> A World, Reflected
>  by Bliss Authority
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Chapter 1: A Night, Stolen
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Chapter 1:
A Night Stolen

	 

For what must have been the tenth time - or more! - that night, Her Royal Highness Twilight Sparkle rolled over in her restless sleep, opened her eyes and checked the time.  It wasn't even five minutes since last time: Twilight let out a sullen groan. 

Spike was snoring away in the next room, a sound that reminded Twilight of a truffling pig on the hunt, but she was used to that - he'd always lived in the room next door, and frankly the rhythm of his breathing helped her sleep.  

No, the problem was that her newly acquired wings were aching and uncooperative; they would fold and unfold without any conscious thought on her part, often with great force at awkward angles against the hard 4-poster frame of her bed at the Crystal Spire.  It wasn't quite like banging her shin against a table corner three times in the night; there was less torsion when she banged her shins.

"Easy - It's just like having another set of legs," Rainbow Dash had assured her.  Well, okay, Rainbow, but most ponies' legs don't split at the hoof, Twilight hadn't said.  They aren't multi-jointed and splayed either.  I don't HAVE a Pegasi's instinct for wings, so don't you tell me that something you've practiced since you could walk is easy. Twilight knew that this was unfair to Rainbow - but Sun blast it, the pony could be so dense.  No theory of mind whatsoever; if it was easy for Rainbow, either it should be easy for anyone or it was proof positive she was the coolest thing in Equestria.

Since it had become apparent that she wasn't going to get any sleep, Twilight instead rolled out of bed and trudged towards her supplies for some paper and charcoal; if she wasn't capable of sleep, she was going to write while lying down at rest. 

Twilight had only brought one large saddlebag - writing supplies, a nonfiction book on apiaries and eusocial insects, a romance novel that Rarity had recommended called The Rider With Stars in His Eyes, by one Jenna Canterin Moran (which she had found deeply weird, albiet oddly romantic); a new dress for the occasion - Twilight would have brought her Gala dress, which she still thought was the most beautiful thing - but Rarity had insisted; and of course her crown, a gleaming starmetal tiara set with the physical Element of Magic, a gleaming star of some material like amber, but deep purple in hue.

She hadn't unpacked.  Twilight was absolutely sure of that.  Unpacking would have been in some small way admitting that her coronation was happening, that she was going to become a Princess - the Princess of Friendship, with broad domain over the Principality of Ponyville in the same way that Celestia managed Canterlot and the Day, Luna the Wyld Territories and the Night, and Cadence Romantic Love and the Crystal Empire.  Twilight had trouble keeping a village - well, okay, small town - library in order.  The thought of managing the Principality of Ponyville - an area much broader than Ponyville itself - was terrifying in its scope; thinking on it was like the math class when she understood for the first time precisely what was meant by 'Infinite.'

She hadn't unpacked, so why was the flap of her saddlebag hanging open in the moonlight?  And why were her papers strewn across... the floor...?

Twilight reared back, ready to gore, and concentrated on a point at the tip of her horn.  She felt the power well up at the tip and cast it out as a lavender glow illuminating the room -

And there she was!  A rippling of the air, as if refracted through a glass of water.  An invisible pony - well, nearly invisible.  Sloppy, Twilight found herself thinking. I couldn't do an illusion like that - but Trixie could, and for all her faults she wouldn't mess it up with the haze.  Whoever this is didn't even bother to add a charm of Obfuscating Mundanity.

Twilight traced the runes for negation, light, and revelation in the air with her horn in short, stylized calligraphic strokes, then let her counter-spell rip.  It flowed from her horn in an amethyst wave, which crashed against the invisible pony - and she popped into existence.

All that Twilight could make out was a swirl of hair the mixed red and gold of sunset, a horn, robes the grey of crushed granite - and that the unicorn thief's tangerine-colored mouth clutched the Crown of Magic in her teeth. 

The unicorn thief bolted for the door.

"STOP, THIEF!" Twilight said - not screamed but projected, both from her diaphragm and with her magic.  It should have been enough to wake the recently dead.  Where in Tartarus were the gua-

Twilight had enough time to avoid goring the guard - the only guard, she thought with dismay - that had come her way before crashing into him and OVER him.  Her wings flared out, catching the air and breaking her fall; it was the first time she'd ever been glad to have them. 

His helmet went flying, revealing a shock of blue, crew-cut hair; but he caught himself by rolling on his front calves and back up.  He whipped his head around to Twilight.  His face was at once both delicately featured and rugged, like a stone carving of a colt. "Your Highness, are you all right?" he asked.

"I'm fine, but the thief is getting away!"  Twilight pointed at the receding - and, she could swear, laughing - unicorn thief, who at this point had tossed the Element of Magic on her head. 

Both she and the guard picked themselves up, the guard not bothering with his helm,  and chased after her.  "Where are the other guards?"

"Asleep, probably enchanted.  I couldn't wake them up, your Highness," the guard said.  Twilight had lost sight of the unicorn thief.  Before she could speak, the guard jerked his head in the direction she had gone.

Twilight nodded thanks and turned that way, pooling magic in her horn.  She had an idea.

"Thank you, Mr...?"

"Lieutenant Flash Sentry, Miss.  Do you have a plan?"

Twilight nodded.  There was a door at the end of this passage, flanked by two pegasi guards. Asleep - and Flash was right to guess it was enchanted sleep.  No doubt the door was where the thief was headed.  

"So far all she's done are glamours," she said.  "Enchantments.  Wanna bet that's what her Mark is in?  Take her on my signal.  Three, two, one -"

Twilight stepped between the space separating her and the door in a flash of indigo.  She was facing the way that she had come from - face to face with the unicorn thief.  And she could see Flash Sentry's eyes light up with understanding as he spread his wings for a burst of speed.

The thief seemed utterly unimpressed.  Dusk take her, she was smirking.  That made Twilight very nervous.

Flash had tackled the thief a second later, the crown on her head tumbling between her forelegs and bouncing once.  "In the name of Princess Amore De Cadenza, Keeper of the Power and Estate of Romantic Love, I hereby place you under arrest for grand larceny and -"

"Still underestimating me, I see," said the unicorn thief.  She grabbed the crown between her teeth and her horn flared scarlet, bright enough to burn through Twilight's reflexively closed eyelids and leave an afterimage, and then her body and the crown flashed crimson -

And she was gone with an implosive pop as the air filled the void where she had been.

Flash Sentry looked up, blinked once, then took to the air to scan the room.  "She has to be around her somewhere.  Teleportation needs line of sight!"

"Or intimate familiarity with your exit point." Twilight said, her voice flat.  She implied something about the thief and Tirac's high opinion of her under her breath and tried the door. 

Locked.  Of course.  The thief had been counting on that, and on exactly the assumption Twilight had made.  "Twilight, you idiot.  'She can only do glamours!' It's not like you know any unicorns who know multiple schools of magic -"

"It's a mistake anypony could have made.  There are only two unicorns in recent history with a talent for magic itself, and you're one of them."  Flash Sentry's expression turned as dark as a thunderhead, and it didn't take the Power and Estate of Friendship to tell how angry - and bitter - his emotional state must have been underneath.  He ripped a keyring from an unresisting (and snoring) guard's belt and started trying the lock.  "No, this is 'Flash, you idiot.'  I should have recognized her immediately."

Twilight had an unsettling insight that Flash was trying not to emote - and that the murderous expression he wore was a successful attempt to suppress his true feelings.  

She reached out a hoof.  "Flash, do you know who that was?"

"That was Sunset Shimmer," Flash said through gritted teeth.  "Celestia's most faithless student, traitor to the crown -"  He unlocked the door and swung it open wide.  The room was completely empty save for one thing: a full-length lunargent mirror, gilt and jeweled, that reflected a forest that wasn't there. 

"- and, night take her sun-blasted soul to TARTARUS she's taken the Element of Magic to another WORLD!" Flash shuddered from his nose to his tail. 

Twilight considered this for a second.  Then she looked up at Flash, feeling a certain tension in her cheeks pulling the corners of her mouth down.  "Two questions."

"...I'm alright NOW, if that was one of them. " Flash had taken out a notepad and pen and was writing things down; Twilight guessed he was trying to mark every detail of the incident that he could.

"Glad to hear it.  Really.  But.  One, you're WAY too angry for this to just be about what she did to the kingdom."

Flash sighed.  "Your Highness, please let me keep what she did to me, personally - well, personal."

Twilight nodded.  She had figured as much. 

Then she raised her hackles, and said - almost snarled - "Why under Sun and Moon didn't Celestia tell me she had another protégé?"

"That's a very good question, my most faithful student.  I'm wondering that myself, now."

Twilight and Flash both looked up at the rare sight of Celestia both sorrowful and angry, and these both directed outward and self-inflicted.   Her hair streamed with all the colors of the sky at dawn, and her sleek white form was festooned with rose-golden orichalcum jewelry.

She looked very, very tired.  Twilight could relate.

"Your Highness!" Flash saluted, his face taking on the professional terror of an employee caught making a mistake by his boss - which, to be fair, was his exact situation.

"Celestia!"  Twilight looked on her mentor - her mentor, her first friend, even once upon a time her first crush - and Celestia hung her head in shame.  Twilight raised a foreleg to offer a hug, and this Celestia did accept - indulgently nuzzling Twilight's forehead as she nuzzled the Dawn Princess' shin.

"My little ponies, I have failed you," Celestia said.  "And I have done so by refusing to admit my greatest failure to you.  I can only beg for your forgiveness."

"I'll forgive you if you tell me what's going on," Twilight said, sitting down and crossing her forelegs.

Flash Sentry raised an eyebrow at Twilight's familiar - even defiant - tone; but Celestia accepted it, nodding. 

"Very well," Celestia said. "I will call the other Element Bearers and explain everything after I raise the Sun."  Celestia sighed, casting her gaze through the mirror to the alien world beyond it.  "This concerns all of Equestria, the Bearers of the Elements most of all."
> Chapter 2: A Traitor, Exiled
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Chapter 2:
A Traitor, Exiled


Spike had blamed himself, naturally; no matter what kind of assurances Twilight could make to him - about Sunset's invisibility ("Yeah, but I have a snout and it's not just for show, Twi") and skill ("Yeah, but I don't care how stealthy she was, I should have heard her!") and even the fact that she had enchanted almost everyone into sleep - and that the enchantment would have gotten Twilight too if it weren't for her aching wings ("Yeah, but I bet I could have woken up if I noticed something wrong...") - were casually rebuffed.

On the one hoof, Twilight was proud of Spike for his developed sense of responsibility.

On the other, she didn't want him second-guessing himself about something that genuinely wasn't his fault - especially not when she needed his help for what was shaping up to be a crisis as great as the return of Nightmare Moon, or Discord, or the coming of Sombra, or the Changeling affair.

Now she added Sunset Shimmer to this list - perhaps not as heavyweight a magical power, but apparently with cunning and a plan to make up for it. Facing a unicorn with no sponsored magical powers, like those powers of Nightmare that Luna under possession enjoyed, was MORE dangerous - not less. Even if it made you much, much more powerful, sponsored magic like that from the Nightmare, the Chaos, and Tartarus constrained your actions to their agendas and made you a fool outside of their spheres of influence.

To the best of Twilight's knowledge Sunset had no such restrictions.

Her best friends were in town for the coronation, of course. Gathering the Bearers of the Elements of Harmony was as simple as knocking on their doors (personally - Twilight insisted, although she accepted Flash and another guard flanking her in case of danger), summoning them to breakfast with the Princesses of the Dawn and Dusk.

She went to Pinkie Pie first, and also mentioned to her that lemon-iced poppyseed muffins would be available to eat - then stood well away from the resulting pony cannonball.

"That's almost exactly like having CUPCAKES for breakfast! Is that even allowed?!" Pinkie said as she pranced in a circle.

Twilight managed to swallow a laugh, instead putting a hoof on Pinkie's withers and giving her a broad smile. "The Princess said so, so I guess it is, Pinkie."

"WOOHOO ONLY TECHNICALLY NOT CUPCAKES FOR BREAKFAST what's the occasion? Is it cause you're a Princess now and Princesses can do that despite what's expected of breakfast? Oooh, ooh, or are you now The Princess of Breakfast? Or -"

Twilight sighed. Flash and the other guard exchanged mortified expressions. Pinkie noticed, and her face dropped.

Then she spoke. "On a scale of one to the night lasting foreverrrr -" Pinkie rolled the R exactly like Luna had under Nightmare possession, though she managed to make it sound goofy rather than predatory. "-how bad is it this time?"

"That's what we're going to find out together," Twilight said. "Over breakfast."

"I can save you some trouble and say: Pretty moonsent bad," Flash said. He looked down at his hooves and scowled.

Twilight frowned. "Not enough detail to be helpful, I'm afraid." Before he could say anything, Twilight held up a hoof. "Don't say anything you don't need to, Flash. I'll hear it from the Princess. I'm not trying to pry."

"I thought that's what the Power of Friendship does," Flash said; but he was smiling. "Pry."


~~~~


And likewise, as Twilight picked up her entourage -


~~~~


Applejack opened the door between the second and what was to be the third knock, and looked out. She wasn't even wearing her hat; Twilight thought that she looked strangely less than herself without it, as if she were missing a leg.

Applejack's eyes landed first on the guards, then on Pinkie bouncing in place, then finally on Twilight's downcast eyes and ears.

"How bad?" she asked.

"The Element of Magic has been stolen and taken to another world," Twilight told her. "The Princesses called a strategy session over breakfast."

She winced. Then held up one hoof. "One sec," she said.

When she returned it was with a lariat over one shoulder and, with her hat secured firmly on her head, whole and ready again. "Let's go then; time's-a-wastin'," she said.


~~~~


On the fifth knock, Rarity's groan oozed through the cracks in the doorframe. "It isn't even six in the mo~or~ning," she choked out, her tone warbling theatrically. "Go away, you brutes!"

Applejack sighed. "Rarity, it's us. Things 'r going down. Element things."

There was a pause at that, as Rarity considered the new information. Finally, she responded with an "Oh." Then: "Give me a second to put my face on, with my apologies to the guards; and please convey my earlier message to the malefactors instigating the current fiasco."

"Give Sunset your regards - check!" Pinkie said; and if the glee in her voice had a dark edge, then no one there could blame her.

Rarity opened the door, at the tail end of wiping her face with a washcloth limned in pale blue fire; there was a crunch and the scent of cucumber as she trotted off to join her friends. She gently put away the washcloth with the power of her will, then grabbed a constellation of makeup supplies with her telekinesis - eyeliner and mascara and blush and foundation - applying it as they walked without missing a single step.


~~~~


Twilight only needed to knock once before the door blurred, and Rainbow Dash glowered up at her with bloodshot eyes and a flat-eared, flat-mouthed, and flat-browed expression that combined bone-weariness with a complete lack of patience.

"What the hay happened last night?" Rainbow demanded. "Flutters woke me up about four hours ago saying she thought she heard shouting and fighting and she was scared and would I PLEASE help her get back to sleep, so sure, no problem, I would. Except now YOU guys are waking me up, again, before I could properly go chill with Luna and Daring Do in the cotton candy cloud dream again, and -"

"- The element of Magic was stolen last night," Twilight said. "Fluttershy probably heard that. I'm sorry you couldn't get enough sleep -"

"- And believe me, I sympathize, it is simply DREADFUL when you can't get your beauty sleep," Rarity opined (to a roll of Rainbow's eyes) -

"But we have a crisis, and the Princesses have invited us to breakfast so we can deal with it, so don't be angry at us, be angry at Sunset Shimmer." Twilight nodded: those were the salient details

"Oh dear," said a voice from under the bed. Fluttershy poked her head out, followed by her wings. "That does sound awful. Let me know how I can help - and I'm sorry about your sleep, Rainbow, if I'd have known I wouldn't have -"

"Nah, YOU'RE cool, Fluts." Rainbow groaned - rubbing her eyes and rolling her neck, shoulders, and wings, all at the same time. "Who outta Tarturus is Sunset Shimmer?" Rainbow asked.

"She's a big old meanie pants and a thief and the Princesses will tell us what color her meanie pants are during breakfast, which by the way will have things that they swear aren't cupcakes but totally -"

"- Breakfast is going to be just awesome, okay, got it," Rainbow growled, cutting off Pinkie by walking out of the room with Fluttershy right behind her. "I am going to kick this idiot's flank so hard that people will think her special talent is in BRUISES."


~~~~


Celestia, Cadenza - festooned in rose quartz, electrum jewelry and pink jade and with a look of quiet sorrow, and Luna - who wore her regalia of lunargent, sapphire and opal and a look of mixed anger and fear - all looked exhausted, and the coffee and sweet pastries were not helping. Their fatigue was probably far more emotional than physical, even granted that Luna needed her sleep and Celestia had just raised the sun.

After a period of grazing on pastries, Luna broke the silence. "WE -" Luna coughed. "We heard about the events of last night from Our sister. We apologize for not intervening personally, but - if you will pardon the expression - We had our hooves full."

Applejack looked up from her turnover, directly into the Princess of the Dusk's eyes. "Yeah, no offense, but we're gonna need more details than that about why you weren't protecting the Element of Magic, yer Highness."

Princess Luna almost imperceptibly reared back; Flash had dropped his jaw. Only Applejack could get away with that, Twilight thought, and only by speaking as Honesty's Bearer.

Luna gritted her teeth; her gaze remained steady. "A portal to the Nightmare had opened over Appleloosa and was spawning wendigo -" Applejack started at her for the half-second before Luna could raise her hoof. "- WHICH IN OUR ROLE AS THE PROTECTOR OF DREAMS, We contained and destroyed before they could injure or otherwise harm your relatives. Or any other creature, for that matter."

Applejack blinked, then slumped back in her seat. "Thank you for that, yer Highness," she said. It was an apology, and Luna nodded, accepting it.

"That kind of portal doesn't open - or stabilize - that quickly, not naturally," Twilight said. "And wendigo in particular require consuming hatred to naturally spawn, much less to summon. I didn't think there's anypo- anyone, buffalo or pony, capable of that much hatred there.  Not after we helped them resolve things."

"Sunset. " Rainbow said. In that word, she managed to convey complete disgust. "It was Sunset, wasn't it? Just keeping you busy while she magicked up a quick nap for everypony."

Luna sighed. "Indeed, it was either her or her agents. We are led to believe the wayward Miss Shimmer has become something of an expert on portals."

Rarity shivered. "Dawn and Dusk, that's heartless," she said.

"You have no idea," Flash said, his face utterly without affect.

Celestia cleared her throat. Everyone at the table raised their heads to the Princess of the Dawn, ready to listen - although Pinkie continued to, very slowly, move the poppyseed muffin in her hoof to her mouth; as if no one would notice her doing so if she just slowed it down.

"Twilight." Celestia nodded to her; she bowed her head in return. Then she turned to each pony of the Element-Bearers and named them, in turn; they bowed to her, and she returned the gesture with a tilt of the head. "I have gathered you all here to warn you about the danger that my former student in Sunset Shimmer poses to the crown - and to The Crown, the physical embodiment of Magic."

Celestia's voice lowered, and she sighed - her hair responded with rippling patterns in the colors of an aurora. "I failed her, and you, my little ponies. Once while I was teaching her, when I did not take rumors of her cruelty seriously enough. Once again when I caught her, exiling her and leaving her free to wreak unknown havoc on another world - instead of imprisoning her where she could do no harm. And again, now, for not warning you of her existence - you, Twilight, my most faithful student; and you, the Bearers of the Elements of Harmony, defenders of Equestria, champions of the realm."

"I should have told you about my misgivings at the time, your Majesty," Flash said.

Cadenza frowned, raising one eyebrow at her guard. "Even if saying so now could help things, the High Princess would not have believed you then - to our injury. We both know why not."

Twilight held up a hoof. "Why don't you start from the beginning, Celestia." Twilight said. "I need to take notes."

Spike looked up from a corn and cheese muffin studded with miniature topaz in the shape of corn niblets, sighed, and got a quill and paper from Twilight's bag. "You mean I need to take your notes," he grumbled.

"That's why you're my number one assistant... and I pay you the big gems," Twilight said, slipping him a 12-karat sapphire for his trouble.

Spike took one look at it, then nodded and swallowed it whole; then he stood at attention, looking straight at Celestia, quill hovering at the ready over a blank scroll.

Celestia nodded, then began to tell her story.


~~~~


"Sunset Shimmer," she began, "was my most promising student before you came along, Twilight. In fact, her story is very similar to your own, even if she was raised with a silver spoon in her mouth; she was a late bloomer, blank-flanked well into her teens, and barbarously ridiculed for it by her peers in class. Most of them already had their Marks, their trust funds, and a strong plan for the future.

"Sunset resented them, and why not? They were mocking her for something that was no fault of her own. I could have - and did - tell those lordlings that not having your life planned out and your destiny writ large on your hip as a teenager was nothing to be ashamed of." Celestia chuckled. "After all, I turned out alright."

Twilight raised an eyebrow at this statement - and most of the other ponies seated there expressed their shock in their own ways; but none of them interrupted Celestia.

"So she studied. She practiced. She did some very unwise things, in the hope of proving herself the better of her classmates - including sneaking into the restricted section of the Canterlot libraries and reading books of spells that..." Celestia's nostrils flared, and her voice grew cold. "...that were restricted for a reason. I found that out later.

"One day, at lunchtime at the school, Sunset stood up on her table in full view of her detractors and said that she would show them what she was capable of. And they laughed, and called her names like they always did - only this time, it was more vicious then before; they called her a clod-eater with a wooden horn, and worse."

Applejack bared her teeth in a snarl at that, and Pinkie Pie's jaw went slack, spilling lemon-iced crumbs on the floor; for 'clod-eater' was one of the most vicious slurs for an Earth-pony in Equestria, and was frequently the last thing a unicorn ever said during the War of Hearthswarming. Even Fluttershy gasped, even Rainbow Dash shook her hoof, even Twilight winced, and even Rarity muttered "Twits" under her breath.

"Then she worked her spell - and they stopped laughing. For behind her, like a halo, was a portal she had torn into the world; one straight to the Elemental Plane of Fire, and positioned so it set the mane of the worst of the bullies ablaze, sending him running and screaming."

Celestia paused, and shook her head. "When I found her, she was apologetic; she said that she didn't mean to do it, that the spell responded to her anger before she could stop it. I believed her then; such mishaps are common with newly Marked unicorns. But she had lied. That was an act of violence - of calculated, deliberate cruelty, not even constrained by eye for an eye justice. I understand why she did it; I sympathize with her anger, with her resentment; but that did not - cannot - make it right."

Twilight raised her hoof - a reflex from grade school she had yet to unlearn, even as a princess, even as she asked her question without prompting. "So Sunset got her cutie mark in... portals?"

"And evocation through them," Celestia said. "She worked magic by splitting the world open, creating holes to worlds composed of the energy she wanted to work with. She powered up her telekinesis by tapping into the gravity wells of stars, and could easily summon objects - or creatures - from other planes. Her mark is a yellow sun blending into a red one, to reflect this blending of alternative worlds."

She pointed a orichalcum-shod hoof at Twilight. "You, in comparison, draw on the essence of your world - and tie it to your own essence, and the essential energies and humors of your friends, to amplify their power; and that is why your mark is a star made of smaller stars, because to you, friendship is literally a form of magic."

"Her spells are powered by humor? She must get a lot of kick out of being friends with me!" Pinkie said.

"Not that kind of humor, dear," Rarity said.

"Not just, anyway," Twilight replied. "I do get a lot of mileage out of Pinkie being sanguine, but I get just as much out of Applejack's melancholy, Fluttershy's phlegmatic moods, Dash's choleric nature, and - and this isn't the time to be talking about humor theory." Twilight's wings flared out and covered her grimace, seemingly of their own accord. "Sorry, Celestia. Go on."

"Quite all right," she said; then continued.

"I took Sunset in as my student, at the Academy of Nine Stars; much the same way that I took you in. I gave her free reign of the libraries, and let her study magic, put her together with other promising students who did not have scholarships."

Celestia paused here, and sighed; one long whinny that arced lower in pitch as her head arced lower in a gesture of regret. When she spoke again, she did not raise her head.

"I did not completely dismiss the rumors about her time in the Restricted Section of the library, and of the curt - if not rude - way that she treated the staff, the guards." Flash grimaced at that. "I was not quite that blind. Yet when I questioned her she was always wide-eyed and remorseful... in my presence, and made apologies that we soon learned were empty.

"When I had heard the story about the cat that had gone missing - and then other mage's familiars, the owl and the rook and the dog - I didn't connect it to her until it was too late."

Fluttershy shuddered from nose to wingtip to tail, her eyes wide in horror. "I don't understand," she said. Her expression said otherwise, however; that she understood all too well.

"I..." The words were difficult for Celestia to say, and she turned to Luna and then to Cadence for help describing what had happened. Luna could offer nothing but her foreleg.

Flash stared down at his greaves, jaw set, determined to say nothing.

Twilight broke the silence. "They were... sacrifices, weren't they?"

Everyone turned to stare at her, Fluttershy with her hooves over her mouth to catch her squeak and just a little bit afraid of Twilight. And why not? Twilight was a little afraid of herself for knowing that you could power a spell with shed blood. She would never do it - not with blood seized by force, at any rate; blood freely given was very useful for spells to heal the donor - but she had learned how to work blood magic, if only to counter it.

And a wizard's familiar was a more potent source of lifeblood than most creatures - only that of a sapient will-worker was more powerful ounce for ounce, whether their magic was in their hooves, their wings, or their horns.

"So We eventually discovered," Luna said. "And We - Celly and I - caught her before she could harness that fell power to the petty vengeance she would use it for." Luna considered this. "Rather, We caught her as she worked that dweomer, and unwove it as it was cast, before sealing her horn and capturing her."

Celestia nodded, with effort. "You've seen her hair; alternating red and gold. It used to be all gold, until she stained them with her crimes."

Rainbow Dash folded her forelegs and nodded. "So you caught her before she could really hurt anypony?"

Fluttershy shot her a look that mixed anger and sorrow in equal measure.

Rainbow turned to see this, and hastily added "Well, before she could cast the really nasty spell she hurt those critters for," and scratched the back of her head with a pasted on 'Let Dawn come and let me be smiling' grimace.

Fluttershy averted her eyes. "It's okay," she whispered.

"So ya exiled her," Applejack said. She held up one hoof and spun it sunwise, a gesture she used in impatience; well go on, then.

"We sealed her powers because of the myriad ways she had abused and defiled the gift of a Unicorn's magic," Celestia said. "Then we exiled her; not to punish her but as a lesson, and as a precaution. Oh, how bitterly angry she was at that; and oh, how little she tried to hide her anger, once we made it clear that we were not fooled any longer."

"What kind of seal did you use?" Twilight asked.

"I personally enchanted her horn to produce magical interference waves whenever she cast spells, in a widdershins pattern against its curve," Cadence said.

Twilight whistled.

Rarity nodded. "A rather elegant solution, I'd say."

"Yes, well. She was rather upset after trying to brute-force it." Cadence shook her head, allowing herself a slight smile. "Perhaps being in a world without magic disrupted the spell I had placed on her horn, or perhaps she found some other way to -"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold up." Rainbow Dash jabbed her forehoof between Twilight and the other princesses. "'A world without magic?' How the hay does that even work?"

"I don't know," Celestia said.

Rainbow Dash's jaw dropped. "How can you NOT KNOW!?" she demanded.

Flash turned to her, eyes blazing. "How dare you speak to the Princess that way, Rainbow Dash?" he said; though it was gentler than he might have said to someone who hadn't saved the realm on multiple occasions.

Rainbow Dash was about to snap something back, then stopped with her mouth open. She sat back, head averted, forelegs crossed. "I'm sorry, Your Highness - didn't sleep well last night. I just - a world without MAGIC. How?"

Celestia frowned; Twilight got the feeling that pondering Rainbow's question had often kept the Sun Princess as sleepless as Rainbow was last night.

Then Celestia turned to Twilight, nostrils flaring - and her hair billowing like flames. "Understand; I did not exile her to another world. To do so would be an abdication of responsibility; it would have passed the problem on to a plane that may not have been equipped to deal with it. I know all too well what happens when one upsets the balance of another plane of existence."

"Where could somepony possibly learn that 'all too well?'" Applejack thought out loud.

"It is not my place to say," Celestia said, looking her straight in the eye. 

AJ blinked, not having expected an answer; then she frowned and nodded.

Celestia sighed. "I forbade her to set foot in Canterlot, leaving the rest of Equestria open to her. But Sunset escaped to another world through the Mirror of Reflections - probably with a Gate Key created before we sealed her powers. She came back the same way last night - her power restored! - and then left through the Mirror of Reflections again, with the Element of Magic."

There was a silence.

Rarity broke it. 

"It sounds as if she had been planning to escape that way from the beginning," she said.

Celestia shook her head. "She planned to return - almost certainly to wreak vengeance on me and my peers, for the perceived 'injustice' of sealing her power away."

The Princess of the Dawn turned to Twilight.

Twilight looked her right in the eye. "Tell me how to fix things," she said.

Celestia bowed her head and smiled. "As well as I know how," she replied.


~~~~


The good news was that the Mirror of Reflections was still active; indeed, it would be active the night of every full moon - and the world it led to seemed to have lunar cycles that synced up with Equestria's own, so Twilight could, in theory, return the same way. Sunset had certainly managed, and under a greater handicap.

The bad news was that of the Bearers of the Elements, only Twilight could go. This was not out of any sense of personal responsibility, or out of the fear of tilting the balance of the other world (although Celestia cited this as reason it was just as well that only Twilight was going), but because of a limitation of the Mirror itself. As far as anypony knew, only a unicorn - and only a unicorn wizard, with a facility for dimensional magic - could open the gate within the Mirror. Even then it required a variant teleportation spell; the gate would only be open for a literal instant.

When he heard this, Spike tugged lightly at Twilight's mane. She turned to face him, and he spoke. "What if I was riding her?" he asked.

Celestia blinked; this had not occurred to her. She turned to Luna. "You would be the expert on liminal magic," Celestia said.

Luna put a hoof to her chin and considered it, then nodded. "If th'art prepared for such a journey, and if Twilight can shift the additional burden -" she turned to Twilight, who nodded; Spike was light, and she was grateful she wouldn't have to go to a strange world alone - "Then We see no reason thou couldst not accompany her."

"Like I'd let you out of my sight for a second if I could help it," Spike said, one eyebrow raised. "You could burn a Mug O Ramen; you'd starve without me."

Pinkie giggled at that, and Twilight was the first to join her; AJ said that had reminded her of something, and left.

The Princess of the Dawn held up one hoof, her expression utterly serious and her hair a steady wave, as if from a wind beyond the mirror. "Twilight, my most faithful student, one last word before you go," Celestia said.

Twilight nodded. "I'm listening."

"Should it come to a fight," Celestia told her, "should you and Sunset exchange blows and spells -" and here she grimaced, hesitating to continue, before bowing her head - "then you should match her blow for blow, and use force necessary to end the fight in your favor, even if it should hurt her." Celestia sighed. "Even if it should kill her. You did not hesitate against the Changelings; do not hesitate against Sunset, either."

Twilight's jaw dropped. When she found it again, she shook her head. "I'm not sure if I can do that," she said. "The Changelings - the Changelings weren't ponies..."

"I'm not even sure the Changelings could think, aside from Chrysalis," Flash said, his queasy expression the mirror of Twilight's own. He did not otherwise opine at the Sun Princess' advice, but it was clear he shared Twilight's dismay at it.

Twilight rolled her eyes, blowing a puff of air up to flip up one of her long bangs. "Yes, well. I have my doubts about Chryssi," she said - eliciting a grin and a salute from Flash, which she returned in kind.

Except that she was blustering. If Cadence HADN'T revealed Chrysalis, the Changeling Queen's plan would easily have worked; it was only once her plan fell apart that she began to make mistakes. And her plan fell apart because Twilight had been cold-hearted to her. It hadn't even occurred to Twilight to show mercy once her brother was in danger. Not even when Twilight thought she was dealing with an inexplicably cruel Cadence.  

Dawn and Dusk, Chrysalis had even been counting on that - only the errant intuition that was she this pathetic looking, this desperate? saved the true Cadence.

And it was only now, in relative safety - when her mentor was praising her for that cold conviction, and advising her to wield it again - that Twilight was bothered by it.

"Should it matter?" Celestia said, sighing. "Chrysalis and her Swarm were a threat to all life in Equestria - merely all life in Equestria. Would you stay your hoof against a threat to two worlds if it had a pony's face?"

"Did you stay your hooves against Us, when We were possessed by the Nightmare?" Luna added. "No - nor should you have. T'was good that We survived our exorcism, but you could not have known We would. Yet you did not hesitate to end that fight - and such was to the weal of all."

Twilight had no answer to that other than flicking her eyes - and tail - to Luna, Flash, and Celestia in turn, a flat-eared and flat-mouthed expression on her face.

Applejack provided a much needed break in the tension of the room by returning just then with some carefully wrapped pies that she placed in Twilight's saddlebag - apple, of course, but also a mushroom pot pie and a quiche; she said that was going to serve them at the Coronation, "but ya need them more now, looks like." Twilight assured her that they looked and smelled delicious.

They marched to the Mirror of Reflected Worlds. It was still night on the other side - though distant birdsong, muffled as if through water, suggested it was close to dawn. Twilight turned and gave each of the Element Bearers - each of her closest friends - and Cadence a hug, in turn; she saluted Flash, and bowed to the Princesses of Dawn and Dusk.

Then she turned to the portal, traced a sigil with her horn - and she and Spike vanished from the face of Equestria.
> Chapter 3: A Damsel, Distressed
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Chapter 3:
A Damsel, Distressed


Twilight had not expected the spell to hurt.

In transit - during the longest second of her life - Twilight had felt a horrible stretching sensation and heard horrible cracking sounds. They were like the soft pops between her vertebrae when she rolled her neck; only they were much louder, much longer in duration, and much, MUCH more painful. It was very bad along her back and especially bad down her forelimbs, where she perceived a sort of splintering and tearing sensation. The place where her horn met her skull burned with pain, and her sinus pressure was unbearable.

Twilight felt her eyes watering and couldn't suppress a low whimper from the back of her throat. Distantly, she felt Spike roll off her back, and heard him howl in pain too.

Twilight tried to get up, but her limbs wouldn't cooperate with her. She could feel horrible pressure in each of the bones that twined into her forehooves, and both pairs of her ankles were - and the thought was absurd, but there was no other accurate way to put it - much too low, and far too stiff.

Rocking onto her heels helped, somewhat, but her sense of her own body felt subtly wrong in a million places.

Her saddlebags had shifted down to her flanks sometime during the transit. She turned her head to them so she could point her horn - or rather, she tried to; the muscles in her neck seized when she tried. And while she was at it, what had happened to her peripheral vision? Her sight was now far, far too narrow; usually she could almost see directly behind herself, but now she could barely sense the edge of a hemispherical arc.

It was then that she saw what had happened to Spike, and her eyes went wide. Spike had become a -

Twilight shook her head and looked again, turning her whole body to face him.

Spike had shifted shape into a dog - or rather, into something very much like one.

His new form had the dense, curly hair of a poodle - offwhite, and purplish on Spike save for greenish strips on his belly and ears - with claws at the end of both sets of the large, padded paws he now sported. Yet she could still smell the ash and flame in his belly, and his hyperventilation in his panic sent wisps of smoke streaming out of his mouth and nose.

Twilight rubbed her throat, a sinking feeling in her stomach. She could still feel a thick bundle of vocal cords, thank the Dawn. Now she had to test them.

"Spike?" she said - and then she breathed a sigh of relief. Whatever baleful transformation she now knew with certainty had hit her in transit, it hadn't affected her ability to speak. "Spike, it's-" okay would have been a lie. "-it's over. We're safe now." Twilight tried to shift her ears around to listen for danger and was only a little bit worried when they refused to budge.

"You don't understand, it hurt so bad," Spike whined - in a way that was so similar to Winona's down-pitched warbles when Applebloom left home for school that Twilight had to fight back inappropriate laughter. Now that she could see what had happened to Spike, what had happened to him wasn't nearly as scary - not to Twilight, anyway.

Twilight took a few shuddering, painful steps towards her Number One Assistant and nuzzled the side of his head. "I know. It happened to me too. I felt like I was being pulled apart by each of my legs, Spike. But it's over now."

Spike nodded and exhaled, flipping the curly bangs he now wore up and over his ears. "You PROMISE it's over," Spike said in the tone of voice he usually used when asking 'you PROMISE you saved me a slice of pizza.' And that, Twilight did laugh at - and Spike halfheartedly joined in, struck by the absurdity of their situation.

Twilight sat down, tucking her butt behind her ankles. "I don't know why, but we - we've changed, here. Wherever here is."

Spike looked up at Twilight - and stared. "Uh, Twilight?"

"Don't tell me. I should - I should examine myself."

"Okay," Spike said. "It's just that I don't know what you turned into."

"Oh, boy." Twilight sighed and lifted her foreleg for inspection.

She was clothed in a simple blouse with a sleeve the color of cream that reminded her of a grammar-school uniform; the clothing alone would have been surprising. But her (now furless) shoulder and foreleg was also thinner than it should have been; and it tapered faster, expanding a little at the knee and then down again at the ankle. Then the heel spread, flattened and widened into a thick pad; and the individual bones of the arch of her foot had indeed split and spread into five individual -
(sublimbs? Digits?) 
- Digits, one splayed out opposite the other four, and each tipped with a small ovoid shard of hoof.

Her skin was still purple, but of a more reddish hue - like the bark of an old sequoia tree; except on the heels and toes of her forelegs (if they even were legs anymore), where they faded into sun-bleached brick.

She un-clenched her... not-a-hoof... and tried to move each digit, experimentally; she found that she easily could, and touched each digit to the opposable one. Now that she wasn't terrified or in pain, Twilight found herself perversely enjoying this experiment with her new form.

"Hands," she said, blinking at the realization.  "Huh.  That's interesting."

"Say whahuh?" Spike replied.

Twilight waggled what she now knew should be called her fingers at Spike. "Whatever I am now, I have hands. Which probably means that..." She rocked back on her hind heels, and stood up, wobbling only slightly before she corrected her stance - and she whooped. "I KNEW it! I'm a biped now, Spike! That's AMAZING!"

Spike stared at her with a completely, and deliberately, blank expression. Then he scratched the back of his ear with his hind leg. "And I'm a dog. Whoopee," he said.

It was then that they heard the scream.


~ ~ ~ ~


The victim was of the same species Twilight now seemed to be, and was a filly - or at least a child of the species and, if her denim skirt and pale homespun blouse was any indication, female in gender. Her skin was much paler than Twilight's now was, reminding her of the color of a half-ripe peach; the child's hair was halfway between red and gold, and framed her face in waves.

She was running full tilt from someone or something as yet unseen to Twilight, with terror both obvious from her upward-stretched facial expression and her mingled sobbing and screaming. As she ran, she pumped her muscular arms, one of which had a bandage made of some curious material only slightly darker than her skin applied to some minor cut.

Somehow, she seemed oddly familiar to Twilight - something about her strawberry blonde hair was setting off a siren in her mind that she could not, as of yet, rationally explain. Twilight would have dismissed such intuition as nothing three years ago; Twilight also hadn't learned better from somepony - someone - who always trusted her gut - her twitching tail, rather - two years ago. Whatever about the quasi-filly's braid -
(tied with a rose ribbon, a huge rose ribbon, one she'd seen on a child before)
- and ribbon that was setting her off was real; she just didn't have the proper context to logically process it. Yet.

Twilight knew the rest of the clues would come if she kept her eyes and ears open, and focused on helping the child for now.

Her new form was too Sun-blasted slow for her tastes, but she hadn't any trouble jogging towards the child's screams, especially once she had taken a long and sturdy stick from the ground as a makeshift walking staff. It helped that the child seemed to be running towards them. Spike was actually faster than her now - which was completely unfair, take it to the moon - but couldn't pour on the speed; he eventually slowed, panting with a lolling tongue, to stay alongside Twilight's more sedate march until they intercepted the child.

Twilight walked out of the underbrush and held up a hand - an empty, unarmed hand - to the child, her staff still to the side. "Miss, are you alri-"

The child responded by redoubling the volume of her scream, making Twilight clap her hand to her ear and wince. Dawn and dusk, she had a pair of LUNGS.

For a brief, horrified second Twilight thought that the child hadn't understood - and that she couldn't make herself understood to the child; this was another universe, a place far more removed from home than Hourek or Nihihipon, both places where the language of the land was completely foreign to even such a scholarly mind as Twilight's.

Then, to Twilight's great relief, the child spoke - and in Twilight's native tongue.

"Oh, GOD," the child said, between wheezing breaths. "Oh Jesus, oh God. Cry your pardon, miss, for a moment I thought you were -" she twisted her head behind her, her braid and that eerily familiar ribbon whipping around her neck as she did so - "I thought I'd go see myself the Ladies fightan a monster, didn't want to till Scooter called me a chicken and I couldn't take being called a chicken lying down, but ah didn't expect a REAL MONSTER less a herd of them, too many for the Lady to deal with and it had flaming hair and sharp fangs and it chased me and - and -"

"Calm down," Twilight said, holding her open hand up to face the child's forehead. "I'm here to help."

Spike, for his part, trotted over and sniffed the child's hand without saying a word; when the child smiled at her and offered her hand, he then consented to a scratch behind the ears. "Calm, raiht. Calmin' down. I can calm down," the child said.

Twilight frowned. More alarm bells were going off, more but not enough clues: her accent reminded her of Applejack, of all people -

- And the name Scooter! Twilight's jaw dropped as the separate threads came together in her mind. The child had red hair tied back with a pink ribbon, a friend she called Scooter, the kind of clothing Applejack wore to work - the kind of drawl Twilight associated with the Apple Clan.

Most of all, what little of her story that cohered reeked of a Cutie Mark Crusade that had, inevitably, gone horribly wrong.

Twilight closed her jaw, still staring in shock. "Applebloom?"

She looked at Twilight as if she had sprouted a second head. "Wha?"

"Is - is your name Applebloom?" Twilight said, holding her staff hand to her heart.

The child tilted her head in confusion. "Fleur. Mah name's Fleur."

Which sounds a lot like 'flower' - 'flor' - in Imperial, Twilight recalled. Applebloom is to Fleur as Scootaloo is to Scooter. This doesn't invalidate your hypothesis; it refines it.

She shook her head and looked back at her. "Right. You just - reminded me of someone for a second. Where did the monster come from?"

It was the child's turn to gape. "Ya believe me!?"

"I've seen weirder." This was a massive understatement; Twilight had faced everything from Parasprites to Changeling Hives to con artists to the Primordial of Chaos.

"Yer the first adult 'sides Sissy to think tha' monsters and the Ladies are real!"

THAT was unusual; Twilight raised an eyebrow. It could be that this was a boggart instead of an actual monster, but it didn't feel like it to Twilight. Not at all.

"Say rather that I'm willing to entertain the - " she said, before the explosion.

She saw it, off in the distance; a brief, strobing flare of teal light that illuminated up the woods with an eerie glow, followed by a hissing noise and the death throes of something that sounded to Twilight like the piteous whinny of a newly whelped foal.

To say it was unnerving was to speak a massive understatement. "What from Tartarus was that?" Twilight said, her voice low.

The child was considerably more cheered at the sight and the sound. "Ah, don't be scart of that - that was th' GOOD news. One of the Ladies caught 'n did in one of the monsters nearby." Fleur looked up at Twilight, now grinning and much more relaxed. "What's your name, missus? And what's Tartarus?"

Twilight almost said 'My name is Twilight Sparkle,' then caught herself. If she was right, and this was a twin of - a reflection of - Applebloom, then her using an Imperialized name meant something here. Twilight took a brief moment to mentally translate.

"Sorry, distracted." She winced a little at the white lie. "Say again?"

"Wha's yer name? And where's Tartarus?" Fleur asked, her fingernails digging into the soft greenish fur of Spike's underbelly; Spike either loved it or was a frighteningly good actor. Or both.

"...Lucia. Lucia Bolido." Twilight nodded. The name would work; 'Light of a Falling Star' wasn't an exact translation - but then, she didn't think it needed to be; Fleur was by no means a direct translation of Applebloom. "Tartarus is - where bad people are locked up. I shouldn't have said it to you."

"You were swearin'," Fleur said with a knowing grin - then she leapt up and around Twilight's leg. "I ahm so glad ah met you, Lucy. I thought ah was a goner, I thought no-one'd believe me."

Spike rolled over, back right-side up - then raised his hackles. Twilight looked up - and froze.

"They'd have to be idiots not to believe something staring them in the face," she hissed.

"Wha?"

"Fleur?" Twilight raised her staff to eye level, holding it horizontally, to ward off the thing in the shadows. "Stay silent, stay back, don't run, don't make noise. Do you understand me?"

Fleur looked up - and clapped two hands over her mouth, but nodded, and did exactly as Twilight bid her. Twilight and Spike both stepped forward, face to face with the creature that Fleur had been running from.

It was as tall as them, but this on all fours; the creature was longer from head to tail, and powerfully built from jet-black fur and muscle reinforced with barding of blue metal that Twilight really hoped wasn't starmetal - or moon-silver, worse. Instead of hair, it had a lick of blue flame trailing all the way from the crown of its head to its massive shoulder-blades, and another blue-hot flame for a tail. Its eyes had poisonous green irises and slit pupils, like those of a cat on the prowl; its nostrils flared malevolently, and its teeth had the serrated edges of a carnivorous wolf's.

"You, I take it, are a Nightmare," Twilight murmured. Yes, that sounded right to her; the only thing about it that didn't remind Twilight of Nightmare Moon was a certain dullness around the eyes. This thing wasn't sapient.

She hoped.

Twilight pointed her staff, and started to gather her will to her forehead so that she could fire a bolt of kinetic energy through her horn - then felt a dull pressure between her eyes, and then nothing.

She clapped a hand to her forehead.

It was as smooth and flat as an Earthpony's.

No horn.

Not even a nub.

Twilight looked up at the creature she was facing - the creature she was facing without her magic - and started to hyperventilate, stepping backwards, twirling her staff at least as a defensive weapon to hold it at bay. "Don't - don't get any closer," she said, wincing as she heard the growing panic in her own voice.

Spike took one look at Twilight and his eyebrows shot up. He took a deep breath -

"Spike, no! If I can't use magic then you won't be able to -"

- and exhaled.

A gout of green, corrosive dragonsbreath streamed out from the ludicrously small toy-poodle figure of Spike. It flowed upwards, connecting with the lightly-armored flank and belly of the much, much larger Nightmare - which whinnied pain and rage, rearing up on its hind legs to stomp on Twilight's familiar and Number One Assistant and crush his skull.

Twilight heard shouting and confusion in the distance, somewhere between where the pink wind had come from and the battle between Spike and the Nightmare.

Spike darted in under it, clawing with both forepaws, biting anywhere he could find purchase, spitting little gouts of flame where and when he could, delaying the inevitable final kick of the Nightmare as long as possible, drawing the Nightmare's full attention.

It was an act of utter selfless courage, and Twilight would not allow herself to waste the danger that Spike had placed himself in.

"Changed my mind!" Twilight screamed. "Fleur, run! STRAIGHT HOME! Now! Don't scream, don't stop, just RUN!"

"But the others -"

Another flash of teal rocked the forest - this one much closer, judging by the much briefer delay between the teal light and the subsequent gurgling. The beginning of a plan started to form in Twilight's mind.

"- the other Nightmares have their hooves full!" Twilight was almost screaming. "Your 'Lady' is picking them off, one by one - and I'm going to lead her here, but you have to get to safety!"

Fleur hesitated - then bolted a split-second before Spike stepped directly behind the Nightmare's hind leg. The Nightmare raised it and casually punted him backwards; Spike caught it directly on the chest. The blow sent him flying, sailing in a parabolic arc through the air until he landed, back-first, on a gnarled tree root and crumpled backwards with a sickening snap.

Twilight's howl of rage was probably what saved her.

She rushed the Nightmare with her staff, swinging it in wild arcs, raining blows on the Nightmare's neck and nose and eyes.

When it's fiery mane ignited the staff, Twilight waved it like a baton - trying to attack the creature and to draw attention to the unnatural flame tipping her staff at the same time, until it burned too hot and she reflexively dropped it from pain.

Even then, she kept fighting - bringing her hands together to keep clouting it on the snout.

The Nightmare clouted her, instead, with a vicious slash of its forehoof that sent her sprawling back, and the wind - not to mention her adrenaline rush - was knocked out of her as she slammed into a tree. The creature raised its hooves again -

- there was no time to dodge, noWHERE to dodge, nothing to do but instinctively raise her arms and pray to see the next dawn -

- and kicked downwards into two blurs of light, one pink and one blue, that interposed themselves between the Nightmare and Twilight.


~ ~ ~ ~


The Nightmare reared back, howling in pain; for one of the newcomers had wounded it - cut its hooves and along its lower foreleg with a razor-sharp blade. It was some sort of subtly curved one-and-a-half hoof saber that one of Twilight Sparkle's saviors was sheathing in the scabbard tied to his back.

This one of the pair was a young stallion - or rather, a coltish male of what Twilight now suspected was the dominant sapient species of this world; he wore (and Twilight let out a second of hysterical stress-giggles at this thought) a suit of shining armor, emblazoned with the device of a shield struck by lightning. Layers on layers of laminated steel plates protected his chest, belly, back, shoulders, arms, and upper legs. They, along with a ballroom mask of the same material - and Did Twilight's eyes deceive her, or was it starmetal? Was it iridium from a fallen star, alloyed with metal of the Earth? - which gleamed in the light of the Nightmare's mane and in the single ray of dawn's light that was starting to creep through the forest.

He had a face and frame that were both delicately featured and rugged, like a stone carving of a young colt, and almond-shaped eyes that were as grey as stormclouds. He smiled (barely) at the monster and cocked his head, as if inviting it to take the first move, his cobalt blue crew-cut hair fluttering from the motion.  His stance and expression had that rare combination of relaxed and utterly alert that Twilight had come to associate with professional soldiers, and with Rainbow Dash before a competition - if Twilight was translating the body language properly from quadruped to biped.

Twilight sunk to her knees and let her head roll and drop, grateful to be alive.

"I wouldn't relax quite yet, miss." The coltish lad made no move to strike the increasingly agitated creature, but also didn't move from his interposition between the monster and Twilight; she had the idea that she SHOULD have recognized his voice, but couldn't quite place it. "I can't do much but hold it off. I can only riposte, not attack; please don't ask me why that is, because I don't know, nor do I know HOW I know that."

"The Knight-Protector will keep you safe, no biggie! But killing the meaniepants is MY job," said Twilight's OTHER savior - and this voice, Twilight did immediately recognize. Twilight was intimately familiar with that bubbling, lilting, contralto voice, and when she looked up at its source -

- Twilight was shocked, but only for a second.

She was of the same species as Fleur, the same as the stallion/male she called the Knight-Protector, the same species as Twilight had become in this strange world; a little heavier in frame, short and mesomorphic and curvy, and with skin the color of dusty brick. But there the differences between her and her reflection ended.

There was the hair, for starters; a dense tangle of magenta curls that lagged a second behind her pivoting head as it swished in the wind. There were the eyes, blue as fresh berries, that twinkled with one of the thousands of jokes she kept in her head - as opposed to the ones Twilight KNEW this person saved for telling out loud, the ones she considered the best of them all.

There was even the clothing - not the clothes that Twilight had expected her in, but ones she'd certainly seen her reflection wearing before, save for the addition of a powder blue domino mask. It was a fancy dress, fit for a Gala, in alternating stripes of blue and white and pink like a swirled peppermint candy cane; layered pink and white petticoats swirled around her expansive hips, tied with a pale blue ribbon fastened with pins the shape and color of candy corn, and with a matching blue cap with pink ribbon like a soda jerk's.

Pinning a pink bow tie to her surprisingly ample chest - Twilight had no idea what function THAT served for this species - was an orichalcum brooch, to which was mounted a jewel; specifically, a balloon carved from a single piece of pink amber. And THAT, more than anything, left Twilight no room for doubt.

"You, I take it, are the Lady of Laughter," Twilight said to her.

She turned to Twilight, her face lighting up. "Wow, I guess word really has been getting arou-"

And here she casually backhanded the theoretically sneak-attacking Nightmare with a gloved fist; it actually made a sproing! noise as it connected from straight out of a slapstick routine, and there was a burst of teal fluid splashing out -

"- well, I'd love to chat but this guy is REALLY begging to be the punchline," she snarled. "Can this wait till after my routine slays our audience?"

"Got all the time in the world," the Knight-Protector said, his exasperation starting to show in the strain of his voice as he drew and parried a kick from the Nightmare's hind legs in a single motion. Then, curiously, he slid his sword back into its scabbard with a dull clack; Twilight wondered if this was ritual, technique, or both.

The Lady of Laughter - Pinkie Pie's reflection in this world - turned to face the Nightmare with a smirk, putting a hand over her brooch. From her back - from under her dress, it seemed to Twilight - she drew a long rod the size of a thick staff, but hollowed; this she split open where it met a handle, and stuffed with confetti, noisemakers, uninflated balloons, and hard candy, all while not only dodging but dancing around the Nightmare's attacks in a way that made it look humiliatingly incompetent.

"You've been a lovely audience, but it's time to bring down the house!" she taunted, with the cadence of a stand-up comedian calling out and putting down a heckler. She snapped the staff back into a whole piece and braced it against her shoulder, then shouted four words in a sing-song rhythm-

"Laughing~! Party~! Cannon~! Show~STOP~PER!"

- Pulled a small lever on the handle, and the Party Hand-Cannon bucked in the Lady of Laughter's hands and burned teal with a glowing stream of bubbling water.

Streamers and confetti gushed from the cannon, clinging to the creature's limbs and head. Balloons, perfectly inflated and tied, escaped as the cannon fired. Shards of candy cracked against the hide of the Nightmare. The noisemakers extended from the barrel with a festive squeal.

But it was the water - a water that glowed with a teal light and that sounded to Twilight like bubbling, relentless, mocking laughter - that scoured the Nightmare; that stripped away layers on layers of hair and skin and muscle, which burned away into blue embers in the night as the Nightmare piteously whinnied it's death rattle until it knocked the creature tail over teakettle -

- and there was a flare of pink over blue -

- leaving another child of this world's sapient species where the Nightmare had been. Twilight gasped.

The Lady of Laughter and the Knight-Protector both rushed to the side of the child, checking it's pulse; the Knight Protector nodded, waving the Lady away, and pumped it with his hands - laying them on the child's shoulders with great force.

It groaned and rolled over, asleep. They nodded to each other, then turned to Twilight.

"Any wounded on your end?" the Knight-Protector asked.

Twilight put a hand over her mouth; she had forgotten about... "Spike! Spike, my dr- my dog!" she corrected, mid-stream. "It charged the Nightmare - it kicked him, it was horrible -"

"Found him," said the Lady of Laughter, who was - for the first time that night - not in a smiling mood. "He got banged up pretty good."

The Knight-Protector swooped over to Spike's crumpled form - then nodded, rubbing his hands together. "Broken leg -but he'll live. I can heal him."

Twilight took that opportunity to collapse into a heap, close her eyes, and sigh relief for real.
> Chapter 4: A Sister, Met
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Chapter 4:
A Sister, Met


The rest of that early morning was a blur.  At some point the Knight-Protector had laid his hands on Spike to heal him, imperfectly; his wounds were closed, but his (mercifully cleanly) broken leg had merely been set and splinted, this being beyond the Knight-Protector's power to heal.  Twilight had seized him and kissed his head and his snout, lauding his courage; and at this point - with the Knight-Protector and Pinkie Pie's reflection departed to get the child to safety and to clean up the rest of the Nightmare herd - Spike protested that it was embarrassing and besides, this was what she paid him the big gems for.

"Well, I'm not paying you enough," Twilight said.  She briefly wondered if he was angling for just that reaction, then decided that he hadn't the guile - and even if he was angling for a raise, he deserved one. "I notice you're a lot more talkative NOW."

"Yeeeah, well."  Spike smirked at her - then winced; he had put his weight on his broken leg.  "Ow.  When's the last time you heard Winona talking?  Or Opal?  Or Angel?"

"They aren't really that loquacious," Twilight allowed, with a broad smile.  "You thought it would be less conspicuous if you were just my dog, then?" 

"Tell you what, you won't be able to shut me up the moment I see someone's dog talking to them on this side of the mi-"  Spike's ears suddenly perked up, and he sniffed the air - then cocked his head to the side, utterly silent, flicking his eyes and ears for Twilight to follow.

Twilight did.

Marching down a dirt path and illuminated by the rising sun was a woman - and one that Twilight suspected she knew.  The hat was the biggest giveaway, an unmistakable wide-brimmed dairy-rancher's cap made of tightly woven straw - but there were other clues.  The hay-colored hair, for example, tied back in a three-part braid; the eyes as vibrantly green as a freshly picked Pippin.  The skin, a slightly riper - and therefore more orange - cast of peach than her sister in Fleur, and dusted with deep red-brown freckles.  The hip-hugging denim jeans with voluminous pockets.  The red plaid shirt. The loose tan vest, also with pockets.

And there was the fact that she was escorting Fleur - who was clinging to her by a black belt of some strange and elastic material; and that she had something that caught the sunlight in her hand and refracted it back in gold and red.  She slipped this into a pocket, concealing it like a hold-out dagger.  Twilight raised an eyebrow at that, but said nothing.  She couldn't fault the woman for expecting trouble; Fleur and her reflection back home both clearly attracted it.

She tipped her hat to Twilight, squinting, frowning.  "Are yah Lucy?  You the girl that saved mah sissy?"  Her tone of voice suggested to Twilight that she - not doubted it, exactly, but that she was not at all sure what to make of it.

Or the fact that someone other than her had to look out for her sister bothers her, a lot.  Yes, that fit this woman's more equine half to a T.

"In that I got the monsters' attention long enough to get the Lady of Laughter's attention, yes," Twilight said, putting Spike down gently before hauling herself up.

To Twilight's surprise, the woman wrinkled her nose - as if Twilight had offered her a fresh cow pie instead of a clarification.  "Her?  Pfah.  Yer lucky yeh got out alive then.  Some - SOME - of the Ladies are alright, but Laughter - here's a big surprise - Laughter don't take this seriously enough."  She cast her gaze to the ground, her eyes smoldering, her frown poisonous.  "Guess she's better'n Generosity, at least..."

Twilight's face must have fallen at that - and she did feel herself biting her lip, come to think of it - because the woman averted her eyes.  "Not to say they don't mean well, but - " she hastily amended.  Then she shook her head.  "Ne'er mind.  Lucy - you saved my sister, and I'm grateful for it.  D'ya need a lift home?"

Twilight laughed nervously.  "Home, what home?  I just got here, looking for -"

She realized that she had no cover story, and nowhere to live while she was here.  It was possible that someone would purchase her gold bits and copper horseshoes for the local currency - gold and copper were, after all, valuable metals - but it was by no means assured, and even assuming she could exchange her money she had no idea how long it would last.  

On the former point, she was at least lucky that she was dealing with the person most likely to accept the truth - no matter how outlandish it seemed - at face value.  " - Well, this is going to sound incredible, but I'm here tracking down something that was stolen from me," she said.  "A crown, actually - made of starmetal, iridium I mean; it had a gem mounted on the front, a star -"

"- carved from purple amber?" the woman said, her eyes wide and her tone of voice both low and shocked.

"Is it anythin' like your brooch, sis?" Fleur said, pointing to the pocket in which the woman had stuffed it.

The woman and Twilight both gave Fleur the same look.  Dawn and Dusk, Spike was giving her the same pained expression, and the same slash-across-the-throat gesture: shut up! When the woman saw that she laughed a little bit, mostly out of nervousness; but her expression was all-too-familiar - a tight-lipped grimace, eyes darting back and forth, nose retracted into her face.

Fleur, naturally, was oblivious, and eventually rolled her eyes and folded her arms at her sister's 'baffling' non-answer.

"...Tell ya what, Lucy," the woman said.  "Why don't I put ya up for the night and get ya set up at Jay-eff-kay - tha's prolly where you wanna start lookin' for yer..." she coughed into her fist.  "Fer the Crown."  Twilight heard the caps, even if it was lost on Fleur.  "We can talk a bit.  Palaver, if you would."

"I'm very grateful for your Gener- for your help," Twilight said, cautiously.  She half-bowed from the waist, arms out in an expansive gesture. "I can help with food - I should have a few pies with me in my sad- in my bags, if they weren't squashed.  A quiche, a mushroom pie - and an apple pie."

"Apple pie.  Marry me," she said, with an exaggerated, appreciative groan of hunger.  "Yer the first house-guest we've had that brought pie with them.  Long story?" she asked, one eyebrow raised.

"You have no idea," Twilight said.  "And I'd love to tell it.  But first - may I ask your name?"

The woman doffed her hat and smiled.  "You can call me Jackie Lynn, miss; Jackie Lynn of the proud Calvados clan."

Twilight actually laughed. Of course. Isn't Calvados just a fancy brand of Apple - Jack?  She shook her head and, when Jackie offered her hand, she took it and shook it with a firm squeeze.  Where have I heard this song before?


~~~~


Fleur and Jackie sang, in synch with the cheery cadences of the cart's radio:


"At the Gala ~ everybody ~ will at last see my beauty!
"They will see me clean up nicely at the Gala!
"(At the Gala!)
"I will find him ~ my Prince Charming!  And how gallant he will be!
"He will treat me like a lady!
"Tonight ~ at the ~ GALA!"


Twilight didn't dare join in; she knew the song - or at any rate, the melody and MOST of the words - but she knew it as an act of ritual magic, as her circle of friends bolstering their will and stating their purpose.  And, of course, hearing Jackie sing Rarity's part - after Jackie had all but said that she loathed Rarity's reflection, the Lady of Generosity - was disorienting and disheartening. 

It was so strange, the things that made her homesick; a song, with all the right notes in the right order, but with the wrong words, and sung by the wrong people.

Instead, she looked out the window at the passing trees, the passing houses and shops - taller and grander than those in her own world, and with illuminated signs - and sighed, one hand under her chin and the other stroking Spike's dozing form.  

When the song ended, a newscaster reported the discovery of a lost child in the nearby 'Schwartzholtz State Park,' and on the continued bafflement of the local Rangers and guard as to the strings of kidnappings and mysterious deaths by trampling and goring of innocents in 'the Alameda county area.'  Jackie paid close attention to this, frowning, only nodding at hearing the happy ending of this story in the child's safe return. 

This was followed by a crier hawking a 'teevee,' whatever that was - and at this, Jackie shut off the radio.  

Twilight cleared her throat.  "I have a stupid question," she said.

"Might have a stupid answer," Applejack's reflection replied.

"What's the name of this city?" Twilight asked.

Fleur stared at Twilight, blinking.  "Wow, ya really aren't from around here, are you?  You one of them Ethiopian exchange -"

"FLEUR CALVADOS!" Jackie roared, her face flush with anger and secondhand mortification.  "Were you BORN in a BARN!?"

Twilight shrunk back, her face in an awkward half-smile, not knowing what to make of this.  "An Ethiopian what now?" she asked.

"Never you mind.  It's just - yer black and my sister's an idjit and ah am so sorry," Jackie said in one plosive breath.

Fleur folded her arms and directed her sullen gaze out the passenger-side window.  "Ah'm not an idjit and you know full well ah was born in a hospital," she said.

Twilight blinked, trying to piece together any context at all to put Jackie's shame into.  She looked down into her hands -

Her purple-red hands.  Ah.  "She assumed I was from another country, because I have darker skin," Twilight mused.

"Eyup," Applejack's reflection snarled, shaking her head.

Fleur grimaced, then turned to Twilight with a sheepish expression.  "When ya put it that way, it does sound kinda like I'm an idjit," she said.

"Apology accepted," Twilight replied, thinking.  

Back home, coat color was more or less random - and not, as it apparently was here, a racial marker. Wings or horns, or the lack of them, were markers of racial and national origin; less so, now that the three races intermarried freely after the Hearthswarming War, but there was still some lingering idiocy around the subject.  Moon and Stars, you only had to look at Prince Blueblood for a prime example of a thundering unicorn supremacist.

Twilight wasn't immune to more subtle kinds of racism, to her shame - she recalled her behavior towards Zecora and winced.   Okay, she wasn't immune to some overt kinds of racism either, to her eternal shame.

Jackie cleared her throat.  "Before we were so rudely interrupted -"

"- Ah already apologized, so lay off, sissy," Fleur grumbled.

"- yeh asked for the name of our fair burg.  So - Ponyville," she said.  "Welcome to Ponyville, California."

Twilight stared at her, her mouth open while she struggled for the right words.  Then they came: "Are you kidding me?" she said.

"Ah ain't foaling you," she responded, with a smirk.  

Twilight blinked, at that.  A lot.  For a second she thought she'd said 'fooling' through her accent - but no; she'd deliberately said 'foaling.'  She briefly wondered if this was a sign that Jackie knew her true species, that she knew about the world on the other side of the mirror, and that she was letting her know that she knew with carefully chosen words -

Jackie puckered her mouth, flexing it to one side of her face.  "Y'know how goats have kids and ponies have...?"  Her face fell, and she sighed.  "Never mind," she said.  "My jokes are pretty terrible."

"So.  Ponyville, California," Twilight said, sighing.

"Eyup," Applejack's reflection said, twisting the steering-wheel of the cart as they came across a bend in the road; a sign pointing their way read Sweet Apple Ranch - 2.5 miles. "Back in the gold rush - eighteen forty-nine, or close enough - my great grandma and grandpa made an awful lot of money breedin' ponies and sellin' them to the people pannin' for gold.  Funny how the shopkeepers and the farmers made out better than the actual treasure hunters, innit?"

"You breed ponies." Twilight tried to wrap her aching head around this concept, pinching the bridge of her nose.  But if this world had dogs and cats - and these bipedal... whatever they were had achieved sapience - why couldn't they keep non-sapient pet ponies?  Her species had, after all, evolved for strength and endurance; a proto-pony would be an incredibly useful draft animal. "Of course you do," she said, shaking her head.  "So the town was named after them.  I see."

Twilight put on a smile.  "Could I see the ponies before we get breakfast?" she asked.


~~~~


The pasture was well-loved, the wooden fence smoothed from regular care to keep it free of splinters; the alfalfa in the fields was starting to mellow and dry, turning the same shade of gold as Jackie's hair and tantalizing in scent to Twilight even in her 'human' form - for such, she finally gathered, was the name of her current species, a species that normally found grass unappetizing unless it had mutated (or been bred) into grain. 

Absentmindedly grazing on this tender and delicious variety of grass were animals so like the people that Twilight knew from home that it broke her heart to see the dullness in their eyes.  They were not people; they were animals, no smarter than Winona, or Gummy, or Opal.  

Majestic animals, to be certain; there was undeniable strength they carried in their rippling legs, their shoulders and barrels and flanks.  There was a sense of speed, even as the creatures called ponies in this world were near still, only trotting over to lean their heads over the fence's edge and accept the sweet apples and crisp carrots that Jackie and Fleur were offering balanced in their flat palms.

Twilight followed suit, trying not to cry.  One of the ponies, a great roan stallion, sniffed her hand and the Honeycrisp apple in it before he took the whole apple in his mouth at once, accidentally kissing Twilight's palm as he did so.

- or perhaps he kissed her palm affectionately; she wanted to think of it as deliberate and as affection - 

- but that was foolish.  "After all," she murmured as she scratched the beast behind his ears, "you're a pony; and the ponies here clearly can't hold up their end of a conversation."

"You doin' okay?" Fleur asked her - yelled to her, from across the field, as she helped her bigger sister sort the apples she was picking.  "Ya look upset."

Twilight nodded, taking a deep breath.  "I'll be fine," she said, hoping that Fleur wouldn't catch her emphasis on the future tense.  She looked at Twilight with a frown, before shrugging and turning away - taking her at her word.

Another one of the creatures here named ponies came up to her - Twilight wanted to say it was timid or fearful, if that wasn't stupid to say - at a very slow and shaky pace.  She could almost swear that this new pony, a mare, was staring at her.  

That she knew how Twilight felt and was sympathizing with her.  

But that was -

Twilight looked it in the eyes.

And saw intelligence.  And fear.

Twilight instinctively took an apprehensive step back before looking this new pony over, some irrational part of her brain screaming at her to pay attention.  This new pony was a dark-colored mare, a pale purplish milk chocolate in color with a similarly dark mane that had an almost violet sheen - save where a ribbon of magenta and right next to it another of indigo had been braided into its bangs and the hair falling at her shoulders.

Twilight offered her hand to the mare, who flinched.  But then she put her nose under Twilight's hand, consenting to be stroked, still staring at Twilight in what she was now sure was mingled fear and hope.  Twilight no longer thought that was silly.  She tried to think of what about this was so off as she stroked up the pony's snout to her head, then down her shoulders and across her back to her flanks.

There was a mark burned into her hips, a brand, but that was true of all the ponies here; Jackie had explained that the three apples (and of course it was three apples) marked them as property of Sweet Apple Ranch, and therefore as under her protection.  Twilight hadn't liked that, but she could live with it.  Had to live with it.

Except as her hand traced the brand, she realized it wasn't three apples; couldn't be.  It was too angular -

Twilight looked.

Twilight stared.

And suddenly she understood; if not everything, then enough.

"Lucy?" someone asked in her general direction.  "Lucy, you okay?  You look like a goose just walked over your grave."

Twilight Sparkle belatedly recalled that she was going by Lucia Bolido in this world, and turned to the source of the voice - a concerned looking Jackie Calvados, with a bushel of apples in a basket under one arm.  

"Yeah, I'm okay - my mind just wandered off for a bit," Twilight said, laughing nervously.  "Uh - tell me, how did you get hold of this purple one?"

"Her?"  Jackie tilted her head.  "Huh.  Lucy, it's the darndest thing, but she just showed up one day about four years ago - along with the snooty golden mare."

"Really," Twilight asked, nodding.  Privately, her mind was taking this information, sifting it, calculating.  The fact that the golden one had also been found at the time, and was a mare - it added up. "Do you think she was a runaway, or from one of the other ranches nearby?"

"First thing we checked," Jackie sighed.  "Truth of it is, no one had seen a brand like that in Alameda county or the next five over.  Eventually Parv just suggested I give her a good home - poor nervous thing," she said, without making it clear if she meant the pony or this person, 'Parv,' that she had mentioned in passing.  "We've had her ever since."

Twilight nodded, her fingers gently tracing the twelve-pointed star burned into the purple mare's hip.  "Alright.  Thank you."  She smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes.  "If you wouldn't mind, I'd like to have a private word with her."

Jackie raised both eyebrows at that, but then smirked and tipped her hat.  "Go knock yourself out," she said, before walking for her house proper.  "She's a good listener.  Sometimes I swear she knows English."

"I would never have guessed," Twilight said, her voice flat.  Then she turned to the pony and kissed it between the  ears. 

"Lucia?" Twilight asked it. "Lucia Bolido?"

The mare's ears twitched.  It turned her head to look up at Twilight, jaw open, radiating shock - then nodded, once, twice, three times.

"Call it a lucky guess," Twilight told her.

The mare looked all around herself, her ears following her eyes, and she began to breathe hard.

"It's okay, it's okay," Twilight assured her. "I'm a friend.  And I know exactly what happened to you, and I will set it right."

The purple mare flicked its eyes and ears to the golden one.

"I think she's as much a victim as you are," Twilight muttered.  "I know -" she sighed.  "I know her reflection - her double, like I'm your double; and sister, she is a real piece of work."

The purple mare cringed at that.

"Yeah, okay, that's an understatement," Twilight said, chuckling, scratching the purple mare behind the ears. "But she's up against me, now - and know that I know my best weapon hasn't been taken away, just changed -"

The purple mare tilted its head at Twilight, frowning.

"Here's how I see it," Twilight explained.  "If you were changed into -" and she indicated the purple mare's body "- by Sunset Shimmer, she used magic to do it.  She must have.  And since she was operating under the same handicap that I was... since she was here, and human, with no horn... that means that I can also work will, without a horn, while I'm human.  I just need to figure out how."

The purple mare's flat-eared, flat-browed look was so akin to Twilight's own looks of skepticism - and why wouldn't it be? - that she had to laugh.

"What, she changes you into a pony and you're stuck on the part about magic and not being human?"

There was a moment of stillness before the purple mare - before the true Lucia Bolido, Twilight Sparkle's reflection in this world - hung her head and nodded.

"Trust me," Twilight said, taking Lucia's chin in her hand and looking her in the eyes.  "I am a better wizard than that cruel, grasping, lying, dour traitor ever pretended to be.  And I swear, on my honor and on my magic -" Twilight bowed her head, touching her forehead to Lucia's.  "I swear that I'll set things right.  That I'll change you back," she said.

It was then that she noticed the staring eyes of a very small red-headed girl, head tilted at Twilight's admittedly very odd behavior.

"What?" she asked Fleur.

"You're weird," Fleur said.

Twilight laughed, and shrugged.  "Yes.  Yes I am."  And then Twilight grinned at her, and said: "You can tell your sister I'm done talking to her little pony now."

Fleur nodded and did exactly that, word for word, at the top of her lungs. 

Lucia - even balefully transformed as she was - whinnied laughter.

Twilight knew that it was the first time in four years that she'd had occasion to, and clenched her fists, and swore silently that Sunset Shimmer would pay for that.
> Chapter 5: A Foe, Unearned
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Chapter 5:

A Foe, Unearned


They were joined at their late breakfast by a brother and grandmother of Jackie's that Twilight Sparkle was deeply unsurprised to learn of. 

The brother was named Michael or simply Mike, and was (of course) a strapping young man who was tall, brawny, and laconic by nature.  He mostly but not entirely relied on 'Eyup,' 'Nope,' and 'Mayhap' in speaking to Twilight - until Jackie told him of her role in saving the youngest member of their clan.  Then he immediately became much more animated and free with his vocabulary, starting with the words "You've done something that takes a lot more courage than I ask of most, and thank you for it."

The eldest Calvados was (naturally) a spry old woman the family referred to as 'Grandmere Ferrier.'   She had a penchant for ribald jokes accompanied with her own cackling laughter that her grandchildren grimaced and bore (Twilight actually thought her anecdote about 'playing Firetruck' was pretty funny).  She served them excellent homemade cider and strawberry-rhubarb-and-of-course-apple preserves which they ate with buttered drop biscuits, (and never mind that they were also having Twilight's pies).  Then she smoked loose-leaf tobacco from a corncob pipe; it had such a pleasant aroma of toast and dark cherries that Twilight at last understood the appeal of smoking (before that day she had only smelled cigarettes that smelled of tar and burnt newspaper).

Every last bite of their unorthodox breakfast was delicious, if a bit heavy in the stomach. 

Fleur proposed a nap, and Twilight very much wanted to join her.  But Twilight had things she needed to do and stories she needed to tell, so she bid Applebloom's reflection in Fleur a good morning's rest to make up for her sleepless and terrified night. 

After a moment's consideration, she said to Fleur - sotto voce - "Luna guide you and protect you as you dream." Fleur nodded at the solemnity of Twilight's wish, if not its meaning.

Unfortunately, Jackie heard her. Her only response was a remarkably eloquent eyebrow raise; Twilight responded with an awkward smile and an open-armed shrug.

"Why don't ah show you to your room, so you can set your bags down," Jackie said; and it was not a request. "Gonna guess that your dog is housebroken."

"You don't need to worry about Spike," Twilight said in response. "Sure. Sure. Let's talk. I owe you that much, at the very least."


~~~~


They moved to what Jackie had called 'the study,' an attic alcove full of books - save for the bed and small desk. Mike had brought up a little basket-bed for Spike; the dragon-turned-poodle quite happily rolled around in it before sitting at attention.

Twilight was eerily reminded of the Golden Oaks Library bedroom. When Jackie asked her what she thought, she told her that it was perfect. 

And then she sat down on the bed, and Jackie sat down on a stool that had been a cider barrel in a past life.

And Twilight told Jackie her story. 

She did not tell Applejack's reflection everything, but what she omitted from her story - mostly regarding her true species and race - she told her that she could not talk about. It was what any Applejack from any world deserved, even if she was named Jackie Lynn Calvados - and the only way to secure the trust of any Bearer of Honesty.

That she was a will-worker without access to her usual abilities, she told Jackie; she spoke of her newly royal status as the Princess of Friendship back home (which earned of look of massive incredulity, mixed with... an odd twist of Jackie's mouth); she spoke of a thief in the night with hair the mixed red and gold of a shimmering sunset (Jackie winced at that), and of the artifact she stole.

She even told her that she was from another world, and half of her True Name, and that she knew where her reflection in this world was - but that she should not tell Jackie, as this would put the true Lucia in danger. And this was the truth, although it was also true that she thought at this point that her own story stretched credulity.

"This - this must sound like an elaborate fantasy," Twilight said at the end of her story. She placed her hands on the soft, periwinkle blue quilted blanket of the guest bed. "Like a child's story or the comfortable delusions of someone with a broken mind."

"That it does, 'Twilight,'" Jackie said, sighing. "Not a very believable lie."

Twilight's face fell.

"Not a very believable lie," Jackie repeated as she fished in her pockets. "A believable lie is one that hangs together - self-sufficient, do ya ken; rehearsed and smooth. A tale with all the splinters and holes shaved out of it, like a sandpapered fence. " 

Jackie found what she was looking for, and revealed it - with no flourishes, simply placing it on a plain red bedside table under the illumination of an old-style electric lamp with a maroon shade, tinted pink from the white light of the florescent bulb. 

It was a plain brooch, a gleaming orichalcum mounting for a faceted crimson jewel of some material very much like amber, save for its color.  A single stem of moonsilver and a single leaf of jadeite turned the heart shape of the amber into an apple.

"The Element of Honesty," Twilight breathed. "This world's Element of Honesty."

"Close enough," Jackie told her. "Your story ain't a very believable lie, Yer Highness. But it is a believable rambling, true story of someone in over her head - magic, monsters, and all. And that pretty lil' bauble is half of the reason why I think so."

~~~~

Jackie wasn't willing to tell her story, but she at least had the courtesy to say as much. 

"What they did to me, what they did to each other - hurts to think about, much less talk about," she said. "Maybe someday, but not today. Not ta you, Twi - and nothin' personal. It's just..."

"It's alright," Twilight said. Being told that it was too soon was enough of a clue, anyway. "But you really need to get back in the habit of calling me Lucy or Lucia."

Jackie winced, as if the thought caused the twisting pain of a sprained ankle.

"I know. You're the bearer of Honesty. But for now - I'm living Lucia's life for her. So I can save her from... what happened to her," Twilight explained.

Jackie sighed. "Jus' so long as I don't have to like it. Lucy."

Twilight chuckled. "Don't worry, I'm not in the habit of asking people to do anything I wouldn't.  I don't like it either."

Jackie considered this for a second. Then she looked up at Twilight and stuck out her hand. 

Twilight nodded and took it, squeezing tight.

"This is bigger'n both of us, you know."

"Oh, believe me, Jackie.  I do."

~~~~

A moonrise and a sunset later, Twilight looked up at a great white concrete arch. It belonged to an edifice that resembled nothing so much as a fortress town in steel and stone, sparsely decorated with carvings of books, scrolls, torches, and an array of the great men and women of this reflected world. Carvings in the letters of Twilight's native tongue and script declared its name: John F. Kennedy Academy.

"Welcome to our student Camelot." Mike clapped Twilight on the back with no small amount of either affection or force; his voice had dripped sarcasm. "Let's get inside n' get ya settled before the Knights o' the Lunch Table git us for bein' tardy."

Twilight shuddered and followed Mike, Fluer and Jackie inside. She really, really was not looking forward to being
tardy
treated like a high school student again; once was bad enough..

Soon Fleur raised her head, beamed, waved, and took off down a side corridor. Twilight arched her head over and saw two others. One was a deeply tan child wearing some kind of beautiful violet and silver dress with a cowl, with wavy hair and immaculate makeup; the other freckled, beaming, and with short chestnut-colored hair, in the style of short-sleeved shirt that was ubiquitous in this world, and standing on some curious, nearly vertical vehicle. 

They went off together - Fleur and the hooded girl walking arm in arm, and the chestnut-haired one by some kind of control rod for her ride.

"I'm guessing that's Scooter," Twilight thought out loud. "What's the last one's name, the one in the hood?"

"No one of any great consequence," Jackie snarled.

"Her name's Shireen, and you are being an obstinate mule," Michael replied - not unkindly.

"Was she involved in... the drama... too?" Twilight knew that it was a rhetorical question, and that the answer would be no (which Jackie expressed with a glare); she was more focused on the girl's name.

Whatever language 'Shireen' was from, Twilight didn't know it; but her first guesses were going to be either 'Sweet' or perhaps 'Bell.' She had to look it up later - if not at the formidable school library than at the even more formidable Ponyville (California) library. 

"So where's my first stop?" Twilight asked.


~~~~


Jackie was not willing to help Twilight bullshit through 'transferring' to Kennedy; this was too much for this world's Applejack and Honesty-bearer to bear. Big Mike, on the other hand, was; and had said that he was adept with 'cuttin' through miles of red tape.'

It was easier than she thought, given that the school administrators were expecting her and that it was the beginning of the Fall semester. The woman in charge of records expressed concern for 'Lucia's' late entry into the school, given that she was apparently supposed to be present as a 'freshwoman' three years prior. 

Coming up with a convincing story about how Twilight spent the intervening years was easier for her than she liked; she described going to a different school abroad (VERY abroad, she thought to herself) and the loss of the transcripts. 

Fortunately, given that she could pay for her tuition in cash, they didn't ask that many questions. The exchange rate for gold bits had turned out quite favorable (to say the least) and Lucia had been able to set up a bank account the previous day with very little trouble.

The hard part was coming up with a class schedule. Advanced mathematics was not going to be much of a problem, and advanced biology very little of one, but 'physical education' and 'American' history were mandatory courses that Twilight had reason to look forward to with dread. She would actually need to study if she wanted to blend in.

I should just find the crown, take it, and run for the portal, Twilight groused to herself. But that's not going to be a viable strategy until the next full moon, at least - and I'll need magic to get through, which seems to be in short supply.

If this was truly so, then why had Spike been able to breathe fire? Where had the Nightmare come from? And there was the fact that the Lady of Laughter's strikes were accompanied by swirling pink winds.

Pinkie Pie wasn't a spellcaster per se, not as a Unicorn would study it, but to discount the existence of magic here was a dangerous trap.

"That should have you set," the woman said, handing her back a school schedule. "Please give my regards to your brother, by the way; he's welcome to come to Homecoming as an alumni."

"I'll..." Twilight took a deep breath and tried to think of how to deflect this question. "If I see him I'll let him know, but with his police work -"

The administrator chuckled, and Twilight deflated in relief. "Police work. Yes, that fits Escutio to a T."

Twilight also laughed; for Escutio was Imperial for 'shield,' and a fitting name for Shining Armor's reflection. "He seems to enjoy it, though I worry about it grinding him down," Twilight lied.

And with that, Twilight had enrolled.

~~~~

Twilight groaned, hitting her head against her textbook. Of course her first period class was going to be American History. And of course the first question that she had been volunteered for by 'Miss Joy Lee Gardner' (a woman who's red hair in ringlets had more than a passing resemblance to the mane of a grammar school teacher that Twilight could name) was 'who was John F. Kennedy and why would we name this school after him?'

Twilight had been too moonsent lucky up till then for her first class to be literally anything else.

She had begun to read her textbook, of course; it was a book, and for a lesson besides. But she had also begun at the beginning, with the early colonial history (fascinating, but difficult to absorb given how sunblasted dry the author of her textbook was.) Whoever John F. Kennedy was, he was generations removed from the Conquistadors, the Pilgrims, and the Iroquois.

"I'm sorry, Missus Gardener," Twilight said, her voice low and hollow. For Twilight to admit ignorance was sheer torture. "We didn't focus as much on American history where I was schooled (true, Twilight thought, but incredibly dishonest), so I'm very behind. I have no idea."

"Were they too fo-cused on raising goats instead?" a voice from the back stage-whispered, 

Miss Gardner smiled, but this didn't reach her eyes. "Speaking of focus, perhaps you would focus more on your studies - rather than on harassing new students - in detention. Miss Corona."

Twilight's heart nearly stopped. No no no no NO! her mind sang. Do you even realize how big a target you've painted on my back?! Indeed, 'Miss Sterling' and two of her confederates – one boy and one girl - were glaring at Twilight. The girl, a brunette with silver jewelery far past the point of ostentation, whispered what Twilight knew were suggestions for her later petty vengeance.

This shit was old the LAST time I was in grammar school, Twilight thought. No wonder it took a cosmic threat to get me out of my shell. 

She had enough courage to laugh at that thought, at least.

A hand went up next to Twilight's – Jackie's. She was here to help – not even as planned, but by coincidence. “Yes, Jacqueline,” Miss Gardener called.

“President of the U~nited States, miss,” Jackie said. “Our second finest as Grandma would have it, after Truman.” As Jackie spoke, Twilight immediately started to take notes; Lee Gardner saw this and smiled. “Among other things, he backed the Civil Rights Movement - ” this she rendered as civil raihtz - “and is most of the reason we aren't speakin' in a radioactive crater courtesy of Cuba. Shame how he went out,” she sighed.

Twilight murmured, then automatically asked: “And how did he die?”

Jackie wouldn't answer. Twilight looked up and saw that half of the class was looking at her with total incredulity, and some of these with horror. The rest were either confused or disinterested. 

“I – I'm sorry. I really don't know,” she said. Bends of the Light, I hate this!

“He was assassinated,” Gardener murmured.

“A rare honor, even for Presidents,” said a boy with curly red hair. “S'like Carlin said, start talkin' about love and peace and BANG! Right in the head!” Half the class laughed – Jackie not among them.

Lee Gardner frowned and put a checkmark next to a name on the board. “Strike one, Ross. There are some things you don't joke about.”

Twilight shivered.
> Chapter 6: A House, Divided
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Chapter 6:
A House, Divided

The physical education class was not nearly as bad as Twilight had feared.  They were made to run laps, and Twilight found that she easily kept pace.  She was never the fastest runner and her bipedal stride was awkwardly balanced; but years of the Running of the Leaves had given Twilight speed and endurance.  And if anything, this form had more stamina.

If she marveled at the ease with which she ran, then Twilight was astounded by the girl who had lapped them in - 20 seconds?  30?  After passing them, she had the audacity to turn around and run backwards so she could properly call them slowpokes, beckon them onward with a lazy curl of her hands, and laugh at them.

Rather, Twilight would have been astounded if she didn't have a very good idea of who this girl was from her performance alone.  Her hair was the wrong color - in that it was only one color, that of redwood - but on this side of the mirror Twilight's had also turned dark; everypo- everyone's hair was more drab in the reflected world.  This girl's form was lean and taut, bronze skin effortlessly shifting over the hydraulics Twilight imagined in her legs, and she had a prominent nose that accentuated her carmine red eyes. The catcall of "Oh, come on, I can do this in ten seconds FLAT if I wanted to!" was pure Rainbow Dash. If her blazing speed and perfect form didn't tip Twilight off, then the showboating would clinch it.

Twilight felt it wise to outpace the girl that JFK's History teacher called Corona, and her cronies. She had a fair guess she was a reflection, and of who; that name being damn close to 'coronet' brought to mind a notorious grade-school bully.  Fortunately, outrunning her was no great task.  Corona was literally dragging her feet, scraping up clouds of dust with the soles of a very thin pair of sandals, and she wasted her ragged breath comparing Twilight and the girl who was well on her way to passing them again to dogs.

Twilight didn't know why being called a bitch was any more insulting than being called a cur, but the venom in Corona's voice was clear enough.  Twilight picked up speed.

"See, if the egghead can put some effort in, you slackers can.  You going to get outrun by a nerd?" not-Rainbow catcalled.  Twilight wanted to scream at her, but didn't have the breath.  She had been made a big enough target as it was by her history teacher.

~~~~

The other shoe dropped in the break between second and third period.

Twilight was at the lockers - tall, thin metal chests of a dull off-white color - putting away her textbooks for American History.  She was about to retrieve books on natural history (what was called Biology in this world) and on baking, cooking and the economies of home and hearth.

That was when she felt the shove.  It was a solid push from behind her shoulders, sparking nerves
(in her wings/in empty air)
and so sudden that she reverted to equine instinct and tried to break her fall on the tips of her
(forehooves)
fingers.  The torsion filled her eyes with stars and tears, and she grunted pain.

She whirled around to see Corona, canine teeth snarling at her in a parody of a smile.  Then the door slammed shut behind her, and she heard her mocking laughter followed by a whisper: "That's what you deserve for making me look bad in front of two whole classes."

Corona literally never saw what hit her.

Twilight almost missed it; a blur of bronze flying up into Corona's nose, whipping her head back with the fully transferred force of the blow and lifting her off her feet, back into another locker with a dull metallic shudder.  She was too shocked to react for the second it took Iris to fling open Twilight's locker with a bloodied, bronze hand.

It was then than Corona noticed the red rivulet streaming down her lip. "BY NODE!" she screamed, clapping a white handkerchief over it, still sprawled over on the floor.  "YOU BROGH BY NODE!"

"Oh, was it a new one? Sorry," the girl said, her jaw set in a grimace that made it clear exactly how sorry she was.  "That's what you get for shoving people you don't like in a locker, you asshole!"

Twilight and Corona both shrank into their uncomfortable seats, Twilight in awe and Corona from sheer terror.

"You'll ged dedehntion for thith!" Corona said, pointing her free hand at Iris.  "You punjed oud a studen'! Ith my wor'gainst yourth!"

"Not quite," said another voice.

This voice belonged to someone that Twilight recognized.  Someone with a face and frame that was both delicately featured and rugged, like a stone carving of a colt; someone with almond-shaped eyes that were as grey as stormclouds.  He smiled (barely) at Corona and cocked his head, as if inviting her to take a move, his dark black - or was it gleaming blue in the light? - crew-cut hair fluttering from the motion.

He may have been wearing a black jacket of a curious glossy material over a white shirt with blue shoulders, and he may have been wearing the same style of denim trousers that this world's Applejack wore.  But he also wore a brooch resembling a shield struck by lightning, and Twilight could easily imagine him in full armor.  And an iridium ballroom mask.  And with cobalt-blue hair.  If he wasn't the Knight-Protector going incognito, Twilight swore she would purchase, and eat, one of Rarity's hats when she got back.

"She had three witnesses.  The girl you pushed, Big Mike - and me," he said.  Behind him, Big Mike stepped aside and made himself visible - and he stared down at Corona with a look that combined contempt and disappointment.  The color drained from Corona's face.  "You're right; Iris is getting detention."  

"She had it coming a long time! Gimme a break, Flash!" Iris whined - and Twilight reared back.  That's why she recognized his voice.  He was the reflection of Flash Sentry, Cadence's personal guard - the only one who successfully fought off Sunset's enchanted sleep.

"Yes, she did," said Flash - and Flash folded his arms.  Around one shoulder was a red cloth armlet with the words Safety Patrol.  "So here's what's going to happen, Iris.  She's getting detention for shoving a student.  You're getting detention for punching a student.  And we're going to keep a close eye on the both of you, because according to the student handbook -" he wrinkled his nose at that for a fraction of a second - " - that's NOT acceptable behavior from EITHER of you."

Twilight was about to object that self-defense was quite a different thing from unprovoked attack when Iris held out an arm and stopped her.  The girl was grinning; and Flash nodded to her.

"Worth it," she said.  "My parents aren't going to give a crap about this - hell, they might spring for McDonalds for kicking your ass - but I wonder how Papa deBeer's going to feel about his little angel getting detention?"

"Thith wath a thetup!" Corona screeched, leaping to her feet at Iris - and bouncing off Big Mike's chest, for he had interposed himself between the two a half-second in advance.

"E'nope," Mike said.  "This the hill you wanna die on, C'ron?  C'mon."

She settled for making a gesture with her middle finger that Twilight more commonly saw performed pegasus pinions, then stomped off.

Twilight turned to Iris and sighed.  "Thank you," she said.  Then she turned to the boy.  "And thank you... Flash, right?"

"A nickname from the soccer team," he clarified.  "My actual name is -"

"- Brad (Asshole!) Cutebottom." Mike said, with a broad grin.  Iris started laughing; Twilight raised an eyebrow.

"Hikaru Hoshou," Flash corrected through gritted teeth.  He slugged Mike in the arm. "I went to Rocky Horror once.  As a favor.  To Ross.  ONCE, 'Seabiscuit.'"

"Hell, lay off the 'Biscuit' crap, Flash.  I was kiddin'." Mike replied, his wide eyes mixed with his upturned cheeks.

Flash indicated the hallway.  "Come on.  Let me get you a drink or something, miss.  A soda, I mean."  Then he turned to Iris with a scowl - and snorted, his frown melting upward into a grin.  "And a Gatorade for you, Iris."  

"Thanks.  I could drink a lake," she replied.

Iris.  Twilight recalled that Iris literally meant 'Rainbow' in Bellepheric, the language of Commander Hurricane's memoirs. She nodded; this wasn't surprising, but it was helpful data.  Consistent data.  She didn't know what 'Hikaru' meant, but it SOUNDED like a name from Nihihipon; she could look it up later.

"Why would you call Mike 'Seabiscuit?'" Twilight asked.

Iris leaned in with a feral smirk, cupped a hand to Twilight's ear. "Cause he's hung like a horse," Iris stage-whispered.  Mike turned as red as the stallion he reflected.

Twilight blinked.  Then she started giggling, and then started laughing.

They stared at her.  "Long st-ha-hory," she said.  "Short version: Horse puns are funny."

"You are a weirdo," Iris pronounced, rolling her eyes.  "I think we'll get along."

As she started walking down the corridor, Flash laid a hand on Twilight's shoulder and murmured, "We REALLY need to stop running into each other like this."

Twilight's heart leapt, and she turned to look at him.  UP at him; he was a head taller than Twilight's human form.  His eyes were closed, and he had a very slight smile.  Then he opened his eyes, and looked back down at Twilight.  

They were a dark grey, but there was a gleam in them like lightning; and his expression was the serious smile of a squad-mate watching your back.

"I guess I owe you," Twilight said.

"I'm not counting," Flash replied in a normal tone of voice.  "God - the last thing I want is for you to think you owe me."

Twilight would perk her ears up if she could.

~~~~

The 'cola' that Flash had bought her was soda-pop with so much corn syrup in it that she counted it as a sort of candied beverage; it reminded her of her brother's stash of Honeydew.  It had something else, too, a subtle bitter flavor that reminded her of the nuts Zecora had offered her as an aid to meditation.  It wasn't unpleasant, but Twilight wouldn't buy it on her own initiative.

Iris, meanwhile, had drunk what looked to be more than a liter of a pale, milky orange drink, and wasn't even done with the bottle.  She wiped off the excess with the back of her hand and grunted.  "Oh man, I so needed that."

"What'chyall need is to be more careful," Mike said, pointing at both Iris and Twilight with his splayed fingers.  "If I hadn't been keepin' an eye on Miss Lucy here -"

There was a tinny snap; Twilight found that she was clenching her fingers around her empty cola can. "Sorry.  Run that past me again?  If you hadn't been what, Mike?" she said in a voice as syrupy sweet as the drink had been.

"Now, don't be that way, Luce," Mike said.  "Little bird might have told me something about your troubles, and it don't take straight A's to tell that you were looking for them at JFK.  SOMETHIN' broke your dog's leg.  I've half a mind to return the favor."

Twilight didn’t have a good response to that.  Spike’s leg was still in a cast; he had pleaded to come with her anyway.  It was just as well for Spike’s sake that the school had a no-pets policy - and that he could still make himself useful with the computer in Twilight's room.  So she just nodded.

"Mike, is that really any of your business?" Iris said, folding her arms - everything but her wide and averted eyes emoting anger.  Something about this frightened Iris.  Twilight couldn't say she could blame her; that was the rational response.

"I trust him.  A fair bit more than I trust some of our old circle," Flash said.  He was polishing his brooch with his thumb as he said it.  Iris blinked, then nodded.

Mike snorted.  "You think I wouldn't know what my sis gets up to?  She's my sis, and Honest to a fault."  Twilight heard the capital as a glottal stop, a slight hesitation before 'honest.'  "I got as much of a right to look after her friends as all y'all, and right now that means Lucy Bolido."

"Okay, fine, you can sit with the cool kids and scare off their potential boyfriends," Iris said in a good impression of exasperation.  Twilight wasn't fooled.  

Neither were Flash and Mike.  "We're sorry we didn't tell you earlier, Lucia," Flash sighed.  "Again, it was a favor to Jackie - one of our old circle of friends, one I'd like be friends with again."

“You all know each other, of course you do," Twilight said.  Thinking out loud, sounding out her ideas.  "A…” Twilight considered how to word it.  “Circle of friends - once, at least.  A farmgirl.  An athlete.  And - and a fashionista? A veterinarian? A comedian?”

Iris narrowed her eyes.  "How the hell could you know that?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," Twilight said.  "Jackie did, but I get the idea she can smell bullshit."  Twilight blinked at her own vulgarity; she generally didn't have that foul a mouth... as an adult.  Her old teenage habits were coming back to her in the company of profane teens, it seemed.

"Giving you more credit than one of her oldest friends," Iris snarled, balling up her fists.

"Friends drift apart all the time," Flash said, looking up into a florescent light fixture.  "Besides - Jackie is a made-in-the-USA country girl, Carrie a rich urban immigrant.  Why are you so surprised they were incompatible?"

"Because it happened over-fucking-night!"  Iris got up and brandished her bottle of Gatorade like a knife.  "You think it's coincidence that they have a screaming argument the night of that harpy's stunt?  You remember what happened on what was supposed to be 'the best night ever,' don't you?"

"I used to date 'that harpy.'"  Flash maintained his straight face for about a second.  Then he sighed.  "So yeah, you've got a point.  We just don't have proof."

"The Gala," Twilight said, mostly to herself.

Iris glared at Twilight.  "Yeah.  The Grand Galloping one.  Fall Formal last year."

"What happened at the Gala?" Twilight asked.  "What did -" she caught herself before using the name Sunset Shimmer.  "- this 'harpy' DO?"

Iris raised an eyebrow at this, and turned to Mike.  "She knows, or guesses, about our entire circle of friends and she doesn't know what happened at the Gala?"

"Ey'nope," Mike replied. "If she were gonna con you, doncha think she'd pretend to know it all?"

Flash and Iris exchanged raised eyebrows.  Mike shrugged, palms up.  Then as one, they turned to Twilight.

"Our friend was named Carrie - so they reenacted Carrie," Flash said.

Twilight shrugged.  "I'm not familiar with the story," she said.

Iris kicked the floor, turning away from Twilight.  "Not a Stephen King fan?"

"Not yet," Twilight conceded, offering a hand.  "Adventure novelist?"

"Horror," Mike said.

"Carrie, the one from the book?  Unpopular girl, even the nerds don't let her eat at their table," Iris said.  She still refused to look Twilight - or any of her friends - in the eye.  "Somehow she managed to get crowned Prom Queen.  Well, the head bitches in charge couldn't have that.  So in the middle of prom, they -"  

Iris took a deep breath, then choked back a sob.  She was shaking, crown to heel, her knuckles white.  "They dumped a bucket of pigs blood on our Carrie, Luce," Iris ground out.  "While she was in her prom dress.  The expensive, silk prom dress, that she made."  

Twilight put her hands over her mouth to prevent her rising bile's escape.  Oh, Megan, Daniel and Molly return on the Starless Night, she knew that Sunset was willing to spill blood for arcane power - but to spill blood just for a prank, just to humiliate a rival...

"Eyup," Mike said, as he took the empty Gatorate bottle from Iris' unresisting hand, a pocket knife damn near materializing in his other hand.  He cut the bottle into a crude bucket, and handed it to Twilight.  "About our take on it too."

Iris sat down with a heavy slump like wood dropped into a bundle, her neck rolling with it.  "And Jackie fuckin' abandons her that night, over some stupid... petty... god-damned... argument."

Twilight thought about this, tamping down her rising breakfast eggs with force of will.  "That's what gets you about all this, isn't it, Iris?" she murmured.  "It's not about your enemies did.  It's about what your friends did.  It's about their disloyalty when dusk fell."

Iris jerked her head up in a way that reminded Twilight of Corona's head taking a punch.  That was pure Rainbow Dash, and she immediately regretted making Iris - Rainbow - Rainbow's reflection hurt.  "Seriously, 'when dusk fell?'" that reflection snarled. "You're going to psychoanalyze a stranger with some wise sounding shit from out of Harry Dresden?"

"You read the Dresden Files?" Flash asked with a smirk.  "Seems like a book for -"

Iris chuckled.  "Don't you fucking call me an egghead," she said, circling a loose fist above her shoulder.  "Don't you fucking dare."

"Where I was... studying," Twilight said with a distorted smile, "it's idomatic."

Iris leaned back.  "Iiiiii think you mean 'idiotic.'"

"Idomatic," Twilight repeated.  "It's a saying.  It means 'when things are starting to get -'"

"I get it," Iris grumbled.  "I got it the first time.  Does every saying where you're from sound like it's from a cheap paperback with a dragon on the cover?"

"Probably," Twilight said, shrugging.  There were certainly enough dragons back home for a whole library of pulp fantasy novels.

Iris snorted, her lips curling into a smile.

Twilight sighed.  "Look, Iris.  I'm not sorry about asking all these pointed questions, but I am sorry about hurting you in the process," she said.  "I just - I just want to help you and your friends.  Your OLD friends," Twilight amended.  She took a deep breath, mulling over her words carefully; Iris was giving her a familiar raised-eyebrow look that mirrored Rainbow Dash's expressions of incredulity.  "I think you and Flash are right.  I think my enemy - our mutual enemy - tried to tear your circle of friends apart.  And I think I know why."

"Sure you do," Iris said, rising from her seat with a roll of her eyes.

Twilight stood up too - not interposing herself between Iris and the exits, not being aggressive, but asserting her will.  "I know that Flash's ex-girlfriend - Sunset Shimmer, by whatever name she stole - is after the Princess' Crown," Twilight said softly - and at that, Iris and Flash both froze, staring at her with mouths agape.  Mike's shock was more subdued, one hand stroking his chin and the other holding up his arm.  

"Jack told you about the Princess' Crown," Flash said, snarling.

"No - *I* told her about it," Twilight said, folding her arms. "Because Sunset stole it from me.  Because I know it's NOT just a cheap trophy.  And the reason why she went after your circle of friends was simple."  Twilight made a fist, then opened it - waggling her fingers.  "Divide and conquer."

"You have as much proof of what Amber did as we do," Iris said.  But she was facing Twilight now, her wide red eyes locked on Twilight's, her arms open.  Twilight didn't think that Iris believed her, not when she didn't have the evidence.  But Rainbow's reflection in Iris was, at least, willing to entertain the possibility that Twilight COULD get to the bottom of it.

It was then that the warning bell rang for 3rd period.

Twilight smiled.  "The game is afoot," she said as she got her Home Economics textbook.

"How do you figure, Sherlock?" Flash asked - with a broad smile.

"Carrie is the fashionista." Twilight knew this beyond a shadow of a doubt; the girl who made a silk dress on her own had to be Rarity's reflection. "And there's no way she'd skip a class on  -" Twilight opened the book to an illustrated page of dress patterns and grinned.  "- this.  I think I'm going to learn something useful third period." 

Iris laughed.  "At this school?  That'll be the day."
> Chapter 7: A Stitch, In Time
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Chapter 7:
A Stitch, In Time


It was impossible to mistake Rarity's reflection - Carrie, last name unknown - for anyone else.  She was the only student to affect what Twilight still thought of as a Canterlot accent, for one thing; drawn out vow-whels, don't you know, and very crisp enunciation in a town where most people slurred and dropped inconvenient consonants.  For another, Carrie wore a loose-fitting, flowing white dress with elaborate silver embroidery, capped with a violet scarf over her head that was adorned with diamond patterns in silver and pale blue.  A necklace with lavender crystal rhombuses mounted on silver was draped in an arc over the top of her bosom.  While the ensemble wasn't anything like a silk Gala dress, even Twilight's untrained eye thought her personal fashion approached art.

And, of course, there was the fact that she encouraged their classmates to use her spare needles for their sewing lab.  The only ones who took her up on her offer were a pair of girls with far too much black and neon makeup and hair like rows of roughly forged daggers - and a wall-eyed blonde in overalls who was trying and failing to extricate her sleeve from the bolt of cloth she'd sewn it onto.  That_was very unlike the pony everypony should know.  Carrie - Rarity - was a pariah in this world, and from her grimace, she knew it.

"I just don’t know what went wrong," the blonde groaned.

"A matter of depth perception, most likely," Carrie sighed.  "You need the seam ripper, darling.  It should be -"

Twilight offered it.  "Right here?"

The seamstress paused, then took it.  "Thank you."

Twilight put a hand on the chair next to Carrie.  "Is this seat taken?" she asked.

Rarity's reflection frowned - which thawed into a cautious sort of smile.  "Of course not, dear," she said.  "I'd appreciate the company, not to mention the help."

Twilight didn't entirely trust her hands yet.  "I could help you look up patterns.  Hold things in place.  I - admit, I'm not the best seamstress in the world."

"You are volunteering to help, at least," Rarity's reflection said, shaking her head.  "I've had some bad experiences with students trying to ride my talent to an easy A - you understand.  Not YOU, dear," she said to the blonde girl, who had winced.  “You have something of an eye for color coordination, and an excellent sense of style.  Not you and NEVER you, Ashliegh.”

Twilight waved it off.  "I’m familiar with that kind of freeloader, yes."  This school was reminding her of her worst days in the Academy of Nine Stars more and more.  "Uh - Carrie, right?"

Her response was immediate and dramatic.  She ceased work and slammed her hands on the table with enough force that the teacher stopped to look at them, and glared daggers at her.  Ones made of ice.

“Calm down, Karima.”  Ashliegh – the wall-eyed blonde – grimaced, drumming her hands on her legs in nervous rhythms under the table.  “People are staring.”

Karima – Rarity’s reflection – dropped her shoulders, but her glare and tone remained arctic.  "Who told you that hideous epithet?" she hissed.

"Some of your old friends called you that -"

"Which may be why they're my OLD friends.  My name is Karima Almez.  Karima Almez.  I never want to hear the name Carrie again," she said, slumping back.

"I swear I didn't mean anything by it," Twilight said, mentally kicking herself.  She should have asked if it was a nickname - and the events of the school Gala would have given it traumatic connotations.  "If I knew it was a touchy subject, I wouldn't have called you – well, that."  

"I'm sure they meant well," Ashliegh said, shrinking into her chair.

"I'm not," Karima replied.  She took up her needle and thimble, stitching without looking down.  Without looking away from Twilight.  

Twilight turned to Ashliegh.  “Do you want me to unsew you, or -”

“I’ve got it,” she grumbled.  Karima handed her the seam ripper, and with a little bit of effort, Ashliegh started to tear her sleeve free from a sheet of velour.

Karima spoke.  "Surely they must have told you WHY I'm called that."

"I found out about the Gala, if that's what you mean," Twilight said in a very soft voice.  "About the indignities you suffered.  No one should have to go through that."

Karima snorted.  It was a very pony-like gesture, almost a perfect match for Rarity's upturned snout;  Twilight couldn't help but smile.  That earned her a glare.

"Who are you and what do you want?" Karima asked.

"To help you prove that Amber was responsible," Twilight said in the same soft tone of voice.  "And that she was targeting you and your friends - your OLD friends - for a reason beyond petty cruelty."

Karima blinked.  "Darling," she said with a damn near ballistic arch of her eyebrow, "Either you're the most convincing liar since Jackie or you have me at a disadvantage.  A severe one."

“She’s not lying,” Ashliegh said.

Karima turned to look at her.  So, for that matter, did Twilight.  “What makes you say so, Ash?” Karima asked.

“She was looking towards memory instead of make-believe?”  Ashliegh frowned.  "I don't know how to explain it."  She gave her arm a sharp tug, finally ripping it free.  “There we go.  I don’t even know HOW I managed that…”

“You want to know who I am?" Twilight asked.  "Is it alright if -”  

“Anything you can say to me, you can say to Ashliegh, dear.”  Her flattened, affectless voice made the ‘dear’ seem perfunctory and cold.

Twilight introduced herself and briefly spoke of how she met Jackie, Iris, Mike and Flash - leaving out the magic and mayhem, at least for that moment.  As they spoke, Twilight searched for patterns, tools and thread - facilitating Rarity's reflection in the art of the dress.  And Karima was skilled at it.  Perhaps a little rougher around the edges and more subdued than Rarity was, but the first she could attribute to youth and the second to this alternative world's tendency towards subtlety.  

She also had a knack for directing Ashliegh towards those tasks most suited for her; eschewing anything that required depth perception, instead directing her towards aesthetic decisions or detail work.  Ashliegh, much like her counterpart, was cheerful and helpful; intelligent and, when she took her time, perceptive as well.  There were no more incidents like the sewn shirt-sleeve - partially because she was actively trying to prevent one.

As Twilight's tale ended, Karima hissed a word in what sounded like Houreki; it could only have been an oath or profanity.  "That doesn't answer the question of why we'd be a target."

Technically true, Twilight thought, smirking and folding her arms.  Of course, if she was correct, Karima knew perfectly well why she and hers were -

Twilight felt something tingling in the center of her forehead.  No, not a tingle; a roar and a sensation like fire.  Or like hearing nails on a chalkboard, smelling sulfur and rot, tasting ash, or seeing a gritty black smoke just before it stung her eyes - at least, that's the closest she could get when describing it to someone without her particular senses.  When trying to describe magic to non-unicorns, non-wizards, she could only grope towards what it felt like through synesthesia.  

Twilight grabbed her forehead and whimpered - then grit her teeth.  The last time she had felt those sensations - and that strongly - was when Sombra made himself manifest.  

Everyone who was not Twilight or Karima was screaming, including the teacher - though she was trying to bark directions, give them some kind of order, while the students vocalized wordless terror.

Karima winced - merely winced, one finger to where her horn would have been, were she a unicorn - then grabbed Twilight by the shoulder and pulled her down under the table a second before something reduced her chair to splinters. 

Her chair had been made of metal.  Ashliegh added her scream to the chorus and fell backwards into her chair and from there onto the floor.  She groaned and started backing away further with her arms.  Her eyes were the size of teacups - and, curiously, both of them were squarely focused on the creature that was standing on what used to be Twilight's chair.

It was broad, with the body and head of a great lion, but with the wide leathery wings of a dragon sprouting from a second pair of shoulders just behind its massive clawed paws.  Tawny hair gave way to chitinous armor plates over its hind legs, and a segmented tapering scorpion's tail with a vicious barb.  Twilight knew that the tail stinger was stupendously venomous.

From experience.

Rather than attacking the students, the manticore kneeled, snarling at Twilight and Karima.  Twilight immediately took her backpack by the loop at its top and swung the weight of three textbooks at it, like a flail.  She smashed it above one eye with the corner of a cover, drawing blood.  The manticore roared with pain, then impaled the offending weapon with its tail and tore it from Twilight's grasp.

"It's going straight for me," Twilight realized out loud.  "The manticore is going straight for me - which means that it was ordered to attack ME, which means that I'm on the right track!  This is great!"

"WHAT ABOUT THIS SITUATION IS GREAT!?" Karima screamed.  "We have a monster in the classroom!  Of all the possible things that could happen -"

"The worst possible thing?"  Twilight nodded.  Dawn and Dusk, they were all so like her friends.  "Yes, just about, but it's also a desperation tactic on her part.  I've got her running scared."  

"I'm pretty scared too!" Ashliegh wailed.

"AGREED!  LESS BABBLING!  MORE SAVING OUR LIVES!"

"Right!"  Twilight flung herself out from under the bottom of the table and grabbed one of the chairs, using it like a lion-tamer would - she hoped.

The Manticore actually raised an eyebrow at her before it batted the chair away with a single shoulder-wrenching blow, sending it flying through a plate-glass door to the courtyard.  Twilight grabbed another chair and deliberately backed into a corner - the corner furthest from the exit.  The other students turned once to look, then took that as their cue to leave - some through the door, and others through the hole in the glass. 

Karima went pale.  "Allah akbar, it is following you."

"And not the other students," Twilight said.  She noted with dismay that no one was helping Ashliegh up - no, check that; the girls with the practically weaponized hairstyles looped their arms around one shoulder each, and hauled Ash to the door, leaving Twilight and Karima alone with it.

Rarity's reflection crawled out from her hiding place, her hand on an amulet around her neck.  In the shape of a purple-white lozenge.  Of course.  She had been hiding her brooch in plain sight.  "You are out of your mind!" she said.

"Not if you're who I think you are," Twilight said.  "Not if you can stop it."

"You knew what I was all along, didn't you," Karima said, her voice as cold as silver.  "That's what this is all about."

Twilight growled.  "Cut the crap, Generosity," she snapped.  "I can't do anything to it like this, but you - "

The manticore grabbed Twilight by its forepaw and flung her against the blackboard across the room, hard.  Twilight knew how to roll with a hit, landing with her shoulder instead of her neck, but it was still enough to break skin and knock the breath out of her in a strangled gasp of pain - and to crack the blackboard.  Twilight fell to her other arm, and her knees, looking up at the creature as it advanced.

Karima did not hesitate further.  She thrust her brooch towards the ground and barked -

"I am the jewel that glitters when gifted!"  

The hairs on the back of the manticore prickled up.  TWILGHT felt gooseflesh, and magic whispering on her forehead.  But where the calling of the manticore was smoke and brimstone and fire, this was cold and bright and scintillating color; it felt like a gemstone and tasted of a silver fork.  The monster turned to face Karima - and Twilight noted, through the haze of pain, that it looked scared.  Good,  Twilight thought.  It deserves to know what that feels like. 

And Karima finished swearing her oath - 

"In Generosity, I serve the cause of Harmony!"

A lozenge defined by lines of blue-white force burst forth from the ground, followed by two diamonds that sparkled with white fire and joined the Amber Diamond of Generosity at her clavicle.  Geometric lines of magical power spread out from her brooch, defining facets of rose-colored cloth with gilt trim.  As they passed, each facet became part of a flowing garment that managed to be both modestly form-covering and suggestive of a full, curved figure with a swooping empire waist.  

A hooded shawl of golden cloth formed from fractal diamond patterns of magic, each dissolving into a minute sparkling jewel; and on her head they created a platinum coronet with the jutting twist of a unicorn's horn.  Karima's dark hair flowed and rippled, gaining a metallic sheen like crushed amythest.  She swept out her hand and grasped a staff of platinum tipped with a single, perfect, brilliant-cut diamond - upside down in its mount, with its wicked point turned into the tip of a spear.

The entire process took mere seconds, but Twilight would always remember it as a slow and vivid transformation.  She saw every part in each of her senses - including the magical.

"I am the Lady of Generosity," Karima said with a mocking bow to the manticore, "and for avarice that bids you steal from those in true need, I will grind you into sand and less than sand, thief." She spun her staff in a figure-eight.  "Diamonds, gold, and platinum are mine to command - glimpses of the Tartarus where I will send you!"

The manticore tried to leap at the Lady of Generosity, but she was prepared for this.  Twilight felt her extend her will out from the palm of her hand into the length of the staff - felt the staff store and magnify the energy, and saw the diamond at the tip refract Karima's living mana into its component 'colors.'  She was not surprised to taste metal in the air, or to see a sheen of blue predominate.  Enchantment, illusion, and geomancy; Rarity's specialties on the other side of the mirror.

But Rarity used it to manipulate needles and gems, and to weave subtle enchantments into literally glamourous fashions.  Karima would probably do the same, but right now she was acting as a war-enchantress.  And Twilight had never seen a war-enchantress cut loose before.  

"Generous Raiment of Adamant!" Karima said into her staff arm, each word infused with more of her will. The manticore bit down on that arm, what it expected to be flesh - and instead tasted a mouth full of diamond.  Suddenly, the full force of a manticore's bone-snapping jaw became the manticore's problem; Twilight HEARD the its teeth crumble, and its whimper.

It reared up, lifting its paws and body up so that it could slam her onto the floor.  Karima gave ground, twirling backwards in a graceful arcing motion like a ballet dancer - it wouldn't have surprised Twilight to learn that she was one, or whatever equivalent existed on this world - and at the end of her motion was the tip of her staff.  

"Generous Brilliant Cutter!"  Karima said to the earth.  At that command, a ray of light from her staff traced a glowing blue arc on the ground - and the floor shaped itself into tiny, sharpened shards of crystal that shot off in rippling rhythm like the belly of a sleeping dragon.  Each shot popped like a cork from a bottle of Champmane, and each one drew a minute trickle of blood.

Incantations.  Incantations were necessary here, not mere aids for students.  Or maybe they were aids, but spontaneous casting was more difficult and they needed all the mana boosts they could get.  Or perhaps - well.  Maybe it was callous of Twilight to hang back and take notes, but it wasn't like there was any way she could help with no method of channeling magic.  Well, no current working theory.  This was giving her ideas, and she comforted her conscience with the thought that this might allow her to help next time.  To fight, next time.

The monster grunted, and leapt - onto the reversed, sharpened end of Karima's staff.  It's own weight (and that seemed to be a theme with Karima's fighting style, to use the enemy's advantages against it) combined with the menacing point of Karima's staff to impale it in the space where its shoulder blade connected with its spine.  Some of the staff protruded past the creature's flesh, red with its blood and black with its bile.  It gasped, the slow strangled wheeze of a creature with a punctured lung.

Karima stepped back and tugged - the staff slid out in a single fluid pull.  The manticore raised one paw, even still, flaring it's wings; but Karima reached forward with her hand, putting the creature's mouth between it and the diamond on her staff, and said the three words that ended the manticore's existence.

"Generous Breathtaking Caress."

She tugged with her hand, and pulled the creature's life force free as a swirling mass of silver-blue energy - it's last breath in something of a solid form.  Karima then gently tossed that ball of vitality to Twilight.  Instantly, the oppressive pain of her wrenched shoulder eased, and Twilight found she could stand.

The manticore was not so lucky.  It collapsed in a breathless and lifeless heap, its empty eyes staring forward and glossy.  Seconds later, it started to burn with a red and black fire that consumed it totally - leaving behind a child.  He was battered and bruised (and mercifully unconscious), but very much alive.

"Just like the last time.  Is this a baleful polymorph?" Twilight asked out loud.

"I have no idea what that means," Karima answered.  "I do know that these creatures need a child as some kind of anchor.  Killing the beasts releases them."  

Which seemed bizzare and baroque to Twilight as a means for summoning monsters - but summoned monsters tended to be wispy and unstable things.  Not solid and permanent, like these seemed.

Karima stopped, then strode to Twilight's side, offering a shoulder. "Let me help you walk," she said.  "You are going to need more healing than I can provide, I fear, as will the child.  I will need to call the school nurse."

"You've done more than enough to help," Twilight said - but she allowed Karima to help her bear her own weight.  "Only the one this time..."

Karima grimaced.  "Yes, I thought that rather odd myself." 

"I have my theories."

"Share them," Karima said, looking Twilight right in the eye.  Her expression was carefully neutral, the sort of calm that can only be feigned.

"She found me,"	she said.  "Amber was trying to get me, specifically.  She knew I was in the AREA, but not going to class with you - or, hopefully, she doesn't realize who you are either."

Karima stared at her.  "You're accusing her of being the summoner?  Of murder through proxy?" she said - not so much with disbelief but with surprise, Twilight noted.

"I have reasons to think so," Twilight said.  Before Karima could repeat that command - share them - Twilight sighed.  "Clues, really.  I still need to gather evidence.  Still, with her throwing things like polymorphed children at me…"

The Lady of Harmony unpinned her brooch.  Her return to civilian mien and the dispellation of her glamour was not instantaneous, but it seemed so; she stood as Karima again, with black hair instead of amethyst and a plain dress rather than one fit for a Gala.  Then she paused outside the door.

"Assume I am willing to indulge you," Karima said.  "That you are correct about the source of our problems.  What then?  What would you have me do?"

"It's not what I'd have you do," Twilight said.  "It's what I'd have the Ladies of Harmony do together.  Find her and stop her."

"That will be impossible," Karima replied without missing a beat, her voice clipped and cold.  "I cannot abide what they have done, what they have become.  Do you have any idea of the insult Honesty offered me in the aftermath of the Gala?  Or what so-called Kindness -"

"No," Twilight said.  "And I'd like to know what you have to say about it.  But I have one advantage over you in finding out the real truth of what happened."

Karima literally turned up her nose at her.  "What is that, pray tell?"

"I'm willing to hear their side of the story," Twilight said - and pushed the door open.

The students were, to a one, uninjured, although most were shaken.  Ashliegh was eating something, while the two girls that had rescued her were muttering their sympathies and cracking jokes in a low tone of voice.  The one - her hair dyed seafoam green - had one hand on Ashliegh's shoulder, and the other girl -with hair dyed pink and indigo - clasped the first's free hand.   These two would-be heroines were leaning into each other. They weren't alike enough around the face to be sisters. Lovers?

They turned their heads up at the sound of Twilight and Karima's footsteps - and smiled.  The girl with two-tone hair even waved.  "How did you get out?" she asked.  "We were pretty sure that, well…"

"By saving us you got very killed?" the green-haired one suggested.

Her partner turned to her and raised both eyebrows.  "Laura.  Really?"

"We would have been," Karima said, "had not the Lady of Generosity intervened." Karima didn't miss a beat and had a perfectly straight face.  Again, Twilight was struck by her use of the technical truth to mislead.  Was Rarity so good at that kind of lie back home?  Is that why Karima and the Lady of Honesty in Jackie grew apart?

Laura - green-hair - raised a closed fist and shook it.  "Woo!  Score one for Teen Girl Squad!"

"Indeed," Karima said, a slight smile on her lips.

Ashleigh got up, holding her backpack in front of her, and walked towards the pair of them.  She set the back down in front of her feet, before Twilight and Karima, and rummaged through it.  

Then she produced a sodden pastry, stained indigo in irregular patches, and tore it into three roughly equal pieces.  She offered one each to Karima and Twilight.

"Is that your lunch?  I really can't…" Twilight said, waving her hands, suddenly feeling very exposed.

"I have extra.  Take it," Ash said.  "You saved our lives.  The least I can do is give you some muffin."

Twilight found that the ordeal had left her hungry, and agreed, sitting next to the other girls that had a hand in saving Ashliegh's life and awaiting the nurse.  Ash handed all of them fragments of muffin.

Twilight thought it was delicious.
 

> Chapter 8: A Wound, Endured
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Chapter 8:
A Wound, Endured


Classes for the rest of the day were canceled; how could they not be, after a battle where windows were smashed, blackboards destroyed, and John F. Kennedy's newest student almost killed by something the staff could not explain?  The school remained open, though, if only because they had a cafeteria lunch that would otherwise go to waste - and a fully functional nurse's office to tend to the wounded.

There were more of these than just Twilight; she had to revise her earlier assessment that no one else was hurt.  She just hadn't seen them, as they'd been taken to the nurse's office first.  Some had cut themselves on glass in their escape.  Some had trampled themselves or others in the mad rush anywhere but there.  And Ashleigh's shoulders had suffered a little from the rough assistance she'd received.

The school nurse had to give Twilight her divided attention; just enough to be diagnostic of her wrenched shoulder and minor abrasions, before calling an aide to administer the actual treatment.  This aide turned her head from another patient, brushed a chestnut bang from her dark eyes, then nodded.

She was tall and lanky, with the reactions of a girl a foot shorter than she actually was; head perpetually bowed, hands automatically rising to obscure some part of her face, her expressions.  She wore a white T-shirt with a mark of three paw-prints - one canine, one feline, and one lapine - over voluminous jeans which she had very carefully tucked into a pair of sturdy boots.

"Hello," she said in a voice so soft that it seemed (to Twilight) like she was afraid of wounding her further with loud noises.

"Hi," Twilight said.  She raised her arm to wave in greeting - before a lance of white-hot pain reminded her why that was a bad idea.

"You shouldn't move that arm," Twilight's new nurse said, and there was a bit more volume now, something like a scold.  "I'm going to bandage it up, which will probably hurt a little - and I'm sorry about that," she said with a slight flinch, an unconscious cringe.

"Sure," Twilight said.  Then, in a lower voice: "Let Flash know.  He could probably help too."

Her new nurse's raised eyebrows told Twilight what she needed to know. This was Fluttershy's reflection, and when she needed to be she was the Lady of Kindness. "Carri- Karima - is letting him know," Fluttershy's reflection said, and in the mirror of Twilight's conspiratory whisper she added: "He probably could help, too."

"You know that Karima hates that nickname," Twilight said.

Fluttershy's reflection hesitated.  "I've known her by that nickname for longer than we've been friends.  Sometimes I forget," she said.  "She's changed.  I'm worried about her."

"I can imagine, given what happened to her at the Gala," Twilight said very softly.

"It sounded like it," Fluttershy's reflection said, her voice flat.  "I didn't have a dress for it.  Everything I've heard about it is secondhand - I'm glad I missed it.  Too many people, and then that awful prank on top of it…"

Twilight considered this as Fluttershy's reflection bound her shoulder with gauze.  If she was friends with Generosity Herself when the Gala happened - with any Rarity, four legged or two - there couldn't have been any way that she wouldn't have had a dress.  That was a clue, or at least lead to one.

"Call me Lucia," Twilight said, finally.

"Oh.  Um."  The girl took a deep breath, again brushing a stray bang out of her eyes.  "I'm Parvanei.  It's nice to meet you?" she said, or possibly asked.

"I think it is," Twilight replied.

Parvanei nodded.  “Karima told me that you fought that…”

“Manticore,” Twilight supplied.

“…Manticore without any weapons at all, just a chair and a backpack.”

Twilight sighed.  “And I got this shoulder for my trouble.”

“I’m curious how you knew the name of the monster.  Either way, you were awfully brave.” Parvanei laid a hand over her wound – and put another in her pocket.  There was a very faint flash, a verdant spark of green mana arcing from Parvanei’s pocket to her hand in a closed circuit, and a feeling of warmth in Twilight’s shoulder – followed by a twitch, and a stretching sensation.  

Green magic was wood magic, life magic.  And Twilight had a feeling that if she checked Parvanei’s pocket, she would find a brooch with a butterfly carved from amber – and that she needed to be touching that focus to cast her healing cantrip.

“You should probably avoid using that arm until you rest up,” Parvanei said.  “But walking should be fine.  Come,” she said, offering her arm to her.  “Let me show you to the cafeteria; you’ve had a terrible first day, it sounds like.” 

Twilight hoisted herself up by her ‘good’ arm.  In truth, she thought that her other shoulder had completely healed; she also thought Parvanei’s warning was more to hide a work of magic than it was to help Twilight recover.

They started walking.  “Thanks.  Uh – what do you recommend?” she said.

Parvanei chuckled, more nervous than amused. “It’s a school lunch,” she said.  “I… usually pack my own to avoid it, actually.  You can never tell where the chicken’s been here, or what they’ve done to it.  If I have to eat here I stick to the vegetarian food.”

Twilight froze.

“Uh – are you alright, Lucia?” Parvanei asked.

“What do you mean, ‘you can never tell where the chicken’s been?’” Twilight asked, voice wavering.

“I mean that it’s probably factory farmed,” she said, a note of anger in her voice.  Twilight was beginning to feel nauseous.  “Rows on rows of cages, some smaller than they need to even turn around.  It’s heartless and cruel and far, FAR too common.”

“Oh, starless night, you had to specify vegetarian, you did mean you eat them,” Twilight reasoned out loud, and she was genuinely starting to feel ill.

Parvanei just stared at her for a long time.  Then, she said, “I wouldn’t ask another human being to give up meat any more than I’d ask a dog or cat to.”  She sighed. “But I’d at least want to know that the meat I ate came from something that died happy and without pain.  I’d eat the pork that Jackie served.  I wouldn’t buy it from the store.”

The thought came unbidden to Twilight’s mind of Applejack licking bloodstained lips, and she sunk to her knees, both hands over her mouth, trying not to throw up.  Parvanei stepped to the side; Twilight was grateful for the breathing room, and for the time she gave her to recover.

“Are you all right, now?” Parvanei asked.

“Just tell me what’s… ugh… vegetarian here and I’ll cope,” Twilight said.

Parvanei nodded, and pointed out a dish of cheese and noodles for her (after asking if she ate cheese, which struck her as an odd question) and a beautiful red apple, and some red juice dispensed from a machine.  

They sat down together at a table in the far corner of the room, and she bit into the apple.  It was the worst one she’d ever tasted in her life – flat and mealy.  The cheese and noodles were salty and starchy, but otherwise not bad, and the juice was both tart and sweet.

Parvanei took two small triangular fried pies from her bag and ate one of them.  Then she said, in a low murmur, “You aren’t a human, are you?”

Twilight stopped eating and stared at her.  Parvanei stared right back.  She was not angry or afraid.  She was, however, returning the gaze.  Her eyes were kind, but didn’t yield.

“…Honesty’s bearer couldn’t guess that,” Twilight said with a sigh.  “How on earth did you?  Is the – ugh – meat thing that uncommon?”

“Karima and I spoke in the infirmary – for the first time in a year,” Parvanei said, looking down into her lap, “so thank you for that.  She said you knew things about her that you couldn’t have, that you named the monster.  And you did again in the infirmary.  I asked Iris –“

Twilight tilted her head.  “- How?”

Parvanei blinked.  She wordlessly took a device from her pocket, like a burnished mirror reflecting an array of roughly square sigils.  “A text,” she said, pressing one of the sigils with her thumb and calling up written words.  In the same alphabet and similar vocabulary as Whinnyinglish, too, although Iris had responded in a kind of shorthoof.

“I need to get one of those,” Twilight said.

“Probably,” Parvanei agreed.  “She told me you knew about Amber.  About us.  About… a lot of things.  It frightened her half to death,” she added, narrowing her eyes in the faintest fashion.  “But you didn’t know that there would be meat in a public school cafeteria?”  

“Well, you gotta admit it seems unlikely, Parv,” a familiar voice said.  It’s owner crashed down next to her, bronzed legs crossed.  Iris grinned with a closed mouth as she chewed a bite of what Twilight thought was pizza, then swallowed. “The budget’s shot to hell so they’re cutting art, music, Defense Against the Dark Arts, food that’s not made of cardboard -”

“- and good to see you too, Iris,” Parvanei said, hugging her.  Iris hugged her back with one arm.

Twilight clenched her hands tight over her knees, not saying a word.

Parvanei fidgeted, twiddling her dark hair between two fingers, and chose her words carefully.  “I’ve met a lot of vegetarians,” she said.  “I’ve been a vegetarian, because I don’t like thinking about animals in pain.  And I’ve never met anyone so disgusted with eating meat…”  She looked into Twilight’s eyes again.  “…and you’re the first one I’ve ever met that was surprised that there would be meat at all.  Take one look at human teeth and you can tell we’re omnivores,” she said – and opened her mouth wide, pointing to a sharp tooth.  Like a dog’s.

Twilight shrunk back, and Parvanei withdrew her hand and closed her mouth.  “Trust the animal expert to notice,” Twilight muttered.

Iris looked at her.  “So.  Not from around here.”

“Not exactly,” Twilight said.

“But from wherever the monsters come from?” Iris said, one eyebrow raised.

Twilight sighed, shrinking back, hunched with her head over her knees. “That’s a good working theory?” she said.  “I don’t know how your enemies are calling forth monsters, but it’s very likely to be magic from my world.  Magic I don’t know and don’t know how to counter.  Yet.”

Iris leaned back and started to tap her feet on the floor.  Parvanei, on the other hand, sat straight, with her hands in front of her face.

“She stole the Crown,” Iris said.

“She stole MY crown,” Twilight replied.

“Which is why you can’t do magic here, while I can zap monsters with my brooch?” Iris said.

Twilight was about to reply – then put a finger on her chin and looked up.  If that were true, then Sunset would be equally powerless without the crown.  Unless… “The monster attacks aren’t new, are they?”

Iris popped open a can of cola and slurped a long pull from it.  “Nah.  This wave of them has been going on for a while.”

“This wave?” Twilight said.

“This isn’t the first time the Ladies have fought a monster summoner,” Parvanei said, without looking up at them.  “The last one before the latest attacks mostly called shadows, gained power from despair and sorrow.  The one before that was –“

“-Let me guess.  Doppelgangers and philiaphages?”  Twilight folded her arms.

Iris snorted.  “What the hell is a philiaphage?” she said, her voice pitching upward.  From impatience?

“If you mean they ate love, then yes,” Parvanei said, still not looking up.

“Sombra and Chrysalis had reflections here too,” Twilight muttered.  “That’s… disturbing.”

Iris tilted her head, folding her arms as she glared. “Reflections?” she asked, her voice flat.

Twilight snorted.  “The reason I could tell all those things about you is because I’ve met people very much like you before.  And faced enemies very much like yours.”

Iris closed her eyes.  “That is WAY too fucking creepy.  So, what, we’ve got clones in Herbivordor or wherever?”

“Equestr- not important,” Twilight said, shaking her head. “But, yes, you have counterparts.  Paragons of the same virtues, on their best days.  Just folks on most of them, as Applejack might say.”

“Applejack?” Iris asked.

“…My world’s Honesty,” Twilight said through a sigh.

Iris closed her eyes, pushing off the table with both hands as she rose.  “Okay, so.  It would be super cool if you never called me a ‘reflection’ ever again cause that’s too goddamn creepy for words.”  

Twilight snapped her head back to attention, her eyes widening with surprise.

“I’m ME, okay?  Iris Pheidippides Kallistrate.” She folded her arms. “I’m not some copy of your friend.  If you think you know me because you know your Loyalty, you don’t.  And I’m not gonna be the only one of the old gang pissed off when you assume it.”

“I wouldn’t mind being compared to anyone who earned my title,” Parvanei said almost under her breath.

Twilight cringed.  “If I’ve –” she shook her head - no good apology ever started with the words if I’ve offended you - and started over. “I’ve clearly offended you, and all I can say is that I didn’t mean to reduce you to a copy of anyone.  The Loyalty I knew was a hero, and she was my friend.  I only wanted to compliment you by association, Iris.”

Iris nodded her acceptance.  “Just wanted to nip THAT in the butt immediately,” she said.  “Look, Loose.  You took an ass-kicking for us without powers, and that did a lot for my trust levels.  But the way you got here and all the stuff you know about monsters and mayhem is hella suspicious, and now you’re talking about knowing our doppelgangers -”

“-after you’ve dealt with enemies a lot like Chrysalis and her Changelings, not to mention Amber.” Twilight massaged the spot that would have been right under her horn, if she still had one.  “Yeah.  I think I see.”

Iris offered her fist.  Twilight looked at it for a second before registering what the gesture meant, then bumped it.  

“Cool,” Iris said.  And for a wonder, it wasn’t a question.
> Chapter 9: A Truth, Revealed
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Chapter 9:
A Truth, Revealed


The three of them walked to the school’s parking lot, where Mike had parked his car (and they were called ‘cars,’ not carts or automobile carriages) and where Iris and Parvanei’s busses stopped.  Twilight was careful to maintain the fiction of her tender arm, and so not reveal Parv’s magic – normally Twilight would consider it paranoid, but without her own magic and with two attempts on her life since she’d arrived in this world she appreciated her caution.

There, leaning against a sleek black car, was Hikaru ‘Flash’ Hoshou.  At his feet was a gym bag, and slung over his shoulder was a guitar of curious construction studded with sockets for electric plugs.  Perhaps it was an electronic instrument, like those that Pinkie’s sonomancer friend Vinyl was pioneering back home?  If so, it would explain its almost arrowhead-like shape; guitars back home, like violins, were their iconic shape to produce a particular quality of music, but a purely electronic instrument could theoretically have any form factor –

It took Twilight a second to register that Hikaru had asked her something, and she sheepishly asked him to repeat himself.  Fortunately, he just laughed.

“I was just saying it’s a beaut.  Won a couple battle-of-the-bands gigs wielding this thing,” Hikaru said, patting the instrument with pride.  “Not bad for a bunch of high school then-sophomore dips.  You’ve got a good eye.”

“It’s lovely,” Twilight said, scratching the back of her head.  To her surprise, she meant it; Hikaru’s enthusiasm was clear, and it was a striking design.  “What’s the name of your band?”

“Oh, brother,” Iris muttered behind her.

Hikaru grimaced.  “You have to understand the band name wasn’t my idea.  Our keyboarder insisted, we were doing electronic and nerdcore and he thought -”

“It’s called ‘Flash Drive and the Hacked Gibsons,’” Iris said, rolling her eyes.  “They wanted the dumb jock eyecandy headlining and the lamest pun ever for the band name.”

“Please,” Twilight said without missing a beat.  “He’s intelligent jock eye-candy.”

“I’m eye-candy now?” Hikaru said.  He wasn’t even smirking, sun blast him; his expression was one of pure surprise, completely without guile.

“A lot of other girls in my class seem to think so,” Parvanei said, making Twilight jump.  She had almost forgotten that she was standing behind her.

“Let’s ask a more relevant question,” Twilight said, looking at the car instead of Flash’s face, fuming at him and Parvanei for the teasing and herself for how bothered she was.  “You weren’t waiting around out here under C-” Come to that, it wasn’t likely to be Celestia’s sun, not here - “A hot sun for no reason.  Did you need to speak with any of us?”

“Yeah,” he said, nodding.  “You.”

Twilight snorted and folded her arms.  “Well, I appreciate your interest, but I have some murder and magic to investigate and really can’t afford to get distracted.”

“Why do you think I wanted to talk with you?” Flash said, holding out his hands palms-down, as if he was offering something.  “I think I know what you’re doing, and if I’m right, I want to help.  Which is why, with your permission and Mike’s, I’d like to take you to see a play.”

“Aaaaand there it goes,” Iris said, throwing up her hands with a groan.  “You are so goddamn transparent.  Just ask her out so she can properly shoot you down, you randy turbo-nerd.”

“She’s just upset that I went out with him once,” Parvanei stage-whispered.  

“Nah, he’s like this with everyone,” Iris replied.

“Oh yeah,” Flash said, his voice utterly flat with sarcasm.  “It’s true.  I wear the black trilby and claim it’s the black fedora while I creep on your best friends, m’lady.  Look, Iris – The play isn’t the thing, not for its own sake.  I’m inviting her to see our Shmendrick.”

Twilight found this utterly opaque, but Iris’ eyes lit up with understanding.  “Ooooooh.  Him. Yeah, yeah, she should totes talk to him.”

“Shmendrick?” Twilight asked.

“It’ll be easier to hear it from him,” Flash said, sighing.  “And that’s not his name, that’s one of his roles.  You’ve actually met him before, but – like I said, easier to hear it from the horse’s mouth.”

Twilight giggled at that, despite herself.  “Haven’t you heard?  Talking to horses is kind of my thing,” she said.

“So Jackie told me,” Flash said, opening the passenger side door.  “Hop in.”

Twilight did so.

“Call me if he gets handsy!” Iris shouted.

“Fuck you!” was Flash’s cheerful reply.  “And that’s not an invitation either!” 





It took a while before either of them spoke – time for Flash to pull out of the driveway, and to roll along the road.  They made for the heart of a Ponyville both more populous and wealthy than the Ponyville on Twilight’s side, but with a little less character as well; it reminded her of a cleaner Manehattan, all square buildings made of concrete and brick and asphalt, with only patches of grass and trees along the road.  It seemed strangely desolate to her, compared to the verdant earth of this town’s Equestrian reflection.  

Yet she saw throngs in the streets and shops – talking, laughing, eating, on their phones, with their dogs (and Twilight winced; she was REALLY going to need to get Spike something to make up for leaving him alone for so long), and just being folks.  She saw the girls she’d rescued earlier on a bench, the pink-and-blue haired one sitting with her back straight and her legs dangling while the one with sea-foam green spikes for hair lay down on all fours, resting her head in the other girl’s lap and accepting a scratch behind the ear without complaint.  They were lovers, then; she had guessed correctly, and she had saved their lives by drawing the manticore’s attention earlier.  Good.

Twilight sighed.  “So – dated Parvanei, huh?”

“Guys were making fun of her, harassing her,” Flash said, both eyes on the road, both hands on the steering wheel.  “She was the first in her grade to go through puberty, bustier than anyone else her freshman year – not that this was saying much.  So the frosh were being dicks, and their parents were just saying ‘boys’ll be boys,’ right?  They weren’t doing shit.”

“That sounds unpleasant,” Twilight said, not sure if there was anything else she should add.

“This was soon after I…”  Flash had to pause, and actually visibly shuddered – waves of vibration spreading from his heart to his fingertips, his head, and his toes. “This was soon after I had realized that the girl I knew as Amber was a hot mess, and dumped her after seeing through her latest gaslighting attempt.  So I was free, theoretically.  And Parv and I were friends.  Iris and the rest of that circle, all still friends, at least back then.”

Twilight shrugged. “Courting a friend seems sensible enough, especially if you’re doing it to protect her from other, less savory suitors.”

Flash chuckled, then shook his head. “Here’s the thing, though - We were totally not interested in each other that way at all.  Not saying I would have minded, but there wasn’t a spark.  We agreed to keep it up until the assholes found someone else to pick on, and then to break up soon afterwards.  She hasn’t dated since.” 

Twilight looked at her hands on her knees.  “Oh,” she said.  “Is she just shy, or genuinely uninterested, or what?”

“Shy and busy is my best guess – she puts in a LOT of hours at the dog pound and is taking AP courses,” Flash said.  He spun the wheel, and they drifted into another lane, then into a side road. “I don’t know why Iris is so weird about it; I mean, I’ve asked out a lot of girls and got shot down by a lot of girls, but Iris acts like I broke Parv.”

Twilight looked out the window, grimacing.  “You never, ah.  Shared pillows, then.”

Flash laughed.  “I like that, ‘shared pillows.’ But no, we didn’t.  Barely even shared lips.”

“I see,” Twilight said.  Unfortunately so, she thought; she had a vivid image of an awkward, closemouthed kiss between Flash and Parvanei, and their desperate attempts to smile afterwards – smiles that never touched their eyes.  She could see it, alright.  Far too well.

“So yeah: the short, brief tale of me and Parvanei.  Hardly a romance for the ages,” Flash said.  “Anyway, we’re here.”

Twilight looked up and saw a cruciform sandstone edifice with a tall, central belfry and stained glass windows depicting a dove and a raven flying towards a sunrise.  The overall effect reminded her so much of her fillyhood dormitory in Canterlot, under Celestia’s patronage, that she couldn’t help but breathe a little easier.

“This is your theater?” Twilight said.  “It’s beautiful.”

“Used to be a church,” Flash said.  “And yeah, it is.  Come on.”





In the central auditorium of the room, past the rows of wooden benches scattered with audience, was a boy with curly hair the color of fallen leaves.  He was stocky and heavy in frame, short and mesomorphic under baggy costume robes, with skin the color of dusty brick.  

Twilight only caught the last of his lines, delivered in a wail that pitched up from tenor to contralto –
“- I wish you had let the red bull take me!  I wish you had left me to the harpies!  I can feel this body dying all around me!!”  
- Then the boy dropped to his knees, with a distressingly real sob, his hand circling a spot on his forehead as he cradled his face.

Some of the audience clapped.  Flash nodded, and started clapping too.  Twilight joined them; it may have been a cheap tug at the heartstrings, but it was an effective one, even without knowing his circumstances.

Then the kid ruined it by grinning.  “I do birthdays and weddings too!” he said, his voice reverting to an oddly familiar bubbling, lilting tenor.

Another girl slapped her own forehead as the audience laughed.  She slid her hand down the bridge of her nose and groaned.  

“I still don’t see why I couldn’t have filled in as Amalthea,” the girl said.

“Because I am less disruptive than you, Trish, somehow?” the boy offered, to snickers from some of the players.  “Besides, I thought you were doing pyrotechnics.”

‘Trish’ looked like she was about to argue the point before Flash walked up to the stage.  “That is a good question,” Trish asked instead.  “Where’s Rachel?  Isn’t she the star?”

The smile on the boy’s face evaporated.  “She got plastered right before lunch,” he muttered to his feet, a disgusted twist to his mouth.

“I didn’t think she drank,” Trish said, raising an eyebrow and folding her arms.

“Plastered in the Strong Bad sense,” the boy hissed. “As in arrowed, sworded, fisted, plastered – a chunk of flying wall knocked her the fuck out when everything else happened before lunch.  She’s lucky to be alive.”

Trish sneered at her, back turned.  “Is there nothing you won’t joke about?”

“Depends on the audience,” the boy – Ross – replied. “But your mom is always on the table.”

Trish double facepalmed, massaging her scalp to deal with what must have been a sudden headache. “You are the very model of maturity, Ross.”

Twilight blinked, then she leaned forward.  “Wait, Ross?  Weren’t you in my history class?” she asked.

Ross visibly brightened at that; Twilight would have sworn blind that his ears swiveled to face her in an almost equine gesture.  “Yeah, that’s one of the places I’ve seen you round!” he chirped.  “Lucia, right?”

One of the places?  But where else could he have seen her?  Twilight offered her hand, trying to sort through intuitions and memories.  There was something else familiar.  

Out loud, she only said:  “That’s what people call me.” Flash chuckled; he did, after all, know her real name.

“While you three will be interrupting our rehearsal, I will go and get a snack,” Trish said with an upturned nose.

“Yeah, sure,” Ross said.  “Save me some PB crackers.”

“I make no promises,” Trish replied before a quite literal exit, stage right.

Ross clapped a hand on Twilight’s back, gently pushing her to stage left and a door marked with a glowing red EXIT sign.  Flash followed.  “Hikikomori Hoshou here told me a lot about the work you do, and I gotta say I’d like to help however I can!”

“Hikikomori?  Really?  I don’t think I’m quite that neat,” Flash deadpanned.  “Hikaru or Flash, whatever suits your fancy, and okay we’re alone and out of earshot now.  Tell her,” Flash said, steepling his fingers.

Twilight had to admire the efficiency of the change.  The stone of the theater's walls reflected sound, and the park outside further muffled them with the white noise of the trees shaking in the cool breeze.  It was an excellent place for a private discussion.

Ross immediately dialed back his goofy grin into a less exaggerated smile, warm though it was.  He reached down the front of his robes, fishing around for a bit, before withdrawing it and opening his palm.

Twilight gasped.  For in Ross’ hand was an orichalcum-lined jewel, a magenta balloon carved from amber, swirling with patterns of shadow and relative light.  

“But – but – b-but -” she spluttered.

“Your anaconda don’t want none unless I got buns, hun?” Ross asked, his voice lilting as he replaced the Element of Laughter over his heart.

“I don’t even know what that means,” Twilight said with a groan.

“It’s kay, neither did Sir Mix-A-Lot.  So anyway.  Go on.  Ask the obvious question,” Ross said, sighing hard enough to deflate a full inch in height.  “Let’s rip that particular band-aid right the fuck off, ‘cause it’ll be less painful that way.”

Flash, for his part, leaned against the stone wall, arms folded behind his head, one eye half-open and looking at them both.

“I definitely saw the Lady of Laughter,” Twilight said out loud, rubbing the spot under where her horn would have been.  Coming dusk, her head hurt.  “And she was quite definitely, uh.  A lady.  Contralto, the way she walked, her…” Twilight trailed off, shaking her head.

“Vast… tracts of land?” Ross offered, making an expansive gesture over his chest, his voice a little flattened but still with some effervescent cheer.

“Those as well?  And that was you all along?” Twilight asked.  Ross nodded, offering no other comment.  Twilight cupped her chin, rest that arm’s elbow in her other hand, scrutinizing Ross. “Huh.  I can well imagine Laughter, of all the elements, having the power of disguise – illusion is well in Laughter’s portfolio, and -”

Flash held out his hand.  “- Stop letting her twist, Ross.  She doesn’t get it.  Just tell her.”

Ross rolled his eyes and muttered something under his breath.  Then he bit his lip, looking at the ground; then at the sky.  Then at Twilight, hissing out a breath through his teeth.  Twilight’s epiphany came right after that.  

“Oh,” she said, her voice very soft.  “Please tell me.  What is Ross short for?”

The boy before Twilight rubbed his arm and sighed.  “Rosalyn,” he said.  

Twilight said nothing, simply letting Ross continue at his – Twilight briefly considered that it might turn out to be otherwise, but for now definitely his – own pace.

“My sister they named Maudilyn, me they named Rosalyn,” the boy before her sighed.  “And that’s who my birthparents – my MENNONITE birthparents - still think I am, and I swear to god if they hear a word of this from you - ”

“They won’t,” Twilight said. “Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.”

“Cute,” Ross said. “Think I like it.  Where’d you hear that from?”

“Someone I knew who was a lot like you,” Twilight replied with a shrug.  Flash tilted his head at her.

Ross just nodded.  “Ah.  ‘Kay, cool,” he said, without any apparent sarcasm, irony, or even surprise.

Twilight sighed.  “Okay.  Okay.  I’m trying to figure out what respect demands here, so I have one more question for you, Ross.  I’m not trying to offend you at all, I swear.”

“But you’re gonna power through it anyway?” Ross asked, a cheerful lilt belying his harsh words.  “Fire at will.  Or me, either way.”

“Are you actually a boy or a girl?”  Twilight only missed a half-beat before asking, “Or is the answer way more complicated than that and oh starless night did I just put my hoof in my mouth?” in a torrent of panicked, mortified verbiage.

Ross took the opportunity to mug for Flash’s benefit, with a ridiculous, froglike expression of approval.  “That was a good question,” he said.  “She’s good at this.  Totally out of her depth given that she’s saying ‘hoof’ instead of foot for whatever reason, but still really good at this.  I think her plan might actually be worth a crap.”

“I know, right?” Flash said, smiling.  “But you better answer her question, unless you’d prefer I answer for you.”

Ross nodded at Flash, then turned to Twilight, arms folded.  “Okay.  So.  Like – Okay.” He scratched the back of his head. “What kind of special and unique Tumblr hashtag I am is not really that important, so the short version is take your cues from whatever I’m wearing, okay?  If you can clearly see my boobs best bet is she.  Otherwise probably he.”

Twilight nodded, making mental note of this.  “What about singular they?” she asked.  “Does that apply when I’m not sure?”

Ross grinned. “Oh, Lucy, I think we are gonna get along just fine.”





They tabled further discussion until after the rehearsal had concluded.  Twilight was surprised at how the play’s title of The Last Unicorn didn’t surprise her; it was another coincidence, another reflection, another bit of synchronicity to file away in case it meant anything more than her mind trying to spin nonexistent patterns out of the aether.  

It helped Twilight’s nerves that it really was a good play, even though the villainous force of nature named the Red Bull made her vaguely uneasy; something about the broad-horned costume they used set her teeth on edge. The rest of it was charming, and the inept wizard Shmendrick – a name that Twilight soon gathered had the same connotations as ‘Puddinghead’ - was a comedic role worthy of any Pinkie Pie from any world.

Rather, it was worthy of an Element of Laughter from any world.  She had to remind herself that Ross Baker was not, as Iris had told her then, some copy of your friend. Iris was so like Rainbow Dash that Twilight was tempted to argue the point, when she had made it.  But Ross?  His – their – troubles matched nothing she knew from Pinkie Pie’s history unless she counted a superficial fondness for fake mustaches, and given Ross’ vehemence on the subject of their identity, it was quite a bit more serious a matter.

It was disquieting to think about.  Twilight held her own body – her strange, too-tall bipedal body on this side of the mirror – and shivered.  Then, to her surprise, she felt a comforting touch on her back; the warmth of a
fetlock
forearm on her back, the gentle grip of a hand on her shoulder, and then it was gone and Twilight wasn’t shaking anymore.  She looked at Flash, who was seated to her right, and caught a glimpse of his retreating arm.  He just looked at her from the corner of his eye, his expression asking: You doin’ okay?

Twilight nodded her answer, grateful for the comfort. “Why does Jackie hate him?”

“I don’t think she does,” Hikaru murmured. “He hates her for some reason that he won’t talk about; Jackie won’t speak to Karima, Karima won’t speak with Parvanei … it’s painful to watch, and it’s sketchy as hell.  Iris refuses to talk to any of them but Parv until they make up, which will basically be ‘never.’”

“We’ll just have to see about that,” Twilight said, her eyes narrowing.  “So.  To recap.  I’ve just met all five of those who bear the Elements of Harmony – and Honesty’s lying to herself, Loyalty’s bailed, Generosity won’t even give them the time of day, Kindness is trying to carry cruelties she can’t bear, and Laughter can’t see anything funny in the whole sorry mess.”

“Ouch,” Hikaru said.  “I mean, yeah, basically this, but ouch.”

Twilight steepled her fingers, turning to smirk at Hikaru.  “So, about where I stood against Discord - ‘and when the Elements are gathered, a spark will appear.’ Once I get back my magic?”

“Then comes the gathering?” Hikaru said, grinning ear to ear.

Twilight folded her arms and nodded.  “Then comes a gathering, and – why are you laughing?” Twilight asked, for Hikaru was trying to catch his mirthful snorting in his fist.