – judging by the colour scheme of pink, yellow and white; and it was certainly designed for formal wear, the layers, ruffs and lacework far too bulky for most everyday tasks. It was more front-heavy than Rarity’s usual fare, including a high collar and sleeves for her forelegs, as well as draping strips of cloth starting from her chest which swept back along to where her wings sat at rest.
It was designed well, undoubtedly, and with every bit of attention to detail – indeed, Twilight was amazed at how fast it had been put together – she hadn’t been lost in thought that long! – but…
There was no single point that she could criticise, and if she had not known Rarity as long as she had she probably would have thought it stunning; as it was, it was as if a tiny Rarity were going over it with a fine-toothed comb and criticising it at length, though she could not make out the words. Like so many other things she had encountered today, it was close to being right, but somehow just far enough off that it made her more aware of how wrong it was, without being about to explain exactly why.
Which was an awfully difficult thing to explain to the stallion beside her, waiting for her judgement.
“It’s… very nice!” managed Twilight, who was as hopeless at lying to her friends as ever.
“That bad?” Elusive looked crestfallen.
“N-no! It really is very good. But… I really don’t know enough to explain it. Maybe if I took it to Rarity?”
“No… no, if it’s no good, it’s no good, and I would not dream of leaving her with a dress of anything but the highest quality!”
“Maybe just draw the design then?”
“Ah! Perfect. Perhaps some inspiration could come of this after all! And then she could make what changes she found necessary – and, if I understand correctly, I shall do the same for herself and Dusk… ahhh, this handling things at one step removed is frustrating, but I am sure it will make the result all the more rewarding.”
Elusive busied himself taking the partially constructed dress apart once more, but even so he could not help but notice Twilight’s ears droop once more at the mention of her counterpart. “One more dress, then – and maybe you’ll consider telling me what’s on your mind?”
Twilight sighed again, stretching her wings and shifting her legs in the few seconds of freedom before she would be forced to remain still as a living dressform once more.
“I’m just... “
How can you tell somepony you’re worried about one of his friends hurting your friends?
...Maybe...
“...Elusive?” Twilight almost whispered, then cleared her throat, speaking louder. “Could you… could you please tell me about Dusk?”
Elusive paused, looking up from the dress he was reconstructing. “That’s a rather unusual question, isn’t it? I would think you’d know more about him than I would.”
Twilight smiled weakly. “I’d like to think I do, but… please just humour me?”
“Oh, very well.” Elusive walked back over, his magic nudging Twilight back into position as he considered, rubbing his chin with his hoof.
There was a long, increasingly awkward pause that seemed to stretch on for minutes. Finally, Twilight opened her mouth to say something, but Elusive finally cut her off before she could get out a word.
“Dusk was… a rather awkward colt when he first arrived. I’ll admit my first impression was not particularly good – he seemed to embody much of the worst of Canterlot culture. At first he appeared to be disdainful and dismissive of Ponyville, its ponies, and its quirks... while not even having the dignity and style of a true Canterlot noble to make up for it.
“But obviously we didn’t know the full story at the time, and he had far more important things on his mind… once we got that nasty business out of the way, we got to see him more in his element, as it were… ha! His Element, I didn’t even mean it that way!” Elusive chuckled, levitating around various cloth pieces around Twilight, but not yet cutting any of them to shape. Twilight could only smile nervously at the unintended pun, but Elusive continued regardless.
“Personally, I consider Dusk to be one of my closest friends – although that should come as no surprise to you – and it would be no lie to suggest that he is what truly holds the six of us together. Oh, sure, certainly we had our individual friendships and connections among each other before he arrived, but there’s something about Dusk that keeps the whole group strong as a whole.”
He seemed to come to a decision on the cloth, beginning to cut it into shape now. “Among the group… I suppose the most important thing about him is that he’s always going to be there for us. All of us have our… interesting days, where even our family probably don’t want to deal with us – but no matter how bad we get, we can always trust that Dusk is going to be there, ready to fix things for us.
“Even if the solutions he provides aren’t always the most straightforward… or sane… it’s just the energy and enthusiasm he puts into them that makes us break out of our funk, to realise that we’re being fools and be sensible. I mean, some ponies might have thought it was just about his studies and reports at first... but he puts his heart and soul into making sure that we’re all happy. If someone as amazing as Dusk is willing to put so much effort into our ridiculous little tantrums and fights…”
Elusive smiled wistfully as he pinned together the cut cloth around the alicorn. “It makes us all want to be better ponies, to try harder to be worthy of that sort of attention. Ah!” His magic pinned her jaw shut before she could protest. “Don’t say a word. I know what you want to say, but it’s true.
“Do you remember… right back near the beginning, shortly after we met, how I was mooning over Blueblood? Or… whatever he’d be called there.” Twilight blinked, nodding, not willing to break the narrative as Elusive built himself up. “I was so sure that she’d be everything I could hope for, everything I could desire! Somepony of such nobility and rank, surely she would be the pinnacle of grace and harmony!”
He broke out of a dramatic swoon, into a straight-faced monotone. “Of course, we all know how that ended. I’ll admit I became a little jaded about the nobility after that… well, truth be told it took at least a couple more bits of interaction, but… I really began to understand why you moved out here. I’d more or less given up on my dreams of nobility, because nobility is something they all seemed to lack entirely. Everything I’d ever dreamed of seeing in them, I had right around me, and it was Dusk who helped me see that.
“The coronation, in my eyes, was never about him having wings. It was about giving him the title that he already held, as far as I was concerned. Regardless of crown, or suit, or title – Dusk is everything that I’d ever imagined a prince to be. He was our prince – somepony who was always there to support us, our leader and our friend.
“Because pony or prince, unicorn or alicorn, Dusk is our friend, and he’d give up that title without hesitation if he thought it would make us happy, and there’s not a one of us who would ask him to. He’s always going to be there for us – for the five of us, and Spines, and all of Ponyville and Equestria – and we know that he’s always going to take care of us – even if we happen to be mares today.”
Twilight’s head snapped around in shock, only to see Elusive smile impishly and give a wink. She ducked her head slightly, ashamed to have been seen through, but Elusive just gave a slight shake of his head, still smiling.
“He’s also a little naive sometimes, and perhaps worries about himself being a good pony and friend sometimes, too. I still stand by everything I have said.”
“...Thank you, Elusive.” Twilight couldn’t help but smile herself, fidgeting as she struggled to keep from raising a hoof to clear the moisture blurring her vision.
“Honesty may not be my element, dear, but you hardly need to thank me for telling you the truth.”
Twilight nodded, turning back to dress-form position. “I know, but… I really haven’t been happy today, and I was worried… I know it’s silly, but after everything that’s happened it’s nice to know that not all stallions are always thinking… about...”
Twilight blinked and trailed off, staring at the dress currently nearing completion in the mirror. Like the first, it was simple and sharp, but favoured pure white and squarer lines where the previous had been curves and angles, with a low collar and simpler sleeves.
It was designed to clearly not impede her movement in any way, and was obviously inspired by a formal military dress uniform. It had formal epaulettes and crossed sashes across the chest in purple, and another strip of the same in a belt around her barrel. Although, she noted, not a purple that appeared on her natural colour scheme at all – but was a perfect match for the mane of the stallion who was making the final fittings. She glanced at Elusive but he didn’t seem to notice anything was wrong so she continued examining the dress. The jacket was over a delicate and simple white skirt that hugged her flanks and had a short train at the end, with several loops that appeared to be handles.
The design wasn’t a perfect match, given the gender disparity, of course – but the similarities were rather obvious once she made the connection.
Her smile dropped, along with the feeling of elation that had grown during Elusive’s speech.
“...Elusive, this dress looks very familiar.”
The stallion and his hovering implements of fashion froze for a moment. “Really?” He blinked, as if looking over the dress for the first time.
“Oh yes.” She raised a hoof to where the purple sashes crossed. “Just imagine a badge around here, say, with my cutie mark?”
“Ah… yes, I do believe that would… rather work…” Elusive’s white coat did absolutely nothing to hide his blush. Twilight’s mood dropped entirely.
She stamped her hoof back down, hard enough to almost crack the stage. “A wedding dress, Elusive? Really? Did you think I wouldn’t notice the similarity to my brother’s suit? Or the colour scheme?!”
“Oh, Twilight, I am sorry, I let my muse run free and…”
“I was so happy you were keeping professional… but no, it wouldn’t be about that with you…”
“I was just talking about Dusk, you, effectively, being a worthy princess—”
“Just like you’ve always dreamed of, yes.” Twilight rolled her eyes, her wings taking her off the podium in one solid leap, coming down hard and stomping towards the door. “I’m done.”
“Twilight, wait…”
“No, I’m just… I was relaxed, and now… I’ve just got one stop left, and then I can go home, and then I can go home. I’m sorry, Elusive, and I do thank you for putting my mind at ease about Dusk... I’m just… just not in the mood to deal with this right now.” She pulled the door… only to find it locked, fiddling with the catch...
“No, stop, Twilight, you’ve…”
But she would not be stopped. The door opened, she moved through, and slammed behind her as she strode into the street.
Twilight blinked in the sudden afternoon sunlight, taking a couple of deep breaths and waiting for her eyes to adjust. She knew she couldn’t stay there long, Elusive would surely gather himself and be after her, but she needed a moment…
Once she could see again, she looked around, taking in the crowd around her, all of them stopped in the street, staring.
Wonderful. I’ve finally done something enough to actually make Ponyville stop and take notice. What is everyone… staring… at…?
She blinked, looking down at herself, still wearing the wedding dress in Elusive’s colours.
Two months ago, Twilight had gone through a slightly self-conscious phase – for her, which was saying something – and her magical mishaps had provided her with a new spell that let her know when ponies were watching her.
That had been a very unpleasant day. She was a princess! Of course ponies were watching her!
Once she had managed to turn it off, she had sworn up and down that she would never use it again unless it was for a serious ‘Fate of Equestria’ mission. She knew using it day-to-day was an incredibly bad idea, as it would only serve to make her that much more paranoid.
And yet it was one of those ideas that kept resurfacing – and right now it was on her mind because she was sure ponies were staring at her. Every time she looked around, though, they were just going about their business as usual, barely giving her a second glance.
So she hurried, moving on to her next, and thankfully final, appointment for the day. But even though she was walking through the streets as naked as she usually was (and she checked, repeatedly, every time she felt something brush against her side… someday she’d get used to those wings…) she felt like her every step was weighed down by those ornamental golden horseshoes a hundred times over, constantly having to fight to keep from dragging her hooves.
It wasn’t even Elusive’s actions, really, or any of the others.
It was her own.
After that heartfelt speech that had practically left her in tears, she’d basically done exactly the opposite of what Elusive had explained she – or Dusk, but whatever – was known for. She’d run out, given him the cold shoulder…
Elusive had apologised to her with grace when she had fled back inside even more flustered than she had left, and refused to hear her own apologies in exchange – acting much as if her little tantrum had never happened, and so smoothly and sincerely that she simply couldn’t find an opening to so much as apologise further.
She groaned. After everything she’d been imagining Dusk doing to her friends, she was probably being a far worse friend than anything he’d manage. Today was an absolute write-off, everything was going completely wrong…
Maybe I should just look into some memory-altering spells once I get back home and wipe the whole day from my memory…
No, that’s no good. If I do that then everypony else will remember me as a stallion for a day and I won’t have a clue what’s going on. If I’m going to wipe my memory I’m going to have to wipe everyone else’s, too…
She gave that a long moment of consideration.
…And that would be wrong.
She shook her head and trudged on ahead.
Maybe just a little…
…No, seriously, still so very wrong.
If this keeps up I’m going to have to find a personal memory-wipe spell to wipe out the memory of thinking so hard about mass memory-wipe spells so I don’t accidentally cast one and end up with a super-awkward friendship report about everypony panicking because we’ve lost a year and nopony can remember why I have wings.
And why do I suddenly have this horrible feeling that this has already happened once?
Argh! Magical memory manipulation cannot solve all of my problems. I need a distraction!
Twilight stopped and evaluated her surroundings. Everypony was still ignoring her, thankfully, which gave her free rein to look over the streets, desperately searching for something that would not involve her invasively rewriting sections of an entire town’s brains.
Study!
Yes. Study. Priority five. Not terrorising populace, not hurting friends, just learn what I can about the differences while I’m here.
It was still rather fascinating seeing the way that the differences carried over from gender to gender. Manes seemed to be mostly in the same fashion in both universes – shorter for the stallions, longer on the mares – although it was usually easy to see equivalents, the general patterns and styles remaining the same at the alternative length.
It wasn’t always the case, though. Applejack’s had been practically unchanged, and she could spot a few others that saw little difference. The ice-blue mohawk on unusually dark grey made Thunderlane’s counterpart instantly noticeable across the street, and differed only in its width. And… she sighed at the thought… Lyra’s cut had not been particularly long anyway, and what little she had seen of her stallion side here, through the red haze, had been almost identical.
Tails, on the other hand, were surprisingly the opposite – the fashions appeared to be switched, with longer tails on the stallions. Thinking back across her friends as stallions, most of them had had tails almost identical, with the exception of Rainbow Blitz and his jagged spectrum.
Regardless, even if she couldn’t put a name to each face, she could recognise just about every one of them… the flower brothers shutting up shop for the day… a stallion and mare with very similar hourglass cutie marks, but rather stunningly altered in colour schemes…
She blinked as she watched a familiar-looking plum-coloured stallion stagger out of a house and lean against the wall while he fumbled the door closed. Something clicked in her mind as she saw him against the door frame – the scene was hardly an unusual one for anyone who knew Berry Punch, but…
The feeling of something being off that had plagued her all day surfaced harder than ever.
The stallion moved off and started dragging his way through the town, doing a brief double-take as his eyes fell on Twilight staring at him, before bowing slightly and moving on past with a confused mutter.
Twilight looked around the square suddenly and then trotted up to a nearby house, standing up straight beside it and lighting her horn briefly, leaving a slight glowing mark in the air at her horn’s tip.
Stepping back but leaving the light where it was, she looked at the mark against the house and gave an excited grin.
The door is bigger!
She knew how tall she was compared to most Ponyville architecture – when she had her ascension-fueled growth spurt she was terrified that she would be bumping her newly extended horn on everything – and the door she stood beside was clearly higher than she remembered. It was only an inch or so, and her eye for detail made it clear that everything about the house – indeed, in the town – seemed proportionally the same, but it seemed that everything was built just a little bit bigger than the Ponyville she was used to.
That’s what’s been driving me nuts all day? How… anticlimactic. It was one of those subtle little things that really didn’t matter, but part of her found it fascinating. If the average height of ponies is taller because most of them are stallions, I suppose it makes sense. The difference isn’t even as much as between mares and stallions… so I didn’t see it before because everypony’s been the wrong height anyway.
She laughed triumphantly, moving down the street with renewed purpose. I finally figured something out! And I’m not even talking to myself out loud anymore! Ahh… if only there was anyone in town who would actually care about this…
It doesn’t matter! One more tick for the differences list. But the general architecture is still the same! What else can we check? Her ears twitched. Sounds! General marketplace chatter is deeper, that’s to be expected. I wonder if that has any effect? Maybe large magical predators have a slightly different hearing range to be optimised for such? …Wow, that’s morbid.
She grimaced and her ears twitched again. That sound is the same too! …Wait, what is that?
A buzzing combined with the rattling of wheels on cobblestone, growing louder…
Oh no.
She winced as the screech of the scooter-propelled cart’s wheels echoed over the market, and the whole contraption and its contents came to an admittedly rather impressive halt, sideways, less than her own body length in front of her.
And then there were Crusaders everywhere.
Observation assured her there were still only three of them – one yellow, one white, and one orange – but somehow she could have sworn there were at least twice that many at any one time as they ran around her and occasionally over her, bombarding her with observations, questions, and arguments without end.
“See, Silver, ’Buck! Told you Rainbow Blitz said Dusk was a filly today!”
“We know that, Scooteroll, we got told at school too!”
“Yeah, but Rainbow told us first, Applebuck!”
“How did you do it?
“Wow, you look really different!”
“That’s so cool!”
“Why did you do it?”
“Your wings are smaller!”
“Your face is smaller!”
“Does it feel really different?”
“Your mane’s all flat and straight!”
“Have ponies been treating you different?”
“Oh hey, it’s—”
“YEEP!”
The tirade of commentary was interrupted as Scootal— -eroll, apparently – led his investigation of her changes a little close to home, and in a quick whip of magic, Twilight had all three of them levitated in front of her with a familiar expression of fraying patience.
Three curious and cheerful smiles hovered before her.
Elusive’s little brother Silver – Silver Bell, she assumed – had much the same changes as his sibling. The mane was much shorter yet still immaculately curled, the tail still just as long; the muzzle a little longer.
Applebuck was the most different-looking of the three, and that could mainly be attributed to his discarding Apple Bloom’s red bow for a baseball cap, slung backwards. He was noticeably larger, both than the other two colts or Apple Bloom, and with the large Apple-stallion build already beginning to show.
And finally Scooteroll was… virtually unchanged. Seen from the front or top, she’d probably never have been able to tell the difference between the two… except, she noticed, that his tail was actually slightly kinked at points – not nearly to the same degree as Rainbow Blitz’s had been, but it was pretty obvious where the young pegasus had taken the style choice from.
Either that, or that’s just something that happens to speedy pegasi on this side? Maybe I should try to find a Wonderbolts poster or something…
Sighing, she stopped looking over her latest interrogators and tried to remember their questions.
“Yes. I am smaller. It doesn’t feel any different, but ponies have been treating me different. And I did it by accident.”
She closed her eyes and opened her mouth, ready to explain what was actually going on, but was quickly overwritten by, “Can you turn us into fillies too?”
Her mouth snapped shut.
She stared at the three of them, trying to process which one had actually asked the question, and as her brain caught up realised that all three of them had asked it together.
“…Really?” was all she could manage.
“Well yeah!” Scooteroll nodded enthusiastically.
“We wanna try!”
“We’ll be..
“The CUTIE MARK CRU—”
“NO!” Twilight cut them off in horror. “No! Why would you want that?”
The three of them looked at each other, then at her, with expressions of confused confidence as to why this was even a question. “Well… we figure maybe we can get our cutie marks…”
A flurry of horrifying images flashed before Twilight’s eyes, leaving her shuddering.
“Okay, first and foremost, I can tell you with absolute certainty that you are no more likely to get your cutie marks as fillies than you are as colts.”
“Awww, but practic’ly all the fillies in our class have their marks already!” Applebuck whined.
“Most of the colts do too,” Scooteroll groused.
“I bet there’s all sorts of things we could do as fillies that we couldn’t do as colts!” Silver crowed.
Every sane and sensible remaining part of Twilight tried to take control of her mouth and prevent the next question from escaping. It was almost like watching on in horror from outside her body, detached from the situation, as her mouth moved against her will. “Like… what?”
“I dunno! We won’t know until we try it!”
“We could model?” Silver suggested.
“Nah, that’s boring. Fillies are smaller, right? I bet if I was a bit smaller, I could fly better!” Scooteroll buzzed into the air briefly, grinning.
“Yeah, but your wings’d be smaller too, Scoot.” Applebuck shook his head.
“Oh…” He landed heavily, looking over his wings with an unsure expression.
“You could probably go faster on your scooter, though! Less drag!”
“But we’d definitely have to be fillies too, otherwise she’d be struggling to pull a heavier weight in the wagon.”
Twilight relaxed slightly as the colts started arguing about weight and power. Part of her was admittedly rather impressed at the grip the three of them had on the science behind aerodynamics. Another, more cynical part of her noted it as something that should have a very close eye kept on it, but that part of her had been getting enough of a workout today.
“Oh! And preening!”
…And yet it was still quite capable of a few flare-ups yet.
“Preening?” The other two looked at Scooteroll curiously.
“Yeah! Well, sometimes when I’m hanging out with Rainbow Blitz after he’s been doing stunts, he looks at some of the mares flying around and says something like ‘Wouldn’t mind preening that.’” He did a rather impressive imitation of his idol, which Twilight was in no state to appreciate. “So maybe if I was a filly, he might want to help me preen too!” His little wings fluffed out eagerly, also doing nothing for her peace of mind.
Applebuck cut in before Twilight could develop a solid rebuttal. “I don’t think that sounds quite right…”
“What would you know, not like you have wings to preen!”
“Not like ya know the first thing ’bout preening the wings you got!” The two colts were soon head-to-head, shoving and growling, only to have Silver jump up on the platform created by their struggle.
“Oh! Elusive says a mare who dresses well and acts right can twist a stallion around her hoof no problem!”
“Really?” Scooteroll jumped towards Twilight with shining eyes, leaving Applebuck to overbalance and collapse. “Is there some kinda secret filly combat style? That sounds awesome! Just twist Diamond Crown or Silver Ladle around…” He made a strange series of vaguely martial-arts-like motions and cries, clearly imagining some sort of strange battle.
“Yeah, but he said ‘dresses right’, Scoot. You wanna dress up?” Applebuck taunted, getting back up.
“Oh.” Scooteroll deflated, then stared up at Twilight with shining, huge, hopeful eyes. “Can you teach me it anyway, Dusk?”
“There’s… really no such thing…”
“Awww… I guess maybe they haven’t taught you either, since you’re not usually a mare…”
“Err, actually…”
“Grampy is always tellin’ Applejack he needs to bring home a filly to make more apples.” Applebuck put in thoughtfully. “I dunno what fillies can do different or what’s wrong with Red Gala but maybe we just need more fillies? I could help! Dunno why, but big bro always turns all red and changes the subject.” The youngest apple glanced at her friends to see if they had any idea, then up at Twilight. “Yeah! Just like that!”
“We could get colts to cover us!”
Twilight felt the world drop out from under her.
“Elusive always says a gentlecolt should always cover a filly’s bill when they’re eating out or shopping!” Silver nodded confidently.
“Are you alright, Dusk?” Applebuck stared at her in concern, as she slowly felt the world recover around her and regained her legs.
Fortunately for Twilight, the pause in determining if she was okay gave her a few precious moments to collect herself and consider her next words. “G— er, boys…” she managed to get out. “Look – even if I could, and even if I hadn’t already promised at least two ponies that I would never do so – would you really want a cutie mark in something that you could only do while you were a filly?”
The three of them pondered this for a long few moments.
“I don’t think I’d care, as long as I could wave it under Diamond’s muzzle,” Applebuck stated.
Twilight twitched and ground her teeth gently. Finally, she opened her eyes and gave a bright and entirely sane and stable grin. “Alright, colts! Here’s the deal – I’ll take you to Sugarcube corner and buy you whatever you want, so long as you promise to never, ever talk about this again.”
Three colts blinked up at her, then looked to each other, apparently conferring through some sort of crusader-based telepathy – …Because this situation wasn’t horrifying enough… – before looking up to her again with giant, thankful eyes, and nodding cheerfully.
Sighing, she headed off once again in the direction of her last friend’s workplace, three excitable colts in tow.
~-~-~-~
The moment Twilight stepped through the door of Sugarcube corner, she was going to get a party cannon to the face.
She knew that it was said, amongst ponies of not-particularly-great learning, that some very old ponies could develop nearly precognitive powers.
Well, not in those exact words, considering the education levels at play – but the thought was there. These ponies could sense events coming – wild storms, earthquakes, magical calamities, the Zap Apples – in the twitch or ache of an old hoof or feather, or the taste of magic on the wind.
Ponies of greater learning, such as Twilight, understood that those ponies were not so much precognitive, but had accrued a great deal of simple association and experience – though the changes they felt may not have been consciously noted, they subconsciously remembered those feelings, and perhaps others they didn’t even recognise, being felt before previous major events, and thus could predict their occurrences.
Once, Twilight had considered that maybe this sort of thing was a possible relation to Pinkie’s predictions… but she had discarded the idea simply because it implied that there was some sort of magical field Pinkie could interact with, that at the very least could sense things falling before they had even been knocked off their shelves – and that was basically the same problem, just on a larger scale.
The other problem was that Pinkie was only about the same age as she was, and such associations were supposed to take a lifetime of experience.
However, she found herself pausing at the entrance to Sugarcube Corner, and having flashbacks to making those very conclusions, because as she came to the door, she knew she would be hit with a sudden blast of confetti and sound. There was nothing she could say to prove it – she supposed she could feel Pinkie’s, or rather Bubble’s, magical presence inside, but she somehow knew without a doubt that the party cannon would go off.
Part of her briefly considered trying a different entrance to the store, or even teleporting inside; the same voice that warned her in the first place seemed to almost laugh at the idea that that would in any way prevent her inevitable and immediate cannoning.
Of course, the three colts behind her had no such compunction now that that they had reached their dessert-destined destination, and ran past her in a rush before she could stop them, bursting open the door and…
…running into a perfectly ordinary day at Sugarcube corner, with no partillery in sight?
She stared, the door held open to let her gaze into the bakery. She had been so sure, somehow, that something would happen, but… Just one more thing that’s gone wrong today… She sighed, stepping forward. Maybe I really am going cra—
BOOM!
A blast of noise, sugar-saturated air, streamers and confetti struck her full-on from above, making her jump straight up in shock.
Of course, with pegasus magic now part of her arsenal, such a jump could take her much higher than it once would. And with pegasus instincts still in development, this only made her panic further, grabbing onto the closest thing to hoof to prevent herself falling.
It took a few long seconds for her heart rate to calm (for what felt like the hundredth time today) as she clung to the soft… fuzzy… sugar-smelling form of…
“Hey there, Twilight!”
She blinked, opening her eyes and turning her head in line with her limbs, and finding herself cradled in the forelegs of an exceptionally pink stallion, bright blue eyes sparkling inches from her own.
A hoof slipped between their muzzles as the stallion brought it to his widely grinning lips, shushing her for a moment before pointing across the room. Following the hoof, she spotted a banner hung high on the wall across the room, above some of the omnipresent decorations of the bakery, out of sight of most of the shop:
‘Welcome-ish to Ponyville, Twilight Sparkle!’
“Welcome… ish?” She turned back to the earth pony, who shrugged.
“Well, you’re from Ponyville, but a different Ponyville! So…”
“I… guess…”
“So it’s sort of a party-ish!”
She tensed. “I… really don’t think I’m up for a party right now…”
“I know! That’s why it’s a party-ish! It’s sort of like a party, only nobody is really sure if it’s a party!”
“…Isn’t that like… any time when you’re around and not actively throwing a party?”
“Now you’re getting it!” Bubble grinned, and with a hop the two of them were back on the ground floor of the bakery, Twilight back on her hooves. She took a long moment to get her bearings, then blinked, looking up above the door.
“…Pinkie… err, Bubble Berry… what were you standing on up there?”
“My party cannon!” He grinned, petting the monstrosity by his side that she was absolutely certain had not been there a moment ago.
She stared at him, then at the cannon, then up at the entirely blank wall above the door again. “…But… what was the cannon attached to?”
“I was holding it up, silly!” Berry rolled his eyes at the apparent obviousness of the answer.
Twilight’s eyes flicked back and forth between her friend and the door a few times, her eye twitching dangerously, before taking a long breath and smiling weakly.
“You know, Bubble… I think that’s exactly the sort of normality I need from you today. Let’s just get a table.”
~-~-~-~
Once a table had been claimed, it was the work of a moment to hand over her order and a rather larger sum than she would normally consider spending to a rather sympathetic looking Carrot… Cup… Missus Cake – it was actually slightly confusing, since the two of them appeared almost entirely identical to the Mister and Missus Cake she knew, with switched colours and cutie marks – who gave an extra-understanding wince when she advised of the open tab for the Crusaders, as they immediately started squabbling over how to spend their windfall.
Twilight walked away before she could come to properly regret that decision, and settled in at the table.
A few moments later she noticed a curl of pink mane fall in front of her vision, and looked up to find Bubble carefully balanced on the back of her seat on all four hooves, looking down at her.
The two of them remained in that position for a long, precariously balanced few seconds.
“Hello, Bubble Berry.”
“Hi Twilight!”
“Why are you up there?”
“Because that’s the kind of normality you need today!”
“Of… course. But you can sit down now.”
“Okie dokie!” In a pegasus-worthy act of acrobatics, the pink-on-pink stallion launched himself over her, flipped and twisted in midair, and landed in the seat opposite her with barely a sound, muzzle in that expectant grin that suited Pinkie so well.
Now that the adrenaline had faded, she had a chance to properly examine the last of her friends. The first thing she noticed was that he was certainly larger – easily the second tallest of the group after Applejack, and with a rather heavy build – clearly strong and well-muscled, though not nearly as well-defined as the more athletic of the group.
Indeed, somehow despite the overwhelming pinkness and giggling, Bubble was distinctly masculine, which surprised her a little after seeing some of the others. His mane was only a little longer than Elusive’s had been – although given the mess of curls, it may have been significantly longer if straightened – though his tail was, once again, every bit as long, poofy and impressive as Pinkie’s.
Her observations, however, were cut short as she realised that Bubble was actually posing, changing every few seconds to a slightly different ridiculous pose.
When she raised an eyebrow, Bubble giggled, somehow still not coming across as feminine even with that. “This is fun! Now it’s your turn.”
“I’m not posing for you, Bubble Berry.”
“Awwww. Well then. I suppose we’d better get down to business then.” That omnipresent grin just got wider. Twilight knew that grin on her friend, and the different face didn’t change it at all.
Bubble Berry was planning a party.
She sighed. “Business?”
The grin grew wider yet. “Yep! Because you come from a whole other Ponyville, right?”
“…Do I want to know if there’s a Pinkie Sense for that? Or… Berry Sense, or whatever you call it?”
“Probably not!”
“…I’ll give you that. And yes, yes I do come from a whole other Ponyville.”
“So there’s a whole other Ponyville full of ponies?”
“…Yes…?”
“And a whole other me?”
“Yes…”
“Okay. Twilight. This is important.” Berry leaned in over the table, his expression somehow simultaneously deadly serious and grinning wildly. “If there’s one other Ponyville… does that mean there’s probably lots of other Ponyvilles too?”
Twilight blinked, considering. “…I don’t see why not. If there’s a Ponyville where everyone’s the other gender, there might well be one where you might be a pegasus or unicorn… or maybe not even a pony!”
“But in every Ponyville, there’s a Bubble Berry?” He was practically vibrating.
“Or equivalent… well… probably not every one, but I’d say it’s pretty statistically likely…”
“Eeeeeeeeeeeee!” He squealed, forelegs bursting into the air with a blast of streamers and confetti. “We need to get ALL the Ponyvilles together! And all the Bubbles! And then hold the biggest party EVER!”
Twilight had a sudden mental image of a gathering of countless Pinkie Pies and Bubble Berries from all tribes and walks of life, gathering together under the direction of an enormous alicorn Princess Pinkie, planning an apocalyptic party to end all parties.
“That… while strangely horrifying, is not going to be possible. My spell only works to swap me with Dusk. I could probably make it swap you with Pinkie Pie, maybe… but I think it’s still just one Pinkie, er, or Bubble at a time. And one Ponyville.”
“Awwww…” Bubble slumped on the table.
“Didn’t we learn our lesson about too many Bubbles?”
“Yeah…” He rolled his eyes, then suddenly perked up. “But that’s not the only party idea I had! We could have competitions which are all battle-of-the-sexes! And they wouldn’t be so lopsided!” He giggled. “And then you could have ponies switch sides as a penalty! Which stallion would you like to be replaced with a mare and join your team?” He gestured wildly, pretending to referee the game.
Twilight chuckled, relaxing slightly as she pictured it. “What sort of competition would it be?”
“Ummm… Guessing everypony’s name!”
“That’d… actually work, maybe.” She nodded. “I don’t think I’ll be up for that much casting for a while yet, though…”
“Well, keep it in mind! It’d be a party never seen before on Equestria! And it’d be even better because it’s two parties at once! And there’s two of me to run it! Eeee, I can’t wait!”
Twilight couldn’t help but smile along at her friend’s enthusiasm, despite her own reservations on the idea. The thought that she was relying on Bubble Berry of all ponies to give her a vaguely sane and relaxing end to her day was very worrying, but somehow this kind of madness made her feel entirely at home…
~-~-~-~
The pudding before her was heavy chocolate cake, shaped much like a volcano with molten chocolate oozing out around the edges and with a deep red raspberry core. It looked small compared to many of Sugarcube Corner’s treats, especially for its price, but it was not to be underestimated, for it was unconscionably dense and rich, and absolutely divine.
Twilight felt she deserved the comfort after her day, barely giving a thought to any silly stereotype she might be perpetuating, and was trying to make it last with very little success, relishing every decadent mouthful.
Bubble Berry, while not officially working, was a bundle of energy that not even the novelty of a gender-switched friend could monopolise, and was frequently bouncing around the store to serve, greet, and socialise with the late afternoon rush. This suited Twilight fine, giving her a bit of comparative quiet to let herself wind down, pony-watch, and think.
The Crusaders were gathered together on a table across the way, surrounding an enormous monstrosity of a sundae, filled with what looked like three different flavours of ice-cream, at least two different sauces, and just about every extra that could fit in the cup. The thing was probably large enough to satisfy five adult ponies (or one Pinkie Pie equivalent) but the colts looked like they had little intention of giving up before anything more than a chocolate smear remained.
She’d probably be hearing from their brothers about the consequences of that tomorrow. Or sisters. Something like that.
Watching them for a while, something tickled at the back of her mind, and she found herself thinking back to the observations she’d been making on the way here about the differences between genders. Her eyes fell on Applebuck in particular, as he chewed his way through a thick wafer before reaching for a scoop of chocolate ice-cream, quickly finding himself at odds with Scooteroll, who seemed intent on the same point.
But even as they started playfully arguing again (and Silver smoothly levitated their target out and into his own mouth) her mind was going back to conversations she had heard about the Apple family’s history. The lack of the intervening generation between Granny Smith and Applejack and siblings was a topic she had been hesitant to bring up to the Apples themselves, but she had eventually gotten the story out of Rarity.
Applejack’s father had died in a tragic accident when she was still barely young enough to remember, while her mother had still been pregnant with Apple Bloom; and she didn’t last long after, just long enough to bring the youngest Apple into Equestria. Macintosh had taken over the farm and raising of his siblings with support from Granny and the extended family, but…
…It must have happened differently here. Or perhaps the two of them had switched roles. But…
Well, there went her comfortable, happy mood.
“Twiiiiiiiiiii…” And naturally Berry picked it up within seconds, from the other side of the room, and was suddenly beside her again. “You’re not smiling anymore.”
“I… just realised something.” Twilight blinked. “And I don’t know what it means.”
“Isn’t that good? You like learning what things mean!” he encouraged.
“…This place is… impossible,” she stated dramatically. Some chill went down her spine, and she glanced around suddenly, as if that very declaration might actually clue in the world that it shouldn’t exist, and it would suddenly fix that oversight.
Bubble Berry looked around, following her gaze. After a long moment, he stage whispered, “What are we looking for?”
“Nothing, Berry.”
“Well… I don’t think Sugarcube Corner is impossible. But I might not be the best pony to ask. Why is it impossible? Does it have stairs that look like they’re going up but they just go in circles? Or forks with more sides at the top than at the bottom?” He picked up Twilight’s cutlery to examine it closer, though he seemed quickly distracted by the chocolate fudge covering it.
“No! I mean… the idea of a place where everyone is switched mare and stallion, but… but everything else is the same!” she hissed to him. “There have to have been situations where being a different gender has changed how an event has occurred! I mean, apart from anything else, it’d mean that every couple in the history of Equestria has only had one foal at a time! If one stallion had foals with two mares in my ponyville, how could that happen here?”
Bubble grinned at his friend. “Well, maybe she would be a very lucky mare he—”
“Bubble! This is serious! I’m talking about two whole universes that are supposed to be exactly the same, except for gender, but that’s impossible!”
“Wellll~ I think YOU are thinking too much.” Berry bopped Twilight on the horn. “You’re thinking too hard about it.”
“What? How can I be thinking too hard?”
“Welll… okay, it’s like decorating a cake, see?”
Twilight’s flat stare could have been used to level a building. “What.”
“Look, it’s simple!” Bubble dashed away from the exasperated mare, only to return a moment later with a rather lavish-looking cake decorated beautifully with chocolate cream.
“Let’s say you’ve got a pony who asks for a chocolate cake. So you get a sweet, creamy birthday cake, all chocolatey and delicious! Mmmm… chocolate…” He smiled, beginning to drool slightly as he looked over the cake in his hooves.
A pointed clearing of the throat echoed from behind the counter, along with a glare from the local Mister Cake, and Berry snapped out of it suddenly, shaking his head out.
“Anyway! So then the birthday pony comes in, and looks at the cake, and says it looks really good, but he doesn’t want chocolate anymore, he wants strawberry. What are we supposed to do? I can’t just turn the chocolate cream into strawberry cream – I tried!”
“…What…?”
“Well, maybe you can, clever-magic-pants. But it’s way easier! We just make another cake!” Berry rushed off again, and appeared with another cake seconds later, in the same style, only this one had pink icing.
Twilight’s head spun as she tried to make sense of this baked-goods metaphor. “…Are you trying to tell me that I… created this whole universe?” That was terrifying on multiple levels – and she really wished that the fact that everypony seemed attracted to her being something of her own creation wasn’t as high up that list as it seemed to be.
“Well, how do you know Dusk Shine didn’t create your Ponyville?” Berry grinned conspiratorially.
Amazingly enough, this did not significantly curtail Twilight’s rising levels of panic.
But then the stallion bopped her on the muzzle before she could work herself into a proper meltdown, shaking his head emphatically. “No, no, no! I mean… we’ve got a whole lot of cakes! Even apart from the Mister and Missus and the twins! We can get another cake that’s pretty much the same, only strawberry instead of chocolate! Buuuuuuut…”
A hoof hooked around Twilight’s neck, dragging her closer, somehow ensuring she stopped with her muzzle only an inch from the edge of the cakes.
“The cakes aren’t exactly the same! One might be just a liiiiiittle bit thicker, or thinner! Or the cream’s not exactly the same. The decorations are a little different!” She found herself glancing between the two cakes, noting the swirls of cream were slightly different in size, and quickly finding herself compelled to even them out…
But Berry flicked both cakes away before she could light her horn. “But they’re still mostly the same cake, right? You can look for changes and find them if you reaaaaaaaally try. If you cut them open, maybe you’ll find more differences!”
“I… still don’t see where you’re going with this, Berry.” Twilight’s head was spinning.
“Well, we’ve always got a whole lot of cakes ready! So instead of trying to change the one we have, we just find the one that looks the closest to what we’ve got, with the right changes!”
Twilight stared at her friend, then looked down at the two cakes, thoughtfully.
“So… you think since there’s probably a whole lot of other Ponyvilles out there… I just found the one that looked closest? The further out I go, or the deeper I look, the more differences might pile up… but it’s enough that everypony close to me is…”
“And then once you sell the strawberry cake, everypony’s happy, and nobody wants the chocolate cake anymore, which means I get to eat it!”
“Wait, what is that supposed to—”
Like a huge, sea-bound predator, Berry loomed from the edge of the table, his mouth gaping impossibly wide as he bore down on the chocolate cake…
Which was miraculously whipped away along with its gender-swit— err, icing-switched double. Mister Cake, balancing both pastries on his back, gave a long-suffering look and a roll of his eyes to Twilight, and wandered away out the back as Berry tried to disengage his teeth from the table, much to the amusement of a few of the other patrons.
Twilight chuckled again at the randomness of the pink pony, as he finally pulled away and tried to put his face back to the right shape, or at least a shape that let him pout effectively at his employers behind the counter.
“Never change, Bubble Berry. Please.”
~-~-~-~
“Everything today has just been highly…”
“Highly?”
“Confusing.” Twilight decided on.
With her existential crisis of the hour finished, along with the delicious volcano pudding, Twilight relaxed a little, and started discussing her day with Bubble Berry.
At first she had been reluctant to impart her experiences, for reasons ranging from not wanting to seem too upset with the others (Pinkie’s reactions to problems between her friends were rarely subtle) or to suddenly clue in to Bubble that perhaps he should start acting that way too.
However, secrets could not be held long from the pink menace, and a combination of friendly banter and wobbly-eyed pouting soon had her explaining her day, pony by pony.
Rainbow Blitz had him bursting out in laughter. Twilight was put off somewhat as Berry giggled his way back to comprehensibility, but he waved her down while he caught his breath.
“No, no, I’m just imagining Blitzy sitting in his cloud house all offended. ‘No mare ever turned down the Blitz! Who does she think she is?’” The ridiculous over-exaggeration of their friend caught her by surprise, making her laugh along in spite of herself. “And he’s probably puffing himself up and shoving all his junk into the closet so when you finally decide to come over, he’ll be ready for you.” He winked with an abundance of suggestiveness.
“Bubble! Rainbow’s not like that!” She still couldn’t keep herself from laughing, though.
“Yeah? Wanna go check it out?”
“No!”
“Probably a good idea. If we both went, he’d get all sorts of ideas…”
Twilight rolled her eyes and changed the subject, moving on to Applejack. Bubble was a little less joyful over that story, and even before Bubble could say a word, she could see the accusing look in his eyes.
“Yes, I’m going to apologise to Applejack tomorrow. Everypony else already told me off.”
“You didn’t say you could do the Royal Canterlot super-shouty thing!” He poked her in the chest. “Do you know how useful that could be? I’m gonna make you do all my invitations for my next party. In one go. From the library. Oh, and yeah, you better say sorry to AJ too.”
Twilight rolled her eyes. “And then after that, I went to see Butterscotch… only I met Eris on the way…”
While the story of the Draconequus had the stallion in stitches once again, with Twilight laughing along, the other two ponies had him sober up a bit and brought Twilight down too. She wasn’t nearly the wreck she had been earlier, but the reminder of the long day she’d had was just… exhausting.
“It’s just been… I don’t know. This day feels like it’s been dragging on for a whole year. Everything is just…”
“Is just?” Bubble leaned forward, that expectant grin on his face…
“It’s just… highly… highly…” She fished for the word, while Bubble grinned wider. “I don’t know… unpropitious!”
Bubble’s smile snapped back to shock and disappointment. Twilight blinked, confused.
“What’s wrong?”
“Oh… I just thought you were going to say the thing.”
“What thing?”
“Somepony else’s thing. It doesn’t matter.” Bubble waved her off, with a slightly hurt look. “Must be one of those other Ponyvilles I was thinking of.”
“Oh… okay.” It was just Bubble being Bubble, apparently. “Well. That’s my day. How has your day been?”
Bubble brightened up instantly. “Oh, well my day hasn’t been sub-optimal at all! I mean, we’ve had a lot of ponies come in today talking about you, that’s for sure, but that’s hardly anything new…”
Though his word choice confused her slightly, that was hardly anything new, and she’d soon forgotten it in the endless stream of consciousness that was Bubble Berry, finding herself slowly relaxing once again…
~-~-~-~
Nothing good could last forever, of course, though this time it thankfully petered out gently rather than come crashing down. The crusaders, having somehow finished their colossal dessert and having the energy of their sugar rush countered by the awkwardness of their distended bellies, speed-waddled over and thanked her in chorus, before buzzing out the door in their usual rush.
Definitely going to hear about that… She sighed.
But the day was quickly coming to an end, and the Corner was rapidly emptying out, and Twilight actually felt relaxed. Perhaps it was the decadent dessert, or the delicious milkshake she’d since ordered and was slowly savouring, but mostly it was just the company of Bubble Berry, who despite everything was simply almost identical to dealing with Pinkie Pie.
Finally, as the light faded outside, she finished off the last of the milkshake with an echoing slurp.
“Thank you, Mister and Missus Cake.” She smiled. “And thank you, Bubble Berry. This has been just what I needed today.”
Bubble giggled. “You’re welcome! You know I’m always good to throw a party-ish for you!”
She laughed right back. “Whether I know about it or not! I probably won’t be seeing you soon, but say hi to Dusk for me!”
The bell jangled quietly as she walked away into the cool evening air. It was good to see that at least one of her friends could be relied upon for normalcy – although the fact that that was Pinkie’s double… well, if she hadn’t already met Discord’s double here, she’d think that he – or she – would have had something to do with it.
Just as she was beginning to walk home, the bell rang behind her once again and the unmistakable sound of Berry’s bouncing towards her rang out.
“Twilight! Twilight! You forgot your change!” Berry’s voice rang out, slightly muffled by something in his mouth.
Oh! She blinked, turning back. She’d given them a fair bit for both the Crusader’s and her own rather impressive feasts, but perhaps…
“Thank you, Berry!” She smiled as he bounced up, the small bag held between his grinning teeth.
“You’re welcome!” He grinned, bounded up to her, and pressed his lips to hers.
Twilight froze.
The warm, slightly moist, pink-fuzzed skin pressed up against her own, grasping and manipulating with all the long-earned skill of an adult earth pony. Her own muzzle tingled wherever he touched her, a wash of hot, sugar-laden breath tickling across her whole face.
His bright blue eyes were as close as they had ever been, his ears and curls perking up as his long muzzle pushed into hers, tongue and jaw twisting and somehow sending simultaneous waves of chills and electricity from horn to hoof.
It seemed to last for hours, that heat and pressure working their way across her mouth… until all of a sudden it was done, and he pulled away, leaving her with the little bag of bits hanging from her own lips, and a strangely cool sensation wherever his mouth suddenly wasn’t.
He leaned forward one more time, booped her snout with his own, and then bounced away. “Seeya tomorrow, Twi-Twi!” he called, and the bell above the door jangled one last time.
The only movement or sound from Twilight from the moment he had first touched her, to several minutes later, was the bag falling from her nerveless mouth to the ground with a quiet clink.
Darkness blanketed Ponyville, and most of the ponies who lived there were already in their homes, the flickering light of firefly lanterns and happy chatter of families floating from windows as dinners were prepared and served.
However, the shining white moon and stars provided more than enough light to navigate home by, which was good, because Twilight Sparkle did not have the mental capacity to worry about short-term navigation as she blankly staggered home, her body moving forward on automatic while her mind ran circles.
It’s just Pinkie being random. I mean, Bubble being random. For the thirty-seventh time. Just because you use your magic for carrying and grabbing things doesn’t mean everypony can. Earth ponies have to use their mouths like that all the time. Pinkie has shoved things in your mouth like that before. Just… not quite as… intrusively.
She fought back the instinct to lick her lips. She’d already lost to that urge a few times, and the sugary aftermath of the invasion was entirely gone, but somehow she still wanted to do it again, as if to assure herself that every trace was entirely gone.
She could still smell it, though.
He never even seemed interested before then… or after… it has to be just a Pinkie thing. Even if it wasn’t just him passing over something, it’d just be… to fit in with the rest of our friends or something.
It didn’t mean anything.
“Dusk?”
Bubble probably wouldn’t even know how to make it mean anything! No, no, that’s not fair… that pony is smarter than we give her credit for… I mean, him credit for… whatever!
It didn’t mean anything.
“Duuuuuuuusk?”
The subconscious processes guiding her body gave her a signal that there was something that might need her attention, but she was in no mood for such nonsense right now.
Am I seriously feeling… disappointed? Am I really getting that caught up in this? Stop licking your lips, filly! It wasn’t a kiss. It was just Bubble being Bubble and it did. Not. Mean. Anything.
“Dusk Dusk Dusk Dusk Dusk Dusk Dusk!”
Who in Equestria is making all that racke— oh, right, that’s me. An— oh, for the love of…
She reassumed manual control of her body and took a quick step to her right, away from the hoof about to jab her in the side.
The rather familiar, mint-green hoof.
“Oh! Hi Dusk! I thought maybe you couldn’t hear me for a moment there.” That inane grin, irrepressible hopefulness…
Lyra.
Twilight took a long, hissing breath in, her wings spread wide and eyes narrowed, ready to unleash another tirade upon the unicorn…
Then let it all out in a rush, slumping and trying not to collapse.
“You alright?” He looked at her with a tilted head.
Twilight lifted her head just high enough to look in his eyes. “…Look, I’ve… I’ve just had a very, very long day, and I’m very tired, and I don’t really feel like yelling at you, so just… go ahead. Whatever you want to say, whatever you want to show me, just… go.” She closed her eyes, preparing for the tirade...
“Well, first, I wanted to apologise,” Stallion-Lyra stated, his own head hanging and his ears folded back.
It took a few seconds for that to sink in, before Twilight’s eyes snapped open and she stared at him.
“Wait, what?”
“I thought about what you said earlier today… and maybe I have been a bit focused on my interests.” A green hoof traced circles in the ground. “You looked like you were a little stressed, just a bit…”
“I screamed at you for a full minute.” Twilight gave a deadpan stare.
“Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about! A bit stressed. Happens to everypony sometimes.” He grinned widely.
“You’re... used to getting screamed at, aren’t you?”
“Well yeah! Usually a good time to come back later, yeah?”
“...Yes. Yes, it is.” What more could she say?
“So yeah. Um, sorry for keeping trying to make you look at all my stuff all the time.”
“Oh. Well, um… thank you.” Twilight gave a smile, tired but genuine. “I wasn’t expecting that. I appreciate it. And I’m sorry for yelling at you – I’ve been a little stressed, today, yes, but you probably didn’t deserve that…”
“Well, I did have one thing… not the usual stuff! I promise!” He waved a hoof to ward her off as the smile fell from her face and she tensed once more. “You said I should try showing you something else! And you’ve been stressed a lot, so I thought I might give you something to help with that, instead!”
At least slightly mollified, Twilight relaxed a little once more. “Well, I did say you could go ahead before…”
“Alright, so most of what I show you is stuff that I know I can’t do, or can’t find, since you’re a prince, but this is something I can already do. Soooo…”
With a flourish, he whipped a series of books from his saddlebags, flipping them out in front of her. Her pink aura overtook his golden as she brought them in close to squint at the text in the moonlight…
Only to recoil as the image emblazoned below the title was quite clear and recognisable, even in the darkness.
Several ponies of various species, in a tangle that was at once acrobatically spectacular and unquestionably obscene.
Twilight had not gone searching, but as a librarian and professional student, she had certainly encountered the Karmare Sutra before.
A quick glance at the others showed their contents as being spellbooks - but rather specialised spellbooks, with an entirely unsurprising theme.
“So? I dunno if you had much experience with these, but judging how stressed you are, you’re probably in need of some relaxation and friendship, right? I’d be more than happy to help you test a few of them – I’m sure you won’t b—”
“AGAIN?!” Twilight cut him off with a strangled scream. Though she couldn’t see it, her mane and tail were waving up without any natural breeze, giving off light and flickering up in a manner quite reminiscent of flame.
Though the stallion didn’t know it, the presence of books - no matter how much their content offended - was likely all that stood between him and imminent immolation.
“You had me!” Twilight hissed at the suddenly-cowering stallion. “I really, honestly thought, for one beautiful, sparkling minute, that I could have a conversation with one stallion today without it ending like this! Is this just what this Ponyville is like? Is it something to do with me? The spell? Why is it that being a mare instead of a stallion for one day sends every. Single. Stallion. into some sort of--”
“Wait!” He shot to his hooves suddenly. Twilight's tirade came to a halt, cut off and derailed mid-rant, as he stared…
He flitted around her a moment with the sort of random movement normally seen only from pink-on-pink ponies, then his eyes bulged.
“By the dawn! You’re a mare?! You’re a mare! When did you pull that off?!” He goggled at her in shock and awe.
Twilight gaped.
The incandescent winds cut out like a switch had been pressed, her grip on the books faltering and failing as she stared in incomprehension at the stallion before her, her mouth opening and closing in shock but letting out no more than a whimper.
And he just looked at her with that expectant, impressed smile.
Without another word, the unconscious part of her that had kept her walking home on automatic took the reins once again and hooked up to her horn, and with a sudden flash of light, she vanished from the street entirely, retreating home to safety.
And a few moments later Harpsy carefully picked up his books again, brushing them off with another impressed look.
“Wow, I was completely wrong. He’s definitely already read these - that’s way more advanced than most of this! Maybe I should get him to teach me some of this too!”
And with an eager skip in his step, he packed them away and headed back to his home, already planning for the future…
Despite what many tabloids, rumours, or derivative works of fiction might suggest, none of the princesses of Equestria were known for having any difficulty getting up in the morning.
There were many who might suggest, in varying levels of jest depending on how close they were to the system in question, that Celestia might face the day ahead with trepidation or horror. The noble class was hardly something that anypony ever wanted to deal with for any length of time, and the idea of coming up against them day, after day, without pause or break for not only years but millenia…
But Celestia did so, without complaint or so much as a visible twitch in that serene visage. Oh, she might grow frustrated or playful occasionally, and those who worked in her court long enough could often tell when her seemingly innocuous mandates were possibly the beginning of a joke, a prank, or a master plot that might completely shake up the nobility in ways that they could barely comprehend…
But never did she shirk her duty.
Luna, never one to be outshone by her sister (at least metaphorically) faced the nights with no less determination, and though her court was not nearly as busy, her time was equally taken up by learning the strange changes in culture and technology of the modern world.
She was slightly less subtle than her sister about complaining about things which drew her ire, in much the same way as Canterlot Castle was slightly less subtle than a birdhouse, but regardless of how she might gripe, she was never late without good, Equestria-threatening reason.
And of course, ever-cheerful Cadance thrust herself into every day with gusto, seemingly indefatigable. Shining Armour had once confided in his sister that the most valuable thing he’d ever taken from his military training was the instinct to get up at the crack of dawn without fail, regardless of the events of the night previous - a lifesaver when dealing with a wife as playful as Mi Amore Cadenza.
Take that however you will.
However, the fourth and newest princess, Twilight Sparkle, had neither the patience learned over many mortal lifetimes, nor a dangerously cheerful, energetic outlook and dutiful and loving husband. Instead, she had…
…an incredibly strong desire to never get out of bed again.
She had curled up tight by instinct, already happily facing away from the rising morning sun. Her wings were amazingly comfortable, for once, tucked just right inside the covers and without so much as an itch. Her bed conformed to her body exactly, supporting her perfectly from hooves to horn.
She was the perfect temperature, and in the perfect state of mind, drifting softly along that wonderful line between awake and asleep, without the slightest desire to move a single limb, and where nothing could possibly be wrong with the world.
There was nothing that made sleeping in so wonderful as knowing that whatever happened yesterday, whatever might happen today, it would not happen to her in this bed.
But sadly, even with the majority of the malicious forces that had yesterday evicted her from her sleep now turned to her own defence, the checklist was incorruptible and stood firm against her ideals of an eternity in repose. Slowly but surely, the reminder that she had things to do this day coaxed her awake.
As her mind slowly rebooted, she remembered rather suddenly what it often implied when she had such trouble escaping her sleep.
Now with the balance tilted significantly more towards awake, though still far from willing to actually extract herself from between her sheets, she lit her horn and groped out into the room with her magic, the pinkish-purple glow alighting on various surfaces until it finally found her dresser…
Makeup… brush… everything as it should be… check.
I’m home.
She smiled, snuggling down into her blankets all the deeper…
…Before sighing and lighting her horn again, checking her own body…
And still a mare. Well, that was relieving…
Lazily, she felt around her room, but everything appeared to be in place. Admittedly, she was fairly sure at this point that she hadn’t had anything else happen - she’d never had incidents two days in a row before, and for some reason the idea of sleep-casting never actually occurred to her normally until she found the new issue…
But just because today was incident-free, didn’t mean she didn’t have to get up, though.
The sun was well and truly above the horizon by the time she finally coaxed her sedentary limbs into movement - perhaps with a little self-levitation to assist - and staggered over to the bathroom to get ready.
Her friends would be coming over soon, she knew that… and she still wasn’t sure how ready she was to face them. While she was by this point fairly certain that Dusk Shine would not have done anything too untowards, she was still expecting that she’d still have to make some apologies for his behaviour, or at the very least get some strange looks - if not from her friends, from those in town who were convinced that Dusk had been her…
But she could deal with that later, she determined. Today she just wanted to put the whole mess behind her, and there was plenty to do today to take her mind off it…
Once her ablutions were complete and she was ready to face the day, she walked over to the stairs, pausing as she trotted past the neatly folded pile sitting on the chair. The spell had taken her several hours to reverse-engineer, and the energy requirement was far from low, but she had been able to take things along with her without difficulty - and thus, lying before her was Elusive’s dress, along with a small sketchbook he had left behind with a note asking her to pass it along to Rarity.
And sitting atop it all, a framed photograph.
The six of them posed together - six stallions who saved the world, the closest of friends. She stared again at the image of her own double, the only one she had yet to meet, and likely never would - but it was difficult to make the connection with the image, really…
She glanced over at her own desk, noting where very nearly the same picture had once graced a frame on her desk, but it seemed they’d shared that thought. She was okay with that - she wouldn’t have taken the picture if she wasn’t fairly certain Dusk would be alright with it - but she made a note to herself to take a new picture with her friends soon to replace it - she didn’t feel quite right leaving this one in the same spot.
She still wasn’t entirely certain why she’d taken it in the first place, really, but even with all the stresses of the last day, she supposed she’d eventually want to look back on it and laugh… or at the very least, not have to go back there when her friends started asking what their stallion selves were like.
Yeah, that was a good reason, let’s go with that.
She put it back atop the dress, and headed downstairs.
~-~-~-~
“Hey, uh…” Spike glanced around, confirming who he was talking about, before finishing with a grin. “Twilight. Welcome back.”
“Good to be back, Spike.” She grinned, trotting over to hug him. “Dusk didn’t give you too much trouble, did he?”
“Nah, barely saw him all day. Seriously, Twilight, are you absolutely sure you didn’t just turn yourself into a stallion?”
“Yes, Spike.” She stuck her tongue out at him. “Still having trouble trying to imagine Elusive?”
“Elusive?”
“Rarity, only a stallion.”
He blinked, staring off into the distance for a long moment before shivering and sticking out his tongue. “I think I’ll stick to our Rarity, thanks.”
She giggled quietly, sitting down to a bowl of cereal as Spike casually moved around, tidying up various tidbits throughout the room.
“You… err, he I mean… he looked pretty stressed when he got back, though. He wouldn’t tell me why, just ran into his room and started researching...”
“Hmmmm?” That sounds… rather familiar. “Huh. Well, I don’t know. It was… different. Maybe I’ll tell you later. I don’t know exactly whether what happened to me was the same as what he went through with the girls.”
“Ah well… I think they’re coming now.” He glanced out the window.
She blinked, turning to the door, a few moments before the knock came - Applejack’s strong rap, interspersed with Pinkie’s rat-tat-tat as she playfully joined in.
Twilight grinned, quickly scooped up the last of her cereal, cleaned her face, and headed towards the door. Whatever happened, whatever problems occurred, these were her friends, the friends she’d had since she moved here, and it would be good to see them again in the bodies she knew…
She opened the door to the combined smiles of her five best friends.
Time seemed to slow to a crawl as she took in the image before her.
The smiles were very different in a lot of ways. They were all different types - Pinkie’s eager beam, Rainbow’s confident smirk, Applejack’s honest grin, Rarity’s knowing look, and Fluttershy’s quiet, shy smile. They were all at different levels, from Rainbow hovering her own height in the air to Fluttershy crouching, half-hidden behind Applejack, and Pinkie’s always on the move, bouncing along the scale.
But none of that was new. What was more interesting was what all of them had in common.
All of them were focused several inches above her head for a moment before flicking down to her face, and for just a fraction of a second each smile fell just a little into disappointment.
And almost like magic (or perhaps friendship) she could just see it…
"So… is that a yes?" Rainbow Dash grinned, raising an eyebrow suggestively.
Dusk gave a strangled yelp and slammed both of his front hooves down on the cloud, dissipating it instantly and leaving them both with a drop. He caught himself almost immediately before he started falling, and immediately put on some speed, shooting away from Dash as she yelped and tried to right herself in the air.
Fortunately, she didn't give chase, but he heard her laughing behind him. "You know where my house is if you change your mind!"
The laughter did nothing to calm down Dusk. “Really?! I got this from Dash, but I thought a bit better of you!” He growled. “I thought I explained I’m not Twilight turned into a colt!”
“Well, yeah, Ah got that.” She looked confused at that. “Ah wouldn’ta done something like that to Twi’, that’d make it all sorts of creepy. But you’ve been a stallion all along, yeah? Ah’d think you’d be used to that sort of attention. Ah wasn’t kiddin’ before when Ah first saw you, y’know.” She gave him a winning grin.
He heard from behind him a long sigh, and a whisper on the wind, amplified by his still-active spell. “He’s beautiful…”
Dusk froze, and spun around as Fluttershy squeaked, her hooves flying to her mouth and her face burning red. Before he could put words together in his mind, she bolted – flashing away in a yellow-pink streak at speeds Rainbow would have been proud of, back towards the cottage.
He stamped his hoof back down, hard enough to almost crack the stage. “A wedding suit, Rarity? Really? Did you think I wouldn’t notice the similarity to my sister’s dress? Or the colour scheme?!”
“Oh, Dusk, I am sorry, I let my muse run free and…”
“I was so happy you were keeping professional… but no, it wouldn’t be about that with you…”
“I was just talking about Twilight, you, effectively, being a worthy prince—”
“Thank you, Pinkie!” He smiled as she bounced up, the small bag held between her grinning teeth.
“You’re welcome!” She grinned, bounded up to him, and pressed her lips to his.
Dusk froze.
The warm, slightly moist, pink-fuzzed skin pressed up against his own, grasping and manipulating with all the long-earned skill of an adult earth pony. His own muzzle tingled wherever she touched him, a wash of hot, sugar-laden breath tickling across his whole face.
“Really? Really?! All of you?” Twilight cried out, glaring at the five of them, and thankfully getting at least a couple of guilty looks - although distinctly not from Rainbow Dash or Pinkie, she noted.
Applejack rubbed the back of her head with a hoof. “Well, we were kinda expectin’ to be apologisin’ a bit to Dusk, but…”
“Why would you think I’d still be switched with Dusk? After everything that happened yesterday?”
“It wasn’t that bad, was it, darling?”
“Not that bad?!” Twilight stiffened. “With all my friends - and just about everypony else - hitting on me to some extent just because I’m the other gender for a day? I was terrified that Dusk was doing the same to all of you, and I find things came down pretty much exactly the same?”
“Aw, come on, Twilight.” Rainbow frowned down at her. “You telling me you didn’t do anything fun?”
“No! What possible reason could I have to want to stay switched in that world for one second longer?”
“Well… I woulda thunk you’d at least wanna see what Celestia and Luna looked like as all stallion-y Princes!” Pinkie chirped, grinning.
~-~-~-~
Silence fell over the group for a long moment as Twilight’s jaw went slack. The five of them watched as her eyes unfocused, taking in something in the far distance as her brain clearly tried, and failed, to take in the concept that she had just been provided with - her mentor and her sister, the immortal overwatching entities of Equestria, filled with millenia of wisdom, knowledge and compassion, not to mention grace and power… as stallions.
The situation seemed to have a pressure that held all of them back from actually speaking further, as a full minute passed with nothing but a slight twitch of eye, jaw or wing from Twilight, and the gentle pronk of Pinkie and wingbeat of Rainbow.
Then finally, without ever losing the thousand-mile stare, Twilight took a slow, deliberate step backwards, and shut the door in their faces.
The five of them stood there for a few long moments more before looking to each other. Uncharacteristically, Fluttershy broke the silence, although with a far more usual “Oh dear… I hope she’s okay…”
Applejack’s mouth twisted into a frown. “I think ya broke her, Pinkie.”
“That egghead really needs to get her muzzle out of her books one of these days.” Rainbow rolled her eyes. “Think I should head upstairs and drag her out?”
“I doubt she would let something like this stop her from attending today’s events… though we may have to explain matters to the Princesses, if she looks especially awkward…”
“Nuh-uh!” Pinkie, the only one of the group still grinning, had her eyes still glued to the library, staring up into the wood of the tree when a clearly visible set of shudders and twitches wracked her body.
The others all immediately turned to her. “Pinkie Sense?” Applejack queried.
“Yah-huh!” She grinned, nodding fast.
“…Which one?”
“Um… one I probably shouldn’t say out loud.” She grinned cheekily, turning to them for a moment, her face very slightly darker pink than usual. The others blinked, staring at her.
“What…?”
But her grin had come back, and focused back on the door once more, a couple of seconds before they all heard the clip-clop of hooves once more approaching the door…
The door opened again, revealing a very familiar figure. Lavender of coat and three-tone of mane and tail, winged and horned - but significantly taller and bulkier than the mare who had walked out only minutes before.
With a build well and truly on its way to matching the noble stallion look, Dusk Shine was significantly above average for a stallion in height, though without the muscled bulk of most of the larger stallions like Big Mac. His wings were larger still, settled covering most of his sides; his horn long and pointed.
His mane was cut much shorter than Twilight’s, though it had the same exacting square cut and razor precision, it was cut to near nothing down his neck.
And on his long, elegant muzzle he wore a glare that said, in no uncertain terms, that not a single one of them was to say a word.
Then, after a long, tense moment (made perhaps much less tense by Pinkie’s bouncing excitedly) he closed his eyes, took a long breath, and opened them again with a sheepish smile and a blush.
