Twilight Sparkle couldn’t see the other side of the portal.
She couldn’t hear the other side of the portal.
She couldn’t even feel the other side of the portal.
…
Come to think of it, she couldn’t see or hear or feel anything. At least nothing but...cold. She was on (or in) something cold and wet. Was it water? No, it was too hard. Ice? Too malleable. It was probably snow. But wait, why was there snow on this side of the portal? It was only May, so the lack of grass made her confused.
“T….ht?”
A voice. A familiar one, but who was it? Shining Armour? No, it was too young sounding. Big Mac? No, it was too high-pitched? Discord? Again, too young sounding, and it didn’t have the accent.
“Twilight….”
There it was again. It was on the tip of her tongue. Oh, now she remembered, it was Spike.
“TWILIGHT!!!!”
Twilight’s eyes finally began to open. But she could only see white. Snow, most likely, given the texture. She could also see the green and brown of trees, the grey of rocks and the slight peak of blue of the sky.
She could finally begin to speak as her energy came back to her.
“Uh…..Spike?”
She began to look around the area for the source of the voice. Her suspicions of her location were confirmed as she saw that she was in a snow-filled forest. As she looked back and forth, she saw a flash of purple. She finally focused on a point, the purple ball.
“What...happened to you?”
It was Spike, but it wasn’t a dragon. It was a small ball of fluff, purple with green hair. He looked at himself with a mixture of concern and confusion.
“I don’t know…” He said, spinning around to get a better look. He then looked to Twilight, and his expression became more one of shock and confusion.
“But…...what happened to YOU?”
Twilight was confused. “Wha...Spike..” She then went to rub her eyes. “What you talki--!!” She stop when she saw her arms. It wasn’t the purple hooves she was accustomed to. It was Flippers...FLIPPERS!!!! She didn’t even wait to look further.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
Spike flinched at the screams his friend and surrogate big sister was making, desperately wishing he could cover his ears, (had he still possessed arms that is).
Twilight finally stopped screaming, but her freak out wasn’t over. She finally got a better look at herself. She got a better look at her flippers.
She deduced that they belonged to a subspecies of the Spheniscidae of birds, more commonly know as Penguins. A quick survey of her form confirmed this. However, things didn’t 100% line up. Aside from the purple coloration, things were subtly off. The webbed feet were less toes claws, and more like bars of cheese. The flippers bended and twisted like normal pony hooves (or human arms, whatever a human was….where’d that come from).
A strand of indigo alerted her to the fact that she still had her mane. It was still Indigo with pink and purple streaks, but it was re-rooted to just her scalp, as opposed to down the middle of her head and neck.
The shifting of a heavy weight on her back indicated she still had her saddle bags, but a quick peek instead showed a lavender back-pack with her cutie mark on the flap.
Opening it up showed all the contents remained; Water Canteen, Food Rations, her sleeping bag, some Gems for Spike, and her Bits wallet (albeit the bits had a new star design on them.). She felt a cold winter wind blow around her. She crossed her arms and shivered.
“Note to self,” she said in her head. “Have Rarity make a full winter outfit when I get back…..ASAP.”
As she finally calmed down enough to actually think properly, she finally stood up, wobbling as she adjusted to the new configuration of her limbs. Being used to four points on the ground made it hard when that number was cut in half.
“Okay, so I’m a penguin in this dimension...don’t know what I was expecting, but all right.” said Twilight, grabbing the attention of a certain purple fluffball, who was leaping around in the snow like it was Hearth’s Warming Eve.
“SPIKE!!!”
The puffball finally stopped, but not before noticing that his trail made the outline of a familiar alabaster unicorns bust, which made him bluish. Seeing Twilight’s sneer, he stood at attention (well, as best as one can when one has no limbs).
“This is not the time to play foal’s games...uh, I mean kid’s games.” She said, strangely correcting herself using a term that she had never heard before.
“We need to focus on finding the crown and getting back. Time is our adversary right now. Three days doesn’t allow us having any time to dilly-dally. If we miss it by ONE minute, we’re stuck here for another THIRTY MOONS!!! That’s the equivalent of just under 2 and a half YEARS!!” This was a lecture bordering on a rant, which scared Spike some.
“And NO, we can't just make a leap at the last second, who knows what will happen if it closes on us halfway. Worst case scenario, they’re gonna have to clean up BLUBBER NUGGETS!!!”
Twilight shivered as her own lecture began to creep her out. Now she knew how the others felt when she went on a tangent. She took a deep breath and did her best to calm down.
She did a survey of the area to try and see where a good place to start was. It didn’t take long to see what looked like a town. While she couldn’t see exact buildings, she could see what looked like a theatre, a hockey rink, what she thought was a mine, and the outline of an Japoneigh dojo (Equestria’s Japanese).
“It looks like there’s a town over to the north. That should be a good place to start. Come on Spike.” Spike quickly leaped on her back and slipped into a pocket on the side. Twilight, unsure of how to move in this form, tried to do her normal quadrupedal walk.
Sadly, this was not to be. She kept swaying side to side, and it really hurt her wrists and knees. She was fearful of what would happen when----
“HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!”
She eeped and collapsed at the sound of a loud annoying laugh. This made her end up with another snow facial. Shaking it off, she saw an orange penguin, probably male, laughing his hind-end off. She could see he was wearing an orange t-shirt, with an ‘LOL’ emoji on the front.
“What were you trying to achieve with that horse-trot? Sniffing out the hay amongst the snow? HAHAHAHAA!!! You really need to “Saddle” down there! HAHAHA--!!!”
A flipper smacked the orange penguin on the back of his head. A lime green one, with glasses, a v-neck sweater and collared shirt was right behind him.
“ORANGE! It’s rude to make jokes at others expense.” The green one turned to Twilight and bowed. “I’m sorry ma’am. My friend here can get pretty….eccentric. He’s always making jokes like that. And strangely those jokes correlate to LOTS of knives.”
He would have said more, but his friend had already run off laughing. “ORANGE!!! Sorry, ma’am. Anyways, welcome to Clu...” said the green penguin quickly, before running after his orange friend. She couldn't quite get the last part.
Taking the hint, Twilight got back up on her webbed feet. Her first attempt to walk was…..well at least she tried. She wobbled left and right, forward and back, even going in a circle. She eventually had to stop and rest up next to a tree.
She began panting from a mix of embarrassment and exhaustion. All the way, she couldn’t stop hearing the laugh of that orange penguin (who for some reason smelled of citrus). If trying to walk like her normal self was enough to insight a laugh, what would happen if she did some of her OTHER tricks?
She made a decision then and there; watch the traditions of the local populace, and try and blend in as much as possible. No magic, no eating flower, and no flying.
Wait? Magic? Flying?? What happened to her wings? And her horn?! She couldn’t cast any spells! She couldn’t even hover a few feet off the ground! How could she get used to this strange world now? It then hit her like an intellectual brick. Penguins are flightless birds.
“GAH! Twilight, you baka!” said Twilight mentally (Baka - the japanese term for ‘idiot’ or ‘dummy’) .
Twilight shook her head. This was getting frustrating. She couldn’t just wander out like she doesn’t know how to talk. She needed to learn how this place operated NOW rather than later.
And that meant, she needed a library.
She didn’t wait for spike to get his breath before she scooped him up,slipped him into the pocket, and made a mad dash for the town. She didn’t stop until….a rock tripped her in the plaza.
If the snow could talk, it would probably be asking for rent.
As she began wondering if you could sue wayward rocks, she finally got to see the town around her, and began to stare in wonder. All around her were penguins doing all the things that ponies would do back home. They were walking, running, playing and talking like those back home.
In fact, some of the penguins seemed ...familiar.
A mint green penguin and a cream color penguin are sitting on a bench and nuzzling.
A brown penguin with a tie and a small screwdriver thing was running out of the pizza shop in a frenzy.
And most obviously, a grey penguin with crossed eyes and a blonde hairdo was skating around, slamming into everything. Twilight might have been filling in blanks, but she thought the penguin had said. “I just don’t know what went wrong.”
Trying not to freak out, she did the breathing technique that she had seem some of the ponies back home do. It did help some. But before she could try and find a library or something of the like…
“Uh...I’m sorry.”
It wasn’t directed at her, but she could still hear it. As she turned to look for where it came from, she saw an alleyway in between the petshop and the theatre.
As she approached, the voice began to take on a familiar tone. It was quiet and delicate, but it had a more self-assured tone to it as well, almost as if Rainbow Dash’s and Fluttershy’s voices were mixed together.
And then came another voice.
“HAH!!!”
Twilight turned the corner, half-expecting to see a certain pink-haired yellow friend, but sadly, it was not to be.
Instead, the voice came from a brown penguin with long brown hair in a ponytail. She was wearing something that looked like a safari outfit. Surrounding her were creatures similar to spike in all colors of the rainbow. They looked concerned for this brown penguin but were unable to help.
Then she saw the penguin that was confronting her. It was a golden penguin with red and yellow striped hair. She was wearing a black leather jacket, pink tank top with a sun on it, and a orange skirt with pink and yellow. Her expression was one of a condescending smirk.
“Well just so you know, no one wants to hang out with some earth-saver freak. It’s no wonder your best friends are all stray Puffles!” said the girl with almost a cackle.
Twilight didn’t bother to (or need to) think for more than a second.
“HEY!” said Twilight as she took a step forward.
THe girl turned quickly with an annoyed face.
“That’s not nice AT ALL. Would you want someone saying that to you. Who do you think you are?!”
The girl’s tone went from annoyed to psychotic as she stomped over to Twilight and gave a smack right across her cheek. Twilight cringed as she rubbed her cheek to sooth it.
“Who do i think I AM?! You know, you should watch whatever sludge comes out of your stinking’ mouth. Because if I had my way..” The girl then pulled Twilight up to the point their beaks pressed together and hissed “I’LL MAKE SURE YOU WILL NEVER. SPEAK. AGAIN!!!”
The girl then let Twilight go, before stomping away in annoyance. As she passed a blue penguin with a blond ponytail, she made a motion of “What are you looking at.” causing the penguin to flinch.
As Twilight and Spike watched, the brown safari penguin finally stood up with an expression of awe.
“I can’t believe you just stood up to her like that!”
Twilight turned in surprise. “I couldn’t just stand there and let her keep going. She could have hurt some of your...Puffles, or ever worse, YOU!”
The safari girl merely blushed, but then said. “Well...it’s just surprising because….because...no one ever...EVER stands up to Sunset Shimmer.”
Twilight perked up at the mention of the name. “Sunset Shimmer?” she then turned to where the Sunset penguin went, but she was gone by the time she looked.
“Is that who I think it is..?” whispered Twilight to herself.
Before she could leave, though, the safari penguin quietly spoke up. “Um, sorry if this is disturbing you, but you seem new. You’re not from around here are you?”
Twilight realizes that through all this, she and Spike had never decided on a cover story. She had to decide on a name for her penguin self. She quickly went through various names before deciding on one quickly.
“Uh...yeah. We just came here yesterday. My name is Dawn Borealis.” said Twilight deciding on the name they had decided to for Shining Armour, had he been born a girl.
Safari rubbed the back of her head. “Nice to meet you Dawn.” she then went to shake her hand. Twilight noticed after she had calmed down, she was actually pretty self-assured. Not Rainbow Dash-levels, but she seemed to have a healthy self image.
“Everyone calls me the Puffle Handler, or PH for short. But my name is actually Paige.” said the girl, before her eyes inched their way over to spike.
“It’s good to meet you Paige. This is my um… puffle. I call him Spike.” Twilight was uncomfortable with lying to anyone about her name but she had to make sure things went alright and that Sunset Shimmer didn’t hear that Twilight had followed her, because if Sunset came from Twilight’s world than she would KNOW Twilight as well.
Paige’s face went to wild excitement, as she went from 0 to 60 and practically leaped at Spike.
“Oh my CODFISH!!! This must be a rare breed of Puffle! I’ve never seen one with two colors before...but wait.”
She licked her flipper and tries to wipe of the marks of green. When they didn't come off, she went back to smiles. “It’s genuine!” Paige then turned to Twilight.
“You must let me get pictures! My friends at Puffle’s International will go Crazy!” said Paige, practically begging as she clutched an instant-development camera. Twilight and Spike exchanged confused glances and then looked back at Paige. “Um… how many pictures exactly?” Twilight asked. “I’m on a bit of a time limit you see.”
Paige quickly nodded and began snapping picture quickly. She quickly got Spike from many angles. She took about 30 seconds worth of pictures, before pausing.
“Say, can I ask to see you and Spike sharing a cute moment. I always like to see Puffles and their caretakers sharing a bonding moment together.” asked Paige, looking wistfully away as she spoke the second part. Spike pushed against Twilight indicating they had to get going. Twilight nodded. ‘Uhh maybe another time. I’m awfully sorry but I have to get going. Can you tell me where the Library is please?”
Paige looked over. “We don't have a ‘proper’ Library, but there’s one in the Cafe. It’s on the second floor.” She pointed toward a building with a huge sign of a cup of coffee on it. Twilight gave the kind Paige a ‘flipper’ shake as thanks and disappeared into the Cafe quickly, before Paige could hinder Twilight’s progress any further.
Barely noticing the smell of roasting coffee, Twilight ran with Spike up the stairs to the Book Room. Quiet bossanova music filled the air as a couple penguins sat in various eats, reading books and sipping their coffee’s. Twilight stepped up to the bookshelves and began scanning the spines to look for something to go off of.
“Let’s see. Paint by Letters...no...How to Train your Dragon Puffle….no...50 Shades of Feathers?!” The last one made Twilight blush. If it was anything like ‘50 Shades of Hay’ back home…..yeah, NOPE.
Then Twilight’s flipper grazed a book that seemed strange for a coffee house. “Club Penguin Yearbook?” she said, taking the brown leather book out from the shelf. She then sat down in a red armchair and cracked it open.
The book contained a summary of all the events that had happened over the past year, separated by each month. Twilight was confused. The penguin’s appeared to have holidays called Halloween, Christmas, and Valentine’s Day. She could only assume they were their versions of Nightmare Night, Hearth’s Warming Eve, and Hearts and Hooves Day respectively.
She then saw what apparently the island’s “Mascots”, a set of penguins that were the one that the civilians turned to when they needed help, or for social and entertainment functions. Scanning through the names, one of them caught her attention: “Aunt Arctic”
It wasn't just the pun that got her attention. Her short bio said that she was the ‘Island Director’ in addition to being a columnist for “Club Penguin News”.
“Ooh! This might be what I’m looking for! ‘Island Director’ sounds pretty much like the ruler to me!” said Twilight to herself and Spike. “Maybe she can help me find the crown. And if not, she could at the very least help me find someone who COULD help.” Twilight then closed the book and slipped it back into its spot.
After walking back outside, she needed to figure out where this “Aunt Arctic” would be. The yearbook didn’t show an address for her house, and all the pictures associated with her were taken BY her, but none actually CONTAINED her, so she didn't even have a face to work off of. She would have to ask around the town to try and find some kind of clue.
As she tried to think, she was distracted by a sound. It was a bass-y, repetitive thumping sound, almost like the rhythm of a song. Looking around she saw a building labelled “Dance Club”, which seemed to almost pulsate to the beat of the dance music. Twilight thought for a minute, but then decided to check it out for tips from ‘the scene’. Heck, it was better than nothing at least, she thought.
A loud techno theme assaulted Twilight's eardrums as she entered the club, forcing her to cover her ears in pain and shock. She also tried her best to cover her eyes to block the barrage of rapidly flashing lights. She had seen something similar from Pinkie Pie’s parties, but even she didn’t go this fa--!
“BLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEHHHH!!!!!”
Twilight didn’t even last a couple seconds before vomiting from a sudden and intense onset of nausea. Thankfully, there was a bin next to her at the time and Spike looked at her, worried. “Are you alright Twilight?” He didn’t seem as affected, possibly due to being around loud dragons for the short time he’d been away from Twilight, not to mention being constantly being around gems that flicker light into your eyes when you tune them around.
Twilight lifted her head out of bin and groaned, her vision blurry from the shut eyes. “Suddenly, those flower sandwiches and hay fries were a bad lunch choice.” While she was used to vomiting things like that up, vomiting from a beak instead of a muzzle was completely DISGUSTING!!! It felt like she had just tried to eat the front lawn (which in a sense she did). It must have been her new taste buds reacting negatively to her regular diet.
“Hey, you okay?”
This voice wasn’t Spike’s. It was female, spunky, but friendly. Like Pinkie with Rainbow Dash’s voice affliction. Looking up she saw a pink female penguin. She had short, pink hair, nestled under a pair of headphones. She wore a pink and yellow scarf, black and purple t-shirt, and a pair of black-an-white sneakers. She gave off the vibe of a certain blue-haired DJ from back home.
The penguin looked into the trash can and cringed “Yeesh, did you get bet to eat that stuff? What are you, a HORSE??”
Twilight froze for a second, panicked, but then tried to laugh it off as a joke. “N-no no not at all! That would be silly! I just… had some bad reactions to the lights. I’m not good with this kind of environment.”
The penguin nodded before turning around and making the shape of “T” with her arms. A second later, the lights dimmed to a low pulsing, as opposed to the hyperactive seizure inducers.
The penguin then turned back around and put her arm around Twilight as she helped her up. “Sorry about that, dudette. You feeling okay?” The way she spoke showed no fear of retaliation; She sounded genuinely concerned.
Twilight couldn’t decide what to say but decided to go with the truth of her situation regarding her sickness. “I feel a bit better, truth be told it’s probably a late night feast I had in combination with the bizarre lights.” She answered, which wasn’t completely false.
The two sat down in some beanbag chairs nearby as the pink penguin (or was it red? It was hard to tell under the saturated lights) got her some water to help soothe her stomach. “What’s ya name and what brings ya to this part of the ‘berg, dudette?” The kind penguin asked as she sipped gently on a drink.
Twilight froze. She never thought of an identity for herself outside of a name. She quickly went through all the information she could gather from people’s conversations, the yearbook she read, and just general observations.
‘Dawn’ quickly regained her composure. “My name is Dawn Borealis. I heard so much about this place, and I finally decided that I wanted to move here. I saw in your Yearbook that you guys were having so much fun, that I wanted to experience those as well.” With each word spoken, the pink(?) penguins face grew more and more excited.
“I was gonna try to find a miss “Aunt Arctic” to get a house, but I don’t know where she would be, and the Yearbook didn’t have any pictures. Do you think you could, Miss….Miss….” Twilight mentally facepalmed. “I’m sorry, I didn’t even ask for YOUR name…”
The Penguin gave a cheerful and boastful chuckle. “Name’s Cadence! Though when I’m in the club here penguins refer to me as DJ K-Dance! And I’d LOVE to help you out! If you like we can even be friends! That’d be wicked cool!”
Twilight felt a sense of whiplash. That wasn’t just from the fact that Cadance flung her out of her seat with a strong yank-like handshake. She could see traits of so many of the ponies back home. The boastfulness of Rainbow, the cheerfulness of Pinkie Pie, the street cred of Vinyl; heck, she even had the name of her SISTER-in-law! But for some reason….twilight liked it. It made her feel...what was the word….excited. She felt a surge of adrenaline in her veins. “I’d r-r-really appreciate that thank you! So where are we going now?” Twilight tried to ask while they waddled quickly away from the club.
The DJ penguin (whom she could confirm was indeed pink in the natural light), turned her head with a smile. “Well, you mentioned you didn’t have a place to stay, so I’m gonna take you to see Aunt Arctic. She’s the island’s director, so she can help you find a cool pad and help you settle down.”
