"This is really impressive.", Lyra stated as she looked around the now completed lab.
"It took longer than I had expected, but I'm very proud of how it turned out.", I replied. "This will be more than sufficient for the first few experiments."
She used her magic to bring one of the glass beakers close to her. "It must have been quite expensive to have these custom made."
"It wasn't that bad, Twilight knew a shop in Canterlot which does pretty similar stuff for "Celestia's school for gifted unicorns.'"
I gave her a bit more time to marvel the fully equipped lab.
"What will be the first thing we're trying in here?", she finally asked.
"We will separate the elements of water. If everything works as planned we'll get a gas that can burn or explode."
Her reaction was quite different to Twilight's when I told her some time ago.
"Cool! Exploding water!", she shouted with a huge smile.
It was pretty obvious to me that Lyra was the best and worst possible assistant at the same time. I loved her 'let's do it' mentality but I should always keep an eye on her. "Did you bring the books with you?"
"Yeah, I got them in the bag.", she pointed towards the saddlebags she was wearing. "I didn't imagine the first thing we would research together would be about humans and Indigo Nightshade."
"Good thing you already know the books, it will make it a lot easier for us. Let's go to the library and meet with Twilight, she is very excited to read Nightshade's books."
...
As we entered the library, Twily was already expecting us. "Hi Lyra, good to see you."
"Wow, on the first try.", Lyra teased her. "Good to see you too."
Twilight ignored her tease and was focused on her saddlebags. "Are the books in there?", she asked. I was able to feel her excitement through our connection.
"Yeah, I brought them with me." She used her magic to levitate them out of the bags. As soon as they were out, Twilight used her own magic to grab the books out of her aura and trotted giggling towards a table with them. "Typical Twily.", Lyra mumbled smiling.
We followed her to the table and stood on both sides of her.
I laid the diary in front of me. "I guess we should start from the point when he opened the portal to my world.", I suggested.
"We don't start from the beginning?" My marefriend sounded disappointed.
"I think we should concentrate on our questions first, but I won't stop you from reading all the rest afterward. Also, there could be more hidden in his book about humans."
"That's fine for me.", she answered.
"Do you know what page he starts writing about the portal?", I asked Lyra.
"I thought you might be interested in this part, so I bookmarked it.", she answered with a grin.
"I like having a helpful and smart assistant, very convenient." I used my hand to brush through her mane, which made her hum.
"She will never be as helpful as me!", Spike shouted from the back of the library where he was sorting books.
"Relax, Spike.", Twilight replied. "You always will be my number one assistant. She helps Stella. We're not going to have the Owlowiscious discussion again." She was referring to that surprisingly intelligent owl, I had met two days ago. It had helped in the library and Spike got very jealous, but it all worked out at the end.
With an embarrassed look, Spike turned his attention to the books again. I opened the dairy on the marked page and started to read aloud:
"Today my experiment 'advanced teleportation for multiple ponies' went horribly wrong. It opened a fissure in our reality, a portal to another world. I still don't know what went wrong, but I examined the world on the other side, it looks very similar to ours but I noticed several slight differences as well. I will examine this world further within the next days. I performed a force field spell to block the entrance so nothing else can come through it."
...
"I found a village full of strange creatures, they are bipedal and wear a lot of clothes. My invisibility spell works perfect and I'm able to walk among them without being noticed, they seem to be very civilized and intelligent. For some reason, they speak our language, I had not expected that. There are pony-like creatures as well, but they don't seem to be much more intelligent than an animal. One of them tried to mount me when I revealed myself to them. I may have to find one of the bipedal creatures to reveal myself to, I need more information about them."
...
"I heard they call themselves humans. I think I found the one to reveal myself to, she is a good-natured mare I have observed for a few days now, her calm nature should give me the opportunity to explain myself. Her name is Cadenza." I stopped and looked to Twilight. "Cadenza.", I repeated.
"What's about that name?", Lyra asked.
"Princess Cadence full name is 'Mi Amore Cadenza'.", I explained. "She told us she had been found in the snow as a baby, nopony knows where she came from or who her parents were. She was named like that because of documents they found nearby. We think she is somehow connected to what Nightshade did, since her name has a meaning in my world, but doesn't here."
"Wow, what a mystery.", Lyra replied excitedly. "That's even more interesting than I had expected."
"Let's read on.", Twilight urged me. "I want to know what happens next."
...
"I revealed myself to Cadenza today, she was shocked but I was able to calm her quickly. She offered me a lot of information about the human race, I will write a book about all the information I can gather about them. She is surprisingly fun to be around, I can't wait to meet her again. Next time she wants to teach me about their way of writing."
...
"I know her for about three weeks now and I can't stop thinking about her, we understand each other so well and... she is very pretty... in her own non-pony way."
...
"I decided to make her a very special present, I really hope she likes it, I will work hard tonight to finish it."
...
I noticed something was wrong when I turned the page. His writing was uneven and smeared.
"The village was demolished and burning when I arrived. I immediately ran to Cadenza's house. I found her..." The writing got even worse at this point. "Cadenza had been stabbed. She was nude and I saw bruises all over her beautiful body. I can't imagine what horrors she went through before she died. If I had been there when it happened... I could have protected her... She would still smile this beautiful smile of hers. How can humans do these things to each other." I had to wipe away some tears before I was able to continue.
"I went back to my world and closed the portal between our worlds. I hope someday I can feel anything but pain again."
The writing stopped there and the rest were just blank pages.
"Well... that's not what I had expected.", I told them. "Have you read that before, Lyra?"
"Quite some time ago. I had been more focused on the book about humans.", she replied. "I only read parts of his diary, mostly the one about opening a portal to your world. I always wished I could do such a thing someday."
"I think I take a walk. I have to reflect on some of those things I read.", I announced to them.
"I will stay here and read the diary from the beginning.", said Twilight.
"Stella, there is something I want to talk about. Would it be okay if I join you?", Lyra asked.
"Sure, let's go. See you later, Honey." I kissed Twilight goodbye and we left the library.
I walked to the little lake I had been with Rainbow before, Lyra was right next to me. Indigo's story had a deep impact on me, I wasn't happy to be reminded of our violent nature. But more than that, his Story reminded me of Twilight and myself and the thought she could die...
I sat next to the lake, watching the sun reflect on its surface.
Lyra had been silent the whole way to the lake. "Hey, are you finished with your gloomy thoughts?", she finally asked. "You know we had wars in Equestria too, ponies are capable of doing horrible things as well."
I looked at her confused. "I know, I read some history books in the library. Humans and ponies had times when they killed each other, but it seems to me you changed for the better while we didn't."
"We're all individuals and make our own decisions, you're not responsible for what humans have done. You even made sure they can't come here."
I laid on the ground and look to the sky. "Yes, I know. But it wasn't only that. His story was so similar to me and Twilight... the thought of losing her scared me." I used my hand to cover my eyes.
I felt the weight of Lyra's head on my belly. "We all can feel like this from time to time.", she said. "Sometimes when everything is so perfect, you get scared to lose it. I had the same fear when I was holding Bon Bon one night. I felt her body heat and her slow breathing, it was so perfect. Suddenly this fear was crawling up to me... 'What if she stops breathing right now?' I knew it was stupid to think that way, but I still cried while hoping for each additional breath of hers. I laid like this for half an hour until I was so exhausted I fell asleep."
"I'm sorry to hear that.", I replied and brushed my fingers through her mane.
"We will do everything we can, to protect the ones we love.", she continued. "But we can't worry about every little thing that might happen or we miss out on all the good times with our lovers."
"Yeah, I know."
We just laid like this for a couple more minutes, while I casually petted her head.
She sighed. "I really don't want you to stop, but there is something I should give you. Could you come to my house with me?"
"Another thing about Indigo Nightshade?"
"No... this is more personal."
We both stood up. "Sure, let's go. You made me curious."
...
We entered her house and I looked around. "Bon Bon isn't here right now?", I asked.
"No, she is working in her sweets shop. You should visit her shop sometimes, her strawberry-lemon drops are incredible." She led me to her room.
When she opened the door to her room I took a step back. "What happened here? Have you been robbed?"
The room was a total mess, books and scrolls laid across the floor, on the opposite wall stood a workbench covered with different wooden stuff and sawdust was everywhere in the room. She smiled. "No, it always looks like this, that why we have our private moments in her room... and sometimes in the living room... and this one time in the kitchen."
I ignored the insights into her love life and carefully entered her room without stepping on anything. Twilight would be pissed if she saw how Lyra treated her books. "So, what is it you wanted to show me?", I asked.
She walked around me without care for the ground beneath her and used her magic to bring out a box from under the bed. She laid it on the bed and opened it so I could see what it contained. It looked like someone's chopped off hand covered by a long black silk glove.
"What the hell is this?!", I asked in horror and took a step back.
At first, she was confused by my reaction than she seemed to understand. "No, no, no. It is harmless." She used her magic to slip off the glove and revealed a wooden hand and arm, about as big as the one I had lost.
As I stepped closer and studied it in detail, I saw how skillful it was done. Each finger had wooden individual joints and even the fingernails looked perfect.
"I made a lot of these over the years.", Lyra explained. "This is my eighth version of a hand. Each time I learned something new from the books or in woodworking I improved it. Now that I meet you, I was finally able to make it perfect."
She lifted it with her magic and moved the individual fingers. "I made it so I could use the hand with my magic, just like a real hand." She used the hand to pick up a filthy glass and put it in a different spot. She walked over to me and levitated the hand before me. "I want to give it to you, I can always build a new one for myself. You don't have magic to control it, but I can add a simple mechanism using elastic bands that will open or close it depending on the movement of your elbow."
I wasn't sure how to react. I nearly got used to my stump but getting a prosthesis like that... even getting a little functionality back could help me doing many things easier again.
I drew her into a hug. "Thank you so much, this is so valuable for me."
Once I let go again, she gave me the hand and the silk gloves. I noticed an intense scent coming from one of the gloves. "What is this smell?", I asked.
She blushed a bit. "That is... my scent. Sorry, I haven't washed it since my last session."
I was confused, I sniffed on the glove again. "What do you mean? It smells like..." I saw her tail brush from side to side, from my experiences with Twilight I knew it was a sign of arousal. Suddenly I understood how Lyra used this hand.
"I... I'm back in ten minutes. Please don't leave this room.", she told me. She rubbed her body along my hand as she passed me. I heard a suppressed moan and her scent was very present. Her tail was twitching madly as she left the room.
She came back a few minutes later. She was very relaxed and had a satisfied grin on her face.
"Are you feeling better?", I asked.
"I feel great. Let's make a fitting for your arm.", she said while she put the wooden hand on her workbench. "I thought about a padded wooden ring in some distance from the connection, this way it should be very stable but comfortable to wear. Then I will connect..."
Lyra worked on changing the hand for me while I decided to wash the gloves.
...
After only an hour I was able to try it. We made some adjustments and I started to train myself by picking up several objects. It was very hard at first, but after another half hour, it felt more natural to me.
"I think within a few days I will be able to use it without thinking about it.", I told her. "You always surprise me with hidden talents I had not expected, and I haven't even experienced your main talent."
"You never heard me play? We can fix this right now.", she dug through a few layers of books in one of the corners and presented a lyre to me.
"Wow, I thought the lyre on your flank was just a symbol for music, I hadn't expected you would really have one. These things are ancient instruments in my world, I'm not sure anyone plays them anymore."
"Well, it isn't modern here either, but I like its sound. I can play a lot of instruments but the lyre is my favorite."
She used her hoof to hold the pick that was dangling on a string from the bottom of the lyre and started playing. I saw she was using her magic to 'hold' different strings every time she strummed past them with the pick. I was really surprised when she started to sing along, she had a beautiful singing voice.
...
We had made some final adjustments and half an hour later we were on our way to the library. The prosthesis was attached to my arm and I wore the washed black silk gloves to hide the nature of my new hand. I got a lot of confused looks but nopony was daring enough to stop me and ask.
...
We entered the library. "Hey Honey, we're back!", I shouted.
Twilight came from the next room. "That's great. I read the rest of his diary and the book about humans he..." She stared at my fake hand. "What has happened?"
I used my left hand to pull off the glove and revealed the prosthesis. "Well, Lyra is a little genius.", I told her. "For her very own reasons... but that doesn't matter. I got back some basic functionality to my right arm again. I can open and close it relative to the position of my elbow. Since we're using elastic bands, I don't have to be afraid to crush something."
I gave my marefriend a little demonstration by lifting several books, it already was much easier than before, I started to get used to it.
Twilight had tears in her eyes as she hugged Lyra. "Thank you so much for this." Then she walked up to me and gave me a long deep kiss. "I'm so happy for you."
"Thanks, Honey. What have you learned from the books?"
"Right, the books... Not that much you haven't already expected. The portal led to a country named Italy like you said before. There are a lot of drawings in the book about humans, one of it is 'Cadenza'."
She levitated the book to us and show us the page she had talked about. It was a drawing of a beautiful woman, long black curly hair and a warm smile on her lips.
"That had always been my favorite picture.", whispered Lyra.
After marveling the picture a few more moments I talked to them: "Well this doesn't help us a lot. We should ask Cadence for a get-together, so we can look into the documents found next to her when she was a baby."
"Good idea.", Twily agreed. "I will send her a letter right away."
I remember something. "Oh, and a meeting with Celestia as well, Luna mentioned she could know more since she adopted Cadence back then."
"Okay, this will make it even easier for me.", she replied. "I will send a scroll to Celestia and ask her to inform Cadence as well."
I put my wooden hand on Lyra's back. "Meanwhile we will set up our first experiment."
...
I started to assemble everything for the experiment. A big glass beaker filled with water, I poured a little apple juice in it. "Water isn't a good conductor of electricity.", I explained to Lyra. "The fruit acid inside the apple juice will speed up the process."
I submerged two test tubes until they were filled and turned them upside down. Lyra used her magic to put some clamps on them to hold them in place. I inserted the bend wires into them and connected it to Twilight's battery.
We waited then for my marefriend to arrive.
...
"This is so exciting.", Twilight told us in a giggling tone her face was full of joy. "We can learn something completely new."
"Let's start slowly.", I said and moved the dial just a little. "Look at the bubbles in both tubes, these are the two different gases we are trying to get. Later I explain the process in detail."
We all watched with huge interest as the water slowly was pushed out of the tubes by the created gases.
"Why has one side about double the amount of gas?", Twilight asked.
"Good question. That is the hydrogen, water consists of two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen. It is..." I noticed some light purple haze coming from the water between the two test tubes. "This shouldn't happen." Lyra helped me quickly to put a much larger test tube in the middle.
"We should leave the room for a while, in case it is poisonous.", I told them. "I can cut the electricity from the next room as well."
...
We waited for twenty minutes before I turn off the power, then we waited for additional twenty minutes so any traces of the substance would disappear.
...
The outer tubes were completely filled with gas, there wasn't any water left in them. But the thing that really had my attention was the middle one, only a third of the water had been pushed out of it and was replaced by some purple shimmering opaque gas. I carefully got all three out of the water and Lyra put a plug onto them.
I took a few pictures with the camera I had bought a few days ago. I decided to get the obvious stuff out of the way and showed off the other gases first. I made a candle flame increase three times in size using the oxygen. Then I filled the hydrogen in a tiny tin can with a hole in the lid and ignited the gas getting out of the hole. Like I expected, it burned for a few seconds before oxyhydrogen gas made a tiny explosion. Both of them were quite impressed we got all this stuff just from plain water. Then we all gathered around the unknown gas watching it closely.
"It looks pretty.", Lyra stated.
"It seems to be slightly less dense than air.", I said.
"It looks like my magic aura.", commented Twilight.
After a few more moments of us marveling at it I had made a decision. "This might be a new element specific to your world, we should test its properties. I name it 'Twilonium'."
"Ohhhh, that's cute. Thank you, Love.", Twilight said and kissed me.
"Can I do the taste test?", Lyra asked excited.
I looked at her astonished. "How can you think about tasting it? It could be poisonous." I remembered her idea wasn't that crazy, back in the early days of chemistry people indeed tasted things... which often ended in catastrophic ways.
"Let's carefully try how it reacts to wood and metal first. To see if it has oxidation properties."
They look at me confused.
"I will explain all of it in detail afterward, okay?"
They nodded in agreement and we prepared everything for the experiments.
...
I had sent them out of the room in case of catastrophic failure and pressed myself against the blast shield Twilight had brought between me and the test tube. It was a wooden structure, reinforced with metal on the front and on the bottom, the whole thing was so heavy it could only be moved by levitation. I used my wooden hand through it to the bring the little wooden stick close to the purple gas. If my prosthesis would be destroyed, Lyra could always make a new one. I pushed the stick upwards into the 'Twilonium'.
Nothing seemed to happen.
I waited a few more moments and finally pulled it out again. It looked just like before. I brought it close to me and used my other hand to hold it in front of my eyes for closer inspection. It felt incredibly light. Slowly it let go of it.
Twilight and Lyra entered the room again. "Did anything happen?", my marefriend asked.
I stepped aside so they were able to see the floating stick.
"Wow, so cool!", Lyra shouted out.
"Levitation without active magic? This will be the best scroll I have sent Celestia in ages." Twily was so excited and jumped up and down.
"Indeed, this is nothing I would have ever guessed. It will be interesting to see how long the effect lasts. I will do the same with a piece of metal to see if the effect differs, then we will call it a day and have dinner. Tomorrow we test it with fire."
...
Twilonium had the same effect on metal as it had on wood. After Lyra had left to go home, I brought the two pieces with me to the library so we could observe how long they kept on floating.
We sat on the dinner table when Celestia's answer arrived.
"Tomorrow afternoon would be fine, as always I'm looking forward to your visit.", Twilight read aloud.
"What did you tell her in your scroll?", I asked her.
"Just that we want to discuss our findings so far. I decided not to mention your findings today, so you can tell her in person and even show her... if they still float by the time we visit her."
"If not, I can dip them into Twilonium again." Twilight still smiled every time I mentioned the element. Well... possible element, it could be a chemical compound as well.
We had a pleasant dinner and nice cuddly night together.
...
The next morning both samples were still floating on the spot I had left them. I gave one of them a little push which made it move an inch but they both just kept on levitating.
After breakfast, Lyra arrived ready for action. "What are we doing today?", she asked.
"We're testing Twilonium reaction to fire this morning. Around noon we will take a train to Canterlot to investigate further about Indigo Nightshade. We should be back in Ponyville for dinner."
"Awesome! Sounds like we could do a lot of progress today."
I really loved her positive spirit. We walked over to the lab to set up the experiment while Twilight stayed in the library to read some books about portal magic and teleportation.
...
We ended up using only a fraction of the purple gas, while we stored the rest of it in the smaller room we were sitting right now. We watched our setup for the experiment in the main lab through a very small hole in the wall.
"Can you use your magic to move the burning candle into the gas?", I asked Lyra.
"Sure, what do you expect to happen?"
"I really have no idea. This stuff isn't like anything I have experienced before. That's the reason why we only use a fraction of it."
Her horn started to glow and slowly she moved the candle towards...
I opened my eyes again. Lyra laid next to me and seemed to be unconscious. The wall before us was still intact and must have absorbed most of the forces directed to us. I shook her body. "Lyra! Lyra, wake up."
She moaned and slowly opened her eyes. "What happened?"
"The Twilonium exploded.", I explained. The rest of the sample rolled towards us, the shockwave had thrown it out of the shelf I had put it, the vessel was unharmed. I grabbed it from the ground and looked at it. "We're lucky it doesn't detonate from shocks or we would be dead right now. Are you unharmed?"
She carefully rose. "I'm fine, just a bit mixed up."
I stood up and walked to the door leading to the next room. It was half open and had a huge crack in it. When I entered the next room I was relieved to see the blast wall had worked as intended, it laid outside on its side. Most of the energy from the explosion had chosen the way of least resistance, thanks to that the main room was in better shape than I had expected, and there was no fire.
"Nothing that some money and the carpenter can't fix in a day or two.", I told Lyra who entered the room. "I don't want to imagine what would have happened without our safety precautions."
"STELLA!" Twilight ran towards our lab, deeply worried.
"Everything is fine!", I shouted. "We're unharmed."
I felt her relief. She hugged me hard once she reached me. "I was so worried.", she said sobbing.
"I'm sorry for that. Turns out Twilonium is highly explosive with fire. We only used a tiny amount and look what happened."
We went back to the library and tried to recover from the shock of almost dying. Lyra went off to Bon Bon's shop so she wouldn't worry when she heard from the explosion.
...
After an hour of kissing and cuddling in our bed, I went to the carpenter to tell him about the 'repairs' I needed for my lab. "It exploded, can you please fix it. I pay you twenty percent premium." The look on his face was priceless.
...
I had brought my floating test samples with me to show them Celestia and met up with the others at the train station right before noon.
"It took me ten minutes to convince Bon Bon it wasn't my fault the lab exploded. I had to promise her to be extra careful from now on.", explained my aquamarine colored lab assistant.
"Well you are known to be prone to accidents, almost as much as Derpy.", Twilight said smiling.
"At most half as much.", Lyra defended herself and made me worry.
"Look, the train is coming.", I told them to interrupt this unsettling conversation.
...
We sat in the wagon watching the scenery.
"Who will we meet first?", I asked my marefriend.
"Once we arrived, we will head right to the palace to meet Celestia. Cadence also has a room in the castle and we can visit her once our first meeting is over."
"This is gonna be interesting, I can't wait to see these papers of hers."
We were in good spirits when we arrived in Canterlot. I had decided to take off the gloves because it was to warm wearing them anyway. The wooden color of my prosthesis wasn't so far from my skin tone and Lyra had made it very lifelike, so on a quick glance, most wouldn't even notice it being artificial.
As we walked through the streets a lot fewer ponies stared at me and I recognized some faces from the Grand Galloping Gala.
'Maybe Canterlot isn't a bad place after all.', I thought.
...
After half an hour we arrived at the palace. The guards had expected us and let us pass without any problems.
"This is exciting. I never met Princess Celestia in person, I only saw her from afar at the Gala. She is a pretty good dancer.", Lyra said as we wandered the corridors towards the private meeting room.
"She is very nice and casual.", I told her. "Not what I had expected from a leader of a country when I first met her." I turned towards Twilight. "Do you think Luna will be at the meeting as well?"
"I don't expect it. Normally she is asleep at this time since she is up all next night. Only if something rare happens she would be awake at day, like when you appeared in this world. Why are you asking?"
"I just thought it would be nice to see her again after we had so much fun together. I really slacked on writing her, please remind me to send her a letter tonight."
"Of course, I have eight different stationery you can choose from."
"Of course you have.", I said smiling and kissed her.
After a few more minutes we arrived at the room we were told to meet with Celestia. I knocked and after the answer of her melodic voice, we entered the room.
"Hello Princess Celestia, it's a pleasure meeting you.", my marefriend started.
"Hi Celestia, good to see you again.", I said much less formal because I knew she liked it better this way.
"..." I saw Lyra was just frozen in place. I hadn't expected her to react this way.
"So nice to meet you again.", Celestia answered. "And you brought a guest this time, who... what happened to your hand?" Her look was quite confused.
"It's a prosthesis my lab assistant Lyra Heartstrings created for me." I used my good hand to hit her side.
"Nice to meet you.", Lyra was finally able to say.
"Likewise. May I see how it works?"
I stepped close to her and lifted the sleeve of my shirt to make the connection visible.
"It's quite easy for me to attach it or to take it off." I pulled a little lever and half of the padded wooden ring connecting it to my arm folded to the side. I slipped my arm out of it and detached the elastic bands from the back of my elbow.
Celestia used her magic to bring the wooden hand close to her eyes. She looked at it marveling about all the little details. "I must say, I'm quite impressed. This is astonishing for such a short time."
"I... I must admit I work on these projects for years now, the descriptions of humans by Indigo had quite an impact on me."
"Nonetheless, this is an amazing achievement. I'm happy to see Stella getting some of her possibilities back."
"Thank you so much, princess.", Lyra bowed before her.
"Well, this is just one of the things we wanted to talk about.", I addressed Celestia while I attached my prosthesis again. "We also been successful separating water into its elements, but instead of two gases, we found three. One of them has amazing properties." I took out the two samples and let them levitate right before her eyes.
It took her a few moments to notice there wasn't any magical aura around them making them float, when she did her eyes widened. "How is this possible? Never in my life I have seen something levitate without magic."
"Well, it could be magic. I dipped them into the gas we discovered when I separated water with electricity. It's purple, slightly lighter than air and I named it 'Twilonium'." I noticed the slight smile on Celestia's lips. "My thesis so far is as follows: 'Twilonium' is magic itself. You all have some kind of magic, even the earthponies. Your bodies contain a large amount of water and after you use magic you can restore your energy by drinking something containing water. Eating would be the same since all fruits and vegetables contain large amounts of water too."
The princess thought about my words for a moment. "It's a nice theory but not much more so far. We know our bodies can restore magic when we eat or drink. So far our understanding had been: The nutrition gives our bodies the energy they need to produce magic. Your idea is a plausible explanation too and definitely worth thinking about." She focused on the levitating samples again. "How long are these floating so far?"
"Nearly a day. I have no idea how long it's going to last but we will observe them until they stop levitating. The gas has another property as well. When we brought a tiny bit of it in contact with fire our lab exploded." I saw the horror on her face. "We started the experiment from the next room and I had special safety features built into the structure of my lab, if we hadn't done it this way... we could be dead right now."
Once again Celestia thought about all we had said for a few moments. "So... the gas you covered these samples with is highly explosive. Have you checked what happens if they get close to a flame?"
My stomach formed to a knot and all color drained from my face. "No...", I admitted.
Instantly a forcefield formed around the two samples, produced by her magic. "Let's go outside in the garden together."
We followed her through a door to the outside, the private garden of the princesses.
"No matter how this turns out, you should always think about every possible danger.", Celestia addressed me while we were walking, surrounded by beautiful flowers.
"Yes, I know. I'm really ashamed for forgetting this possibility. I will be extra careful from now on.", I answered looking to the ground.
"I'm sure you will. If you're working with dangerous substances you should think twice about every move."
Both samples floated upwards until they had reached about thirty feet, they were hard to see. The forcefield disappeared and a small flame surrounded them for a few seconds.
Nothing happened.
The samples floated back down to me, still intact, the wooden sample emitted a tiny bit of smoke. Once she removed her magic they kept on levitating.
"Seems like we have worried about nothing, but better safe than sorry.", she declared. "I'm looking forward to hearing how long they lasted."
Once it stopped smoking I put them in my bag again.
She spoke up again. "And please make sure all information about your research stays between the four of us and Luna."
I just nodded in reply. We kept on walking through the beautiful garden enjoying her sunny day.
"There is another thing we want to talk about.", I said. "In our research about Indigo Nightshade we see connections to Cadence's past, how she was found before you adopted her. We would like to hear more details about it."
I looked to my side but Celestia wasn't there anymore. I turned and saw she had stopped walking some moments ago. She looked unpleasant and defensive.
"What's wrong?", I asked.
She sighed. "I always knew the day would come when I have to tell her the truth."
Celestia had decided it would be unfair to tell us before Cadence, so she had sent a message for her to meet us in the private garden. It seemed like forever until Cadence arrived, she looked confused by this sudden invitation to talk about her past.
"Hi to all of you.", she said and looked at me. "What have you found about my past?"
"We have found a few new pieces of information, but before I could talk about them Celestia said she had to tell you something."
Cadence was surprised by that and turned towards the white alicorn.
"Let's all sit down in the grass and I will tell you everything."
We did as she suggested and we waited for her to begin. She seemed to have trouble finding the right words and three minutes passed without her saying anything. Finally, she took a deep breath and started to talk.
"You know I love you like a mother and never would do something to hurt you.", she addressed Cadence. "But I lied to you about your past. It was easier to tell you this white lie when you were little and somehow I missed the right time to tell you the truth... because I was scared of you being mad at me for lying." Both Cadence and Celestia moved uneasy, clearly stressed out from this situation. Without thinking about it I had laid my hand on Cadence's back to calm her down a bit, but she didn't seem to notice.
"I have told you, you were found laying in the snow with just these papers next to you... but you were found in the burning remains of an exploded tower."
I felt her tense up under my hand and Celestia gave her a few seconds to process this.
"You are a direct descendant of Indigo Nightshade, although a few generations apart. Your family always consisted of ponies with powerful magic. I had been on site after the accident to investigate what happened. Connecting my findings with the things Stella had told me days ago, I think this is the most likely scenario: You had been born for just a few days, living with your parents in Indigo's old tower. Your parents tried for some reason to replicate his portal spell to Earth but it didn't work as expected. From the scratch marks on the ground where the furniture had been, it looks like the Portal sucked everything towards it with great force before it exploded and destroyed a huge part of the tower."
Tears rolled down Cadence cheeks.
"Should I stop for a moment?", Celestia asked worriedly.
"No, I want to know it all and I want to know it now.", she replied with a trembling voice.
Again she took a deep breath and continued. "When you were found by a pegasus from a nearby village, you lay on the only unharmed spot in all this burned and destroyed chaos. It was round and four feet in diameter. I can only assume one of your parents cast a force field to protect you before they got sucked into the portal... because we never found their bodies."
That's when Cadence broke down and cried. Celestia came next to her, wrapping her wing around her. "I'm so so sorry.", she kept on repeating while she cried as well.
Without a word, we decided to leave them alone for a while and moved into another part of the garden.
...
"That's a lot of new information to process.", said Lyra. "I just wished it wasn't so depressing."
"I think we all do.", I replied. "It was heart-wrenching to see Cadence like this."
Twilight just nodded.
"Let's wait until they are ready to talk to us again."
...
Ten minutes later the alicorns walked up to us. Both of them looked tired and their manes were messed up.
"We're all so sorry for what we had to hear, Cadence.", I said. "Tell us if there is anything we can do to help."
"Thank you.", she replied silently. "You said you had more information about Indigo Nightshade as well?"
"Yes, we found some things while we read through his books."
We explained them everything in great detail. The portal, his friendship with Cadenza and her tragic death.
There was a long silence after we had finished explaining.
I decided to break the silence. "We hoped the papers found next to you would bring us more information, the ones that named you 'Mi Amore Cadenza'."
"I know where they are, I can teleport them here.", said Cadence and after her horn brightened for a moment a scroll appeared. I picked it up and unrolled it.
"My italian is far from perfect.", I warned them before I took a closer look at the papers. "Mi Amore Cadenza is written both in equestrian letters as well as in italian letters on top. It is..." I read a bit ahead. "It is a love poem."
"I remember we read in his diary about a present he had prepared for her.", said Lyra. "I'm sure it's this poem. He wanted to give it to her when... he found her dead."
"My love Cadenza.", I read out loud. "I fell in love with your beautiful smile. Your curly hair, black as the night, keeps me awake... here his words seem to get fancier, I don't understand most of them." I browsed through the pages. "It looks like the rest of it are just first drafts and gathering of thoughts for this poem."
"My love Cadenza, Mi Amore Cadenza.", Celestia whispered. "I just liked how it sounded back then, I had no idea what it meant. And since we had no idea what your real name was... "
Again she wrapped her wing around Cadence and drew her close. The pink alicorn allowed it for a moment before she stepped out of it.
"I want to visit this tower. Would you please join me on this journey?", she addressed us. "You all know more than anypony else about Indigo."
"Well, the tower would have been our next logical target anyway. But maybe we can wait a few days before we go there, so we can make some preparations."
"I'm fine with waiting a bit, after all this time a few more days won't hurt.", she replied. "I already know more about my past than I ever imagined. But I think it isn't complete before I saw my home."
"Well, we better be going back to Ponyville than.", Twilight suggested. "I want to write it all down in our research journal as soon as possible. We stay in touch about our trip to the tower."
So after saying goodbye, we were off to the train station again.
On our train ride back to Ponyville we had decided to use the next day for preparations and leave for Indigo's tower the day after. Lyra had been so excited she couldn't stay in one spot and moved around the wagon all the time.
We arrived in Ponyville at sunset. We said our goodbyes and after a quick dinner, we had an early night.
...
The next morning I went to my lab to see how well it had been restored. The carpenter was on site finishing a few last repairs. The only thing left was the blast wall that still laid outside on the ground. He told me Big Mac would come over later today to help him to put it in place again.
"Looks pretty good.", I heard a familiar but unexpected voice from behind while I walked through the lab checking a few things. I turned around and greeted my surprise visitor. "Hi, Bon Bon. So nice to see you. Pretty much everything had been replaced, soon we can experiment again."
"I want to thank you for letting Lyra work with you, she is so happy and proud of what she's doing with you. She told me twice how she met the princesses... and I'm sure she will tell everyone she comes across today."
"No Problem, I think she's a great assistant. I love her positive attitude and her energy."
"Yeah, that's some of her treats I love too.", she answered smiling. "But you have to keep an eye on her, she ruined two batches of sweets once when she helped me in my shop... and that was just sugar, not like the things your doing here." Her eyes looked pleading now. "Please, take care of her, she brings so much joy into my life... chaos too, but mostly joy."
I bent down to her. "I will do my best to ensure she always gets home unharmed."
"Thanks." She revealed a huge bag of sweets out of her saddlebag. "This is a selection of the things I sell. You should visit my shop from time to time, so we can chat a bit."
"Sure. Sweets and a nice chat, that sounds fun. What is Lyra doing right now, is she preparing anything for tomorrow."
Bon Bon snickered. "I forced her to pack a saddle bag this morning so she wouldn't do it last minute like usually. She is visiting Carrot Top right now. Carrot was acting weird lately so Lyra said she tries to cheer her up... but I'm pretty sure she just wants to brag about her research trip with Princess Cadence."
"Please tell her we wrote letters with Cadence and want to catch the 9 am train tomorrow."
"I make sure she will be on time."
I walked outside and felt a light chill. The days slowly started to get a bit colder. Most of the leaves had turned yellow, red, and brown over the last two weeks. I should talk to Rarity about warmer clothing soon. I put one of the sweets in my mouth; it had a tasty lemon flavor.
...
I was waiting with Twilight at the train station when Lyra trotted towards us. She had saddlebags on her back, just like my marefriend. I had changed a saddlebag into a backpack for me and had filled it with food, water, and a journal to take notes. I also wore my gloves since the weather wasn't that warm and I still felt more comfortable for others not to see I was wearing a prosthesis.
Lyra didn't look as cheerful as usually. "Morning.", she simply stated.
"Hi, Lyra. Nice to see you.", we both answered.
She stood next to us while we waited for the train.
"Cadence will join us when we reach Canterlot station and then we will walk about three more hours until we reach the tower.", I explained.
"Okay."
"You're surprisingly quiet today, is everything alright?"
"I... yes. I just had a bit trouble with my marefriend, but I don't want to talk about it."
We just stood there for a few more minutes until the train arrived.
...
As we arrived at Canterlot Station, Cadence was already there waiting for us. As soon as Twilight was in reach she drew her into a loving hug and greeted us. "I got some happy news.", she addressed mostly Twily. "I'm engaged with Shining!"
There were several squeals from both of them, followed by more hugs and happy tears.
"Congrats. I'm so happy for both of you.", I said once the volume was back to normal.
"This is really good news.", Lyra commented smiling. "Congratulations from me as well."
"We told your parents and Celestia yesterday and I'm happy to tell you now in person. I want you to be my bridesmaid, and help me choose a dress and with the other preparations."
More squealing and hugging occurred.
To give Twilight the permission to organize a huge event like this was like giving her a Christmas present.
'There will be piles of lists in our home soon.', I thought looking at my grinning marefriend.
Once they calmed down again we were headed towards the Canterlot gates to start our journey towards Nightshade's tower.
It was fascinating to see how Lyra's mood had changed all the sudden. She was chatting away with Cadence, asking her about her favorite food, color, song and what she did on a normal day. It felt good to see her happier again.
...
I admired the beautiful colors of the trees we passed on our way. I turned towards Twilight. "Do you have Christmas here as well?"
She looked at me confused. I remembered the origin of its name and felt really stupid. "I meant is there a holiday in the winter were family or friends come together to eat and share gifts?"
Her face turned into a huge happy smile. "Of course, you mean Hearth's Warming Eve. I'm looking forward to snuggle with you in a blanket while there is snow outside and to visit my parents, my brother and my new sister-in-law together."
"That sounds lovely.", I replied and kissed her softly. I saw Lyra staring at us licking her lips, I guess she missed Bon Bon already no matter what had happened between them.
We had already walked half of the way to the tower, so we decided to take a rest in this lovely panorama of autumn trees. I ate one of my sandwiches and enjoyed the view while the others did the same and we had some small talk about weddings.
As we walked around a small hill the tower came finally into view. The big hole in the first floor was the prominent thing I noticed. I was surprised it hadn't collapsed so far, it was in a terrible state. It took us another twenty minutes to reach it.
"Who this thing looks horrible.", Lyra stated. She hadn't stopped asking Cadence about her life all the way here. I had never imagined she would be the kind of mare impressed by a title, but Cadence was a fascinating character for sure.
"So... this was my home.", said the princess while she slowly moved closer to the tower, she looked conflicted. "I'm curious but also afraid."
"We're here with you princess, you're not alone.", I tried to support her.
"Well, it's just an old building and we're here to find some answers.", she said after a few seconds and started to use her magic to tear off some planks that had been nailed over the entrance door.
Once the door was free again she carefully pushed to open it. Instead of swinging open it just fell inside the tower swirling up an incredible amount of dust.
Coughing we took a few steps back and waited for the dust to settle again.
"We should expect everything to be in this bad condition.", I told them. "So let's be extra careful when we enter the tower, we don't want anyone to get hurt." I remembered what Bon Bon had told me and decided to watch Lyra extra closely while we walked through this dilapidated building.
We slowly entered while the floor creaked under every of our steps. The whole place looked like it hadn't been visited by anyone for years, the dust was half an inch thick. Old wooden furniture stood all around, only illuminated by the dirty windows. Twilight used a simple light spell, which helped us to see much better.
The tower was quite large in diameter, there were several rooms on the ground floor. There was a kitchen, a bath, a living room and a dining room, but we didn't found anything of interest there. No one dared to open any cabinets in the kitchen. At least we found a spiral staircase leading up to the next floor. We decided to use it only one at the time, not pushing our luck.
This floor was much brighter thanks to the giant gaping hole in the side wall, most of the stuff in it looked burned or damaged. The biggest part of it seemed like it had been a library before. I saw the pain in Twilight face and felt it through our connection as she inspected several books only to find them in an unreadable state and falling apart as she lifted them.
Cadence instead was focused on a small unharmed spot within all this chaos, a little cradle standing in it. We walked up to it and inspected it closely. It was a simple wooden cradle, some stars were carved into it. Cadence lifted it with her magic and examined it from all sides, but there wasn't much to see.
"I'm taking this with me.", she announced, not surprising to any of us.
We searched the whole floor but found only four readable books we could take with us for further studies.
"I had expected to find more intact stuff.", I said quite disappointed.
"Well, the inside of this tower had been unprotected to weather for many years now.", Twilight explained. "We shouldn't have hoped for much."
Twilight had packed the books into her saddlebags and Cadence was levitating the cradle behind her as we walked one by one down the stairs again.
"At least it had been nice to see the place where I'm from.", the princess concluded our experience.
We shouldn't have stood all in one place for long on this rotten wooden floor, because it broke underneath us and we all fell down.
...
Painful groans all around me, including myself. We had fallen down a floor into a large room that had been hidden. I was happy the height of a typical pony room was just so that I was able to stand in it, so the fall wasn't that deep. It was dark since Twilight lost her concentration on the light spell.
A new light spell came from Cadence instead. "Is everypony alright?", she asked.
"I felt better, but nothing seems to be broken.", I responded after slowly standing up.
"I'm fine too."
"Me too."
I looked around and saw a huge lab, still in excellent condition and only a little dust in it. It was filled with strange apparatuses and crystals I had never seen before. We carefully wandered through all these things, trying to figure out what their purpose was. While doing it we also found a staircase leading to the ground floor, there it had been hidden in a part of the wall.
"A secret lab is almost a bit cliché.", I told the others.
"What do you mean?", Twilight asked.
"You know like in many books and movies there is always a secret lab with the really important experiments."
"Not in the books I read, and we don't have many movies."
"Right... different universe or dimension, I still tend to forget this sometimes."
I found an object shaped like... a gun maybe. It had a grip to hold it but also a stand to put it on a surface. I decided to touch it and since nothing bad happened I carefully picked it up and examined it. The was a hole in its top, its shape reminded me of something but I wasn't sure what it was.
"What have you found?", Twilight asked and got closer.
"I'm not sure, but something seems missing." I looked around the table where I had found this thing, there wasn't anything unusual only these crystals that laid all around this lab... the shape of these crystals. I put the 'gun' down on the table again aimed at a nearby wall and picked up on of the pink crystals.
"It looks like they would fit inside this thing, is it ammo?", I pondered. "Something is written on this one, '25'. Could you all please stand behind me when I try to activate it, I don't want anyone to get hurt."
They all did like I said and I carefully put in the crystal and pulled the 'trigger'.
A three-dimensional life-sized hologram of a white pegasus mare with a purple and dark red mane appeared only a few feet in front of us, so detailed I even was able to see her breathe. The unknown object was some kind of projector.
"Test number twenty-five", we heard a stallion's voice. "Say something, Honey."
"What should I say?", the hologram asked.
"It doesn't matter this test is just to improve the audio quality."
"A black rabbit jumps over the moon. Fish are dancing through the street.", the mare said smiling.
We heard the stallion laugh. "You can be such a clown, Mira."
The hologram disappeared and we all stood there flabbergasted.
"Had this been my parents?", Cadence broke the silence after a few seconds. I looked at her, she had tears in her eyes. "Mira...", she whispered.
"Well they could have been, it's hard to say when this recording has been made.", Twilight replied. "This technology is so far beyond what we have right now. The only thing we can do is put still images into crystals."
"We should try a few more of them and see what we can learn.", I suggested.
...
We tried different crystals and watched what had been recorded. The numbers one to ten had been just recordings of objects, apples, a chair... and pretty low quality. Up to number twenty the quality improved a lot and Mira showed up sometimes. Twenty-one was the first with sound but there wasn't any additional information in these.
"Here is a bigger yellow crystal in a little stand.", Lyra shouted as we scanned the lab for more crystals. "Maybe there is something important on it."
Cadence used her magic to bring the crystal over to the projector and inserted it.
A hologram of Mira and a red unicorn stallion with a light brown mane appeared.
"Hi Aurora, this is our first crystal diary. We will do at least one per month to document your progress and have you in it as well, but your sleeping right now.", Mira said. "Also this is made with the new invention of your father, the crystal camera."
"You're probably wondering about the bad quality when you will be watching this.", the stallion said. "I'm sure we have improved this technology quite much by your time. Next weekend I will travel to Canterlot to meet with some investors who can provide much higher quality crystals, I just have to finish another project before..."
"That's really not what this diary was supposed to be about.", Mira interrupted him.
"Sorry, you're right. Should we start again?"
"No, I don't know how long she will be sleeping, let's just move on."
He took a deep breath and started to talk again. "My dear Aurora, it has been only six days since you were born, but you're the cutest thing ever. When I see you sleeping in your cradle, with you beautiful multicolored hair, I feel so complete. I'm so thankful your mother gave me this precious gift." He kissed Mira's cheek.
"All these things Redwood just said are true.", Mira continued. "When I hold you in my hooves nothing else seem to matter, I will always love you and protect you from all harm. We're looking forward seeing you grow up and explore the world."
"The crystal is almost full.", Redwood whispered.
"We will do more recordings soon, so you can look back on your own development once you're an adult... and of course to remember ourself of all these happy times."
They waved goodbye together before their hologram faded.
Twilight just wordlessly drew Cadence into a hug, while the princess cried and looked overwhelmed by all of this. "Mira and Redwood...", she whispered between the sobbing. "And their daughter Aurora."
After a few moments I talked to them: "Maybe you should lead Cadence out of the tower so she can relax in the autumn sun... away from all this stuff, while Lyra and I are carefully packing all this stuff into the saddlebags."
Twilight nodded and led Cadence up the staircase and outside the tower.
...
We had ignited a few torches on the wall and after a few minutes, we had packed all the crystals and the equipment for them in our saddlebags. We had put them in a corner while we further examined the rest of the lab.
"I was hoping to get more information about Cadenza on this trip.", I told Lyra while looking around.
"The recording had been a good source of information so far, maybe we find even more.", she replied.
I looked at her. "No, not about Cadence, I meant the other Cadenza."
Her eyes darted from side to side. "I... I'm sure you can just visit her when you have some free time."
"What?", I asked confused.
"I... I meant... you can ask her when she is back... from vacation?"
"You have no idea what I'm talking about and you acted strange all day... who are you?", I stepped towards 'Lyra'.
Suddenly there was a green flash and a much bigger black creature with blueish mane, transparent wings, and a crooked horn appeared. It rushed towards me, its fangs clearly visible, only by reflex I was able to bring my arm up for protection. Without slowing down it bit in my arm... its growling turned into sounds of pain, it hadn't been pleasant to bite into wood. I used this moment to punch the creature in the face and it stumbled a few steps back.
Before I was able to land another hit I was engulfed in a magical green aura which made it impossible to move anymore. It also held my mouth shut and prevented me from screaming for help. I levitated towards the black creature.
"Why do you have to make everything so complicated.", she said with a feminine but strange voice. Then something hit me on the head and everything went black.
Slowly Twilight's voice started to reach me, I had a terrible headache.
"Where is she? What happened?", I asked.
"We heard something from the tower since we had been quite a bit away from it, we weren't sure what it was. Just as I walked towards it to check if something had happened, Lyra came out of it. She told me you bumped your head pretty bad and she would get some herbal medicine she saw on our way here. I had no idea she knew such things."
"That wasn't Lyra.", I said groaning with pain. "I have no idea what it is, but it's no pony."
"What are you talking about? I think you bumped your head harder than I thought."
"Is there a spell to locate somepony you know?"
"Well... yes, but to protect everyponies privacy, we're only allowed to use it in emergency situations like when a foal is lost."
"Please, use it now to find Lyra."
"But..."
"Please.", I begged her.
"Okay.", her horn began to emit a faint glow.
"That can't be right.", she said after a few seconds. "It's much to far away, I think it's near Ponyville."
"This thing, it is some kind of shapeshifter. It looked like Lyra, then it suddenly changed and turned into a black, greenish haired... creature. It looked and sounded like a mare... kind of. "
"I never heard of something like this, we have to ask Celestia."
"First we should try to reach the real Lyra as soon as possible, we don't know what she did to her."
"You're right, let's grab the crystals and hurry."
We took the Saddlebags and explained Cadence what had happened as we moved towards Canterlot train station.
...
When we left the train in Ponyville, Twilight immediately used her spell to locate Lyra's position. "She looks to be inside the Everfree Forest."
"We have to hurry, there is only about an hour of daylight left.", Cadence reminded us.
We ditched our original plan to bring Bon Bon with us and jogged... and trotted towards the forest.
...
"Not long ago I started my research of your world from here.", I remembered while we walked through the forest searching for Lyra.
"I'm so glad you did appear here and not somewhere else in Equestria or we may never met the way we did.", said Twilight brushing along my side.
"Do you miss your world?", Cadence asked and I felt my marefriend wince.
"Sometimes... but I haven't left much behind, there are only a few who will miss me."
"How is this possible? Surely you have friends who will miss you."
I took a deep breath. "I had lost my first love years ago in an accident, after this I was afraid to lose anyone again. I cut all my social contacts because it felt safer being alone and I convinced myself to be happier this way. When I came to this world you ponies had been so different from all I knew, I made friendships almost by accident without thinking about it. Before I noticed it I had new friends I cared about and even found a new soulmate I was able to love again."
"I'm sorry for bringing it up."
"You don't have to be, I'm happy the way it is.", I drew Twilight in a loving hug and a deep kiss. She had a slight blush when we separated and I felt her love through our connection, it was such a nice and warm feeling.
She focused on her spell again. "This way, it's very close now."
After a couple more minutes we stood in front of a small entrance to a cave.
"I guess we have found the place.", I commented. Close to each other we carefully entered the cave.
Cadence used a light spell and it took us only a few steps before we were able to see two green transparent cocoons hanging from the ceiling of the cave. As we got closer we saw Lyra and Carrot Top inside those cocoons.
"Oh, Carrot Top as well?", Twilight asked.
"I guess the thing took her spot first, I remember Bon Bon told me she was acting weird lately so Lyra went to cheer her up."
We looked at them for a moment, they seemed to be in a deep slumber or some kind of coma. They were hardly breathing and moved just a little maybe once a minute.
"How should we get them out?", Cadence finally asked.
"I would like to take a sample of this liquid they're in first.", I said and emptied one of my water bottles from my backpack. I held the bottle with my prosthesis and got close to Lyra's cocoon. Carefully I punctured the surface with my pocket knife...
It burst like a soap bubble and I got completely covered by this green goo while Lyra fell down with it, her impact softened by the goo underneath her.
"Well isn't this great.", I said while I scraped some of the stuff off my body into the bottle. "Would you please see how Lyra is doing while I try to clean myself."
After a few minutes I got most of the sticky substance of my body, the rest would only come off if I had a shower. To my surprise, it didn't stain and my clothing hadn't been dyed by it.
When I got back to the others they had cleaned most of it from Lyra's body as well and she was slowly waking up.
"Where am I? What has happened? I think she bit me!", she shouted in quick succession.
"Everything is fine now, you're safe.", I tried to calm her down.
She looked at Carrot Top who still was in the cocoon and her eyes went wide. "This doesn't look fine to me!"
"Please try to stay calm and listen to me. This thing which attacked you, it attacked me too. It seems you got stored in here while you got replaced."
"Like that?", she watched the cocoon again and shuddered.
"Yes, but you're out of it now.", I told her. "We will free Carrot Top as well and hurry back to Ponyville... I really need a shower."
"What about Bon Bon, is she alright?", Lyra asked in a sudden panic.
"I'm pretty sure she is, this creature tried to be as inconspicuous as possible, if she did something to her she would be here as well." This helped to calm her down a bit.
As we got Carrot out of her slimy prison we kept a safe distance. Twilight used levitation to prevent her from falling while Cadence used her magic to burst the outer shell. After another quick explanation, we were off to Ponyville while the moon started to show above the horizon.
Bon Bon was surprised when we entered and Lyra tackled her down with a hug. "I'm so glad you're okay."
"Why wouldn't I be?", she asked as she was able to breathe again.
"Because a shapeshifter replaced her yesterday.", Cadence explained to her.
Bon Bon was quite confused and looked around to see if she was joking. "Wait, this isn't a joke? The Lyra I kissed goodbye this morning was something else?" She shuddered and sat down.
"You only kissed, right?", Lyra asked very alarmed.
"I swear we only kissed, nothing else happened. You acted strange this morning... it acted strange, very unlike you."
"How so?", I asked.
"Well for starters unlike Lyra she didn't grab my flank at every possible moment."
"I'm very passionate.", Lyra defended herself with a grin. "I wonder how anyone else can resist touching this beautiful rump."
Bon Bon face got crimson red. After a few seconds, she coughed and continued. "Anyway, she also seemed to be quite confused since she didn't know a lot of stuff... which makes sense now that I know what I was talking to."
"Wait!", Lyra shouted suddenly and we all looked at her. "How do we know she isn't this shapeshifter right now?"
There was silence while we all stared at Bon Bon.
"It is a possibility.", Twilight stated.
Bon Bon walked next to Lyra and whispered something in her ear. The aquamarine pony blushed only a moment later, something I had never expected to see.
"No, everything is fine. This is totally Bon Bon."
I smiled at the situation but this was an important point, how could we be sure the creature wasn't among us when we talked to ponies.
"We should have some secret password to be safe from the shapeshifter.", I told them. "A quite normal sentence with a very unusual answer. Something to tell others, once we made sure they are themselves."
"Looks like winter will be here soon.", Lyra said. "Answer: Lemon cake."
"That should work well enough.", I replied.
...
Since it was late already we had decided to hurry home to write a letter to Princess Celestia. I had described in as much detail as possible what had happened and what I had seen. Spike had sent it away and we were now waiting for a response. Twilight had made a cup of tea for Cadence.
There was a knock on the door, curious who came to visit this late I opened it and was surprised to see Celestia.
I just stared at her for a few seconds before I moved to the side to make room for her to enter.
"I have to hear every little detail about the creature you saw.", she said while she entered and didn't waste any time with courtesy.
I was surprised but did as she had asked me. I sat down with her and described every little detail in appearance and behavior I had noticed.
Once I had ended explaining she went silent for a minute, patiently I waited until she spoke up again.
"What you have told me is very alarming.", she said. "You described 'Chrysalis' a changling and an old enemy of mine. We have battled before. I was able to defeat her but she was able to flee. We never had enough contact with changelings to learn much about them, which is why we don't know how to tell apart a pony from a disguised changling. The only thing I learned from my fight ages ago is that they lose their disguise when they get knocked unconscious, but we can't do that to everypony."
"Is there any book I can read about them?", Twilight asked.
"No, only my private notes, we didn't want to scare everypony. We are sure many changelings live among us unnoticed and we have no possibility to reveal them. We were able to ignore that problem since they behaved peacefully and we hadn't a case like this one for about a hundred years. To see them getting active again, Chrysalis in special deeply worries me. It means all this time of peace could have been about just gathering information about us and growing stronger. Last time Chrysalis underestimated my powers and directly attack me, she won't make this mistake again. I fear an attack could be imminent."
Her horn lid up and a scroll appeared on the table. "Here are my notes for you to study them." She turned towards her niece. "But first I have to talk with Cadence."
"You know how much I love you.", Celestia started. "I want you to know that I'm so sorry for this and I'm only doing it because I care so much about you."
Cadence was quite confused. "What are you talking about. Could you please tell me..."
That's when Celestia punched her in the face and knocked her out.
The rest of us took a step back in surprise. "What was that about?", Twilight screamed.
"There was a time window when she was alone in the woods where Chrysalis went. I had to be sure she wasn't replaced and was stored away in some cave. I will heal her right away." Her horn lid up and a beam connected to Cadence head.
"Why didn't you just ask her something only she could know, like we did with Bon Bon?", I shouted.
She looked absolutely flabbergasted. "You haven't told me that story. I make bad decisions under pressure! That's why I let others handle tricky situations, like Twilight handled Nightmare Moon."
"Wait.", Twilight said and looked confused. "Does that mean you haven't been magically sealed away or something like that back then? You could have helped me anytime?!"
The Celestia's eyes darted from side to side. "Well... Oh look, I think Cadence is waking up." She started to shake the pink princess which got a moan out of her.
"What happened? Why did you punch me?"
"Because I love you and I was worried you could have been replaced and captured somewhere. Totally reasonable, right?"
"I guess..."
Twilight looked at her mentor and I felt a surprising amount of disappointment through our connection.
We showed Celestia the crystals and how they worked together with the projector. She was impressed and told us how important this invention could be for the future of Equestria. "It's a new quality of preserving knowledge for later generations."
...
We had some light dinner together before Celestia and Cadence got ready to leave for Canterlot. Just as they were about to walk out of the door the first of my levitating samples dropped to the ground.
"How long did they manage to stay up?", Celestia asked.
"About four days.", I replied.
"Very impressive. Tell us about everything new you find in your research, both on chemistry and on the crystals."
They left the library and we cleaned the table before we went to bed. On our way upstairs I heard a slight thud as the second sample lost its ability to levitate.
...
I loved these cuddly nights, feeling Twilight's body heat always made me feel like I was on cloud number nine and I felt weightless. I yawned and slowly opened my eyes, I looked up and saw Twilight still sleeping in the bed.
... wait...
I actually was looking down to her. As I looked around I noticed I was floating close to the ceiling of the room. Every part of my body behaved like gravity was just a suggestion and could be ignored, even my hair floated to all sides and felt very strange when I moved my head.
I felt panic creeping up to me and tried to calm myself down.
'This isn't that bad, I'm only about four feet up and there is a bed beyond me. Things could have been a lot worse.', I thought.
I took a deep breath and talked to Twilight. "Wake up my love, I have a really big surprise for you."
"Just five more minutes...", she mumbled.
I sighed and tried a different approach. "It's something super interesting you can write about in a letter to Celestia."
Her eyes popped open and she looked at me. Confusion spread across her beautiful face, she checked her own body and her surroundings.
"I'm the one floating.", I told her.
"Okaaaay... Why?"
"I haven't the slightest idea. When I woke up today I was up here looking down. You have to get me down some... AAAAAHHH!"
Twilight was just able to roll out of the way as I fell down and into the bed.
"What is going on here?", I asked after I was able to get up.
"How should I know?", she answered. "It's not like I saw you fly before. Maybe an effect from Twilonium?"
"I had been very careful not to come in contact with it, Twilonium shouldn't be the origin of this."
We stood around in silence for a minute while we thought about a possible explanation.
"Well...", Twilight spoke up. "In a way, you had lots of contact with our new element."
"What do you mean?"
"It's your own theory that we gain our magical abilities from the water. You drink it too and we have no idea how humans react to it. Maybe it slowly changes something within you."
"While inside the water it would have different properties than isolated... I guess you could be right. This means I became an experiment myself and I have no idea which way it will go." I held her hoof. "What if my body can't handle this change and I would..."
"NO!", she shouted. "You're not allowed to think this way. It would do nothing good worrying about this possibility." I saw tears in her eyes. "I'm sure everyone will work out fine."
I looked at her for a moment and nodded. "You're right, Honey. I will treat it just like a normal scientific experiment, I will look for any effects, make notes and draw conclusions."
I kissed her softly.
A normal scientific experiment...
We both knew this situation was something else.
...
About an hour later Lyra came over to work in the lab. We concentrated our efforts on the crystals, it would be crucial to understand how they and the recorder worked together. Twilight was able to draw some connections to the "Picture in crystal" technology she already knew, it helped us a lot and we made nice progress. I was realistic about our schedule, even at this speed, it would take us a few weeks to figure out all the parameters.
...
We had decided to have lunch in 'the Dancing Butterfly' since this restaurant was only a few houses away from the lab. I loved this place because of their 'Eggs three ways with toasted garlic bread', it always felt like a little slice of heaven. We had some brainstorming for different approaches on our crystal problems while we savored our meals.
Once we all finished our lunch I remembered I hadn't told Lyra what happened this morning.
"Lyra, try to guess how I woke up this morning.", I challenged her smiling.
"Well since you ask this way I should go for less common scenarios... Have you been stuck to each other again because of your love juices like..." I had pushed my hand on her mouth to stop her and looked around to see if someone else had reacted but saw nothing apart from my marefriends red cheeks. Had Lyra licked my hand just now? I removed my hand immediately.
"No." I decided it would be safer to just tell her and not risking challenging her fantasy again. "I floated four feet above the bed facing down."
"Wow, how cool is that! What happened?"
It was the typical super excited reaction I loved from my assistant. "I have no idea and I had no control over it. Our only theory right now is my 'magic in the water' idea, maybe there is a long-term effect on my body."
Lyra's eyes started to sparkle. "Does that mean you may get superpowers? I call dibs on being your sidekick! Aquamarine Thunder!"
I laughed while she spent the next two minutes on creating different hero names for herself.
We had paid for our lunch and were ready to go back to our lab when I spotted Applejack from afar.
"Hey AJ!", I shouted. "How are you doing?"
She trotted over to us. "I'm great, thanks."
"How are things with your marefriend?", I asked with a grin.
Her cheeks started to blush. "Luna is a wonderful mare, we’ve gotten really close but she let me set the pace we're going further. It’s been a lot of fun when she’s helped on the farm. Without her magic, she was a little clumsy at first but sooo adorable.", she told us smiling.
"Well, that has to be expected.", Twilight replied. "If you used magic all your life you can have problems adapting to using hooves only, it would be the same for me."
"She fell face first into an apple pie when she tripped over a log as we chopped firewood.", Applejack continued. "Since nopony else was near, I used my tongue to clean her up." She showed a sly grin.
"We should find some time to do something together, a double date.", I suggested.
"Cough, COUGH!", Lyra made herself noticed.
"Okay, how about a triple date?", I asked.
"Sounds fine to me.", Applejack answered. "Let's talk to our marefriends to confirm it and think of some things we could do."
"Good idea, let's meet here tomorrow at lunch to talk about specifics.", I told them.
...
Since we had made good progress with the crystals, I decided to look into another thing I was interested in.
Carefully I poured a small amount of the green changeling goo out of the water bottle into a test tube. I held it into the sunlight and studied its appearance. You would expect a foul smell from something like this, but there wasn't any noticeable odor. On second thought, something that would give away the position of your trapped hidden victims wasn't a helpful property.
"The biggest question for me is how you could survive inside this stuff, you looked like you were just sleeping."
"Where is the mystery in that?", Lyra asked shrugging. "Maybe that is all it does, just making you sleepy."
"Well, I got totally covered by this stuff when we got you out and I didn't feel sleepy.", I told her. "But more importantly, what or how did you breathe?"
"Ohhh, now I understand the mystery."
"Maybe you react in a different way than a pony.", Twilight suggested.
I slowly nodded, this could be a possibility.
"We can test that easy enough, just put some on my body.", Lyra offered.
I thought about it. "This would be a good experiment. Since you already bathed in it and we haven't seen negative consequences it should be safe."
I dribbled the content of the test tube on Lyra's back and we waited for ten minutes.
"Anything?", I asked.
"It's a little bit cold, that's all."
"So maybe this is the wrong approach or your body needs to be fully covered…”, I pondered. “But we haven't got enough to try that. I'm sure you swallowed some of it while you were in this cocoon, maybe that is how it stuns you. But I don't want you to eat any of it right now, maybe we should focus on the breathing part instead."
"Could this goo contain air within it, like water contains other things too?", Lyra asked.
"Water is made partly of oxygen, and oxygen is what we breathe, but you can't breathe under water, so why should that be possible with this stuff? And even if there was oxygen or air stored somehow in this goo, that would only last for a few hours even with the slower breathing you had. You would have been dead when we found you if that was the mechanism."
"Well there is only one other explanation I can think of at the moment.", Twilight declared. "Air can somehow pass through this stuff."
We all thought about a possible experiment to test this theory. After some discussion, we had constructed a simple but effective way to try it out. Twilight got two candles from the library while I searched the cupboards for two big glass beakers with an bottom outlet. We put the lit candles in a flat bowl of water and put the beakers upside down over them. I plugged one with a cork while we stuffed the other outlet with the changeling goo.
We brought some chairs out and sat around the candles watching them. After three minutes the one with the cork went out. we waited to see what what would happen to the other one.
Five more minutes passed...
Ten more minutes...
"Bon Bon will be thrilled to hear I watched a candle burn today.", Lyra joked.
"Sometimes science looks boring but the results ain't.", I replied.
Half an hour later I decided we had a result. "Looks like we have proven our theory. Oxygen in the goo could not have kept the flame alive for so long."
I plugged the outlet behind the green goo with a cork and sure enough, the candle went out three minutes later.
I started to put away all the lab equipment we had used. "Looks like we learned a little bit more about the changelings."
-----0_0-----
'If that stupid non-pony hadn't noticed something was wrong I could have taken them out one by one. With all the info I gathered about Cadence on the trip it would have been easy to infiltrate Canterlot palace from a position of power.'
I paced inside the hotel room I had rented in the disguise of 'Night Star' a mare with a black coat and dark blue mane. I had used this disguise before back when...
This wasn't the time to think about her, I had to concentrate on my plans. It was hard enough to do all this without mother noticing, it had taken years to figure out which changeling captains were displeased with mother's leadership of 'stay hidden and live among them' and would follow me with an invasion plan.
"Do you still think this is a good idea? If anything fails the whole hive could be in danger.", Nigrum asked.
"Everything will be fine, we will have the element of surprise.", I answered.
Nigrum was my nanny when I was born and had raised me since. She was the one changeling I absolutely trusted and always had my back.
"I will show them all, all of my sisters who said I could never do anything. I may be the youngest and last in succession for the throne, but when Equestria is mine, they won't have any other choice but make me the changeling queen... and then no one ever will call me 'Crooked' again!"
When we woke up the next day, I refused to get up right away. Instead, I cuddled and kissed with Twilight for the next fifteen minutes and she had no objections to that.
"We should have a 'fun' night this evening.", I told her. "Something we may need your soundproof magic bubble for or the whole town will hear you." I used my best bedroom eyes on her and brushed my fingers through her mane.
"I would like that.", she answered blushing heavily.
We both had been so exhausted from our research and other stuff lately, that we fell asleep almost instantly when we lay in bed.
"Let's have an easy day today and waste our energy tonight.", I said with a lewd grin and sealed it with a deep kiss while Twilight hummed approvingly.
...
Just as we got out of bed we heard the typical "you-got-mail" burp from Spike. Sure enough, we heard his little feet run up the stairs shouting Twilight's name. He stormed into the room holding a scroll in his paws which was immediately taken by my marefriend's magic. Quickly she read through it and her cheeks began to form a huge grin.
"Cadence’s wedding is in two weeks and she wants me in Canterlot tomorrow to decide on a dress and give me a list of things I can organize.", Twilight squeed.
The amount of joy I felt through our connection was almost overwhelming.
"That's great news. But isn't this a bit rushed?", I asked her.
"What do you mean? Two to four weeks is the typical amount of time from an engagement to the wedding." She looked a bit confused.
I was quite surprised. "In our world, it's more like six to twelve months, that's why I felt it was rushed."
"When you already know you want to marry somepony, why would you wait such a long time?", she asked.
"I... well there are a lot of preparations, invitations and stuff you know."
"If you really want to, it all can be done within a single week.", she countered. “You’re talking to the pony who was able to organize the whole school library by word count, size, and taste the day after school enrollment.”
“Whaaa…” I decided to let it slide. "Well, I guess that's true. Let's just say our worlds are different in this aspect." I shook my head. "Anyway, I'm quite happy there is so much for you to organize."
What I said would have been a cruel joke to someone else, but not for Twily, no her whole body seemed to be glowing and her face showed pure joy.
"Thanks, I will answer her right away."
...
We all ate breakfast together. Twilight was reading a book about wedding preparations while eating a sandwich and Spike had cereal with ruby dust. I had a regular fruit cereal with a glass of apple juice from AJ's farm, it quickly had become my favorite drink here in Equestria.
"Twilight, could you please pass me the milk jug?", I asked.
It took a few seconds before she noticed I was speaking to her and she shifted her attention from her book to me.
"Sorry, what was it?", she asked a bit bashful.
"Pass me the milk, please.", I repeated and extended my good hand towards it.
Suddenly it flew towards me at high speed, I was just able to dodge it before it shattered against the wall and milk sprayed everywhere.
"What was that about?!", I shouted.
"I didn't do anything, I swear.", she replied.
A look into her shocked expression was more than enough to prove her words. I looked down at my hand. Had this been me again?
"Umm what just happened?", Spike asked confused.
"It seems Stella's body is reacting to our world by developing some powers of her own.", Twilight explained our assumption.
"Like in one of my comic books!", he shouted excitedly. "Can I be your sidekick?"
"Sorry, Lyra asked first.", I answered.
"Nuts!"
I was amused to be friends with the biggest nerds in all of Equestria. I focused on the book lying before my marefriend and extended my hand towards it. "Book!"
Nothing happened.
"Maybe your body still needs time adapting to all of this, my first levitation spell was hard for me too."
"Or maybe my whole body goes *PUFF* someday.", I mumbled.
"I told you not to think about that, everything will be fine!", Twilight shouted. It was obvious she wanted to calm both of us with this statement.
I walked to her and drew her into a hug. "I'm sorry. You're right, I shouldn't think such grim thoughts."
"I’ll clean up the mess." Spike picked up the pieces of the shattered jug.
"Thank you, Spike.", I said while I stroked Twilight's back.
...
When Lyra showed up in the lab I told her of my decision to make this a relaxed day and only work until our group lunch.
"Ohhhh, can't I research on my own this afternoon?", she asked.
I was hesitant because of what I had heard about her so far, but she had proven to be really helpful and concentrated when we did our research on the crystals and other stuff.
"If you promise to be extra careful and not to do anything dangerous I trust you researching alone."
She jumped up and down with a huge grin. "Oh thank you, thank you, thank you!"
I already regretted my decision.
...
Twilight, Lyra, and I walked to the nearby restaurant we had agreed to meet in.
"Bon Bon is so excited we're planning an event with a princess, she thought about high society events we could attend.", she told us while bouncing next to us Pinkie-Pie-Style.
"Luna is much less formal than she expects.", I replied. "But I'm sure we find some common ground."
As we got close we saw Applejack and Bon Bon already awaiting us. We sat at their table and placed our orders. I enjoyed being with all of them, a situation I would have avoided back on earth.
We made small talk until our food arrived and we enjoyed our meals to the fullest. Finally, it was time to talk about possible plans for our triple date.
"Maybe a visit to the Canterlot art museum or the fancy ‘Moon Stone’ spa ?", Bon Bon suggested, clearly going for the high society approach.
"A Spa visit sounds nice, but a museum visit isn't a thing I see as a nice date.", I replied. "But that's just me.", I quickly added trying not to upset anyone.
Bon Bon wasn't pleased with my answer. "What's the suggestions from the princess, Applejack?", she asked hoping for some support.
AJ smirked. "She suggested pizza and karaoke."
There was silence while Bon Bon tried to process what she had heard. "Pizza...?"
"Yeah, it became quickly one of her favorite foods after I had introduced her to it.", the farm pony explained.
I tried to make the best out of this situation. "How about a nice combination of these things? We have some great pizza for lunch, head to the spa afterwards, and after a relaxing time we end the day in a karaoke bar."
Everypony agreed to this plan and we decided to go on Sunday.
"Stella!" I turned around to see who was screaming my name and saw the Cutie Mark Crusaders trotting towards us, I guessed they had just finished school.
"Hi to all of you.", I replied.
"You still haven't visited us in our clubhouse. You must come by so we can show you everything and you can help us develop new ideas.", said Scootaloo.
"Pleaaaase.", begged Applebloom and Sweetie Bell.
"Don't push her into things.", AJ scolded them.
"No, that's quite alright.", I replied. "I told them I would visit, so it's only fair they remind me. Tell you what, since Twilight will be in Canterlot tomorrow anyway, how about I visit you then?"
"Really? Yay!" The little fillies jumped up and down in excitement.
Saturday CMC, Sunday triple date, it looked like this would be a fun weekend.
Already undressed I waited in bed for my marefriend, she had been happy and giggling all afternoon. I knew she loved our shared nights, but the real reason for it probably had been all the preparations for the wedding.
'Well, I’ll make sure she’ll only be thinking about us for the next hour.', I thought. As she entered our bedroom wearing that beautiful black lingerie Rarity had made for her, I regretted not wearing mine.
"Hi my love, like what you see?" Her voice was like honey, while she got closer with a seductive look and cast the soundproofing bubble spell.
"As always, I love every inch of your body. Come closer and I will prove it to you." As soon as she was in reach I pulled her onto me, feeling her body heat and the delicate fabric brush against my skin. I kissed her while my hand caressed her back and wandered to her butt. She made a surprised sound.
"You know I love your firm butt cheeks.", I whispered smiling. "Why the surprised face?"
"Because we're floating in midair and i didn’t do it."
I looked around. The bed was still underneath us but we were floating about three feet above it.
I smiled at her. "You know let’s make the best out if this situation." I changed my position so my mouth was able to reach her private parts and made sure she felt my love through our connection as I dug in to taste my favorite flavor.
…
It was morning when I woke up next to Twilight her hooves wrapped around me. We laid safely in bed, after our shared climaxes yesterday we had lowered into the bed again. I still had no idea how to control these bursts of magic or psychic energy, and they occurred to randomly to draw any clues. So I began to nibble on my marefriend's ear.
"Mmmmmhhhh..." Slowly she opened her eyes. "That was a wonderful night."
We shared a kiss and looked into each other's eyes.
"I would love to do some research about these magical bursts of yours.", she continued. "Unicorn foals often have similar problems before they start to use magic."
"I'm sure you would.", I answered and brushed my hand through her soft mane. "But I haven't any idea when they happen and I don't feel any different while it's happening."
We laid next to each other for a few more moments unsure what to do or say next. "I won't meet the CMC until this afternoon, how about a lazy morning in bed watching videos on my smartphone? There are a few we haven't watched yet.", I suggested.
"That's a great idea, let's do that.", she replied and cuddled up with me. "The crystal recordings ain't that different to this thing.", she pondered while she levitated the smartphone to us.
"A three-dimensional free placeable hologram is much more advanced than this display. But I know where you're coming from."
We both heard my stomach growling. "Maybe you can teleport some of our apple reserves up here for breakfast?", I asked.
"I’ll take care of breakfast, no problem.", she answered and softly kissed my lips before she turned her head and shouted: "SPIKE, WE'LL HAVE BREAKFAST IN BED, PANCAKES WOULD BE NICE!"
I looked into her innocent, smiling, beautiful face, there wasn't a hint of a guilty conscience.
…
I walked along the path to Sweet Apple Acres and enjoyed the afternoon sun on my face. We had agreed to meet at the entrance of the acres, from there they would lead me to their clubhouse.
When I arrived at our meeting spot they weren't there yet, so I decided to lay in the sun for a while.
After about ten minutes I heard their voices.
"Not so fast Scootaloo, I can't keep up!", I heard Sweetie Bell complain.
"We don't want to miss her because we're late.", Scootaloo's slightly raspy voice replied.
I sat up and saw them appear out of the bushes between trees. As always they were full of energy ready to do anything that could lead to a cutie mark.
"Hey Stella!" Apple Bloom had spotted me first.
"Hey girls, I'm curious to finally see your famous clubhouse."
They looked mighty proud and started to lead the way along a hard to see path through the orchard. On our way, they told me all the things they did to renovate and decorate their clubhouse, although it seemed most things had been done by Apple Bloom.
…
"Wow..." They had told me before it was a treehouse but despite all they had told me I hadn't expected it to look this pretty and professionally build. "Is that a watchtower on top of the tree?"
"Pretty cool, huh?", said Scootaloo.
"We build it a few weeks ago and Twilight gave us one of her old telescopes.", Apple Bloom explained.
"I'm really stunned to see what you did here, it's amazing.", I said as I walked closer. "So you come here for stargazing too?"
"Well, we did that once. We had a sleepover in our clubhouse and watched the night sky with the telescope. But most of the time we use it to see what kind of sweets Sugarcube Corner got on its menu." They all snickered.
I slowly walked up the platforms to their Clubhouse, making sure they held my weight. The inside of the house surprised me as well, I hadn't expected to be that tidy and even have some flowers for decoration. I smiled at the little Rainbow Dash figure, I knew Scootaloo idolized Dashie. There were several sheets of paper pinned to the walls, showing drawings of different activities.
"Are these all the things you've tried getting your cutie mark?", I asked.
"That's right.", Apple Bloom replied. "We're starting to run short on new ideas, so we would love if you had an idea."
I continued to look through the different activities. "You did mountaineering? That sounds really risky. Did you travel all the way to Canterlot to try this?"
"Well... it was a very small mountain close by.", the orange pegasus admitted.
"More like a big rock.", Sweetie Bell added.
I pointed at a drawing of hair. "What is that supposed to mean?"
"Hair stylists... but ponies didn't love the bright flashy colors that we dyed their manes."
I continued looking through the drawings, they had tried so many things I had a hard time coming up with something new for them.
"How does 'Cutie Mark Crusaders Secret Agents' sound to you?"
Their eyes went wide and they started to bounce around while they asked questions.
“Tell us, what would we do as secret agents! “, Scootaloo shouted excitedly.
It was obvious I had their total attention with this idea. “Well first we should choose ourselves some cool code names, we can't use our real names as agents.”, I explained to them.
Apple Bloom started: “I like karate, so I’d like to be called ‘Ninja’.”
“Ninja, that's a cool start.”, I commented.
“Oh, I know.”, Scootaloo shouted while jumping up and down. “I'm fast as ‘Lightning’, so how about that for my name?”
“Ok...Ninja and Lightning.”
“I'm white and cute, so I choose ‘Bunny’.”, Sweetie Bell declared smiling.
We all looked at her.
“Ninja, Lightning and… Bunny?”, I asked.
“She said cool names.”, Scootaloo explained.
“Bunnies can be cool, you dodo!”, she shouted back at her.
“You know I hate it when you call me that!”
“Girls, Girls!”, I tried to calm them down. “Let's think about other code names for her, maybe we can find one she likes even more. And if we don't, then she can be ‘Bunny’.
We all thought about possible names.
I tried to remember all the mystical story creatures of my world. ‘Something white and pure…’
“A unicorn!”, I shouted.
“I AM a unicorn.”, she reminded me.
“Oh, sorry.” I blushed for being so stupid. “How about ‘Diva’?”, Scootaloo asked with a smirk and got a pillow in the face for an answer.
“Snowball?”, Apple Bloom asked but Sweetie Belle shook her head.
“Angel?”, I suggested.
“But you said something different than a bunny.", Sweetie complained.
I was confused for a moment until I remembered Fluttershy's evil little friend. "No, not our friend's pet.", I explained. "The mythical creature."
"What’s that?”, she asked.
I tried to think of a good explanation. “It's a messenger from a higher being. It often is pictured as a beautiful girl wearing white, it's got wings and a halo. Do you know what a halo is?”
“You mean something like this?”, Sweetie asked and a halo appeared above her head.
I was quite surprised. “How do you do that?”, I asked.
“All foals can do it if they concentrate really hard on it, but when they become mature they lose that ability… nobody knows why.”, the little unicorn explained.
“I don't… how…”, I searched for words but decided this was one of the magic things that couldn't be explained logically. “What do you think of the name?”, I asked instead.
“Apart from the wings it seems pretty fitting and I like how it sounds. Let's use it as my code name.”
“Ninja, Lightning and Angel.”, I summarized. “Now we only need a code name for myself.”
We sat around a little more while I thought about it. “I could use ‘Týr’, the one handed germanic god of justice.”, I said with a smirk while I looked at my artificial hand. “But that might be a bit too literal… Stella means ‘star’, so why not just go with that.”
“Okay, commander Star. How do we proceed from this point on?”, Scootaloo asked and tried to salute.
“We will have to train infiltrating an area without being seen, let's start with the farm.”
…
We ran and rolled from cover to cover, using trees, bushes and everything else we found. I had a lot of fun acting like a kid again, not worrying about getting covered in dust and dirt.
“Lightning, to the next cover on your left. Ninja, move ahead. Angel, follow my lead.”, I ordered as we got close to the barn on the far side of Sweet Apple Acres.
I got my back against its wall, Sweetie Bell was right next to me. “Team assemble.”, I said just loud enough for all of them to hear.
I waited until all had gathered next to me. “Standby for infiltration.”, I whispered. “Infiltration into the target object in 3… 2… 1… go.”
Together we snuck into the barn.
“Ohhh yes! AJ, I love when you do this!”, We heard Luna shout while moaning.
“And I love doing it to you.”, We heard Applejack reply in a lustful voice.
And then we saw… some things through the holes of the stacked hay before us.
“Retreat.”, I whispered while I was driving the foals out of the barn. I had to drag Scootaloo out by her tail because she was just staring at the scene before her.
I made sure we got quite a distance to the barn before they could ask any questions and I was afraid to hear them. It wasn't surprising they all looked quite confused.
“What… what was that?”, Apple Bloom asked. “Why was my sisters muzzle in Luna's…”
I panicked and interrupted her: “They were just playing a game together.” I tried my best ‘please-don't-asked-more-questions’-smile.
“That was a game?”, Sweetie asked. “They seemed to like it a lot. Can we play too?”
“NO!”, I shouted eyes wide open. I took a deep breath and continued more calmly. “No, that's a game only for adults.”
“Wait, did they make babies?”, Scootaloo asked with a frightened face.
“That's the one thing we can pretty much rule out… but it's something quite similar…”, I danced around the topic.
“Is it a bad thing?”, Apple Bloom asked and looked quite worried.
“No… it's not bad, it's normal. Don't worry about it.”
“Are you doing the same stuff with Twilight?”, Sweetie Bell questioned me.
I blushed. That really wasn't anything I should discuss with these fillies. “Yes, I do. But we should change the topic now or your sisters will get really mad at me. Please…”
They slowly nodded in agreement.
“Let's just infiltrate Ponyville instead. We can still have fun today.”, I declared. “Let's go Ninja, Lightning, and Angel!”
I ran ahead hoping to bring some other thoughts to their minds.
…
My plan was to play around a bit more in Ponyville and end it in Sugar Cube Corner to refill our energy.
Right now, we made our way through the market square sneaking and rolling from stand to stand while ponies gave us confused looks. I didn’t care for all these looks and had fun bringing back my inner child.
“Star, where should I move next?”, I heard Scootaloo.
I saw how she was crouched behind a stall for vegetables and I looked for routes I could make her go. “Look for the right timing to move to the other side of the street, Lightning. Meet with Angel and move another stall ahead.”
She saluted with her hoof and carried out my commands.
…
We had cleared the market and had made it halfway to Sugar Cube Corner. My troop was a few feet ahead of me as I was pressed against the wall of a house.
Suddenly I heard a muffled voice through the closed windows above me.
“Ohhhh Stella, you're going rough on me today. But do as you please, I’m at your mercy.”
‘What the hell?’, I thought and carefully lifted my head. The curtains had been closed, but there was a little gap between them. If I looked real close, I should be able...
I nearly shouted in surprise when I was able to see what was happening inside. This was Lyra’s and Bonbon’s house. Lyra had built herself a new hand and laid in bed with it, breathing hard. To my shock, all of the fingers were shoved into …
“What you're doing?”, Pinkie almost shouted as she popped up behind me and made me scream in surprise.
“I… I… I’m playing with the CMC.”, I was finally able to say and pointed towards them.
I heard quite a lot of activity from the other side of the wall. Suddenly Lyra opened the curtains and looked straight into my face. She still had the new hand floating in her magic behind her. She blushed harder than I ever saw a pony blush before, and slowly lowered herself under the window until she was out of sight.
“Running attack onto Sugar Cube Corner! Ninja, Angel, Lightning, full speed!”, I shouted and ran towards the bakery trailing the three fillies behind me.
I just wanted to put a lot of distance between Lyra and me, as fast as possible. When we arrived at Sugar Cube Corner I was out of breath and needed a few moments before I was able to speak again.
“Your commander treats you to Muffins of your choice.”, I was finally able to tell the CMC.
They all cheered and gathered around the menu to see today's selection of baked goods.
I ordered two banana-chocolate muffins myself and sat on a big table waiting for my special agent team.
“Why did you run away?” To my surprise, Pinkie sat next to me giving me a questioning look.
I wasn’t that shocked, after some time I just had accepted that the pink pony could appear without warning.
“I… I saw something personal I wasn’t supposed to see.”, I mumbled.
She laid her hoof on my back. “You know I’m not that good in deciding what is personal, but I’m sure you're just could apologize, I’m sure it wasn't on purpose.”
“Of course you’re right, Pinkie. I will apologize to Lyra, but not right now. I couldn’t look her in the eyes in this moment… or shake her hoof. I will bring her a little present later and tell her I’m sorry.”
“That’s good.”, she answered and got her usual smile back. “Mind if I join you and the CMC?”
“Not at all.”
The Crusaders arrived at our table looking very cheerful. “Thanks for this fun afternoon Stella.”, Sweetie Belle addressed me. “We haven't got a cutie mark for being secret agents, but it was a lot of fun anyway.”
“Maybe aside from a few things we saw.”, Apple Bloom added.
“Thanks girls, I had a lot of fun myself, we should hang out again sometime.”
Mr. Cake brought a huge tray of tasty looking muffins to our table. Pinkie too must have ordered before she spoke to me because he brought some colorful sprinkled muffins for her as well. I thought about our triple date tomorrow, after the things I saw today tomorrow is going to be a bit awkward.
…
I had spent about an hour in the bakery with Pinkie and the CMC before I had decided to go to Lyra. It would be even worse if I saw her on our triple date without talking to her before.
I had asked Pinkie for her favorite cupcakes and had half a dozen of them in a box with me. I pondered about what to say to her while I walked toward her house, but I couldn't find anything appropriate.
I stood in front of her door but hesitated to knock, my body swayed back and forth unsure what to do. After a few more seconds I was able to force myself to knock. Just a second after Lyra open the door, all color seemed to vanish from her face and her ears flopped down on her head.
“Oh… hi Stella.”, she said almost too quiet to understand.
I had trouble finding the right words as well. “Hi, I… I’m sorry for seeing you earlier, I shouldn't have looked into your house.”
“What did you hear and see?”, she asked with her gaze glued to my feet.
I was unsure how to tell her in an appropriate way without describing it in detail. “I know you built a new hand for the same purpose that you did before and you… named it after me.”
Color came back to her face, but it was red instead of aquamarine.
I held the box of sweets in front of her. “I'm sorry I saw you in this private moment, let's just pretend it never happened.”
“I… I think I owe you at least some explanation.”, she slowly told me. Her face still looked like it was glowing but her ears changed back into their normal position. “Well… Bon Bon knows about my hand fetish and she is okay with me getting off this way sometimes, as long I just use the artificial hand. I'm sorry for using you in my fantasies, but since you are the only being with hands in this world… This doesn't mean I want to cheat with you on Bon Bon, it's just a fantasy setting. Please understand and don't be mad.”
Hearing it this way from her made me a little more relaxed. Sure, it still was a bit creepy thinking about what she did, but knowing it wasn't that much about me, but about hands in general, made it a bit better… I think.
“What you do when you're alone isn’t my business.”, I told her. “It just had been bad luck I saw it by chance. Let’s not mention it anymore and act like it didn’t happen. How about we’re eating these muffins together?”
“Gladly.”, she replied and took the box with her magic, levitating it inside on a table. We sat down and started to eat.
“I can still work with you in the lab?”, she asked after a while.
“Of course. You’re doing a great job as my lab assistant. Nothing happened, okay?”, I responded.
“Okay.”, she answered smiling.
Together we finished the muffins while I tried to not to notice her looks at my hands.
-----0_0-----
“Shall I infiltrate the palace to get more information regarding your plan?”, Nigrum asked.
I thought about it for a moment. “No, I will prepare everything by myself.”, I replied. “Everything has to be perfect, I won’t leave anything to chance.”
I looked over to our gagged and tied test subject that laid on the bed, a blue stallion. It was easy enough to lure him into our room, it always was easy with stallions. It had been four days now and we had generated plenty of data, more than enough.
“I don't want to make anypony suspicious, so brainwash this stallion while I go to the palace. Give him the memory he made a spontaneous four day trip to Las Pegasus, from what we gathered about him before this shouldn’t be suspicious to anyone he knows.”
I left our hotel room and headed towards Canterlot Castle while Nigrum started to work on the stallion. Brainwashing him would be a very exhausting and time-consuming process, but I was sure Nigrum could handle him without problems.
I had more than enough time, so I decided to pass by the flower shop on my way to the castle to watch 'her' from afar. It did hurt me every time I saw her, but I couldn't help myself.
On my way back to the library I thought about which of today's events I should tell my marefriend about and which I had better keep a secret.
“Hey, my love. How was your day?”, she asked as I enter the front door, it looks like she rearranged the books in one of the shelves… again.
“I had a lot of fun with the CMC, we played secret agents. I rolled and snuck through bushes, dirt and mud. It was great to feel like a kid again.”
“I can see that.”, she answered with a grin. “You should shower and change your clothes.”
I looked down my stained and dirty shirt and pants. “You’re right, I will do that in a minute. We played ‘infiltration of Sweet Apple Acres’, but as we snuck inside one of the barns, we found Applejack with her head between Luna’s hind legs.”
“What?!” She dropped one of the books she was rearranging. “You saw… with the fillies? That must have been so embarrassing for AJ and Luna.”
“Since we snuck in, they didn’t notice us. I tried my best to push the Crusaders out again as fast as possible, but I had to answer some awkward questions from them afterwards.”
“I can imagine …”
“Anyway… how were the wedding preparations with Cadence?”, I ask hoping to change the subject.
Her smile got so big it looked like it would exceed her face any moment. “It was wonderful, so much different stuff to prepare and keep track off. Maybe I should have considered wedding planning as a line of work for me. The dress we picked is so beautiful, she will look smashing wearing it. I had also suggested the CMC to serve as flower girls.”
“So nice to hear you two had fun.”, I told her. “I have an idea about a present for Cadence and Shining's wedding. How about we shift our focus on the crystal camera from understanding how it works in detail to using it in the best possible way. After we made a few test recordings, we should be able to capture the most important moments of their wedding in a crystal. Once we perfected the technique, they could have their own projector to see a holographic recording of their wedding.”
“That’s an excellent idea.”, She responded with a beaming smile and kissed me. “You know, I have an idea too, let's go into the shower together.”
Of course I didn’t refuse this offer, and we hurried to the bathroom.
…
The next morning Lyra and I made some test recordings using the crystal camera. We didn’t have many empty crystals left, but we soon found out it was possible to re-record using the same crystal, overwriting the first recording without quality loss. We did start to experiment with the many unlabeled switches and dials of the camera in an attempt to understand how they influenced the captured scene. Some were similar to a standard camera and controlled the brightness or volume, but some were more complicated than that. We found one dial that changed how much depth was recorded but it had a huge impact on the length of time we were able to record.
We had made some progress figuring out the most basic functions when we stopped. We picked up Twilight, and walked over to the Ponyville train station. Bon Bon and Applejack already awaited us and were talking about apple supply for Bon Bon’s sweets shop.
“Now that this is settled, could you also supply me with grapes next year?”, Bon Bon asked.
“I would rather not.”, Applejack replied. “These darn things ain’t easy to handle, that’s more of a unicorn thing.”
“That’s too bad. Looks like I have to get them from the market place again.”
Lyra greeted her marefriend with a loud smooch on her cheek, bringing some color to her face.
“Hey my friends, ready for a great day of fun?”, I asked them.
They all were excited for our triple date and we had some small talk until the train arrived.
…
“Ooohhh, this is so good.”, I told everypony. “I haven’t had pizza for such a long time and this one is stunning.”
“Mmmhhh, I lowe id too.”, Luna agreed while chewing and fat dripping from her chin. She was eating at an incredible pace and had ordered two pizzas at once. I smiled at this sight and found Bon Bon’s reaction even more amusing, she was staring at her while her idea of how a princess would behave got torn in pieces.
We all enjoyed our meals in silence and it took a while until one of us spoke again.
Luna was the one who broke the silence after she had gulped down the pizzas and a huge jug of cider. “It’s strange to see Cadence always with this big smile and looking like she’s walking on cloud number nine, it seems she can’t wait for the wedding date to finally arrive.”
“I bet ponies around the castle noticed your lightened mood as well.”, I addressed her. “Have you ever thought about marriage?”
Applejack choked on her cider while Luna showed a slight blush.
“Not until recently.”, the Princess answered and drew AJ into a loving hug.
“Sorry, that was a bit blunt.”, I tried to excuse to them.
“No, it’s okay. It’s a thing that will come up in any relationship at some point.”, Luna replied.
Her statement made me think about my own relation…
“Since we’re all finished, maybe we should move to the spa now.”, Bon Bon suggested. “I’ve heard wonderful things about Canterlot's biggest spa.”
We all agreed to move on to our next destination and paid for our meals.
…
The first stop at the spa was the sauna. The native equestrians had only a towel wrapped around their manes, I opted for a towel wrapped around my body as well. We had been in the sauna for some time when noticed everypony was checking out my different body physique, it was an awkward feeling.
After the sauna we had showered and now all of us laid on massage tables in a big room while the spa ponies work on our backs. The one working on me felt uncertain what to do since she never massaged something like me, but it felt great anyway. I heard much pleasurable moaning while our bodies started to relax and lose their tension.
After the massages we sat down for hooficures which translated to a mani pedi for me. The spa pony seemed a bit unsure how to proceed but with a bit of coaching she happily went to work on my remaining fingers. I caught Lyra staring intently as the spa pony worked on my hands, Lyra was oblivious to the death glare Bon Bon was giving her.
“I heard about the royal wedding, will you be there as well?”, my spa pony asked me. I turned my head slightly to look at her, she was a slender light brown mare with a dark red mane.
“Yeah, we will be attending.”, I replied. “My marefriend is actually organizing the event.”
Twilight just answered with a happy hum.
-----0_0-----
“Yeah, we will be attending. My marefriend is actually organizing the event.”, she replied while I worked on her pathetic excuse for a hoof.
My disguise was of course perfect and they hadn't the slightest idea their biggest enemy was literally touching them. It turned out it had been a genius idea to follow The Moon Princess when she left the castle. The more information about the wedding I could gather, the easier my whole plan would work out.
“I'm so jealous, I wish I could go to a royal wedding. Could you tell me a bit about your plans?”, I asked in Twilight's direction while I made sure to keep my focus on the hairless ape thing under my hooves.
“Gladly.”, I heard the purple pony answer, her voice filled with joy. “4:30 pm… the last guests have taken their seats and I check my checklist for the third time to be sure if…”
“Oh no, this will go on for some time.”, I heard the human mumble under her breath while I made mental notes of everything that could be important for me.
Luna was singing a night ballad from the top of her lungs. It was incredible how much power she was able to put into her voice without making it sound like screaming. Her voice would put many human opera singers to shame. Applejack watched her with dreamy eyes that wandered over her body.
We had a pretty large room in the karaoke bar all to ourselves and everyone of us had plenty drinks by this point. That's also the reason why Twily and I decided to take the stage next with a love song duet. With the support of my arm holding her, Twily stood on her hind legs and we sang cheek to cheek.
Meanwhile, under the influence of plenty alcohol, Lyra and Bon Bon started kissing and some of the things they did could even count as heavy petting. As I noticed how much they were in their own world without thinking about us, I started to giggle so much I wasn't able to continue the song. Twilight looked at me confused about this sudden burst of laughter, I pointed towards the pair making out.
“Well that's not a bad idea.”, she said lecherous giving me bedroom eyes.
…
I opened my eyes, awoken by the sun shining through the window. My memory was hazy while I looked around. Twilight was clinging to my body while we laid on one of the benches in the karaoke bar. I felt the pain of a headache as a hangover was taking root, slowly some memories came back to me…
I remembered the owner of the bar wanted us out at some point but Luna had used her princess status to deny that. After he went home and we were the only ones left, the alcohol eliminated even more inhibitions. Then I remembered what happened afterwards… “Oh wow.”, I whispered.
I looked down my body and noticed I only wore my lingerie and Twilight's hoof stuck inside it holding onto my butt. I carefully freed myself from her grasp and stood up searching the room for the rest of my clothing. The other couples also had laid together with their partner embracing each other.
I found my top and skirt a few feet away and noticed the top was slightly ripped, nothing bad, but somepony must have been very eager last night.
I dressed and started to wake my marefriend with gentle kisses on her forehead. She tasted quite salty, it seemed we got a bit sweaty last night. As she began to wake up she drew me into a deep kiss, humming happily.
“Good morning, my love.”, I whispered to her once my lips were free again.
“Morning, honey.”, she replied and yawned.
“Ooohhh, my head. What had happened last night?” It looked like she tried to remember some things until her face suddenly flashed red. “Wait… we did… in front of them?!”
“Well you started it.”, I answered with a lewd smile. “And the others had been quite busy themselves, so they didn't pay much attention to us. Well… except for Lyra who was staring at me the whole time while she brought Bon Bon to cloud nine and beyond… that felt weird, but you were pretty rough yourself, so I had little time to worry about Lyra. But judging by her marefriend’s mad screams of lust Bon Bon wasn't unhappy with the situation.”
“How can you be so casual about this?”, she ask with some anger in her voice.
“Honey, we lost control for a bit but nobody got hurt or should feel bad about what we did. I'm very sorry if we did things you regret now, but last night you had been so eager I didn't question it. It's not like we all have to talk about it. Maybe next time we should drink something non-alcoholic after our first drink.”
I softly kissed her lips and brushed my hand along her face.
She slowly exhaled. “Next time please try to stop me before I do something like this.”
“I promise.”
We kissed again and went through the room carefully waking up the others.
…
I was eating two huge slices of cake in record speed.
“How can you have cake for breakfast?”, my marefriend asked.
I stopped long enough to answer: “Ask Pinkie that question. I need new energy fast and this is the most delicious way of doing it.”
We had decided to go to a nearby bakery to have all breakfast together. Most of them were slowly nibbling a bun but Luna and I had a different way of handling our hangover, we both had huge servings of cake.
“I can’t understand how you all can function on so little food.”, Luna added as she switched from on slice of cake to another.
“Well, you’re much bigger than us, so it’s only natural you need more energy.”, Twilight tried the scientific explanation.
Luna stopped eating and stared at her.
I sensed it would be good to steer the conversation in another direction than Luna’s body… as fast as possible. “Say Luna, can you do some special arrangement of stars for Cadence’s wedding?”
Her gaze lingered a bit longer on my marefriend, but then she turned towards me. “Oh yes, I have planned quite a spectacular view and will even experiment with more moving stars.”
“That sounds amazing.”, I replied. “I can’t wait to see it.”
…
Back in Ponyville Lyra and I concentrated on using the crystal camera again. Lyra had suggested she would use the camera to record the ceremony and I happily agreed. This way I could spend my time with Twily enjoying the wedding.
My marefriend came to our lab two hours later, bringing us a little snack and some apple cider.
“I’ve thought a lot about the wedding lately.”, she told us.
“Of course, since you’re planning it that’s only natural.”, I replied.
“There will be slow and close dancing… and I never really did that.”, she mumbled.
“It doesn’t help that I’m a different species.”, I added and she nodded.
“Well, you still have a lot of time to practice.”, Lyra chimed in. “I’m more than happy to help as well, if you need a training partner for dancing Stella. You would hold my hoof in your hand while your prosthetic held my back and…” She voice changed into a silent mumble and she was drooling.
Twilight looked confused. “Is there something you want to tell me about this?”, she asked me.
“I explain later. Let’s ask Rarity for some help with the dancing. Lyra will probably reset in a moment.”
I pushed her out of the room and told Twilight on our way to her friends boutique all about Lyra’s obsession for my hands and hands in general.
“You really should have told me.”, she responded and sounded a bit angry about the situation.
“I didn’t want to make it awkward between you. It is really harmless, and it's all in her fantasies. She is in a happy relationship with Bon Bon and you know my fingers only explore your private parts.”, I replied grinning.
“Still, please tell me things like that in the future.”, she demanded with a slight blush.
“Of course, my Love. Anything you want.”
I drew her into a deep kiss and made sure she felt my passion for her. Things got heated and soon I dragged her into some bushes, so I could take better care of her. We could visit Rarity some other time.
I looked at her as she was working in her little flower shop, she was using her magic to arrange some flowers and looked quite happy. I was using a different disguise so she would not recognize me in case she noticed me. It had been about two months since I first met her, she had been just another target to get love from, all for the sake of the hive.
I had a lot of targets before that affected me in one way or another, but with Lavender Dust things had felt different, and they didn't go as planned…
I had met her in one of Canterlot’s parks where I searched for a new source to feed on. I had about two weeks until I had to deliver new love to the hive, so I wasn't in a hurry and allowed myself to be picky. I hadn't expected to find somepony fitting this day when I saw her sitting in the grass reading a book.
As usual, I read her emotions to find out what she may want so I could adapt my character in a fitting way. I had become pretty perfect in being the optimal partner of everypony after all these years, but she gave me a surprise. Never before had I found a pony so content with who she was and her place in life. I was confused and didn't know what character I should choose to play, so for the first time ever I decided to just be myself… apart from the appearance of course.
I walked over to her asking what she was reading, a wave of warm feelings passed over me while she answered, kindness, openness, and happiness. I was so perplexed by these emotions I had difficulty following our conversation, I must have looked like a fool to her, but she just smiled.
Within the next few days, we grew really close to each other and made a lot of happy memories. We had our first kiss while we walked through the same park we had met and I became very flustered, but this time not because I faked it.
Being around her felt so easy since I didn't had to concentrate on the character I was playing. My body was filled with love in no time, even though I was able to store much more love than a normal changeling. That's when I should have left her, everything I had been taught said so.
‘Once you are filled up with love, leave as soon as possible. The chance of being exposed grows with each additional day.’
But I didn't… I didn't want to leave her because I felt so very wanted while I was with her. It felt good to have these feelings be directed towards me instead of some persona I was playing.
So the days went on while I ignored what I was and the duty I had to fulfill. But time moved fast and soon two weeks had passed and I knew I had to return to the hive. Since I was a ‘şahzadə’, a princess, they would start to search for me after this time.
I felt dirty and guilty for having to give away the love she gave me, but I couldn't ignore my own nature anymore. I felt my love for her, a thing I had never imagined happening to me, but I knew I was foolish to love her since she could never love the creature I was.
So, with a heavy heart, I told her I had to visit my sick father in another city and I would come back within two weeks. While we parted I felt how my heart got torn apart. I knew I couldn't come back to her and we had no future together. I would send her a letter within a week, telling her I found someone else and I was sorry. I looked back at her smiling face as I walked down the street feeling her love beaming towards me and forced myself to smile back, but she didn't know what I was. I felt my hideous black soul within me and cried while I left the city. Without her, I felt empty inside and all her stored up love made it even worse since I had to give it away.
As I walked through a nearby forest, I broke down. I knew I was the worst creature ever for stealing her love. I cried while I started to smash my face into a tree until blood streamed down its trunk...
“Sorry, can I help you? You look so lost and confused.”
I had been trapped in my memories so much, I hadn't noticed how Lavender had left her shop and walked up to me.
“I… I…”, was all I was able to answer. I was confused by her sudden appearance. I checked the voice I was using, making sure it was different from mine.
“Is there something I can do for you?”, she asked worriedly.
‘Yes, there is.’, I thought but knew how foolish it was to even think that, there was no possible future for us.
“No, thank you.”, I answered with a broken voice instead. “I just was lost in my thoughts. Sorry for worrying you.”
She still didn't look convinced. “Are you sure? I just closed my shop, I have time to bring you somewhere.”
“That's really not necessary.”, I replied and quickly walked down the street, away from her.
“Okay, have a nice day, but I'll be here for you if you need me.”
I nearly tripped over my own hoofs as I heard her say this and ran out of this street with tears in my eyes.
‘Maybe I can visit her in my old disguise once I control Canterlot, I tell her that I'm sorry for breaking up and…’
I realized how foolish these thoughts were, there was no way back for me. I couldn't pretend forever and someday she would have found out what a hideous creature I was. I had to concentrate on my plan. If there wasn't any chance for me to find love and happiness, at least I wanted to give the other changelings an easier life where they didn't have to pretend to be fed.
I was riding on the train to Canterlot with Lyra, the crystal camera in a bag with us. Twilight had taken a much earlier train since she had a lot to prepare, but she promised me we would have more time together once the ceremony had started. Bon Bon, Luna and the rest of our friends would meet with us at the wedding as well. We had gone ahead to make some test recordings before everything started, we wanted to be sure the actual recording would be good.
“Have you thought about marrying Twilight?”, Lyra asked out of the blue.
“Why do you ask so suddenly?”, I asked back.
“I'm thinking about proposing to Bon Bon, but I'm not sure about the best way of doing it.”
“I have thought about asking her.”, I told Lyra. “But we have been together for such a short time, I don't want to pressure her into something she isn't ready for. How long have you two been a couple?”
“Three wonderful years. I can't even remember how life had been without her. But I don’t think it matters how long you have been together if you both want it.”
“That sounds lovely. I guess after so much time, it would be a good idea to take the next step… not that it would change much to your situation.”, I told her.
“You're right, but I know Bon Bon would love to have a big ceremony with all of our friends. I’m sure it would be a lot of fun having a great party to celebrate our relationship.”
“Well, you can look for inspirations soon, we’re just about to arrive in Canterlot.”, I replied and picked up the camera bag and started moving toward the doors.
…
We walked up to Canterlot Castle and were overwhelmed by all the decorations throughout the city and the castle itself, lots of banners and ribbons in the colors representing the couple.
“I hadn’t expected it would be such a fuss.”, I remarked while we got closer to the polished castle gates.
It was still about two hours before the ceremony would start, but some guests which had arrived early already stood before the gates chatting and waiting to get into the castle.
“It’s so incredibly rare to have a royal wedding, of course this would happen.”, Lyra explained to me.
“I guess my perspective is screwed up because a fourth of my best friends are princesses.”, I answered smiling.
“That's not representative of our population.”, she answered laughing. “Zero percent princesses within your friends are much more typical.”
Of course the guards quickly recognized me and we were allowed to enter early, it had its benefits to sleep with the wedding planner.
…
We entered the main hall, it was filled with ponies putting final touches into the decorations. I assembled the simple tripod I had ordered at our local carpenter and attached the camera to it. Lyra had gone for a bathroom break, so I looked for someone else to make a few test shots. A unicorn mare with pearl colored coat and lavender mane, who was arranging flowers, caught my eye.
“Sorry, would you have a moment?”, I asked her.
She turned towards me and seemed to be only mildly surprised to see me. “Oh, you are Stella, the human. My name is Lavender Dust, so nice to meet you. What can I do for you?”
I was surprised, most ponies didn't react that openly when they met me for the first time. “Would it be possible for you to pose for a few test recordings, so I can check the camera?”
“That's an interesting camera you have there, what kind is it?”, she asked.
“It records moving pictures in a very real way. It's hard to explain but I can show you after the recording.”
“Sure.”, she answered smiling. “I finished the last of the flower arrangements anyway. Where should I stand for you?”
I gave her a few simple orders and did the test recordings. When I showed her the results she was astonished by it.
“That's incredible. Something like this will be great for remembering ponies you… can't… see anymore.”, her mood dropped as she seemed to remember somepony.
“Will you attend the wedding as well?”, I tried to change the topic.
She started to smile again. “Yeah, kind of. I will attend but won't have any free time because I will run around making sure the flowers stay in top condition once everypony is here.”
Lyra came back again from her bathroom break. “You have no idea how hard it is to find toilets in here.”
“My assistant is back, so thanks for your help again.”
“It was a pleasure.”, she replied and walked away waving goodbye.
…
The hall was filled with ponies as Twilight walked up to me, taking the seat I kept clear for her. AJ and Dashie waved from the other side of the aisle and we waved back at them.
“It will start in a minute.”, she told me and looked so happy. “Everything is working just as I had planned.”
“I wouldn't expect anything else.”, I replied and kissed her. I nodded towards Lyra who stood close to Celestia and Luna, waiting for bride and groom. She waved back, everything seemed to work as planned. We had planned four crystals, one for the entrance of the couple, one for them speaking their vows and exchanging their rings, and two for the party afterward.
The doors opened and Shining Armor entered the hall first while the organ started to play. He wore a gala uniform and walked down the aisle clearly nervous. As soon as he reached the front all eyes turned to the doors again waiting for the bride.
The music intensified as Cadence entered, she wore a rather simple white dress with golden accents. I had expected something more complex, but it suited her well and went nicely with the colors of her mane and coat. It looked like Lyra had everything under control.
As Celestia started her speech, I looked at Twilight and my mind drifted, thinking about how our wedding would be. She must have felt my love though our connection, she turned towards me and we sunk into each other's eyes for a while.
“You may now kiss the bride.”
‘Wait what?’ It seemed like I missed most of the ceremony dreaming about our future together, good thing Lyra was recording it.
The rings on their horns glistened in the light while they kissed, everypony was enchanted by this beautiful scene. Waiters walked through the crowd giving out glasses with sparkling wine while all attendees cheered for the couple.
“They look so pretty together.”, Twilight told me. “I can't believe Cadence is my sister-in-law now.”
Finally bride and groom lifted their glasses for a toast.
“Thanks everypony for celebrating this wedding with us”, Cadence said. “We are so happy having you all with us right now.”
“To the lovely couple!”, Celestia shouted and all emptied their glasses cheering afterward.
Almost instantly a line formed for the ponies who wanted to congratulate the couple. We decided to check with Lyra instead and walked over to her, we could congratulate them later.
“Has everything worked out so far?”, I asked her.
“It's all fine, I recorded nearly the whole ceremony and switching the crystals was a matter of seconds.”
“This will make a great present for them.”, my marefriend remarked. “I can’t wait to tell them about it.”
A waitress approached us with a big grin. “Is there anything else you would like to have? Maybe a pillow?”
“What, why should we want something like…”, Twilight started. “Wait… I’m starting to feel sleepy.”
She started to get shaky and within seconds she sank to the ground, Lyra followed right after. I heard surprised screams as more and more ponies fell to the ground sleeping. I looked around and saw even the princesses on the ground.
I tried to wake my marefriend while I shouted her name, but nothing I did seemed to work. When there was only a few ponies left standing beside the service ponies, the image of the waitress changed before my eyes and grew in size, suddenly Chrysalis stood before me.
“What did you do to them?!”, I shouted.
“They just fell into a peaceful slumber, I experimented for quite some time to get the dosage just right and to have this time delay.”, she answered and sounded actually proud of the fact.
More than half of the remaining ponies changed into changelings as well. A few guards stormed into the room alarmed by the screams, but they sank to the ground after a few moments as well.
“Guard the room from outside, don't let anyone enter.”, she ordered the other changelings and these did as she told them and left the room.
“Remind me to thank Twilight for her idea to serve the guards sparkling wine as well.”, she addressed me. “My original idea was to poison their dinner with an even slower working sleep poison, but that wouldn't have been this precise.” She walked through the mostly sleeping crowd. “I even personally served the princesses since they needed a drink with more sleep poison in it.” She pushed Celestia a bit and her body rolled on its side, then she turned towards me again. “You have been the only one I wasn’t sure how you would react, but I think you will be slumbering within a few minutes as well.”
“Why are you doing this? Celestia told us your kind is living among ponies for hundreds of years, why are you attacking now?”, I asked her. “We can continue to live side by side.”
“Because I don’t want to disguise myself anymore to get love!”, she shouted.
One of the remaining service ponies got closer to us. I remembered her, Lavender Dust, the pony who helped me testing our camera.
“This voice… Night Star? Is it you?”, she asked confused.
Suddenly Chrysalis looked nervous and took a few steps back. “I… I have no idea what you are talking about.”, her voice sounded distorted now and she used her magic to push Lavender back a few feet. “Stay back or you will regret it.”
It was possibly only a matter of minutes before I would pass out too, so I tried to use Chrysalis distraction to get close to her.
After only a few steps green magic surrounded me and held me in place. “What do you think you’re doing?”, she shouted and looked at me again.
‘It’s just a matter of minutes now… I have to do something… everything will be lost…’ These thoughts ran through my head as I looked to my marefriend laying on the ground, helpless…
“No…”, I mumbled.
I felt my connection to Twilight, felt the need to defend her. There was an energy inside me, burning hot like the sun. I was out of options, so I decided to tap into it…
My vision brightened and my mouth tasted like vanilla, I felt my hair started to stand on end. “NO! I won't allow it!”, I shouted.
I heard Chrysalis cursing as she lost her magic grip on me and wasn't able to use her magic on me again. “What in Tartarus is happening here?”
I moved towards her while she moved back erecting a forcefield with her magic.
“Well, what could you do? You will fall into slumber any moment. I win anyway.”, she taunted.
‘Dammit, she is right. I have to act right now or everything will be over.’ I felt anger wash through my body and it changed the energy inside me. I tasted bitter in my mouth while this anger searched for a way out of my body. Something pushed my prosthesis from my stump and I heard it fall to the ground. As I lifted my arm I saw a red glowing blade of light emerging from the stump of my arm. I was running out of time…
“You must have an antidote for this sleeping poison, maybe to bargain with one the captured princesses.”, I told her. “Hand it over right now and surrender.”
She laughed, which angered me even more. “I have one, but why should I hand it over, I will have won any moment.”
I advanced my arm, the red glowing blade pierced her forcefield and entered it without resistance. She stepped a few steps back to bring distance between us again. I saw some doubt creeping into her expression.
“Surrender, or I'll kill you.”, I said with a voice cold as ice.
She took another step back. “Nopony would do such a thing… Capturing me, sure, trying to knock me unconscious, of course, but not killing me in cold blood.”, she said but sounded less sure then she tried to look.
“Well, I got news for you. I'M NOT A PONY! Humans killed time and time again for their own advantage.”
“You're bluffing!”, she shouted.
“Am I?”, I asked. Of course I was bluffing, there was no way I could kill another intelligent being.
“Well, go ahead. Kill me.”, she said grinning, obviously not buying my bluff.
I screamed inside in despair. ‘Time is running out, I have to do something. I will fake an attack but stop before her body, if she shows fear I may have a chance to bargain.’
I took two steps toward her, jousting my blade towards her.
“No, don't kill her!”, Lavender shouted and jumped in front of her.
Time seemed to slow down to a crawl as my blade entered her body and I hadn't time to stop my forward motion.
There was an unified scream of horror from me and Chrysalis mixed within Lavender’s scream of pain. Both of us stared at the blade in her body and at the blood that started to spill to the ground.
The blade disappeared as I fell on my knees in disbelief of what I had done.
Chrysalis held the bleeding mare in her hooves, looking at her in shock. “No. Lavi, why did you do this? Can't you see what I am?”
“So it really is you.”, she replied. “Do you think it's important to me what you are or how you look? I have felt what is inside you and what you are, you are my true love.” A small trail of blood started to escape her mouth and ran down her cheek.
“I'm so sorry, I love you too.”, Chrysalis answered crying.
“Do something, save her!”, she shouted directed at me.
“I can't control the little magic I have. Celestia is her only chance, hand over the antidote.”, I replied.
She hesitated for just a second, then a small bottle materialized in front of me.
“Take it, I surrender. Please don't let her die, I don't care for anything else!”, she screamed while tears ran down her face. I grabbed the bottle and ran over to Celestia. I lifted her head and drained the liquid down her throat.
The princess awoke coughing and looked around confused.
“No time to explain.”, I said out of breath. “Save this pony from dying.”
Only a moment later my vision got blurry and I fell to the ground.
…
I woke up in a bed, Twilight waiting by my side.
“Is the flower pony alright?”, I asked her.
She smiled back at me. “Lavender is alright, Celestia was able to stabilize her, the cut will heal without a trace within the next days.” She kissed me. “I heard you're our new hero.”
“I can't see any heroism in nearly killing an innocent pony.”, I replied.
“That was an accident and you know that, even Chrysalis told us so. You have stopped an invasion.”, she softly stroked my face.
“What happened with Chrysalis?”, I asked.
“She has surrendered under the condition we would let the rest of the changelings go, Celestia agreed to this. She is now in one of the guest rooms in the castle, guarded by two royal guards. Celestia had attached a magical clamp to her horn, suppressing her magic abilities. For the first time, we are able to learn about their race and have the possibility to establish a diplomatic relationship. Celestia is certain we can find a solution that benefits all of us.”
“I should talk to her as well.”, I said. “I would like to learn more about her and the changelings as well.”
“That will be quite easy for you.”, my marefriend replied. “Celestia decided, after a brief questioning by the princesses, she will accompany us to Ponyville so I can write a scientific paper about her. The clamp will remain attached to her horn as long as we deem fit. She can be visited by Lavender Dust anytime she wants.”
Her grin nearly exceeded her face.
I knew this grin very well. “And again you're able to research a race no one ever was able to, this must be like Christm… Hearth's Warming Eve for you.”
Energetic nodding with still the same grin was the answer.
"This is even more interesting and important than the crystal camera or Indigo Nightshade.", she continued. "I can't believe we have to put these on hold because we have something more important."
The happiness beaming from her was almost blinding.
I looked out of the window and saw some snowflakes. "It seems this will be quite an interesting winter," I said, kissing her.
