Entry 1

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There are many things I regret in life. I regret staying in an abusive situation for far longer than necessary. Then there's the whole staying in a toxic country, not that I wanna open that can of worms. I regret staggering off into the woods after the accident, since that brought me here to this horse world in the first place. I even regret yelling at the Sun Horse for saving my life. Most of all, though, I regret eating that entire cake.

When she found me at the edge of her lands, lost and barely clinging to life, I was in a bad state. Some of the cuts from the car accident had gone septic, and between the fever from infection, and the dehydration from walking for so long without water, I was probably at death's doorstep. All I really remember was a tall white horse with a mane like the aurora standing over me, a look of pity in her large, expressive eyes as her wings extended to shade me. A winged unicorn?

To my surprise she spoke, but it was like no language I'd ever heard before in all of my life. It was musical, akin to birdsong with an equine aspect to it. She was clearly an intelligent being, but I couldn't understand her. I remember reaching my unbroken arm towards her and pleading. "I don't want to die," I'd cried, not realising that I was getting myself into. "Please, don't let me die alone like this."

At the time, I didn't know how—I'd later attribute it to magic—but she seemed to actually understand me. The last thing I remembered before passing out was a bright light, followed by a warm embrace. I never knew what a mother's love felt like—my father never tolerated any sort of namby pamby shit like that—but that warmth... It was like what I'd always imagined it to feel like. After that, it felt like a mostly dreamless sleep interspersed with bursts of indistinct voices around me.

The next time I woke up, I was on this ginormous four-poster bed in a large marble room. My body wouldn't respond, and there was annoying green thing occupying bottom-middle portion of my field of vision. If I didn't know better, I'd say it was my nose, but it's not like I'm the Incredible Hulk. I don't get stupid strong like that. If I did, I'd be the strongest person in the world, according to my father. Shows what he knew.

"Hey, you! You're finally awake!" Oh god, oh no no no, I want off Todd Howard's wild ride. I want of Todd Howard's wild ride. Wait, that voice is a woman's. I'd managed to turn my head just enough to see a white, horned horse in a maid outfit. "The Princess found you after you crossed the Border of Reality."

I remember thinking at the time that I was hallucinating. Just some brain damage from the car accident manifesting visual hallucinations. There was no way I'd been rescued by a giant white horse with an aurora for a mane, just as there was no possible way that this unicorn in a maid outfit was actually a unicorn; that shit was just fantasy. That I had a traumatic brain injury just seemed all the more rational. I might not have been well educated, but I was well-read.

The second thing I remember thinking about as that maid ran off to grab the attention of her liege lady, was how it was strange that I understood them. When I was found, the winged unicorn was speaking a language unlike anything I'd ever heard. I was in no way a linguist, so it's not like I had experience with conlangs or anything. Could a TBI do that—manufacture an entire language? Assuming this wasn't all some hallucination, then how would I suddenly understand another horse-creature?

The maid said something about a Princess Celestia wanting to speak to me before exiting the room, doing some supernatural glowy shit with her horn and the door. Like seriously, how does the door just open and close like that?

Princess Celestia... is that the name of the winged unicorn that found me? I couldn't help but ponder as the maid trotted off, her horn glowing. The large, ornate door before her swung open to grant passage. And that's... magic? Some sort of telekinesis field?

Just beyond the door, I'd caught sight of more equine creatures. There was a larger horse standing outside the door in what looked to be a winged horse in roman centurion armour. It looked like gold, but it had to be one of those metals that just looked like it... unless the guards here were just ceremonial... but even then, that'd be a lot of money just to decorate some honour guard back home—assuming I'm not on Earth.

But why am I willing to accept this might be a whole new world? I should be a lot more freaked out by all this. Like why nothing is sore, but my body doesn't want to move. Hell, talking fuckin' horses, man! That's pretty fuckin' freaky, right? But I'm just so... calm. Like nothing really matters.

You'd think when she told me that I was under a calming spell and an immobilisation spell, I'd have been a bit more miffed, but given that she told me that some fundamental force of this world had acted through her and turned me into a child of her species, I can sorta understand in retrospect why such calming and immobilisation would be necessary. For the first few days, I was more than a bit pissed and was on a hunger strike, but eventually I calmed down enough to start interacting with the maids and Celestia the odd time that she'd come by to visit. It took a while for it to really all sink in that this was real, but honestly I think it was just too consistent to be anything like a hallucination.

The maids—a pair of sisters who were identical other than their differing pink and blue manes parted on opposite sides—were nice. They were understanding as I fumbled around and adapted to quadrupedal life. They taught me how to grip things with my hooves, and they were very thorough in teaching me how to hold things in my mouth without turning it into a slobbery mess. Hell, the pink-haired one was kind enough to start teaching me to read...

Then of course the problems started. I mean, on a fundamental level, I understand what when you're pissed off at someone—such as a racist prince who thinks I, as an earth pony, am worth less than the marble floor he walks upon—lighting them on fire is probably not the sort of action one should take. At the time, I didn't know what I did to light his tail on fire, but apparently I've got some sort of penchant for something called... runic magic? Regardless, I'd apparently somehow etched the rune for fire on the floor while anxiously scuffing my hooves while the prick dressed me down, and the rest is kinda a fiery blur. The first time was an accident, but from then on, every time he got racist, he got a bit crispy.

At first, all the horses around me were angry at what I'd managed. Arson and grievous bodily harm are a universal constant in terms of laws, it seems... but then things changed when they saw that I'd gained one of those butt-marks all the adult horses had. Suddenly, I needed constant supervision and was pushed to study reading and writing more... Nobody would initially explain what I'd done or how...

Then, one of the maids told me about runic magic, and how I kept leaving something called an ignition rune on the floor every time I would set Prince Blueblood's mane or tail on fire, and that I'd gotten my cutie mark from doing it... I had a penchant for a wildly underutilised field of magic that almost anyone could use. The reason it was so important I learn to read was that I was instinctively doing something that was incredibly dangerous without a fundamental understanding of magical theory. I had a talent that should be nurtured, and quickly.

From then on, whenever I would see the Princess, I would be regaled of stories of her star pupil. She'd go on and on about a young prodigy who, as a master of all magical schools, could nurture my ability in the arcane arts and help me better understand how to live among ponies. There was also something about friendship, but in my old life, I sorta just fell into mine.

The rest is just history. I worked hard for two whole weeks, got super hungry one night before dinner, and snuck into the kitchens. Yeah, I knew it was wrong of me to eat that whole cake myself, but it was worth it, ya know? Next thing I knew, I was in the 'Time-Out Crate', and shipped off here.

~ 01 ~

"As for why she calls me Anonymous, I think it has something to do with my actual name having a 'very sad' meaning in one of your dead languages," I explained, eyeing a coffee-pot on the counter. We'd moved into the kitchen for refreshments while I gave the two mares and a young dragon the gist of my background here, but they would only offer me water or juice. Kinda pissed me off, since I hadn't had caffeine in several hours now, most of which were spent waiting to be let out of the box. "Go figure, Nemo means 'nobody' in one of our dead tongues, and apparently means something even worse in one of yours, eh?"

The three just stared at me as I continued to longingly ogle the coffee carafe. It took a bit before anyone actually spoke up, but when they did, it was disbelief they voiced. "So, you just happened to scuff a rune into the floor and channel magic through your hooves into it?" the mare called Starlight asked. "Why were you even doing that in the first place?"

My ears flattened back reflexively as I met her eyes. "Does the term 'stimming' ring a bell to either of you?" I asked, answering her question with yet another question as I glanced from Starlight to the one called Twilight. The former continued to look confused, but the latter, at least seemed to understand. "It's a self-stimulating behaviour that takes many forms, but the baseline is it's a conscious or instinctive action taken to relieve tension, anxiety, or boredom." My gaze returned to the coffee-maker and carafe. "Back when I had them, I'd often drum my fingers or pop the joints... Can't do that with hooves, so I had to find a form that worked... Ended up being fidgeting my hooves in a way that would create scuffs. I'll trace a pattern repeatedly, pause, and feel it with my hoof, etc. It works for me."

"I'm not giving a foal coffee, Anon," Twilight said, following my gaze. Redirecting, she used her magic to make me look her in the eyes. "If you engage in stimming behaviour, would that mean you're on the spectrum?"

I shrugged and flopped my head on the table at which we sat. "Always with the categorisation, never changes no matter what world you live in. Next you'll be asking me what was in my pants before the change," I grumbled. "No, I wasn't autistic. It was a coping mechanism, and that's all I'll say."

If they weren't gonna give me some stimulants, I was probably due for a nap. One thing I'd noticed since waking up as a small horse was that I seemed to require more rest periods. It was like I was five again... and honestly, from what Princess Celestia told me, this new body is probably somewhere between five and seven years old—maybe even eight. Still, time spent napping was time I could've been studying. There was so much I needed to learn to get by in this world. In the end, I was allowed a small cup of coffee twice a day at my choosing.

The Sun Horse found that insistence on learning endearing... Said it reminded her of her pupil—of Twilight—and that a desire for learning was good, but that knowledge wasn't everything. She wanted me to be able to make the most of my second chance at life. I didn't, and still don't, disagree; I want to be able to have the childhood I never got to have... but there's being passionate but carefree, and then there was being willfully ignorant.

If I have to live in this horse world, I don't just want to survive; I want to thrive. That means learning the written script, learning my physical limits, and then my magical limits... I won't let anyone shape my destiny this time around.

"Spike, maybe you should show her to one of the spare rooms," Twilight commented as another yawn escaped me. "Even if she wants to play the grown-up, she's still quite young." I wanted to protest, but in lacking caffeine, I didn't have much of an option but to rest. A nap before dinner might not be too bad.

Hopping down from the stool, Spike beckoned me with a familiar gesture that I could no longer replicate. My body felt sluggish, but I'd probably manage to hold off until I hit a pillow. "Come on, Anon," he said. "I'll show you to your room."

"Are you sure she'll make it?" Starlight asked, watching me stagger towards the door. "I could take her upstairs."

The alicorn in the room shook her head. "Spike can manage," she interrupted, shooting down that though. "I have something I want to discuss with you." She glanced over to Spike, who was ahead of me, by the door. "Put her in the room next to Starlight's." Finally, her gaze came back to me. "Get some rest. After dinner, we can assess whereabouts your studies are."

I nodded numbly and followed after Spike. Damn her and her not giving me my fuckin' coffee. At the very least, I wanna practice the basic sun-glyphs of written Equish. It's no fun being unable to read and having to ask someone to read something to me. Still, aside from these people treating me like a little kid, they seem genuinely kind—maybe a bit eccentric, but really, that might just be the norm for beings of this world.

The—from my perspective—not so little dragon whelp pointed out several rooms as we traveled the castle halls, but I was only partially paying attention. The library would only be useful to me once I mastered the sun-glyphs, and even then, I'd need to learn the moon-glyphs before I went onto magical theory. That said, I didn't ignore him pointing out that she had almost every magical tome under the sun.

When we reached a particular hallway, he picked up the pace and I had to canter after him to keep up. We were in the guest wing of the strange tree-shaped castle, which of course meant that I was able take a nap. The room he brought me to wasn't fully furnished, though it didn't really need to be for me to nap here. The bed was barren aside from a pillow that was just as big as me, and the chest of drawers was empty, its top surface bare.

It was in no way a large room—especially in comparison to the room I'd stayed in back in Canterlot—but I didn't need luxury. I welcomed the smaller space, though. When you spend as much time on the move as I did, you get used to utilitarian spaces. Hell, I don't even need an actual bed. Just give me a comfy surface like that big pillow and I'm good.

"We can get you some proper bedding later," he explained, remaining in the door. "The restroom is at the opposite end of the hall, and the baths are next to it." He turned to leave, but paused while closing the door behind him. "You don't seem like a regular foal—you're different even from when Twilight was young—so I might as well ask if you have any tea preferences."

I shrugged before pulling myself up onto the bed just enough to grab the corner of the pillow with my mouth. "I prefer black teas over white teas," I said, dragging the pillow off the bed. His eyes were watching me intently; I could tell as much without looking at him. "I dunno if these even mean anything to you guys, but Orange pekoe or Earl Grey are fine. If you ponies have a blend of black tea, cinnamon cardamom, cloves, and ginger, that's my preferred flavour profile."

Without another word, I drug the pillow into the furthest corner from the door and wedged it. Doing as I'd gotten used to doing in Canterlot, I hopped onto the pillow, spun six times counter clockwise and one time clockwise before flopping down. I might've been down a few seconds, and then I was out like a light.

~ 01 ~

I wanna say that dinner was uneventful. Then again, I also don't want to continue a history of habitual lying. It's one thing if you're using it as a survival mechanism, but it's another thing entirely to just lie because you can. I don't think I'm about to get hit with a beer bottle if I voice my mind here—these ponies just don't give off that vibe. I might not trust them enough to dump my personal baggage, but I trust them to not harm me intentionally.

With that in mind, when they started asking about me over dinner—a salad with alfalfa, fruits, and cheese, served alongside egg-salad sandwiches—I decided to be mostly honest with them. I told them that much of my adult life was spent drifting from place to place taking small jobs wherever I went to get by. I shared my passion for reading, consuming random bits of knowledge, and even confessed to enjoying science. No need to tell them that I was also the sort of kid who often used science for mischief... or that I'd almost been arrested for inadvertently turning an old undetonated car airbag into an IED.

Probably for the best that I did leave out the misuse of the arts; despite emphasising several times that in my old world, I was of sexual and (theoretically) emotional maturity, she expressed doubts as to the veracity of my claims. She seemed to have it in her mind that this force—Harmony, she calls it—that acted through the Sun Horse wouldn't have just changed an adult into a child. You know, despite the fact that it apparently did. Suffice to say, if she thought I was going to misuse magic, she might ban me from the apparently huge library she had and prevent me from unrestricted learning.

Spike, for his part, seemed horrified to find out that I was very much 'like Twilight'. I think maybe he was hoping that I might be closer to what a normal foal would be considered, not that I had any real understanding what that even entailed. Was it like being a human child, but naked and a lot more horseplay? I didn't really have any experience with the former, either. I guess he felt lonely being surrounded by the pony equivalent of young adults?

For that matter, what does just one more nerd and I have a full set even mean?

The unicorn of the group, Starlight, was simultaneously easier and harder to read. Most of the time spent during dinner and the earlier discussion following my unboxing, she seemed to either be either afraid to join in the discussion, or couldn't find the right way in. She clearly wanted to help earlier, too. She could be a friend, but she's got her own demons holding her back.

Then Twilight dropped the bombshell that I would be attending the schoolhouse in Ponyville. Of course I protested; anything I could learn in a classroom for children, I could learn in a library, after all. While that seemed to amuse both Twilight and Spike, apparently that was a no go. No, they wanted me to learn the social side of things... to interact with 'foals my own age'. Honestly, I'd had enough of kids even before I was made into one once more—I was more a parent to my siblings than he ever was.

After that revelation, I didn't really feel all that inclined to talk during the shared meal. It was a childish choice to be sure, but what was I supposed to do? Throw a fit and screech that I was an adult and deserved to be treated like one? Oh yeah, nothing says I'm an adult in a child's body like having a tantrum. Not putting up a fuss just felt like less of a bother than fighting her on it on my first day here.

I don't know who was caught more off-guard when the meal was over. Twilight and Starlight seemed thrown for a loop that I was looking to help clean up, or me at seeing their surprise. I mean, there wasn't much that I could actually do, since the counter was too high for me to clean dishes at without a stool, but I could clear everyone's places and bring the dishes to the counter for Spike to wash. I was even willing to wipe down the table.

After that, I was whisked off to the castle library by the purple pointy pony. "Most fillies and colts your age would put up a fight rather than volunteer for chores," she admitted, laying out a tea set next to a sheaf of papers on a large table in the center of the room. She sighed as she levitated teabags from a box with the tea set and placed them into the cups. "I'm happy that you're willing to pitch in, but I know that you didn't choose to be here. I'm not going to fault you for wanting to take time to acclimate."

As she poured boiling water into the tea cups, a familiar enticing scent began to fill the room. "Oh good, this world does have chai..." I murmured, hopping onto a stool at the table. I watched as she pushed the smaller teacup my way with anticipation. "I know you said you don't wanna regularly caffeinate a child, but can I get you to reconsider? Coffee's been a part of my routine since I was thirteen, and even if this new body doesn't have the same physiologically ingrained dependence, you can't just shed ten years of psychological dependence."

The cup and saucer froze just outside my reach. "In Equestria, we call this particular blend Manipuri, but it's interesting to hear that there are parallels between our worlds," she said, noting something down on one sheet of paper with a quill. Not just the tea bit, though. Oh... Oh hell no. "I'm willing to use it as a reward for milestones, but you've given me a pretty good reason to withhold access to tea."

I glared at her, gritting my teeth. I wanted to lambast the mare, and give her a piece of my mind. That said, I get the feeling that she would take my being vindictive as a challenge. "Please, Twilight," I said softly. "I know for a fact that the maids the Princess had watching me were probably doing more than just watch and teach. I bet they have a full psychological profile built up from observation if you need it for reference. It'd save you time, and pressing the wrong buttons, if you just requested it in your next communique."

When I was sure she wasn't about to yank the saucer out of my reach, I stood upon the stool and reached out to grab it. "Now, you wanted to assess my studies, right?" I asked, taking a sip of the glorious cuppa without breaking eye-contact. She actually looked a bit nervous now. Oops, did I show my fangs too much? "I think I had about thirty-nine of the sun-glyphs memorised, and was getting ready to move on to the last thirteen."

Author's Notes:

1. I'm a big proponent of magics that everyone can use with the right studies. As such, I always like to have fields of magic in my Equestrian settings that don't require one to be a pointy pony to use. Alchemy/potions are a canon form of magic that I've expanded upon in previous works, but there is also stuff like runes and rituals that I'd like to touch upon.

Runic magic can be considered a component of ritual magic, which is surprisingly low-level in what it can achieve, but it can also stand on its own as a sort of... physical programming. If you can inscribe the proper runic 'commands' in the correct order you can achieve effects comparable to any horn-cast spell. The downside is that it requires a lot of preparation time and a very thorough understanding of runes and moon-glyphs.

2. Modern Equish is broken up into two character sets. First is the sun-glyphs, of which there are 52. Much like the latin alphabet, sun-glyphs can be broken into the two sets of upper case/greater glyphs, and lower case/lesser glyphs. These are used in every-day reading, as well as writing a pony's name when their moon-glyphs are not known.

Moon-glyphs, on the other hand, are a bit more complicated. They are used as a means of expressing concepts or entire words in compact formats—not unlike the Kanji of Japanese—and are used to represent proper nouns in writing. It is also heavily used in magic as operators or in place of runes a user is unfamiliar with. With its heavy use in magic, this also means that names have power, so to speak. If you could write out the command to conjure bees and string it together with a command to direct/guide the bees and an attack command for a targeted name in range, you could quite literally build a basic short-range bee-attack. To this, runic magic can often be linked to wands, which have a 'spell' inscribed on parchment and sealed inside.

Finally, Anon's cutie-mark contains a moon-glyph that ironically enough resembles a certain moon-rune: 子(ko, child). This is coupled with a star (and we all know stars relate to magic in horse marks) beneath it in a configuration that resembles the standard ? question mark cutie mark of an Anon horse. Another homage I couldn't resist.

3. It's often seen as a joke that where a 4chan Anon is involved, autistic behaviour is sure to follow. To that effect, homage was paid to this through stimming [an act often misattributed to being purely autistic behaviour] and Twilight's recognition of the existence of the spectrum.

There is more to this exchange that you might've picked up on, however. Anon also notes that people always like to categorise things before mentioning that next Twilight might ask what was in their pants before their transformation. Typically, when you get a depiction of an Anon turned into a filly, they are rather upset about losing their junk [and humanity, but usually more importantly their junk]. This usually relies on the Anon character being a straight, male-identifying character, but what happens when an Anon is nonbinary, or if they eschew the concept of gender completely? Maybe they're an Anon who chooses to be whatever they need to be at that moment. Why should straight dudes get all the fun of being turned into a horse-child?

4. As you've no doubt noticed, this story is tagged dark, sad, and slice of life. Much of the dark/sad tie into one of the themes of this story: trauma and moving on; Nemo/Anonymous didn't have the best sort of life, and much of this story revolves around their struggle to make the best of this new life, while working through the things they had to do to survive in their previous life. For those who have read a certain past work, you've probably seen the dark tag and assume this might go the same way as that story, down the path of 'Cerebus syndrome'. This tag is purely in reference to the exploration of Anon's 'past sins'.

Entry 2

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Sometimes I wonder what kind of conditions allowed these ponies to develop. They're like some sort of evolutionary mess. Forward facing eyes, at least in mammals, back on Earth indicated that a species likely relied on predation in order to subsist. Yet in the month I've spent among the horses here in Equestria, I've only ever seen them following a mostly vegetarian diet. Sure, they're definitely not true vegetarians, given that they use animal byproducts like eggs and milk to supplement their diets, but never any fish or meat.

Then there's the bright colours. Their basis seems derived from a prey species, yet from what I can tell the entire colouration is for show. No indicators have been observed signalling that ponies—no, we—possess any poison glands or any form of bitterant on our bodies. I don't think that ponies would use their mouths as or in relation to grooming tools if they did, and I've done enough pony-watching in Canterlot to know this to be true.

And what in the fuck is with these huge eyes? I know my eyesight here is better to what it was back home, but it's not better by any order of magnitude; it's just clearer and I can make out a bit more detail on farther-away objects. It's not like I've got any form of telescopic vision. There's something I was forgetting, but would that even apply to this big honkin' blinkie-winkers?

The biggest puzzle currently on my plate—figuratively, as it was a bowl of cereal before me right now—was the Equestrian fixation on sugar. I learned early enough to ignore the looks I got when I took my teas and coffees without sugar, but the maids were very insistent that I at least have the occasional cookie... and then there was the Sun Horse and her cakes. Even this new form seems somewhat drawn to it... as evidenced by the time I sought out and ate an entire cake, just the other day. I still couldn't explain why though.

"Is there something wrong with your cereal, Anonymous?" Twilight asked, watching me while she finished off her own stack of syrup-laden pancakes. "Or did you change your mind about having pancakes?"

I shook my head, staring down at the contents of the bowl: it was just oatmeal, but it seemed to come with brown-sugar already mixed in. "I don't know how you ponies don't have diabetes with all the sugar you consume," I muttered, shoveling a spoonful of the slurry of oats, milk, and brown sugar into my mouth after a moment of hesitation. "I mean, have you seen the amount of cakes the Sun H—" I caught myself before finishing that term; ponies hated being called horses, even if it was easier for me to remember ponies by identifying them by their cutie marks. "—Princess consumes on a regular basis? She either has the metabolism of a literal star, or she has an eating disorder, to have that sort of figure. Someone who eats that much cake should have an arse that regularly gets stuck in doors."

"Anonymous, language!" Twilight chided shaking her head. It wasn't hard to tell that she was wondering what she was going to do with me. "I don't know where a being your age learns half the profanity that's come out of your mouth since yesterday, but I don't want you teaching other foals to talk like that."

I began to stare Twilight down again as I forced myself to eat a spoonful of the way-too-sugary oatmeal. Again with that condescending insistence that I am just a child. If she wasn't careful we might start having the same sorts of 'accidents' we started having with that racist pig in a wig. No, if I did that, she could refuse to teach me anything about runic magic.

"I'm not sure how it is where you're from," Starlight interjected, clearly sensing the tension in the room. "Here in Equestria though, sugar is important to the natural replenishment of the body's natural magics. Even when not actively used for the magics inherent to our species, our bodies expend mana naturally." She took a sip of a rather fruity-smelling tea and then glanced at Twilight, as though seeking approval. "It's actively used when a pony uses his or her hoof fields to manipulate objects, or passively as the body fights sickness or heals wounds."

Spike laughed. "Twilight, remember when Rainbow was laid up in the hospital for a few days when she broke her wing? That was just a few days but she was going crazy..." He popped a sapphire into his mouth like it was nothing out of the ordinary. A gem that size, I could've pawned for thousands of dollars, and he was eating it like a piece of candy!

Twilight nodded, seemingly catching onto his point. "Without her natural magics aiding her body, it would have taken months for her to fully recover," she explained. "That's why it's important for a growing filly to eat her sugar."

I couldn't help but suppress a snort. This world was something else. Eat your sugar so you grow up to be good and strong... It was a far cry from the 'drink your milk' of my world. And yet, if it was necessary, who was I to say no? "Is there any sugar that isn't sickeningly sweet?" I had to ask, for my own sanity. "Or maybe supplements that don't have a taste? Aside from that one time with the cake, I don't generally like sweets. Even then, I don't know what came over me."

The three shared an uneasy look. It was the sort of thing that would've been accompanied by nervous laughter in any normal situation, but the fact that they were quiet meant something bad. I didn't know what, but something was up. Part of me wanted to ask, if nothing else than to just to keep the conversation going, but at the same time, I'd been neglecting this bowl of apparently very important overly-sugared oatmeal.

Resigning myself, I began to finish the disgusting mishmash of sugar, oats, and milk. I still wasn't convinced that anyone who enjoyed this level of sugar wasn't destined to need their foot amputated, but if my new biology needed it, I guess I couldn't argue with the adults in the room.

"Starlight, do you think you could continue working with Anon on her glyphs after breakfast?" Twilight asked, looking to the other pointy pony present. "She has six left to learn, and then she should be ready to move onto phonology." Finally turning her gaze to me, she added, "Spike and I need to check in with the others about the you-know-what... and don't push her too hard. If she needs to nap, let her nap."

In a much quieter voice, she said something I couldn't quite make out, but I imagined it to be something like, "You'll need it."

~ 02 ~

Starlight might not have been on the level of the maid twins or Twilight when it came to teaching, but she was by no means bad at it. I knew that deep down, every person or pony had their own learning and teaching styles. Honestly, though, after working with Twilight last night, Starlight was a breath of fresh air.

The maids had been very hooves-on in regards to teaching me the glyphs. The pink-haired one would mark a crisp, neat sun-glyph on the top of a page, and then instruct me to fill the page with that character, copying it until it was legible. The blue-haired one would then give me advice or criticism while I worked, anywhere from how I held my pencil with my hoof, to whether I followed the 'standard' stroke order taught in a classroom. Only when I had mastered a glyph could I move on to the next.

Twilight, on the other hand, took on a very... textbook manner of teaching. Seriously, she'd treat me like a child up until its learning time, and then she'd act like how TV taught me a school-teacher was like. She went on a full-on impassioned lecture about the history of each glyph and how it was derived from Old Equish counterparts, complete with magically conjured visual aids. Honestly, it was kinda information overload after a certain point and I eventually tuned her out in favour of the rote repetition of the maids.

Working with Starlight was honestly bittersweet. She didn't have the confidence of Twilight or the poise of the twins, but her method honestly complemented the sisters' approach. She didn't approach the glyph from the academic standpoint by stating its name, but rather by introducing it based on its sound and then providing certain mnemonic devices for recognising them and writing them out. It worked the best for, but it was emotionally draining in that it reminded me of how Mother had taught me to read.

Starlight was thorough, though, and even went back over the other 46 glyphs I'd already practiced, making sure that I knew the pronunciations. I know I make it out to be harder than it is, though. With a total of fifty-two glyphs, it was relatively easy to discern that they followed a similar upper and lower case pattern to the Latin alphabet, falling into the greater and lesser sun glyphs. I'd be totally lost if it was phonetic like certain Asian languages. So many characters...

"So, Starlight," I asked, stretching myself out like a cat and popping my back, "How come you aren't treating me like a little kid like Twilight has been?"

It was something I'd noticed during the lesson and our previous few interactions. She actually seemed to listen to what I had to say rather than approaching things from a 'because I know better' standpoint. For lack of a better analogy, she was treating me like a person first and a child second—like I actually had dignity to lose by being coddled.

The mare paused as she levitated a thin book from the bookshelf she was standing before. "Honestly? It just feels like the right thing to do," she said, turning to join me back at the table I'd been practicing at. "The way you speak doesn't come off as foalish or like a foal looking to appear grown-up. It seems as natural as breathing to you, and though Harmony made you into a foal, you seem to genuinely believe you were an adult of your previous species."

I raised an eyebrow. "Then why doesn't she see that?" I blurted out, my cheeks flushing at my outburst. "I mean, if she keeps treating me like I kid, I've half a mind to start acting like one out of spite."

Sitting down across from me, Starlight sighed. "I'm not one to talk, but Princess Twilight can be... stubborn," she explained, sliding a thin paperback across the table. If I had memorised it correctly, the title said 'Glyph and Sound: A Basic Guide to Words Abound', but I was only half sure. Something about the way the spoken language was imprinted on my brain seemed to conflate a lot of this with English analogues.

"She's a very data-driven pony," she explained. "For her, almost everything can be broken down into core concepts and details, and if things don't make sense, something is faulty and needs to be readdressed. You are a bit of an enigma to her, so she wanted to analyse you—not just psychologically, but with magic—during your lesson. She even scanned you with a spell to approximate the age of your soul. That only reaffirmed in her mind that you're just a child... that you can't have possibly been an adult."

I looked at her in confusion, not opening the book. "Your soul, the spell said, was just over eighty-four hundred days old," she explained.

I did some quick math. Eighty-four hundred over three sixty-five should come out to around twenty-three... which lines up with my age. So how the fuck...? "Starlight, do ponies age slowly, like <<elves>>, or is there something fundamentally wrong with my math?" I asked, beginning to fear the answer. "That number of days reaffirms that I'm twenty-three... So unless I'm retarded, there's something doesn't line up here."

Starlight looked at me, and then to the door before covering her face with a hoof. "That would do it," she muttered with a groan. "Figures that nopony's told you yet. A year in Equestria is one thousand days, Anon. By our metric, you are a foal."

I stared at her before mimicking the gesture in disbelief. "And how long do ponies live?" I asked, dreading the answer.

"About a hundred and fifty years, give or take depending on lifestyle and species," she said, her eyes widening as I gaped at her in horror. "Some unicorns live to around 200."

"I'm a fucking horse <<elf>>," I muttered as the world began to spin. Even just going with the 150 baseline, that'd mean I could live the equivalent of nearly four-hundred eleven years on earth. Assuming I don't die here, I'd outlive my siblings, and their children by centuries. What the fuck! How was one supposed to even react to something like that?

Oh, right. Well I suppose fainting is as good a choice as any.

~ 02 ~

The world felt distant, like I was at the far end of a black tunnel. I couldn't feel anything, and aside from a sliver of light, at the far side of the figurative tunnel, I couldn't see anything either. That wasn't to say I couldn't hear anything. There were bits and pieces that reached my ears.

Twilight and Starlight were discussing my condition and what happened. There was a sound like the flapping of a bird's wings and a gentle breeze. Someone was fretting... and there someone with a shrill voice was throwing a fit. Something about sleeping and parties and Ponyville... God, shut the fuck up.

Eventually, it started to feel like I was on a boat, and there was a pressure on my back, even though it felt like I was belly-down... but why would that be? It was almost as if someone was...

Someone was touching my back, shaking me. Slowly, sensation returned to my body as panic began to fill my belly. My ears began to ring, but still I could hear that shrill voice. Someone's touching me!

"Come on, wake up!" She was was right on top of me, shaking me by my shoulders as if it was her God-given right. "It's time to part-ay!"

My eyes snapped open, and with a shriek I hopped up onto my hind legs. Her sternum pressed against my back as I grabbed the arm of whoever was touching me. It took some strength, but I was able to throw them over my shoulder to lay them out on the floor in front of me. Without even waiting to get a better grasp on the situation, I dropped back to my hooves darted toward the nearest solid object—a bookshelf. I pressed my side up against it and breathed slowly, trying to slow my heart down.

As the ringing in my ears subsided and my vision cleared, I saw a pudgy pink earth-pony mare, flat on her back and looking dazed. Off to one side, there was a near-orange earth-pony in a Stetson hat, behind whom cowered a very terrified pegasus mare. On top of a bookshelf, another pegasus was giving me the side-eye while reading what looked to be some sort of adventure novel. Finally, there was a bone-white unicorn next to Spike, Twilight, and Starlight at the table I'd been studying at. All of them seemed either stunned or intrigued.

Once I calmed down enough to think, it occurred to me that this was what was colloquially known as a stunned silence. I was smart enough to realise this wasn't a "Please, continue," sort of silence, but rather a "Dear God, what is wrong with you?" sort, but it took a few more moments for my brain to catch up to what was happening.

"Twilight, for the love of—this is why I suggested you just request that psych profile from the Princess!" I said with a shaky voice, unable to tear my gaze from the pink mare. "So that something like this wouldn't happen..." I gestured to her with a hoof. "I didn't kill her, did I?"

As if to answer my question, the mare in question hopped up like nothing had happened. You know, despite the fact that her poofy cotton-candy mane and tail were flat from where she'd impacted the crystal floor. She didn't look mad or upset, either; if anything, she looked— "Wow! That was fun!" she exclaimed, shaking herself like a dog. As if she were a baby doll with its plastic face pushed in, her mane and tail popped back into place as she advanced toward me. "Can we do that again?"

Seeing her slowly approaching me triggered something illogical in the back of my mind. Long repressed fears and memories strained against a mental barrier as my heartrate spiked once more. Why did this mare scare me to such a degree when she seemed more like an excitable puppy, rather than an actual threat. Was it because she was so much bigger than myself? Was it the fear of reprisal knowing that they see me as just a child?

"Pinkie, dear, I think you're scaring her," the white unicorn mare chided, her indigo mane bobbing slightly as she shook her head. "Honestly, it's surprising that nopony you've startled awake has ever thrown you before now." Looking from the pink monstrosity to me, she smiled. "Excellent throw, darling, but it will take more than a shoulder throw to harm Pinkie Pie."

I blinked, stepping away from the book shelf. "I... um, thank you, miss," I muttered sheepishly as I moved to join the four at the table. "You aren't upset that I <<yeeted>> your friend, are you?" The others looked strangely at me, and it occurred to me that what I intended to convey and what was actually heard sounded entirely different. So whatever Harmony did in changing me, it can't account for words ponies don't have an equivalent of. "Sorry, that doesn't seem to translate naturally. You aren't upset that I threw her, are you?"

Everyone except Starlight and Spike looked from me to Twilight questioningly. Evidently she hadn't told them I was a being from another world and/or reality yet. Bah, not my place to spoil her fun. "Although I don't approve, I can't exactly fault you for acting out when startled," she said with a sigh. "I'd ask if you were feeling better, Anon, but after what Starlight told me about your conversation, I can't imagine this is how you wanted to be woken up."

No shit, Twilight.

From there, she explained who these other ponies were. Although I'd seen their respective marks on the thrones in that one room, it never clicked until I got a better look at these ponies that they were anything other than her close friends, or maybe her harem of lesbian lovers. What? I don't judge. But turns out they're all national heroes and that they often get sent out on 'friendship quests' by a magic table. I swear I must have brain damage or something because that almost makes sense.

Let's see if I got this right. The pink menace with the pink-on-pink colour scheme and the balloon mark is Pinkie Pie. Apparently she's supposed to be throwing me a welcome party, but that got sidelined upon finding out I had fainted. Other than that, she's a bearer of something called the Element of Laughter. Sounds fake as fuck, but then again, this is magic horse world I'm in. I'll file her under Party Horse until I can get the name to stick, I think.

The other earth pony, the blonde with the off-orange coat and the apples on her butt? She's a local apple-farmer by the name of Applejack, and the bearer of the Element of Honesty. Wonder if she's got a cousin named Apple Brandy. Still, she's allegedly got a preternatural sense that lets her know if someone else is being dishonest, so I probably shouldn't play loose with the truth if I'm around her. I don't think I'll need to rely on the mnemonic Apple Horse, though; AJ is simple enough.

The walking pride pony with the cloud and lightning bolt on her flank is aptly named Rainbow Dash. She's apparently something of an aerospace athlete, being a member of the Wonderbolts. I'd actually heard a bit about them from the maids in Canterlot; it was kinda fascinating that they were a show-ponies in times of peace, and elite airborne fighters in wartimes. Go figure that the the pony linked to the Element of Loyalty would be a patriot and reservist. Other than that, she was the captain of this town's weather team and had a huge ego. Rainbow Horse and Rainbow Dash are the same number of syllables, so honestly, it could go either way.

The other pegasus pony of the group was nowhere near as... big or important sounding as Rainbow, but Fluttershy was Rainbow's childhood friend. Shy was definitely an apt word to describe her, although she seems pretty nice. Although I might've placed her in the field of insect studies, she apparently acts as a sort of caretaker for many of the animals in this town. She's also been kind enough to babysit the little sisters of a few of the others. Kindness, they say her represented element is. Hmm... Shy Horse?

Finally, there's Rarity. She's a dress-maker with multiple boutiques throughout Equestria, and her mark is a trio of blue gems. Whereas Applejack has the horse equivalent of a Southern accent, Rarity has a posh British one. Though she may seem a bit vain, she's apparently one of the most generous ponies there is. No points for guessing what her element is. That said, she is very pretty. I don't think I even need a mnemonic for her.

If Twilight has friends like these, from quiet to quite extravagant, maybe there's a reason she didn't bother asking for my psych report. She's looking to judge me for herself, and likely wants to use these friends of hers as a metric to judge me by. Kind of a poor choice if she's looking to judge whether I'm an ordinary pony or not, because things like yeeting the pink one is gonna be the least of her concerns.

With my background, I'm hardly what you'd call a stable—ha, a horse pun—being, and if I have to slowly go through horse puberty while I learn to deal with my new horse brain-chemistry, it might be better if she could arrange therapy for me. God knows, I'm probably not the only one who's gonna need it, either. When I inevitably reveal to her why I lived on the road for so long, she'll probably need a therapist of her own.

At the same time, though... I kinda welcome her ignorance. I told the Sun Horse everything, and her maids were totally watching me, but she was still planning to send me to her apprentice anyway. So she clearly believed I deserve a second chance—that my sins weren't so great as to pose a threat—and by letting Twilight form her own opinions, she's more likely to not come up with prejudgments. Still, I can feel everyone's eyes on me, and their unspoken concern. One doesn't 'just develop' the sort of reaction I had to being touched overnight, so they've probably got questions forming in their heads.

It sucks; they seem like decent people, and I'd rather they get to know who I am and who I will become, rather than who I was and what sins I bear. But if they start treating me with the kiddy gloves, I feel like I'm never gonna be treated like a person... Just a foal who doesn't know any better.

Regardless, shortly after we were all introduced, they led me back to the room with the big table and the thrones. There were streamers everywhere, and a banner written in sun glyphs and English declaring 'Welcome to Ponyville.' I almost stood there for a minute just staring at the banner with my jaw hanging. Never mind the smell of familiar dishes, or what looked like a poker table set up to one side of the room... or the piñata... and was that plinko?

"You'll catch flies like that, dear," Rarity commented as a tingling magical aura pushed my jaw shut. "Besides, this is your party. Enjoy it."

She was right, of course. This was undoubtedly the 'you-know-what' that Twilight mentioned this morning. When the alternative is to go back to my room and reflect on my apparent long life ahead of me, and risk having another freak-out, enjoying myself for a while doesn't seem to be too bad of an idea. Besides, it'd be rude to put a party meant for me to waste.

But what to do first? Do I go see if that's actually tacos I smell—how did Pinkie even know I liked those? Or should I see if poker's another thing that transcends these realities? That'd be fun, and for a change I wouldn't have to fleece someone just to get by. Then again, I also gotta see what this horse plinko's all about. A piñata just seems like a hate-crime here though.

"Where should I start?" I asked, a bubble of childish excitement welling up in my belly as my gaze flicked from Rarity to Pinkie. "It's been way too long since I've been to a party just to have fun instead of making some money." That got a raised eyebrow from Rarity, a confusion or suspicion that seemed to be mirrored by Twilight and Starlight. "There's so many choices..."

Author's Notes:

1. Any time Anon uses a term that Harmony either can't translate, or ponies simply don't have a related concept in Equish, the term will be enclosed in << >>. And yes, this does make Anon 'Nonny the Horse Elf'.

2. In typical depictions of an Anonymous turned into a small horse, the justification—if there even is one—is to play it for laughs. I chose to have a more grounded reason for why Anon is turned into a foal. The way I see it is that Equestria, with its heavily regulated/standardised solar and lunar cycles, would be far more likely to have a round number for its year length. A longer year in Equestria (especially using a nice round 1000) would stretch out ages, making a young adult human roughly in line with a preadolescent pony. In Anonymous's case, they went from being around 23 years old in human years to being around 7 to 8 pony years. This lines up with the previously stated estimate of being anywhere from 5 to 7 if you account for them being somewhat diminutive due to their previous lifestyle.

What's that? Seven Fates has gone and made another diminutive small horse? Hold the presses, am I right?

3. As has been hinted at a few times by now, this Anon has not had a great life. Much of their young adulthood thus far has been described as doing what was needed to survive, but never fully elaborated on, just as why they have been living as a drifter has yet to be explained.

Entry 3

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It was the third day since the party. While I'd love to say that lots of interesting things happened there, the only thing really worth noting was the card game. That was still on my mind today because according to Twilight I have a gambling problem. Joke's on her—I don't have a gambling problem; I just have a winning problem. Oh, and apparently if I started teaching foals how to gamble, I'd end up in the Time-Out Crate again.

Anyway, apparently poker and its many variants are another parallel between Equestria and Earth, although the names are somewhat different. Texas Hold'em, or Appleloosa Bounty as it's known here, is the most popular variant with Neighbraska—Omaha, anyone?—coming close behind the basic rules in popularity. For the sake of our allegedly friendly game, we went with the Bounty, each of us starting with a simulated buy-in of 200 bits worth of chips.

The first thing I noticed during the game was that although they were all quite familiar with the game, they were definitely just playing for fun, rather than for keeps. Beyond that, it was easy to see their playstyles early on. Rainbow was aggressive and was not afraid to bluff despite being in over her head. AJ, on the other hoof, was very good at reading others, but her tells were awful once you picked up on them. Spike was clearly the least experienced of the bunch, but he had a fair amount of luck on his side. Pinkie was the hardest to read because she really liked to fill the silence. That said, she had some really obvious tells as well.

I don't mean to brag, but there's a reason that I won't be getting invited to any 'friendly' poker games, especially when money is involved. Spike ended up bullied out by Rainbow early on, although most of his chips ended up in Pinkie's pile, rather than Rainbows. Rainbow, for all her aggression, couldn't make up for her bad hands with bluffing; AJ and I ended up splitting her chips. From there, I managed to bait Pinkie into going all-in when I had a royal flush on the flop. Then, for all her power to read me, AJ didn't stand a chance.

To be honest, showing up at parties and getting in on poker games was the easiest way I made money in my old life. I didn't have to risk injury on a work-site, pull a scam, or degrade myself on 'dates', whenever I could score a poker game. Just fleece the suckers at the table, get most of the chips into my pile, and then cash out. Was it scummy to leave a table before the last player went bust? That was a matter of opinion. Were there times where I'd have to leave a town early after someone got salty that I wasn't giving them the opportunity to win more than their buy-in back? Absolutely. At the end of the day, though, if I went in with two C-notes and came out with eight, I was doing well.

That said, if I picked up on any sort of organised crime presence, I had enough sense to find another game. You only make that sort of mistake once. At least the mobsters I pissed off that time were kind enough to just black my eyes and bust up my lip. All my ill-gotten gains weren't nearly enough to cover the highway robbery at hospitals. Still, that's a lesson hard-learned.

Suffice to say, it wasn't exactly in my plans to start fleecing fillies and colts. From everything I'd seen here, there was no reason to start gambling. Besides, as a foal, it's not like they were expecting me to pay my way. Even if the threat of getting put in the crate once more was facetious, the message was clear... No juvenile delinquency would be tolerated, not that I was so broken as to try and scam kids out of their allowances. Note to self, ask about an allowance at some point once we're on good terms.

The next two days were spent practicing reading with books intended for foals, learning more about what was considered improper behaviour in public, and setting ground rules. The foal books were okay, but once I had gotten the rhythm down, I'd quickly moved on to books that started introducing basic moon-glyphs. I'd managed to get through the first vocab batch and even quizzed perfectly on them, before Twilight forced me to slow down and save my enthusiasm for school. At least she wasn't barring me from reading Daring Do; as much as it thematically mirrored the Indiana Jones films, the series was genuinely interesting.

Even though I'm pretty sure that Starlight explained to Twilight the differing year concepts and the rate at which humans from my realm aged, the alicorn didn't seem to be able to wrap her head around the fact that I possessed more maturity than the average seven-year-old foal. Granted, that was mostly because I still didn't have all the horsey social graces down. I couldn't completely read the body language, nor could I control how much my tail swishes when excited; up until just over a month ago, I didn't even have a tail. And why should I have to concern myself with whether or not other ponies are staring at my back-end? As has been pointed out so many times, I'm just a filly, so as far as I'm concerned, anyone caught looking at me back there like that deserves to catch fire.

I will say that I've noticed my self-control has started to slip a bit. There was a bit of a tantrum thrown when I was told to stop reading ahead on the moon-glyphs, lest I get too far ahead of the class I'd be joining. I've also been getting snippy when they force me to eat sweets. Just gimme a bunch of fruit and I'm good, damn it! I also might've gotten upset to find out that some ponies—mostly pegasi and thestrals—will regularly consume fish, but it's not as commonly accepted among earth ponies and unicorns. I might have threatened to pack my rucksack—I don't even own one—and live as a lone vagabond, fishing and foraging like my ancestors. In my defence, I might've just a bit protein starved.

I wonder if Fluttershy or Rainbow Dash like fishing.

Then of course came the ground-rules. These were mostly just 'dos or don'ts' for being allowed out in Ponyville. They were fairly common-sense, if a bit condescending:

Don't go off with strangers unless Twilight or Starlight explicitly state they can be trusted.
Don't wander off without telling anyone where you're going.
The spooky Everfree forest south of town is off-limits and the closest you are allowed to go near it is Fluttershy's shack. If the place is so evil and cursed, why hasn't anyone just burned it down?
No hitting, biting, kicking, or immolating ponies, no matter how much they upset you. She didn't like it when I suggested that rule was void if my personal space was violated or I felt threatened.
Don't take candy from strangers.
Just because Pinkie Pie can do it, doesn't mean you can or should.
The answer to tribalist behaviour is to walk away, not fire. Horse racism has a term, go figure.
You are forbidden from studying, practicing, or using any runic magic without unicorn supervision.
If Twilight is out, Starlight's in charge.
If both are out, leave a note and go to Rarity, Fluttershy, or Applejack's place, and they're in charge.
Pinkie Pie, despite being old enough to babysit, is not to be considered a responsible adult in anything where one is required. The damage expenses could likely be astronomical next time.
Swearing will be punished with soap and/or the Time-Out Crate. I don't know why she's keeping that thing to use as a threat! Is she gonna send me to horse Abu Dhabi?
An absence of a rule from this list is not an invitation to give reason for it to be added.

My own ground rules for the rest of them were much simpler. Don't touch me without permission or unexpectedly. Try to avoid raising your voice. Although I recognise the importance of sugar to ponies, it does not change the fact that nine times out of ten I'd prefer fruit over candy. Even when you send me to school with foals, do not expect me to become super-involved with them.

I still don't know if they're going to take my request that the bed in my room be replaced with a pile of pillows and blankets or a futon. It's possible that they're mistaking my aversion to sleeping on the bed for a fear of heights, or as an indication that I'm not confident in my ability to jump. That misconception, coupled with not liking to be touched, might lead them thinking I don't want to have to ask for help or a set of steps.

In reality, the answer was much more simple; I'm not used to sleeping on mattresses; I never had one growing up. The moment I got the opportunity in Canterlot, I requested a large cushion, and before that, I either slept in the back seat of the car I bought on craigslist after 'the incident', or I'd sleep under the stars or in a lean-to if I was in the sticks. Luxury wasn't something I could afford on the road, and as such, big plush beds just aren't my thing. Gimme a nice protected corner over 'comfort' any day.

Anyway, where was I? Oh, right. It's been three days since the party, and now that I was fully able to read sun-glyphs, I was ready to go out into Ponyville. That said, there were a few things that Twilight needed to get squared away as my legal guardian. Namely, she needed to take me to the ~~vet~~ ~~horspital~~ hospital in order to get me vaccinated, and then she wanted to take me to meet the teacher at the Ponyville schoolhouse.

That said, there was a really big issue. My birthday didn't really apply in this dimension, so we needed to puzzle out a new birthday for my records. For one, with one thousand days in a year, it was much more sensible for ponies to divide their year into ten months, with each season lasting two and a half months. It was currently the thirty-fourth day of September, and Twilight said her spell this morning put me at just around 8453 days old, so... I guess my birthday is the 81st day of the Binuary.

So as we walked to the hospital, I wasn't paying to much attention to much of anything around us. I was musing at the oddity of ponies using a 7 day week structure, rather than breaking a month into ten ten-day weeks. Even weirder was that they used the same names. Sunday and Monday made sense, but I was kinda scared to find out if in olden times ponies believed in the Roman and Norse pantheons. At least the months made sense: Unuary, Binuary, Tritilis, Quadrilis, Pentilis, Hextilis, September, October, November, December—all of them derived from the numerical prefix. Hell, even that has links to the old Roman calendar.

I was so absorbed in my thoughts that I almost didn't even notice the marketplace until we were passing through. There was Applejack, selling her apples alongside a titan of a red stallion. Nearby, a trio of mares were selling flowers from a stall. A yellow mare with a bright orange mane was selling carrots and other produce, with some possible tension between her and AJ. There were plenty of pegasi in the air, moving clouds or just flitting about overhead. There was even this weird amalgamation of God knows how many creatures trying to sell a stained-glass lamp made in its image to a gray pegasus mare.

It wasn't until we were nearly on the hospital's doorstep that the purple pony princess stopped and turned to me. "I should have asked this earlier given your dislike of being touched, but how are you about needles?" she asked, looking a bit ashamed. She probably realised that some people are really skittish about getting stuck, and wanted to know if she should hit me with a calming spell. "Before you can start in the school, your vaccination record must be made up-to date. Since you didn't exist in Equestria before the beginning of the month, that means you're due for a full array. If they scare you, I can always cast a spell so you won't even know it's happening."

It probably said poorly of me that I was I was surprised by her concern, but after several days of being treated like a child, it was strange to see her show it now. Moving to the side of the path, I took a seat on the grass to think. "I've never been particularly scared of vaccinations, since they're petty important for herd immunity," I commented with a shrug. When she sat down beside me, I continued. "That said, I could never really look when they were doing it." A shiver ran down my spine and I glanced sidelong at her. "Still, I'm a bit wary. You can't live out of your <<car>> or on the street without learning to be paranoid about homeless <<heroin>> addicts attacking you with a used needle, not knowing if it was contaminated with <<HIV>>."

She looked like she wanted me to explain the words that ponies didn't have parallel concepts for. Granted, even if she asked, I didn't feel particularly keen on explaining heroin or human autoimmune diseases. Thankfully, she remained quiet and allowed my moment of disquiet. At one moment, she even extended a wing behind me as if she wanted to hug me, but she froze as if remembering my boundaries. Then, once I was ready, we continued on.

The hospital itself seemed to easily be one of the largest buildings in Ponyville, but rather than being in a central location in the town, it perplexed me to find it near the outskirts. Then again, in a rural setting, it would be nice to enjoy looking out at nature rather than a busy street when you're laid up for a few days. There might even be a reason to keep it out where there was more space. I imagine emergency chariots to Canterlot or one of the other nearby urban centers might be needed on the rare occasion.

The waiting room that the front doors opened into was quite spacious, although it was mostly empty. There was an elderly stallion in a wheelchair with either his son or a caregiver talking to a stallion in a lab coat near a set of doors, but it looked like they were just leaving an appointment, rather than waiting for one. The trio held no interest to Twilight, though.

Instead, she led me right up to the reception desk, which was manned—mared?—by a white earth pony in a nurse's cap. She lit up at the sight of Twilight. "Ah, Princess Twilight, it's so good to see you again," she said with a smile. "Are you here for your yearly check-up?"

"Not today, Nurse Redheart," Twilight denied, shaking her head. She stepped aside so that the nurse could better get a look at me. "I came by yesterday to arrange for a check-up and a vaccine battery for Anonymous here. Room 117."

"Oh, aren't you darling," the nurse commented, brightening up. It caught me off guard, because as far as ponies I'd seen, I seemed to be pretty generic—nondescript even. Then again, I wasn't exactly a narcissist, either. "But who would give a foal such a name?"

"Anon is new to Equestria and being a pony," Twilight explained. "Until recently, she was under Princess Celestia's care. I believe she granted the name based on what Anon stated the name meant to them. It unfortunately also meant something rather unfortunate in Old Equish."

"Unloved Child," I added in 'helpfully' in a cheerful tone. The nurse gaped at me. "In my world, it had the name meant 'Nobody', and had its roots in mythology. I think my father was a bit of a prick for naming me like that, among other things, but hey. When in <<Rome>>, do as the <<Romans>> do." I grinned up at Twilight, who now looked rather... embarrassed by my outburst. "I admit, I wasn't keen on the name, but Anon is kinda growing on me. It's nondescript, just like me, since I'm rather plain and mostly a 'blank slate' by pony reckoning."

Pretending not to hear that utterly disgusting degree of self-deprecation, the nurse looked back to Twilight. "Well, it's not particularly busy, so I can take you back to a room and have her looked after," she offered in a forced tone nonchalance. "I was just covering the desk for Sweetheart while she took her lunch break, and Dr. Horse is probably going to be held up by Monty Spurs there for quite a while." She leaned closer to Twilight and whispered, "As rich as he is, Mr. Withers can only provide so much company for the poor stallion."

The mare led us past the doctor and patients discussing in the doorway and down a sterile white hall. We passed a few empty exam rooms before leading us into a room with a reinforced metal door. When the door was opened by the nurse, I caught sight of the sign inlaid on the door: 'Unicorn Examination'. I guess she requested containment just in case I forget rules four and eight. That's fair, I guess.

The inside of the room, seemed normal enough: scales with slide measure, an exam bed, a few chairs, and a desk at which to fill out paperwork. That said, the moment we crossed the threshold left me experiencing the strangest sensation. It was almost like something pushing in on me, or rather my magic. Just this morning, Starlight had guided me through a meditation exercise to give me a better sense of my internal magical field. Now knowing what it felt like, it was much easier to recognise the change. Given that I am capable of using runic magic, it makes sense to have some sort of suppression field active.

You know, now that I think about it, despite Twilight being the one supposed to care for me, many of my study sessions thus far seemed to be with Starlight. Sure, most of them have been overseen by the Princess—still can't wrap my head around not wanting her title used—but it's almost as if she's testing Starlight instead. Granted, Twilight does test me at the end of the day. Maybe she's just observing my sessions with Starlight in order to tailor a lesson plan to better suit my needs? Or am I giving her too much credit?

Without prompting, I trotted over to the scales and stood in the center. The nurse seemed somewhat surprised that I seemed to have some idea of what to expect, but I admit that I was trying to rush the weight and height measurements to minimise touching potential. Like a patient royal guard, I stood stock still as she fiddled with the sliding parts up above me before measuring my height.

I didn't put up any resistance when Twilight chose to levitate me onto the exam bed. Magic didn't raise my hackles nearly as much as being physically picked up, and I did need to get up there. If I was more confident in my ability to perform a vertical jump, maybe I'd have made an attempt to assert my independence, but I wasn't feeling particularly ornery this afternoon. Besides, if I turned out to be as injury prone as I was in my first childhood, I'd probably end up seeing her a fair bit. And her eyes are very kind. Wouldn't be right to see them tainted with anger or disappointment.

I found myself blushing slightly as I sat there listening to them begin to fill out my information. I was apparently just under twenty-kilograms, and just sixty centimeters tall, although I didn't really have any frame of reference for comparison. If only Mom had taught me metric. My physical sex was mentioned, but then it was onto the topic of my age.

"So how old is Anonymous?" the nurse asked.

Instead of letting Twilight answer, I spoke up. "Please, just call me Anon. Anonymous still sounds weird," I insisted, shuffling slightly under her gaze. "My birthday is the 81st of Binuary, and I'm eight years old."

"Eighty-one, two, nine ninety-five H.E.," she said aloud, noting my age. She then glanced at my age and height, narrowing her eyes. "I'm sorry to say that she's somewhat underdeveloped for her age. At this point in her development, she should be closer to 80cm tall, and 30 kilos." She stopped to peer at Twilight. "Where did the crown find this child again? I hope her previous... caretakers are being punished for the nutritional neglect that would cause this level of stunted development."

That caused my neck to prickle with anger. My mother did her best, even if I was just as stunted back home. She doesn't deserve his sort of slander! At least my father is in Hell where he deserves to be. Still, I want to behave myself, and I swore I'd try to be on my best behaviour, damnit!

"Her situation is unique and we don't fully know her background," Twilight interjected, seemingly picking up on my agitation. Was my eye twitching? I think my eye was twitching. "Is there anything specific we should do to get her back on track? Diet, supplements, and the like?"

The nurse sat there for a moment, a lock of her pale pink mane falling from beneath her cap. She looked down at the paper and then back to me. "The damage might already be done," she said with a dark look, "but if you can increase her dietary intake of zinc, iron, calcium, and vitamin A, you might be able to mitigate some of the damage. More sugar never hurts, either... especially if her cutie mark is a magic-related mark."

Damn it! You better prescribe some tasteless sugar pills then, Nurse Killjoy!

"Other than that, before we move onto her vitals, I've only one more question that we've been instructed to ask," she continued, returning her attention to the paper before her. "In recent years, identities outside the historical gender binary have become more commonly accepted, and some parents have allowed their foals to decide how they identify. In the interest of seeing that all ponies have their needs met, has Anonymous made any indication regarding such?"

I could almost see the cogs begin to turn in Twilight's head. Think, girl; have you seen me make any indications toward masculine, feminine, or any comments about categorisation?

"I can't say she's said anything regarding how she identifies, although she's made comments that might indicate she's non-binary at the very least," said the pointy horse. Very good! Now, what else do you remember? "I think she might've indicated that the transformation into a pony might have taken from her more than just her species, but as jarring as it might have been, she didn't seem too upset by it."

I actually smiled at that. She actually has been listening to me. "Allow me to answer your question, Nurse Redheart, rather than forcing her to guess with incomplete data," I explained, choosing to lie down atop the exam bed, my forehooves hanging over the edge. "I've never felt one way or the other. My body was just... a vessel of flesh. It was there, it met its purpose. This new one is just another vessel in a very different configuration. I suppose I don't really identify as male or female, but I've been what was needed of me. I'm not sure if you call that agender or gender-fluid; those topics were kinda taboo where I was, so I never really brought it up." Casting a sideways glance at Twilight, I added, "It's also why I don't get upset if you use feminine pronouns with me. I'm just me."

The nurse looked slightly ill at part of my phrasing, but seemed to mark down more than just a few words on that sheet. She then proceeded to drag Twilight out into the hallway and have a very hushed discussion. Still, with the door not closed entirely, I was able to make out the words morbid, seriously wrong, and therapist. I'm actually kinda surprised Celestia didn't assign me one when I was in her care... But maybe she was trying to respect my own autonomy and expecting me to seek one out... Or maybe because she was intending to send me here anyway, she was hoping either me or Twilight would broach the topic first.

Surprisingly, I didn't find myself put off by the idea. I could tell that this world was a far cry from what I left behind, and healthcare wasn't for profit, but I had no idea what degree of mental health care ponies had. I mean, over a thousand years ago, a princess got jealous and turned into a demon or something... So maybe it would be improved in this new era so that sort of thing couldn't happen again. And maybe our worlds weren't so different that a therapist wouldn't judge me harshly for what I'd done to survive.

After they returned, I sorta just sat there and let the nurse poke and prod me with a stethoscope. She listened to my heartbeat, measured my blood-pressure, and even my breathing, and I didn't flinch once at her touch. Then out came the needles. There were a lot of needles, and I was destined to have every single one go inside me.

"Don't pay attention to the needles, Anon," Twilight said, placing her hoof beside mine at the edge of the bed. "Just focus on me." Her smile was infectious, and she actually did a good job of distracting me. "So are you excited to learn some basic ritual magic tomorrow?"

I nodded, trying my best to stay still for the nurse. Still, I tentatively placed my hoof on Twilight's hoof and gripped it with my hoof field. "Starlight said that most rituals that weren't heavily restricted were simple enough that even a foal like me could perform them," I answered with a bit of excitement. "She didn't give any examples, though. Are there any you think I'd find useful?"

Twilight paused and seemed to think about it. "Well, I know that Unseen Servant would be very useful for an earth-pony or pegasus pony in everyday life, and if you're ever out in the wilds, Purify Food and Drink is indispensable. Other than that, Locate Animals or Plants, Talk to Animals, Water Walk, and Water Breathing are all rituals that could be considered useful. Although if you plan to make regular use of ritual magic, we might need to get you a component pouch." She paused, and then beamed at me. "I could actually demonstrate one on the way to the schoolhouse later. It's called Prancer's Floating Disk!"

After the nurse finished up and gave Twilight a list of supplements to take to the chemist's, Twilight borrowed a medical thermometer and led me and the nurse outside. She explained that all ritual spells are comprised of up to three basic components: verbal or spoken, somatic, meaning gestures and movements, and materials which may or may not be consumed in the casting of the spell. In the case of Prancer's Floating Disk, it had the verbal and somatic components, but also required the caster to have a drop of mercury in their possession.

Beginner casters, she'd explained to me, would be required to perform the ritual for up to ten minutes, while experienced spellcasters would only need to go through the motions once. At first, I had been expecting her to maybe draw out a magic circle in chalk or something, as I remembered someone saying something about rituals and runic magic being linked. Then, as I watched her movements, I recognised a pattern from a runic dictionary I'd peeked into. Her chant was in a language I couldn't recognise, but it bore the same familiarity that imagining the ignition rune held in my mind.

Understanding dawned on me then. Through chant and her motions, Twilight was a literal conduit for the runic magic. Was this sort of thing what unicorns did internally with their spellcasting? I couldn't exactly say for sure without asking—and distracting—my mentor. Rituals sounded simple, like borderline witchcraft, until you stopped and actually examined the sheer depth of it.

Regardless her chant ended, and she pointed at a spot right in front of me. A puff of displaced air rippled the grass in front of me. "Step forward, and hop on. The disk created by the spell is invisible," she explained, using a bit of magic to envelop it in a magical field to give me a better look. "It follows slowly behind the original caster while they're within 30m of it, but remains stationary while they're within 5m. It can carry up to 225kg, if you can believe it."

With the glittering pink field of her magic concentrated around the construct, I could see how thin it was. Not quite razor-fine, but thin enough to not look strong enough to carry that much weight... "Wow, this is pretty awesome, Twilight," I exclaimed, clambering on, taking care to place myself dead center. It didn't so much as shift a degree, remaining perfectly level. I estimated that I was maybe a foot off the ground. "Does it auto-adjust for changes in grade with the land?"

As Twilight returned the thermometer to Nurse Redheart, a proud smile spread across her face. Clearly she was enjoying this as much as I was. "That's right, Anon, but it's so much more than that," she explained, spreading her wings and taking flight before me. "In the past, a mage by the name of Tenser created the spell for which this served as the basis for, aptly named Tenser's Floating Disk."

Slowly, the disk began to rise as she gained altitude. "It was capped at a maximum vertical height of 3m, but through tinkering, a pegasus named Star Prancer modified the spell in a way that made it useful to pegasi and other airborne creatures," she continued as we moved past the roofline of the town and up to the far-lower-than-normal cloud line. "The only downside is that it only lasts an hour, or it'll end if I get more than 30m away." She looked back at me. "Shall we take a short aerial tour of Ponyville on our way to the schoolhouse?"

I could only squeal with excitement as I glanced in every which direction. This was probably the coolest thing I'd ever experienced, and Twilight was the one letting me experience it. Being treated like a child constantly, and being subject to lectures that just served to overwhelm me didn't exactly endear me to her. That said, if she could make more lessons and demonstrations fun like this, my opinion of her would improve immensely.

Author's Notes:

1. The Equestrian calendar is 1000 days, and it made sense to have at it divvied up into the ten months. A fun fact about the modern calendar today is that four of the twelve months were carryovers from the Roman Calendar, which also had ten months. From this, the last four months were named for their position, but originally, before July and August were renamed for the Roman Emperors Julius Caesar and Agustus Caesar, they were named Quintilis and Sextilis for their positions in the calendar as the fifth and six months.

Now, it didn't make much sense to me to not derive the names of the first four months of the Equestrian calendar from Roman mythology, so I used the numerical prefixes for one through four. Thus Unuary, Binuary, Tritilis, and Quadrilis came to be.

Now, we retain the four seasons we see on earth, but obviously their dates differ. Spring begins on the 26th of Binuary and lasts through to the 75th of Quadrilis. Summer then runs from the 76th of Quadrilis to the 25th of September. Then Fall would run the 26th of September to the 76th of November. That last 250 span is of course Winter.

Further, the Harmonic Era was instated the year that Luna was banished, placing her return at 1000 H.E, and the story at 1003 H.E.

2. Yes, the rules for Anon are inspired by the list of Things Dr. Bright is Not Allowed to do at the Foundation, and other similar comedic/semi-informative lists.

3. Cut content, shitpost format:

>Passes Rainbow in the air.
>"Twilight, what's wrong with Anon, and how is she doing that?"
>Be me, standing on hind hooves with forelegs spread in a cross shape.
>My eyes are rolled back in my head and my mouth is foaming.

4. I know for a fact that I am not the first author to utilise the concept of a pony's hooves possessing magical fields to grip objects, nor would I ever claim to be. Still, when the alternative to it is just ponies having suction-cup/magnetic hooves/what have you, I'd rather embrace the magic. For most ponies, hoof-fields are more amorphous and simply encompass an object to grip it, although given Anon's unique nature, it might very well be that hers are a bit more—eheheh—handy. Find out more in the next chapter.

5. Although those who answered my blog post insisted they were fine with far longer chapters, and I was perfectly fine with the idea, instinct is telling me that this is a good place to end the chapter. Nothing really demands that the schoolhouse visit occur in this chapter, and although the title and chapter naming scheme infer it to be like individual diary entries, I plan on writing things as they flow best.

6. In addition to meeting with her regular schoolteacher, we might have Anon's first interactions with equestrian children! How exciting is that? Will she make a new friend? Will she dazzle them with her sharp wit and skills? Will she *checks notes* accidentally damage the school-yard tree? Who wrote this crap? What? I did? Oh. Nevermind.

Entry 4

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The town of Ponyville... How could one best describe it? It was a subtle mix of uniformity and individuality when looked at from above. Most of the homes appeared to be a mix of wood and adobe, with thatched roofing. That said, there was also a part of town that appeared to be full of colourful tents. Perhaps migrant workers who had homes to return to in the winter months? Then there were the buildings that could be considered landmarks.

From where we were, above the town, I could see a few of them. There was the clocktower and town hall out in the middle of town. Not far from that was the spa. Then, I shit you not, there was this place that looked like someone went overboard decorating their Christmas gingerbread house. Apparently that was Sugarcube Corner, where Pinkie Pie works and boards. Other than that, in the middle of the tent cluster was a building that look like someone built a home out of a fairground carousel, which was the aptly named Carousel Boutique—Rarity's place.

Further out, near the edges of town, there were several farms. While there were plenty that looked to have normal crops, the most eye-catching was the one that just seemed to be a huge orchard of tall trees. As I pointed it out to Twilight, she just called it Sweet Apple Acres and jokingly told me to guess who lived there. The place was positively huge, so when she explained that Applejack and her brother Big Macintosh did most of the harvesting save for visits from the extended family, you could understand my disbelief.

I tactfully chose not voice my opinion on the pitfalls of a lack of crop diversity. If they had so much work to do harvesting all those apples, but they didn't make enough to hire on more field hands, that told me that they probably didn't have nearly the amount of demand that their farm produced to meet. Even if they were converting a good portion to cider and other products... Could they continue to stay afloat like that?

Our family didn't own a farm back home, but as soon as I was old enough to follow instructions, I was regularly sent off to the farm down the road to work in exchange for produce. Back then, I didn't understand the concept or the ethical implications of child labour, but it always struck me as odd that my father was always at home, but I was working to bring home food as young as eight. Still, the farmer was a nice guy, and often talked about things like crop-rotation, crop diversity, and the like. So some of that stuck with me.

Wonder if I shouldn't offer a helping hand as thanks for her part in welcoming me to town.

Another thing that Twilight mentioned during our flight—well, her flight and my disk ride—was that Applejack and Rarity had sisters attending the classes at the Ponyville schoolhouse, although they were about a year older than me. It was explained to me, though, that due to the smaller population of the town, I would likely be placed in the same group as the other older students. Although I wasn't expected to become friends with those fillies, it was expected I at least treat them well out of respect for their sisters.

"There's the schoolhouse up ahead, Anon," Twilight eventually pointed out, changing her vector slightly to give me a better view. Or maybe she was preparing for a landing while accounting for Prancer's Floating Disk? "I know you don't think you'll be able to relate with foals your own age, but I think you'll come out better for the time you'll spend with them." Much to my surprise, she actually seemed a bit dejected saying this. "I still find myself wishing I'd spent more time with Moon Dancer, Lyra, Minuette, Lemon Hearts and Twinkleshine while we went to school together. When I was your age I should've been cherishing those days, but I threw myself into my studies under Princess Celestia and it was never really the same; I don't want you having those same regrets."

Ugh! I don't know how many more times I can listen to her saying things like this. Just when I thought she was starting to get me, she went and said something that just pisses me right off. Why can't she seem to recognise that I never asked to be made a child, and that being reminded of that fact only serves to royally cheese me off. If anything that underdeveloped foal brain of mine just rebelled at the thought and wanted to do something to spite her, and although I usually had the self-control to resist such puerile impulses, I kinda wanted to indulge that childishness.

With that new goal in mind, I waited for the perfect opportunity. While we were too high in the air, I couldn't exactly just jump down. Even as an earth pony with their vaunted strength and durability, I didn't fancy finding out from just how high I'd need to fall to break something. So I waited until we were about twenty feet up, just at the edge of what seemed to be a playground. There were several tall trees, from some of which had swings, and we were just passing over the top of a nice birch when I decided to make a break for it.

Keeping quiet so as not to alert her to my miniature mutiny, I hopped backwards with a prayer. I still wasn't exactly clear on the strength of my own body, so I didn't trust a full-on jump to not just invert my forward momentum and throw me back past the tree. Probably for the best; without all that much noise, I plunged into the leafy green foliage. Unfortunately, my estimation was a bit off, and while I smashed through several twigs, I shot through the canopy entirely without striking a single branch.

While I was beginning to regret my decision, I didn't allow myself to lose focus. Coming up beneath me was a large horizontal limb that looked like it ought to have had an old tire dangling from it. That said, it wasn't directly in my path, so I needed to do something to catch it. Then, an incredibly stupid, dangerous, and fun idea struck me.

Something I'd read about back on Earth, but never witnessed first-hand, was gymnastics. I remembered reading about people at a circus performing astounding feats of acrobatics, such as someone using a bar, to swing back and forth at increased velocities until they were able to completely loop the bar. What I wanted to do was a complete reversal of that. Just catch the branch, loop around a few times, and then increase the grip of my hoof field to arrest my momentum.

Sounds simple, right?

Well, the first and third step went off without a hitch, but I forgot to account for one very important thing: the bark. The moment I tried to tighten my hold, the outermost layer tore beneath my grip just as my body was perpendicular with the ground. The result was that I shot out across the schoolground at an acute angle toward the ground. My heart pounded in my chest as I tucked myself into a tight ball.

I was incredibly lucky to not land on my neck, but rolling with a fall wasn't a strange concept. Next to how to operate a firearm, how to fall was probably the only other useful thing my father taught me. "Listen, Nemo," he'd said to me one afternoon after I'd come back bruised and slightly bloodied from playing in the forest around our cabin. "If you're gonna be out fuckin' around in those woods, you need to learn roll with whatever spills you take. We just can't afford to have you laid up for months when you could be out gettin' food. Can barely afford you and your sisters as is."

Sure, this was a really awkward fall, but like the bastard said. Gotta roll with it. So it was that I came out of it, flat on my back just a short distance from an unused jungle gym, in the middle of the barren school playground. "Fuck yeah!" I cried out with a victorious whoop. I couldn't help but bust out in laughter. I could just imagine what he'd say about my acrobatics, and that spiteful part of me sneered at his memory. "How's about that, old <<man>>!?"

As I lay there laughing and staring up at the sky, a familiar purple horse stood over me. Her face was contorted in worry as she stared down at me. "Anon, you scared me half to death!" She kept her voice level, but I was pretty sure I could make out a vein throbbing at her temple. Plus, her mane was getting disheveled as if in response to her emotional state. Definitely pissed her off. "I landed in front of the school and you weren't there! I thought you'd fallen somewhere over Ponyville without my noticing!"

She gestured to the tree I'd used in my 'landing strategy'. There were deep grooves in the outstretched branch I'd used as a gymnastics bar, where my hoof fields had shredded into the bark. "Then I turn around just in time to watch you do that," her voice grew hoarse, and she looked like was ready to cry. "What were you thinking? I was so scared and worried, Anon..."

A bubble of something I hadn't allowed myself to feel in a long time began to worm its way out of my belly and into my chest. Sure, I wanted to do something to spite her for projecting her own wasted childhood on me, and constantly being on my case about how I had to have been a child—and what did I go and do? I went and indulged my childishness, and I proved her right, but more than that, I seriously scared her. I actually felt guilty over what I'd done.

Even as I rolled over and hopped back onto my hooves, Twilight's back legs buckled and she began to breathe heavily. She was muttering something about being unfit, and how Princess Celestia was going to be so disappointed in her. Her breath was picking up, and I knew from my own firsthand experience that she was slipping into an anxiety attack—one brought on by my actions... Her expression had morphed entirely into one of terror.

What was I supposed to do in this sort of situation? Outside of doing whatever was needed to get by, or buying things from shops, I never spent much time around others or making friends, so I didn't really know how to help ease her pain, and I didn't think she'd be receptive to my own methods. But Twilight was a pony, rather than a human. They were much more tactile than we were, so maybe...

Careful not to touch her wings, I went to her side and wrapped my forelimbs around her midsection. "Breathe, Twilight," I whispered, my chin pressing into the small of her back. "In for four, hold for two, out for four." I just sat there, hugging her and feeling her breathe. When she seemed to no longer be hyperventilating, I slowly released her. "Atta girl."

As I stepped back, she turned to look at me with a confused look. "Anon, you... But..." Oh, yeah. After seeing me so touch averse the whole time I've been here, having me hug her to calm her down was probably short-circuiting her brain. Well, may as well short-circuit it more."Why?"

Bowing my head solemnly, I kneeled before her. "Twilight, I owe you an apology," I said, looking up to meet her eyes. "All this time, you've been treating me like a child of your own species, not accepting that my kind could mature at different rate to account for what you would consider a shorter lifespan. Then you started going on about your childhood and sounding like you wanted to live vicariously through me." Turning away, I sighed and tapped the side of my head with my hoof. "I allowed this underdeveloped foal brain to convince me to do something childish and impulsive to spite you—that if you wanted to treat me like a foal, maybe I should start behaving like one. That was wrong of me, and I will accept whatever punishment you have in store for me."

Even as I turned my attention to the schoolhouse, I could feel her gaze bearing down on my back. "I think you and I need to have a long talk when we get home," she said in a tone that broached no argument after a long wait. Surprisingly, it sounded apologetic, rather than angry. "I believe that we've both been unfair to one another, but for now, we've got a meeting to attend."

~ 04 ~

The schoolhouse itself was a small building, made up of a single classroom, with an accompanying L-shaped hallway with cubbies to stash belongings, and a few paintings on the wall. At one end, there was a hatch with steps down into a basement, which either served as an emergency shelter or some other purpose. I could hear the voices of some foals coming up from there, but aside from the word newspaper, I didn't really catch anything that sounded important.

Aside from the cerise earth pony at a large desk at the front of the room, the class was completely empty. It was after two in the afternoon though. That left me really curious... if there was only one room and one teacher, and the building was mostly empty in the afternoon, then the two age groups must attend on alternating days. Not only that, but there aren't all that many student desks in the room—just fifteen. I couldn't imagine they were straight up going until late teens in batches, so did ponies here just receive a bare necessity before being moved to another facility? Or was the existence of cutie marks something that allowed most ponies to just specialise their educations?

"Sorry we're a bit tardy, Ms. Cheerilee," Twilight apologised, giving me a sidelong look as I stood beside her. "Somepony found an opportunity to misbehave that she couldn't refuse."

Despite the accusation in her eyes, there was a bit of playfulness in her voice. "Yeah, I couldn't believe it when you tilted every painting on the way in," I responded with a mischievous smile. "I bet walking down that hallway's going to give someone with obsessive-compulsive tendencies such a headache."

For a moment, both ponies had a bugged-out look in their eyes as they stared at me. I could tell Twilight was silently wondering if I hadn't actually gone and done that while she wasn't looking. "I kid, I kid," I admitted, sitting down to raise my forehooves placatingly. "It's nice to meet you, Ms. Cheerilee. I'm new to Equestria and this whole 'being a small equine' business, but my guardian here tells me that attending your school would be the best way to socialise me with 'ponies my own age'."

Twilight covered her face with a hoof and grumbled something before smiling at Cheerilee. "This is Anon," she explained, gesturing to me. "As she indicated, due to circumstances outside of her control, she was brought to this world and ended up being turned into a pony. Princess Celestia has entrusted me with her care, but as much as I can teach her about magic, history, or the sciences, there are things that I can't teach her, like how to be a filly, how to enjoy her youth, or how to fit in."

"I see," the teacher said, sizing me up. She took a small booklet of papers and a pencil and led me over to a desk. "While I have a discussion with Twilight to get a better idea of where your learning is and where we'll need to work with you to catch up, I'd like you to fill this out."

Her eyebrow raised a bit as I hopped onto the chair without complaint and seized the pencil with my hoof. At the top there was a blank line for my name, which I quickly filled with 'Anonymous' before giving the pencil a quick twirl with my hoof field. After that, it was a bunch of questions on a scale of strongly agree to strongly disagree. Nothing knowledge based.

I glanced to the front of the room, where Twilight was whispering quietly with Ms. Cheerilee. Occasionally, the two would look back at me, but for the most part their backs were to me. Deep down, I knew it was more than my education being discussed there. I'd eat my pillow if my difficulties weren't brought up. How will she handle having a student like me? Would she even be equipped to handle someone who might snap if their personal space isn't respected? Maybe Twilight was even asking her for references for foal therapists.

It took me a while to fill out the questionnaire, as I encountered a few questions I didn't have certain cultural points of reference. That said, much like when I encountered unfamiliar moon-glyphs, there were usually context clues present. I reckon they probably didn't expect me to take only twenty minutes, though. Then again, it was just asking me to shade in a circle corresponding with my answer.

"You're finished already?" Cheerilee asked, taking the pamphlet. She didn't look to be using any sort of answer key, but whatever it was she was doing clearly made sense to her. "Most fillies and colts I give the Neigher Bridge personality quiz take closer to an hour to complete." Her eyebrow perked as she glanced at the answers I picked. "Are you sure you wouldn't like more time to consider your answers?"

I shook my head. "No, Ms. Cheerilee." I continued to fidget with the pencil, using the flexibility of my hoof field to spin it. Wow, it's almost as good as having fingers! "I don't wholly understand some of the cultural references—such as of Hearth's Warming, Hearts and Hooves, Nightmare Night, or the Summer Sun Celebration—although for some of them I was able to estimate cultural equivalents from back home."

There was nothing more to do but watch as she passed the pamphlet to Twilight to see if she concurred with the results. "INFJ," Twilight said in a somewhat surprised tone. "I had you pegged as more of an ENTP, although I know these tests are pretty arbitrary as they are heavily influenced by what a pony is feeling at the time they take it."

From there, Cheerilee asked me a number of questions. History and social studies were where I bombed the most, but given that I've been here a little over a month, that was to be expected. Most of my time had been spent learning to read. Now that I could read, I would only be learning faster and faster. I had the barest understanding of magic, although I wasn't expected to know all that much at my age. Then again, I think it was a bit of a surprise to her that I would have a mark in magic, especially as an earth pony.

My maths were by far the strongest, alongside basic sciences. Admittedly, there were likely things I'd have to relearn as they wouldn't be applicable in this world, but as Cheerilee put it, anything that I need to learn there seemed to be outside the basic level she was responsible to teach, and would fall to whoever I would apprentice under in later years. That said, if I chose to attend her classes, my help in tutoring others wouldn't be unwelcome.

That actually caught me off guard. If I chose to. Like it was optional? I'm pretty sure Twilight is convinced I should attend either way, and to be honest, I'm not ENTIRELY opposed to the thought of experiencing a legitimate school setting instead of just having memories of being taught by my Mom. The only thing that really puts me off is the idea that I'd be around foals. If they were anything like my sisters, they were likely to be loud, wild, and conniving. At the same time, though, I think a lot of the problems they gave me were because of our father's utter disinterest in their lives and my having to help raise them as a result. Maybe just being able to be friends would be easier without my fucked-up family dynamic.

"Honestly, although you need to be brought up to speed in history and social studies, you're ahead of the curve compared to most of my students, and I fear you might be understimulated in my classes," she concluded, looking apologetically to Twilight. "Attendance would have you interacting fillies and colts your own age, and that seems to be the primary justification for doing so, but I cannot in good conscience force you."

I chewed my lip and began to idly trace the tip of my hoof around on the desk. She was giving me an out here. By her own admission, my studies would benefit more from studying under Twilight than in a schoolhouse. At the same time, though, she was also right that I could be helpful, and I did need to learn how to interact with ponies. It was a tough decision.

As much as I hated being treated like a child, I was being given a unique opportunity to have a new start. Could I really just suck up my pride, give up the last of my humanity and play the good little filly? Was there some sort of balance I could find? I'd love to keep some of my independence but also experience some the things I missed out the first time around.

Sucking in a breath, I glanced at Twilight. "Part of me would love to take your offer to skip school, and just study full-time under Princess Twilight," I said in an apologetic tone. The alicorn looked a bit peeved, but I just raised my hoof and continued, "We're in this awkward state right now, where she's not entirely convinced I was an adult of my species—I get where you're coming from, I really do—but I think that if I took that opportunity, I wouldn't be demonstrating the sort of maturity I keep insisting I have."

This time, I gave Twilight my full attention. "In this body, I don't seem to have nearly the amount of impulse control that I should have at 23 <<human>> years." I felt my ears fold back. After what happened earlier, I wasn't sure I could trust myself on my own. "My head's a mess, and until I've got a better grasp on how to fight it, being here might be the better choice for me—even if I'm not exactly keen on being around children again," I admitted in a quiet voice. Look at where running away from my problems has gotten me... I've got to confront them eventually, and maybe going to school will give me the strength to face them.

I looked to Ms. Cheerilee, leaving Twilight to contemplate what I said. "What kind of schedule do your classes follow?" I asked, hopping down from the seat at the desk. "When would we start?"

"The younger and older classes alternate schedules," she explained, leading me over to a calendar on the wall near her desk. "One week, the junior class will have Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, while the senior class has Tuesday and Thursday, and then they switch up." I glanced at the date, noting that it was a Friday. "If you're interested in joining us, be here for 8am on Tuesday. All you need to bring are some notebooks, a saddlebag, a lunch, and some pencils."

That seemed simple enough. "Anything else we need to do?" I asked, nodding slightly, a grin revealing my teeth. "Paperwork? Blood sacrifice under a full moon? My immortal soul?"

Thankfully, Cheerilee didn't seem to take my joke the wrong way. That said, there wasn't much in terms of papers I had to fill out. Most of the real stuff was paperwork for Twilight, such as authorisation to pull my vaccination records, contact information, emergency contact information, and any other information Twilight thought she should know about me. When Twilight mentioned my aversion to being touched and how I threw Pinkie Pie, I think she maybe reconsidered taking me, but whatever.

For me, I just had to sign my name at the bottom of a short code of conduct. It was mostly kiddie shit such as no swearing, no fighting, no bullying, no tribalism, and that sort of stuff. I was pretty sure that I was going to struggle a bit with the swearing rule, but so long as nobody invaded my space, I saw no reason why I'd start a fight. I signed my name at the bottom, and that was that.

As we were leaving, Twilight stopped me outside of the schoolhouse. "Anon, I know we haven't seen eye to eye since you came into my care," she said with a smile, "But I'm proud of you for the choice you made in there. Many ponies would jump at the opportunity to take the easy way out, and I know there's a little part of you that probably would have, if nothing more than to spite me, but you didn't." She started walking again, although she cast a glance at me over her shoulder. "We're still having a serious talk when we get back, though."

With that, we began our trip back to the castle. Despite my trepidation at what our discussion might entail, I felt like I could trust her to not be too harsh. I wasn't even sure if she really had it in her to be the sort of harsh I was used to. She was just too nice to seem like the type who'd smack around a child. She might take away my reading privileges for the weekend, or maybe she'd make me volunteer to help Fluttershy with her animals or something.

Entry 5

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"Nemo! You get yer ass down here, boy!" boomed the voice of my father from the main floor. Just the tone of it promised a beating if not quickly heeded. "If yer not gonna help yer Ma with yer sisters, ya may as well go make yourself useful!"

Quickly, I snuffed the candle I used to read by, and pried up the loose floorboard beneath my 'bed'. I unceremoniously slipped the ratty paperback copy of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets into its hiding place, where it would lie hidden alongside the Lord of the Rings, Starship Troopers, Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, Animal Farm, and Redwall. 'A fourteen year old boy should be out playing sports or out bringing home food for his family', the old man would say, 'not doing sissy shit like cooking or reading books.' Not that there were any other kids my age around here to play sports with in the first place. And whose fault was that, old man?

After putting the board back in place, and replacing the oversized pillow that served as a bed, I climbed down the attic ladder and then went down the stairs to the main floor. Sure enough, he was right where I expected him to be: in his recliner, beer and stogie in hand. His crutch was leaned up against the back of his chair, but that wasn't important. It was that look in his eye. "Icebox is gettin' awful empty, boy," he grumbled, thrusting his thumb in the direction of the kitchen. "Since you're so good at scarin' up some fish, how's about you go and work your magic?"

I nodded, grabbing an empty cooler from near the door, a fishing rod, and the belt with the bear gun. "Alright, Pa," I said. Sure, I loved reading, but getting out of the cabin was honestly a mixed blessing. It meant I could get out from under his thumb for a bit, but if Sara or Laura got into trouble, I couldn't be there to take the beating. Out in the wilderness like we were, though, I couldn't reasonably fish and watch an eight and five year old. "I'll be back by sundown, but we're gonna need to go to town for more gas sooner rather than later. Won't be able to make the trip up the mountain for more ice, otherwise."

The old bastard just grumbled something about money as I pulled on my too-large hand-me-down hunting jacket and exited the cabin. I couldn't help but smile as I saw Ma out front of the cabin, teaching my sisters about nature and the various edible plants that grew around here. Soon they'd be doing as I did most days, going downriver to work at Old Thom's farm. Maybe then, we might even get some goats of our own. Much like cooking, animal husbandry was for womenfolk, so says Pa.

"I'm headin' out, Ma, girls," I announced as I strapped the fishing pole and the cooler down to the back of the 4x4. Oddly, I thought I could hear hooves, as if a horse or a deer was following close behind me, but when I looked, there was nothing there. In fact, the forest around the cabin was completely silent. That didn't bode well. "Head on swivel, I think the wolves are about."

My mother just smiled, glancing around. "Keep safe, sweetie," she called out as I started the engine and threw the ATV into gear. I couldn't help but pause to stare at her... I couldn't be sure why, but it felt like it'd been too long since I'd laid eyes on the woman who raised me. From her raven-hair to her soft green eyes, nothing looked out of place, but still. "Could you check some of the snares on your way back?"

I nodded, tearing off through the woods. This time of year, I didn't have to worry about anybody shooting at me, mistaking me for a deer—not that anyone was stupid enough to come hunting around the cabin—but the fact that the forest was so quiet put me on edge. I glanced at the sky, saw the moon high above, and thought I caught the sound of hooves following close behind again. The hell's going on?

There might've been about four more hours of daylight, but that was plenty of time to check my fish traps down at the river, maybe catch a few salmon by rod, and then check Ma's snares. There were plenty of game trails nearby, and Ma had me regularly check them when I could. That so many were close to the dirt track that went from the cabin to the river and road was a small blessing.

My first stop was a point 200 ft upstream from the dilapidated bridge that I always crossed when going to Thom's or the town. It was here that I always put my fish-traps. Ever since I found the design in an old book Mom brought home, I'd built a couple and would drop them into the river once a week. Depending on whether or not I helped at the farm, I'd usually check them once or twice a day, but this summer had been a bit of a bust.

As I pulled up to where I had my traps anchored, I killed the engine. My neck prickled slightly, and though I couldn't see any predators around, the forest was still deathly quiet. As I made my way to the riverbank, I froze. One of my traps had been drug ashore and torn apart. At my feet, there were tracks... but not wolf tracks. They were spaced too far apart, and were way too large and deep. Shit, there's a bear about? Instinct told me to hop right on that 4x4 and head right the fuck back home, but if I came back empty-handed, I'd be in for a world of hurt—bear or no bear.

I knelt down and placed my hoof—wait, that's not right... I looked down at my hand. Sure enough, it was its normal darkened tan from its fieldwork, not a tiny green hoof. I placed my hand next to the bear's paw print. It was big, easily a 600-700 pounder. Fuck, if its gotten into my fish traps, what are the odds it's been feasting on our snare catches, as well? I knew I should've turned back, but fear of my father's wrath spurred me on. I had to bring back something.

Straightening up, I undid the catch on the holster. The engraving on the revolver said Super Redhawk, but to me the beast of chrome and custom wooden handgrip was just the bear gun. I never asked where he got it or why it looked like there was a number filed off on it, but that was more because questions caught fists more often than out of any genuine interest. All I needed to know was how to fire it, and what sort of cartridges to pick up in town with Pa's mine pension.

A small piece of the back of my mind insisted that I should do what needed to be done: rescue my mother and my sisters from that man—no, monster—before it was too late. It's what a good brother—a good son—would do, right? Make the hard choice, and it would be so simple... Just go home, turn the gun on him, and we'd all be free.

Sighing, I knew I just couldn't do that. I didn't have the backbone to do such a thing—no resolve. That's not who I am... I'm just a spineless coward who can't stand up to his old man or protect anyone...

Though I kept my palm on the grip, I didn't draw it immediately. Rather, my feet carried me to the water's edge. Luckily, the bear hadn't torn up the rope connected to the others. My traps, unfortunately weren't so lucky. Much like the first one, the other two were individually ripped apart, and entire sections had floated off downstream, complete with the rope I'd used.

A twig snapped close behind me, and I whirled around. My hand tore the revolver from the holster as I spun on my heel, the barrel pointed at a dark-blue horse with a starry mane. The hammer was cocked as my breath hitched in my chest. Between the wings and the horn, a sense of familiarity filled my mind. I knew it—no, her—from somewhere. But...

The revolver tumbled from my grip as my hand shrunk into a small green hoof. My entire body shrank until the mare towered over me: the alicorn Princess of the Night standing over a mere filly. As the firearm hit the ground, I flinched, expecting it to go off, but it sorta just... froze, like everything else around me. The river water, the clouds—everything had stopped.

"Finally, we meet, Anonymous," she greeted, inclining her head. "Do all outsiders possess such robust mental defenses, or are you an anomaly among your kind as much as you are ours?"

A spike of fear shot through my heart, and around me the world darkened. I remembered going to sleep after being forced to have extra dessert. I'd ended up passing out with a bit of a tummy-ache on my pillow pile. But if I was asleep, and Princess Luna was here...

"W-what are you doing inside my mind?" I whimpered, hopping to my hooves and trying to look larger than I was. It was a feeble attempt at best; I was barely bigger than a large cat, and yet I was posturing against an entity of intense magical power. "Is nothing sacred to ponies!?"

She stepped toward me, her hoof extended in what I was sure to be a placating gesture. It didn't help, however. I'd seen her in Canterlot Castle plenty of times, but we'd never spoken. She was aloof and intimidating, and I was just trying to adapt. "Please, Anonymous," she pleaded. "Your dreams for the past month have been troubled, dark even, but I have been unable to reach you to grant aid until tonight."

What was she doing inside my head? What gave her the right!? What does she mean dreams? I don't dream! Since I left all that behind, I hadn't had a dream—not once in the seven years since then. I had to learn to not dream to stop the nightmares. The void was my only protection... my only friend. But I've not been dreaming since I got here, either, so what is she talking about?

No, this has to be some sort of trick. She using the void as a justification, and has breached the sanctity of my mind... but what is she after?

My eyes flicked to the revolver still floating in the air. Could she have been after useful bits from my old world: weaponry and technology to jumpstart Equestria's industrial era? Or had she read my profile and decided to see for herself if I was making things up? If dreams here follow the same rules as back home, then... I seized the handcannon with my hoof, and pointed it at my own temple. "I don't care if you are a Princess, your Highness," I growled, extending my imaginary hoof field to caress the trigger. "Stay the fuck out of my head, and don't you dare make me dream or remember ever again, or I'll never forgive you."

My vision dissipated among the explosion that decimated my head. Even as the ringing in my ears faded away, I could hear the screaming... Not just hers, but mine in two voices: my current filly voice, and my sixteen-year-old self from the day it all went wrong.

~ 05 ~

I felt dizzy, like the world was spinning, as I stumbled out of my 'bed'. The pile of pillows beneath me was drenched with sweat, as was my coat. Meanwhile, my throat ached like I'd been screaming, but I could feel a familiar sensation on the back of my tongue which promised things were about to get so much worse.

Luckily, I kept my door cracked specifically in case this sort of thing came up. Being a bit on the small side of things, I couldn't exactly regularly reach the doorknob, especially in the dark of night, and if I suddenly got sick or had an emergency, the seconds taken up by struggling with the door could be the difference between a mess in my room and getting to the bathroom on time.

"Anon, what's wrong?" a groggy Starlight Glimmer asked as I staggered past her. She looked like she'd just crawled out of bed herself, judging by the sleeping cap, but I ignored her. "What's all the screaming about?"

At the end of the hall, I pushed open the bathroom door and staggered to the toilet. Wrapping my forelimbs around the porcelain, I felt my stomach begin to churn. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught the mare staring at me, worry still in her eyes. "Could you, urp, hold my hair?" I moaned, struggling to keep the contents of my stomach from coming up while I spoke. "I think I'm—yeah, I'm gonna be sick."

Without waiting for a response, I lurched forward as I lost control. Luckily, I could feel the tingle of her magic pull the front portion of my mane out of the splash zone. Even if it was awkward having her there in my moment of weakness, I was actually thankful for her presence. The last time I'd been sick like this, I'd passed out during or after, and knocked myself out on the toilet bowl in a motel room. That time, I lost the better part of a day. Having someone here with me meant I could hurt myself the same way again.

She just sat there, outside the bathroom door, telling me that things were gonna be okay as I sniveled and emptied my stomach. At one point, I thought I felt someone caressing my back in a circular motion and patting it gently, but it might've just been my imagination, since she never left her post at the door. At the back of my mind, I wondered if this was what it was like for Sara when she got sick from some bad forage at the age of nine, when I held her hair back... Was this what it was like to have an older sibling ignoring the awkwardness to grant comfort?

When my stomach was completely barren, and even the bile had stopped coming, I peeked my head up over the edge of the toilet seat. "Thank you, Starlight," I murmured. My body felt weak as I tried to stand and make my way over to the sink. "I know how gross it can be being there for someone when they're sick, and you didn't have to."

The mare just shook her head at me, with a soft smile creasing her tired face. "Think nothing of it," she dismissed. "We all have our moments of weakness, but what matters is having someone there for you."

When a moment of dizziness left me slumped against the wall, she actually entered the small bathroom. Using her magic, she ran the sink, filled a glass, and wetted a face-cloth. She was very gentle with her magic as she sat me up and washed my face with her magic, while not getting too close, as if... oh, right. My boundaries. Twilight must've told her that magic didn't seem to agitate me as much... Once the kind unicorn had washed any traces of sick from my face, she offered the glass of water.

I greedily drank down the glass and sighed. "Starlight, I think I f—messed up," I admitted, catching myself before swearing. Not that I thought she would rat me out, but given that I'd just sworn at and threatened a Princess before promptly killing myself to wake up... "Why did nobody tell me that Princess Luna could invade your mind while you sleep?"

Starlight nearly dropped the glass before I caught it with my hooves. Her eyes were wide with shock, and she suddenly looked far lest comfortable. "Should I get Twilight?" she asked, readjusting her sleeping cap. "If you feel you made a mistake and Princess Luna was involved I—"

Shaking my head, I made my way over to sit closer to her. "She's probably going to find out anyway, but... I just wanna talk," I whispered, I felt my ears fold backward. The more I thought about it, the more I think I overreacted with the princess. "I don't dream like normal people do. I won't go into why, but I instead just have the void and a heartbeat... It's peaceful and allows me my respite from the day's events..."

I don't know why, but I felt like she was someone I could share a bit about my early life with. I told her about Mom, my father, my sisters, working for Old Thom, and living out in the wilderness in an off-the-grid cabin. She cringed when I explained about the way I was raised, and she looked appalled at the thought of a man beating his son, but I just shrugged with apathy. It was, after all, how his father raised him, and Mom was too scared of him hurting her—or us—if she left him.

It surprised me when she asked whether I knew where my sisters were now. Apparently, one of her childhood friends had his older sister go AWOL from his life, and it'd done an emotional toll on him and confidence. I was honest with her; the last I saw of them was the night I'd left them with Old Thom and his daughter, although they were likely put into foster-care. Of course I missed them every day, but I wasn't in a position to ever seek them out. So it was that I travelled, not just across North America, but parts of Europe for a time, slowly losing my accent as I went.

Starlight earned a lot of respect by avoiding the topic of whatever happened to my Mom and my father, but I think she might've had some sort of suspicions. Honestly, it wouldn't be surprising if she thought I'd murdered the old bastard. I mean, yeah, there were plenty of times where I wanted to, but things were never just that simple. Even now, I'm running from the memory of that night.

In return, I spared her from my suspicions that my father had been taking Mom into town at night and pimping her out. His pension from the mine and his disability payout from the workplace injury that ended his career couldn't possibly have supported all of us on its own, especially with the size of the cabin he'd bought and the fact that we seemed to live hand-to-mouth most of the time. Starlight didn't need to know just how poorly I thought of my father and what I thought he put my mother through... especially if she was just doing it to make sure we got a semi-decent living.

"Well, I can see why Harmony molded you into an earth pony," she commented after I finished my story. "You grew up living like a frontierspony, living in harmony with the land."

I just nodded, exiting the bathroom. "It's part of why I'm planning on visiting Applejack—" I glanced at the hallway clock, barely visible in the unlit corridor. The time was almost three AM. "—in three hours," I said with a bit of a yawn, making my way toward the library. "Despite hating being forced to do the work as a kid, I always found doing farm-work to be therapeutic. Plus, it keeps you fit. It's what I did in rural towns during my travels when I couldn't find a card game, a mark to con, or a—"

I froze in the hallway as I realized what I'd almost let slip. Hell, that was the last thing I wanted to end up discussing with any of these ponies—save for a therapist who would hopefully not judge—was the sheer depths I'd had to sink to in order to get by in my travels. I didn't know if ponies even had the concept in this world, but given that they were predisposed to thinking of me purely as a child, it might shatter them if they knew.

"Never mind," I said, giving her a glance over my shoulder. She was paused in the hallway, just outside her door, staring at me. I couldn't entirely be sure about it, but I was sure her eyes were narrowed at me. "Anyway, I'll be in the library, meditating where I can hear the grandfather clock. I'll be gone before breakfast, but I'll grab something to eat before I go, okay?"

In the meantime, I could figure out what the fuck had happened. I'd trained for years to have perfect control over my dream state so that I wouldn't have the nightmares anymore. I think it was called lucid dreaming, but despite reading all the things I could do with it, I just turned it into the void. How could I have just... lost control? Could this happen again? I could understand why I might've been taken back to my teens, since I'd been thinking about farm work and my father to a lesser extent... The how was the big question.

As I entered the library and found a floor cushion to doze on, it occurred to me that Princess Luna had somehow gained access to my mind to 'police dreams' from long distance. Although I wasn't as paranoid now that I was fully awake, it still worried me. My brain-chemistry was definitely more pony now, but the way my mind was configured was likely fundamentally different, so could her ability to 'dream walk' have inadvertently wrested control of my dream from me?

For that matter, who was to say that parts of my mind hadn't entirely been reprogrammed? I already knew for a fact that Princess Celestia had used a form of mind magic on me in order to keep me calm that first day, and Twilight had even offered to use it just yesterday if I wanted. So why was it that I was so willing to trust these horses? Was I entirely lying on my own judgement, or had I been programmed to trust them?

As I allowed the ticking of the clock to overtake my mind, I had a thought. Applejack was supposed to have a keen sense of people, and was allegedly a walking lie detector... Since I was planning on showing up and asking for some work to do, maybe I could ask her some probing questions. Damn, but I'd be relying on a pony's opinion, and Spike was just as pony.

There was nothing more to it, I supposed. Until I could find someone not bound by loyalty to the Equestrian crown to ask if I could trust ponies to have not mind-fucked me, I'd have to just be cautious. Starlight seemed pretty trustworthy, at the very least, as did Twilight. Just be patient, and keep an open mind, Anon.

Author's Notes:

1. Yes, I know that most modern firearms have safety mechanisms to prevent accidental discharge when dropped. Whether or not Anon would know that sort of thing is another matter entirely.

2. With this chapter, and this partially relived memory, we get the first real look at Anon, or rather Nemo's old life... and their 'wasted potential'. That said, we've also had some prior hints that Nemo did not have a good relationship with their father. That said, although you might be seeing this as foreshadowing as them having murdered their father, I want you to keep in mind that Nemo/Anon was not, and is not a coldblooded killer. Something happened, but it wasn't murder.

That said, whatever happened between them is when it became too much and he stopped being 'Pa' and started just being 'father' or a bastard. That point—and Anon's history between leaving his family behind and the accident that sent Anon past the Border of Reality—will be explored more as Anon opens up with a therapist.

3: Coming up in Entry 6, Anon hangs out with AJ, gets her first wake-up call about Equestria, and then depending on pace, she might even get to face Princess Twilight and Luna.

Entry 6

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Walking up the road to Sweet Apple Acres, shortly before dawn, I couldn't help but be reminded of the backwoods back home for how quiet it was. Under the pre-dawn sky, going through Ponyville had been like travelling to a whole other world. Gone was the hustle and bustle of the lively town. With how barren it all seemed in these early morning hours, and the way that shadows were cast over everything while the occasional early-riser wandered about gave the town an almost ominous, foreboding feeling.

That said, all of the ponies that I saw, be they a stallion with a cart of bottled milk making his rounds, a mare sweeping the walkway outside a candy-shop, or some pegasi flitting about referring to a large diagram of some sort, were quick to wave and offer a pleasant 'Good morning!" I honestly would've expected a bit more suspicion regarding an eight-year-old filly—Am I really just accepting their definitions? Am I just falling into the same patterns as I did with my father?—wandering about at half-past five in the morning, but then again, this was a farming community, and there were bound to be ponies of all ages working or helping out at farms.

Maybe volunteering at one wasn't even that uncommon. I know that in the capital itself, ponies seemed a lot more money-driven, like the capitalists of old, but on the whole, these ponies seemed to be a lot more community oriented. Just yesterday evening, I was reading the newspaper where the headline article was a fluff piece about ponies chipping in to help 'Muffins' the mail mare rebuild part of her home after some pasta related catastrophe. Ponies seemed far more willing to care for their neighbours out here. It even reminded me a bit of where I grew up.

Then again, in rural towns like this, everyone knows everyone. Not only that, but news travels fast in these places; your mother could know what you've done before you even got home, that's how effective rumour mills were in some places. Since Princess Twilight was a well-known member of the community, even if I'd not been out of her castle for the first five days here in town, word that she had taken in a foal would probably have spread. Even if they didn't know what I looked like, an unfamiliar filly was likely to be that new ward of the crown.

When I finally got to the farmhouse, I saw that there were some lights in one of the ground-floor windows. I thought about going and knocking on the door and just offering my services, but then I caught the smell of food on the wind. They were still having their morning meal. I didn't want to impose any more than I already planned—if you could even consider volunteering for farm-work imposing—so I just tucked out of sight against a tree near the farmhouse, keeping quiet as a dog began to bark inside. Deciding I could wait a little longer, I leaned against the tree and ran through a breathing exercise.

The fact that the sanctity of my mind had been violated still weighted heavily on me. I wanted to trust these ponies—I really did—but the fact that one of their leaders, a literal demigoddess just goes door to door viewing and tampering with people's dreams was something nobody thought to mention to me? It was negligent to my mental well-being at the minimum, if not just a straight-up intentional.

That said, I knew to a certain extent I was more paranoid than normal, and given my history, that was no small feat. This discovery that I was not even safe from the machinations of others while I slept only reaffirmed that my wariness of others, especially those who were being helpful, was justified. After all, I wasn't a stranger to pulling scams; the only reason I even started in the first place was out of necessity after being taken advantage of.

Why are you here then? I wondered, looking up at the canopy of the tree as the morning's first rays began to hit the dew in the leaves. You could probably disappear just as easily in this world as you did back home. What is it that's keeping you here?

Taking in the fresh farm air, and the ambiance of the breeze, it started to sink in: I was feeling nostalgic for my childhood. Despite the utter neglect on the part of my father, I genuinely liked living somewhere where there was clean air, fresh water, and you could swing a cat without hitting your neighbor. Not only that, but I was promised the opportunity to acquire knowledge like nothing my kin had ever seen, or would likely ever see in the short span of their lives. Magic and fantasy had been my biggest escape from my father, and now I was living in a magical world with an apparent talent for magic!

How could I turn away from that?

The problem was that I couldn't turn away from that sort of opportunity. It was everything I'd ever dreamed of as a child. I might not be a student at Hogwarts, but I'd be studying under a pony who apparently rose to demigodhood by being that good at magic, and being tutored by a regular unicorn who, if Spike wasn't exaggerating, could give said demigoddess a run for her money. I'm not sure anyone could say no to that sort of opportunity, and that was exactly why I needed to be careful. Until I fully understood their motivations, who was to say I wasn't being groomed to become pony kind's Oppenheimer?

"Yeah, Winona, Ah know some varmint's out there too," I heard Applejack saying as a creaky screen door was pushed open, accompanied by the barking of a dog. "Go an' give the critter a spook, but remember what Fluttershy said... No catching."

Just as I peeked my head around the tree to announce myself, I saw a brown and white blur shoot out through the screen door and make a bee-line for me: a very large brown and white blur. That is either a very big dog or I've severely underestimated just how small of a horse I am.

Embracing my monkey ancestry, I shot up the tree behind me. At first I wasn't even entirely conscious of doing it, but as I climbed, I felt my back hoof fields also taking the familiar hand shape as my front. That said, I was much more careful about not damaging the tree; I only ever exerted enough pressure to create a stable grip. Before long, I was hanging upside down from a branch, staring down at a barking collie who seemed rather disappointed that she was not able to have a proper chase.

I think upon seeing the dog at the base of the tree, barking up toward the branches rather than giving chase, Applejack must've realised something was up. Not too long after I'd suspended myself from the branch, Applejack came into view, complete with her trademark Stetson hat. She looked up at me, and I smiled awkwardly back at her, my eyes quickly returning to the dog.

"Morning, Miss Applejack," I said with false bravado, as if me being here was the most normal course of events in the world. To be honest though, my heart was still racing from the sudden 'threat' of a dog as big as me. "Now, I know what you're probably thinking... 'One, what is Anon doing here alone at oh dark thirty? Two, why is Anon in my apple tree?' There's a perfectly reasonable explanation for all of this."

Following my gaze, AJ chuckled. "Winona, it's alright; go on back ta the house," she told the dog. At first, the dog gave her a look that seemed to convey the question of 'Are you sure?' before letting out a sniff and trotting back to the farmhouse. "Ya can come down now, Sugarcube."

With a nervous chuckle, I shook my head. "Funny thing... Getting up here was kind of a fear response to a big dog flying at me," I murmured, releasing the branch with my forehoof to scratch the back of my neck. "Getting up was the easy part. I have no idea how to get down without hurting myself or damaging your tree."

"Land sakes, girl," Applejack grumbled, covering her face with her hoof. I thought I heard her mutter something about it being too early for this kinda of horse-apples, before looking up at me. "Ya reckon ya can take a fall if'n Ah catch ya, or should Ah have Big Mac get the ladder?"

Honestly, I wasn't sure which was more intimidating—being caught by Applejack, or facing that titan of a stallion I'd seen in the marketplace. That dude was huge. In the end, I decided, and said "Just tell me when to let go, and what else to do."

Her solution was not so much to catch me outright, but rather to bounce me. Once she'd positioned herself beneath me, Applejack instructed me to let go, and then ready my legs to cushion a landing. I didn't that the moment I let go, she was going to literally just play the part of the mattress and rebound me to the ground. Readying my legs to cushion a landing meant nothing to me, but in hindsight, I think she was telling me to prepare to take the shock of landing on my hooves.

Once I was out of the tree and harm's way, I came clean with her as to why I was there: everything. From wanting to do some farm work to clear my head, to being scared by having my mind penetrated by Princess Luna and my subsequent 'overreaction', to my concern that my mind had been tampered with. She seemed reasonably horrified by my actions and the conclusion I'd jumped to, but to my surprise, she seemed receptive to my offer to do work.

"Apple Bloom is still off at that sleepover with Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo, so some o' her chores were gonna be put on me an' our brother," she said, a thoughtful look on her face. "Y'all done any farmin' before, partner?"

That brought a smile to my face. "Let's see, for Old <<Thom>>, I often harvested root and vine crops, sorted his crab-apple crops, and weeded where needed," I listed, going through the motions of counting on fingers that only existed as an extension of a hoof field. "Never mucked out a sty or a stable, but I've collected and candled eggs from chickens, and milked dairy cattle and goats." I shrugged and looked at her. "Not sure if ponies keep either of the latter as livestock, or if society's weird and you just milk mares, but if you need any sorting, egg collecting or even just a fence painted, I'm your... pony."

She gave me this weird look as I mentioned cattle as 'livestock' and then milking mares, but after a moment of thought, she smiled down at me. "Ah think Ah've got just the thing for ya," she said, waving me to follow. To my surprise, we weren't being led into the orchard, but rather toward the farmhouse and its related buildings. "Ya want to talk to some non-ponies 'bout whether or not you can trust the princesses, right? Well, Ah know some ladies that could use your help, an Ah'm sure they'd be willin' to talk about life with ponies."

She led me past the farmhouse, and past the large barn off to the side to a familiar livestock barn out back. "See, here in Equestria, we live alongside many different kinds o' folk," she pulled open the barn door to reveal about forty head of cattle in various states of consciousness. "It's a mutually beneficial system; Daisy Jo and the others get food, shelter and a fair percentage of the profit from sales, and in exchange we get claim to the milk of any cow not currently with calf." She looked to the one nearest the door, who seemed to be following the conversation and asked, "Ain't that right, Daisy Jo?"

To my surprise, the cow actually chuckled. "I still think we get the better end of the deal, don'cha'know?" I didn't like the way she waggled her eyebrow at Applejack, nor the expectant, "Now where's that stud of a brother of yours? Can't wait for him to put his hooves on my mommy milkers."

~ 06 ~

I learned many, many things in the six hours I spent milking those cows. First and foremost, the herd of cows were very bawdy. Even more so when they thought I wouldn't have the knowledge to understand just how pervy they could be. They, at the very least, didn't direct any of that at me. Sure, there were some who might've enjoyed the milking experience a bit too much, but there were no flirty comments. At best, I might've overheard one or two discussing getting me to teach Big Macintosh how to treat a teat.

I'm not sure how to take that.

Besides that, it seemed to be a general consensus among the cows who were willing to chat during the milking that ponies were overall good folk. The bigger cities might get a bit snobbish, and they might get treated as second-class citizens by nobility during trips to Canterlot for the biannual MilkCon, but on the whole they were treated just as well as any other sapient who lived in or visited the lands.

The Princesses especially seemed to be held in high regard. Although Luna was more of an unknown to them, having only recently resurfaced, the general consensus that Celestia was something of a humanitarian—or whatever the pony term for it is. She had apparently singlehandedly ended the practice of carnivorous races like dragons and gryphons hunting and eating other sapient creatures, although the cow who mentioned that tidbit didn't explain how. Like, it's all well and good if she was able to end that through diplomacy and not just the threat of genocide. I wonder if its legal for a cow's family to sell their deceased loved ones to carnivores on the sly, though.

That said, none of them were too happy when I'd asked them if they thought it was within the character of the princesses to alter a being's mind, even if for the 'greater good'. Apparently there was significant evidence that Celestia may have influenced a being's destiny every once in a while by providing guidance or through manipulation of events, but never anything that would actively threaten said beings individuality. That said, she's apparently lived for untold centuries—if not millennia—beyond the historic dark ages called the Age of Discord, where much of history lay forgotten.

The whole experience, I decided as AJ came to get me, left me feeling even more conflicted than I did before. I had no reason to doubt that these cows, who had a pretty sweet deal, were genuine in their beliefs, but I couldn't shake the concern that like everything else, it was just a symptom of mass indoctrination. It could easily be true that they only think they're getting a good deal but are getting exploited.

It honestly still concerned me that I was being so paranoid of others. A person's race or heritage never mattered to me back home. Hell, for how much my father was a bastard, he had the decency to teach me that a person was not defined by their colour or class, but by their actions. If he'd been racist on top of all that, well, this paranoia might be explainable, but he trusted Old Thom like a brother.

When AJ sat me down on the front porch of the farmhouse for lunch, I was no closer to finding an answer. It was all well and good to have asked non-ponies who lived in Equestria, but without an outsider... It's no good. Could I have been just overthinking things? Was I just seeing malice because of cultural differences?

"Still not sure, partner?" she asked, placing a plate of apple slices and cheese sticks next to me, and then passing me a glass of juice. While I greedily drank down the apple juice—definitely sweetened, but not cloyingly sweet like candy—she took a seat next to me. It caught me off guard when she laid back and pulled her Stetson over her face. "Maybe you're just overthinking things, Sugarcube. Ya had a scare, and darned if that don't stop some ponies from thinkin' clear-like for a bit."

I nodded, popping an apple slice into my mouth. "Yeah, I get that," I murmured, watching that titanic red stallion drag a cart full of apples into the barn. "But this isn't just a simple scare. That my mind could be touched while I slept—that my mind could be touched at all—had shaken me to my core. Back home, science fiction and fantasy sometimes touched on mind-control as a point of horror, and in general we abhorred the concept of brainwashing and indoctrination, even if we were faced some form of indoctrination or another. It was easier for the powers that be to make things into 'Us vs. Them' issues if they had enough people with similar beliefs behind them."

Applejack just peeked out at me from beneath her hat as I stuffed my face. I couldn't be sure, but she seemed to be deep in thought. When I'd eaten the three apples worth of slices and the cheese, she sat up with a sigh and fixed me with a blank look. "How much do ya really know about Princess Luna?" she asked, her voice surprisingly... sad. "About what she went through back then and since?"

"Nada," I said being honest. "I heard something about a princess who became a demon a thousand years ago and almost killed all life on the planet, but that's about it... Are you saying that the pony who became a demon was..."

She held a hoof up to silence me, and then looked in the direction of Twilight's castle. "Word of advice, Anon," she grunted, her tone harsh. "Don't ever let anypony ever hear you say that again. What happened with Princess Luna an' the Nightmare ain't nowhere near that simple, so callin' her a demon is a cruelty you can't begin to comprehend. Ain't nothin' black an' white."

I blinked at that. She'd simultaneously just confirmed that Luna was that princess one thousand years ago, while also denying that she'd done any of it. Not only that, but the way she said it carried another, unspoken message: that the Princess of the Moon was as much of a victim in all of whatever went down. I couldn't wrap my head around it, because it almost sounded like a nightmare was a justifiable excuse for attempted omnicide.

"How could a bad dream be an excuse for omnicide?" I argued, gripping the side of my head as I began to rock back and forth.. My blood was pumping loudly in my ears, and it was getting hard to think. "Some real atrocities happened back home, and if a bad dream is an excuse for almost succeeding in killing all life on the planet..." My wide-eyed gaze locked on the mare as my breathing picked up. "Then you're saying the shitty life <<Hitler>> had during and after the first war justified the entirety of the <<Holocaust>>, and that the millions of exterminated <<Jews>>, <<Gypsies>> and other 'undesirables' was okay!"

I didn't even see the mare's hoof move. One moment I was spitting rage, and the next my cheek was stinging something fierce as we both stared at each other in horror. "Anon, Ahm sorry; I shouldn't have done that," she said, withdrawing the hoof she'd just slapped me with. She looked absolutely shaken, as if she'd never struck someone out of anger before. "But ya were bein' hysterical, and Ah need ya ta understand, that thing possessed not one but two of mah friends. Ah will not be havin' ya dismissing it as a 'bad dream'." She looked away, and sighed once more. "Ah just need ya ta know before ya face her that she takes the health of a pony's mind awful serious, an' that she likely didn't mean nothin' by it. From where yer standin', it probably don't look like it, but she's a good pony."

Before I could help myself, I hopped onto my hooves and started walking down the path into Ponyville. "Hopefully that won't be for a long time," I muttered. My cheek was probably gonna be stinging for a good long while, but funny enough, I wasn't upset with AJ—not in the least. I was starting to get hysterical, and—like it or not—that slap snapped me out of it. This was nothing like how my father would hit me because I'd gotten him mad. I'd gone and compared one of this country's rulers to one of the worst human beings in the century... and for what? Things that were completely outside my realm of understanding... No small wonder she'd smacked me.

Maybe... maybe I've been too uncharitable. I already know that I acted rashly with the princess in my dream. All this suspicion and based on what? Paranoid theories based on sci-fi and fantasy concepts... and then the moment I heard a partial fact, I went and compared her to Hitler. I'm nowhere near as rational as I used to be, and it seems like I'm just getting worse.

It truly is like I'm becoming a kid again... A kid with the mind and knowledge of an adult human, but the brain of a child. Every little thing is now a crisis, like it's the end of the world. My brain is underdeveloped and likely could remain that way for a long time... and until I can get this nailed down...

First thing is I need to apologize to a lot of ponies... To Starlight for heaping all that on her and leaving her with the responsibility of telling Twilight where I went. To Twilight for being a little shit... To the princess for possibly traumatising her more than she might already have been from her own issues and not giving her a fair shake. I don't think there's anything I need to apologise to Spike for yet, but I'm sure given time I'll probably achieve something...

I'll apologise as many times as I need to until I can control myself again... But the question is... how?

Entry 7

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When I arrived outside Twilight's crystal tree castle, I was surprised to find a covered chariot—I swear it looked like something out of Batman—parked on a narrow strip of paving stones off to one side of the main walkway. More than that, however, there were two bat-winged ponies flanking the usually unguarded castle doors. Although they weren't as large as some of the stallions I'd seen about, the blue-grey facial structure beneath their frilled helmets gave away that they were male. That said, their dark metal plate and silver trim and helmets was very much unlike what I was used to with the day guards I'd seen.

Funnily enough, I didn't find myself intimidated by them as I found the day guardsponies. Maybe it was the tufted fur at the tips of their ears, or the fact that their armour seemed barely able to contain what I'd overheard mares calling 'the floof', which had referred to the fluffy fur up the front of their chests, but they looked almost... catlike for ponies. That said, the first mistake one can make about an enemy is underestimating them, and although they weren't foes, they were not necessarily friends either.

They also seemed to have somewhat poor eyesight in direct light, as they didn't seem to fully register me until I was walking up to the base of the stairs leading to the door. When they did, however, they both extended their webbed wings to block the way. "Halt," the one on the left said in a voice of authority, revealing some pointed teeth—an oddity among ponies. "Princesses Luna and Twilight are not taking petitioners at this time."

"If you have an appointment with Princess Twilight, Sir Spike will be with you shortly to reschedule," the one on the right said. "Otherwise, please return at a later date."

"Gentlecolts," I said, remembering the niceties the maids had taught me in Canterlot, "My name is Anon, and I live here. Please step aside and allow me entrance to my mentor's castle."

That actually got a snicker out of one of the bat ponies. "Kiddo, it's not nice to tell lies," Mr. Right said narrowing his golden eyes at me. "While it's true her highness has taken an apprentice of her own, it's an apprentice in magic rather than friendship. Earth ponies don't do magic."

Heaving a sigh, I looked to Mr. Left. "Fine, you guys can explain to Princess Twilight why I broke Rule #8." I felt like I should have been excited. After all, this was an opportunity to test an idea I'd had about runic magic and its link to moon-glyphs, but had yet to confirm with Starlight or Twilight. Instead, all I felt was frustrated and disappointed. "You've surely heard of the incidents involving a certain pompous prince? Well, now you get to meet the rune mage-in-training responsible."

Sucking in a breath, I quickly etched the ignition rune in the dirt, using my hoof field to etch the fine lines, rather than the edge of my hoof itself. Following that, I did what felt right and placed the moon-glyph for 'above' at the twelve o'clock position, the glyph for 'target' at four o'clock, and the 'point' glyph at eight o'clock. Finally, I pressed my right hoof down on the rune, and held out my left, frog up.

Magic flowed out through my right hoof as I channelled the 'spell' I'd created. This was something I'd wanted to demonstrate for Starlight and Twilight, to show my initiative and intuition. Instead, as the rune lit up and the glyphs began to glow in a clockwise pattern, I only felt... sad. Even when I focused on the frog of my left hoof and an orb of blue flame appeared above it, there was no pride warming my belly. Nor did my bluff in rotating my hoof to face them, placing the fireball between us, make me feel anything at all.

I just wish to take a cold shower and pay the piper.

"Is this proof enough that I am perfectly capable of performing magic, and that I am who I said I am?" I asked, looking coldly from the one guard to the other. "Or do I need to explain to Princess Luna why her guards have third degree burns on top of the apology I owe her?"

Either the look on my face was sufficiently scary, or the sight of a tiny earth pony wielding a fireball and coldly threatening to give them the Blueblood treatment was too much for them. First I watched their outstretched wings tremble, and then close against their sides. They both looked away, and I could see their ears folded back.

"You may enter, Miss Anonymous," Mr. Left said, unable to meet my gaze, even as I removed my hoof from the rune and the fireball collapsed. "Please forgive our ignorance."

With a snort, I wiped the rune and accompanying modifiers out of the dirt. Normally, I'd feel elated when a particularly ballsy bluff paid off in dividends, but even now, I just felt exhausted—even more so after continually channelling that fireball for an entire minute. I don't think they realise that the only way I could've even harmed them with that spell unless I'd initially targeted a point underneath them; there was no component to it that would allow the fireball to maintain its form if it even allowed for it to be thrown. Sure, I could probably have redirected the channelled spell at them, but it likely wouldn't have had a very fast movement speed.

As I passed them, I gave them a sidelong glance and considered what had just transpired. Things truly were different here. If I'd gotten into a standoff with a cop back home and pulled something like that? I don't doubt that my brains would've painted the sidewalk. Yet in lacking any sort of actual identification, I'd managed to assert dominance by doing the magical equivalent of brandishing an empty firearm. "I apologise for the threat of violence, gentlecolts," I said as I slipped past. "Even if you weren't listening, you were just doing your jobs. Please don't allow this to reflect poorly on my mentor in your minds."

At that, I pushed the door open and slipped inside. I could hear the two stallions whispering behind me before I closed the door. Though I couldn't hear everything they said, what I could make out 'filly isn't right', 'those cold eyes', and 'warn the princess'. Either those boys in dark plate are green, or my attempt to intimidate them worked a little too well.

As I turned and pulled the door shut, I heard a strange metallic clacking sound. It almost sounded like the strange clopping clap that a pony's hooves made, but metallic. Then again, ponies wore horseshoes from time to time... but I never saw Twilight or Starlight wearing them. So who could be clapping? Gee, I wonder.

"Well met, young Anonymous," came a voice straight out of my dream. I turned to face my voice, and to nobody's surprise, there was Princess Luna in the flesh, standing on the second-floor balcony of the entry hall. Somewhat more surprising was the fact that Twilight and Starlight were with her, and that there was a crystal orb atop a small cushion floating beside them. Had they been watching? "Have you found the answers you sought?"

I shook my head, slipping into what equated to a low bow among ponies. "Some, but not all, Your Highness." I answered. "If it pleases you, I would like to discuss what happened this morning. I only ask that I be granted time to freshen up." Sniffing at myself, I cringed slightly. "I smell of milk and sweat."

With a nod, Princess Luna smiled down at me. "Then we shall reconvene within the library in an hour," she said, giving a sideways glance to Twilight and Starlight. "That will also give you time to discuss what occurred outside with your guardian."

The crystal ball disappeared in a flash, and the princess turned to go elsewhere in the castle. That left me kneeling in the hallway under the gaze of the purple pair. Yet for all I had to discuss with them, my mind was fully focused on the encounter with the princess. She seemed to know what I'd been up to, and I didn't doubt she'd been briefed by Twilight and Starlight... That said, I would expect that she would be a bit more upset with me for threatening her guards—regardless of it being a bluff, it was a threat nonetheless—and maybe a bit more freaked out by our earlier encounter... but she seemed pretty collected. Then again, she may have had time to discuss with Twilight and Starlight and get a better picture of the kind of person I was.

And maybe she actually looked at my psych profile.

Once I could no longer see Princess Luna, I rose, only for the world to spin and pitch sideways. One moment I was standing up, the next I was on my side with Twilight and Starlight standing over me, looking worried. My body felt weak, hollow even, and when I attempted to stand back up, I only just managed to get my front hooves under me. The moment I looked like I was losing traction, Twilight swooped in and let me lean against her.

"Don't try to stand yet, Anon; you've just fainted," she whispered, letting some spell wash over me. Her magic felt warm and gentle, soothing the minor aches in my body from the nonstop milking and bucket hauling. It did nothing to help the empty sensation though. "You burned through a lot of mana with that rudimentary spell, and because you've been avoiding sugar, your reserves were already low."

I grumbled as a bar of milk chocolate appeared before me, enveloped in a cloud of turquoise magic. It'd already been unwrapped, and was just sitting there, tantalisingly. "We really just want you to remain healthy, Anon," Starlight added, smiling as I actually took a bite of the bar. It wasn't like I felt hungry after having apples, cheese, and juice, but they were right. I could feel the lack of magic in me. "Ponies your age usually have larger reserves, but much like your body, yours are less developed than they could be. Practice will help over time, but until you develop adult magic pathways and reserves, you're going to need to rely on the regenerative properties of sugar."

I was about to ask if that meant I could start getting coffee, even if it was just decaf, when I was suddenly levitated. "You're probably due to rest given the sort of day you had," Twilight admitted, as Starlight pushed more chocolate into my face-hole. "We'll get you cleaned up, let you have your meeting with the princess, and then it's off to bed with you."

It wasn't exactly easy to disagree as they carried me up to the baths. I was exhausted from the lack of sleep and working hard all morning. Plus my head was definitely not on straight yet; I was honestly still averse to the pony concept of communal bathing, preferring to tend to my own personal grooming, but I didn't even have the energy to grouse about that. Although, being in this situation makes me understand it. It's about togetherness, co-operation, and trust.

Finally taking the bar with my hoof, I sighed. "Twilight, Starlight, I'm so sorry." That actually caused our little procession to stop for a moment. "I know that caring for me isn't easy, and despite my best attempts, this kid brain-meat has me acting up, like I'm not entirely in control of my own emotions." I looked to Starlight, taking another big bite of chocolate. "I shouldn't have dumped all that baggage on you last night and then left you with the responsibility of telling Twilight where I disappeared to. That wasn't fair to you, and I should've cleared it with Twilight in the first place."

Switching my attention to Twilight, I felt my cheeks flush. "I've been such a little..." I caught myself before I swore. "I've been such a little turd when you've been nothing but kind," I admitted. I finished off the bar of chocolate. "Sure, you come off as condescending because you're not entirely certain that I can function as an adult as a pony despite having been one as a human, but I know it's not out of malice. It's not easy to admit this but I... I'm not used to people saying they're doing something for my own good, and not doing me some sort of harm."

I shivered a bit, breaking eye contact; I could feel the shame welling up in me. "I see you treating me like a child and I keep expecting the other shoe to drop." One thing I've noticed about pony anatomy is that assuming the fetal position isn't something one can do, even if that's all my shame pushes me to do. Unfortunately, being levitated as I am, the best I could do was hide my face with my hooves. "Maybe subconsciously, I'm acting out, pushing your buttons in hopes that you'll snap and be done with it, rather than just waiting." Moisture collected in the corners of my eyes, and I couldn't suppress a sniffle. "I know you're not like that now, but I'm not well..."

"Anon," I heard Twilight murmur. To my surprise, I felt myself pressed into a warm embrace—one I didn't feel compelled to struggle out of. "You don't have to apologise." I felt someone else join in on the hug, and I realised Starlight had also joined the embrace. "I won't deny that you can be maddening at times. You've demonstrated repeatedly that you have mind closer to that of an adult, and I admit fault in being slow to recognise that, because you do have the brain of a foal. Maybe I have been treating you too much like a foal..." There was a bit of a chuckle from her. "You're still in trouble for breaking Rule #8."

~ 07 ~

I would rather not dwell on the fact that I had to let someone else help groom me, or even my feelings on the matter. Instead, I'd like to ask whatever force of nature developed ponies why they get so fluffy after a blow-dry. It was legitimately embarrassing that I'd have to face the princess looking like a puffed-up pigeon. Yet Twilight and Starlight insisted I look adorable like this.

This is definitely punishment for Rule #8.

Thankfully, I while being groomed, I recovered enough strength to move on my own, so I was able to smooth down my fur until it was just the tuft on my chest puffed out. That said, I'd seen plenty of mares out and about with their chest-fluff on display, just as I'd seen some stallions do the same, so why not mimic the native ponies? The only thing I didn't like was the way that Starlight smirked at me when I started making my way down to the library.

Much to my surprise, I could smell a pot of coffee brewing the moment I entered the library. I could tell by the smell that it was decaf, but still, it was coffee. Not only that, though; the moment I saw Princess Luna, I also saw a creature I never would have expected to have seen again in my life. "Is that a <<Virginia>> Opossum, or at least, the Equestrian equivalent?" I asked with some excitement, joining the princess at one of the research tables. My eyes would not leave the small grey creature nestled just behind her crown, its flexible pink tail wrapped around the length of her horn. There was no stopping a smile from spreading across my face at the memories the sight brought. "It's so awesome to get to see one again."

The alicorn princess smiled at me, pouring me a cup of decaf and sliding it across the table, the sugar bowl following lose behind. "Yes. This is Tiberius, a very important friend," she answered. Her eyes watched me with curiosity when I didn't immediately reach for the sugar. "You seemed very pleased to see an opossum; many ponies misunderstand these beautiful creatures."

I nodded, reaching over to the sugar dish to grab a couple of sugar cubes. This would totally mess with the flavour of the coffee, but I wasn't yet feeling better, so into the cup. "I actually travelled with one for a time," I admitted, stirring the contents of the cup with my hoof-field. "He crawled into my automatic-carriage one night I was camping in <<Washington>>, and despite being wild, he chose to stick with me until I had to leave him in <<Maine>>. Smart buggers, them, and when they get used to you, they're really friendly."

A gentle sigh escaped me as I sipped at the coffee. Truth was, even today, I missed Samwise the Opossum. I hated that sad look he gave me when I told him we had to part ways, but I swear he knew... Any further north would've been outside the native range of his species... and even if I wouldn't have felt bad taking him across the border into Canada, he never would've been allowed to come with me while working the boat that took me to Gibraltar. It wouldn't have been fair to him.

Still, it was hard not to miss those whiskery nibbles when he wanted his fair share, or the way he would nap in the passenger seat on those long drives. I even missed just chatting at him as he'd putter about the campsite. It was really lonely leaving him behind, even if it was the right thing to do.

"Indeed," she said after a few moments of quiet reminiscence. "I meant to ask upon your arrival... what was it that you said to Dame Applejack to cause her to strike you?"

Looking away, I took a long sip from my cup of coffee. "What is the Nightmare, your highness?" I asked, dodging the point. "How does it differ from a normal nightmare caused by stress and anxiety?"

Her eyes became steely as she looked at me. "The Nightmare was a vile parasite that feeds on your fears and doubts," she explained, finally turning her gaze to her own cup. Rather than take a drink, she prodded the handle with her hoof. "It lives in the dream world until it can take root in a viable host, at which point it attempts to weaken and supplant its victims consciousness. Its first victim was none other than yours truly. It wrested control of my body and mind from my grasp, and attempted the unthinkable."

"Nightmare Moon," I whispered, remembering Applejack's words. What happened with Princess Luna an' the Nightmare ain't nowhere near that simple, so callin' her a demon is a cruelty you can't begin to comprehend. "No wonder she was upset... Talk shit, get hit."

"Pardon?" the princess asked, looking aghast at my turn of phrase.

"Sorry, it's a <<human>> phrase." My cheeks flushed at the realisation that I'd just sworn in front of a royal. "As vulgar as it is, it actually has a pretty important lesson. One should not be surprised when utter disrespect and ignorance is met with violence, rather than acceptance." I looked to the princess. "I knew nothing of what the Nightmare was, or what it did to you... Yet I dismissed it as a 'bad dream', while conflating what it would have attempted through you and its other victim with the actual war crimes perpetrated by one of the most infamous <<men>> in <<human>> history."

We sat in silence for a few minutes, the quiet only momentarily shattered by the soft snuffling of Tiberius as he awoke and looked at me over the edge of Luna's crown. I could feel my shame radiating off of me like heat, but I was right to feel ashamed. What I said was ignorant, and child though I may be in their eyes, that did not automagically free me from the burden of my words.

"I'm sorry," I whispered. "I can't begin to understand what you or whichever friend Applejack spoke of, and I should know better than to be dismissive things I don't understand in this world..." I lifted my mug and drained it, allowing the sugar slurry that had accumulated at the bottom to slowly flow into my mouth. "Honestly, that segues quite well into the reason you came here in the first place."

"Oh?" she actually seemed surprised to hear that. "Do tell."

Sucking in a breath, I folded my hooves in front of me. "<<Humans>> didn't have a means to directly affect the mind of others, though in science fiction and fantasy, there were always means of mind control..." I looked her in the eye, even though my instincts were screaming not to. "One of my biggest concerns—fears, even—since coming here has been whether or not my mind has been... altered. Then you tried to enter my dreams and wrested lucidity from my hooves, forcing me to relive a memory."

Luna frowned, shaking her head slightly. "That was never my intent," she insisted. "Every night, I visit the dreams of all ponies to ensure they do not have nightmares, and ensure that they never meet a Nightmare. When I first found your door in the dream-realm, all I could do was peer through the lock and see you surrounded by darkness. I feared the worst..."

Despite the anxiety and anger I felt at her own admission, I smiled. "Starlight said that was probably all it was." I held my hooves up in the equivalent of a human shrug. "Still, at the time, it was a shock, and all but confirmation that someone was attempting to tamper with my mind. I did the only thing I that knew from experience would wake me up..."

The alicorn looked slightly ill at the inference. "Yes, and that is part of the reason I came," she said. "Most ponies, even in dreams, are not capable of such an action, especially if it is done out of spite." She reached a hoof across the small table and placed it atop my hooves. I didn't flinch away. "If you did not intend for her to share, I apologise on Starlight's behalf, but I had to know if you were a threat to yourself... I take the wellness of my little ponies very personally."

I smiled at her and laughed. "I didn't tell her anything I didn't want getting out, Your Highness," I dismissed. "I wanted her, and whoever she ended up sharing it with, to understand the sort of life I lived and why I am the way I am." Shaking my head, I removed one of my hooves from beneath hers and lifted up my empty cup and gave it a shake indicating I wouldn't mind a refill. To my surprise, she laughed as she levitated the carafe over and filled my cup again. "What?"

"I'm just relieved," she said as she withdrew her hooves. "I was worried that you were dangerously unwell and would hate me for intruding upon your dreams. You truly are of another world... No Equestrian foal has a palate capable of appreciating coffee."

Despite the sugar intake of my second and third cups, I was beginning to feel sleep edging in on my consciousness. Yet I didn't try to excuse myself. I was starting to enjoy my time speaking with the princess, and didn't wanna stop to take a nap. Instead, I pushed myself as far as I was willing to go. We talked about whatever came to mind, such as Nightmare Night and whether or not I'd be participating—she convinced me to at least dress up, even if I wasn't in it for the candy—if I had any goals after graduating school, as well as what I was most looking forward to in learning runic magic. In the end, she also managed to convince me that I don't need to isolate myself in the void... and that she'd be willing to watch over my dreams. She promised happy dreams unaffected by my old life.

Oh and while she was impressed with how I managed to handle her guards—apparently this was some sort of test for both myself and the pair of greenies outside to see how we handled ourselves—I was to never ever attempt what I did with any guards in the future. Apparently not all guards were so easy to intimidate, and threatening a guard with violence was in fact something that would normally get a pony clapped in irons. Go figure.

Author's Notes:

1. Anon has created her first rudimentary spell, and we finally get her personal magic's natural colour. Runic magic can be achieved by inscribing a spell on a surface and channeling magic through the runes and glyphs. A spell can be constructed in three ways, depending on the sort of spell.

What Anon constructed was of the Weaved Spiral sort, were balance of positioning is important. At the center, you have the base rune. Modifier runes and glyphs spiral out in tightly packed threads. In the case of Anon's spell, the 'above target point' instruction is a single thread. It is also worth noting that modifier runes themselves can have their own spiral of modifiers, which allows for construction of incredibly complex nested effects. Without cost-savers and clever use of the right runes, such spells can become huge drains, especially Anon's spell, which—while channeled—would continuously ignite the air until channeling ceased.

The second type is the traditional Scroll variety. A series of runes are written in magic-conducting ink upon a scroll. These runes and glyphs consist of an exact instruction of how a spell is intended to work. This can be something as simple as the approximation of a unicorn's telekinetic levitation spell, or something as complex as creating a localised time distortion that could repair damage to buildings.

The final is the large array. This contains a complex spell written in a circle around the targeted area, as many times as is necessary to circle the area. Such wide-area spells are often mistaken for grand feats of ritual magic. This allows someone with enough preparation time to create a self-powering force-field around a target location not unlike Shining Armour's own grand shield spell that protected Canterlot during the wedding.

2. It is worth noting that chest fluff—or 'the floof'—is used by both mares and stallions to attract a mate. In the case of Anon mimicking the phenomena with her blow-dried coat, it's the pony equivalent of a child trying on her mother's clothes and make-up to look more adult.

Entry 8

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The next morning, I came downstairs to join everyone in the meal nook. My muscles felt a bit stiff—a side effect having lost all the hard-earned scars, calluses, and muscle of my life—but in spite of it, I slept quite well. In fact, I'd go so far as to guess that it was the best I'd slept in over eight years... and just like Luna promised, I had a nice, if silly dream about playing make-belief soldiers with a bunch of foals I'd never met. Not a single memory about my family.

That said, I was kinda surprised that there were two more faces at the table than normal. The two pegasi from the other day—Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy I think they were called—were sitting there, drinking coffee or tea, and looking kind of anxious. In fact, they all seemed a bit on edge, even Spike.

When she saw me walk in, Rainbow Dash winced, her eyes going to the cheek that was still a bit swollen. "Mornin' Twilight, Starlight, Spike," I said, climbing up onto the chair I'd taken to thinking of as my own. "What brings you two by, Miss Dash and Miss Fluttershy?"

As Starlight poured me a mug of highly sugared decaf, I noticed that Fluttershy looked like she wanted to pounce and hug me. I think the memory of a startled me throwing a certain pudgy earth-pony was enough for her to reign her in. That didn't stop her from speaking up. "We came to see how you were doing," she explained. "The whole town is talking about what happened. We can hardly believe it ourselves... one of our own friends..."

I rubbed my cheek subconsciously before picking up my coffee. "I'm not mad at Applejack or nothing," I said before enjoying a large pull of my weaksauce coffee. The sugar was tolerable in this format, but I still wasn't used to it, especially without the caffeine. "My father would hit me harder for less. So much as 'look at him in the wrong tone of voice' and out came he belt." That elicited a spit take and pained 'What?' from Dash, a wince from the other three, and a look of horror from Fluttershy. "I should've asked for clarification rather than assuming something and offending her. Doesn't make it right, but like I told Princess Luna... We <<humans>> had a saying: 'Talk shit, get hit.'" I shrugged and waited for the inevitable syrupy pancake to get sent my way. "I'll let her stew for a bit and then go try and clear the air with her."

"Anon," Dash said, having the grace to start cleaning herself with a napkin. "Applejack's in the Ponyville lockup. Has been since yesterday afternoon when a pair of night guards showed up at the farm. Everypony's been talking about it."

That actually surprised me, somewhat. That likely meant that the princess and the others had been watching me for at least that long. "Huh," I murmured as my pancake finally came my way. I glanced from Dash, to Fluttershy, and then Twilight. "When's the trial? At the very least, I wouldn't mind telling the judge that I don't want her family to be aversely impacted by this."

They all just gaped at me as I began to cut up a pancake and shovel it bit by bit into my mouth. Their brains had clearly begun to misfire, since they all just sat there, staring as I ate. It was kinda creepy, but then again, horse-world did a very good job of creeping me out, either with its weird parallels to earth, or the societal differences. Then again, thy probably aren't having an easy time processing my reasoning. I mean, here you had me, someone who had a very shitty home-life growing up, not wishing ill upon the family of an adult who'd attacked me.

"There is no trial, Anon." That was Twilight who spoke up. "Princess Luna witnessed the event firsthoof while observing your time at the farm. As soon as you fell asleep yesterday afternoon, she went to the lockup and had AJ brought there to face sentencing."

I blinked and put down my cutlery. This sorta complicated things... I would've liked to have volunteered at Sweet Apple Acres again, but I didn't imagine the Apples would be too happy to have my 'help' while one of their primary breadwinners was locked up. Not only that, but I'd be starting class with her sister on Tuesday. Would she harbour a grudge for inadvertently getting her big sister locked up?

For that matter, I still can't quite wrap my mind around why she struck me. There are plenty of ways to snap someone out of a panic attack, and none of them involve a good smack like she gave me. If she were raised in an environment of physical punishment, it could have been a learned reaction, but... No. Then there was the look on her face when it happened. She looked just as scared and confused as I'd been.

"That thing possessed not one but two of mah friends."

Again, I found her words echoing in my mind. One of those friends was clearly Princess Luna, but the other could be any number of ponies. They could even have been in this very room, and I wouldn't know. But even then, would that be reason to lose control like that? There had to be something more to it... but the only things I knew that drove people to do inexplicably stupid things like that were drugs and love. She didn't seem like a tweaker, so... No, it's not my business.

With sigh, I drained the last of my coffee. "What's the damage?" I asked, staring down at my unfinished pancake. "How much is this gonna hurt her family?"

"She's been sentenced to ten days in the lockup, a public apology in front of the town, and five months probation," Twilight said in a solemn voice. "The princess considered lenience, but wanted to impress upon ponies that nopony is above reproach. Any future incidents involving a foal will likely result in her being considered for the foal abuse register."

There was no hiding my wince from the others. I wasn't a moron; I knew what that would do to their family. Either AJ would be forced to move out, or Apple Bloom—at least I think that's what her name was—would probably be removed from the household. She'd probably sooner move out than allow her family to be torn apart like that.

Gripping the edge of the crystalline table with one hoof, I leaned into my other. I didn't really know how to process this. Part of me felt guilty, since my words had apparently prodded something that she was likely hiding from even herself. At the same time though, that didn't excuse what she did, so why should I feel bad for her? So what if her reputation was tarnished and she became a pariah? Why should her life be ruined over one fuck-up when my father got away with it until the end of his life?

A cracking sound from the edge of the table snapped me out of my filly brain-meat emotion spiral. "Gah, this is so f—flipping stupid," I grunted, releasing the table and marveling that I'd actually managed to fracture part of the table with the grip of my hoof field. "I'm not sorry she ended up there, but I never wanted this for her." Glancing up at Twilight, I raised an eyebrow. "So are you guys going to check in with her today?"

To my surprise, Rainbow shook her head. This was the pony that was supposed to embody loyalty, and here she was indicating that they weren't going to go check in on their friend. "She can stew for a bit while we take care of things," she muttered. "But don't worry, kid. We're not abandoning her; just gotta talk to Pinkie and Rarity about it."

That... does not instill me with confidence. In fact, from someone like her, it almost makes me think of some hare-brained prison break-out movie. But that's ridiculous, right? Surely five national heroes, a princess included, aren't gonna be moronic enough to break the sixth out of jail when she's just gotta sit for ten days. Right?

Despite my curiosity, I honestly can't make myself care enough to ask. All this really means is that it's likely just gonna be me, Spike, and Starlight—unless either of them has plans—and that I can't have the discussion with Twilight and Starlight about starting my actual magical studies. That said, I also kinda don't wanna stay all holed up in the castle. I mean, if word really has gotten around town that I got smacked around, I'll probably be faced with ponies who feel bad for me, but if I stay inside until I start school, I'll probably just convince the town that I'm emotionally scarred.

Finished with my meal, I stacked the mug and cutlery onto the plate and carried it with my mouth over to the counter. I was still a bit disgruntled that there wasn't a way for me to reliably stand at the sink and clean my own dishes. Fact of the matter was, I was too short to reach the double sink even on my back hooves, and a simple stool wouldn't help like with the bathroom, since I'd regularly move from side-to-side. As it stands, I can't even wash my hooves in here. Maybe we can go out and price some timber for a raised platform that can be wheeled over and locked into position.

"I'm going to go get cleaned up and look for something to read," I said, exiting the room. "I'm starting to get bored just reading the learning aides. Need to find something with some actual depth to it."

I half-expected someone to encourage me to stay and continue to talk. After all, I was a child in their eyes—though some were certainly starting to come around—and ponies seemed to have a lot more empathy than I was used to seeing from people. That I wasn't being fussed over more by Fluttershy was surprising in and of itself, but if I had to guess, the group was still too shocked by their friend to act 'normally'.

Starlight left the table, moving to join me with her own mug of coffee. "I'll make sure she doesn't get up to any mischief," she said. "You guys worry about planning the intervention."

~ 08 ~

True to Starlight's word, the group—Spike included—took off not long after breakfast. She wouldn't, or couldn't, go into much detail over what 'the intervention' was about. What I could glean was that it as indeed an intervention for AJ, and that it had something to do with that second pony involved in the Nightmare business. There was no indication as to who that other pony was, or why Applejack needed the intervention regarding it, although I imagined that her smacking me yesterday had a lot to do with it.

Since I'd decided that anything past being hit wasn't my business, I decided not to pry any further. Instead, I spent much of the morning scouring Twilight's library for some fiction. It was a bit upsetting that there didn't seem to be a whole lot there. Most of it seemed to be academic, although there were a few select shelves that were dedicated to purely fictional content. There was that Daring Do series that I'd picked up at Rainbow's suggestion, but I wasn't really feeling it today. Other than that, there was a series by the name of Harry Trotter, a couple of comic book omnibuses that seemed to be dedicated to Equestria's equivalent of the Justice League of America and other similar things, and some of the foal reading aides that had been recently added for me. Nothing akin to Lord of the Rings or Redwall, so far as I could see.

That said, at the top of the shelf of the 'fiction section', there were a lot of books with pastel spines that I wasn't tall enough to read. If I had to guess, these were likely what my Mom would have called 'bodice rippers'. I'd known her to have a few, but I'd never taken any real interest due to romance not being my preferred genre. That being said, if they were being kept up high, they were likely to be of the smutty variety.

When I'd asked Starlight why there didn't seem to be much of a fiction section, she explained that the town's actual library, a place called Golden Oaks, had been destroyed a year or so ago. Apparently Twilight had gone to battle with a magic-devouring centaur, and the library had been just one of the casualties. Since then, much of Twilight's budget had been dedicated to replacing the books lost, but almost all of it was going towards replacing rare and historical texts first. When the fiction section was fully replaced, the princess apparently planned on opening her library fully to the public, so that Ponyville would not be deprived of such a valuable resource. Until then, there would only be the odd guest visiting to for research purposes.

That left me wondering what to do. Except for food-related businesses such as Sugar Cube Corner, there wasn't much in terms of shops open on a Sunday. As a farming town, Ponyville considered today a day of rest and family. That ruled out going out to the bookstore Twilight had pointed out during the short tour of town on Friday. Not that I had any bits to spend. That said, if I was legally her responsibility—her adopted child for all intents and purposes—I should at some point probably broach the topic of an allowance, or barring that, a wish list that I can earn towards with chores.

By midday, after deciding that I really didn't have much interest in reading more Daring Do at the moment or starting Harry Trotter, I was starting to get stir-crazy. I also had no interest in board games, I could only play solitaire for so long, and I couldn't get Starlight interested in blackjack or poker. If I had the gear for fishing, I'd have asked her if we could go out to a nearby lake or river, but that fell back to the spending money topic. Plus, I didn't know if you needed a permit to fish in Ponyville.

That said, I didn't reckon she, or Twilight for that matter, would let me out to just wander on my own for a while yet. It was one thing to state a plan of action like going to Applejack's and back, but I needed to earn their trust as well. I hadn't exactly done anything to earn that with the stunt yesterday morning, so it'd probably be a while yet before I'd be allowed to roam freely.

"Starlight, can we go out somewhere?" I finally asked as I began to pace. It was hard to believe that I'd gotten to the point of looking forward to school, if for nothing else than so I'd have a perpetual source of stimulation for part of the week. I even felt like my filly brain-meat was gonna make me start being petulant if something interesting didn't happen soon. "I'm starting to get to the point where I'll submit to eating sweets if it means I can get out and move around."

The mare seemed to consider it for a moment before using her magic to summon her bit-satchel from somewhere. She glanced inside, and then shrugged. "I know you've had some of Pinkie's baking, but you haven't been out to Sugar Cube Corner yet, have you?" she asked, smiling at my own wince at the name. "They have more than just pastries, Anon. They have milkshakes, muffins, banana bread. They even have all sorts of coffee-based beverages you might like."

My ears perked up at the mention of coffee. "Oh?" I asked, a smile spreading across my face. My tail might have begun to wag, for how much "Would you allow me to have a caffeinated drink for a change?"

She looked thoughtful for a moment, before nodding. "Aside from Rule #8 yesterday, you've been really well behaved, so I think you've earned it," Starlight said with a bit of a sly look, conjuring up a key that I imagined was for the front door. "I won't tell Twilight if you won't."

So out of the castle we went, out into a beautiful overcast autumn day. Whereas Twilight filled the air with stories about the town during our last trip out, Starlight was talking to me about magic. Instead of extolling its virtues, I was surprised to hear the mare—whose talent was quite clearly magi-centric—insisting on patience and prudence while learning and using it. As she put it, she didn't want to see me make the mistakes others had made.

She told me of a foolish pony who had started to hate cutie marks, believing them to be evil—a source of inequality, classism, and the destroyer of friendships. The pony created a small town intended to be a utopia of equality, but it wasn't enough. As ponies who'd been pushed out by those more effective with their cutie marks filtered in, so too did the inequality. Someone was always naturally better at something due to their marks, so the pony in the story created a spell to separate a pony from their mark.

They couldn't see that in robbing ponies of their talents, hopes, and dreams, they were creating an atmosphere of fear, unhappiness, and submission. Worse, they willfully ignored the immediate drop of the quality of life for all around. All of the food in 'Our Town' became atrocious, and all future buildings were shoddily constructed, yet everyone pretended to be happy. Every pony in town had become 'equal' except for the mastermind with the spell, and they'd lost hope as a result.

When a group of do-gooders returned the townspeople's cutie marks and drove the mad mage from the town, the mage began to plan the unthinkable. They'd researched the heroes, finding a common thread in how the group had earned their cutie marks, and hatched a plan to eliminate that thread. If those ponies had never interfered, they could have created true equality, or so they thought. But when they hatched their plan and tampered with time, the ripples were immense, and every time the leader of the group went back to stop her, they kept facing a new iteration of the present, each more terrible than the last. It wasn't until the mage was forced to see what their actions had wrought that they began to see the error of her ways and allowed time to take its natural course.

It was about partway through the story that I realised that the pony in the story was Starlight Glimmer, and the heroes were Twilight Sparkle and her friends. It was the little things, like how ashamed she looked when telling the story... or the fact that she referred to the town as 'Our Town'—surely that wasn't actually the name of the place... right? Then of course she'd slipped up towards the end, when she mentioned the name Sunburst and how their friendship had drifted apart when he got his cutie mark, spurring on the whole chain of events.

I know that she said she was trying to impress forethought and critical thinking before using magic, but as we entered Sugar Cube Corner, it occurred to me that she'd likely had an ulterior motive in telling the story. It likely was eating away at her that I was so concerned about whether or not my mind had been tampered with by the Princesses, and while she herself had actually done something not dissimilar. Maybe she was scared that someone was going to let it slip without giving me the whole story?

Admittedly, we'd only known one another for about a week, but the way she was always willing to help out with my learning or just being there for me had made a big impact on how I viewed her. While Twilight would never replace Mom, I think at some point I'd started to look up to Starlight like the big sister I'd never had. I'd never said as much, but I don't think she was oblivious enough to miss it entirely. Maybe that's why she wanted me to hear it from her?

For that matter, how did it make me feel about her? As we stood in line, waiting in line to be served by a tall yellow earth-pony stallion behind the counter, I ruminated on the implications of what she said. It was clearly and wholly within her abilities to exert some form of mind control. Yet, from everything she described, robbing ponies of their volition was a side-effect of what she'd done, rather than the end goal, and she seemed legitimately remorseful over it all.

I was about to ask her if she had told the story without names out of fear for how I'd react, when a charcoal grey pegasus colt with a white mane bumped roughly into me from the side. He'd come from the direction of the entrance, and ended up spilling a tray of drinks all over me and the ground between us. The jerk looked down at the mess and then up at me with rage. "Look what you did, you stupid muck-raker!" he yelled, drawing startled looks from almost everyone in the bakery. "Why can't useless ponies like you watch where they're going?"

A white pony with a charcoal mane stepped up beside him and also got into my face. "Yeah, what's your problem, runt?" he demanded, his amber eyes glinting maliciously in the shop-lights. This colt could have been the other's inverted double if not for the fact that this one was a unicorn. "You just bumped into us and wasted the allowance money we spent on this." He almost got nose-to-nose with me, but took special care never to touch me. "You owe us, kid."

I raised my eyebrows at them, but maintained a straight face. "Oh?" I asked with a sniff. I couldn't smell any of what the dark pegasus had spilled on me, giving me the distinct impression that it was dyed water, rather than an actual drink. Plus, my coat should have been starting to feel sticky, but it just felt wet. "How do you figure?" Starlight looked like she was going to step in, but I shot her a quick wink of my eye as I shook my head.

"What do you mean?" the first colt yelled, as if trying to draw attention. Like he didn't already have the entire shop's attention with that muck-raker slur. "You bumped into me! You spilled our drinks."

Again, I shook my head, and couldn't help but chuckle. Sitting on my haunches, I lifted my forehooves and shrugged. "I don't know what you're talking about," I replied coolly. "I was standing here waiting in line with my big sis here, when you came from the entrance and walked into me. From where I'm standing, you're the one who needs to look where he's going." I made a show of rubbing my chin, as if suddenly realising something. "For that matter..."

I peered around the pony in front of me, toward the stallion behind the register. "Say, Mr. Shopkeeper, sir?" I asked in an innocent voice. "Have you actually served these two anything today?"

Suddenly, the pair of colts looked a lot less confident. Their eyes flicked from me to the shopkeeper, and then to each other. "No, I haven't," he said with a dawning look of shock. "Hey, what are you two trying to pull here?"

Visibly sweating now, the unicorn brother took a step back. "Well, uh..."

"The pink one served us!" the pegasus brother interrupted. "Yeah, that hyper pink mare that's always here served us earlier!"

The shopkeeper's eyes narrowed at the boys, and I could hold in my laughter no longer. "Wow, keep digging your own hole, boys," I said with a cackle. "Pretty sure Pinkie Pie is off with her friends today, and judging by the shopkeeper's expression, she was never on shift at all today." The stallion in question nodded, glaring at the pair. "Adorable attempt at a scam, boys, but you gotta pick your marks better and make sure your cover stories are airtight before they sink you. Also, never draw as much attention as you did with that slur"

With a sneer, I leaned forward and gently patted them on the cheeks and whispered. "Good luck pulling any sort of cons in Ponyville now, you little crooks," I whispered as a number of ponies in the room looked at the pair in shocked realisation. Evidently, they'd pulled this same scam on a few others who were present. It looked like one or two ponies at a table near the door were getting ready to make a grab for the little scoundrels "Word travels fast in towns like this. Final bit of advice? Run."

Run those boys did. Leaving behind the plastic tray and recyclable cups they'd no doubt been using repeatedly in their scam, the pair bolted out the door faster than I would've expected. There was even a cartoonish dust-cloud shaped like the colts left where they were standing, that's how quick they booked it. I imagined they could possibly even give Rainbow Dash a run for her money in a footrace—or was that hoof-race?

Things in the store eventually calmed down, and everyone in line was eventually served. As it turned out those boys seemed to pull the spillage scam every other day, but because it was always someone else manning the register, it seemed more infrequent than it was. The stallion at the counter, Mr. Carrot Cake, was even willing to comp my iced cappuccino, but I haggled him down to just a discount and a second raspberry jelly-filled donut.

Starlight, on the other hand, hadn't spoken much since I stopped her from intervening. She looked almost uneasy when we sat down at a table with our food and drink. Had the ease with which I turned that pair's scam on its head put her on her guard? Or was it something I said during it? Maybe I looked to be enjoying myself a little bit too much when I started putting them in their places?

"Starlight, listen," I said as I sipped at my icy coffee treat. "We all have things that we aren't proud of—bits of our past we'd like to make up for." Pausing to take a big bite of the sugar-powdered jelly-donut, I gave her a smile. "If I judged every person I met for the past they're trying to make up for, I'd be a hypocrite. I won't fault you for what you did, so long as you don't judge me for doing what I had to in order to get by."

"You called me your big sis," she murmured, still looking quite uncertain of herself. "Was that an act, or...?"

My smile never faded as I looked her in the eye. "I guess I did call you my big sister, didn't I?" It wasn't an answer in and of itself, but at the same time, I think that was all the answer she really needed. Like it or not, Starlight, Twilight, and Spike were probably the closest thing to family I had now. I'd never let Twilight supplant my memory of Mom, but there was no reason I couldn't begin treating them like family... right?

Author's Notes:

Not a whole lot I wanted to comment on here tonight, so there's not any numbering necessary. A lot of what went on is self-explanatory, but there is the issue of the twins introduced. It's kinda funny, but the moment I settled on Anon going to the school in Ponyville, I settled on Anonymous gaining a 'nemesis' before or during her her first time in school. Initially, I toyed with the idea of her going to war—so to speak—with one of the canon foals, be it Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon, Rumble, or someone else. None of that really meshed with me, though, so I thought, why not construct some characters instead.

Then the idea of rather than just one pony, make it a set of twins. Almost immediately, the Yin/Yang motif was settled upon when I decided on a unicorn and pegasus. If you can believe it, the initial source of conflict between Anon and the Twins was to be the unicorn brother looking down Anon for having a magic-related mark as an earth-pony, but when I got the opportunity to introduce them early, the pair of brothers just being a bunch of brats and trying to pull a con on a new face in Ponyville just felt... Right.

I won't go further into the lore of the boys right now, but there is one thing I wanna say about them. Despite the fact that I've built their own little niche in the story, and even their cutie marks, I actually have not been able to come up with names for them. I mean, after the events of this ~~episode~~chapter, she'll likely be calling them Skim and Scam the next time she sees them, but I legitimately cannot come with actual names for these Canterlot brats forced to move to Ponyville with their folks.

Entry 9

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"Anon, do you have everything you need for school?" Twilight asked, as we stood in the lobby. Smiling down at me—strained though that smile may be—she used her magic to smooth out a particularly unruly patch of my mane. She looked anxious, although whether that was on my behalf or due to the current Applejack Imprisonment story arc was yet to be seen. "We have to make sure you don't forget anything."

When she came back from her meeting with the others on Sunday, she seemed particularly tired. She didn't discuss anything about how things went with Starlight while I was in earshot, but she seemed to be in a slightly better mood. If I had to guess, their planning had gone well. At least as well as planning for an intervention can go well; I'd never been involved in one before, so I couldn't really draw on any expertise in judging.

Her mood had apparently improved enough that she was more than willing to take me shopping for school supplies yesterday. To start out, we went to Mr. Davenport's shop, Quills and Sofas—"The ultimate one stop shop for stationery and seats for the stationary!"—to stock up on pencils, a sharpener, and several notebooks. The friendly earth-pony shopkeeper seemed somewhat disappointed when I didn't show any interest in the more decorative pencils most foals, going instead for a number of standard #2s and the odd #3H for sketching, but I think he caught the way I was eyeing the futon couch he had. I think Twilight did too.

Barnyard Bargains had been our next stop. At first, the plan was to only get a lunchbox and a saddlebag—instead of backpacks and purses, most ponies relied on saddle-less saddlebags for some reason—but once I saw a thermos, I almost couldn't say no. I'd argued that getting a thermos and filling it with decaf, for I'd still not convinced Twilight to let me have regular coffee full-time, or green tea would provide a good opportunity to make sure I was getting enough sugar. A full-sized one would've been too large for a foal's saddlebags, but she agreed when we came across a lunchbox set that came with a thermos that could fit in it. For good measure, we even grabbed a pocket dictionary.

That said, Twilight wanted to take me to visit Rarity next. It was under the guise of getting some professional alterations done—replacing plastic buckles with metal ones more akin to what you'd find on a belt and having it sized to be more adjustable as I grew—getting them customised to be more easily identifiable, and have my name and return-to address embroidered on the inside. It was clear that she wanted something more to come from the interaction.

Rarity, as it turned out, had been quite upset by what had happened, and not just because her younger sister was best friends with AJ's. I got the distinct impression that Rarity may have been the Nightmare's yet-unnamed second host, if for no reason other than the way she mentioned that their friendship had been strained for a while, and that AJ was too proud or ashamed to seek help. It all but screamed that the pair might've been knocking boots until whatever had happened had come to pass.

That said, even as she did the alterations for my saddlebag, she seemed very keen on trying to have a dress made for me to 'make up for Applejack's brutality'. I was almost tempted to ask for pants or a skirt and a shirt, but I honestly wasn't all that sure how that would look on a pony without any form of reference. I didn't want to end up uncomfortable, or be reminded of things clients had asked me to wear on dates—I was past that stuff now.

Instead, I decided to ask for something practical; since it was getting close to winter and it was starting to get cooler out, it'd be nice to have something to throw on to keep warm—or dry on rainier days—like a hoodie or a cloak. The only caveat was that I wanted space for my ears but for them to receive the same protection. She sketched out some ideas while she worked and showed them to me, and although they both looked a bit... cat-eared, but they were also pretty cute. I settled on the cloak—since what mage doesn't have one of those?—but it'd probably take a few days since business was booming.

By the time we got back to the castle after meeting with Rarity, it'd been dinner time. Spike had made a nice vegetarian gumbo. It was almost too flavourful for me to handle, but somehow I'd managed to put away everything they put in my bowl. One study session and an early bedtime later, and that brought me to this morning on the cusp of my first day at horse school.

Smiling up at Twilight, I nodded. "Saddlebags, lunchbox, thermos of tea with sugar, school notebooks," I counted off, feeling a sense of mischief overtake me as I pretended to lift one olive-trimmed saddle-bag flap. "Pencils, the crown jewels, weapons of mass destruction, pocket dictionary, magic notebook." We hadn't actually gotten anything close to resembling a magic notebook, but I'd decided fairly quickly to keep one of the regular notebooks for my runic magic studies. "Mmm, yeah, I think I've got everything."

"Ha ha, Anon. Are you nervous?" she asked, shaking her head with a wry smile. There was this faraway look in her eyes as we exited the castle. "I remember my first day at Princess Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns. I was so excited to be studying under the princess that I barely slept the night before, and ended up almost sleeping through my alarm."

"Anxious, maybe, just a bit," I admitted, following close behind her as she went. "It's going to be a new experience, that's for sure. Growing up, I lived in a backwoods former mining town, and there weren't all that many children in the area. There were my sisters, me, and then a few farm-kids way closer to the settlement proper. Not enough to justify having a formal school, so that left Mom to teach me and the girls."

Come to think of it, I didn't really have friends growing up. The only time I ever even saw those farm-kids was when father hauled us off to church. Up until I left, the only people I ever really interacted with were my folks, my sisters, Old Thom, his middle-aged daughter, and the farmhands. Then, when I was on the road, I never stuck around long enough to do more than make acquaintances. The closest thing I had to an actual friend was a possum who'd probably died a year or two ago by now. It's a wonder that I can even function as a person at all.

"I'm still not entirely sold on interacting with children 'my own age'," I admitted when we were half-way to the schoolhouse. She gave me a nervous look over her shoulder, but didn't say anything. "That said, I know how important friendship is—especially to you and your friends—so with that in mind, I'll try to make some friends." What I didn't say aloud was that barring that, I'd try not to start any fights. I can't say the same about finishing them, though.

The rest of the trip I spent watching pegasi pushing dark clouds into position over the town. It was still wild to think that the natural order in this world was so utterly fucked that the only places what I recognized as nature occurred was in places ponies considered to be cursed or beyond comprehension. That ponies themselves had to create weather phenomena through use of strange arcano-tech controlled by the pegasi, or through spells performed by teams of mages, said a lot about the state of the world's natural order.

Things must have been an utter shit-show before the unification of the three tribes.

When we got there, I still had fifteen minutes before the start of class... So quarter to eight in the morning. Cheerilee was there to greet us, and explained that although class would be starting on the hour, she wanted me to wait in the hallway until she called upon me. The idea of it struck my as sort of odd, but I guessed that her plan was to have me introduce myself after everyone else was settled.

It wasn't exactly a bad idea, I decided as Twilight departed—not without a wry warning to be on my best behaviour, mind you. Any who had yet to arrive would see me waiting in the hall, and then excitement and curiosity about there being a new student would be abound. At least, that was how the trope seemed to go in books.

In reality, I just ended up waiting in the hallway for the remaining fifteen minutes, seeing absolutely nobody coming or going. At least the time I spent waiting didn't go to waste. Though I was technically forbidden from studying, practicing, or using magic without the supervision of a unicorn—a rule I've already noticed a loophole in—there was technically no rule about theory-crafting.

At the top of the page, in #3H, I wrote out Water Bolt. Rather than writing any actual runes or moon-glyphs, I wrote out words only in plain Equestrian sun-glyphs. For one, I didn't want to be accused of actually violating the spirit of the rule. I also didn't want some foal to try and do the spell itself and hurting themselves. I was strictly writing ideas in a general layout of how I thought it should appear and then adding in notes/comments.

For the Water Bolt, I decided instead of a direct rune like ignition—the closest for water would be condense/condensation, by my guessing—I'd want a creation/conjuration primary operator. In addition to adding for a degree of modification down the line, such as changing the element, it would likely be more efficient in getting the desired effect, as well as energy-efficient. Yeah, I didn't really get how the complexity of a spell had an inverse effect on the amount of mana used, but it had been explained to me as having to do with using environmental energy to refine effects rather than brute-forcing by using as little runes as possible. If I had to guess, a well-inscribed runic spell might be acting as a sort of net for energy.

The first instruction off the main rune was the target for creation. In the case of the spell I had in mind, the next rune involved would be water. Rather than add instructions or modifiers directly around it, I instead made a notation schema and placed the points I thought would be necessary around it before adding the key off to the side. I was indecisive whether I wanted the term bolt, ball, projectile, or orb for it—although stream could probably be used to create a water-gun type spell. There was also the matter of volume, which in turn would need a numerical value and unit. Too little, and it'd just be a raindrop, too much and it'd be a torrent.

Before I could begin writing my thoughts on the firing mechanism, I heard Cheerilee's voice. "This morning, fillies and colts, we have a new student joining us," she announced in a voice meant to carry out into the hall. Immediately, I shut the notebook and tucked it into my bag before standing by the door. "You can come in now, Anonymous."

My ear twitched involuntarily at the mention of the name. Although Anon had quickly become a name I could answer to without pause, the 'full' name for my official record still didn't sit well with me. It elicited the image of faceless forum trolls or hacktivists wearing Guy Fawkes masks, rather than that of my own face. It'd definitely take a lot more time before I'd be comfortable with it.

Pushing through the not-quite-shut door, I entered the room full of the foals that would be my peers. Although I tried my hardest, I couldn't exactly force a genuine smile. Fifteen children was a lot more than I was used to being around at one time. Not only that, but all of their eyes were on me, and there were definitely a few stares that were decidedly not friendly ones.

Joining Ms. Cheerilee at the front of the room, I looked out at the class feeling suddenly anxious. In addition to a trio of fillies—a red-headed earth pony, a white filly who looked like a smaller Rarity, and a vibrant orange pegasus—glaring at me, there was a pair of familiar looking black-and-white colts giving me the stink-eye. Another pair of earth ponies behind an empty desk at the front of the row, kept glancing from me to the ginger. Given that the empty desk that must have been brought out of storage for me was near the trio, I hoped that things wouldn't escalate.

"Everyone, this is Anonymous," the cerise mare explained, gesturing at me. "Do you have anything you'd like to say to the class?"

Not really, but that was never an option, was it? The hell am I even supposed to say? 'Greetings, fellow children?' "Hi, I'm Anon," I said in as friendly a tone as I could, giving a slight wave. "I grew up away from ponies, so please be patient if I make a social faux-pas." Rubbing my chin with my hoof, I decided to share a few of my interests. Gambling and hunting are right out, as is coffee—most of them seem too young to have a taste for it yet."Other than that, I enjoy reading, fishing, camping, and my guardians are going to be teaching me about certain kinds of magic, and I'm quite excited about that."

That last bit earned a pair of derisive snorts from the yin-yang twins, but most of the class looked more interested than dismissive. I was about to take a seat when one of the fillies in class spoke up. "What's your cutie mark mean?" A colt quickly followed up by asking, "Yah, why's it a question mark with a line through it?" Despite the sour looks on the faces of the fillies in that trio—I now was almost certain that they were AJ and Rarity's sisters—even they couldn't hide their curiosity. "Look! The dot is a star!"

Everyone but the con-artists had begun chatting. Was this normal behaviour, or is it because my mark is weird? I couldn't help but wonder self-consciously. With a questioning glance at Cheerilee, who nodded permission, I took a deep breath. "Actually, it's not a question mark at all," I explained, turning to provide the horizontal profile that allowed the children to see my mark more clearly. "Although the arrangement does look like a question mark, it's actually the moon-glyph for the word 'child', seated atop—as one of you pointed out—a small six-pointed star. My talent ties into the research and exploration of a seldom-used field of magic: runic magic. So remember, when someone tells you that words have power, they're telling the truth."

Although Cheerilee quickly shut down any further explanation—despite a few asking for my cutie-mark story—I still managed to catch the unicorn brother muttering something rather unkind. Specifically, he was inferring that it was absolutely pointless for an earth pony to study magic if they were never going to be able to use it. I could tell that Cheerilee heard it as well, judging by the warning look she gave him. That said, he'd have to do a lot more to get under my skin than infer the futility of my talent. He had nothing on the shit my father would say if I got too full of myself.

~ 09 ~

The first few classes went by way too quickly for my liking. History was... interesting, although I silently wondered how much of what Cheerilee was teaching was sanitised. Take the last border conflict, some two hundred seventy-five years ago, between Equestria and the Griffon kingdom of Griffinstone that was covered in today's class. Nothing was mentioned regarding losses on either side, the length of the conflict, or even notable battles. The only real things of note expressed in the lesson itself were that a member of the royal family—an ancestor of Prince Blueblood, by the sound of it—had been taken hostage during the crisis, and that Celestia herself led a strike team into the griffon capital to retrieve the aforementioned royal and 'negotiate' a surrender.

Looking at the world map that she'd brought out for the lesson, I saw that the borderlands subject to the conflict were lush, largely untouched woodland and what seemed to be prime agriculture spots. The lands of Griffonstone, meanwhile were largely rocky and mountainous. That said, when I asked what the motivations for the conflict were, Cheerilee didn't seem to have an answer. She was actually surprised when I suggested that the initial encroachment might've been in response to some sort of famine situation and asked if there had been a breakdown in diplomatic relationships or a rejected request for foreign aid.

The pegasus brother—Ebony Crescent—of the twins scoffed at that, suggesting that because Equestria and Griffonstone were at war at the time, Equestria wouldn't have been obligated to help them. That was quickly quashed by Cheerilee, who noted that though there was indeed conflict and an escalation of retaliatory events, no official declaration of war was ever made, and they were even in a defence pact for a time. Ivory Crescent, Ebony's unicorn sibling, then made the accusation that the griffons were too proud and barbaric to ask for help, which is why they tried to take the land in the first place.

That didn't sit right with me, for a few reasons. Besides the fact that the boys both sounded like some of the snobs I'd heard toadying up to the flammable prince, complete with the Canterlot accent, it struck me as odd. Could they really have been too proud to ask for help despite being on decent enough relations to have had a defence pact for a time? Or was there something more buried in the annals of time? That was completely disregarding the barbarism comment, which I imagined was a pointed jab at a predator-descended omnivorous species.

I'd probably have to dig out a history book at Twilight's library to get a better picture of the conflict, but I hoped that I wasn't right. Admittedly, political theater and wartime theory had no real place at the level we were being taught, but all the same, the idea that history was sanitised for children who might only get the one education gave me a bad feeling. If history was written by the victors, then was this land of sunshine and rainbows built on the graves of the untold vanquished? Or was I biased by my old world?

After that discussion and a quick quiz pertaining to the lesson, the class moved on to mathematics. The class as a whole was in the middle of a unit on multiplication and division. It wasn't even long multiplication or long division—just low-end stuff with single digit multipliers with two-to-three digit multiplicands, or multi-digit dividends and single-digit divisors. Strictly speaking, they weren't even really into 'show your work' territory all that much. The work-sheet that was supposed to last an hour took me all of maybe ten minutes, and even then that was because I was pacing myself. There was an additional sheet that was supposed to be for homework that I also finished, but I just tucked that away into my math notebook. I could hand that in to Ms. Cheerilee before I left for the day.

I was a bit surprised when, come ten o'clock, all of the other children were getting up out of their seats to go out into the schoolyard to play. Recess was what Cheerilee called it, but given that it was an entire half-hour, and I didn't feel like going outside when it looked like it could start pouring buckets at any moment, I ended up staying inside; I could take the time to have a cup of tea and perk up, instead. Hopefully we'll be back to math afterward.

Much to my surprise, I wasn't the only one staying in. While I was pouring some tea from my thermos into the lid-cup that came with it, the orange pegasus from that group of fillies approached Cheerilee as the mare looked to be getting ready to go out and monitor the other foals. "Ms. Cheerilee, can you stay and help me with my math?" she asked, her wings buzzing gently at her sides in either agitation or anxiety. "Aunt Holiday and Auntie Lofty said that if I fail another homework sheet, I'm gonna be grounded, but I just don't get it."

Smaller than average; genetic deformity, or stunted growth perhaps? Probably better not to ask.

"Scootaloo, I can always take some time to help you after school," Cheerilee answered in a soft voice. "Why don't you go out and play with the other Crusaders while the weather's still clear?"

Although part of me suggested that it was none of my business, another part noted that if I helped out their friend, the other two might be easier to win over. It wasn't until the filly's ears drooped and her mane seemed to look a bit less vibrant and fluffy that I decided to step in. "If you'd like, Ms. Cheerilee, I could give her a hand," I offered, taking a sip of my sweetened green tea. "I was just gonna sit here and f—futz around with a personal project while I caffeinate, but if she needs help and you need to watch after the others... I don't mind."

That seemed to please the teacher, while it shocked the filly. "That's an excellent idea, Anon," Cheerilee exclaimed, looking from me to Scootaloo. "That's the sort of attitude I hoped you'd have. At this rate, you'll have plenty of new friends."

Before Scootaloo could protest any, the mare was out the door. With that in mind, I tucked a pencil between my ear and my mane and made my way over to the filly's desk. "So, what seems to be the trouble," I asked, pushing one of the nearby chairs up to her desk. Careful not to spill my tea, I climbed into the seat and waited for her to join me.

As she joined me, she pulled out the worksheet. She was giving me this weird look, but I ignored it in favour of helping her out. "I do alright with single numbers and the tens place, but it's kinda overwhelming after a point," she said with a sigh. "I'm not good at any of this egghead stuff. I'm like Rainbow Dash; I'm an athlete."

I hummed slightly as I looked over her work. Sure enough, she had the basics down, but she started to get overwhelmed the larger the numbers got. Sara used to get the same way. "You know, you say that, but I think you'd be surprised just how important math is in Ms. Dash's day job," I said, remembering the chit-chat from that first night around the poker table. "As a flyer, she probably has to do plenty of on-the-fly calculations, even if it's on an instinctual level, to say nothing of what must be necessary as captain of the weather team. There's probably a lot of budgeting, estimates, and figuring out just how much rain is needed when and where, and how long it should fall. Might not seem like a lot of math until you dig into the thick of it."

Scootaloo looked surprised that I was trying to frame math in a way that related to her idol, but she didn't really say anything. I took that as an opportunity to continue. "When my Mom taught me math ages ago, she made an effort to frame it in ways that kept my interest," I explained. I saw that she kept a pad of scratch paper at her desk, so with her permission, I pulled it over. "For me, she'd tie in the battles in a high-fantasy series I enjoyed reading. For you, I reckon your idol might be a good basis."

From there, I made up a few word problems on the fly for her, centered around Rainbow Dash. Simple stuff by my reckoning, but actual brain ticklers for her. If Rainbow Dash were to fly thirty kilometers each day, how many days would it take her to to fly three-hundred sixty? First I guided her into breaking down the question into what it wanted; she quickly realised that it was a division with a complex number. At first she got nervous, until I pointed out something that Cheerilee might not have taught them yet: simplification and pattern recognition. Once she realised that the ones digit was zero in both cases, she was able to pick out the answer almost immediately.

"She'd have to fly twelve days to go three hundred sixty kilometers!" Scootaloo exclaimed, although she quickly sagged when she realised that not all equations would be that simple. "That was easier that it looked, but what do I do when I can't break it down like that?" I didn't really have a great answer to that, but I demonstrated long division and surprisingly she caught on quickly once I explained chunking.

From there, I introduced her to a little visualisation tool for multiplication: the lattice method. Although I'd had no problems learning standard long multiplication, there were times where I would have problems keeping it all aligned. Rainbow dash busts seventy-three clouds each day. How many clouds has she busted on day twelve? When she was sure of what I was asking, I had her draw a box, break it into four, and then put a top-right to bottom-left diagonal dash in each quarter. I had her write seven and three over the two vertical columns, while writing one and two alongside the two rows.

"Now, instead of focusing on the big numbers, let's work on each individual pair," I instructed. "The first row is simple, as it's just demonstrating one times seven, and one times three. Write those answers in the bottom half of the respective block."

"What about the top half?" she asked as she wrote out seven and three again.

"Since we haven't crossed the two-digit barrier, we treat those cells as zero," I explained, gesturing with my #3 pencil. "You don't have to mark it as such, and in some cases, it might even end up being used in a later step. That being said, what do you notice about row two?"

She looked at the numbers for a moment before moving on without even a word. She wrote the one from fourteen in the top half of the box, while the four was in the bottom. "Now what?" she asked, her face scrunched up. "All I got now is a numbered square."

With the light tip of my pencil, I made little arrows pointing down the diagonals. "Now, follow the diagonals and add," I explained. "The sum of each diagonal is written outside the box where it ends, and once you've done all the addition, you have your answer. "So what do you have?" I watched her tally up the lines and mark down her answer of eight hundred seventy-six. "Excellent. Now in the cases where the addition crosses into the tens digits, that's where the blank column can come in handy; place the carryover in the next diagonal to the left. Give it a try with, hmm, seventy-four and fourteen. You should see an instant where that'll happen."

Before we could do any more, I noticed students starting to file back in. In particular, a certain yellow earth pony and her friend were entering. "Thanks, Anon, I think I might actually be able to do my homework this time," she exclaimed as I hopped down from my borrowed chair, returning it to its desk. Giving her friends a glance, she sighed. "When I heard AJ got locked up, I expected you to be some a stuck-up brat. It didn't make sense... It makes even less now."

Looking from Scootaloo to Sweetie Belle to Apple Bloom, I grunted and drained the rest of my tea. "Look, for what it's worth, I never wanted that either; I'm no stranger to getting hit for saying stupid s—stuff," I said, my ears folding back. "I wouldn't have even said anything about it, but there was this whole other thing with Princess Luna that day, and I guess she was watching from afar with a scrying spell... and law is as law does..."

"So yah didn't mean for mah Sis to get put in the slammer?" Apple Bloom asked, getting a bit too close for comfort—not enough to trigger my fight-or-flight reflexes, thankfully, but enough that I could see that she was definitely a bit taller than me, and more than enough that Cheerilee looked alarmed when she entered. After all, Apple Bloom looked simultaneously like she wanted to cry or wreck my shit, and given that she probably blamed me for her sister's arrest, that was to be expected. "Ya ain't some home-wreckin' monster lookin' to ruin everypony ya come across?"

I shook my head. "Absolutely not," I muttered, placing my empty lid-mug onto my own desk. "I had one of my best games of cards with her just last week." My eyes drifted up to the ceiling as I thought. "Did you know you can learn a lot about someone by playing cards with them? Well, I learned pretty quick that she's good people. You don't intentionally f—frick over good people like that."

With a gentle smile, I put my hoof on her shoulder. "Look, I'm not exactly happy with what happened either, but it is what it is," I said, giving a slight nod to Cheerilee as I turned to return to my own seat. The teacher looked much less anxious now that she didn't think she'd have to stop a murder. "That said, I don't think she'd want us fighting one another. We can talk at lunch if you'd like, but class is gonna start soon."

Author's Notes:

1. Imagine Emilia's hooded cloak from the anime Re:Zero, but fitted for a pony, and you have the cloak that Rarity will have made for Anon.

2. I don't buy the idea that Equestria is just wholly pure without any sort of political intrigue/conflict. Even if there was, there was no way a country as large as Equestria would not have been the aggressor at some point. After all, there's no harm in a slightly grittier Equestria that's not just all sunshine and rainbows. In a future chapter, we will actually be getting more insight into the conflict in question when Anon chooses to do a report on it.

3. Originally, I wasn't going to go into any major events during her first day at school other than maybe an interaction with the twins, but it occurred to me that there was no real putting off her coming face to face with Apple Bloom. That said, I accidentally got REALLY into Anon teaching Scootaloo during recess.

Funny enough, I didn't I realise I had seen a similar scene of someone teaching Scootaloo lattice multiplication until AFTER I'd finished writing the scene. I still don't remember which story I read that had her being taught it, but I vaguely remembered it after the fact.

Entry 10

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Once class resumed, I half expected that we would continue with the mathematics, but instead we moved onto reading a children's book that had been released within the span of the last year. When the teacher passed out the books, there wasn't enough for everyone, but the two earth ponies behind me—Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon—volunteered to read from the same copy, so that I could catch up. It was nice of them, but I immediately caught the trio to my right exchanging looks.

So they're not completely sold, or there's some history involving the two behind me?

Cheerilee took a moment to explain to me that most of the particular lessons centered around books involved having the students take turns reading aloud for a few paragraphs before taking some time to cover any moon-glyphs that they encountered. For me to catch up, she asked that I read through at a pace I was comfortable with, noting down any glyphs I was unfamiliar with—homework being to look up said glyphs, practice writing them, and then use them in a sentence. The class was currently at chapter eight of twelve.

I don't think the mare was prepared to witness just how quickly I was able to catch up. See, because my father didn't approve of me reading when I had free time, I learned to read quickly, on top learning how to hide my books. I'd set goals of reading oh so many pages before I put the book away... but every time, I was able to read just a bit quicker, and I'd get a bit farther. Mom was absolutely proud of how quick I was able to read, but always seemed bitter that she couldn't take my education further.

That said, early on in the story, I encountered my first issue; although the book was clearly written for this age-group, I noticed that the author did something I'd noticed more in academic texts or books at a higher reading level: expressing a pony's name with moon-glyphs. It was strange because the author themselves wrote their name as simply Apocrita in sun-glyphs. So before I had even gotten past the first page, I had three runes to look up. Admittedly, the author did have a Dramatis Personae in the end that actually gave the sun-glyph reading for the names, which made things simpler.

Honestly, the biggest complaint I had with the whole existence of moon-glyphs was that when using them for written names or compounding them to express a complex thought, you often needed an accompanying sun-glyph subtext/reading guide to ensure that readers derive the correct meaning. For example, depending on the reader, a name written with the glyphs for without and name could be interpreted as Nameless, No-Name, or Anonymous. Yeah, it's not all that intuitive, and I actually laughed the first time I saw a combustion engine expressed as explosion movement machine.

The story itself was interesting, though. It starred a pegasus filly by the name of Wind Tracer who, during a family vacation, got caught up in a wild storm near the ocean and was separated from her family. Marooned on a deserted island with an injured wing, Tracer was forced to fend for herself. It then detailed how she managed to construct some familiar-sounding fish traps, splinted her wing, and built a shelter over the coming weeks.

After being stranded for about three weeks, another storm swept through, wrecking her shelter. Once the storm was over, she went down to the beach to pick up the parts that had blown off the shelter, as well as to check to see what the storm surge had brought in. Lo and behold, a colourful insectile pony of some sort had washed ashore within walking distance of her camp. Surprisingly enough, the creature was still alive, though unconscious.

Having never seen anything like it before, she dragged the creature back to her camp and did what she could to wrap its broken chitin, and shared what potable water she could. But when the creature woke up and introduced itself as Allomyrina Dichotoma, a changeling. That word caused terror in the filly, and the author even described the image it elicited: a pony-like creature of black, pockmarked chitin, with holes in its legs, wings, and crooked horn—a vile shapeshifter that fed on the love of others. She immediately distrusted Dichotoma, and once he was capable of standing and moving, she banished him from her camp.

It was worth noting at this point that the author actually added a footnote to this chapter, explaining the filly's reaction through a short history blurb. At one point, prior to what the author described as the Elevation of Lingkind, the cruel leader of the species, Queen Chrysalis, attempted to conquer all of Equestria to enslave all of ponykind as a food-source. Changelings at that time thought they could only feed on the love of other races, and not their own. It was not until a rogue drone aided heroes of Equestria in the defeat the dread queen that their species was shown another way; All but Chrysalis evolved when they shared their love for one another, and that drone became the next King.

Assuming all of this was true, and not just the author contextualising for the sake of the story, it might be interesting to meet the author or the king mentioned. I could even ask Twilight or Starlight later if they knew this changeling. Such a being could surely provide an answer to my questions and concerns from Saturday.

By the time lunch rolled around, and Cheerilee went around collecting up the novels, I realised that I'd actually almost gotten past the point the class was at. The poor mare almost dropped the stack of books on her back when she saw my sheet of paper filled with all the glyphs—complete with page numbers and space for definitions from my dictionary—that I'd not yet encountered. She actually did drop the said stack when I revealed the other side of the page was just as full.

"Anon, are you really this far into the book already?" she asked, noting the most recent glyph I'd marked down. When I nodded, hopping down to help her pick up the spilled books, she let out a strangled sound of surprise. "That's incredible; and you've been able to read sun-glyphs for how long?"

"Completely? Almost a week," I replied, grabbing a stack of eight books with my hooves and walking it two-legged over to the teacher's desk. "Some maids in Canterlot were teaching me before I was mailed to—" I had to stop myself from calling Twilight Book Horse in front of Cheerilee. "—Princess Twilight for eating Princess Celestia's cake. There wasn't much to do around Twilight's castle, so by like Wednesday, I'd finished learning the sun-glyphs completely, and since then, I've been practicing whenever possible." I shrugged, returning to a quadrupedal stance. "It also helps that this is only around one-fifty pages and utilises a larger font."

I couldn't exactly tell her that I'd been reading in another language since I was the pony equivalent of two. Although Twilight and I had agreed that it would be best to be at least partially honest with others about my origins—being that I'd grown up outside Equestria and only recently come into the care of the crown—when applicable, there was an agreement that my being from another world wasn't something we'd share with anyone we didn't think needed to know. Unfortunately, after revealing that I'd gotten my reading speed up this fast in just five days, I was probably gonna have this poor mare convinced that I was some sort of savant. When she returned to her desk with the other eight novels, she had this look on her face I'd spotted on the faces of Twilight and Starlight when I vexed them to where I imagined they needed alcohol to calm their nerves.

When I returned to my seat, I watched Cheerilee dazedly walk out of the classroom with a bag that I reckoned she had her own lunch in... or maybe alcohol? I'm sure there were times where students could drive a teacher to drink. But that left us all rather unattended... Or maybe she always takes her lunch separate from the class.

So I took out my lunch of cucumber-watercress tea sandwiches, apple slices, and a banana. I also got out my thermos and started pouring another cup of tea. When I reached for my banana, I noticed that Scootaloo was whispering to the other two, giving me occasional glances. It almost seemed like they were getting ready to ask if we could talk, but before they could come to a consensus, I caught sight of movement in my peripheral.

"What's it like being related to a foal abuser?" came the smug voice of Ivory Crescent as he and his brother strode past my desk. For the first time, I actually got a good look at their marks. Ivory had a black mark, that looked like one half of the yin-yang symbol—was it called a Taijitu?—but where there would normally be a white dot, there was instead a white star. Conversely, his brother Ebony had a white mark that contained a black lightning bolt. If not for their amber eyes, they were completely monochrome, but honestly, they just looked malicious as they were. "I think I'd just die of embarrassment if that sort of news got out."

Ebony barked a cold, mocking laugh. "Yeah, I know, right?" he goaded. The sneer on his face made me want to rearrange it six ways to Sunday. "Our Mom and Dad would never dare think to put a hoof on a foal." I didn't really like that predatory look in his eyes as Apple Bloom began to tremble; he clearly wanted a fight, but didn't want to be the one to throw the first punch. Son of a bitch is trying to provoke her. "Of course, you wouldn't know anything about that, would you? Your dumb hick parents went and—"

How dare he. It wasn't exactly kept a secret from me that the Apples lost their Ma and Pa when they were young, so hearing these shit disturbers using such a sore spot to try to provoke a fight... It was infuriating seeing him tear into a girl that was clearly distraught over her sister's arrest, and then have the gall to bring up her parents... The resulting sadness I saw building in those eyes... It pushed me over the edge.

"Boy, I'mma give you exactly one chance to walk away with your teeth still in your mouth," I warned, repeating almost word for word what my father had said to me the only time I ever stood up to him. Sweetie Belle was straight up restraining the Apple filly, but they both looked shocked when I spoke. In fact, the entire room had gone silent. "You live in a town founded by earth ponies, yet you keep making very thinly veiled tribalist and specist comments. You look and sound well off enough that you shouldn't even need to scam ponies for free drinks at Sugarcube Corner... Pretty sure no-one other than maybe Cheerilee and your parents is gonna bat an eyelid if the two of you got put in your place."

I paused to blow on my tea. "So I say again, to make sure you're one-hundred percent picking up what I'm laying down here," I said plainly, marveling at the fact that my tea was still as hot as when it was first brewed this morning. "If don't walk your hoity-toity butts back to those seats over there and sit down—if you even so much as utter one more word to her—you're going to wish you'd taken the chance to walk away."

Much to nobody's surprise, that only elicited a snort from Ivory. "Pffft, what are you gonna do about it, shrimp?" he said in a mocking one. "You're just an pint-sized nopony with a redundant talent. You got nothing on us." Magic coalesced around his horn in an orange cloud as an unseen pressure pushed me back so I was sitting upright in my chair. He didn't stop there, though; I watched as the lid of my thermos unscrewed itself and the thermos began to levitate. "Why don't you be a good little filly and go back to your tea."

Everypony in the room gasped as he tilted the thermos over my head. Pain erupted across my back and the top of my head, and a familiar ringing sound filled my ears. The next couple of minutes were honestly a blur. One moment, he was pouring my scalding tea over the top of my head and I had screwed my eyes shut. The next minute, I was being hauled off of the dark-furred pegasus by Cheerilee, spitting and swearing through a mouthful of feathers. The entire top of my head, my face, and a good portion of my back back were burning, and although it hadn't gotten in my eyes, opening them just made them sting.

"Scootaloo, go as fast as you can and get to the guard station," Cheerilee instructed, her forelimb snaked beneath my own forelegs as she held me back. "Tell them to we need them, Crescent Helm, and Princess Twilight to meet us at the hospital." Next, I heard her say to someone else. "Diamond Tiara, Silver Spoon, Sweetie Belle, gather up their belongings and follow behind. Ebony, is your brother conscious?"

"No ma'am," I heard him whimper. Who knew how many feathers I'd gotten? God knows that probably hurt. "That little psycho knocked him out cold when she knocked out a bunch of his teeth."

By that point, I was no longer struggling. "Anon, are you going to try anything if I let you go?" I shook my head, and she released me. "Are you good to walk to the hospital?"

"My eyes sting when I open them, and I've been scalded, but I can manage," I grunted. On a scale of one to ten, the pain wasn't all that bad, but that might've been a bad sign for all I knew. "Although, I'll need someone to guide me."

"Apple Bloom, I need you there with Diamond and the others, since you were all witnesses," Cheerilee said. "Can you guide Anon?"

There was a moment of silence, as the filly seemed to consider this. "Of course, Ms. Cheerilee."

~ 10 ~

"I can't believe you two!" bellowed a green unicorn in the bronze plate armour of a royal guard. He was looming over the two brothers as they sat atop the hospital bed across from me. "Not even in Ponyville two months and you're already getting into fights?"

Ivory muttered something, but it was incomprehensible with the front seven or so teeth missing, one of which had yet to be removed from my hoof. Plus, he had a mouthful of gauze to keep him from bleeding everywhere until a dental regrowth potion could be brought in. "She threw the first punch, not us!" Ebony protested. "You and Mum always say we're allowed to defend ourselves as long as we aren't the ones to throw the first punch."

"Don't you try to use our own words to justify yourself, you disingenuous little—" The stallion cut himself off before he swore, not realising that I probably had a fouler mouth than he did. "You're lucky your mother is out on deployment right now, because if she heard you were up to the same crap here in Ponyville that got you both into juvie back in Canterlot, what that little filly did to you both would seem like a warm summer breeze. Oh, and don't think I didn't stop to listen to the witnesses with the actual guards handling the case before coming to check on you two, so don't even try to spin a tale."

Although he was getting worked up, I didn't feel as scared as I thought I would. He was a dad putting the fear of God, or Celestia in his case, into his two brats who've been pushing their luck. Still, he hadn't shown any indication of aggression towards me. I didn't think he'd try anything with the teacher here, either. "If you're lucky, the schoolboard won't suggest immediate expulsion when Cheerilee presents the case to them for consideration; Celestia knows you'd deserve it after this stunt." He looked from Ebony, back to Ivory. "Honestly, a thermos of tea!? Do you use your head for anything more than a horn-rack? You could've blinded her if it'd gotten in her eyes!"

Honestly, I was thankful that Cheerilee was in here with us, if nothing else than so Twilight wouldn't blow a gasket thinking I'd been left unsupervised with the parent of a pair of foals I'd just trounced. Although I wasn't intimidated by him, being near still made me nervous, despite his non-aggression. The light tranquilizer—Or was it a painkiller?—I'd been dosed with so that I wasn't struggling while being treated, left me feeling slightly foggy-headed, and I found myself keeping close to Cheerilee when Helm had entered.

For all that I'd managed, It wasn't like I'd gotten out unscathed. In the scuffle that had broken out after I punched in Ivory's pearly whites, Ebony ended up socking me in the face repeatedly and then biting into my shoulder in retaliation for stripping his right wing of a good portion of his feathers. I'd also somehow ended up with a split lip in the process. Nurse Redheart had not been particularly amused to have me muttering and swearing while she salved and bandaged me.

Still, if not for Cheerilee's presence, I'd have felt a lot more intimidated by the yelling. After already having gotten into the scrap, my fight-or-flight was on a hair-trigger now, and that was after being medicated. If anyone touched me without permission, or looked at me the wrong way, I felt like I might puke. No small wonder that I dove under the bed the moment the door slammed open.

I wasn't surprised to see Starlight or Twilight enter the room. Honestly, that was to be expected. The white unicorn stallion and the pink alicorn mare accompanying them were, on the other hand, quite unexpected. And is that a baby alicorn sleeping on her back?

"Anon!?" Twilight demanded, looking from the guard-stallion and his shithead sons to Cheerilee. "Where is she?"

Pain lanced down my back as it grazed the underside of the bed when I stepped out. "Now, I know what you're thinking," I said, not meeting anyone's gaze, "but I swear, it's not as bad as it looks. Lip's split, I got a black eye, and a bite on my shoulder... the rest is just some burns." I held out the hoof I knocked the moron's teeth out with and grinned, feeling a bit of giddiness as I showed off the tooth still lodged in the bottom of it. "Nurse Redheart said I'm cleared to leave once the doctor takes care of this."

The white stallion let out a low whistle, looking from me to the two boys, and then their father. "Do I even want to know how one little filly did all that?" he asked in a voice that carried the slightest hint of amusement as he shook his head. His eyes lingered on Ebony's almost completely defeathered wing. "Helm, I thought you and Moondust were raising future guards, not delinquents."

If Crescent Helm looked horrified when Twilight stepped in, he really started sweating when he saw this dude. "P-princess Twilight, Princess Cadance, C-captain, sir..." He collapsed to his haunches and then stared at the ceiling. "I'm going to lose my job, aren't I?"

"Psst, Anon, come on, let's let them have some time to talk," Starlight said in a hushed voice, waving her hoof. She was staying close to the stranger alicorn, but since she wasn't nearly as tall as the Sun Horse, I wasn't feeling too intimidated. "We can have the doctor look at that outside, but I think Twilight might be about to violate several noise ordinances."

My ear twitched, and my attention drifted back to Ivory, who was starting to groan and look a little green around the gills. "Can't leave just yet," I said, a tone of excitement filling my voice. "This is the best part."

It was almost like the sound of rain and hail filled the room. Bile, gauze, teeth, and a bit of blood splattered against the formerly sterile hospital floor. Tears streamed down Ivory's face while Ebony, Helm, Twilight, Cheerilee, and the unnamed unicorn looked on in surprise or disgust. The teacher murmured something that sounded suspiciously like, "So that's where the other six teeth went," before fainting on the hospital bed.

"Okay, now we can go," I explained in a singsong voice. Despite my burns and the wrappings, I strode between the Starlight and the unnamed alicorn and out the door. Speaking loud enough for everyone still conscious to hear, I said, "That is for trying to bully Apple Bloom about her sister and then bringing their parents into it," before giving a flick of my tail and exiting the room with only the slightest of limps.

Out in the hallway, I was met by the unicorn doctor who was supposed to remove the tooth from my hoof. At first, he was a bit shocked to see me out in the hall, along with Starlight and the other alicorn who'd followed behind me. That said, his mouth shut awful quick when he saw a dome of purple magic appear through the door, followed by very muffled yelling. After that, he was more than content to take us to another room to remove the tooth and make sure there was no damage to the tissue beneath, leaving me with a warning to keep the hole free of debris while the keratin grew out.

Starlight was horrified when I asked the doctor if I could keep the tooth to make a necklace out of, and immediately shot it down. If this Princess—Cadance, I think Mr. Helm called her—thought there was something wrong with me before, she probably thought I was completely fucked now... and it wasn't even like I could blame the medication... or could I? I honestly wasn't really sure what sort of effect the meds they used on me were having on my filly-brain. Regardless, the mare just watched me with an unsure look about her.

Besides dealing with that, the doctor informed Starlight that there were concerns about damage to my eyes and tear-ducts due to burns found on my eyelids during examination. In addition to a salve that I was to have applied to my burns, and fresh bandages, there were lubricated and medicated eye-drops that were to be applied if I so much as started to experience dry-eye. Of course, if the symptoms persisted for more than a few days...

Eventually, Starlight conjured up a collapsible umbrella and led me out into the waiting room. I was sorta surprised that Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo were still waiting there, sitting alongside Rarity and Big Macintosh; from what I understood, the guards ponies that had come had already taken witness statements, but given that the fillies were minors they needed guardians present. There with them were my saddlebags, and presumably my other belongings.

"Anon, darling," Rarity exclaimed upon seeing me. "Are you alright?"

"I'll live," I replied, not meeting her eyes. "Might hurt like heck tomorrow, but they dosed me with something so they could treat me, so it doesn't hurt nearly as much as it should right now."

Apple Bloom stepped forward, my saddlebags held between her teeth. She looked tired, conflicted, and maybe a little scared. "Anon, Ah..." Her voice hitched in her throat. She'd let me lean on her while guiding me to the hospital, but she'd never spoken to me on the trip.

"You okay, Bloom?" I asked, reaching my injured hoof out to pat her shoulder. "I know what it's like to lose family, and seeing them do that to you... They knew full well what they were doing, and they were looking to goad you into a fight." I glanced at Mac and then sighed. "You and your kin have been through enough grief, so the least I could do was take their attention off you."

To my surprise, the filly actually began to laugh. "Ah cain't believe ya actually made him eat his own teeth." Apple Bloom, without warning, reached out and pulled me into a one-legged hug. I squeaked in pain, and I thought I heard Starlight gasp. Probably thought I was about to do something. "Even though Ah was givin' ya the cold shoulder, even after ya gone an' helped Scootaloo durin' recess, ya stood up fer me."

I shrugged out of the hug and stepped back slightly. "I'm paraphrasing slightly, but a wise being once said that if you remain neutral in times of injustice, you are choosing the side of the oppressor," I explained. "If I just sat back and did nothing, just because you gave me the cold shoulder, how would I be any better than them?"

I'm not, a part of me whispered back. My body sagged as my limbs seemed to lose all their strength. I keep saying I'm an adult, yet look at what I did to those boys. What adult beats the crap out of two kids like that? One with the brain of a child, maybe, but still! Surely there could have been other ways to deal with that without doing that. Could that even be considered self defence?

Screwing my eyes shut, I began to idly scuff my hoof as my mind began to race. The cold realisation had set in that regardless of whether Ivory's teeth could be regrown with magic or Ebony's feathers would regrow on their own, I had maimed two children. Twilight's gotta be pissed, and when Princesses Celestia and Luna find out, they're going to bury me in a hole at the bottom of the deepest hole they can find.

The next thing I knew, there was a gentle warmth around my chest, not unlike someone hugging me. At the same time, though, it didn't feel restricting as if I were actually being held. It didn't even seem to agitate my injuries. When I opened my eyes, I found that apple bloom had backed off, only for Princess Cadance—complete with her still-sleeping foal on her back—nestled beside me, but respecting my space. A blue cloud of magic danced about her horn, and I caught sight of a similar blue glow encircling my chest.

"Anon, breathe," the pink princess instructed. She no longer looked scared of me; in fact, there was a worried kindness about her that reminded me a bit of Fluttershy. "You're having a panic attack."

Following her instructions, I began breathing in and out slowly. As her spell continued to do whatever it was it was doing, I started to feel semi-normal again. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Starlight zap my bag with her magic—no doubt sending it back to the castle—before conferring with Mac and Rarity.

Once I started to relax, the princess released whatever magic that was. "What kind of spell was that?" I asked, struggling to stand up, even as a wave of dizziness hit me. "Never seen Starlight or Twilight do that before."

Cadance smiled at me and chuckled. "It's a 'hug' spell I learned back when I used to babysit foals," she explained, rising to her own hooves and helping me up. "I've cared for all sorts of ponies with anxiety problems, and although a real hug can be quite calming, they can just make some panic attacks worse."

Once I was on my hooves and steady, I rubbed the side of my head, looking at her. "Spike mentioned you, I think," I murmured. Despite what little caffeine I'd had from my tea, I was beginning to feel kinda dozy. "You're Twilight's sister-in-law, and he's her brother, Shining Armour, right?"

The trio of fillies waved goodbye as they began to follow the two older ponies out of the waiting room, out into the rain. "That's right," she replied. Angling herself slightly so I could get a better look at the little white alicorn on her back, she said, "And this is Flurry Heart."

Jesus, those wings are huge.

"Come on, let's get you back to the castle, Anon," Starlight said, levitating me suddenly and placing me on her back. "You can get to know the Princess more after we get back."

Suppressing a yawn, I just sagged on Starlight's back. "Fine, I'm taking a nap."

Entry 11

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Someone was touching me. It wasn't an aggressive touch or the sort one felt when they fell asleep pressed up against something or someone. It also wasn't nearly as vigorous as the time Pinkie fucked around and found out not to poke the sleeping ~~bear~~Anon. In fact, whoever was touching me was actually smaller, which was both good and bad. It was good in that I probably wouldn't end up throwing anyone, but bad in that they clearly didn't know how to respect personal boundaries, or that I have a whole thing about being touched when it's not on my own terms. Plus, I'm kinda hurt right now.

"Flurry, sweetheart, let Anonymous rest," came a voice that I didn't immediately recognise. It was masculine, yet not gruff, but I couldn't place where I had heard it from. "Come sit with Daddy and Uncle Spike." Ah, right, Flurry Heart was the baby alicorn I'd seen with Princess Cadance and Shining Armour at the hospital, which meant that the one poking me was the little tyke with the huge wingspan. That makes 'Daddy' Shining Armour, if I'm not mistaken.

To my surprise, there was a happy-sounding burble from the foal that was seemingly investigating me. This was followed by something warm and fluffy nestling against my side and draping itself across my neck. Evidently, Flurry heart had decided it was naptime for her, as well, although how she managed to not irritate my burns I'll never know.

After a few minutes, during which the baby hadn't moved, I could hear her soft breaths and quiet snores begin behind my head. I thought at some point I might've heard the sound of a polaroid camera and someone saying something about a scrapbook, but honestly, I was just lying there trying to go back to sleep at this point. It wouldn't be fair to the baby that was now treating me as a pillow, after all.

"So, why put her in the corner?" I heard a mare—Cadance, I think?—ask. "I get keeping her nearby for observation, but putting her there makes it seem like a punishment."

The trickle of fluid and the gentle clatter of china reached my ears as I scented tea on the air. "While it's true for most foals that the corner represents ostracism and punishment, I've noted several oddities in Anon's behaviour in relation to sleep since she's come to stay," was Twilight's explanation. "For example, she seems to feel her safest sleeping in a corner on a pillow—or in her pillow pile in the case of her room—rather than on a bed. She almost always turns six times clockwise and once counter-clockwise before facing the door when she goes to sleep." There was some silence punctuated only by the quiet sounds of ponies sipping tea. "I haven't gathered enough data to be certain, but when she chooses to indulge in a nap, it's almost always in the westmost corner of a room."

Okay, Twilight... First, that's fucking creepy that you've been apparently taking notes while 'tucking me in' at night, or that you've been observing my sleeping habits. Second, so what if I prefer corners? They're safe! The whole seven turns thing is just a bad habit, and my head pointing at the door is just coincidence. I don't even knowhow to respond to the whole westmost corner business. I'm a small horse, not a homing pigeon.

"Twilight, that's not normal behaviour for a foal," was Cadance's response after a few moments of silence. "When I was first trained and licensed in childcare, I was trained to recognise behavioural red flags for neglect and abuse; I'd normally be mandated to make a report with all of the red flags you've described and that I've witnessed, but that sort of behaviour doesn't develop over just a week. What is her history?"

If not for the fact that I was currently playing stuffed animal for a tiny version of the theoretical apex of the pony species, I might've spoken up and explained it myself. Instead, I was forced to listen to a rather opinionated retelling of everything about my past that I'd revealed, in addition to the fact that up until about two fifths of a month ago, I somehow crossed between realities and Harmony had turned me into a pony of 'equivalent' age. Yeah, I can only imagine the look on Cadance's face when Twilight said I was formerly a young adult male of my previous species. Alas, I'm still really tired and don't want to open my eyes.

From there, I listened as the two began to discuss the sort of therapy I need. Apparently, although Ponyville had a psychiatric ward at Ponyville General Hospital, there wasn't anyone actively taking patients short of having me committed. Canterlot wasn't an option she wanted to entertain unless absolutely necessary, lest we cross paths with a noble loyal to Blueblood—though for whose sake, she wouldn't say—and she worried I might be overwhelmed there or in Manehattan. The pegasus city, Cloudsdale, was also not feasible for a few reasons. Plus, further-away locations would require overnight stays and long train rides would result in frequent missed days at school, meaning that they'd have to be scheduled for the weeks where I only had the two days.

Colour me surprised when Cadance actually suggested a therapist that'd recently moved up to the Crystal Empire from Canterlot to open a practice. He was apparently even related to a family here in Ponyville. There was definitely still the issue of me missing classes and having a place to stay. Due to her duties, it wasn't like Twilight could just drop everything and go up to the Crystal Empire for an extended period of time every two weeks.

I couldn't go by myself, either. It wasn't that I didn't want to, or that Twilight wouldn't let me; if she felt she could trust me to do something about town within reason for someone of my size and legal age, she probably would allow me to do so. The problem was that I couldn't feasibly trust strange adults, and I couldn't trust myself to respond well in a crisis. Just look what happened with Ebony and Ivory. Flight was still an option.

Although I would honestly have loved to go back to sleep—it was surprisingly nice to lie here with a filly napping on me—I was beginning to feel the call of nature as time went on. Popping one eye open, I groaned and immediately regretted it. Evidently, I needed some of those medicated eye-drops they sent me home with. That, and maybe another painkiller.

"Is she hurting your burns, Anon?" Cadance asked as I peered out through a slit eye. An involuntary wince wracked me as the filly in question shifted slightly. "I can take her if you'd like."

~ 11 ~

Once I'd seen to my needs, it turned out to be near dinner time. Lacking any definitive homework beyond those definitions—the rest of class had been cancelled for the day following the incident with the brothers—I decided to look over my 'Water Bolt' spell. I'd already thought out and marked down the basic parameters of the projectile early this morning, but hadn't gotten a chance to think about the firing mechanism. But in order to look it over, I'd need to find my things.

I suspected that Starlight had probably sent it to my room from the hospital, so with that in mind, I limped my way up to my room. It was a somewhat uncomfortable affair, given that it caused my bandages to shift somewhat, but a little discomfort was worth the opportunity to work on my little personal project before dinner. Things were definitely not going to be fun while these burns healed. The time I was scalded while helping Mom cook way back when, it took about two weeks to heal, and Thom's daughter had told me I was lucky it was only a second degree burn. Even if it healed quicker here, it'd still probably be a week knowing my luck.

Thankfully, when I got to my room and looked around, the bags were on the bed—not my pillow nest, but the actual bed in the room—waiting for me. None of my books had been soaked, thankfully, but I could see that some tea had gotten onto the fabric of the bag itself. Much care was taken in emptying out the bag onto the bed, after which, I moved the bags to the bedside table; they could be washed tomorrow.

Just as I pulled my sketch pencil and magic notebook down, Starlight Glimmer entered my room. "What are you up to, Anon?" she casually asked, sitting down beside me. "Homework?"

Shaking my head, I flipped open the book and gestured with the pencil. "Just a little theorycraft," I said, sagging against her. I don't know why I did it, but I imagined it had to do with instinctual behaviours this body possessed. "I'm sorry; I know that I shouldn't skirt the rules or toe the line like this, but we haven't really had any opportunities for magic lessons lately, and I've got all sorts of ideas that I'd like to get down. I was careful to not write anything that could accidentally be triggered, though."

She nodded, looking down at the page, her eyebrows slowly rising as she read. "Anon, is this—and what you did Saturday—constructed based on something you've seen or read about?" When her head turned slightly and her eyes fell upon me, I shook my head. "Really? I've been reading up on runic magic so that I can aid Twilight in your lessons, and this is definitely an example of a Weaved Spiral spell format."

Cocking my head, I looked up at her. "Really?" A twinge of discomfort rolled over me as I looked down at the mark on my flank. "I was mostly doing what felt natural—suppose it might be what this mark is telling me. I'd had ideas, but we haven't really had an opportunity to talk about them, since I'm still supposed to cover basic magical theory before Twilight will entertain any lessons."

Surprise crossed her face when she set the book down. "We're definitely going to get your studies fast-tracked," she murmured. "I notice you contemplated conjuration in addition to creation; where do you think conjured elements come from?" It wasn't a dismissive sort of question; she was probing.

I shrugged. "It's a bit of a wild guess, to be honest," I said, turning to a new page. "I used to read a lot of high fantasy, especially once I was on the road, and one setting I read a few books from had this crazy level of interplanar intersection due to the existence of Deities and their realms, or planes."

I drew out a circle, dividing it with an ovoid shape before writing out Feywild, Material Plane, and Shadowfell, explaining them as best I could remember—realms of overgrowth and nature spirits, the real world, and a realm of death. I drew a circle around that, which I marked the Ethereal Plane, a sort of borderland between the material plane, the four prime elemental planes, and countless demiplanes. Around the Ethereal, I drew four quarter circles, labeling them Fire, Water, Air, and Earth. I didn't bother going further to describe the Elemental Chaos or the Outer Planes, however.

"I figured since it is clear that the universe is crazy, there might be some truth to the fiction," I finished, putting the pencil down. "I guessed that we might have elemental planes to draw upon here." I shrugged. Would that make Equestria and Earth the Feywild and Material Plane? Or are are these realities in the multiverse just their own demiplanes, making the material plane something... other?

"Sunburst would just love to hear some of your world's theories," she muttered shaking her head. "Yes, elemental spells typically draw upon bridging the Elemental Planes through conjuration. It makes me wonder just how much of your fiction corresponds to our own magical theory."

I couldn't help but smirk. "Why do you think I'm so eager to start?"

Her expression grew more serious. "Listen, Anon; Twilight and Cadance were discussing sending you to visit a therapist in the Crystal Empire," she explained, maybe not realising that I'd been awake and eavesdropping on that particular conversation. "I could probably chaperone these trips, and we could use the downtime to work on your magic studies if you'd like. We could even ask Sunburst to help. Next to Twilight or the other Princesses, he easily has the most knowledge regarding all known magic."

That... actually sounded pretty okay. I could travel—God but the little nomad in me wanted to be on the road again—and study magic as frequent as every two weeks in addition to getting care? And I'd only lose one school day a week? That sounded like an excellent tradeoff. Plus, she'd get more opportunities to catch up with her friend. That being said, I knew that it might not be that simple.

There was the matter of where to stay, first and foremost. From the way Starlight had described it, this Sunburst guy lived in a small abode that was heavily occupied by books. Did he even have room for a mare and a filly—even one who was content to just sleep on a pillow or cushion? I wouldn't want to make him sleep on his own couch. Although, since I was Twilight's ward, maybe Princess Cadance would offer a room for us? She is Twilight's sister-in-law.

Next was Cheerilee. I knew that she was already on board the "Anon needs therapy" train, but how frequently was she willing to have me absent? Would the biweekly absence be too disruptive? Or would she be willing to create work-packets for me to tackle while I was away?

Finally, there was the matter of how long such trips would be. From my limited understanding of the geography, it wasn't a matter of just sitting on the train for two hours in the morning, and then catching the train back in the evening. It was more like, wake up early, catch the train, and arrive at the destination just in time for dinner. At the very least, that made it a regular three-day-minimum trip each time I have to go for an appointment.

~ 11 ~

Dinner was an interesting affair. It wasn't that the meal cooked up by Spike—seriously, that kid must have a stash of cook-books—was bad, or that the company was unruly. I mean, okay... Flurry was being a bit ornery but that's how babies are. No, it was just different because I think this is one of the first opportunities that I've had to interact casually with a stallion.

See, most times I encounter stallions, they're busy with their work, and although I'm sure they'd be happy to indulge a nosy foal if their work pertained to their special talent—something I'd noticed often coincided with their passions—I knew better than to take up too much of their time if I could help it; these guys were working hard to bring home the bread. But Shining Armour? He was on a trip with his family to see his sister and God knows what else they even had planned before getting wrapped up in coming to get me from the hospital.

The problem becomes that I'm not really sure how to address him. Although I might mentally be an adult, we weren't exactly on the same levels of social standing; it'd seem rude not to address him by some sort of title, but it's clear that he's not just a Mister Armour. Which one though? I know that before his marriage to Princess Cadance, he was Captain of the Guard, and he's now a Prince Consort if I'm understanding the Equestrian hierarchy correctly.

"Something on your mind?" he eventually asked. Shit, have I been staring? "You've been looking at me a lot, like you want to say something." Fuck. He caught me.

Putting down my fork next to my mostly untouched vegetable stir-fry and fried rice, I stared down at my meal. I could feel my cheeks flushing, and somehow this small cue was visible to others. "I, um, was wondering how I should talk to you," I murmured. "You've many titles, and you're effectively a visiting dignitary, despite being family to my guardian. Do I call you Captain, Prince Consort, Mister, or just Sir?" My ears folded back in embarrassment as my gaze turned to Princess Cadance. "For that matter, you're the leader of an empire, so would that not make you Empress Cadance?"

Just like that, all tension left the room as Spike began laughing. Everyone else—even the baby, for the love of God—quickly followed suit. I didn't really get what was so funny though. What was so funny about my confusion?

The couple explained that they, much like Twilight, preferred not to have their titles used in a more casual or familiar setting. As long as we weren't in public, I was free to address them by their names. That was pretty neat. I'd never really gotten onto first-name business with the Sun Horse or the Dream Horse, and although I could think of them by their names or my mnemonic devices, I'd learned pretty quickly that with those two leaders, other ponies were very insistent about titles being used when referring to the princesses.

"So, what brings you down to this neck of the woods?" I asked, once again picking up my fork now that the awkward moment had passed. The rice seemed a bit undercooked and didn't really want to stay on the fork. Although, that might have had more to do with the fact that my hoof was a bit shaky right now. Maybe if I...?

"Oh, we're here because a friend of mine retired recently to pursue art," Shining said, watching in amusement as I mixed my stir-fried vegetables and sauce in with the rice. "Spearhead's throwing a bit of an art exhibition at a café here in Ponyville, so we decided to attend to show him some support."

"Plus, it'll give Twilight some time to bond with Flurry," Cadance beamed, as if it wasn't clear that this was about foisting the baby off onto Twilight for a day so they could have some time alone. "We'll be returning to the Empire on Friday."

I nodded numbly, even as a cold feeling filled my stomach. There went the idea of talking to Twilight about fast-tracking my magic studies. My face remained a trained neutral expression, but I couldn't really stop my ears from folding back; it was one of those reflexive or instinctual reflexes this body had pertaining to sensory organs I wasn't used to having some control over. I could tell everyone's eyes were on me, but nobody said a word.

There's no way I'm jealous of a baby... am I?

~ 11 ~

After dinner, I quietly returned to my room to fetch my homework and dictionary, and made my way to the library. If there'd been any work missed from whatever class Cheerilee had intended for the span of the end of lunch to the end of the school day, nothing had been said. Heck, for all I knew, I might be suspended until Monday's class, or even Wednesday's. I did, after all, feed a kid his teeth and ensured that his brother would be grounded for a while.

The homework itself, defining unfamiliar moon-glyphs from the book—Friendship on Changing Tides by Apocrita—didn't take all that long. I'd already taken the time during my reading to preformat my homework, and although I'd probably need to get some blank paper for additional practice, I'd left enough space for the demonstration sentence and definition during my time noting it down in class. Most of my time was just spent cross-referencing the dictionary and copying out the meaning.

I would have to ask Cheerilee when next I saw her if there was some sort of guide to stroke order, like with sun-glyphs. Although I was able to make legible copies of the glyphs in question, I found that knowing an intended stroke order, as was demonstrated by the pink-maned maid whose name I never got, made for more consistently shaped glyphs. Writing out sentences with them was a breeze, at the least.

One glyph I'd come across, however, had me at a bit of a loss and ended up being put off until the end. It wasn't present in my dictionary at all, and the only context I had was the previous definition I'd needed to seek: star sign. That said, the closest I'd come to the glyph in question was Caelum: the chisel constellation, but it was deformed for the lack of a better term. It almost looked like they'd hacked together two or more other glyphs to produce it.

I bit my lip and considered going out to find someone to ask if they knew anything about astrological zodiacs. No, that'd be too easy. Treat this as an opportunity to learn and expand your knowledge. Instead, I found a rolling ladder tucked away in the corner of the library and pushed it up to one of the non-fiction shelves and started glancing through the titles. If I couldn't find what I sought, I moved on.

It took three shelves before I found the section dedicated to astronomy and astrology, and even then, it took a while before I found exactly what I was looking for. See, the only reason that I wouldn't be able to find something in a dictionary is if it wasn't actually a word, it was a proper noun, or it wasn't recognised at the time of printing for that dictionary. The print-date in my dictionary was dated mid-year of last year, while the novel I'd found the word in had only come out a few months ago. As such, I was looking for something released within the last six months.

Honestly, finding what I was looking for was a bit of a fluke. It was a relatively new-looking book complete with a crisp new plastic dust-jacket. The title was a bit of a giveaway, as well—New Age Astrology: a Guide to the Extended Zodiac. It was all stuff that pertained to horoscopes and how theoretically your personality is influenced by the star sign you were born under, your solar or lunar sway—read, if you were born at night or during the day—and what Element of Harmony resonates most with you.

The whole thing was kinda stupid, if you asked me. Not astrology and horoscopes, since I knew the importance of having a source of hope in one's life. No, what was stupid was that this took a system with ten signs, and dragged it out into one-hundred twenty—one hundred thirty if you count the base 'true signs' that you only get if you're born on the cusp of night and day. I can only imagine what its like having a whole section of the newspaper dedicated to one hundred thirty horoscopes.

Then again, maybe it was just some scheme cooked up to sell weekly horoscope books. It'd be a disingenuous way to integrate Princess Luna's return and the cultural significance of the six fragments of what ponies believed formed harmony, sure. That said, it's the exact sort of thing people looking to exploit those who need hope would do. I'm surprised such a thing never caught on back home.

Let's see, though. Judging by the resemblance to the Caelum constellation's glyph, I'll probably find my definition under the related derived signs... and there it was: Caesogen. "Those born under Caelum—in the month of Pentilis—with a solar sway and whose resonance is Generosity, are said to be inclined to shape the world to their own vision, often to the benefits of others. They are frequently influenced by their fiery emotions, but fair in their decisions in the end," I read aloud. It went on to say which base signs and resonance a Caesogen would get along with and who to avoid.

Honestly seems like an odd thing to shoehorn into a novel for children all willy-nilly, but maybe it had a purpose? I mean, I can kind see how it relates to the character of Wind Tracer, up until she basically told Dichotoma to fuck off and die. Maybe it's a hint that from the author that she'll do the right thing and work together with him to get off the island? Then again, maybe I'm just reading too much into things and the author included it because extended star-signs are or were the in thing when they wrote it.

Regardless, I marked down the definition from New Age Astrology in my homework, threw the word into a sentence, and put the page aside. I could work on the practice portion tomorrow, and I wasn't entirely sure whether that was actually to be passed in or just for my own benefit.

That said, I was kinda curious what my sign was and what the sign said about me. Since I was born in Binuary, according to the Equestrian calendar, that made my base sign the Hydra. If I remembered what Mom said correctly, I was a late night/early morning baby, meaning my sway would be lunar. How did one determine their resonance though? Was it something arbitrary, like how you feel when taking a personality quiz? Or was it something a bit more logical, or maybe even mark-related? Regardless, I live with the former bearer of the Element of Magic, and had a cutie mark for magic, and the pony I looked up to was a mage. Seemed like a no-brainer.

"Hyluma. Those born under Hydra—in the month of Binuary—with a lunar sway and whose resonance is Magic, are said to be beings of many faces. They may be hard to get along with due to their often analytical nature and compartmentalised lives, but those who give them a chance will find their friendship deep and rewarding. Their creativity may be surprising to those who don't know them," I read aloud once more. "Hyluma marked beings will get along well with those of the Octans, Phoenix, and Scutum signs, and resonate well with Honesty, Generosity, and Loyalty. Laughter may seem infantile to a Hyluma, while Kindness may be mistaken for patronism. The Aquila, Caelum, and Serpens signs will often be at odds with Hydra signs due to conflicts of ideals."

I shook my head as I closed the book. There was no telling how accurate that was, because half the draw of this sort of things was finding the way they applied in your life. Maybe someone that actually was into that sort of thing might agree with its assessment of me, but in the end, it was just a look into the curiosities of this world's own culture. Still, as I went to return the book to its place on the shelf, I found myself smiling.

The more time I spend here, the more I can't tell if it's the same or different.

Author's Notes:

1: This a bit of a cooldown chapter. After the excitement of the previous two, it was about time for something a bit more calm and/or fluffy. Thus we have Anon beginning to interact more with Twilight's extended family, talking shop with Starlight, and then doing some homework.

2: It should come as no great surprise that Anon would have some exposure to the cosmology as presented in the Forgotten Realms. Given other ties to D&D present in the story, in addition for her taste for fantasy, it felt right to reference the many planes.

3: The idea of the Extended Zodiac is something I borrowed from the Homestuck/Hiveswap franchise. I'd been playing through the Hiveswap FriendSim on Steam over the last couple of weeks, because I was feeling kinda nostalgic for the series. Then, late one night, I got it in my head that since I'd gone and made a full calendar for this iteration of Equestria, why stop there? Why not make a Zodiac to go with it?

Honestly, that night's a bit of a fever dream and I wasn't sure I actually made it, but then I looked and sure enough, there was a file in My Documents the next morning labeled EquestrianZodiac.txt. The ten 'True Signs' of this Zodiac are, in order of months, Scutum, Hydra, Ursa, Aquila, Caelum, Draco, Eridanus, Octans, Phoenix, and Serpens. I felt it best to draw on actual constellations, rather than invent yet more complexity.

The names for the Extended Zodiac are created by taking the first two to four letters of the True Sign, the first two letters of their sway, and then the first two or three letters of the related element.
Some examples are:
Aquiluhon, Caesogen, Hyluma, Erisoki, Octalulo, Phosola

4. Sorry for not posting last week. Decided to take some time to let the chapter sit and then see if there was anything I wanted to change or add. Next chapter? Anon gets her cloak, goes visiting, and more!

Entry 12

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I hissed in pain as Twilight 'tended' to my burns. Evidently, even Princess Luna couldn't protect my dreams one hundred percent of the time, as my sleep had been anything but peaceful. As a result, I'd tossed and turned throughout the night as specters of yesterday's anxieties overwhelmed me. From Scootaloo rejecting my help, to me freezing-up after being soaked with my tea, I saw no rest that night.

"Anon, sit still!" she commanded, gently pinning me in place with her magic to prevent any further struggle. It was kinda embarrassing, but in her defense, I did try to hide in the cabinet under the bathroom sink the first time she touched one of the burns. "I can't treat the blisters that burst on your neck and withers last night if you don't stay still!"

Try as I might, though, I couldn't sit still. I don't know if she was trying to rinse with a disinfectant, or if the antibiotic ointment prescribed just stung that badly, but it hurt like fuck. If not for the fact that she was holding me in place in the air with magic, I might've even done something stupid like gone into the library to hide on top of a bookshelf to get away, started a fire, or something.

"So what's on your agenda today, Twilight?" I asked, managing to not flinch as she started wrapping me in compression bandages. "If you're going to spend time with your infant niece, surely you must have a plan."

Giving me a nod, she set me down. "I heard that Cheerilee's younger class experienced an outbreak of Horsey Hives just in time for school picture day and have been hospitalised," she said in a somber sounding voice. "I was thinking about taking Flurry with me to help cheer them up, and then introduce her to the Cake twins."

I blinked, noting that my eyes were still feeling kind of dry, as I turned to regard her. "Run that by me again, ma'am?" Maybe there was a tone of alarm in my voice, or the fact that I called her ma'am surprised her, but she took an involuntary step back. "You're going to take an infant to a hospital to visit a bunch of kids who are clearly sick with something contagious and have all been hospitalised by it, and then take her to meet two other infants after being exposed!?" I covered my face and sighed. To be honest, it was fucking retarded, but telling it to her like it was would win me no favours. Plus, my potty-mouth would get me in trouble at school or with other adults if I didn't start censoring myself. "That's flipping stupid, Twilight."

She seemed sufficiently cowed by my opinion, because her ears drooped. "When you put it like that, it does sound pretty bad," she admitted. Watching me blink my eyes again, she seemed to catch on that they were in need of the eye drops. "What would you suggest, then?"

I shrugged as she levitated the eye-drops over me and waited for me to present my eyes. "Seeing foals her own age would be good," I offered, not at all wincing as the medication fell into my open eye. "At her stage, if she's anything like my sisters when they were infants at least, she might enjoy being taken out to a meadow or glade to play, or see all the animals in nature. Maybe make a play-date of it with Mr. and Mrs. Cake, and see if Miss Fluttershy would be interested in arranging safe meetings with her woodland friends?"

For a moment, she looked like she was going to make a comment about my own apparent experience in childcare, but surprisingly, she stayed quiet about it. She probably realised that bringing up my past was pointless, and that it was blatantly obvious that I basically helped Mom raise Sara and Laura in place of our father. Instead, she smiled and nodded. "That sounds like a wonderful idea, Anon. Would you like to come with us?"

The idea was kind of tempting, if only to see how Twilight would handle caring for an infant, but at the same time, I could tell that Flurry could easily be far more high-energy than I might be willing to deal with right now. She seemed perfectly capable of limited flight, from what I'd seen, and the last thing I'd wanna be doing is chasing after a flying baby. That seemed like the shortcut to pain, especially when said baby was also capable of firing lasers from her forehead.

Unfortunately for Twilight, I actually did have some plans of my own. First and foremost, I wanted to go see if I would be permitted a visit with AJ. She was, after all, just in jail, not solitary confinement. Ponies didn't really seem like the type to do that sort of thing, barring extreme cases; they seemed too social of a species. Can a pony die of loneliness?

I also wanted to check in with Rarity about that cloak. I know that it'd only been two days, and she said that it'd take a few due to orders, but given that I was probably gonna be wrapped up like this for more than a few days, I'd need a cloak to keep my bandages dry and covered. Maybe I should go with that stop first.

Other than that, I also kinda wanted to begin making contingency plans. Nothing like how and where to disappear in Equestria—at least, not yet—but rather where I could disappear for a few days of solitude. As it was, I was being a lot more social lately than I was used to, so ideally, it'd be a place I could build a little home-away-from-home. A nearby river with salmon would be a definite plus. To that end, I'd probably ask around while I'm out.

To accomplish that, though, I'd also need to get my hooves on some survival tools. A decent knife and a sturdy pot for holding water would be a must, but I'd also probably want an axe for firewood. I don't think ponies have a concept of a chainsaw, so a pocket one's probably right out. Long-term, I could probably hack together some primitive cordage, but I'd probably want to get a length of rope.

"No thanks." I looked away, flicking my ears slightly. "I was going to go visit Miss Rarity, and then go to the jail and see if they'd let me visit Applejack."

Twilight actually cringed when I said that, and I couldn't tell if it's because I didn't apply the same honorific as I was using with the rest of her friends, or because of something else. I mean, the mare doesn't exactly give off the vibe that she cares for overly-polite behaviour; she might expect a yes'm or a no'm if you're in trouble, but full on miss and mister doesn't seem her style.

Upon seeing my confused expression, she explained, "They won't let you in to see her without a guardian present, or written permission." Shaking her head, she ruffled my mane with her hoof, taking care not to touch my scalp too much. "I know you want to make peace with her, but I believe it's for the best that you wait until after she's released and makes her public apology. She needs time to confront her feelings." She turned away, but I could tell she was smiling a bit. "Besides, I'm sure that she'll be glad to hear you stood up for her sister, in spite of everything that had happened."

~ 12 ~

As I slowly walked through Ponyville, I felt... lost. It wasn't like I didn't know where I was; in fact, I was passing by Sugarcube Corner when I realised that it was an apt description of my mood. No, I didn't really know what to do or how to feel—that kind of lost. Half my plan for the day had just been dashed.

Not long after I left Twilight, I'd run into Starlight. Despite Twilight's insistence, I still wanted to talk to Applejack, so of course I asked if she could be my guardian. Unfortunately, Twilight had anticipated that I might try to go around her, and told Starlight and her friends not to help if I tried. Surely I could wait the extra couple of days, right?

Really, I wasn't mad at her. I could even understand why she did it from a rational standpoint. It, after all, wasn't so much about protecting me as it was letting Applejack reflect on what her refusal to seek help for an ongoing problem. I'm just an after thought, or rather a leaping-off point for their intervention after she's released. It doesn't change the fact that this was interfering with my own plan to talk things out like adults, but I understand.

So in the end, I've just been wandering aimlessly, not quite ready to stop in to see Rarity. Ponies stared at me as I passed—after all, I probably looked only slightly better than I felt—but nobody really said anything. I almost expected to hear whispering behind my back, but no; ponies were content to just stare with pitying looks. 'There goes the filly who got smacked by Applejack, and now she's been scalded by two of her classmates; she just can't get a break.'

Eventually, as I drew nearer to Carousel boutique, the world began to shake. Wait, no, that's not right. The wall of the house nearest to me was vibrating under the stress of some heavy bass, and I could just make out a rhythm and some synth instruments. It almost had a similar quality to music I'd heard outside of a club. My 'date' at the time had called it EDM.

I just sorta, sat there for a while, taking it all in. It wasn't exactly my sort of thing—I often listened to the classic rock stations while I was on the road, especially if there were no stations running classical music—but I could see why some might like it. There was a lot of energy to the music, and if I still had toes, I'd probably be tapping them to the beat. Kinda made me wish I'd taken an opportunity to try a rave before I ended up here. It would be a long time before I'd be able to attend one now, if those were even a thing here.

When I finally decided to get a move-on, I realised that almost an entire hour had passed. Ponies didn't seem to wear traditional watches, although I'd seen pocket watches once or twice, and though the town had a clocktower, I wasn't in a place that gave me a good line-of-sight on it. That left me falling back on using the sun's position in the sky to judge the time. Since I'd looked at a clock before I left, and had a decent idea of how long I'd been walking, that left listening to music to make up for the difference in time.

That said, I found that my body appreciated the break after starting to walk again. The stiffness that had built up in the muscles beneath my burns was gone, and although I was still sore, it was nowhere near where it was when I stopped. Until I was fully healed, I could tell I was going to have to take things slow like this. I've been given pony-back rides a couple of times now, but I definitely don't wanna exploit their kindness; besides, I still need to be sure I'm not being played in some long game.

It was just a short walk from the music house to Rarity's home and storefront. That said, although the lights appeared to be on, and the sign on the door proclaimed the store to be open, it didn't seem like anybody was home. Did she go out and forget to lock up? I thought to myself as I pushed the door open.

"You in, Miss Rarity?" I called out as I looked around the showroom. There were several pony-shaped mannequins—ponnequins?—in various shapes and sizes dotting the showroom floor. At first I thought there wasn't much rhyme or reason to their positioning, but as I looked from the mare-shaped ones, and the clothing-inundated racks behind them, to the filly, colt, and stallion shaped ones, it hit me. Though a large portion of her focus seemed directed toward dresses for fillies and mares, there was a smaller selection of tuxedos and similar formalwear for stallions and colts as well.

When no answer came, I began to get an eerie feeling. "Miss Rarity?" Again, I waited, but no answer was forthcoming. I glanced to the fitting rooms on the one side of the room, and then at the other two doors. One of doors was marked 'Keep Out,' and I reckoned that one led into the residence proper, while the other was marked 'Workshop'. That one had a little signboard on a chain that proclaimed 'Creation in Session, please knock'.

Walking over to that door, I felt a shiver of of unease. Why does this feel so nostalgic for all the wrong reasons. My hoof rapped loudly on the door in a familiar one-four-one-one pattern. "You there?" That sensation of unease did not abate as I waited by the door. Still, no answer came, so I swallowed the lump that formed in my throat and pushed the door open.

"Ma, come on, I've got the girls and our things loaded in the truck," echoed in my mind, the phantom sound of my old voice reverberating all around me as I stepped through the door. There I saw Rarity slumped over. She appeared to be at a desk with some sort of sewing machine atop it, her back to the door. Unfortunately, the mare didn't seem to be moving. She was just... unmoving.

Images... memories began to overtake my vision. Mom was slumped over her suitcase and bed. My fingers had come away wet with blood. My heart quickened as I tremulously crept across the floor. A beer bottle spun away on the floor, sent tumbling by my foot. I reached Rarity's side, and found her head resting atop a neatly-folded bundle of white fabric.

I poked her side gently. "Miss Rarity?" I asked, my voice little more than a harsh croak. When had my throat become so dry? "Miss Rarity, did you forget to close up last night?"

She stirred, slightly before sitting up. Her eyes were unfocused; not quite dead-looking, but also quite clearly she wasn't entirely there as she looked around. Finally, her gaze turned to me. Soulless eyes stared at me from a dark doorway.

"Anonymous?" she murmured in a dazed voice. "What are you doing here?"

At the same moment she spoke, however, I heard my father's voice. "Where the fuck you off to, boy?"

A small scream escaped me as I scrambled away.

~ 12 ~

"Darling, are you sure you're alright?" Rarity asked, setting a small tea-cup and saucer before me. It took her more time than I'd like to admit to stop me from hyperventilating, and I was still pretty shaken up. "I'm terribly sorry about the scare; I was so engrossed in finishing your cloak last night that I must have forgotten to close up shop."

I haven't had an episode like that in... ever, come to think of it.

The tea smelled overly flowery, and although I couldn't identify the scent offhand, it made me think of perfume. A bit bitter... As I sniffed at it, however, I got hints of something else. It kinda reminded me of the house parties I would gate-crash—both the ones I'd attend for card games, or those I went to get a snack from—but I couldn't place exactly why.

I regarded Rarity with a raised eyebrow as I added two spoonfuls of sugar to the cup. "Not really," I murmured, taking a sip of the tea. A shiver ran down my back, and I was tempted to go for another spoonful of sugar, but I stopped myself. "Gah, that's kinda bitter. What is this?"

"Oh, it's a calming jasmine tea recommended by a friend of Fluttershy's," she explained, pouring herself a cup as well. I think that she realised that I was deflecting from her question, because she quickly redirected. "I know things must be very strange for you, being forced to endure this second childhood and having that—" She gestured at my bandages. "—happen on your first day of school, but if you want to talk..."

Sighing, I took a long drink from the cup of tea. I couldn't exactly make eye contact with her with the memory of what happened so fresh again. For a long while, I just sat there, staring into the cup at my reflection. I'd have to open up to a therapist about all this anyway, and she seemed to genuinely care—all of Twilight's friends seemed like genuinely caring... ponies—but in a way that made it all the harder to be sure about telling her.

"Have you ever lost anyone close to you?" I asked, fidgeting the cup in my hooves. "The day I left everything behind—my home, my sisters and everything that I owned—was the day I lost my Mom... and the day the thing that called itself my father finally had the dignity to die."

Maybe it was the cold indifference in my voice, but Rarity seemed somehow... paler when I said that. "He killed her, Rarity," I said, my voice little more than a harsh whisper as tears began to distort the corners of my vision. "The day we were finally gonna take my sisters and leave his abusive ass... and he caved Ma's head in with a f—flipping beer bottle. Found her slumped over her suitcase, just as I found you slumped over your work..."

Finishing off the cup of tea, I buried my face in my hooves. "After getting my sisters down to Old <<Thom>>'s place, I went back. I was so confused and angry in the heat of the moment that I was ready to end him with his own <<revolver>>. I felt like I was stranger in my own body, no longer in control."

"Did you..." she asked in a halting voice. I was shocked that her voice sounded so close. She'd just been on the other side of the table a moment ago, but she sounded like she was right beside me. "Did you end your father?"

I shook my head, looking up at her. "Thankfully, I never got the chance to find out what I'd do," I whispered. "By the time I'd driven the <<truck>> back up from Old <<Thom>>'s farm, he'd gone and hung himself. Guilt and sobriety probably caught up with the bastard."

A warmth was filling my chest, and I wasn't sure if it was from finally speaking to someone about what'd happened, the tea, or some additive therein. "Maybe the most screwed up part is... I still did him the decency of digging him a proper grave beside my mother before I burned the place and ran." I shook my head and looked her in the eye. "I wanted to stay with my sisters, but after the way I'd left <<Thom>>'s, I don't think the sheriffs would've bought that I didn't kill him. So at sixteen years old, I ran... I ran so far and for so long..."

When Rarity finally couldn't stop herself, she pulled me into a bone-jarring hug that by all rights should've had me writhing in pain; yet it didn't. It was uncomfortable, but it didn't hurt nearly as much as it ought to even with the painkillers. Surprisingly, I wasn't even freaking out over it. "Anon, I'm so sorry you had to go through all that," she murmured, stroking my mane. Honestly, it kinda felt nice. "Have you told anypony about this?"

I shook my head. "Not even Starlight." Come to think of it, why did I go and tell Rarity all of that? Why her, when I couldn't even bring myself to tell the mare I found myself looking up to like a big sister? "I'm not normally so loose-lipped about all of that." And yet, I do feel better for having finally told someone. "Who'd you say you got that tea from? Might have to get some for myself for those particularly bad days..."

She paused for a moment, as if struggling to think of the name. "A nice, albeit strange mare by the name of Tree Hugger."

Oh. For some reason, that had me giggling. Oh, I know exactly why I'm giggling. That tea was probably infused with a certain medicinal herb. A name like Tree Hugger? Yeah, totally sounds like a stoner. Well, this should be interesting. Never been high before...

~ 12 ~

I stayed with Rarity for a while longer... listening to her open up about not being a stranger to feeling trapped inside one's own head. Apparently I was right on the money, and she had been the second party possessed by that Nightmare creature. She never straight-up said it, but she definitely heavily implied that the incident was why she and AJ broke up, and why this whole thing was her fault. Honestly, though, I don't know how much of that was impaired thinking and how much of that was simply her being a drama queen.

Eventually, though, I convinced her to have a snack and take a nap because she clearly needed it—and totally not because she shouldn't operate a sewing machine while high. That said, she did have the cloak ready for me like I thought, and even helped me put it on before I left. It was everything I could've expected and then some. There was a clasp in the front that I was able to manipulate quite easily with hooves, and there were even some pockets on the inside that could probably carry bits or a small notebook—definitely smaller than my current magic book, though. The trim along the bottom hem and the ear-coverings were a shade of purple similar to the one in Flurry's mane. Made me wonder if I might not get mistaken for a bald Sweetie Belle from a distance, given that it reminded me of my classmate.

Still had no idea what to do, mind you. Twilight was off with her baby niece, and although I was definitely feeling much better and not anywhere near as sore, I still wasn't sure play was something I wanted to do. Then there was the fact that Starlight seemed to be spending the day with a friend who didn't often come to town; I didn't want to get in the middle of that. Although I was tempted to find Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo, I've been told that they can really be hard to find on their off days. Besides, they'd probably freak out at how weird I might act.

Had I been a responsible adult, I might've even just stayed to keep Rarity company. Unfortunately, this world was often quick to remind me that I was a child by its standards. Plus, I don't think you're supposed to let high people babysit one another unless you want shenanigans. So what was a bored, somewhat impaired filly to do?

Oooh, hey! There's that pop-up art show that Princess Cadance and Shining Armour were going to! That would be fun to check out! If there's the possibility of staying at their castle, it might behoove me to get on their good side. It'd also pretty neat to see what kind of art a royal guardsman could produce. Probably some rather bawdy stuff, but I doubt they'd put anything too risqué in a café showing.

Thankfully, the café in Ponyville wasn't too far from Rarity's place. Really, it was just a short jaunt that probably should've taken me a bit longer; it definitely would have if I was feeling the pain of my burns. Definitely something in that tea... but if it helped numb the pain, I wasn't about to complain. I felt really good. Better than I had in forever.

When I reached the café, I noted that all of their tables seemed to be outside, and rather than going in through the main entrance, staff tending to the tables seemed to be going around back. I suppose even hosting an art show, they still need the profit from sales, or there'll be spoilage. I wasn't here for food and drink—even though that didn't sound like a bad idea—so I bypassed the tables and went into the café proper. Besides, there might be free catering in here for the guests.

Pony art was... honestly not what I expected. Not that I was even sure what I expected. It wasn't that it was bad, but it was certainly weird. I mean, his ideas seemed to be all over the place. There was a junk-sculpture that looked like he welded a bunch of shields together at random, but I didn't see any sort of nameplate. Then there was a painting on a wall near a garbage can, it was just a black canvas that was titled A Thousand Nights in a Hallway.

I actually had to squint a bit to make out the title card on that one, and that was after blinking repeatedly to moisten my dry eyes. Regret was beginning to tingle in the back of my mind as I remembered the instructions for the eye-drops. Should've brought them with me. Why didn't I bring them with me.

I was pretty sure I was starting to get a clearer picture of what the guy's schtick was, mind you; if I had to guess, he was really into expressing his experiences in the royal guard. Experimental, but could probably also be considered Avant-garde, or Expressionism. Hell, the guy even had life-like sculptures of Shining Armour, Princess Cadance and another pony—possibly another guard—gathered around a rug that seemed to be cordoned off. "Whoa, that's pretty sick crime-scene still-life," I said aloud. Although I'd never personally been to an art exhibition before, I had invited myself to a party or two where the homeowner was very willing to brag about their art collection. You pick up a thing or two when you gotta sound like you belong. Lemme tell you, if I had been an art thief, I could of easily gotten quite rich, but screw sticking around in an area long enough to build contacts. "Props to the artist; these are some really lifelike statues of Princess Cadance and Captain Shining Armour."

Nobody can prove that I shrieked like a little girl when the three figures turned their heads to regard me... Anyone who said I did was totally lying. I'm not that easily startled... except for that time with Rarity earlier, and that's more because memories and shit. I'm a big tough... filly who gets into fights with little boys and I just realised I have no idea where this thought's going.

"Flurry Heart?" Cadance almost sound hopeful when she said that, so I felt really guilty when I pulled back my hood. "Oh! Anon, that's a very lovely cloak..."

"Yeah, it reminded me of the time Flurry managed to get herself stuck in a pillowcase and convinced the maids the castle was haunted," Shining Armour added with a wistful smile. "I miss our little filly..."

Wow, they've been apart maybe part of the day, and they're already experiencing separation anxiety. They really need this day away. Especially with how exhausted they looked. I knew that look of exhaustion. I'd seen it on my mother's face plenty of times when my sisters were babies—it might even have been on my face some days when she needed an extended break. They need this day off, and they need their attention diverted...

"Wow, little dude," the other stallion—a reddish brown with the mark of three spear tips on his flank—commented, looking at the bandages that covered my neck and most of the top of my head. Presumably, this was the Spearhead who was running this little show. "You look like a refugee from a relief camp."

His eyes widened, although whether it was some strike of inspiration for a piece, or the realisation that he'd just said that out loud, to my face and in front of his two friends, I'd never know. I just snickered in spite of the burns. "If you think I look bad, you should've seen the other two guys," I replied, moving to stand beside Shining Armour. "Ain't that right, sir?"

That seemed to shake Shining and Cadance out of their stupor. "Oh! Right! Spearhead, this is Anonymous," Shining Armour said. "She's under the care of my sister, and if she wasn't studying magic, I'd recommend she join the guard when she came of age; not many fillies her age could take on two bullies, give as good as she got, and come out cracking jokes."

Cadance shook her head slightly. "Somepony would have to make sure to teach her what excessive force means," she commented, throwing my way a look that I couldn't quite decipher. "Some things, you just don't do to a pony." She ruffled her wings with a discomforted look. "Self-defense or not, what you did to that colt was dirty."

In that moment, I didn't feel enough guilt to feel any shame for what I did. So I shrugged and looked back to Spearhead. "Is this all of your art?" I asked, changing the topic. "Or do you have more that the store owner didn't want you putting up?"

He suddenly looked a bit nervous. "I mean, there is one painting I didn't put up because it's... not exactly appropriate," he answered. His eyes flicked over to a painting that was turned around, leaning up against a wall at the back of the café. "Not everypony appreciates the sort of effort that went into that. But you don't wanna see that old thing anyway. Did you see the Thousand Nights in a Hallway?"

Oooh, so it is a saucy picture. Is it wrong that I really wanted to see what the horses consider forbidden? With a chuckle, I darted over with surprising speed. Before anybody could stop me, I reached out a hoof and spun it around. I had to blink a couple of times before I was actually sure of what I was seeing. When I was sure, I felt my cheeks flush.

"I can see why you would be reluctant to display this," I commented, unable to restrain a giggle. The painting was a watercolour of the Sun Horse, lying on her back atop a cloud, looking whoever viewed it with her affectionate pink eyes. Due to the angle of the painting's perspective, her belly and teats in full view. "I imagine erotic art of Princess Celestia isn't something a lot of ponies are brave enough to make. Nothing to be ashamed of though; she is quite beautiful." ...if a bit corpulent. "She might even be flattered."

A strange thought crossed my mind as the others gaped at me. When did I develop any sort of basis for beauty among ponies? For that matter, what was with the weird feeling I was getting in my belly? With this body as new to me as it is, I couldn't even begin to understand everything about it.

"Is there something on my face?" I asked, blinking and trying to bring Cadance into focus. "Um...?" Turning the painting back around before any of the other guests took notice, I decided maybe another change of topic was due. "Oh! Since you're on your own today, you two should treat yourselves to some R & R; I hear the spa here in town is pretty awesome!"

"Anon, are you alright?" she asked, putting herself between me and the door. "You're acting very strange, and it seems like your eyes are bothering you." As she drew closer, her eyes widened, which only seemed to quicken her pace. "Your eyes are all red!"

Shit... I think I'm about to get busted. My eyes flicked between Cadance, Shining Armour, and Spearhead. If Cadance forgot about her horn and I moved before the other two could react, I could probably make it to the door. Then again, even if I did run, what would that accomplish? Some Scooby Doo shit? Make them even more suspicious. Quick, Brain! Think of a lie.

"I forgot my eyedrops at home, and I might be the teensiest bit under the influence right now," I babbled, tittering as I went. No, that's the opposite of lying! What are you doing? "To be fair, I don't think Rarity even knew that tea was infused, 'cause she seems kinda straight-laced, y'know?" Okay, brain, fuck it. You can take this from here. I'm checking out. "Say, is there any catering here? I'm kinda have the munchies but Twi'n'I have never ironed out any sort of plan for an allowance or stipend or anything."

Entry 13

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"No, no, nonono," I said, putting myself between the royal couple and the door to Rarity's shop. I shouldn't have been surprised that my mouth getting ahead of me would do this, but Cadance looked kinda... angry? Worried? I get it; really, I do. From where she stood, Rarity had done something dangerous—mixing what was likely cannabis products with my pain meds without permission from guardian or physician—by giving me that tea, and she didn't seem to buy that Rarity didn't know. "Please, don't do this."

If Rarity ends up in jail too, that'll have been two of Twilight's friends I've accidentally gotten locked up. Once could be seen as a mistake, but twice? I felt tears stinging at the corners of my dry eyes. No, she'd probably make the assumption that it's intentional... There's no way she'd let me stay with her then.

She might return me to the Sun Horse, but I don't think she or the Moon Horse have time to teach me everything that I need to know to get by in this world. Worse, I'd probably end up getting put into a foster care program. Given that those back home were hit and miss... An involuntary shiver wracked my body at the thought.

"If you arrest Rarity, Twilight's gonna start thinking that I'm doing this on purpose..." I whined. The feelgood sensation of whatever was in the tea was no longer warming my belly. If anything, it was beginning to be replaced by extreme feelings of anxiety. "She's gonna think I'm targeting her friends—that I'm trying to ruin their lives on purpose."

Yet... as much as I was concerned about how this would hurt Twilight and how it would affect myself, another thought crossed my mind. What about Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo? Although they were kind of young for me, which in itself was ironic because they're technically older than me, the girls seemed to be good kids. I could definitely see myself being friends with them, but if Rarity got locked up, Sweetie Belle would be too guarded around me... If I somehow royally screwed the pooch the next time I saw Rainbow Dash, all that goodwill from helping Scootaloo would go down the drain too.

"Anon look, we—" Shining Armour stepped forward, and I couldn't quite stop myself from flinching back as my father momentarily rose to the surface of my mind once more. My ears splayed back and my tail curled under my belly as I flattened myself against the door. A horrified look crossed his face and he halted in his tracks. "Anon..."

"We aren't going to arrest her," Cadance said in a soft voice. I watched through stinging eyes as her somewhat blurry form lowered itself to my level. "I'm not even sure that Shining still has that power here, as he once did. Even if he does, we'd still have to talk to her before making a decision." Despite how blurry my vision was, I could see that she was smiling at me. "Depending on what the tea you said she gave you was infused with, it might not even be illegal. A stern warning might be necessary, though."

"Promise?" I asked, unable to restrain the tremor in my voice. I hated how weak and pathetic I sounded, but I had to remind myself that I wasn't on Earth anymore. Most people here aren't looking for signs of weakness to take advantage of. Those two idiot colts, maybe, but I don't think Twilight's family are the type to be that way. "'cause if you're just saying that, I'mma break Rule #4."

Her smile didn't abate, even though she seemed slightly confused. Right, she probably doesn't know about my list of rules yet. "I promise that Shining Armour is just going to talk to her," she vowed. "Now let's get you back to the castle so we can get your eye drops."

Despite my better judgement, I let her lead me away. My gut was telling me that I'd just condemned Twilight's friend, but my heart wanted to believe that they weren't lying to me—that whatever I'd consumed was just playing with my head. I just needed to stay rational, and things'll be fine. Nobody's going to hurt me.

I wanna say that our trip back to Twilight's place was uneventful, but to be honest, the entire journey there was a bit of a blur—some pun intended. By trying not to think myself into despair, I'd ended up just not thinking at all and blindly following after Princess Cadance. Things and whatnot happened around me, but I just wasn't a part of any of it. Hell, I could have walked past Ebony, Ivory, and their father without even noticing or hearing them call out to me.

Basically, one moment we're leaving Rarity's, and the next time I had a thought, I was walking into Twilight's castle. It was maybe noon by now, but between what limited caffeine was in that tea, and the empty stomach, my head was becoming a tired mess. Part of me wanted to do as Rarity had done and take a nap, but at the same time, I knew that there were more important things to do... like eat. Even if it means I have to have sweets—since they're so important to ponies growth and magical development, I know that Cadance would make me have some—I'll do it, if nothing else than so I can think clearly.

~ 13 ~

Much to my boredom, nothing particularly interesting happened during the period of time immediately following our return. Sweets were had, and a nap had been taken, but it did little to ease my anxiety or waning mood. The eye drops had eased the sting and itch of dryness, but I was still having a bit of trouble seeing.

Already I was beginning to loathe Ivory for what he had done. Intellectually, I knew that pony foals seemed experience a slower development—and not just because the years were longer—and he and his brother might not even have a solid concept of what pain was or that others could experience it like he could. He might've just picked up bad attitudes from peers in Canterlot, and had yet to really receive any sort of proper correction from an adult in his life; it seemed unlikely given that his folks were both apparently guards, but I somehow still wanted to give the kid the benefit of the doubt. Plus I knew that children were wont to act up for attention.

Despite all that, I found myself beginning to hate him. Emotionally, I didn't want to excuse him for anything he'd done. It isn't just cruel to bring a girl's dead parents into some bullying; it was straight-up sadistic. If he didn't receive some sort of wake-up call, there was nothing really stopping him and his brother from moving on from picking fights to torturing animals. I can see the headline already...

Even as much as I was concerned for the safety of others down the line, my hate for him was of a more selfish variety. I was in so much pain because of him, and depending on how long it takes to heal, I might be too temperature-sensitive to take a hot shower or bath... and my eyes! If they were still like this tomorrow, it meant we'd have to go get that checked up on.

I sucked in a deep breath and shifted uncomfortably in the pillow nest I'd constructed in the library. I can't start thinking in terms of an eye-for-an-eye, I thought glumly as I listened for any changes in the castle. I'd learned early on in my stay here that though the castle was solid crystal, certain sounds—the front entrance opening, or someone going up or down the central stairwell—seemed to carry regardless of where you were. Admittedly it was more something you felt than heard. If I start thinking in those sorts of terms, I'm going to end up hurting someone again...

Of course, that contrarian little worm of doubt that'd been ever-present in the back of my mind had its own concerns. I was only defending myself, was what I wanted to believe, but my doubts were still waiting for the other horseshoe to drop. I knew from books and chit-chat that back on Earth, school systems tended to have a zero-tolerance policy for fights, often to the detriment of unwilling participants—especially if they came out looking like the aggressor. Anyone could've beat up two larger ponies to ensure they were in no danger of further harm. Why should I be punished for that?

Hearing, or rather, feeling, the front door to the castle open, I let my mind wander. Shining Armour had returned while I slept off the effects of the tea, and the two had been basically snuggling together in the lounge the rest of the day; neither he or his wife had come to tell me what had happened when he checked in with Rarity. Starlight hadn't returned yet, though with her friend in town, I imagined she might be out until well into the evening. That had to mean that it was Twilight, Spike, and the alicorn tyke.

May as well go see if my suggestion allowed them to have a good day.

Rising from my pillow nest, I paused, considering whether or not to return them all to their normal positions at the tables. Normally, I would just do it because it was the right thing to do, but I was sore and still somewhat tired, and surely being injured entitled me to the occasional bout of sloth, right?

Ah, what the fuck am I saying? Despite my better judgement—or was it because of it?—I found myself slowly returning each cushion to its proper spot around the various tables in Twilight's library. While I wasn't as neurotic as to need everything spaced and placed precisely, I was still trying to demonstrate that I was willing to carry my own weight around here. Not like my blurred vision would allow for such insanity anyhow.

I heard her coming well before I saw her enter the room. Call me paranoid all you like, but leaving a door cracked enough to hear hooves on the crystal floors in the hall was a great way to make sure I never found myself surprised here. Plus you can tell a lot about a pony by the sound of their gait. When Twilight entered, I can't imagine what she thought seeing me dragging the cushions I'd hoarded in the corner back to their spots, still wearing my cloak, albeit without the hood up.

"How was your day with your niece?" I asked, not looking at her as I continued to work. "Did you have fun?"

She hummed softly, not initially answering my question. I could just barely hear the telltale tinkle of her telekinesis, no doubt straightening out the cushions I'd moved. Given that I didn't hear the sounds of Flurry Heart at all, she'd probably been handed off to her mother.

When I finally looked at her and squinted enough to make her clear, I was surprised to see she looked kinda perturbed. "Twilight?" I asked, creeping over to her and poking her on the side. "What's up, boss?"

When she finally met my eyes, I could see the anger glowing orange within them. "Ms. Cheerilee approached me when we were on our way back," she said in a strained monotone voice. She was holding back. "She informed me that, due to school board rules, you're unfortunately to be suspended for seven school days at a minimum. Depending on what the school board has to say, it could be longer." Without warning, she stomped her hoof down on the ground, a spiderweb of cracks radiating out beneath it. "Where do those ponies get off...? That colt assaulted you, but you're being punished just as harshly as they are... if not more, given the injuries you sustained!"

Her coat seemed to be turning pale, and her mane was starting to take on an immaterial form, glowing red hot like actual flames. Her magic seized my face like a gentle palm as she began looking intently at my eyes. They tingled slightly as a gentle wave of magic washed over them. "The nerve!" she grumbled, releasing me with a sigh. "This is what I was afraid of. Your eyes are having difficulties focusing aren't they?"

I nodded, backing out of her personal space. "Yeah," I admitted in a whisper. I'd never witnessed this side of Twilight before, nor had I seen this sort of... physical manifestation of a pony's rage. To be honest, it kinda scared me; the Alicorn Princess of Magic quite literally burned with fury before me, and I was struggling to keep a tremor out of my voice. "You're kinda scaring me though, Twilight."

Her eyes widened, and the orange glow faded slightly. Although she opened her mouth once more, I continued, "You're angry, I'm angry, and I'm pretty sure Ms. Cheerilee's probably not too happy about all this either." I looked her in the eye, and smiled in spite of the chill this fiery look of hers sent down my back. "Those boys'll get their comeuppance, but it's not our place to do it." Now to completely put her off her game... "Besides, now we have no excuse not to start mag—"

Oh for fuck's sake!

A buzzing sound filled the room, cutting off my thought. As my eyes flicked around the room for the source, a nagging feeling at the back of my mind drew forth a memory. Although I'd never personally owned a mobile phone—never actually found out if I was considered a fugitive before ending up here—I knew enough about them from observation to know that a ringer could be set to vibrate. The sound I was hearing reminded me very much of one of many poker games where someone's phone began vibrating against the table, interrupting the game.

It was clear that Twilight heard it too, but she didn't seem confused about it in the slightest. Her gaze drew my attention to a plinth bearing a tome. The large volume was decorated with a red and gold stylized sun that reminded me a lot of Princess Celestia's. As I struggled to focus and watch, I could see the book vibrating.

Either the universe was fucking with me now and I'd officially begun hallucinating, or it was intent on keeping me from learning magic theory and starting to learn runic magic. Either way, this had gotten rather silly. "Is that book ringing like a <<cellphone>>, or have I officially lost it?"

Twilight's eyes widened as the book stopped vibrating. Her mane and coat slowly returned to normal as she turned her attention to me. She stared, with a strange sort of recognition on her face. "That word... <<Cellphone>>, how did you come to learn that word, Anon?"

More to the point, why does she have the concept needed to understand the word in English? It still ticked me off a bit that Harmony had apparently implanted the knowledge necessary to speak and understand spoken Equestrian to the point that it mostly overrode the reflexive English thoughts. Only those random remnants remained, but it was weird that Twilight was able to understand the meaning despite never having heard it before... Unless she had somewhere.

Shaking her head, she let out a sigh. "No, we can address that later," she declared, returning her attention back to me. Despite her earlier anger, she seemed much calmer. She was smiling, even. "I imagine you were about to say that there was no excuse not to start covering magic fundamentals now that you're suspended from school, right?"

I simply nodded, watching as her horn lit up once more and several tomes from the section dedicated to magic, onto the table. My eyes must have widened slightly at the sight of the stack, because she smiled at me. "Don't worry, Anon," she teased, ruffling my mane with her hoof. "With your eyes as they are right now, I wouldn't expect you to read all of these. I need these to finish formulating a lesson plan." Another, much smaller book levitated down from the shelves to come to a rest on the floor in front of me. "In the meantime, take a few days to go over this one. It's a book I personally recommend for parents or guardians of developing unicorns, but it should do well enough teaching you the basics of magical theory."

As my eyes focused on the text on the cover, a small smile crossed my face. Your Horn and You: a Foals Primer for Magic, was the title of the book, and beneath it, it showed the silhouettes of two fillies seemingly casting light spells. For some reason, I wanted to be offended by this; being presented a foals primer instead of denser, more detailed materials, felt like my reading level was being insulted. At the same time, though, I knew that a foal's primer was perfect for breaking down concepts into something more manageable for a beginner.

I quickly flipped through the book as she watched, trying to gauge the content. To my surprise, there were even exercises and spell-matrices for the most basic of basic unicorn spells for me to examine. Sure, I might not be able to cast them, but it wouldn't hurt to get an insight into their spells. Some of the exercises didn't even seem to be unicorn specific; as long as you had a thaumic system, you could presumably do some of these.

I lingered on the page for the spell matrix for the basic light spell, the makings of a smile was tugging at the corners of my mouth. Oh I'm beginning to have ideas. Closing the book, I looked up at my mentor and guardian. "Am I permitted to perform any applicable exercises I find in this book?" I asked, trying not to sound too excited. "After supper, I mean."

Twilight nodded, picking up her own stack of books and turning for the exit. "I'll tell you what, Anon," she replied. "If you get through to Chapter 6 and eat all your dessert, I'll even have Spike give you some clay you can practice some rune magic with."

~ 13 ~

Starlight didn't join us for supper this evening. I found myself dwelling on that fact a lot during the meal, to the point that I didn't really taste anything. Sure, it helped me eat the bowl of ice-cream that followed, but I think everyone else could tell that I was bothered. Honestly, I don't know if that bugged me more or less than her absence, and it put a real damper on my excitement to finally getting to start magic.

She was her own person, so of course she had her own life outside of the goings-on of Twilight's friendship castle. Why am I so upset about it, then? My mind drifted back to Sunday, when I'd called her my big sister. I hadn't explicitly denied that I'd begun to think of her as a sister, but I sorta left the answer hanging for her. I've not even known her for two weeks, yet I've already started to rely on her for emotional support, I realised as I finished my ice-cream. It wouldn't be fair of me to monopolise her, but I couldn't help but feel jealous of the mare she was spending time with. I wanted her to be there... I wanted to make her proud, but more than that, I didn't want to be alone.

"I really am becoming a little kid," I grumbled, pushing the dish away. I could feel two pairs of eyes watching me as I left the table to wash up. "I shouldn't crave Starlight's approval."

Although Shining and Spike had been discussing Ogres and Oubliettes for most of the meal, both Twilight and Cadance had been watching me with concern. From what I'd overheard while eavesdropping during meal-prep, Shining had gotten Rarity to blab about my panic attack and confession, and he'd passed it on to the two after Twilight left me in the library. So now Twilight knew about my Mom, and me burying her...

At least she'll be able to give the therapist a good idea where to start...

From the outside looking in, I had every reason to be upset and for others to be worried about me. You don't have the panic attack to end all panic attacks, find out you're being unfairly punished for something outside your control, and find out that you might have permanent vision damage all in one day, and just magically end up fine. Despite that, I wasn't nearly as upset by any of that as I should have. Instead, my stupid filly brain was dwelling on the fact that Starlight wasn't gonna be there for my first bit of real magic studies.

When I got to the bathroom near my room, I'd managed to calm myself down a bit. By the time I was cleaned up, I was almost completely back to being excited about my magic studies. She hadn't specifically given me permission, but as I went into my room to gather my magic notebook, a pencil, and Your Horn and You, it occurred to me that this would be an opportunity to try out one of the rituals Twilight had told me about after getting my vaccinations at the hospital. After all, carrying two books and a pencil without your saddlebags is a real pain...

To do that, I needed to find the stash of odds and ends I'd collected beneath the mattress of the unused bed in my room. Apparently, most mages that utilised ritual magic—or spells that required components—tended to keep something Twilight called a component pouch. I had no such thing, so all I could do was stash what might be needed in my room. In the case for what I had in mind, I needed a bit of string and a piece of wood.

Should I feel guilty about doing this behind Twilight's back?

Fetching those and clutching them in my hoof, I moved to the centre of my room. The motions required for the spell felt silly, and it was hard for me to visualise which runes they embodied like when Twilight performed Prancer's Magic Disc. As for the chant that accompanied it, as strange as it sounded, reminded me of a kebab salesman I'd come across in Wales. Weird as that thought was, though, after uttering the first few iterations of the chant, the entire ritual ended up becoming somewhat of a trance.

When the ritual was finished, the words "Unseen Servant," flowed from my mouth, unbidden by any conscious thought. Immediately, I felt a little bit drained, but it wasn't enough to prevent me from continuing on. Plus, although I couldn't see it, I could feel the presence of the construct right beside me, as though it were an extension of my magic itself.

"What was it the book said about command structure, though?" I mused aloud, wracking my memory for what I'd read on Saturday after Luna had left. I would've been taught by Twilight and Starlight, but after what had happened at Sweet Apple Acres, the lesson had probably slipped their minds. "Ah,right." I gestured at the books and pencil I'd set aside on the floor. "Command: carry those two books and the pencil. Queue Command: follow me."

I waited just long enough to see the books and pencil begin to levitate before making my way out to the lounge. It was unsurprising that Spike, Cadance, Shining Armour, and Flurry were there. It was, after all, the most cosy room in the castle, what with the fireplace, several cushions, a small table, and even a sofa. What was surprising, though, was Twilight's absence. I'd have thought she would've been in here preparing her lesson plans, but nope! It was just Cadance and Flurry on the sofa enjoying the warmth of the fire, seemingly listening contentedly as the young drake and the stallion played some sort of tabletop game near the window.

Everyone's eyes were quickly drawn to me, or rather the books floating beside me. Keep in mind, I'm still just an earth pony, and if there's one thing earth ponies are known for, it's certainly not their ability to levitate objects. All of them gaped at me—well, Flurry was taking a nap, so she didn't so much as make a peep—as I trotted over to a spot near the fire. "Command: place the books and pencil beside this cushion."

As soon as those words left my mouth, realisation spread across Shining Armour's face. "That's Unseen Servant, isn't it?" he asked, not entirely able to mask the surprise in his voice. "I wasn't aware Twilight had taught you any ritual magic yet."

I was half tempted to queue an instruction to fluff the pillow for me as well, but I wanted to get to work quicker. Instead, I just settled down and gave him a sheepish smile. "She was supposed to," I confessed, "but she forgot, so I went and read up on it that night anyway." I managed to not blab that I was kinda looking forward to showing it off to her and Starlight. "It's just like she said though, it's useful for someone without a horn, especially while I'm injured. A shame it only lasts an hour, though."

Although there were some lingering looks, everyone went back to doing their own thing, giving me the freedom to begin reading. At first, I was convinced it might not work out, seeing as it used the larger font common with books for foals, but surprisingly, it actually was pretty helpful. As I read, I quietly dictated notes to the Unseen Servant, before reading back the notes to make sure I was actually getting things down.

As it turns out, the way I've been thinking about magic has been a bit skewed, although it comes from a cultural phenomena that has conflated spells with magic. First and foremost, there are two kinds of magic: personal, and ambient or environmental. When the body takes in ambient magic, or refined sugars, it metabolises it to produce personal magic, referred to as mana. All magical beings possess a reservoir—their capacity to hold magic—and pathways throughout the body conveniently called mana pathways or channels. Finally, there's the thaumic core, which processes the sugars and ambient magic. These make up a pony's thaumic system.

Without this magical circulatory system, a unicorn could not channel mana through to their horn, a pegasus could not fly or interact with clouds, and an earth pony could not affect their environments or amplify their strength. Without regular use, it doesn't develop properly, and without adequate sugar, a pony's thaumic core can't learn to process ambient magic into mana. Since I came from a non-magical world, I never developed a thaumic system, so when I was turned into a pony, I guess a fair amount of body mass went into just to giving me one... as underdeveloped as it was.

Moving past the relevant magical biology, that brought me to the Laws of Magic. The first law states that magic cannot be created or destroyed, but rather it can only be turned from one state to another. Any created from refining mana into a spell effect will fade away into the environment as residue and slowly transitions back to ambient magic, to be absorbed by plants and animals in turn.

The second law pertains to magical reactions. An unimpeded magical reaction or effect will proceed until it runs out of requisite magic, an opposing magical force negates it, or the spell matrix is collapsed. It also delves into opposing types of magic which are good at such jobs. For example, harmony-aligned magic would work best at counteracting the effects of chaos magic, and light and dark would be another opposing pair. Mostly though, this law seems to emphasise why spells should be constructed with safeguards or shut-offs; although it doesn't say as such in terms a child could understand, it seems to infer that an out-of-control or incomplete spell could quite literally consume the caster, and potentially create an ecological disaster.

There were a few more, less interesting ones pertaining to creation of matter and the like, and I quickly ended up sidetracked in my own thoughts. According to the second law, my rudimentary spell the other day—and hell, all the times I ignited Blueblood's mane or tail—shouldn't have ended as easily as they had; there had been no such fail-safe. Did that make runic spell-craft that different from unicorn spell-casting? Or should I have, by all rights, been consumed in my own flames?

No, there's something else I'm missing... Let's keep going.

I eventually continued on into the seventh chapter, which was dedicated to instructing foals on actually casting their first spell. It noted that while levitation was considered a spell, it was more of an intent-based expression of their innate magics, and did not rely on spell matrices. If anything, from what the author was describing, it made levitation sound more like a projection of the same manipulative fields channelled through our hooves. If that was right, then that would mean the horn was necessary for that projection...

It seemed that in order for a unicorn to cast a spell, they must first create a mental representation of a spell's matrix, and then they need to somehow... internally shape their mana to mirror that representation in their core. Then, they have to direct it through their thaumic system and out through the horn. It notes that a foal should avoid bumping their horn or having it hit, while shaping and channelling the spell, or it can collapse rather painfully, and may even daze the user.

That said, it seems to be one of the more reliable ways to stop a foal's out-of-control spell... assuming it's safe enough to get close. That would mean that the best way to fight a unicorn in general would be to give them a good love-tap to their pointy end. It would also explain why they tend to fall into the ranged fighter archetype.

It also gave me something to mull over. My spell-casting involved engraving or etching a runic spell into a surface, and pushing personal magic out through a hoof and powering the runes externally; so long as the shape could be made... This was counter to the unicorn's own internalised spell-casting. Then can I use runic magic without the same safeguards because I am the shut-off valve? It seemed possible, but at the same time, I didn't think it would be wise to not construct safeties and fail-safes.

Turning the page to see the matrix—Conjure Light—I'd glanced at earlier, I bit my cheek. There was something about it that nagged at the back of my mind, as though I'd seen the likes before. But I'd never before seen such a complex diagram of lines, circles, pentacles and characters. It was like some demon-summoning circle in a comic or something...

Wait... characters? I looked again. The centre of the diagram held what at first looked to be a series of complex black shapes that formed the shape of a circle, but when I squinted harder, I thought I could make out a familiar shape. It almost looked like...

"... a disguised rune," I whispered to myself. "Runes are a component of unicorn magic..."

A bubble of paranoia surfaced in my thoughts. Ponies had been using magic for millennia, and yet from everything I had gathered, runic magic itself had fallen out of use among the other tribes around the establishment of Equestria. That meant that the information regarding it had likely been purposefully suppressed... Why, and who did it? My eyes flicked to Shining Armour, and then to Cadance. They probably don't even know that their spell-casting is an internalised version of runic magic.

All of a sudden, the existence of the runic dictionary made a lot more sense. The one here in Twilight's library was like a twenty-fifth edition, released just two years ago. If the information wasn't widely used, there'd be no reason to print it except... unicorns still needed it to write their own spells and spell scrolls.

My trust in the Sun Horse waned, and my earlier concerns regarding her leadership returned. History regarding that border conflict seemed sanitised, and although they lived well, cattle seemed like second-class citizens compared to ponies. Could I trust Princesses Celestia and Luna? And if I couldn't trust them, could I even trust Twilight and Cadance? ... or Starlight?

I bit the inside of my cheek hard enough that I could taste the coppery salty taste of blood. No... My tear-ducts were definitely working better today than they had been yesterday, as my vision became misty. If I start thinking like that, I'm going to start pushing everyone away, becoming bitter and hateful like he was. The best course of action would be to remain productive. There might even be another answer.

Brushing away the tears with my left hoof, I pulled over my magic notebook and flipped to a new page. Immediately, I started writing down every rune that I saw in the spell matrix, taking careful note of their positions and which ones seemed to modify the others. I even recognised a few moon-glyphs in the mix including a group denoting "On horn tip." It was strange, though. It definitely wasn't conforming to the format of the Weaved Spiral that Starlight described, yet in a weird way it made its own level of sense. The lines almost seemed to direct attention along certain paths.

Once I'd marked down all the runes, I looked to the opposite page and began charting them out in the format I knew. I didn't have a horn, however, so a different positional modifier would have to be placed. Above head would be a good substitute, as it wouldn't directly shine in my eyes, and would provide good illumination in the dark. This might actually work.

I wasn't exactly keen on using a runic spell when I didn't know what many of the runes on it meant, but I trusted a foal's primer to not use anything stupidly dangerous. There was a good chance that it was exactly what I thought it said; conjure light at designated point—above my head in this case—followed some fail-safe thread that I couldn't comprehend. In the event it went wrong, I had an alicorn, and a unicorn nearby to keep me out of trouble.

"Hey, Spike?" I called out during a moment where Shining Armour seemed to be taking a break—or was he considering his options in Spike's adventure. It didn't really matter to me too much. "Twilight told me that if I ate all my dessert and got to a certain point in this book, you'd have some clay that I could use to practice some magic with." Despite the lingering taste of blood from biting my cheek, I grinned at him. "Guess what!"

Peering around his Dungeon Master's Screen at me, Spike let out a nervous chuckle. "Yeah, I've got it over here," he said with a faraway look in his eyes. His claw patted a small glass mason jar beside him. Within was a grey mass of what I assumed to be modelling clay. "I swear, Twilight used to get that same look in her eyes when she was about to do something crazy with magic."

I glanced at the clock. Good, still had a few more minutes of Unseen Servant. "Command: pick up the jar of clay. Queue command: place the jar in front of me," I murmured. Then, as the jar lifted off the table, I stood up and arched my back. "I'm not gonna do anything crazy like create fire—at least intentionally," I said, wincing as my burned skin went taut for a moment. "I just need to test a little theory that, if I'm right, will let me cast a spell intended for a unicorn."

I'm pretty sure there was a unified, "You'll do what?" but the moment the jar of clay came to a rest in front of me, I shut the world out of my mind. Without any issue whatsoever, I twisted the top off the jar and scooped out a mass of clay. With great care, I rolled it into a smooth ball and then pressed it flat onto the floor. The others just stared at me as I went, using the tip of my pencil to carefully etch out exactly what I'd noted down in the book.

Once I finished, I looked around at the others. "I just wish Twilight and Starlight were here to see this," I murmured, holding my hoof over the rune-etched clay. "And Anon said, 'Let there be light!'" Carefully, I reached out, caressing the lines with my hoof-field, feeling the mana beginning to flow out through my foreleg, pooling in the grooves in the clay. At first, nothing happened, but then... Then there was light. A lot of bright blue light.

There were cries of pain all around me as the light began to reflect off the crystal surfaces of the room, and Flurry began to cry. Even I was forced to screw my eyes shut as it became painful. Maybe too much mana? That was the point of practising, though, wasn't it? You had to learn exactly how best to do it. Still, I didn't want to blind anyone. Plus, the way it was right now, it felt really draining.

Carefully, I started pulling back my hoof-field until only a small thread of mana connected my hoof to the clay. The light above my head gradually dimmed to a much more reasonable level of incandescence, allowing me to open my eyes once more. Everyone old enough to understand what I had done was staring at me with slack jaws. Flurry? She just burbled excitedly, taking off to flutter around my miniature sun.

As I looked over myself in this new light, I was only slightly disappointed to see I hadn't sprouted wings and a horn. After all, from what I've heard, she became an alicorn after doing something really special with magic. Not like I really wanted to become an alicorn, mind; flying would probably be a pain in the ass to learn. I was just disappointed that Harmony itself didn't see my action as worthy. I'd have to try harder.

I maintained the spell for several minutes, taking note of the way it truly felt to channel. It was, after all, advised in the book to pay attention to these things until regulating the flow of mana became second nature, like measuring your own heart-rate. On and on I went, until the bandages around my head began to grow damp. It wasn't that it felt like my reserves were being drained though. It felt more like I'd been running a sprint for a while. My body wasn't used to burning magic like this.

I need to do this more often, not just so that it doesn't wear me out, but so I can encourage the development of my own reservoir. Just as I pulled my hoof away from the clay and killed the spell completely, there came a commotion from the doorway. As I turned to look, ignoring the way the room seemed to be swimming slightly, my heart leapt in my throat.

"Anon!" Starlight cried out, all but dragging me across the room with her magic to hug me—she at least had the sense to levitate me into her outstretched forelegs. Right beside her was Twilight, a proud look on her face. "I can't believe I almost missed your first real spell!"

Even as I found myself nuzzling her neck contentedly—I'm still surprised I wasn't bothered by the contact—a second set of feathery limbs wrapped around us. "I don't think anypony in Ponyville missed her first spell," Twilight teased, indicating the large bay window. It looked as though a few pegasi were milling about the sky outside the castle, as though they were trying to figure out what just happened. "I saw the resulting flare from my study."

Wait, was it that bright?

"I'm very proud of you, Anon," Twilight continued, even as Flurry struggled to get in on the group hug. "I wasn't sure if Starlight was exaggerating about your instinct or not, but I'm glad you figured out the real test behind that book." I felt her hoof rub my mane. "I'm sure you have a lot of questions, but for now, I think it's time to celebrate."

Wait, that was a test? You bitch!

Author's Notes:

And here you have it: Anon has performed her first real—albeit modified—spell.

I'm sure you have a lot of questions about Anon's discovery. First and foremost, no, there is no 'intentional' conspiracy to keep non-unicorns from using magic. Rather, it has to do with knowledge being forgotten long before the founding of Equestria, old treaties, cutie marks, and information that Anon has not yet discovered—not that she'd find it in a book for foals.

Next, sorry this one took so long. The interaction at the start was kinda hard for me to work through, while the latter two segments came much more naturally to me.

This is the last we'll see of Flurry, Cadance, and Shiny for a bit. The next chapter will be set after a short time skip, and will lead into the next arc. Now, onto the Adventures of Filly ~~Harry Potter~~Anon.

Entry 14

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Perched on the bathroom counter, I stared at my reflection in the mirror. I was absentmindedly running a brush through my mane, but I was mostly just... lost looking at myself. The burns had healed enough in the five days since the incident that I no longer needed to cover them with bandages, but I would never be that same pristine filly that I'd been when Harmony transformed me. My mane was a rat's nest of tangles, having been neglected while we let my scalp heal, and it was every bit the pain Mom made it look to brush out those snags.

Travelling down my reflection, my gaze stopped on a spot on my withers. It wasn't as noticeable in the current light, but there were the odd discoloured follicles of fur beginning to grow in with my winter coat. It wasn't the most pronounced difference, being only a shade or two lighter, but I was concerned that, given time, it might grow into more noticeable patches along all my burns. If that happened, I'd end up looking like that pinto colt I'd seen in class on Tuesday. What was his name? Pipsqueak? That was also to say nothing of whether my mane might start growing in grey.

Even then, though, that was mostly just cosmetic damage—the sort of imperfections that 'adds character'. It wasn't exactly the sort of thing I wanted to dwell on, because I didn't want to be seen as vain. Besides, cosmetic damage to the filly wasn't the worst part; it was my eyes.

When Twilight took me to Ponyville General on Thursday morning, we got the bad news. Inflammation had masked some tissue damage, and although the medicated eye-drops had helped to a degree, my vision would be somewhat impaired until adulthood. All they really managed to accomplish with medication and magic was to make sure that they didn't get any worse. Sure, they could surgically or magically alter them now, but there was a significant risk of things reverting or worsening as my body grew.

That left me with bad eyes, and a need for glasses. That brought me back to the now, as I looked my reflection in the eyes. Since becoming a pony, my appearance had reminded me of... something. Messy black hair, bright green eyes... But for some reason, it always escaped me. Then the hospital optometrist provided me with my first-ever pair of glasses: huge round lenses and frames. That was when it finally hit me.

I'm basically filly Harry Potter now, I thought with a snort. All I'm missing is a lightning bolt scar and magic school...

Although I found some humour in it, I wasn't exactly pleased by it, either. Glasses were a pretty big change for me, and I didn't like the thought that one small accident could rob me of clear sight until they could be replaced. Given that I love reading so much, that would be absolute fucking torment. If not for the fact that I would need them replaced as I grew, I'd have asked Twilight if it was possible to enchant them to be indestructible.

"I should be getting ready for school," I mumbled, as I glanced at the hallway clock's reflection. Instead, here I was, healing, but unable to attend due to my suspension. Sure, Thursday afternoon Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo—apparently they called their little group the Cutie Mark Crusaders—brought by some homework, but it was just more maths. I couldn't do any of the reading without the book, and I couldn't exactly sit in for the history, social studies, or science lessons to take notes. Do these fillies even think to take notes?

It was nice to hang out with them a bit before dinner, but... well. I wasn't even allowed to show off what I'd discovered because Twilight and Starlight weren't around. Once they'd gotten over the fact that I had to wear glasses now, there wasn't really anything to do other than talk. That's how I found out that Shining Armour's punishment for Rarity was for her to take a childcare refresher course, and signed her up to attend a drug safety seminar put on by the Canterlot Royal Guard. The one that sold Rarity the tea, on the other hand apparently got a warning to put clear labels on her products, and encouraged to make sure ponies knew what they were buying.

Well, that's the gist I got. Despite being 'older' than me, in a lot of ways the girls are way too innocent. They had no idea why a seminar for safety with medicine—that was the only concept of drugs they had—was necessary. Scootaloo even joked that even she knew how to follow instructions. "And I'm ten!" she'd declared with a giggle.

At first, I wasn't exactly sure why a childcare course was necessary. That said, after listening to the girls talk about all the shenanigans they got up to when they were still trying to discover their special talents, I had a better idea why. Due to the schedule, the girls had a lot of free time on their hooves, and they couldn't always be supervised. Even when they were under supervision, it never seemed to be with the full attention of whoever was there, so they still got into trouble.

I can only imagine what would happen if they got high...

Maybe the highlight of that entire day had been the evening. After their day together at the art show had been inadvertently wrecked—or was that rescued?—by me, Twilight wanted to treat them before they headed back to the Crystal Empire. So while the three of them went out to eat at some fancy-pants place in town, it was just me, Starlight, Spike and Flurry Heart. That was an interesting evening, and not just because Starlight decided that night was the night to get some cooking lessons.

I'm pretty sure that despite intellectually knowing that I'd never hurt Flurry, they were a bit hesitant to leave me in charge of watching her while dinner was prepared. Maybe they thought she might do something to set off my fight or flight? This is my assumption because I know Starlight kept blinking in and out to check in on us regularly. Like, we were just a few rooms away in the lounge.

Jokes on them, though. Once I started telling the baby pony a toned down, abridged retelling of Jacques' Redwall, I had her rapt attention. It might've in part been because English names like Matthias and Cluny probably sound funny to her. Then again, I think most of their surprise probably stemmed from the fact that I was once more tolerating having her in my personal space, nestled beside me as I regaled her with the siege of Redwall Abbey.

I have my space hang-ups, sure, but I'm not unobservant. As much as sugar's important to ponies, I've seen time and time again in public that young ones—even those closer to my age—needed a lot more physical contact, not just for bonding, but to feel safe and reassured in general. No need to make a baby suffer because I have my trauma hang-ups. Besides, if I could work through it with Flurry and trying to bond with Starlight and Twilight... I might even start to approach normalcy... Or at least, pony-normalcy.

Starlight was probably even more surprised when I took charge with feeding Flurry—with what I later found out was minimal mess, no less. Look, I'm not saying she's a bad person, but she looked like a deer in headlights when the first spoonful of mashed peas ended up on her face instead of inside the baby because of foal magic. After all, from everything she told me, she didn't help raise two infants siblings.

The problem Flurry had was that she didn't want her baby food, because it wasn't what everyone else was having. Laura was the same way at her age, and I'd took a chance by assuming she'd be more inclined to want her food if she thought someone else was going to eat it all. With that in mind, I'd swiped the jar and spoon, and positioned myself in such a way that my pretending to eat it all was a lot more convincing. Sure enough, it worked, and she was very insistent I 'shared'.

I'm pretty sure there were more pictures of the two of us taken when the others got back later in the evening. My post-dinner nap was ruined by the sound of a camera and the removal of an alicorn foal from my side. Honestly, I'm not entirely sure why I enjoyed what little time I spent with the infant. Was it because it allowed me some time to be outside my own head-space? Did it remind me of the good times with mother and my sisters? Or was it just that it made me feel like a big brother again?

Pausing my brushing, I put a stop to my reminiscing. Thinking about those three leaving the next day—and the realisation that I genuinely looked forward to the next opportunity to spend time with Flurry when I wasn't injured—just made me miss my own family. But hey, at least Princess Cadance promised to mail one of the photos of me and Flurry.

The more I thought about it, the more I missed the time I spent being a big brother to Sara and Laura, bastard father's beatings and all. I think, for the first time in a long while, my mood felt more on the masculine side of the spectrum than middle or feminine. Not that I'm saying it's why I found myself wanting to go fishing this morning, but it certainly helped make me want to express that side of me.

There's not much I can do about my filly face, especially the eyelashes, I decided, looking over my reflection. My split lip had healed, and I could see a slight scar, but even that much was starting to fade already. I don't think cutting my mane short would help, especially if I end up feeling elsewhere later on. That said, though, there was nothing stopping me from putting it into a more swept-back look. Plenty of male actors back on earth managed to make it look good. After a few minutes of tinkering, I managed to get it the way I thought it should look, and to be honest, it didn't look too bad. It'd probably look nicer if I had a ball cap to keep it from blowing out of my face, but it'd do.

Giving my reflection a grin, I set down my brush. "Lookin' good, and feelin' better," I said aloud in a bit of a sing-song voice. "Wonder if I shouldn't leave a note on my door that says 'Gone Fishing'?"

~ 14 ~

The thing about Ponyville, I've found, is that if you act like you belong and nothing is wrong, you can get by relatively unobserved. When you ask nicely enough, your guardians will get you things you want—within reason. With that in mind, I was currently on the path to the outskirts of town with my saddlebags full of snacks, my thermos, my magic notebook and pencil, a small bag of hooks, and a spool of fishing line.

My plan for the afternoon was relatively simple: check in with Miss Fluttershy, let her know I was in the area and where I'd be, and then get settled a little upstream from her cottage. From there, I'd spend the day fishing, and if I caught anything, I'd grill it over an open fire. If I caught more, I'd bring the extras for her animals. Lord knows, Starlight and Twilight didn't seem fond of the idea of me cooking fish in the castle.

Now, theoretically, I should need a flint and knife to start a fire, but nobody had to know if I broke the rule about unsupervised magic.

It was a pretty nice day out, to tell the truth. Even if I didn't catch anything, it'd be nice to just be completely by myself enjoying nature. If I could get by without thinking about... things for a while, all the better.

I didn't want to be so paranoid or distrustful of the Sun and Moon Horses, but every day I went without having those concerns challenged, I grew more and more unsure of my place here. I just hope I get the chance to talk to some more non-ponies. It'd be so much easier to put these fears to bed and work on my own issues if I could.

Much to my surprise, I didn't even have to go all the way to Miss Fluttershy's place to check in with her. We met shortly after the crossing over the river near the cottage.

"Oh! Good morning, Anon," she greeted with a gentle smile. It seemed that she had her own saddlebags and a rather grouchy looking buck rabbit on her back. It looked like there was even a list poking out of her bag. Funny enough, she didn't comment on my change in mane styling. "What brings you out here?"

"Good morning, Ma'am," I answered in kind, giving a slight nod that caused my glasses to slip down my snout. With an embarrassed smile, I pushed them back up my nose and inclined my head towards my bags. "I was planning on doing some fishing upstream from your place. Figured I'd let you know, since nobody was home at the castle when I left." For a moment, there was a look of concern on her face, so I quickly added, "I left a note saying where I'd be. Just wanted to check in with you first."

She seemed to accept that. "If you follow the river up that way into that pine grove, you'll find a clearing and a small lake that the river feeds into," Fluttershy said, pointing up-river a ways. "That's where I get the fish for most of my carnivorous friends. The fish are very active there."

"Thanks for the advice, Miss Fluttershy."

I began to make my way along the riverbank, but I heard her call out, "If you see a bear, don't be afraid. That's just Harry. He might want you to share, but he won't hurt you." She seemed to pause as though considering something. "If you have many extras, could you ask Harry to drop them off at the cottage? If it wouldn't be too much trouble, I mean."

That... actually gave me the chills. I knew that she dealt with some carnivorous or omnivorous animals, but I'd honestly expected that to be more along the lines of foxes, birds of prey, and the likes. Hell, I thought Pinkie was joking when she mentioned Fluttershy wrestled bears at the welcome party. In all my time back on Earth, I'd never had good encounters with ursine critters, and now I was being asked to share and treat one like a delivery boy if he came a-callin'.

"Will do," I said, taking off in a sprint. Here's hoping I'm by myself.

If not for the fact that colours here seemed much more vibrant here, I could've sworn I was back home with how familiar the environment was. As I trekked through the grove, I could see that the soil was browner, the grasses greener, and the sky far more vivid than I remembered. I couldn't help but wonder if ponies had more... what were they? Cones? It'd been so long since that lesson in biology, but that sounded right. Did ponies have more cones in their retinas?

My eyes teared up a bit as I became lost in sea of memories. Even as I picked out a good and somewhat flexible, but fairly dry stick to turn into a fishing rod, it felt like I was reliving a memory rather than being out here. I couldn't be sure what brought it about, but despite feeling saddened by it all, I think I needed this time to myself. The catharsis was really, really nice.

Once I had my soon-to-be rod, I continued along the river's edge until I found the lake and clearing. Once I found a nice spot on the lake near some aquatic vegetation, I set down my things, I went off to find some flint. There was no way I could've convinced Twilight to buy me a filleting knife or any sort of multi-tool, but I didn't need that. One of the many things mother taught me growing up was flint knapping.

It didn't take me long to find a good piece and get it a good sharp edge shaped. It helped that, in having hoof fields, I didn't need to wrap it to put a grip. The fact of the matter was that the piece I chipped and shaped looked closer to an axe head than a knife, but that suited me just fine. It made the next part— smoothing down my new fishing pole—all the more easier.

I never asked Mom where she'd learned everything she had about wilderness survival and trapping, and—as I knotted some line around the base of the pole and then wound it up the length—I found myself wishing more that I'd asked her more about her life before she met my... sire. Even if he donated genes, the only fatherly things he taught me were hunting and shooting. Mom, though, seemed at home in the woods, even if she seemed like she would have rather become a teacher. She just had this respect for nature that my father didn't.

Etching a small groove at the end of my pole to set a second knot, I couldn't help but speculate how she ever could've ended up with him. I'd often suspected she was indigenous, but for the life of me I couldn't imagine her ever showing interest in that bastard. But then, if he kept a gun that had a filed-off serial number, she might not even have been with him by choice.

A bit of bile rose in the back of my throat as I unwound several feet of line from the spool. Am I... was I a rape baby? Were me and my sisters just a means for him to keep her tethered to her? Shaking my head to clear the thoughts, I cut the end of my line and fetched a hook from my saddlebag. I attached it with a cinch knot. Despite my dark musings, I couldn't help but smile as took in my work. This would serve me well.

Just one thing missing... The lake didn't look all that deep, so if I didn't want to snag the bottom... I looked around for a suitable piece of wood. Not too big... just enough to suspend the hook and sit on the surface. Once I found a good piece, I etched a small groove around its circumference, and tied the line around it in an easy to remove knot. Yes, that'll do.

It took me no time at all to find a worm, and once I did, it was time to enjoy myself.

~ 14 ~

I'd finally managed to just turn my brain off for a bit. While I hadn't fallen asleep, I found myself lying on my back on the shore line just basking in the sun. My line was out on the water, and the rod was jammed into the shore, nestled between my back hooves. If anything took the bait, I'd feel it. In the meantime I'd eaten a chocolate bar and had some tea from my thermos to wash it down, before stashing the trash back in my bag.

Honestly, I had half a mind to preemptively start collecting up enough wood for a small campfire in anticipation of a catch. That said, I didn't want to risk missing out if a fish decided to bite soon. Fishing was a long, boring, and sometimes even fruitless endeavour. It'd be hubris to turn my attention away like that.

Just when I was considering digging out my notebook and planning out a proper fire-starter spell, however, there came the snap of a twig and a rustle in the underbrush. Immediately, I perked up, surveying the clearing. The birds had all gone quiet, and there wasn't a peep from the insects. Something's out there...

There was another snap of twigs. This time, I was actually able to pin-point it; someone was coming from the same direction I'd come along the riverbank. It struck me as somewhat odd, because the forest floor along the river's edge was bare when I passed through. Either they fancied themselves trailblazer, or they were just an animal.

"Miss Fluttershy? Harry?" I called out. When no response came, a prickle of danger ran down the back of my neck. Pulling in my fishing line, I stared in the direction of the sound. "Hello?"

Still no answer came, and I found myself etching out a modified version of the light spell—the same one I'd used in practice the other day—in the dirt. See, in the days since, I'd taken a look at a runic dictionary to pick part the light spell in order to see how it worked. As I'd imagined, the spell was basically conjuration of a light orb. So if I replaced the light rune with fire, and changed the positional to a point in front of my hoof...

I glanced over the spell once before setting my hoof above it. "Whoever's there, show yourself!" I called out, thrusting my other fore hoof in front of me. A ball of blue flame swirled into existence in front of me. "But come out slowly."

For a few excruciating moments, nothing happened. Just when an inkling of doubt crossed my mind, like maybe I was trying to bluff a squirrel or something, a pony came out of the bushes—a pegasus filly maybe a litter taller than me. I'd never seen her about the town before, and between the filth matting her coat and the twigs in her mane, I got the impression that she might've been living out here by herself. "I-I'll come out," she stuttered, slowly walking fully into view. Her eyes were wide with fear, but they were locked directly with mine, rather than focusing on the fireball. "I... I'll do whatever you say. Just p-please don't hurt me."

Shit, it's just a scared little girl... Sighing at the pitiful sight, I ceased my spell, and the fireball collapsed in on itself in a puff of smoke. With a fluid motion, I scuffed the runes. "I'm not gonna hurt you," I said, my butt hitting the ground as lethargy washed over me. Note to self, conjuring different elements has different strains on my stamina. With a dry laugh, I shook my head with a smile. "You scared the life out of me."

Once my spell ended, she stopped walking. Her eyes darted up to my forehead, still on full display from the swept-back mane style, and then around the clearing. Shit, beyond scared; she's terrified. The grey fur beneath the filth seemed to stand under my continued gaze, and her unkempt wings twitched. Clearly, I wasn't the only one with hardwired with fight or flight, or spent time living in the woods, because she looked like she hadn't had a warm meal in a long time.

Maybe it was because I did know what it was like to experience famine that I patted the ground beside me, and then rooted through my bag. There were still some snacks in my bag, and plenty of tea. "Come, sit," I said, filling the thermos mug lid with tea. "You look you need this more than me."

The filly continued to stare, doubt on her face, even as I set down the tea and a couple of mass-produced wrapped pastries. A glint of hunger flickered in her eyes, but she stopped herself from approaching after just a single step forward. "How do I know you're not one of those things?" she asked with a tone of accusation. "If they could look like Mommy and Daddy, how do I know you're real?"

Things? Look like Mommy and Daddy?

I slowly dragged my saddlebag a distance equal to that which separated the strange filly from the food. "Are you talking about Changelings?" I asked, taking a drink straight from the thermos to show that there was nothing wrong with the tea. At least I learned my lesson about storing boiling tea in the thing. When she nodded, I couldn't help but feel bad. Has this filly really been out here on her own for over three hundred days? "It's okay now. You're safe here; they haven't been in Ponyville for months from what my big sis told me."

Tentatively, the pegasus—I was hesitant to call her little, because I knew emaciation could make you look smaller—cleared the distance between her and the food. Once she seemed certain I wasn't about to jump her, she sat down and started sipping the tea. Relief flooded her face—at least the parts not covered by her silvery-white mane—as that was probably the first warm thing she'd eaten in some time. Still, she didn't look like she bought what I said. "That's what they want you to think," she declared. "Somepony else tried months ago, but I saw through him! I saw him transform, not that he knew."

Luckily, she seemed to have more sense than to drain the mug in its entirety. Instead, she put it down and tore into the pastry wrappers. Back on Earth, I wouldn't even have considered giving highly processed sugars to someone in her state, but she was a pegasus. Judging by the fact that she had come in on the forest floor, she probably didn't have enough magic in her to fly, and barely enough to live.

Watching her wolf down both of the gifts, I couldn't help but wonder how she'd stayed alive on her own. If a child back on Earth had ended up in this situation, could they have ended up living nearly an entire year? Maybe with some survival training, but the winter months would've been deadly. Here, the length of few months was the equivalent of a Terran year, so it would've been a bit easier.

Still... there was the matter of forage, where she was staying, and how she'd avoided being found. Surely if a filly had gone missing around that time, someone would've noticed... For that matter, there were some things that my nose hadn't picked up about her that confused me. I couldn't smell anything like smoke on her, which in itself wasn't all that unusual, but at the same time, she also didn't smell like a person who hadn't been bathing properly for several months. In fact, it was almost like I was nose-blind. That weirded me out more than anything, because I knew my sense of smell was stronger as a pony. What kind of cover-scent was that good?

"I won't ask where you're staying," I said in a soft voice. The strange filly actually looked surprised that I wasn't gonna pry. "Just... tell me you have some decent shelter."

"I... found a small cave in the bad woods," she said slowly, backing towards the bushes as we heard hoofsteps distantly on the path. "Those things won't go near the place..."

The bad woods...?

Her eyes started to look around for an escape. "I gotta get out of here!"

"Wait... Can I meet you here again tomorrow?" I asked in a tone of sympathy, moving to collect the mug and the wrappers. "I promise I won't tell anypony, and I'll even try to bring more snacks."

She looked unsure of herself, her gaze fully locked on the path now. "What's your name?"

"Anonymous," I said. "You?"

"Hailstone..." She murmured something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like she was accusing me of having a changeling name.

I could almost fully see the pony coming up the path now. The yellow coat and pink mane were a give-away as to who. Evidently, Hailstone had seen her too, because she took a running start before gliding across the river. The moment she touched down on the other side, she disappeared into the foliage, vanishing without a trace.

As I finished packing my things away, Fluttershy entered the clearing. She'd evidently come to check up on me, but was surprised to find out that I was packing up already. My defence was that the fish didn't seem to be biting, and I was feeling a bit bored. Technically neither were lies, and she ate them right up. Hell, she even offered to walk me home.

It was an offer I took with relish. There was something about her that had a soothing effect, like she radiated peace and tranquillity. It helped ease my nerves as I considered what to do about Hailstone. So I quickly wrapped my fishing pole's line, threw on my bags, and then slid the pole through the cover on one of the sides.

Leaving alongside Fluttershy, I paused just long enough to glance at the ground that the pegasus filly had crossed earlier. I noticed something odd... disturbing even, but I didn't vocalise my alarm. Hailstone hadn't left behind any hoof prints in the dirt. Not even where she'd taken a running start.

What the fuck? I thought, biting my lip slightly as I felt a chill run down my spine. Did... did I just feed a ghost?

Entry 15

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The dawn light shone through the forest canopy, casting the path I was following in an almost preternatural light. An eerie mist surrounded me obscuring anything further than five metres out, but it wasn't enough to hide the odd snare in the underbrush along the trail. I couldn't be certain, but I was pretty sure those weren't there when I came through yesterday.

It felt like I was forgetting something. Why was I coming here so early in the morning? For that mater, why hadn't I grabbed my saddlebag, or fishing tackle? It didn't make any sense for me to be coming out here without anything, especially if I was going to check in on Hailstone. At the very least, I should be bringing food.

My eyes drifted to the right, where the river should have been, only to find more underbrush. In fact, it sounded more like the river was to my back than my side... The confusion that oddity brought about a fresh wave of paranoia. Pausing in my tracks, I flicked my ears back to listen for any sign I was being followed.

In the end, my paranoia and inattentiveness to the road in front of me brought me tumbling ass over tea kettle on the well-worn dirt track. Although my head was spinning, I was able to recover quick enough. The environment subtly changed around me as I shook my head, strange grooves wearing themselves into the trail.

What tripped me came as a real shock, however. As I looked down at my hooves, I was surprised to see a black and white plush bunny. It was a complete vertical split with red button eyes. It wasn't the fact that it was there that was shocking however. It was the fact that I recognised it. This wasn't just any plush; this was something my mother had given me when I was just an infant.

I never found out where she got the fabric, but I knew that she made it herself. I'd seen her make a similar dog for Sara, and a bear for Laura. Rather than any sort of traditional stuffing material, it was filled with scraps from animal pelts. There on the underside of its back-right leg, she'd embroidered my original name. It looked brand new, but it was unmistakably...

"Split?" I whispered, reaching out to touch it with my hoof. It was solid, which confused me even more. He can't be here... "That bastard burned you when I was six. How...?"

"He's too old for baby shit like that," echoed my father's voice from nowhere and everywhere all at once.

Somehow, seeing the bunny made me feel... small—as if I wasn't already a very small horse—and vulnerable. Instinctively, I pulled him to my chest and stood on my two back hooves. There was no rhyme or reason to it; I was just doing what felt natural to do. Still... Even after a few steps, nothing felt odd about walking this way. I shouldn't be able to move like this; I've tried before.

I continued my way down the trail, my gaze never lingering for too long on one spot. The strangeness of my locomotion could only distract from the growing sense of unease in the back of my mind for so long, and rather than feeling warmer, everything seemed colder—darker. None of this was right; not one bit of it sat well.

My ears swivelled back, tracking the sound of a snapping twig. As if to fuck with me, more and more twigs snapped at random, sending my ears into a fit. The crackling turned into the groaning of trees as the wind picked up, sending icy daggers cutting through my coat.

The cold left me feeling so vulnerable—so naked. Even as cloth seemed to manifest around me, in what I soon recognised as the shape of a too-long tee-shirt, the feeling did not abate. The cold was making my fingertips—Huh?—feel numb, and gripping Split close wasn't doing much to help. Not even burying my muzzle between his ears seemed to help, as if not even the warmth of my breath could take hold in the plush.

Still, I muscled on, through the wind. Snow began to fall around me, quickly covering the never-ending trail, swallowing my hoof-prints whole and making no indication I'd ever been there in the first place. The sudden change of weather was, to put it lightly, completely unnatural, just like the shape I seemed to take on. None of it made any sense, and I couldn't figure out why.

As I continued, dread filled my belly. I was beginning to remember these surroundings, and they weren't from Equestria. These were the woods of Alaska, where I had hunted, fished, and played. It was the land of my childhood, and I knew I couldn't be here. Yet as I went on, I grew more and more sure of where I was.

In fact, just around that bend should be...

Finally, the trail opened into a clearing. I almost expected the cabin to be still standing, for all it made sense to even be here at all. Instead, there only remained the still-smoking remains of the building—a charred skeleton that had collapsed in on itself. Hell, moving closer even allowed me to feel some of the warmth I felt that night so long ago. I'd never before imagined something like temperature to have the concept of bittersweetness attributable to it, but if there were ever such a case, surely it was this.

Keeping close to the remains of my former home, I walked about the clearing. My mind churned with questions as I took in everything. How did I get here? Why am I here? How can I walk like this or even have fingers? I sat on the swing I built for my sisters, trying to wrap my head around it all. It was as though something was keeping me from remembering some crucial detail. If Split is here... is this some sort of purgatory? Wait, do childhood stuffies even get an afterlife?

I did my best not to look for the longest time, but I knew that my Mom's grave would be right where I left it... right beside his. Nothing would have made me feel better than to look and find there was no grave-markers and protective stone cairns... That lingering hope that he didn't actually kill my Mom, and that the last six years—right up to ending up in Equestria—were just a dream, was intoxicating. Sadly, deep in my heart I knew that would never be the case.

Sure as sugar, when I finally forced myself to look, there it was. The wooden cross that was built from a board I'd pried off the patio stood tall and untouched by time, and the cairn looked untouched as well. Between the smoking ruin and Mom's untouched grave, it almost seemed feasible to believe that I was back at that moment in time.

His grave, however, wasn't so fortunate. The cross—or rather, what was left of it—looked as though it had been smashed at some point, and the fragments had been rotted. The stones of the cairn were scattered, as though something within had exploded with some force, leaving the shallow grave exposed. It was completely empty, not even a trace of the remains that had once been interred.

Hopping off the swing, I sauntered over to Mother's grave. Split the Bunny was clutched tightly against my chest as I stared at the marker. If that filly I saw yesterday was a ghost, then maybe some trace of Mom remains here. If traces remain in places, maybe they remain in minds, too.

"I miss you Mommy," I whimpered in a voice that felt too young to be my own. Crouched down before the grave, I hoped that she would appear to me. Nothing more than seeing her would have eased my mind, if nothing else than so that I could remember how she looked. For the life of me, the memory of her face wouldn't come. "I miss you so damn much."

For a long while, I just sat there hoping beyond all hopes she'd show. Snow accumulated on my back, shoulders, and head, and though my tears left icy streaks down my cheeks. I don't know how I got here, or why I'm here, I thought to myself. I just want to understand what the hell is going on.

Eventually, the crunch of snow behind alerted me to the fact that someone was approaching from behind. Despite the numbness brought on by the cold, my ears flicked back to track them. They weren't trying to hide their presence, but they also weren't rushing towards me. It was a casual four-legged gait that was clearly intended for me to hear them coming.

"I've finally found you, Anon," came the voice of Princess Luna. Her voice was strained, and she looked frazzled. "I've been trying to find you in here for hours."

"The Moon Horse? What's she doing here?" I murmured dumbly, turning to face her. At her surprised look, I wondered if I'd said something wrong. Wait... uh... "What's going on?"

With a sigh, she tapped her horn against my head and told me, "This is a dream, young Anonymous." The alicorn princess looked about the clearing, from the smouldering remains of my childhood home, to the empty grave beside my mother's. "You have slept almost an entire day, and need to wake."

~ 15 ~

I sat up on with a gasp, a cold chill washing over my body with the sudden awakening. At some point, my sleeping form had been removed from within my pillow nest—now with extra blanket!—and placed atop the unused bed in my room. The change in location was almost as jarring as waking up surrounded by other ponies. It wasn't nearly as startling finding myself nearly skewered on the horn of the Princess of the Night, who evidently had to come in person to wake me up.

"Thank goodness you're awake," someone said. I couldn't tell if it had been Twilight or Starlight who spoke, thanks to a grogginess that clouding my head. That said, it seemed like Twilight, Starlight, Spike, Princess Luna, and surprisingly Fluttershy were all gathered around the bed, watching me with eyes full of concern. This time, and I'm sure because she gave me my glasses while I was looking at her, Starlight spoke,"You had us so worried!"

With a yawn that lasted a bit longer than necessary, I tried to roll into position so that I could stand, but my legs felt like they were made of lead and rubber at the same time. "Sorry," I murmured. It took some effort, but I was able to force myself upright. It took a bit of stumbling, but it wasn't too hard to reach the edge of my bed. "Gah, I feel like someone ripped my soul out of my body and crammed it back in sideways or something... My body doesn't want to respond the way it should."

"I should expect not, young Anon," Princess Luna said in a surprisingly soft voice. Without prompting, she helped me off the bed with her magic, at which point, both Starlight and Fluttershy rushed to support me in case I fell again. Certainly not an easy thing to do with how small my room actually was. "You were in such a deep sleep, and yet you were nowhere to be found in the realm of dreams. Such things only happen when a pony has almost completely drained themselves of magic." She glanced to my open window and then shook her head. "The nights have been growing colder, as well, so that would help very little."

As I was shepherded out of my room and down the hallway, Twilight gave me a stern look. "Were you practising magic without supervision?" she asked. When I couldn't meet her gaze, she sighed. "You know those rules are in place for your own safety." It went left unsaid, but I still heard the 'and for the safety of others' part in my head.

I didn't say anything until we entered the dining room, where a bowl of cereal—something way too sugared to be considered healthy—was set out for me. A cup of coffee, which I could tell by smell alone had also been heavily sugared, was placed beside it. Much to everyone's surprise, including my own, I dug into the multicoloured flakes without complaint, forgoing the use of a spoon. "I dunno what to tell you, boss," I said between mouthfuls of saccharine fruity flakes of many colours. "I only conjured a single fireball because it felt like something was watching me while I was fishing, but that was just a tweak of the light spell I translated. It shouldn't have been anywhere near as draining as that rudimentary spell I used when I bluffed the Princess's guards."

I felt like there was something I should be telling them, but now that it felt like the opportunity to do so, the words wouldn't come. Heck, it almost felt like I was on the verge of having forgotten something important. There was something I wanted to probe carefully about, but it was almost like... I wasn't allowed to. Tears prickled at the edge of my vision, but I don't think I could even tell others why if I wanted to.

Twilight looked like she was about to provide some form of admonishment, but Fluttershy figuratively swooped in to save me. "I understand how scary it is when you feel like you're being watched," she said softly. While she spoke, I caught the Princess and Starlight sharing a look and then motioning to Twilight. It was subtle, but I still caught it. "I see it all the time with scared and hurt animals, too. They don't know what's happening or why, so they make threat displays in order to scare off potential attackers." She giggled softly at something, maybe some mental image or memory. "I'm sure that whatever had you scared enough to break one of Twilight's rules was just as scared of you."

Yeah, she was. I blinked at that thought. Wait, she? Although my dream was fading from my memory rather quickly, I could remember that I had been planning to go see someone that I met yesterday. Did I meet someone yesterday? I brought a hoof up to gently massage my temple as a dull ache formed in my head.

"Was I really asleep almost an entire day?" I asked, watching the three horned ponies step out into the hallway to converse in private. There was no hiding the cringe on my face as I drank the thankfully caffeinated coffee they'd given me. Too much sugar, but it's probably best that I grin and bear it. "I remember going to bed early, just after six, but..."

Spike gave me a serious look. "Dude, it's almost three in the afternoon," he said in a tone of disbelief. He jabbed a thumb at the timid pegasus. "She showed up thirty minutes ago to find out why we hadn't met up with everypony else for Applejack's public apology. Right in the middle of Princess Luna doing her dream magic."

I nodded, turning my full attention to my very late breakfast. So... I didn't manage to sleep through that? That's good. I wanted to be there to show that there was no ill will between us. Can't do that if I'm in some brainless coma. That said, it still left me with a number of unanswered questions. What was it that I wanted to consult the others on? Why did I suddenly feel the need to research ghosts and the paranormal? Would I be allowed to go fishing tomorrow or...?

Once my bowl was free of cereal, and my coffee drained, I downed the now-dyed milk and then used the provided spoon to shovel the sugary sludge from the bottom of the mug into my mouth. I dunno if the expressions on the faces of the two still present in the room were of shock, disgust, or concern at the apparent turnaround in my attitude towards sugar. Then again, when the body needs something it tells you through food cravings, and given that the sugar was actually tolerable, there was no doubt that I was utterly drained.

Still, what happened to all of my magic? I wondered, waiting for the other three to return. From what I'd read, it took a lot for an earth pony to naturally drain their reserves—and they were surprisingly large, but that usually was directed towards strength and endurance enhancement—and even with my abnormal way of doing so, I shouldn't have done nearly enough to do that. Not like that I had a large reservoir to begin with; like the rest of my body, we'd determined that my reservoir was underdeveloped for a pony my age. That'd probably change as I became more magically and physically active—that was the primary means through which earth pony magic increased, from what I'd been reading—but until that time came, I'd continue training until I was weak.

I don't want to be a low-capacity sugar battery forever. There's so much to learn and do... like runic enchantment!

"So, is there enough time for me to get a shower?" I asked, when Twilight and Starlight returned. Interesting, the Moon Horse isn't with them. Did she go on ahead? "I, uh, kinda fell asleep before I got to take my evening bath."

Twilight shook her head. "The scheduled apology before her release is set for half-past the hour, and it'll take 20 minutes to get there by hoof," she explained. "Half if everypony flies. You don't take short showers, even when rushing."

My eyes flicked to Starlight, whom I didn't expect to be able to fly any more than I could. She gave me this sheepish smile as magic coalesced around her horn. "Sorry, Anon," she said, pointing it at me. "Nopony really enjoys being hit with this spell, but it does work wonders when you're researching for days on end. This might tingle a bit."

As the spell hit me, it did more than just tingle. It was like a wave of paresthesia washing across my entire body. Once it passed, it occurred to me that everyone was snickering at me. It took me longer than I'd like to admit for me to look at the reflective surface of the table to see why. All of my fur was standing on end like a scared kitten's. Even my mane looked poofier, like Pinkie's.

In spite of myself, I started laughing too.

~ 15 ~

The trip to the town square was a quiet affair. Not because nobody was talking, mind. Twilight and Starlight were definitely talking, but I couldn't hear their heated discussion due to the privacy bubble spell Twilight was maintaining around the pair. They both looked angry, but it didn't seem like it was directed at me. No, it was more likely they were getting angry at each other. Why, though?

"Any idea what they're fighting about?" I asked Spike. Normally, I'd be a bit perturbed that he was walking alongside me, one clawed hand on my back to catch me if I stumbled, but given that I'd already nearly fallen once or twice since we started walking, I wasn't gonna turn away the support. "Twilight doesn't look pi—" I stopped myself when I remembered that Fluttershy was keeping pace along side us. "—peeved like she did when Ivory scalded me, but it's clear she isn't happy."

Spike just shook his head. "I dunno," he admitted, "but it must be pretty important. Look at their mouths."

As I did so, I couldn't help but feel very confused. They were clearly saying words in there, but their mouth movements didn't line up with anything close to approaching words. I wasn't a proficient lip-reader by any stretch of the mind, but it looked to me like they were just saying mawp over and over again. What the fuck?

"I've only seen Twilight use Greater Discrete Exchange a few times when talking security with the Royal Guard," he explained. As if realising something, he drew a bit closer. Yeah, like the filly who can barely walk'll be able to protect you, dude. "Do you think something's going on, and they're staying all hush-hush to keep us from panicking?"

As soon as he said that, Fluttershy tensed up and drew closer. Although she looked scared as hell—although from my understanding, she was kinda a coward most of the time—I could see that she had puffed up and it looked like she was holding her wings slightly apart from her body. Is that to look bigger, or is she readying to bolt?

"Relax, you guys," I said, trying not to let Spike's own paranoia agitate my own. "They're probably just arguing about whether to skip the event and take me to get checked up on. If it weren't for the fact that I wanted to see AJ, I'd probably ask to go anyway."

Fluttershy seemed to calm down, but she still stuck close. Once they were finished their private conversation, they rejoined the group. Starlight was even kind enough to give me a lift, since it was clear that I still hadn't recovered from whatever had sapped my magic and left me asleep for nearly a day. That didn't stop me at all from admonishing them for spooking Spike and Fluttershy. Don't you know there are scaredy-cats among you?

The rest of the trip was made in relative silence, since there wasn't really much to talk about. The only really annoying thing is that Twilight kept pestering me when it looked like I was about to nod off back to sleep. I think that kinda peeved Fluttershy, though, 'cause my sleepy ass curled up on Starlight's back was apparently 'so adorable,' and the disgruntled expression I made each time I was magically prodded ruined the mood.

That did leave me plenty of time to wonder, though. Why was I so tired and drained? Was I getting sick? Had I fucked up my mana pathways by playing with those unicorn spells I'd converted? Nah, that wouldn't explain why I was so empty; it'd more likely cause me to be in crippling pain if that was the case.

No... This weakness felt closer to anaemia—something I'd experienced a few times when I was living on the road and trying to survive off forage for too long. Anaemia felt almost exactly like this, except I knew that my nutrition was being closely monitored by my guardians. So it would have to be the magical equivalent, of it. What would cause it, though? I was eating more than the recommended amount of sugar for a foal my age now, because of my underdeveloped thaumic system. I wasn't even using that much yesterday, so what could cause me to haemorrhage magic like that?

I wanted to ask Twilight and Starlight, but I was worried that hearing me express concern would override their need to support Applejack, as well as my desire to make peace. What if they started asking questions I couldn't answer? They'd think I'm lying to them about something, probably; I know that's what I'd think.

Finally, we reached the town square, where a stage was set up. The townspeople were all gathered around the stage intently waiting, many of them tense. Rarity, Pinkie Pie, and Rainbow Dash were already there, standing on stage out of solidarity for their friend, and soon enough, the rest of our party joined them, which meant that I had to get off of Starlight. Applejack's grandmother, brother, and Apple Bloom stood at the other side of the stage.

Although Apple Bloom almost knocked me over when she came to join me—I think she wanted to show the ponies that she held no ill will towards me—I stuck close to Starlight's side. Still, a lot of ponies seemed to relax when Apple Bloom make her little display. I was honestly thankful. They probably wouldn't have jeered Applejack anyways, but seeing that I'd made friends with her sibling regardless probably meant something to them.

The only ponies I don't think I saw at all were the mayor—a light brown mare with a greying mane that I'd seen about the town on occasion—Applejack herself, and Princess Luna. Heck, I think I even saw Crescent Helm, Ivory and Ebony, and a pegasus mare who looked like Ivory with wings somewhere near the back—Moondust, I think Shining Armour had said her name was. So where were they?

The answer was pretty simple. They were waiting for the appointed time. Soon enough, Mayor Mare—What a fuckin' name, I tell ya!—stepped onto the stage and approached the podium. Giving the attached microphone a good one two tap to verify it was on, she gazed out at the crowd. "Ponies of Ponyville," she greeted. That sounded like how you were meant to greet a crowd on a positive occasion, rather than a sombre one. "The violent crime statistic in our lovely village one of the lowest across all of Equestria, a fact we can all take great pride in.

"Despite this, we must always be aware that nopony is perfect, and that anything can happen." She gazed out at the crowd, and then to each of us upon the stage. "To strike a foal in any case is to strike out at innocence itself, and is not a crime we forgive lightly. For that reason, we are gathered here today so that one of our own may plead for such forgiveness."

At that, Applejack, sans stetson, closely followed by Princess Luna, stepped up onto the stage. Were they here all along, hidden in the shroud of an invisibility spell? The freckled mare looked mentally worn down, and her shame was worn clear on her face. She looked at all of us on the stage—her gaze lingering on myself and Apple Bloom longer than any other—before turning her attention to everypony gathered in the square.

It's so quiet you could hear a pin drop.

"Ah know yer all expecting me ta beg an' plead for yer forgiveness, an' say how sorry Ah am. That it won't happen again," she said slowly into the microphone, looking dead-eyed out at the crowd. "Cain't rightly be askin' for somethin' ah ain't sure Ahm ready to give mahself, though. What Ah did to Anon was downright evil, no matter why it happened."

As I looked out at the crowd, I felt a moment of anxiety. Although most of them were watching the farmpony, there were more than a few eyes on me. Crescent Helm and his wife were having a hushed discussion while shooting glances at me. Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo were down in the front with their respective parents or guardians. Down in the back of the town square, almost out of sight, there was a silvery pegasus filly watching intently; when I made eye contact with her, it occurred to me that I wasn't sure if hers were blue or green, or some bright, vivid shade in between. I felt a prickle of recognition in the back of my mind, but a name wouldn't come.

Finally, AJ broke her attention and turned to look at me. "Ah cain't beg fer what Ah don't deserve," she murmured, meeting my eyes once before looking out into the crowd. "Nah, Ah ask y'all to not let hurt fester in yer heart, eatin' away at ya until ya lash out like Ah did." Tears rimmed her eyes as she turned to regard Rarity. "If'n ya or somepony ya know's been through somethin' awful, learn from mah mistake. Don't box it away and pretend it ain't affectin' ya. Talk to somepony, get some help; do anything, so long as ya can deal with it head-on."

It was hard to read the expression on Rarity's face. Sadness? Pride? Neither? Both? "Ahm done runnin' from what ails me, an' Ahm already seekin' help." Again, she turned to me. "Anon?" I stepped forward, joining her at the podium. A few ponies in the crowd tensed, but nobody made a move. Even when she held out her hoof, no-one moved. "Ah won't ask ya ta forgive me. Ain't got the right. All Ah ask is that ya let me work to makin' it right."

I smiled up at her, and then reached out my hoof to bump it. "Applejack, I wouldn't forgive you even if you had asked," I replied, earning the surprised and confused gasps from much of the audience. "From where I stand, there's nothing to forgive." Looking out to everyone, I shrugged. That filly's gone. Why do I feel like I know her, though? "Sure, it wasn't right for you to smack me, but I understand the why behind what you did. You were hurting in a way I didn't even know, and there I went saying stupid sh-stuff. Needling at that sore spot like that? Of course you'd lash out." In spite of myself, I let out a chuckle. "To be fair, if I'd mouthed off like that to my 'father'—" The quotation marks were clear in my voice made several ponies around me flinch. "—he'd broken my fu-freaking jaw."

Ponies in the audience and on stage—especially those who didn't know me—were outraged at hearing that, but I waved it off, continuing. "I don't believe there's anything you could—or would be willing to—ever do to me to hurt me like he did, Applejack." With an uncharacteristically dark smile, I whispered, "I'm glad that monster's dead."

~ 15 ~

After the public apology concluded, it was decided that Twilight's friend group, and by extension their loved ones and/or charges, would gather at Applejack's place this evening for a celebration of her release. It'll probably run through the night, but since tomorrow's Wednesday, the girls will probably be sent to bed at a reasonable time. Still, it'd probably be more than enough time to have some fun with the girls. Maybe they'll even be responsible and bring their homework, so I can check over their maths.

Okay, it was mean to snicker at that thought, but let's be real; they're just children, and there was probably no way in hell they were gonna bring their homework. Well, Apple Bloom's would be there because she lives there, but it's not like she'd be all that thrilled if I asked her to whip out the mathematics so I could run through it with them to make sure they're getting it. Plus, she's gonna wanna spend time with her big sister. I should let her have that.

Before we could do that, though, Twilight and I split off, citing the need to have me looked over by a physician at Ponyville hospital. My mana depletion and near-entire day of sleep wasn't exactly something we could ignore, even if I was starting to get the impression that the hospital staff was getting upset with the number of visits I'd made in the last two weeks. I knew better than to think they'd blame Twilight and Starlight for me becoming a frequent flyer, but still... I knew people would talk.

You'd think with how serious the reason for visiting was, the visit itself would be more eventful. Even with the nice unicorn on staff—one appropriately named Dr. Horse, no less—looking me over, nobody was able to figure out what was wrong. My body temperature was a bit low, which could either have been because of the open window or a result of my lack of mana. A sample of my blood had been taken to be assessed, but it'd take at least until tomorrow. The only thing worth noting was that my reservoir was refilling nicely, even showing signs of significant growth. They still wanted me to hold off from doing any magic outside normal manipular field usage for a few days.

I didn't scream at the doctor when he suggested that, but I wanted to. Something I'd begun to notice was that I had an almost subconscious compulsion pushing me towards my magic studies, and not indulging it left me feeling antsy. I couldn't be sure, but a pony's mark—God but 'cutie mark' sounds dumb as shit!—definitely seemed to push ponies towards activities relevant to it. It wasn't to the point of obsession, but it was a strong enough force for me to notice and realise that this was going to be miserable if I couldn't practice and bug-test ideas. You could no sooner tell a pony not to follow their talent than you could tell them not to breathe, if I had to guess.

On the bright side, by the time we were leaving the hospital and on our way across town, I felt strong enough to walk entirely on my own, unaided by anyone else. That was good, because I was really feeling the need for some space. Since waking up I was feeling crowded. First, I'd woken up surrounded by ponies in my not-so-large room, almost skewering myself on the Moon Horse's pointy end. Then, I was closely watched while I ate. Spike wouldn't leave my side during the trip to the town square, right up until Starlight gave me a ride the rest of the way. Even on stage, it was really close quarters. I'm not surprised that I started feeling twitchy around hospital visit.

Thankfully, Twilight picked up on my agitation, and she allowed me to trail behind as we paraded through town. That's not to say she wasn't keeping an eye on me out of her peripheral vision. I was glad for the space and silence. With it, I could decompress a bit before being thrown back into a lively situation where I was surrounded and likely wouldn't have anywhere to retreat to until tomorrow.

That said, I did notice a lot more glances coming my way from ponies we passed in the streets. Their expressions were often unreadable, but occasionally, I caught hints of worry, pity, and fear. The first two I got; most of town had just been exposed to the fact that I had been abused by my father, only for me to act like it wasn't a big deal. Then again, maybe that was why they were scared? I was acting outside the norm of what they would expect for a foal my age, and had just made peace with AJ in—at least by my reckoning—a calm and mature manner.

I'm not a normal foal, though, I had to remind myself. There were years of trauma that I needed to unpack and handle in a healthy setting before I'd be able to approach being anywhere near normal. Even then, I would probably be having that 'abused filly' and 'too mature for her age' label resting on my withers for some time. That's alright though. Labels were a means of classification, sure, but I didn't have to abide by them. As long as nobody starts treating me differently.

As we passed the mouth of an alley, something caught my eye. A pair of vivid green eyes staring out at me. Due to the position of the sun, much of what was present in the alley was shrouded in shadow, but I recognised the shape: a filly, and a familiar one, at that. She was watching me in the town square before, but there was something I knew I was forgetting. A name was on the tip of my tongue, even though I wasn't sure I'd seen her before, and it made my head swim.

I paused in the street, not paying attention to whether Twilight was watching me. I needed to know who this pegasus was. The more I looked at her, the surer I grew that I'd met her before. Why can't I remember? Despite knowing better than to slink off when I was potentially ill, I found myself trotting into the alley, towards those beckoning eyes that seemed to shine in the darkness.

"Anon, where did you go?" Twilight's alarmed cry barely registered in my mind. "Anon!?"

Entry 16

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The world felt strange. There was no other way I could put it. Like, it was clearly going on like normal around me, and my body could react to things, but there was some sort of barrier between my body, my emotions, and conscious mind. That was probably for the best for the ponies who found me; I might've been screaming otherwise.

See, the last thing I clearly remembered was following the boss mare through the streets of Ponyville. I was decompressing after being in close quarters with others for too long. Then we passed in front of an alley mouth, and then my recollection just stopped. Trying to remember just results in me seeing the alley mouth... like some corrupted video file. There's just... lost time.

The next thing I knew, I was standing in the middle of the street somewhere in the vicinity of Sugarcube Corner. It was close to sundown, by then. Much like right now, my body didn't want to listen to me, so I can just imagine the dazed look I must've had when Crescent Helm came across me. He was saying something to me, but it was like talking through a long tunnel. I guess when I didn't react to his presence or his words, he got spooked and used his magic to shoot a green flare off into the sky.

Ponies were evidently looking for me, and shortly after, the monochrome mare that had been with him in the town square touched down. She tried speaking to me, even just to get me to look at her, but try as I might, I felt like a puppet on strings. I couldn't even blink. That said, when she put a gentle hoof on my withers, my body did reflexively flinch, which probably didn't help assuage their concerns.

After a quick exchange with Helm—I was able to make out 'Princess', 'warm' and 'Sugarcube'—Moondust rocketed off into the sky, leaving me with the stallion. He said something to me, and to my surprise, I found myself following him. Maybe it was the commanding tone, or maybe it was just that it was an instruction my befuddled brain recognised, but suddenly I was a puppet with a purpose.

Although I wasn't able to actively look around, it became apparent that we weren't alone. Shortly into the journey, Ebony and Ivory ran up to their father. The colts were apparently trying to tell him something, but he said something along the lines of "Not now."

They followed in step close beside their sire, but there was something about them that struck me as odd—at least odd for them. The looks they kept shooting me over their shoulders were—rather than malice, angry, or even fear of me—ones of what seemed to be genuine concern. Sure, there was a little fear there, too, but it wasn't directed at me. Those boys were spooked. That, coupled with being trapped inside my own head, raised more concerns.

The guard stallion led me to Sugarcube Corner. It was easy for him to get me inside the building, but whatever force was guiding my body needed some cajoling to get into a booth. That brought me to the now. I was just sitting in the booth, staring at a glass of water. Nobody could get me to drink, even after trying the same commanding tone that got me to follow in the first place. The twins were seated at a nearby table, talking in whispers.

As I sat there, I grew more aware of the conversations around me. Crescent Helm was off to one side, talking to an on-duty guardspony from the Ponyville contingent. It looked as though she had a medical cross armband, meaning she was probably some sort of medic. "Found her on Violet Boulevard, conscious but unresponsive," he said, leading the armoured unicorn mare over to the table. "She seems to react to simple instructions, but getting her to sit in the booth was a challenge. Could you give her a quick once-over before the princess arrives?"

The medic nodded, sitting across from me in the booth. "Look up at me, hun," she instructed in a soft voice that my body wilfully obeyed. Her face was a mask of stoicism, and I got the slightest impression that her armour came equipped with the same anonymity enchantment guards in Canterlot seemed to have. That was to say her coat appeared grey and her face nondescript.

"Pupils are dilated," she noted aloud, before levitating a small flashlight from a satchel at her flank. She shone it in my eyes, watching them intently. "Sluggish pupillary reflex... concerning." Putting away the light, she leaned closer, angling her horn to point at my forehead as a spell fired off. "No indication of brain trauma, Helm," she said, glancing back at the stallion. "I'm gonna run a toxin detection and general medical scan, just to be on the safe side."

The door to the bakery swung open, and in stormed Twilight, Mrs. Moondust, and Princess Luna, just in time to see me get hit by two consecutive scanning spells. Before Twilight could swoop in and fuss over me, Crescent Helm intercepted the three ponies and quietly conversed while waiting for the medic's report. "There doesn't seem to be any barbiturates or any sort of chemicals in her system, and there's no indicators of physical trauma," she said, exiting the booth to address the four ponies. "As best as I can tell, she's in some sort of hypnotic trance state. Brain activity indicates she might even be conscious of what's going on around her, but it seems like her consciousness was pushed inward."

In my peripheral vision, I caught Twilight and the Moon Horse sharing a look. It seemed that though the medic's words didn't mean anything to Helm or Moondust, it meant something to them. There was a subtle widening of their eyes, and their wings seemed to tense. That's not good.

Even as Twilight rushed over to fuss over me, Princess Luna took a seat across from me, regarding me with a guarded expression. "I do believe I can bring her out of this state, Twilight," Luna offered, but there was concern present in her voice. "I cannot know what sort of reaction she shall have upon rousing, but she will likely require comfort."

It was kinda strange having Twilight fuss over me like this; hell, she was practically hugging me even before Princess Luna offered to free me from this state. Sure, she definitely cared about me, but it always felt more distant... professional, like a teacher, though occasionally the guardian side kicked in. Like when I got hurt and she was ready to unleash holy fury on those two colts and their father on my behalf. Still, this was the most touchy-feely she'd been since I'd scared her half to death with that tree stunt.

"Do it," she said without hesitation. "I need to hear from her what happened."

With that, the princess's horn began to glow. Slowly, I began to feel a sort of cold pressure in my head. It seemed to be probing around the... perimeter of my mind—for lack of a better descriptor. Then, without warning, that cold presence was all around me, engulfing me like a stone falling into a lake.

Suddenly, I wasn't in Sugarcube corner. Everything went dark around me, and I no longer felt as though I possessed a body. If there was a word to describe me, it would have been formless, trapped inside a shell. There was nowhere to go— nowhere to hide, It was just me, the cold, and the darkness of my trappings.

The presence grew more insistent, searching for a crack or some sort of opening, again, just like water. It startled me for a moment before I realised what was happening. She was attempting to find my conscious mind, even though it'd been buried in the subconscious, and drag it out. Except, I don't think the stone analogy really worked. It was more like she was searching for a stone, sifting through the mud at the bottom of a riverbed.

I'm right here! I thought toward her, as though my thoughts might somehow reach her. Willing myself to take some sort of shape, I reached out with a mental tendril, straining against the mud of my subconscious mind. There had to be a surface somewhere, but I had no idea which direction it was, so I strained to create another, and then another, until finally I felt stretched to the limit in every other direction. I can't even feel my own emotions, and I'm scared... Get me out of here.

Maybe she heard my thoughts, or felt me reaching out, but for a quick moment I felt her graze one of the tendrils. Her presence instantly recoiled, but I mentally reached out as if to grab at her with an outstretched hand. At the same time, I pulled back all the other feelers. Who knew what would happen if she pulled and my other metaphysical limbs tore off, forever trapped in the depths of my own subconscious? Don't leave me here!

A moment later, I felt her once more. This time, her own presence wrapped around that tendril of my consciousness and tugged. It felt like minutes or hours, although it was more likely not but a few seconds. Finally, I could feel my muscles twitching beneath Twilight's touch... The emotions I'd been cut off from surged in, giving my consciousness the buoyancy it needed to rise to the surface on its own.

As her presence left my head and my sight returned, I lurched forward in Twilight's grip with a gasp. Even as Twilight started to say something, the fear and confusion that had been building up—and unable to be processed—overwhelmed my mind. I did the only thing my brain would allow me to; I turned and buried my face in Twilight's chest, and began to cry. The tears were pouring from my eyes, soaking into in her coat. There may even have some snot.

See, it wasn't just the fear of waking up completely drained, my missing time, being trapped inside my own head that made me lose control. The dream I'd been having had loosened something in the mental walls I'd built up around a specific set of emotions so long ago. Having my consciousness pushed inward and drug back out only served to break that levee. All at once, the grief of losing my mother, leaving behind my sisters, resorting to prostitution, and losing my humanity washed over me with such force that I was swept away in a tidal-wave of emotions.

To Twilight's credit, she didn't seem bothered that I'd finally lost control, was making a mess of her coat, or that I was probably gonna need to clean my glasses later. Even as I blathered incoherently, I felt her wings wrap around my back, and her hoof stroked the back of my head. I think I'd even started crying out in English, asking for my Mom, saying how much I missed her and my sisters. She just sat there in the booth, holding me as I cried, whispering soothing words to me.

Somehow, even as I cried myself hoarse, I managed to keep my awareness of what was going on around me. Ebony and Ivory had pulled their mother aside at some point, and were whispering to her. Meanwhile Princess Luna was having a very hushed discussion with Crescent Helm and the guard medic. The bakery itself was otherwise dead quiet, and I kinda felt bad, because this whole scene was probably scaring customers away.

When I'd finally gotten most of it out of my system, I slumped in Twilight's grasp. "I'm good now, boss," I rasped. "What happened to me?"

Without speaking, Twilight unwrapped her wings from around me. Her forelimbs manoeuvred me to face the table, and her magic levitated the glass of water to my mouth. "We were actually hoping you could shine some light on the matter." She watched as I greedily gulped down the cold water. Once I had drained the entire glass, she levitated it away and asked, "You were gone for almost two hours. Can you tell me what you do remember, Anon?"

I glanced over at Princess Luna, who now stood beside the booth. "One minute, I'm walking behind you, and when we passed an alley... I." I swallowed and looked down. "The next thing I know, I'm standing in the middle of the street, trapped in my own head," I explained as my emotions started to bubble up. My voice was growing hysterical the more I spoke. "A pervert could've found me in that state... taken advantage of me, and though I had a mouth, I couldn't scream..."

That seemed to get Princess Luna's attention. "Truly?" she asked in a tense voice. Clearly that meant something to her. "You remember nothing at all?" When I shook my head from side to side, I thought I caught a shiver running through her coat.

"I don't... I never had any sort of history of blacking out," I murmured, trembling in Twilight's grasp. "Could whatever left me so drained this morning have caused it?"

That question seemed to hang in the air for a few moments. Twilight hugged me closer, but didn't speak up. The Moon Princess looked like she wanted to say something, but something stopped her. At first, I thought Twilight was nuzzling the top of my head, but maybe she was warning Luna off? No, even though I'm technically a child, I think she respects me enough to not keep this kind of thing a secret.

The silence itself was broken Ebony, who looked up at his mother. "Shouldn't we tell them, Mom?" he asked, his wings fidgeting at his sides. "It could be important, right?"

Luna gave the mare a questioning look. "Petty Officer, have you something to add?"

After a few moments decision, the mare nodded. "Your Highness, my sons seem to think that they may have seen something," she said to Princess Luna before giving her husband an uneasy glance. "After the altercation at the Ponyville Schoolhouse that resulted in both Anon and my sons being suspended, the boys were encouraged to give her a sincere apology as soon as possible." The mare wilted slightly as the Princess's gaze grew steely. "After seeing how she responded with Miss Applejack, they went off to find her and take their chances..."

Ivory piped up at that point. "We caught up with them on their way back from the hospital, but we were starting to get cold hooves so we were following at a distance," he said, looking surprisingly ashamed of himself. "Then she just sorta stopped in front of an alley, stared at something for a moment, before going in. We followed for a bit, and she wasn't alone!"

This time, a blushing Ebony spoke up. "There was this really pretty pegasus filly!" he stammered out. "Never saw her before; I'd have remembered. She was almost completely silver, with a white-ish mane... green eyes. We tried to follow after them, but then we rounded a corner and they were just gone!"

~ 16 ~

After being asked what I knew about the filly—I couldn't remember shit, did you really think I'd be able to tell you anything!?—the adults left me to my own devices while holding conference in one of those privacy fields at another booth. That left me, and the Crescents, Ebony and Ivory, relatively unobserved. Well, I say that, but Mr. Carrot Cake is at the counter, tending to what customers come in, and he's giving the boys a right stink-eye.

Any other time, I'm not sure how I'd have reacted to them casually coming up to me. After hearing that they genuinely wanted to apologise, even if it was heavily encouraged, I at least managed to not flinch when they sat down across from me in the booth. So instead of just one spooked looking filly sitting uncomfortably in a booth, it was a filly and two colts.

Since they were just sitting there in awkward silence, I took advantage of the opportunity and began to clean my lenses. Sure, I didn't have any proper lens cleaner or microfiber cloths—Note to self, get some of those!—but with careful pressure from my hoof fields, the moisture in my breath, and some napkins from the dispenser at the table, I was able to clear my glasses of most of the crud without scratching them up. After putting them back on, I looked from one colt to the other and cocked a brow.

"Anon, listen," Ivory began in a faltering voice. "We messed up. We know we did."

I nodded, but held back any sort of sarcastic remark. I want to see how far they can get on their own, before they need any sort of prodding.

"Back in Canterlot, we used to be bullied ourselves," Ebony explained with his ears folded back, unable to meet my gaze. "We became bigger bullies so those noble brats would leave us alone, and ended up falling in with a bad crowd... We started lying, shoplifting—" He let out an audible gulp. "—and scamming... Then Dad got transferred here..."

"We could have started fresh here, but..." Ivory continued. "We didn't want to risk being bullied again, so we kept doing what we did in Canterlot." He looked me in the eye before saying, "That doesn't excuse what we did to you, but we want you to know how sorry we are."

I shut my eyes, cocking my head slightly before taking off my glasses once more. Putting them down on the table, I pressed a hoof to my temple. When I reopened my eyes, I looked at the blurry shapes of the boys. "I'll be honest, I wasn't sure I wanted to forgive you," I said, tapping my temple gently with my hoof. "This is probably permanent, and the small, irrational part of my mind insists I should hate you both for the rest of my life."

Even though I couldn't see them clearly enough to make out the expressions on their faces, it was enough to see them wince. "Let me ask you both a question," I continued, heaving a sigh. "Do you know what it means to lose someone? A grandparent? A pet? Just... one day someone whose presence you've taken for granted isn't there anymore, and suddenly it's like there's a hole in your heart?"

The boys both shook their heads. "That's what I thought," I murmured. "Something that I heard once was that 'Children are cruel, not out of malice, but out of ignorance.' I never really understood what it meant because for the first... five years of my life, it was just me, my Mom, my two little sisters, and the monster who called himself my father. There wasn't anyone else." Putting my glasses back on, I looked at the boys. "You had no idea of the hurt of losing loved ones, so you couldn't see why it was wrong to attack it, and it reminded me of something else...

"We're all still just children," I explained, earning a look of confusion from the boys. That might've been because of the big words I was using, though. "For the last three years, I've been interacting with almost nothing but adults, and adults are different from foals so..." I shook my head, trying not to go off on a tangent. "Strictly speaking, our brains don't fully develop until we're adults, especially the parts relevant to decision making and impulse control." They still didn't seem to be picking up what I was laying down, and it finally occurred to me that they're just kids. "Put simply, you don't know any better."

Reaching a hoof across the table. "If you guys can promise to do better, I think I can look past this whole affair," I said with a smile. "For what it's worth, I do kinda feel guilty about feeding you your teeth—" I looked from Ivory to Ebony. "—and plucking your wing like I did. Truce?"

The boys shared a look before nodding. They reached across the table and put their hooves atop mine. In unison, the pair said, "Truce."

~ 16 ~

I didn't put up a fight when Twilight insisted she carry me from Sugarcube Corner to Sweet Apple Acres. Sure, my mind was a bit frayed from all the close contact, but what little mental energy I could muster right now could be better directed to other things. Oh, my body was fine; my magical reserves were probably about two thirds of the way full—a small feat in and of itself, given I was running on empty maybe two hours ago. It's just, after breaking down in front of Twilight, Princess Luna, and a bunch of strangers, fatigue was kicking in.

Still, it seemed like Twilight didn't want me to fall asleep while she gave me a ride. The mare was trying to fill the gap with small-talk, or insisting that she was sure that everything was fine. She was lying through her teeth, of course; I could tell that she and Princess Luna were on edge about something. Yet... I couldn't bring myself to press her for info. Should I have? Probably, but what happened in the cafe had shown me something. No, she was angry on my behalf when she received word of my suspension, too.

Book Horse had shown how much my well-being actually meant to her. Princess Celestia might've just pawned me off on her as revenge for the cake, or some sort of lesson to her pupil, and maybe for Twilight, I did just start out as such. That said, she seemed genuinely invested in my education and adaptation in this world. She wasn't just scared because her pet project went missing. She was treating me like family and making decisions she thought best affected my well-being—even if she knew it would be something I objected to.

Guilt began to creep its way into the back of my mind. She was so scared for me, I thought, looking up at the sky. Yet the moment I came out of it, I called her boss as if nothing was wrong. It was stupid of me... almost heartless. The whole 'boss' thing was something I came up with that was simultaneously indicative that I respected her authority, but impersonal. That said, it also sent a message... We aren't family. At the same time, there you had me adopting Starlight as my big sister like nothing was unusual about it. That's the sort of cruel, psychological manipulation he would use if he had the mind for it.

When we were going up the orchard road leading to the Sweet Apple Acres homestead, Twilight paused. Swivelling her head to regard me, she gave me a sceptical look. "I'm a bit surprised that you forgave those colts so easily," she said in a soft tone. "Nopony would have blamed you for rejecting their apology. Children or no, that Ivory colt very well nearly cost you your eyesight."

I shrugged, not meeting her gaze. "I probably shouldn't have," I agreed. "It'll probably be a long time before I can be around them without wincing—today I was simply too drained to care—but at the time, it felt like the right thing to do." I finally turned my gaze down to meet hers. "It just seems so... unimportant now, when you look at what's happening."

Twilight looked like she was about to say something. "Twilight, don't," I interrupted, patting her back slightly. "I can tell something is up. You and Princess Luna both seem to have a good idea what, too." I set my head down between her withers. "I'm not gonna press you, though. I trust you'd tell me if you didn't think my knowing would put me or others in yet more danger."

From this angle, it was slightly difficult to make out her expression, but shock seemed to be chief among them. "I don't know if anything like this gonna happen some more, or if all of this is just an unhappy series of coincidences putting everyone on edge," I murmured. "But I know you'll not let anything happen to me."

You'll never replace my Mom, but maybe... I shut my eyes and listened to the wind in the apple-trees. How did ponies in herds handle referring to parents when there were two or more mares? Were they also Mom? Did they have some sort of pony term I didn't know? Or did they call the other mares Aunties? I resolved to find out. Maybe I'm ready to let you in...

~ 16 ~

The party seemed to be quite enjoyable, if subdued for most of Twilight's friends. The hard apple cider was brought out, and many of the adults imbibed a bit. That said, the only one who seemed to aim for inebriation was Dash; the others were a bit more subdued in their drinking, even AJ. Even with Pinkie trying to bring a smile to everyone's faces with games and snacks and the like, everyone was trying to hide the fact that they were on edge.

Honestly, that made me feel guilty. Today should've been a time for celebrating Applejack's freedom, but whatever the fuck was going on had put a huge damper on everyone's moods. It didn't help any that I still didn't have a lot of energy to dedicate to feeling or expressing a lot of emotion. As it was, I pretty much just stuck near Twilight or Starlight for much of the evening—Twilight especially, with how on-edge she currently was.

Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo tried their best to engage me, if for nothing else than to take my mind off my disappearance. I couldn't adequately explain to them why I was basically a zombie, or how I was feeling, and I didn't have the energy to dissuade them from making wild theories about what had happened. Those ranged from the mundane, such as me falling asleep and sleepwalking, to me being abducted by aliens, to me having some sort of super-hero alter ego that I wasn't allowed to know about. They meant well though, so I humoured them with a smile.

Eventually, as the night wore on, the girls were sent off to bed, and I was left being someone's silent shadow. Rainbow Dash was the first one to pass out in AJ's living room. Then Big Macintosh brought out a bunch of pillows and blankets, before shuffling off to somewhere upstairs. Then, one after another, Twilight's friends started turning in for the night.

Maybe the most surprising thing about that evening was seeing them all form a sort of pony pile. Most of them set out a pillow to support their upper bodies, and then used one of their neighbours as a pillow. The only one who really avoided the pile was Starlight, who stayed off to the side, although Twilight was out on the pile perimeter. Part of me wanted to just head off to a corner and avoid pesky pony proximity problems, but at the same time, I didn't really wanna be alone tonight.

Although I was more inclined to snuggle up to Starlight, I reminded myself that I'd decided to give Twilight a chance. To her credit, Starlight—I don't know if she was having a hard time falling asleep, or if she was keeping an eye on me until I turned in—caught me looking from her to Twilight. Maybe she even recognised my inner conflict, because she looked from me to Twilight and nodded, smiling softly.

With my decision more easily made, I ignored the pillow I'd been granted, and moved over to where Twilight was lying on her side. Careful, not to disturb her, I crawled atop her blanket and snuggled up against her belly. Resting my head across her forelegs, I pulled my own blanket over me and shut my eyes. I heard a camera go off, and Starlight giggling, but I was way past caring.

Entry 17

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I didn't dream that night. Not because I was drained, or because of anything to do with Princess Luna. I don't think I ever slipped deep enough into sleep to enter REM in the first place. It wasn't because I was cuddled against Twilight or sleeping in a strange place, either. Twilight's presence was surprisingly comforting—despite her having gotten a forelimb around me at some point—and I was used to sleeping wherever sleep could be found.

No, I think it was the tension that'd built up from yesterday's worrisome events. Sure, I said I'd trust Twilight to take care of things, but that didn't mean I wasn't bothered by things. You don't just fall asleep for a day, wake up completely drained, and then lose more than an hour of time. Plus, there's something that I keep forgetting about, and I know I've forgotten it... but I can't bring myself to mention it at all. Or am I not allowed to?

That was a terrifying thought, but it also made too much sense. If I'd seen something that someone powerful didn't want anyone to see, they might go to any length to keep their secret—even mind magic. If my memory was being tampered with, it'd make sense that they might want to check and make sure that their tinkering had stuck. Hell, they might even go so far as to implant 'suggestions' that kept me from mentioning anything, even if I wanted to.

Is that why Princess Luna looked so disturbed when she pulled me out of that trance-state? I thought, as I turned the day's events over in my mind. She probably felt something from our mental contact, and told Twilight and those guard ponies. That explained the necessity to keep me in the dark. Who or what did I see, though?

I heard movement in the dark of the living room, and soon after I heard Applejack speak. "Well shucks, ain't that a sight." If the farm mare was up, chances were that it was some point close to dawn. Mac, and the elderly matron of the family, Granny Smith were probably gonna be up and about soon as well. "Girl's finally done started to settle."

Cracking my eye open, I found her standing near door. Seemed like she stopped on her way out after catching sight of me being in the pile. "Been a rough couple of days," I whispered back, carefully worming my way free of Twilight's grip. Stretching myself as a cat would, I couldn't quite stifle a yawn. "Need a hand with chow? I don't mind helping out, even if it's just peeling potatoes for hash-browns, or apples for something."

She seemed to consider my offer before shrugging. "Ah wouldn't feel right askin' ya to chip in," she said with a smile. "Wouldn't say no to yer offer, though." Inclining her head toward the hallway, she added, "C'mon."

My body felt a lot better as I followed her out into the hall and into the kitchen, taking great care not to step on Spike's tail. Not only that, my mind was a lot clearer, and my emotions a lot more vivid than they were. I was so... complacent yesterday, I thought as she sat me down at the table with two buckets, a peeler, and a bushel of apples while she put a kettle on. I'm not just gonna accept whatever the fuck is going on.

She only needed me to peel enough apples to fill the second bucket, but it was a fairly large one. As I held the peeler in one hoof and an apple in the other, I paused to stare at the apple. I knew that hoof-fields were surprisingly malleable from previous experiments, and could even take on a hand shape. But maybe... I focused on the invisible extension of my physical magic and willed it to rotate. It took some effort, but once I got the concept down, the fruit was spinning on its axis a few centimetres from my hoof.

After peeling the first two apples that way, I was able to mentally automate the process, which left me free to think as I worked. So Twilight and Luna are calling the shots in regards to whatever happened yesterday... I know I said I was fine letting them handle this shit themselves, but am I really? My teeth ground together as my jaw tightened. Maybe it was a result of whatever's going on, but that was way too submissive of me.

Dropping the fourth peeled apple into the bucket, I flicked my gaze to the window and the predawn sky beyond before grabbing another apple. And forgiving those little shits!? I shook my head as the fruit squished a bit in my grip. No way in fuck would I have been so quick to forgive if I was in my right mind. There was no chance I'd go back on my word, though. If all this resolved and shit went back normal, I'd have to tolerate it. Chalk it up to whatever mind-fuckery's been going on.

What could I do, though? After saying I'd let Twilight and the Princess take care of things, there's no way I could just parade around meddling. At the same time, though it'd be stupid to just let whatever happened to me yesterday reoccur. No, I need to come up with some sort of game plan, I decided as I finished the tenth apple. I should look into a few things when we get back to the library... And fuck not using magic for a few days.

For that matter, I need to better understand how to defend myself. "Say, Applejack?" I probed, glancing across the room. Huh, I was so focused that I didn't even notice her starting to peel potatoes. "Mind if I ask you something?"

"Yeah, sugarcube?" she replied, looking up from her own busywork. A look of surprise flitted across her face as she glanced over my mostly full bucket of peeled apples. Evidently I hadn't taken nearly as long as she'd expected me to. "Darn, girl... Ya sure made quick work o' that, didn't'cha?"

I shrugged, putting aside a squishy apple and setting down the peeler. "I sorta just zoned out," I answered. "Anyway, with everything that's happening... would you be willing to teach me how to buck before we all leave later?"

The country mare cocked an eyebrow, but didn't stop peeling the large spud she had. "Way Apple Bloom tells it, ya don't need no help protectin' yerself, 'Non," she said with a snort. "Seein' the way ya done tossed Pinkie that one time, Ah'm inclined ta agree."

Shaking my head, I grabbed another apple and started peeling it. "There's fighting in a blind panic, and then there's defending yourself," I murmured, my ears folding back as a wave of shame washed over me. "I need to know how to better use this body to protect myself, and if I can learn to buck, that might be the difference between getting away from danger and something bad happening."

Applejack set down her peeled potato and glanced to the door, where Big Macintosh was blearily entering. "I'll talk to Twilight 'bout it," she said. After a moment of reflection, she gestured to a small woven basket by the pantry. "In the meantime, ya mind runnin' out to the chicken coop and rustlin' up a dozen eggs? Not enough in the pantry. Mac an' Ah'll finish up in here."

Stepping out into the cool autumn morning a few moments later, the basket balanced atop my head, I was suddenly struck by a thought. No way in hell Twilight didn't inform the others that something was up, I mused, walking across the grounds. After yesterday, there's no way I'm just being let run free. That must mean...

My eyes traced every possible angle of observation as I drew close to the chicken coop. At first, I couldn't see anything out of the ordinary in the low light. As my eyes adapted to the gloom, however I started picking up on a few things. On the roof of the main barn, there was a pony silhouetted against the morning sky. Couldn't be sure if it was a stallion or mare, but the glint of their armour gave them away as they tried to adjust their position for comfort. Or maybe signalling someone else. Still, kinda big for a pegasus.

I paused in front of the coop, glancing in the direction of the best spot to watch both the house and the barn—towards the orchard. It was subtle, but I caught the glint of eye-shine perched in one of the trees. That gave me a bit of a chill, because my only experience with it was the predators I'd encountered in my previous life. Wolves in Alaska, and a close call with a mountain lion in Colorado—not exactly a casual experience. Okay, Samwise the possum also had it, but his beady little eyes weren't like these big eyes. Definitely a bat pony there.

A smirk crossed my face as I remembered the two rookies I waved the fire at. The mischievous part of my brain insisted that I should wave to the two guards on watch, but the fact that the princesses had guards watching over us now only confirmed something was up. Blatantly pointing them out to whoever else might be watching, which would just make their jobs harder. I settled for making direct eye-contact with the glowing pair of eyes, cocking an eyebrow, and then nodding slightly.

That out of the way with, I opened the door to the coop, found an oil lantern, and some matches. Once the lantern was lit, and a bunch of bleary-eyed hens were staring at me, I got to work. "Sorry, ladies; I know it's early," I whispered softly. Animals apparently had a degree of intelligence here in Equestria, and even if you couldn't understand them, they apparently understood enough from tone and facial expressions to get the general meaning. "Applejack needs a dozen eggs for a big breakfast. Mind if I poke through?"

To my surprise, five hens rose from their nesting boxes; the rest just glared at me as if my presence offended them. From the offered boxes, I began lifting up the eggs to the lantern and looking for those that had no indication of embryonic development. Any that did went right back to the box it came from, with a smile and a nod to the proud momma bird. The rest I gently placed in the basket. Once I had my dozen, I snuffed the lantern and returned it to its place by the door.

"Thanks, ladies," I murmured. Rather than attempting to balance a dozen eggs on my head, I did the reasonable thing and picked up the basket by its handle—or was that a mouth grip? "I'll get outta your feathers now."

~ 17 ~

Breakfast that morning was a lively affair. After I got back with the eggs, I found Pinkie Pie and Granny Smith had joined AJ and Mac in the kitchen. She'd apparently borrowed the oven to make a batch of muffins. Meanwhile, it seemed that the elderly mare was fixing up some sort of hash-browns made with apple. Soon after, the eggs were put to use in some scramble and pancakes.

Thank fuck the coffee was on, though. I needed it.

I still dunno how they managed to fit nine adult ponies, four foals, and a baby dragon at the dining room table. Between Pinkie and some rather inexplicable day-to-day shit that didn't much make sense, I was starting to get the impression that reality was a lot more malleable than I gave it credit. That might've just been some sort of spatial magic on the behalf of Twilight or Starlight, mind you.

Still, it was a small feast of apple pancakes with syrup, hash-browns, and scrambled eggs. Although AJ slipped me a black coffee while I was waiting for the others to wake, I wasn't permitted any more at breakfast. It was strictly apple juice for me while I ate, and since I wasn't exactly fond of the syrup, I ended up having a lot of juice.

All the while, conversations were going on around me. Fluttershy was fussing over Rainbow, who in turn was grumbling about her hangover. Rarity and AJ were readying the Cutie Mark Crusaders for school. Mac and Granny Smith were discussing farm and orchard stuff. Pinkie was doing Pinkie shit, and Starlight and Twilight just seemed to be watching me with concern.

As the meal came to an end, I pulled Pinkie Pie aside. "Say, Pinkie? Would you mind doing me a favour?" I asked in a hushed voice as I led her out to the kitchen. "There are a few guard ponies out there keeping watch." Excitement spread across her face when I said this. "You mind using your laws-of-reality defying powers to bring them some coffee? Probably been a long, boring shift of watching over the house..."

"Would I!?" she shrieked with glee. Immediately, she pronked over to the coffee maker, whipped out four disposable travel cups, and even one of those cup-holder trays. Three of the cups were filled with coffee, and then the manic mare pulled a few packets of sugar and creamer out of her mane and dropped them into the fourth cup. "Anon, you had me at potential new friends!"

I never said that though...

Abject terror filled my stomach as Pinkie jumped into the sink, the tray balanced atop her head. Without moving her hooves, she began to spin and slowly descend into what I could only assume to be the drain. Sure, I knew the laws of nature didn't apply to her most of the time, but I certainly wasn't expecting to see her do it. That was so fucking nope that I can't even cope.

Returning to the living room, I wondered if I'd done the right thing. Sure, they were out there on watch—probably as ordered by the princesses—and I knew I'd want some coffee after being up all night, but was it fair to set Pinkie on them? Were they briefed on her abilities? Or was some guard about to get the shit scared out of them by an ~~eldritch horror~~ adorable pudgy mare with no regards for personal space?

"What was that about, Anon?" Starlight couldn't help but ask when I took up the empty chair beside her. "Aside from her party, I don't think I've ever seen you interact with Pinkie."

I shrugged and set my head down on the table. She was right; Pinkie was probably the only member of Twilight's friend group that I had the least interaction with. Well, she probably doesn't think I'm avoiding her, since I just sought her out and all. "Oh, you know," I muttered. "The guards out there looked like they could use a pick-me-up." When her eyebrow shot up, I explained myself. "Spotted two of them when I went out to fetch eggs from the chicken coop. Sure, they were trying to be stealthy, but it's not like Pinkie would make them breach OPSEC, right?"

Before Starlight had the opportunity to answer that question, there was a loud, "Hi! I'm Pinkie Pie! Wanna be friends?" followed by the startled cry of a stallion and what sounded like someone falling off a roof. Everyone—aside from the elderly green pony at least—rushed out into the yard to figure out what the fuck was going on. Well, they all were; I just walked out and immediately pressed a hoof against my head, hoping against hope that it would fight off the incoming headache.

There was Pinkie Pie, standing atop the barn's weather vane, coffee still atop her head. She was looking down at a hay bale, where the back half of a charcoal pegasus stallion was sticking out—thankfully the other way. A bat pony mare in dark night-guard plate was futilely tugging at his back legs, while a unicorn in day-guard armour was admonishing them both. Couldn't tell his coat-colour, what with that anonymity enchantment. That said, there did appear to be some sort of insignia on the pauldron of his armour. Maybe it was a rank or squad marking?

"What in the hay is going on out here?" Applejack bellowed. This startled the bat pony so much that she pulled hard enough to dislodge the pegasus. The two shot through the air, only to crash down atop the barn roof in a pile. "Who are all of ya, an' what're ya doin' here?"

The guard unicorn sighed and made his way across the grounds. "My apologies, ma'am," the dude said. God, but he sounded super embarrassed, probably thinking he was about to lose his job. Behind him, the other two guard-ponies had managed to get down from the barn and were evidently looking for the pegasus guard's helmet. "I'm Staff Sergeant Revelry of the Canterlot Royal Guard, 7th Military Police group: Protective Services Branch. Those two are under my command. At the behest of Princess Celestia, we were sent to watch over to Princess Twilight and those of her immediate household."

~ 17 ~

After that whole mess was squared away, the sergeant and his two subordinates—Specialist Strongwind, and Corporal Evening Script—insisted on escorting us back to Twilight's castle. Nobody really wanted to say anything—and I was a bit miffed that she said no to AJ teaching me to properly kick—so for a long while, it was just silent. It certainly caught the attention of several ponies in town, seeing the four of us being escorted by a trio of guards—the sergeant in front, and the other two in back to either side of us.

Twilight seemed almost irritated, although I couldn't be sure as to the why. It could have that I'd inadvertently lessened how effective the guards could be by forcing their appearance by way of Pinkie. Then again, it could also have been that she was irritated that any of this was happening in the first place. From what I'd heard, she'd not yet had any guards and enjoyed the privacy it provided.

Spike was sorta just there in the background as he rode on Twilight's back. Unless he had something to say, I'm ashamed to admit that it was easy to forget that he was even there most of the time. It wasn't fair to him; he was only a few Equestrian years older than myself, and he was probably just as scared by this turn of events. I couldn't imagine what he thought about the sudden need for an escort.

Meanwhile, Starlight kept stealing glances at me when she thought I wasn't paying attention. Ever since I'd called her my big sister, it definitely felt like we'd grown closer, so I could only imagine what was feeling in all of this. Was she scared by what might happen to me? Or was she worried that someone was priming me to become some sort of sleeper agent? After all, she surely had some enemies based on her past.

As for me, I spent the entirety of the walk mulling over my earlier trip outside. Strongwind had been the easiest of the group to spot. Once I'd seen him and knew to look, I'd found Evening Script. I hadn't even seen Revelry. Was it just that he had that much more experience in concealing himself? No, I thought as I glanced from his armoured back to my guardian. Probably some sort of invisibility spell.

That left me to wonder how he had done it though. There were many ways to achieve effective invisibility, and that was just basing it on fiction that I'd read. The most obvious option would be to simply bend the light around a target. If no light could touch an object, to reflect off it, would it not go unseen? Possibly, but I imagined that the sort of upkeep for such a spell wouldn't be anything to sneeze at. Plus there was the matter of no light reaching one's eyes, which would render the entire spell pointless for a body-guard.

In Harry Potter, there was the Fidelius Charm which had been used to render places as incapable of being found. You could be standing in plain sight on a property protected by such a charm, but the eyes of those not in the know of the secret would just glance over you. Such a feat seemed feasible from my knowledge of Equestrian magic, but could a mere guard be capable of doing such a thing, especially in so short of a time?

Then, of course, there was the matter of the Leaky Cauldron and St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries. Both places had been accessible from London, but they'd both had different means of disguising it. To muggles, the Leaky Cauldron appeared to be a broken down old storefront, while St. Mungo's had been disguised as an abandoned department store even to Wizards. While the latter might've been an example of magical gateways, rather than simply hiding in plain sight, it did bring to mind the school of illusion magic.

Even if a pony wasn't strong enough to render themselves completely invisible, what was to stop them from making it appear that they were just a simple rain-barrel? Nobody would look at one of those on a farm and say to themselves, 'Damn, that thing's out of place!' It'd be the perfect way to seamlessly blend in with the scenery, and only someone who knew the place well, like one of the Apples would even spot the difference.

As we drew closer to the castle, I found myself workshopping ideas for how illusion spells might work. Since discovering the intrinsic link between horn-cast magic and runic spells, I'd shown that I could inscribe any spell a unicorn could cast, so long as I could decode it. I'm not just learning how to read and cast spells, though; I'm literally learning how to create my own. The only matter of import there was having enough magic. Would it be started with something phrased like Conjure Illusory Image, or were there different runic keywords to create such an illusion?

My musings were ultimately disturbed when, upon coming into sight of the great crystal structure, Sergeant Revelry spoke up. "Those are the other two members of your new guard detail, Your Highness," he said, indicating two ponies who appeared to be flanking the front door. One was an anonymous looking pegasus like Strongwind, while the other was a bespectacled earth pony. Both appeared to be armed with spears, although it was hard to tell at this distance. "Private Stonefeather, and Private First Class Specks."

If it hadn't been for the fact that Princess Celestia had 'blessed' me with the name Anonymous, I probably would have laughed. Pony names and their talents or appearances tended to be linked, so it seemed kinda mean that his parents had named him for his need for glasses. Then again, who was I to talk? My genetic donor had effectively named me Nobody.

Once we'd reached the door, the earth pony guard stepped forward. "Welcome back, sir, ma'ams," he said in a soft voice that didn't seem to fit a member of the Royal Guard. "Nopony has been in or out since Princess Luna personally swept the premises, sir."

I doubted a single pegasus and an earth-pony could possibly watch all ways in or out of this building,but I had to remind myself that this was a land of magic. Princess Luna had probably cast some sort of security spell like Alarm on all the entrances, if not the entire building itself. If an alert had gone off, the pegasus pony probably would've gone to the guard-house to raise the alarm.

Regardless, I just watched as Twilight cast some sort of spell that swept over the castle before nodding in agreement. Cleared to enter, we pretty much all split up. I went off to my bedroom to fetch my magic notebook and pencil, and then to the library straight after. Starlight went off to do whatever it is she does when she's free. Meanwhile, Twilight and Spike seemed to be sorting out the lodging situation for her new quintet of guards. I think Spike might've mentioned something about a barracks on that tour he gave me, but I'm a bit fuzzy on the details.

As for the guards, the specialist—Strongwind, I think it was?—followed after Starlight, while the bat corporal followed me. I could feel her judgement when we stopped in my room. After all, the bed was mostly entirely unused, and instead there was just a blanket-covered pile of pillows in the corner with all of my personal belongings arranged along the perimeter of the pile. I just ignored her, grabbing my notebook and pencil. After a moment's thought, I grabbed my cloak and threw it on. I also paid no mind to a gift-box that was atop my bed with a rolled-up scroll threaded through the ribbon. Now was a time for magic.

Upon entering Twilight's library, I started grabbing books manually. Maybe it's lingering lethargy from yesterday, but I really don't feel like casting Unseen Servant right now, regardless of whether or not I'm allowed to. At first, I only grabbed the runic dictionary and Your Horn and You, but there was another book that caught my eye. Biologia Mutabilis - On Changelings New and Old. I'd have to remember that one for later. After all, the book from school had made me a little interested in the shapeshifters.

The first task I set for myself was to pick through the runic dictionary for some keywords I thought might be useful. At first, I noted down all of the primary elements—earth, water, fire, and air—their sun-glyph readings, and their stroke orders. Sure, I know fire already, but there's no reason not to make sure I'm writing it properly. Then, I went for a few modifiers: shape, size, force, intensity, velocity, and duration. Some of them were very much just for my personal defence spells, but at the same time, force, velocity, and duration could be useful for other things. They were pretty complicated though, so my stroke order notes were much longer.

In particular, I was interested in mimicking the telekinesis of a unicorn at some point. It seemed to be pretty flexible, able to lift certain amounts of weight dependent on the caster's own strength, but it was also able to transfer momentum when throwing an object. Plus, some unicorns were strong enough to lift even themselves and create rudimentary flight!

Maybe it was because Biologia Mutabilis caught my eye, but I also sought out the rune for love. I honestly wasn't even convinced that there was such a rune, but if Princess Cadance was capable of casting magic pertaining to love, I figured there was a chance it existed. I was somewhat disappointed that it was little more than a stylised heart. Then again, what was I expecting: something more complicated like velocity was?

After I had satisfied myself with the runic dictionary, I switched over to Your Horn and You. I remembered the book on ritual magic mentioning Alarm, but there also seemed to be a spell by the same name listed as a low-level abjuration—protective magic—spell for recommended for practice. Just from what I'd seen of it the last time I'd cracked open the book, it was very versatile, and may even have had some components that might be useful for my own custom spells. After all, it seemed to consist of a spell-trigger, an energy storage component—Gotta have it!—and even an in-built evocation school spell to create the sound.

So it was, I set about completely deconstructing the spell-matrix and translating an equivalent runic array. It was a lot more complex than Conjure Light had been, so it took far more time for me to hash it out. It wasn't until Spike had stopped in with afternoon tea that I realised that I'd spent half the day in here already. Just as well that I take a break, as the whole process had given me quite the headache. That spell-within a spell was a nasty bit of work to plot out in Weaved Spiral. Maybe it's time to learn the scroll format instead?

Shortly after Spike left, I cast a glance at the guard. She'd spent much of the day atop a bookshelf, watching me through narrowed eyes. At one point, I even thought I'd heard some slight snoring, but when I'd turned to look, she met my gaze with an annoyed frown. Nap on the job all you want, lady; I'm not gonna judge.

Putting the tired guard from my mind, I went to return the runic dictionary and the foal magic book to their proper shelves. Just when I went to grab Biologia Mutabilis, however, I heard a buzzing sound that I'd heard before. The time that Twilight looked like she caught fire! That vibrating book phone that we never did discuss! Evidently, she was being paged, but nobody was here but me and a guard.

I know snooping is bad, okay? Still, I was more than a little curious about the buzzing book and how Twilight understood the concept of a cell phone. Unable to contain myself, I pushed over a stool, and opened the book to where the bookmark seemed to be. To my utter amazement the moment I opened the book, a blank page began to fill with text. Oh yeah, it was all Equestrian sun-glyphs, but it was definitely written in English. What in the fuck?

Dear Twilight,

It's my second slumber party with the girls, and already I feel so much closer to everyone. I haven't felt so loved, so accepted in... well... ever! Despite this Anon-a-Miss MyStable page using my colours and silhouette spreading rumours, they're giving me the benefit of the doubt! I feel like I finally have a family again. Without all of you to help and support me, I'd be—

Well, you know what I'd be.

Anyway, I should get some sleep, but I wanted to let you know, before I do...

...that I love all of you.

Sunset Shimmer

I had mixed feelings reading this. On the one hand, I felt like I was intruding on something private, but on the other, I felt angry. Back on Earth, 'Anonymous' was a moniker utilised by various groups of hackers and web ne'er-do-wells who could be either righteous, mischievous, or downright malicious in cause. Hell, it was my name now, so to see it pop up on what sounded like some sort of rumour blog... it gave me a bad vibe.

It wasn't my place to do this, but I pulled my pencil from behind my ear, and—drawing on memories of my world—scratched out a response. Everything anyone had ever said about net security at a card game... Anything they might've said about not trusting biometric security with untrustworthy roommates.
Sunset—URGENT

Password protect phone. Uppercase, lowercase, symbols, numbers, length > 10. Disable facial and fingerprint biometric security if present. If phone capable, enable selfie photo during failed login. Trust no-one with it unless cleared of being Anon-a-Miss.

A Friend

I almost signed my name, but as I finished the A, I changed path and wrote Friend. If she's suspected of being an Anon-a-Miss, and she were in contact with an Anon in another world, I feel like she'd get even more heat if anyone went snooping in her magic phone book. Better to give her plausible deniability, right? At best they might see otherworldly advice to protect her phone in the wake of the initial allegation.

"Anon! What are you doing with that!?" came a voice from the library entrance. Just like that, the book was ensconced in a familiar raspberry aura of magic as it levitated away from me. I looked over to the door, as Twilight read over the entry from this Sunset Person and my response. An look of confusion crossed her face as she looked back and forth from the two messages. "I don't understand any of the context of what you just wrote, Anon. Explain."

I shrugged and pushed the stool back to its normal spot in the library. "Your friend, wherever they are that speaks <<English>>, mentioned a rumour <<blog>> with a name derived from Anonymous. Back on earth, that name was linked to <<hackers>>... ugh... information technology 'experts' with a penchant for getting into places they shouldn't, and not always for noble reasons. Sounded like she was being set up, so I told her how to better protect her <<phone>> in case she was. Might mean nothing, but if she got that message before she went to sleep, maybe I'll have saved her some grief."

She nodded, her brow furrowing and jaw growing tight, as she closed the book and levitated it back to its spot. "I'd have liked if you asked first," she admonished. Her gaze never left the book, though. "That said, I appreciate the sentiment of what you did for her."

I smiled, returning to the table where my notebook was. "So, since I've got a lot of free time," I said in a playful tone as I sat my ass back on the cushion. "Why not tell me about this strange world that speaks <<English>> but writes in sun-glyphs, and has <<internet blogs>>."

"I suppose it wouldn't hurt to tell you," she agreed, sitting down opposite of me. "Until recently, I actually hadn't connected the dots, but Sunset is in a world not dissimilar from the one you've described from your past. Certainly not the same, given its Equestrian parallels, but..."

Author's Notes:

1) Goddamn it; I keep forgetting Spike exists!

2) Yes, I am reusing characters from another story. Yes, I am that [redacted]. No, I will not feel ashamed for it.

3) Though this arc is yet to be concluded, another hook has been set for the next. Those who've read the Equestria Girls Holiday Special may recognise Sunset's message in the phone-journal, and possibly even recognise that it is almost verbatim. The problem I always had with that story arc was that, canonically, Sunset never even mentioned the blog in her message. Even though her redeemed self seemed more likely to share such concerns as "I might be getting set up," the moment it became relevant.

That said, the Anon-a-Miss arc definitely will not play out the same thanks to Anon's interference. That upcoming arc may draw inspiration from other Anon-a-Miss fics, and slightly more 'realism' towards the sort of bullying/harassment that would come from such a blog existing. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

4) Next time on Anon's Bullshit Adventure: Anon gets an emotional support hand-grenade! Anon takes on a second name! 𝓛𝓾𝓼𝓽! And so much more!

Warning: Some or all of these may not happen and/or could just be author teasing. Reader anticipation is not advised.

Entry 18

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My mind was reeling at everything Twilight had told me. On the other side of a magic mirror—one she kept in a storage room when not in use—lay a world not unlike the one I'd left behind. There was a place called Canterlot High, where Twilight had befriended duplicates of her Equestrian friends, redeemed Sunset Shimmer, and even duked it out with mythical beings known as sirens. At the same time, I could tell that it was definitely not my Earth. Names like Twilight Sparkle, Sunset Shimmer, or Rainbow Dash would never fly there. And the beings were nigh-human, but the illusion she projected from her horn was proportionately all wrong, and too colourful.

But in a way, that sorta meshed with what I'd told Starlight about the different planes... A Material plane and the Feywild, I thought as I made my way back to my bedroom after the two-hour lecture. Does that make ponies Fey? It would explain why the Otherworld had little or no natural—or at least active—magic of its own, and the parallelism.

Did that make my Earth the Shadowfell after all? Or was it just one of many demiplanes?

Then of course, there was the matter of Sunset Shimmer, and discrepancy in the flow of time between the two worlds. Sunset had been Celestia's personal pupil and adoptive daughter before Twilight had ever even gotten her cutie mark, which would've been at least twenty years ago, and yet on the other side, only a few years had passed. And from the sound of it, when Twilight went through, she'd only been a teenager on the other side.

Setting my cloak and my notebook down beside my nest, I flopped down atop the pile. And that book... she was definitely writing in English using the Equestrian sun-glyphs, rather than the Latin Alphabet, and yet Twilight was able to read all of it, even if she didn't contextually understand it. Could that mean that Harmony had some sort of effect on the words written in those interdimensionally linked books? Or did this portal imprint languages the same way Harmony granted me the understanding of the spoken Equestrian?

I shook my head,clearing the thoughts from my mind. There were other things I should be focusing on right now, like whatever the fuck it was happening to me. I'd allowed the existence of another world temporarily distract me from the fact that I'd lost time, and might've had my mind tampered with. Hell, my mood was fluctuating a bit too much, which only cemented my fear of tampering. But why?

Rolling onto my side, I eyed the gift-box once more. Based on the fact that there was a scroll in looped through the ribbon, rather than a card in an envelope, it was likely from one of the princesses. Since she had apparently gone through the whole place in our absence, my guess was Luna. That said, I couldn't understand why she would leave me a gift. I couldn't exactly say I'd earned it, could I?

With a sigh, I crawled back down off my pile, and made my way over to the bed. I could easily hop up, but I was more comfortable on the floor, so I pulled the box down. It was a surprisingly mundane white box with a navy lid, but it was sealed shut by the ribbon wrapping it. That wasn't important now, though. Let's see what the scroll has to say, I thought as I unfurled the message.

Dear Anonymous,

I, more than any other living pony, know how awful it can be to be trapped inside one's own body. To be robbed of your own free will, helpless to watch as your body moves and acts without consent, is a terrifying ordeal even to one such as I. For one so young, I cannot fathom how you feel in the wake of this, knowing just hours before, you were almost completely devoid of magic.

Knowing not the cause of your condition, nor if it might happen again, I hope that this gift may bring you comfort. As you showed interest in Tiberius during our first meeting, and mentioned having another opossum as your companion in the past, I could think of no better model for this gift. This plush possesses a enchantment that activates a calming charm upon being squeezed, and it is my hope that you will keep it with you until we are sure that this has passed.

Princess Luna

She got me a stuffed opossum and enchanted it to bring me comfort, I mused, setting the scroll down on the edge of the bed with care. The binding ribbon and the lid of the box followed soon after. Inside the gift box, looking up at me from a nest of navy tissue paper, was a lifelike young opossum. It was larger than a joey you'd see clinging to its mum, but small enough that it could easily fit in the pockets of my cloak, or sit comfortably in my mane.

Reaching into the box, I pulled out my new little friend. Even though they were just glossy beads, those beady little eyes brought a genuine smile to my face. Plus, the fake fur of its coat was super soft. Even the tail, coated in some sort of pseudo-leather, did a good job of mimicking the real thing, complete with some sort of flexible structure inside to provide realistic flexibility. It was perfect.

This was clearly a custom job, and no way could it have been done in just the one night. Did that mean the Moon Horse had already made it before today, and the enchantment was just a response to yesterday? The more I interacted with the princess, the more I got the feeling that she genuinely cared for, and wanted to protect, all of Equestria's foals—an untold number of which I was now a member of. In seeing the way my eyes lit up at meeting her own possum, could she have decided that such a stuffed animal would bring me comfort?

"He's too old for baby shit like that," came the memory of his voice to oh so helpfully admonish me.

Except, I wasn't so sure that was true now. It would definitely have been before I crossed the veil, but from what I'd seen in media, many young women had kept plush critters—especially childhood mementos—well into their young adulthood. Not only that, but it felt like my brain was slowly growing closer to what would be considered neurotypical for a pony foal. Would it really be so wrong of me to accept the comfort of a plush?

Experimentally, I gave it a gentle hug. A sigh escaped my lips as a warmth began to fill my body, as if I were the one being hugged. Somehow, hugging this little plush—as infantile as it may seem—made me feel safer than I'd felt in a long time. There was this sense that everything would be okay. Like a mother's hug. That warmth and reassurance slowly faded as I loosened my grip on the plush.

If humans are allowed to have an emotional support animal, why shouldn't I be allowed to have an enchanted emotional support plush, I decided, setting it atop my mane. I couldn't think of a decent reason not to keep it around and try to humour the Princess Luna's request. 'It's too girly,' was honestly kinda misogynistic, and didn't seem worth considering. Likewise, 'You're too old,' I felt like contradicting if nothing else than to spite a dead man. Not to mention I was too grateful to Luna to begin casting doubts as to her intentions.

~ 18 ~

Dinner that evening was a hearty minestrone soup, accompanied by garlic cheese bread. I know I tend to ignore Spike's existence more than I probably should, but I gotta admit, the kid can cook. Nothing I'd ever cobbled together from forage, hunting, or fishing, back when I was on the road, had ever tasted this good. Even most diners I'd splurged at couldn't compare. If he'd been born a pony, I'd bet he'd have a cooking-related cutie mark.

It didn't take very long into dinner for someone to notice my new friend. I was maybe half-way finished my bowl of soup when Starlight had asked what I had on my head. From there, a short conversation about Luna's gift was had. Not unexpectedly, Twilight knew all about the gift and the letter the princess had left, and she seemed glad that I was taking it seriously. Meanwhile, Spike just thought it was cool, and then asked if I'd named it yet.

I hadn't, and told them as much. "You don't just name things on a whim," I'd told them. "After all, one of the guys on that boat I'd crewed for the <<Gibraltar>> trip had told me of how his son had named their dog Hammer, joking that the thing had certainly been as dumb as a sack of them." That'd gotten a laugh out of Spike and Starlight, while Twilight simply nodded.

No, if I named it, I wanted it to be something meaningful to me. My first thought was to name it Samwise, after my companion when I travelled across the US. Then of course, there was the option of honouring Luna's own pet, Tiberius, and calling it Tibbers. That didn't feel right either, though. Names from Terran fiction didn't really fit here, nor did normal human names.

Eh, just something else to give thought to.

Once dinner was out of the way with, I stopped by my room to pick up my cloak and pocket dictionary, and then went back to the library. Again, the bat pony guard was watching me from atop one of the bookshelves, although she looked a lot more alert this time around. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if she happened to have been spending much of my earlier study session catching some shut-eye. That's not to say she didn't follow when I left; she just had a very unobtrusive presence.

This evening, however, the guard wasn't the only pony to keep me company. Twilight and Spike were occupying a table at the other end of the library. Given the presence of many magic books on the table, I assumed that she was doing some of her own research or light reading, although I think it was mostly a pretext for keeping an eye on me. That was fine by me.

Instead of continuing my magic research, I went to the shelf where I'd seen Biologia Mutabilis - On Changelings New and Old. It was a large tome bound in a strange, almost chitinous material, but I could tell from the white pages I saw upon pulling it out that it was a brand new. The spine didn't even have any creases, which indicated it might not have even been opened yet.

It was also a bit heavy, but I tolerated the three-legged shuffle I had to do to carry it. I didn't fancy doing the usual non-unicorn thing and picking it up with my teeth, partially because it was a pretty big book. The guard didn't hide her curiosity as she watched me carrying the book—especially when she caught sight of the title—but Twilight was a bit more discreet in watching me. Why did she look worried, though?

Setting the book on my usual table, and then retrieved my dictionary from the pocket of my cloak. A tome like this was bound to have some unfamiliar moon-glyphs, and I wanted to not misunderstand a thing. After reading about them in that children's book, I was genuinely interested in finding out more about changelings. After all, it'd be super neat to be able to shapeshift, or barring that having friends who could.

The first section of the book was a brief by the authors. One of them was actually a familiar name: Apocrita, the author of that book from the first day of school. The other was a unicorn scholar, by the name of Moon Dancer, that I think might've been mentioned by Twilight before. Basically, the book was written at the behest of the princesses and the changeling leadership, intended to relate what knowledge the changelings had of their history, as well as detailing the life-cycle and biology. It then explained some background on the authors that didn't really feel as important as the content that came after.

The next section detailed the life-cycle of the changeling. Insectine in nature, changelings laid eggs, but despite their hive-habitation, the hive queen was not the sole egg-layer. Instead, any changeling of sufficient age was able to breed and lay an egg. The only difference between the queen and the average changeling in this matter was that the queen was able to lay an entire clutch using genetic material donated from outside the species. According to Apocrita, this was an evolved response to sudden cataclysms that decimated the populations since times before Queen Chrysalis.

Upon hatching, a larva—or grub depending on who you asked—would spend the entirety of its infancy in the communal brooding chambers. There, they would be overseen and fed by select caretakers. The larva entry also revealed that although changelings primarily subsist off of love, they also rely on whatever food they can acquire for nutrition and to grant biomass for growth and/or healing.

A sufficiently grown larva would then ascend the walls of the brooding chambers and find a spot on the ceiling from which to construct its cocoon and enter a state of hibernation. There it would sit for many months while the changeling within his or her pupa developed the more familiar equine body-shape. During this time, caretakers watched for any sign of smaller insects attempting to feed on the vulnerable changeling within, as well as cleaning and moisturising the cocoons to keep them from drying out before their time.

Once its body has fully developed and hardened, the nymph—the changeling equivalent of a foal—would use its horn to tear through the silken cocoon and slowly fall to the floor. Pheromones allowed the parents to find their nymph among the crowd of freshly emerged changelings. At this point they were—at least in the old ways—taught everything they needed to know in order to either infiltrate other societies and gather love for the hive, or fulfil some other role within the hive. Now, they were more or less being treated to childhoods as foals are.

After several molts over the span of about twelve years, a changeling reached physical and sexual maturity. It was at this point when the signature leg holes started to develop. Rather than serving as any real purpose, they were a symptom of starvation and insufficient replenishment of biomass. The body began to actively feed upon itself, although sufficiently fed changelings had been known to regenerate their legs.

The only other life state mentioned in this was the queen. There was only ever one queen to a hive. Upon the death of a queen, or if the current queen had fallen out of favour, another would undergo a second pupal stage and arise from the females within the hives. In the case of a usurper, there was usually bloodshed and a schism within a hive between rebels and loyalists. There had been instances recorded in the distant past of a queen's own offspring possessing the traits of a queen and leaving to start their own hives, although none happened in recent history. It was currently not known if reformed changelings will have some sort of queen life-state, or if they even had need for one. For that matter, are they the last of their kind, or are there other hives elsewhere similar to Chrysalis's?

There were all sorts of other biological details or mentions of abilities other than shapeshifting, but they didn't seem particularly pertinent. I mean, yeah, it's pretty neat that their primary construction material was a mix of reconstituted biomass and a secretion of their throats, and that they could even spit such globules at range to disable prey. It was kinda horrifying that the classical changeling occasionally made pods out of the stuff in order to either replace and feed on a pony, or for shipping back to the hive. The only part that really stuck out was the application of mental magic and something called a geas in order to snare the juiciest of prey for repeated feedings.

Before I could move on to the history part, I saw that Starlight had joined me at the table. "What'cha reading, Anon?" she asked pulling a cushion over to sit beside me. As she got a better look at what I'd been reading—including the anatomical diagrams of the average changeling before and after redemption—her eyes bugged out a bit. Why was she so alarmed? "Whoa, that's a bit much for casual reading, don't you think? I know there's not much in terms of fiction here, but there's got to be more interesting things to read than Biologia Mutabilis."

I shrugged and glanced over at Twilight, who was pretending not to watch me. "Eh, Changelings came up in a book Miss Cheerilee had the class reading," I answered with a bit of a yawn. Jeeze, have I been reading for two hours already? "One of the authors of this was actually the author of that book, too, so I got curious."

She let out a sigh, and a lot of the tension left her shoulders. "Oh," she said softly. "That makes sense."

With a nod, I shut the book and turned to face her completely. "Would you be surprised to hear that back in my previous world, there were actually various myths regarding shapeshifters?" I asked, feeling somewhat nostalgic thinking back to those times spent reading mythology books in libraries. "Skin-walkers, vampires, werewolves—" The fact that those concepts translated scared the fuck out of me. I think the fact that I actually shivered clued her into what spooked me. "—the nine-tailed foxes of East <<Asian>> folklore, and even demons such as succubi. Then there were the changeling myths themselves."

Twilight had stopped pretending she was watching me, and was instead actively listening as I spoke. "On the continent of <<Europe>>, there were myths around <<human>>-like creatures that would replace a <<human>> child, or sometimes even young mothers," I explained. "They were typically left there by other fae spirits—fairies—when stealing the child for some purpose. Depending on the source, a changeling might be an elderly fae wanting to live in luxury, but common theory is that changelings were used as an explanation for infanticide in times of famine or if the child was suspected to be the result of infidelity. Horrifying, right?"

Starlight only nodded, looking slightly ill. "I think it's time you go wash up for bed," she said, changing the topic. "If you're good, I was thinking about having you practice with the clay again."

I couldn't help but perk up at that. "Oh! About that!" I said, returning the book to its proper spot on the shelf. Once I was done, Starlight started to lead me out of the library. "I was thinking, maybe we should bake a clay disc with the light spell inscribed on it and make a necklace out of it. That way, if I get lost or I black out again, I can make a miniature sun so someone can find me!"

She smiled down at me as she walked beside me, the corner of her mouth pulling up in amusement. "That's not a bad idea, Anon," she agreed with a laugh. There was a certain teasing tone in her voice, but I knew she wasn't mocking me. "And it certainly doesn't hurt that you'll be able to practice magic and work on building your reservoir whenever you think we aren't looking, right?"

~ 18 ~

The green filly ran. It's all she was good at, and all she would ever get to be. Her black twinned ponytails were matted with sticks, leaves, dirt, and sweat, but she didn't care. She had to get as far away from Manehattan. Otherwise, Daddy would catch her... and then bad things would happen. I don't know how I knew, but I knew.

She was so tired, though. There was definitely a fear about her, but it was muted, like she'd given up on acknowledging it... or had given up on life itself, and was simply running to escape the pain. It was something I could relate with on an emotional level. She's so young though—way too young to give up on life. Can't be more than six.

I just floated alongside the child, wondering who she was, and why I could feel what she was feeling. She looked familiar, but I couldn't place where I'd seen her before. More than that, though, I wanted to tell her that she didn't have to be scared—to let her know that I was here for her. My voice wouldn't come though. In fact, I didn't even seem to have a physical body. I was just... along for the ride.

The woods were dense with trees and brambles, and though the latter licked at her flesh like flames when she strayed too close, she didn't so much as flinch. This little filly was a trooper, to be sure. She didn't even seem to notice the pain, despite bleeding from several surface-scratches. Her green eyes were rimmed with red, so maybe she just didn't cry because she'd no tears left to cry.

Up ahead, there was a ravine, but from down on the ground, the little filly made no indication that she saw it coming. From her height, I don't think she could; it was dark out, after all, and the moon was not yet high in the sky. I wanted to warn her so badly, but I was left unable to speak.

When her hoof caught a branch and sent her tumbling down the embankment, I couldn't help but cringe. She struck many different branches and rocks before she came to a rest at the bottom of the ravine. Though her head remained untouched, I could tell that she wasn't going to be walking again. There was an open fracture on her back leg, and I'm pretty sure a hoof wasn't supposed to bend that way. And that was just the surface stuff that I could see.

"Well, Em," she whimpered, clutching her uninjured hoof against her rib cage. When she spoke, I saw her teeth were stained red. That ain't good. "Looks like we'll be seeing mommy again soon."

I don't know how long I just hovered about her as she flitted in and out of consciousness, her heartbeat beginning to slow in my metaphysical chest. It was painful for me to watch, since I couldn't even comfort her. Still I stayed, hoping my wishes of comfort would reach her. All the while, I was left to wonder who this filly was. What did she go through so that, even lying broken and dying at the bottom of a ravine, she wouldn't cry out in pain?

As if to answer me, flickers of thoughts—no, memories—flooded across the link that bound us. A pegasus mare in a hospital bed, whom the filly was the spitting image of, holding something swaddled in cloth. "Her name is Emerald Flicker," the mare declared. There was no stallion there with her. Just a mother, the medical staff, and the newborn.

Glimpses of a childhood not my own assailed me with parties full of excited foals. Trips to the zoo with Mommy and a stallion she didn't yet know. The foal seemed so happy. "He's not Daddy!" Emerald seethed as her mother told her that she was getting married. She couldn't have even been four at the time. Oh, the couple seemed okay at first, but this stallion was not a good pony, any more than my own genetic donor had been a good man. Emerald had overheard many fights between the two, including physical abuse, but she was powerless to protect Mommy. Hell, the bastard hit her if she even dared stand up for her mother.

Then, just like that, Mommy was gone, and she was left alone with her not-father. The stallion claimed it was an accident, that she'd just fallen down the stairs, but at four years old, Emerald had somehow understood. It'd been intentional, and now he had everything he wanted.

This is quite vivid the dream, Luna, but why would you show me something so awful? I had to be dreaming, as it was the only thing that made sense. Surely the princess wouldn't show me such things. Or was I having another dream outside her control?

For my own mental well being, I tried to shut out the link between the two of us, and returned to my silent vigil. Whatever awful things had happened to her between then and now... I don't think I could stomach it. It was bad enough that I had to watch her die, but if I had to watch a filly get sexually abused by her stepfather... I'd probably try to find a way to kill myself and awaken.

Instead, crystalline tendrils rose up from the ground to caress the wounded child. There was a faint glow to them, and wherever they touched, the wounds and aches faded away. Yet Emerald didn't rise or even move. I could tell she yet lived, as I could feel her heart beating strongly as though it were my own. She's given up entirely. Even with this magical mystery cure, she won't get up.

Something glowing brightly flickered into being before the little pony. For a moment, I thought it was actually Princess Celestia, but even she didn't glow like this... nor was she made of some sort of living crystal. Was this some sort of pony personification of death, or...?

The Celestia lookalike leaned down to nuzzle the child and opened her mouth to speak. No words that I could understand left her mouth; only the sound of static reached my ears. Emerald, on the other hand, seemed to understand perfectly. "I don't want to hurt anymore," she whimpered, tears streaking down her cheeks for the first time since I'd found myself following along. "I just want to see my mommy again."

The crystal entity turned to me, suddenly, as everything darkened around me. "This was not for you to see, Nemo," the avatar spoke, the same musical tone as when I first met Celestia. "Let the daughter of Emerald Breeze, and her memory, rest in peace." Her head cocked, as if listening to something I couldn't hear. "You have your own troubles to worry about, without dredging up memories of the dead."

More crystalline tendrils—no, roots—shot up from the ground to wrap around me. To my horror, they actually managed to wrap about me. I was so startled by this turn of events that even had I the vocal cords to do so, I was unable to scream as I was dragged down, into the earth.

~ 18 ~

Two things hit me in rapid succession as I snapped into consciousness. The first thing that sunk in was that this was not my bedroom. I wasn't anywhere in the castle, or in a hospital, or even any sort of interior. I was standing on the path leading towards Fluttershy's cottage, just before dawn, and my legs ached, as though I'd been walking or even running all night.

The next thing to hit me was that a familiar silver pegasus filly stood right in my face, her glowing green eyes wide with shock. "Damn it!" she growled in a voice that was very unlike any foal I'd ever heard. "That nag has been busy!" Her eyes flicked up to a space above my head. "Of course they'd safeguard her mind after last time."

"What the fuck?" I hissed, taking a step back. My head began to ache as her gaze met mine once more. My heartrate spiked, and tears began to streak down my face. Between that dream and waking up here, not knowing what was going on, I wanted to cry and scream. "You! Why's it always you?"

Fear, rage, and hate bubbled up from within, causing my throat to burn with bile. My cutie-mark began to burn against my flank, and my back hoof twitched out a pattern faster than my brain could comprehend what it was doing. As my hoof came down on the etched pattern, a force shoved me backwards while also simultaneously driving the filly away from me, leaving a dusty crater some ten metres across between us. A sound like a gunshot echoed all around. "Who or what are you?"

When the dust cleared, the filly was no longer looking at me. Rather, she was looking into the skies behind me. Following her gaze, I saw four ponies approaching rapidly in a wedge formation. Once I returned my attention to her, my mind grew fuzzy. The space above her forehead glowed a sickly green as my eyes met hers. "Child, hear me and obey," she said in an unearthly tone that seared into my mind. I don't know how I knew, but she was imprinting some sort of command into my mind once more. Once more? Slowly, using the lip of the crater to hide my movements, I wrote out four sun-glyphs as she spoke. "You will speak no words of our meeting, and you will not so much as think of me until next we meet. To this I bind you, and thus you shall obey."

The filly—I know she said her name to me at some point—took a step back. A ring of green flame surrounded her as she sunk into the ground, her eyes never leaving mine until she was gone. Almost immediately, I was beginning to forget. Something bad had happened again, and my mind was being fucked with for sure... but now I was certain it wasn't ponies I had to worry about.

I stepped aside, careful to avoid the message carved into the dirt, and turned to face the oncoming ponies. At the front of the group that touched down in front of me was a bat pony, sans her armour, holding some sort of amulet. Directly behind her was Twilight Sparkle, almost aglow with fury once more. To either side were guard ponies in their shiny bronze plate and centurion helmets. Revelry's MPs.

Twilight immediately pushed past Evening Script to come check me over. "Anon!" she cried, forcibly hugging me, and sending something tumbling from atop my head. "Are you alright?"

I was very much not alright. I'd gone to bed in my pillow nest like normal, excited to have a chance at doing some more magic, and maybe prepping a medallion with the light spell etched in it. Then, I find myself having some awful dream about a runaway filly dying in a ravine and maybe meeting horse Jesus before being dragged down to hell. As if that wasn't bad enough, I woke up in the middle of the road doing... something.

"No," I murmured, burying my face into the fluff of her chest as It tried my best not to break down. "I don't know how I got here or what I was doing, and it scares the hell out of me. I know something's happening but I can't..." A twinge of pain lanced behind my eye. "I'm not allowed to..." I cried out this time as the pain struck harder. "Damn it!"

Pushing away from Twilight, I pointed down at the letters I'd carved into the ground. There, sitting beside the stuffed opossum that had fallen from atop my head, G E A S. Evidently, I'd broken some sort of rule of whatever had been tampering with my mind, because it felt like the world began to spin. I barely had the wherewithal to pick up the plush before I found myself throwing up and falling onto my side.

"Corporal, take Anon back to the castle, brief your sergeant, and then contact the local guard regiment," Twilight growled. Her mane was flickering with flame again. "My ward... my friend is being targeted, and I fear somepony doing this to send a message. I don't care if they have to turn this entire town upside down and changeling-check every single pony to find the one responsible."

"Yes ma'am," Evening Script said with a salute, although there was an unsure look about her. Her indigo mane hid her eyes as she strode up to me, but somehow I could tell that she was disturbed. For that matter, how had I even gotten past five royal guards completely undetected? No way I could've done that on their own. "...but, every single pony?"

Twilight just gave her a look that could've melted titanium, causing the bat pony to swallow loudly. Without further ado, she gently bit down on the scruff of my neck and took off. It was slightly uncomfortable, but it didn't hurt, as if ponies were intended to carry their young like kittens.

As I hung in the Corporal's grip, the world still spinning as she flew, my teeth ground together as my jaw tensed with rage. If I find whoever's doing this to me, I thought darkly, thinking of how scared and angry Twilight looked, You might not get your own crack at them, Twilight.

Entry 19

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My head pounded as I struggled to force my eyes open. The ground shifted strangely beneath me as I tried tried to fight the compulsion to roll over in bed and pull the covers over my face. Luckily, I had the intense dry-mouth and migraine of dehydration on my side as extra motivation to get up. It took maybe a bit more effort than should've been necessary, but I was able to push my blanket off of me and sit up.

Wait, blanket? Bed?

I looked down at the cloth that had been draped over me. Rather than a comforter or anything particularly warm like my pillows, it seemed that I'd fallen asleep and someone had draped my cat-eared cloak over me. Strangely, it seemed like there were more than a few spots of dirt, and the hem near the back had been torn. That was a bit upsetting, because I really liked wearing the cloak, and now I was probably gonna get yelled at by Rarity for taking such poor care of such a wonderful gift. The left lens on my glasses was also cracked.

A bit worryingly, I couldn't remember going to sleep on a bed, or even going to sleep at all. I remembered getting sick after being found on the road near Fluttershy's cabin, being flown back to the castle. After that... I spent the day with Starlight fussing over me. We did spend some time doing magic once my head stopped hurting, and I even got my first portable spell matrix made. All the while, I'd spent much of that time clutching my little possum plush and making excessive use of the calming enchantment. After that, though...

Such a strange bed, too. It was almost a cup or semi-egg-shape with rigid walls, but a squishy-soft interior. Almost like it was some sort of pod instead of a bed. It tickled my memory, but for the life of me, I couldn't put my finger on why that was. Something about pod people? No... Spiriting away? Fuck, but my head hurt.

Worse, I was in some sort of dimly lit subterranean cavern. What I didn't see probably worried me the most. The opossum plush that the Moon H—nay—Princess Luna gifted me was nowhere to be found. That small, friend-shaped companion was gone. It drove a spike of panic through my heart, more so than the fact that I was in a strange place. Why, though? It's just a plushy, and I'm not a little kid anymore. The answer was surprisingly obvious; although I'd been able to remain somewhat stoic about the missing time, it was mostly because I had it there with me, and it made me feel safe.

It wasn't there, though, so I couldn't rely on it for comfort. I don't need a plush to be strong, though, I decided, gritting my teeth, as the memory of my childhood plush flitted through my mind. Bastard though he was, that man raised me to be self sufficient. Can't panic, gotta figure out what happened and where I am.

Didn't I read something about changelings kidnapping ponies and sticking them in pods before the reform? Feeling a bit of a chill here in the cavern, I threw the torn cloak over my withers, fastening the clasp. Much to my surprise, the interior pockets hadn't been emptied at all. The small clay medallion that Starlight had cooked with her own magic with the light spell etched upon it still hung around my neck. My magic notes were still present in the pocket, although my pencil had snapped at some point, so I removed it from my pocket. Other than that, there was maybe a few stray candies. Whoever took me obviously didn't think I was enough of a threat to bother frisking me.

Gripping the small medallion against my chest, I used my free hoof to pull myself up to the edge of the weird pod-bed I'd been placed in. A small orb of light manifested above my head, casting the cavern into an eerie, blue glow upon pushing my magic through the grooves baked into the plate. Looking around, it wasn't a particularly large space. A bit smaller than my room, and it had a low dirt ceiling. There appeared to be tree roots poking through in places, and—if using my room for reference—where a door should have been, a boulder had been shoved into place.

"You're awake much earlier than I expected," came a voice that sounded as though more than one woman spoke in disturbing harmony. She almost sounded simultaneously impressed and disappointed. I couldn't pick out the source of he voice, however. "I was hoping to finish your cocoon before you awoke so that I could see your look of terror as I sealed you in, but you're surprisingly resilient for mere nymph." I could almost hear the sneer in her voice. "A shapeshifter you aren't, but you are a changeling of a sort nonetheless, child of another world..."

I glanced about, looking for the speaker. Suspicions of who had kidnapped me floated in the back of my mind, but I needed to verify it. It was hard, but eventually, after tumbling out of the pod and crawling closer to the centre of the room, I spotted a blackness that seemed to absorb the light of my spell nestled in one of the hanging roots. A bit shameful that I missed it, given the vivid green eyes reflecting in the glow, but... Had they actually been there on my first sweep? Or had she opened them after speaking? Looking harder, I even got the impression of a patchy dark-green mane. Her hole-ridden chitin was dull, which was probably why it wasn't reflecting light all that much.

Definitely a changeling, and given the appearance... I'd only heard the stories and seen the name in Biologia Mutabilis book, but It wasn't hard to guess who it was. None of the reformed changelings possessed such colouring or holes, and it seemed unlikely she could've produced any adult drones in the time since her defeat. None other would be so brazen as to steal a foal out from under Twilight's nose. "I am surprised, but also honoured to be in your presence, Queen Chrysalis," I said, lowering my front in as close an approximation of a bow as I could manage in a three-legged stance. Finally speaking her name, something clicked in my mind, and despite how grave a situation I knew this to be, I found myself beginning to smile. It was as though the lock-box that portions of my memory had been stuffed into had just been unlocked. Everything came flooding back to me, and it all made so much more sense. "Although, I expect this isn't the first time. If not for the tampering you did my mind, I probably would've figured you out sooner... Hailstone, ice crystal, crystal ice, Chrysalis. Looking back, it was laughably obvious."

That whole multi-tonal voice thing could probably make for some pretty singing, but it certainly didn't make for good laughter. It sent a shiver down my spine as she laughed and dropped down from her apparent roost. She strode up to me slowly, transforming once into the diminutive shape of a familiar pegasus filly in a flash of green flame, before returning to her original shape to stand before me.

She didn't speak as she loomed over me, which gave me time to get a better look at her. Her mane was ratty, full of dirt, sticks and snags. The dull chitin of her carapace looked to be cracking and flaking in places. Even her eyes, hate-filled though they were, were somewhat sunken and yellowing. She's sick... No, I don't think that's quite right. I didn't exactly expect her to have a belly like a pony, but I also wouldn't have thought she'd be this thin. She's starving.

The anger I'd felt after our last encounter flared up, and that dark desire to hurt her burned brightly within my heart. If she's sick and weakened, I might stand a chance against her. But at the same time... I knew what it was like to go hungry... the madness it'd cause. Should I dare attempt to end this peaceably? Besides, I think anything I might pull off with magic risked bringing this entire cave down on us.

"I can see why that wretch would take you under her wing," she said in amusement. "You're too smart for your own good. All of the times I lured you, fed on you, and doctored your memories, and still you were suspicious." She smirked down at me, as though remembering something. "If I pushed too much, my meddling would have been far more obvious, but not enough, and you risked triggering a memory."

She turned her back on me with a scoff. "Anonymous... It's such a strong changeling name," she ranted. "It's so deliciously ironic that Celestia would name an outsider-turned-pony like that. If but you had fallen into my hooves before that meddling whorse got her hooks into you, I could have made you one of my own." I bristled upon hearing those words, because I knew in my heart she was talking about Starlight—about my big sister—but I held my tongue. Even if she was starving, I suddenly didn't doubt that she could end me with ease. "But even if I stuffed you in a pod full of love and royal jelly, and transfigured you now, I know you would never betray them." Her sneer grew vicious, and she muttered under her breath, "Although I would love to watch you fight your nature once changed..."

Flattening myself to the floor, I waited until I was sure she was done speaking. "I don't think you have enough love stored, even if that was on the table, your Highness," I murmur in as respectful a tone as I can muster up. Oh yeah, my voice was trembling, but it's not like there's much I can do there. "You're clearly starving here, and wasting what magic you might get from me on doctoring my mind. You could be anywhere in Equestria, preying on ponies and building up your strength and undermining the government, but you're here. Why?"

She spun on her hooves, and for a moment I thought this was it. Surely she was about to crush my head with her hoof. But when I screwed my eyes shut and flattened my head against the floor, she surprised me. Instead of painting the floor with my brains, she caressed the top of my head in an almost loving manner. God, that sends shivers down my spine.

"For the same reason you wanted to kill your father, Anonymous," she crooned as her hole-ridden hoof trailed down the side of my face. "Starlight Glimmer took everything from me. My home... my children... my legacy. All of it is gone." Much to my surprise—and horror—she gently lifted me up and gave me a nuzzle. It would almost have been sweet if not for the vicious expression on her face. "What better way to get back at her than to start targeting the ponies she loves." She bared her teeth and released high, sibilant laughter that sent a chill down my spine as she clutched me to her chest in a cold approximation of a hug. "Why not start by sending your drained husk of a body back to Starlight and her Princesses, piece by piece?"

I'll admit it: I peed a little. Sure, it was about as villain cliché as you can get, but her words and her behaviour were so polar-opposite that it was eliciting a terror in me at a primal level that not even he could inspire. She was clearly not all there—not anymore—and that made her extremely unpredictable.

And yet... maybe I can...

"I don't think you'd hurt a child," I managed to get out, despite the shaking in my voice, as she set me back down on the floor. I don't know why I was even attempting this gambit, but I truly got the vibe that although she might feed on me, she wouldn't actually hurt her unless I gave her reason to. Like if I pulled a fast one on her and fucked up. "No matter what species."

That drew a look of confusion from her. "What?" It seemed as though I'd struck a nerve. She narrowed her eyes and leaned in close. "I have enslaved ponies of all ages, Anonymous. In the past, ponies lived their entire lives as livestock—being born, bred, and dying in the hive. Why would you think I wouldn't do the same to you?"

"You were the mother to your entire hive," I insisted, gaining enough confidence to steady my voice. "Even if you didn't personally birth every single one, you did your damnedest to provide for them all as though you did. I've heard the stories; your hive was starving, and you went in person to Canterlot ahead of the invasion to ensure what should've been your greatest victory." Her horn glowed threateningly as I reminded her of her failure. "A mere queen wouldn't do that. She'd delegate, rather than risking herself. You loved them once, in your own twisted way."

She retreated, flinching as though she'd been slapped. "Maybe so," she spat. The sickly glow around her horn faded, but her eyes had grown cold... hateful. "That does not explain why I wouldn't harm you."

I shrugged. "A child is capable of unconditional love up until you hurt them," I said. The memory of Apple Bloom's hug, the day I'd gotten burned while standing up for her, surfaced in my memory. "Even then, they can be quick to forgive."

For the first time since I'd begun encountering Chrysalis, I could actually picture my mother's face. I could see her round, tanned face smiling at me—long, black hair, dark brown eyes, and all. She'd want me to be kind rather than wrathful, wouldn't she? "I'm curious... is love that is freely given more filling for changelings?"

That hateful glint in her eye gained an edge of hunger, and it looked like she was beginning to drool. "Yes," she whispered sibilantly. "You would, too? Wouldn't you?"

With a nod, I stepped forward and turned my thoughts inward. All the love I felt towards my mother, how much I missed her and my sisters... I seized upon those feelings and pulled them to the forefront. It took some effort, but I looped the thought of the changeling queen into my thought process. I offer this to you freely, seeking nothing in return. Everything went tingly as the queen leaned down with her open mouth, her horn aglow. A vibrant pink cloud exited my mouth... and then I knew no more.

~ 19 ~

My head ached even worse when I opened my eyes this time around. It felt like I'd run a marathon, and I had no energy to speak of. Immediately, the memory of willingly allowing myself to be fed upon by the mortal enemy of Big Sis Starlight rushed back to me. How could I have been so stupid? If I'd had the energy to move, I'd have slapped myself for how stupid I'd been. Now she's probably just gonna pod me and take me away.

Rather than being back in the pod base that I'd woken up in before, I was surprised to find myself lying on my back in the dirt. My cloak was folded and was propping my head up, and there was something warm beside me. In the darkness of the cave, I couldn't see a thing, but somehow, I knew it to be Chrysalis... but how? The book had said that changelings were ectothermic—cold-blooded—entities, much like arthopods and reptiles. No, they'd be caught if they were transformed and they didn't feel warm to the touch.

"You're awake," came Starlight's voice. Wait, Starlight? "I was afraid that I had drained you completely."

Oh... Chrysalis transformed into Starlight. Why though? She hates her guts! I couldn't suppress a groan as I tried and failed to sit up. "You were afraid?" I croaked. My voice sounded awful compared to how it had earlier. "What do you mean?"

Something touched my back and eased me into an upright position. Based on the green glow now coming from behind me, the same glow illuminating the face of Starlight in the darkness, and the fact that I could see a teeny bit better overall, Chrysalis must've decided to use some magic to hold me up. "Drink," she commanded, as something pressed against my lips. It felt like the lid of a disposable coffee cup, and after a moment, the warmth of hot, albeit very sweet, coffee seeped between my lips. "As loathe as I am to admit it, not even queens are incapable of losing control. I was starved and on the verge of going feral, and then you dangled such a delectable morsel in front of me."

I sat there, drinking the coffee as she held me up. "You were not easy prey," she said in a tone that sounded almost... angry. No, she wasn't angry with me, but rather herself. "At first, I thought you were but a normal foal, but your mental defences were far stronger than most adult ponies." A dark chuckle that really didn't suit Starlight's voice escaped her. "If I had been in my right mind, I'd have given up and sought easier prey than an outsider-in-ponies' clothing, but then I saw you with the pony who took everything from me, and all sense left me. Feeding on you and doctoring your mind became a net loss, and more and more my sanity left me."

I nodded slowly, and licked my lips as I finished the last of the coffee. "Instead, you ended up drawing attention to yourself by targeting me," I offered, a muted sense of sorrow settling in my mind. "I bet Ponyville was crawling with the royal guards when you went for the coffee."

She shook her head, and surprisingly, she smiled. Is she amused? "It's been that way since I took you, several days ago," she said with a dark giggle. That said, it was definitely less insane sounding than she'd been. "After my maddened attack on Twilight's castle, it was a given. My sole joy in it was that I was able to knock the smirk off her face by taking you right out from under her nose, and she couldn't do a thing about it."

Once she was certain I'd gotten everything from the cup, she laid me back down. Once the light was extinguished, she started muttering to herself. I could feel... despair washing over me, but I couldn't be sure why. If she was more sane, she should be less inclined to hurt me, right? She wasn't giving off that whole crazy starved animal vibe now. No... it's not my despair. How though...?

My eyes flicked down to where her head had been in the darkness. If I had to guess, she's probably weighing her options, I mused. If I were in her shoes, my best options would probably be to—in exchange for leniency—turn myself in, or use me as a hostage to guarantee her safety. Would she be willing to let me go after, though?

Then there was what she'd said in her maddened state. She wanted to hurt Starlight. The best way to hurt her in this situation would be to not return me, or worse, harm me... but she wouldn't, right? After reasoning with her earlier, it didn't seem like she would hurt me. But she's cornered now—she know's she's fucked—and desperation makes people do awful things.

Is there even a way for her to get out of this? Everything was so confusing right now. Why had she started wearing Starlight's face? What did she have planned? Nothing made sense. At least runes seemed to follow a theme and made sense when you approached them with the right mindset. Wait, runes...

My mind drifted back to the notebook in my cloak's pocket. There was a particular rune that I'd sought out on a whim that stood out in my memory, and though it didn't seem applicable at the moment, it struck an idea in me. I needed to get myself out of this mess, and maybe teach this Queen Bitch not to fuck with me and my family. I actually had an idea... but I'd need to play my cards right.

"You must still be hungry," I said, trying to keep my face still. She can probably sense my feelings, so keep calm... "I don't think you really have any way out unless you have more power, right?"

Even though she was right beside me, her voice—or rather, Starlight's—sounded so far away. "I'm not so ungrateful as to drain you dry, Anonymous," she warned, a hint of a growl in her voice. "For if I feed on you so soon after, you shall surely perish. Then I'm left with no bargaining chips, and at least one enraged alicorn who will not rest until I'm brought down."

I sat up on my own, strenuous though it was, and held my hoof to the medallion at my neck. "You don't have to feed on me, but I might have an idea that could get you out of this," I said, allowing myself a bit of a smirk as the cave lit up once more. "You know what this is, right?"

She seemed almost surprised that I was back up again and able to use magic so soon. For that matter, I'm surprised that I didn't feel more tired in doing so. "That is old magic you wield, child," she said evenly. "Runes were old even when I was a nymph. You can't possibly mean to tell me that you have received sufficient training as to use your magic to augment my own. What would you even get out of it?"

With a shrug, I turned and pulled my notebook out of the pocket of my robe. "It just so happens that ponies cutie-marks seem to cheat at times," I said with confidence. "Without my mark, I never would've been able to separate us on the road to the Everfree that. I used a spell then I'd never even seen before. I couldn't even intentionally replicate it right now."

When I turned back to face her, I was startled to find she'd wound up looming over me. She'd also reverted to her natural state, so at least she wasn't wearing Starlight's face anymore. "And you think you can use this... cheat to do what, exactly?" she asked, eyeing me with well-deserved suspicion. Huh, the jaundice is gone from her eyes. "Create a spell that can get me out of Ponyville unmolested? Or perhaps you wish to get the drop on me and escape?"

I looked at her blankly. "You had the power to kill me when you were starving; no way I'd be stupid enough to try that after feeding you," I scoffed, putting the book on the ground and flipping one-hoofed through the pages to my notes from the other day—was it really a week ago now? "Anything I tried involving elements would just get me killed and leave you pissed off. Earth magic? Cave collapses. Air magic? I risk blowing out my eardrums with air-pressure changes at a minimum. Water? Fuck knows, I don't wanna drown. Fire would just sap all the air from here and we'd probably die from carbon monoxide poisoning."

Jabbing my hoof down at the rune for love, I grinned. "What if I could conjure all the love you could need to escape?" I asked. "I've got all the basic building-blocks already on hand for the spell in here. I'd just need some time to inscribe it. As long as you let me go after, I don't mind."

It almost seemed as though a shiver ran down her carapace, and her eyes darted to where the boulder blocked the cave entrance. "You have thirty minutes," she said after a moment's consideration. "After that, what happens next is up to the ponies."

I nodded, trying my damnedest not to sneer. I got to work etching my spell structure into the dirt floor with the end of a broken pencil. First went the conjuration base. Where I would've written light, I instead wrote out the moon-glyphs I'd seen represent Queen Chrysalis in Biologia Mutabilis, followed by a compounding rune and the rune for love. After that, I etched out the positional details: one metre in front of me. I wanted to buy some time, so I started etching out the safety conditions from the transcribed light spell in my notebook, that way, if there was backlash, I probably wouldn't die.

Should I really do this, though? I wondered, looking over my work. If this doesn't do what I expect, I'll have empowered her, and then she might decide I'm too valuable to let go.

"I'm ready when you are, Your Majesty," I said, sitting up right to place my free hoof above the array. I'd never tried casting two separate arrays before, and ideally, I wouldn't do this sort of thing without supervision from Starlight or the boss. That said, I had no guarantee that Chrysalis wouldn't double-cross me. She'd managed to take me and hold me captive for six days before I'd awoken. What was to stop her from fucking me over? Only me fucking her over first. "Now, I have a vague idea of how this'll work, but I think if we both focus on the things we hold dearest in this world, even those things we've lost, it should work."

Her eyes narrowed with suspicion, but she nodded nonetheless. "Do it."

I extend my hoof-field out to caress the array. Almost immediately, a large portion of my reserve rushed out through my hoof, leaving me reeling. Still, the array glowed and held. A heart of pure magic appeared before me, flickering blue for a few moments before assuming a sickly green colour. Chrysalis visibly winced for a moment, but made no comment.

The moment her eyes locked on that heart, she started to salivate. She shuffled forward, as if in a trance. Once her horn began to glow, just as it had when she fed upon me, she leaned forward. A vibrant pink cloud started to seep from the heart floating between us, flying straight into her mouth.

At first, she looked as though she was in absolute bliss. The expression on her face was almost indecent, and I felt as though I were intruding on something private. I could even hear a low moan coming from her. I'm sure if I could see the back half of her, I'd have seen her tail flagging. Thankfully, there was a magic heart between us that she was feeding upon.

That look of bliss quickly devolved into a look of terror. She tried to pull away, but however her feeding process worked, she was no longer in control. All at once, the magic surged into her throat, the rest of the heart vanishing. Beneath my hoof, the runic array caught aflame. Yikes.

"What have you done?" she shrieked as her body began to levitate. Wisps of pink seeped from her mouth, wrapping her in a vibrant cocoon. "You didn't! You couldn't have!"

As the last of the magic finished encasing her, I grabbed my shit and hurled myself into the incomplete pod. I held my hooves over my head as the air began to whine with some sort of magical build-up. As an afterthought, I folded my ears shut and braced myself.

Krak-boom!

It was a good thing that the incomplete pod itself had been built against the wall of the cave. The resulting explosion would have otherwise sent the construct tumbling with me inside of it. Instead, I was free to look up as the ceiling of the cave as it blew out, raining dirt, bits of tree stump, and what looked to be a portion of a shed. The cave flooded with daylight once the debris cloud settled.

There was an uncomfortable ringing in my ears while I just lay there in the pod, staring up at the sky. It only took a short while for the shapes of three ponies to appear at the edge of the hole in the ceiling. The first to drop down was a familiar looking bat-pony in dark plate armour. She looked around for a moment, before calling up through the hole, "We're clear!"

Next down through the hole, was Princess Twilight, and shortly after, Starlight Glimmer levitated herself down. "Anon!" they cried as they spotted me peering over the edge of the pod at them. Immediately they rushed over, pulled me from the pod, and embraced me in a warm hug. I didn't feel the normal touch-apprehension right then, so I just sagged into their grips. "You're alright!"

The same could not be said for either of them. Twilight's eyes were red and sunken from lack of sleep, and her mane was a mess and slightly crispy. Starlight, on the other hand, looked as though someone had attempted to brain her with a frying pan—she had a gash above her eye that had been stitched and already healing. Both of them looked like they needed their coats brushed out and given a trim.

"I uh..." I rubbed the back of my neck with a hoof, grinning. "I can explain."

From beneath a pile of rubble along the opposite wall, there came a groan. "You had better, child!" The voice struck me as familiar, but it wasn't exactly the same unearthly two-tone voice I'd heard from Chrysalis previously. "For the first time in a millennium, I don't feel the ever-present hunger. What have you done to me?"

The rubble shifted, and Corporal Evening Script threw herself between us and the pile, just in time to witness something incredibly strange. Rather than the black chitin-covered changeling queen I expected, stood a white fuzzy creature that, at first, I almost mistook for Princess Celestia. The mane was all wrong, though. Rather than cerulean, it was a vivid cyan, fading away to gold near the tips. Where her jagged, crooked horn should have been, two fluffy-white antennae stood. Around her neck, a ruff of fluffy white-gold fur hung where a seam in her chitin once looped around to her elytra. Finally, where once there were two hole-ridden wings stood a pair of beautiful, glimmering moth-wings.

We all just stared in shock at Chrysalis, who in turn was staring at me with what seemed to be shock and anger. She'd once been an intimidating, almost terrifying figure. Now, the dread queen of the changelings was almost... adorable. Admittedly, the dirt from the rubble ruined the effect somewhat. My gambit... It actually worked!

Twilight looked from Chrysalis to me, and then back to the changeling. "Anon," she whispered in a manic voice that did not make me feel very comfortable. Is it just me, or she starting to smoke from the ears again? "What in the fuck did you do?"

I tittered nervously. I don't remember if I'd ever heard Twilight drop an F-bomb before, but it sent weird shivers down my spine. "Oh, you know," I flippantly said, waving a hoof. "Just a little 'redemption' and violation of Rule #8."

~ 19 ~

I don't know who was ultimately more surprised when Chrysalis didn't end up resisting being arrested. After my declaration, she just sorta shut down. As much as I'm sure Twilight wanted nothing more than excuse to squash the bug, she wasn't about to attack or kill a prisoner. In fact, after the initial rage outburst, she seemed almost in as much shock as the changeling. Instead, Chrysalis let herself be carted away to the Ponyville guard station until she could be extradited to Canterlot.

In the meantime, I was drug off to Ponyville General once more. I know that I was held hostage for a little over six days, but don't you think you all are fussing over me a bit too much? After all, I was kept in a magical slumber for most of it. I mean, I'm not complaining that Starlight and Twilight won't let me out of their sight—at least not yet—but it could get a bit annoying.

So here I was sitting in an exam room in the hospital, regaling Starlight, Twilight, and the unicorn doctor introduced to me as Doctor Horse with the story of my adventure. "See, when she revealed herself to me, I could see that she was starving and maybe more than a little sick," I explained as a vial of blood was being taken for testing. "Her chitin was dull and flaking off of her, and while that didn't mean much, the way her eyes were sunken and yellow told me she wasn't well. Heck, she was starving."

The doctor nodded, taping some gauze over where my blood had been drawn. "Jaundice in ponies would indicate liver damage," he confirmed. "I don't know enough about changeling biology, but I imagine the starvation was causing something similar."

I shrugged. "Regardless, she was kinda insane, and raving about how she was going to drain me until I was nothing but a husk and then send me back to you piece by piece. I know what it's like to starve, how much it screws with your head, so I figured—" I swallowed nervously, catching a look from Twilight. "—I may as well offer to feed her willingly." When everyone, the doctor included, shouted out in unison, I couldn't help but flinch. "I figured, as old and wily as she may be, she might be more... amenable and willing to see reason." The hungry look on the queen's face was still fresh in my mind, and I couldn't help but shiver. "It was stupid, I know. Still, after I woke up again, she was a lot more lucid. She even went out while I was unc—er, recovering, and got me a coffee while wearing Starlight's face."

They all just stared at me. It was another of those moments of stunned silence that shouldn't mean 'please continue', but I knew that I must. "I remembered what you said about Thorax and how he transformed, Starlight, and I got this really really stupid gambit in my head," I explained. "I offered her all the love she could need to make her escape in exchange for my freedom." Twilight glared at me, but I ignored it. "When she took the offer, I hacked together this stupid 'Conjure Love' spell that definitely shouldn't have worked... only it wasn't just 'Conjure Love'; it was 'Conjure Queen Chrysalis' Love'."

The doctor, was seemingly done with me, so he moved off to start working some paperwork, while I continued to tell them about my bullshit ploy. "It took an award winning bluff, but she took the bait. Hook, line, and sinker," I said with a laugh. "Don't think she ever thought I'd be stupid enough to try and fuck her over. My only complaint about the plan was that when she was feeding on her own love for everything she held dear and lost, she was moaning like a total whore."

God, I wish they'd been drinking water while I was telling them that part, because that totally would've earned a spit-take. Still, the embarrassed looks on their faces was hilarious. "That, uh," Starlight stammered, clearing her throat. "That sounds like it would've used up a lot of magic. You're sure you feel alright?"

I could only grin as I thumped a hoof against my chest. "Like a million bits."

~ 19 ~

The ensuing 'Welcome-home-and-I'm-glad-you're-not-bug-food!' party from Pinkie Pie the moment we entered the foyer was a bit unexpected, and a bit unwanted, but I tolerated it. Sure, I wanted nothing more than to take a bath and have a nap—even if I'd spent nearly a week in a magical slumber, I was starting to feel a bit knackered from that spell—but I understood the why of sticking about. It wasn't even just the fact that Pinkie's parties were apparently inevitable.

See, it wasn't just the self-titled Cutie Mark Crusaders, Twilight's friend group, and the guards that'd been invited by the pink party-mare. Everyone from the class was present, despite the fact I'd only been with them the one day. The two fillies that read together off the one novel while I'd caught up with the class—I think they were called Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon—were accompanied by an older pink mare. Twilight later told me she was Diamond's mom, Spoiled ~~Bitch~~Rich, and based on the fact that she wore an expression as though she had stepped in something foul, she probably wasn't a good person. The twins Ebony and Ivory Crescent were there with their parents. Hell, it was apparently late enough in the afternoon that even Ms. Cheerilee was free. Even some of the ponies I'd interacted with at the shops and market were there.

It was a bit overwhelming, and I didn't want to be under any more scrutiny than I likely already was after being kidnapped by a changeling. It was for that reason that, while Twilight and Starlight were in earshot, I'd told an altered account of the day's events. Rather than me stupidly feeding Chrysalis and then attempting to trick her with an untested spell and no back-up plan, I played Starlight and Twilight up to be the big damn heroes. It was more believable that two of the most powerful Equestrian magi of their time had pacified Queen Chrysalis than it was that an earth pony filly with only very basic runic magic training had done so. Not like anyone other than Twilight, Starlight, and that guard pony would ever believe me.

That wasn't the only reason I minimised my role in events, however. I could... I dunno, feel? Yeah, that's an apt descriptor. I could feel some animosity or something between Cheerilee and Spoiled Rich, and given the looks the latter kept shooting me, I got the impression she didn't like me. The only thing I could think of that I had even done to piss her off was kicking Ebony and Ivory's asses that day. Maybe she was on the school board and was responsible for the policy that insisted I be punished? Wouldn't surprise me if she saw me as a threat to Diamond. If that was the case, coming off as someone dangerous enough to take on a changeling queen and come out on top would only make her want to keep me away from 'normal' foals like her daughter even more.

There was plenty of food and games present as well, although not really anything that interested me. 'Pin the Tail on the Pony' wasn't really my style, and the piñata didn't last very long. Apparently you're not supposed to take a swing at it like you're playing baseball. Still, despite the two-legged stance, I could somehow feel that the foals all loved the way candy ended up spraying all over the lobby. I think a piece of wrapped hard candy even hit Mrs. Rich in the back of her head, much to her consternation. Everything that I felt seemed to be an amalgamation of what the others around me felt, rather than simply my own muted feelings, and it only served to make everything harder to enjoy.

Alas, all parties must come to an end, and after a nice hot bath, I was free to retreat to my bedroom. Ideally, I would have gone to have supper before a rest, but after all the pigging out and being surrounded by friends and well-wishers, my emotional stamina was drained. It was probably the lingering effect of being fed upon by Chrysalis. All I wanted to do was cuddle my possum pal in my pillow pile, so that was exactly what I did.

~ 19 ~

The next day—that it was Saturday, the fifty-sixth of September, already felt surreal—I went with Twilight to the guard station. She tried to dissuade me from coming, but I needed to see Chrysalis before she was transported to Canterlot. My own feelings still felt rather muted, but that desire to see her still outweighed the fear that she might want me dead for what I did. I did rob her of the choice to move onto this new life stage of being a changeling, after all.

Lieutenant Moondust, having recently been promoted, was on duty when we arrived. Almost as soon as we were in the door, she started giving a status report from a desk well behind the front counter. "Chrysalis's status is unchanged, Your Highness," she explained as she got up. Her horn glowed slightly, and a wooden partition gate separating the civilian and guard spaces swung open. "After some quiet muttering when she was brought in, she's been entirely unresponsive."

Twilight arched an eyebrow as we followed the guard into a hallway off to one side. "There have been no attempts to escape at all?" she questioned with a shake of her head. "That doesn't sound like her."

The unicorn guard led us past several barred cells that, aside from one passed out stallion who reeked of alcohol and urine, were empty. There, opposite of where we'd entered, was a heavy metal door. Above it was a metal plate with Magic Containment. "No ma'am," Moondust agreed. "At last check-in, she was just staring at the ceiling of her cell."

Huh, did I break her? Nah, it's probably some sort of ruse. I couldn't hide the slight smirk spreading across my face. "She's probably thinking she can lull you into a false sense of security and get you when your guard's down," I suggested. The guard lieutenant winced, as if she'd only just noticed my presence. "Either that, or she's overwhelmed by conflicting emotions after being subjected to the same sort of transformation as the rest of her kin." She only shot Twilight a wary glance in response.

Upon reaching the heavy iron door, Lieutenant Moondust paused. "Ma'am, are you sure you want her here?" She sounded like she desperately wanted Twilight to say no, and to send me off to wait in the lobby. "This goes against all protocols and regulations."

Without even looking me, Twilight let out a sigh. "I know, lieutenant," she agreed, "and the part of me that wants to protect her as though she were my own daughter insists I should never have brought her here." My ear twitched at that. Her own... "That said, Anon made a compelling argument for being permitted to see Chrysalis in private before her transfer. She is restrained, correct?"

A disapproving, defeated look crossed the guard's face as she conjured up a key and slid it into the lock. "You have five minutes, Anon," she warned, sliding the massive door open. "If there is trouble, kick the door. Please don't make me regret this."

I nodded and stepped into the containment cell, my eyes on the floor. No sooner than I was through than I felt the door slide shut behind me, narrowly clipping my tail. This is such a stupid idea, and I don't know how I actually got her to agree to this. Maybe she actually agreed that I needed closure?

Steeling myself with a deep breath in through my nose, I looked up to the changeling queen—or was that former queen now? Chained to the far wall, she looked as though she hadn't even been hosed down on intake, as she still appeared to be covered in dust and grime. That said, her eyes were red-rimmed, and it appeared as though there were tracks running down her cheeks where tears had once flowed.

Upon hearing my breath, her eyes snapped down to lock gazes with me. A plethora of emotions radiated off of her, even as she did her best to reign in her facial expression. Rage, confusion, grief, and sorrow were chief among the most prominent, but none I felt more clearly than the unfettered hate she felt for me. It was like a physical slap that caused me to recoil slightly... a reaction that she seemed to take note of, as well.

"I should have bled you dry and followed through with my threat," she hissed, leaning forward until the chains restraining her went taught, and the shackles began to cut into the surprisingly fluffy looking coat adorning her new body. "You suggested before that I never would have harmed a child, and maybe you were right." With an angry sneer, she spat at me, covering my face clear spittle. "But you are no child. You are a monster."

I shrugged, leaning myself against the door. "Probably," I answered, and a look of shock wiped the sneer from her visage. "Are we all not but the results of our environments and circumstances?" Shaking my head, I gave her a soft smile before slowly wiping her saliva from my face. "You know, it's funny. I still haven't really forgiven the Sun Horse and Harmony for robbing me of my natural form—even in the name of saving me."

I clicked my tongue in disappointment. "Goes to show, I'm no better." I broke eye contact with her, returning my gaze to the floor. "I had a good idea of what I was doing to you, and whether it was to save myself or to save you... It makes no difference. Even trying to rationalise it, I'm still a massive hypocrite."

The transfigured queen was staring at me. I didn't even need to look at her to tell; I could just feel it, y'know? "So what?" she demanded. "You've come seeking forgiveness?" She snarled, turning away from me. "You can save your breath, because as long as I still draw breath, you will never get the satisfaction."

I nodded, looking up. "I don't expect you to," I agreed, reaching my hoof up to knock at the door three times. As the door slid open, I stood and turned my back to Chrysalis. "You can hate me for this all you want. Just, after you've faced your punishment, maybe you should try to reconnect with your people. See all that they've become and accomplished without famine and the hate of every other species hanging over their heads."

I gave Twilight a nod as I stepped out. "Changelings are good at change, and ponies seem big on redemption." I turned to regard the bug horse one last time. Her head was turned slightly, and I could see her watching me from the corner of her eye. "Despite all you've done, I don't think you're past redemption. Show the world you're more than just a hunger fae and that you're worth redeeming. I believe in you."

~ 19 ~

I was kinda surprised that Twilight didn't end up wanting to have a discussion with the queen. She seemed fully content to leave with me, sticking close by my side as we left. Rather than heading back to the castle—back home—we headed to Sugarcube Corner. Once there, I secured us a booth, while she ordered some beverages and treats.

She looked like she had something on her mind during the trip. I think we both did. She was probably a bit perturbed to hear that I thought my pony transformation was something that Celestia should need forgiveness for. Or maybe it was the fact that I'd encouraged Chrysalis to seek redemption?

On my side of things, Twilight had said part of her wants to protect me like I'm her own daughter. I'd definitely begun to think of her as family, but Mom she would never be... Still, in that moment, I'd decided I was ready to let her in. I had to ask one thing of her first.

"Do you think what I did to her was wrong... evil, even?" I asked when she returned with a black coffee, a cappuccino and a tray of cupcakes? She set the cappuccino before me, and I barely waited for her to set down two of the cupcakes in front of me before seizing the cup to take a drink. "Was it wrong of me to steal from her the freedom to choose her own fate?"

Her ears flattened, and I found her looking out the window towards Canterlot. She'd heard me talking to Chrysalis, and she knew exactly who the Sun Horse referred to. "I don't believe there is a black-and-white answer to that question, Anon," she whispered. "I don't think what you did was good, but to condemn would be tantamount to calling my mentor, and Harmony itself, evil."

I understood what she meant. After all, Celestia had been like a second mother to her, and just as I had forced change upon Chrysalis, she had forced a change upon me. "Some of the most important, world-changing choices, are morally grey, unable to wholly be categorised as good or evil," I agreed. "If I hadn't been here as a convenient target for Chrysalis, who knows what might've happened? For all we know, she might've eventually teamed up with a rogues-gallery of villains from your past and tried to destroy the world once and for all. Now, she might eventually become an ally like that Spirit of Chaos that everyone keeps mentioning."

Her eyes got really wide for a moment, and she looked around nervously. Wait, no, that was fear. Oh, is that a sort of 'Speak of the Devil and he shall appear,' sort of deals? We'll probably meet eventually if he hangs out here in Ponyville. I think I might even have seen him once. When it became clear that nothing was going to happen, she settled down and began to sip at her coffee. Still, she was regarding me with an inscrutable expression.

Removing the liner from the bottom of a cupcake, I quickly stuffed it into my mouth before washing it down with some cappuccino. "I suppose what I'm trying to get at is... did you mean what you said to Lieutenant Moondust?" I probed, reaching my hoof out. "Are there really times where you think of me like a daughter?"

The mare almost choked on her beverage, and I think she was making a visible effort to not shower me with coffee. "I..." she stammered. Slowly, she placed her own hoof over top of my own. "Well... There are a lot of qualities in you that I saw in myself when I was your age. You're diligent, intelligent, and you've a seemingly insatiable curiosity—not just about magic, but the world. You're clever, and very sociable when you want to be. I see those traits in you, it it makes me want to nurture your growth, so that you can become your best self... I—"

"You don't need to explain yourself," I interjected. It was kinda funny seeing her ramble and getting flustered, but that wasn't the point of the question. "Feelings are just weird like that." I smiled at her and just shook my head. "As weird as it sounds, you, Starlight, and even Spike... You guys are the closest thing I've had to family in a long time."

Twilight looked taken aback by that statement. There's no doubt in my mind that she knew on some level that I'd basically adopted Starlight as a big-sister figure. That said, I'd always tried to keep myself distant from her, calling her boss and the such, and yet she was still there for me in my biggest moments of weakness. When I broke down after the first time Chrysalis had snatched me, she'd been there, comforting me just like my mother would. She was showing me unconditional love, in spite of how I behaved and how much trouble I brought her.

"I'm still not entirely happy being a pony, and I'm not sure I'll ever come to grips with the fact that I'll never see my sisters again," I murmured. Placing my other forehoof atop hers, sandwiching it between them, I met her gaze. "I'm ready to accept that I don't have to be alone, though. I might not be ready to call you Mom—I might never be—but I gotta admit... Auntie Twilight has a nice ring to it."

Author's Notes:

So we come to the end of the ~~鬼隠し/Onikakushi~~Changeling Arc. I'm sure a lot of you aren't entirely satisfied with the way this arc was resolved, but this was my end-goal from the moment I conceived this arc. The chapter itself was actually started in part shortly after Entry 14.

I'd always planned on having Anon confronting Chrysalis, although there'd been a few different outcomes. In one iteration, Anon wilfully fed Chrysalis every last bit of her love, triggering the transformation in the queen, while simultaneously causing her own transformation into a juvenile queen. Another iteration had Anon transforming, or being transformed by Chrysalis, into a juvenile queen and escaping, trying desperately to prove that she really is Anon.

Both of those didn't sit well with me, because anon becoming a buggo so soon after being turned into a pony would've been convoluted. Plus, it would've taken away from her schtick of being an earth pony able to use the old magic. After all, buggos can cast their own sorts of magic.

One thing that probably flew under the radar given the limited exposure of it was the enchanted opossum plush. Although the little stuffie did indeed have a calming enchantment, it was not its sole purpose. I'm sure it's not hard to guess its actual purpose from contextual clues during the previous encounter with Chrysalis, but its use was intended to be more prolonged. That said, it occurred to me during the last chapter that the arc was starting to drag on, and between Anon having guards and being tracked through her gift, it would've become increasingly hard for Chrysalis to make her move. Thus, we have the short time-skip via magical sleep and an off-screen kidnapping.

That said, I wanted anon to walk out of this arc with something to show for herself. Since anon prided herself on her ability to read others while gambling, and already being somewhat empathetic of a person, an augmented degree of passive empathy seemed like a good trade-off for having her own emotions feasted upon so much. My explanation is because magic, and because she'd wilfully opened herself up to the bug queen.

There'll be a short hiatus after this chapter—no more than a few weeks at most, and then I'll be back to writing the next chapter. That said, keep an eye out for my blogs, as I'll be looking for some reader input on a few things for the Anon-a-Miss arc. Also expect a 'short'. time-skip. We're at Saturday, 56th of September, so we'll be starting up again, say, Monday, 14th of October.

Omake 1: My Anon can't be this cute!

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It was a beautiful day outside. The sun was high in the sky, shining its warmth down upon Ponyville, its busy weather team, and my dopey ass. Birds were birding. Flowers were doing... whatever the fuck it is flowers do. Me? I was lying in the sun, enjoying the relaxing effects of a certain special tea. That's right, I was stoned off my ass, pretending I was one of those flowers, trying to do whatever the fuck those guys do .

Was it wrong for me to swipe some from Rarity's place? Absolutely. Unfortunately, Stoner Horse wouldn't sell me any, so I had no other choice. She'd said something about how the fun police had showed up a few weeks back and chased away the vibe. So here I was, reduced to being a petty criminal. But hey, at least I had some proper adult supervision this time.

In the tree above me, a certain thestral rested, watching me through the corner of her narrowed eye. "Anon, do you seriously plan on rolling in the grass all day, like a cat on catnip?" she asked. Her foreign accent struck me as familiar, but in all the weeks she'd been assigned as one of my guardians—'to keep Anon out of trouble'—she'd never spoken about her homeland or even her real name. "You could do anything with your free day, and you decided to get high and behave like a foal."

I paused my foalish horse-shittery to look up at the mare. Although the grey pony was keeping an eye on me out of the corner of her eye, her indigo-blue mane seemed to keep her eyes mostly out of sight. I still can't figure out why a bat pony would volunteer for the afternoon shift, I mused, glancing at the graphic novel cradled in her hooves. Sure, the sun brings those red streaks out, but it's gotta be killer on her eyes. It just struck me as really odd that it was her and not her partner, Strongwind watching me this afternoon.

"I dunno Eve," I said with a giggle. It was kinda silly looking at a pony through askew glasses. "It's pretty comfy, and the grass is kinda ticklish against my burn scars." A grin spread across my face as I rolled onto my belly. Holding one hoof to my chest, I continued, "You'd totally do this too if your coat could hide grass stains like mine."

That actually got a snort from the mare, although she quickly went back to her reading. Honestly, I couldn't tell what it was she was reading. It definitely wasn't anything from the limited selection of graphic novels from Twilight's castle library, and it also didn't seem to be written in the mainland-Equestrian standard sun and moon-glyphs. Something from her overseas homeland, maybe? Then again, I think I've seen similar writing on a few book-spines on Ms. Fluttershy's bookshelf the few times I've been over to play with critters.

Rolling back onto my back, I returned my attention to the sky. It wasn't like I was waiting for anything; in fact, it was super relaxing to just stare off into the great blue yonder. I needed to get the most out of my off-days, since I would be back to school soon enough, and the more chill I was, the better things would be for everyone.

It could've been minutes or hours later when I noticed Rainbow Dash flying overhead, still clad in the Wonderbolts uniform she wore when working with them. Waving up at her, I called out, "Rainbow Dash! You got my money?" Yeah, if there's two things I've learned about that pony—beyond her 'I am speed,' attitude—it's that she has a heavy risk of becoming an alcoholic, and that she's surprisingly bad at cards. Way too aggressive with her bets, and she actually made the mistake making a wager she couldn't pay at the time. So it was that she ended up owing me 100 bits last week. "Don't forget I know where you live!"

Again, Evening Script snorted from her spot in the tree, and muttered, "Everypony knows which house is hers, but good luck shaking her down. Strong nor I will fly you up there."

To be honest, I expected Rainbow Dash to pretend she didn't hear me. Colour me surprised when she swooped down, landing beside me with a sheepish expression on her face. "Yeah, yeah, I've got your money," she groaned, dipping her head beneath her wing to fetch a satchel. Dropping it down in front of my face, she fidgets her wings in agitation. "It's all there; we square?"

Although I was tempted to make up a late fee just to see if she'd cave. I swear, I'm not becoming a bully; I just think it's funny to get a rise out of adults when I think I can get away with it. I nodded. "We're good," I confirmed. To be honest, I didn't even care if she shorted me. With everything being provided for me by Twilight, it's not like I'm living hand-to-mouth on the road. "Although..." She winced, probably expecting something outrageous. "Pegasi are good at passive knowledge accumulation, right?"

She nodded with a somewhat confused expression on her face—I knew she didn't like big words, but I figured she knew those ones. "So you could probably tell me at a glance if that stuff my shadow there—" I pointed to the tree, where Eve was watching the two of us with disinterest. "—is reading is the same sort of stuff Ms. Fluttershy has on her bookshelf?"

Dash let out a sigh of relief once she was sure I was done. With but a glance to Eve, she nodded. "Yeah, that looks like that weird Neighponese manega she reads," she said. Suddenly, she perked up and actually looked to the bat pony. "Say, you're into that stuff too, right? Wanna help me pull a prank? It's hard to pull one on Fluttershy out of fear of scaring her real bad."

At first, Eve looked like she was gonna turn her down. After all, she was supposed to be watching over me. As she lowered her graphic novel, though, I started to get a bad feeling. Her eyes flicked from Dash, to me. A smile began to spread across her face, and suddenly, I knew what that feeling was. Ha ha, I'm in danger.

~ 僕のアノンちゃんがこんなに可愛いわけがない！ ~

In a way, I was right; I was definitely in danger. In danger of being dragged into something completely stupid, I thought to myself as I sat in Fluttershy's living room, waiting for her to return. Rainbow Dash had let us all in with a spare key she had, and relocked the door behind us. After a quick coaching session from Evening Script to ensure I knew how to properly pronounce my lines, the pair had hidden themselves behind Fluttershy's sofa.

They also seemed to be utilising some sort of recording crystal. That meant that I was probably going to get to see how silly I looked, in addition to Fluttershy's reaction, in third person later. I just hoped that I wouldn't end up regretting this. I already felt ridiculous and slightly worried.

My biggest problem with the whole charade was probably the outfit that Eve had produced from a trunk in her quarters at the castle. It was something I'd seen before—hell, I'd worn one before. Sure, it looked innocuous enough: a pleated blue skirt, a white blouse with an attached sailor-style collar, white knee-high socks, and black loafers. For good measure, they'd even slapped a red ribbon in my mane. I just don't associate it with good memories because it was some guy's fetish request on a date.

Evening called it a school uniform, and hell, maybe schools in Neighpon actually wore them. That didn't stop me from feeling like a prostitute. Why does that mare even have one of these in my size? There aren't even wing-slits, meaning this was made for an earth pony or unicorn... I mused, glancing to the grandfather clock present in the living room. Maybe she's one of those perverted mares who enjoys dressing foals up in strange outfits?

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Rainbow giving me the go signal. That meant that she'd spotted Fluttershy coming up the path. Sucking in a deep breath, I worried once more that they were having me proposition the poor mare or something, or that this was also a prank on me as revenge for something or other.

The lock on the door rattled, and then clicked.

Slowly, the door swung open.

「おかえり、おねえさま！」 I exclaimed, sounding as sickeningly sweet as I could manage, as Fluttershy, Rarity, and Pinkie stood in the doorway. Wait, they weren't part of the plan! You didn't warn me about them, you bitch!

"Anon, wha..." Rarity tried to get out, but the words froze in her throat. Meanwhile, Pinkie was giggling, and Fluttershy was turning a rather pretty shade of pink.

My cheeks flushed red, but I continued on with the script. Sitting on my haunches, I turned slightly to gesture at the doorway to the kitchen. 「ごはんにする？」 I turned the other direction, gesturing to the stairs. 「おふろにする？」

I cringed inwardly slightly as I did my best to look cutesy as I faced them all directly once more. Bringing my hooves up to my face to feign shyness, I fluttered my eyelashes as I asked, 「それとも、あたし～？」

The room remained silent—aside from Pinkie's confused giggling, and the snickering coming from behind the couch—for what felt like forever. Then, a high pitched squeal began to fill the air. I couldn't tell where it was coming from, but it almost sounded like someone had left a kettle on. After a few more moments where the squeal grew louder, I realised it was coming from Fluttershy. There's even steam coming from her ears!

That sense of impending danger returned in force. Faster than I could even react, I was tackled by Fluttershy. Her hooves wrapped me in a tight-as-fuck hug, and she was rubbing her face all up and down the top of my head. Right, nuzzling was what it was supposed to be called, but this felt so much more terrifying.

The snickering behind the couch burst into full-fledged laughter as Rainbow Dash and Evening Script revealed themselves to the others. "Smile, Anon!" Eve said, angling the crystal to better capture my expression. "Twilight and Starlight are gonna love seeing this."

I wanted to yell at the bat horse. Just cussing her out in front of everyone would make me feel so much better... but instead, I just grumbled. "Are you gonna tell me what you had me say now?" I begged, as Rarity joined in on the tittering. "You better not have made me proposition her! I don't do that stuff anymore!"

1) The title of this chapter is a play on the Anime/Manga, Oreimo/My Little Sister Can't be This Cute/Ore no Imouto ga kon'nani kawaii wake ga nai! Running off that idea, the break in the chapter is marked with '僕のアノンちゃんがこんなに可愛いわけがない！', which when romanised reads, "Boku no Anon-chan ga kon'nani kawaii wake ga nai!" which loops us back to the chapter title.

2) The lines Anon speaks are from gag run in a few anime. A female character greets the protagonist, and asks them the following.
「おかえり、おねえさま！」 Okaeri, oneesama! / Welcome home, big sister!
「ごはんにする？」Gohan ni suru? / Would you like to have dinner?
「おふろにする？」Ofuro ni suru? / Do you want to take a bath? (Or 'Would you like a bath?')
「それとも、わたし～？」Soretomo, watashi~? / Or me~?
In this case, I wrote あたし～/ atashi~, which is one of the several first-person pronouns from the language that is typically only used by women.
So yes... technically Anon did proposition Fluttershy.

3) I could have written the Japanese lines out in their romaji/romanised forms for easier reading, but I wanted to convey the fact that Anon had no idea what the hell she was reciting, while also providing a bilingual bonus for those who can read Japanese. The quotes contained no kanji forms just to make the reading simpler for those learning like I am.

Entry 20

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Today was shaping up to be a weird one. I'd been taking my free day slowly, just lazing about in Twilight's library with a graphic novel lent to me by the bat pony guard. I think she called it a mango or a manega or something like that. What it's called isn't really important. What is important is that I was just relaxing with my comfort plush after having finished all the catch-up work I'd been doing for school.

See, Aunt Twilight was never all that satisfied with the school board policy that resulted in my being suspended alongside Ebony Crescent and Ivory Crescent. Feasibly, I would've been out of suspension on the sixty-sixth of September, but Twilight was still keen on attending the board meeting on the Wednesday immediately following my kidnapping ordeal. Apparently, that was a good choice, because that Rich bitch was apparently pushing for a more permanent removal until—and I quote—"That savage filly is deemed safe by a board-approved psychiatric specialist." I don't know what Twilight did to get Rich to drop it, or why she was so opposed to my return, but suffice to say, I was free to return early.

Sure, everybody was quite happy to have me back. It wasn't just a feeling, though. Whatever happened to me between willingly feeding Chrysalis and fucking her over, my natural empathy for others had been amplified to a preternatural degree, and it hadn't abated in the least as time passed. It was as though anyone particularly close by, I could just tell what they were feeling. It was honestly a bit of a headache being surrounded by so many ponies in close quarters, and if too many ponies were experiencing negative emotions around me, it almost made me physically ill.

Miss Cheerilee also seemed way too happy to have me around to help the others with maths... Unfortunately, being back also give Cheerilee a proper opportunity to outline all the catch-up projects she wanted me to do in order to get up to the class's approximate position in the syllabus. Some of it, I would've been assigned weeks ago, but for a certain event. Although it wasn't anything particularly tedious, as reading was one of my favourite things in the world, it was still a pain. Admittedly, it was a pain of my own self-making, since I challenged myself to complete it by October.

The only benefit to the catch-up work was the music unit. I'd always loved listening to classical music, and AC/DC, Kiss, and Guns N' Roses kept me sane on the road, but it was so much more for these horses. See, ponies put a surprising of emphasis on music in their lives, and they've even been known to burst into song from time to time. Although 'heartsongs' were considered rare, harmony seemed to grant all ponies a degree of musical talent. In some it manifested in their singing voices, others might have an affinity for an instrument.

Cheerilee's catch-up task for music was simple—explore the realm of music, and find my affinity, and prepare a song for class. I'd done karaoke as a human a few times at drinking parties, and one of my weirder dates had even taken me to a full-on club, complete with all sorts of weird song-choices, from games and the like, I'd never heard before. I was an alright singer then, but as a pony, I definitely seemed to have better control and range.

I found, after a visit to Rarity to get my cloak patched up, that I had a surprising knack for piano. I was going to hang out with Sweetie Belle while I waited for Rarity, until I saw a room that held a baby grand piano. Maybe it was the magic of music, or nostalgia, but I was drawn to it. Before Sweetie Belle could even warn me not to touch Rarity's piano, I'd begun to play the first movement of Ludwig van Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata from memory. Wasn't until Rarity tapped my shoulder, looking a bit surprised and teary-eyed that I realised I had played through Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah and Claude Debussy's Clair de Lune. I myself had been a bit teary at the end.

Couldn't read sheet music worth a damn, but I was really good at playing by ear. Sufficiently impressed, Rarity suggested I check in with a musician by the name of Octavia Melody for lessons. Twilight was all for it, so for a few hours every Saturday since the seventy-seventh through the fifth, I spent some time with a grey earth-pony who had no problem teaching me how to read sheet, and improve my techniques. Sure, she played cello, but her talent was music, not just cello. Patient mare, too, but her roommate, Vinyl Scratch, was surprisingly noisy for a mute, often breaking out synth tunes at random.

As much as Octavia had a penchant for teaching theory, I was actually kinda surprised when the mute unicorn got in on the lessons at the earth-pony's behest. Maybe it was because I used my hoof fields in a manner closer to how unicorns used their magic, having a greater degree of flexibility, but she took an interest in teaching me the ins and outs of navigating a keyboard. It made sense, given she worked with such devices when making her music, it made sense that she'd have a more natural feel for the chords and hoof placement.

Then of course you had the town of Ponyville itself. It was, so to speak, in a state of recovery. See, the six days I'd been in the bug's possession, Twilight and company weren't just sitting idle. They'd been all but literally tearing the town, parts of the Everfree, and the White Tail Woods. Apparently, there was significant fire damage from someone losing her cool, and the deer settlement of Thicket—somewhere in the Everfree—was demanding reparations for a valuable copse of trees that were apparently collateral when Aunt Twilight nuked one of Chrysalis' several boltholes in frustration.

I'm kinda not surprised that they had a hard time locating me, though. The cave Chrysalis had chosen to keep me in was apparently right under everyone's noses on the school grounds. Apparently the 'entrance' blocked by a boulder wasn't even anything more than a small animal burrow that provided air. I wonder if Cheerilee's upset about the storage shed?

Wait, I'm off topic. I was talking about today: Monday, the 7th of October. I was reading some graphic novel from Neighpon about a crew of space pirates setting sail for an unfathomable treasure at the centre of the galaxy. You know, just chilling in my favourite place in the castle. All of a sudden, my ~~ass~~ cutie mark starts vibrating, buzzing, and even glowing a bit. Fuckin' weird, right?

Now, it was just me and the bat in the library. Starlight was off doing something in Canterlot, Sergeant Revelry, Stonefeather, and Specks were off doing some training, and Strongwind was guarding Twilight. Suffice to say, neither of us had any clue what the fuck was going on, and I was kinda freaking out. It's not every day that your ass starts making inexplicable noises or moving on its own.

Thankfully, Evening Script was a professional first; any alarm she might've felt she quickly tamped down on. It was something I noticed with all of the guards, but they seemed to have way better control over what emotions they broadcast. It was definitely a comfort—although not as much as my enchanted plush—being around quiet guards. So while I flipped the fuck out, and hugged my possum pal, she took off in search of Aunt Twilight.

It didn't take her very long to return. She didn't even give me the opportunity to ask if she'd found Twilight; one moment, she flew in through the still-open door, and the next she'd picked me up by the nape of my neck, hurtling through the halls of the castle as fast as her webbed wings could carry us. At first I thought we were heading towards Twilight's private study, but we blew right past that, instead ending up in a part of the castle I'd only been once or twice.

Although it was a relatively large crystalline chamber, it was sparsely decorated. At the centre of the room, stood a large table, surrounded by thrones adorned by the cutie marks of Twilight and her friends, with a seventh smaller throne beside Twilight's. Above the table hung a large root-structure that had been converted into some sort of chandelier.

There, sitting on her throne, with her face buried in her forehooves, was Twilight. Spike was apparently trying to calm her down, although I couldn't hear what he was whispering. The pegasus guard, on the other hand, just stood by the door, with an uneasy look about him. Evening Script joined him after setting me down.

Something about this room struck me as odd, though—something was different. When I had been here previously, there was a detailed holographic—Magical?—projection of all of Equestria that floated above the table. The image wasn't as pronounced, this time, like it was flattened down somewhat. What could cause or necessitate that?

As I drew closer to the table, so as to join Twilight and Spike, I saw something strange that had been previously hidden by one of the thrones. Floating above Ponyville was the holographic representation of a building that looked almost human in architecture. It definitely wasn't something I'd ever seen in Ponyville. There was snow on the ground, a sidewalk, asphalt, an honest-to-God parking lot, and a statue of a horse out front. And above all that, was probably the weirdest detail: my cutie mark.

"Aunt Twilight," I began as I came up alongside her throne. Strangely enough, as soon as I drew close to the table, the mark on my flanks stopped vibrating and buzzing. "Why is my mark floating above the table, and why was my ass flipping out?"

"Spike, would you please do the honours of explaining the situation?" Twilight muttered into her hooves. She was broadcasting so many emotions that I was starting to get a headache. Fear, worry, frustration, and anger were chief among what she was feeling, although I got hints of pride and excitement. "I need more time to wrap my head around all of this, and I need to consult Sunset."

I noticed she had that communication book to the other world sitting at her side, but said nothing. So, this has to do with the other world? Without a peep, Twilight conjured up an inkwell and quill and began scrawling out a message. Then she just set the book down on the table and sighed loudly, staring up at the ceiling.

Instead I turned my attention to the young drake as he hauled himself up so that he could sit on the edge of the table. "This—" Spike patted the surface of the table, his clawed hand passing through a mountain range somewhere near the badlands. "—is the Cutie Map," he explained. "I don't know exactly how or why it works, but it seems to know where in the world a friendship problem is, and who would be the best pony for the job."

Placing my front hooves on the edge of the table to afford me a better look, I glanced about the table. "I'm still kinda surprised that it chose Starlight for something happening in Canterlot," he said, pointing to the mountain city, where Starlight's own cutie mark was floating above the castle. "Up until recently, it'd only ever been Twilight and the others. Now you and Starlight are being summoned on the same day."

Then, he pointed to the building over which my own cutie mark was floating. "That is Canterlot High," he continued. "It's a school in the world on the other side of the magic mirror. I think Twilight told you about it?"

Remembering the world-shaking lecture Twilight had given me on that other world, the duplicates of her friends, and Sunset Shimmer, I narrowed my eyes. "Yeah," I agreed. I was starting to get a sinking feeling. "Last I heard, Sunset wasn't having a good time of things. Getting blamed for a rumour <<blog>>. I dunno what's been happening there since I gave Sunset that advice," I said, giving Twilight a sidelong glance. "I know that unless the portal is open, time flows slower on her side, although I imagine the book also temporarily syncs everything up."

Spike shrugged, looking at the school building I was apparently being summoned to. "What I'm wondering is what you'd turn into if you go through the portal," he said with a bit of a snort. "Twilight turned into the same sort of creature as Sunset and the others, but I was a dog. Since you're not originally a pony, what do you think it'll do to you?"

I just shook my head and climbed up into Applejack's throne. "With my luck, I'll be a small talking horse on that side too," I replied with a laugh of my own. "I can just imagine how they'd enjoy having a small pony running around, trying to disrupt whatever drama is considered a major friendship problem by a magic table from another dimension."

We just sorta sat in silence after that. Until Twilight decided to say something or we got a response from Sunset Shimmer, there wasn't much I could do. After all, I couldn't drag the portal out of storage, and until we knew what I was walking into or if I was even going. If I did go, would anyone be accompanying me? Or could Twilight trust me to be on my own in a strange, but more familiar world?

That wasn't even considering other factors. Where would I stay? Where would I acquire food? If I needed money for something, how would I get my hands on it? Although Twilight had befriended her friends' human counterparts, I wasn't sure I could rely on them like she did. For one, if this Anon-a-Miss thing blew up and everyone thought it was Sunset, they might not be willing to give me the time of day, never mind a place to stay, if I revealed that I planned on approaching it with the possibility of her being innocent. Besides, these would be the human teenager equivalents of ponies I knew, but still strangers.

Maybe, I pondered, I can rely on the Sun Horse and Luna's counterparts. If I get Twilight to write me a letter of introduction and why I'm there, they might be willing to give me a couch for me to crash on, or permission to sleep in the library rather than just hiding out there like Twilight did. It was definitely a more reasonable option than relying on potentially angry teenagers, although I might want to borrow a sleeping bag before going through. A winter one, just to be on the safe side.

"He—" Just as I was about to ask Twilight a question, the book on the table began to buzz. Immediately, the princess snatched it up and began to read. All too quickly, she gasped and dropped the book. Although it was partially levitating over the table, there wasn't nearly enough surface area beneath the book from tumbling to the floor. Twilight didn't seem to notice. She brought a hoof up to her mouth as tears began to rim her eyes.

I hopped down off of Applejack's throne and pulled the book over to me, opening it to the most recent pages. The first thing I saw was an exchange between Sunset and Twilight that had to have been written in realtime.

... so that's the whole story. Nobody will believe that I'm not Anon-a-Miss... Not even my friends. My former friends, I guess.

I'm so sorry, Sunset. I wish there was some way I could help you, It's never easy to lose good friends. Do you remember the legend of the Windigos? From the story of Hearth's Warming Eve? They were evil spirits that fed on fighting and hatred, causing the cold of winter.

Do you think there are Windigos in this world?

I don't know. I don't think there need to be. I think anypony—anybody—can spread hatred and chaos. It doesn't have to be caused by Windigos, magic spells, or even curses. It can be spread as easily as pushing a button.

If it's that easy to spread, how do you stop it?

I wish I knew. Sometimes, all you can do is stay strong, remember who you are, and find your family.

Well shit, I thought upon reading that exchange. Shit had escalated hard there. She sounds like she's almost lost hope. Still, need to keep reading. Up next was

Sunset,
I may have a solution to the Anon-a-Miss problem. The filly I've been taking care of—somepony dear to me—has been summoned by the Cutie Map. It apparently wants her to solve a friendship problem at Canterlot High. She was the one who sent you the advice about your phone before, and given her previous life in a world not unlike yours, I was hoping you'd be willing to meet with her and she could help you get to the bottom of this.

I bit my lip and then looked down at Sunset's response. My heart clenched at the words written across he page. It even looked like there were tear droplets dried upon the page.

Twilight,
Do whatever you think is best... I don't care anymore. Everything's just gotten worse since I tried to show the others my journal, and our exchanges, to prove my innocence, but they wouldn't listen. I thought I'd gotten through to them, but they wouldn't even consider friends and family might have been involved. They're not willing to suspect anyone else they considered family, but they still turned on me after calling me family.

Rainbow and Applejack got violent and the police were called. I refused to press charges, despite the black eye and the bruises. Since then, things at the school have only been getting worse. I've been sucker-punched a few times in the halls, and someone even tried pushing me down the stairs. My locker's in ruins, and I had to turn off my phone because I've started to get death threats from people that Anon-a-Miss has really hurt.

I just feel so alone here... like nobody would care or even notice I was gone until it's too late. Principal Celestia and Vice Principal Luna haven't lifted a finger, and if they noticed my absence after the whole thing with the stairs, they haven't bothered getting in contact. So why stay? What have I to live for?
Twilight...I'm scared...

I stared down at the page, a chill running down my spine. "Twilight!" I shouted, snapping my head in her direction. "Some of what she's wrote here is giving me a really bad feeling. Can you get that mirror portal set up?" I glanced at Spike, who had fallen off the table at the suddenness of my voice. "Can you get ready to scribe a message for me?"

When Spike nodded, and Twilight snapped out of her stupor, I glanced over to the guards at the door. "I have no authority to order you to do anything," I pleaded, "but please, I need someone to get my saddlebags and my cloak from my room, and a winter sleeping bag from the storage room. I know I saw one in there."

Even as Twilight flashed away, I was still somewhat surprised that Strongwind actually did leave his post by the door. Turning back to Spike, I shook my head. It took him a moment to grab the quill and Inkwell twilight left behind. "What a mess," I murmured. "You good to write this down?"

"Yeah, but what's the rush?" he asked, glancing over Sunset's message. "She sounds sad, but it doesn't seem like she's in any immediate danger."

I wish I still had your youthful innocence, Spike. "Message is as follows," I said. "Sunset, go to the portal at zero-six-hundred hours, or just before dawn—whichever comes first—and send a message through, and we'll open the portal. If there are cameras out front of the school, be sure to be seen. Until this mess is resolved, it is not safe for you or your mental well-being to remain in that world. Before you return to Equestria, I will meet you on the other side. Sign it 'A Friend'. P.S. Spike's writing this for me since quills are a nightmare."

~ 20 ~

It turned out that it was a bit past midnight when Sunset got my message. So, after Twilight got the portal set up, we opened the portal to sync up the worlds. That way, until six in the morning came about, we'd have plenty of time to prepare. For my part in preparations, I just packed the sleeping bag with my saddlebags, threw in a notebook or two, a towel, my toiletries, and a few pencils. Another notepad went into one of the interior pockets of my cloak, along with a pencil-stub.

It took some bargaining, but I even got her to spare me a hundred Equestrian bits and a two-twenty-five gram wafer of gold. The gold wafer wasn't all that valuable in Equestria, due to the sheer availability of the mineral, but since the nation was on a gold standard, the gold and coins could be traded off or offered as bribes. What I didn't tell her was that back home, a wafer like that would be worth at least ten grand. Still, the satchel of bits went into my cloak pocket, while the wafer went into my saddlebag.

If only Twilight didn't want an itemised list of expenditures.

I also had Twilight write me two letters of introduction. One was for Principal Celestia and Vice Principal Luna, which explained exactly who I was, why I was there, and her hopes that they would provide me aid in bringing the Anon-a-Miss fiasco to a close. The other letter was one for her teenage friends. Rather than introduce me as Anonymous, she—at my behest—introduced me as 'Emerald Flicker'. Her letter to them only explained that I was there to investigate and solve a friendship problem, on behalf of the Equestrian crown. Whether I actually directly interacted with them was ultimately up to me.

From there, Twilight had me run through my plan with her. Put simply, I was going to go through, take possession of Sunset's phone and book as evidence of the harassment and death threats, and then hand off the phone to the principal. From there, phase one would be proving that Sunset can't possibly be the one behind Anon-a-Miss. Phase two would be finding out who the real culprit was. Phase three was entirely dependent on Sunset and her friends, but basically consisted of them reconciling.

Plus, we had to get my backstory down. As far as that world—outside the Sun and Moon siblings' counterparts—was concerned, I was just a filly under Twilight's care who had gotten wrapped up in something nasty, and was being sent to the human world until things calmed down and my life was no longer in danger. I didn't even have to lie about being targeted by love-stealing shapeshifters. After all, the best lies are those painted with shades of truth.

After that, we had four hours for me to kill, so I basically spent the rest of that time napping or meditating. After all, I'd be going in at six in the morning, and I'd need to last at least until the end of the day. So I just lazed about in the library, where Twilight had brought out the magic mirror to, snuggled up to Twilight for what might be the last time for several days. We even had an alarm set for when I would be best served to go through the portal.

I had half a mind to fiddle about with a runic magic project I'd started not too long ago, but that would've been counterproductive and draining. See, I'd found a bit of alteration magic that I'd been toying around with converting to a runic structure, but unfortunately it hadn't gone quite right on the first test. See, the spell in question was a simple locking spell that I'd modified with an energy storage structure I borrowed from another spell. Ideally, the spell-inscribed clay would keep any container it was affixed to from opening until it ran out of power or someone hit it with an unlocking spell.

It worked a little too well. I placed the clay on a cereal box, and powered it, and it'd been locked for the better part of two weeks without any hint that the spell was weakening. Hell, even if you cut a new opening, it physically wouldn't open. I even had an entire panel of the cardboard box disconnected from the greater whole, and I couldn't separate it.

You're probably wondering why I didn't just have Twilight or Starlight zap it with master-level unlock spell, or hit it with some clay inscribed with unlock. Fact of the matter is that I was actually somewhat interested in how long it would stay powered. Imagine having a magical lock-box that was impervious to being opened until hit with the right spell. If I could somehow construct a key-based system, I could probably make a mint selling them. Sure, it might take some studies in artifice, but it was a worthy goal.

Hmm, maybe a combination or password based system? That way we would only need the runic arrays and not— My musings were cut off by an alarm clock going off. Everyone present—Twilight, Spike, Evening Script, and Strongwind—looked from the clock, and then to me. I just stood up, threw my saddlebags on, and threw my cloak on over it as Twilight silenced the alarm. A seconds after the alarm went, Sunset's journal began to buzz from on the plinth.

"Anon," Twilight said, pulling me into a hug as we stood before the mirror. "I want to trust that you can handle yourself over there, but I also want you to promise me that you won't do anything foolhardy. That means no crazy stunts like what you did with Chrysalis."

In spite of myself, I found it easy to laugh. "You know, that's fair," I said as she released me. "I promise I won't intentionally do anything that's going to endanger my life." I went through the motions of something ponies here called a Pinkie Promise. "Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye." Standing before the mirror, I gave her a serious look. "When I send her through, Twilight, I want you to shut the portal down. I'll send a message through her copy of the journal when I'm done, but until then, don't leave her alone or make her think she's alone... She needs time for her scars—be they physical or emotional—to heal."

Alarm started to radiate from her like a signal fire. "Anon, it could be weeks or even months from our perspective," she exclaimed. "You just finished catching up in class... and what about your friends? What about Starlight?"

I patted her on the shoulder. "I think Starlight'll understand," I said, backing towards the portal. "Besides, how's the saying go? Absence makes the heart grow fonder?" At that, I turned and stepped through the mirror.

Everything stretched and compressed around me until reality was little more than a tunnel of every colour assailing my senses all at once. Gravity didn't work here, however; the moment I felt myself begin to tumble, I attempted to counteract the motion, only to over-correct and spin out of control. It made my stomach churn, but it wasn't like anything was there for me to vomit up; I'd chosen not to eat before interdimensional transit, and my stomach thanked me.

Then, in a flash, I found myself stumbling out into the dark and cold, a pair of hands catching me and holding me up. "Thanks," I said in a voice that sounded somewhat deeper than it usually did. "God, it feels weird being bipedal again."

Straightening up and stretching, I took stock of my body. Arms and legs? It was a bit breezy around my legs, but that was a check. Fingers and toes? I flexed my hands and feet. Check. A weight against my back told me everything I needed to know about my saddlebags. Transfigured into a backpack. Will have to check my sleeping bag, though.

The hood of my cloak was hanging in front of my face a bit too low, so I could only see Sunset from the shoulders down. Despite the nip in the air, she only seemed to be wearing a leather jacket, an orange scarf that matched her skirt, and a purple long-sleeved that matched her leggings. The sleeve of her shirt didn't exactly do a good job of hiding a bandage wound around her wrist, but I didn't comment on it.

Pulling my hood back let my apparently quite-long black locks spill free, but my bangs weren't quite long enough to obscure her face. I took just a moment to make sure my glasses were on, and then I smiled. "Sorry about the secrecy regarding my name," I said, sticking out my right hand. I was a bit surprised that I was only a half-head shorter than her. "My name is—"

"Emerald Flicker...? It can't be..." she stepped backward, a look of shock spreading across her face as she looked down at me. Her red-gold locks were somewhat matted, and it looked like she was using them to hide some of the bruising on her pale orange skin. I almost didn't even feel her emotional reaction at all, but for the fact that I could see it on her face, plain as day. I might've been too caught off guard that she knew the name that I had borrowed from that dream so many weeks ago. "We all went to your memorial in seventh grade!" That shock turned to terror as she glanced at the mirror, as if checking for a reflection. "Did I actually—"

Memorial? Up until Sunset said that name, I'd been willing to dismiss what I'd seen all those days ago as some sort of dream. I shouldn't have any sort of counterpart in this world, and yet... Was it just sheer coincidence that I looked like a girl from this world, who had the same name as the dead filly in my dream? Or...

"Not quite; you're very much alive," I interjected, holding up my hands. "I mean, Emerald is the alias I'm going with while I'm here, but Twilight can explain why using my name here would only complicate things even further than they already are." No sense not at least giving her a hint. "Let's just say that it's for the best that I maintain anonymity."

She gave me a strange look and held up her hand as if she wanted to say something. The cold shock of her realisation washed over me. "Harmony has a twisted sense of humour if it sent someone with that name to solve this," she muttered as she started rooting through a bag I'd not yet noticed. First she produced a large tome emblazoned with the same two-toned sun mark as the one back in Equestria. I immediately shrugged off one of the straps of my backpack and slung it around to open it for her to drop the book in. "When you want to go over the threats with Principal Celestia, send me a message and I'll send you the password. I'd rather you wait until after this is resolved though."

I nodded, holding out my hand to accept the smartphone she'd produced from her bag. I actually ended up doing a double-take, Oh, it was a smartphone to be sure, but it was somewhat blocky, and had some actual physical buttons along the bottom of the screen. "Whoa, retro!" I couldn't help but let slip, earning an even more incredulous look from her. "Yeah, you're definitely gonna wanna get my backstory from Aunt Twilight."

Her jaw dropped. Poor girl's probably going through mood whiplash. First she'd been subjected to the face of someone who died. Then that person inferred their name was similar to a certain rumour mill that was ruining her life. Oh, and I called what was probably a state of the art smart-phone retro... All before calling Twilight my auntie. Yeah, she was going to have so many questions.

I jabbed a thumb at the portal. "Go on, Sunset," I whispered, placing the phone in my bag and then patting her on the shoulder. "You need time to heal, and I need time to bust a certain rumour mill." Again, she opened her mouth to speak, but I just cut her off. "Uh-uh; no spoilers. I'm sure you have your suspects, but half the fun in the mystery is the journey."

It was a bit hard to put my backpack back on without shedding my cloak, but I managed to close it and get it back on. "I'll take good care of your stuff, and I promise not to burn the place to the ground." I got behind her and started pushing her toward the portal. "Just do me two favours while you're there. Take care of yourself—" I momentarily lowered my hand to tap her elbow. "—and take care of my big sister. She's gonna be absolutely pissed with me when she finds out how long I'm probably gonna be gone."

"What do you me—" she began to ask. The question was cut off as I shoved her through the portal. I kinda felt bad for doing it, but I needed her gone and out of the way with before anyone saw us together. Besides, the sooner she was over there, the sooner Twilight could hopefully get her some help. It was kinda funny, because I bet she wound up feeling a little horse on the other side.

I stood there, facing the mirror inlaid on the base of the horse statue, just waiting and watching. Maybe I was a bit shocked at my reflection—part of me had hoped I'd be me again. It was hard to tell with the way it'd bunched up in my hood, but it felt like my hair could've easily gone down the small of my back. It was every bit as black and thick as when I'd been a pony, but there weren't any of the spots where it'd begun growing in off-colour from the burns. In fact, the only imperfection—if it could even be called such—I could really see on my face was a dusting of freckles across the bridge of my nose and cheeks.

Were they always there, and just didn't show because I had fur?

After a few minutes passed as I just stared at myself, flakes of snow occasionally falling and landing on my face or hair. Once I was sure that they'd have had enough time to get Sunset settled and shut down the portal, I pressed my palm against that of my reflection. Solid.

I glanced at the the school building behind me. There didn't appear to be any lights on at this side of the building, and it was still dark out, and if anyone spotted me lurking around the outside of the school for too long, someone'll end up calling the cops. I didn't even know what time it was. Hmm... So maybe I was a bit early. Fuck.

Turning my attention down the road, I spotted the signage for what I hoped to be this Canterlot's equivalent to a Dunkin' Donuts. Maybe I'll get something to eat and drink, I decided, beginning to walk off down the street. I think Twilight mentioned a place in Canterlot called Donut Joe's.

Reaching for the pocket I'd left the bit satchel in, I was somewhat surprised to find a small french wallet in its place. It shouldn't have caught me off guard, but part of me was honestly expecting to have to find a pawn shop and trade the coins for cash at a loss. Opening it up revealed—at a glance—a few hundred dollars in the currency of one United Republic of Amareica. What a name.

I glanced back at the school as I pulled my hood back over my head and walked down the sidewalk. The school's tower was more visible as I got further away, and there I saw a large analogue clock proclaiming it to be quarter past six. I silently wished to myself that whatever clothes the portal had given me had been better suited to winter. All I had really seen of my clothing thus far had been the peek of black blouse sleeve, and the black loafers peeking out from beneath my cloak. I was particularly thankful to have chosen to bring it, because I definitely would have been freezing otherwise. As it was, all I could do as I walked was cinch it tighter around me, and tuck my hands into my armpits.

My centre of balance was off kilter, too. Although I wasn't stumbling about, if I happened to actively think about how I was walking, it became much more difficult. It was most certainly due to the differences in body from when I was human in the old world, and whatever you call these big-eyed, skinny-limbed, polychromatic demi-humans. For one, I had narrower hips when I was male, and I certainly didn't have these weights on my chest. Not to mention the change in plumbing downstairs.

But hey, fretting about the differences in my body was a 'fun' way to distract myself from the early-morning chill, the fact that I definitely wasn't wearing pants, and the fact that I wasn't used to loafers with raised heels. Hell, I barely even noticed that I'd practically jogged a few blocks without working up a sweat. Too cold to need to sweat. Before I knew it, I was pulling open a shop door and stepping into the warmth.

The sudden change in temperature fogged up the lenses on my glasses, and I found myself having to use the soft interior cloth of my cloak to clear them. It was a quaint little place, but decidedly not a major chain. It smelled of baking sweets, coffee, and—if my nose wasn't lying—sausage? They probably have a breakfast menu.

The man at the counter gave me this weird look, and it occurred to me that cloaks like mine are considerably unusual for the modern era. They certainly were back on my Earth. Plus, I probably look suspicious with the hood up. I mean, really... short girl in a white cat-eared cloak shows up in your shop early in the morning? You're either a dealing with a cosplay weirdo, a really shitty robber, or some Weird Fantasy Shit, right?

Pulling off the hood, I walked up to the counter and looked around for some sort of menu. Maybe there was a signboard I was missing, but I was having a hard time spotting it, so I figured, may as well just ask. "As you can probably guess, I'm not from around here, and thus not familiar with what you have on offer," I said in a casual tone. "You sell breakfast sandwiches here?" He nodded, an eyebrow raised. "I'll take one of those—sausage and bacon, if you can—a plain sugar doughnut, and a large red eye with cream and one sugar."

With a nod, the man confirmed that my order was for dine-in, and punched some buttons on his till. A small display facing me displayed my order, and how much it was. Wordlessly, I took out the closest denomination of bill from my wallet, and passed it to him. He looked it over, probably because of how crisp and new it seemed, but nodded, opened the till, and fished out the change and a receipt. Once I'd placed the change into my wallet, he started putting together my coffee.

Handing me my doughnut and coffee, he said, "Just take a seat anywhere. I'll call out your order when the sandwich is done."

"Thank you, sir." I accepted my plated pastry and coffee, and looked around. Ideally, I'd wanna stay within earshot of the counter, but close enough to the door that I could make a break for it if necessary. The place was almost empty, so there was no shortage of choices as to where to sit. Almost was the operational word there, though.

No way, I thought as I spotted the pair of women gathered at one table in the corner. One was an amazonian goddess of a woman in a gold blazer and violet suitpants, whose skin was so pale a pink that she was almost white. The pastel blues, greens, and pinks of her hair were a dead giveaway to who I was looking at. Her companion, although not as tall, was no less recognisable. After all, who else was made up of blues, and has such piercing opal eyes?

They'd both spotted me, and I could feel their surprise clear across the cafe. Granted, they were composed enough not to drop their coffees or faint. Still, those eyes told me so much. They knew who I looked like, just as Sunset had. What made it all the worse was that I could tell that they knew I was looking directly at them.

Sucking in a breath through my nose, I did my best to still my facial expression as I carried my breakfast towards them. After all, a dead girl walking up to you grinning like the cat that ate the canary would probably be some horror story material right there.

"Excuse me," I said in a soft voice, setting my meal down on the table nearest theirs. "You two wouldn't happen to be Principal Celestia and Vice Principal Luna of Canterlot High School, would you?" I could see their throats move as they swallowed. "One of our little ponies, and a magic table, told me you guys were having a bit of a problem with a rumour mill."

Carefully, I undid the clasp of my cloak, and placed it on the chair beside me. From there, I removed my backpack and sat it atop my cloak. Rooting through my bag, I found the scroll intended for these two—Twilight had wrapped that one in a white ribbon—and fished it out. I doubt they missed Sunset's journal on top of the pile. "Aunt Twilight gave me this to hand off to you two," I continued, passing the rolled parchment to the taller of the pair.

While she read the letter, I turned my attention to the shop window, where my reflection stood in full. God damn it, Evening Script would shit kittens if she saw this, I thought, covering my face with a palm. My blouse, a charcoal grey with white stitching, had a gold-striped middy-collar, and there was a similar gold neckerchief looped through it.The skirt was a hound's tooth pattern in black and white. The strangest part was probably the pantyhose. None of those dates ever had me wear that before.

"Is this some sort of sick joke?" I heard Celestia mutter as she passed the scroll to Luna. "Is your name actually—"

"For the time being," I murmured, taking up my coffee cup and saucer and taking a sip, "I am 'Emerald Flicker'. I've been made aware of this world's Emerald, and the unfortunate nature of my appearance." I shrugged, leaning against my table, glancing from her to Luna. "Things don't need to be more complicated than me being sent on behalf of the Equestrian crown—and a magic frickin' table—to determine the involvement of one of our citizens in this situation, or should it be necessary, proving her innocence and bringing the guilty party to justice."

A smile that maybe showed too many teeth spread across my face as the dude at the counter called out my order. The pair actually winced that time. "Maybe looking like a dead girl will play to my advantage after all," I purred. "We just have to follow the 'backstory' Aunt Twilight gave me, and nobody will look past the fact that Emerald's Equestrian counterpart is here to dismantle this whole web of hatred."

Author's Notes:

Fun fact: less than five hours after the last chapter was posted and I stated I would be taking a short hiatus, my dumb ass proved that statement to be false. A few days later, it was already up to 4k words.

A red-eye is a coffee with an added shot of espresso.

So we start the 'Anon-a-Miss' arc. Many of you who have read the comic already know the culprits, and you may have already picked up on where the plot differs. In this case, however, we are operating under the idea that none of the culprits witness the bullying and harassment Sunset ended up facing because of them. If they never witnessed it, they would likely not feel the guilt they ended up feeling and outing themselves. It's also my belief that Rainbow and AJ might've gotten physical due to who Sunset had inferred Anon-a-Miss to be, if not for the timely confession.

Entry 21 will be posted tomorrow or Wednesday, along with Anon's outfits.

Entry 21

View Online

Ever since I returned to the table with my breakfast sandwich, the two women just stared at me with an uncomfortable look about them. Like, I could sense that they wanted to say something, but weren't sure how to say it. Maybe something cultural? Yeah, that's probably the problem.

"You know that contains meat, right?" V.P. Luna finally asked after I'd scarfed down half my sandwich in just a few seconds. "I thought ponies were vegetarians."

Unable to help myself, I moaned slightly. Yeah, it probably made them uncomfortable given that it almost sounded sexual, but this sandwich was good. The bacon was crisp, but not crumbly, the sausage patty was juicy, and the fried egg was just right. English muffin tastes homemade, too. "Mmmfuchyesh," I mumbled through a mouthful of food as a bit of yolk spilt down my chin. I quickly grabbed a napkin and dabbed it up before shrugging. "Most ponies are either vegetarian or pescatarian, if you can believe it. The Omega-3 fatty acids and proteins are really good for pegasi, but it's a common protein option in a lot of coastal areas where you can't get good beans, mushrooms, and tofu as easily." I fought the temptation to dangle the fact that Twilight won't let me cook fish in the castle, even though I read in a magazine that it's really good for our coats.

Instead, I tilted my head slightly and smiled, taking another sip of my coffee. "It helps that I didn't used to be a pony," I said after polishing off the rest of my sandwich. I held up my hand, fingers curled inwards as I examined my cuticles, before turning my hand, fingers outstretched. "If not for the different proportions, vibrant colours, and the like, I'd almost be willing to call this form human." That statement got a dark look from them, as if I'd just insulted them. I suppose I technically did. "I mean, it's what I was before I was a pony, but this isn't quite the same. Anyway, maybe that's why the Cutie Map thought I was the best filly for the job."

To be honest, I half expected one or the other to ask about the 'magic table' or Cutie Map that I keep mentioning. Either they didn't care enough to ask, or Twilight explained what it was in the introductory letter. Instead, Celestia just silently rubbed her eyes, as though she were already nursing a headache, and Luna gave me this questioning look as I nibbled away at my plain sugar doughnut.

After a few moments, she finally asked, "So do you have some sort of plan?" She interlaced her fingers, and rested her chin on the backs of her raised hands. "Much of Twilight's first foray into this world seemed to be rather... uncoordinated as if she were merely going with the flow—despite her rather tight time limit."

That got a nod from Celestia. "You won't be able to slip by without notice in the school like Twilight did, so you would likely need to shadow a class," she added. "At the very least, we'd need to assign you a 'guide'."

"That's mostly in line with what I intended to do anyways," I agreed, standing up and going over to the chair I'd sat my bag on. "Sunset seemed pretty damn confident—and I'm inclined to believe her—that she's not the culprit behind Anon-a-Miss, so for my first day I just plan on sussing things out and maybe get a rumour set about me. If I can do that, I can at the least prove that Sunset isn't behind it."

From my bag, I withdrew Sunset's phone, and the wafer of gold wrapped in a non-abrasive cloth. "She gave me this before I sent her home," I said, placing the phone down in front of Celestia, "and although she wanted to wait until after this is resolved to go over the contents, it's best I leave this in your care." With a steely-faced look, I glanced between the two of them. "If anyone were to see any notifications on the lock screen, however, well... that'd be out of my hands."

Celestia seemed to take the hint, because a dark look crossed her face. "I see," she murmured, slipping the phone into her pocket. "It saddens me that she still doesn't trust me enough to reach out for help."

I nodded. "As for this... I considered keeping this to barter for a place to stay," I said, sitting the wrapped gold down upon the table before Luna. "That said, I'd be content crashing in the library, as Aunt Twilight did—" I gestured to the bottom of my backpack, where the sleeping bag Strongwind had fetched me was strapped. "—and having access to the school's facilities, so I am more than happy to treat this as a donation to Canterlot High."

Luna pulled over the small packet and lifted up the cloth. Her eyes widened, and then she turned it so that Celestia could see. Once her sister's eyes had widened to an equal degree, the vice principal pulled the cloth back over, and then pocketed it. The pair exchanged looks before nodding. Right then, I realised that I probably could've asked to crash with them for the value of the bribe I just gave them.

"If you are going to shadow some classes in order to get a better feel for the disposition of the school," Celestia said, "You're going to encounter a phys-ed class eventually, and I somehow don't believe you have any other clothes." She gave her sister a smile I really didn't like. "I can hold down the fort if you're willing to take her to pick up something she can exercise in."

Fuck.

~ 21 ~

It was a weird experience, shopping with Vice Principal Luna. The entire car trip was full of awkward silence. I got the impression that she couldn't tell if I was younger or older than I appeared. To be fair, I didn't really do much better; I couldn't think of a way to break the silence. I mean it would have been an opportunity to talk about my old world, but I just... didn't feel like bringing up my former home. But hey, at least I didn't have to be told about wearing seat-belts in her surprisingly nice coupe.

The ride to the big box store was relatively short, and it took a lot of effort for me to not blurt out 'Fucking Walmart' when we entered. Despite being called Wallget—"Come shop wall to wall, and get what you need!"—it was quite literally a carbon copy of America's favourite haunt for weirdos, only in green rather than blue. Even the clustering was similar to a few of the stores I'd shopped at over the years. Off to one end of the store, you had everything from lawn-and-garden to sports, while the other end had men's, women's and kids all centred around the changing rooms. There was even a section in the middle of the store that centre.

I was a bit hesitant to leave my cloak and wallet with my backpack in the car, but Luna was very convincing. "Do you realise how suspicious that cloak of yours looks?" was her exact phrasing. Apparently, by her estimate, even if they only got half the value of that gold wafer, getting me some clothes wouldn't even put a dent in it. They also apparently had a charity fund with which to give students clothes in the event of an emergency, and though I doubted I counted as a student or an emergency, she was willing to make an exception as a preemptive thank-you for coming to deal with this Anon-a-Miss mess.

So it was that she helped me find some pyjamas—a black-and-white tee and yellow pyjama bottoms—a track jacket that matched the colour scheme of my blouse, and a nice pair of black jersey shorts. Actually, I found myself wondering how she even found just the right colours, since it didn't look like they had any sort of future-tech clothing printers here. A pair of nice runners was probably the easiest bit to find. It was even easy to get a few pairs of underwear, since we knew my size from the shorts.

The awkward part definitely had to be finding a sports bra. Given that I only planned to be here a few short days, I questioned why I even needed one, but Luna pointed out that the sort of bra I'd been given by the portal—she had me pass it to her while I was trying on plain tee so she could check for sizes—wasn't suited for exercise, and I'd probably find myself regretting not having some support; even if I were here only a short time, my small chest would still get uncomfortable after a while. I of course hadn't ever had the need for bras in my old life, and none of my 'dates' had ever cared about them, so I knew next to nothing.

Since my portal-given clothing had no tags, and there were no employees around to help, we had to go through an awkward experience. They apparently kept measuring tapes at the till outside the dressing room, so Luna borrowed that, and walked me through taking measurements before finding me something suitable. Honestly, every moment I spent without a top on felt like I was intruding on someone else's privacy, and there was this strange feeling in the back of my mind that I should at least feel something at the sight of myself. Instead, all I thought was a detached, Yep. That's non-pony me alright.

Regardless, I was thankful to get back into my clothes and get moving again; despite being a pony for several human months now, nudity as a biped still felt wrong. It took next to no time for the V.P. to pay, and we were out in her car shortly after. I took a little bit to pack away my new clothes and put my cloak on, but we were on the road once more. All said and done, it was quarter to eight when we pulled out. God, shopping takes up a surprising amount of time.

At least it wasn't a long trip from the Wallget to Canterlot High School. "Until we make the announcement over the public address system explaining your presence to the student body, you may wish to keep your hood low," she said as we pulled into the school's parking lot. "Many of the students attending still remember Emerald Flicker, and without proper warning, some may grow... confused."

I nodded, preemptively pulling my hood up. "I've been meaning to ask about that," I murmured, casting a sidelong glance out at students walking about the parking lot. My wearing a dead girl's face—Was it also a dead filly's?—had seemed like a blessing, but if it was something traumatic, would my appearance really sow such confusion and despondency? "How did my counterpart...?"

As the car came to a stop, Miss Luna put her hand on my shoulder. "It's better that you not ask," she said in a soft voice. I couldn't see her eyes, but I imagine from the sorrow surrounding her, they were teary. "For your sake, and for those around you. It is not a happy memory."

Once she threw the car into park and cut the power, she stepped out. I quickly followed, pulling my backpack—although really it was more of a travel rucksack—out of the back seat and shutting the door. I didn't have time to throw it over my shoulders, so I just carried it in front of me, holding it by the carry strap across the top. I still found myself having to run to keep up with her, and even then, I could only just barely keep her butt in sight.

She does have a nice ass, I thought, feeling my cheeks warm up. For some reason, the thought reminded me of that painting of Celestia that Shining Armour's friend had done. It left me confused because it still wasn't something I understood.

She led me into the building, and upon stepping through the door, that confusion was quickly replaced by nausea. It was as if I had been physically punched in the gut. Just under the surface of confusion and curiosity that every student radiated as we passed them by, there was this overbearing miasma of malice bearing down on me. I think even without my preternaturally enhanced sense of empathy, I would've felt it. Everybody here is probably subconsciously feeding it, and feeding off it like some sort of recursive hate spiral.

"Jesus, the atmosphere is so thick you could cut it with a knife," I muttered as we entered the school's administrative offices. A secretary, one who struck me as rather familiar, gave me a strange look. More loudly, I asked, "How long has it been like this?"

"Two weeks," Celestia said through an open office door, which Luna quickly entered. When I entered, Luna shut the door behind me and puled up a chair for me. "Today's Monday the ninteenth, and school's out until the new year as of Friday, so we'd ideally like this resolved before then."

I nodded as I sat my bag down at my feet. I then straightened out my skirt, and took a seat across from Celestia. The blue-haired sister merely stood by her side. There wasn't much to do until the start of classes, so I simply started reorganising my backpack, putting Sunset's journal at the very bottom, my towel, toiletries, and new clothes in the middle, and my notebook and pencils on top. Content with the state of my bag, I closed it up and shut my eyes.

Turning my attention inward, I focused on trying to shut out the atmosphere of the school. Although the miasma of negativity was somewhat muted in this office, even here it sat in the back of my throat like the taste of rot on the wind. It's a shame that this happened before the changeling leader, Thorax, was scheduled to visit Ponyville. Although Twilight couldn't scientifically explain the how or why of it, Spike had suggested talking to the reformed changeling about it. Finding out how to either control this ability or block it out would've been really swell, especially now, but he wasn't due for another week, and I'd probably miss his visit at this rate.

Maybe if I focus my attention on one emotion? Although my eyes were still shut, I flicked them from where I knew the two women to be. Let's see, Ms. Luna is curious, and hopeful, but apprehensive if I'm reading her right. Those weren't bad feelings to focus on—well, maybe the apprehension wouldn't be the best. Ms. Celestia on the other hand, seems frustrated, stressed, but also a bit playful.

The corner of my mouth perked up as I focused on that emotion. The more I pulled on that emotion, tugging it to the forefront of my mind, the more I felt submersed in it. Despite myself, a giggle escaped me as the weight of the whole negative vibe in the school stopped pushing down on my shoulders. Unfortunately, it was quite literally dragging me under and carrying me away. I was almost howling with laughter as I tried to rein myself in. Wow. Is this how Pinkie always feels?

"Sorry," I said as I pulled myself back to the surface of my mind and opened my eyes. Even though I was no longer immersed in Celestia's playfulness, it wasn't as hard to stomach anymore. Still, they were looking at me like I was a bit on the daft side. "Was trying to block out all this smothering negativity in the air, and I felt a twinge of playfulness from you. Apparently I shouldn't be playing with powers I still don't understand without the instruction of an empath."

The two shared a look, and I thought someone was about to say something, but then a bell chimed. Sighing, Celestia withdrew what looked to be the desk microphone of a ham radio, and set it in front of her. She pressed a button, and began reading from a paper that seemed to be the day's announcements. Beneath that paper looked to be Twilight's letter. It all seemed pretty mundane. Christmas volunteering on Friday for extra credit, a winter dance on Thursday, and a friendly reminder to take extra care as it was icy out. "... and finally, I have a special announcement," she said with a positive up-swing to her voice. "You all no doubt remember Twilight Sparkle, our friend from the mirror world. She's sent someone important to her to spend some time in our world, and has entrusted her safety to us."

Ms. Luna leaned down next to her sister's face and spoke up. "Now, to many of you, this girl will look very familiar, and she may even elicit some sad memories. That being said, I would remind you that she is not the person you knew." Again, there was a wave of sorrow washing over me as she said this. "While she is with us, I hope that you will give our new Equestrian friend a proper Canterlot High greeting."

Shutting off the P.A. mic, Principal Celestia stood and walked over to the door. Cracking it open, she called out, "Raven, could you page Mr. Noteworthy's room and have Fluttershy come down to my office?"

I winced, something I doubted they missed, at her mention. I was hoping not to involve myself with that group so soon out of the gate. After all, they'd turned on Sunset so easily. Then again, with the way Luna announced my presence, they'd probably find me before too long. So maybe this wouldn't be totally bad... But it also meant I'd probably end up having to lie around AJ's counterpart. I wonder if she has the same preternatural honesty detection?

"Is there a problem, Emerald?" Celestia asked when she took her seat once more. "She's a part of the group that Twilight befriended during her travels here, and they are some of the most trustworthy students I know."

"Nah," I lied, waving my hand dismissively. She really doesn't know, then? About the fact that Rainbow and AJ attacked Sunset? Or the bullying she's been subjected to since Anon-a-Miss began? "It's just, in Equestria, Fluttershy is what one would generously describe as squeamish. Aren't you worried she's gonna drop like a myotonic goat?"

The pair just smiled knowingly, leaving me to simply sit there and wait for my guide. I couldn't just sit idle, though, so I fished out the note-pad from my cloak, alongside the stubby pencil. No, I should start by writing down what I know. At the top of the first page, I wrote Anonymous using the moon-glyphs for without and name. It was an active decision as, from what I'd seen and from what Twilight had told me, they only used the base sun-glyph system. If someone did go rooting through my stuff, at best, they might find Sunset's journal and a notepad full of indecipherable notes. Following up, I wrote Me, the compounding rune denoting ownership, and the moon-glyph for knowledge.

My knowledge:

First post suspected to be made the fifth—could be earlier.
Can't rule out something precipitated this. Find out if anything special happened in the days leading up to start.
Suggested that friends and/or family of peer group may be at centre of conspiracy.
Investigate tactics employed versus historical.

I paused my writing to glance at Celestia from beneath my hood. "Does CHS have a yearbook committee?" I asked, "Or is there anyone who might have an in-depth knowledge of how you-know-who operated before Aunt Twilight's first visit?"

"I can't think of anyone outside of Snips and Snails who might be able to answer as to her specific methods, although they're both on suspension following a fight brought on by an Anon-a-Miss post," she said, shaking her head. "As for the yearbook committee, I think the only student remaining following the last graduation is Wallflower Blush."

I nodded, appending 'Consult Wallflower Blush,' to the most recent note. From my limited understanding, people who worked on yearbooks were supposed to have a finger on the pulse of the school. The way I figured it, she might be able to shine some insight on who Sunset might have bullied in the past, and how she did so. I can easily prove if she's not Anon-a-Miss simply by getting the blog to post something about me. More than that, I wanna find out if this is a lazy frame-job, or if they knew their stuff.

Before I could ask if they had any sort of printout of the posts, the door creaked open. I snapped my notepad shut, slid it back into the inner pocket over my left breast, and leaned forward so that my hood obscured. I'll admit that I was a bit disappointed that I couldn't just solve this before even starting my first day, but I wasn't exactly expecting things to be easy.Still, I wonder if I couldn't convince Twilight to allow me some day trips to this world?

"Um, excuse me, Ms. Celestia?" came a familiar voice from the doorway. It sounded just like the pony I knew, but the pitch was somewhat higher, as she was clearly much younger. A feeling of unease began to permeate the room, and it wouldn't have surprised me if she thought she was in trouble. "I was told you wanted to see me?"

"Be at ease, Fluttershy," Luna responded, ushering the girl in and shutting the door behind her. "You're not in trouble." She gestured at me. "Rather, we wanted to introduce you to somebody."

Taking that as my queue, I rose from my seat and shed my hood. "Hello, Fluttershy," I said with a smile that felt a bit forced. Despite the fact that I was wearing the cloak, I still went through the motions of a curtsy. "Aunt Twilight has told me so much about you, and you're every bit as pretty as your Equestrian counterpart."

Even as the shock and embarrassment poured off the girl. "This, as you might have already deduced, is Emerald Flicker," Principal Celestia explained, as I offered the girl my seat. If I were in her shoes, I'd probably also want to sit down, so it wasn't really all that surprising when she sank into it with a grateful look. "Following a nasty situation in the other world, it would seem that Twilight deemed it safer for her ward to stay in our world for the time being. As such, we'd like for you to be her guide while she's here, and she'll attend the same classes as you." She turned her attention to me. "The situation's already been explained to the faculty, and although you're not going to be required to participate, you are encouraged to."

"Yes'm," I replied with a quick salute. From there, I quickly removed my cloak and stuffed it into a side-pocket of my bag. By this point, Flutters seemed a bit less dazed. "Shall we go?"

With a quiet nod, she rose to her feet and led me out of the administrative offices. Although I imagined her teacher would probably want her back sooner, rather than later, she didn't seem to be in any sort of hurry. Rather, she seemed to be in shock, or was otherwise wrestling with something that she couldn't put into words. So we just walked quietly through the halls.

Crossing through the foyer, I noticed a poster for something apparently set a few months ago, celebrating the conclusion of the 'Battle of the Bands.' I paused to look at it, biting the inside of my lip. It showed Twilight, and several girls who resembled ponies I knew. There was a seventh girl in the group, but it looked as though someone had purposely took a box cutter to the picture, slashing up her face until it was just a bunch of paper shreds. It looked like someone had written Demon Bitch over her head in permanent marker.

Further on, we passed into a hallway of lockers. All of them were pristine, but for one. The metal panel was dented inward, and it was covered in so much graffiti that you couldn't tell that it was the same colour green beneath it all like the rest. It looked as though someone had attempted to cover it up, but gave up at some point, giving way to several vulgar messages. 'I hope you kill yourself,' was probably one of the least colourful messages there.

Are there no security cameras in this hallway? I mused, looking around. There appeared to be one, but it looked like someone had covered it with spitballs and nobody had ever got around to clearing it. Surely this sort of thing can't really be tolerated.

"Um, do you mind if I ask you a question?" Fluttershy asked, coming to a stop once that locker was out of sight. She was fidgeting with her hands slightly. When I shook my head, she continued. "You called Twilight your aunt... um... but when she was here, she only looked a little older than you."

That brought a smile to my face. As an aftershock of playfulness rushed through me, I leaned up against a random locker. "She's... not really or officially family," I answered, "but she is the closest thing I have to a mother there. Also, you wouldn't believe the age difference between us on the other side. She's easily in her late twenties, whereas—at least by Equestrian reckoning—I'm only almost nine."

She looked as though she'd just been fed a lemon, which only made me laugh more. "That portal is crazy, I tell you," I continued, giggling at her expression. "A year in Equestria is exactly one thousand days, and I'm about... hmm, eighty-five twenty-something days old. How long's a year here? Standard three-sixty-five with leap years?" When she gave me an almost scared nod, I smiled. "Tell you what, I'll stop breaking your brain, at least until lunch."

Quietly, I heard her mumble something that sounded an awful lot like, "You're nothing like the Emerald I knew..." The bitter taste of her sadness and anger filled the back of my throat as she looked away. "You're more like her than anything else."

Without a word, she hurried along and led me into a classroom. Mr. Noteworthy, a blueish man with hair not unlike mine, welcomed me to his history class. Although I introduced myself to the class and took a seat at an empty—and suspiciously tagged with Anon-a-Bitch in permanent marker—desk, my mind was elsewhere. Oh, I was perfectly capable of taking notes, and I was doing exactly that, but I wasn't really paying attention for a bit.

What did she mean that I was more like her?

Author's Notes:

Credit to my sounding board, Rehquis for Wallget and the slogan "Come shop wall to wall and get what you need!"

The outfit that Anon was granted by the portal—sans her cloak, as Koikatsu has no real equivalent—is as follows:

(Yes, her hairstyle is somewhat modeled after Saya's avatar from Saya no Uta, although the 'wings' do sort of provide a sort of animal-eared look.)

The exercise outfit purchased is as follows:

Note the tied back hair for safe exercise.

It's pajama time, and my god, Anon is sleepy!

Hair is still tied back because I had to do two separate characters to allow for the differing hairstyle, and ended up compiling her 'official' pajamas on the second iteration, alongside her gym clothes.

And yes, Anon is fully cognisant of the irony of sitting in a desk tagged with Anon-a-Bitch. Who knows, maybe she's gonna kick back and kick off the kiddy gloves, since she doesn't need to rein herself in around children that she sees as significantly younger than her.

Next chapter in a week (tentatively), although I might get a bit distracted because someone got me interested in Terraria again. Expect a little world-building for the new world, gym class, and more!

Entry 22

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History, the parts that I was actually paying attention for at least, turned out to be somewhat interesting. I hadn't looked at much of a map of Equestria, but the landmasses of this world—as projected onto a drop-down screen during the lesson—were definitely quite similar to that of Earth. Not everything was one-to-one conversions, and there was a surprising number of horse puns out there. In addition to Amareica and Caneighda, there was a country I recognised from Equestria's world—Neighpon. Hawaii was instead called Mount Aris, although if this was a parallel, I wasn't aware of it. There was also an analogue for China called Xiaoma, and the landmasses of Australia and New Zealand were united under the name Motu Hoiho. Call me a pessimist, but I expected those were also puns.

They seemed to be in the middle of a unit on World War II, covering the Pacific theatre. Specifically, dealing with Neighpon's attempted invasion and occupation of Motu Hoiho. Apparently, the Australian landmass was never settled as a penal colony by this world's British equivalent, so it was more feasible for the Neighponese Imperial Navy to occupy the area. As it stood, All major shipping lanes through the area faced complete interdiction by their naval forces.

Mr. Noteworthy was explaining to the class that before Amareica could liberate the East Indies and cut Neighpon off from their ill-gotten oil, they needed a foothold in the area. By freeing Motu Hoiho from Neighponese occupation, not only would they have their staging area, the Amareican forces would also receive hundreds of volunteers who would later become the renowned Hoihoan First Infantry.

As fascinating as it all was—and I'm sure Twilight would love to read these notes if for nothing more than it being history from another world—my heart wasn't really in it. The overall miasma of negativity was a major point of distraction, but my attention kept drifting back to what Fluttershy had said. I don't think she'd intended for me to actually hear it—more of an internal dialogue slip-up—and the implication left my mind spinning.

Who did her refer to? Due to my limited exposure to the people and cliques of this world, I didn't exactly have a good frame of reference. If she meant Sunset Shimmer, it could be either a good or bad thing. If it is, Sunset, is that pre or post-magic friendship laser?

Come to think of it, immediately before that, I was casually fucking with her worldview. I wasn't intentionally playing playing mind games with her or anything. I mean, I may not be comporting myself as I would back in Equestria, but that's more because I don't have to hold back here like I do with Cheerilee's class. If Sunset played head games like that when she was a tyrant, I'm probably not gonna win any friends.

On the other hand, if it was the playful sort of 'Chill, dude, I'm just fucking with you,' head games, it might just hurt because it reminded her of someone whose trust she felt was broken. Would it be possible to play on that and draw out answers? Or would that be too manipulative?

"Miss Flicker," the teacher called out, snapping my attention back to the class. "I'm curious as to an outsider's perspective on the war." A fair thing to do. If I were a history teacher and I had a guest from another world, why not ask for their opinion? "What do you think Neighpon's biggest mistake in the Pacific theatre was?"

"Was a surprise attack on the Amareican Pacific Fleet stationed at Mount Aris what kicked off this theatre of war?" I asked, drawing on my memory of Mom's limited coverage of the Second War. When he nodded, a look of surprise clear on his face, I smiled awkwardly. "Ideally, I'd say that striking like that was their biggest mistake. They would have been better served enacting sabotage with small strike teams deployed from submersibles and laying naval mines around the Amareican ports first, rather than poking the bear right away like they did. Other than that, it sounds as though they overextended their fleets in taking Motu Hoiho. It didn't help that they gave the Hoihoan people reason to aid Amareica."

The classroom broke out in a buzz of chatter. It clearly wasn't the sort of response that any of them were expecting. Even Mr. Noteworthy seemed taken aback. Even Fluttershy was watching me with a look of worry. "A surprising amount of insight," he said with a smile. "Did they have such wars where you came from?"

I shook my head. "Aside from a border dispute with the griffons a few centuries back, which I'm convinced was spurred on by a famine in their lands, I'm not sure Equestria's been in a major military conflict in a long time," I said with a shrug that only got more weird looks. "Helps when your country is run by a literal demigoddess of the sun. With the moon demigoddess back in the picture, I can't imagine anyone outside an army run by a literal super villain or a cult attacking." Holding one finger up to my lips, I winked. "I could explain myself, but a filly's gotta keep some secrets, y'know?"

Really, I just didn't want to explain that I came from a world like this one. Still, that last bit had the desired reaction from the class. A low murmur erupted in the room once more, and Noteworthy had to speak up to silence the room and resume his lesson. That said, I noticed a girl with a fiery, swept-back hairstyle kept glancing at me. She was older than my current body—everyone in the class seemed to be—but she didn't seem to look down on me for it. What was it I saw in her eyes?

As the lesson went, I went back to taking notes, although my eyes kept drifting to the clock. Although sitting in with the class was telling me about this world, it wasn't helping me figure out this Anon-a-Miss thing. Sure, it was showing that the teens weren't at each other's throats in classes just yet, but given that they'd been taking it out on Sunset thus far... that probably wasn't a great metric.

Besides, it'd only be a matter of time until Anon-a-Miss did something that couldn't be taken back, if they hadn't already. Some genies can't be put back in the bottle, after all. There were things you could say about a person that couldn't be retracted, no matter how hard you might try. That would be a life irreparably changed.

About ten minutes after the redirect, the bell rang. It took only a moment for me to pack away my stuff and pick up my bag, and after that, I was following Fluttershy through the halls. Funny enough, I noticed the flame-haired girl following us. Although she could've been doing something suspicious, or she had something she wanted to ask, my brain insisted that she was probably also in Fluttershy's next class. Just because you're investigating a life-ruining rumour-mill doesn't mean they're all out to get you.

To my surprise, I found that she was leading me towards a room marked Women's Locker Room. I felt like I should've been more awkward about it, or that it should be weird. My previous human body had been male, and although I'd always been fluid about how I identified after being freed from my father's reign, I'd still been raised a man. So why then didn't it feel weird for her to lead me in? Had such a short time with ponies really altered my way of thinking that much, or had my choices over the years simply destroyed my shame?

"You're going to want to get changed," Fluttershy explained, as she led me off to one side of the locker room hat wasn't as occupied. All the while, more girls filtered in. "You, um, do have other clothes, right?"

I nodded, setting my bag down on a bench. "Ms. Luna took me to get some clothes earlier," I said, pulling out my new runners, shorts, a white tee, and the jacket. Next came the sport-bra and some underwear from the pack that happened to match; I dunno why, but the symmetry just felt right. I set my glasses down on top of the bag and started to strip.

Much to my surprise, she didn't immediately start getting changed. It almost looked like she was waiting for the others to finish and get out. "If you want, you can borrow my cloak and change beneath that," I offered, looking away from her as I looked away. Some people were body-shy after all, and if it made sense for anyone to be, she was definitely one. "Just put it back when you're done. It means a lot to me."

As her blurry form went over to my bag, I sensed someone come up behind me. It was a bit awkward having someone standing over me, like that, but she seemed to be curious, rather than any sort of malice. I chose to ignore her, and instead took off my bra. From the shake of the bench I was currently sitting on, she was probably taking off her shoes. I was reaching for the sports bra when they finally decided to speak up.

"Damn, girl," she said, letting out a low whistle. It wasn't a familiar voice, but it reminded me a lot of Rainbow Dash. She even had the same cocksure tone. "That's a nasty burn scar on your back."

I didn't respond right away. I was more interested in getting my top half covered. Once I was dressed as far as the white tee, I turned my head to regard her—it was blurry, but she was definitely that yellow girl with the fiery hair. "I was wondering where that went when I transformed," I said. Now that she actually mentioned it, I could feel that the skin along the back of my neck, shoulders, and back was somewhat tighter than elsewhere on my body. "Some prick didn't appreciate that I stopped him from bullying an acquaintance's little sister over having no parents. Poured my thermos of tea over my head." I pointed to my bag, where Fluttershy had re-placed my glasses after borrowing my cloak. "Nearly cost me my eyesight. Never did find out if he got a concussion when I knocked his teeth in after."

That got a laugh out of the girl. "You got fire, kid," she said with a nod. "A mind for war, too. I like that about you." Turning away, she started to pull off her shirt. "That Twilight girl was alright, but a bit of a pushover. Still amazed she was able to beat that deceitful bitch."

I took that as my cue to give her privacy, and turned back around to finish getting changed. So, even though she's regarded as a hero among the students, Twilight's not universally worshipped. It was interesting, but honestly not surprising. Nobody's perfect; not even her.

As I finished putting on my shoes and tying them, I paused to listen to the chatter in the background. "Did you see what Anon-a-Miss posted about Lyra Heartstrings?" someone whispered. "Apparently she and Bon Bon are dating! I didn't even know they were gay!"

"From what I heard, that's why she's not at school," another whispered. "I heard her parents saw the post and weren't all that happy, and have all but locked her in her room."

Then a third spoke up. "Don't you feel grossed out knowing she's in here with us?" She sounded serious, and immediately the mood in the room dropped. "Isn't it perverted for her to change in the same room as us?"

"How dare you!"

Oh shit, I thought as I put my glasses on. Packing my clothes away into my bag, I gave Fluttershy a sidelong glance. This shit 's going to get nasty real quick. Do I say something? Is it even my place? Biting my lip, I pulled my hair into a loose ponytail.

Before I could come to a decision, I felt the anger in the room surge as someone stood up and yelled, "Hey! Knock it off, you guys!" My head snapped around at the sound of Rainbow Dash's voice. Sure enough, there was Rainbow's human counterpart—With hair like that, it couldn't be anyone else!—standing between a pale girl with indigo and pink curls, and what looked to be the counterparts of the flower sisters I'd seen around Ponyville. "This is exactly what she wants. She wants us at each other's throats... for things to go back to the way they were before, when we all just stuck to our own cliques and were easy to control!"

The girl that had called the other a pervert for being gay looked cowed by Rainbow's declaration. "You're right, Rainbow." Turning to Bon Bon, she said, "I'm sorry, I don't know why I even said that... I think this is Anon-a-Miss thing is getting to me. She's targeting just about everyone now, and I'm almost scared to think what she'll say about me."

With a nod, Rainbow smacked her bandaged fist into her other palm. "Damn right, girls," she said, looking around the changing room. "We're not gonna let her break us apart. We're Canterlot strong!"

A chorus of "Canterlot strong!" erupted throughout the locker room. It left me feeling uneasy, not because of what was said, but because of what wasn't said. Bringing attention to her fist, which she'd recently used to assault Sunset, combined with that statement gave me a bad vibe. It told me that she might beat the shit out of anyone she found to be aiding Anon-a-Miss. Honestly, it wouldn't surprise me if people were sending in shit once it expanded past their little circle of friends. No one person could have their fingers in that many pies and go unnoticed.

It should've been relieving for them to feel unified, but the emotion behind it was anger and hate... History told me how well unity born from hate ended up. Someone was going to get really hurt if this was the only way to bring them together, and the only saving grace for Sunset was that she wasn't here to be lynched if someone feeling vindictive threw together a mob over the rumours.

~ 22 ~

The gymnasium was surprisingly big, and it looked like there was a track in the ceiling for some sort of suspended divider. Not too far away, there was a door from which flowed several male students in similar athletics-appropriate clothes. I followed alongside Flutters as students from both locker rooms formed several rows in front of a tall blue-grey man. The man was definitely older, with short greying black hair and a well-kept moustache, but he was built like a tank.

"Good morning students!" he called out in a voice that seemed better suited to giving heated seminars up on a stage, rather than leading a group of teenagers in phys-ed. "Are you ready to get moving?" A less-than-enthused murmur broke out among the students, but he just smiled before bringing up a hand to his ear—as though it could make it bigger—and leaned forward. "I can't hear you!"

A unified "Yes Coach Iron Will!" erupted around me, although the shy girl beside me whispered it instead.

"Excellent!" He pulled a stopwatch from a pocket and held it up. "You all know the drill by now. Run three laps around the perimeter of the gym to warm up. The first two to complete their laps will be picking teams for today's game!"

"What're we playing today, Coach?" asked a blue-haired guy whose skin-tone was probably closest I'd seen to human since I'd gotten here. "It's not soccer again, is it? Rainbow and Spitfire always stack their teams."

Iron will just shook his head. "No, Mr. Sentry," he said, stuffing one hand into the pocket of his track jacket. "Today? It's kickball!" That got an excited murmur rising up from the teens around me. "Now pick a spot to start your laps and get moving!"

Doing as the phys-ed instructor said, I found a spot in the gym, marked it with an invisible line, and started a casual jog to get my blood pumping. Although I got the impression this body might've been built for running, and the temptation might've crossed my mind, I didn't know enough about the game or the students to be a good team leader. I'd probably end up just picking Rainbow or the flame-haired girl, since they seemed like the most athletic and then let them pick for me.

Just look at those two move!

Still, I was somewhat interested in this body's capabilities, so I decided to kick it up a notch after a few seconds. I'd never been much for running back in my old life, since running full-tilt through the woods sounded like a good way to get myself crippled and then beaten by him for being useless. Similarly, as a pony, I'd never really seen the need. I had my books, I had my magic, and I had fishing. Why would I run for fun?

Turns out, I was pretty damn good at it. The pounding of my feet on the wood-laminate flooring, and the thunder of my heart in my chest... it was intoxicating. It made something deep down inside me feel alive. With every step, I wanted to see how much faster I could get. With every second, my smile grew.

I could feel eyes on me as I shot past the casual joggers and the disinterested runners. Even Fluttershy was watching me with a strange look as I started to catch up with the head of the pack. I could swear even a few of the students were whispering now. But I didn't care. I was experiencing a euphoria unlike anything I'd ever felt before.

"Don't let those fillies get you down." The words seemed to be coming from deep in my heart, playing back more in my head than in my ears. Still, it was a voice that I could swear I'd heard before. "They're just jealous that your times have improved so much thanks to your hard work."

Tears welled in my eyes, and a pang of sadness lanced through my chest. I could almost recognise the voice, but a name wouldn't come, even as I heard my own filly voice reply. "But Mommy, running's all I'm good at, and it's not even my special talent..." I just kept running. Despite the sorrowful feeling, a part of me felt happy. "Why would they be jealous of me?"

"Because it isn't your special talent, sweetie," came the voice of 'Mommy' in response. "This is all you."

It took me a few moments to realise that the other students had all finished their laps, and that I was the only one still going. Some were watching me with concern, but most of the athletes seemed surprised with me as I slowed my pace down to a jog before finally coming to a stop at my imaginary starting line. I decided to make my way over to the stage at the one end of the gymnasium and haul myself up to sit and catch my breath.

Much to my surprise, although Fluttershy was making her way over—probably out of concern since I'd clearly been crying while running—she wasn't alone. Rainbow was coming alongside her. Wonder what they want. I'd taken off my glasses and was in the middle of wiping my eyes dry on my jacket's sleeve when they got there.

"You alright there, kid?" Rainbow asked, looking me up and down. Funny enough, her eyes lingered on my right ankle and knee for some reason. "You didn't hurt yourself trying to keep up with the rest of us, did you?"

I shook my head before putting my glasses back on. An odd feeling washed over me, as I answered, "Nah, I was just... remembering my Mom." It was a total lie; the truth was that I had no idea what had come over me, or what those voices were. So why didn't it feel like I was lying? "It's been a long time since I got to run like that, and it reminded me of something she said once." I didn't know where the words were coming from, but I just let them happen. "I'm fine. Just gimme a minute to catch my breath and I'll be good to go."

"If you're hurt, don't be afraid to tell us," Fluttershy said in a soft voice. She looked as though she wanted to put her hand atop the one I had sitting on the edge of the stage, but I could feel the internal conflict that stopped her. "Don't push yourself too hard."

I nodded, and watched them as they went off. The fuck was that about?

Once my heart stopped pounding, I hopped down and listened as Rainbow Dash and Spitfire—the fiery girl from the locker room—started picking out their teams. First, the pair went through names that sounded like they belonged on the Wonderbolts. Soarin', Fleetfoot, Misty Fly, Rapidfire... Those four were definitely on the roster, I thought, remembering all the times a certain pegasus brought them up at card nights as teens broke off from the crowd to gather in groups around the two team-leaders. A turquoise girl with amber hair—God, she looks like she's got a chip on her shoulder—by the name of Lightning Dust was also snatched up by Spitfire. Flash Sentry was next on Rainbow's.

On and on they went, until it was just me and Fluttershy. I somehow didn't imagine I'd end up on the same team as her, and I understood why she would be last pick. It wasn't a popularity thing, but I could tell that Spitfire and this Rainbow were super competitive, so they'd want to give their teams an edge. Then you had me, who was a complete unknown and didn't know the rules of the game. Rainbow of course chose her friend, leaving me to join Spitfire.

The rules, as it turned out, were pretty simple. One team would field a number of players in a layout similar to baseball, and have someone rolling a ball—a soccer ball in this particular case—toward the kicker up for the other team. The kicker would kick the ball their hardest, and book it for the first base. If someone was on base, they'd have to head for the next, trying not to get tagged with the ball. If the ball was caught before hitting the ground, it was considered out, and if it hit above a certain point on the wall, it was treated as a home run. Three strikes rule applied, and you had three outs per team per inning, just like baseball.

For the first while, I was left observing. I watched how people kicked, and how not to kick. A toe shot was powerful, but wild. It seemed really common for those to get caught. Side-foot shots weren't as powerful, but were often more precise. Even the speed at which you kicked the ball mattered and impacted how far and fast it could go. I'd even noticed the occasional player looking to Spitfire, and she was able to wordlessly communicate what sort of kick to go with.

Both teams had different strategies. Although Dash's team tended to aim for the home run zone on the back wall, Spitfire's team aimed to load up the bases before sending up a pinch hitter. If Dash's team had players on first or second, priority was placed on preventing those players from reaching third, and a few innings I found myself being an outfielder. Somehow, Dash's team managed to keep up, despite relying a more luck-based strategy.

By the final inning, it was my turn at bat. Somehow, Rainbow's team was up one, and all bases were loaded. I couldn't decide which type of shot would be best. Toeing it had a good chance of getting caught, but if it hit the back wall—even if it wasn't the home run zone—might give the players on second and third base a chance to tie it or take home. Alternatively, I could bunt, or I could even try channelling my inner earth-pony in hopes of sending the ball into low orbit. I looked to Spitfire on third. She tapped the toe of her right foot against her left heel, and nodded toward my right.

Power-shot to the right it is.

My gaze drifted to Rainbow Dash, who squared up to pitch. The ball left her hand and rolled toward me. I stepped forward, reeled back and... thunk!

Everybody in the gymnasium let out a cry of sympathetic pain as Flash Sentry, the first baseman for Rainbow's team, dropped to the floor, clutching his face. There might've even been a bit of blood. Even as Coach Iron Will called out a foul ball and one of Rainbow's players helped Flash off the floor, I gave a sheepish look and buried my face in my palm. It might've been to hide the smile, though.

Okay! I'm more than willing to admit that I took a little pleasure in that. I mean, he was a massive doofus who not was willing to date Sunset Shimmer during her bitch-queen phase, but also fell head over heels in love Twilight! Minor soccer-ball induced brain trauma could only improve him at that point, right? She's a princess from another world, dude! Way outta your league. Keep your amorousness inside your own dimension.

Once Fluttershy helped Flash out the main gymnasium door—presumably off to a school infirmary—and someone took over for him, we resumed the game. This time, I wouldn't fuck up. This time, when Rainbow pitched the ball, and my foot collided with it, it went spinning through the air, hitting the far wall near the roof. Even as my teammates ran from their bases, I couldn't keep my eyes off the ball. After it ricocheted off the wall, it got stuck in the rafters.

"I, uh, I guess that's game!" Coach Iron Will shouted, giving an uneasy look from me to the ball now stuck in the rafters—a ball that probably wasn't going to be easy to get back. "Spitfire's team wins by three."

All of a sudden, I was surrounded by the team, and reminded that most of them were taller than me... and heavier than me. It was all I could do not to scream when several hands seized me and hoisted me into the air. I should've been freaking the fuck out at all this non-consensual touching. So why wasn't I?

Appreciation... For now, at least, the thrill of victory had overpowered the underlying hate throughout the school. Even if it was just a friendly game, they were genuinely happy. This was nothing like the unity I'd seen in the locker room. Was there some way I could create this on a school-wide scale?

~ 22 ~

I was never more thankful for my time on the boat from Nova Scotia to Gibraltar than I was when it came to the showers at CHS. Although they were individual stalls, they weren't of the full privacy variety. If you were tall enough, which I technically wasn't, you could make conversation with your neighbours, and all that separated you from the outside was a translucent plastic door. Worse, you still needed to to walk through wrapped in a towel, if you were even concerned about privacy.

Some girls evidently didn't feel the need. That was why I was thankful for my time on the ship. It wasn't a big cargo ship, but there were enough people on board that several were coming on or off shift, and there was only the one communal shower. Even if I'd still had any sort of preferences or libido at that point, sharing close quarters like that taught me to respect my neighbour, mind my own business, and that we were all only human.

To that extent, I was only marginally uncomfortable taking my quick shower with everything else going on around me. I'd have loved to have had more time, but I had to give others an opportunity to have their own post gym-class showers. That means just my hair, soap and rinse. I could enjoy the warmth of the shower and use my coat shampoo—er... I guess it was now body-wash—later.

That discomfort went up a bit when the person who stepped into the stall next to mine began to chat me up. "Hey, Emerald?" It was human Rainbow Dash. Of course it's her; next thing you know, I'm gonna be seeing Rarity's counterpart in the next class. "What's with the marks on your hips? I'm pretty sure everyone at least saw parts of them in class when your shirt shifted, and all the girls definitely saw them, but..."

I glanced down at myself at an angle, and for the first time—since I was actually paying attention this time—I noticed that she was right. Just as they had been on my flanks as a pony, my cutie mark was there on my hips, peeking out through the suds. "Just so we're clear, you mean the thing that looks like a bent question mark with a slash through it?" When she mumbled a 'Yeah,' I just hummed in thought. Hadn't Twilight or Sunset told them about cutie marks?

"Hard to explain briefly, and I'm not exactly comfortable chatting while I bathe," I said. "It's a cutie mark. Magically manifests on a pony's flanks when they discover their 'special talent'. Aunt Twilight's mark was a magenta starburst accompanied by five white stars and overlaid over a sixth. Might've manifested differently on her when she came through the portal."

After I was sure my shampoo had sat a sufficient amount of time, I leaned forward into the stream of water and let the heat soak into my scalp. "Was that all you wanted to ask?" I asked, beginning to rinse down the rest of the lather. "I'm supposed to shadow Miss Fluttershy while I'm here, and I don't want to keep her waiting."

I nearly screamed when a rainbow-haired head popped over the divider between our two stalls so that she could look me in the eye. "More of a warning," she said. The girl was holding herself up with her hands, so I could just see the cuts and bruises on her knuckles. "There's a girl here who's from your world... Sunset Shimmer." Her eyes had a hard look in them, and I could feel that righteous hatred that had riled up the girls once more. "She might try to get in your head, make you think she's your friend, but she's bad news. If you see her, walk the other way."

Shutting off the water, I reached for my towel. "You mean to warn me about Anon-a-Miss, do you?" I made direct eye-contact with her while I rubbed the moisture out of my hair and patted myself dry. "I'm well aware of what everyone believes." I had to bite my lip to ground myself, as I felt my own anger beginning to feed off hers. In little more than a harsh whisper "I'll probably be looking into a few things on behalf of my Aunt; if our kinsman is responsible, you have my word that she will be dealt with."

Wringing the towel dry and then wrapping it around myself, I gave her a dour look, and said, "However, if I find otherwise, I'm going to have a mess on my hooves defusing this powder-keg of a school before bunch of hormonal angry monkeys tries to lynch her."

The muscles in her bruised hand tensed, and she forced herself to look away, lowering her mouth behind the partition. I did my best to keep a sneer off my face as I said this next part. "I've seen what happens to those backed into corners when they think they have nothing left to lose. If it comes down to it, can I count on you and the other four to help prevent that?"

She didn't have an answer as I stepped out of the stall and made my way over to the locker I'd stashed my bag in. I wasted no time changing into my initial set of clothes. My skin was still feeling somewhat chilled in the locker room—Maybe my shower was too hot, so now everything feels cold?—so I threw my cloak on over top and waited in the hallway for my guide. For good measure, I threw my hood over my head for some extra warmth.

It took a few more minutes for her to meet me out there, and although she didn't say anything, I could tell something was up the minute that she stepped out. More than a few students had given me glances when passing me by. Some were confused, others curious, but more and more, I saw students looking at their phones and then looking at me with pity. Fluttershy didn't let slip though. It would be mean to say Fluttershy was in a state of perpetual fear, but she seemed genuinely scared and angry about something.

Through the halls we went, passing several different classrooms in varying states of emptying or refilling. Eventually, we reached a classroom marked Band Class, and she started to move for the door. A girl met us at the door, however... one that I recognised. For fuck's sake; are you kidding me? I was joking!

Between the flawless porcelain skin and the indigo curls, there was no mistaking Rarity. I was kinda surprised that her skirt matched her hair, but I think I was more surprised that she was there to meet us. "Fluttershy, darling!" she called out upon seeing my guide. "There you are!" Her drifted over to me, looking me up and down. I was almost wondering if she was gonna comment on my attire—surely she'd know her own handiwork—but instead she said simply, "I know you're not the Emerald Flicker I knew, dear, but nonetheless it's good to see you again."

"But Rarity, why meet us out here?" Fluttershy asked, her eyes glancing to the door. "Isn't class about to start soon?"

The young fashionista nodded, not taking her eyes off of me. "It's actually in regards to our guest here," she explained. I noticed that she had a smartphone, not unlike Sunset's clutched in her hand. "I ran into Ms. Luna in the hallway just now, and she asked me to relay a message since we'd be meeting in this class. She asked me to tell you to meet with her at the start of lunch. It seemed pretty important."

That actually got my interest. Had something come up in regards to Sunset's phone that they were required to act on? Mentally, I shook my head. They wouldn't need to read me in on that. Maybe it had to do with explaining why the staff at the school had actually allowed the situation to deteriorate as far as it had. It had escalated to vandalism of school property and students being outed as gay. Or were they under orders from the school board to give 'Sunset' enough rope to metaphorically hang herself?

Again, my eyes drifted to the phone clutched in her hand. "Any idea what it's about?" I asked.

The two girls shared an uncomfortable look. With a sigh, Rarity held up her phone. "I imagine it might have to do with this." I gently took it and looked at what was on the screen.
Posted by:
Anon-a-Miss twenty minutes ago.
OMG, you guys! Look who the grim reaper dragged in! It's Emerald Flicker! You all have been so happy to share each other's secrets with me, so I'm sure you've got some juicy deets on our dead girl's otherworldly clone. Someone has to have seen or heard something.
Lightning Dust: This girl can't be more than 13, but I swear to god, she's ****ing got tattoos on her hips!
Hoops: She broke down crying while running in the gym. She kept running with tears streamin' from her eyes, but she was smilin, too. It was kinda creepy.

Beneath that, I saw that somebody—the name slot was oddly blank—had managed to take some video from the end of the kickball game and appended it to a comment. Someone off to the side where the out of play students had gathered had evidently been watching with their phone, either hoping to catch me pulling a Charlie Brown or something equally embarrassing. Regardless, from this angle, I could see the shock and terror on Flash Sentry's face as the ball slammed into his nose.

"Ouch." I glanced to Fluttershy, showing her the video. "Did I break his nose?" Flutters looked ill, but shook her head. "Good. Didn't mean to even hit him, and as funny as it might've seemed at the time, I'd've felt guilty." I realised that I was smiling. It was hard not to, since this thread wasn't exactly the sort of thing you could easily schedule. Without even knowing it, they'd played and lost the first hand of the game. That said, I couldn't exactly explain why to the others yet. "Nothing too bad here though. Given the way the walls seem to have ears, though, I'm sure they'll have something eventually."

Rarity's discomforted look hadn't abated, and she reached over. Her well-manicured finger tapped the screen just below the comment with the video. A woman by the name of Cookie Crumbles—Isn't that Rarity and Sweetie Belle's Mom?—had left a message tagging Rarity asking if this was real... and then a follow up message tagging one Emerald Breeze asking if she had any idea what was going on at the school. I guess she's on the PTA and has been keeping an eye on the account.

"Oh fuck me sideways," I murmured, pinching the bridge of my nose with my free hand. Handing the phone back to Rarity, I slumped against the wall. Yep, that would definitely warrant a meeting with the boss ladies. "Should've seen that one coming."

Author's Notes:

Motu is the Maori word for island, and Hoiho is the maori word for horse.
Xiaoma is chinese for Pony, written with the characters for small and horse.

Coach Iron Will looks like Omniman in my head.

Several threads and hooks have been set. Just what happened to this world's Emerald, and how did it differ from the dream that Anon had? What will happen if she ends up meeting said Dead Girl's mother?

For that matter, how will Anon deal with the way ~~Seven~~Fates keeps throwing Twilight's friends at her? What sort of demonstration will she make in Band Class? How will she catch out that pesky Anon a Miss once and for all? But surely, it can't be as simple as just following the plot from the comic. What sort of twists have I in store for you?

Find out on the next episode of "Dead Meme Z."

Entry 23

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Someone once told me that the universe likes to throw you curve-balls at the worst times. At the time, I think I told him, "Can you speak plain English? I don't really get sports idioms and a lot of pop-culture references." Dude was surprisingly chill about it. Hell, he spent most of the free time we had on the Gibraltar trip introducing me to all sorts of stuff I never really had exposure to growing up—sports, video games, and even 'degenerate weeb shit'. I still blame him for getting me hooked on ~~Todd Howard's Wild Ride~~ Skyrim, and what he called the 'android waifu' game.

Still, I'm glad that I got such idioms now, because if there was ever a curve-ball to be thrown, it was finding out that the mother of dead girl—one whom I was the spitting image of, no less—had been made aware of my existence. She might wait for more information, but chances are that the school principal had gotten—or would soon receive—a call from her. Even if this had all just been a hoax, and I was never here, I have no doubt that she would be demanding to know what the fuck is going on and why her dead daughter was suddenly being targeted by a rumour account.

Then of course, you had the other two with me. Neither of them seemed to know how to respond to my vulgar outburst. As such, they were both regarding me with a look of 'Who is this person?' It felt like when Fluttershy had mumbled about me not being anything like Emerald before. I also got the impression from the earlier interaction with Rainbow that there was some history everyone in their group thus far seemed aware of. They probably went to elementary school with Emerald.

"Darling, I'm sure it's not that bad," Rarity offered, holding open the door and ushering us into the band room. Rather than desks and chairs, there were chairs arrayed in rows with music stands in front of them. "Ms. Breeze is a wonderful woman; at most, she might want to meet with you, so that she can understand what is going on and how you're even here."

That's entirely the problem, I thought at the back of her head as I followed her in. What would I even say to her? I knew next to nothing about this world's Emerald, and up until recently, I was convinced that Emerald Flicker was just a figment of my dream. Now, however, I was starting to get this really gross feeling that maybe my old body hadn't been transformed, but rather my current form was a literal vessel for my soul. What, am I supposed to just say, "Sorry, Ma'am; the pony equivalent of your daughter gave up on life after your counterpart died, and some semi-sapient metaphysical embodiment of a magical concept stuffed my soul into her body for who knows what plot?"

Strangely enough, rather than taking a seat with Rarity, I noted that Fluttershy continued on through the room and into a side-chamber marked Equipment Storage. She probably had to fetch her own instrument, but if that were the case, why hadn't Rarity gone as well? My eyes flicked to the baby grand piano near the front of the room, remembering the one in her own Equestrian counterpart's house, and it clicked with me that she probably had permission to use that one when time to present pieces, or participating in a piece as a group.

Following Rarity's lead, I took a seat in one of the empty folding chairs beside her, tucking my bag beneath me. There was no mistaking the sidelong glance she was giving me, or more specifically the handiwork of my cloak. "Wherever did you get your frock, Emerald?" she asked as several students filed into the room. "It looks incredibly well-made, and a design like that had to have been custom."

Lowering my hood, I looked her in the eye and just smiled. "A very generous mare made it for me," I explained, undoing the clasp and rising off my seat just enough to remove it to pass to her. She seemed fascinated with the ears at the top of it, although she was definitely looking at the stitching and the hem-work. "She wanted to make me a dress as an apology for something a friend had done, but since I'm studying magic, I thought a mage's cloak would be more suitable. The ears were a detail I requested. When I'm a pony, my ears fit right in those, so they can keep nice and toasty."

"Oh! Does that mean you're a, um, a unicorn?" Fluttershy asked as she took a seat on the other side of Rarity, nearly scaring me out of my skin. In her hand, she had a... tambourine of all things. Her attention shifted to Rarity. "Isn't that what Twilight said? That only unicorns and alicorns really did that sort of thing?"

I shrugged and held my hand out, palm-down, tilting it from side to side. "All ponies are capable of magic, even earth-ponies like myself," I answered as Rarity passed me back my garment. I threw it back on over my 'uniform', although I left my hood down. "Non-unicorns only have access to a few uncommon forms of spellcasting, like runes or alchemy. My talent is in runic magic, which from everything I've seen in my studies so far, is effectively proto-unicorn magic." The corners of my mouth were beginning to turn upward. "Don't even get me started on my conspiracy theories surrounding the decline in non-unicorn spellcasters."

That sorta killed that conversation. While we waited for this class's teacher to arrive, the girls started taking out sheet music to place on their music stands, although Rarity didn't bother opening hers. Probably would open it if she needed to sit down at the piano over there. I noticed that other students were also seemingly grouped up with purpose, rather than just at random.

There were the human counterparts of Octavia Melody and Vinyl Scratch off to one side, having a hushed conversation involving whispering and what I was sure was American—or more likely, Amareican—Sign Language. Flash Sentry was with another group that looked like they were setting up for a rock show, although they kept shooting questioning glances to Fluttershy. Well, the rest of his group was; I wasn't sure how to interpret the look he was giving me. It was clear that each and every group was gearing up for some demonstrations.

As if picking up on my curiosity, Rarity explained that part of the class was about setting goals, teamwork, concentration, and self-discipline. Apparently all, or at least most, of that was judged by the teacher when students would present the pieces they'd been practising before the class. Apparently the demos today were to be an eclectic mix of rock and classical music. There were apparently even vocals permitted if the piece called for them. It was a bit surprising that there was no mention of EDM or electronica. Could totally see Vinyl doing Freezepop's Less Talk, More Rokk.

When the teacher finally entered and greeted everyone—extending a kind welcome to their special guest—things got really, really interesting. See, once everyone quieted down, the teacher called out the first student group to present their piece. First up were Vinyl Scratch and Octavia Melody presenting Claude Debussy's La Fille aux Cheveux de Lin. Sure, they didn't call Debussy Debussy, but there's no mistaking a name like that!

See, Octavia took the lead melody—HA!—with her cello, while Scratch provided the backing notes that a single string instrument couldn't provide. They were really good together, and even though it still felt weird seeing the synth-oriented Vinyl playing classical on a piano, it felt right. Everyone else seemed to think so as well, as when they came to a finish, the entire class broke into applause.

Up next, much to my fucking surprise, was Fluttershy, alongside Flash's group. The song? I shit you not, it was Golden Earring's Radar Love. Worse, despite his voice sounding off with his nose plugged up—guess he was still bleeding a bit—he did a pretty good job with the vocals. Guitar work was okay, but I'm a bit biased because I'll always love the original. Still a good cover.

The class went through a few more pieces—almost all of them solos—from Bach's Minuet and Badinerie Orchestral Suite No. 2 in B Minor to Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake. It was all beautiful, and very nostalgic, but also somewhat disappointing. I was hoping to hear something new—something I'd never heard before. I was instead being presented with a growing case of the old-world blues.

Once Rarity finished her own piece, Bach's Little Fugue in G Minor, there was apparently enough time before the class broke for lunch for one more. Yeah, apparently this time slot was hacked in half to allow students to take their lunch at midday. That said, nobody seemed willing to volunteer. Then, of course, the teacher's eyes fell on me.

Oh, oh no.

"I'm fully aware that you are only present because Fluttershy has been asked to allow you to shadow her," the kind, older woman said, smiling softly at me. "That said, I was wondering if you played any instruments. If you do, would you care to play a piece for us?"

"I mean, I have been learning piano, but I don't have anything prepared," I said with a shake of my head. That got a raised eyebrow from Rarity and Fluttershy. Oh lemme guess; Emerald played viola. "I was practising a song for class before I ended up having to come here, but it's not exactly a song from Equestria..."

Rarity placed a hand on my shoulder, and I wasn't able to stop myself from wincing this time around. I don't think even you could miss that. "Darling, I'm sure you'll be fine," she assured me. "I'm actually surprised to hear you play anything, and now I'm curious."

I bit the inside of my cheek and looked around at everyone in the room. They all looked quite interested to hear what I had to offer, and I was kinda interested in playing again, if nothing more than to get more practice in. I sagged my shoulders and stood up. "Fine," I said with a sigh, walking over to the piano at the front. Taking a seat on the bench, I cracked my knuckles and placed my fingertips on the ivory keys. That action got a lot of raised eyebrows. "This is a song from a piece of media a friend introduced me to a long time ago."

A hush fell across the room as I struck the opening chords. I had their attention the moment I transitioned into the main melody. Yet, the song I was playing wasn't a purely instrumental piece; it had a very important lyrical component as well. Sucking in a deep breath, I readied myself to sing for the first time in this form.

"Feel's like I've lost all hope, both in body and in soul," I sang. Somehow, just remembering the lyrics got me thinking about how Sunset must have felt. It somehow made it feel all the more important to get these lyrics out and have them be heard. Is this what it feels like to be swept up in a heartsong? My fingers were definitely gliding along the black and white keys with a lot more finesse than I was used to. "And the clouds, they look so minacious... And as time slows to a crawl, silence starts to overwhelm..." How alone did she feel when nobody would believe her—when someone tried to push her down the stairs? "My cries keep going unnoticed..."

In spite of myself, I found myself opening up to the emotion in the room as I transitioned into the second verse. Maybe it was the sorrowful lyrics, or the fact that I was tearing up myself, but everyone was beginning to radiate sadness and awe. "Answer, God; why all the punishment? Is this the price I'm to pay for all my past sins?" God, how many times had she asked that very question since this began? "This is my cry out for help; I need you more than ever before..." It somehow felt like Sunset herself was right there with me, singing along. It should've been her song... and only some of her friends who needed to hear her cry for help were here. "Can you hear my call?"

As I broke into the chorus, however, I'd begun to enter something of an emotional feedback loop. The more the others felt the impact of the lyrics, the worse I felt, and thus the words had a greater impact. More and more, I felt like I was in way over my head with this whole affair. Would she even want to come back when I clear her name? After how she'd been treated and everything she'd been blamed for? According to Harmony, I'm just a foal, so why is this on my shoulders? By the time I'd spoken the words "But the truth is that I'm only one girl," my voice had collapsed into a shallow croak. Oh god, I'm crying again. My fingers slipped off the keys, my hands beginning to tremble, and I scooted the bench back so that I could stand. Why am I crying?

Before anyone could make a move, I rushed over to the chair my bag was beneath, and grabbed it. I thought I heard Rarity say something about my ears, but I'd stopped listening. I knew that I was starting to have an anxiety attack, and I needed to get somewhere safe to centre myself; I didn't have my comfort plushie after all. Barely even felt the door when I barrelled through it and out into the hallway. I might've even bumped into a cerise-haired girl in a dark hoodie, but I wasn't entirely sure if I actually hit her, or if she was just nearby.

~ 23 ~

Ten minutes later, once I was finished crying and no longer felt like I was at risk of throwing up from stress, I stepped out of one of the restrooms and made my way towards the office. Luna did want to speak with me at the start of lunch, so I figured there was no point in wasting time. Better to deal with the matter of Emerald's Mom now, rather than later.

As I started picking my way through the hallway, I saw that there were more eyes on me. It probably meant that there was more stuff popping up in that Anon-a-Miss thread. More rumours? Or had someone filmed me singing? The fact that they were giving me pitying looks gave me the impression that it was probably the later. Someone probably sent my little breakdown.

God, I hate those pitying fucking looks.

The secretary—She's not Princess Celestia's assistant, Raven Inkwell, is she?—greeted me with a smile as I stepped into the office. "Ah, Miss Flicker; I was just about to page you over the PA," she said softly. Yeah, that's so Raven. "Vice Principal Luna is currently on an emergency conference call in the meeting room, but she'll be with you shortly. In the meantime, please have a seat in her office."

I nodded, entering the appropriately marked room, drawing closed the blinds, and taking a seat. Somehow, I had a good idea of who was involved in the call. In addition to Celestia, there was definitely a very confused and angry Emerald Breeze on the other end, and possibly a lawyer or someone from the school board if things were really bad. The problem became what we would be doing about this. I'm not sure what would happen if I had to meet her; it'd be bad if she somehow convinced herself her daughter wasn't dead, and wanted me to come stay with her. She'd just lose her daughter all over again.

Glancing down at the backpack I'd set down at me feet, I had a thought. Maybe Twilight could provide some advice. Peeking through the blinds toward the door marked Conference Room, I saw I'd probably have a few more minutes. Grabbing a pen from a cup on Luna's desk, I carefully removed the magic journal and opened to a fresh page.

Twilight, Starlight, Sunset, and Co.,

I'm just checking in to provide a status update. I've already gotten Anon-a-Miss's attention, and I'm pretty sure that Celestia and Luna are now convinced of your innocence, Sunset. I met them at Donut Joe's shortly after sending you on your way, and informed them that you were in Equestria as of this morning. Now it's just a matter of setting a rumour myself and then announcing it to the school. I'm thinking about 'letting slip' that I was a guy in my previous life to Applejack, Rarity, Pinkie, Fluttershy, and Rainbow Dash at lunch, and then sending it in myself.

Unfortunately, we've hit a rather big snag, as well. As Sunset's probably told you, Twilight, my cover alias used to be a real person that people at the school knew. I don't think I need to impress upon you the fact that this means that the Emerald Flicker I dreamed about was a real filly. That's something we can address and look into later, though. No, our snag is that Rarity's mom tagged Emerald Breeze on a video of me that was taken during gym class. I'm pretty sure the Principal and Vice Principal are on a conference call with her right now.

A few things I think need to be addressed. I need advice as to what I should do if Emerald Breeze determines that she's going to meet me, one way or another? I don't want this woman thinking some twist of fate has given her her daughter back, but I also don't want her to go through losing her daughter all over again.

I hate to ask this of you, Sunset, but what happened to my human counterpart? Luna was keeping mum about it when I asked, and she advised that I not bring it up to the other students. The problem is that as the likelihood that I'm going to meet her mother is quickly rising, and it feels like knowing her situation might be important in making sure I don't cause the woman any more emotional harm.

Starlight, if you're back from the mission the map gave you already, I'm sorry I left without saying goodbye. I've only been gone a half-day from my perspective, and I already miss you.

'Emerald Flicker'

I was in the process of wrapping Sunset's journal in my pyjamas and placing it in the bottom of my bag when the door opened and an aggravated looking Luna stepped through. I finished packing my bag while she sat down in her comfy-looking ergonomic chair, and waited for her to strike up the conversation. As an afterthought, I returned the pen I'd borrowed to the cup on her desk.

She rubbed at her eyes as she slouched in her chair. "That is probably one of the most stressful conference calls I've had in a long time," she said with a sigh. "You Equestria girls come with no shortage of troubles, it seems."

I nodded, glancing at the door. "Yeah, Rarity filled me in," I murmured, sticking out my leg to push it shut. "Hadn't even thought parents might've been keeping an eye on the account. How bad is it?"

"Up until the second video hit, she was putting this off as some sort of hoax and an old video, and just wanted an explanation as to why a CHS-related rumour blog was acting as though she were alive." There was a coffee-cup on the desk in front of her, which she picked up and sipped at before cringing. Probably cold. Hate that. "Then in the middle of the call a student posted a video of you singing that song in the band classroom... complete with a timestamp."

Well fuck, shit just keeps getting worse, doesn't it? I shifted in my seat, and broke eye-contact. This was probably the one thing I was grateful for in Equestria. There, nobody was carrying around camera phones, ready to catch your bad moments to share with the world-brains in their pockets.

"She was very confused when you suddenly sprouted a pair of green horse ears mid-song," she added. "Now she's threatening to get a lawyer involved if we don't get this Anon-a-Miss business shut-down hard, and she wants an explanation for who or what you are."

My head snapped back to her as what she said sunk in. "Wait, I did what now?"

Luna arched an eyebrow. "That's what you got out of all that?" she asked, incredulity slipping into her voice and aura. "Can you please take this seriously?"

A giggle escaped me as I waved off her comment. "Anon-a-Miss is already one foot in the grave, ma'am," I said. Funny how that only made her eyebrow move closer to her hairline. "Think about it; where is Sunset Shimmer? Equestria. Even if she had her phone—I wonder what the portal would do to a smartphone—she has no service while the portal's closed. Not sure if she would if it was open, either." A look of understanding finally allowed her eyebrow a break before it vanished completely. "While the initial post might get waved off as scheduled, I actually have a two-factor plan to fully clear Sunset."

Pointing with my finger toward the front of the school, where the statue and mirror were located, I tilted my head at her. "You guys have to have a closed circuit camera or two out front, right? Maybe even one trained on a juicy vandalism target, such as the statue?" When she nodded, I clapped my hands together. "Have someone prep the clip of this morning when I pushed her into the portal. Meanwhile, I'm going to skip the second half of Fluttershy's band class, and submit a rumour myself—maybe let the librarian know I'll be in there and that I have an excuse for being on MyStable. When Anon-a-Miss takes the bait, well... wait until the change of period and then post that CCTV footage to the school's MyStable page."

Reclining in her chair, she steepled her hands."That would certainly clear Sunset Shimmer," she agreed. "But that still leaves us without the real culprit." Luna swivelled her chair away. "Unless we put pressure on them."

I stood up and stretched. "That's up to you guys at that point," I replied, taking a moment to put my backpack on beneath my cloak. "I will say, though, that their actions are endangering the well-being of others to an almost criminal degree. This school is one bad post away from lynching someone. There was almost a fight in the locker-room this morning after two girls were outed as being a couple; one didn't even show up to school, so for all I know, she might be in actual peril." I turned to look her in the eye as I opened the door. "Even if you can't really get the police involved on Sunset's behalf, they can't be sure of that. Hell, offer lenience if they come forward if you need to; their social life will be fucked either way."

~ 23 ~

It was kinda strange going into the dining hall and seeing all those faces—paradoxically familiar and foreign at the same time—all simultaneously look up at me. Most of them, all gathered at their own tables in their own little groups, didn't bother stopping their own conversations, but there was no mistaking the fact that almost all of them were looking at me. Well, I'm not actually sure who or what the wall-eyed girl was looking at, but given the rest of the crowd was looking at me, I had my suspicions.

I just shrugged my shoulders, waved awkwardly, and made my way over to a service-counter between the cafeteria. It took a moment for me to get a ten dollar note from my wallet, but given that I had to wait in line and grab a tray anyway, it hardly mattered. Gave me time to look over the day's specials marked on a whiteboard. Ooh, tuna salad wrap... but for $5 and no sides, it better be the most goddamn filling thing ever. Oooh, they even have coffee!

There was a bit of a surprise waiting for me as I came up to the counter. I dunno what I was even really expecting when it came to the school's lunch-lady. That said, it certainly wasn't seeing the wise elder of the Apple family there. She probably wasn't expecting to see a dead girl, either.

I braced myself for a potential freak-out, remembering how superstitious a pony she was. There was even a moment where I entertained the idea that I might have to hit the deck, dodging a thrown ladle, accompanied by a shout of, "Not today, Satan!" before she threw herself out the window. You know, normal old lady responses when someone in a cloak shows up wearing the face of a dead girl. "What can I get'cha, deary?" she asked instead.

That caught me by surprise. Not even a comment. "Um, one of those tuna salad wraps and a coffee please," I said, setting my tray on the counter. I wasted no time grabbing a pre-packaged creamer, two sugar packets, and a plastic stir-stick from a nearby dish and setting them on my tray. "Thanks, Granny Smith."

"That stuff stunts yer growth, ya know," she replied, but she still turned around and fetched a huge looking wrap from a cooler behind her, sliced it at the midway point, and set it on my tray. Still, she did end up pouring me a coffee. "That'll be six fifty."

A buck fifty for a coffee that size is crazy! That didn't stop me from handing over the tenner and holding out my hand. "That's a myth, Granny," I said as she placed the change in my palm. "It's poor sleep, influenced by caffeine, that does that."

Into my cloak's pocket went the change as I picked up my tray. As I walked away, I heard a muttered, "Can't be a myth; ya haven't grown an inch in the four years since I seen ya last." Just ignore her, Anon.

Stepping away from the counter, I glanced around the room once more. Where are those five, I wonder? Roseluck and the other two flower girls were standing around a table, where a despondent looking Bon Bon sat staring at her phone, occasionally typing something out. They might've been trying to apologise for earlier. That wall-eyed girl from earlier—I think she might've been the Ponyville mailmare's counterpart—was sharing some muffins with a well-dressed young man who might've been a teacher's aid for all I knew.

It took me a little bit longer to notice their group than was probably healthy. I mean, how in the fuck do you miss a hyperactive pink girl waving at you? Okay, maybe I've learned to block out cases of Pinkie-being-Pinkie back home to the point where I can overlook her presence, but still. Once I saw her, spotting Rainbow, Rarity, and Fluttershy in this technicolour sea of hormonal teenagers was a lot easier.

As soon as I made my way over to the table, I found myself barraged with the shrill, excitable sound of peak Pinkie behaviour. "Oh my gosh, oh my gosh! She's here!" she was squealing. "Hi, Not-our-Emerald!"

Shaking my head with a wry smile, I glanced at the empty spot beside Applejack. "I see Pinkie is still Pinkie, no matter which dimension she's from," I said aloud. "Mind if I sit there, Applejack?"

Huh, like Flash Sentry, AJ's counterpart seemed to have a more human complexion, and she even had honest-to-god freckles, unlike the freckle-like discolourations on my AJ's coat. She leaned back on her bench, looked me up and down, and then took a bite out of—You'll never guess!—an apple from her tray of food. "Sure thing, sugar."

Setting my tray down on the table, I saw their eyes lock on the wrap. "What? Some ponies eat fish," I immediately said, shrugging off my bag. I set it on the bench next to me, alongside my cloak, and got to stirring the sugar and creamer into my coffee. "Mostly it's the pegasi who do it, but we can all handle it. Omega-3 oils and all that."

That got a nod from Applejack and a comment about giving it to their horses for their coats. My attention was on my food, however; between the running, the kickball, and the singing, I was more than a little peckish. In fact, up until I consumed half the wrap in just a few moments, I was deaf to the world.

"So, darling, I was meaning to ask," said Rarity when I came up for ~~air~~ coffee to wash down some food stuck in my throat. "Are you alright? You looked quite upset when you ran out of the band room."

Ah, of course they'd want to ask that. From their perspective, I was a girl a few years their junior who'd already broke down once today. What exactly do I tell them, though? Can't just go and say, 'Yeah, see, I'm somewhat of an empath, and this school is a festering hive of negativity that's playing with my head right now'. It wasn't a constructive answer, and didn't give them any context to anything. I mean, I could give them Twilight's note, but...

Idly stirring my coffee with the little plastic stick, I looked at the five of them. "I've not had easy lives," I finally said in a quiet voice. Fuck it, let's info dump them. "Before I lived in Equestria, I came from a world not unlike this one. Grew up in a remote mining town, up 'til my abusive prick of a sperm donor killed my mother and then topped himself." I sipped at my coffee once more while the others reacted with a degree of sympathy. "Spent the last years of my teens homeless and on the road, doing whatever I had to do to survive.

"Then, one day in my twenties, I end up in a car accident on the Schwarzwaldbahn, wander off into the woods, and wake up in Equestria as an eight-year-old foal without a name." I let that hang in the air for a moment, wondering if they'd catch on that Emerald wasn't my name. "I lost my family, my humanity, my life," I said plainly, counting off with my fingers. "Hell, I wasn't even the same sex as I was in my old life."

Maybe it was because of my own indignation, but somehow, their own shock didn't really register; I barely even felt the negativity in the building. Hell, I felt more 'in control' than I'd felt all day. For emphasis, I took another huge bite of my wrap. "Even in a new life, I can't get a break. I got maimed—and nearly blinded—by an idiot kid who didn't understand the concept of scalding injuries, kidnapped by an evil shapeshifter with a vendetta against my caretakers, ended up with empathic powers that I don't have full control over..." In little more than a whisper, I finished my tirade with, something that I hadn't before considered. "And to top it all off, I'm not even sure if I'm actually Emerald Flicker, or if I'm just a soul crammed into a filly's corpse, getting the occasional flashes of her memories."

They all just sorta gawked at me as I finished off my wrap. "I guess being in this emotional powder-keg of a school was just bound to set off an anxiety attack, ya know?" I said with a dismissive wave of my hand. Oh look! their expressions all just morphed into that one I've come to link with the stunned silence I've learned to associate with 'What is wrong with you?' and not 'Please continue.' "I feel much better now; info dumping like that was kinda cathartic."

"Dude, what the hell?" was Rainbow Dash's response.

Pinkie, strangely enough focused on the weirdest parts. "You're an eight-year-old in her twenties?"

Fluttershy and Rarity were just cringing at my nonchalance—and probably an oncoming headache. Meanwhile, Applejack let out a long sigh. "Girls, pardon ma Prench," she said, turning to face me, "but what th' fuck is wrong with you?"

I shrugged, trying to decide if getting this AJ counted in the totally-made-up-on-the-spot game of getting Twilight and her friends to swear. "I thought I gave a pretty comprehensive list," I casually said, "although you could probably add on weird anxiety issues stemming from my old life and touch aversion." As if only just remembering something, I changed the topic. "Say, what's all this about me having horse ears during my song?"

Five consecutive face-palms was the only forthcoming answer as Rarity brought out her phone.

Entry 24

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So as it turns out, ever since Twilight's rainbow laser of friendship during her first visit here, people who've been exposed to Equestrian magic seem to, for unknown reasons, randomly undergo a process this group has started calling 'Ponying Up'. Sounds made up as fuck, but the video footage of green horse-ears appearing in my hair speaks for itself. Given that they all describe it as happening in relation to music or extreme enthusiasm, I'd be inclined to think that it's some sort of magic manifestation, not unlike when Aunt Twilight turns into the Pony Torch. Some spin-off of a heartsong maybe?

The fact that these five are imbued with magic and have these manifestations tells me that this world must have some magic. Even if they don't have a way of intentionally and actively channelling it, just knowing it's here and functional could be useful. Wonder if I can utilise it here through the use of runic magic? I felt myself beginning to smile as I finished off what was left of my coffee. If Anon-a-Miss won't out themselves, I might be able to get Twilight to translate something like Zone of Truth into a Weaved Spiral runic spell and send it through the book. It's already an all-in ruse I plan on employing, but I don't think that Anon-a-Miss has the cards necessary to beat a hand like that.

"Ya know, Ah was happy fer the silence," Applejack said with a sigh, "but the way she just started smilin' is really startin' ta give me the willies."

I bit my lip and started pulling on my cloak. "Just thinking about work," I murmured. Glancing at the clock and then Fluttershy, I added, "I've got some things I need to take care of on my own. I'll still shadow your other classes this afternoon, but in the meantime, I'll be in the library. If I'm not there, I'll be at the office."

"Work?" Pinkie almost shouted. "You just said you were eight!"

Rainbow Dash spoke up before I could answer. For a moment, I thought she was even about to blab that I was gonna be looking into Anon-a-Miss, but then she went and said, "I think she's talking about something she was doing for Twilight."

I shrugged. "You can explain that to the other four when you're sure it's just the five of you," I said in a serious tone, picking up my bag. "And that's only sorta what I meant. It had more to do with the revelation that magic works in this world." Before the five teens could say anything more, I took my tray, dumped the trash from it, and then set it aside. Once that was done, I was off navigating the school's halls in search of the library.

The vibe in the school seemed to differ as the day went on. I could hear whispering when they thought I wasn't close enough to hear. Something had changed, even since Rarity had shown me the footage of me magically sprouting pony ears. Had someone overheard my 'story' and already submitted something? Had someone commented something that was riling people up? I already intended to check out what was happening on the blog.

When I entered the library, I was reminded of photographs Twilight and Spike kept of their old home—Ponyville's destroyed library. There were a lot of similarities. In the middle of the main area was a ring of computer desks set up around the bust of a horse's head. Bookshelves ringed the outer perimeter, breaking off into stacks on its upper and lower levels. There was even a check-in/check-out desk at the front.

Miss Cheerilee—or at least a woman who looked just like her—was lecturing a familiar trio of girls at one of the computer desks when I entered; apparently, they were being a bit too loud while editing a video. Just as she was telling them to pack their shit to get out, however, she was interrupted by the bell. It didn't take long for them to pack up and take off.

What's with those looks? I thought as the three girls passed me. There was a cocktail of emotions radiating from them when they looked at me. Suspicion, curiosity, fear... There was something else, but I couldn't identify it among everything else in the school. It felt like I should know it, though. It felt like I should know them, too, but for whatever reason, my brain couldn't—or wouldn't—make the connection.

Once they were out, I took my bag over and set it at one of the computer stations on the side of the circle opposite of the doors. Shortly after, I draped my cloak over the back of the chair. I didn't immediately sit down, though. Under the watchful eye of Cheerilee—Did she double as the librarian, or did she just not have a class right now?—I browsed the stacks closest the computers, checking for any other guests.

Once I was sure that nobody else was present, I approached the woman. Holding out my hand, I smiled at her. "Did Miss Luna get in touch?" I asked. It took her a moment to accept my hand and shook it. "You know why I'm here?"

She nodded, glancing at the door and then the computer those three girls had been at. "This goes against so many of our library social media policies, but this has to stop," was her response. "Several of my students have disclosed that they don't feel safe here anymore, and more than a few have been going into the stacks to cry. If this isn't resolved by the new year, I imagine many parents will be pulling their children out of CHS."

I sighed, shaking my head. "Here's hoping my gamble works, then," I grumbled. "I've gotta bait a trap and do some snooping, but in the meantime, can you recommend a free online mail service?"

After pointing me over to a certain service, and showing me a few helpful hotkeys and browser features, she left me to my devices. I was grateful for the help. For all the times I'd been to a library back on Earth, I'd never had much instruction on how to use a computer; a young person asking for help using a computer was apparently some kind of 'trick' or I was intentionally wasting their times. Even when I'd use my co-worker's gaming laptop on the boat, it was only the basic 'This does this, don't go to weird sites, and don't go snooping'.

The first thing I needed to do was get an email set up, but it was easier said than done. Anonymous was a straight-up no-go; MailCavalry wouldn't allow it, and I wasn't exactly sure I wanted to try variations. Another problem was that I didn't want to do anything relating to Emerald Flicker more than I had to. It was bad enough that a dead girl's name was probably getting drug through the mud.

Hmm... An idea crossed my mind. I let my fingertips dance across the keyboard, filling out a name. PointNemo@MailCavalry.net is available. Perfect. If I can't be Anonymous, I can use my old name and the most isolated place on Earth. Suitable alias for the most isolated pony on this planet at the moment. Filling out a suitable password, I completed the account registration process and was brought to my inbox.

Opening up a new tab, I typed in MyStable in the address bar. Thankfully, it was apparently visited so frequently on these machines—despite apparentsocial media policies—that the address was offered in a suggestion; I was expecting to have to find it by search engine. I navigated my way through the account creation screens, and soon, a profile for Point Nemo was created, sans any personal details like age, sex, or location. Then, it was back to the inbox tab to verify the account.

Anon-a-Miss's profile wasn't my next stop, however; first, I needed a bit of information. Somebody had submitted video of me without their name showing up, so surely it wasn't something too difficult to achieve. A third tab open, I began my search. 'Nameless MyStable profile' was my first search through the address bar. It brought me to a search engine called JourneyMommy, but it just left me with several indexed profiles of people whose names contained Nameless. God, there are more people just as bad as my sperm donor.

'Hide your identity on MyStable' had a few more likely results and even gave me a good hint on the second page. Apparently, if you set your display name to something in a 'character set' that MyStable doesn't support properly, it will accept the change, but just leave a null space where your profile name should be in comments and messages. Apparently, the Neighponese and Xiaoma alphabets were popular choices.

Since I look like something out of one of Evening Script's manega, why not use that? A quick look-up told me that Neighponese had three character sets, but one was pretty much reserved for writing out foreign words. Shortly after that, I found a tool that would take an input and convert it to that alphabet, or it's closest phonetic approximation. I could just be lazy and plug in my name, but where's the fun in that?

I translated my chosen input and copied it to the clipboard before switching back to the MyStable tab. I went to my profile settings, and emptied the display name field. Hitting the paste hotkey, my display name became 'ジャスティスフォーサンセットシマー'— Justice for Sunset Shimmer—for a short time. Once I hit save changes, it took me back to my profile page. Sure enough, the name space was blank when it loaded.

Near the top of the page, there was a search bar. I plugged Anon-a-Miss into that, and immediately I was brought to the profile page, complete with the avatar blown up. A frown creased my face as I internally facepalmed. Seriously? They even used Sunset Shimmer's silhouette in addition to her colours. People just went with it, and accepted it for what it was. Disgusting.

Clicking Send Private Message brought me to a new page where there was a space for a subject line, and then a space beneath for a message. I simply wrote 'Emerald Flicker' tip in the subject space. The message was a bit harder. My first thought was to frame it as though I was one of Twilight's five friends, submitting a comment because of 'something Emerald had told us'. No, I don't want to risk getting them at each other's throats if Twilight spent so much effort getting them back together.

'I overheard the being calling themselves Emerald Flicker talking to Rainbow Dash and her friends at lunch,' I wrote, deciding on taking the 'concerned citizen' route. 'I made this dummy account because I don't want Rainbow to find out I'm telling you all this; I'm pretty sure she'll do something like hit me if she did, but I gotta share this. Emerald said she used to be a guy in his twenties before becoming a pony. They were in the showers with us just this morning! I feel so violated!'

I clicked send, and when I was taken back to Anon-a-Miss's profile, I leaned back in my chair. Alright, 'Anon-a-Miss', the hands have been dealt. There's a two of diamonds, a five of diamonds, and a seven of spades on the flop, a six of diamonds on the turn, and a king of hearts on the river. And I know you've been dealt a two of clubs, and a two of hearts because I've stacked the deck. I thought to myself, imagining I held a three of diamonds and a four of diamonds in my hand. I've just gone all-in. You still have the opportunity to fold and retire, keep what little chips you have left, or you can go all-in on this farce too. What'll it be?

The account still showed as offline, so a response wasn't forthcoming. Probably someone here at the school after all. I still had plenty of time before this period was set to end, so I decided to get some other snooping done. Who was it that they said was on the yearbook committee?

I plugged the name I thought sounded right into the search bar and hit enter. The profile of 'Wallflower Blush' popped up, and sure enough she was a student here at CHS. Kinda mousy looking, but she's green like me, which is neat. It even said that she was online right now. There was even a chat option available here.

___: Miss Blush, Principal Celestia advised me that you're on the CHS yearbook committee, and if I had to guess, you know the student body quite well. I'm investigating Anon-a-Miss on behalf of several interested parties, and I was wondering if you could answer a few questions.

Wallflower Blush: I'm in class right now; can this wait?

___: Perhaps. That said, I'm trying to defuse this before anybody gets any more hurt than they already have.

Wallflower Blush: *sigh* Fine; teachers never notice me anyway. What do you want to know?

___: How would you describe Sunset Shimmer before the fall formal?

There was a pause while a chat bubble filled with a bouncing ellipses occupied her side of the chat screen. It was like that for several minutes; whatever she had to say, it was a lot of text, or it might have just been that she was typing on a phone. Wonder what she has to say.

Wallflower Blush: She was a total bully, but she was smart about it. She cunningly manipulated, threatened, and blackmailed to keep people out of her way, and from getting on her level. She covered her tracks, though; if she could help it, Sunset never did anything that could be traced back to her. Never resorted to violence, she never crossed certain lines, and she never did anything that wasn't of some benefit to her.

___: Certain lines?

Wallflower Blush: She never targeted students over their age, sex, gender identity, religion, or orientation. It didn't matter if it made them an easier target; up until she blew up the front of the school at the Fall Formal, she also never did anything that could be considered dangerous, put lives at risk, or would normally get the police involved.

That seemed like really important information that a lot of people were overlooking. After all, Anon-a-Miss recently outed a lesbian couple. That sounded pretty fucking dangerous to me. Depending on where you were back on Earth, that sort of thing could get someone killed because it was 'unnatural' or 'against God'. At the very least, that sort of thing didn't seem universally accepted here, based on Roseluck's outburst this morning.

___: So you don't believe Sunset is Anon-a-Miss?

Wallflower Blush: No. As much as I hate her for everything she pulled over the years... and for how quickly she was able to win everyone over after the Sirens... she was turning herself around. I can't see her doing any of this now when it serves no purpose.

___: Besides most of the student body, can you think of anybody specific who might have a vendetta, but might not have been as familiar with her methods?

Wallflower Blush: I'd look at the kids in the middle school program. Even if she didn't really target them, they've all probably been told stories of her reign of terror from their friends and family, or witnessed the results.
Wallflower Blush: Look, I gotta go. Teacher's actually starting to notice for a change. Lucky me.

Closing the chat, I navigated my way back to Anon-a-Miss's profile. Upon the change of the page, I saw a notification that I had a new private message waiting. There was a response that said simply, 'That's so gross; thanks for the info!' On Anon-a-Miss's profile, there was already a new post. That didn't take them long, although I'd been chatting with Wallflower for quite a few minutes.

Posted by:
Anon-a-Miss five minutes ago.
This just in! Someone who wished to remain anonymous sent in this juicy tip. She said she overheard our otherworldly Emerald at lunch saying she used to be a dude before she became a pony! How gross is that?
Lightning Dust: You gotta be ****ing kidding! That tranny was in the locker room with us, and saw several of us naked!
Spitfire: Hey, cut that out Lightning! That crap isn't cool!
Snips: So jealous!
Diamond Tiara: Gross!

I blinked. Wow, I thought to myself as more and more comments popped up in rapid succession. Hitting the log out button on MyStable and closing the tab, I marvelled at how well that'd gone. As I logged out of the email tab, I couldn't help but shake my head. Looks like they're all-in. They're so fucked, and they don't even know it. Now it's time for Celestia and Luna to call for us to show our hands.

Since I wasn't feeling as cold anymore, I packed my cloak away into my bag, and slung one strap over my shoulder. "Right, that should be everything," I said aloud to myself. Turning to regard my teacher's counterpart as I walked to the door, I smiled. "Thanks for letting me do this, Miss Cheerilee." The woman looked surprised as I exited the library. After all, she hadn't actually told me her name, and that fact was probably only just setting in.

The halls were barren as I started to make my way over to the principal's office once more. It was honestly kinda fucking eerie given that it had been so much more lively when I slunk off at the end of lunch to set my plan into action. Oh the lack of staring eyes was nice, but the emptiness was unnerving. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that I'd purposely painted a target on my back?

I'm just being paranoid. It's a school, kids are in class. Nothing sinister is happening.

I was maybe ten metres down the hall from the library door when I heard the squeak of shoes on the floor tiles behind me. Someone was running, and they were moving at a fair clip. I moved as close to the nearest row of lockers as I could in order to stay out of the way. Turning around and looking sooner might've saved me a metaphorical and literal headache, as I would've had time to dodge.

As I finally turned to regard whoever was running in the halls, I realised my mistake. The last thing I saw was a turquoise fist flying at me, accompanied by a shouted, "Fuck off and die, pervert!"

~ 24 ~

An unfamiliar ceiling swam into focus, at least as in-focus as anything can get with my ruined eyes, and it felt like somebody was dancing along to the pony polka inside my fucking skull. I tried to sit up, but my entire body was unsteady, and my lower back on my right side was killing me. The only thing the action rewarded me with was a wave of nausea.

"Where..." I murmured, rolling onto my side. Things weren't coming any more into focus, and I realised that I wasn't wearing my glasses. "What happened?"

A familiar voice greeted me, although it was hard to focus on it over the pounding in my skull. "I was hoping you could answer that question," said Nurse Redheart as she stepped into view. Why's she a monkey though. "You were found unconscious near the library a few minutes ago. How do you feel?"

I struggled to focus on her face. "Like ponies are going to start talking if we keep seeing each other like this." I brought a hand—Not a hoof?—to my cheek, and winced as I felt the welt forming there. "My head is killing me."

She sat down on the foot of the bed with a clipboard and a pen. "You may have a concussion," she said in a quiet voice. "Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?" It was hard to shake my head without rubbing the welt on my left cheek into the pillow beneath my head. "Right, can you tell me your name?"

"Anonymous Flicker," I replied instantly. After a moment, I blinked. Wait, is it? "That doesn't sound right, but... I also don't hate it. Seems like a lot of ponies with marks for magic have two names."

Shaking her head, she jotted down a note on that chart of hers. "Let's try focusing on a different question," she said after staring at me for a few moments. I couldn't make out her expression at distance, but she seemed just as confused as I felt. "Can you tell me the date?"

I had to think about that one for a moment. Oh, right. I'm not in Equestria right now."Um... The seventh of October, last time I saw a calendar, but I think time works differently here?" I struggled to remember what Celestia said. "I think Princess Celestia told me it was the Nineteenth of December here."

She scribbled some more notes down. "And do you recall what were you doing before you lost consciousness?" she finally asked. "There's no wrong answer, dear."

What was I doing? "I remember I was in the library, doing my part in setting a trap for Anon-a-Miss," I said after a moment of reflection. "I think they took the bait, but after that... I don't remember leaving the library."

"So you didn't see who hit you then," she said. When I shook my head, she sighed. "You were found unconscious down the hall from the library. You hadn't even been gone two minutes, according to Miss Cheerilee. On top of the mark where you were hit in the face, someone kicked you in your lower back, so if you find blood in your urine later, it's most likely nothing to be alarmed about. Other than that, you seem to have only a mild concussion."

Lovely, I thought to myself as my stomach churned once more. Who the fuck sucker-punches an eight-year-old filly?

She gave me an apologetic look as she stood up from the foot of the bed. "There's a bucket on the floor beside the bed if you need it," she said, moving over to her desk. I think she had a laptop there, but without my glasses on it was hard to tell. "You wouldn't be the first person to need it after a head injury."

After that, I was left to lie there on the bed. The lights were thankfully dim, because I can just imagine how much fucking worse my head would hurt if I had bright light shining in my eyes on top of this throbbing inside my skull. If I ever found out who hit me, I was going to break rule four—maybe the fire provision specifically. Actually, the rule specified ponies, so theoretically, aren't humans fair game?

While I was stewing on the bed and coming up with dark designs for my dumb-ass assailant, the nurse was there at her desk tapping away. I knew it was just her doing her job, but holy fuck the keys were loud. I almost wanted to pull the pillow over my head, if nothing else than to silence that incessant tapping, but at the same time, moving just made me even queasier.

In the end, I laid there trying to stay awake, right until the end of whichever period it now was. By then, the queasiness had gone away, and I no longer felt unsteady. I was able to locate my glasses, and my bag, and decided I was going to leave. But first, I thought, twisting around as far as I could, and tugging at my shirt, I need to change my top. There, on the back of my shirt, was someone's shoe-print.

Luckily, the infirmary bed had a privacy curtain, which I quickly pulled closed. I started pulling out stuff from my bag and setting it out on the bed. The white t-shirt I'd worn in the gym was slightly damp from sweat, although the jacket was surprisingly fine. With that in mind, I pulled out Sunset's journal, wrapped in my pyjamas, and took the other t-shirt. Surprisingly, the book didn't seem to be vibrating as if there were a fresh message, like it's counterpart had in Equestria. They must be busy on the other side and haven't had time to respond. Hopefully Sunset's getting the care she needs.

I stripped off my uniform blouse, threw on the t-shirt and the jacket. After a moment's thought, I also stripped off the pantyhose that'd come with my outfit. I didn't really feel like wearing it at the moment, so I threw it into my bag, alongside the book, my pyjama bottoms, and my uniform top. Finally, I took off the silver barrette that was in my hair, slid it into my jacket pocket, and pulled the long parts into a loose ponytail once more.

"Hey, Nurse Redheart," I said with an appreciative smile. When she turned in her chair to regard me, I threw my backpack over my shoulder and started to walk towards the door. "I'm taking off. Thanks for looking after me."

It wasn't worth my time to wait for her response. I stepped out into the hall, and started wandering, hands in pockets and shoulders squared. First thing's first, I need to find my way over to the office, I mused as I stopped at a water fountain for a drink. After a stray thought, I held my free hand in the stream of water, and slicked back my hair.

Turns out, the infirmary was just around the corner from the library, which was fortuitous to me. It meant I had a lot less time to spend under these bright fluorescent lights. It was a lot easier for me to navigate my way back to the office from here. Again, there was nobody out in the halls, but this time I didn't feel particularly intimidated by that fact. I found myself hoping someone would try to jump me. Nobody was around, though.

After a few minutes, my headache was finally starting to abate somewhat. Just in time, too, since the office doors were suddenly right in front of me. It was a glass door, so my reflection was visible in it. Between the bruise on my cheek, the swept-back hair, and the baggy jacket, I looked almost like a different person. Hell, if not for the skirt, the gentle swell of my bust, and the long ponytail, I could easily have passed as an admittedly effeminate boy right then. It helps that I look like I'm itching for a fight.

When I pushed open the door with my foot, Raven did a double-take. "Are you... alright?"

I shrugged and glanced at Principal Celestia's door. "Been better," I replied. "The boss lady free?"

She gave me an uneasy look, and then said "Miss Celestia and Miss Luna were just getting ready to make an announcement regarding the security footage shared to the school's MyStable page."

"Ah, perfect," I murmured, walking past her desk. She tried to say something, but I just ignored her. Upon strolling up to the door, my hand was already outstretched and ready to knock. "Knock knock."

"Come in, Emerald," came Principal Celestia's response. I did just that, shutting the door behind me before dropping my bag on the same chair I'd sat in this morning. I half expected her to greet me with a 'You look like hell,' but instead she was straight to business. "As you've no doubt been made aware, Anon-a-Miss has taken your bait, and we have posted the security footage from this morning."

"We were getting ready to make an announcement when we heard that you were in the infirmary, so we chose to wait until Redheart let you go," Miss Luna added. "I'm glad to see you're alright, if a bit haggard."

I was more than a little tempted to snark at her about my concussion, but I thought better of it. Instead, I walked right up to Celestia's desk and sat my palms atop it. "I was wondering if I could make that announcement for you, at least in part," I asked, regarding them both with a mischievous smile. "I feel like I owe it to the student body to clear the air about Sunset Shimmer, why I'm really here, and who I really am."

While those two conferred in whispers, I glanced out the window, chewing my lip as I tried not to eavesdrop. I knew exactly what I wanted to say, and how to say it. I only needed the opportunity to do so. They both looked uncomfortable, with the idea.

I'm sure they're gonna say no.

Much to my surprise, Principal Celestia withdrew that same microphone I'd seen just this morning, and sat it on the desk. "Don't make us regret this," she said. She depressed a button, and spoke into the mic. "Attention staff and students; please stand by for a special announcement." She released the broadcast button, and then gave me one more stern look. "No vulgarity, please."

I nodded as she slid the mic across the desk. "You have my word," I said with a smile. Leaning down closer to the microphone, I depressed the button. "Greetings, staff and students of Canterlot High School," I said with a voice of faux cheer. "Those of you who've encountered me have probably been told my name is 'Emerald Flicker'. That said, the reason given this morning for my presence here was not entirely truthful."

I picked up the mic and planted my ass on Celestia's desk, much to the woman's indignant grumble. "The truth is that I am actually here on behalf of your good friend—and my guardian—Princess Twilight Sparkle, to address this Anon-a-Miss situation," I said, my voice becoming more sombre as I went. "So, so many of you were convinced that this had to be the work of my countryman, the former delinquent known as Sunset Shimmer. Despite the fact that she would gain absolutely nothing from turning on all of you now, after working so hard to win back your trust, you were quick to condemn her.

"Unfortunately, just as she tried so many times to tell you, Anon-a-Miss could not possibly have been her." I struggled to keep the anger out of my voice, as I gave Luna and Celestia a sidelong glance. Hell, I found myself wrapping my index finger in some of the slack from the microphone cable. "As of this morning, shortly after six to be more precise, Sunset Shimmer returned to Equestria, and the portal was once-again closed behind her. Before meeting me at the portal, she had no hint as to my identity, and thus could not possibly have scheduled this morning's initial post."

Heaving a sigh, I kicked at the air. "I don't know who tried to push her down the stairs, or defaced her desk in Mr. Noteworthy's room, or ruined her locker and several posters, but if you feel even an ounce of guilt over tormenting an innocent young woman, turn yourselves in." Celestia tapped at a watch on her wrist and then drew a spiral in the air with her finger. Yeah, I know; hurry it up. "That brings me to the important bit. My name in Equestria isn't Emerald Flicker; it's Anon, derived from Anonymous, meaning of unknown name. You're making a mockery of my name, Anon-a-Miss, and ruining lives in doing so. I don't know who you are, or why you were so intent frame Sunset Shimmer and destroy her social life, but you've lost. By taking the submission I made after lunch, you've ensured her innocence is undeniable. Turn yourselves in before you hurt anyone else."

I released the broadcast button, and set the microphone back in front of Celestia. She reached for it, but I reached back to depress the button. "Oh, and before I forget," I growled. "Whoever sucker-punched and concussed the eight-year-old filly, your Mom's a hoe."

Entry 25

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I didn't end up following through with my assurance that I would catch up with Fluttershy, or accompany her to her final two classes. Instead, I'd set myself up in the office's meeting room with the lights dimmed. Although I'd shown a bunch of bravado in making my earlier announcement, I didn't feel amazing if I was being honest with myself. My head was still killing me, and the nausea had returned.

That said, my hands weren't idle while I sat there. I'd unpacked Sunset's journal and set it aside so that I could read it immediately if it rang. In the meantime, I'd taken out one of the empty notebooks, and was in the process of recreating the contents of my magic notebook. Every rune that I'd ever studied, memorised, and written down in the book sitting on the bedside table back in Equestria, I reproduced on paper there. Even as human, I could still feel my special talent guiding my hand. A special talent is such an intrinsic part of being a pony, so to strip one of it through transformation would be to strip away a part of their very identity.

Once I had my entire repertoire of runic knowledge reproduced for reference, I started charting out some ideas for personal defence. I didn't fancy trying to reproduce whatever spell my talent allowed me to instinctively create in when Chrysalis tried to snatch me up that time; at the time, it'd left me a mess. No, instead, I sketched out a few other ideas that I felt better equipped to construct.

The first idea I sketched out was something a bit outside what I'd experimented with thus far, but had a pretty good understanding of. It fell into the category of a buff or an enchantment. Whereas before I'd played with the evocation school through the use of conjuration, affecting things outside, enchantment could either benefit the self or another depending on the spell's set of programmed instructions. More to the point, they weren't something I'd need to continue to channel through a runic array; it was purely fire and forget.

The core parts of this spell were amplification of exerted force. My first thought was an exponential amplification—effectively squaring the amount of force my body could exert—but I found two problems with that. Firstly, assuming the amount of force I personally exerted in a punch as a human was only 136 kilos of force on the lowball estimate, that'd turn into 18,496 kilos of force, or 18.496 metric tonnes. That sort of impact would probably kill anyone I hit with it.

That in itself would lead into all sorts of other catastrophic effects. Even with magic, Newton's—sorry, Neighton's—Laws of Motion still came into play. The recoil from such a punch would probably shatter every bone in my body, to say nothing of the tissue damage. As such, I built a limiter to cap that force at one and a half tonnes: half again as strong as a horse's kick. It'd be enough to do some real damage, but not nearly enough to be catastrophic to a living being.

Still, even that could put a strain on my body. But the thing about magic is that though the laws of physics still apply, you can still bend them with the right effects. For example, if you were to invert or redirect the counter-force exerted in reaction to that 1.5 tonne output, you could technically get away with it unscathed. Still, it has to go somewhere, or else you've lost skeleton privileges. If I had more time to study, I could probably even have dispersed the counter-force into the air as excess magic.

The last major bit were the fail-safes. Until I could finalise the spell, the enchantment's duration was set to thirty seconds. No point in trapping myself in a state where I can't pick up anything without crushing it—or worse, exploding my bones. Similarly, before the force multiplier became a straight-up squaring, I'd have to test iterations going from powers of two. That would also help ensure that I could find faults in the redirection before it got too powerful.

To tell the truth, I wasn't even sure that I would have the opportunity to test it; I was doing it mostly to serve as a distraction. Just prototyping this fractal mess helped take my mind off the pain and the fact that some dumb motherfucker was too cowardly to attack me from the front. Never mind the matter of Emerald Breeze. No idea how the fuck I should handle that.

I idly twirled the pencil as I thought out the other spell. This one was closer to what I was used to, and thus a lot easier for me to construct. Built around the conjuration of air, the spell would create a projectile of condensed air. I'd need to find out the speed rubber bullets or bean-bag rounds—I don't want to kill anyone!—were fired before I set the velocity, but when triggered, it was set to launch the projectile from just beyond the tip of my index finger. I reckoned a sphere about 9 millimetres in diameter would be good for that. If only I knew how to program in a somatic component; how fucking cool would it be to point my finger at someone, say "Bang!" and fire an air bullet at them?

A smile started to work its way across my face as I set the pencil down. This is so fucking stupid, I mused, drumming my fingertips across the table. I have no guarantee that this sort of magic will even work, and here I am tailoring runic spells specifically for this human form. The fuck is wrong with me?

The sound of intermittent buzzing filled my ears, and I found myself cringing at how droning it sounded. Finally, I thought as I dragged the book over. I never thought I'd be so impatient to hear back from them, but with that time differential, it could've been a few days to a week already. Immediately, I dragged the book over and puled it open.

'Emerald',

I've spoken with Cadance at length regarding your situation with Emerald Breeze. She suggested that, as a mother, she'll know deep down you aren't her daughter should you meet her. Such a meeting could at least provide her with a sort of closure. It's not a pretty situation, to be sure, and it could very well be a no-win situation whether you agree to meet her or not. Although I'd rather the knowledge of the Equestria's existence, and the presence of its magic, be contained to Canterlot High's students and staff if you can help it, I understand that the choice is ultimately yours. I only ask that you remember to keep kindness in your heart, and try to make her smile if you can.

As for the matter of the Emerald Flicker, I've already sent out information requests to major cities across Equestria cross-referencing her name, sex, colours, and tribe, as well as the mother's name. Due to the way bureaucracy works, I cannot guarantee when—or if—we'll receive any results. That said, if I find anything, I promise not to act on it without you.

Sunset isn't comfortable discussing the human Emerald Flicker with me, or writing it down in this book. Whatever happened, she's been very private about. Although she's promised that she'll tell you everything—if you haven't already found out—when you come back, I worry that it might be for the best if you don't push her for that information.

If you're already seeing results, then Harmony was right to choose you to solve this friendship problem. Please keep me appraised of your progress, and if there's anything that we can do from this side that's within our power, we'll try to help out.

Twilight Sparkle

I shook my head as I read the message. So much of it was a non-answer. Maybe the only helpful bit was that she said that she'll try to help in whatever way she can from that side. She didn't even tell me how Sunset was doing. That could be bad or good. For that matter, there were also no messages passed along from Starlight. Was she still not back from her own mission? Or was she helping Twilight take care of Sunset?

Conveniently, there was a pen left on the table from whatever actual meeting was last held here. Lucky me, I thought as I penned out a response. I knew exactly what I needed to say, and wasted no time putting it down on paper.

Twilight

Give my thanks to Cadance for her role in coming up with that advice. I think I would have eventually come to the same decision, but it helps knowing that she agrees. It's validating.

Now, I've got some good news, some bad news, and some disconcerting news. I'll start you off with the good news first. With the help of Vice Principal Luna and the CHS staff, I've pretty much definitively proven to the student body that Sunset Shimmer cannot be Anon-a-Miss. If Sunset were to stroll in the door tomorrow morning, I think she's got a better chance of getting apologies than getting lynched.

The bad news is that I'm no closer to finding out the true identity of Anon-a-Miss. I asked Wallflower Blush, a member of the yearbook committee, what she knew about Sunset, and truth be told she actually didn't believe this could be Sunset's doing. They've been too indiscriminate in their rumours, and she said this whole farce provides absolutely zero benefit to Sunset. So all I've got is a suggestion that it might be one of the younger students.

Bit of a silver lining to that whole conversation. I know she said she hated Sunset because she has trouble being seen by others while Sunset was able to win back the school's trust, but she was still willing to go to bat for her. I think maybe if the other five girls don't work out—if they can even face her after stabbing her in the back and twisting the knife when they called her family, so close to Christmas—maybe she can give Wallflower a shot. After this, I think all eyes in the school will be on Sunset, and if she can get some attention by associating with her, it might help her with her own self-image.

The disconcerting news is that some dumb mot so-and-so decided it would be a bright idea to sucker-punch me in the hallway outside the library not long after Anon-a-Miss posted my bait. Clearly someone didn't like finding out that someone who was a dude in their previous life shared a locker-room with them. 'cause, y'know, if there's something eight-year-old fillies are known for, it's their lasciviousness. Never mind the fact that I can hardly see a thing without my glasses on. So yeah, I'm a bit concussed right now.

That might be why I lost my cool a bit when I revealed over the PA that Anon-a-Miss couldn't have been Sunset. I might have put all the students on blast for being so goddamn gullible, and advised anyone who felt even a modicum of guilt over the harassment, attempted murder, and vandalism to turn themselves in. I even revealed my name to the school while calling out for Anon-a-Miss to turn themselves in.

In the event that I am once again attacked—I did call my attacker's mother a hoe over the PA—I would like to inform you that I am invoking my self-defence caveat to Rule #4. I don't need any more brain trauma, and if it takes me breaking someone's knees to keep it that way, so be it.

I do have one request of you. If you think it's possible, could you translate the spell Zone of Truth into its runic components and put it in a Weaved Spiral format? In the event that Anon-a-Miss doesn't come forward, I would like to have the option of interrogating the student body alongside Celestia and Luna if possible. I will likely be be using a clay disc for this, so it might be necessary to add on the energy storage component from my runic lock experiment; it should be the page of my magic notebook with the bookmark sticking out, everything being notated on the opposite page as usual. Please also check to see if anyone can manually open the cereal box on my bedside table yet.

Anonymous Flicker

The moment I set the pen down and shut the book, I saw that I wasn't alone. At some point, Vice Principal Luna had come in, and was now standing over me. More specifically, she seemed to be looking at the still-open notebook with my diagrams. It was opened to the buff spell, where I needed to go back and correct my formulae.

"It's strangely beautiful," she said, her eyes slowly following each property and its derived properties. I had to admit that she wasn't wrong; the more complex a spell in the Weaved Spiral format got, the more likely you were to lose yourself looking at it. "What does it mean?"

Reclining back in the chair I'd appropriated for myself, I stretched and stifled a yawn. "It's the blueprint of a spell in an obscure format of magic," I explained. "If this were engraved in a surface, such as the dirt or clay plate, and had mana pumped through it, the spell would trigger and perform whatever instructions are laid out in the spiral. This specifically is a beta for a spell intended to amplify one's strength by a power of two. At current, it's only a straight doubling until I can test it and ensure its safeguards are operational and working as planned."

With a shrug, I gestured to Sunset's journal. "I was just writing a status update to fill in Aunt Twilight," I redirected. "I put in a request to her for a spell that could help us find the culprit if they don't come forward. If it turns out runic magic works on this side of the divide, I wanna get this shut down hard." A sigh slipped out as I shook my head. "No word on Sunset's status, and honestly, I won't blame her if she chooses to stay in Equestria."

She sighed as well, looking out the door. "Celestia and I will be leaving the building at six," she murmured, facing her back to me. "I know you said you were content staying in the school library as Twilight did, but with your concussion, I think my sister and I would rest easier if you stayed with us tonight." She turned slightly, holding up a hand before I could choke out an answer. "I'm not saying that you have to come with us; just think about it, and if you decide against being alone, be back here at six." She looked slightly relieved when she continued. "That said, several students have already come forward either confessing to providing information to Anon-a-Miss, or some of the lesser harassment towards Sunset, so we need this room for a staff meeting. After everything that has happened today—and over the last few weeks—we need to have a staff meeting to address the failings of how this situation has been handled, how severe the punishments should be, and draft safeguards to rely on in the future."

I nodded, moving my stuff back into my bag. No fucking shit, Lady! Luckily, I smart enough to internalise that thought after having their couch being on offer. Telling her just how badly she and her school's faculty screwed the pooch. Things had gone so far off the rails that it likely had its own pooch-screwing zip code. She probably knew that too, so me rubbing it in was just unneeded.

"I'd rather you stay in the office where someone can keep an eye on you, since you were assaulted on campus," she said as I slipped past her. "That said, I understand if you would rather move about, all I ask is that you avoid being alone with anyone you don't implicitly trust."

~ 25 ~

People were steering clear of me as I stalked the halls of the school, looking for something to do. It was clearly after school now, but there were still plenty of students around. Extracurricular activities and clubs, probably. Those who weren't whispering the name Anonymous—not Anon-a-Miss, though—looked pretty fucking chastened. Nobody was making eye-contact, and a path seemed to clear ahead of me. As you should, you fucking morons.

It was hard to know whether the next bit was good or bad, though; there were several scared-looking students dotted through the halls as I sought Twilight's human friends. A few students looked almost ill, but I think the worst-looking group was that same trio of girls I saw back in the library. They froze the minute they saw me walking past, rubbing at the welt on my cheek. The pale one was even started shaking when she saw I was looking at them.

Where the fuck do I know them from? I wondered as I peeked into the cafeteria. There was Spitfire, and the other Wonderbolt-lookalikes, along with that turquoise blonde who was giving me the absolute stink-eye; no sign of Rainbow or Pinkie. I mean, the pale girl in the striped tee and magenta coat almost reminds me of...

The realisation hit me like a tonne of bricks. Oh fuck me. Those three are the Crusaders! Now that I thought about it, that was Scootaloo I bumped into in the hall when I left the band room. How could I have not recognised them before? It was painfully obvious looking back. The only thing that I could figure is that I didn't connect them to my friends because I wouldn't have expected to see them at a high school setting; an elementary school would've made more sense. It's this weird fucking age disparity in this world, I swear.

Stepping into the cafeteria, I strolled up to the group—I think they were soccer jocks, like Rainbow—not bothering to give Lightning Dust the satisfaction of any acknowledgement. "Hey, Spitfire," I said in a casual tone, as if I hadn't just lit a fire under the student body's collective asses. "Any idea where Rainbow Dash and her other four friends are? I don't imagine Applejack and Rarity have gone home without their little sisters."

She nodded, though if she thought it was odd that I knew the two had sisters, she made no comment. "If they're not in the band room, check the gymnasium," she answered, cool as a cucumber. "If we all really did have the wool pulled over our eyes about Sunset, she's probably looking at burning off some steam. I think Rainbow's group was the harshest to her."

"Thanks, Spitfire," I replied with a false smile. You have no idea just how harsh they were, Spits.

As I spun on my heel to leave, she spoke up again. "Is it true that someone jumped you?" I nodded, not looking back. "We'll look into it, right guys?" Spitfire said to a chorus of agreement, although I'm not sure the entire group was in on it. "It's so cowardly to get the jump on someone—especially someone smaller like you—and then leave them unconscious in a hallway. Totally uncool."

Part of me wanted to suggest they hold whoever did it down and let me test my new spells on them, but that was a bit too vengeful for my tastes. Plus, I don't think I actually had the stomach for human experimentation. "As long as there's no violence," I called back as I exited the cafeteria. "If they're scared enough of a little girl to hit her with a sneak attack, rather than look for a fair fight, they can't be all that tough."

Sounds like someone's grinding their teeth back there. That girl had an unbridled amount of hatred radiating off of her, but she surely had a better places to direct that anger than little old me. If she was smarting about Anon-a-Miss, well, I'm sure she'd be better served directing that inwards or towards the real culprit.

The first thing I did was make my way out in the direction of the band room. The girls that I now recognised as Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo were no longer where they'd been standing around chatting. Why did they seem so scared of me? It didn't really make much sense to me. The three in Equestria were leery of me at the start because I'd gotten AJ locked up, but after I stood up to Ivory and Ebony on Bloom's behalf, we got along great. Hell, all of their mathematics grades had gone up since I started helping out in class.

The band room was a bust; in fact, it wasn't even open. The doors were locked up tight, and all the lights were out. Just for good measure, I pressed my ear up against the door to check if they were just hiding in there with the lights off, chatting in the darkness that probably mirrored their moods at that particular moment. Not a sound was to be heard.

My next stop wasn't the gym, but rather the arts room on a bit of a whim. While the art teacher wasn't present, there was a teacher's aide closing up for the day who was more than willing to entertain my question. Specifically, I was interested to see if they had any modelling clay that they didn't mind selling me. Apparently they had a ball of scrap leftover from the day's lesson that would likely just go to waste otherwise. It didn't matter that it was a mishmash of colour, wadded into one ball a bit larger than my fist and stuffed in a resealable plastic bag. Didn't even want anything as payment, so into the jacket pocket it went.

If I start experimenting with using magic in this world, I probably shouldn't use an untested buff or a projectile. I mused, making my way towards the gymnasium. The only stop I bothered making was to switch out to my sneakers, as the janitorial staff would probably hate seeing my loafers scuffing up the floor with their black soles. Good thing I've pretty much committed conjure light to memory.

Rather than go in through the women's changing room and ditch my bag in an unused locker like I did this morning, I went in through the main gym doors. Bingo! Just as I expected, Rainbow Dash was aimlessly kicking a soccer ball against the wall, occasionally stopping to pick it up and stare at it as if it held all the answers to her problems. Meanwhile, Applejack was sitting on the stage, Fluttershy and Rarity both crying into her shoulders. I wasn't close enough to hear what she was saying to them, but she didn't quite look like she was believing her own words. It probably isn't gonna be okay, is it? But you're lying to them because the alternative scares you.

Then you had Pinkie Pie. I was almost sympathetic enough to affix 'poor' as a descriptor to that girl in that moment, but she was stuck in an emotional quagmire that was partially her own fault for stumbling into in the first place. She was sitting in a corner of the gymnasium, hugging her knees and burying her face in her arms. That wasn't enough to hide her hair, which had somehow gone straight... She can't have taken a straightening iron to her hair that quickly, could she? No, this is probably a Pinkie property.

Unsurprisingly, Dash was the first to really notice me, after she kicked the ball a bit too hard and it bounced over to me. It rolled to a stop by my foot, but rather than kick it back, I mimicked something I'd seen other students do during the kickball game; I gave it some momentum with a tap of my foot, and then thrust the toe of that same foot beneath the ball, popping it into the air where I caught it.

"Here to rub it in some more, Anon?" she snarled, her fists clenched at her side. "Didn't you say enough over the PA?"

I just shook my head, continuing across the gym. "Nah; if I really wanted to to make you all feel bad," I said, underhand tossing the ball to her, "I'd have called you all out specifically during the announcement. As much as it might vent my own frustration, though, it's not constructive."

Applejack looked up at me with a hateful look. "Ya'll knew from the start she was innocent, didn't you?" she accused. "Ya knew and didn't tell us! Even lied about why ya were here!"

Again, I nodded, and upon reaching the stage, I sat my bag upon it and clambered up. "True," I agreed. "I could've told all of you, and was even considering it this morning, but can you honestly tell me that this morning you would have believed me?" It took a moment of rooting through the bag to get out Sunset's journal, and find the letter from Twilight. I tossed the rolled-up scroll, its wax seal still intact despite being shuffled around in a rucksack all day, over to AJ. Rainbow joined them, but Pinkie stayed where she was. "That was meant to be given to you guys this at lunch, and from there you probably would've been able to infer exactly why I was here.

"After my talk with Rainbow there in the showers, and her earlier display riling the other girls against Sunset, I changed my mind," I said. While they were all poring over the letter from Twilight, and looking more and more guilty as they read it, I opened Sunset's journal to her first letter mentioning Anon-a-Miss—the night of her second, and potentially last slumber party with the girls.

"Now, I'm not doing this to hurt you guys or make you feel any worse than you already do," I said, sliding the open book over to them. "Oh, you will feel bad after reading this, but I want you all to understand that I'm showing you this to show you what you're fighting to fix." I thought about digging out my notebook, but set that idea aside, instead pulling my legs into a half-lotus. "To emphasise the importance of her last response to Twilight, I need to impress upon you that when I met Sunset, at least one of her wrists was bandaged. Make of that what you will."

While they were busy reading, I decided to do something I probably should've done this morning. Shutting my eyes, I turned my attention inward. Back when Twilight was finally getting me ready to studying magic in earnest, she'd made me read Your Horn and You. One of the exercises in that book was one intended to make a caster more aware of their thaumic system, and the natural flow of mana through their body, in addition to guiding and channelling it. In the exercise, it asked the reader to cast a spell—even just a formless concentration of magic would do—and while holding that, they were supposed to mentally follow the flow of mana back to its source. From there, they'd follow its circulation throughout their being.

Now, that wasn't exactly something I could do in this body. That being said, it wasn't a useless exercise here. One's core, although a metaphysical construct, existed alongside one's heart. It was theorised by some that mana was one portion spiritual energy, and several portions processed magic, so it made sense that the body's font of life would share its location with its conceptual magic engine. As such, the first step of the exercise could be skipped.

This body... it did have an extant thaumic system, but its flow was almost nonexistent. Oh, all my mana was still sitting in my reservoir, but it was inert and thick like molasses. So what was a girl to do? Think, Anon; I 'Ponied Up' because of that heartsong, and the others apparently did so in relation to enthusiasm. What did emotion, enthusiasm, and music have in common? Excitement!

I started to imagine my magical reservoir growing turbulent, swirling like the clouds caught up in a hurricane's storm front. It took some focus, but I began to feel a familiar warmth spreading through my chest. My ears began to tingle and flick as I started mentally guiding that energy throughout my body. The whispering of the girls over there was more noticeable, and if I strained, I could hear them clearly. A quick touch atop my head even found familiar, fuzzy ears poking out of my hair. I felt more like me, with my magic flowing naturally.

Opening my eyes, I continued consciously circulating that vital energy throughout my body. Holding up my right hand in front of my face, I pushed a bunch of mana into it. It was faint, but an anaemic aura matching my characteristic blue magic manifested around my hand until I released the flow of magic. Now for the big test.

From my jacket pocket, I withdrew the bag of clay and separated a chunk of it. It was soon rolled into a smooth ball and flattened out into an even disc across my left palm. Using the edge of my index finger's nail in place of a proper tool, I carefully inscribed the formula for Conjure Light from memory, although instead of instructing it to conjure above my head as I normally would, I instead etched in the moon-glyphs for above left hand. I was somewhat glad that I'd sought out such words despite the sheer unlikelihood of needing them.

I glanced over at the girls. They all seemed like they were fighting back tears—well, Dash, AJ, Rarity, and Flutters. Pinkie was still sitting in a corner away from the rest of the group. She hadn't even bothered getting up to read the journal with the others. Yeah, she definitely already knows just how much they all fucked up.

Sighing, I hopped off the stage and made my way over to her. All the while, I kept on circulating that mana inside me. It was harder when moving because although it too was inert, this world definitely had its own magical field, and it was quite content to be inert. It was actively resisting my attempts to passively pull in magic from the environment. Here's hoping this'll work.

Tapping pinkie's foot with my own, I crouched down to her level and pumped mana into my left hand, focusing especially on the clay on it. Sure enough, a small orb of blue light flickered into existence over my hand, casting everything in a blue glow. "Hey, Pinkie; I know you're feeling blue right now," I said in a soft voice when she looked up at me with reddened eyes, "but you looked like you could use a bit of light in your life."

I internally cringed at the pun I'd made, but I could see the corners of her mouth twitch ever-so-slightly upward. "I appreciate you trying to make me feel better with puns," she replied in a monotone that didn't sound all that appreciative to me, "but I don't think I deserve to laugh after the huge mistake I made. I'm a horrible friend."

I mean, you're not wrong, but I can't exactly say that when I'm trying to cheer you up and motivate you. "You definitely made a mistake," I agreed, keeping my tone soft, but loud enough that the others could hear as well. I actually felt kinda guilty manipulating her like this, but somehow, it seemed to me that getting her and the others to help in fixing their fuck-up was the greater good that overrode personal feelings. "You had the wool pulled over your eyes, and did exactly what Anon-a-Miss wanted you to. Now that the blinders are off, though, I reckon you can actually help fix this mess."

I reached out my right hand, and set it atop hers. "Will you help me catch this no-good, dirty scoundrel, Pinkie Pie?" I asked; for this, I at least didn't have to fake emotion or use falsehoods to stroke her ego. If this Pinkie were anything like 'mine', she definitely knew the who's who of the school. "You know just about everyone in the school, right? Between you and me, I think we have a good chance of catching Anon-a-Miss."

She stared at me for a good few moment, her eyes occasionally darting from my eyes, to the glowing ball of magic in my hand, and then the hand I'd sat top hers. After a few moments, she sucked in a deep breath, and gave me a determined look. Hell, her hair suddenly seemed a bit curlier—not full-on Pinkie poof, but close. More than that though, I felt hope radiating off of her. It might've just been a misguided hope that Sunset might forgive her, but it was a positive feeling that could influence others.

"You're right," she said, grabbing my right hand with hers. I stood up, pulling her up along with me, and then wrapping her arms around me. Unlike the first time I met Equestria's Pinkie, I successfully resisted the reflexive compulsion to throw her. "I can't even begin to make her an apology cake or throw her an 'I'm Sorry!' party if I can't even help catch the baddies!"

While my face was being smushed into the taller girl's collar bone, a hand clamped down on my shoulder. This in turn made me jump and break my concentration on mana circulation. The light spell collapsed above my hand as I turned my head to find Rainbow's own bandaged hand on my shoulder. I didn't even hear her coming!

"You're not gonna leave us outta this," she said with a look of resolve. Behind her stood Applejack, Rarity, and Fluttershy, who was clutching the journal to her chest. "She might never forgive us, but you were right this morning. The school's on the verge of exploding, and Sunset's no longer there for them to easily blame. After what we did to her, we owe it to her to bring this to an end before anyone else gets hurt."

"Jus' tell us what ya want us ta do," Applejack added. "We'll get it done."

Once Pinkie released me, I wadded up the clay in my hand and added it back to the bag. Fluttershy passed the journal back to me, and I went back over to my bag to start packing stuff away. "I'm gonna be crashing on Celestia and Luna's couch tonight," I explained. "I'm hoping Twilight will get back to me with that spell I requested, which'll make things easier, but in the event that she can't do it, I want you guys to brainstorm who Sunset hurt that might be seeking revenge. Whoever might have reason to hurt her, no matter how slight. If you need something to soften the hurt, I hear your friend Tree Hugger—" I looked at Fluttershy specifically when I said this. "—has some stuff that could take the edge off while you work."

I threw my bag over my shoulders and walked away from the group. Pinkie's hope had spread to the others, just as I'd expected, and it was building into real resolve. Casting one last look over my shoulder, I called back, "In the meantime, I've got another bomb to defuse."

~ 25 ~

Things all seemed to be lining up quite nicely, I'd decided when I found myself standing outside the principal's office once more. Magic worked in this world, albeit sluggishly. It'll probably be more responsive here the more that I use it and stir it up, but until the local magic lets me start drawing upon it, I've gotta hope that my body is still metabolising sugar the way it does when I'm a pony. Then there was the fact that Anon-a-Miss was on the ropes, and Twilight's friends were willing to work to fix their colossal fuck-up. Hopefully by morning, they'd have something.

Pushing open the office door, I quietly greeted Ms. Inkwell and took a seat. I hadn't been gone too long, so Celestia and Luna were still in their staff meeting. That left me with nothing but free-time to rest and think. Rest was what I needed right about now. I'd been going since six am and it was something like four-ish now. Although I'd rested before coming over from Equestria, I was still starting to run on fumes. Even caffeine couldn't keep me going forever when I hadn't had a daytime snooze.

So as I leaned back in the chair I'd taken, I closed my eyes and decided to catch some quick shut-eye. It was doubtful I'd actually fall asleep, but at the very least they won't start to dry out. Funny; I haven't even been like this a day, and I'm already looking forward to going back to being an underdeveloped eight-year-old filly who can take an afternoon nap without judgement.

Still, what should I do about Emerald Breeze? She'd cause increased public scrutiny to the school if she couldn't get a proper answer. After what Twilight told me, I'm kinda surprised the government doesn't have eyes on the school after the Fall Formal and the Sirens, but I wasn't about to look a gift pony in the mouth. Knowledge of Equestria's existence was seemingly limited to just the school, and Twilight was intent to keep it that way for now. Increased scrutiny would likely reveal the existence of the portal, and Sunset living in this country as an illegal alien. Then portal would either have to be 'destroyed', or it would be relocated to some government facility for testing, stranding any Equestrian guests on this side, or any visiting humans in Equestria.

I'm going to have to meet with the woman after all, I realised with a sigh. What would be the best way to go about it? Have Celestia or Luna act as an intermediary? Or should I reach out to the woman myself through social media? No, I think that despite how well I've handled myself so far, giving myself that degree of autonomy would just result in me making things go from bad to worse.

Then there's the matter of what I even tell her. Twilight said to keep kindness in my heart and try to make her smile. Kindness and Laughter... She was pretty big on applying the six facets of Harmony, so what of the others? Generosity would be even agreeing to see her, and thinking of her rather than myself wouldn't it? Honesty was easy enough to apply. Just be as truthful as I can without volunteering anything that I can't speak for certain on. Magic could easily be demonstrated in displaying honesty. Now that I'm sure I can use it here, I could demonstrate a spell.

That left me a big problem. How in the fuck do I keep loyalty in mind?

I might've dozed off a bit at some point, because the next time I opened my eyes, it looked as though Celestia and Luna were packing up to go. In fact, Luna was smirking down at me. Although, that might've been because I'd apparently drooled a bit.

"Long day?" she asked in a joking tone. Despite her own long day, and how fucked her school was, she was still able to smile.

I nodded and wiped my face with the back of my hand. "The longest," I answered with a smile. "I got Rainbow, Fluttershy, Rarity, Pinkie, and Applejack working on figuring out who might've wanted to do such a shoddy frame-up job, got a concussion, discovered I can still work my magic in this world, pulled one over on the one that pulled the wool over the collective eyes of the school, had an anxiety attack, hit a dude in the face with a ball, got to eat meat again for the first time in several months, and may have saved someone's life this time."

Her smile faltered, and I realised that I'd let slip something I hadn't meant to bring up. "Pretend I ended that two words earlier, please," I said quickly. "Anyways, I think it'd be for the best if we arrange a meeting with Emerald Breeze. Just... can it be tomorrow? I'm so freakin' tired."

Celestia was suddenly at her sister's side. "Are you sure, Anon?" She actually looked kinda worried. "I'm sure we can find someway to placate her without you getting involved, if you don't feel like you're up to this.

I shook my head. "I don't think she'll let this go," I answered with a yawn. "Especially not with the way this is probably blowing up on social media. We need to show her that her daughter's image isn't being exploited by bad-faith actors, and I think the only way she's gonna get an answer she might accept is if she sees me."

Entry 26

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If someone had told me that Celestia and Luna didn't live in a cute little bungalow in the suburbs, I'd have balked. Maybe it was the fact that Luna drove a nice car, or the way that they dressed in well-made clothes, but it gave off a vibe that they had he money to spare. So when the coupe pulled up to a condo building, well, I was a bit surprised.

Still, we pulled into an underground parking structure, and came to a stop in a parking space marked with a number—designated parking by my guess. Celestia was the first out of the vehicle, and was in the process of pulling the passenger seat forward to let me out of the back seat. Luna, however, just sat in the driver's seat, her eyes locked on the rear view mirror. Why's she suddenly look so done with everything? I pondered as I caught her eyes narrowing.

"Celly," Luna said with a sigh. "Here comes trouble."

I turned in the back seat to look out the rear windshield. There, a few meters back from the driver's side, stood an older woman in what looked to be yoga attire with a blazer thrown over it, dragging along one of the younger teens I'd seen around the school. After a moment's consideration, I realised that the girl matched the pale pink earth pony filly with the violet and white mane from Cheerilee's class, Diamond Tiara. That would make the woman with her... the bitch head of the school board that wanted me permanently removed from the school—or at least her human equivalent. Spoiled Rich, I think she was called.

When I started to climb out of the back seat, Luna put a hand on my shoulder, startling me in the process. When I met her eyes with a questioning look, she just shook her head. Don't get involved?

"Ah, Ms. Celestia," Spoiled Rich said in a tone that made my stomach turn. "My precious Diamond has informed me that you've finally put together an investigation into this awful Anon-a-Miss mess." As I turned back to watch her exchange, I really did not like the smile on her face. "I take it you've finally given that demon freak enough rope to hang herself like I asked?"

Like she asked? I bristled at that. Was this fucking woman really the reason why the school's been doing nothing? It was probably a good thing that I was wearing my cloak with the hood up, because I could feel my magic beginning to roil within my chest. The hand that gripped the back of Luna's seat was glowing gently, and I quickly released it, lest we found out whether 'Ponying Up' channelled my earth pony strength. Wouldn't be great if I tore the nice vinyl seat-covering.

The dark look on Celestia's face told me how she really felt. "Actually, Spoiled, doing as you demanded has only caused harm and chaos," she growled back. "Your 'hands off' approach has caused the worst-recorded 'bullying' incident in Canterlot High School's entire history, and that is counting Sunset Shimmer's entire reign of terror."

This got a raised eyebrow from Mrs. Rich, and Diamond Tiara nervously tugged at the furred collar of her jacket. "I really don't like you taking that tone with me, Celestia." She crossed her arms beneath her ample bosom and drawing attention to how low-cut her blouse was. "Don't forget who keeps you employed."

"What a fucking Karen," I whispered to Luna. There was no telling if she got the reference, but I think the meaning came through, because that got a snort out of her. That was followed by a roll of her eyes that transcended words. She's always like this, isn't she? It even seemed like she was entertaining the idea of throwing the car into reverse and backing over her. Luckily, Diamond Tiara's presence put a stop to that.

I nearly jumped when Celestia slammed her palms down atop the roof of the car. "And I really don't like having a student getting death threats over something it turned out she never even did, or students spilling each other's dirty laundry, or all the vandalism that my school's faced since this has started," she yelled. "Someone outed one of my students—who, might I add has extremely conservative parents—as gay, and nobody's seen or heard from her since. Social services won't even lift a finger to help."

Holy shit, she is really going off.

"That's what your wait and see directive has wrought, Spoiled Rich; an innocent party blamed, harassed, threatened and drug through the mud to the point where she had to flee back home, and a school no closer to finding an actual culprit." That's when I saw the tears streaming down her cheeks. "I had to keep stepping out of a staff meeting this afternoon to deal with parents losing their collective minds, and demanding I step down."

Diamond Tiara looked very, very uncomfortable right now, When she finally noticed me in the back of the car, she got this spooked look, and tugged at the sleeve of her mother's blazer. I couldn't hear her whispering to her mother, but it didn't seem like the woman was all that interested in what her daughter had to say. No, the bitch looked incensed that Celestia dared speak to her like that.

"Maybe you should, Celestia." She sneered at Celestia. "But don't worry, we'll wait until the school board meeting after the new year to address your failures."

That actually got a laugh out of Celestia... a terrifying one. I'd never seen Princess Celestia lose her cool, but to hear her voice like this, and this brand of stress laughter sent chills down my spine. "Just try passing this all off on me, Rich," she said, howling with laughter. "Don't think I haven't been idle this entire time. I have everything documented. Every email where you threatened to cut our funds if we intervened, every assurance that the board backed your insistence that I keep my hands off, even the blackmail to turn an blind eye when your daughter was caught smoking—I have hard copy backups of it all, and had a member of the IT department create a digital back-up of all the emails independent of the standard ones. They've already promised they'll be willing to testify at the board meeting if you attempt to have that evidence destroyed. So if someone's going down for this, I won't be going down alone."

Mrs. Rich raised her hand, her pointer finger directed at Celestia. It looked like she had something she wanted to say, but she dropped her hand to her side, let out an angry huff and turned away. "We'll see about that," she shouted, grabbing her daughter by the wrist. "Come along, Diamond. I need to make some phone calls."

Wow, she really is a piece of work.

Once that awful human being was gone, Luna finally released my shoulder and shut off the engine. I didn't say a word as I crawled out of the back of the car, or when I fetched my bag from the trunk. Celestia clearly needed time to clear her head, and asking about that would've been counterproductive. Instead, I just followed the pair into an elevator. If the mood had been better, I'd have even have commented on how this was my first time in an elevator in all my lives. But no, I knew when the time for lighthearted jokes was and this wasn't it, so the entire trip I just stood there holding my bag in front of me.

The ride up to the third floor didn't seem to ease Celestia's mood at all. Even when they opened the door into their condo, Celestia just dazedly walked off into one of the rooms in the hallway off the kitchenette that the living room opened onto. Although Luna assured me that her sister would be fine while showing me to the couch I'd be crashing on, I was still shaken from having witnessed the Sun Horse's unflappable exterior crack—even if it was by proxy.

Their living area was already decorated for the holidays. Off in one corner of the room, there was a plastic tree decorated. The mantel of the electric fireplace was adorned with artificial pine garland and various holiday baubles. It was so cosy, welcoming, and served as a stark contrast to my entire reason for being here. Such a happy time was marred by such problems.

If this drags out too long, I'll be here for Christmas, I mused, setting my bag down on the couch and removing the sleeping bag strapped to the bottom. It was kinda hard to imagine. Even when I was Nemo, I don't think we ever properly celebrated that holiday; once I decided to start moving and never look back, it was all but guaranteed I'd never have the opportunity to celebrate it. The thought of being stuck here and celebrating with Celestia and Luna just didn't sit right with me.

So while Celestia did whatever she had to do in order to cool off, Luna let me change fully into my pyjamas so that I could give my stuff a cold water wash and dry. Then, I left it up to them to decide on a meal. As a guest, it wasn't my place to make suggestions, and most of the time I was content to eat whatever Spike, Twilight, or Starlight cooked. Sure, I could fry, grill, or smoke fish and venison—anything to survive on the road—but it's not like I really had anything else to contribute. Regardless, Luna took off somewhere after a few minutes, probably to get some take-out.

Maybe I should ask Spike to teach me how to cook some things when we get back?

In the meantime, I took out my notebooks, the clay, and a pencil, and sat down at their coffee table. Before I tore out a page from the back, I took a quick glance around the room. It looked like either Luna or Celestia did their work-outs in here too, if the rolled up yoga mat and the rack of various dumbbells were any indicator. That gives me some ideas.

I started by rolling out a ball of clay and pressing it flat on the sheet of paper. Although I'd found an opportunity to test my kinetic amp spell, I wanted to get a proper medallion of Conjure Light prepped first; that was something I could use to demonstrate magic for Emerald Breeze. Etching it out with a sharp pencil took me almost no time, and once it was done I carefully removed it from the paper and sat it aside.

Another ball was rolled out and flattened, and I reproduced the spell almost verbatim, substituting fire where light belonged. Before peeling this one off, I carefully carved a single notch out of the edge. Rather than setting this one aside, I sat it atop my left palm. I repeated my earlier exercise in exciting the mana in my reservoir. It came even easier this time around, likely due to having accidentally done so twice today and having done it once on purpose.

It was strange, seeing the blue flame flicker into life above my hand. I'd never really noticed before, but the spell itself radiated a fair amount of heat, as I could see the effect of convection in play, but it didn't really seem to affect me, even as I watched it bake the clay in real-time. It occurred to me that I'd never really paid much attention to the safeguards portion that I memorised. I'd always assumed that it merely mitigated spell backlash and served as a safety cut-off, but it made sense that it would contain safeties to protect the user from negative effects of the spell, like heat and/or UV light. Even the hot clay, which should have burned me, didn't feel too bad, even when I flipped the disc to get the other side.

With my free hand, I tore another piece of paper from the back of the notebook. Carefully, I lowered my left hand hand until the back of it touched the table beside the paper, and angled it so that the disc would slide off my hand when I eased my grip. I quickly moved my hand away as soon as the spell broke, and the clay disc clinked harmlessly to the table. After a moment, I allowed myself to flex my hand and pop the joints.

"I was wondering what you were up to in here," came Celestia's voice from behind me. I turned my head as I opened the notebook to my force amplifier spell, and saw that she'd taken a seat on the side of the couch opposite my bag. In one hand, she had a glass of wine, and in the other was a stress ball. "It smelled like fresh pottery in here." Raising the hand holding the glass, she pointed to the fire medallion. "What is it?"

As I started rolling out another ball, I explained the basics of runic magic and my special talent, and how 'Ponying Up' had given me the idea to test it in this world in the first place. Then, while she was still talking I etched out the spell-form of my prototype spell. That one took a lot more precision, and I just barely got it to fit and still have enough space to notch it on opposite sides.

She watched in interest as I stood up and moved over to the rack of weights as I continued my explanation. By this point, I'd moved on to how I planned to use magic discretely to convince Miss Breeze that I wasn't crazy for saying I came from a parallel reality where people she knew were magic horses. It took a few tries to find a weight that became uncomfortable for me to pick up one-handed, although it was doable two-handed. Nodding, I carried it over and set it atop the wooden coffee table, making sure she could see me straining.

"Aunt Twilight would probably be really upset with me if she knew I was testing an enchantment on myself," I remarked as I reached down to channel into the unbaked prototype. "That said, I'm working with two separate sets of safeguards and starting at a low multiplier."

When the spell triggered, everything started to feel odd... I didn't feel weightless, but I did feel lighter than normal. The spell shouldn't have done anything to me internally, I thought, reaching over to lift the weight. It came up quite easily one-handed. Too easy... it's almost as if gravity isn't having its intended effect on me. I blinked, looked down at the spell form, and almost smacked myself in the head. Thankfully, I had enough situational awareness to not do that while the spell was in effect.

With a smirk, I gently removed my glasses and quickly dropped into a handstand. "I guarantee if I'd done this at the full squaring effect, I'd be on the ceiling right now," I said, transferring to one hand before lowering my feet back to the floor as I felt the spell starting to wear off. "I forgot that gravity acting on the body, and the body standing up to it, was a force/counter-force scenario and didn't account for it. Imagine what that'd be like if the multiplier was a straight square and I was outside."

Moving around to the other side of the table, I sat back down and started adjusting the schematic in the notebook while Miss Celestia picked her jaw up off the floor. Because I didn't know the rune for gravity, I had to substitute the moon-glyph as I tacked exclude gravity onto the section regarding to counter-forces. Reading over my work, I transferred the changes over to the spell on the clay.

Sucking in a breath, I triggered it again, and stood up. I didn't feel the weird lightness in my body this time, although I still found it somewhat easier to move. It was strange; gravity was affecting me all the same, but I didn't have to exert the same amount of energy to move. Hell, if I tried, I could probably run faster now, too. Just to be sure, I lifted up the weight with ease. I wonder what my comfort limit is... Might not even get to go as far as testing the squaring here without Twilight going over my work.

~ 26 ~

By the time Luna got back with dinner—I don't care if the country is called Xiaoma, here, I'm calling it Chinese!—I'd come to a conclusion. Anything beyond an eight-times multiplier would likely require a major overhaul of the spell. At the four-times multiplier, their fifty-pound dumbbell felt like nothing, and at eight-times, I was able to easily lift an end of the couch with two fingers while Celestia was still on it. That was all well and good, but things started to get floaty around that point. It took almost no effort to generate lift, and although I didn't crash through the floor, I found I had to practically walk on my toes to move without sending myself flying.

I ended up not going any further with the multiplier, and increased the duration to three hundred seconds before baking it. I almost wrote a conjure water spell, but that would probably get messy. Instead, simply baked the light spell and put everything away. The clay ball was transferred to my bag, while the medallions went into the pocket of my robe.

I'd just been working up the courage to ask Celestia to look up how fast a rubber bullet flew when Luna entered with the food, and set it down on the coffee table. Probably for the best; after seeing me fuck around with a spell that makes me stronger, she'd probably catch on right away that I gearing up to defend myself with a fair degree of force. She might even have caught on already, as she clearly wasn't stupid.

Celestia stood up to fetch plates and cutlery from the kitchenette, while I moved my rucksack and sleeping bag from the couch so Luna could take a seat. I took a seat on the floor, on the opposite side of the coffee table from her. "I see you have pony ears again," she commented, curiosity and amusement rolling off of her. "Something up?"

My hands shot up to the top of my head, and sure enough, I was still sporting two fuzzy ears. I focused on stilling my mana and slowing circulation. Sure enough, I felt them begin to shrink and migrate back down through my hair to the sides of my head. "Sorry, didn't even notice I was still circulating my magic through my body," I apologised, much to the laughter of the two. "In my defence, back in Equestria, that's an unconscious thing; I stopped noticing I was doing it on purpose while was baking those spell plates with my flame spell."

Celestia set a plate and a fork down in front of me before passing her sister a plate—without any cutlery, I noted. She walked back into the kitchenette, and returned with a fresh wine glass for herself, and one for her sister. As for me, she set down a tall glass of water before taking her seat. She was definitely a lot more relaxed-feeling than when we first got in. Maybe watching me and my enthusiasm was soothing? Or maybe it reminded her of why she got into education in the first place.

"I wasn't sure what to get you, but since you said you used to be human, I just picked our regular order with extra Lo Mein, chicken fried rice, and egg rolls," Luna explained, as she snapped open a pair of disposable chopsticks and started taking food from various cartons. "That one's Kung Pao chicken, and that one's curried vegetables."

Using my fork, I took what I thought I could handle since there were lots of spicy options there, alongside a generous helping of rice and two egg rolls. Compared to the atmosphere at the school, it was much more relaxed and homey here and now. Even the earlier bad vibe from their interaction with Spoiled Rich seemed to bleed away as we sat and ate. I almost wished we had a Chinese joint like this in Ponyville, because this was some real good comfort food.

As I stopped eating to sip at my water, I looked from one to the other. As they'd eaten, they'd each finished one glass of wine, getting a refill partway through. Setting down my fork, I sighed. "You know, this morning, when I saw everything that was happening at the school, I was wondering how things could have been allowed to deteriorate to that degree," I said, folding my hands in front of me. "I'm kinda glad to find out that you weren't idle by choice. That probably would've damaged my opinion of the princesses, but what I witnessed earlier... it was kinda humbling seeing you lose your cool like that."

There was a sigh from Luna, who clearly didn't want to discuss that at the table. To my surprise, though, Celestia chose to engage where I didn't expect her to. "Am I... are we... our counter parts I mean, really the leaders of an entire nation in your world?" she asked in a wistful voice. I could totally imagine her picturing what it would be like to not have higher-ups using her in their own political games, being the top authority on everything. "I've heard Twilight and Sunset mention them, and the way she speaks, I'm practically deified there."

I nodded. "I've only been living there for a little while now, but ponies practically worship the ground you walk on," I explained, nibbling on an egg roll. "I can't be certain Princess Celestia actually controls the sun, or merely the rotation of the planet. Frankly, the thought that she controls a star is terrifying; that said, I do buy that Princess Luna does move the moon. Rotating the planet makes more sense." I shrugged. "She's always so calm and composed... and seeing you like that reminded me that deep down, there's still a person with vulnerabilities inside."

They looked surprised, but they didn't interrupt. "What I don't get is that Spoiled Rich." I picked up my fork again and started picking at some of that spicy chicken. "What did Sunset ever do to her in order for her to abuse her power like that?"

"She took Diamond Tiara not winning the Fall Formal crown during her first year extremely personally," Luna answered with a look of disgust. She held her wine glass in her hand, looking balefully down into its contents. "That's right, this is over a glorified popularity contest. Then after the events of the most recent formal, it only solidified her desire to rid the school of her."

"Once Anon-a-Miss made their first post, she started blowing up my mailbox demanding I do nothing," Celestia whispered, burying her head in her hands. "'This is it; we have her now,' and 'Don't do a thing; give her all the rope she needs, and I'll take care of the rest,' she insisted. Of course, when I started seeing the vandalism and the decline, I tried to convince her to just let me do my job, but it's always threats and blackmail with her."

"What I wanna know is how a woman like her gets to be the head of a school board." I looked from Celestia to Luna, who'd begun to drink her wine. "Look, I'm gonna be real with you; in my old life, I had to do things that I'm not proud of in order to get by," I said, shovelling a forkful of rice into my mouth. "Doing those things, I've worked alongside lot lizards who dressed classier than your Spoiled Rich. Seriously, she looks like she should be working under a pimp in a crack-den, not for a school board!"

Wine shot from Luna's nostrils as she started to choke and laugh. The insinuation even brought a smile to Celestia's tired face. "Between her attitude and Filthy Rich's money, I wouldn't be surprised," she snickered. "Rumour has it that Diamond isn't even his, you know? She looks nothing like him, so if Spoiled did do what you were inferring, it'd make a lot of sense."

Lifting her own glass of wine, she shook her head before looking at me. "As much as a mess you showing up has caused, I really am grateful you're here, Anonymous," she said softly. "Your timely intervention has taken the power out of Spoiled Rich's hands, and has allowed me to finally start doing my job as I'm supposed to. You even blew up her plan, and she knows it. I know that I'm guilty for having caved under her demands, but she knows that trying to throw me under the bus now would be career suicide."

She looked kinda smug, saying that, as if the thought of Spoiled Rich torpedoing her own career brought her such intense joy. That joyous look didn't last though. After a moment of silence, she added, "More than that, though, I'm grateful that you stepped in on Sunset's behalf."

That got a solemn nod from Luna. She was starting to look a little flushed. "It was hard enough on the student body seeing Emerald's rapid decline before her passing," she murmured, her words unsteady. Jeeze, the way she's slurring after two glasses of wine, she's gotta be a lightweight. "If Sunset had crossed the point of no return, and the student body found out that they'd pushed her to do it for no reason... I think the grief would spark an epidemic."

That sorta killed the discussion, leaving us all to finish our meals in silence. They didn't need to ask me to help with dishes or put the leftovers in the fridge, and I'd even had time to take my laundry out of the dryer. Then, as Celestia helped Luna off to bed, I did my ritual brushing of my teeth and ~~mane~~ hair, before making sure my bladder was empty. Unsurprisingly, yes, there was blood present, which immediately made me conscious of the lingering ache in my lower back.

Following that, I unrolled my sleeping bag across their couch. As I cut the lights and crawled into the sleeping bag, I let out a sigh. This felt like the longest day of my life since I buried my parents, but it was finally over. Tomorrow would be a new day. Tomorrow, I'm going to do my best to bring in Anon-a-Miss, and end this entire mess once and for all. As sleep began to take me, one last thought brought a smile to my face. God help whoever tries to get in my way.

Entry 27

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I was surrounded by the dark warmth of my non-dream. The soothing thud of a heartbeat present in the distance told me that I hadn't fucked up the process of slipping into this state. After all, Princess Luna probably didn't have any power here, so I couldn't rely on her to keep the nightmares away while I'm here. Still, it'd been so long since I'd had to do this that I'd actually started to dream, finding myself in Mr. Noteworthy's history classroom surrounded by a mix of ponies and humans before I achieved lucidity and banished it all.

The reasons for why I was here in the first place were hardly joyous ones, and if my subconscious was left unchecked to shape a dream, I might start dwelling on that bandage I saw on Sunset's wrist. It'd already dredged up a bunch of unaddressed feelings of guilt. It'd been enough that I'd even momentarily started reminiscing about Keith this morning.

Normally, I'd just be content to stay here in the void, unthinking while I basked in the womb-like peace until it was time to wake. At the same time, though, I had questions that I needed answered. Even if Luna couldn't reach me here, I got the impression that Harmony had some reach. After all, was it not Harmony that was the driving force behind that table? It would need some reach into this world if it were able to detect the friendship problem, right? Or am I reading too much into things.

"Harmony, are you there?" I called out into the void. After a second, I consciously gave myself form. Curiously, my body wasn't consistently my filly or human form; it kept flickering between the two. No, not me when I was Nemo, either. It was the girl known as Emerald Flicker. The truth was that my self-image had distorted completely not long after the Chrysalis incident, and this concussion was probably not doing me any favours.

No response came, though. An avatar of Harmony had come to me in a dream once before, although I suppose it was borderline narcissistic to assume that the living concept itself always had a metaphorical eye on me. Even though, you know, it seemed to be the goddamn reason why I looked the way I did. Assuming what I'd seen in that dream before I was given the crystalline tentacle treatment—and dragged into the ground—was real, it inferred that it had a reason to keep the filly's body to later stick my soul in.

"Look, if you're actually keeping an eye on me, I just wanna talk," I called out into the void. On a whim, I focused on riling up my magic, imagining that my next words were empowered by magic. "Please, I just want to talk!" The words reverberated around me, even though there were no walls for them to echo off of. Shit, that's... loud? Is that the right word?

For a few minutes, I was left in the peace and quiet of my empty dream space. I'd just about given up and debated conjuring a table and a deck of cards when I felt it. You know that feeling you get when someone or something is watching you, but you can't see it? The most intense sensation of that rippled through me, manifesting and cascading through my dream space in the form of millions of eyes watching me out of the darkness. Then, as quick as it came, it left, once more leaving me alone in the dark.

I just shouted out into the void, and many, many somethings came to check out what the fuss was... The thought that I'd just potentially drawn the attention of some eldritch horror beyond mortal comprehension sent a cold chill through my dream. Brilliant idea, Anon; come to this world to solve a problem, only to then get yourself mind-raped by a Great Old One whose nap I so rudely interrupted.

"Curious... Very curious." came a feminine voice out of the darkness. A presence quickly flooded my dream space. It was powerful, smothering, and I could feel it examining me from every angle and judging me. "Child of Equestria, why are you in Our domain, and how did you come to possess the form of this child? We know that you cannot be her, for she is with Us... so how?"

I trembled, looking around for someone to address. There was nobody to be seen, though—just the void. "I honestly wish I knew," I answered honestly. No doubt it can tell if I'm lying. "I crossed the veil between worlds on the verge of death, and found myself in Equestria. An empowered being—deified there as Celestia and Sol Invictus—found me, and through her, Harmony granted me this form." I held up my hand, which occasionally turned into a hoof. "I know that our world mirrors this one, so I find it increasingly likely that my original body perished and Harmony placed me in the body of Equestria's Emerald."

It took some effort, but I conjured up what I could remember of the dream I'd had. From Emerald running through a forest and falling into a ravine, her life flashing before her eyes, to her begging what I imagined was an avatar of Harmony—in the form of a crystalline Celestia—to make the pain stop, and to let her see her mother again. Even its warning... "This was not for you to see, Nemo," the avatar spoke, looking directly at me, even though I wasn't in the spot I'd been in the original dream. That sent an involuntary shiver down my back. "Let the daughter of Emerald Breeze, and her memory, rest in peace." I almost cut the recall short, but I remembered the last bit. "You have your own troubles to worry about, without dredging up memories of the dead."

"At the time, I'd thought it just a very strange dream," I explained to the voice, "but coming here has shown me that the chances are good that I'm Anonymous—Nemo—but also that I am somehow Emerald Flicker." I conjured up images of the portal, both from Equestria's side and this one, complete with an image depicting pony me entering one side and coming out as the schoolgirl on the other side. "I think the portal just forces the user to match their new environment."

Although I still couldn't really perceive the presence that I was conversing with, there was this vague sense of it nodding. That whole "Hmm, yes; I see!" sort of nodding. What is it really, though? I found myself wondering as the silence began to drag on. To fill the void, I explained why I was here, and assured it that I was going to be gone as soon as my job here was done.

"Though your time here will be short, We do believe you can be of use to Us," the presence declared quite suddenly. All at once, the figure of a person in flowing dark robes appeared before me and seized me by my hands. Though most of their face was obscured by a hood and darkness, the long white tresses spilling out near the neck and very feminine hands that gripped my own made it quite easy to associate the form with the voice. "During your stay, We wish for you to spread belief in magic once more to Our children. Our ability to influence them has waned as Our teachings have been corrupted by those who preach Our faiths out of self-service, and the evolution of science brought about by the disheartened."

Control over my dream was wrested from me, and things began to change. No, that wasn't quite right... I was being presented with flashes of imagery. The same robed figure appearing before people. From what I could remember of Earth's history, I saw what looked to be colourful Egyptians, Native Americans, Indians, Arabs, and even Aztecs. With each interaction, she presented each group's leader figure with a large staff and either a tome, carved tablets, or papyrus scrolls. The same overall message played into my mind, in words I couldn't speak but understood perfectly. "We give unto you the gift of knowledge and magic. We ask only that you use these gifts to spread wellness, humility, and prosperity among Our children, and share the knowledge of these gifts."

For a time, the peoples did as she asked of them. Magic spread like wildfire, and there seemed to be a golden age shining down upon all of mankind... Then the darkness in the hearts of man began to warp her teachings. What began as gifts of prosperity and health slowly turned into tools of power, greed, and war. Entire cultures were wiped from existence and all memories except hers. The greedy grew into tyrants and perverted the faiths that had so long ago sprung up around her.

So it came to be that she began to rescind her gifts, allowing only to those who stayed true to her beliefs to continue to benefit from them. This led, unfortunately, to magic-users being branded heretics, blasphemers, and thieves, leading into both a purge and further vilification of magic. If the most powerful and 'revered' could not have it, none would be permitted to. Thus the world's magic field began to still.

It was awe-inspiring to be presented with a living history of the world's magic. At the same time, though, it was so, so very sad. "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." The words came unbidden from my memory, and I had to wonder if my own world, at one time, had magic as well.

"We believe that, despite the failings of the old, humanity is ready to move past this," she explained, guiding my dream back into the void as easy as if she herself was Princess Luna. "It is Our deepest hope that in restoring belief to the younger generation, We can once again spread the joys of magic to those with good in their hearts. Your Harmony has already blessed five through the past actions of her agents."

I didn't really know what to think. It seemed like this was the avatar of this world's magic—and the basis for all of this world's faiths—but she was practically begging me, a double-outsider to help. It was kinda overwhelming, but at the same time... she's not being demanding and it isn't as though she's asking me to become Horse-girl Jesus. "I'll do what I can while I am here," I agreed. "If Sunset Shimmer chooses to return, I think she would make for a good guide in the future; she was trained under the same great mage as Aunt Twilight. If not... I'll have to consult the Equestrian crown."

The presence in my dream began to lessen, but I could see the makings of a smile on the unobscured parts of this avatar's face. "That is all that We can ask." Turning away, she began to retreat into the void before saying, "Know that you walk with the blessing of—"

~ 27 ~

I snapped upright, an icy chill filling my chest from being startled awake. It felt as though something had just hit my leg, and if I'd not had my arms tucked into the sleeping bag, I'd probably have lashed out. As it was, I ended up simply gasping and letting out a startled "Whazzat?" There was no point looking around the dim living room to find out what happened; without my glasses, I couldn't see shit anyways.

"It's time to get up, Anonymous," came Principal Celestia's voice from the darkness in front of me. As I reached out of the sleeping bag to the coffee table, I felt the familiar frames pressed into my palm along with the touch of skin. "Here." Once I had them on, I saw that she was standing beside the couch, already dressed in her work clothes and drinking a coffee while watching me. "I see you have pony ears again. You were talking in your sleep, too."

With a shrug, I unzipped my sleeping bag and began to pull myself out of it. All the while, I could hear the water running in the bathroom. "I'm pretty sure I was having what some would call a religious experience," I murmured. "Talking to the avatar of some greater force in this world. Might've been God for all I know."

Celestia's eyebrow perked in the early-morning gloom, but didn't let out more than an "Uh-huh," at my statement. I mean, to be fair to her, she was dealing with the magical extra-dimensional doppelganger of a dead little girl. "We've got half an hour before we're out the door," she said instead. "Luna should be out shortly if you need the shower, although if you're anything like her, you might be better off waiting until we're at the school and using the showers there."

After a moment to think, she asked, "Would you like a coffee?" When I nodded, she shrugged. "I'll warn you now; we only keep the instant stuff here in the condo. We normally just stop at Donut Joe's and get something before stopping in."

I rolled my shoulders as she went off into the kitchenette, turned on some actual lights, and started rattling through the cupboards looking for a spare mug. While I had the 'privacy', I quickly got changed into a mix of the uniform and my gym clothes. This time, it was the white tee, the uniform skirt—and pantyhose, despite how weird it made me feel—and loafers. The track jacket I just tied around my waist as I pulled my hair into a ponytail once more.

Once I packed almost everything away into the bag, I sat down on the floor at the coffee table with my new magic notebook, pencil, and clay. I'd had a vague idea of how to begin issuing punishments of my own for this situation and acting on behalf of my dream guest. My first target would be Spoiled Rich, whose vile nature allowed for this situation to devolve as far as it had. That said, I couldn't just harm her directly or cause excessive property damage. No, I'd have to do something spectacular to fuck with her and let her know I was the cause.

Beyond glancing up and issuing a thanks as Celestia passed me a mug of instant coffee, I didn't distract from my work. It took more time than I'd like to admit to reproduce my locking mechanism spell or tweak it so that it would remain active for a fixed length before terminating. The best part was that the original spell wasn't all that power-draining; the version I cast on the cereal box hadn't even used a twentieth of my reservoir, and the complexity/cost inversion property meant that the cut-off condition would only make it cost less. How long is long enough for that bitch though?

All the while, I noticed something; the magical field of the world wasn't resisting me as much as it had yesterday afternoon. Was this what they meant by their blessing? It even seemed like my reserves had actually been steadily recovering through the night, even without any extra sugar. I was almost completely topped off, even though I had to have been down to half when I went to bed.

"Say, Miss Celestia?" I commented, chugging the cup of coffee once it had cooled enough. "You want to get some petty revenge on that Rich cow?" She gave me a questioning look, but I just raised my hands defensively. "It's nothing illegal, I swear—mostly because this world doesn't have any laws pertaining to magical pranks, but that's besides the point. Just tell me which car's hers and I'll make sure it's locked down tighter than a prison's max security wing during a riot for the next month."

She stared at me for a moment, but I felt the familiar sense of mischief I'd gotten from her yesterday morning returning in full force. "It's a neon pink Beetle with 5P01L7R1CH on a custom plate," she said with a smirk. "You have no idea how many times she's parked that thing in the fire lane in front of the school."

Excusing myself, I grabbed my cloak, the pencil, notebook, and bag of clay and booked out the door to the elevator. I hurriedly engraved the new and improved lock spell on ball of clay and cooked it while the elevator descended. The moment the door opened to the garage, I began my search. It wasn't hard to find in the least, parked crookedly in a parking spot that appeared to have some drainage grate beneath it. There was also a nearby maintenance scaffolding with a piece of pipe hanging off of it. More ideas...

Making sure I had my hood up, I walked up to the driver's side door of the car, tore a blank page from my notebook, and used the disc with lock inscribed on it to pin it to the driver's side window, engaging the lock spell with a smirk. I wasn't done though, there was still the message to leave.

Spoiled Rich
Your petty and self-serving nature has enabled a great number of evils in a short period of time. Worse still is that you wilfully enabled the harassment, assault, and near suicide of a teenage girl, and yet you showed no degree of regret for your part in it. Equestria cannot even begin to mete out proper justice on behalf of the girl in question, so we'll have to settle for some mischief instead.
You will find that regardless of turning the key, your motor-vehicle shall not open. I'm happy to tell you that for the next 30 days, your car has been completely people-proofed. Even if the windows are smashed or the roof is quite literally separated using the jaws of life, you will find yourself quite incapable of entering. This is merely my spell operating as intended.
Let this serve as a sample and warning of what magic is capable of. If we so much as hear a peep that you have been causing trouble to anyone affiliated with CHS's students or faculty, a disabled car will be the least of your concerns. Remember these words well: 'Our princesses are merciful, but I am not. The emerald eyes of justice are watching.'

Content with the note, I slipped the pencil into the pocket of my robe. Then my finger grazed the amplification medallion and I remembered the other idea I had. Walking over to the scaffolding, I grabbed the length of pipe and dragged it over to Rich's car. After a moment's consideration, I pumped some mana into the medallion, and then walked over to the car.

Given how small it was, it couldn't weigh even a tonne. Sure enough, I had absolutely no issue lifting the front end of it. With that in mind, I jammed one end of the pipe up against the transmission, and wedged the other end into the grate below. It took a few adjustments to make sure it wasn't going anywhere, but once it was, I stepped back and admired my handiwork. There stood Spoiled Rich's 'cute' little Not-Volkswagen, the front end propped up at a thirty-five degree angle on a length of steel pipe jutting from a drainage grate, forming a glorious obtuse triangle of frustration. It'll probably come down on its own if the pipe starts to give through the day.

Then Luna was beside me, radiating a mixture of disappointment and amusement. "Ah," she said, passing me my backpack. Must be time to go. "I see that I am too late to stop you. I hope this prank was worth it, because she is not going to be happy."

I shrugged. "I should hope that her self-preservation instincts should recognise this as the warning it is," I said with a smile that showed way too much of my pearly whites. "If she does, lemme know and I'll put the fear of magic in her."

~ 27 ~

After getting a proper red eye and another breakfast bagel at Donut Joe's, we arrived at CHS without incident. I took a few minutes to filled them in on my general plan for the day, and then availed myself to the showers. They were fine with me making use of the school's facilities, with the stipulation that if I was to bake any more clay discs, I'd do it outside. That was fine by me. Any students coming and going would probably witness some fire magic.

Surprisingly—and what a questionable thing it was—the computer I booted up in the library didn't require any sort of login credentials. So I spent much of the time until first bell looking up bits of information for a few spells. Oh stuff like muzzle velocity of beanbag rounds took some careful phrasing—Keith had told me about internet filters at school when he was attending school in the past—thus I searched instead riot bean bag round "m/s" to get the relevant value of 70-90 m/s in an article summary.

It was tempting to look into concepts such as rail-guns, plasma, and nuclear fusion, but I had to remind myself that I wasn't going to become Equestria's Oppenheimer—Cloppenheimer? Anything weapons-related I planned on making should only be made for self-defence purposes. You don't need nukes or rail-guns for self protection. That said, rail-guns were a step removed from a mass driver, which could have good use in a pollution-free means of putting ponies in space.

Instead, I found myself looking at the idea of portals. Keith had been obsessed with a TV show about a military branch of the United States Air Force operating out of Cheyenne Mountain, travelling through a portal to other planets and interacting with aliens. Sure, it was slightly older than me, but he was more than happy to share it with me. What was the principal behind those gates called? Was it a wormhole?

It was a far-off idea with my current understanding of runic magic, but I took down notes on wormhole concepts regardless. After all, it would be pretty fucking cool if I could be part of the group responsible for putting ponies on the moon voluntarily. Would Princess Luna be for or against such an idea, though? Would she be alright with the idea of colonising her moon?

I also ended up jotting down a bunch of other stuff and ideas. For example, silicon was needed for vacuum-rated seals, and I might be able to create an array to depressurise an airlock using a banishment rune. Repressurising, on the other hand, would require either conjuration, or a sealable vent to an air source. I sketched a potential 'portal room' design using a 'stargate' as a stand-in for a portal. Could a conjure/air combination be used to create a proper gas mix? If so, would that mean I could use conjure/earth to conjure up specific minerals or ores? Those questions were noted down in the pocket notebook as well. Speaking of, I turned it back to the page where I'd written my knowledge notes. It took me only a few moments to review and update those notes.

My knowledge:

First post suspected to be made the fifth—could be earlier. Confirmed the fifth.
Can't rule out something precipitated this. Find out if anything special happened in the days leading up to start.
Suggested that friends and/or family of peer group may be at centre of conspiracy.
Investigate tactics employed versus historical. Sloppy. Very sloppy. Definitely someone on the younger side and not very thorough.
Some students may remain hostile after Anon-a-Miss took my bait, outing me as formerly having been male in my human life.
Crusader counterparts are spooked. Consider approaching with care. I've never seen Sweetie Belle look so scared of me before.
My human 'counterpart' is deceased. From what I can gather, she may have been an athlete, although based on an interaction with Rainbow yesterday, Emerald may have had something happen to her leg. If she had self-esteem issues and didn't see herself as good at anything besides running, I could see that being devastating for her.

Once that was done with, I packed that notebook away and started shutting down the computer. I continued until I had everything but the magic notebook, which was open to the page with the now-completed air-bullet spell, and a ball of clay. A few modifications were made compared to when I started writing it out yesterday. For example, now there was a triggered effect that would cause the air capsule created and fired by the spell to burst on impact. It'd be like an over-pressurised balloon popping, but it would hopefully deal with the possibility of a random capsule of air rolling around on the ground.

Once it was etched out and seated on my palm for baking, I carefully turned it over so that I could etch a bullet shape with the moon-glyph for air within on the back. I put everything else away and started making my way out the front entrance. I got a lot of strange looks while I stood on the front step of the school with a ball of flame slightly smaller than my head hovering above my hand. I don't think the 'sweet' smile and the flicking of my ears helped any in that department.

The only relatively interesting thing to happen while I was out there was when a teacher—a tanned woman with golden locks and a purple blazer that matched the pants Principal Celestia wore—stepped outside, dipped the tip of a cigarette near the fireball, and said, "Vice Principal Luna requested that I inform you that your presence will be required in the offices at lunchtime for a meeting with a guest." She had a bitchy look on her face as she brought the cancer stick to her lips, before sighing. "Please try not to cause us any more problems." At that, she walked away from the front of the building to go smoke beside the statue.

So that's it, I thought, turning over the medallion and leaning against the wall. I'm meeting with Emerald Breeze in a few hours. There were a few students that passed me by that I recognised. Pinkie Pie, for example, came through and I had to stop her before she reached out and tried to touch the flame—It's not illusory, silly filly; I'm just better protected!—and then there was Flash Sentry, who looked kinda awestruck at the casual display, until he remembered I nearly broke his nose. There was even this blue girl in a purple witch's cap who was watching me with a look of... something. Why do I not feel more nervous about that? Why does not being nervous make me feel a bit nervous?

Once the medallion was baked on both sides and cooled, I stowed it away, and it was back into the school for me. I caught Luna watching me through the office windows into the foyer, so I quickly shot her a thumbs-up to let her know I got the message. On my way back to the library, I remembered the ball that I'd gotten stuck in the ceiling trusses at the end of the game. Wonder if that is still up there? I changed my trajectory and went to the gymnasium entrance.

"Coach Iron Will, are you in?" I called out, kicking off my shoes and pulling my sneakers from my bag. As I slipped on the sneakers, I found my loafers to be still damp from being outside, so I simply left them by the doors, rather than putting them in my bag. Sure enough, there was the man standing on a ladder, trying to jab at the stuck ball with a long pole. Given that he had nobody there holding the ladder and it was leaned up against the wall, that was an OSHA hazard. "Uh, sir? You want some help with that?"

Even before he shifted awkwardly as he turned to regard me, I was already making my way across the gym. The ladder only shook a few times before I'd braced it. He slowly lowered the pole he was holding, before climbing down himself and sighing. "It'd only seems right since you got it stuck there," he commented, looking me up and down, "But what can you do with those little noodle arms of yours, pony girl?"

My ears flicked in response to the indignation of him insulting my admittedly scrawny arms. I didn't let it get to me, though; magic—and apparently speed—were my domains, not brawn. That's why I made that strength amplifier. Fishing the new medallion from my pocket, I smiled. "This!" I said, stepping out further onto the gym floor so that I could get a better line of sight on the ball. As I gripped the medallion in my left hand, I pointed my right index finger at the ball, making an L with my thumb. Pump a bit of mana and... "BANG!"

Still, the air bullet, shimmering blue as a thin capsule of magic wrapped the air within, flew true. Stricken by the magical projectile, the black and white ball popped free from the roof truss it was wedged into. A loud pop as if someone had burst a balloon rang out at the same time. It was slightly louder than I expected, and for a moment I was concerned it had hit with too much force for the soccer ball to handle, but a moment later, the ball bounced harmlessly to the floor.

It was a weird sensation. Even though the spell discharged from several centimetres from my fingertip, my hand kicked upwards with recoil. My finger itself tingling with numbness as I slipped the medallion back into my pocket. It took me shaking my hand violently for the tingling to stop, but thankfully there was no pain. Note to self, brace my hand if I need to fire off multiple shots, I mused, holding my hand up with the L configuration once more to blow at my fingertip. It was a silly thing, but it left me feeling giddy.

"I, uh, yeah," the man muttered, walking over to the ball. He picked it up and looked it over. From here, I could see a slight scuff mark from where the spell hit, but other than that, it looked pristine. "I reckon that'd do it. Thanks."

Giving him the finger guns—only for him to flinch—I smiled as I started walking backwards across the gym towards my shoes. "Not a problem, man," I replied. It was such a small thing, helping him using my special talent, but I was feeling an intense euphoria from the act. "If you need a repeat show later, lemme know—or if you have anything you need burned."

I knew I should feel guilty for making the guy flinch, and especially the continued look of discomfort from the bull of a man; I'm not a monster. All the same, the good mood that validating my own talent had put me in was actually overpowering all of the negativity lingering in the school. Oh sure, I could still feel it as I put my sneakers back in my bag, especially as I dumped a pair of thumb-tacks from my loafers that someone had apparently left for me while my back was turned. For the first time in a while, however, I was feeling in control of what I felt. It was hard not to be in a good mood.

As I exited the gymnasium and returned to the hallway, I found myself whistling a catchy, albeit inappropriate tune. Occasionally, I'd pass by a random student, who would look at me with some degree of surprise. I mean, I still had my cloak on, but my hood was down, so they'd see my pony ears sticking up out of my hair. I think that surprise in them made it so easy for them to start grinning when I gave them a smile and friendly wave. It was awesome.

Is this how Pinkie feels all the time?

When I got back to the library, I wasn't surprised to see it officially open. There were a few groups hanging out around various computers, and Ms. Cheerilee was at the front desk checking out a few books for students. I was more than kinda hoping to meet the counterparts of the Crusaders, but the trio was nowhere to be seen. Maybe they figured this would be where I'd be and purposely avoided the area? Or maybe they took the day off.

~ 27 ~

In the end, I spent much of the morning either creating spells to casually show off magic to Emerald Breeze, or helping Ms. Cheerilee reshelve books. The latter was quite easy, since I'd spent a lot of time in libraries and got very familiar with the Dewey Decimal System. It also helped the last time I was in one back on Earth, I volunteered in exchange for a meal. Gosh, but she was surprised. All I asked in return was to be reminded of my meeting when it got close.

The spells I'd ended up settling on were conjuration of water at a targeted point, conjuration of a small sphere of ice, and demonstrating light and flame. I hadn't yet prepped the first two, but I figured the easiest way would be to just inscribe them just before the meeting. I even popped out to ask Raven if I could have an empty water pitcher and some glasses in the meeting room when it's time for the meeting.

The rest of the time, I spent reading something I'd found while shelving. It was a graphic novel—Might've been a manga, but who cares?—about a guy on a motorcycle who travelled to different realities to fight monsters and eliminate 'anomalies'. It was all in order to prevent the worlds from merging together and collapsing the multiverse. He had this device that interacted with these special cards, granting him different armoured forms. Some looked more bug-like, others reminding me of knights, while yet others had a very high-tech vibe.

Sure, it seemed as though there was some missing context—in fact, by the second volume, I was almost convinced this was some sort of cross-over series given he was able to copy powers and forms of others—but it was still fairly interesting. It actually gave me some ideas for the future. Could I create something like that with magic alone? I wondered as I made some notes. I'd probably have to consult Twilight, but I imagine I'd probably need someone skilled in artifice to create the belt, too.

I couldn't help but smirk at the idea of me in some kind of armoured suit, protecting Ponyville from monsters and villains. What would my catchphrase even be, though? I thought with a giggle, doodling a little filly in armour and tights, hidden beneath a bug-eyed mask. 'Now, count up your sins?' Nah; too religious. 'It's showtime?' No, that doesn't work either. 'Now, shall we begin the experiment?' I'm a bit of a geek, but that's more something Twilight would say. I shrugged and shook my head. Probably better to workshop that after I have a super-suit.

Another thing all those armoured fighters seemed to have were weapons that they could either conjure up or seemingly pulled out of nowhere. What would even suit an earth pony? I mused. Unless I practice standing on two legs, I'd probably not be well off going with something that required a grip. Maybe elemental claws and a horn-blade? Or maybe—

"Anon, it's almost time for your meeting," Ms. Cheerilee said, interrupting my thoughts. I hadn't even really noticed when she'd come back in after leaving to teach class, so I nearly leapt free of my skin. Glancing at the clock, I saw that it was half an hour until the lunch hour for students. "If you want to get something to eat, Granny Smith should be starting to serve lunch right about now."

I nodded, packing away my stuff. My spell notebook, pencil, and the remainder of my ball of clay went into the pockets in my robe. "Thanks, Ms. Cheerilee," I replied. Before I left, I made sure to return the graphic novels to the place I found them. After all, I wasn't checking them out—I don't think I even could—and I was trying to be courteous to these people who were tolerating me being at their school while not being a student, so making Cheerilee do it didn't really fit.

When I hit the lunch-room, there were a few students hanging around. At first I thought they might've been skiving off class, but then I remembered that seniors apparently sometimes had a free period. Regardless, I grabbed a tray, and hopped in line behind a familiar blue-haired guy. He was second in line, so I had time to decide. I keep running into him, I mused as I looked over the menu. I was tempted to get a slice of pizza, but then I saw something that made me salivate: a hamburger and fries.

"Hello again, dearie," Granny Smith said when it was my turn to order. She still had that timeworn smile of an old woman who hoped you might listen to her. "Gonna order somethin' ta put some meat on yer bones this time?"

"Yessum," I answered, taking out my wallet. "Can I get one of those burgers you've got on the menu, a side of fries, and a bottle of fizzy cider."

Her eyes momentarily drifted up to the ears poking out of my hair, before shrugging. "If'n that's what ya want dear," she murmured before rattling off a price as she started assembling the meal. "Ah trust ya to know yer belly better'n me."

Once the food was on my tray and the tab was paid, I made my way back to the school's office. Ideally, I would've stopped to eat in the cafeteria, but I wasn't sure how much time I had until Emerald's mother arrived. I caught more than a few odd looks when I passed a few students—probably the whole meat thing—but what did I care? Even if it was a pre-made patty it was real beef. My own little vengeance against those bawdy cows at AJ's.

"Would you mind if I ate my lunch in the meeting room before Emerald Breeze shows up?" I asked Raven as I stepped into the office through the open door. "I'm not sure when I'll get the opportunity to eat otherwise."

The woman just looked at me with a deer in the headlights expression. Alarm rolled off her as she glanced to the door leading into the room I'd occupied yesterday afternoon. "That, um," she stammered. Swallowing and looking back to me, she sighed. "That might be too late, Anonymous."

I glanced at the door and frowned. "She's already here, isn't she?" I asked, looking down at my tray of food before letting out a sigh. "Ah well. I hope she'll understand if I take my meal while we talk."

"If it helps, Celestia is in there and can act as a buffer," she offered, standing up to get the door for me.

"Thanks Ms. Inkwell," I said stepping into the meeting room. I kept my eyes lowered just enough that I couldn't make out anyone's faces, but still make out who was sitting where. They stayed that way until I found a spot separate from the two—who were seated at opposite ends of the large ovoid table. Once I'd set my tray of lunch down, I removed my rucksack and sat it beside me on the floor. I apologised as I took a seat. "Sorry, Ms. Celestia, I expected I still had time to take my meal before this meeting."

When I looked up, Principal Celestia was looking at me with a barely-contained look of disbelief. "That's okay, Anonymous," she replied in a tone that clearly told anyone that it was clearly not as okay as she'd like me to believe. "I know how much a growing young woman needs food." She looked away from me to the woman at the other end of the table. "Emerald Breeze, this is Anonymous—not to be confused with the rumour blogger we're currently hunting down. Anonymous, this is Emerald Breeze."

"Please, just Anon is fine," I insisted... I looked from my lunch to my human counterpart's—how weird it was to say that—mother. "I still feel weird being called Anony—" My voice hitched as I got a good look at her. Holy shit. I know that I was supposed to be the spitting image of Emerald Flicker, but Emerald Breeze seemed like an older version of the same girl I saw in the mirror... Sure, she didn't have glasses, and her freckles were much more intense, but her hair seemed to curl in the exact same ways, as mine. The only major difference I spotted were the crow's feet and bags around her eyes. "—mous."

Entry 28

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After I spoke, there was a long drawn-out silence. I didn't quite have the guts to dig into my meal while she was staring at me, so instead fished out my notebook, the pencil, and the clay, and smoothed out two balls for the ice and water spells. With a sigh, she broke her gaze from me to regard Celestia. "I have so many questions," she said in a flat tone. There was a maelstrom of different emotions filling the room, and it was hard not to sense them: fear, grief, anger, and—sadly—hope. Worse, her voice came off as so very, very familiar. In fact, it was the same one I'd heard during that episode I'd had in the gymnasium yesterday morning.

"We'd be happy to answer whatever questions you might have," Celestia said, turning to regard me as I started reproducing my notes in the clay. "Isn't that right Anon?"

I nodded, quickly finishing the water conjuration and glancing at the empty pitcher on the table. "That's right," I agreed. Placing my left palm over the wad of clay, I pumped out some magic while focusing on the bottom of the pitcher. Slowly, water began to fill the container, rising up from the bottom like a spring-fed pond. Once it was almost completely full, I cut off the spell. "That said, let's start with the obvious," I added, raising that same hand to tap my pony ear. "I'm not native to this reality, and as such have access to some abilities that nobody in this world has had access to for a very long time."

Emerald stared at the pitcher, ripe with shock and awe. "You're not my daughter then," she whispered as she watched me pull over the three glasses from beside the pitcher. Her shock was momentarily replaced by confusion, until a ball of the purest looking ice you'd ever seen coalesced above my hand, just the right size to drop into one of the glasses. When I added an ice ball to the other two, she worked up the courage to ask, "Who or what are you, really?"

Quite the question to start out with. I stood up, carrying the three glasses back over to the pitcher as I pondered my answer. As I filled the glasses, I glanced over at Celestia, who only shrugged. "At this point, I suppose that Traveller could be an apt title that could be applied to me," I said, sliding a filled glass over to Celestia, and then the other to Emerald. "I didn't plan on it, but this is the third reality that I've been to."

Grabbing my own glass, I took a sip before returning to my seat. Damn, that's some of the purest water I've ever had. "I—well, at this point, I'm pretty sure that I died after a car accident in the reality I was born in," I said, chugging down my water before opening the bottle of cider and pouring half over the ice. "I was offered a second chance to live in the world I found myself in. I was granted a new body, and found something worth living for in that world. It's a beautiful world of magic and colourful ponies of all different types. Then, just like that, I was sent by a living force to deal with a problem involving a citizen of that world who chose to live here."

She eyed me with suspicion as I popped a fry into my mouth. That suspicion only increased as I casually grabbed the burger and took a careful bite. "Why do you look exactly like my daughter, though?" her voice was trembling, a mix of sadness and anger rolling off of her. "Surely if you can do magic, you could look like anyone, right? Why my baby girl?"

With a sigh, I focused stilling my magic. Slowly, I felt my ears return to the sides of my head in their human shape. "The portal I came through doesn't let you pick your appearance," I explained, setting my burger down. Now I imagined we really did look like mother and daughter. "It just... translates us, for lack of a better term; without circulating my magic, this is how I look." Sipping at my drink, I glanced down at the table. "My new home... Equestria, is something of a parallel world to this one. Celestia, Luna, and a good number of all of the students I've encountered since coming here? These are all ponies I've met or seen on the other side. That I look like your daughter... I think it's because my body on the other side may have belonged to the Emerald Flicker of that world."

A slam shook the hardwood table as Emerald Breeze stood up, her palms flat on the table. "What the hell is that supposed to mean!?" she shouted. "Are you saying you're some sort of body-snatcher?"

I cringed away from her, but surprisingly, Principal Celestia stood up and made her way between us. "Breeze, let her speak," she said in a soft, but firm voice. "After all the help she's done helping prove Sunset Shimmer's innocence in this Anon-a-Miss business, I think you should at least give her a chance to explain."

As soon as Sunset's name came up, there was a marked change in Miss Breeze's demeanour. The anger died down to the warmth of a cooling cook-top. There was plenty of sadness still remaining, but something else was coming to the surface: a sense of... gratitude? But why's that? Most people here seemed to either hate Sunset outright because of Anon-a-Miss or have a distrust of her for her troubled past.

"To tell the truth, I don't know if or why I'm Emerald Flicker, ma'am," I answered honestly. It felt wrong to not have my magic cycling, to not have my ears atop my head, so I kicked it back into gear. Not long after, I felt the familiar sensation of them flicking and rotating to catch noises. "Even before coming here, I've gotten occasional... flashes of what might be memories... Memories of a runaway filly who lost her mother to domestic violence, who'd been through so much that she'd given up on life at the age of six..." Meeting her eyes, I continued. "Memories of a filly in an athletics program wondering why she doesn't have her special talent if she's so good at running. I don't know if that's the result of my own loss coming into conflict with my new nature as a pony... or if they're my own repressed memories."

My hands began to tremble, and in spite of myself, I could feel the tears starting to spill down my cheeks. "For all I know, I could've undergone reincarnation, only to regain memories of my previous life at the age of eight—yeah, that's how old I am as a pony—or if Harmony simply crammed my soul into an empty vessel, complete with lingering memories," I croaked. My throat was so sore, and even the now ice-cold cider did nothing to soothe it. "It's so easy to recognise you as the mare from those flashes. You have the same voice that she did, and even at birth, Emerald Flicker was the spitting image of that pegasus. I see my own reflection in you, and it's hard not to remember that poor filly in the ravine begging Harmony for the pain to stop, and to see her mommy again..."

I removed my glasses and started pawing at my eyes. Breathe Em—Anon... You're having a panic attack, I told myself as I tried to reign in my breathing. It wasn't the same without the enchanted stuffed animal, though. I should've brought my possum.

Luckily, Celestia was more than willing to step in as she returned to her seat. "I think we're getting a bit distracted," she said casually redirecting. "You're probably also wondering why a being from another world was sent to... intervene in this Anon-a-Miss affair at all." Even without my glasses, I could make out the quiet nod from Breeze in my peripheral vision. "Simply put, the reason Anon's here is because the Sunset you know is a native of her world, rather than ours."

That elicited some surprise from the aggrieved mother, but she let Celestia continue. Everything the woman knew about Sunset's backstory, she relayed. From the fact that Sunset was a runaway, to the fact that she lived alone in a small apartment in a shady part of town—something that she'd apparently only recently confided in her. She didn't even skip Sunset becoming a bully, her return to Equestria and subsequent theft of a powerful magical artefact, and turning into a literal she-demon at the Fall Formal.

While Celestia spoke, I took the time to compose myself. It wasn't that hard to get my breath under control, but it was a bit harder to get out of the panic spiral. If I really was Equestria's Emerald Flicker, and had merely spent two years in a magical coma while my personality and memories from a previous life reasserted themselves, where had I been for the past two years—assuming that timeline was even continuous. Probably the biggest concern I had was that Emerald's step-father might find out that she's still 'alive' and try to take me away, back to whatever torment he put her through before. At least I had the food and fizzy drink to comfort me.

As Celestia spoke, though, I could feel Emerald Breeze's shock transform into confusion. "That doesn't sound anything like the Sunset I remember," she argued, causing my ears to perk up. "Sure, she was a little rough around the edges and a had a lot of weird mannerisms, but she was always willing to help my Flicker out after the accident."

As I put my glasses back on, I shot a glance with a raised eyebrow in Celestia's direction. This goes against everything that I've been told about Sunset in the past. She seemed every bit as caught off guard by this statement. "Sunset was one of the only ones who didn't treat my little girl any differently after the accident," she explained. "Everybody else treated her like she was going to break if they treated her like normal, but Sunset Shimmer didn't. Even after Emerald passed, she regularly stopped by to see how I was doing—up until a few weeks ago."

That. at least, confirmed one of my suspicions in part. Something had happened to her, and it was likely that she was informed she'd never be able to run again. I still didn't know how Sunset fit into that, however. At that point in time, she should've been cocksure and self-serving. Although it'd make sense that she might support someone to make her look good, that didn't really fit either... especially checking in with Ms. Breeze after Emerald Flicker passed. Then there's what Wallflower said about Sunset never targeted people for the sex, age, identity or religion, even if it made them easy targets. I could imagine her being the same with grief and disability.

"If you don't mind me asking," I queried after I finished my burger. The woman looked sad, but somehow she seemed more relaxed than when I'd entered. "What was the accident?"

Emerald Breeze sipped at the water I'd provided, before looking up at the ceiling. There were tears in her eyes, and I imagined it was something painful for her to remember. "Not long after the start of her seventh grade year, Emerald earned a hard-won spot on the middle-school track team, and we were out celebrating," she reminisced, turning her gaze back down to stare into her glass. Her fingertip slowly traced the rim as she continued. "She spotted one of her classmates up ahead of us stepping out into the crosswalk while the traffic still had the right of way." To my surprise, she actually smiled. She's telling me something super traumatic, but she's smiling... because she's proud. "She didn't even stop to think of herself; she just saw the oncoming car, sprinted ahead, and pushed the girl clear."

I knew immediately what happened next. "She took the hit in place of the other girl, didn't she?" I offered, earning a sad nod from Ms. Breeze. Celestia brought her hands up to cover her mouth as she likely came to the same conclusion I had. "She saved Sunset Shimmer at the cost of her own ability to run."

That's why Sunset acted so 'out-of-character' at that point in time, I realised, chewing on my lip to resist sighing. It had to have been just after she arrived here, still smarting from Princess Celestia taking away from her what she thought was her destiny. Then a relative stranger goes and saves her life, at the cost of what Sunset might perceive as the girl's own destiny. Even people with narcissistic tendencies can have a weak-spot, and for her, it was a kindred spirit... or guilt. Hell, she might not have been totally bad at that point in time. The loss of such a friend could totally have jaded Sunset, though.

No wonder Sunset didn't want to talk about Emerald. She probably befriended the girl, only for her to then go and kill herself... I knew what that was like—how guilty she must've felt for not 'recognising the signs'. It was the same thing with Keith. I never even suspected he felt that way. He was there one day, and then the next I found him dead in his bunk, his wrist slashed. It was probably the most traumatic thing I'd experienced next to losing my mother. I could only imagine how that might've jaded or scarred a girl from another world who'd made a friend despite her prickly nature.

"Mmmhmm," was Emerald Breeze's only response. For a long while she just seemed to stare at me with an appraising eye. "I still sometimes wonder what she'd be like if she were still alive today," she said in a wistful tone. "I think if she'd found the same passion you seem to have, you might be a lot more similar. You're so much more confident, and seem surprisingly well-adjusted."

It was probably rude of me, but I was unable to surpress a snort as I shook my head. "That's hardly true," I murmured. My eyes darted to the door behind her—more specifically, to the window in it. There was Rainbow Dash and Spitfire, but they held a struggling Lightning Dust between them. Celestia had seen it too, and quickly excused herself.

"I've a long way to go before I'm anywhere close to well-adjusted. I hide it well, but I'm a pretty anxious person. I still flinch when ponies—when people—touch me unexpectedly." I gave her a sad smile now that we were alone. "If not for the fact that I'm capable of lucid dreaming and locking myself in a peaceful void each night, I'd still have nightmares about what my donor did to my mother... every single night..."

She physically recoiled at the sheer vitriolic edge my voice assumed towards the end. "We all have our traumas," she agreed in a soft voice. Despite the shock I'd given her, she smiled too. "At least you seem to be able to live in spite them—finding ways to live with or around them—rather than let them define or break you. I'm glad."

I don't know why, but hearing that made me feel all warm and happy deep down. She's not my Mom, so such a praise shouldn't have any effect on me. It also left me feeling kinda regular-warm, so it was probably a good idea to take off my cloak. After all, there's no point in getting myself sick, and I can just put that track jacket on if I start to get cold again.

When I brought my hands up to open the neck-clasp, the knuckles on my left hand grazed something sticking out off one of the interior pockets that I didn't typically use. To my surprise, it was a folded photograph. As my cloak fell away and I took a closer look at it, I was surprised to see Twilight's crisp penmanship. Ninety-four, seven, one-oh-oh-three H.E. I was somewhat confused, because I could've sworn there hadn't been anything in that pocket before I entered the portal... Unless Twilight pulled a sleight of hoof when we were getting ready...

Opening it, I saw Twilight, Starlight, Spike, and myself—my comfort plush poking out of my mane, where I frequently carried it these days—relaxing together under one of Applejack's trees. Although I was nestled into Starlight's side, both of our cutie-marks were completely visible. It was kinda surprising that the image wasn't altered at all by the portal. I remember that day... Got my hooves on more of that tea, and ended up being all cuddly, which didn't really help when we ended up being asked to help on the farm. God, Aunt Twilight wasn't amused.

Curiosity radiated off of her as she caught my smile., she asked, "What do you have there?"

I slid it across the table. "It's my adoptive family," I explained. "Twilight Sparkle's the pony with the wings and the horn, while Starlight Glimmer is the unicorn that the little green filly is snuggled up to—"

"Are they your Moms?" she interjected. She was full of awe, but there wasn't any sort of teasing in her voice. She really is a good person... Doesn't even bat an eye at the idea of horse lesbians, even if I don't think Twi and Starlight are an item. "They're very pretty."

I shook my head. "While Auntie Twilight is my legal guardian, I'm not ready to call her Mom just yet," I replied, pouring more of the carbonated cider into my cup. "As for Starlight... she's pretty much everything I could want in an unofficial big sister; she's super nice and just as knowledgeable about magic as Twilight."

Standing up with my drink, I moved to stand over her. Without missing a beat, I pointed to Spike. "That's Spike. He's a baby dragon that Twilight hatched when she was just a filly. Even though he's a young teen by our standards, he's still young for his kind." I continued, sitting down in a closer chair. "Doesn't stop him from being a really good cook, though. Starlight's learning, but apparently Twi's a bit of a disaster in the kitchen..."

I shrugged and looked at my hand, taking in the lack of calluses I used to have. "Me? I'm only really good with forage and campfire cooking. Want a non-sapient animal field-dressed and quartered, and I'm your girl," I said with a sigh. "One of the only useful things he taught me, and it's pretty damn useless in Equestria because the magic in our country gives pretty much everything some degree of intelligence."

She leaned closer with interest. It might have just been because I had her daughter's voice and hearing me speak was cathartic for her, but I didn't really mind. Talking to her felt relaxing too. It didn't surprise me when she asked, "Can you tell me more about yourself?"

So that's what I did. For what felt like an eternity, I told her about my old life—leaving out select things like how exactly I supported myself, of course—from the murder of my mother and the difficult choice to leave my sisters behind, to my journey around the world. Sure, it started out as me just running away from my problems, but in truth I enjoyed being on the move. Seeing new places and people, never knowing what might come next... it was thrilling. A shame it all came to an end when I got into the accident in Germany.

Funny enough, when I told her that Celestia and Luna were deified princesses and the leaders of an entire nation, she nearly choked on her water. Still, she was quite interested when I mentioned special talents and cutie marks—I pointed out the mark on my flank in my picture, and explaining what it meant for me—but I caught a wistful look from her. After a moment, she admitted that Emerald Flicker never really found anything beyond running that she was passionate about, and was surprised that I didn't have a mark for running. There was no purpose in pointing out that I wasn't her Emerald; she knew I wasn't her.

Still, I found myself wondering if she wouldn't have found a passion for programming if she tried. From everything I'd ever heard, programming was creating a set of instructions to tell a computer what to do, which didn't seem all that different from what I did with runes and magic. Then again, if she had a reputation as an athlete, she might have—like Rainbow Dash—scoffed at the idea of doing nerd stuff. Still, if my situation and opportunities had been different, that could've been me.

I managed to lighten the mood by explaining how I ended up going from being in Celestia's care to being in Twilight's. Apparently this world had an analogue to Jim Davis' Garfield, because between fits of giggles, she told me that Princess Celestia apparently Nermal'd me by sending me to Ponyville for eating that cake. I wonder if Ponyville is basically the Abu Dhabi of Equestria? You know, the punchline for that recurring joke?

I continued on with my story, not quite able to withhold my own laughter. I told her of Twilight's idea to send me to school with foals my own physical age to help socialise me better. I admitted that it felt a bit weird going from being a grown-ass adult to going to class and hanging out with children no older than ten, but I wasn't about to make light of this second childhood I'd been granted. I even told her about the three friends I'd made—and how I'd been scarred in the process—and how I was looking forward to seeing how fast I could run when I got back. I bet Scootaloo would be all over racing.

Sadly, the lightheartedness didn't stick around. I couldn't deny that my first month in Ponyville wasn't all sunshine and roses. After all, a villain from Twilight's past had started luring me, tampering with my memory, before ultimately foalnapping me in a poorly thought out scheme to get back at my big sis and auntie for ruining her life. The fact that I fundamentally altered a being's entire existence—self defence or not—still weighed on my mind. Am I any better than a villain, or the living force that did this to me?

Eventually, that led back to why I had come here: to help clear Sunset's name. Even if the map hadn't specifically chosen me, I think I'd have come regardless. I knew how helpless losing a friend to suicide made one feel, not knowing just how badly they were hurting and feeling like I could have done something had I just seen the signs. It wasn't something I wanted Twilight, Spike, or Princess Celestia to feel if I could help it.

Glancing down at the watch around her wrist, she sighed. "You're a good person, Anon," she murmured, moving to pass the photograph back to me. I just shook my head, held up a hand and gave her a kind smile. Twilight might get mad that I gave away one of her photos, but it feels like the right thing to do. Tears began to spill down her cheeks when held it to her chest. "Even if you're not my Emerald, I'm happy that at least some iteration of her out there is able to find happiness and live her best life. I'm glad to have met you." Standing up, she slid the picture into her pocket. "I hope Sunset will come back, but if she doesn't, could you let her know I'm thankful for all she did for my daughter... and for me."

I nodded, but before she could turn around, I spread my arms and gestured her to come closer. She got the message, and I pulled her into a quick hug. "I'm sorry that you had to go through any of this; losing your daughter, then me existing and inadvertently rubbing salt in the wound..." I said, resting the side of my head on her chest. I almost winced when she brought a hand up to gently stroke the top of my head and inadvertently scratching at my ears. "I'll let her know." Releasing her, I stepped back and bowed my head. "Goodbye, and take care of yourself, Ms. Breeze."

At that, I watched her open the door and leave. She stopped to bid Raven a good day, and then she was gone. The moment she was out of sight, I went back to the seat with the remnants of my lunch. I didn't even bother finishing it off. I just pushed it aside, and set my head down on my folded arms while releasing a drawn-out breath. All of the tension I'd built up left my body.

I sat there for a while, just relaxing. There wasn't going to be a nap; as much as I would've enjoyed it, there was still too much to do. Rainbow Dash, Applejack, and the others might've found a lead, or somehow caught Anon-a-Miss themselves. After all, I'd been in here at least an hour now, and the day was more than half over. If they hadn't found anything, I might have to go check the social media for any sort of clues.

Then there was the matter of what I just experienced. My thoughts on the matter felt so disorganised and at odds. It felt like I had just been speaking with my own mother. That definitely wasn't her, and intellectually, I knew it. She seemed to, as well. I don't belong here; I belong with Starlight and Twilight, so why do I kinda want to stay here?

Then there was the matter of Sunset. Emerald Breeze seemed like reason enough to encourage Sunset to come back, but that was probably my brain playing fuck and causing bias. The real problem here was that this world could represent a lot of pain for her now. Can she even bring herself to forgive the others—to entrust them with her emotional well-being again? For all I knew, she might even have reconciled with Princess Celestia while I've been here, clearing her name.

Let's pretend she does come back, I mused, propping my cheek up on one hand as I caught sight of the alicorn's doppelganger now in the main office, discussing something with Ms. Inkwell. Would she want to help this world recover magic? Could she do for this world what Twilight does, and spread magic and friendship where she goes? Or would she distrust that otherworldly force?

"Well, I don't think she's about to sue," I murmured tiredly as Principal Celestia stepped back into the meeting room. "I feel a bit guilty, though. Not just because Anon-a-Miss got her involved by using my name and people sharing videos of me, but because... I'm kinda glad that I met her. I never got to properly say goodbye to my own Mom, so in its own way this is pretty cathartic."

In a really roundabout way, I was kind-of granting the wish little Emerald Flicker had begged of Harmony, but I didn't voice that part to Celestia. It was the wrong Flicker and wrong Breeze, but two living beings got to meet when neither expected to ever see the other alive again... assuming Emerald Flicker was along for the ride with me after all. That was, again, assuming that I wasn't really Emerald, having repressed my memories when I lost the will to live, only for Harmony to restore memories of my previous life.

Fuck, that makes my head hurt.

"I know this wasn't easy for either of you," Celestia said, sounding profoundly tired, but still radiating gratitude. "I'm glad that you met with her too." She managed a weak smile as I looked up at her. "I suspect your time with us is almost over," she added, setting a slip of paper down in front of me. "Rainbow Dash said she and the others had a lead, and they wanted you to join them at Donut Joe's after school. She wrote down all the details when she and Spitfire turned in Lightning Dust."

I nodded, picking up the slip. "What was that about, anyways?"

Emerald Anon
Anon-a-Miss messaged me, Rarity, and AJ at lunch. They wanna meet us at Donut Joe's before they turn themselves in, but they wanted you to be there too. We're all riding over in Rarity's car after classes end, so meet us in the back parking lot. Might be a trap, so may as well be ready with your magic.
Rainbow Dash

"Oh, that?" she replied. "Lightning Dust accidentally let slip to Spitfire that she was the one that left you unconscious in the hallway. The rest of the Wondercolts Soccer Team had to help the two drag her here. Naturally, we've immediately suspended her until after New Year's—" At my look of indignance, her smile broadened. "—for violating the CHS Social media and hateful conduct policies. A number of students have already received this punishment for hateful comments made during this debacle, but we are reserving all potential expulsion-related hearings, such as hers, until after the holidays. Suffice to say, she'll not be starting the next semester."

Fucking troll.

Entry 29

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After returning my tray and dishes to the cafeteria, I spent the rest of the afternoon walking around the school, wrapped up in thought. No, that's not entirely correct. It's more like I was trying not to think. I left my bag—and cloak after transferring the medallions and wallet to my jacket pockets—with Luna, along with instructions to write "Help!" in the journal if something happened when I went to meet Anon-a-Miss with the other three, and I didn't come back.

Call me paranoid, but finding out that the bitch that sucker-punched me had been caught and suspended, pending expulsion, hadn't really eased my nerves all that much. As much as it felt like she deserved what was coming to her, I also felt that making an example of her—even if she'd been in fights before and was on a last warning—was only gonna make her more volatile. She wasn't just a victim of her own hubris; Anon-a-Miss was the piper playing the tune, and emotionally volatile teenagers could make some of the most unfortunate, potentially deadly weapons.

Sure, the school's general emotional state was finally starting to simmer down but there was this feeling in the back of my mind that something bad was going to happen. Even if the account had gone radio-silent since the call-out over the PA, there were still a number of people angry and hurt by all of his—Sunset most of all. Honestly, it felt like the days leading up to my kidnapping all over again.

In the end, I just ended up wandering up and down the halls of the school, peeking in on the occasional classroom, waving to anyone who noticed me. The expression on Wallflower Blush's face when she saw me peering in was priceless. Rainbow, on the other hand grinned and shot me the thumbs up. I could practically imagine what she was thinking: We've got this! I even ended up helping Coach Iron Will with another stuck ball, to the cheers of students who didn't want their game of kickball to end so soon.

In the window in the door to the art room, I spotted three familiar girls in matching dark hoodies making something with paper mâché. Their apparent fear of me nagged at the back of my mind. At the time, I'd have liked nothing more than to ask their teacher if I could have a moment to speak with the three. I just wanted to assure them that they have nothing to fear from me, and try to help out if Anon-a-Miss had done something to hurt them.

As I watched them, a stray thought crossed my mind. 'I'd look at the kids in the middle school program. Even if she didn't really target them, they've all probably been told stories of her reign of terror from their friends and family, or witnessed the results.' That's what Wallflower Blush had suggested, and the human Cutie Mark Crusaders—What did this trio even call themselves?—definitely seemed to be the right age. Plus, in the journal, Sunset had suggested it could be friends or family within their peer group...

An icy chill gripped at my heart, and my stomach felt as though I were on a roller-coaster. Those three would have access to a lot of personal stuff others wouldn't, and it's entirely possible that they might have been present at times where Sunset received certain information. One probably wouldn't act without the other two supporting though... I turned away from the door and shook my head. Sure, they have the means, but what's the motive? For that matter, would they have it in them to hurt their sisters and friends in order to... do what exactly? What's the end goal?

Backing away from the door, I sighed. Maybe they're being blackmailed by Anon-a-Miss, I wondered. But what could three middle school students have on them? The more I thought about it, the less I understood. It didn't help any that I knew that, deep down, I was being blinded by cognitive bias. The Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo of my world were some of the sweetest fillies I knew, and while they took a bit to warm up to me, they were good kids.

I can't assume that these three are the exact same, because they probably grew up in different ways... If only my interactions with AJ, Dash, Rarity, Fluttershy, and Pinkie didn't reinforce the opposite. Although those girls might have been awful to Sunset, nothing in their behaviours and mannerisms really stood out to me as contrary to their Equestrian counterparts. After all, I knew firsthoof from my experience getting my shit slapped by the farmpony that people do stupid shit when stressed and hurt.

My biggest problem, I think, was that I was rationalising. The thought that it could be the CHS Crusaders scarred me. If it really was these three, and they were pretty much identical to my friends, then it would mean that my friends were capable of straight-up organising the straight up mass ostracism of another being... Worse, it meant that they seemingly didn't care that their cruelty drove someone to self-harm and/or attempted suicide. I don't wanna believe that my first friends 'my own age' could be this sociopathic.

I was saved from my thoughts when I noticed the trio all simultaneously get up. I knew from all the clocks I'd passed that there was still quite a bit of time left in this last period of the day, but it looked like they'd all put their projects away in their bags and had all packed up. Before they had an opportunity to spot me I chose to beat feet down the hallway. If they're innocent in all this, and they see me creeping on them, they're just gonna be even more scared. I can talk to them when this is all done.

Although my instincts were screaming that this was suspicious of them, and that I should follow them, I went against that instinct. Out the back door to the parking lot I went. Without my cloak on, I had only my track jacket to keep my upper body warm, and the skirt was still pretty breezy, so in the end I decided to fish out the fire medallion to warm myself while wandering about the parking lot. After all, it felt good to keep moving, if only to keep the circulation going.

If I'd had gloves, pants, and proper boots, I might've thought about making a snowman—and blasting it for target practice—but in lacking that, there wasn't much to do. That's how I ended up playing 'Which car is Rarity's?' There were plenty of choices. Personally, I expected it to be the white mid-range sedan with the vanity plate reading F45H10ND1V4. Another likely one was this grey SUV with D4PR1NC355 for a plate. There was also some pink equivalent of a Miata in the far side of the parking lot, but since it was a compact sports car, I imagined that wasn't it, unless me and someone else were riding on someone's lap, which would be a huge traffic violation.

Once I got bored, I found a spot near the doors, used my fire to dry a ledge along the stairs to sit on, and waited. It didn't take long for the bell to ring, and not long after, students were filing out the door. Dismissing the fireball, I chose to just sit there as students went past. Spitfire even stopped by to make sure I'd received Rainbows message, as if there'd be some other reason I was loitering outside in the cold. Nah, to be fair, in their eyes I am an interdimensional pony whose thought processes are alien to them.

"Emerald, er Anon, darling," came Rarity's familiar faux-posh accent as she approached. "Wherever is your beautiful cloak? You must be freezing."

Shrugging, I held up the medallion seated in my right hand, while holding the left one palm up and channelling some mana through the engraved runes just long enough to show a small burst of flame. "I've got means to fight the cold," I explained, sliding the clay disc into my pocket. "But even without that, I managed to survive seven years living on the move; honestly, this isn't even the coldest I've felt. It's usually much worse this time of year up in the Arctic circle."

Applejack and Rainbow Dash weren't far behind Rarity. "Eeyep, Ah got a cousin what lives up thataway," said Applejack as she zipped up her own parka. "Crab Apple says them month-long polar nights get mighty cold."

"Mom and Dad took me on a 'survivalist excursion' up in Coltorado Springs last year in the middle of winter," added Rainbow, shivering slightly as she pulled on some gloves. "If you dealt with cold like that all the time, you're some kind of crazy."

Rather than dignify that with a response, I simply hopped off the ledge, brushed off the back of my skirt, and inclined my head toward the parking lot. They got the hint, and started walking. "Any idea why Anon-a-Miss wants to meet us off-campus?" I asked, following behind them. I winced as a pale guy in a basket-ball jersey perked up and started watching me—at least, I think he was; I couldn't see his eyes through the curtain of long brown hair hanging in front of his face. "They know you guys are likely smarting from being manipulated into alienating and isolating, and I'm certainly pissed—" Rarity turned to look at me, and I could almost hear the word language forming in her mouth, but I just raised an eyebrow at her. "—off that I have a concussion because of them, among other things."

Applejack was the one to speak up when we reached the white sedan with F45H10ND1V4 plate. Fucking called it. "Ah cain't rightly say, sugar," she said, climbing into the front passenger seat, while Rainbow took the one behind Rarity. "Might wanna simply say their piece 'fore they turn themselves in. Might want us ta turn them in ta make good with Sunset."

~ 29 ~

The entire ride to Donut Joe's was filled with an uncomfortable silence. I honestly couldn't blame them for not wanting to talk more. After all, they'd apparently turned up nothing since yesterday afternoon, only for Anon-a-Miss to contact them and request a meeting. They couldn't even help Sunset on their own terms. They probably felt bitter that, no matter what they did, their choices kept getting taken from them, and the only choice they had gotten to make in all of this was to hurt their friend.

It was kinda surprising that the place wasn't more packed on an afternoon when a bunch of teenagers were all getting out of school at once, but maybe they all preferred this world's Sugarcube Corner. After all, a doughnut shop seemed more like a cop hangout and a meeting-place for adults, rather than a dine-in bakery/sweet shop. Then again, maybe that's why they wanted to meet here; so their peers would be less likely to recognise them. Still, the parking lot was almost empty.

I don't like this, I thought as I undid my seat belt. That earlier feeling of dread had returned, and the thought that this might be some sort of trap returned. An empty, out of the way place... As I exited the back seat, I could feel the anxiety and barely-disguised fear from the three young women with me.

My eyes darted between the three, considering my options as we all walked into the place. If it comes down to it, do I put priority on my own well-being, or do I buy them time to escape? I'd promised Twilight that I wouldn't intentionally put myself in danger, but at the same time, she'd understand if it meant protecting her friends, right? Even if they fucked up by allowing themselves to be manipulated into hurting Sunset Shimmer, I don't think she'd forgive me if I let them get hurt when I could protect them.

"While we wait for them to arrive, I shall get us something to drink," Rarity offered once we were through the door. "I take it you two want the usual?" I caught a nod from AJ and Rainbow, who were looking around the place with wary eyes. "Would you like anything, dear?"

Part of me wanted to say yes, and to ask her to get me the sugariest caffeinated beverage the place offered. It never hurt to ensure I was replenishing my mana, even if I was able to passively pull in some of this world's stagnant magic. At the same time, though, my stomach was doing back flips, and I could tell that the anxiety would make it next to impossible to keep anything down. "No thank you," I answered, glancing over to a booth far from the exit. "I don't think I could keep it down, so I'm gonna go claim us a booth."

Separating from the group, I let my eyes wander. At a table not far from the exit, I saw that indigo and pink haired girl who'd almost been jumped in the locker room yesterday morning—I think her name was Bon Bon. Sitting across from her was an aquamarine girl with whitish-cyan hair, sporting a shiner and tears in her eyes. Despite being on opposite sides of the table, the pair were holding hands, and I could hear the former saying something along the lines of, "I won't let them ever hurt you again. Mom even said you can come stay with us."

Another table near the bathrooms was occupied by a trio of hooded figures. All of them were wearing dark colours, save for the white masks adorning their faces. Those had poorly drawn smiley-faces that gave off a rather creepy vibe as they sipped sodas through straws and the mouth slits in their masks. Even though I couldn't see their eyes, I could tell they were watching.

Those must be Anon-a-Miss, I decided as I claimed a large corner booth. That sinking feeling from earlier had returned in force as I started to pick up on three familiar emotional presences. I'd felt them several times over the last two days. That same sensation of fear, guilt, and anxiety. Then I was right...

Anger rose in my throat like bile, and I felt my cheeks becoming hot. I wanted nothing more than to just storm over to them and chew them out right then and there. They'd inflicted a special kind of evil upon the world, and I wanted them to know that there was a special place in Hell waiting for them. Still, I needed to remain calm and rational. I was probably going to be the closest possible thing to an impartial mediator when the masks came off. I might even have to hold the other three back. Would I really? They might get pissed, but I can't bring myself to believe they'd actually attack them.

When the others sat down with me, setting their drinks on the table, I remained quiet. I didn't even look at the trio while they worked up the courage to come confess. Instead, took my glasses off, slid them into one of my pockets, and buried my face in my palms. I can't fucking believe his, I groaned inwardly into my hands as I felt the trio start moving in our direction. How should we handle this?

Now that I thought about it, the masks weren't all that bad of an idea. Anyone who might've overheard that we were meeting with Anon-a-Miss wouldn't know who they were. Coupled with the nondescript dark clothes, if we walked them straight into the office still wearing the masks, nobody would know until after they turned themselves in. Why protect them, though? I wondered. They've hurt people... endangered lives. Aunt Twilight's friend was driven to near suicide! I grit my teeth. They deserve whatever they get!

Still, the Tenets of Harmony rose to mind. If the three met vigilante justice, that wouldn't be an honest end. Stopping it from happening might be more kind than they deserved, but it'd be generous to spare them the cruelty of leaving them at the mercy of those they fucked over. Disproportionate retribution would forever steal laughter from their families, and allowing it to happen would betray what I set out to do; I gave my word I'd bring Anon-a-Miss to justice, and I had to stay loyal to my word. It's more friendship than they deserve, but I think it's what Twilight would want.

"Masks stay on, you three," I declared when they sat down across the table from us on the other side of the booth. I hadn't bothered to remove my face from my hands, nor even looked up. "They stay on until you're back at the school and in Principal Celestia's office."

"What?" came the squeaky response that could only have come from Sweetie Belle. "Why?"

"Yeah!" Scootaloo quickly added. "Do you have any idea how hard it is to see in these things?"

Only Apple Bloom remained silent, which was probably good. Based on what I could feel coming off them, the other three at the table were probably in shock, and had she spoken, it might've snapped the group out of it. Then all hell would have broken loose. Hoo boy; I've got my work cut out for me.

"Applejack, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, meet Anon-a-Miss," I said, looking up to the ceiling. "I think you've figured it out, but please, don't use their names. You're going to have to explain yourselves, but please keep your voices down." I inclined my head in the direction of the lovebirds by the entrance. It was a bit far away, but I could just pick up the tickle of curiosity. "I think you can figure out why."

I didn't need to be able to see properly to know that everyone was nodding in reluctant agreement. "Well, Ah s'pose y'all're angry, wonderin' the big question," murmured Apple Bloom after a moment of silence. "Why? Why'd we go an' do such a thing? Why'd we go so far? Why call ya out here an' not just turn ourselves in."

"You have no idea," Rainbow growled out, gripping the edge of the table until her knuckles turned white. Thankfully, she was between Applejack and myself, so we were both able to hold her back.

"I would have to agree," added Rarity in a cold voice. "I can't even begin to express how disappointed I am."

Once applejack had thrown in her own terse "Eeyep," I took my glasses back out of my pocket and slid them back on. Looking from one to the next, I shook my head and clicked my tongue to express my own displeasure. "I thought I knew your counterparts back in Equestria," I stated in a flat voice. "In fact, those three were my first friends since my rebirth, so please, help me understand what drove you three to do such a thing... so I know what to watch out for when I go back."

The surprise of all six filled the air at my statement, and three fresh blooms bursts of guilt. "We saw how close Sunset was getting with you all," Sweetie squeaked out in a shaky voice. "How she was starting to monopolise your time!"

That elicited a nod from the one across from me and Dash. "Sure, we were a little jealous 'cause you weren't spending as much time with us," Scootaloo admitted, fidgeting her gloved hands and fretting with the sleeve of her hoodie. "More than that though, we were scared for you... about what would happen when the other shoe dropped and she went back to her old ways!"

"We remember how awful she was to ya," concluded Apple Bloom. "We didn't want her breakin' ya up again and breakin' yer hearts."

"Girls, why in the Sam Hill would ya'll think she was gonna turn on us after all we been through?" Applejack hissed, rage bubbling up out of her. "She's a changed woman!"

Scootaloo slammed her palms down on the table, and stood up, startling the others. Even Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom recoiled. "Because bitches like her don't change!" she snarled. "We used to think Diamond Tiara changed, but then after Sunset Shimmer was out of the picture, she started acting no better than Sunset had. It was only a matter of time until she reverted too."

I nodded. Normally, I'd have agreed. People like that usually don't change, and if they do, relapse isn't out of the question. "I get your reasoning," I said, keeping my voice flat. "If not for the purification Aunt Twilight said the six of them put her through, you might've even had a point..." I rubbed the bridge of my nose and shook my head, giving the Dash a sidelong glance. "Unfortunately, you all forgot a big part of Sunset's M.O. when you framed her. She never did anything that didn't benefit her, and didn't do anything to attract the police. You're lucky the police aren't involved yet, and this scheme definitely didn't benefit her in the least."

Over the back of the booth behind the three Crusaders, I saw that Bon Bon and Lyra had gone back to minding their own business. "Ponies are much more open to same-sex relationships," I continued, letting out a sigh. "Comes with the gender ratio being all outta whack—five mares to every stallion. Two girls in love? That's just a Tuesday back home, so outing that girl? Wouldn't have made sense for her."

A glance over at Rainbow, Rarity, and Applejack revealed that they were itching to have words. "I'll let you three explain just how evil their actions really were," I said, resting my head on one palm and closing my eyes. "You can hash out their punishments on your side of things, and then we can get them back to the school for their official punishments." As everyone got out of the booth and moved to separate tables, I added. "Poke me when you're all ready go."

~ 29 ~

I spent the remainder of our time there just resting my eyes and trying not to listen to the others hash things out. After all, there's only so many times you could hear someone say "How could you?" before it grew to be an annoyance. Since I was basically loitering in the shop, I decided to order up something after taking care of some bathroom needs. Just a little french vanilla latte with extra sugar was enough to tide me over.

That said, I did get some insight into the goings-on. The first post had been Apple Bloom's contribution, taking an embarrassing childhood story and nickname that Sunset had been exposed to over a phone conversation when she was at that first sleepover. Sweetie Belle had apparently planned on getting some embarrassing videos off of Sunset's phone from that second party, but had been unable to get in thanks to the password I'd encouraged her to set. Instead, she went through Rarity's phone and found some risque photos that she'd sent Sunset as instructional images on how to measure for undergarments and assuring fits. Even if it was done with underwear over the clothes, who does that to their sister!? From there, Scootaloo had revealed that Dash was going to be held back a year if her mathematics grades didn't go up, something she'd overheard at a practice. That was to say nothing of the other information they gathered before people started sending in each other's dirty laundry.

All the while, I kept an eye on the comings and goings from the store. A pair of adults came to collect Bon Bon and Lyra after about twenty minutes. A familiar looking cop stopped by not long after, apparently getting coffee and donuts to split with his partner. Dunno why, but I would've figured Shining Armour to have taken a military career track rather than a simple beat cop. Then he was gone.

Things got problematic not long after the cops left. That dude from the school—the one with the fringe haircut and the basket-ball jersey—was standing outside in the parking lot, talking to two other guys. Both had darker palettes and similar eye-hiding hairstyles. The only difference was that the one with the black hair was short and fat wearing a football jersey, while the blond-haired one was absolutely jacked and wearing a muscle shirt despite the weather. Normally that wouldn't have caused me any distress, but for the fact that basket-ball guy kept pointing at Rarity, AJ, Dash, and the kids behind Anon-a-Miss.

Then, just as I was getting ready to tell the others we needed to get going, a beat-to-hell pick-up truck pulled in. Out of the driver's seat hopped a tawny young woman with a white fauxhawk with purple frosted tips, a few facial scars, and a punk leather jacket, looking every bit a street-gang member. The passenger, however, was none other than Lightning Dust, and she looked fucking pissed. While the boys went over to the bed of the truck alongside the criminal looking girl to take out what looked to be planks of wood, chains, and a bat, Lightning just went to the nearest window, pointed at me with a manic look, and mimed a throat slitting.

"Bad news, everyone," I said aloud, hopping to my feet as the group gathered by the exit. "Looks like the word's gotten out."

Everyone stood up and looked to the sole entrance. All colour drained from their faces, and the crusaders instinctively hid behind their sisters and Rainbow Dash. Even with the masks hiding their faces, it wasn't hard to guess what was going through their heads. We're so fucked.

Rarity's car is only a sedan, so there's not enough space for all seven of us without violating some traffic ordinances. I could feel my hands beginning to tremble as I subconsciously started moving toward the door. This is such a stupid idea "Joe, do you have a back door they can use?" I asked the shopkeeper in a shaky voice, gesturing at the others with my thumb over my shoulder. When he nodded, I continued, "Could you let those six use it?" Again, he nodded.

Casting a glance over my shoulder to Rarity and Applejack, I called back, "I'm going to go buy you guys some time. When you hear the signal—you'll know it when you hear it—make a break for the car," I instructed, putting some steel into my voice. "Get them back to the school, and then tell Luna to send the message; she'll know what it means."

"Anon, no!" Rainbow called back. "That's Gilda out there with them! She's in a gang, and she might kill you!"

I didn't give them time to respond further. I rushed out the front door, with my hands in my pockets. Despite how scared I was, and how stupid I was being—totally breaking my promise to Twilight—the bitterness of the cold air didn't bug me all that much. My right was clenching the strength amplification spell medallion, while the left held the air bullet. Without so much as a moment's hesitation, I triggered the amp as I stopped between Lightning's group and the door.

Apparently, the sight of a girl barely in her teens trying to stand up to a group of five was humorous to them. They all took a step backwards as one, before breaking out into mocking laughter. "Just get out of our way and give us Anon-a-Miss," Lightning Dust demanded, slamming a fist into her palm. Lightning was in front of me, Gilda was to her right, while the trio of boys were to her lined up left. "I know you're hiding them in there, and if you move now, I might not put you in a wheelchair for costing my ticket to Canterlot U, fuckin' freak. No way they're gonna take me now!"

I pretended to consider her offer. "That's fair," I agreed, with a bob of my head. "I do rather enjoy the use of my legs, after all." Let's see, these three are the most likely to get in the way of the others, since Rarity's car's off to the right. My right hand came out of my pocket, and I pointed at each of them in turn, stopping at the furthest boy's chest. "Counteroffer: go home and I can guarantee you'll still be capable of playing sports." When the sneers from the group intensified, a sigh escaped me. "It's a really fair deal, but if you're not going to take it..."

The boy in the football jersey watched as I lowered my hand to point at his knee, especially with my thumb held outward making the angled finger-gun gesture. "Sorry boys," I murmured as I pumped three bursts of mana through the air bullet medallion. Even as the air capsule slammed into his knee, buckling it the wrong way with a crunching sound only masked by the burst of the capsule, the recoil directed my finger to point at basket-ball jersey boy. As the former owner of a pair of testicles, I cringed as the second capsule struck him in the groin. I couldn't tell if he was better or worse off than the first.

Mister muscles was probably the best off, only taking his air-capsule to the gut—at least, at first. As the other two fell to the ground screaming in pain, dropping a chain and a plank respectively, I lunged forward. Even as a bat swung through the space where my head had been a moment before, I ducked down and slammed my open palm into his jaw and jowls. His mouth slammed shut with a click, and he dropped like a sack of bricks. Good, he's still breathing.

"Dumb-Bell! Score!" Gilda called out, swinging her wooden bat down at me. I just rolled to my right, placing myself firmly between between Rarity's car and the still-standing pair. "What did you do to them, you psycho bitch!?"

Hopping to my feet, I shrugged. "I did warn you," I offered with a tone of faux-sympathy. With their attention wholly on me, they didn't even notice Rainbow Dash watching from the other side of the door. When they stepped forward, I backed away slightly, repeating until they were clear of the door. "I offered you a peaceful alternative, and you all laughed, so I evened the odds. Don't fuck with a pony."

Again, Lightning Dust stepped forward, but when I dipped my left hand into a pocket only to swing a ball of fire past her face, she reconsidered. Tapping her temple, she sneered back at me as I dispelled the flames once more, returning the medallion to my pocket. "You must be retarded," she shot back. "Even with your freaky tricks, it's still two on one."

It was at that moment that Rainbow Dash burst out the door, and slammed into Gilda. The pair went sprawling to the ground behind Lightning in a flurry of fists. I just raised an eyebrow and smirked. "Nah, I think they're just about even," I teased, waving a hand dismissively. "This time, you don't even have the benefit of sucker-punching me like a fuckin' coward."

For the first time, she looked a little less sure of herself. A glance over her shoulder showed Rainbow Dash and Gilda trading blows, rolling around in an almost comical struggle for top position in order to beat down the other. "You insulted my Mom," she growled, as if only just remembering it. "I guess I do get to pay you back for that."

Kinda twisted thinking there. I insulted your mother because you sucker-punched me, bitch! I mused, watching her. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of Rarity's car peeling out of the parking lot. Good, they're gone.

She lunged toward me, throwing her right hand out in a hook. In response, I lashed out with an open palm, slamming the heel of my hand against her knuckles. She pulled her hand back with a yelp of pain and surprise. Instead of realising she was in over her head, though, she doubled down; even as she tried shaking the pain out of the one hand, she swung out with the other, only to a meet similar resistance. This played out a few more times like a demented game of patty-cake before she determined that wasn't going to work.

Seeing that punching wasn't going to help, she brought her foot up above her head, bringing it down in an axe kick. Big mistake, bitch, I thought, catching her leg on my hands. My stance quickly transitioned from a brace to a throw as I changed my grip on her leg. Without the amplification of my strength and force, I would never have been able to do this, but now it was surprisingly easy to whip her around by her leg and slam her into the ground with a crack. She cried out in pain, probably because of the way she ended up eating asphalt.

After swinging her back over my head and into the ground again, I released her leg, stepped back and gave a glance back at Dash. She was currently straddling Gilda's chest. The girls were struggling for control of the bat. More precisely, Rainbow was trying to get it away from Gilda before she could do any damage with it, while Gilda was doing her damnedest to smack her with either end of it. Both of them were sporting welts on their faces and a few scrapes.

"You're not finished with me yet!" shouted Lightning Dust, as she struggled to her feet. The entire left side of her face was scraped up and bleeding from tarmac friction, and her left arm, which she'd attempted to cushion her impacts with the ground with, hung limply at her side. Dislocated? Worse, the leg I'd swung her around with didn't exactly look like it could hold her weight, but whether it was due to an injury to the knee, or strain to the ligaments was beyond me.

I shook my head and folded my ears back, turning away once more. "Stay down, Lightning," I said in a soft voice. Despite the adrenaline high brought about by the fight, I really didn't enjoy this all that much. Hurting people isn't who I am... That was his thing. Admittedly, I didn't know which him I was referring to right then. "I really don't want to hurt you, but if you force me to defend myself any further, I will take every precaution to make sure you don't get back up again."

Evidently, turning my back on her was the wrong choice. As considered whether to step in with Gilda, I heard a click behind me. "Don't you turn your back on me!" bellowed Lightning Dust as I turned to face her, just in time to catch her lunging at me once more. A searing pain pierced my palm as up my hands to defend myself, and I watched in horror as a thin length of stainless steel punched through the back of my hand.

There's absolutely zero shame in admitting I screamed out in pain. After all crying out is a natural response to being fucking stabbed in the hand. Strangely enough, it didn't really even compare to the pain I'd felt when Ivory dumped the scalding tea over my head. I didn't even black out this time... although it might've been preferable given the dark thoughts that came with startling clarity. Irredeemable. She just tried to kill me, after I gave her chance after chance to retreat.

Jerking my pierced hand back, knife and all, I cradled it close to my chest, and hissed in pain as tears streaked down my cheeks. "This is your own fault," I whispered as a terrifying calm overwhelmed all of my emotions. Before she could pull back her uninjured right arm, I seized her wrist with my left hand and held it tight in a vise-like grip. "I don't enjoy hurting ponies, but you... you're an insect, barely even human. You'd have to be to have zero survival instinct like this."

My left foot thrust out, sweeping her right leg out from under her. I turned as she fell, guiding her so that she was face-first on the ground. I knew that it just had to hurt, especially when I put one foot down on her back and twisted slightly. "Unlike you, though, I don't pull the limbs off insects," I hissed, squeezing her wrist until it felt like I was holding a bag of gravel, rather than someone's arm. The scream that came out of her before she passed out would probably haunt me later, but the sound she was making was definitely the sound of someone who wouldn't attempt to hurt me anymore. "I'm not an irredeemable monster."

From behind me, there was a cry of pain, and the dull thump of wood on flesh. Then there was the scrabbling of boots on asphalt. "GET THE FUCK OFF OF HER!" That's Gilda! I snapped my head to the side to look to see what had happened to Rainbow Dash. That sudden exertion of force and violence of motion, coupled with the force-amp spell was probably all that saved me from certain death. It did not, however, save my glasses, the right side of which crumpled and shattered, as my vision filled with stars.

For a moment, all I could hear was the ringing in my ears and the splintering of the wooden bat. "Gilda, what the fuck did you do!?" I eventually heard Rainbow Dash cry out as I swayed back and forth, although it sounded pained. Probably got hit in the stomach or ribs herself. Not that I was better off. The world felt all topsy-turvy.

All around me, I could feel shock and fear. That second one was growing, and right about now? It was like ambrosia. There were four points of fear... One was right beside me, the bitch what blindsided me with the bat. The other was a few feet behind her... The other two were on the other side of me... The two boys I'd initially disabled. I just let it flow in and augment the rage beginning to well up inside me.

"You know, studies have shown that traumatic brain injuries can cause heightened levels of aggression," I said, turning to fully regard Gilda. When blood began to trickle from the fresh wound on my temple, a cackle—one that felt alien to my own ears—escaped me. I released Lightning Dust's crushed wrist and snatched the broken baseball bat from Gilda's hand, tilting my head back with a sneer. "Well, I gotta say... I'm feeling pretty fuckin' aggressive right about now."

Without any consideration for my own well-being or pain—I was far beyond that at this point—I dropped the broken bat handle and wrenched the blade out of my hand. Huh, switchblade, and definitely longer than four inches; would've been illegal back home, I mused, examining it. "What a nasty little toy," I hissed, wiping my blood free of the blade on my jacket sleeve. It still seemed somewhat red, but I think that was the blood in my eye. "Not at all suitable for a high school girl."

In one lightning fast movement, I pitched the blade into the windshield of the truck they arrived in. The blade punched through the glass with a loud crack, a spiderweb pattern radiating out from the impact site. Gilda took a step back, and the two conscious boys gasped. "What should I do to you, my scared little bird?" I wondered aloud as I snatched up the two halves of the broken bat from the ground, the handle in my injured hand. "You've no real wings to clip..." Shaking my head, I pitched the broad part of the bat at the windshield, completely ruining the driver's side.

"H-how are you still standing?" she whimpered, retreating again as I stepped toward her. Why's she so scared? Am I that much of a sight? "S-stay back."

I dashed forward and seized her by the front of her jacket, jerking her down to my level until she was practically touching foreheads with me. "I'm really bad at dying," I said with a cackle. Holding up the broken bat handle and prodding her face with a jagged bit of wood. All tension left her body, and suddenly I found myself holding her up. "Hmm, maybe I should make your face a tapestry of scars. You've already got a head start."

A hand came down on my left shoulder, and I almost stabbed Gilda in surprise. "That's enough, Anon," Rainbow said, "Look, she's already wet herself and fainted."

Leaning back, I noticed the young woman's eyes were unfocused, and her head flopped back and forth when I gave her a little shake. Yep, that's definitely piss I smell. Gross... Shaking my head, I felt a fresh wave of dizziness wash over me. "Yeah, I think I probably made my point," I mumbled, dragging Gilda over to the hood of the truck and putting her up for all to see. "I wasn't exactly looking forward to putting her through that windshield anyway..."

I stumbled slightly, and turned to regard myself in the shop window. My glasses were ruined, and the only reason they were even still on my face was because the bridge was intact. Not that my face was looking all that better; there was a nasty bruise forming at my temple, but there was also a steady trickle of blood from the split where the bat hit. Worst was probably my eye. The right side of it was completely red, and it hurt to look at. It'd probably hurt if not for the shock.

"Should we, uh, call an ambulance? I think I fucked Lightning up pretty bad." Rainbow shook her head, taking a pair of handkerchiefs—they might've been bandanas—from a pocket in her own jacket. The first she wrapped tightly around my hand, and the other she had me hold against the cut.

"Joe called the cops and the ambulance the moment he saw the boys drop," she said, pulling my left arm over her shoulder. "We need to get you out of here before they get here, or Twilight's gonna have to come get you out of police custody."

I knew that losing consciousness right now would probably be a bad thing, so I just sorta let her guide me back to the school on foot. She kept muttering something about that being the scariest thing she'd ever seen, but it was getting hard to think. At some point, my magic gave out, because I even felt my ears migrate back down the sides of my head. With the shock of getting stabbed wearing off, and adrenaline running out, I started to feel really cold and weak. I think I even faded in and out a couple of times, because the trip didn't take nearly as long as I thought it would.

"I'm..." I tried to voice my thoughts, if nothing else than to stay conscious. But my voice sounded slurred to my own ears. I could tell we were surrounded by onlookers. I thought might've seen Celestia come running—or was that the nurse? It was hard to tell without my glasses and my eye in the state it was. "Scared... 'bow... wan't my sister. I wan' Starlight..."

The moment we stepped in front of the statue in the front of the school, I felt like a puppet with its strings cut. All tension left my legs, and I found myself sliding to the ground in a heap. This probably ain't good, I thought as I looked up at Rainbow. She seemed to be wearing an awful lot of my blood... was I really bleeding that much? What's she saying though?

When I blinked, I found I was suddenly upright, leaned against the base of the statue, with someone else holding my right hand above my head. There was the pretty white not-a-pony nurse with the pink hair, checking my vitals and shining a light in my eyes. Behind her, Rainbow Dash stood with Princess Celestia, talking to Flurry Heart's Dad of all ponies, who was for some reason dressed up like a stripper cop. What's Sunset doing here, though? There was no mistaking her, and while she looked a lot better than the last time I saw her, she looked awful—super pale, like she was gonna, well, pull a me?

I tried to focus my eye good on whoever was holding my hand, but my eye muscles felt weak, so I had tilted my head. I could see a familiar face beside the nurse: Aunt Twilight. I knew it was her because I'd seen her face on that poster. Sure, she had a hoodie on and seemed to be trying to hide her face from her brother for some reason, but she was here! She wasn't the one holding my hand though. I don't think I'd seen the person sitting on the ground beside me before, but I knew a pony who had a purple and aqua mane just like hers. Starlight!

"If you have to take her home through that mirror, you need take her to a hospital immediately," the nurse was saying to Twilight. "She was already concussed from yesterday, I'm almost certain she's got a skull fracture, and she's lost a surprising amount of blood."

Groaning slightly, I heaved out a sigh. "'m sorry Aunt Twilight," I whispered, leaning against Starlight's shoulder. I wanted nothing more than to hug my adoptive sister, but I could barely muster up the strength to talk. "I had to break my promise... It was beyond stupid, but it was the right thing to do."

Starlight squeezed my hand. "We know," she whispered back. She's trying to stay calm, but I can feel that fear and horror. "The others told us what happened, and how brave—and yes, incredibly stupid—you were."

Twilight nodded, kneeling down to rest her hand on top of Starlight's. "We can discuss how we're going to handle all of this later," she said reaching with her other hand to brush my hair out of my eyes. "For now, just leave everything to us. You're safe now, so just hang in there." Knowing that I was safe and just a portal trip and teleport away from help, shut my eyes and let everything slip away.

Entry 30

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When I next opened my eyes, I was a pony again. Even without my glasses—or what was left of them—to mitigate the blur of my damaged eyesight, it was incredibly hard to miss the familiar presence of my muzzle. Surprisingly, I found comfort in it. I'd only been a pony for a little over one Equestrian month—at least in theory—but it felt right being back in this body.

That said, I wasn't in my bedroom pillow nest. For one, I didn't typically sleep on my back. I was also staring up at an unfamiliar ceiling. That, coupled with a rhythmic beeping, something clipped to my ear, and what I could only assume was some intravenous line in my left forelimb, I could only assume that I was in a hospital. That, and the uncomfortable sensation of something being pressed up into my nether region, which was probably a catheter. But am I in Ponyville, or did I have to get moved to Canterlot?

"Hello?" I called out with a groan. Doing that might've been a mistake, because it made me painfully aware how dry my mouth was. It wasn't like I could sit up and look around, though. The rest of my body felt pretty damn weak, and it felt like I might've been strapped down. That said, it did seem to be a large room—too big to be Ponyville General. "Is anyone there?"

For a while, there wasn't anyone around. Just me, my thoughts, and the beep of a heart-rate monitor. If I wasn't so concerned about everything that had happened back in the other world, and how everything had turned out, I might've been content to go back to sleep. I also knew I had information to pass on to Twilight, Sunset, and maybe Celestia... but right now my head hurt a bit too much to be able to focus on it. Way too many ponies around and yet not around...

That said, I also needed to find out what all had happened to me. The other world's Nurse Redheart said I probably had a skull fracture, and I definitely bled a lot on Dash. I flexed the muscles in my front-right leg and winced. It felt like my leg had been run through and yet somehow missed my cannon bone, which made sense, given the conversion. I could also feel stitching at both sides, along with a tight bandage wrap.

Eventually, I heard an opening door and the clip-clop of hooves on stone flooring—two ponies, if I wasn't mistaken. When a white and pink blur popped into my field of view, I thought for a second I was looking at the familiar nurse, but the pink mane on this pony was more vivid, and she had a horn and was dressed as a maid. When a white and cornflower blue blur popped up, also sporting a horn and a maid's attire, it hit me: I was in Canterlot Castle, and these were the maids that helped me learn how to pony.

"Dearest sister," came the familiar monotone of the pink-maned sister who'd begun teaching me to read. "I do believe she's awake."

That elicited a giggle from the blue-maned sister. "That she does, darling sister," was her response. It always caught me off guard how the pair were identical in almost every way, except in the way they kept their manes—the parting of their long bangs was mirrored—and the way they spoke; Ms. Pink was serious and monotone, whilst Ms. Blue was vibrant and playful. "Good morning, sleepyhead."

"H-hi, you two," I croaked, a fresh bit of guilt washing over me as I recalled that I'd never learned their names in the thirty days I'd lived here. I smacked my lips as I tried to convince my salivary glands to work. "What am I doing in Canterlot Castle? Shouldn't I be in a hospital?"

Ms. Blue quickly fetched a glass of water from somewhere outside my field of vision and pressed it to my lips as she sat me up. Despite not being nearly as nice as the water I'd conjured for Emerald Breeze—Canterlot had too much calcium in the water for my liking—I drank greedily. "You're in the hospital wing of the castle," Ms. Pink explained in the meantime. "Many experts not available in Ponyville were required to treat your injuries. Princess Twilight Sparkle made the decision to transfer you here once you were stabilised."

I nodded weakly. "When can I see Starlight and Aunt Twilight?" I asked, feeling a bit antsy. "...and Sunset, too!"

The pair shared a look, although without my glasses, I couldn't really tell what sort of look that was. "Miss Starlight Glimmer and a doctor can be brought in," Ms. Blue answered in a rather apologetic tone. "Princess Twilight and Sunset Shimmer currently in a meeting with Princesses Celestia and Luna discussing a diplomatic issue."

My ear twitched at that. For Sunset to be involved—and even speaking to Princess Celestia—something serious must've happened. Hopefully not something I caused... "Definitely wanna see Starlight and the doctor," I said, relaxing back into the bed. "Maybe she has my spare glasses, since that psycho b—" I caught myself before I could swear, remembering that, per the rules, I was supposed to be cutting back on it around ponies. "—bully ruined my good pair when she broke that <<baseball>> bat on the side of my head."

"We shall mention them to her when we fetch her," Ms. Pink offered, turning away from me. "If there is nothing else, we shall take our leave." When I refrained from answering—I swear I wasn't just trying to decide whether or not to ask them for something sweet—the kind sister also turned away, and the pair exited the room in sync. "Somepony will be with you shortly."

That left me alone with my thoughts. Although I was definitely curious about what sort of diplomatic issue had come up, I found my thoughts drifting back to Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo. Oh the human trio definitely deserved whatever they got, but they weren't what was on my mind. It was my friends. Were they every bit as capable of doing what their human counterparts had? If so, could I guarantee that they wouldn't turn on me? Or should I distance myself and seek friends elsewhere?

That thought only made me feel guiltier. Am I really considering ditching the first friends I made here because of what they might be capable of doing? I stared up at the ceiling, trying to blink away a few tears that were risking turning me into a crying mess. It'd make me no different than Sunset's 'friends', but I had to admit that I was scared to get hurt again. One of the few people I'd ever let in had killed himself, and now I was terrified that my friends were secretly some of the evilest, most vile ponies I'd ever meet.

Luckily, not long after, I was visited by a unicorn doctor. Not so luckily, I had to ask him not to infantilise me, and just explain what was up. He wanted to wait until I had a guardian in the room with me, but I needed to know, so reluctantly he told me. The long and short of it was that after they'd stopped my bleeding and got some fresh blood into me, I'd been put into a medically induced coma for about a week until the swelling in my brain went down. During that time, several mages were brought into to investigate and treat microfractures detected throughout my skeletal system unrelated to my skull fracture, up to and including my vertebrae. Similarly, a lot of the muscle fibre in my legs was found to have suffered microtears coinciding with said fractures.

In the end, the mages couldn't determine what had caused that sort of damage. All they could guess was that my body had been under an insane degree of stress for a little filly. They'd pumped me so full of healing magic to stitch my bones back together that in the end that my body couldn't take any more. That left me with the hole in my leg that would have to be closed up the old fashioned way. The only upside was that my muscles were only gonna end up stronger because of it.

He also didn't buy it when he asked what exactly I'd been doing and I simply said 'testing custom spells'. You know, typical unicorn supremacist attitudes—because nobody but unicorns can make and test their own spells and shit. I didn't feel like trying to get into fight with the stallion who ultimately determines whether I get unstrapped from the bed. I'll light him on fire later.

He left me shortly after unstrapping my forelegs and taking out the IV line, assuring me that a nurse would be by to remove the catheter and the rest of the restraints. That left me alone with my thoughts until Starlight showed. Well, this is exactly why they say creating spells can be so dangerous, especially when you test them on yourself, I thought, holding up my bandaged hoof and staring at it through blurry eyes. Despite risking crippling myself for life, I don't regret it, though. If it hadn't been for that spell working out as well as it had, I would've had to make more... lethal spells for my self defence.

Now that I was fully conscious, I was more alert to the comings and goings of ponies in the hallways. It wasn't a particularly busy part of the castle, but I imagined that this was where the castle-stationed royal guard contingent received care as well. That was reinforced by the many stoic presences that accompanied the sound of hooves on marble. That said, I wasn't convinced that I wasn't in some sort of special suite; even for a castle, this was far too large a room for a singular patient.

Eventually I picked up on the return of two particular stoic presences, leading along a very concerned somebody. Not long after the doors opened, to a proclamation of "As promised, Lady Glimmer, here is Lady Anonymous." That's new, I decided as Starlight rushed over to my bedside. Since when do I have a title?

"Thank you, Natural Talent, Refined Skill; that will be all." Although my body was plenty sore, I managed to sit myself up as Starlight started to fuss over me. "Oh thank goodness you're awake!" she cried out before pulling me into a gentle hug. "How do you feel?"

I nuzzled into her shoulder, her familiar scent bringing me comfort. "Like I've got an 'I told you so' or two coming my way," I murmured. "The doctor told me just how bad a strain that spell put on my body, even if he didn't buy that I was using magic at all, and I know how irresponsible it was." Once she released me, I held up my bandaged hoof, rubbing at my temple and wincing as I touched a set of stitches. "I'm honestly lucky to even be alive."

When Starlight stepped away from the bed, I saw that she was wearing saddlebags, and she quickly aided my sight by levitating out the back-up pair of glasses we kept at Twilight's castle. Then, the moment those glasses were on my face, she levitated out the four medallions I'd made. I watched as she glanced at the light and fire medallions, quickly placing them down on the mattress. The force amp spell levitated closer to her face as she examined it.

"I take it this is what did most of the damage to your bones and muscles?" When I nodded she sighed. "Having seen the form you took on the other side, I can understand the perceived need for the extra strength, but as you've already seen, your safeguards weren't quite enough to fully protect you." The mana coalescing around her horn pulsed brighter for a moment, and the medallion slowly disintegrated. When she saw my ears begin to droop, she just shook her head and smiled, levitating out my new notebook. "When you're better, we can go over the notes and I can point you to where you went wrong, but I want you to promise me that you won't play with any more enchantment spells until we think you're ready."

I nodded. I honestly expected a lot more chewing out. "I promise that I will not prototype or cast any more enchantment spells until you and Auntie Twilight give the go-ahead," I agreed, although I almost expected her to pressure me to make a Pinkie Promise. Then again, she might have felt bad for me having gone through everything I had. Besides, there was a bigger question on my mind. "So... how long was I gone? What've I missed?"

~ 30 ~

It was now Thursday the twenty-forth of October. In the time that I was gone or otherwise indisposed, a lot of things had happened. In just days of me leaving, Pinkie went to Yakyakistan and became an honorary yak, and Twilight published a book and caused a culture war over who wrote the best lessons, all while Rarity ended up on the cover of Vanity Mare magazine with her new punk hairstyle. The Crusaders ran a 'Cutie Mark Day Camp', and Spike almost caused an international incident between the reformed changelings and the dragons. Not long after, Rainbow and Pinkie went down to some place called Somnambula and fought a villain from A.K. Yearling's Daring Do novels...? Umm, what.

That all paled in comparison to Twilight and friends saving six historical figures from a thousand-year entrapment in a magical prison... along with the evil 'Pony of Shadows' that had been sealed with them. Oh, they managed to solve the issue eventually, and now Star Swirl the Bearded—I only even remember his name because he's the one Twilight has a lady-boner for—was alive and kicking now. Apparently he's fairly interested in meeting me, as well. Lovely.

I noted, of course, that she'd refrained from discussing anything pertaining to the other side. All that she'd said was that Sunset had for the time being chosen to remain in Equestria, and that she'd made some degree of peace with Princess Celestia. That was good, but I was interested in discussing a few things with her and the big boss before she decided on whether or not to stick around for good. Not that I wanna split them up if they've made their peace after so long.

Eventually, the maids returned with a nurse, so our discussion was put on hold while my catheter was removed. Before I was fully unstrapped, however, the nurse put my injured leg in a sort of sling to keep it immobile. It was really weird, because unlike as a person, where it'd be slung across in front of my chest, it was instead put in the position it would naturally assume when I was lying on my belly with my legs beneath me—'in loaf position' so to speak. Sitting upright in the bed like a person just made it look like I had a question.

Eventually, I gave up on sitting up and assumed the loaf position. I'd have rather snuggled up with Starlight, and just enjoyed her company while she told more stories about what she and everyone else had been up to aside from defeating an ancient super-villain. That said, before the nurse left she oh-so-tersely warned me 'not to get out of this bed unless there's a fire or you need to use the restroom'.

Not long after the maids once more departed with the nurse, I started to doze off. Unfortunately, I never fully fell asleep, because the moment I started to slip away, the crunch of Lightning Dust's wrist and her subsequent screaming would replay in my head and then I was fully alert again. The worst part was that Starlight could tell something was up, but I couldn't even put into words what was wrong... Why do I feel so guilty about what I did to her? That bitch fucking stabbed me!

You did to Lightning Dust what drove the Emerald Flicker of that world to suicide, a nagging part of my mind whispered. The worst part was I knew that I couldn't deny it. Even if she only ever played soccer, she'd probably never have the use of that hand again. That was a life-changing injury I inflicted, and I couldn't even claim it was entirely accidental. I may not have wanted to maim her, but I did want to make it hurt. Warning her to back off doesn't wholly absolve you of what you did.

'I'm not an irredeemable monster,' I'd said after breaking Lightning Dust's wrist. At this point, there was no denying the accusation made by Chrysalis so many weeks ago. I am a monster, just as she said, but that doesn't make me a bad person. No, monsters were aggressive and dangerous, but not inherently good or evil; it was their actions that defined them. After all, Discord was considered monstrous, and caused some of the darkest times in recorded history, but he was now apparently besties with Fluttershy. But what if that's what Harmony wants me to be? A useful monster?

By the time Twilight showed up with Sunset Shimmer, my state of agitation had only grown. On top of having been unable to get a nap in, the spare glasses weren't the same large lenses I was used to, but rather small square ones with solid frames. She was barely three metres into the room when I looked up at her, tilting my head back so I could actually look her in the eye and letting out a snort. "If that table ever summons me again, I'm getting a fucking restraining order," I said aloud. "That was not a safe situation to be in. If I was just a normal filly, I'd be fucking dead."

The pair looked uncomfortable, but didn't say anything. There wasn't anything to say to that. Harmony, be it fully sapient or not, had put me into an incredibly dangerous scenario, and only my own paranoia had gotten me through. I could feel the guilt radiating off of her.

"I swear to whatever magic goddess visited me in my sleep on the other side," I grumbled, pushing my front half upright, "if Harmony dares try and treat me like a tool just one more time, I'm going to... I'm going to... UGH!" I went from the upright seated position to a stand, starting to pace on the bed. "I don't get any damned breaks!

"You'd think after the shit first life I got, what with my asshole murderer for a donor put me through, my first and only friend in adulthood killing himself after just a few weeks into that voyage across the <<Atlantic>>, and then getting into that fucking wreck, I might finally get some peace in a new chance at life," I ranted, looking angrily from everyone in the room to the floor that I was only allowed to hop down onto in event of an emergency. I could feel my cheeks heating up as my eyes misted, but I continued on. "Look at me! I'm a fucking mess of scars and trauma! First day of school? Scalded, nearly blinded; had to make a kid eat his own fucking teeth. Then you got bug-bitch with a vendetta against all of you trying to use me as a food battery before finally kidnapping me for whatever brain-dead scheme she had... As if that wasn't bad enough, I'm pretty sure I'm either a squatter in a dead filly's corpse at the behest of Harmony, or I was reincarnated, had such an awful childhood that I repressed all of my memories—only to remember my just-as-bad first life—and spent two years in stasis, and Harmony would still be to blame!"

I went to pick up my pillow to throw it across the room, but I was so worked up that I'd forgotten about the sling, and ended up falling onto my side. Instead, I hugged the pillow against myself and started kicking the shit out of it as a cat would. "Ain't fuckin' done with me though, oh, no no no," I cried, pausing to scream into a pillow. Everyone just watched in stunned silence, radiating alarm and horror. "No, it's gotta send me into a wildfire situation where I got jumped and concussed once, and met the sweetest damn <<woman>> I've ever met in my lives—even more so than my own mother—and put her through so much more grief just by existing... Then I had to choose between saving my own skin, or doing the right thing and letting the three doppelgangers of my friends face proper justice by ensuring they don't get fucking lynched. What do I get for it? Stabbed and nearly fucking killed by some psycho cunts who reckoned they ought to be judge, jury, and executioner!"

All energy left me, and for the first time since Chrysalis, I felt truly vulnerable. All of my built-up anger and resentment had been peeled away, leaving only the scared child I was. All that was left was fear of what I risked becoming, what the future held, and the worry that my friends were psycho. Did they know exactly what I'd done in the other world? Were they silently judging me for it?

Colour me surprised when Starlight magicked a very familiar plush doll out of her bag. The moment her levitation field released that plush possum pal of mine, I released the pillow and started hugging it. I'm sure the with sigh of relief I released when the enchantment kicked in, I would've made for an awful cute sight if not for the bandages, sling, and the stitches at the side of my head.

Once I settled down, Twilight levitated my pillow back into its proper place, and physically helped me back into an upright position. "I'm so sorry, Anon," she whispered, nuzzling into my mane as she stood on her hind hooves. I'm pretty sure she was doing it to make sure I wouldn't see her tears. Joke's on you, though; I'm something of an empath, remember? "Up until being summoned to Hollow Shades, we always trusted the Cutie Map would never put a pony in any truly dangerous situations. We didn't even consider the fact that you would be in physical danger."

"Worse, we never determined if you would even get the all-clear signal with the portal closed," Starlight added, joining in the hug. "For all we know, the moment you convinced the other five to believe in Sunset's innocence, you were free to come home and let things reach their natural conclusion."

In other words, I thought bitterly, as I scowled down at the blankets. Me getting into a fight was completely unnecessary bit of trauma I went through. Honestly, talking about that table wasn't doing anything to improve my mood. If anything, I was only getting more agitated.

Thankfully, Sunset came to the rescue with a well-timed redirect. "You mentioned encountering a magic goddess on the other side of the portal," she said, with an expression of curiosity. "You didn't mean Lady Magia, the Mother of All Faiths, who once blessed the world with magic, do you?"

That helped me perk right back up. "I didn't get her name," I answered, earning a confused look that I felt compelled to dispel. "Principal Celestia woke me up in the middle of it, but the rest matches up." Once Twilight and Starlight finished hugging me they stood back to pay attention. "I tried calling out to Harmony, since it has to have some sort of reach into that world and I needed answers, but you know how it goes. You shout out into the darkness, and everything out there knows where you are... Many somethings seemed to check me out, but Magia was the one who answered the call."

"Really?" Sunset asked, a question that was mirrored by the other two. "Why?"

"Curiosity, mostly," I explained, pushing my glasses up so that I didn't have to look down my muzzle at the others due to the smaller lens profile. "She knew I was from Equestria, and asked how it was that I possessed the form of Emerald Flicker, because 'She is with Us.'"

I recounted the exchange to the group. Even though my stomach was protesting its emptiness, I continued on. From explaining everything I knew about my existence and the portal transition, to how I used the dream to show my memories of my encounter with Harmony. Even her request that I spread belief in magic while there. I spared nothing, not even the living history of the world I saw.

"She almost sounds lonely and wanted someone to talk to," Sunset commented as she sat down and rubbed at her head. That was when I finally noticed the bandages I'd seen when I sent her through were gone. "I certainly know how that feels." I nodded, unwilling to bring up the other five yet. She doesn't seem like she's at risk of self-harming now, so I won't push her. The same could be said regarding her decision as to whether or not to stay. I'll bring up the idea of taking up the role of being Magic Jesus (with 100% less crucifixion) later. "What I'm curious is about how you were able to pony up so easily. None of us—" Twilight nodded emphatically at this. "—were ever able to force Ponying Up; it always just happened."

It kinda felt awkward explaining to two subject-matter experts how I was able to achieve something they hadn't. That I was able to do so using a centring exercise from Your Horn and You embarrassed both them and myself. At the same time though, even as Twilight and Sunset shared a look, I understood why it would've escaped their minds to try it.

Think about it, for a minute. You go through a portal, and you're unexpectedly in a different form. On top of being a different species and losing your magic, you have to figure out how to blend in with another species, and how to use your new body. Chances are you're gonna have a lot more on your mind than some exercise you might've done a few times back when you were just using magic. Hell, being used to magic working a certain way and then it just being inert... I'd probably panic and not think clearly too.

"I'm glad that I figured it out though," I admitted. "I feel like my runic spells were all that stood between those fillies—er, girls—and a lynching." For some reason, I felt compelled to look to Aunt Twilight when I next spoke. If only I were able to withhold the desperation from my voice. "At least my friends would never do anything to inspire such a reaction... right?"

When the silence went on a bit too long, I saw Starlight look anxiously to the sole alicorn in the room. Sunset, on the other hoof, averted her eyes as her emotional aura began to fill with recognition sorrow. "Well, Anon..." Twilight said, unable to meet my eyes. "Two years ago, they did run a gossip column for the Foal Free Press." My jaw dropped, and my ears folded back completely. "It wasn't done out of malice like Anon-a-Miss was, but a lot of ponies were angry with them for a long t—"

I held up a hoof and croaked out a "Stop." No no, no-no-no... My grip on my possum tightened as I held it against my chest. The enchantment wasn't working, though. Rather, if it was, it wasn't sufficient enough to overcome the panic welling up in my chest. What the absolute fucking fuck!? My girls were supposed to be better... "I... I need to be alone."

Although Starlight attempted to hug me once more, I pulled away. "Anon, I can't..." she whispered. I didn't quite care how much it hurt when I turned and threw myself face-first into my pillow, glasses be damned. "You're hurting and—"

Twilight was thankfully more understanding. "It's okay, Starlight," she interjected. With the tinkle of unicorn spell-casting ringing in my ears, I felt the comforter come up and over my back, tucking me in gently. "Anon's been through a lot, and she needs time to decompress and address her feelings." The three ponies stepped away from the bed, and retreated towards the door. "We'll be attending a banquet with Princesses Celestia and Luna tonight, Anon. It may seem like a bad time, but there's an announcement that I'd like to make, and I really would like for you to be there."

I just waited until they exited the room and the doors closed behind them. Once the sounds of their hooves and their emotional presences faded away, I stopped holding back. I screamed and cried into my pillow until I was hoarse, and then screamed some more. What is it with me and the people I choose as friends!? I asked myself as I sobbed. Am I really so bad at picking friends that the only ponies drawn to me are those without the will to live or those who turn out to be borderline sociopaths? How can I even face them now?

~ 30 ~

At some point, I must've passed out at some point, because I found myself being gently shaken awake. I slowly turned over, struggling slightly against the blanket, and with my left fore-hoof I pushed my glasses back into their proper position. Standing there in the slight evening gloom was the pink-maned maid—I think Starlight had called her Natural Talent. As always, her face was a mask of stoicism, with only her eyes revealing any of the kindness held within.

"Lady Anonymous, it is almost time for dinner and you have been deemed well enough to transfer out of the infirmary," she announced, her horn alighting with a cornflower blue aura as she helped free me from the blanket. "Shall I take you to the baths while my dearest sister prepares a room and has your belongings brought there for you?"

Although many guest suites possessed an en suite bathroom, complete with with a full-sized bath-tub, I knew from my previous stay in the castle that there were a few chambers dedicated to communal baths for guests and staff of the crown. Up until Miss Talent and Miss Skill determined that I was capable of sufficiently grooming myself on my own, I was often brought there and assisted. Of course, nobody ever batted an eye at it. Ponies are herd creatures, and it wasn't uncommon to aid one another in grooming, especially as a means to bond.

The part of me that wanted me to remain solitary for the moment insisted I assure her that I was fine and needed only to be pointed in the right direction. My failed attempt to stand up on my own, brought on by forgetting momentarily that my right foreleg was immobilised, pushed that from my mind. I just had two days of being independent of Twilight and Starlight, before spending a week unconscious. I think I'm willing to let my dignity slide a bit for the sake of convenience.

So that's exactly what I did; I let Natural Talent guide me to one of the baths, and when she removed her maid's attire, she stored my possum, glasses and sling in the same cubbyhole. As for my bandages and stitches, she caught me off guard by zapping my foreleg and temple with a spell. I was not, she explained, the first injured guest to the palace that she had helped to care for, and had been trained in ways intended to ease the discomforts of guests. In this particular case, it was a waterproofing charm that caused all external liquids to just slide off affected areas.

Unsurprisingly for the time of day, most of the other patrons of the palatial baths seemed to be servants—likely getting off a shift and coming to relax—although there was at least one pony there who I was able to recognise without my glasses. After all, I'd set the pompous clown on fire enough that even surrounded by mares who were attending to him, he was unmistakable. Probably the only way he can get mares to touch him.

As she used her magic to rub a shampoo through my coat at one of the pre-bath shower nooks, she saw where I was looking. "You should know that he will be present at this evening's dinner," she warned, turning my head away from that group as she carefully started rubbing shampoo into my mane. "Officially, Her Royal Highness, Princess Celestia has asked that you not engage in your typical antics if he attempts to provoke you."

"Officially?" I whispered. "And unofficially?"

I'd shut my eyes to keep the suds out, but I didn't need to see her face to feel the mirth. "There may or may not be some clay present in the room for you when we return," she answered in that familiar monotone. "Now, nopony is condoning any outbursts, but so long as there is no use of fire or grievous bodily harm, some lenience would be granted. After all, you have only just recently awakened from a harrowing ordeal."

That brought a smile to my face. Unofficially, I've been given permission to smack a bitch if he talks shit, I thought as I mentally detached from the situation at hand to plot. It's not like there was a lot I needed to do that I couldn't take care of on auto-pilot. That left me free to quietly giggle to myself as I thought of how I might tweak his nose. It felt good to have something to take my mind off the feelings of betrayal.

Let's see... Fire was already ruled out, and I didn't think they'd be very happy if I fired an ice spike or a rock at his head, even if it'd probably save them so much paperwork. Similarly, I knew I couldn't just conjure water over his head. Hmm, directly attacking him shouldn't be a priority either. An idea struck me. I still remembered the formula for the air bullet spell. Now, firing off from a finger is impossible—Would the spell interpret it as a point inside my foreleg and just blow my leg off?—however, it was entirely possible to configure it to fire off from the space above my forehead, like with that adapted light spell I'd made when Shining Armour and Princess Cadance were visiting with Flurry. Hmm...

Since we did have an objective, we didn't have much time to soak in the massive bath, but what little time we did get was nice. She probably wasn't supposed to be able to relax like this while on the job as a maid assigned as an attendant, but I wasn't gonna fault her in the least for enjoying a quick soak in the lightly perfumed waters. I'd have preferred lavender, but lilac is nice too, I suppose.

The moment we were out of the baths, and spell-dried—and dressed in the case of the maid—we were back on the move through the castle. From the path we were taking from the baths, it seemed that we were headed to the wing of the castle that I'd stayed in the first time, and that was fine by me. Sure, it wasn't the exact same room she was leading me to, but at least it was familiar enough for me to know my way around. Soon enough, we got to the room I'd be staying in.

As we entered the opulent chamber, we were greeted by the sight of the blue-maned Refined Skill in the corner, arranging a large number of bed pillows into a neat pile. "Princess Twilight Sparkle has informed us of your peculiar preferences for sleeping conditions," she explained, smiling slightly at how poofy my coat was. "Your preference has certainly evolved, hasn't it?"

I just shrugged, and looked to the four-poster bed. "It makes me feel safe," I answered, noticing much of the clothing I'd worn on the other side was laid out on the bed, even the sailor blouse, loafers—which had split into four shoes that were suited to a pony's shape—and skirt I'd come out wearing. Much to my embarrassment, so too did the undergarments. Ponies who wore clothes typically didn't wear anything like panties or boxers unless it was for the bedroom, so I'm sure me coming back through the portal in what was effectively horse lingerie made for a child raised some questions. Hell, that everything came through also raised some major questions.

What I found interesting was that the white t-shirt, the yellow and black track jacket, and skirt I'd worn on the second day looked good as new, as if I hadn't bled all over them. In fact, it looked as though somebody had gone and embroidered my cutie mark on the back of the jacket. Honestly, it was pretty cool now, and reminded me slightly of those varsity jackets I'd see at parties back home.

"I get the impression that this dinner is pretty important," I asked as I made my three-legged shuffle over to where a jar of white clay sat on the room's writing desk, along with an awl and a jointing knife.Oooh, can do some professional finishing on this, too. One of the two helped me up onto the stool while I was climbing up, but with my back turned, I couldn't see whose magic. "Is there a dress code, or is this just a 'show up and look nice' affair?"

The maids looked on in surprise was I got to work one-hoofed, rolling out a ball of clay big enough for a fire spell to bake the clay, and another big enough for the spell I had in mind. Maybe it was just the way I casually set to work one-hoofed, like nothing was wrong, or the sheer relaxation that I exhibited when I asked the question. After all, how often do you get asked a question about dress-codes by someone who doesn't seem the least bit concerned.

"If you choose to wear clothes, you need only look presentable," said Talent as I finished inscribing the fire spell and started levelling and smoothing out the clay for the new spell. "Your mane and coat still need to be brushed out as well. Other than that, there's the matter of presenting you."

While I worked, Skill took a seat beside me with a set of mane and coat brushes. "Although Lady Glimmer still calls you Anon, Princess Twilight has been increasingly mentioning the name Emerald Flicker in regards to a request you made of her," she asked, simultaneously running a brush through my mane and coat with her magical aura. "Is this perhaps a name you are considering taking on? If so, should we present you by that name."

"Nah," I murmured, carefully etching in the latest iteration of the spell. This time, I made sure to add in a five second firing delay so that I could be sure of my target. "Long and short of it is... before the pony you know as Anonymous awoke, this body belonged to a filly by the name Emerald Flicker. I either reincarnated and lived the first several years of my life as her, only to repress it all and awaken this persona, or Harmony placed me in her body. I'm almost certain at this point."

The brushing paused, and I could tell they were sharing a look without even turning away. "Most ponies wouldn't sound so blasé about it," Natural Talent commented, stepping up beside me, and dipping her head in so that she could make eye-contact. "Are you really okay with such a thing?"

That got a laugh out of me. "Absolutely not," I muttered. "I'm a mess, and I don't even know what's holding me together right now." I set down the awl, looking over my work and double-checking it. "Although..."

~ 30 ~

Standing outside the doors to the royal dining hall, I found myself seated on the floor fussing with my jacket while Refined Skill spoke with one of the guards in whispered tones. Although Natural Talent assured me that I looked fine with it not done up all the way, folding the unused section into lapels and allowing what little of a tuft I had to poke out, it felt odd to have on as a pony. Then again, that might've been a result of not having a shirt on beneath it; that would've been another chance to accidentally tug at the stitches in my leg and fuck up my mane. It wasn't like this jacket went particularly well with the sailor blouse either, and if I'd worn the blouse, I'd have had to wear the skirt, and God help me if Evening Script were somehow in attendance—that bat would be all over me, guard professionalism or no.

Once the pretty maid was finished speaking to the unicorn guard, he gave me a look and angled his head toward the door. I hopped up onto all three of my free hooves, and gave myself a once-over in mirror polish of the floor. I still hated these square framed glasses, but at least they went well with the silver barrette that was keeping some of my fringe tucked out of the way. They also didn't look half-bad with the winged look I'd had the maids brush into my mane, inspired by what form it naturally took on the other side of the mirror. Yep, all good.

He tapped his spear twice, and opened the door with his telekinesis. Even as he turned to stand in the doorway to present me, I made my way up beside him, the rubber soles of my pony-loafers muffling the sound of my hooves somewhat. My eyes flicked up to the guard when he took in a breath. "Presenting Lady Anonymous Flicker of the Sparkle household," he announced in a deep, baritone voice. More quietly, he gave me directions to my place. "You are assigned a seat between Ladies Sunset Shimmer and Starlight Glimmer."

As I stepped into the chamber—and unfortunately quite slowly down a short set of stairs—there was a low murmur filling the room. Almost all of it was coming from the side of the food-barren long-table occupied by what looked to be a number of nobles. In addition to that ~~Prince~~ prick Blueblood, and several of the toadies I'd seen with him throughout my original stay in the castle, I saw a rather gentlemanly looking unicorn with a moustache, monocle and a suit-jacket. Beside him to one side was a slender unicorn mare of white and pink, who I'd seen in the odd magazine. To the other side of him was a grey unicorn stallion in a crimson tunic who had an unpleasant look about him. At the far end of the other side of the table sat a familiar flame-haired mare in military dress-blues: Spitfire.

All eyes were on me with varying degrees of interest or disdain. Come to think of it, besides some of the pegasi in the honour-guard, I'm the only pony in the room without a horn, I mused as I navigated my way to the designated seat. Someone had at least had enough forethought to place a large stool at my spot in lieu of a cushion, so as to provide me ample access to the table. There was still the matter of getting onto it, but thankfully Starlight was on the ball and helped me up, giving me a quick reassuring nuzzle.

"Anon, it is so good to see you up and about again," the Sun Horse said, beaming at me as I settled in. Her eyes flicked from my face to my leg in the sling. "Are you in much pain?"

I shook my head and gave her a smile of my own. "Surprisingly, no, Your Highness," I said, managing a laugh that got some raised eyebrows. "The transition back through the mirror made it weirder than it needed to be, but it only really bugs me if I touch it or try to walk on it. I think that medically-induced coma helped heal a lot in real-time." Or there's some nerve damage I've not considered.

That got a nod of approval from both senior princesses. "Excellent news," she replied, before looking to everyone else seated at the table. "For those of you who have yet to meet her, this is Anon. A former resident of another world and mature beyond her apparent age, she is currently a Crown Ward and studying under her guardian, Princess Twilight."

"If you have heard Our nephew mentioning a Green Terror," Princess Luna cheekily added, "this is the 'little monster' you have likely heard so much about." That caused several of the toadies to radiate embarrassment, while the gentleman and the model gave him a rather unimpressed look. "Only just recently, she's returned from a mission on behalf of Harmony itself, where she unexpectedly engaged in glorious battle against several ruffians in the name of preserving justice."

That actually caused my ears to dip somewhat. There was nothing glorious about that, Luna, I wanted to say. It was a curb stomp, and I almost became a monster. There's nothing to be proud of. To my surprise, Sunset tentatively reached over and gently patted my back. The guilt bleeding into her emotional aura was almost enough to make me forget my own moment of self-loathing, as she no doubt blamed herself in part for what I'd ended up going through.

The gentlecolt in the suit-jacket scowled, and I could swear he muttered something to the mare next to him about sending children off to war, but things were quickly redirected by Celestia. "We're gathered here in honour of Princess Twilight's recent accomplishment of rescuing the Pillars of Old Equestria from magical imprisonment," Celestia announced. "But for their civilian lives interfering, the other Elements of Harmony would also be present. Regardless, this is a momentous occasion and I do believe Twilight has an announcement she would like to make after the meal."

With a synchronised flourish of their horns, the Sun and Moon Horses conjured up a veritable feast. There were dinner rolls, garlic bread, bruschetta, soups, and pasta and rice dishes galore. Then came salads of every kind, flowery sandwiches, cheeses, sweet fruits and more. There was even a small portion of grilled salmon that appeared plates at a few spots on the table, such as the ones in front of Princess Luna, Spitfire, and myself. Then of course there were several bottles of wine, pitchers of water, and even a steaming carafe of coffee! All of it made my mouth water and reminded me how hungry I felt, but I wasn't sure where to start.

My mood feel somewhat is all the horny ponies at the table just started using their magic to take their fill, heaping food upon their plates. All the while here I was with very short forelegs, a leg down, and super limited reach. Luckily, Starlight and Sunset came to my rescue, and were willing to snag some stuff that I pointed out. In the end what piled up in front of me—in addition to the fish—was some Waldorf salad, two dinner rolls, a portion of French onion soup, a chunk of some sort of Pepper Jack derivative, some bruschetta, and a pasta salad.

At first the girls looked unsure if I'd actually be able to eat everything in front of me. It was a lot of food, but I was hungry. The moment the princesses tucked into their own meals, I did unspeakable things. If I had such a thing as an inner Pinkie Pie, I was channelling it tonight. Given that I hadn't had any solid food in a week, it was kinda understandable. My meal started to disappear so quickly—much to the disgust of Prince Blueblood, who was pacing himself and enjoying a glass of wine—that I didn't doubt Starlight was worried I'd start eyeing up her meal.

Still, the food was a step above what I usually got at home. The Waldorf's dressing had a hint of Greek yogurt, making it quite light on the stomach. My soup, on the other hoof was rich and flavourful, going quite well with the fluffy rolls. It was actually my first time eating bruschetta, but it was super yummy. There was nothing really special about the pasta salad, but it was a nice counterbalance to the spices in on the grilled salmon.

Once I was done inhaling my food, I set my fork and knife down atop the plate pointing at the 11 o'clock position. Dabbing at my mouth with a napkin, I looked around the table. To my left, Sunset was disinterestedly picking at her meal, her eyes drifting over to the Sun Princess. Celestia and Luna were of course the models of grace, although it seemed like the former was on a sprint to the finish. The unicorn in the crimson tunic was looking about with a disdainful look that all but screamed 'Why am I here?' The gentlecolt and his lady-friend seemed to be glancing at me occasionally with concerned looks. Blueblood of course was giving me dirty looks while engaging in quiet conversations with his toadies.

It was kinda surprising to see Twilight engaging with Spitfire—the Wonderbolt seemed more Rainbow's speed than hers, some pun intended. Still, it seemed like she was asking the mare for advice about something, because while she ate and questioned Spitfire, there was a scroll and quill floating beside her, taking notes. What was more interesting was the fact that Spitfire was actually fairly eager in engaging her. I couldn't really make it out over the din of the dining hall however.

Then of course, there was Starlight. I didn't need to be an empath to see that she was worried about me. She tried to hide it, but she kept casting furtive glances at me. It was clear that she was watching me for some sign that I was less than okay than I let on. Can't blame her. After my earlier freak-outs, I'd be worried about me too.

Once everyone else at the table had finished their meals, the royals at the head of the table waved their horns, and all place-settings were cleared. In their places, a small plate bearing a single Red Velvet cupcake appeared before each member of the table, save for Celestia. She of course had a small chocolate cake before her. Then there was the huge eclair in front of Luna. We have the longest horns, so we get the best treats. Showoffs.

Several ponies on the noble's side of the table, Prince Blueblood included, picked up their cupcakes with their telekinetic fields and were prepared to eat them. Before they could, however, Princess Celestia stood up and tapped her wine glass with a knife repeatedly. "Now, before we all begin with our deserts, there was a reason we were all here," she announced. She looked to the bloke in the tunic and nodded. "This pertains to your fields of expertise as well, Chancellor Neighsay, Sir Fancy Pants, so I wish for you to give this some serious consideration." She glanced down the table to my guardian. "Twilight?"

She perked up, and began beaming. "Right, yes!" Looking up and down the table, she began, "Fillies, Gentlecolts, and Prince Blueblood—" That got a lighthearted chuckle from everyone but the named Prince. "—although we are primarily gathered here today to celebrate the return of the Pillars of Old Equestria, I would like to take this opportunity to announce my intention to form a school. Just as Princess Celestia has her school for gifted unicorns. I shall be establishing a school for friendship, not just for ponies, but for all races."

She quickly broke off into a short speech about the travels she and her friends did on behalf of Harmony, ignoring the dark looks from several of Blueblood's butt-kissers and that Neighsay dude. She explained how despite being said to be the most harmonious of races, even ponykind was not without its flaws, and many of its problems boiled down to a lack of education in regards to friendship. There was even a wry joke thrown in that what should be common sense was surprisingly not so common, and this of course led to moments of disharmony.

To my surprise, she made way for Starlight to speak up. She even explained her own history with Twilight, Cutie Marks, and Friendship. She explained how even the smallest thing like two friends being driven apart could have wide-reaching ramifications that could spiral so far out of control as to threaten the world itself. A school for friendship was but the first step to helping ponies like her—who couldn't make friends, or didn't know how to—adapt. It would be the first of many supports designed to help others.

Then came Sunset. She spoke up to how she'd been orphaned when she was but a filly, and had—before the time of Twilight—been taken in as an apprentice to Princess Celestia. Looking back, she could see now that she was being groomed for the role that would later be passed off to Twilight, but at the time, she'd never had any sufficient explanations as to why friendship was important, and there was only so much that her former teacher could do for her. She explained how she'd become arrogant and headstrong, seeking power but none of the responsibility that came with it.

That led into her self-imposed exile on the other side of the mirror, how just when she'd actually begun making a friend—she couldn't help but glance at me when she said this—that friend met a tragic end. She blamed herself for not being better at friendship, and she blamed the whole world for not helping to support a girl who so desperately needed it. Who was to blame her for becoming bitter, and manipulative? If a girl who sacrificed so much didn't deserve to be happy, nobody did. Then, several years later, Twilight came, and with the help of five girls she'd driven a wedge between showed her another way.

That wasn't where Sunset stopped, however. She detailed that even after being purged of all the bitterness and the darkness in her heart, all was not well. It took her a lot of time and hard work to earn the trust of the school, and even that was fleeting. A trio of young girls, who had admittedly valid concerns, took it upon themselves to destroy everything she had worked so hard to achieve out of fear that she would take off 'the mask' and pull the rug out from beneath them.

Then suddenly I was put on the spot, as she explained how badly things spiralled, and thus Harmony sent the pony best suited to fix the problem. She pointed out that although problems caused by friendship seemed innocuous on the surface, they could have deadly repercussions. A child's bigoted family could lash out at a daughter. An innocent could be driven to the point where they want to end it all. Vigilantes might wish to impart their own 'justice', leading to fights like the one I had been injured in.

"I know to many of you, friendship seems like a trifling thing," Twilight concluded, looking at each pony at the table, "but I hope that you will all support this endeavour of mine. I truly believe that if we offer a place for creatures to learn about friendship, we will create a better, more harmonious world, and hopefully what happened to Sunset and Anon in the mirror world never has to happen again." That was met with a number of ponies calling out "Hear hear!"

Before ponies could tuck into their cupcakes, I stood up on my stool and cleared my throat. This earned a dirty look from several nobles, and Blueblood looked and felt as though he were ready to tell me to remember my place, although a quick look from Celestia stopped him. "On the topic of friendship," I said, looking specifically to Celestia and Luna. "I have something of a proposal for the crown as well, stemming from the time I spent in the mirror world."

I waited for a sign to continue. She shared a look with Sunset and then nodded to me. "During my time in the other world, I inadvertently came into contact with the embodiment of magic of that world, a deity Sunset tells me is known as Magia," I explained. "I was asked that during my time there, I begin making the first steps toward restoring belief in magic in their world, as she believes the <<humans>> past the folly of their ancestors and the new generation is ready to be given a second chance with magic. The long and short of what I propose is that Equestria enter official diplomacy with the world. In exchange for their technological expertise—which could catapult ponies into the Information Era within a few decades—we could provide mages to educate and guide <<man>>kind's magical growth. We could even offer a place for those interested at Aunt Twilight's school, although they might not be enthused about what the portal does to them..."

Celestia looked questioningly from me to Sunset, but it was Luna that spoke first. "Of what use is this otherworldly technology to us?" she asked, earning a murmur of approval from the nobles. "Surely what these <<humans>> can do, we can do better with magic."

That caused Sunset to shake her head. "Yes and no, your highness," she admitted. "This technology is free to anyone to use, regardless of species, so long as you possess the understanding to use it. Magic in Equestria has, unfortunately, largely been dragged into the domain of unicorns, and its knowledge hoarded. Anything that requires a unicorn to use is useless to a pegasus or earth pony. For example..."

I listened as Sunset extolled the virtues of the technologies we could gain from them. Global communication networks, vast libraries available at a creature's hoof-tips, new forms of entertainment media and creativity to explore, she covered it all. My favourite example was the 'viewing box' that she used in place of television. She asked the nobles to imagine that they are sick and bedridden, and a play they desperately wish to see has announced tonight will be its final showing. With a video broadcast, they could see the play from the comfort of their own bed, without worrying about the indignity and judgement of going out not looking their best.

That seemed to sell a lot of nobles, especially Fancy Pants and the model—Fleur de Lis, that's her name! However, that came to a stop when Prince Blueblood scoffed. "Why should we help a bunch of apes from another world use magic?" He waggled his still levitating cupcake. "Magic is and always has been the domain of unicorns—" With a quick glance to Celestia, he quickly added, "—and alicorns, and that is why only we can use it! That is the natural order, and that's the way it should remain."

I sat back down and balanced myself, quickly dipping my loafer-clad forehoof into my sling, and gripping the octagonal spell medallion I'd tucked in there after getting dressed. From the outside, it probably looked like I was crossing my arms in contemplation. I nodded thoughtfully before a smirk split my face. A blue light glowed above my forehead as I locked eyes on Blueblood's cupcake. Several jaws dropped, and so too did a few cupcakes. "Good news, Auntie Twilight!" I declared in a loud tone of false excitement. "Based on Prince Blueblood's flawed logic, I've been promoted to unicorn! Isn't that great? Now I just need to master flight and I'll be promoted to alicorn in no time!"

As if to punctuate my words, the light in front of my forehead went out as a capsule of magic-encased air shot out from that spot. It flew fast and true, striking the cupcake. It sunk in slightly before detonating, blowing it apart, coating the prince's face, the table, and one of the nobles to his left. Several of the nobles cried out in outrage, several guards tensed, but the display got a bunch of snickering from the princesses, Sunset, Fancypants, and Spitfire.

"Magic is the domain of all beings who posses the capacity and desire to use it, Your Highness," I announced, after a moment of stunned silence, withdrawing the medallion from my sling and holding it up for all to see. "Runic magic, for example is magic that any pegasus, earth pony, or quite possibly even dragons could use with some training—or are you so quick to forget all times I've inadvertently set you aflame? In my research, I've found that the only difference between what I do, and what you do is the form it takes. What I achieve with this—" I carefully tossed the medallion over to Fancy Pants for him to examine and pass down the table for the other nobles to look at. I then tapped my forehead and then chest "—you accomplish up here and in here. They are both built on the same foundations, but you're building the matrix internally and projecting it through your horn, whilst I have to build it outside. To believe other beings are incapable, or don't have the deity-given right is folly."

I looked around as the medallion was levitated back to me. Twilight looked stuck between being proud and mortified, but Celestia was radiating mirth. "Well said, Anon," she agreed. "I will take yours and Sunset's opinions into account when we make a decision, but it may be some time before one can be reached."

Inclining my head toward the prince, I pushed my cupcake toward him, and quickly hopped down from my stool. "Thank you for your time, Your Highnesses," I said softly. "If it's not too much trouble, I shall take my leave. I've still yet to fully recover and I grow tired."

"Of course, dear Anonymous," said Princess Luna. "We wish thee a good rest."

I started to make my way towards the guarded door. It finally felt like I had achieved the goal I had set for myself when I met the goddess Magia in my dream in the other world. One less thing I had to hold strong for... But then, that just means it was one less thing to hold me together, too.

Pausing behind Twilight and Starlight, I sighed and whispered. "When I'm well enough to travel, I'm going to the Crystal Empire to meet that therapist," I whispered. "I won't be returning to Ponyville until then."

As I exited the dining hall, and the doors shut behind me, I felt a wave of exhaustion wash over me. Before I could collapse like a marionette with my strings cut, Refined Skill and Natural Talent were at my side, ready to support me. It took them zero prompting to begin guiding me back to my room. They, without prompting, even helped me undress and get into my pillow pile. It was where I belonged right then, and I was so happy to bury myself in their fluffy embrace.

Despite all that had gone wrong, and all that I had no time to address, things somehow felt right.

Author's Notes:

Sorry for the delay on this one. I really wanted to make sure I got everything down, and as I
kept finishing scenes, it just kept getting longer, and longer, until finally, this became the longest chapter in the story.

As we have seen, despite things largely staying the same, things are still playing out slightly different from canon. We see here that Twilight is announcing her intention to start a school for friendship before the Storm King's invasion event has triggered. We already know that any arc pertaining to Season 9 would be vastly different what with the changes to Chrysalis, but only time will tell just how much things will change.

This arc is all but finished. There are only a few loose ends that need tying up... A heart-to-heart with Sunset. After that, there will be a short time skip, and then we'll be starting off the next arc with a bang.

And yes, it is now official. Anon has accepted Emerald is a part of her, whether she is occupying her body, or she is her. Thus she has taken on the second name, Flicker, making her Anonymous Flicker. This will actually be a part of the discussion with Sunset.

There will be a week or two hiatus while I try to give myself more time to better plan out the next arc. The entirety of the 'bang' opening is pretty much all planned out, and it too is shaping up to be a long one.

Entry 31

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Over the next several days, I found myself growing increasingly agitated. With my newfound interest in running, I found that just hobbling around wasn't enough for me. If I wasn't situated in the castle library, avoiding whatever homework that had built up for Cheerilee and instead focusing instead on my magical studies, I could be found pacing around the castle gardens, and walking the hedge maze—anything to keep moving.

Of course I knew that stressing my body out wasn't good for healing the wound in my leg, but the longer I stayed here when where I needed to be was the Crystal Empire, the more stressed I started to feel. There was a therapist there that Princess Cadance said was taking on patients. The longer I was still here, the harder it felt to hold myself together. The only way to really keep myself from fraying further was to have something to do.

It didn't help any that I was beginning to feel quite paranoid. After my show at the banquet, I'd begun noticing a good portion of the nobility—Blueblood aligned, most likely—giving me dirty looks or watching me. It wasn't just anger for the way I'd embarrassed the prince, though. I could feel the fear, disgust, and resentment. It wasn't hard to figure out why; I'd turned their world view in regards to magic on its head, and the Sun Horse had all but agreed with me. But to them, magic was the domain of unicorns, and my encroachment was an abomination.

At first, it was just the looks. Then Refined Skill caught a maid not assigned to this part of the castle pretending to clean the room as she went through my things. She'd probably been bribed to find and steal—or destroy—my research notes. The joke was on her, though. If I didn't have my notes on my person, they were with Starlight. Even then, I'd started encoding my more recent notes entirely in English.

Not that it really mattered. All the important bits were in my head. What was more, the more that I worked with runes, the more I was beginning to think that my memory—at least where my special talent was reserved—was borderline eidetic. Sure, it wasn't like I was able to instantly remember every spell I'd ever converted to a weaved spiral, but intuition and a cheating helping hoof from my talent made it pretty easy to accomplish.

Probably the most unfortunate side effect of my paranoia and fraying nerves, however, was the fact that I'd started making combat spells. Not safe remove a threat by disabling them sorts of spells, either; I'm talking full-on if I hit an unarmoured target in the head with this, they're as good as dead sorts of spells. They were the sorts of spells that could easily make me a murderer if used inappropriately.

It wasn't that I wanted to fight. If it were up to me, I'd never have to use any of them anywhere other than a firing range. If I could help it, I'd rather trust in Starlight and Twilight, or the guards, and simply retreat from danger. But what if they're not there? What if there's no guards around, or running isn't an option? My fight with Gilda and Lightning Dust had shown me what could happen when I purposely blunder into a fight I wasn't prepared for. Wasn't it better to be prepared for a situation I might never be in?

You'd have thought that Twilight and Starlight would be more concerned about how hard I was ignoring the rule about studying and practising magic without them present. Between the fact that there was always either of the maid sisters assigned to watch over me nearby, as well as several unicorn guards throughout the palace, however, it was easy to argue that I wasn't without supervision. Even if I couldn't write things down, they couldn't exactly stop me from doing things in my head. Besides, by throwing myself into my studies, I was able to redirect my focus, and reign in some of my snappishness.

By the third day of my castle stay, I'd convinced the guards to grant me usage of the palace training grounds. It was surprisingly simple to convince the watch commander and the rangemaster to allow me access. After all, I'd otherwise have to find an open space, conjure up a stone wall that I couldn't exactly get rid of, and use that as target practice instead. It wasn't exactly possible for me to magically reinforce the wall especially when I demonstrated two of the spells I'd made: a water conjuration spell that fired 10 cm by 9 mm spike of glacier ice at 335 m/s, and a modified air bullet at a somewhat slower speed, but magically super-heated to the point that it crossed the plasma threshold. Definitely not something you wanna fire off indoors unless you want shards of ice everywhere or melted marble. Magically reinforced targets like the ones on the range were much more durable, and able to withstand most of my creations.

Other than that, I'd been experimenting with earth conjuration. After I'd determined back in the mirror world that modifiers could alter the state of the conjured element, I found myself curious about whether conjure earth couldn't create different mineral compositions. After a few experiments, I found that I could have a 70% pure sample of a mineral before the spell would fail. And trust me, I checked if there was an elemental plane of metal. No such luck.

Similarly, if I tried to attempt any sort of earth conjuring after summoning any sized chunk of ore, the spell would fail, I would get a really painful zap; if the spell was baked into a clay medallion after testing once, it shattered. Same thing if I attempted anything with precious minerals such as silver, gold, or platinum. If I didn't know better, I'd say that the Elemental Plane of Earth had a degree of consciousness and actively punished greed.

Therefore, the only earth spells I had to practice with were one to conjure a stone pillar rapidly beneath a target, and one to create a two metre by four metre by quarter metre stone wall. These spells were hardly destructive, but because they didn't have any sort of means to banish the material back to its Elemental Plane at the end of the duration, they were quite disruptive, and I was only able to verify that they worked once. At least the rangemaster didn't get super pissed when I tested them in his range. If anything, some of the guards enjoyed using those as alternative targets.

~ 31 ~

Since I couldn't get any real physical exercise in until my leg was fully recovered, I'd taken to using my excursions to the firing range as a means on expanding my magical reservoir. At least when exhaustion kicked in and started leaving me winded, I could feel like I was accomplishing something. Sure, I could only manage about ten combat spells in a row, but if it kept my mind off what was bugging me, then it was all the better for me.

Deep down, I knew that distracting myself—rather than confronting my problems—was an unhealthy choice to make but I really did not want to burden Twilight or Starlight right now. My decision to head to the Crystal Empire to seek counselling was already made; I only had to hold myself together for another week or two. Besides, apparently now Twilight was preparing Canterlot for some first-ever Friendship Festival, and she didn't need me worrying her any more than I already was. I know she probably doesn't share that feeling, but still.

Another benefit of tiring myself out an the shooting range was the fact that Twilight's friends, who were now all beginning to show up in Canterlot to help, didn't have easy access to me. I wasn't necessarily angry at any of them for anything they did, but much like the crusaders—who I feared may also be in town—I didn't exactly know how to feel about them. Yes, their human counterparts had stepped up and tried to fix their fuck-up, but that didn't change the fact that they turned on Sunset at the drop of a hat. What if they do that to Aunt Twilight?

"Mind if I join you?" came a voice to my right as I was laying out the spell medallions I was going to be using today. Looking up, I saw Sunset Shimmer standing at the neighbouring firing position. I pretended to consider it for a moment before nodding. "I'm impressed you managed to convince Sergeant Major Surefire to let you on his range," she continued, looking me up and down. "Back when I was Princess Celestia's student, he was a total hard-ass about foals on the range."

I waited until the Range Safety Officer called out, "Commence firing!" before dropping my hoof to the two spell medallions I'd laid side-by-side. "When you've got spells like these two," I said, looking down-range as I pumped mana through the first, and then second. First, a bolt of super-heated plasma shot off from in front of my forehead, and the target caught fire. Then, a spike of ice shot out from that same space a moment later and hit the exact same spot, shattering on impact and quenching the burning target. "You need a safe environment to fire them off. You should see what the plasma bolt did to stone the other day."

She stared wide-eyed at my still-smoking target, and although she tried her hardest to school her facial expression, I could still catch the surprise and momentary spike of fear. "Do you even have it in you to use that on a living being?" Sunset asked, firing off some sort of energy bolt of her own at her target. "Despite what happened with Lightning Dust, you demonstrated a lot of restraint, especially if you're capable of making and using military-grade combat spells already."

My shoulders rolled with the gentle shrug I made before pulling out two more spells I had built this morning. "On an unarmoured target? Probably not," I admitted, remembering the way the conjured rock wall I'd tested it on was spitting molten rock for several seconds after the plasma had dissipated. "The plasma might only be half as fast as the ice spikes, but I think by the time the part of the spell that frees the plasma and lets it burn out on its own kicks in, it could very well punch clean through a living target before it could fizzle out. Definitely not something you'd wanna go hunting with, and the <<Geneva Conventions>> might well have something to say about it if they applied here."

Sunset didn't even try to hide the shiver that ran down her spine. I hadn't intended to sound so cold and clinical about it, but I imagine that coupled with the way I casually threaded hunting and war crimes into the same sentence is what spooked her. "Yeesh, and to think you just playing less-than-lethal was enough to send Gilda to the insane asylum," she muttered. Casting a fireball down range this time, I watched her shut her eyes. "You're one scary filly, Anon."

I tilted my head away from her slightly, unable to meet her eyes. "It's not something I do on purpose," I whispered, sending a torrent of water down-range, followed by an absolute-zero gale that travelled down the length of my lane. There was no satisfaction as I watched the moisture all turn to ice. "Go through all I have, though, and you start to look at the world in terms of 'What can hurt me, and how can I make sure it stops trying to hurt me?' Lately, that's shifted to include, 'How can I protect those I care about?' Still, I use the tools I have available to me, and while I could easily look up a shield spell, there's something more satisfying about constructing your own spells."

Before she could formulate a response, there was a loud crack and a startled cry, followed by the RSO calling out "Cease fire!". Both of us turned and watched as he went a few lanes down, where a cocky private seemed to have somehow caught his horn and armour on fire. Neither was melting, but it was kicking off an awful stink. While several of the other guards on the range were trying desperately to put out the results of the miscast spell, all to the tune of the safety officer calling the pony every name under the sun, what Sunset had said about that young woman I'd almost put through a windshield sunk in.

"That chick with the fauxhawk and the frosted tips is in a psych ward?" I finally asked when someone in the guard group finally stopped panicking and cast a water conjuration. "How'd that happen?"

Her head snapped around so fast that I was somewhat concerned she might've gotten whiplash. "You're kidding, right?" she asked, looking at me like I was stupid. "You took out four people! Dumb-bell got a concussion, Hoops somehow got a ruptured testicle, and Score's in a knee brace for who knows how long. That's not even taking into account Lightning Dust... What she saw broke her."

My reflexively flicked back. "How bad is it?" I asked. "Is Lightning...?"

With a shake of her head, Sunset moved closer to me. "She'll live," she said, reaching out to tousle my mane. "Might have a limp for a bit... Unfortunately, the same can't be said for her arm." She looked somewhat ill, but continued. "With all the damage to the forearm and wrist you did, they had to amputate at the elbow."

I found myself staring down at the ground, a cold feeling spreading through my belly. I maimed a teenage girl, was the first thing that came to mind as I started to pack my medallions back into my sling. I wasn't quite winded yet, but I had no more enthusiasm in me.

Perhaps picking up on the guilt I was feeling, she gently lifted my chin with one hoof so I'd look her in the eye. "I want you to understand, none of this is your fault, Anon," she said in a firm voice. "Lightning Dust was on a bad path long before Anon-a-Miss happened. Even when I was at the top of the school's food chain, I knew she was destined for disaster." Her own ears twitched and she allowed herself a grimace. "She was a real overachiever, you know? Wanted to be the best of the best, but more than that, she wanted her folks to just pay attention to her."

That made me cringe. "Lemme guess, when her grades weren't up to snuff, she went for sports, but that didn't work either?" I asked, straining to stand up. When Sunset nodded, helping me up, I snorted. "Sometimes, the grass isn't always greener..." My voice had dropped to a whisper. "Having his attention was always a nightmare I wanted nothing more than to avoid, but as I grew older, sometimes I found that I had to keep his attention because it otherwise meant he was taking it out on Mom and my little sisters." I started making my way to the exit, but stopped to regard her. "She'll probably need counselling of her own after losing her arm; I hope she gets the help she needs."

She actually started following after me, so I asked, "What else has been happening there since I helped bring in those three?"

"I've only heard what Principal Celestia's been telling me through the journal, but..." As we made our way to the castle gardens, she regaled me with news from the other side. Some of it was sad, some of it was what it was, and some was downright humorous. Even when we got to the gardens and I found a spot to relax, she had more to share.

The long and short of things? Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo, and Apple Bloom were all being expelled, along with Lightning Dust, her accomplices, and several of the students that came forward regarding Sunset being pushed down the stairs. Additionally, the three girls were facing several months community service, and they were all advised to seek therapy. Honestly, they're lucky; if they'd gotten someone killed, I'd have argued they'd belong in jail. Given that they'd turned themselves in, though, they got off with the counselling and community service.

Rainbow Dash wanted nothing to do with Scootaloo for the foreseeable future, whilst Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle were just barely on speaking terms with AJ and Rarity. I kinda get why Dash might take things so badly. I mean, because of Scootaloo and the other three, they'd almost lost a friend for good. It didn't help that Applejack and Dash were probably still beating themselves up over roughing up Sunset.

Applejack, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, and Rarity apparently wanted desperately to make up for what they'd done. Sunset was still on the fence about forgiving them—Can't blame her; if they turned on her once, they could easily do it again—but was willing to meet with them in a few days. Apparently, since the portal had been kept open save for using the journal to communicate, the holidays had already passed and the school-year had resumed. I told her that it probably wouldn't stop them from heaping lots of apology gifts and Christmas gifts on her.

The biggest bit of news was that, after the New Year, the Anon-a-Miss account had leaked a bunch of incriminating emails it had received copies of anonymously. The emails in question were the very same ones Celestia had mentioned having, although Celestia denied any involvement in the leak. It then made its way into the press, and soon Spoiled Rich was being absolutely drug through the mud by the news-media and the PTA. Some were even bandying about the possibility of criminal charges.

The humorous bit was that apparently security footage of the absolute slaughter at Donut Joe's had ended up on a news aggregation/content rating/discussion site by the name of Sawdat.net, and in the process of going viral. Initially it was trending as "Horse Girl Goes Buck Wild on Bullies," with about only a quarter of comments outright decrying it as fake. Then, although the footage was edited to hide my face, folks had apparently linked it to the two videos of me that CHS students had taken, and things, and theories had only gotten wilder. Now it was most popular as "Undead Horse Girl Puts Hoof Down on Vigilante Justice."

Luckily, nobody had linked me to Emerald Breeze, so it'd all hopefully just die down to urban legend status before she was pulled into any more nonsense. Speaking of my deceased counterpart's mother, after hearing about the brawl and seeing the fight footage, was asking about me a lot. I guess I made more of an impression on the woman than I thought, but that wasn't necessarily a good thing. Imagine if she formed an attachment, only to never see you again.

"About Ms. Breeze," I murmured, staring up at the sky. I thought I could see a familiar rainbow contrail flitting about the sky, but I hardly paid it any mind. "If you're gonna stick around in that world, could you... could you take care of her?" Sunset seemed kinda surprised, but before she could ask why, I continued. "I know she's not my Mom in any sense, but I could tell when we met that she's a good person. What's more, she clearly cares about you. I don't think she'd mind seeing you more."

That drew a nod from her as she stood up to leave. "I can do that, but in return, I want you to give your friends a fair shake," she replied, turning her back to me. "It doesn't have to be right away, but it'll be better if you speak to them about it before writing them off completely."

~ 31 ~

A few days later, I was once again at the range burning off frustration. Sunset's request had been eating away at me, so I'd finally broken down and asked Twilight for more information about what the Crusaders had done. Better to have more information before I make any damning decisions, right?

The way she'd explained it, the girls joined the paper in an attempt to get journalism cutie marks, back when they were so obsessed with earning their marks that they'd miss the forest for the trees. It'd started out as generally harmless gossip column called Gabby Gums, like what you'd see in the average paper, with the occasional fun poking at humorous incidents. Then, they'd slowly started to get more indiscriminate, invading the privacy of others, and not always truthful. They published Rarity's diary, they told outright hurtful lies, and even framed completely normal things like a spa trip from Rainbow in a negative light.

At that point I was almost convinced that they were just as morally bankrupt as their human counterparts. Then something Twilight said caught my attention. According to her, they'd wanted to stop, having seen the damage they were doing, but somepony else in the paper had been trying to blackmail them into continuing. In the end, before their blackmailer could dish out the dirt on them, they chose to publish a public apology, citing the success of the column having blinded them to the harm they were doing, but that the guilt was eating them up, and they publicly outed themselves as the faces behind Gabby Gums. It took a while, but the towns-ponies had forgiven them.

It had ended with Twilight repeating what Sunset had told me. She believed that I should talk to them before passing judgement. If I did so, I'd be making a mistake not unlike the ones the human trio had. What pissed me off was that I understood what she meant and I knew she was right. If I just assumed they were irredeemable, it was no different than them assuming that it was only a matter of time before Sunset returned to her old ways.

In the end, I wasn't entirely sure what to think. On the one hoof, it was reassuring that it hadn't started from a place of malice. Unlike the actions of their counterparts, it genuinely sounded like kids being stupid kids and making stupid kid mistakes. They weren't actively trying to make anyone look bad; they were just riding the high of success and got carried away until they were in over their heads.

On the other hoof, it didn't really excuse what they'd done. Malice or no, it sounded like they hadn't really considered the feelings of others into things. The public outing of people's dirty laundry, and publishing outright lies or misconstruing the facts could have done some serious damage. From the sound of it, they'd inadvertently called the stability of Cakes' marriage into question, which could very well have ended disastrously. What would have even happened if they'd revealed something that somepony really would've wanted kept buried? Ponies didn't seem as likely to commit suicide, but Sunset had shown me that even ponies could break...

As it was, I barely even paid any mind to the other unicorns on the range who'd begun whispering about me. What's the big deal if I can cast spells like this at this age? The rule pertaining to cost-complexity inverse proportionality meant that these spells weren't super taxing! Then again, it might be due to the fact that I was using custom-built spells that could seriously maim or kill a pony, and firing them off at targets and targeting dummies to burn off steam. I think one or two were even joking that Princess Twilight was raising a battle-mage... or an assassin.

"Cease fire, everypony!" the RSO called out, bringing all spell-casting on the range to a stop.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Natural Talent approaching, an unfamiliar crystalline-looking stallion bearing a messenger bag and a livery bearing Princess Cadance's mark following close behind her. Packing up my medallions, I turned and gave her my full attention. "Lady Flicker," Talent greeted. Since my showing at the banquet, I'd taken to officially using the name Anonymous Flicker out of respect for what Emerald Breeze had said about some iteration of her daughter living on in happiness. She'd seen something of Emerald in me, so who was I to deny it. "Princess Cadance arrived in Canterlot this morning, and has sent a runner with a message."

At this, the crystal pony stepped forward. "Her Royal Highness, Princess Cadance has requested an urgent meeting with you," he explained, bowing slightly for some reason. "She requests that you meet with her in the royal sitting rooms."

That piqued my interest. It was maybe half-past two in the afternoon, so she had to have been at the castle for a few hours now. That was more than enough time to settle in. That said, what sort of urgent issue could she have that required a meeting with me. I hope it's not foalsitting duty... As much as I enjoyed Flurry's presence, that kid's gonna think me being hurt is the norm.

"Thank you, sir," I responded. "I shall accede to her request posthaste, although I have no coin to provide you a gratuity." Still need to get Aunt Twilight to agree to an allowance.

The stallion shook his head with a smile. "I've already received payment, young miss." At that, the stallion turned and left. "Think nothing of it."

Turning to Natural Talent, I began stretching my legs. "Since it's urgent, you think she'll mind if we don't stop for a quick shower?" I commented following as she silently led the way. "Or should I get somepony to zap me with a quick cleaning spell?"

With a snort and a quick roll of her eyes, the maid lit her horn. As we walked, I felt the tingle of magic wash over me, and the gross feeling of sweat in my coat vanished. Showoff. It took several minutes to navigate the castle hallways. Despite the upcoming festival, it was surprisingly calm in the castle this afternoon.

Eventually, we reached a door that was flanked by two equestrian Royal Guards, marked by a placard that read Royal Sitting Room. Although I found it somewhat odd that it wasn't a pair of Cadance's own ceremonial guard, I didn't really question it. I didn't even feel the need to keep my combat spells on me, instead passing them off to Natural Talent before stepping in. Only a water conjuration and ice conjuration I kept for drinks remained in my sling.

The doors swung open at the behest of the unicorn of the pair, and in I stepped. It was a rather spacious room, the walls lined with bookshelves, with a large bay window to one side. In the middle, atop what looked to be a very expensive rug sat two plush sofas facing one another. In between them sat a decorative teak coffee-table, atop which sat some glasses on coasters and what looked to be a decanter full of an amber liquid, and what looked to be a large obsidian hex-nut.

It's what I didn't see was what bugged me, however. Princess Cadance, the pony who had urgently requested my presence, was nowhere to be seen. Because that's not unnerving or anything, I thought as I climbed onto one of the sofas. She must've been delayed.

Since I'd nothing else to do, I reached for the medallion to conjure ice into a glass. The way I saw it, I may as well have some cold water to drink while I waited. I nearly leapt out of my skin when there came a voice directly across from me. It wasn't because I was scared, but because I hadn't heard anyone else enter. I was startled.

"Would you mind terribly adding some ice to my glass as well?" Prince Blueblood asked as he shimmered into view directly across from me. I was caught so off guard that my brain momentarily failed me, and I did as he asked. "I do apologize for this deception and the scare, but Cousin Cadance agreed that you probably wouldn't have agreed to meet me otherwise."

The top of the bottle levitated off, and I could immediately tell that it was whiskey. He poured some over the sphere of ice in his glass. Once he was done, he lifted the bottle once more and gave it a gentle shake. "Can I offer you a dram?"

I blinked before looking at him with a raised eyebrow. "I'm eight, Your Highness," I said with incredulity. My brain was finally starting to reboot, but I was completely confused. This was not the same Prince Blueblood I'd interacted with the other night, nor the same one I'd set aflame several times in the past. He was jovial, and there wasn't a hint of the usual disdain he showed for me in the presence of his toadies. "Even in my previous life, I couldn't stand the stuff."

He nodded thoughtfully, returning the decanter to the table and returning its lid. "That's fair," he said, still sounding so goddamn agreeable. "With the way you conjured up that ice, it almost seemed as though you were experienced with serving liquor, so it only felt right to ask."

Instead, I used the other medallion in my sling to fill my glass with water. That drew a raised eyebrow from him, but he didn't comment. Probably wondering why the guards didn't frisk me. "Don't worry; the ice and water are the only spells I have on me, Prince Blueblood," I assured him, reaching over to grab my glass. Had I known, I'd have kept a fire bolt. "What can I do for you?"

That actually got a laugh out of him, and he gestured to the obsidian ring on the table. "And here I was ready to offer to restrict my magic to make you feel more at ease," he said, standing up and levitating his whiskey along with him. He went over to the window and stared out, taking in the sight before sipping his drink. "Still, if you would rather cut to the chase, so to speak, I can get behind that."

Turning back to me, he smiled. "Auntie has given your suggestion from the banquet great consideration," he explained. "These technological marvels described would be a great boon to our peoples, and as such she has agreed that we should initiate contact with the government of this Amareica on the other side of the mirror. I've already ironed out several political details with dear Sunset, but I also wished for your input, and help, before I spearhead this diplomatic mission."

Again, I was caught off-guard. Who the hell is this, and what did he do to that tribalist brute? "Sir?" I glanced down at the glass in my own hooves. "I don't know how much help I can be. The world I came from and this world on the other side of the mirror aren't exactly the same, and I was more of a wanderer, doing what I could to get by."

That got a nod from him. "That is in line with what Auntie told me of your past, but that isn't what I meant." He raised his glass to me, as if toasting. "You figured out how to utilise your own magic when two of the brightest mages of their times could not, which is something we will need to convey the veracity of our claims..."

To that effect, we ended up in a discussion of how to 'Pony Up', how to contact the magic goddess Magia, and how others might use their magic without creating runic medallions like I did. The first two were simple, but the last devolved into a debate of whether staffs could act in place of a horn. You know... Should it be wood or metal? What Kind? How long? Gemstones, yes or no?

Once that was tabled for later testing, he asked what magics humans would want, what we should offer, and what we should avoid offering knowledge of. He was surprised that I very candidly told him not to offer anything that could be easily turned into a weapon. Instead, weather management, creation of water, alternative power-sources were the first things to come to mind. If a spell could be used to animate the proper parts of turbines in a generator, energy problems could easily be solved. Pure water could ease problems in parts of the world where there were no drinking water, and with weather control, deserts could probably be converted to farmlands. Then of course there was healing magic...

For some reason, when he was being affable, it was surprisingly easy to talk to him. I also openly suggested that, if Equestria opens diplomatic relations with this other world, and things take a turn for the worst, they should prepare safeguards. Some people could be opportunists and see us—I didn't just say ponies, surprisingly—as an easy target to invade and exploit for natural resources. While it might seem as simple as turning off the portal from our end, we couldn't discount the possibility that someone on their end might find a way to power it. They had to have a Twilight over there somewhere... The portal on our end would need to be moved from Twilight's castle and placed in a facility that could serve as an embassy, but also have a means to lock down the portal. My suggestion for that would be to place it in a chamber that could be sealed, depressurised, and completely emptied of air.

He seemed taken aback by how candid I was being regarding the potential for an invasion. He was, after all, apparently being sent to establish diplomatic relations, and here I was providing potential reasons not to reveal their existence. The way I saw it, though, Equestria's my home now, and I needed to take a realistic approach to protecting it. If that meant preparing us for the worst while expecting the best, so be it.

Refilling my glass with magic, I glanced out the window. It was almost close to dinnertime now. "What I don't get," I said, quickly draining the glass and then eyeing up the bottle of whiskey. "What I don't get is you. The stallion I'm talking to now is nothing like the one who spoke from a place of unicorn supremacy only a few nights ago. You're nothing like the brute I set aflame... and the banquet! You must've known she gave me the clay."

He nodded. "I am a diplomat, Anonymous," he said with a sad smile. "But another part of my job is to serve as a liaison between the crown and the nobility and keep them in line. This requires me to put on airs and act like none before could. Believe it or not, they would be even worse without me. I've spent the last twenty years slowly dialing back the regressive tribalist attitudes built up by their egotistical predecessors."

He paused to refill his own glass from the decanter, letting out a sigh. "I play the pompous clown that they rally behind, lest they find someone competent who actually shares their ideals. I pretend to dance to their tune, and if I find situations I can work with, I can use them to sway the fools and lead them down Auntie's path." Following my gaze, he smirked, levitating the bottle over, and pouring a dram before I could reconsider. "I hate the masks that I must wear, but heavy is the head that wears the crown."

"For what it's worth, I'm sorry about the fire," I said, smiling and raising up the glass in a toast. "If I knew you were half as cool as you were today..."

"As am I for the shows I must put on for those imbeciles," he levitated over his glass and clinked it against mine. "To the masks we wear, for the sake of ourselves, and those we must guide down the righteous paths."

"To the masks we wear!" I cheered, knocking back the dram.

Omake 2: The Hangover

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I deeply regretted waking up. The moment I tried opening my eyes, it was like I'd been stabbed, and my head was killing me. My mouth wasn't much better, because was super dry and tasted like ass. Let's see... headache, photosensitivity, dry mouth? I'm fuckin' hungover!

I also wasn't in my room on my pillow pile. For one, whatever I was draped across was warm, firm, and kinda bony. There was also the matter of the room being way too huge to be my assigned quarters in the castle. The ceiling was twice, if not three times as high in here.

What do I remember about last night. There was the time in the afternoon that I was at the shooting range, blowing off steam, and then Natural Talent came with a messenger saying I was requested to meet with Cadance. That was a ruse though; it was Blueblood all along. We chatted, and I helped him make plans regarding the human world, and then... it's a blank after he revealed himself to be one of the best actors in Equestria.

There was the sound of a large door opening, and then voices that made my head hurt even more. "I'm really worried, Princess," thundered Twilight's voice. "The last time Anon up and disappeared, we ended up with a transformed changeling queen on our hooves. There's no telling what she could get up to with him."

"Twilight, I've seen the headlines too, but I don't think she's in any danger," came Celestia's voice, just as paradoxically soft and thunderous. There was a bright flash that stabbed through my eyelids, and the sound of a camera, followed by amused giggling. "In fact, I think we've found our wayward pair."

My entire body felt like it was suddenly on a merry-go-round at a fairground as I found myself floating through the air. "Anon!" Twilight cried as I found myself wrapped in her embrace. "Do you have any idea how much trouble you're in?"

When I slowly cracked my eye open to look around, I found that I was still wearing my back-up glasses, and we were all in Celestia's throne room. Still draped across the throne itself, with what looked to be Princess Luna's crown atop his head, was Prince Blueblood. There was a wine bottle, as well as a few aluminium cans bearing English writing on them, proclaiming them to be energy drinks. Beside the throne, there also appeared to be a very large bag of bits, and a tiny black box with a button and an antenna.

"Probably more than I can remember, given I'm not even sure what day it is," I mumbled. A flash of something in my mind told me to reach into my sling and take out an ornate silver flask. Engraved on it was Property of Prince Blueblood. "My head's killing me; do you mind heating this up?"

Twilight set me down upon the red carpet and glared. "Your response to being hung-over is to drink more?"

"Ugh, can you turn it down?" That was Blueblood, surprisingly. "And the flask is broccoli cheddar soup; I always bring something rich in electrolytes when drinking."

It took a few moments of giving her a pleading stare, but she eventually gave in. After hitting the flask with a heating cantrip, she took off the lid, and poured some into my mouth, before levitating it over to the prince, who straight-up downed the entire thing. Meanwhile, Celestia seemed to just be standing off to the side reading a newspaper.

Eventually, the tall alicorn looked to me with an arched eyebrow and asked, "Is that my spare crown?"

I reached up, and seized a small gold crown with an inlaid ruby, and held it before me, dislodging a cardboard cone that matched my coat colour to a tee. "I wish I had an explanation for this, your highness," I apologised, passing it over to her. I watched as she hit it with a spell and it suddenly matched the size of the crown that she was wearing. "Last thing I remember is my meeting with him."

Celestia levitated over the newspaper, while Twilight fussed over me with some sort of scanning spell. "This might fill in some of the gaps, but the press lost you both at the train station at some point yesterday afternoon," Once Twilight finished her spell, she shook her head at Celestia. Although they both sighed in relief, it didn't stop Twilight from glaring at Prince Blueblood. Wait, does she think I fucked him or something?

While the three royals broke into an argument, I looked at the headline on the newspaper. 'Prince of Equestria and Mystery Dwarf go on Epic Bender' it proclaimed, a picture of Prince Blueblood and myself—horse Ray-bans on my face, a fake horn, and a rather real looking moustache to hide my identity—at what appeared to be a strip club. According to the article, it was a place called the Prancing Pegasus in Canterlot's Cloud District, where we were apparently somewhat rowdy, quoted to be arguing over which stripper was prettier.

After that, we were reported hit up one of the richest casinos in the city. There was a photo of me at a blackjack table with what appeared to be a margarita, a plate of hay fries, and a massive stack of bits. Blueblood looked gobsmacked, the dealer looked uncomfortable, and there was a pit boss in the background who looked like he was ready to tear out her mane. I reportedly won so much that evening that the casino kicked me out. Since they couldn't prove that I was cheating, Blueblood threatened to get their license reviewed. I probably wasn't banned, but at the same time I probably wasn't welcome for a long time. At least I know where the huge bag of bits came from now.

An attempt to hit a different casino was met with us being refused entry, so instead the press followed us to a huge party hosted by Fancy Pants. We apparently stayed, danced, and generally made nuisances of ourselves there until dawn. There was a picture of me dancing with a rather amused looking Fleur de Lis, while Blueblood cheered and Fancy Pants tried to hide his face in his hooves. The funny thing was that apparently I was better at standing on my hind legs while drunk, because I looked to be doing the robot while my cardboard horn sat crooked on my forehead.

After that, we pretty much wandered the city, checking out museums, bars, and restaurants. Apparently the entire day was just one prolonged drunken ramble about the city that only ever stopped to top up on energy or keep us drunk. Then, just like Princess Celestia said, the press lost us when we hopped on a train to Ponyville in the afternoon.

I had a pretty good idea of where the two of us went next, based on the energy drink cans. If I had to guess, I took him on a trip to the human world for some reason, loaded up on energy drinks and fuck knows what else with our casino winnings, and then came back at some point in the night, at which point we stole some crowns and broke into the throne room.

"What do you have to say for yourself, Anon?" both Twilight and Celestia asked in synch.

"That I actually hate blackjack," I commented, looking back at the picture of me at the casino. "Funny thing, really. Half the fun of cards is reading other people and making them do what you want, and that's not an aspect of blackjack. System's too rigid, and once you know how it works, it's not hard to turn a profit. Admittedly, it helps if you can count cards—which I can't—but even without that ability, it isn't too hard to learn."

Evidently, that was the wrong answer. The newspaper I was looking at was folded and rolled up in Twilight's magic so fast that I was seeing stars even before she swatted me off the head. "Anon, this is serious!" she yelled, agitating my hangover and leaving me to massage my temple. "Fillies your age should not be going on drunken benders."

"Ow, what do you want me to say?" I muttered, reaching my left hoof into my sling to see if I had any receipts from the other world. Six-Twelve, TechHaus, a scrap yard... "I'm not going to apologise for making peace and friends with Prince Blueblood, or having some honest-to-goodness fun. No, he probably shouldn't have offered me some whiskey, and I damn-well knew better than to accept, but aside from the hangover, I haven't felt this stress-free since before Anon-a-Miss!"

Why in the fuck did we go buy an airbag from a scrap yard? I wondered, staring at the scrap-yard receipt. The last time I'd even thought about airbags was the time me and a bunch of drunk dudes put an airbag in a microwave at a party, and the host nearly got decapitated by the door. What could... Oh. I read over the receipt from the tech shop and cringed.

'If you can believe it, Auntie Celestia loves to play pranks, but I've still never gotten one over on her.' I remembered him saying on the express train to Ponyville. 'Just once, I'd like to have the last laugh.'

My eyes flicked over to Celestia, who was examining the remote. She looked over at me, and then over at Blueblood, who looked to have gone back to sleep after draining the flask of soup. A grin split her face, even as I started to shake my head, glancing at the cushion beneath the prince. Ohnonono. Twilight simply looked on in confusion at the wordless exchange between me and the Sun horse, who was now nodding excitedly with an almost manic expression of glee.

She held the remote before her, and with the tip of her hoof, she pressed the button. We both stared at the throne and Prince Blueblood for several seconds as we waited for something to happen. When, after thirty seconds, nothing happened, I started to heave a sigh of relief. And then...

FOOM!

The airbag beneath the cushion deployed, expanding rapidly and sending Prince Blueblood hurtling through the air. "Curse you, Auntie!" he cried out as he soared across the throne room and out the doors. "Mark my words, I shall prank you eventually!"

Twilight stared at me in disbelief. Celestia cackled like a madwoman. The guards in the hallway were peeking in the door with a mixed look of fear and amusement. Me? I just covered my face and quietly muttered, "How is this my life?"

Entry 32

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The day of Twilight's Friendship Festival had arrived. Honestly, I'd hoped to have gotten out of town sooner, but only just this morning had I been cleared to leave; Sunset had headed back to Ponyville and through the portal five days ago. No longer was I forced to limp about on three legs while the flesh of my immobilized foreleg knitted itself back together. Sure, I was still required to 'take it easy' and warned not to run lest I have leg privileges revoked, but I was free. It felt amazing.

Unfortunately, the requirement to take it easy also meant that I was required to take frequent breaks. This made walking down through the streets of Canterlot from the castle district a long and annoying affair. There were ponies from all around the country flooding into the city, scrambling to get last minute accommodations. Who in the fuck calls a hotel a stable? You could've made any other horse pun! Horstel instead of hostel for example! Crowds were threatening encroach on every inch of open space, which made it very difficult to get around.

Starlight was being very patient, but I think my level of agitation was contagious. I was pretty much stuck to her side, practically underneath her, and ponies were still almost walking on me. Why should they get to play the victim and shout "Hey, I'm walkin' here!" at us when she conjured up a small barrier to guarantee us some fucking space?

Fucking ingrates, the lot of them. If it were up to me, I'd stun them all and walk on their insensate forms. I winced at the aggressive thought. All of the emotions around me were ones of positivity and excitement, but there were so goddamn many of them. Couple that with my usual crowd anxiety and I was practically on a hair-trigger. For the sake of Auntie Twilight, though, I was trying not to cause a huge incident.

Still, I was thankful for her barrier. Just the other day, I bought myself replacement glasses with some of my ill-gotten gains from a misadventure of questionable canonicity. It'd fucking suck to have to go back to them tiny frames and have only a narrow portion of my field of vision to rely on again. I'd probably end up committing a felony if they were to break so soon.

Speaking of my ill-gotten gains, most of them had been teleported back to Twilight's castle, with only about a thousand bits worth in ten and one hundred bit denomination coins remaining in a satchel in Starlight's saddlebags. That was the same place any of my dangerous spell medallions were. Her reasoning was, "It's not that I don't trust you, Anon, but I'd rather you didn't have the ability to traumatise countless ponies in the middle of a panic attack." Harsh, but fair. My own saddlebags had my robe, the clothes from the other side, my possum friend, my notebooks, a set of artisanal modelling tools I'd ordered, and a big jar of clay. Not exactly heavy, but by no means light, either.

That wasn't to say I didn't have any medallions on me. I'd had some alterations made to my track jacket, adding four zip-up pockets on the inseam of each sleeve. The three medallions she allowed me to keep on me were a light spell, the water spell, and the ice spell. The most I could do was blind someone, put a ball of ice in their mouth, or make water fill their ears. It wasn't ideal, but it wasn't like I honestly expected her to let me keep the one I'd dubbed Fire Hose.

Watching a familiar purple and green shape of Spike the Dragon bouncing through the crowd with a mass of scrolls held in his arms, I sighed. "I wonder if Shining Armour is upset that he couldn't come along and bring Flurry to the Festival," I asked Starlight as we moved through the crowd flowing in the opposite direction of us. "I'm sure he'd have loved to see his sister's first big festival organised as a princess."

The mare peeked down at me before smirking. "You just want to snuggle Flurry Heart," she teased, shaking her head before looking around for the best route to the train station. The plan was to take the train to Vanhoover, stay the night, and then hop on a train out to the Empire come morning. "You know why they can't."

I nodded. Back during their stay in Ponyville last month, I'd overheard Cadance complaining to Twilight about the nobility of the Crystal Empire. While they weren't as tribalist as the bunch of cats Blueblood was responsible for trying to herd, they were very opportunistic, trying to seize what power and riches they could when they thought nobody was looking. She'd been dreading to see what they had tried to put through the senate in her absence when they returned.

A curious sight became visible in the sky not long after we reached the train station plaza. A massive dark cloud was approaching Canterlot from the south. Rather than the typical blue-grey of a water-laden thunderhead, however, this was more of a dusty brown. As it grew yet closer, I smelled something very familiar... "Is that... <<diesel>>?" I muttered, staring up at the massive bank of what I now suspected was smog. "I didn't know anybody on this planet was using fossil-based fuels."

Starlight scrunched up her own muzzle at the odour, and let out a noise of disgust as we approached the ticket booth. "You know what that is?" she whispered back. "It smells awful!"

I nodded, pointing up at that cloud bank. "It's a type of fuel source that releases a bunch of pollutants into the air when burned," I said. "Someone's up there in something—my guess is an airship of some sort—and they're burning a whole bunch of it... probably quite inefficiently to get that big of a smog bank."

As if to punctuate my sentence, an airship burst forth from the cloud, making a bee-line for the castle district. What stood out about it was that it wasn't covered in the typical wood and pastels that ponies typically used when decorating everything. The balloon, what little I could see of it, was a dark rose; most of it was covered in blackened armour-plating protecting it from the front and above. That same blackened metal shrouded the prow of the vessel. Even the wood of the ship's hull was of a darker variety, and all of it was sharp edges that gave the impression of a predator.

Everything about that screams villain, a small voice in the back of my mind warned. That thing's built for war.

Starlight was too busy conversing with the ticket-seller about tickets to Vanhoover to notice the exposed fur on my neck beginning to bristle. There was something being said about younger sisters having anxiety and the city getting too crowded, as well as something about the Crystal Empire. I wasn't paying too much attention to them. I was watching as two more airships exited the cloud, moving to flank the first as it went in for a landing near the castle. Yet the cloud remained where it was...

Not too long after, Starlight led me to a bench. She sat down, setting her bags beside her as she said something about boarding after they were finished refuelling the train, but the meaning of her words was escaping me. My eyes kept going from the castle to the cloud bank, which had now come to a stop directly above the city, ears straining to hear anything other than the din of a crowd. Instead, I paced in front of her, freaking her out more and more as I panicked.

"Anon, what is it?" she finally begged, levitating my emotional support plush from my bag and practically shoving it into my arms. "You haven't looked this spooked since... ever. Talk to me."

In a shaky voice, I croaked out, "It's an invasion."

The moment I got those words out, screams echoed down from the upper tiers of the city. More and more airships began to descend from the cloud. I could see great hulking figures on the decks, looking down at the city, their black armour glinting in what little sunlight was getting through the fog. All the while trumpets and calls to arms could be heard from guard stations throughout the city.

Even as I threw my saddlebags to the ground to stuff my possum in and took my non-combat medallions out of the pockets on my sleeve, Starlight was staring at an airship that looked determined to land right in the middle of the plaza. I could see her running the numbers in her head, and though she looked every bit as ready to bolt as I was, she lit her horn. A shimmering barrier formed over the top of the plaza—not a complete shield dome like what Twilight could conjure, but something that was just enough to give pegasi some breathing room at the rooftop level, and still keep the craft from landing.

While she did that, I went into her bags and started pulling out the octagonal medallions. Stonewall, Earthen Pillar, Fire Hose, and Arctic Gale, were the first ones out, and I slotted them into the pockets on my right sleeve. Then I found Ice Spike, Plasma Bolt, and the untested Flamethrower, and started putting those into my left. She gave me a dirty look when she saw me doing this, but it had to be done.

You're just a filly; let her protect you, the instinctual part of my brain insisted. You shouldn't have to fight.

We're a family. We protect one another. I'm not losing her like I lost my mother, and I'm not letting us get separated, either.

We sat anxiously for what felt like an hour, watching as more and more ponies fled to join us under Starlight's umbrella barrier. All around, there was panic and fear. Nobody understood what was going on or why this was happening. This had caught the city completely off-guard. As far as I was aware, when the changelings invaded Canterlot, there was some warning, even if it was part of Chrysalis' subterfuge.

In the middle of the plaza, I saw a golden flash as a dozen royal guards led by a stallion in a black great-coat with gold epaulettes, and a matching peaked cap. I could see a pair of sabres strapped to his side that looked more practical than ornate. When he turned to face us, his golden mane blowing in the breeze, I saw a grim smile. Prince Blueblood had arrived. Wait, he's a soldier and a diplomat?

"Ah, excellent, somepony has already secured the airspace over the plaza," he said, approaching. I could see Starlight eyeing him warily as he approached, but that was probably to be expected. She'd probably only ever seen his public persona—the stuck-up playboy that he played for the nobility—and wasn't sure he could be trusted in a state of emergency. "I have no authority to command you, nor have I the right to ask this of you, but we need all the help we can get securing this plaza for the evacuation."

My stomach dropped. The guard and Blueblood are abandoning the city? I glanced back up in the direction of the castle district. I wanted to ask what was happening, and where Aunt Twilight was, but I could already see ponies streaming in down the main avenue. Starlight asked what I'd intended to say instead. "How bad is it?"

His looked away, his ears folded back in shame. "Aunties Celestia and Luna, as well as Cousin Cadance have been petrified and captured, caught completely unawares," he said in a dark voice. "Princess Twilight and the Elements are fleeing the city on hoof as the invaders seek her capture, but I've had reports that they are also rounding up and caging civilians." He watched as a group of guards herded a group of ponies we'd passed earlier into the plaza and directly onto the train. "To that end, the Guard is evacuating what populace it can to Manehattan, where we will regroup and ready to retake the city."

I wanted to go into the city and search for Aunt Twilight right then and there, but if there was an invading army swarming through the city even now, there was no way I could reach her. "What do you need us to do."

~ 32 ~

The plan was simple, which is to say that it had the least avenues to go from bad to worse. The city evacuation plan was to get the elderly, parents with children, and infirm out of the city on the trains, while all other civilians would exit the city on hoof and hole up in the cave system running throughout the mountain, where there were emergency shelters and supply caches throughout. It wasn't a nice plan, but it had some real planning put into it, and it had clearly been approved a long time ago if they had caches and shelter.

There were several guard groups operating throughout the city to achieve this goal. One was a strike force led by the current captain of the guard, sent to secure the train depot and get other trains prepped to evacuate the civilians that were brought there. Others were running interference against the invaders or leading ponies out of the city. That left Blueblood's group, which had deployed to secure the plaza and ensure ponies could safely board the train on-site, and ensure it got out of the city in one piece. If it couldn't leave, the other trains would be unable to leave the depot and countless ponies would be trapped.

My job was relatively simple. First and foremost, I was to keep Starlight safe so that her barrier stayed between us and that nasty looking airship lurking above the plaza. He also had me conjure up stone walls that blocked off every entrance into the plaza except for the tracks and the main avenue. I wasn't to use any combat spell unless one of the hulking warriors broke through the choke point while the last civvies filtered in. Still, I was perched upon a stone pillar with a pegasus guard hovering beside me, operating as a spotter.

Blueblood was, surprisingly, at the front line, leading a phalanx of earth-ponies and unicorns to push back any interlopers when they appeared. More than once, it broke into a vicious brawl, and I was treated to the sight of my new friend diving into the thick of it, his two sabres a blur of steel. Usually, this was to pull one of his men out of a dangerous situation.

Strangely, these black-armoured invaders didn't seem keen on killing ponies. More than once, I was helpless to watch as a group of the behemoths ambushed a group of refugees just outside the cordon. The first time a pair of guards attempted to intervene, the two were ambushed in turn when a pair of the brutes dropped from the rooftops. The only reason both guardsponies got out of that was because I put a plasma bolt through the back of one invader while it was trying to heft the armoured earth pony over its shoulder. After that, the other was more interested in dragging its screaming compatriot to safety. If any other refugees were intercepted after that, it wasn't down the main avenue.

After what had happened with Lightning Dust, I felt like I should've been more disturbed by that beast screaming about not being able to feel its legs, or the haunted looks thrown my way by the two guards I saved; instead it was like a switch in my head had been flipped. These weren't stupid teenagers trying to get vigilante justice on a group of even stupider pre-teens; these were invaders who could very well have captured or hurt Auntie Twilight. They were fair game to hurt, and if any of them tried to hurt any of these ponies, I'd put them down like rabid animals and let God sort them out.

That wasn't the only being I hurt while I was on my perch, though. When they thought nobody would notice, another pair of the creatures attempted to climb over the one of the stone walls I'd blocked a street off with. The pegasus on overwatch picked up on it really quick, and I sent a huge tongue of flame streaking across the plaza, catching both when they were straddling the top of the wall. They fell back the way they came, their armour glowing red hot as they screamed and patted at the flames spreading across their furred limbs. Another group tried it from the other side, but were promptly hosed down and hit with Arctic Gale; there was no screaming at all from them.

"Hey, what's that they're doing on the tracks?" my spotter called out, looking down the tracks in the direction of the train depot. I squinted my eyes and saw a trio of the creatures hunched over, but I couldn't see what they were doing. I couldn't cast the flamethrower spell that far, and even if I could, the caboose of the train was in the firing arc. If I missed with a plasma bolt, I'd just fuck the rails up and strand the ponies at the depot. That left me with only one option.

The trio of ice spikes that soared down the track punched hard into their armour, denting it, but only one let out a scream indicating I'd done any real damage. A few moments later, before I could fire another burst, they backed off, leaving something behind. "Son of a bitch." At that, the length of railway between us and the train depot was torn apart in a fiery explosion. Once the smoke cleared, it was clear that a section of the rail had been sheared straight through by the blast.

"Oi, Your Highness!" I called out, sliding down the sloped edge of my stone perch. Save for the few guards that had joined with the refugees, Starlight, and the Prince's front line party, there was nobody else still in the plaza; everyone else was aboard the idling train. "They just blew the track to the depot! They're probably gonna make an attempt at the other end if we stay much longer, too!"

It looked as though he cursed under his breath before calling out, "Everypony, we are leaving." He glanced in the direction of the depot and removed his peaked cap. Holding it to his chest, he looked beseechingly to the guards with him. "I need volunteers to link up with the guard captain and find another way out of the city for their evacuees. In the meantime, I shall link up with the Manehattan branch of the guard and plan a counterattack."

While he conversed with his troops and determined who would stay behind, I grabbed my saddlebags and made my way over to Starlight. She'd already gotten her own bags on, although I noticed that she was beginning to sweat a bit from maintaining the cover. It wasn't like she hadn't been idle; the craft above us had attempted to drop some soldiers and explosives a couple of times. "I can't maintain this sort of barrier from within the train," she warned. "We're going to have to ride outside until we're clear."

I nodded, looking up at the airship waiting above. "I think I can make something to deal with that, but I'm going to need to be clear of the city skyline," I said making my way over to the caboose of the train and hauling myself up. Starlight was right there behind me. Out of my bag came the jar of clay, and one of sculpting tools. I didn't bother making this anything fancy, because chances were I would only be able to do this once before being told this spell is now illegal. I just needed to make this as fine as I could.

I know that I'm still unsure of how to feel about you guys, but I know you're somewhere here in the city. Stay safe, Cutie Mark Crusaders.

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of the guard volunteers—nearly all of those who had fought alongside the prince—beginning their march down the mangled track. A few of them had their heads turned skyward, and the rest had their heads on swivels as they went. Not long after, I heard the familiar chug of the steam-engine and felt the lurch as the train began its exit. I barely paid it any mind. Instead I focused on etching in parameters to the large wad of clay as Starlight tucked our bags inside the door of the caboose.

Conjure Earth for a basis, I thought as I etched. Five feet in front of caster. Cylindrical profile, seventy-five centimetres by forty millimetres. Composition: sixty percent titanium, ten percent iron. Stone outer casing. I knew that Starlight was watching over my shoulder, and I imagined that she was already doing the math. Launch projectile at line-of-sight target. Velocity: twenty-five hundred metres per second.

She placed a hoof on my shoulder. "Anon, what do you think you're doing?" she demanded. "Do you have any idea how dangerous that is? What that will do?"

I nodded, not looking away from my work as I began etching in my safeties. Need to absorb what recoil we can, I thought. Behind me, I heard the door sliding open once more. Biting my cheek, I cast a glance over my shoulder, to see Prince Blueblood. His mane was matted with sweat, but I was more amused with the confusion radiating off him. Transmit remainder to train caboose. Can give us a boost on the straight-away out of the city. "Once we're clear of the mountain, I'm going to blow that thing out of the sky if it chooses to follow us," I said, finishing my preparations and doing a once-over of my work. "This's probably gonna be loud, so can you tell everyone on board to cover their ears, get away from the windows and brace themselves?"

Blueblood nodded, watching worriedly as the airship parked over the plaza decided to make chase after all. I almost expected it to go the other way around the mountain and cut us off, but instead it followed us at a 'safe' distance. Still well within my swatting range. The prince, to his credit, grabbed what looked like an old-timey telephone and called out, "All passengers, prepare for sudden acceleration. Cover your ears, and if near a window, please move away." I could hear his voice echoing down the length of the train. "Thank you."

The several minutes that it took to get down the mountain and to the straightaway was the longest bit of time I ever spent unblinking. Never for a second did I let that airship out of my sight. It seemed as though they had their own plans, as I saw many cannons brought up on the airship deck. Rather than traditional cannons, though, they appeared to be some sort of grapnel launchers. It was clear they intended to tether themselves to the train, and then board.

All the while, I watched as less and less of my peripheral was obscured by the mountain. "On my mark, drop the barrier," I warned, placing my hoof over the runic array for Equestria's first—and hopefully last—ever railgun spell. The moment the train levelled out and hit the switchback into the straightaway to Manehattan, I gritted my teeth. "MARK!"

The moment my mana touched the runic array, it felt as though almost my entire reservoir had been forcefully yanked out of me. The sky was on fire as I pitched forward and slammed into the safety rail, which bent ninety degrees under the sudden strain. A fiery contrail lanced from the spot the projectile came into existence, streaking up through the hull of the airship, piercing the armour plating and the balloon in a fiery blossom as it burned its way out of the atmosphere.

I wasn't sure if they were using hydrogen for lift, or if I scored a lucky hit through their fuel supply. All I knew was that a few moments after I found myself hanging from the bent safety rail by my hoof, I saw the airship wracked by a massive secondary explosion. It seemed to sway for a moment before gravity kicked in and it peeled of to the side before ploughing into the plain running alongside the track.

"Sweet..."

"...Celestia."

"Woo! Fuck yeah!" I cheered, raising my hooves in celebration. Wait, wasn't I hanging from the railing? "Ah shit!"

Both unicorns reacted swiftly, grabbing me with their telekinesis and hauling me back onto the caboose. As they set me down, I glanced at the array I'd constructed. The spot where the clay had been was little more ash, and I imagined the keratin in my hoof was probably a little cooked as well. At least I wasn't in any pain.

"You'll not be leaving us so soon, my friend," Blueblood chided, ruffling my mane. "I will, however, have to ask on behalf of the crown that you not recreate that spell. Although allowable under emergency wartime provisions, spells of that capacity are not typically allowed in the hooves of civilians."

Starlight, on the other hand, simply pulled me into a crushing hug. "Don't you ever do that again!" she said, crying but unable to withhold some laughter. I think at this point the stress had gotten to all of us, because Blueblood and I quickly joined. "You're not allowed to save all of our flanks and then do something stupid like dying."

I just yawned and nuzzled into her shoulder. "In my defence, I'm kinda wiped..." I said, feeling my stomach rumble. "Do you think they refilled the food trolley before the invasion started, or should I take a nap to conserve my energy?"

~ 32 ~

Several hours later, I found myself walking through an almost copy-pasted version of Grand Central Terminal. Starlight and I were following close behind Prince Blueblood, who was walking and speaking with the leader of the local guard detachment. They'd practically been waiting there for us, and I wasn't sure if they had a telegraph sent out before we left, or if a carrier pegasus had been sent out prior to our arrival. All I really knew was that there was an entire detachment there waiting for us in the cleared-out terminal when the train screeched into station.

The prince was giving orders to a guardsmare, which she just as quickly relayed to other guards who split off. Medics were dispatched take anypony extracted from the hospital to Manehattan General, and then comb through the refugees and treat any injuries. A group of MPs was to take names and stock of everypony that had arrived on the train; they needed to find out who was who, if there were any unattended minors, and if anypony had been separated from loved ones.

There was fear, anger, and anxiety everywhere. For a moment, I almost thought I was back at Canterlot High, but the memory of what had happened was enough to ground me in the now and push it all away. Someone had just struck at the heart of Equestria and captured three of the princesses.

To his credit, Blueblood didn't slip back into the noble persona, even when a pony I suspected to be the mayor joined us. "Ah, Mayor, just the pony I wanted to speak to," he said in that same charming tone he greeted me with only just last week. "We need lodging set aside for all of these ponies. If the hoteliers of the city refuse to provide emergency housing, the indoor buckball stadium should be large enough to set up emergency shelters."

"Of course, your highness," the portly grey stallion replied. His eyes flicked to us. Oddly enough, his eyes lingered on me a little longer than I'd have liked, and his eyebrow furrowed. Feeling's mutual, buddy, but why do I feel like I've seen you somewhere before? "And what of these two? Should they not remain with the rest of the refugees?"

That drew a shake of the head from Prince Blueblood. "I want these ponies treated as VIPs and kept safe during their stay here." There was a bit of warning in his tone. "Ladies Starlight Glimmer and Anonymous Flicker are members of Princess Twilight Sparkle's household and the Order of Harmony's Hooves, although their induction has not yet been made official."

Again, the mayor's eyes drifted to me, lingering a bit too long for my liking. "She's a little young to be a knight, isn't she?" The incredulity in his voice was bordering rude. "The filly doesn't look like she's even seen her first season yet." Scratch that. Definitely rude. Like, bitch, I almost died for Harmony's little schemes.

My adoptive big sister looked ready to intervene, but Blueblood raised a hoof, drawing the group to a stop. "Lady Anon's youth belies the maturity she possesses, my good colt," he said in a cool voice that almost seemed to threaten violence. I know stress is high because of the invasion, but holy shit, my dude. "She has personally answered Harmony's call, at no small risk to her own well-being, and she and her guardian were both integral in the evacuation effort. More importantly, Anon is my friend and shall be treated with the respect that title deserves."

Starlight and I both blinked at one another. It was kinda surprising to hear him think of me as a friend, if I was being honest. Most of our interactions in the past weren't the best; hell, we only really hung out the one time. Sure, we got drunk together, and may have caused shenanigans, but was that enough to offset all the fire? Or did he see being able to take off the mask of nobility as reason enough to label me a friend?

"Of course, Your Highness," the mayor replied, bowing and stepping away. "I shall go begin making arrangements for the refugees at once."

Once the mayor stepped away, the prince let out a snort that seemed almost derisive. Turning to Starlight, he shook his head. "This is where we part ways, Lady Starlight," he said, his eyes momentarily darting to me. "Find a safe place to hole up until this blows over, and keep a close eye on her." His voice dropped into a hush, but I was still close enough to hear. "Even if she seems fine right now, braver ponies have been haunted by less than what she's seen today."

I cocked an eyebrow, pouting a bit. "Dude, whispering about someone like that only works when they're not right in front of you."

That got a chuckle out of Blueblood. "That it does, my small friend," he said softly, once again mussing up my mane with his hoof. "I promise you that we will take back Canterlot, and Twilight will be safe. Until that time, I ask that you stay strong for her."

I looked from him to Starlight, not entirely sure what the big deal was. "Sure thing, Blue," I said. He seemed surprised by the nickname but I saw a smile spreading across his face. As he walked away, I had one thing I wanted to say, so when he was a few metres away, I called out to him. "Prince Blueblood!" He turned his head to regard me, and I gave him a salute. "Good hunting, Your Highness! Fuck'em up for me!"

Several of the nearby guards looked at me in disbelief. That disbelief only grew when the prince barked with laughter and called back. "Indeed!" A grin split my face as I turned and ran ahead of the now-scowling Starlight. Oh, that's right! I'm not supposed to swear. Sorry, not sorry!

Once we exited the terminal, we stopped by a signboard that seemed to have ads for several local hotels and restaurants. We had a short discussion about whether we were more hungry or tired, but ultimately decided we should get a hotel room first and then worry about our bellies. Gotta find a place to rest my head, I thought, looking at the different posters. Once I have a bed, then I can be fed. Only then should I worry about the dead.

The moment my internal dialogue uttered that last word, my eyes caught sight of a faded and wind-torn poster that was partially covered up by a flyer for some Manehattan boutique. While Starlight was consulting a nearby directory map, I lifted the flyer and gazed at the poster beneath. I regretted it immediately as a chill went down my spine.

Missing

Name: Emerald Flicker

Age: 6, Born 81 Binuary, 995 H.E.

Missing since 43 Hextilis 1001 H.E.

Emerald has a green coat, green eyes, and a black mane. Approximately 68cm tall and 20kg. At the time of her disappearance, she was not known to possess a cutie mark. May run if approached.

If spotted, contact her father, Raging Storm or the Manehattan P.D.

There was a weathered photograph pasted beneath the header, showing a small green filly at a park with a familiar green pegasus mare and a jet-black pegasus stallion standing a bit away. That stallion was simultaneously foreign and familiar to me, and for the first time today, I think I was actually feeling my own true fear. The filly in the picture, although smaller than the description indicated, looked just like me, although her mane was parted into twin ponytails, rather than left to run wild.

Probably the only picture he even had of me, a tiny piece of my mind whispered. They felt like my thoughts, but at the same time, I couldn't explain where they were coming from. Anything else would've shown everypony what he did.

Part of me wanted to tear the poster down, ball it up, and throw it into the nearest bin or gutter. Except, when I brought my hoof up to rip it down, all I could bring myself to do was stare at Emerald Breeze with a feeling of loss welling up within me. When I was sure Starlight wasn't looking, I carefully unpinned the missing poster, rolled it up, and slipped it into my bag.

"H-hey, Starlight," I called out, pretending to read a menu pinned on the opposite end of the board. Unfortunately, I found myself scuffing my hoof on the sidewalk, but I made a conscious effort not to shed keratin into the shape of any runes. "How do you feel about Mexicolt for dinner? There's this place on the corner of Fifth Avenue and Main, and their tacos and chili both look really good." Hell, it even had carnivore options, such as imported pork, turkey, and chicken. At least, it had better have been imported, since such creatures were only supposed to be sentient in Equestria.

She came back over and took a look at the menu, but if she paid any mind to the anxious energy I was probably putting off, she hid it well. Instead she read over the the menu and nodded. "I could go for a burrito, and this place is just a block away from the hotel," she exclaimed, lifting me with her magic and embracing me in a hug. In a quieter voice, she whispered, "It's okay to be upset about today; you don't need to hide your pain. You're safe now..."

I only wish I could believe that, I thought, thinking about the missing pony poster in my bag. Every day we spend here, I'm probably going to be in more danger than I was in Canterlot.

Entry 33

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The hotel Starlight chose was surprisingly generous when it came to booking our room. Although they couldn't outright cut us a room for free when they heard we'd come in with the train-load of refugees, they were able to cut us a pretty decent deal on a suite for the week. Much to my delight, I didn't even have to suggest that we get a room on the interior of the building, keeping us free of windows; the only available room at that moment was a windowless room on the second floor. Sure, if we used our ties to the crown, we could probably get the penthouse, but that'd cost an arm and a leg.

That said, it wasn't without issues. The receptionist was kinda condescending toward me because of my age and appearance, and didn't seem to take my request to also rent a room safe for the week seriously at all. Even Starlight was confused at first as to why we would need one; in all the chaos of the day, she'd clearly forgotten we were travelling with one grand in bits. Plus, we have all of my research notes with us.

That said, the actual reason, which I indicated to her with a tap of one the medallions in my sleeve, was my spell medallions. Even though I didn't exactly feel safe in this city, I couldn't keep carrying these military-grade spells around on my person. They also weren't safe to just leave around in our rooms; what if some nosy maid started poking around and accidentally set off Flamethrower or Arctic Gale in such an enclosed place? We'd either have a fire to lose all of our belongings to, or a frozen corpse in our room that we would have to explain to management and cops.

In the end, the shift manager had to come out and authorise having a safe brought up. Once Starlight fished out her own bit-purse from her saddlebags and paid the receptionist—I'd have offered to pay, but the receptionist probably would've just treated me like the child I sorta was—and a bell-colt brought us to our room. All in all, I was surprised that it only cost us forty bits for the week. That was just under three bits a day per pony, although it probably helped that we were being given a pretty sweet discount.

The moment the bell-colt was tipped and we were alone, I climbed up onto the singular bed—not that I minded; I trusted Starlight, and I was more comfortable on a cushion in a corner. I began removing the medallions from my sleeves, dropping them into a pile next to my saddlebags. After that, I took off the jacket and draped it over the pile. Starlight set her own bags on the small table alongside the complimentary drink-glasses and took a seat there, her head in her hooves. The poor mare was a giant ball of stress and anxiety, but she was full of relief, as well.

"How are you as calm as you are?" she asked, tearing up as she watched me I pawing through my bags to retrieve my possum and the water and ice medallions. "I'm just barely holding it together, and I didn't even do any fighting. You're just a filly... you shouldn't have had to fight at all, and you still stepped up. You... you killed today, Anon, and if anypony should be freaked out, it should be you."

Popping my plush pal onto my head, I brought the retrieved medallions over and set them atop the table before sitting across from her. Once I was up in the high-backed chair, I placed the plush in front of her and nodded. She hesitantly picked it up and gave it a squeeze. Instead of answering right away, I conjured us up some cold drinks, wincing as mana coursed through my strained pathways. It gave me time to think about my answers. A smile spread across my face when I felt her panic ebbing away.

"I wanna preface this by stating that I know that this isn't a healthy way to approach it," I explained, earning a raised eyebrow as I spun the glass with my hooves. "I'm not freaking out because I'm rationalizing right now. I tell myself that they're little better than rabid animals; they come and strike at the heart of our country without warning or reason, capturing our rulers and countless ponies for fuck knows what purpose. They needed to be put down before they hurt or killed someone, because I don't doubt for a second that anyone that's too much trouble will be disposed of." My facade cracked momentarily, tears flowed freely, and before I could help it, I blurted out, "I couldn't save Mommy, so I have to help everypony I can! I know I'm a murderer like him now, but somepony had to do it."

She stared at me in shock. Although she'd definitely heard from Twilight about what had happened to my parents, back when Rarity got me high and I blabbed, she'd never brought it up. Fact of the matter was, I seldom spoke of Mom and my sisters, and I'd never referred to her as Mommy. Even I wasn't sure if that was me suffering from filly brain, or if that was a bit of Emerald shining through again. I was inclined to believe it was the latter, though, because of the ponyism.

"You went that far for complete strangers..." She gave my plushie a good squeeze before levitating it back over to me, forcing it into my grasp. Even though I sagged under the calming influence of the little doll, I still felt a tremor working its way across my body. "You're not a murderer, Anon," she said in a firm voice, "and you're nothing like him."

Her expression softened, and I saw a glint of something in her eyes. "You are right in believing that somepony had to do it, but it didn't need to be you. Regardless, you did step up, and several ponies saw you out there today, providing support to the Royal Guard so they could safely get on the train. I'm sure more than a few saw you swat that airship out of the sky. To them, you're a heroine, not a murderer."

With a sigh, she ruffled my mane. "You need to get some rest," Starlight whispered, wiping away my tears with a gentle caress of her magic. "You performed some very powerful magic today, and you need more time to recover. Would you like me to put you under for a few hours, and give you some time free of thought?"

For some reason—maybe it was the anxiety of the day, or the stress that last spell put on my thaumic system—I found myself nodding. "If you say so," I murmured, feeling my eyelids begin to droop. Although I'd gotten a little sugar and a nap on the train, I was wiped and my thaumic system ached from the strain it'd undergone today. Her horn shimmered in the incandescent light of the room, and as her magic caressed the top of my head once more, my mind grew foggy. The only good thing about such spells was that they resulted in a dreamless sleep. With how fucked up this day had been, and with Princess Luna potentially out of commission, I couldn't trust myself not to have nightmares.

She was doing everything she could to make sure I didn't freak out over what I'd done, yet here I was refraining from showing her that poster. Hopping down from the chair with my possum pal clutched to my chest, I gave her a look. "Hey, Star?"

"Yeah, Anon?" she asked, surprise radiating off of her. She was probably expecting me to fall asleep on the spot, but I was still standing, fighting the effect of the spell. "What's up?"

"Can you—" A yawn escaped me as I moved over to the bed, reared up on my back legs, and snatched one of the pillows. I drug the pillow over to an enclosed space by the bedside table and wall and made a nest before continuing. "Can you cast an extra locking spell on the door if you go out for food? I'll explain late...r..."

~ 33 ~

When I awoke, I did feel magnitudes better than I had when I passed out. It was still the same place I'd been when I went under, curled up on a pillow with my forelegs wrapped around my plush. The only real changes to the room were Starlight's absence, the lights being dimmed, and a blanket being draped over me. Despite it all, it was an extended moment of peace.

Hmm... There's a thought. Pushing the blanket off, I rose from my makeshift nest. The only benefit to the extended period of time with my forelimb in an immobilization sling was that I'd gotten used to getting up and walking on three legs. I wasn't quite ready to let go of my plush; as long as I had it—no, she was definitely a her, I think—I could remain in this state of serenity.

The water and ice medallions were exactly where I left them on the table, but the ones I'd left beneath my jacket were no longer there. I saw that there was a large safe occupying the space beneath the table, so I had to assume that Starlight had moved all of my dangerous spells in there. There were also a few bottled sodas and packs of jelly beans on the table, along with a note written on some hotel stationery. I climbed up onto the same chair as before, and pulled the note over.

Anon,

I shouldn't be gone for too long. There were some things I needed to take care of while you were sleeping, before everything closed up for the day. There's information we don't have, and things I need to know. Don't think I've forgotten about dinner, either. I should be back before you wake up, but in the event that I'm not, I have a few things to let you know.

Firstly, the soda and candy on the table are for you to help replenish your mana reserves. You don't need to eat it all when you wake up, but it wouldn't hurt for you to get some sugar in you. In case of emergency, I've tucked the spell you used on the night of the banquet into one of the sleeve pockets in your jacket. That said, unless somepony can break my master-level locking spell, it shouldn't be much of an issue.

Starlight

Reassured that Starlight hadn't, for some reason, abandoned me, I reached over to the nearest bottle and popped the metal cap off one-hoofed. When I first brought it to my lips, I thought it to be a cola of some sort, but I was soon treated to the sweet vanilla taste of cream soda. I was glad to have my little possum friend as I leaned back in my chair and sipped my beverage. It was much easier to not think about what had happened only hours earlier.

I think you need a name, my little friend, I thought, setting down the bottle and using the malleable hoof field to tear open a pack of jelly beans. Pouring the bag onto the table, I idly threw a few into the air to catch in my mouth as I mused. Sips of the cream soda happened in between as I thought aloud to myself.

"Let's see, you were given to me by Princess Luna, the former Mare in the Moon," I spoke, chewing as I went. "Back on Earth, there was the word Mare, which meant sea, and it was often used to describe dark spots on the moon. One of them was Mare Serenitatis, the 'Sea of Serenity'..." Hugging my plush ever tighter, I smiled as the peaceful feeling washed over me. "And you certainly make me feel serene... So I think I'll call you Serenity."

Although I was tempted to go put my jacket back on, and have a means of self-defence at less than arm's reach, I didn't really want to have to wear it just to feel safe. It was bad enough that I couldn't rely entirely on my own emotional fortitude without having Serenity around to use as a crutch; if I could no longer feel safe without being heavily armed... No, I can't make myself rely on that.

Instead, I finished my snack and then took my jar of clay and sculpting tools from my bag and returned to the table. If I'm gonna be in this city, where that stallion might still lives, I can't look anything like Emerald. Although I was probably going to need Starlight's help to make a spell that could change my coat colour, at the very least, I could do something about being an earth pony that can use magic. After all, everyone notices an earth pony slinging magic, but nobody notices a unicorn.

How to approach this though? I thought, looking at the clay. I could flatten it, roll it into a cone and then add details like the spiral grooves. It'd be lighter, but cooking it might be harder. Too long and it'd just flat-out split. I tilted my head as I tried visualise a horn in three dimensions. Adult horns are longer, whereas a foal my size would only have a stubbier horn.

Carefully, I rolled out first a ball. Next, I rolled that ball into a thick cone shape with the finesse of my versatile hoof field. That left me with the rough shape of a horn, but I needed to flatten out the bottom without distorting the shape. It wasn't too difficult to figure out, although I ended up using Starlight's note as a spacer to keep the clay from sticking to the table when finished.

As I held the shaping tools, I struggled to figure out which direction to etch the horn spiral. Aunt Twilight's and Princess Celestia's are both clockwise, but Starlight's and Princess Luna's were counterclockwise. For that matter, did the direction of the whorl on a unicorn's horn have some sort of cultural or social significance? I certainly hadn't seen any unicorns with just straight-up fuller grooves in their horns.

Sorry, Twilight, I'm feeling more counterclockwise than clockwise.

A few minutes later, I was in the bathroom with my jacket on, firing the clay horn—yes with the fan running; I'm not a savage—when I heard the tinkle of a spell being cast upon the door. Between all the ponies who were coming and going in he hallways, I never really even paid any mind to the presences going up and down the hallway. That changed the moment I picked up on the potential intrusion.

Two ponies... Carefully setting down the hot baked clay on the counter, I moved my right hoof up my left foreleg, to rest atop the air bullet medallion. As I faced the open bathroom door, which flanked that room's door, I readied myself. What to do...?

The tinkle of the spell ended, and then the lock clicked, and the door swung open.

I pumped mana into the air bullet spell...

5...

4...

"Anon, I'm coming in, and we've got a guest!"

3... That's Starlight!

A blue mare in a starry witch's cap and cape stepped into my field of view.

2...

Her head turned and she caught sight of me. Already her eyes went wide, likely in response to the glowing coming from in front of my forehead. In response, I redirected my gaze to the carpet in front of her. Shit, shit shit!

1...

The air bullet streaked out of the space where the blue glow had been just moments before, and fired off, kicking up some loose strands of whatever dense fibre it used. There was a startled sound from the strange unicorn as Starlight stepped into view. She looked to be levitating along a few take-out bags and drink trays.

"<<Jesus Christ>>, Starlight!" I squeaked, my eyes flicking between the two. I felt kinda dizzy from the spell, and nearly slumped against the wall before the exhaustion passed. My thaumic pathway to my hoof felt like a literal ache in my soul. "Warn me before you bring a stranger! I thought you were... Well..." Shaking my head, I looked to the unicorn I'd nearly blasted. "Sorry; not a great first impression, I'm sure."

Grabbing the fake horn from the bathroom counter and exiting the bathroom, I slipped past the still unicorn. Once I was past, the blue mare took off her cap and ran a hoof through her white mane before following. She seemed somewhat surprised when, instead of hopping up onto the bed or taking a seat at the small table, I ended up going over to the oversized down pillow that I'd drug into the corner earlier.

"Trixie, meet Anon," Starlight said, making her way over to the table and setting down dinner. She didn't pay me any mind as I took my jacket off again; instead she opened a closet I hadn't noticed before and levitated out an extra chair. "Anon, this is my friend—"

"The Great and Powerful Trixie!" the previously named unicorn interrupted. I raised my eyebrow at the rolled Rs and the stage flourish that probably would've been accompanied by confetti on a stage. "Travelling Showmare Extraordinaire!"

That got a momentary smile from Starlight. "Anon's normally not so jumpy, but considering the day she's had, I'm not surprised she's on edge," she explained, her smile dropping. "She was in Canterlot with me, working alongside the Guard to ensure the first train got out."

I continued to stare at Trixie for a moment. I've heard that name somewhere before, I thought, watching as the mare climbed into the newly-added third chair at the table. Wasn't that one of the people Starlight travelled with in order to save Equestria from the bug? Yeah, there was Trixie, Thorax, Discord, and that Sunburst stallion that she mentioned.

Content that she was someone that my sister trusted, I slowly made my way over to the table. If I could help it, I'd rather not get too close, just to be safe, but that was kinda hard. After all, this wasn't a full-sized dining table, so the three of us seated at it didn't leave a lot of room. Starlight won't let anything happen anyways.

Once I was up in my seat and Starlight levitated a batch of chili con carne and a plastic spoon over to me, I grabbed another of the sodas she'd left out for me. "So how bad is it out there?" I asked, taking a sip of the cola before digging into my chili. My eyes widened at the flavour, and for a moment I stared at my big sister. This has turkey in it, and it still tastes good... Was this intentional, or did they fuck up her order? While they ate their own burritos and quesedillas, Starlight and Trixie started relaying what had been going on while I was holed up in the room.

Firstly, the Sun had stopped moving through the sky on the course Celestia usually guided it, trapping us in an eternal late afternoon. I wasn't sure exactly how bad that was here, but I'd heard that Equestria had gotten away with an extended night during Nightmare Moon's return, so it seemed feasible that it would probably be alright for a few days. That said, a lot of ponies expected the heat to go up beyond even the typical summer temperatures. If things continued past that point, things would get dangerous.

Back home, if the Sun stopped 'moving', that would've meant the Earth had violently stopped spinning, which would've been cata-fucking-strophic.

Trixie, who'd also been in Canterlot, got out a few hours after we did. Surprisingly, before the invaders blew the track going down the mountain completely, the group led by the Captain of the Guard managed to temporarily fix the damage from the earlier sabotage just long enough to get two of the other trains from the depot out of the city. I guess the damage to the track hadn't been as bad as it looked. Oops. The showmare had been on one of those two trains and gotten in maybe an hour ago.

News of Canterlot falling had already spread far and wide. Several cities were already preparing for the worst, but Manehattan itself wasn't going into lock-down or declaring a state of emergency. The Mayor had indeed requisitioned the use of the buckball stadium to create a temporary relief camp—the influx of extra refugees from Canterlot had guaranteed that. Anypony who got out with their money was being given discount vouchers for the hotels. Trixie was apparently even staying in the recently-vacated room directly across from us.

The Mayor of Manehattan was also requesting volunteers to help out with the relief efforts. Anypony with organisational skills, or the ability to provide blankets or extra food was welcomed, although I had my own ideas for how to help. I didn't know anything about this city's water situation, but they were going to need a lot of water to keep all these refugees healthy. If things started getting hot, ice was probably going to be necessary for improvised cooling, especially in the stadium. I could give the relief coordinator a spell to produce a lot of water and ice.

There wasn't any word from Aunt Twilight, unfortunately. From what little she'd been able to overhear from the Captain of the Guard and Prince Blueblood, Twilight was likely fleeing south in search of an old ally of Equestria—the Queen of the Hippogriffs. Unfortunately, they were likely being pursued by the leader of the invading army: a unicorn servant to a creature calling itself the Storm King. Props to the guard's intel gathering, but perhaps they shouldn't be discussing details like that where civilians can eavesdrop.

Worse, Starlight told me that the guard expected possible retaliation for the downing of that airship. They didn't think that the Storm King's army knew who shot it down, but they did know that they were on the train that went to Manehattan. That made me feel worse than I already did about blowing that thing out of the sky—and probably killing all their dudes onboard—because that meant they might send someone here. Sure, they might've just assumed it to be someone from the guard, but that didn't change the fact that a retaliatory strike was my fault.

Once the meals were finished, I looked seriously from Starlight to Trixie. "Star, about what happened earlier," I started, taking a final sip of cola. "You reckon she's safe to bring in on the whole Emerald thing? It's not just this invasion that has me on edge, and it has to do with that."

Without a second thought, Starlight nodded. "I trust her with my life," she answered, a hint of concern, but mostly pride in her aura. "She can be a bit of a braggart, but she's a good pony."

I considered this for a few seconds. "Basically, Ms. Trixie, I have the consciousness of an adult from another world; long and short of it is that Harmony itself granted me a second chance at life when I was found dying after having crossed between worlds." That got a big jolt of alarm from Trixie, which only caused me to giggle. "I dunno if Harmony sent my soul back in time and I reincarnated as this filly, only to go through such awful things that I repressed my memories and somehow awakened the memories of a past life, or if I was simply stuffed into the corpse of a dead girl."

That alarm grew into horror, which morphed into confusion when I giggled at her reaction. "Sorry, Trixie," Starlight interjected. "After an encounter with our least favourite bug, she's become something of an empath. She's just being a butt and playing off your reactions."

I just stuck my tongue out at my adoptive sister before continuing. "Given the odd flash of memory I've gotten, either is technically a possibility," I added. "Up until just recently, the only proof of Emerald Flicker's existence was the fact that she existed in that mirror world and those memory flashes. Today, outside the train station, I found definitive proof that Emerald existed."

Hopping down from my chair, I made my way over to where my bags were stashed, and fished out the poster. Carrying it in my mouth, I brought it over to Starlight. Passing it to her, I returned to my spot at the table and hopped up. While the pair shared a look—of course alarm would start to fill the air—I tore open another of the packs of candy and started popping the jellies into my mouth. "Whatever part of Emerald still exists in me saw that picture and that name, and all I could feel was fear," I murmured. "The Mayor looked like he recognised me—and although it could've just been from the newspapers, he looked kinda familiar too—but I think Prince Blueblood's request will keep his lips sealed. Still, I know that Raging Storm was not a good pony, and Emerald was certainly convinced that he had something to do with her mother's death. Me and him meeting is likely going to end in violence due to the similarities between Emerald's childhood and my own."

Starlight stared down at the poster, her fear threatening to amplify my own. "Wouldn't it be better to leave?" she asked, casting a glance to her friend. "It's only a short wagon ride to Our Town, and I'm sure Double Diamond, Party Favour, or Night Glider would be willing to put us up."

Trixie, on the other hand, looked thoughtful. "Is that what the fake horn is for?" she asked, turning her gaze to the spot I ditched. "A disguise would certainly make it harder for anypony to recognise you."

"Fake horn?" Starlight looked from me to Trixie in confusion. Evidently, she hadn't seen what I had taken out of the bathroom, and probably just assumed that I was making spells again. "What fake horn?"

Trixie thankfully saved me a trip back over there by levitating the false horn that I'd crafted. "Trixie believes this to be quite the forgery," she said, examining it close up before passing it to Starlight. "Unless somepony is looking for an imitation, it would likely pass scrutiny. Is it safe to assume you were considering dying or enchanting your coat and painting it to match?"

I shrugged. "I was thinking we could put an enchantment on it that would allow it to stick, as well as change my coat colour," I answered, glancing at Starlight. "If neither of you know artifice, though, I suppose dye, paint, and costume glue will do. I don't just wanna leave because I'm scared; there are plenty of other ponies who are just as scared, and I want to help them."

With a loud clop of her hooves, Trixie began to grin. "The Great and Powerful Trixie has had a stupendous idea!" she announced with such volume that Starlight nearly dropped the fake horn in fright. Rubbing her hooves together, she stared at Star. "We shall dye her coat to match your own, and then young Anon shall pose as the younger sister of Trixie's best friend and Great and Powerful Assistant!"

Neither Starlight nor I could help it. Both of us erupted in laughter at the absurdity. I'd thought maybe she'd already told her best friend that I already saw her as the big sister I never had, but it could've escaped her mind. The resulting confusion on Trixie's face just made everything much funnier to me. I found myself rolling off my chair and onto the floor, giggling like a little idiot.

"Oh stahp," I cried, holding my sides as they began to ache. "You're killing me."

Tittering nervously, Trixie looked down at me before asking, "Was it something Trixie said?"

Entry 34

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The next day saw us—Me, Starlight, and Trixie—exiting the hotel at nine in the morning. It certainly didn't feel like nine, though. For one, the sun was at its usual four in the afternoon position. Then there was the temperature, which was closer to that time I got stuck in Texas during a heatwave than it was to what should have been autumn in the Equestrian North East.

Although Starlight was headed to the stadium that the refugee camp was set up in, Trixie was taking me to a salon for a coat-dye treatment. I was a bit hesitant to split off from the mare I'd taken as my sister, but Starlight's reasoning was understandable. Her objective was to drop off the giant ice block and mass water conjuration medallions—although I was the one to make them the previous night, Starlight was the one to bake the clay—with whichever pony was heading up coordinating with the refugees. Since it was a very high-stress time, ponies were probably gonna scoff at the idea of a spell-inscribed clay disc that an earth pony foal made, but if a unicorn came and told them how to do it, they were more likely to buy it.

I'd rather get no credit and see that those refugees get what they need, rather than have foals suffer for the hubris of the grown.

I still remember how surprised Starlight was back in September when I explained my channelling method for triggering a spell inscribed on something. See, because I use the manipulation fields of my hooves to set off a spell, her first concern was how I can even hold them without simply setting them off. At that time, we'd just finished baking my first light medallion, so I tossed it at her; she'd been so startled that she caught it reflexively with her magic. It was more for my own curiosity at that time, but it helped prove my point. Although the spell was exposed to magic, it was nothing without guiding intent.

Why was this important, you ask? Well, we reviewed that little experience last night to make sure we could properly explain it to a layman—laypony?—and have them use it. For good measure, we even explained it to Trixie and then passed her my ice-ball spell and had her fill our glasses with ice, both using magic channelled through her horn, and then her hoof.

Speaking of Trixie, before she left last night—after the whole spell medallion thing—she told me that she knew some runes, and that she could teach them to me if I liked. Starlight was a bit surprised, because Trixie didn't seem the academic type. I, on the other hand, couldn't say yes fast enough. So after we got back from the dye session, it would be time for a magic lesson!

It made a strange sort of sense. The mare was a stage-magician, and made use of a lot of illusion spells—from illusory fireworks to conjuring up caricatures for storytelling. Of course she'd look more deeply into the lore of her affiliated school of magic in order to find the tools needed to make or modify her own spells. The way she told it, every spell in her show was custom tailored. I'm not ashamed to admit that she had my rapt attention like a child during story time.

Evidently, the excitement of learning about the illusion school of magic—albeit from a very unconventional source—was enough to keep my mind occupied as I went to bed, so that I didn't lapse into a nightmare that night. Instead, I was successfully able to conjure up my usual void. That's not to say it brought me comfort, though. Much like my time in the mirror world, I felt like there was something—or someone that wasn't Princess Luna—watching me. The weird thing is that when I called out, thinking it was Harmony, there was no response; just a tinge of fear. Hell, the presence just hid... regardless of my own power over my dreams.

I didn't bring that up in the morning when we grabbed breakfast in the hotel dining room. Yeah, I know I should have. I'm her responsibility, and she cares about me. Telling her would just make her worry. I'm not cracking up, but if I tell her that I think I'm being watched in my dreams by someone who isn't princess Luna, she's gonna think I am.

That brought us to the now. I was in the hotel room with Starlight, getting ready to go. "Are you sure you don't want to wear your cloak instead?" Starlight asked, watching me as I finished putting on my little pony shoes. I was dressed in my track jacket and skirt from the other world, and had my saddlebags on. In one side, I had a small bit satchel separated from my ill-gotten gambling gains with enough to get a coat-dying session, lunch for me and Trixie, and then splurge if I got bored. In the other was Serenity and the false horn—now transmuted to match Starlight's coat. "Your clothes kind of stand out, which seems like the opposite of what you want."

I just shrugged and stepped past her to open the door. "My cloak would stand out just as much here. While it might fit in where there are a lot more unicorns and mystics, like in Canterlot, it stands out in a modern urban environment," I countered, subconsciously rubbing the one spell medallion in my sleeve that I'd been permitted for self defence. Gotta keep the water and ice ones on me, too. "The skirt and jacket aren't all that out of place here, even if the society is mostly nudist."

She raised a hoof as if to protest, before dropping it as a smile creased her face. "And I'm sure it has nothing to do with the pockets," she teased. "Just remember that even if he is out there, he probably isn't expecting you to be anywhere near Manehattan, never mind right under his nose."

With that, we stepped out into the hall and met up with Trixie. I barely paid any attention as Starlight gave her the 'Anon-watching rundown'. It was kinda weird from my perspective, because it seemed more like the sort of instructions you'd give somepony watching your dog for the week. "She's a bit anxious in crowds, and although she's been getting better about physical contact, she's still rather touch-averse," Starlight was saying as we walked down the hall to the stairwell that would take us to the first floor. "Let her initiate any contact. If she starts to panic, she has an enchanted stuffed possum—"

"Serenity," I piped up. "Her name is Serenity."

"Right," Starlight said, casting a surprised glance my way. To be fair, last time we talked about the plush, I hadn't settled on a name yet. "Serenity has a calming enchantment, so if Anon starts having a panic or anxiety attack, Serenity is in her left saddlebag."

"Should Trixie and Anon join you at the stadium afterwards, or...?"

I stopped paying attention by the time we exited out into the lobby. Rather, I was looking around, trying to find the source of surprise and apprehension I was picking up on. This wasn't some coincidence; it didn't start when Starlight or Trixie came into view of the lobby. Instead, it didn't begin until I had. The problem was that,aside from ponies crowded around the front desk, there were more than a few ponies seated on couches or cushions reading newspapers or magazines. There was just too much background emotion to pick up on a clear direction other than being able to say for sure that it was in this room.

Is the hotel being watched already?

My initial reaction, which I found myself having to reign in, was to scamper ahead and stick close to Starlight. Instead, at the last moment, I got closer to Trixie's side instead. I stayed that way until we were out of the building. Both of them clearly noticed, but neither was pushy enough to ask me what was up. That was good, because I didn't exactly want to explain. After all, they might just think I was being paranoid.

Aren't I? I asked myself as Trixie and I split off at the hotel doors and began our journey through the streets of Manehattan. The feeling dissipated as soon as we were outside, but if I was right, they would likely follow. Who even could be watching me? If Blueblood assigned a guard to watch over me, surely he'd just tell us. Why would they feel apprehension upon seeing me, anyway?

There was of course the possibility that this was some spy for the Storm King's forces. I blew up one of their airships and likely killed several of their soldiers in he process. Would they want me dead? Or would they just snatch me up, pump me for information, and then force me to make spell medallions for them?

The feeling of apprehension was gone now, but I was definitely being watched. Several blocks from the hotel, I started feeling that same emotional presence. The surprise was gone, replaced by a sense of confusion, but it was that same flavour of apprehension I picked up on in the lobby. Unlike before, however, I didn't instinctively move closer to Trixie. Instead, I waited an extra block before coming up with a method to sneakily take a peek.

See, at one point, we had to use a crosswalk and change directions in order to get us to our destination. So while we were waiting for carriages to stop and grant us passage, I took the time to look back down the sidewalk behind us. There was nopony there, surprisingly—not a single being. They're invisible...

As we were crossing the street, I leaned close to Trixie and whispered, "Say, Trixie; how common are invisibility spells."

Maybe it was the look on my face, but to my surprise, Trixie didn't respond in her usual boisterous voice. "Not very," she replied, giving me a worried look. "Trixie considered using one for her show, but it was rather difficult to get right. The only ponies who really use them are bodyguards, crooks and spies. Why?"

"We're being followed," I answered casually as we finished crossing the street. "Can't get an exact gauge at this distance, but they've been tailing us since the hotel."

"Should we go get the police?" she asked. Alarm was starting to roll off of her. There might even have been a bead of sweat beginning to form just beneath the brim of her hat.

I just shook my head. "They'll back off if we approach a police station and then the cops'll think we're nuts," I explained. "Don't follow; I'll be right back. The place we're going was Rosie's Salon, right?"

Before Trixie could utter a response, I bounced once, carefully launching my saddlebags off my back. Even as they landed across her withers, I ducked into the nearest alley. It was a dead-end alley with various doors, and about half-way down, there was a dumpster. Beside that, there looked to be a row of trash cans and even a few empty beer bottles.

It took a lot of effort to not remember the day of my mother's death looking at those bottles, never mind touching them. It's too easy to see one slick with blood, spinning away from my foot as I enter that bedroom. That presence was still far enough away that I couldn't get an exact bead on them, which meant they couldn't have been at the alley mouth yet, so I smashed one of the bottles completely in front of the dumpster, and broke off the end of the other, scattering the glass in front of the cans.

With that prepared, I used the dumpster and cans as cover. I had just enough of a field of view between the two bins to see the second bed of glass and the space above it. If they followed me in, I reckoned I'd have just enough time after hearing the first glass trap disturbed to prep my 'stunner' and nail them the moment they hit the second one. Then, it's just a matter of pumping them for information. I can't exactly turn them over to the guard because I can't exactly prove they were doing anything, or even that they were stalking us.

About three minutes passed before I sensed them at the alley mouth. There was no sound of hooves on the pavement, and I realised that if they really were stalking me, it didn't make sense to not have some sort of muffling spell as well. That explained why they didn't seem to be making any noise as they drew closer.

"Where the buck did that filly go," came the gruff muttering of a stallion. Funny, he even has a Bronx accent. "I know I saw her—" Crunch! I began charging my spell, wincing as my mana pathways protested. "Ow! Boss is gonna buckin' skin me if I can't confirm..." Crunch! He stepped into my field of fire. "Why is all this broken glass here!?"

Much to my surprise, I could actually just make out the silhouette of a pony, making just the faintest distortion in the air. That made it easier. I could see his head swivel in my direction, probably having noticed the blue glow. "That would be because you walked into a trap," I said as the spell discharged, and the blue shell of hyper-compressed air slammed into the slight shimmering in the air. I found myself sneering as a brown unicorn with a jet-black mane flickered into existence, falling onto his side with one hoof clutching his chest. With the way he's wheezing, I clearly knocked the wind out of him.

Without further ado, I darted out from behind the garbage cans with my broken bottle. I brought my free forehoof down to grasp his horn in my manipular field so that he couldn't cast anything, while the other held the bottle just centimetres from his eye. "Right, so here's how this works," I hissed with as much malice as I could muster. "You're not gonna move, or attempt a spell, lest your horn goes crunch. I ask a question, and you give an answer." Just for good measure, I tightened my grip on his horn just enough for him to wince. "Do you understand?"

I could feel the alarm radiating off of him, but more than that, I felt the fear. "Yes."

"Why were you tailing me, and who do you work for?" I demanded. "I'll know if you're lying, by the way." I'm not actually sure I'll be able to pick up any deceitful intent over all this fear, but he doesn't have to know that.

The stallion's anxiety grew. "I was just supposed to follow you, see if I could verify your identity," he said quickly—too quickly to feel like a lie. "I can't tell you who I work for; the boss'll kill me if I rat him out."

A glance at his flank revealed a pair of binoculars. Was he supposed to be some sort of lookout or spy? Chances are good he's telling the truth—that he's just supposed to watch me. "Do you really wanna fuck around and find out whether I won't if you don't, my guy?" I asked, throwing a little bit of playfulness into my tone, which honestly just made me sound crazy. I could feel his fear spiking even higher.

"Fact of the matter is, I could claim you tried to lure me into this alley and do things to me—" For good measure, I began to fake stutter. "—and that I w-was j-j-just defending m-myself." I dropped the cutesy stutter and went back to the cold tone of voice. "From what my Auntie tells me, the guard doesn't use necromancers, so it's not like you'd be able to argue." As I spoke, I slowly started moving the broken bottle from his eye down to roughly where his carotid should be, tapping him gently on the side of his neck with a slight smirk.

His eye widened as I brought the bottle back up to his eye. "Raging Storm... Raging Storm sent me to watch you," the stallion blubbered. His fear and anxiety was so high I wouldn't have been surprised if he pissed himself. Still, it confirmed my suspicions. "The mayor told him about you, said you might've been his missing step-daughter. You look just like the kid." The wise-guy frowned, looking kind of worried now. "If you're really not her, kid, you really oughta get out of town. You can't just cross the Blackwing Cartel like this."

Giving him an unimpressed look, I gritted my teeth. "It's a good thing that you're going to go tell Mr. Storm that it's just a case of mistaken identity," I said in a syrupy sweet voice. "My legal guardian is Princess Twilight Sparkle, and I think you wanna fuck with the crown even less than I wanna fuck with your little mafia." His eyes were practically bugging out of his skull now, and his tail began to curl between his legs. "If I so much as catch wind that any more of his people are following me, my big sister, or her magician friend, he's gonna find out why I'm currently near the top of the Storm King's army's most wanted list. Capisci?"

He nodded ever so slightly, so as not to get scratched by the bottle. "Good, now I'm going to leave. You're to wait five minutes and then stand up and leave. Otherwise, we'll find out if the spell I hit you with is strong enough to blow off a unicorn's horn." Releasing his horn, I stepped away from him, and then dropped the broken bottle. "Don't forget."

~ 34 ~

"Sorry about the wait, Trixie," I said as I stepped into the salon. I could see her talking to somepony behind the counter, but at my height, the counter was in the way. "That stalker won't be bothering us anymore." In a much quieter voice, I whispered, "If he knows what's good for him." She gave me a look that was either confused or uneasy. "That said, I think the mayor needs to be reminded what VIP and friend of the crown means."

"That's... good?" she replied in an unsure tone. She glanced at whoever was on the other side of the counter. "Trixie apologises, Rosie, this is her now." As I stand up on my hind hooves, putting them against the side of the counter to peer over, she continued, "Anon, this is Rosie Locks, the owner of this salon and a friend of Trixie's. Rosie, this is—"

The elderly mare on the other side gaped at me, her cerise eyes widening in surprise. "Emerald Flicker, as I live and breathe!" she exclaimed, holding one celadon hoof in front of her mouth. "I haven't seen you in years! Not since your mother..."

What is it with ponies recognising me today? I wondered, watching as the elderly earth pony mare hobbled around the counter to get a good look at me. Her exquisitely-kept mane reminded me a great deal of Rarity's, although whatever colour it had once been had long ago faded to white. What was worse was there was a sense of familiarity about her.

"You, um, you knew me from before?" I asked, feeling a lot less certain. It was one thing to put on an act to try and put the fear of God into some mobster schmuck who worked for my, er Emerald's step-father, but could I bring myself to lie to this pony?

"Before?" She radiated concern as she drew closer. Upon watching me wince, she froze, that aura of concern morphing to guilt. "What did that stallion do to you, sweetpea?"

I shrugged. "I don't know," I admitted. Best go as close to the truth as possible, and only omit the complicated bits. "I only remember bits and pieces from before I woke up in Canterlot just under two months ago, and they usually come in flashes." I let her lead us further into the salon, glancing around as we went. "Princess Celestia kept me at the castle while two of her maids taught me how to be a pony again. It's not all bad, though. I think I'm one of very few earth ponies with a magic-related talent. That's why I live with Princess Twilight in Ponyville now."

We paused in front of a framed photograph on the wall. There was the salon owner, Rosie Locks, alongside a familiar pegasus mare and a little foal swaddled up in a blanket. Rosie stared at the photo with a mournful gaze. "Don't know if that's a blessing or a curse that you don't remember," she whispered. "Everypony knew what Raging did to your mother was no accident, but the Manehattan Police and the district attorney did nothing. Probably on the take, just like that oaf of a mayor. Even before you 'went missing', you all but vanished from the public eye at four, and nopony did a damn thing."

"That's why we're here, Ms. Locks," I said. "I saw the missing poster when I got in with the rest of the Canterlot refugees, and one of his goons was tailing us earlier. We were hoping you could dye my coat—maybe hide the burn discolourations, too—and change my mane up a bit so that I don't look as much like me."

From there, we were led to a curtained-off part of the salon that seemed to have a bit of shower, along with a sort of sprayer contraption, where she gave me the rundown on how things would work. Trixie was able to demonstrate the colour we wanted to have my coat dyed while we discussed pricing. To my surprise, she had an apprentice on staff, and offered to slash the price down to three quarters if we agreed to let her apprentice take care of my mane.

She led me back out to one of the salon chairs and called in a brown filly with a pinkish mane and a scissors cutie-mark that reminded me a lot of an apple. Turns out that her apprentice, Babs Seed, was Apple Bloom's cousin and headed the Manehattan branch of their talent-mark acquisition society, the Cutie Mark Crusaders. I guess she even recognised me from a photo somepony snapped of me and the girls at some point. Fuckin' small world, I tell you. And if I thought that goon had a strong Bronx accent, this filly is even worse.

Babs was more than happy to style my mane and tail. We decided on Auntie Twilight's mane-style due to how different it was from my usual long and wild style, and Trixie even joked that maybe we should dye my coat Twilight's colour instead. So while the apprentice trimmed my mane and tail, followed by straightening them both, I regaled everypony with the story about the time I got burned and put Ebony and Ivory in their places. It stung a little when Rosie suggested that Breeze would've been disappointed in me for getting into a fight like that, even if it was to protect myself or somepony else. It was for that reason I refrained from talking about my other more recent fights.

After that, my mane and tail were wrapped up in special towels and I was led into the curtained area where I removed my jacket, skirt, shoes, and glasses. All of those went to Trixie, since she still had my bag, although I asked her to keep my self-defence medallion on her. Then, since neither Babs nor Rosie had ever seen anything like my spell medallions before, I spent the time they were hosing me down with the coat-dying solution explaining my specific field of magic. After all, there's not a whole lot you can do when every inch of you is getting dyed.

Once all the excess solution was rinsed out of my coat and I was towelled dry, I had Trixie pass me the ice medallion from my jacket sleeve. It was at this point that I noticed that my coat was now more of a mulberry than a heliotrope. Although it was sorta funny, it wasn't exactly what I asked for. I wasn't about to complain though. When they held up a mirror in front of me, I looked like a completely different filly. We didn't put any streaks in, though.

"Em—no, Anon, it sounds like you've had to mature a lot in such a short time, but you've got a good life for yourself in Ponyville now," Rosie said, leaning down to give me a gentle nuzzle after settling up the tab. Maybe it was just because the part of me that was still Emerald recognised her as her mother's friend, but I didn't shy away. Sure, it was awkward as hell because she was more of an acquaintance, but it was the pony way. "It sounds like you're living the sort of life your Mom would have wanted for you. Stay safe while you're here."

"I will!" I said as Trixie settled my saddlebags back on my back. As for my self-defence medallion, I slipped it into my mane behind my ear, where it stayed put thanks to the arms of my glasses. Glancing to Babs, I gave her a nod. "I'll tell Apple Bloom and the others that you said hi when I see them next."

At that, Trixie pushed open the door and stepped out, holding it for me. I was still looking towards the two ponies inside the salon, however, rather than looking where I was going, because I bumped into a pair of stallions who were entering. Two very familiar stallions, come to think of it... In fact, wasn't one of them somepony I just threatened not too long ago?

"Hey, watch where you're goin', ya little brat," boomed the pitch-black pegasus as he shoved past me. The sound of his voice sent my anxiety into overdrive, and only the sense that I needed to get the fuck out of here was keeping me calm. Thankfully, he wasn't exactly looking at me, but rather at the mare behind the counter. "You'll say nothin' about nothin' if ya know what's good for ya."

If Raging Storm had just looked down at me, it might've been all over. That said, the unicorn did look at me, and did a double take upon seeing me. In fact, as he looked me in the eye, he went pale. I just backed out the door on three legs, holding my free hoof in front of my lips before making a throat slitting motion. Don't say a word, my dude.

"Rosie, Rosie, Rosie," Storm was saying in a seemingly chiding tone. "A little birdie told me my little 'princess' is back in town, and now the idiot I sent to check out a lead is scared shitless. She didn't come by her mother's old haunt, has she?"

Please don't hurt her, I pleaded silently to Harmony. Please just let him buy whatever she tells him...

Once the door swung shut behind the two, I booked it down the street. Tears were beginning to fill the corners of my eyes, and my heart rate was spiking. My ears were beginning to ring as my panic attack started to take hold. I didn't care that I was getting ahead of Trixie or that she was having to run to catch up. There needed to be much more space between me and Raging Storm.

"Anon, wait!" Trixie called out once we were a few blocks away from the salon. "Trixie knows you're scared, but you need to slow down!"

I didn't listen. My body just kept on running, barely even conscious of the fact that I wasn't the one guiding my hooves. I'd been in full sprint for probably five minutes before I came to a stop at the gate of a large fenced in area. The area within was grassy, marred by evenly distributed marble monuments and cypress trees. No... This was a cemetery. In fact, this was the Cypress Fields Cemetery—as stated on the sign by the gate. I knew—Emerald knew—who was buried here.

"Momma's here..." I whispered without even intending to. No, it wasn't me... I started walking towards the gate, but it felt like these movements weren't my own. I'm not doing this. A wave of dizziness washed over me as I struggled to force myself to sit down. My muscles felt like they were fighting against me, even as I pulled Serenity out of my bag. I need to calm down... I wrapped my forelegs around the stuffed animal, felt the relief wash over me...

... and then I was falling into darkness, the sobbing of a little girl filling my ears.

Entry 35

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My eyes fluttered open, but even the dim light of the hotel room made my eyes hurt. That wasn't the only part that ached though. There was a dull throbbing inside my skull, and if I didn't know better, I'd say that I was hungover. That said, I certainly didn't remember even going near alcohol. It doesn't feel like I was hit in the head with anything either, so I don't think this is a concussion.

Something else unusual was that I wasn't curled up in my self-assigned corner on my big fluffy hotel pillow. Instead, I seemed to be curled up around Serenity in the middle of the bed. Somepony had taken off my glasses, and the air bullet medallion wasn't tucked behind my ear, so it wasn't like I simply blacked out. No, something else had to be up.

With a groan, I carefully rose to my hooves and began stretching like a cat. Once my body felt nice and limber again, I sat on my haunches, grabbing Serenity once more and chosing to take stock of the situation. Maybe then I could figure out what the fuck happened. Let's recap what I remember.

Trixie chaperoned me for a trip to a salon to change up my appearance.
Somepony Someone invisible was following us.
I ambushed the stalker in an alley, and may or may not have put the fear of God in him.
Found out that Raging Storm is some kind of mob boss.
The owner of the salon knew my Emerald's mother.
Met Apple Bloom's cousin Babs, and didn't even think mention the possibility that Bloom might be a civilian POW.
Got my mane and tail styled, and then my coat dyed, so now I'm an indigo mane, wings, and magenta streak short of looking like Auntie Twilight.
Raging Storm showed up at the salon looking for Emerald.
I had a panic attack and bolted.
Last thing I remember clearly? A cemetery.

So that begged the question: what happened to me? I felt like I was missing something, but this didn't exactly feel like the time with Bughorse. With Chrysalis, there was this compulsion to forget and not mention it due to that geas she'd placed on me, and most of the time I wasn't even aware what had happened. Did I simply have a panic attack and black out?

From the bathroom, there came the sound of a flushing. How had I not noticed the sound of the fan? It's on the same switch as the light! "Trixie, is that you?" I called out, glancing about the room. The mare's cape and hat weren't hung up on the rack or any of the chairs, not that it meant much; I'm pretty sure I hadn't seen the mare when she wasn't wearing those things, even when she was eating. "Hello?"

The bathroom door swung open, and out stepped Starlight; I'd recognise her coat anywhere. Although she quickly hurried over upon hearing my voice, she had this hesitant look about her. "You're awake," she said in a soft voice. I watched in confusion as she reached over and brushed her hoof across my forehead. Surprisingly, I felt it bump firmly into something dead in the middle. Evidently, we did put the fake horn on during my lapsed memory.

"How do you feel?" Starlight asked. "For that matter, which one are you right now?"

I blinked at her. "What the heck are you talking about, Star?" I murmured. "I'm me; who else would I be."

Although the corner of her mouth quirked upward, the serious expression remained. "It's good to have you back, Anon," she whispered, pulling me into a tight hug. At the same time, I just barely felt her magic washing over me. It felt sorta like the time Aunt Twilight scanned me after that whole escapade with Blue. "For the last four hours, you were Emerald Flicker... or at least, you believed you were."

I was Emerald? That did not instil any degree of comfort in my mind. In fact, if I hadn't been receiving the calming benefit of Serenity, I'd probably be freaking out right now. It was bad enough that I was tormenting myself with the idea that I might not be alone in this body, but now all the bullshit in my life has seemingly either woken up the dead filly inside me... or caused my mind to completely fracture and take on a second persona that is potentially more in touch with Emerald's trauma.

"Can you elaborate?" I hesitantly queried when she released me, unsure if I could actually take whatever she had to say. "Was it a completely different pony with different memories, or was it just personality change?"

Starlight seemed to consider the answer for a few minutes. No, I don't think that's necessarily true. She knew what her answer was, but rather, she seemed to be considering something else. That it was taking her so long to come to a decision was slightly distressing, because such an awkward silence would have had to have meant that something had gone on during that period of time... something that I wouldn't have liked.

"I wish Trixie were here," she said in lieu of an explanation. "Her illusion spells would have made it so much easier to retell what happened. Plus, she could better explain what happened before the two of you returned to the hotel room."

I tilted my head slightly. "If you could dream-walk, I'd suggest showing me your memory that way." Wait, no... I'd have to be the one to enter her dream, and what if she couldn't control her dreams the way I could. "Never mind, that was a dumb idea. I'd have to be the one to do it, and I don't even know if you can recall your memories like I can."

A frown creased her face as she glanced at the clock, and then to something on the bedside table. That something turned out to be a photograph of me, Starlight, Twilight, and Spike hanging out together in Applejack's orchard. In fact, I think it was a copy of the one I left with the human world's Emerald Breeze. Was that Starlight's copy?

"Y'know, when I showed Emerald Breeze the copy of that picture that Twilight reverse pick-pocketed into my cloak," I commented with a smile, "her first question was whether you and Twilight were my Moms."

"You, er, Emerald Flicker asked the same thing," Starlight replied, levitating the photograph over. "As soon as she saw the photo, she recognised herself in you, and seeing you so happy, she asked if I was her Mom now." She giggled slightly and gave me a look. "I don't look that old, do I?"

That elicited a snort from me. "Nah, you don't look like the type to get teen preggo," I replied. "Now, I could buy Rarity secretly being Sweetie Belle's Mom, but you don't look a day over eighteen."

Although she laughed loudly at my joke, the smile she wore didn't meet her eyes. If anything she seemed distracted. What had happened today was weighing down on her, but it was as though she couldn't reach a decision on something. Was Emerald that bad, Star? I wanted to ask, but the words wouldn't come. I should be the one that's more disturbed over this, so why is she the one who looks so upset?

With a great sigh, she reached her hoof over to pat the top of my head. "I almost don't want to tell you, but not for the reasons you think," she murmured, an almost haunted look in her eye. "I scanned you when I hugged you, and although it confirmed something that bothered me, it just left me with more questions." Were those tears forming in her eyes? "If you were just a normal filly like your friends, I probably wouldn't tell you, but you used to be a grown-up, so..."

Her horn began to shimmer as she leaned forward. "It'll be easier to show you," she whispered, pressing her horn to my forehead. As everything went white, I heard her voice. "This might be a little disorienting, but try to bear with me."

~ 35 ~

I found myself walking into the hotel lobby... No, wait, that isn't right; I'm way too tall to be me. "Ah, Ms. Glimmer!" the pony at the front desk called out. My head snapped over to regard the mare, even as I changed my trajectory to go over to the desk. Right, I'm riding along in Starlight's memory, I guess. "A letter was left for you by a messenger from the Royal Guard."

'The Royal Guard?' I heard Starlight think to herself. 'It must be from Prince Blueblood.'

The mare at the front desk passed the letter to me—er, Starlight—and went back to her job. Starlight, on the other hand, took the little envelope over to one of free chairs in the lobby. After dropping her bags beside the chair, she took a seat. It was actually addressed to both Starlight Glimmer and Anonymous Flicker, but nobody really thought of a small filly when it comes to a message from the Royal Guard. According to the writing on the envelope, it was straight from the desk of Prince Blueblood, Provisional Head of State and Field Marshal of the Equestrian Royal Guard.

'If it weren't for the national emergency, I'd think that he was enjoying himself too much.'

Mentally, I shook my head in response to her own thoughts. Even as she slit the envelope open to take stock of its message, I found myself feeling sorry for him. Even though she had seen him in action, leading the Canterlot evacuation from the front, she didn't seem to understand that he was more than he appeared to be. That I liked him after our encounter and day of drunken shenanigans seemed to vex her to no end.

Ms. Glimmer, Anon

Although this breaks so many protocols regarding operational security, my Manehattan counterpart and I have agreed that, given your involvement, you have a right to be made aware. A courier airship from Canterlot arrived this morning bearing a letter of demand from the leader of the Storm King's invasion force. We have been given three days from the receipt of the message to turn over the alicorn responsible for the destruction of one of their airships and the deaths of thirty of their soldiers and air-crew. At the end of this period, if the one responsible is not surrendered to them, Commander Tempest Shadow will personally come to apprehend them.

You'd think that I'd feel a bit more guilty finding out that I took thirty lives with one spell, I mused, aware of how muted my own emotions felt here. So why is it that I feel impressed more than anything else?

'Their commander will come here...' thought Starlight as she paused. 'It's all over, then, isn't it? Even if Anon wasn't suffering the effects of manaburn from that monster of a spell, I don't think she could bring herself to use it again. They might just turn on the citizens of Manehattan in retaliation even if she could.'

As their demand explicitly requests we turn over the alicorn responsible, neither the local guard captain nor I feel obliged to accede to their demand. Even if we were inclined turn over a foal to an enemy force, by the very spirit of their request, it would be impossible, as Anon is not an alicorn, nor was an alicorn responsible for the loss of their ship in the first place. Should Princess Twilight's search for aid fail to yield any results by this third day, we shall meet them on the battlefield before they reach the city.

Do not try to be heroines; although your services were technically acceptable during the evacuation, your continued participation would be illegal under international law. You would be branded unlawful combatants and thus subject to a war crimes tribunal. Instead, I implore you to flee if the battle begins. There is a settlement to the north that may be willing to take you both in and shelter you until this war is over.

Your friend, Prince Blueblood

P.S. If anything comes up during your stay that impacts your safety or is of major concern, feel free to stop by the Manehattan Royal Guard base, or send somepony with a message, and I will do what I can when I am able to help.

'Unfortunately,' she thought to herself as she put the envelope into her saddlebags, 'with the way things have been going, we might need to take him up on that last offer.'

After returning to her hooves and levitating her saddlebags back onto her back, she began making her way over to the stairs that led out of the lobby to the hotel's living areas. She couldn't explain what made her glance at the door, but Starlight got the impression that one of the two ponies—a rather terrified brown unicorn with a black mane, and a teal earth pony with a mane of rust—arguing outside the front door was staring at her through the window. It gave her an uneasy sensation, and she quickly found herself fleeing his gaze.

I, of course, recognised the unicorn, having just threatened him hours earlier. So, he either didn't get the message, or his boss is just that scary. That sealed it; even if I was still suffering backlash or manaburn from that rail-gun spell, I could not remain unprepared. I vowed to prepare something special just for Storm if he tried anything.

Nothing of note really happened while I, er, Starlight travelled through the corridor on our floor. It wasn't like I could retroactively sense emotions in a shared memory, so I couldn't even be sure that watcher dude wasn't invisibly stalking her to our door, but based on how scared he looked when Starlight spotted him, I doubted he would be willing to chance my little psycho ass getting wind of him.

The uneventful arrival at the door of our hotel room was punctuated by an anxious-looking Trixie greeting Starlight at the door. "Hey, Trixie," Starlight greeted her friend, taking note that Trixie was actually stepping out into the hallway. "Did Anon's salon trip not go alright?"

"No, no," Trixie replied, pulling the door shut behind her. "We were able to get her coat dyed and mane styled without much issue... But..." Her voice was little more than a conspiratorial whisper. "Somepony was following us under the cloak of an invisibility spell when we left the hotel. Though she said she dealt with it, that stallion and a unicorn Trixie presumed—based on a threatening gesture she made when Raging Storm wasn't looking—to be the pursuer Anon dealt with, showed up while we were exiting."

Starlight winced. "Did he recognise her at all?" she asked, glancing past Trixie to the door?

With a shake of her head, the magician brushed her mane out of her face. "Thankfully no," she whispered back. "Although she had quite the visceral reaction. She had some sort of panic attack and bolted. When Trixie caught up to her, she was crying in front of a grave in the cemetery."

"Emerald Breeze?" Starlight probed. At Trixie's flinch of surprise, she added, "That was the mare in the picture Anon showed us last night. I take it you're not meeting me outside the door just to tell me she had a panic attack though, are you?"

Again, Trixie shook her head. She looked utterly beside herself. "Anon isn't herself right now," was her answer. "She didn't even recognise Trixie or respond to her own name. It was only when Trixie thought to use the name from the poster that she reacted. It took some convincing to earn her trust, but Trixie was able to get her back to the hotel room. Since then, we've painted that fake horn to match her coat and attached it to her forehead, and Trixie's been telling her stories to pass the time."

With that little briefing out of the way, Trixie opened the door and led Starlight in. I dunno whether it was Star's surprise I was experiencing through the memory, or a bit of my own. Sitting at the room's table, making some sort of sculpture using the clay and tools I purchased for etching spells, was what looked like Auntie Twilight, if she had green eyes and a black mane. Oh, and without the wings or her signature cutie mark. Probably the most surprising thing was that although my mark was still present, it seemed to be faded.

Wait, why isn't she wearing my glasses?

All I could really do was watch as the little filly—was she actually smaller, or was it just her composure that made her seem it?—shied away when Trixie introduced her to Starlight. The fact that the first thing the trembling filly said after introducing herself as Emerald Flicker was, "Please don't take me back to Daddy," sent chills through me. I'd never call that man that.

'A filly should never have to use that word with such a fearful voice,' Starlight thought as she observed Emerald. Even as the filly in my place—or had I always been in hers?—calmed, returning to her sculpting while listening to Trixie tell stories, Starlight's critical eye was taking in every detail. She's too quiet... too well behaved. Anon would talk just for the sake of talking. She keeps her tail tucked beneath her, and though she tries to hide it, she doesn't wholly trust me or Trixie. She keeps glancing at us when she think's we're not looking.

While Starlight seemed to be considering whether or not it was right to use some knowledge from psychology books she'd been reading, I was still watching Emerald through her eyes. It looked as though she was having troubles with her hoof grip, occasionally flinching and fumbling the tools as she slowly sculpted the clay. Currently misshapen though it was, I recognised a familiar scene: a figure bearing the appearance of Princess Celestia standing before a small prone filly. Does she actually remember meeting Harmony, or is that a subconscious thing?

'Is she having trouble with her hooves because of the backlash from that spell?' Starlight and I seemed to share the same thought. 'Anon never really complains, but she might just be better at ignoring pain than Emerald is.' That... isn't entirely inaccurate. It's a conscious thing, just trying to bear with it until it becomes unnoticeable. 'Something doesn't feel right about all of this.'

Starlight began casting a spell—the shared memory told me it was a full medical scan spell she learned not long after I came into her life and revealed myself to be a trouble-magnet. As the magic washed over her, Emerald froze, her breath hitching, but when nothing else happened she returned to her work. A wave of revulsion washed over Starlight as the results of the spell flooded our shared consciousness. Sweet Celestia...

Although that was definitely my body sitting there, it was like none of my burns happened, and her eyes were in peak condition. There wasn't even a healed hole going through her right foreleg. The only scars were small circular burns that peppered her body. Oh there were healed skeletal fractures, but nothing like the ones I'd gotten from my strength amp spell. The ones the spell picked up were a very old orbital fracture along with a hairline fracture on the jaw, one of her back-legs had experienced an oblique fracture along the canon bone, a front hoof that had clearly been broken, and several broken ribs, some old and some new.

Only some of those injuries were from the fall in the ravine...

A strangled sob escaped Starlight as other bits of information hit her, and I found her fleeing the room to hyperventilate in the hall. 'How did her previous medical checkups not pick up on any of this?' she internally screamed as she attempted to make sense of what her brain was telling her. 'This degree of sexual trauma would have been detected when she was checked last month when she was trapped in her own head... and this here indicates she's been exposed an STI in the past as well...'

I was mentally screaming as this information burned itself into mind. All of it was stuff I'd attempted to block out when I'd experienced what should have been Emerald Flicker's last moments. I tried to block it out, so why... I cried out inside my own mind. Why do I know how many times he forced himself on her—on me? How many times he visited me when Mommy was still alive, forcing me to call him 'Daddy' while he violated me? How he let his subordinates do what they wanted with my body once Mommy was gone? Like pain, even if you tried to block out trauma, it'd still be there after all.

"What the hay is going on?" she whispered aloud as tears threatened to spill down her cheeks. She felt like she was going to be ill, and I wholly agreed with that sentiment. If not for the fact that I was trapped here in this memory, I would have been ill.

It took Starlight several minutes before she composed herself and returned to the room. When she did, she couldn't bring herself to look at me—at Emerald. Instead, she snatched up a pad of hotel stationery, scribbling out a message to Blueblood. It contained everything that we knew about Emerald and my link to her, including the theories of my existence. She explained my reaction to the poster, my sudden regression, and that she was unsure what had happened to my consciousness. She explained the contents of the medical scan that went against everything we knew had happened to my body. The message ended with a strongly worded request for a Guard escort to Our Town, pointing out that the Manehattan police and the mayor could not be trusted. Shortly after she gave the letter to Trixie to play courier, the memory ended.

~ 35 ~

"I'm going to kill him," I announced as she pulled away breaking the spell. My emotions were all over the place, but my fear of the stallion was slowly curdling inside of me, transforming into absolute seething rage. It was the sort of emotion that—if I'd had access to it during my encounter with that unnamed goon—would have resulted in me being unable to remain in control. But for the fact that I was still in contact with Serenity's calming enchantment, I would probably have tried to storm out and hunt "If he so much as sends one more goon to stalk us, I'm going to make <John Wick> look like Merry <Christmas, Charlie Brown>."

"No you aren't," Starlight said in a soft voice. She patted me gently on the head as she levitated my glasses over. I simply let her put them on me, watching as she went over to the table and started to pore over a take-out menu. "In the morning, we're leaving town... With or without an escort."

I wanted to protest. We couldn't just let this son of a bitch scare us out of this city. Mobster though he may be, Raging Storm didn't own this city, nor did he own us. According to Prince Blueblood, we were goddamned heroes because of what happened the other day. Running from that bastard made no sense to me, like lions running from a cockroach. He'd be so easy to crush, yet the fear is there nonetheless.

Then again, it was clear that I was emotionally compromised. After the day I'd had, the only thing I should plan on doing is centring myself, figuring out what in the fuck happened to me, and preparing for the worst. My mind strayed to the notebooks in the safe here in the room. I hope the changes Starlight helped me make to that spell are enough, even if I hope I never have to use it.

Once I calmed down enough to let go of Serenity, I hopped down from the bed and trotted over to the safe. I was suddenly conscious of the weight of the false horn. Dunno what Trixie and Emerald used to anchor it in place, but it feels solid, albeit unusual. "So, when you scanned me when you were sure I was me," I began, even if I was genuinely curious, it more to fill the air. "I take it you didn't find any of what you found when Emerald Flicker was in control?"

Star watched me with unease as I opened the safe and took out the notebook I'd been using since my trip to the other world. "Nothing," she confirmed, returning her gaze to the menu for what looked to be a pizzeria. "Your burns, your damaged eyes, all the damage to your bones that spell did, it's all there. It's like you were two separate ponies, yet unmistakably the same, like identical twins swapping places."

"I'll try and ask Harmony during my next nap," I murmured. "It's definitely vexing."

When I climbed up onto the chair that Emerald had occupied in that shared memory, I found the end result of her little sculpting session. Sitting neatly atop the sheet of paper was Harmony-Celestia standing before a prone filly, now quite surprisingly detailed for someone who should mentally have been a six-year-old child. The filly's mane, rather than the low pigtails she'd worn in that vision, was more akin to my typical bedraggled mess, and she even had my cutie mark. There was a detail added that I hadn't noticed when I was viewing Starlight's memory, though. There was a roughly pony-shaped shadow drawn onto the paper beside the filly, with 'Who are you?' written beneath in foalish scrawl within a speech bubble.

As an aside, she threw out this little tidbit of info. "The only thing unusual that I did find was how quickly your magic reservoir's been growing; you're almost on par with an adult unicorn now." Not like I was particularly listening now, but I was at least still aware of what she was saying. "Then again, with the spells you use and the strain they put on you all the time..."

It almost seems like she's aware of me to some degree, I thought, gently pushing the sheet and sculpture towards the middle of the table. It was a waste of invaluable clay, but... it didn't feel right destroying it. If only for a few hours, it seemed like Emerald had been alive again, and reusing that clay to make spells that were definitely going to hurt someone felt almost perverse.

Setting my notebook down, I grabbed another sheet of hotel stationery, placed it to the side and reached for my jar of clay. When I was scooping some out to smooth into a ball, I paused and stared at my hoof. Now that I knew what I was looking for, I could feel slight twinge in my mana pathways while I used my hoof fields, but it was so muted that it was like a bitter breeze. Even though our physical injuries differed, magically, we're using the same system.

Slowly but surely, I prepped the clay and began etching out the spell. My eyes kept darting to the notebook where the heavily modified spell was diagrammed. There came places where I either tweaked on the fly, or stripped out safeguards I'd intentionally placed in the original prototype. Although Starlight helped me revise the spell so that it wouldn't have the same nasty after-effects a second time around, this still was a spell that would absolutely do some real damage to a living being, and I wouldn't even be able to practice with it in order to acclimate myself.

I hope I don't have to use this, but... Si vis pacem, para bellum.

Once I finished the spell and used my tools to shape it into a familiar octagonal shape, I slid it across the table to Starlight for her to bake. She took one look at the spell and went pale. "Anon, you don't actually plan on using this, do you?" she whispered, a tremor in her voice. "I still can't believe you convinced me to help make this spell safer for you to use given what it could do."

I shook my head. "To be honest, if I ever have to use this, it's probably going to be a matter of life-and-death either way," I murmured, unable to meet her gaze. "In my old life, we had a saying: if you want peace, prepare for war. I'm not saying I want to use this spell, or expect to have to, but I'd rather have it and not need it, than need it and not have it."

She nodded, seemingly understanding the sentiment. It was, after all, the same reasoning that unicorns often learned a stunner spell or sometimes even a shield. They just didn't take it to the paranoid extreme of almost being able to take on an entire invading army like I did. Then again, most ponies didn't vow to themselves that they would never be helpless, or allow those they care for to come to harm, ever again. Those that did usually joined the Royal Guard. They'd be lucky to have me, but I don't yet care enough about the country to stand and die for it.

Hell, this spell would turn me into a straight-up walking magic hazard. The biggest modification Starlight helped me make would cause my body to practically become a magical vortex, absorbing all the ambient magic around me to fuel the extra safeties. Sure, it'll ultimately ease the strain on my body, but despite the typical rule of inverse proportionality regarding cost and complexity, it's something that's gonna strain my magic almost as badly the rail-gun did. Guards probably taught moderation and restraint, rather than 'P for plenty'.

"I promise that unless you, Auntie Twilight, or anybody else is in danger, I'll never use this spell," I declared, finally meeting her eyes. "Even if Raging Storm sends his goons chasing after us when we flee the city, I'll use the same degree of restraint I used in that square in Canterlot." Translation: I won't seek out the enemy and kill them before they can harm us.

"Changing the topic, what sort of pizza would you like?" she asked, holding up the menu with her magic. "I know you have a taste for spicy things, but if Emerald should reassert herself again during your nap, it might be best to get something a normal filly would like."

I nodded in agreement. "A cheese pizza sounds fine, but whatever you think is good works for me," I said, hopping down from the chair to make my way over to my cushion in the corner. "As long as there's no pineapple. I don't like the sweet and salty contrast of the pineapple and the cheese. Dunno how anyone can tolerate that."

Entry 36

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Once upon a time, the void of my dream was the only place I could escape from all of the things that troubled my mind. Even now, living in Equestria, errant thoughts of my younger sisters, Sara and Laura, came to me. At times, I would even entertain questions of their safety, the sort of lives they were now living, and whether they thought I murdered our father. If they were told that I did, and they believed I could do such a thing, would they have blamed me? Here in my void, I could meditate and be without such thought.

Now, however, it was much harder for me to maintain my calm, and keep the void anchored. The line marking where Emerald ended and I began had become little more than a blurry smudge since coming to Manehattan. Ever since I saw that poster, I'd been reacting to a fear not of my own, as though it were my fear I was experiencing. Ponyisms had started bleeding into my vocabulary. I had even referred to Emerald Breeze as Mommy in moments of weakness. Now I'd even lost consciousness—in more way than one—only to find out that Emerald Flicker's persona had taken control... Calm was hard to maintain because I was just so furious...

I wasn't mad because I'd lost personal agency for a couple of hours. I'd had an inkling for some time that this body did not belong to me, so getting angry because the body's rightful owner had apparently woken from death was not a right I had. That would be outrageous. Imagine squatting in a cabin to keep shelter during the winter, only for the owner to show up in the spring and kick you out; it'd hardly be the owner's fault that you were squatting where you didn't belong.

I never actually belonged in Equestria in the first place. I was never supposed to be a part of Harmony's grand design.

No, I was angry on behalf of Emerald. This child had gone through so much. Her mother's death... the predation at the hooves of her mother's murderer... being pimped out to mobsters... violently abused and neglected... How could one of the Embodied Concepts of this world allowed this to happen to Emerald... To anyone? My very existence seethed at this because it was so analogous to my own history, and I would never have wished that on an adult, never mind a child.

"I tried to warn you, Anonymous," came a voice at the perimeter of my dream space. The voice, although clearly Aunt Twilight's, had that same musical lilt I'd heard in that memory. It was much clearer in this instance that her voice sounded as though it was being produced through crystal glasses with water in them. Slowly, a crystalline version of the alicorn slunk into view. "Nothing good would come from dredging up or dwelling upon Emerald Flicker's existence."

That statement galled me to the point that I actually had to manifest my borrowed body, just so that I could glare at her. "Remind me, Harmony," I hissed, "who it was that wanted me to go through that portal and solve a friendship problem in a world where my body's counterpart was deceased." The entity wearing Twilight's face managed to look quite guilty at that. "What did you expect was going to happen? Of course my mind was going to start pulling at the thread when it was dangled by people who knew the little girl whose face I wore. Every sapient being contemplates the circumstances of its existence at one time or another, and when there's this huge mystery, of course I'm going to end up looking. Then comes Emerald Breeze, alive and well, and all sorts of little feelings started bleeding into my consciousness!"

"I am not omniscient, Anonymous," protested Harmony, putting the expressiveness of Twilight's borrowed visage to good use. It was almost enough to make me feel bad for going on the offensive. "I could not anticipate the breadth or reach of the media of socialisation in that world. The earlier warning should have been enough to dissuade you from digging, although admittedly you preserved the greater harmony by meeting that world's Emerald Breeze."

Sighing, I shook my head. We aren't going to get anywhere with aggression. From the void, I conjured up a low table, two cushions, and a tea set. Seating myself, I began to pour two steaming cups of Chai. As an afterthought, I conjured up a dish of sugar and sweetened my tea. It was all simulated, of course, but the flavour was straight from my memory, so it may as well have been real.

"Take a seat, have some tea," I offered. "I want to hear why nothing good will come from this." Taking a sip of my tea, I watched with amusement as the crystalline alicorn disappeared, only to reappear on the cushion. "I get the impression that this is more than just 'reawakening Emerald's spirit', or whatever disharmony I cause in response to her memories. After all, if I took out Raging Storm and his cartel, it'd likely create harmony."

Harmony's avatar picked up the cup of tea I'd poured for her and took a sip before wincing at the flavour. Too spicy, or too hot? For some reason, I'd never considered that it wasn't actually a person, and wouldn't have regular exposure to sensations like taste. It was the embodiment of a guiding force in this world, but it wasn't Discord; it didn't walk among the mortals.

A tonne of sugar was dumped into the cup before Harmony was satisfied with the taste. "There is only ever supposed to be one of any given being existing at a given time. Reality itself conspires against those that should not exist," she explained. "Irregularities such as intruders from beyond the Border of Reality are met with events intended to drive them off. Illness, misfortune, even instinctual hostility from native life."

Again, the entity masquerading as Twilight managed to approximate a convincing look of guilt. "By right, you should have been left to die," she continued, a faraway look in her eyes. "You would have, had you not been similar to Emerald. It was, in the end, a matter of convenience; by granting you the form of Emerald, you could start a fresh life in her place. Being so close to the Sun, you would inevitably end up under the care of Magic, thus becoming a useful instrument like Magic's followers."

That sounded so cold and clinical, so much like a god regarding its subjects. For some reason, however, I didn't find it all that disturbing being told that I was simply a useful idiot. I could actually respect that it was being honest regarding that fact. We were all part of some greater cosmic game, granted our talents to achieve our unclear purposes. It did, however, make me wonder if the other forces, the other Concepts like Chaos had their own pieces on the board. Chaos isn't inherently evil, however, so I doubt Storm belongs to Discord.

"You could not simply be granted her form; as stated, Reality dislikes irregularities such as outsiders and duplicates, and even entities like me have to play within its rules," she said, emptying her cup and pouring more for herself. "The two bodies were intertwined, living off the same magic, but never intended to exist at the same time. Your life would become but a dream for the one with no willpower of her own to live. Your bodies would remain separate, so that her traumas would not be yours."

That caught my attention. "So that's why... By dwelling on her existence, showing her a life worth living, and even granting her wish to see her mother again, I gave her reason to live," I offered. "And then her fear scared her awake, so to speak, causing her to temporarily become the dominant existence?"

Harmony nodded. "Emerald is not... fully aware of you, of who or what you are," she said in a sad voice. "It is because of this dream link between the two of you that there has been a bleed of memories. At most, she's aware that she's been living in somepony else's shadow. Names and faces of those you know mean nothing to her; only the feelings of safety they provide."

So now that she's 'awake', she could end up in control. Except, if she exists, I slumber, and thus depriving my loved ones of me. "I'd almost be willing to chance whatever Reality throws at me and find a way to separate us, rather than put her through this," I whispered, banishing my teacup and debating whether or not to conjure up a bottle of whiskey instead. No, turning to alcoholism, even simulated, won't help anyone. "Is there nothing we can do?"

"Nothing that would be advisable," Harmony answered after nary a second thought. "It would take a grievous sin against the natural order, and an expenditure of all magic and emotion. But for the lingering touch of Hunger's children upon your mind, it would not even be worth attempting... I cannot condone taking that path, so if you tread it, you will walk it alone."

What does she mean by Hunger? Is that another of the Concepts personified? I mused, watching as Harmony savoured a second cup of imaginary tea. It was amusing that a being that was typically personified as a crystalline tree could develop a taste for tea. Hunger's children... I'm forgetting something, but what?

"It at this juncture that you would be better served learning to coexist with Emerald," Harmony admitted with a sigh. "It would be trivial to allow the two of you to switch at will, and as it stands, you already possess the capacity needed to interact with her here."

Already possess the capacity, huh? If it's specifically here, then Harmony is likely referring to my lucid dreaming. How would I interact with her? Unless... "The presence I felt last night," I mumbled, dropping my face into my hooves. "Of course that would have been her."

"Shall I enable the two of you to switch at will?" Harmony asked. "It would be quite simple."

"Since you had a metaphorical hand in all of this," I answered without a second thought, "I think you should explain things to her before we begin swapping willy-nilly." I thought of the door to my room back in Ponyville, and willed it into existence not far from the table. "In fact, after you're done, send her on into my dream."

Harmony's avatar looked unsure for a moment before nodding. "In the meantime, it may be prudent to create an environment that will not frighten her," the spirit agreed. "Make it somewhere she can feel safe."

~ 36 ~

It took quite some time, but I was able to reshape the environment of my dream to reflect my bedroom. It wasn't a one-to-one match, as I'd kept the low table and cushions. Additionally, the bed that we'd never gotten around to replacing with a desk was now neatly made with a cutesy little sign above it proclaiming in sun-glyphs to be Emerald's Bed. For congruency, there was a small chalk-board with Anon's Pillow Nest - Keep out scrawled in both sun and moon-glyphs above my corner, where Serenity rested atop the pillow pile.

The window was cracked, allowing an imaginary breeze to rustle my mane as I played solitaire on the table. Ponyville was, of course, too much for my unconscious mind to maintain, so what could be seen through the window was little more than a dome with an static image. It was just enough to make the environment not stand out when casually observed, thus conferring peace of mind. I didn't know if Emerald becoming too aware of the construct would cause her to wake or not.

When all of that was done, I committed every last detail to memory. In the event that I can't achieve whatever Harmony was hinting at, I'm going to probably need to reuse this space. The next time I needed this space, it'd be much easier for me to recreate, although I still preferred my void.

Were it not for the fact that I didn't want to unnecessarily explain anything when Emerald got here, I'd have conjured up an MP3 player and headphones so that I could listen to some Pink Floyd. Since it was a dream, I wouldn't have even have had to understand how an MP3 player worked, never having had one myself. Instead, I just sat in silence moving cards from column to column, or into the suit piles. It'd probably be funny to introduce myself using the appearance I had in the other world, but we can save story-time for another meeting.

Just as I finished a game—and I was definitely beginning to think she wasn't coming after all—there came a knock at the door. I silently reminded myself to not cuss or use big words in this meeting, and gathered the cards back into a deck. Instead, I hopped over the table, trotted over to the door, and pulled it open. "Hey there," I said in calm voice, looking at Emerald. She looked just as she had in that vision I'd seen last month, pigtails and all. ~~I'd~~ We'd clearly grown a centimetre or two, because her representation was shorter. "Come on in, Emerald."

I stepped aside, allowing her entrance. On the other side of the door, I saw that Harmony had once again taken on Celestia's appearance. Wonder if Harmony takes on appearances she thinks will bring comfort? Like, would Big Macintosh have appeared if he'd been the pony whose presence I found the most comforting? For that matter, does gender even apply to conceptual beings? I wondered, watching Emerald walk in and take a look around with eyes so full of wonder. Did Harmony explain what she even is, or does she think Harmony is actually Princess Celestia?

"Is this where you live?" Emerald asked as harmony pulled the door closed behind her. "It's very shiny, and you even have spot made just for me! That's so cool!" Like the excitable small child she was, her stream of consciousness quickly sidetracked when she saw the pillow pile and the sign above it. "Do you really sleep in that?"

Unable to restrain a chuckle, I made my way over to the table and plopped back down on my cushion with my back to my pillows. "This is pretty close to my real room, but the real thing lacks the signs above the bed and my nest," I explained, choosing to address her statements one at a time. "I figured I may as well make this place somewhere you might like; I don't use the bed either way. The pillow nest is my own little safe space."

I wonder how much of that compulsion is actually because of subconscious influences bleeding over from her, and how much is actually me.

To be honest, the expected response of 'You're weird,' never came. Instead, she just nodded. "He made me sleep in a closet," she said, her ears folding back slightly as her eyes misted up. I just guided her over to the table and sat her down. Before long, I'd conjured up a pitcher of apple juice and a couple of glasses—much to her awe. She greedily drank her juice, seemingly biding her time. "Before I ran away, I mean. It was the only place at home I felt safe. Daddy—"

"Don't call him that," I said in a soft but firm voice. If I was gonna be sharing the rest of my life with her, I was gonna have to nip that in the bud fast. "What he was doing to us—to you, rather—was not anything a father should be doing to his daughter. Especially after what he did to Mom..." Damn it... That is getting worse. Another problem with us both being 'awakened' minds, I suppose. "Starlight—think of her as our big sister—would tell you the same thing. Most sane adults would. Storm is an evil pony."

My expectations kept getting dashed upon the rocks like the biblical infants. Instead of getting upset at the mention of the things he'd done to her, there was a dawning expression of... awe? Respect? She was getting all starry-eyed looking at me. Here in the dream, I couldn't actually touch her emotions—Does that mean there's a physical component that Starlight's scan couldn't pick up on?—leaving me to rely on my old people-reading skills. "So Miss Harmony was telling the truth?" Emerald exclaimed, her voice breaking into the sort of squeak I'd heard from Sweetie Belle once or twice. "Big Sis Anon's gonna make sure that he can't hurt me ever again?"

I nodded, a distantly familiar feeling blossoming in my metaphorical chest. In the past, I'd wondered why ponies seemed to be willing to go so far for foals that weren't even their own—how Starlight and Twilight had welcomed me into their lives so readily—even when, at times, ponies seemed so very much like humans. Now, I understood. A desire that had so long been lost to my travels had returned. The innocence of foals must be protected, I thought, the words Big Sis Anon, echoing in the back of my mind. I can never go back to Earth and protect Sara and Laura, but just as Starlight has accepted me, my heart wants to accept Emerald as kin... to protect her. If it means doing the unthinkable, I would do it for her.

"Tell me a bit more about what Harmony told you," I finally said, in a shaky voice. I started shuffling the deck of cards that was still on the table, mentally conjuring a joker and slipping it in while I went. "We can play Old Maid while we talk."

She perked right up when I mentioned the game, and by the time I started dealing out the cards, she was utterly vibrating. A fun little game for kids and adults. So why does she look like a predator all of a sudden? While we took all the pairs out of our respective hands, she started telling me about Harmony.

The way she told it, Harmony said that I was a pony who'd died before her time that she wished to give a second chance. Since Harmony had Emerald in storage, and she wasn't exactly using her body at the time, she gave me the body. I was kinda surprised that Harmony had been so forthright with the filly, especially going so far as to explain that her resurgence wasn't expected. If I wasn't already invested in protecting her through protecting myself, I might even have been pissed about Harmony putting the onus of her well-being on me.

It was also a bit unusual hearing Emerald tell me that she was more than happy to share the body, although I think that was the loneliness talking. We could work out a schedule later if I couldn't figure out how to separate us, but in the meantime, it was most important to find out how to exchange control. Of course Harmony had already thought about that. While waking, whoever was in control need only desire to hand over control, and it would transition. Our dreams had been permanently bridged—I was sure Luna would have a field day with that—and whomever chose to leave this space would be in control upon waking.

With that done away with, we quickly finished our game. Old Maid wasn't my strongest card game, mostly because it was as much chance as it was manipulation and strategy. If I was good at poker because of my ability to read others and lead them along, Emerald was my antithesis, having unusually good luck with cards. In the end, once she got the Joker into my hand, it was all over for me. Maybe that's why I didn't feel sore about losing to a child?

"Since you won the card game, you can be in control first," I said with a soft smile, banishing away the cards for now. "Starlight's getting us pizza, so make sure to eat your fill." She jumped to her hooves, her little filly tail wagging excitedly. Before she could get out the door, I stopped her. "Remember to fill me in on anything that happens while you're up. Just put me in control if there's trouble or you need me... And let Star know what's up, alright?"

She nodded, bolting for the door. "Kay!" she called out. "See ya soon!"

Once I felt her leave the dream altogether, I sighed and flopped atop my pillow nest with the fake Serenity. Although I was more than happy to take on the role of Emerald's protective big sister, I was still having selfish second thoughts. Sharing this body would significantly slow down my studies... and for that matter, how would my mark impact Emerald? It was faded, almost as if transparent in Starlight's vision. Would she gain her own mark in time? Would the two forever be interposed?

My mind drifted back to what Harmony had said earlier. I had the touch of Hunger's children lingering on my mind, and if not for that fact, trying to separate would not even be worth attempting. There was something painfully obvious that I was forgetting, and I would probably kick myself when I found out. It was on the tip of my tongue, and I could have sworn that I'd spoken of the answer over the last two days.

The last time I'd been in desperate need of answers, I'd been in the Human world. I'd called out in the void, desperately hoping to reach Harmony. Instead, I'd only come into contact with Magia, the embodiment of that world's living magic. Many somethings had noticed me then, and I could tell that calling out blindly here could be just as bad an idea as it had been there. Still, if I couldn't think of who Hunger's children might be, why not go to the source directly?

"Spirit of Hunger," I called out, projecting my magic into my voice with purpose. "I seek your guidance."

Much as had been the case when I called out back then, the empowered word reverberated within my dream. This time, however, there were walls for the sound to echo off of. It left me with very real-feeling tinnitus. There was no sense of being watched by a great number of eyes. A bit of a cold sensation rolled across my body, but there was nothing like when I screamed into the void, and the void came to see.

For a while, nothing happened. In fact, that nothing went on for so long that I was beginning to think that Hunger, if it was even active like Harmony, wasn't interested in me. After all, Harmony seemed to favour ponies, so Hunger's children would probably be...

I smacked myself in the forehead, and only then did the laughter start. "My, oh, my," came a chillingly familiar voice. "Never would I have ever dreamed that one of Harmony's toys would ever have sought out me of all Concepts."

Nothing seemed out of place when I looked around in search of the voice. Nobody was physically there, even though the voice was definitely coming from within the simulated environment. No, that's not quite right... My reflection on the wall to the right seemed distorted. For one, the colour was far darker, and taller. Wait, I never even allowed reflections to work in the dream...

When a tall, black figure stepped out of the wall, I went stumbling backwards in alarm. The figure was none other than that of Queen Chrysalis, or rather, what she had been before she met me. Changelings... of course they were the children of Hunger. They're practically hunger fae anyways!

"You have adapted quite well to this world, outsider, but you're not really the harmonious type, are you?" purred what was undeniably Hunger embodied. "You have a certain desire, don't you? An insatiable thirst for knowledge... Ambition beyond what Harmony allows for..." It reached out a hole-ridden hoof and stroked my mane. "You hunger for the power that will keep you from ever feeling powerless again..."

This felt... wrong. You know those too-good-to-be-true things that felt like a 'Deal with the Devil' sort of scenario? This was giving off major vibes of that. Unlike Harmony, whose presence was inherently calming, Hunger's presence was jarring, discomforting. It made me feel like I hadn't eaten in days. Hunger felt more like a daemon. So why does talking to it feel like the right choice?

"Perhaps..." I admitted. "My mark drives my fascination with runic magic, and I am at times dissatisfied with the rate at which I'm being taught, but that isn't the knowledge which I seek from Hunger..."

The Concept wearing the former visage of Chrysalis looked intrigued."Oh?" she said in a teasing voice. To my surprise, she lowered herself down to my height and looked me in the eyes. Her eyes were two pools of darkness—no black holes—that were hard to look away from. It feels as if she's searching for something within me... "Perhaps you are curious about the surprise your encounter with Chrysalis left at your parting... the touch of Hunger on your mind?"

So my empathy is an unintended consequence of that encounter?

I shook my head. "Harmony told me of Reality's dislike for outsiders, why she put me in what had been a shell of a little girl," I said in an even voice. The conversation had to remain under my control, lest she try to influence me. "When I told her that I'd rather chance whatever Reality could throw at me rather than put this traumatised child through sharing her existence with me—especially if our minds continue to bleed together—she insinuated that the touch of your children on my mind granted me a chance at independence. She refused to explain more..." I shut my eyes with great effort. "Can it be done?"

With my eyes shut, it was like the room didn't even exist... It was just me in the darkness once more. That made her laughter all the more chilling. "Never have I heard of such noble... selfless hunger," she crooned. "You fascinate me, outsider. Hunger used for independence of self and the good of another? A novel concept."

Despite my eyes being shut—such as it was in the dream—her face appeared before me. I invited her in and she will be heard, I thought wryly as she smirked at me. "Yes, it is possible for you to separate from the child to which you have been bound," she whispered, her face slowly growing until the darkness around was Hunger. "Just because you are so fascinating, I will give you the information that you seek, Anonymous, and in doing so, you shall fulfil the debt you owe for robbing me of my most favoured pawn..." Soon, the darkness faded away to reveal the construct of my room. "All you have to do is..."

Entry 37

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Although technically speaking, the next morning should have been my time to have control over our body, I was more than happy to let Emerald have control for breakfast. The poor thing's been in mental hibernation for the last two years—five if you use the human calendar—so I wanted her to get the most out of eating before we worked out a real schedule. Even if our scars and traumas left when the other took control, our body would keep things that weren't integral to our identities, like food, the dye, and even the fake horn affixed to our forehead.

Plus, missing out on the first meal of the day would just make me more appreciative of the other two. It seemed like the sort of thinking that would coincide with Hunger's ideals. Through moderation and abstinence I would better appreciate my drive to consume. This, in turn, would make the consumption all the more worthwhile. Temperance though Hunger... I'm sure that idea would make Harmony sick.

Speaking of Harmony, since my discussion with Hunger last night, I hadn't heard a peep from her. Even when I tried calling her up, so we could go over what I'd been told, I think she just left me on read. Not that I was really all that surprised; I'm sure from Harmony's perspective, I was being unfaithful to the patron that had allowed me my continued existence. That I was consorting with a concept whose chosen species—their children, as Harmony called them—had threatened her plans on multiple occasions probably seemed like a slap in the face.

That suited me just fine. Harmony was a grown-up concept with many millennia over me; she'd surely get over it soon enough. It wasn't like I was planning on creating a lot of disharmony like Hunger's changelings had. In fact, unless the right opportunity presented itself, I wouldn't be committing any intentionally disharmonious acts. No, what had been proposed by Hunger couldn't be used on just anyone. I wouldn't abide by it.

As much as I might play the fool, I'm not an idiot. Hunger is definitely only 'helping' in order to get one up on Harmony. After all, it's thanks to Harmony's ponies that there are no known hunger fae remaining in Equestria. It's to say, "I helped when you did nothing," and hold it over her head, I think. I'm almost afraid to see what happens when the other shoe drops, though.

It's very much a deal with the devil sort of scenario, but I need an out if I don't want to risk becoming so entangled with Emerald that we become indistinguishable. Even if harmony does let us switch at will, I don't trust her to prevent more of Emerald's memories and emotions from bleeding over.

'Hey Anon,' came Emerald's voice, echoing throughout the dream environment. Emerald did tell me that, even though the one on the inside would be blind to the outside world, we would be able to communicate when needed. 'I'm almost done with breakfast, but something's up. Big Sis Starlight's being... I dunno... weird?'

"Weird how?" I replied back through that same link. "Funny weird or scary weird?"

There was a full moment's pause, and I could feel some negative emotions bleeding through. 'Like Mommy was acting before... before he hurt her.' Images of Emerald Breeze in varying states of unease flickered through the link. 'She knocked on the door across the hall when we went down for breakfast, but nopony answered. Now she's speaking with somepony at the front desk while I finish off my cereal. I'm not dumb; I know she doesn't want to scare me, even if something's happened.'

That... didn't sound good. From the sound of it, Trixie didn't get back from that little courier job Star sent her on. It might be nothing, and she might have just fled down ahead of us, but she'd fled Canterlot with what belongings she could take on her back. Surely she wouldn't leave all that behind just to flee town ahead of us. Maybe she just went drinking and passed out in a gutter? That's a thing ponies do as good as people...

"Are you ready to swap?" I asked, readying myself for what was undoubtedly going to be a jarring transition. Rather than Emerald answering me, I found myself shutting my eyes and nodding my head. When I opened them, again, I was sitting in the middle of the dining area, where other ponies were helping themselves to the complimentary continental breakfast. I'm pretty sure one of the ponies at the table next to mine was staring at me, based on the amusement radiating off of them, although it was hard to tell without my fucking glasses!

'Were you speaking out loud when you were talking to me?' I thought back at Emerald, who was probably even now lounging on the bed I'd given her in the shared mind space. It couldn't really be called a dream now, even if it began as one. I can feel it's still intact even though I'm awake.

'Maybe?' was her guilty-sounding response. 'I didn't know if you would hear me.'

"Emerald, are you ready to go back to the room?" asked a Starlight-shaped blur before I could bury my face in my hooves. "We need to get ready to go soon."

"Did either of you think to bring my glasses?" I asked in turn. That got reactions of surprise from Starlight and the table-neighbours both. The way I spoke was definitely did not mesh with the filly they'd heard moments before. "I really hate not being able to see worth a damn."

"Right, that's gonna take some getting used to," Starlight muttered. I heard the discharge of a spell, and then my glasses settled on my muzzle, once more granting me the clarity of sight. I watched as she cleared the table before magicking over a muffin. "You okay, Anon? I was really confused last night, and Emerald made it sound like you would be here in the morning."

I shrugged before hopping down onto the floor. "It's not an ideal situation, but I'm not gonna blame her for it," I answered, moving towards the stairs. "That damn Harmony, on the other hand, seems content to let us live a shared life, swapping and sharing as we go. She doesn't even seem to care that Emerald's memories and emotions are still bleeding over at times."

With a shake of my head, I stopped on the landing and turned back to face Starlight. "So, Trixie didn't get back last night." I stated in a matter-of-fact voice. Starlight's eyes bugged out and she nearly choked on the muffin she was nibbling on as she went. "Em's more observant than you think. Filled me in before switching, and I filled in the blanks myself."

We started moving again after Starlight's shock wore off. Nobody spoke until we were in our room again. I was kinda surprised to find that most of the things were already packed and ready to go. Of course, I doubted she'd be willing to ditch town before finding out what happened to her best friend. Maybe that's why she didn't immediately levitate my bags onto my back.

"You're right, of course," Starlight said, taking a seat at the table. "The one at the desk this morning was still on from the night shift. She didn't see Trixie get back after she left to take that message to the Royal Guard." Her voice was hollow, and it sounded like she was having a hard time speaking. "There weren't even any messages left for us by runners."

I bit my lip. If Blueblood had taken her into protective custody or had someone escort her out of town ahead of us, he definitely would have sent at the very least a single Royal Guard to fetch us. That of course was operating on the assumption that she even got there in the first place. Even if it meant nothing at that moment, He saw her face yesterday, and that watcher goon had been following us both. If he was stupid or scared enough to ignore my warning...

"Do you know where the Royal Guard is based here in Manehattan?" I probed, experiencing a spike of my own anxiety. I quickly tamped down on it. Can't let that flow back down the link.

She nodded, the confusion in her aura momentarily overriding her fear. "I met a lieutenant outside the gate yesterday before going to the stadium." She was watching me from the corner of her eye as I drug my jacket out of my saddlebags. Surprisingly, I found a first aid kit in my bag atop it; I hadn't put it there, so she must have moved it from her own. I think the manaburn's worn off, because even looking for it, I can't feel that discomfort now. Her anxiety spiked when she saw me begin filling the sleeve pockets with my combat medallions. Plasma Bolt, Stonewall, Ice Spike, and Firehose. I'll grab the new spell when we get back. "Why?"

A sigh escaped my throat as I looked up at the ceiling. "The cops are in Storm's pocket, so we'll have to go over their head. We teleport over to the base, talk with Blue, and find out if Trixie even made it there... If she didn't..." I folded my ears back. "If she didn't, we're going to have to fill him in ourselves... Who Emerald is. What Harmony did... What Raging Storm did to Emerald, and to her mother. Everything."

While I put my jacket on, I caught sight of something on the clock-face. In place of my reflection, there was only Hunger, smiling knowingly at me. A blink later and she was gone, leaving me feeling hollow but for the guilt of what I'd need to do. "I'm going to try to convince Emerald to make a statement," I said with a guilty look over at Starlight. "Then we come back here with an armed escort."

It felt like someone was staring daggers at me, but Starlight was too busy regarding her muffin wrapper atop the table with disdain. "We can't just leave her," she whispered, her voice steadily rising. "She's my friend, Anon. She could be hurt and I can't abandon her!"

I shook my head. "If she didn't make it there yesterday, he likely has her, and is likely gonna use her as bait to lure us out. Let the guards deal with him," I pleaded, once more feeling that pointed gaze. My next words came out in a distorted amalgamation of Emerald's voice and my own as my own panic spiked. "He Is InSaNe AnD cAn'T bE rEaSoNeD wItH."

A sharp pain lanced through my skull, just behind my eyes, and I found myself on the floor, clutching my head. Starlight was at my side, patting my back as I shivered. It felt like the breakfast inside our shared stomach was threatening to come back up. Somehow, it felt like for one split second, both Emerald and I were both in control.

'Em, you okay?' I thought at her, hoping against all hope that she wasn't hurt worse than I was. 'I don't know what happened.'

There was a long moment before she responded. 'Owie.' Her voice across the mental link sounded very, very far off, or very, very small. 'Please don't talk about him. I can feel how mad and scared you are from in here.'

"Please," I once more pleaded when the feeling of illness passed. "If we go after her ourselves... I'm not gonna be able to control myself, Starlight. It was hard enough managing these feelings of fear and hate before Em woke up. It feels like I'll lose my mind..."

~ 37 ~

Twenty minutes after we'd both calmed down, Starlight teleported us both onto the sidewalk in front of the Manehattan Royal Guard base. The sign outside the gate proclaimed it to be the 12th Regiment Ground Station. It certainly looked like a military installation, what with the armed unicorn and pegasus guards flanking the gate, and the guard booth in front of the gate. The walls to either side of the gate were brick with wrought-iron toppers of the type Keith had once referred to as 'sack rippers'.

The moment we popped in, all eyes were on Star, all four guards outside the gate tensing. Nobody even looked at me. Good. That meant that my cloak, which we'd thrown on over my jacket, was holding the disillusionment charm—although she said it was called a Notice-Me-Not charm—she cast over it just fine. Only Starlight should even notice I'm here while I'm wearing it, and that's only because she knew I was already here.

After a moment, a pegasus mare in what appeared to be an officer's platemail stepped out and regarded Starlight. "Miss Glimmer," she greeted in a professional tone. It was only when the officer spoke that the other guards relaxed. "We weren't expecting a visit from you today." She seemed to look around for a moment, her eyes appearing to glide right over me. "What of your ward?"

Wiping her brow—Did teleportation really take that much out of her?—Starlight frowned. "That is... distressing to hear, Lieutenant Haze, and poses a significant problem" she responded. "If you weren't expecting me, that means that my friend Trixie never arrived with a message for Prince Blueblood yesterday..." I could tell that she was resisting the urge to glance down at me. "As for my ward, they're... she's safe for the time being."

The lieutenant tensed, radiating alarm. Even if she didn't know who Trixie was, a guard being told that a messenger, especially one bearing information for the de facto leader of the entire government and armed forces, had gone missing could divine that something bad was happening. Snapping her head to the right, she belted out an order to one of the unicorns. "Corporal Strata, alert Prince Blueblood that we have a situation—code yellow with potential communications compromise." When the stallion nodded, she continued. "I'll escort our guest to Meeting Room Bravo in the headquarters building in the meantime."

Strangely enough, I thought I felt another source of alarm coming from just down the block. It was there and gone so quickly that I wouldn't have even noticed, but for the familiarity of the presence. That fucking watcher! The fuck was he doing here? I mean, it meant very little in the long run, since surely Raging Storm's little cartel wouldn't be stupid enough to attack ponies under the protection of the Royal Guard, but still, it was disconcerting.

While Lieutenant Haze led us through the gate, I found my eyes drawn to the glass windows of the guard booth. As if mocking me, there was Chrysalis's face in the reflection, smirking at me—yet another reminder from Hunger that we had a deal. Oh I had no doubt that Hunger could be very patient waiting for the payout, but it seemed to be savouring the build-up. Or it just enjoys making me uncomfortable.

The inside of the compound seemed very spacious. Although there was a training field directly to our right when we entered, it was empty. Directly ahead of us was a decent sized building, made in a similar styling to much of the other buildings of the city. To our right was a smaller building that I'm pretty sure was marked Barracks in moon-glyphs, although my guess mostly stemmed from the fact that there was a few unarmoured ponies on the step having a smoke around an ash bucket.

We weren't more than two metres into the HQ building when an alarm started going off. The lieutenant spun around as guards swarmed out of nearby corridors. Starlight, for her part, looked plenty scared and confused. "Whoever you are, show yourself," she bellowed, barely contained rage boiling out into the room. "Sneaking into a Royal Guard facility is a criminal offence punishable by indefinite internment."

The moment I pulled my hood back, keeping my hooves raised as I unfastened my cloak and draped it over my withers, all eyes in the lobby snapped down to me. "I apologise for the subterfuge, ma'am," I said in a non-confrontational tone. "With Trixie disappearing and failing to deliver a message pertaining to our safety to the prince, I didn't want to take any chances."

Haze's rage quickly morphed into confusion as she looked from me to Starlight. "Lieutenant Haze, this is Anonymous Flicker—my ward as you put it," she quickly explained. "We've come to discover that, for reasons independent of the Storm King situation, Anon's safety is at severe risk while we remain in this city."

"I don't know what kind of stunt you're trying to pull, Miss Glimmer," the lieutenant growled with an air of disbelief. "The brief we were given explicitly stated that the filly known as Anonymous was an earth pony of green colouration. That is very clearly a unicorn."

"That is quite enough, Lieutenant Summer Haze," said a familiar voice. Into the lobby, accompanied by a unicorn stallion in what looked to be purple ceremonial plate, was Prince Blueblood. If the bags under his eyes and his less-than-pristine mane are any indicator, he's not had a lot of quality rest over the last few days. "I can tell from that cutie mark alone that she is exactly who Starlight says she is."

The lieutenant paled slightly—an impressive feat considering the white coat granted by the enchantment in her armour—and snapped off a quick salute. "Yes, Your Highness."

Mr. Purple Armour—probably the base commander—shook his head. "Everypony, return to your posts," he commanded. "And shut that damned alarm off before I have an aneurysm." All of the guards that had responded to the alarm quickly made themselves scarce, including the lieutenant. Turning his attention back to the prince, the stallion added. "We can continue our conversation after you've seen to your guests, Your Highness."

With a silent nod, Blueblood led us down a hallway, past several offices that probably ought to have been occupied by ranking officers. I reckoned they were probably with the base commander working on battle-strategy for the upcoming offensive they were planning. Still, it was eerie just how quiet a place this was. And the air is so full of tension.

"I must say, my little friend, that is quite the drastic disguise," Blueblood commented as he led us into a meeting room. "What sort of woes have you found yourself facing?"

I glanced at Starlight. "Your Highness, would it be possible to have a medic and a stenographer join us?" she said as she took a seat. "It'll make it easier to put what we have to say on record, and the need for a medic will be explained shortly."

Taking a seat beside her, I shut my eyes and tried to pull myself inward, back to the space I'd created for Emerald and me. It was hard, because normally I had to be asleep to even enter such a created environment, and it wasn't easy to get into the frame of mind necessary when Starlight was giving him the quick and dirty rundown before the requested staff arrived. Whatever Harmony had done, however, had fundamentally changed what that room was... potentially even where it was. Was it even actually a dream, now?

"Anon!" Emerald cried out in surprise as I flickered—Ha!—into existence atop the pillow pile. She was sitting at the low table, playing with the fake Serenity and a few other dolls I'd created during the previous night. "You're back already?"

I nodded, crawling off my pile and taking a seat across from her. "I needed to talk to you about something," I explained. "There's somepony I want you to talk to... an important friend. He is a stallion, but he's one of the good ponies; his name is Prince Blueblood."

At the mention of him being a stallion, I watched her visibly tense. She almost seemed to begin to tremble when I announced he was a prince. "W-what do I gotta talk to him for?" she asked in an accusatory voice. "You're supposed to protect me!"

Again, I nodded. "I am and I will," I said in a soft voice. "But protecting you and making sure that monster is punished for his crimes are two different things. Blue... He can go over the heads of the dirty cops and mayor and ensure he never sees the light of day again."

It looked as though that argument was actually winning her over. "What do I gotta say?" she asked, only the teensiest bit of suspicion in her eyes. I feel bad for having to put her through this... but we need this to be legally documented, especially if this shit goes south.

A lump formed in my metaphysical throat, and for a moment I had to struggle to speak. "This is going to be the hardest thing you'll ever do, but you need to tell Prince Blueblood everything that Raging Storm has done to you." All at once the light of the shared space dimmed, and it seemed as though the temperature dropped several degrees. "You will not get in trouble for what you say, no matter what threats he might've made in the past. It's important that somepony else knows, especially somepony like him, so that even if Storm finds out what we look like or where we live, he doesn't have a leg to stand on when it comes to who we belong with."

It took some desperate negotiations with her, but in the end, she agreed to accept control when I called her, and would give her statement. That said, she drove a hard bargain, and I just knew that Starlight was gonna get super cross with me. Still, if all it took to get her to rat out her father was ice cream for dinner and a stuffed animal of her own, I considered that a win.

When I came back up from that shared space, Starlight and Blueblood were looking at me with concern. I'd apparently started sweating and shivering while I was under, and my body was exhibiting stress behaviour like twitching tail, flicking ears, and, to my surprise, I was even stimming. "She'll do it," I said in a tired voice. "It took the promise of a stuffed animal and ice cream for dinner—her terms, not mine—but she'll go on record to state the abuses she suffered at the hooves of her step-father."

~ 37 ~

The next two hours seemed to drag on forever. It would've gone quicker had the prince not stopped us every so often to ask a question. The biggest thing he seemed to have trouble with was the idea that the Tree of Harmony was regularly interacting with me through my dreams. Very few ponies, it seemed, ever got to interact with Harmony directly. There had been instances of ponies receiving visions or prophetic dreams, or even more recently vague instructions from a magical table. None could really brag that Harmony had taken on the form of someone important to them and spoken to them directly. That she was becoming more active or hands on could either have been a good omen, or a portent of doom.

Blue was also quick to agree that Trixie vanishing after being sent to bring him our warning was too much to be sheer coincidence. We hadn't even gotten to the part where Emerald would provide testimony and he'd already dispatched somepony to arrange a search party. Soon after that, he even sent word to the base commander that it would be likely they would be arresting the mayor and a good portion of the Manehattan police department. Is it because I'm his friend? Or is it just the proximity to royalty that is affording this situation such a response in the midst of a national crisis?

Finally, it came to the point I'd been anxious about. Starlight had the medic hit me with the same scan spell that had been used on me just yesterday, listing my accrued injuries out loud for the stenographer, and then had me bring out Emerald. As I sank back into the dream room, I already knew what the next step would be. The medic would once more scan our body, but when it came to listing Emerald's physical injuries, it would only be whispered to the stenographer and Prince Blueblood.

Honestly, I was kind of thankful that I had no exposure to the outside world while I was here. If I could feel the reactions of the other ponies, and hear Emerald herself telling what had been done to her, our not-quite-stable link likely would have flared up as it had earlier. As it stood, I was barely able to keep myself from going full vigilante. The only reason I hadn't already done so was because Emerald was counting on me to keep her safe, not deliver her into the hooves of that bastard. The more I had to think about his crimes, and the fact that he'd likely already kidnapped Trixie, the more appealing fulfilling the terms of the deal I made with Hunger sounded.

Damned if that wasn't a slippery slope to tread. I would have to trust that the Concept—one that was practically playing the deal-offering devil, no less—wouldn't fuck me over. It would be so simple... just give in to my hunger for revenge, cast one spell... and I'd be my own person again. There were too many risks in seeking out the exact situation though. The stars would have to align just right...

I think that's why Hunger kept appearing. Even as I sat at the table, amidst a fresh game of pyramid solitaire, she was watching me. Maybe she thought she was clever, once again using the reflectivity of the crystal walls to pretend she was my reflection... I'll admit, it took me longer than I'd have liked this second time, because at first glance the blurred reflection was the exact same size as me. It was as if she was pretending to be me if my mane and coat were swapped... which only pissed me off more, because that just made me look more like him.

Eventually, after what felt like forever, Emerald entered the room. Unlike when I'd appeared, she was normal and entered through the door. If it weren't for what she'd just been put through, and the fact that she looked utterly drained, I'd have readied wry comment about her being no fun. It wasn't the time or place for that sort of ribbing.

Instead, I watched as she just crawled onto her bed and just laid on her back, staring up at the ceiling. I didn't yet know whether we could fall asleep in here, but at that moment, I decided she needed some rest. Almost automatically, my form shifted to the one I'd worn in the other world as I walked over and started tucking her in. It'd been so long since I'd done it for my sisters, and I felt a great sorrow as I did it, but I also felt paradoxically happy.

"You were right," Emerald murmured in an almost dreamy voice, seemingly not even caring that I wore a different form here. She looked as though she might be blushing, although it's always hard to tell with fur. "He is a nice pony..." She seemed to instinctively nuzzle into my hand as I brushed her mane out of her face and adjusted her pillow. "He was so kind to me... and he didn't even ask for anything..."

I smiled down at her. "He really is," I whispered, patting her head gently as I shifted back to my pony shape. "Dunno if we can actually sleep here, but try to get some rest." A thought occurred to me. "The hotel room key is in my cloak pocket. Might be nothing, but..."

The moment she shut her eyes, I focused on the sensation I'd felt the previous times I'd come up from the room. It was really disorienting, but not just because I started feeling everything from my own heartbeat to the way the air conditioner blew through my coat. No, I was also disoriented because I wasn't in the exact same spot I was in before. No, for some reason I found myself hugging Blueblood, with Serenity clasped between my foreleg and his barrel.

"You seem to have really won her over, Blue," I murmured as I heard the sound of a camera. My glasses were once again off, but I imagined that it was probably Starlight. I don't know if she kept that in her saddlebags, or in a pocket dimension, but it seemed like whenever there was 'cute shit' going on, somepony had a camera. "Thanks for being so kind to her."

As I extricated myself from the hug, I tossed a glance in the direction of the heliotrope blur ."We'll never speak of this again," I said. "And where are my damn glasses?"

Suddenly, my vision cleared, as somepony dropped them at the end of my muzzle. "Even if you can't cast with it, that horn's at least good for something, my friend," Blueblood said with a tone of forced joviality. God, I didn't even think what it must be like for him or for Starlight to listen to that. "It's a great place to put glasses when they're in the way."

Entry 38

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Once the medic and the stenographer finished and left, it was just me, Starlight, and Blueblood in the meeting room, discussing security and Trixie. I'd taken my place back at Starlight's side. I still hadn't recovered from the embarrassment I felt from Emerald getting so touchy-feely with him. Still, whatever he had said to her, it'd shown me something. There was hope for her. Despite her own damage, she was able to accept that not all stallions were going to hurt her.

Not like me... Even when it's Starlight or Twilight, I flinch occasionally, even though I know for a fact they'd never hurt me... In the polished wood of the table, I glimpsed the visage of Hunger—or was it Chrysalis's face I was seeing, and I was just finally losing it? The longer I spend here in more Manehattan, the more I hunger for revenge for her; even if it's just mental contamination, it's giving me the strength to stand. For her, I'd... I shook my head to clear my thoughts. We are not seeking him out! I'd promised to keep her safe, and it was not a promise I intended to break.

"I give you my word, Starlight Glimmer," Blue was saying, meeting her gaze. "My ponies will find your friend. We have not forgotten that she was among the team that brought Chrysalis to her knees. War against an invading force or not, Equestria does not abandon its heroes."

"And you'll have somepony meet us at the gate to escort us back to the hotel, right?" Starlight asked, glancing down at me with a look of worry. "Even if that stallion does have the police in his pocket, surely he wouldn't be arrogant enough to go after anypony directly protected by the Royal Guard."

With a shake of my head, I sighed. "I wouldn't be so sure about that," I said. "At the very least, he knows that Starlight was here, talking to you. I felt that pony that was following us yesterday when we first teleported in. He ran off quick enough, but Storm knows you were here. Raging Storm might not know what you told Blue, but based on the letter Trixie was carrying, he's likely to have suspicions."

Blueblood frowned and looked like he was going to say something, but I quickly continued, "He'll want to make Trixie and Starlight disappear, maybe not right away, but if he knows that there's two ponies in here—" I thumped my chest with my hoof. "—he might believe he can use Star to lure me back into the open." It'd probably work, too. I clapped my hooves together hard enough to make them tingle. "Then...Bam! He snatches me up and vanishes into the woodwork like a roach."

The prince seemed to consider this for a moment. He was probably sharing a similar concern that I was: that Raging Storm would expect not to be convicted of anything if Trixie and Starlight were to just up and vanish... Then he could lie low for a bit, or skip town. It would be arrogant, and in any normal situation it might have worked.

Too bad he was fucking with friends of the crown and national heroes. He probably didn't even have a clue that he'd kidnapped someone who could be considered a national hero. During a national emergency like this, the Royal Guard probably wouldn't act with any urgency under any other circumstance.

"I'll have Lieutenant Haze and one of her subordinates escort you to your hotel to retrieve your belongings," he announced with a reassuring voice. "Once you're fully packed, return here." He gave Starlight an apologetic look as she rose to her hooves and moving for the door. "We can arrange a wagon out of town when you return, but I will understand if you wish to remain on base until your friend has been found."

Rising to join Starlight at the door, I began the process of putting my cloak back on. The disillusionment charm on it was only temporary, but would probably last just long enough for us to get back to the hotel. Luckily, it wouldn't take effect on me until I pulled the hood up, meaning I wouldn't set off that alarm on the way out.

"Thank you, Your Highness," Starlight said, bowing. That's new. "I was wrong about you, and I'm so glad that you proved me wrong."

I blinked, glancing up at her. What in the fuck did I miss, exactly? She never really got my friendship with the guy, and even after seeing him on the field of battle, she'd still looked doubtful about him. What was it that she saw while I was out? That he was actually a compassionate and competent person hiding behind a boorish mask?

"Take care, my friends," he said in a soft voice as we departed. "And good luck."

The journey out of the headquarter building was quick, and exceedingly quiet. With this latest turn of events, Starlight wasn't exactly talkative, and I wasn't exactly in the mood either. A bad feeling was beginning to form in the pit of my stomach, and I once more caught a glimpse of that changeling figure on a reflective surface. This time, it was wearing a watch, which it pointed at with a smirk.

Yeah, yeah, the clock is ticking. Gotta choose soon.

I barely paid attention as Starlight conversed with the lieutenant. After all, I just had to put my hood up and I could practically walk back to the hotel unseen. Instead, I kept my hood off just long enough for her to know I was following, and for her to instruct me to keep close. Being on four legs for as long as I had now, it'd become second nature to be able to just follow without thinking about it.

Part of my attention was split between keeping an eye out for trouble, and checking in on Emerald. I didn't expect Mr. Watcher to be back. From what I'd seen of him yesterday, he was nothing but a coward motivated by saving his own skin. In Starlight's memory, he looked absolutely fucking terrified. My threat was enough to put the fear of God me into him, but he still couldn't go against Storm.

'You asleep, Em?' I asked inwardly, keeping my head on a swivel. There was no reason for my boosted paranoia, but still, I kept my mind open for hints something might be up: Excitement, anticipation, anxiety above the local baseline... The anxiety was quite high throughout the city right now, and it felt like shit was one bad day away from a riot as it was, but someone running an ambush or something would probably be a lot more anxious. Even the guards are on edge, for crying out loud.

It took a little while for Emerald to respond. 'Nnnh, not really,' she groaned back at me. I certainly knew that feeling... She was probably mentally exhausted from giving her testimony, but her mind wouldn't rest. Well, that and we still hadn't worked out if that little dream partition allowed for sleep or substituted it. 'I keep thinking about Mommy, and how I'm gonna have a new life away from him. Is it really true that our new Mommy is a princess?'

Luna would be so confused to just come into my dream and see me playing cards with myself. I mused, almost missing her question. 'Twilight is a princess, yes, although I think of her more as Auntie Twilight.' I responded. Off in the distance behind us, it sounded like somepony was setting off firecrackers. 'Did you know that, besides Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, and Princess Twilight, there's another alicorn princess?'

'Really?' was her tired response. 'What's she princess of?'

My eyes flicked to the other side of the road. Spike in excitement... A pair of teenage unicorn colts were levitating a box of matches and individual firecrackers. The moment whoever was setting off firecrackers back down the road stopped, these two began. False alarm.

'Princess Cadance is the Princess of Love,' I explained, glancing back to Starlight and the guards. They didn't seem to be all that perturbed about the firecrackers, although the pegasus lieutenant mumbled something about how dry it was. It almost seemed intentionally regular. Krak. Krak. Krak. 'I think she married Twilight's brother, Shining Armour back in '01.' I smiled softly, remembering how nice Cadance was. Also, I had to admit that alicorn foal snuggles were the best. 'She also has her own kingdom and a baby. Really cute kid, and super friendly too. You'll probably get to meet all of them when this whole thing is over...'

By the time we were half-way to the hotel, I was starting to get the feeling that something was up. I'd been telling Emerald about the trip Starlight and I had intended to go on before the Storm King invaded, when we'd passed another group of teens with firecrackers. Like the previous time, the moment this group started, the previous stopped. Someone's using these teens to track our movements... I narrowed my eyes, considering whether or not to suggest we take a less direct route to the lieutenant. It's almost like we're walking into...

Skreeee... KRAK! That wasn't the same kind of firework as I'd been hearing. That was almost certainly a signal... but for what?

From up above, on the roof of the bodega we just passed, a bright green ball of sparkles shot over our heads, streaking right into a manhole cover, where it exploded harmlessly. For a moment the others tensed... but when seemingly nothing happened, everypony relaxed. There was even a muttered "Damn teenagers..." from the lieutenant. They all started walking again, but my eyes were still locked on the manhole cover.

What's that hissing sound?

'Anon, why'd you stop—'

"EVERYONE, GET DOWN!" I screamed, turning away from the roadway. What did the galley cook, Ibrahim, say about explosion shock waves? Turn away, check... Cover ears? On top of pressing them flat against my head, I threw my hooves over top of my hood and ears. Open mouth...

Just as I opened my mouth again, the middle of the road exploded behind me. Although a majority of the heat of the explosion escaped upward, the sewer mouth acting as a fougasse before exploding outward. I still found myself thrown into the bodega wall by the blast. My false horn exploded from the impact, cutting my brow with shards of broken pottery. It was a small wonder my glasses didn't break.

As debris rained down around me, I struggled unsteadily to my hooves. Starlight and the guards had been just far enough ahead to just be dazed by the blast, for all the good it did them. All I could do was dizzily slump against the wall and watch... I hope I don't have a bad concussion. Down from the rooftop jumped half a dozen thugs, all of them slamming into the others.

Starlight was probably the lucky one. The two that went after her merely threw a burlap sack over her head before smacking her with a blackjack. As she dropped like a stone, Serenity fell free of her saddlebags. Lieutenant Haze and her subordinate had their helmets caved in with broken pavement chunks. The moment the two were downed, the goons dragged them into an alley, while Starlight was tossed over the back of an earth pony thug.

"You used way to bucking much black powder!" I managed to hear one goon over the tinnitus I'd gotten. "You could'a killed somepony!" Considering there were plenty of injured civilians on the other side of the street, the admonished idiot still possibly could have. The guy reached over and smacked a scrawny looking unicorn in the back of the head. "Boss is worried enough about the Royal Guard breathin' down our necks without you's killing them an' a bunch of civvies!"

I struggled to get back on my hooves, but my legs felt like jello. I need to follow them! Everything was going cold, and it was hard to breathe. I'm in shock, I realised as dragged myself across the ground toward Serenity. Nobody even seemed to notice the blood dripping from my head onto the sidewalk, or the way my belly and coat were smearing it. They all just took Starlight and ran.

Grabbing Serenity without getting blood on her was hard, and her calming effect didn't seem to help with the shock... Gonna have to hand over control to Emerald... I thought, flopping onto my side. I reached up with my free hoof to touch my brow. Yep, that's a gash above my eye... As my vision grew dark around the edges, I carefully took off my glasses and stuck them in a pocket in my cloak. Here's hoping that doesn't carry over to Emerald...

~ 38 ~

The dream room was dark when I opened my eyes. Inwardly, I was thankful, because somehow, I had a migraine . How do I even have a headache here? I wondered, glancing around. It took a moment for it to sink in what had happened and why I was here. The ambush... the shock... my head injury.

He has Starlight. Seeingly in response to my panic, all light left the room. The temperature dropped, and that feeling of numbness was spreading quickly across my body. Even the pile of pillows did nothing to mitigate the feeling. That bastard took my sister!

'Anon, please come back!' came Emerald's pleading voice. It sounded like she'd been crying. 'Starlight's gone... You're there but you're gone... Everypony's gone and I don't know what to do!'

"Emerald?" I called out. "What do you mean I'm gone?"

There was a bright rush of light filling the room as Emerald burst through the door. She hurtled over the low table, and before I could even be sure of what happened I found myself pinned beneath the filly. If this'd been the real world, the strength of her hug would've been crushing. It came with the territory of being an earth pony. Even if our shared body wasn't as strong as Apple Bloom because of the neglect and malnutrition, it would be easy to accidentally hurt Sweetie Bell or Scootaloo when it came to roughhousing.

She was also crying really hard. So I did the only thing that made sense at the time; I returned the hug and patted her trembling back. It must've been terrifying for her to come to in the street like that, covered in debris and my blood... no Starlight around, and a pair of unconscious guards in a nearby alley... There might've even been ponies who'd succumbed to their injuries. How awful that must have been.

That's it, I decided, catching my Hunger-distorted reflection staring down at me from the ceiling. A calmness like I'd never felt before had overtaken me. Everything about what I had to do next seemed so clear to me. No more niceties, Raging Storm.

"It's going to be okay," I whispered when she finally calmed down enough. "Can you tell me where we are?"

Emerald climbed off of me, but stayed curled up against my side. "The hotel room," she answered "We were close enough that I could find my way... and thanks to you, I knew where the key was." She started to whimper slightly. "He took Starlight, didn't he?"

I nodded. "Yeah." My voice sounded strange to me. That calm had completely stripped all emotion from my voice, and I think even Em picked up on it, because it seemed to startle her. "Don't you worry your pretty little head though, kiddo." I smiled at her in an attempt to sound reassuring. Evidently, I was failing, because she winced."Your big sis, Anon," I said, patting her on the head as I stood, "is going to go get her back... and then we'll all be one big happy family."

That declaration only made her scramble away. "You can't!" she cried, hopping onto the bed. I didn't really understand the point. Was she taking the moral high ground literally? "We're just foals! We can't stand up to adults like them."

I couldn't help it. I broke into laughter. "Oh, I'm not going to stand up to them," I said, focusing on rising up into consciousness. She looked adorable in her relief, short-lived though that expression was. "There's not going to be anything left to stand up to when I'm through."

Turning to her, I gave her a sombre look. Taking control feels so hard... It's almost like she's fighting it. I knew why, of course. As much as she seemed to like Starlight, that monster still scared her more. She doesn't want me to go. "I promised that I would protect you, and I meant it," I said, walking towards the door. "In order to do that, I'm going to have to do some not very good things... I need you to promise me something, Emerald. Until I say it's okay, I need you to promise not to try and take control... If things go well... I might even have a body of my own by the end of it."

Those green eyes of hers bore an unfathomable sadness. "Okay," she agreed. The resistance I felt was starting to slip away. "But you gotta promise to still be there for me..." In a quiet voice that I could scarcely make out, she said, "I just got two sisters... I don't wanna lose one already."

I stepped out the door of the dream, and found myself opening my eyes in the hotel room. My body was once more atop the bed, hugging Serenity, my glasses on the bed beside me. 'I promise, Emerald.' I whispered inward as I put on my glasses. Despite the tranquil fury that had overtaken my mind, I felt a tiny warmth blossom deep within. 'Even if the others get angry for what I must do next... even if for a time they drive me away, you will always be my sister. This is my oath to you.'

The hotel room was mostly exactly as we left it. My bag was by the pillow, the safe sat empty underneath the table. My blood-smeared cloak was hanging on the back of one of the chairs. I quickly went over to the door and checked it. Nothing had been slipped underneath, and upon checking outside, nothing had been pinned to the door. So I have time yet to prepare...

First, my injury needed to be tended to. I could feel the cut above my eye beginning to trickle down my face once more. Hopping down from the bed, I grabbed the first aid kit from my saddlebag. Into the bathroom I went, and after some careful kicks, I was able to get myself on top of the counter. Man, I look bad. The broken false horn got blood all over it. Wonder if that's what the real thing would look like with a fresh break.

As I used a hoof-towel—a black one, because I'm not a complete savage—to clean up the gash, I leaned close. It was hard to get a good angle, especially blindly fumbling to open the first-aid kit, but I inspected the cut. Against all odds, it didn't seem to have any broken pottery in the wound itself. I didn't have the time or skill to stitch it up. Similarly, it was too large for a simple plaster. Superglue it is then.

Once that was out of the way with, and I'd cleaned off what blood I could, I made my way back into the room proper. From my saddlebag, I fetched the fire spell I used to bake the clay discs, new spell medallion, my tools, and some clay. Once I was seated at the table, I took the time to slot it in the top pocket on my left foreleg.

We've long since passed my tipping point—my breaking point... Raging Storm crossed a line that he can't ever uncross... Yet... except for those who he pimped out Emerald to, I couldn't say with 100% certainty all of his ponies deserve what I'll do if they cross me. With this revised spell alone, I could probably tear a pony apart... My blood hungers for vengeance, but I'm not sure I'm willing to commit to mass murder to save my sister.

No, I might have to take a few out, but if I could instil absolute terror, most would probably fold like chairs. There was no need of planning for a Hiroshima level eventuality, but if I could quickly and decisively break their spirits, I wouldn't have to. Hmm... At the end of the first war, Germany complained about how inhumane the trench gun was. A lot of the unnecessary suffering it 'caused' likely had less to do with the weapon itself and more to do with how the injuries behaved in trench conditions. Still, show something like that to ponies—who use stuff like swords, shields, bows, and typically basic spells—and they'll probably scatter.

Conjure Earth. I began etching out once I prepared the medallion. Eight obsidian spheres... 9.14 mm. I was pretty sure that was about right for #000 buck. Fire in random spread, tight grouping, at line-of-sight target from 1ft in front of caster. Velocity... 400 m/s. I winced, remembering a dark-web video Keith had shown me once. What that 12-gauge did to that person at close range was horrific... and would absolutely demoralize somepony. Worse, because I was using obsidian in place of steel or lead—thanks to that awful limitation of earth conjuration, I had to get creative—it would cause extra damage when a pellet broke and fractured.

This definitely violates the Geneva Conventions... but I'm pretty sure this world doesn't have those... yet.

As I baked my little war crime, I stopped to think. I was suddenly way too okay with the idea of taking lives. Mobsters and pony traffickers or not, killing was still killing. I couldn't even hide behind saving civilians from an invading army. These poor fuckers weren't wearing plate mail or flying in an airship...

Then again, they took Starlight, one of the most important ponies in my entire world. "Isn't that reason enough to rip and tear?" It was Hunger whispering to me in Chrysalis' voice. Of course it was. "I might not be Wrath, but even I have to admit this bloodlust is appealing. In such a short time, you've shown such intense hunger, some of the most intense desires I've ever had the pleasure of experiencing. Even little Luna's hunger for affection all those centuries ago didn't burn this bright."

That sent a chill down my spine, because I actually couldn't disagree with her on the matter of ripping and tearing. If I'd just been there with Mom while she finished packing, he never would have killed her... If it'd been different, might I have actually killed him? Wouldn't killing Raging Storm ensure that he couldn't ever hurt Starlight, Emerald, Trixie, or anybody else ever again? Isn't that enough?

If not for the fact that I was almost entirely convinced that this was indeed Hunger embodied toying with me, I'd have been the slightest bit concerned that I'd gotten myself a Nightmare of my own. Except, I'd been told that the Nightmare had been purged. So far, she's only set out one price to achieve two of my goals... that I cast a spell she hasn't yet given me when I meet him. I even made sure to clarify that I would not just have my soul stuffed into that rapist instead... a body of my own with my own, complete with my talent intact.

"You're enjoying yourself a bit too much, aren't you?" I asked once the medallion had cooled enough to slip into the lowest pocket on the same leg as the other I'd slotted in. Slowly, I started packing everything away, glancing at the clock—almost three in the afternoon. I even made sure to put the key in my jacket pocket. "I still don't even know what you're actually getting out of this whole deal. It can't just be for one big 'Fuck you!' directed at Harmony."

Again, Hunger appeared on the clock face. "Is having someone unafraid to embrace their hungers not justification enough?" she purred in that eerie two-toned voice of Chrysalis. "I already know you've made great use of the gift bestowed upon you by my former acolyte. Deep down, you desired to know what others were feeling so as to better read them, Anonymous. Has it not aided you well?"

I was just about to argue with her more when I once again felt the presence of that pony I threatened yesterday. He was with another presence. Hunger giggled mockingly as I examined the emotions the pair were radiating. Mister Lack-of-Self-Preservation was absolutely terrified, while the other pony was a mix of anxious and frustrated. He's pissed at the watcher, it seems like.

I carefully approached the door, straining my ear to listen as they drew closer. "This is it, Palooka," the stalker was saying. "This is the room the manager said. Now leave the boss's calling card, and let's split."

It was a good thing that I wasn't there with my ear against the door; what seemed to be a combat knife punched through the fiberboard door right at my head level. It was just close enough, though, that the tip of the blade nearly scratched my glasses. I just got this pair, and if you bastards ruin them...

"Why the buck are you so scared of this kid, Piercing Gaze?" the pony named Palooka responded. "She didn't put up a lick of a fight when the boss gave me a turn with her."

Oh... My blood was starting to pump in my ears. The muscle in my jaw tensed so hard it felt like my back molars were gonna explode. Oh dear...

"You don't get it!" Gaze cried out. He wasn't even trying to stay quiet. "That little psychopath knew I was there, that I was followin' her and that show broad. Lured me into an ambush and made it very clear she could kill me at any time." There was nervous laughter as he started to walk away. "Boy am I glad I never took the boss up on that offer, 'cause otherwise, she'd'a probably have whacked me." I felt that manic little bubble of laughter working up my throat as I started to see red. "Ya hear that? That shit ain't—"

I pulled the door open slowly and stepped out into the hall. "Mr. Gaze is quite right, Mr. Palooka," I said in a cold voice, placing my right hoof gently against the lowest pocket on my foreleg. There was that familiar-looking black-maned brown unicorn... and this teal earth pony with a rust-coloured mane looked way too familiar. I winced as my body responded to the realisation. He definitely was one of the monsters that hurt Emerald. "I would've... So I gotta show you just how happy I am that you delivered yourself to me as a test subject."

Piercing Gaze was evidently a smart pony. The moment he saw me, and the look in my eyes, he ran. "Buck this! I don't get paid enough for this!" Was the last thing Palooka would ever hear from his companion... or from anypony other than me ever again.

"Oooh, how precious," he said in a mocking voice as he leaned down. Oh yeah; just get right up in my space, huh, prick? "Is this you trying to be intimidating, girl? How's about we go back to your room to play 'fore I take you back to Daddy?"

I just shook my head, a wave of revulsion at the sheer gall of this... of this... Of this living corpse, the bloodlusted part of my brain filled in for me as I started channelling mana through the cloth and willing it along the grooves of the spell. "No, dumbfuck," I said in what I thought was quite the accurate imitation of Pinkie Pie's voice. Again, that manic titter was back. "This is the end of your child-molesting life."

He actually started laughing. I'm glad he thought it was funny... Laughter's supposed to be the best medicine, after all. I'm sure it wasn't as funny when that improvised buckshot coalesced between us and tore into him. What a shame it was that the laughter sort of medicine does absolutely fuck all when your jaw and neck are decimated by high-velocity glass at point blank. In fact, he might still have been conscious for what few seconds it took the upper half of his head to land at the other end of the hallway. Still, maybe it dulled the pain.

I certainly fucking hope not, I thought, the smile never leaving my face as his carcass collapsed on the red hallway carpet. With all the tranquillity I'd built up, I pulled the door shut and locked it, once more pocketing my key. Now let's see what this says.

Wrenching out the knife was surprisingly easy; a testament to how cheap that door must have actually been. The note itself was written in the basic sun-glyphs. 'If you ever wanna see the two unicorns alive and unharmed again, come down to the old warehouse district, and come alone,' I read, casually examining my reflection with the blade. Oooh, that's messy. Guess a lot of ponies are gonna have PTSD before this day is out. I tucked the knife into my jacket and turned the note over. Oh, how cute; he even drew me a map! I put the map in my pocket with my key.

Stepping around the dead mobster's body, I made my way down the hallway. Part of me wanted to pause when I reached the spot the top half of his head had landed... just make some joke in poor taste referencing Hamlet and go. There was a time and a place for that, and it wasn't here or now.

The lobby of the hotel was so quiet you could hear a pin drop as my blood-speckled form descended the stairs. All eyes were on me as I made my way over to the service desk. If I'd been tall enough, I'd have rung the bell. Instead, I contented myself by going "Ding!" as I put my forehooves against the side of the desk so I could somewhat meet the day-manager's gaze. "Yeah, you guys might wanna get a janitor and a coroner upstairs," I said with all the casualness of someone ordering coffee. "There's a paedophile in the hallway up there, and he made a real mess." Somepony in the room gasped, which only caused me to chuckle. "Nah, it's cool; I'm fine. Him, on the other hoof? Super dead."

At that, I returned to standing on all fours, and made for the door. That was when the day-manager called out to me. "And to whom should we direct the bill... for any clean-up costs?" he asked in a halting voice. I'm pretty sure I broke his brain. Was it me acting like a fluffy little psychopath? I nodded to myself. Definitely me acting like a fluffy little psychopath.

I turned to regard him as I backed out the door. "Bill it to Princess Twilight Sparkle," I said without skipping a beat. "Make sure to write this next part down: 'Clean-up costs resultant of Anonymous Rule #4 self-defence exemption!'" As the door started to swing shut, I inexplicably felt the desire to call out, "Okay, buh-bye now!"

Entry 39

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It was hard to focus on reading the map left by Piercing Gaze and that Palooka. Ponies out in the streets kept staring at me, and crowds seemed to part around me; I could practically taste their fear. Some even ran in the other direction when they saw me. At one point, a nice unicorn couple approached me, expressing concern at the sight of my broken horn and all the blood. Good ponies, them. They got out of my way pretty quick when I told them that I didn't have time to chat—that I had to save my sister and kill any mobster that got in my way.

Something prickled at the peripheral of my consciousness. There was something I felt like I should be... A thought or a feeling I ought to have felt wouldn't come. It was something I should've been concerned about, because the last time that nagging sensation had been memories suppressed by Chrysalis' geas. It didn't feel like that though. I wasn't forgetting anything; it was just that whatever my brain was trying to raise the alarm about was diminished to the point of insignificance.

About a few blocks from the warehouse marked on the map, two earth ponies—a mare and a stallion—in uniform approached from a side-street. Unlike the Royal Guard, with their shiny bronze armour, these two wore uniforms of dark blue cloth, matching peaked caps, black shades, and a pair of hoof cuffs draped over their backs. They even had little belts with batons on them. On their shoulders and the front of their hats, there was an insignia. These were the fine ponies in blue of the Manehattan P.D.

The mare of the pair lowered herself down to my level as she got closer to me. "Hey there, kiddo," she said in a soft voice. "We had several ponies approach us about a hurt filly walkin' around covered in blood." I was pretty sure that was an exaggeration on the part of whichever ponies called on the police; I'd wiped off most of my own blood from my face, and the blood smeared into my jacket wasn't that bad. "You look like you've been in an accident, and that horn looks like it really hurts; why don't you come with us and get that looked at?"

My eyes flicked over the name tag on her button-up shirt. Copper Top, eh? With a mane like that, I could see why. "There's no need, officer," I said in that emotionless calm I'd slipped into earlier. "The horn's not real, only some of the blood is mine, and I'm kinda in a rush." I glanced at her partner, who seemed to be trying to flank me—maybe corral me against the wall of the building beside us. "The Blackwing cartel has foalnapped my big sister and her friend, so now I'm going to destroy them. They were even so kind as to leave me an invitation."

The second cop—kinda reminded me of that Thunderlane dude I'd seen in Ponyville, but his name tag read 'Coal Dust'—winced when I mentioned the cartel. "Hey, uh, Copper?" he said, seeming to sweat a bit. "Maybe we should pretend we never saw this..."

Oh? Have I just found one of the crooked cops? I grit my teeth slightly, but decided against violence. I ought to do the police a favour, but no... That's murder, not justice. If he'd been one of the bastards Raging Storm bribed with Emeralds body, it'd be a different matter.

Copper Top ignored her partner, instead giving me a serious look. "That's a very serious accusation, Missy," she said, placing one hoof on my shoulder. To my utter bewilderment, I didn't even flinch. There was a momentary bubble of rage and frustration, but then... nothing. "If somepony's been foalnapped, professionals should investigate it... Let's go down to the station and we can get your statement."

Coal stepped between us, taking his partner back several steps. "Seriously, Copper," he said. "The Blackwings pay good bits for us to look the other way, and this filly—" He pointed at me. "—has the eyes of a killer. We want nothing to do with whatever this is."

The eyes of a killer, huh? Since when has that been a thing I had? I wondered, watching as the two quietly argued between themselves. Maybe it's just a side effect of this tranquil fury, or my determination, because nobody said that of me when I shot down that airship.

In the end, I decided to step around the pair while they argued. "You should listen to your crooked partner, Ms. Top," I said in a sing-song voice. "You sound like a good pony, and normally I'd appreciate you wanting to do the right thing. That said, if you get in my way, you will not enjoy what happens next."

The mare cried out, "That's it, I'm taking you in!" before trying to lunge at me. I was quicker on the draw, however, and my left hoof shot to one of the pouches on the inside of my right foreleg. A torrent of high-pressure water filled the air between us, quickly slamming into the officer and her partner. They both slammed into the wall behind them hard. Once I cut off the spell, they both dropped to the sidewalk, their outlines remaining on the wall from where my spell had blasted away any grime.

Her sunglasses gone, Copper Top looked up at me in wide-eyed terror. "But... your horn... you said it was fake!" she whimpered as she struggled to figure out what happened. "What are you?"

That was not a question I expected. I smiled down at her and said, "I am a force of nature," was my response. "The only thing that you gotta know is that I will do what it takes to get Starlight back, whatever it may be." My eyes flicked to her partner. "Luckily, I recognise your partner's just doing what it takes to get by and go home each night to those who love him..."

As I started walking away, I pulled out the knife I'd tucked into my jacket. "If he'd been one of the dirty cops Raging Storm pimped his daughter out to, that'd be a different matter," I said, waving the knife as I walked. As I tucked it away once more, I added, "Ask the Mareiott hotel what happened in the hallway to one of the mobsters he did that for."

There was no more reason to stay there, so I started moving back along the path detailed on the map. It felt like there was a pressure behind my eyes for a moment, and then that empty feeling returned to my stomach. I found it hard to swallow until the feeling passed. The fuck was that?

'Nobody would blame you if you'd purged that dirty cop,' my reflection whispered at me as we passed a shop's display window. Instead of Chrysalis, it was the mane/coat-swapped version of my true form that I saw. 'By being on the take, he's complicit in everything he did to Emerald—and you by proxy.'

"I'm okay with putting down any of the rabid dogs that get in my way, Hunger," I said out loud to my distorted reflection. I'd stopped caring what anypony thought long ago. "Killing that cop, though, wouldn't have been just, or even revenge. It would've just been murder."

That seemed to staunch Hunger's commentary for a time. It wouldn't be for another block until it appeared again. This time it was wearing the guise of Chrysalis, just hanging there in the mist created by a leaking fire hydrant. 'You must admit, though,' she crooned. 'It felt good to give in to that desire, didn't it? It felt liberating to put down that wretched pony that dared insinuate you should take him into your bed...

A lump formed in my throat, and in the end, I didn't answer her. What was I supposed to say? She wasn't wrong, I admitted to myself, feeling quite the chill at the admission. The thirst for revenge had been aroused by what I'd done, but it could hardly be said to even close to being slaked. If anything, the hunger had only grown, eating away at my control.

I can't give into this bloodlust and succumb to wanton murder... I can't lose sight of why I crossed the line which cannot be uncrossed.

~ 39 ~

"You really reckon the brat'll come, Joe?" one of the mooks outside the warehouse door asked the other. "She made herself disappear for two years the last time she got out from under the boss's hoof, right? No way she's gonna come crawling back."

The other mook, Joe whatever, gave the first this look. "You didn't hear the blue one when the boss was torturin' her for info, Kid," he muttered with a shiver. He pressed himself against the closed warehouse door—one of those segmented vertical ones on a track—to put himself fully in the shadow of the building. "She seemed to think little Emerald looks at the one those idiots almost blew up earlier as family. It didn't take her long to break completely, either. Not long after, she started insisting the kid was going to buck us up if we touched the purple one."

"She's what, eight?" the first jeered. "Even if she's an earth pony, at her age? I could take her with both wings tied behind my back."

From atop a pile of large shipping crates beside the pair, I frowned down at the pair as they argued. The first mook was a pegasus, maybe five years older than Ebony. Couldn't have been in the gang more than a few months by reckoning. He definitely wasn't in any of the unfortunate memories of the sexual abuse that I'd unfortunately inherited. He doesn't even have his mark yet; no need for him to die.

Joe—Pretty Joe—on the other hand... that unicorn's face I did recognise. Despite his somewhat effeminate face, well-kept pink mane, and his silky blue coat, he was one of the repeat offenders that took advantage of Emerald. He always lured her into a false sense of security, made her feel safe, and then struck. Hunger cheered in my ears when I resolved to destroy him to send a message to the newbie.

Quietly, I pulled the knife from my jacket and then activated the revised amplification spell—Berserker. It only had about fifteen minutes before the spell gave out, but I proudly—arrogantly, even—believed that was all I'd need. With the shock and awe of Trench Gun, I hoped to break the spirits and force most of them to break ranks. Even if Hunger was cheering on indulging the bloodlust, I wasn't going to kill more than I had to.

"If Pretty Joe here wasn't about to die, I'd tell you to listen to him," I called out, kicking off the side of the box with such force that I shot at them like a rocket. I barely had the reflexes to do anything at this speed, but as I shot over Joe, I lashed out with the knife. Maybe it was just the speed of the attack, or my amplified strength, but the steel blade carved through his horn like butter and scored a deep trench in the bridge of his muzzle. I hit the ground between them, carving a trench in the pavement as I slammed into the one called Kid, knocking his legs out from under him.

Even as what just happened kicked in for Joe, and he screamed out in pain, I was on the Kid in a heartbeat. I quickly shifted the knife from one hoof to the other, ensuring I could easily access the spells on my other leg, before pressing the blade to his throat. "Instead," I continued, watching as the dehorned unicorn brought one of his forehooves up to his muzzle to stem the bleeding from the gash I'd carved in his pretty face. "I want you to watch closely."

With my free hoof, I reached up and triggered the plasma bolt spell. The capsule of superheated air shot out from in front of my broken false horn, and slammed into his other front leg, just below his withers, burning cleanly through the meat and bone before dissipating. With the leg no longer attached, the stallion collapsed to the concrete, his screaming only getting louder.

Any struggling from the Kid quickly stopped at the sight of his companion's dismemberment. I could feel the fear and revulsion wash over him as the smell of burnt flesh and fur reached his nose. "Here's what's gonna happen, Kid," I said in a calm voice. "I'm going to let you up so that I can paint the walls with that bastard's brains for what he did to Emerald Flicker." I removed the blade from his neck, noticing a thin line of red welling in his fur. "You are going to fly to the Royal Guard base and turn yourself in. Tell them exactly where I—Anonymous Flicker—am, and tell them to send medics, a clean-up crew, and body bags."

As I stepped off of him and jammed the knife into the pavement in front of his face, the scent of excrement reached my nose. I didn't even look at him as I moved back over to Pretty Joe. Just as I lifted a hoof to grab him by his long silky mane, I heard Hunger whisper to me. 'Take the horn; you'll need it to fulfil our deal.' I froze for a moment, but slowly reached over to where his horn had fallen and stuffed it into the pocket with the map.

I didn't hear or see the kid take off, but I didn't care. I seized Joe by his head, backed up a bit, and then ran full-force at the brick wall. At the last minute, I effortlessly lifted his head and body up in front of me. I'd hoped that at least some of the resultant force amplification from the spell would've transferred over to his body, but the wall was sturdier than I expected. Pretty Joe had more give than the wall did.

I'm sure I was a terrifying sight when I burst through the wall beside the door, covered in a mixture of Joe, his blood, and broken bricks. Although it was a big warehouse on the outside, it appeared to be divvied up into different sections, with walls put in. The area I burst into had a sign hanging declaring it shipping and receiving, as if this were just some legitimate shipping business. Too bad a near dozen mobster-types sitting around a metal folding table playing cards and smoking cigars ruined that impression.

Speaking of those mobster types, they were all frozen, staring at my gore-streaked form. "What the buck," one wiseguy muttered, his cigar dropping from his mouth and rolling across the table. Not every day you have a tiny blood-soaked foal burst through a concrete wall like the Kool-aid Man, after all. Plus, all the screaming outside probably didn't help.

"Oh hiya, boys," I said, once again slipping into my Pinkie Pie imitation. Even as I spoke, my eyes were sweeping across the crowd and my hoof wandered up to the Trench Gun spell. If any of them were one of Emerald's abusers, well... they were top choice for making an example. Surprisingly three of them were at the table. "You wouldn't happen to know where your boss is keeping my sister and her friend, would you?"

Maybe it was because of how ludicrous the situation was, but everyone at the table started laughing. It started out as a nervous titter from one of them. It then evolved into anxiety laughter and the a few of them followed suit. I swear, it's like these guys aren't talking me seriously.

"Ahem, guys?" I said again louder. "I only really wanna kill three of you, but if you don't tell me something useful, I'm willing to see if somepony in the next room has a better answer."

The room fell silent as what had actually just happened began to set in. I was wearing one of their compatriots, and was threatening to do that or worse to them. One of the ones who didn't seem to take me as a threat, the one who'd dropped his cigar, rose to his hooves and shouted, "What are ya waitin' for? Get—"

My patience slipped, and I discharged the spell into the head of the one who'd gotten up. Because there was no bang of gunpowder propelling the obsidian pellets, the only sound made was the sickening squelchy crunching sound as the front half of the stallion's face all but vanished in a mist of blood, bone, teeth, and obsidian fragments. Even then, it took him slumping to the table with a meaty thump, presumably drowning in his own blood before everyone shut it.

"Now," I announced, resuming that sickeningly cheerful voice, "Exactly one of you dumb motherfuckers is going to speak at a time." I glanced at one of the other two ponies I'd marked for death. "The only words outta your fuckin' mouths better be an answer, 'Yes sir,' or 'No sir.' Do I make myself clear?"

If any of them were confused by a little filly pretty much demanding at gunpoint that they call her sir, they were smart enough to keep their fuckin' traps shut. After seeing me turn that poor fucker's face into bloody pulp, it was quite clear to them that I was not fucking around. In unison, eight stallions all cried out "Yes sir!"

'I'm enjoying this sadism of yours,' Hunger whispered. It took me a moment to find her reflection this time around. Of course it'd be in the pool of blood spreading across the table. 'Aren't you glad you decided to enjoy yourself?'

"I'm not doing this because I like it, Hunger," I grumbled aloud without thinking. "If Raging Storm had just left well enough alone these bastards needn't die at all." Several eyebrows shot up and I could swear one of them mouthed something about me being crazy to the others. "So, in order... What's the layout of this place, where is Raging Storm keeping Starlight Glimmer and Trixie, and how many ponies are between me and the boss?"

I sat on my haunches, keeping my hooves on the spells in my sleeve. To those guys, it probably looked like I was crossing my forelegs in a defiant posture. I pointed to one guy, the biggest of the group who looked like he could've been ex-guard. "Sir, the warehouse is divided into four parts. Shipping and receiving, storage, studios, and the treasury. Each section is soundproofed, but you coming through that wall might've caught some attention, regardless," he said. "The boss's office is the old foreman's office, located in the treasury. That's where they'll be."

One of the idiots, one of the others, the ones not involved in Emerald's abuse hopped up and shouted, "Buckin' turncoat!"

In response to his outburst, I took the opportunity to execute another of the foal molesters. This one caught an ice-spike through the throat... punching clear through. "You've got one more outburst like that before all of you chance my wrath. As for that last pony I've got my eye on, well... It's all up to them whether you get to live longer or not, so enjoy your time, and then suffer for your crime against Emerald."

Everyone looked to the one who'd begun really sweating, and I heard one guy whisper, "Dude, what the buck did the three of you guys do to the boss's stepdaughter that you're getting killed over it?"

I ignored the whispered conversation and looked back to Mr. Helpful. "Continue."

"There might be about twelve total, seven in the studio and five the treasury," he answered, giving a dark look to the last rapist standing. "Storage's empty." His gaze returned to me. "I know what them boys, the other five in the treasury, and the boss did to that filly..." Could he tell that I'm...? With a shake of his head, he finished his thought, "Killin' them won't take back what they did to Emerald or them other fillies, you know."

I smiled at the stallion, although I could feel some of my sorrow bubbling up. "Maybe not," I admitted with a sigh. Even though hearing that Emerald wasn't Storm's only victim only solidified in my mind that he needed to die, he was right. "But it'll make me feel better about all this." I looked at the other ponies in the room. "Any of you—except you—who wants to leave, go now. Your best bet is to turn yourselves in to the Royal Guard, since they're gonna be cleanin' up what's left of Storm's mess when I'm done here. Help'em weed out the dirty cops in the P.D."

Mr. Helpful looked at the other goons at the table, and then back to me. With a nod of his head, he walked over to the vertical door. "C'mon, you guys," he said, raising the door by pulling the chain. "Ain't nothin' here we want any more part of."

I watched with interest as several of the other stallions took turns slugging the soon to be dead meat still seated at the table. Even the big guy took a moment to go back and spit on him. Then, when the door rolled shut behind the group, I stepped up to the table, to get a better look at him. He was on the older side, maybe mid sixties, although still plenty young by pony standards. Given that he was about to die for what he'd done, I didn't even really feel like paying attention to his colouring.

"Currently, you may be feeling sad or angry," I said in a soft voice... In my ears, it almost sounded like too much like Fluttershy, but she would never be this cruel. Am I starting to break or... what? "Honestly, darling, the only one you have to blame for any of this is yourself." I winced, but kept going. "Did ya really believe nopony would come lookin' for revenge?"

What the fuck...? "What the buck, kid?" the guy asked, his voice trembling slightly. "Fuck's going on with your voice?"

'Never you mind that too much,' Hunger whispered. 'That's just Harmony trying to dissuade you.' I couldn't exactly sense Hunger's emotions, but that sounded at least in part like a lie.

"Do you wanna know who... what I am, and why I'm killing you when my only problem here should be Raging Storm?" I asked, gesturing over my shoulder to the bloody hole in the wall left by not-so-Pretty Joe. "Why I killed Palooka, Joe, and those two fuckers... why it matters to me?" I tapped the side of my head and sneered at him. "What Storm, you, and all them other fuckers did to Emerald Flicker killed her desire to live... She lost hope... But Harmony? That bitch took that poor withdrawn filly and put her in storage until she had need of a pawn...

"She fucked up though. Emerald was supposed to stay asleep... but I kept seeing and feeling things... And then this fucking war forced us here, and woke Emerald up!" I screamed, tears spilling from my eyes. "I know... I felt what every one of you monsters did to her..." Before I knew what I was doing, a plasma bolt had burned through the stallion's right ear. "Including every single time you sodomised her."

I was gonna make his death quick, but instead, my anger flared once again. I spun on my hooves and bucked the table. He barely had time to scream before his upper half was separated from his lower half. His scream quickly died off as the top of him rode atop the table until it crashed into some boxes behind him, his trachea completely severed from his lungs. He stared down at the rest of his body, even as he began to suffocate.

"I don't know how damnation and the afterlife works for you ponies, but I'm sure whatever's in store isn't enough for monsters like you," I said, turning away. Draped over a nearby box was a canvas shipping tarp. As I made my way over to the doorway leading into storage, I grabbed the tarp and started wiping some of the blood from my face and glasses. Most of it came away red, but the spots where my tears had rolled down my face left streaks of black.

~ 39 ~

This was turning out to be a really awful day for Starlight Glimmer. It'd been hard finding out that Trixie hadn't shown up at the 12th Regiment Ground Station, nor returned to the hotel. Even worse was sitting in with Emerald Flicker while she told Prince Blueblood everything that poor child had been through. Nothing had prepared her, however, for being ambushed in the streets and rendered unconscious.

Her head was killing her, and her body was sore from being in an unnatural position for too long. It didn't help that her eyes were fighting against opening. With a groan, she attempted to cast a Pick-Me-Up charm—a spell intended to give the caster a little jolt to wake up a little bit quicker. That groan turned to a wince as the spell-form collapsed as it reached her horn.

"Starlight, are you okay?" That was Trixie's voice, but it sounded like she was right beside her. That couldn't have been the case though. Anon seemed convinced that Trixie had been foalnapped by Raging Storm and his Blackwing cartel. "Trixie needs you to stay calm..."

Oh, she thought, remembering the explosion, and Anon's insistence that somepony had been watching them when they first showed up at the base. Forcing an eye open, she found she was suspended by her forelimbs in a small office, chains and manacles holding her up. To her side, with a magic limiter over her horn, hung Trixie. Of what she could see of her friend, it looked as though she'd been given a black eye and a split lip. There were also one or two small, circular burns on the inside of her haunches. "We're hostages," she asked in a hoarse voice, "aren't we?"

As she looked around the room, she saw an ornate oak desk. From the look of the open books spread across the surface, they were all various ledgers. On the side of the desk opposite of her, she saw a high-back chair upholstered in a luxurious red velvet, its back facing her. A small ribbon of smoke began to rise from the other side, and the reek of tobacco reached her nose not long after.

"Too right you are," came a deep stallion's voice dripping with a Canterlot accent, although it sounded... forced—not quite as smooth as Rarity's affectation. Trixie whimpered at the sound of his voice. The chair slowly began to turn, revealing none other than Raging Storm, just as he'd appeared in the photograph. His piercing blue eyes locked on her as he lounged against one of the plush arms of the chair. From the corner of his mouth hung a lit cigarette. "Welcome to my office, Ms. Glimmer. Fancy a smoke?"

Starlight shook her head. "I would say it was a pleasure to meet you, Raging Storm," she said, trying to keep her worry out of her voice. Unfortunately, she couldn't keep what Anon had said out of her head—that she and Trixie would be made to disappear once their use as bait was at an end. To cover that worry, she used defiance. "That would be a lie, though. Your accent isn't quite what I expected, but it can't hide what you really are."

"Oh?" He barked with laughter. "I suppose ya thought I'd be talkin' more like the resta my fellow Manehattanites," he said, dropping the accent for a moment. Taking a big puff of his cigarette, he let out a sigh. When next he spoke, the faux-Canterlot poshness returned. "I find you Canterlot types have an easier time relating when I choose to affect their form of parlance. Plus, desperate young mares do so love it."

His gaze became almost predatory as he looked her up and down. She couldn't quite fight off a shiver, as it felt as though he were molesting her with his eyes. "We already had Emerald tell everything to the Royal Guard," she said, mustering up as much defiance as she could and putting it behind her voice. "You're better off just letting us go."

"Trixie is a national heroine!" Trixie quickly added. "Trixie knows very important ponies!"

"Why would I want to let you go?" he once again responded with a cruel laugh. Using the hoof he wasn't leaning on, he grabbed his cigarette and sat it in an ash tray atop the desk. He even leaned forward with a mocking sneer. "Soon, Emerald, or Anon, or whatever she's calling herself, is going to come crawling through that door, begging me not to hurt you like the note said... But when she gets here? I'm going make her watch as I kill you both, and then all traces of that filly's hope will be snuffed out once and for all."

Starlight's eyes widened and a sickening sensation began to fill her gullet. Even as there was a small rumble elsewhere in the building—complete with Raging Storm muttering something about incompetents—it dawned on her exactly what he had set into motion. It made her sick beyond all description, but more than that, it made her sad.

The young pony known as Anonymous had only been in Starlight's life for just under two months, but in that time, she thought she'd developed a good idea of what went on in her head. Although Anon could be kind, mischievous, chivalrous and very bright, she was so very, very hurt inside. Not only had she been forced to bury her own mother and abandon her sisters, she'd had to do things she wasn't proud of in order to get by. Those scars didn't just vanish when Harmony popped her soul into Emerald's body to give her a second chance.

It'd been hard for Anon to be willing to let anypony in, and in spite of that, Starlight had made enough of an impression in order for her to be put into the role of big sister. Not long after, she'd even accepted Twilight as her caregiver and guardian. It made sense to her that she couldn't bring herself to call Twilight her mother, but it was still an amazing thing to Starlight. The little green earth pony had risen up from the ashes of her old life and acquired a found family of her own.

More than that, though, Anon was a protector. She'd stood up to bullies, thugs, a maddened changeling queen, and even an invading army—all of them threats to innocents. Starlight knew this stemmed from her feelings of helplessness regarding what happened to her mother, and not being able to do more for her sisters, a desire to make sure that nobody had to go through what she had—to feel the sort of loss she had. Not even herself.

Now here was Raging Storm threatening to tear her found family apart... This was the stallion who'd abused her body's original owner... He was a pony so analogous to the one that killed Anon's mother that Starlight worried she was projecting her own sire-hatred onto Storm. She had every reason to believe Anon might try to kill him if they ever met, and here he'd engineered this... she didn't want to use the term fated meeting, but it was the only one that really fit... He'd engineered this fated meeting without ever knowing just how badly it would end for him.

More than that though, she worried what it would do to Anon. So far as Starlight knew, until the other day, Anon had never killed another sapient... She wasn't a soldier, and wasn't trained or prepped to cope with it, and then in the span of hours, she'd killed over thirty. Sure, she had been able to rationalize those ones protecting others... Storm, and anypony who got between her and him, however... An irrational part of her worried if Anon would even be the same after this?

"You don't get it, do you?" Starlight finally said when the room shook once more. "Letting us go is the only thing that might keep you alive." Her voice shook and she looked away. "She might still have enough control to not seriously hurt anypony else, but you?"

Raging Storm snorted, picking up his cigarette and hopped out of his chair. He walked over to a window and pulled up the blinds. There were three burly earth ponies, a pegasus, and a unicorn all lounging around drinking canned beverages, sitting atop boxes labelled 'Treasure', glancing at something out of sight occasionally. "You're cracked if you think one little filly is getting through even the two guarding the front, never mind the other sixteen ponies between the front and those five, girly," he scoffed, slipping into his Manehattan accent as he lowered the blinds again. "Those five especially are gonna be hard for her to face. They got a special history with her."

Trixie paled, seemingly having clued in to Starlight's point. "Trixie would like to point out," she interjected, "that Anon is a very talented rune mage."

The building shook a third time, this time hard enough to rattle the little office's windows and light fixtures. There was a cry of "What the buck?" That was quickly followed by a scream and something hitting the window. The blinds were just parted enough to see that she could see that it was blood. Screams and meaty squelching sounds filled the air. "What the buck are you!?"

"I don't pity you, Raging Storm," Starlight said, shaking her head as tears began to fill her eyes. "Anon can be a really sweet girl, but she was fraying at the mind before we got to Manehattan. Everything you've done has likely created the perfect state of mind for her to forget her inhibitions... You created a monster, and I hope you are ready to face the consequences... I just pray we're both wrong..."

When the sounds of carnage ended, Starlight's ears fell. She was already bracing herself for what she might see when the door opened. What her ears had just borne witness to told her all she needed to know about what came next. Just as I sealed my fate going against Twilight, so too has he signed his own death warrant.

Still, a pony could only prepare themselves for so many things. After all, preparations were often dependent on known variables or likely outcomes. Completely unforeseen things that defied all logic or reason were outside the realm of preparation. Just as one couldn't possibly prepare for Pinkie and her Pinkieness, a pony couldn't expect part of the ceiling to explode inward, or ready themselves for the sight of a small, blood-soaked pony to drop through said hole. That small pony following up with a twisted imitation of Pinkie Pie's cheer? Straight out of left field.

"Hi," the tiny harbinger of death exclaimed, as she stood herself up. She looked around the room, nodding as she noticed Starlight and Trixie, before looking up at Raging Storm. It was hard to tell, with all the blood, but she was definitely wearing her jacket. "So you're the dumb motherfucker who thought he could just take what didn't belong to him? The one who took Emerald Breeze's life? The disgusting monster that thought he could just take Emerald Flicker's innocence and whore her out to his stooges once Breeze was out of the way? That's you, huh?"

What startled Starlight most wasn't the blood or the manic look about Anon; it was how sickly she looked—how wrong she looked. Patches of mulberry-dyed coat still showed through all the blood, but much of it was obscured by the tar-like substance streaming from the corners of Anon's mouth, eyes, and her nostrils. She didn't need to be an empath to feel the sheer hate boiling off that liquid. It also helped little that the black liquid had seemingly stained the whites of her eyes pitch black.

Raging Storm seemed to care very little for significance of the literal, living red flag standing in front of him. He marched up to Anonymous, and threw a solid back-hoof slap that would have laid out a normal foal her size. The blow didn't even budge the filly, and she didn't even blink when he screamed in her face, "I will not take this insolence in my domain. I will not let you destroy everything I've built."

Nonplussed, Anon grabbed him by his still-outstretched forelimb. Seemingly nothing happened for a moment, and then a cracking sound rang out in the small office. From her vantage point, Starlight could just make out the fact that the midpoint of his limb looked unnaturally compressed, and was slowly bending sideways. "That's what things like you and him do, though, isn't it?" Anon said, never losing that manic cheer in her voice, even as Storm screamed over his broken limb. "You take and you take and you take! When that's not enough, you try and take one of the only good things in my life and use her as a bargaining chip, trying to get poor Emerald back, because you missed using the daughter of the mare who thought she could trust you as a fuckpuppet!"

She hurled him across the room, destroying the desk and sending pages of the ledgers flying every which way. Starlight barely caught the movement of Anon's hoof as her gaze darted over in her direction for a moment. Then, there was a clink above her as the chain holding her up shattered, followed by another, sending both Starlight and Trixie sprawling on the floor.

"Unfortunately for you, Raging Storm, that isn't gonna happen! You're never again gonna touch a hair on Emerald's head, and in time, I'll make sure my little sister can live a life outside your shadow." With a loud crack, a shard of ice pinned the stallion's wing to the wall he'd come to rest against. "Your sins are so beyond the pale that I'm not even gonna grant you the satisfaction of some farcical trial." Another shard of ice blew out one of the joints in his back leg. "Your terror is so, so sweet, and I'm gonna enjoy finding out just how much you can take until you beg for the sweet release of—"

"Anon, stop!" Starlight pleaded, reaching one shackled hoof out toward the insensate filly, who had begun to slowly approach the stallion. "Put him down if you must, but don't torture him... Don't become a monster like him."

That made Anon freeze. Starlight watched as Anon started backing up, and then the filly's ears started swivelling every which way. After a moment, Anon's gaze snapped to some sort of metal plaque that had fallen from the wall at some point during her rampage. "You sure?" the filly whispered, sighing after a moment. "Ruin my fun," she muttered returning her gaze to the stallion. "Good news! Hunger and Big Sis over there agree! Me pulling the legs off a spider contributes absolutely nothing to this situation."

Starlight wiped her brow. Thank Celestia. Now it was just a matter of calming Anon down enough that she'd call off this raging rampage of revenge just long enough for her to scan the filly and find out why she seemed to be leaking liquid hate. That died in her throat before ever reaching her mouth when she saw Anon pull something out of her jacket pocket.

"So what do I gotta do?" she asked, holding a pony's severed horn up in front of her face, as though she were examining it. "Shit, I can do that?" Taking a deep breath, Anon took off her glasses, tossed them over to where Starlight and Trixie fell. To Starlight's surprise, a blue corona started to form around the horn, although it seemed tinged with the same blackness leaking from her eyes.

Anon's mouth opened as her eyes began to glow a sickly green. Raging Storm once again began to scream, and when Starlight looked back to him, she nearly threw up. He seemed to be disintegrating in front of her very eyes. First, it was just his skin flaking away into bits of ash, which seemed drawn into Anon's glowing maw. Then, entire chunks of flesh burned away, leaving only bone.

The worst part was that even once Storm's flesh had all disintegrated, he still was not done screaming. When even the bone flaked away, sucked into the hungry void seemingly channelled through the filly, she could just make out the pale, wispy shape of a pony. That wispy shape tried in vain to grasp at anything to keep it from being drawn in, even as similar ashes seemed to flow into the room through the hole in the roof.

When ash stopped flowing in from elsewhere, the blood and tar flaked away from her body, turning into yet more fuel for whatever macabre magic they were bearing witness to. Even the false horn burned away on her forehead, followed by the jacket, and all the medallions in its sleeves. Finally, green returned to the filly's coat as rivulets of purple defied gravity by running up her body and into her mouth. But for the changes to her mane, no trace of the last few days remained on her body. Finally, the horn seated upon her hoof exploded into tiny splinters, falling to the ground.

The light faded from Anon's eyes, and no longer did her open mouth glow. Like a puppet severed from its strings, she crumpled to the floor. A pillar of blue-green light shot up from the filly, bursting through the ceiling, as well as the ceiling apparently above that. The windows of the room exploded outwards, and a surge of magic tore the shackles and magic inhibitors from Starlight and Trixie. Then, when the light cleared, all was still.

She could scarcely believe what she had witnessed. Starlight couldn't even fathom what had happened. Did she just... did she just eat his soul? The limp filly began to sob suddenly. These were not the sobs of someone who had just killed several beings, or even the cries typical of Anon. It was the quiet plaintive whimpers of a scared foal. Oh no... Emerald?

"I didn't mean to," she cried. "I didn't mean to come out Anon!"

Starlight, now free of her bindings, moved to join Emerald. "Emerald, what..."

Emerald reached her hooves out and seized Starlight by one of her forelegs. "She made me promise," she blathered, smearing tears and mucus into the older pony's leg. "She said not to try and take control until she said it was okay... but I'm here... I'm awake... I broke my promise and now she's gone..." There was terror in her eyes when she looked up at Starlight. "The room's still there, but I can't feel her at all!"

~ 39 ~

I found myself lying in a massive, poorly lit stone chamber. My first thought was that this was some sort of cave nexus. After all, it seemed as though there were several small openings dotting the irregular walls. But for the massive outcropping of black rock in the centre of the room—it was almost like a maple leaf or mutated palm frond in shape—and some barely glowing green pods at the highest point on the ceiling, I'd have described the place as utterly barren.

"Beautiful, isn't it, Anonymous?" came the two-tone voice of Chrysalis, although deep in my heart I knew it was Hunger. The light in the room increased just enough to see that the rock outcropping was some sort of black throne. There, of course, atop it was none other than Hunger. "It looked so much better when there were thousands of my children coming and going in worship of their Queen."

For a moment, I saw a sea of black carapace and glowing blue eyes prostrated in front of the throne. "Then Harmony's pawns—and my dear brother, Discord—corrupted them, and took them away," she lamented as the sea of black rippled and gave birth to a litany of garish, pastel colours. The throne crumbled, and the next thing I knew, she'd draped herself across my back. "Then there were no more—as you once put it—hunger fae."

I blinked, and suddenly there was Twilight—no, that's Harmony again—right at my side. Although she was mostly glaring at the false queen using me as a chaise lounge, that didn't stop her from shooting me a withering look of disappointment. "I understand why you've chosen to do what you've done, Anonymous," Harmony murmured, shaking her head, "but nonetheless I am disappointed in you."

I wanted to speak, but I found that I was frozen. That just left Hunger free to cackle as the altered changelings vanished from the chamber, and a throne of stone rose up beneath us. "She's just upset that I took one of her toys away from her, like the hypocrite she is," Hunger whispered into my ear as she began to pet my mane. "She wanted this—" The great chamber vanished, leaving us sitting among a veritable sea of stars. All around us, little floating panes of glass showed different points of my life. For some reason, an illusory Celestia was there. "—for you... like she hasn't yet hoarded enough power."

Then, just like that, we were back in the cave, atop the throne. "Remember why we're here," Harmony whispered, appearing close enough to lean in towards Hunger's ears. "She played your game, and you made your deal. I'm just here to ensure you don't renege on her."

That drew a sigh from the false queen. She slid off of my back and muttered a petulant, drawn-out "Fine..." One of the glowing pods high on the ceiling descended on a long, slimy tendril. It stopped just in front of us. "Let's review why you're here, Anonymous."

Images flickered across the glowing green pod. There was me as a young boy, sitting at the table with Mom and him, the meat of one rabbit and a mouldy hunk of bread to split between the three of us. Then another picture took its place—me, camped out in the woods, clutching my empty belly as I watched a young opossum eating some berries on the other side of a fire. Another change, and then I was in the background at a party, eating nachos and drinking soda. Another: me eating from a dumpster...

"You have known hunger," she explained. "Hunger, and desires of many kinds..."

"And it certainly doesn't hurt that you'll be able to practice magic and work on building your reservoir whenever you think we aren't looking, right?" echoed the memory of Starlight's words.

"Are there really times where you think of me like a daughter?" I remembered asking Twilight.

"I'm going to kill him."

The images on the pod changed. There was me at some sort of animation-oriented convention, hanging on the arm of a tall young man in black suit-pants and vest, a white dress shirt. It was hard to recognise myself with all the make-up, the pink wig, and the midriff-baring school uniform with miniskirt and thigh-highs. The image changed, the two of us in a bathroom, with me bent over the sink, the skirt pulled up over my back, the tall boy right behind me doing the obvious as he slid some Benjamins into my thigh-high with his free hand. Just as quickly, it changed to me at a poker table in normal clothes, with several shady looking guys, a massive pile of poker chips in front of me. Another change, and I was in a parking lot, my arms being held behind my back as the guys from the table took turns punching me in the gut or face.

"You change yourself to match your environments," Hunger commented. "You do whatever you can to get by, even if it doesn't always work out."

"Anonymous... It's such a strong changeling name," Chrysalis had ranted. "It's so deliciously ironic that Celestia would name an outsider-turned-pony like that. If but you had fallen into my hooves before that meddling whorse got her hooks into you, I could have made you one of my own."

"It tickles me that you would end up here, having played right into my metaphorical hooves," Hunger exclaimed, pulling me into a hug. "The pawn that robbed me of my queen is now becoming my queen."

"Remember," Harmony warned, and it took me a moment to realise it was for Hunger, rather than myself. "Even if you change her, her destiny must remain. Fate will be displeased otherwise."

A strange itching sensation began rolling up my legs body. When I looked down, the fur on my body was falling out, and the bare flesh began turning black and hard. My gaze flicked down to my flank—to my cutie mark. As the black, chitinous material worked its way across my cutie mark, the formerly black mark took on an iridescent green sheen on the otherwise unblemished shell.

"Don't you worry, dear sister," Hunger crooned, dragging her tongue up my cheek as the chitin worked it up my neck. My back felt strange, and there was an odd buzzing sound that accompanied it. When the sensation stopped, so to did the buzzing. "I've worked Fate's little toy into the new and improved design. Even if they try, those failures you corrupted will never corrupt her. In fact, she can continue to live her life exactly as she has."

As the chitin rolled up past my muzzle, the teeth in my mouth began to ache and warp, gaining a degree of sharpness the flat pony teeth never could. "Her path might deviate from the script, but she will still meet the same end Fate has in store," Hunger said in a mocking tone. I found tears rolling down my chitinous face as my mane grew out, taking on the same green tinge that once belonged on my body. "A perfect union of Harmony and Hunger... A queen without a kingdom... The pawn with two masters..."

It felt like the entirety of my body had become hollow. She tricked me... My pleading eyes flicked to Harmony, who looked away, the borrowed form of Twilight unable to entirely mask the sorrow in her eyes. This wasn't part of the deal, but then... Harmony knew all along what Hunger would do...

'You tried to warn me,' I thought at Harmony, trying to encode how sorry I was in that projected message. 'You warned me, and I refused to listen... Even when I could tell she was amplifying my thirst for revenge, stoking my hate, and muting my conscience, I couldn't let go of that hope.'

'I maintain my belief that you should stay with Emerald Flicker,' I heard whispered in my mind. 'Although you will no longer share your body and lives, your souls are too intertwined now to remove the dream bridge. Protect her, teach her, and become the big brother or sister you should have been all along.'

A mirror coalesced in front of us, and what I saw would have floored my jaw—if I had any control over my body. There was Hunger, still wearing the guise of the former changeling queen, snuggled up against a small changeling nymph. It was like I was looking at the switched-up reflection Hunger had mocked me with, only without any of the blur of the non-reflective dream wall she'd projected herself on. The elytra covering what were very likely the wings I'd heard buzzing moments ago—my elytra—was few shades darker than the blue of my magic. But for the tiny nub of an underdeveloped horn, I could have looked like a tiny colour-shifted Chrysalis.

The world around me went dark, but I felt Hunger lean in, nuzzle the top of my head, and plant a kiss. "Awaken, my child, and embrace your birthright," she whispered. "Know that, through your offerings, I am become Désirée: once and future Goddess of the Swarm."

~ 39 ~

After Emerald Flicker's breakdown, Starlight decided that—for the time being—it would be best if the little filly rested. When the Royal Guard inevitably showed up to escort them out of the building, she didn't want her to see whatever carnage Anonymous had left in her wake. In the event that Anon really was gone, as the filly seemed to believe, she wasn't sure Emerald would want her last memories of Anon being the sheer violence and destruction she'd meted out on her behalf. It was bad enough that there remained stains where Storm had been pinned to the wall.

The half-hour leading up to the arrival of the Royal Guard was mostly spent in lying on the floor beside Emerald a state of shock. It was clear that something had been wrong with her. Even discounting the tar-like substance oozing from her face, she'd been talking out loud to somepony—somepony she'd called Hunger. Doubts lingered in Starlight's mind. Did her mind break? Was she possessed? Either would have explained her behaviour, including the manic behaviour and becoming the monster Storm made of her.

Then there was Emerald's fear—that Anon was gone. Emerald had explained, before being put under, that Anon had made her promise to stay under, but had made a promise in turn. "I promise, Emerald," the filly had recited. "Even if the others get angry for what I must do next... even if for a time they drive me away, you will always be my sister. This is my oath to you." It definitely sounded to Starlight like something Anon would say, but it also meant that she may have decided, even before Starlight had been taken, that this would be the outcome.

When the Royal Guard arrived, led by Prince Blueblood and a pegasus lieutenant wearing bandages in place of her helmet. "Ms. Glimmer, Ms. Lulamoon," the prince greeted as two guardsponies took posts at either side of the door. Even as a medic rushed over to the trio and started checking over them. "It's good to see all three of you safe."

"Not all of us, Your Highness." Starlight shook her head as she managed to find her voice. It was hard for her to keep her voice steady. "Anon... I don't really understand much of what happened last night, but they apparently shared a special dream construct granted to them by Harmony... a sort of place for one to rest and recreate during the other's turn... Emerald is convinced Anon's no longer there in that place."

Genuine alarm and concern for another pony was still something she was unused to seeing from the prince. It seemed like only days before, he was this enigma of a pony... a self-centred brute that Anon loathed one moment, and was then bosom buddies with after one misadventure. Yet the look on his face, a well-trained mask though it might be, told her that he would truly grieve Anon if she really was gone. "Could she really just vanish? Just like that?"

Starlight considered not telling him about Raging Storm's last moments, about how the tiny terror had whipped out a unicorn's severed horn and cast some sort of strange spell. No... Remember the tenets... "It's hard to say," she admitted. "I've never seen a spell like that before, never mind an earth pony using a unicorn horn to cast a spell... She channelled some sort of void, into which her jacket, the dye in her coat, Raging Storm's body, and even his soul vanished into after disintegrating."

Against her side, she felt Emerald—Or was it Anon?—stirring. It was astounding to her, because the spell Starlight had cast should have kept her under for a few hours at least. "She's coming," the foal murmured. It was too slurred by sleep for them to tell which one was coming to. Impossibly, Emerald was on her hooves, excitedly looking to an empty spot—exactly where Anon had cast her mysterious spell. "Anon's coming back!"

Slowly, seemingly coming from nowhere and everywhere all at once, particles of dust started streaming into the room. It all began to coalesce at one spot—right where Emerald was looking. Eventually, there stood a large, glossy black sphere, nearly as tall as Discord. Once it stopped expanding, it collapsed into nothing.

In place of the sphere, there stood the slender figure of an Abyssinian female, with chocolate-point markings. She looked about the room with a sense of wonder, even as she seemed to test the range of motion of her body. At her side was what really stunned everypony. No larger than Emerald, there was a changeling nymph—if the slit pupil eyes were any indicator, a queen, at that—with but a tiny nub of a horn. What was so stunning about the creature was that it looked so much like the aforementioned filly that they could have been twins, but for their swapped colour palettes and differing species.

Before anypony could stop her, Emerald darted forward and wrapped the changeling filly in a hug. "Anon!" she cried out in relief. The strange cat person even smiled down at the sight before making her way over to the velvet chair and taking a seat. "You came back!"

The changeling—Could it really be her?—saw Blueblood, Lieutenant Summer Haze, and the two tensed guards at the door, and very slowly began to return the hug. "I told you, didn't I?" She spoke in what had definitely been Anon's exact voice and accent, but it still had that sort of multi-layered tone to it that Starlight hadn't heard since Queen Chrysalis. "I said you would always be my little sister. That was the oath I made to you."

Prince Blueblood looked like he'd just developed a massive migraine. "This is going to be so much paperwork," he muttered. "But that explains what happened to all the dead bodies."

The lieutenant, on the other hoof, approached the Abyssinian. "Who, or what are you?" she demanded, growing visibly frustrated as the cat just spun in the chair. Sticking her hoof out to halt it, she continued. "Abyssinians aren't known for their magic."

A surprised look came across the cat lady's face, as though an Equestrian Royal Guard making a demand of her was the most novel thing in the world. Everypony in the room was paying attention to her... well, everyone but Emerald, who was still hugging Anon and crying with glee. Even Anon was watching her. "Oh, I'm completely manifested now?" Her blue eyes flicked over to Anon. A toothy grin spread across her face. "I only expected your offerings to give me an ethereal form with which to experience the world... but to acquire a physical form, like dear Harmony and Discord..."

The creature looked at Prince Blueblood. "I am called Désirée, Hunger Incarnate," she exclaimed with a flourish. "I am the embodiment of desire, ambition, and the struggle." Pointing over at the small changeling, she let out a chuckle. "Your little friend helped me achieve my hunger to explore the pleasures of the mortal world." As if suddenly remembering something, she hopped up onto her paws, and danced over to Anon and Emerald. "I think you deserve a little thanks before I take my leave, my little queen."

Everyone tensed as she reached down and poked the little nub on Anon's forehead with her claw. A line of blue flame rolled up her hooves, leaving a perfect copy of Anon as she'd been before the dye job, complete with the discoloured patches in her coat. "There, that's much better," Désirée purred, patting both fillies atop their heads, even as a queasy look crossed Anon's face. "No sense in having a changeling who doesn't know how to fly or transform... Even if those traitors can't corrupt you, I still don't trust them not to try while teaching you."

Once the look of queasiness passed, Anon backed away from Désirée, dragging the giggling Emerald with her. "I'm not going to thank you," she growled in her natural voice. "You played with my head, and didn't even tell me that this was your end goal..."

Tears rolled freely down her cheeks, even as she squinted at the Embodiment of Hunger. A transformation so perfect that it even replicated her need for glasses, Starlight thought quietly as the two fillies returned to her side. "You didn't tell me that your spell would make me eat his soul, or all those bodies," she sobbed. Emerald didn't hesitate to pat her back. "I'm thankful to have a body, but I'll never be your pawn... or Harmony's pawn... not ever again."

The cat lady just smirked. "I wouldn't have it any other way," she said, slowly dissipating into a cloud of sand. "A queen is nobody's pawn but her own." For a moment, two piercing blue lights were all that remained of her, and they were looking directly at Anon. "Nonetheless, I hope you put on a good show..."

Entry 40

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"Are you sure you don't want to return to the hotel with the three of them, Anon?" Blueblood asked, as Starlight, Trixie, Emerald and their guard escort broke off from the group. I didn't need to look at him to feel his gaze on me as I stopped to watch the others leave. "Although Ms. Lulamoon seemed perturbed by the days events, I don't think either Emerald or Ms. Glimmer blame you for any of what happened. If anything, they both seem anxious to see you go."

He kept a respectable distance as I watched the group round a corner. I wasn't particularly worried about that. Emerald, I don't think, really understood everything that happened. At most, she might've understood that I'd made sure that her abuser would never hurt her again. My empathic senses had been overclocked with my new body, and the knowledge Hunger—or Désirée, whichever—crammed in my head had given me a much better understanding of emotions, so I could tell that when she'd been too busy fussing over me to pay attention to what I'd been saying.

As for Starlight, she might need some time to process what had happened. Sure she'd had her own fall from grace and subsequent redemption arc. Because of that, she might even be able to relate the most among any pony outside the guards or maybe the elder princesses. Still, I'd allowed myself to get played by a force beyond my mortal comprehension, and although I'd certainly have killed Raging Storm either way, I wouldn't have been able to bring myself dismember, maim, and turn several ponies into paste... No, she'd stoked my hatred so hard that it was quite literally overflowing...

I still remember the way it burned my skin.

Besides, Emerald was promised a stuffed animal and an ice cream dinner. At present, I couldn't even stomach the thought of food; on top of feeling ill over what I was tricked into doing, Emerald's genuine affection and fussing had been surprisingly enough for me to passively feed and left me feeling kinda bloated. If I'd gone with them, one twin not getting food while the other got ice cream for dinner would raise too many questions.

"Yeah," I murmured, finally turning to join him. "I know, Blue." Adjusting my glasses, I looked up at him. "They might not need the time to think, but I do... about what I've become, how my life will change... and what happens next."

The moment the two of us started moving, the baker's half dozen guards accompanying us back to the base formed up around us, one on either side of us, two in front, another two in back, and then Lieutenant Summer Haze flying overwatch. Procedure or not, it honestly felt kinda unnecessary. Those of the Blackwings that I initially spared who chose not to turn themselves in would likely have already got the news out Raging Storm was fucked, and that a crackdown that the Manehattan P.D. couldn't protect them from was coming. They'd be too busy fighting among one another in the power vacuum I'd created, or running for the hills.

"To tell the truth," I began after we'd walked a few blocks in silence, "There's also something I wanted to run by you... something Starlight would never approve of."

He didn't even turn to look at me. I didn't need him to in order to know that he was quite aware of what I was thinking. The horror and revulsion gave it away. "You want us to give you up in order to buy your aunt, and all of Manehattan, some time," he probed, and I could feel the other guards look from him to me. "That's what you're thinking, right?"

"Well, yeah," I said. As we walked, I focused on all the information that had been stuffed into my head. Creating a form from scratch is probably above me for the time being, but mimicry, something I'm deeply familiar with, and subtle alterations shouldn't be too hard. "They wanted the alicorn responsible for shooting down their battle blimp..."

It wasn't like casting a spell with runic magic; it was one part willpower, two parts visualisation, and one part instinct. In my mind's eye, I pictured my pony form—imperfections and all—and added on a horn like Sweetie Belle's and wings like Scootaloo. Of course I pictured those additions in my colouration, but still, with that image in mind, I did what the jumble of new memories—and this new body's instinct—told me, pooling my mana at my hooves and then dragging it up my body. One of the privates squawked in alarm, probably because I'd just sprouted wings and a horn in a flash of blue flame.

It was particularly odd, because I could feel the new additions to my body. All of the muscles in the wings, the touch of the air on the feathers... I'd have thought that the sudden increase in nerve-structures would have overwhelmed my brain. If I'd been a pony, such a thing probably would have put me in shock, but changelings seemed wired for what Keith would have deemed 'plug-and-play'.

"I'm the one they wanted anyways, and I can be an alicorn," I said, relaxing back into my original pony form. Fuck, it feels weird having pegasus wings and then not having pegasus wings. "It makes sense to hand me over."

With the fury that rolled off him when he snapped around to tower over me, you'd have sworn he'd just slapped me, for all the unintended mental recoil I that mental assault inflicted. "Previous life's experience or not, Anonymous, you are but a child," he said with a tone of exasperation. His anger quickly bled away into regret when he noticed I'd unconsciously backed into the guard at the group's right flank. "Never in Equestria's history has a child been used as a bargaining chip... Not in all the history of the Royal Guard, and Auntie would say such a thing was unconscionable. I shall brook no more discussion of the matter, my friend."

The remainder of the trip was spent in silence. After having my idea shot down, I didn't feel much like talking. You're being a noble idiot of a different sort, now, I thought with some sadness. I'm the reason the headsman's axe is poised over Manehattan... If I'd found another way to disable their aircraft, they'd have almost no interest in the city, because they wouldn't think there'd been an alicorn... and the only reason they even think that is because I constructed a literal rail-gun spell.

Actually, that didn't entirely add up. That was a spell that any adult unicorn could cast, if only they knew the spell array. Did the Storm King's forces believe that because no other ponies had made that sort of overwhelming display of force, that it took a really powerful spell-caster, or an alicorn? In reality, it was more likely that Equestrians seldom used such highly destructive spells since they hadn't seen true war in quite some time, and a spell like that wasn't exactly conducive to peace-keeping.

A firing line of unicorns casting that spell, even if it put them in magic time-out for a few days, could level a city in seconds. That wasn't the pony way, though. Such spells being in the hooves of civilians was forbidden. They didn't need weapons of mass destruction, because for the longest time, Celestia was feared and respected—she'd been Equestria's Sword of Damocles. The only reason the invaders even held Canterlot was because they'd ambushed the alicorns with some sort of secret weapon.

When we reached the base's front gate, the protective formation broke apart. Lieutenant Haze landed in front of Blueblood. "Lieutenant, please escort Anonymous Flicker to one of the empty officer berths in the barracks," he commanded, glancing back down at me before beginning to walk away. "If anypony protests, you send them directly to me. I want her to be kept safe until she and the others are transferred up to that little hamlet in the north. Once she's situated, go get some rest."

"Yes, Your Highness," she responded with a quick salute, watching until he was almost at the HQ building. "C'mon, kid," she said, not sparing me a glance. Instead, she looked to the ponies that'd been part of the escort. "You two, on me. The rest of you are to resume your regular duties."

There was a resounding "Yes ma'am," and then we were off. As we went, I eyed up the building better. I hadn't paid much attention to it when we were through earlier today, but it was brick the entire way up. Except for the windows on the top floor, all the windows were of the awning variety—no space for even a pony of my size to slip through. The top floor, however, had regular double windows.

The inside of the building was about what I expected of a barrack building. In fact, it kinda even reminded me of the crew quarters on the cargo ship, with all the communal spaces and shared berths we walked past. As we went, she explained that I couldn't have free reign of the base, but the two guards following us would be able to escort me to the mess hall, or fetch something. Before too long, I found myself being led up several flights of stairs. Everything on this floor was much cushier than downstairs. Definitely the officer quarters.

~ 40 ~

Just as Harmony had promised, the 'dream bridge'—what she'd called the construct that had become permanent—was still in place. It admittedly took a lot of effort to still my mind enough to reach that place. My mind was whirling from everything that had happened today, and I needed time to process it. That was why I'd drug the pillow off the bed and under the writing desk provided in the room in the first place, to relax completely and work to clear my mind.

Once more, I conjured up a deck of cards, shuffling it with my hooves. In here they still looked normal, although the crystalline walls now fully reflected my changeling form. Was it a subconscious change I had made? I wondered, setting out the cards into seven columns of increasing number. Or did Harmony do this as a reminder of the choices I made?

That didn't matter right now. What did matter, as I played cards to organise my thoughts, was that I had taken eighteen lives today. Seven of those lives were ponies that had nothing to do with the abuses Emerald faced; the only reason they'd died at all was because they refused to get out of the way, and put their hooves on me. Even with the manic calm my hate-altered mental state had provided, them putting their hooves on me had triggered the same sort of panic response that had caused me to shoulder-throw Pinkie that time.

Unlike Pinkie, however, that pony I threw to the floor didn't get back up; back then, I wasn't hopped up on a spell that was basically magical PCP. I can't shake that scared look in his eyes when he realised his spine and neck had been pulverised... that he was dying. The others, though, they wanted revenge for their comrade, and I had to protect myself... didn't I? Why couldn't you guys have just gotten out of the way like the six I'd let go? I tried to make it fast for the rest of them, but...

Those seven were the only ones I actually felt bad for killing. Palooka, Pretty Joe, the three in their shipping and receiving room, and the five outside Raging Storm's office—I recognised all of them from those memories of Emerald's that resurfaced when I bore witness to the medical scan Starlight had cast. They were, in my eyes, all utterly irredeemable. I maybe should have felt something at ending them, but that was just... empty. I felt no worse having killed them than I did any time I swatted a fly. Should I be worried about that?

Raging Storm? I still don't approve of the method Hunger had me use to kill him, but... It was strange. I was self-aware enough to be able to know where Emerald stopped and I began, and yet I felt... elated that he was dead. The bastard had been punished for his sins, and would never ruin another pony's life again. Not only that, but it was like a weight off my shoulders. In killing him, I've put to rest everything I felt about Paul Whitley—Mom's murderer. All the fear and hate that I held for the man, all these years after his suicide, perished with Raging Storm.

All of it has been purged, and I achieved a state of catharsis.

With a sigh, I scooped up the cards. I'd saved Starlight and Trixie, and ensured that Emerald would never be threatened by her step-monster or his gang ever again. Protecting them felt... right. Until this invasion was resolved, there was still the risk of the Storm King's forces attacking this city in search of me. That won't change if all of us leave the city, and even ift the guard fight's back, there's just going to be more meaningless death.

So why, then, was Blueblood being so stubborn? I offered him the perfect solution. The city would be safe... the others would be safe. Everypony would be safe, so why won't he do the rational thing? The answer was obvious. It wasn't just because he was a royal, a leader, and needed to be an exemplar of true nobility in these times of trial. Just as I wanted to protect everypony else, from a problem I'd inadvertently caused, he wanted to protect me from what the invaders might do to me in retaliation, as well as from myself.

Shaking my head, I began drawing up plans. Above the table, a transparent map of the city—constructed from where I'd been, extrapolation, and the directory map I'd glanced at when we first exited the train station—floated. Using the tip of my hoof, I started making notes in the air, quite literally printing my thoughts into the space in front of me.

Flight over city no good. In theory, I should be able to fly as a changeling, but flight in disguise would require practice. I'd be easy to intercept.
Transformation into guard or small animal to escape base out of question. Knowledge Hunger imparted warns nymphs—even queens—shouldn't attempt major changes in size without sufficient mastery or magic reserves.
Best bet is to walk down the wall during shift change and quickly fly over fence. Perimeter alarm likely, but I should be able to disguise myself and make for Canterlot.
How to signal Storm King's forces, though? Do they have an airship watching the city? Fire? Signal flare? Smoke?
Regardless of hunger, eat something before escape. May need calories or the extra biomass.

This was all mostly for my own benefit, visualising as I plotted a route and marked down my plans; it was just a tool I reckoned might help my recall, and I could just as easy wipe it all away and have no evidence. That was, after all, exactly what I'd done when I was finished. There was only one thing left to do.

I conjured up a sheet of printer paper and a fountain pen. I paused to consider my words carefully. Sure, I was taking a chance that, like the dolls I'd created for her, this letter would persist until it was dismissed, but it wouldn't be fair to Emerald to vanish without a word, even if we can stay in touch here.

Emerald,

I still fully intend on keeping my promises. Being a big sister to you... protecting you... I still plan on doing all of that. Part of protecting you, unfortunately requires me to leave for a while. If I could do this any other way, and do so face-to-face, I would... but Starlight would never agree with what I have to do.

Some ponies might choose to baby you because of how long Harmony let you rest. Not me, though. I'm going to be honest with you. You may have noticed that the sun is stuck in the sky, as if it were late afternoon. That is because outsiders have invaded Equestria, and they currently hold Canterlot. Nopony knows what these invaders have done, but Princess Celestia is their prisoner and unable to lower the sun. It was these invaders that I protected a train full of ponies from. These invaders now demand that I be hoofed over to them, because of how many of their creatures my spell harmed.

I plan on leaving fairly soon. It might be days or weeks until you see me in pony again. Even if we no longer share a body, we still share this place. I'll try to be here during the nights. Even if I'm a prisoner, I don't think they can keep me from this place.
Your big sister,

Anonymous Flicker

Once I finished penning those words, I rolled up the paper and imagined a green ribbon into existence around it. I took the letter over to the pillow on Emerald's bed and set it down. I'd kept it in simple terms, using only the simple sun-glyphs. If there wasn't anything she really understood, I should be able to explain later.

Making my way over to the door, I wondered something. If I spoke to her in here while I'm here and she's awake, would she hear me? Would she perhaps be able to do the same for me? I kinda doubted I'd be able to separate from my new changeling body and enter control of hers, but using the link to leave messages and communicate at distances could be useful.

Conjuring up a stage mic, I smiled with glee. I've always wanted to do this. "Testing, testing, one two three," I called out, my voice echoing throughout the room despite the lack of speakers. Luckily, it was just a prop, or the feedback would probably have been killer with the acoustics of my real room. Just to be on the safe side, I tapped the microphone twice before continuing. "This thing on?"

There was a startled yelp came back down the link after a moment. 'You scared me, Anon,' she said in a sour tone. 'I almost knocked over my ice cream, and now Starlight's looking at me funny.'

"Oh, shoot, you guys eating? My bad," I apologised. "I just wanted to test to see if this part of our connection had changed at all. Also, you don't need to speak out loud when we talk. You can just think at me." Strictly speaking, I don't think I needed to speak on my end either; I just liked hearing my own voice. "Anyway, just wanted to let you know that I left a letter on your bed in the dream. Try not to read it until bed-time, and tell Starlight I said 'hi!'"

'Mmm,' she said, managing to sound like she was talking with her mouth full... Or was she thinking with her mouth full? 'Okay! Starlight says 'Hi,' too. Bye-bye!'

At that, I banished the microphone, I stepped out the door, slipping back into my body like a hand into a glove. The first thing I noticed was the feeling of amusement and confusion, along with a teensy bit of disgust. The second thing I noticed was that I could feel multiple pairs of eyes watching me. That second bit was less to do with my increased changeling senses, and just that feeling I sometimes got when I thought I was being watched while camping, and it turned out to be a big fuckin' mountain lion watching from the gloom on the other side of the fire.

"You think that nesting behaviour is 'cause she's a bug?" I heard a stallion whisper. I'm pretty sure that was one of the two guards that Summer Haze had posted outside my door. "Or is she just weird?"

"Nah, I went drinking with one of my cousins a few weeks ago—she's the one in the MPs' Protective Services branch," a mare whispered back, a familiar foreign accent reaching my ears and confirming my suspicions that somepony had opened my door to gawk at me. That was the other guard pony. "She was involved in that whole Chrysalis fiasco last month. Anyways, she kept complaining about the pony she'd been guarding. Some neurotic little bundle of nerves the bug took an interest in. She didn't sleep normal either."

I cracked an eye open, looking directly at the door across from the nook beneath the desk. The two guardsponies flinched, and the stallion of the pair whispered, "Sweet Celestia, you see that? Her eyes glow in the dark!"

"She also hears just fine." That proclamation elicited another flinch from the pair. With the grace of a cat, I climbed off the pillow and stretched. The sound of my vertebrae popping—Or is it just my carapace doing that now?—had the same effect on those two as it did Auntie Twilight. I looked over to the stallion, I asked, "I'm a bit peckish; could you go over to the chow hall and get me something to eat?"

"I don't think they stock love there," he said, without any hint of thought or professionalism. Upon noticing my glare, he quickly backpedalled. "Uh... anything particular you would like?"

The only thing that came to mind was pound cake. "Something dense and sugar-rich. One Princess Celestia special, if the mess stocks it." I looked back to the female guard as Mr. Hoof-in-Mouth fucked off. Although it took some effort to return to my pony form, an idea hit me. I needed more transformation practice, and needed to kill time. "While he's gone, I bet I can guess what your cousin looked like."

The mare snorted, stepping into he room. "You're on," she answered, taking position beside the door. Even though she was in armour, that didn't stop her from crossing her hooves with a smug look on her face. "I bet you can't even guess what kind of pony she even is."

Picturing the bat pony guard, I started changing my appearance up, piece by piece. First, my coat went blue-grey... My eyes became cyan with slit pupils. The fur at the tips of my ears went tufty, and my eyelashes grew out. The wings were easy, but it was hard to picture her mane and tail colourations properly. Her cutie mark wasn't vivid enough in my memory for me to reproduce.

Regardless, of whether or not the mark was right, her jaw dropped. "Your cousin's Corporal Evening Script, isn't she?" I said in the bat pony's voice with a smirk. There was little doubt in my mind that I was a nearly perfect replica of the bat pony... if she were a foal. "Yeah, the pony she was griping about was probably me. It's a preference because it makes me feel safe."

I dropped the disguise and took stock of myself. The transformations didn't take up as much energy as I'd have thought. It seemed like my passive recovery was just enough that when not transformed, I recovered whatever I spent transforming. Some of what Hunger crammed into my head was too complex for me to work out, but I was able to glean that my transformation it was capping my maximum available mana, and diverting whatever passive accumulation right back into maintaining the shape.

A shame I don't have any of my spell medallions, I thought, glancing out the window. Even if bug magic allows me to walk down that wall like gravity's my bitch, I dare not try anything with that tiny nub of a horn... Was there anything I could do with my body to make up for the lack of earth pony magic, and a lack of medallions?

"I wonder," I murmured aloud to myself as I used my wings to propel myself up onto the desk. "Fiction in my old world had so much strange, dangerous insect-based life... and they even took inspiration from real life." Scorpion stinger? I could mimic the appearance and function, but it wouldn't produce any venom. Hard carapace plates? I already have a pretty hard carapace, but I can't exactly test how hard they are. How about scythe-like appendages?

Holding my right foreleg in front of me, I pictured my forelimb compressing, becoming denser from the radius down. Extra mass turned into plates along the the front-facing side of the limb. Everything else from the canon down turned into a single solid mass, a curved spike—narrow and razor-sharp along the inside. The point at the end might even be sharp enough to punch through plate armour, although that would all depend on whether I could increase my strength. Regardless, it was a slow a slow process, as it had to be able to support weight.

The guard standing to the side of the door was trembling, and it took me a moment for me to realise that I might've been smiling like a psychopath at my discovery. When the guard stallion let out a surprised squeak and nearly dropped the large chocolate cake he'd brought, it occurred to me that there may be ponies in the guard with bad experiences with changelings. Maybe don't experiment with becoming a horror-terror in front of normal ponies.

I quickly dismissed the experiment and bowed my head. "Sorry, this is all new and exciting," I apologised, my ears folding back slightly as the stallion set the cake down on the table. It was almost as big as me, for the love of god. "I like to keep my mind occupied when I'm stressed the fuck out, and since I don't have any clay to inscribe my runic spells in, or my notebooks, I figured now would be a good time to experiment with my new bug powers."

Did he actually get that in the mess hall, or did he run to a bakery? There was even a metal fork on the plate. Or do they just have freezer full of cakes for when Celestia shows up? I wasted no time picking up the fork—sure, I could literally just make a fork at the end of my hoof, but that'd be like eating with my fingers—and dug into the cake. "You know, it's kinda funny," I commented as I filled my face. "Last time I had a cake like this, I ended up stuffed in a crate and being shipped off to Ponyville." I raised an eyebrow and looked between the two, before grinning. "You gonna send me to the Storm King's army now?"

Maybe it was just the absurdity, but that actually got a chuckle from them both. From that point on, though, they left me to voraciously eat an entire cake, returning to their posts by the door—although they remained in the room for a time. That suited me fine; I was used to eating while being stared at.

"Say... if you need to inscribe runes and you usually use clay," the guy commented when the female guard took the plate back to wherever it belonged. "Have you considered transforming a part of your shell to hold your spell?"

I stared at the stallion for a full minute before ultimately planting my hoof against my face. I didn't even think of that. How could some random guard who seems prone to sticking his own hoof in his mouth come up with that idea before me? "<Jesus Christ>, I'm a moron."

Entry 41

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Not long after consuming the entire foal-sized cake—still not sure how I managed that—I tested out the guard's suggestion. It pissed me off to no end that some random guard stallion, especially one who couldn't go very long without putting his hoof in his mouth, managed to figure out that my new changeling nature allowed me to form the spell on my shell before I did. Maybe the worst part was that he was right. It was so much quicker to form a spell formula in my mind's eye and use my new bug power to form it as a thin indentation directly on my foreleg than it was to inscribe it on clay.

In fact, the only real downside was that it wasn't something I could transform and forget. Sure, it'd stay as long as any transformation, but my limited understanding told me that one real good blow—or really anything that could break my focus—could force me to shed my transformations if I wasn't careful. Would I even be able to use them if I were disguised? I need more time to practice and experiment.

It also felt uncomfortable to cast. I never noticed any heat from spell-casting before, and maybe heat wasn't even be the right word for it. Casting a modified light spell to conjure a blue light above the other guard's head, it was like someone poured not-quite-scalding water onto the area my magic coursed through. When I remembered the aftermath of the rail-gun spell, and what it did to the clay I'd inscribed it on, a pit of anxiety formed in my belly. Similar things had happened when being greedy with earth-conjuration in general. The clay has been acting as a medium, but also a buffer that could absorb a major portion of spell backlash. What would that do to my body if I used one of those spells? Would my foreleg explode?

After all was said and done, I asked the two guards to return to their post outside the door. Although I told them I needed time to think—to process everything I'd done today—the truth was that I was waiting for an opportunity to escape. On a piece of stationery, I wrote out a quick, 'Sorry, Blue. This is my choice to make.' The pillow was returned to its proper spot on the bed, along with the note, as I perched myself on the windowsill. Even if the room I'd been given did not overlook the central part of the base, I could just make out the gate from my view of the fence. It didn't seem any busier than it had when we arrived on base. It also didn't seem like there were any regular air or ground patrols around the perimeter. For that matter, even the few pegasi coming or going walked on the ground while on base.

Huh... if this is a ground station Does that mean there's a cloud-based air station that works in tandem with this base? If so, I wonder where it is.

My chance came after about half an hour. One of the guards at the gate left their post—dunno if it was to take a shit or if they staggered their change of guard so that there was at least always one on duty—leaving the other alone. I took the opportunity to transform into a certain pegasus colt that I'd once plucked. Although I didn't know how to fly wearing Ebony's shape, I'd seen enough pegasi glide that I reckoned I shouldn't have any problem doing that. It'd definitely make less noise than my buggy wings.

Careful as to not make any noise, I opened the window in a slow deliberate manner. Then, I instinctively started pooling mana at my hooves. This was something my body's new instincts were telling me, rather than anything in the mess of information crammed into my head—though this might be in there too. With a bit of my magical energies pooled in my hooves, I should be able to stick to almost any surface.

Sure, trusting in foreign instincts and slipping out the window seemed like a stupid move; if I was wrong, I'd drop a few stories before hitting the ground. Despite her fucking me over once, though, I don't think Désirée would make me into a changeling and guarantee I couldn't be 'corrupted' by Harmony like the previous batch, only to also give me defective instincts that get me killed. That'd be counterproductive.

Lo and behold, listening to these strange instincts actually worked. It was plenty disorienting, and I kept found myself wanting to spread my arms—er, wings—to better balance, but I was able to walk down the wall like it was nothing. The fence only seemed to come up as high as the ceiling of the first floor, and some quick math told me I needed to kick off from the threshold of the second and third floors to successfully glide over it.

The moment I hit the air directly above the fence topper, a siren filled the air. I used the moment of confusion on the gate guard's point to drift across the street and duck into an alley. I swapped out my Ebony disguise for Ivory, trading my wings for a pointless horn. I didn't let the sound of the guard kicking into action cause me to panic, though. I took just enough time to orient myself, and then made for the west side of the city.

Going directly southwest might've been more efficient, since it would take me directly to Canterlot. The problem with that, though, was that I was almost certain Blueblood would figure out what I'd done and try to intercept me. Sure, southwest might've been the obvious choice, but he'd likely anticipate me trying to anticipate him. Because it was the most obvious choice, he might decide I might anticipate him deciding to instead block the west or northwest, leaving the easiest route unguarded. Then again, he might station groups over the south and north portions, giving him easy response to straight west. It was a risk that had to be taken, though. I'd only have one chance.

The further away from the middle of the city I got, the shorter the buildings became, and eventually I was straight-up cutting through residential areas. It was here that I got my first hint that Equestria probably had another few days before shit got really bad. All of the lawns that I saw had lost all hints of green. The grass was all yellowing, and even shrubs were beginning to suffer. I know that Celestia's sun isn't as big as the Earth's, and it isn't as far away from the planet, but all this extended sun and heat is still killer for the environment. What's it even like elsewhere on the planet?

Rather than stick to the roads, I minimised my time exposed to the sky. That meant cutting through ponies' yards, hopping fences, sticking close to buildings and going through formerly green spaces like parks. It felt like I might have been being followed at one point, but the skies seemed relatively clear. I say relatively because it seemed like wild clouds had been brought in from over the sea in order to provide some cover and respite to the city while I'd been on my rampage, but I didn't really look up enough to notice until now. Somepony could've been hiding up in the clouds and I'd never know.

The fields outside the city hadn't fared much better. What had been verdant plains were now yellowed and dying. All it would be good for now would be hay at this rate. On the bright side, I spotted the black-armoured airship parked a few kilometres outside the city. Unfortunately, I could also see a small observation post the Royal Guard set up to keep an eye on them. Strangely, there was still no sign of pursuit. Could they get somepony out to intercept me if I was spotted? For that matter, I would need an opportunity to transform into 'Alicorn Anon' before I get up on the deck.

My eyes drifted back to the clouds. Theoretically, I should be able to stand on clouds. Manipulation of weather might be impossible with changeling magics, but they'd never be able to blend in without the ability to cloud walk. "This is a stupid idea," I muttered, shedding my transformation. Opening my wings—God, that feels weird!—I began to buzz them. It took a moment to get the right feel and cadence to generate lift, but I wasn't planning on flying straight at them; just straight up.

It was hard not to freak out, especially so when looking down was the last thing I wanted to do. Clouds especially felt weird to stand on. We did a life-raft drill as part of the job training for working the cargo ship, and it felt just like trying to move about on the inflatable raft. I didn't much care for it, as I moved about, looking for a small portion of cloud. I'm gonna have to give this a boost, transform, and then glide down onto the deck of their ship when I'm close enough.

~ 41 ~

I don't know why I'm so disappointed to be in a cage, I thought to myself two hours later. It's not like I thought they were gonna put me up in the captain's quarters. My plan to get on the airship went almost perfectly. I say almost because some motherfucker almost stabbed me before someone with some authority recognised the wings and the horn. After convincing their leader that I was the one they were after—mostly by mentioning facts about the skirmish around the train station and explaining what the fuck I did to their pursuit craft, I'd been stuffed into a weird cage in the hold.

It's where I belong, a tiny part of me whispered, although I didn't pay it any mind.

I'd asked one of the armoured creatures—I think they were supposed to be some sort of oversized hedgehog—why they didn't bother putting an inhibitor on my horn, and they just laughed. Why use an inhibitor when they could use a cage made of the same stuff to hold me... unless I'd rather to be locked in stone like the other princesses. Didn't know exactly what they meant by that, but I imagined it had to do with the longstanding association of alicorns and the crown.

Not long after, they locked up the hold, leaving me alone in just dim red light. The airship kicked into motion, but it didn't seem like we were headed directly to Canterlot. For one, we were flying far too long for that trip. I got the impression from the way they flew that these ships could easily outpace the train by quite a bit. It didn't feel like we were going south-west enough, but I can't explain what gave that feeling. We might've even gone over some mountains based on some changes in altitude.

It wasn't like my trip was quiet, though. These hedgehog creatures were hard to understand, but they were none-the-less talkative. I caught bits of conversation through a nearby vent. Some rank-and-file goons were discussing whether I should be tried and put to death, or if I could be convinced to serve the Storm King. I think one even suggested something about percussive maintenance to make me more compliant.

That was when I received an interesting bit of information. It explained why we weren't in Canterlot yet; the captain of this ship was meeting up with the vessel commanded by Tempest Shadow. I recognised the name from Blueblood's letter in Starlight's memory. That was the name of the Storm King's unicorn commander. I guess the captain's looking to earn a raise.

Still, a unicorn commander? That could be useful. Even if she had betrayed her species, might she still have some pony sensibilities? Would that be something I couldn't exploit to my advantage? I wonder how she feels about foal abuse or the torture of prisoners of war? Her reactions might help me play this by ear.

I listened to the comings and goings of those up on the deck. The only other way into the hold was a hatch that seemed to go further into the ship. I couldn't feel anyone near that door, nor the one that led up to the deck. Once I was sure I wasn't about to get walked in on while I did my 'make-up', I put my glasses on the floor of my cage, shut my eyes, and started visualising.

A bleeding wound isn't something I'm gonna be able to do, I don't think. Pretty sure Biologia Mutabilis said something about pony and changeling blood being different and looking different. Stains might be doable, but they won't stand up to scrutiny. With that in mind, I started with something simple: a black eye and some 'ruptured blood vessels' to add a red look to my eye. As I pushed through those changes, I winced. Ow! What the fuck? I brought a hoof up and rubbed at my now bruised eye. That actually hurt!

That was something neither the book nor the memories told me of. Did I do something wrong? I glanced up at the hatch to the hold. It was possible that simple surface 'injuries' might be painful to make a disguise more convincing. After all, it's hard to fake a genuine reaction when someone touches an injury, so a changeling's brain might trick them into thinking it's real. I know the concept... Psycho something or other.

Closing my eyes once more, I started picturing my next changes. I formed a cut on my lip, not unlike one of the several that cretin gave me throughout my childhood, and started 'staining' my simulated fur around my nose and lip with the reddish-rust colour of drying blood. The lip was sore, but tolerable. I didn't exactly wanna chance finding out what it felt like when I plucked Ebony, so instead I altered the flight-feathers on my wings to appear burnt. No pain there, thankfully.

Roughed up and hobbled is good, but there's one last thing I think I can do, I decided. First step, gird myself for what's to come. If I was right and this one hurt a lot, I couldn't chance blacking out. My disguise would probably crumble, and on top of all that wasted energy, they'd find out I'm a changeling. And that's still weird to say.

As the thin flame rolled up my body, and the pain of my horn cracking raced through my mind, I turned my thoughts inward. Is this why she insisted on packing my head full of all this knowledge? The pain churned my stomach, and I unfortunately lost a good portion of that cake I'd eaten. I found myself lying down while nausea took its time to pass. Did she expect me to take to being a changeling like a duck to water?

I came the conclusion that it was a distinct possibility. She knew things about me—had been able to conjure images of my past—and had clearly had an eye on me since I 'corrupted' Chrysalis. The former queen had called it ironic that Celestia would give me this name, but perhaps prophetic might've been the better descriptor. As had been shown in that hive-space, I've always been a bit of a changeling. Wasn't what Désirée forced onto me—and into my head—just a new walk along a similar path with new tricks?

Eventually, the sound of the engine cut out. A few minutes after that, there was a loud clang. We've docked with something, or we're being boarded. My memory momentarily slipped back to when the cargo ship I'd gotten work on left port. I remembered the way we were randomly selected for inspection, and how I was practically shitting myself the entire time, wondering if I was about to get snatched up and taken in to the police. It was just a routine stop-and-inspect, or so the first mate said.

If it's an inspection, I think I know what the focus will be.

There was a clamour up on deck, but as I popped my glasses back on and reached out to get a feel for the emotions surrounding me, I froze. If I had to guess, the wall of the hold was about fifteen metres from my cage. Just over fifteen beyond that was a familiar presence, all by itself, but unmistakable... Aunt Twilight? Her emotional spectrum was tinged with sorrow, and there was a hint of... submission? That didn't make any sense, though... What happened to the others? What happened to Spike?

I was so taken aback by Twilight's presence, that I didn't even hear them unlock the door into the hold. Before I even realised it, there was the clank of metal-shod hooves coming down the stairs into the hold. There were two of those armoured creatures with her, following close behind. "I find myself surprised, and somewhat disappointed, that the ponies of Manehattan made the sensible choice," came the voice of a mare. "After the way the wayward prince fought so hard to get those ponies out of Canterlot, I was expecting to have to come and take the alicorn he smuggled out."

"That's just it, Commander," came the voice of the vessel's captain. "She turned herself in. Looked like there were even some of those pegasi in those shiny tin cans they call armour trying to catch up to stop her."

As they came to a stop in front of the cage, I got my first good look at the unicorn that was the head of this invading army. It was kinda disappointing to see that her coat was of a darker purple colouration, and her mane a dark pink; it would've been interesting to see the contrast of her black plate armour and the pastel palette of most ponies. I couldn't even decide which was more striking; the fact that her horn was busted up—not unlike the false one I'd fashioned ended up after the explosion—or the gnarly scar over her right eye.

"Smart kid," she muttered as she looked down on me with her lifeless eyes. Even as I pushed my back and side against the far side of the cage and began to tremble in 'fear', I could feel her reaction. It was so muted that I had to strain to pick it out, but it was still there as she took in my appearance—alarm, anger, and even a smidgen of doubt. "This is the one responsible for destroying an airship with one spell—a mere foal."

She turned to the ship's captain and gave him a withering look. "Tell, me," she said coolly, "What was this one's condition when she arrived?"

"Uh," the guy looked from her to me, and I could see the gears turning in his head as fear started pouring off of him. Interesting... He's scared of her, even with her broken horn. He had two courses of action that I could see; he could claim I was like this when I got here, or admit I was pristine. One would be easily disproved, and the other would make him look incompetent. "She was like that when she got here, Commander Tempest."

Even as I shook my head with my ears pinned back, the mare was looking down at my wings, and then at my horn. "Leave us," she commanded, her tone brooking no argument. It took him and his stooge a moment for that to register in their heads. Once the pair ran back up onto the deck and shut the hatch, she let out a long-suffering sigh. "If I didn't already have the last princess, I would throw him off the airship myself," she muttered, rubbing her forehead as she turned away. I could feel her frustration building. "They don't have any idea what is at stake..." I could see sparks shoot off from the broken end of her horn. "Yes, we're the 'bad guys', but must you really debase yourselves by torturing a foal that turned herself in to spare a city?"

"You don't seem all that surprised," I noted out loud, "that they would hurt me." While her back was turned, I reverted to my unaltered alicorn disguise. "Do you really have such little trust in your troops?"

"Of course they would want to hurt you, child!" She whirled around to look at me. "Many of them had comrades on that ship." Her frustration collapsed in on itself as she looked at me once more. "What... what are you?"

"Yeah, about that whole alicorn thing," I said, adjusting my glasses. "Your whole assumption that an alicorn cast that spell was honestly kinda retarded. There never was an alicorn on that train to begin with." I dismissed the wings and horn, leaving just me as I recognised myself. "Up until several hours ago, I wasn't even a changeling. When I shot down that vessel, I was just the earth pony you see before you, using a technically illegal spell cobbled together in runic magic. I only took on that form because it was the only way your pigheaded condition for the sparing of Manehattan could be fulfilled, and I could clean up my mess."

Her jaw dropped. "That's impossible!" She stormed up to the bars of the cage with a growl. Oooh, that's some spicy anger, but also a bit of despair and... hope? "What sort of game are you playing at?"

Sighing, I dismissed my transformation completely. "Let's try this again from the top," I offered, giving her a toothy smile. The mare actually winced as she met my eyes... Or was she looking at my teeth? "My name is Anonymous Flicker. I am Ponyville's resident rune-mage in training, apprentice to Princess Twilight Sparkle, allegedly soon-to-be knighted, mass murderer, creator of several stupidly dangerous spells... oh, and a changeling queen, I guess."

I paused thoughtfully as I transfigured the Weaved Spiral format of the standard light spell into my foreleg. "Don't believe me?" I asked, slipping my foreleg through a gap in the cage. "Go ahead; it's just the beginner's light spell from Your Horn and You. Just put your hoof on the central rune there. Guide your mana down through your leg, instead of your horn, and reach out with your hoof field. Do so with the intent to cast the spell, and watch what happens."

She did so, albeit hesitantly. Again, I felt that burning sensation in my limb, but after a quick, bright flash, it seemed to pass. Maybe it had to do with her regulating the flow of her mana and spooling down to a blue light not unlike my own. "This is... this is not possible," she muttered, releasing my leg. "This has to be some kind of trick."

"No trick, ma'am," I assured her as I pulled my leg back into the cage. "It's just an art that's only mostly dead. I used to think it was just because unicorns wanted to hoard all of the magic to themselves, but with the ease which I have been able to weaponise it... I think it was to keep the creation of spells in only the most elite of scholarly circles to protect the masses from themselves. Unicorn spells are just internalised runic spells anyway."

She took a step back, looking somewhat dizzy. Even if I couldn't feel her thoughts, I could feel the turmoil in her head. It was a dumb idea, but I wanted to stoke that spark of doubt I felt. "What did the Storm King offer you to betray your entire species, anyway?" I asked in a tone of innocence. The glare she shot me would've terrified me a day ago, but I'd already murdered my demons. I didn't fear her nearly as much as I probably should. "Did he offer you a good time?" I asked in Pinkie's cheerful voice. "Glory?" followed in Dashie's voice. "Honest work?" I pried with Applejack's twang. "Riches?" It was unfair to Rarity to associate her with greedy motivations, but it was the closest that fit. "A little kindness?"

"Stop it," she demanded.

"It was magic, wasn't it?" I asked in the voice of Auntie Twilight. At the spike in her rage, I zeroed in on the cause. My eyes locked on her horn, and in a pitying tone, I stated, "Oh... He offered to fix your horn..."

Honestly, it was probably a good thing this cage was made of the same material that magic inhibitors for unicorns were made of. The torrent of raw, sparking magic she poured forth like flames from her stump of a horn probably would have really hurt. "I warn you now," she snarled as she ceased her attack. "Speak your next words with care."

I nodded, holding up my hooves defensively. "I can't judge," I admitted in a solemn tone. "I made my deal with a hungry devil to get my own body separate from the one my soul had been crammed into, and now I'm like this." I looked away, unable to meet her seething gaze any longer. "I just hope that you getting your horn back is actually in your devil's interests, lest he choose to fuck you over."

I could feel the sourness pouring off of her as she started walking away. "Put your disguise back on," she said in a flat tone. Oooh, I definitely struck a nerve... and look at all that doubt. "All of it. You will be transferred into the hold of my airship shortly, and if you don't wish to out yourself to the captain after you made a fool of him, you'll remain in that form until we arrive in Canterlot." She looked at me with narrowed eyes, adding in a low voice, "Try anything, and Manehattan—along with whoever you're trying to protect by turning yourself in—will burn. Are we clear?"

Entry 42

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They sent someone down to hose down the floor of my cage not long after Tempest left, and then the soldiers opened a hatch up above slapped a hook on top of the cage. Once they winched me up top, I could hear the ship's captain screaming his head off at a bunch of soldiers. Sorry, not sorry, I thought as I witnessed him throw two guys off the side of the airship. Of course, they did make the idiotic mistake of admitting that they had discussed getting some revenge.

Much to my surprise, when Tempest Shadow approached my cage, she seemed to have calmed herself down. "Open the cage," she demanded. Hanging from some sort of equipment hook on the near the waist of her armour, I caught sight of a leather strap, at the end of which was a familiar looking catch mechanism. Wait, what? "I shall transfer the prisoner myself."

"Commander?" the captain asked, clearly mirroring my surprise. "Shouldn't we just move her entire cage over?"

That elicited a derisive snort from Tempest. "Can I trust your crew not to throw my prisoner overboard?" she asked. "No, I think I am enough to handle a foal. Much more than just this leash hangs on her behaviour."

Why is she continuing to cover for my trick? I wondered as one of the nearest armoured beasts unlocked the cage and opened the door. She could've just attributed the miracle recovery to alicorn healing, or told the captain he was a fucking moron. Stepping out of the cage, I carefully approached, my head lowered and my horn pointed toward the floor.

"Grubber, the leash," she instructed one of the hedgehog creatures—one lot smaller than the rest. The short fellow, seemingly dressed in a tabard of some sort rather than armour, ran over to her side and grabbed the lead from the hook on her armour. "Put it on the prisoner, and let's get moving."

When he ran over to me, he seemed to have some trouble. For one, I wasn't wearing any sort of collar, so there was no D-ring for the snap hook to catch on. Although he was frustrated, seemingly unable to figure out a solution, I could feel Tempest's ire rising faster. All the other creatures around us were snickering. Poor fucker probably couldn't catch a break.

"Would you like some help?" I offered with no hint of condescension in my voice. I sat back on my haunches, and held out my hooves. He actually gave me the lead, and although the nearest guards tensed, everyone but the commander was now in full riotous laughter."Right, so when you have a lead but nothing to clip it on you, here's what you do."

Carefully, I wrapped the lead around his neck and, where I was sure he could see opened the snap hook until the lead was inside it. "Gotta be careful when pulling though, or else you'll choke out what ever you're trying to lead," I explained, tightening it just enough that it was snug. When it looked like he got it, I unclipped it and passed it back to him. At that, Tempest buried her face in her hoof. "Now, you try."

This time, he successfully got the lead around my neck. "Hey, thanks!" he exclaimed with a bit of a lisp. A look of confusion crossed his face, and then he leaned in close to take a sniff. "You smell like cake."

I blinked as Grubber walked away... without the lead. Tempest stared at the little fool, and I couldn't help but roll my eyes. Without prompting, I grabbed the other end of the lead in my mouth like a well-trained dog. That got an eye-roll from the black-clad unicorn as she turned and started marching onto the other airship. I at least had the dignity to pretend I wasn't enjoying myself. "I'm surrounded by morons," I heard her mutter as I followed them across the gangplank onto the second airship. "I swear, the only competent one is the prisoner, and she's behaving like she wants to be here."

It occurred to me that I hadn't checked in with Emerald yet, nor had I heard her own voice over the link. Is she not in bed yet? I wondered as Tempest led me over to a hatch similar to the one I'd been led down when I landed on the first airship's deck a few hours ago. Are they getting ready to flee Manehattan? I hope I can get a message to them before we arrive in Canterlot.

As we descended into the ship's hold, I heard Tempest chuckling to herself. "Princess," she called out. "Have I got a surprise for you!"

In the centre of the hold was a cage exactly like the one I'd only just been freed from. Sitting with her back to the stairs, was the familiar form of Twilight Sparkle. Her head was lowered, but even at this angle, I could see that she wasn't asleep, but her eyes were shut. It did nothing to hide the tear-stains. Her ears flicked back, but she didn't otherwise move. "You've already won," she mumbled in a lifeless tone. "What do you get out of tormenting me?"

That just got a chuckle and a mocking, "Aww." Turning to me, she smirked. "She's still upset over her friends abandoning her."

I couldn't quite stop myself. "They what!?" I shouted, the dual-layered tone my voice took on when I was in my changeling form momentarily bleeding through as I dropped the lead. It even startled Grubber bad enough that he hid behind the commander. "What do you mean they abandoned her!?"

At the sound of my voice, Twilight's head snapped around so fast that she bumped her horn on the bars. "Anon?" she cried out. Just like that, she pressed herself up against the bars of her cage. Surprise roiled off of her as she saw me bearing extra appendages. "What happened to you?" As she got a better look at me, at the apparent damage on her body, I sensed it turn to rage and horror. "What did those monsters do to you?"

"Grubber, secure the prisoner," Tempest commanded, ignoring Twilight's remark. "I shall remain in my cabin. Fetch me when we reach Canterlot, so that I can present my prizes to the Storm King directly."

"But... we left her cage on the other ship."

Rolling my eyes at them both, I walked over to Twilight's cage. Much to everyone's confusion, I fed the other end of the leather strap through the bars on the cage, tying it off. "That won't be necessary," I replied, lying down beside the cage, my side pressed up against it. "You made yourself quite clear what will happen to Manehattan if I try anything, Commander Tempest."

The mare in question nodded, a slight smirk playing across her otherwise stoic features. At that, she retreated back up the stairs. The short hedgehog eyed me with suspicion a bit longer before sprinting up the stairs after her. Only when I heard the locks on the hold door clank shut did I let out a frustrated sigh. Well this is a right mess, I thought to myself. It would've been one thing if Auntie had turned herself in as part of some genius scheme, but those five abandoned her...

Much to my surprise, Twilight laid herself down on the other side of the bars and extended a wing out to embrace me. "I have so many questions," she whispered. "'How are you an alicorn', 'who did this to you', and 'how did they capture you' are the first ones that come to mind. More importantly, though... are you okay, Anon?"

I can feel her affection toward me... I shrugged, leaning against the bars, willing myself not try to feed. "Physically, Ahm fit as a fiddle," I said, wincing as I caught a bit of Applejack's country twang slipping into my voice. That got a really confused reaction out of Twilight, but I continued before she could comment. "Mentally... eh, it's been a rough few days. I'm worried for Starlight, Trixie, and Emerald... I hope Blue is keeping to his word and shipping them up to Starlight's old town." Quieter, I muttered, "What the fuck did you do, Harmony..."

Her confusion only grew more and more palpable. Eventually, she sighed. "That just brings forth more and more questions, Anon."

"It's a long story," I agreed, crawling out from beneath her wing to stand away from the cage. "As for me being an alicorn..." I gave her a hesitant look, my cheeks flushing with embarrassment. "Promise me that you won't freak out."

"After what I've been through, I don't have the energy to freak out," she murmured before nodding. "I promise."

For a few moments—just long enough for her to get a good look, really—I dropped my disguise. My glossy wings buzzed with my anxiety as she took in my appearance—from the tiny nub of my horn to the iridescent green discolouration of the chitin of my flanks that made up my cutie mark. Then her eyes met mine and I felt her panic and fear spike. As I resumed my injured alicorn disguise, I held up my hooves. "You're freaking out!" I cried, silently pleading that she wouldn't scream. "You swore you wouldn't freak out!"

~ 42 ~

After giving her the very abridged version of my last few days, and Twilight regaled me with the downfall of friendship, we fell into an uncomfortable silence. I had no doubt in my mind that she could tell there was a lot I had left out in the part of the story where I saved Starlight and Trixie, birthed a new dark goddess, and became a changeling. After all I barely even mentioned the mobsters except in passing, and wouldn't elaborate when asked. All I could do was tell her it could wait until Equestria wasn't imperilled. She also wasn't all too pleased when I called Harmony a bitch who was playing not just with my life, but also Emerald's.

I imagine for Twilight, she welcomed the temporary distraction of the logistics of taking in a second foal. I had, in no uncertain terms, told her I wouldn't abandon her. For me, I began scheming. After all, Tempest hadn't specified that I couldn't think, and she knew nothing about my long-distance spiritual connection to somepony all the way across Equestria. Things are kicking into the endgame, and it might boil down to Blueblood.

"Warn me if you hear them coming so I have enough time to reapply my disguise," I requested of her as I closed my eyes once more and relaxed myself. Once my transformation reverted, and I grew used to the feeling of the metal grate that passed for flooring, I started pulling myself inward. "I've gotta try and get a warning out."

It was disorienting as I stepped through the dream-door into the room. Maybe it was the distance between me and Emerald, but everything seemed kinda stretched out for a moment. I looked around, but there was no sign of the young filly, and the note I'd left on the bed remained unopened. She's not yet gone to bed? Admittedly, my sense of time has gone to fuck, but...

"Emerald, are you with Starlight?" I called out. I was half-tempted to just conjure up a TV with the intent that it would show me what she saw and heard, but... Even if it could work like that, that definitely didn't mean I should do it.

'We're at the guard base, but Ms. Trixie and Starlight are with Mr. Prince in another room,' was her response. 'Oops, I said that out loud again, and now Ms. Loo Tenant is looking at me funny. What did you do, anyway? Everypony seems super mad.'

She's at the base? Excellent! "Lieutenant? You mean Lieutenant Summer Haze?" I asked. When I got an affirmative hum, I flopped down on my pillow pile. "Can you give her a message, for me?"

There was a moment's pause, but to my surprise, I actually heard her speaking to the lieutenant. It was only Emerald's side, but it was almost like she put a phone down and walked away. 'Um, Ms. Haze? Anon is in the dream room, and she wanted me to pass on a message.'

"Tell her, 'The final crown is taken. Elements status unknown, presumed deserters. All pieces converge at Canterlot in a few hours.'"

'Anon says "The final crown is taken. Elements status unknown, presume deserters. All pieces converge at Canterlot in a few hours," whatever that means,' she recited. There was a full moment of silence and then in I heard her panicked voice. 'What did I just tell them? Ms. Haze got scared and ran into the room with those three. Now everypony is shouting, a siren is going off, and they're all running around!'

I sighed to myself at the slight accusatory tone I picked up. "I had to do something that the others wouldn't like, even though it was for the protection of everypony in Manehattan," I explained. "The information I had you pass on might be crucial to the fate of Equestria. I've left the note I left earlier on your pillow to explain everything more clearly but—"

'Anon, wake up; somepony's coming!' echoed Twilight's voice from the outside.

"Crap, I gotta go. Try to take a nap when you can," I said, starting to will myself upward and outward. "The note will explain everything. Just do what they say and you should stay safe."

My eyes snapped open just in time to catch sight of the hatch up above opening. Just as I readied myself to reapply my 'make-up', I noticed that it was only Tempest. The hatch slammed shut behind her, leaving just the three of us alone, so I decided to remain undisguised. That was kinda surprising, because I could still hear and feel the thrum of the engines that propelled the airship. I had no real gauge for how far we were from Canterlot, but I knew that we weren't there yet.

Tempest glared at me, but I did a good job of pretending I just woke up. She turned her gaze from me to Twilight. "Something your apprentice said to me weighs on my mind, Princess," she said with a wary air about her. "Was this foal really a mere earth pony the last time you saw her?"

"Yes," Twilight admitted, "And to answer what I expect is your next question, yes, her runic magic is real."

"I know that much," she growled. "Does it really work without her being in the equation? Is it the sort of thing any dedicated pony could learn?"

"Ooh! Ooh! I can answer that first one," I chimed in... accidentally speaking in Pinkie's voice instead of my own. That got a wince from Twilight, and then a glare from them both. After that, I made an effort to use my normal voice. "I inscribed some clay plates with a mass water conjuration spell, and a spell to conjure a large block of ice and had Starlight—that's my big sister—give them to the refugee coordinator after showing her how to use them!"

A moment of whimsy distracted me as Twilight started to hesitantly discuss runic magic. I don't think Twilight really understood what Tempest served to gain by learning about this. She couldn't feel the bit of doubt that had wormed its way into Tempest's mind. It's a hope to use magic again, in case the Storm King decides he doesn't need her. Maybe I could give her a little present? It couldn't be something that could be used as a weapon, but something useful... as a sign of good faith.

I don't have any clay, so the only option is kinda gross. I knew about hive resin—the construction material that was one part reconstituted biomass and one part secretion of the throat—both from what I read in Biologia, and from the mess in my head. The instinct was even there to do so. Still... what to make?

Hmm, Let's take the light conjuration spell from Your Horn and You, and tweak it. I started picturing the spell array in my mind. Where it normally would create a ball, however, I instead configured it to emit a beam of about five thousand lumens. Bright enough to be useful, but not blinding. Once I had the array constructed, I mirrored it and then transformed a portion of my foreleg so that it bore the spell. This time, however, it was raised like braille, rather than engraved in the shell.

Completely ignoring their conversation, I used muscles in my throat that I never had before to force some of the contents of my stomach into my throat... Instantly, I felt the a gland in my throat secrete a liquid, transmuting the material into a globular mess that I spat out onto my forelimb. Even as they both looked at me in confusion and disgust, I was already smoothing the black resin around on my shell, ensuring that every single bit of the spell was covered. I let it start to harden, and then I peeled it off and flattened it out, careful not to deform the inscription.

"That's disgusting, Anon!" Twilight chided. "What are you even doing?"

Instead, I tested the resin a couple of times to make sure it had hardened. Once I was sure it wasn't about to bend and ruin everything, I placed a hoof over the conjuration rune and channelled some magic. A beam shot out, illuminating Twilight in a soft blue glow, casting a long shadow on the wall far behind her cage. I then flicked my gaze up to the ceiling, and the light tracked after.

"Radical," I exclaimed, thankfully not speaking in Rainbow Dash's voice. Slowly, I broke the connection and then reached over and presented it to Tempest. "A gift, from one lost soul to another. May you always have a guiding light, even in your darkest moments."

She took it into her hooves, carefully caressing the inscription. Hell, she even gave it a quick test, casting a similar blue beam across my blackened features. "I don't understand you, child," she murmured, slipping it into the space between her barrel and breastplate. It felt like I'd really shaken her now. "You're mature enough to choose to fight for others and surrender for their benefit... You clearly know that I am your enemy, and yet you helped my assistant and you act like we're friends."

That got a sigh from Twilight. That mocking emphasis on the word friends had clearly needled a sore spot. "Anon, why are you helping her?" The look on her face really, really hurt. I found myself staring down at the grate in the floor, wilting under her gaze. "Don't you know what she's done?"

That only elicited laughter from Tempest, who turned her back to us both. As the dark unicorn began her ascent, "Of course she does... maybe even better than you," she teased. Pausing, as if coming to a realisation, she looked down at me with a smirk. "The apprentice is only following after her master. Even though she's a survivor—even though she'll do whatever it takes—like me, she shares that infectious naïveté of yours. She thinks she can manipulate me... redeem me... isn't that right?"

Then... what Twilight said next hit me like a knife in the back. "Not everypony is redeemable, Anon..." she whispered. "Sometimes, even if they wanted to change... some ponies just can't be redeemed."

If... if she knew what I did, would she say that about me? It felt like my heart was breaking in two. She was the closest thing I had to a mother figure in this world, and without even knowing that she'd even done so, she'd hurt me almost as badly as hunger's scheme had. I should've taken more time—any time at all to come to grips with everything I did under Hunger's influence... Casually calling myself a mass murderer isn't healthy.

"We'll arrive in Canterlot shortly," Tempest warned when she reached the top of the stairs. "Remember to reapply your disguise. I won't warn you a second time."

Unable to face her, I turned my back to Twilight. I reapplied my injured alicorn disguise, and just... shut down. I couldn't let myself think. Despite being right there with her, I felt so very alone. I couldn't even withdraw into the dream room and just cope.

What hurt worse was that Twilight wouldn't leave me be. She could clearly tell that something caused me to clam up. I couldn't bring myself to tell her that I had killed seventeen people—Raging Storm didn't count as a person as far as I was concerned—while under Hunger's influence... Even if the majority of them were pedophiles who'd been involved in the systematic abuse of Emerald, I didn't want to see that look of disappointment in her eyes. I can't be the one to tell her... That of course, only made her more despondent, which only made me feel worse.

~ 42 ~

When we finally docked in Canterlot and were brought up on deck, I just wanted to curl up and die. Once a lively and vibrant city, Canterlot was now wreathed in smog and shadow. The air around us was thick with fear and despair. If I thought the atmosphere back at CHS had been bad, the air here felt like absolute poison now that I was a creature that fed on the energy produced by positive emotions.

It was bad enough that coupled with my own negative emotions, I spent most of the trip from the airship in a stupor. I was cognizant of my surroundings enough to watch them lift Twilight's cage onto a cart. The soldiers seemed to consider having me pull the cart, but Tempest instead had Grubber tie my lead to the equipment hook at her armour's waist instead. So it was, two earth pony slaves were brought up the ramp and hooked up to the cart.

I saw some familiar faces as we were led through the streets. Sweetie Belle, Apple Bloom, and Scootaloo were all stuffed into one cage of the same type Twilight was in. They stared, and may have even tried calling out to me, but I was too dazed by the weight of everything to react. What would they think if they knew what I'd become? There was also that singer who had been flown in to hold a concert at Twilight's festival. On another stretch of road, I spotted that cream-coloured chocolatier from Ponyville and her minty-green marefriend in separate cages, but close.

Is this it? Is it all really gonna end here? Those were my foremost thoughts as I obediently followed behind Tempest Shadow as she led us up toward the castle. It would be no problem at all to reconstruct the Berserker spell, or the Trench Gun spell, but if they stopped me before I could do anything, Tempest would probably punish all these ponies for my actions.

At one point, my legs buckled. Nausea was threatening to waste what little cake I'd left in my stomach. The atmosphere was getting to me so badly that I'd begun to develop a migraine. After failing to get up once, I actually did end up vomiting once more. The second time I attempted to get up, I succeeded, but I was unsteady on my hooves. The worst part was that my vision had started to double.

"What is the matter with her?" Tempest demanded of Twilight as I started to stagger after the enemy commander. "She's moving like a drunkard, and her disguise is starting to look... off."

In the cage behind me, I heard Twilight mutter something to herself. "She's a changeling," Twilight reluctantly answered. I felt the sudden fear of the two ponies dragging the cart like a gut punch. "They feed on positive emotions, but love especially. Hate, fear, and despair as concentrated as the atmosphere your army has created is probably like poison to her—just like alcohol." When I collapsed against Grubber, who squealed in alarm, Twilight sighed. "If we don't get her indoors, where she isn't as exposed, she'll probably die."

Tempest seemed to consider this for a moment. She was frustrated, excited, and maybe a little hopeful, but that bubble of doubt was still there. Turning to her assistant, she removed the end of the lead from the hook at her waist. "Throw her on the cart with the other prisoner." Turning to the pony slaves attached to the cart, she bellowed, "Double-time it to the castle. I will not have a foal's blood on my hooves."

Grubber must've been stronger than he looked—or was I just that light because I was a changeling? Either way, he didn't have much issue picking me up like a large dog and chucking me onto the cart. After that, the procession sped up quite quickly. Before too long, we were more than halfway there.

"I wanna go home," I groaned as Twilight rubbed my back through the bars. It was hard to think properly, and I just wanted to curl up on the cart and die; my own negative thoughts, formerly pushed down deep until they could be safely addressed, were threatening to rise up to the surface. I think I was even beginning to leak a dark liquid from my eyes, nose, ears and mouth, but I wasn't one hundred percent certain about that.

Everyone else seemed super weirded out though... and I mean, I get it. All they saw was a little girl oozing black liquid like a fountain pen with a cracked reservoir—for the second time in 24 hours, no less—and she probably looked like she was dying of some unholy pathogen. Maybe I even was dying... I'd have to consult Hunger's brain spaghetti when I didn't feel like death. The only thing I could really focus on was one impossible little hope...

If I ever get my hooves on Hunger, I'm gonna find out if I can kill a concept.

Entry 43

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The moment we entered the castle and the doors were closed behind us, the toxic miasma of negative psychic energy lessened. Seemingly in response, the nasty feeling illness mostly passed, although the headache remained. Our procession only stopped long enough for Tempest to allow Twilight to make sure I was doing alright. You know, testing pupillary response and follow the light around the tip of her horn—it wasn't like the cage could really block her from creating light inside the cage, after all—and a few silly little questions.

"Why do you even care what happens to her?" Twilight managed to ask as we started moving once more. She seemed stupefied by Tempest's inconsistent behaviour. "I'm just a magic battery to you, but she wouldn't have nearly enough to make any sort of substantial contribution to whatever it is you're planning on doing with our magic. I have serious doubts that she'd be willing to make combat spells for you, either... so why?"

Conscience, duh, I thought, burning away the black secretions by reapplying my transformation. Even if she won't admit it, she doesn't want to be responsible for killing a kid.

"Call it whatever you want, Princess of 'Friendship'," Tempest shot back, not giving Twilight the satisfaction of meeting her gaze. "I might present her to the Storm King as a pet or a future project. I could see plenty of uses for shapeshifters in the future."

By that point, I'd had more than enough time for my brain to start processing properly again. Twilight was partially right, earlier, when she said it was like alcohol poisoning. The fear, hate, and despair were intoxicating to changelings, but dangerous in high quantities. If I'm unpacking this absolute spaghetti-fest of a brain dump that Hunger pumped into me correctly, I was leaking condensed emotions... It was likely this was happening because I've not learned how to turn off my empathic powers, so I can't exactly filter out whatever emotions I feed on passively. For that matter, that's another thing I still don't know how to turn off. Basically, I was overfeeding and binge-drinking without even intentionally doing it.

How shitty is that? If I can't learn to control that set of abilities, and Canterlot stays this way, am I not trapped in but a larger, gilded cage?

That left a question in mind, though... I'd been leaking that same ichor before I became a changeling... Admittedly, it was while I was being prodded along that dark path by Désirée, but it shouldn't have been happening then. Or was I slowly changing even then? Could whatever had happened back with Chrysalis be responsible for that slow change?

Before too long, we were led through the massive doors of the throne room. Waiting for us there was a rather chilling sight. Three obsidian statues were placed in a seemingly random pattern to either side of the red carpet leading up to the throne. Except, they weren't really statues; they were the princesses, frozen away in black glass. Celestia, normally so stoic, was trapped in an expression of terror. Cadance, on the other hand, was more of a mix of shock and confusion. Then there was Luna. It looked as though she was caught mid-flight, looking back over her shoulder.

Maybe it's some protective magic in the castle, but even with the openings to the balconies behind the throne, it doesn't feel too bad in here... Or maybe it's just that the palace is mostly empty and there's not enough ponies to create that bad juju.

As two guards offloaded Twilight and myself, another two led the slaves and the cart back out the doors. Once they were gone, Grubber was there to slam the doors shut, accompanied by some manic laughter, behind them. That was when I took another look at the princesses. I'd thought at first they were randomly placed, but if my depth perception and spatial awareness hadn't failed me, it appeared that each of the princesses were spaced equidistantly. A perfect square.

I think Twilight picked up on the same thing, although as the more experienced magic user, she probably understood the significance a lot better than I did. She brought herself up to the bars and pleaded, "Tempest, don't do this; don't give the Storm King—"

"Your magic?" the dark unicorn interrupted with a smirk. "Did you really think you could keep it all to yourself?" She turned away from Twilight, and in a mocking tone added, "Time to share."

As she said, "I'd love for everybody out there to know what I can really do," I heard the clop of hooves behind us. When I turned my head, I saw a figure step into the light filtering in from the balcony entrance marked with the sun. It was bipedal, had legs like a pony or a goat, and appeared have horns at first glance, although they might've been a feature of the crown it also appeared to wear. He, I decided, was also holding a staff that was as tall as, if not taller than him. If he had wings, I'd swear it was Baphomet.

"Oooh, fascinating" came a voice that was strangely... not all that intimidating. Even with the scowl on his face and the way he slammed the butt of the staff into the floor, he struck me more of a radio-host sort of guy than an evil ruler. Kinda flamboyant, really. "What can you really do?"

His appearance caught both Grubber and Tempest off guard, although the former was quick to begin with the bowing and scraping. "Your bidding, of course, Your Mighty One..." the hedgehog said as Tempest composed herself. A moment later, he seemingly decided he was needed elsewhere, and booked it out of the throne room. That action earned an eye roll from Tempest, and I could relate. Can only imagine how bad it felt for a subordinate to embarrass you in front of your boss.

If the Storm King was at all bothered by it, he didn't show it. He just swaggered up to Twilight's cage, oozing arrogance. "Bidding's good. I like bidding." He looked down at Twilight, and seemingly noticing her for the first time, he asked, "Um, what are you supposed to be?"

Surprisingly, Twilight seemed to have some fight left in her. She didn't shy away from him or the bars when she stated, "I'm the Princess of Friendship."

The arrogant bastard just started laughing at her, wiping away some tears and flicking them away in an exaggerated manner. "Oh, that's nice." He turned to Tempest, gestured at Twilight with his thumb, and growled, "Why's this one still moving?"

"She and her friends put up a bit of a fight, but she's alone now," Tempest replied, looking at Twilight and then me with a smirk. "She won't be a problem. Neither of them will."

Finally, he seemed to notice me. "Oh, yeah; what's with the brat?" he asked, reaching down to pick me up by the lead. Suspended by the leather strap now wrapped tightly around my throat, all I could do was hang there and hope he'd drop me before I blacked out or my layrx collapsed. "This one wasn't in any of the intel, was she?"

Tempest winced seeing me hang there, and I thought I might've even heard Twilight call out my name; without the hard carapace of my true form, the strap was cutting off the flow of oxygen to my brain, and I could feel my blood pounding in my ears. The edges of my vision were starting to go dark, and it felt like I was falling... and then I hit the floor, landing flat on my back.

As I struggled to catch my breath, and the Storm King stared at me in disgust and shock, Tempest stepped into my vision and grabbed me by one of my black-shelled limbs. Before I knew what was what, I was upright in my Hunger-imposed natural form. "This, My Liege, is a young changeling queen," she explained, giving me an apologetic look. "She may be young and useless to us at the moment, but if she can be swayed to our side, she and her future offspring could be of great use in our war efforts. Imagine it... an entire army of shapeshifters able to infiltrate anywhere and conquer in your name!"

If anything, he only looked less and less impressed by her explanation. Pinching the bridge of his nose between one of his two fingers and his thumb, he shook his head, looking to Twilight. "I thought you ponies exterminated these disgusting bugs," he said in an exasperated voice. He didn't even give Twilight the opportunity to respond though, because he quickly turned back to Tempest. Before either of us knew what was what, the tip of the big crystal in his staff was pressed right up against her snout. "Do you have any idea what kind of problems these bugs can cause if left unchecked? You saw the intel! They almost overthrew this nation themselves before being wiped out, and you want to let them repopulate!? These things are like cockroaches!"

He pointed at the two guards. "You and you," he growled, snatching up the leather lead. With one fluid motion, he whipped it around and threw me as if he was participating in the hammer throw event in the Olympics. "Take this thing outside and kill it." As he turned back to address Tempest, I thought I heard him mutter, "I swear, if you want things done right, you have your own army do it."

I could hear Twilight screaming out my name and begging him to let me go as one of the creatures hauled me up onto its shoulder. My mouth wouldn't work as I was hauled away, nor would my body; I was paralysed with shock. Despite its seeming obedience, neither soldier seemed overly enthused about executing a little kid. Even Tempest looked horrified and was voicing a protest, but that bastard had already broken off into some other rant about fucking cuteness of all things. How fucked up is that? He just casually orders that I—a child—be killed, and then rants about cute things and how he hates it, like I didn't mean anything.

The ride out the throne-room doors and into one of the side halls was hardly comfortable, either. What I'd initially believed to be white manes on these things turned out to just be long white quills spilling off the tops of their heads and out of their armour and helmets. I found this out when the quills on the motherfucker that was carrying me kept jabbing into the joints of my carapace.

Am I really about to die here? I asked myself. Is this really the end I was supposed to meet? I shook my head. No. I've been in this new body for less than an entire day! Thoughts of Emerald, of Starlight, Twilight and her friends, Sunset, and the Cutie Mark Crusaders filled my head. It wasn't fair! There was so much I still wanted to do... to see. I made Emerald a promise.

I know what I've gotta do, I thought as cold filled my belly.

"H-hey," I murmured. The soldier carrying me held me out in front of it like a cat, putting its hands beneath my forelimbs. I couldn't see its face or its eyes thanks to its masked helm, but based on its emotional aura, it seemed to pity me. Throwing on the waterworks and adding in a little lip tremor, I begged, "I know you guys are about to kill me and all, but I'm scared... Since you seem reluctant too, could I get a group hug before you do it?"

The dude looked over at his partner. For its part, the other one gave the universal hands up shrug. Grumbling slightly, the one holding me pulled me close to its bristly neck. It even let me put one arm around its neck. After a moment the other let out a begrudging groan before wrapping its arms around its buddy and letting me put my other foreleg around its neck.

"Sorry, boys," I whispered as I transformed my forelegs into copies of the scythe-like spike I'd made back in the barracks in Manehattan. Before they had time to scream, I drove the points of my altered limbs down diagonally through their quills, punching into the backs of their necks and into their chest cavities. Once lodged inside, I altered the blade-edge to add serrated hooks. It took much more effort to rip them back out, but between the arterial spray that covered my face and glasses, and the chunks of their windpipes stuck to my legs, there was no chance they'd survive.

I hopped down to the floor... almost pleased with myself. There were no cries for help from the two, and nobody really knew where we were. Instead, they collapsed mostly silently, their helmets tumbling off as they flopped onto their backs. They stared up at me with pleading, fearful eyes as I loomed over them on my hind legs, propped up by the vicious implements I'd made of my forelegs.

An image flashed through my mind: an earth pony stallion laid out on his back, his breathing quickly growing laboured. He looked so scared and confused as to what had just happened, and why he couldn't move. I hadn't really paid attention when I laid him out back in the warehouse, but with all the bone fragments that must've shot around his chest cavity, he was probably drowning in his own blood. Unlike these two, he didn't even get the dignity of an apology.

"Sometimes, even if they wanted to change... some ponies just can't be redeemed." Twilight's defeated words echoed through my mind as I watched the two creatures die. Although it was kill or be killed, I'd just killed them without hesitation. Worse, I'd just killed them in a cruel and underhanded way.

Another image flashed through my mind: a pegasus stallion looming over me. He wasn't breathing. He couldn't—not with my hoof punched clean through his breast-bone and crushing his heart. He'd been killed just as mercilessly as the first. Were his last thoughts of regret? Of loved ones?

More and more images flashed through my mind. The rest of the seven that refused my offer of amnesty... each and every one of their faces appeared in my head... Their last moments before I tore them apart like some kind of living blender. All the damage I'd done to them... I almost wanted to say it was for the best that Hunger's spell disposed of the bodies, because if anypony had to see what was left of them, they'd probably be traumatised too... and they didn't have to live with the knowledge that they were capable of that sort of viciousness.

"Some ponies just can't be redeemed." I turned into a monster that day, and monsters don't just stop being monsters. They had to be redeemed. Even if I could put part of the blame on the manipulation of an entity like her , it was still my mind that created the methods of their executions... my instincts... my tools... My breath hitched in my throat and my eyes grew misty. I feel guilt, but even without her influence, I killed without hesitation or mercy... Could I be redeemed?

I rubbed at my temples with the armoured joints of my restructured legs, struggling to force my breathing to stabilise. Gotta get away from here, was all I could think as I shuffled down the hall, panting and sobbing. It was no use though. Either my breath would hitch, or I'd begin to hyperventilate. I knew I was panicking, but it was so bad that it was absolutely filling the hallway, folding back on itself. Even dragging myself away from the bodies and getting down a separate passage didn't help. Twilight's gonna hate me... my friends are gonna hate me... I'm a monster who can't be redeemed.

It felt like a hand clamped down on my shoulder carapace, giving it a reassuring squeeze. "I'm proud of ya, boy," came the last voice I expected—or wanted—to hear. It was that man, and whether it was real or imagined, didn't matter... The words were like a knife through my heart. "Yer just like yer Pa now."

Even as I spiralled inward, appearing within the dream room atop my pillow pile, I felt myself screaming. I couldn't stop it... my body or mind wouldn't let me. I apparently even startled Emerald, who was lying on her bed reading my letter. She rushed over to me, but that just made me panic more. I'm a monster... I don't deserve to be near her... Eventually, my vision grew dark, and despite the little filly's best attempts to rouse me, I collapsed. Please don't hate me...

~ 43 ~

My eyes flitted open. The sky above was overcast, and I could feel the tickle of dry grass and fir needles against my belly's softer chitin. A quick look about revealed that I was in a familiar looking park, nestled in a hollow dug beneath a tree. Based on the fact that I could see the mountain city of Canterlot off in the distance—now, and forever more, shrouded in smog—it was definitely the one in Ponyville. Didn't I come here while high that one time, and then get pulled into that stupid bullshit with Dash, Evening Script, and the others?

Dragging myself out of the little nest, I looked around in confusion. Did I decide to go camping? There was no sign of any sort of campfire, but that was the exact sort of bedding I'd set up when I used to camp out—back before I got my hands on a sleeping bag. So why was I there?

The sound of my stomach distracted me, and I was suddenly painfully aware of just how hungry I was. Bringing one of my hooves up to touch my belly, alarm quickly joined that hunger. When did my belly become so concave? I wondered as I caressed my narrow abdomen. At last I checked, I'd almost gotten myself up to a healthy weight for a filly my age, and it almost seemed like I'd only gained weight since my transformation.

Time to go home, I guess. For some reason, when I had that thought, my instincts told me to crawl back into the hole beneath the tree. But that couldn't be right; I lived with Twilight, Spike, and Starlight in the big crystal tree-castle. Why the hell would I think I lived under a tree in the park?

I brought my hoof up to rub my temple, but before I could do that, I froze. The chitin on my leg looked... wrong. It was flaking away in places, and it looked almost like there was a hole going straight through it. Wait... No, it was just a straight-up hole; there was no looks like about it. My haemolymph went cold as I looked at my other limbs. They were all in similar or worse states. Even my wings looked like they were hole-ridden.

Something's seriously wrong... this only happens when changelings are starving, and it's not supposed to happen like this until I'm fully grown. Even though I wanted to run back to the castle, I didn't have the energy. Look's like I'm hoofing it.

My trip through Ponyville was strange. Although I could always hear the din of conversation and a lively town up ahead of me, whenever I reached somewhere occupied, it always went quiet. More than once, I caught sight of ponies darting into homes and slamming their doors. Others merely stopped talking, choosing instead to glare at me. The most talking I ever heard was whispering.

"Monster.,,"

"Murderer..."

"Shapeshifting fiend..."

"Disgusting..."

Whenever I got close to one of the cafés or the storefronts, the business owners quickly found reasons to switch their signs from open to closed. Maybe the worst part were the emotions. The air was alive with hate, fear, and disgust, all of it directed at me. It got so bad in places that I started to get overwhelmed with dizziness. They know what you did.

Eventually, I made it out of the town proper and to the castle. Things were little better there. The moment I got to the door, I was intercepted by two guards. These were the MPs who stuck around after the Chrysalis affair. The large pegasus spread his wings, getting himself between me and the door, while the bespectacled earth pony levelled his spear at me.

"Step away from the castle, Anonymous," Strongwind bellowed. "You know better than to come back here!"

What do you mean? I couldn't help but wonder. I clearly don't know better—or why—which is why I'm here. I live here after all.

Specks jabbed at me with his spear, forcing me to back up. "Yeah, you've got a lot of nerve coming back here after what you did."

"What the fuck, dude?" I muttered. Looking up to the balcony to Twilight's study, I saw the door was open. "Twilight, what's going on?" I yelled upward. "Why are the guards trying to kill me!? Why does everypony suddenly hate me?"

It took some time before she came out to peer down at me. She looked paler than I remembered, her eyes red-rimmed and baggy. The moment she looked down at me, I saw a hateful expression the likes of which I'd never seen before. "The starvation must have started to eat your brain for you to forget," she shouted back down at me. "It's because of you that the Storm King's armies put Starlight, Trixie, Emerald, and all of Manehattan to death! Why couldn't you have just died so that they could live?"

I... what? My legs gave out beneath me. Tears began to spill down my cheeks as I looked up at her in confusion. The hate on her face momentarily gave way to pity. How many times had we had this exact conversation? No... Starlight and Emerald were fine... right? They have to be!

I blinked, and I was back in the hollow beneath the tree, lying atop grasses, boughs, scraps of cloth, and other bits of detritus. It was night now, and it felt like a very long time had passed since I'd last been this lucid. There was snow on the ground now, and my little nest did nothing to protect me from the cold. Not that it particularly mattered now.

Everyone I ever cared about is dead or hates me.

Even if the cold doesn't kill me, I don't have long left in this world. I rubbed at my barrel, which was dented inward in the shape of a large hoof. As if it wasn't bad enough that my carapace was dented inward, somewhat crushing my organs, there were several massive cracks leaking a dark green haemolymph that even a hive resin patch job couldn't completely stymie.

It was hard for me to breathe, but what did I expect? That Big Macintosh wouldn't catch me trying to get into the cellar beneath their barn to steal some apples? Maybe I would've been luckier if he'd kicked my head in, instead. I winced at the dark thought, but honestly it was more because of the fatigue. I'm just so tired of everything...

"That's what this is for, though," I croaked, patting the rope coiled in front of me with my hole-ridden hoof. I didn't manage to steal any food from the Apples, but I did manage to snag this rope from the barn on my way out. I'd decided the moment I found that the bleeding wouldn't stop that I'd give these ponies exactly what they wanted. Not only that, but I'd do it in a way that gave the biggest middle finger to them all.

You'd think it would be hard to carve a message into your own shell with a broken piece of metal, painful even. But no, it was relatively simple to carve 'You all did this. I hope you're happy.' into my side. Didn't hurt a bit, and even though I knew that should alarm me, I just didn't care. Fuck all of you.

At that, I threw coiled the rope over my withers and crawled out of my little burrow. I had half a mind to scratch a fire spell into the bark of the tree and burn it down behind me, but... if I botched this, it'd be better to have somewhere safe to spend my last moments.

With all the holes in my legs now, it was hard enough to walk. The dent in my side just made the limping gait more pronounced. Still, I was glad I had the moonlight to guide me. It almost felt like Luna was there, alive with me... Keeping me company as I marched toward the clock tower. I was silently grateful that my membranous wings hadn't degraded to the point where I could no longer achieve lift, because it made getting up there a much easier prospect.

Once I was up top of the tower, I looked out at the town that I once called home. From up here, I had the best view of Canterlot and its perpetual smog. It was bitter reminder of what had happened to Equestria with the other princesses gone and the Storm King atop the throne. Maybe it's for the best, I thought darkly as I anchored my rope to the clapper of the clock tower's bell. Midnight wake-up call you'll never forget.

It wasn't until I finished shaping the rope into a noose that I realised I wasn't alone up here. I hadn't heard any wing-beats, nor could I feel anyone's emotions close by. It was the clip-clop of metal-shod hooves in a long corridor that gave it away. There was only one pony I could think of who would come to bother me now. How many times had I just barely been missed with lightning? "Come to watch, Rainbow Dash?" I asked bitterly, slipping the rope around my neck. "Maybe you'd like to do the honour of pushing me so I don't pussy out?"

I knew it was all in my head, but I heard that man's voice whispering, "Yer gonna be just like yer Pa."

"Do you not think you have tormented yourself enough?" came a voice that I never again expected to hear. I snapped my head around, and I was so surprised that I nearly fell off the tower in shock. Had Princess Luna not been so quick to catch me with her magic, I might even have fallen. Instead, she pulled me away from the edge and sat me in front of her. "Would you not rather wake up and join the others in celebrating Twilight's Friendship Festival and victory over the Storm King?"

I could only stare at her in confusion. "Is that all you have to say after being gone and dead for two months?" I cried, unable to rise to my hooves to stand defiantly before her. I'd seen the rubble her body had left behind when it'd been smashed by the Storm King... I couldn't fathom why now of all times she'd choose to reappear, nearly two hundred days later. Everyone would be better off if she let me... "Maybe you haven't heard yet, but I'm an irredeemable monster!

"The day the invasion started, I killed the entire crew of an airship with one spell. I didn't feel an ounce of guilt," I spat, weakly dragging myself back to the edge of the platform. "Probably a few individual Storm Guard that day too. Then, I let myself get manipulated into going on a bloody rampage to save Starlight and Trixie from Emerald Flicker's mob-boss stepdad. I took eighteen lives."

I trembled at the look of horror and pity she gave me. Maybe she'll do me a favour and kill me herself. "Only seven of them I feel bad for, because I only gave them the one chance to choose life." Tears began to spill down the flaky, cracked chitin of my face as she took a step towards me. "The other eleven were all Emerald's sexual abusers and deserved what they got, but every single night I've spent since it all ended, I've seen the faces of those seven."

"Anon, none of this is real," Luna said, her horn igniting with a spell that sent ripples throughout the space around us. I looked down at my legs in confusion as her magic washed over me. The holes and flakes burned away, revealing whole, sturdy black shell. The ache in my chest and the agony of my dented side vanished, and my body was no longer emaciated. "You've been in a catatonic state for not more than two days. The torment you suffered here—" She gestured out at Ponyville, which had begun flaking away into the familiar nothingness of my old coping mechanism. Then she reached over and poked me gently in the forehead, just beneath my stubby little horn. "—was all in here. Time works differently in dreams, Anonymous, and nightmares of self-recrimination in particular can feel like... an eternity."

I looked away from the princess, unable to meet her eyes. "Still... everyone must hate me for what I've become," I whispered. "Twilight said some ponies can't be redeemed, even if they wanted to, and even if I wash my hooves, I know that blood is still there."

To my horror and indignation, the princess pulled me into what would have been a bone-crushing embrace. Come to think of it, do I even have a skeletal structure in this form? "I will not lie to you," she whispered. It was weird to have her petting the back of my head, but pony—and I guess bug—brain chemistry found the act calming, reassuring even. "There are some who do not trust you. Although it was young Spike that found you, it was Twilight and the others that found what had become of your would-be killers. They are split on whether or not they can trust you."

As the last of Ponyville faded away into nothing, I felt her dragging me up, out of the dream... Not to wherever my real body must have been, but up into the dream room. All of a sudden, I was being physically pulled out of my pillow nest by the princess, with Emerald bouncing on the bed excitedly behind her. "Regardless, there is somepony that I know to be very excited to see you," Princess Luna remarked.

"Anon!" Emerald squealed, launching herself off the bed and bowling me right back into the pile as she wrapped her forelegs around me in a hug. I winced at the contact, simulated though it was, and had to tell myself not to panic. "I was so scared and I didn't know what was going on! But now you're back, and tomorrow, Prince Blueblood is taking me and Starlight on a sky chariot to fly to Canterlot! Then we'll all be together again and I can meet all the princesses for real!"

Luna just smiled at me and began to walk towards the door. "I'll let the two of you spend some time together," she said. "But somepony will be by to rouse you before dinner. Worry not, though. You will not be alone, nor have you been in the entire two days you've been unconscious."

~ 43 ~

Although I didn't really feel up to it, I forced myself to be strong for Emerald. Spending time with her gave me a little time to reorient my mind, and figure out what was real and what was the nightmare. True to Princess Luna's word, after what felt like two hours of playing games with my new little sister had passed, I found myself being gently shaken awake in a bed. After bidding the foal farewell, my eyes were met with the sight of a familiar pair of maids. "We've got to stop meeting like this," I joked in a tired voice, looking from Natural Talent to Refined Skill. "Someone might start thinking we're an item."

Much to my surprise, the pair actually giggled at my bad joke. I don't think they actually found it funny, so much as they were trying to comfort me. "Dearest sister, we must take care," Talent observed with a titter."It would be quite bad if ponies believed we were courting a foal."

That drew a nod and a smile from Skill. "Indeed, darling sister," the other twin remarked. "How the tongues of the nobility would wag if word got out." Looking across the bed to someone out of of my field of vision, she said, "I trust we have your discretion, Sir Spike?"

I struggled to try and sit up, except when I tried to leverage myself up, I found my forelimbs punching deep into the bed. Natural Talent was quick to help me sit up, but neither seemed to want to help me with my legs. Catching sight of the serrated scythes lodged in the bed, I couldn't blame them. Not with how vicious those look. Although I'd clearly been washed while I was unconscious, my brain told me those blades were still covered in blood. I could almost see the blood on them.

The moment my breath hitched, I felt a presence to my right, and something warm wrapped itself around me. "Anon, it's okay," he said in a soft voice. "You're safe."

If it had been anyone else, my panic would've only gotten worse. Instead the need to reign myself in, to make sure I didn't lash out at him, drove the panic from my mind. With a steady breath, I mentally undid the transformation, forcing my legs to their natural form. Huh, I'd have thought that would've reverted naturally when I blacked out. Maybe it's different for alterations to my natural form? Casting an apologetic look to the maids, I murmured, "Sorry... You must think I'm a monster..."

Both maids shook their heads in unison. "You are far from the worst guest we have had in the castle," Talent replied calmly before dropping into a more conspiratorial tone. "One griffon dignitary shredded several expensive linens in his sleep, or so he said, during his stay."

Spike let out a sad-sounding chuckle beside me. "I know a thing or two about feeling like a monster," he said, finally releasing me from his hug. Even still, he kept one clawed hand on my shoulder. "Before Twilight became a princess, I had a little trouble with something dragons call greed-growth. I grew rapidly, and destroyed a good portion of Ponyville trying to create a hoard. Even though nopony said anything about it to me after, I still felt bad since I could've really hurt somepony. For a while it felt like ponies were scared of me, talking about me behind my back."

I flinched, remembering the nightmare I'd had. It was a feeling I knew too well—a fear I knew too well now. At the same time though, it was kind of relieving to know someone—other than Princess Luna—who I could relate to about it. Sure, it wasn't exactly a fair comparison—he became a kaiju and destroyed property, while I became a mass murderer and turned into a bug—but it was the thought that counted.

Without really thinking, I gave him a hug of my own. "Thank you, Spike," I whimpered. It felt like I might have started to tear up. Looking to the maids, I asked, "Who all will be at the dinner?"

Brushing some of her blue bangs from her eyes, Refined Skill looked up at the ceiling as she started listing off names. "Princesses Celestia, Luna, Cadance, and Twilight," she began. "Then there's Ladies Applejack, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, and Rarity. Spike of course will be joining you, as well as the leader of the reformed changelings, King Thorax."

The traitor, Hunger's brain spaghetti reminded me. He who 'corrupted' the changelings towards Harmony.

"Commander Tempest Shadow has a standing invitation," Natural Talent added, casting a spell on the bedding and the mattress. I watched with minor interest as the tears from my forelegs repaired themselves. "Though she has not confirmed if she will be in attendance."

I looked owlishly from Skill to Talent, unsure of which unexpected guest I was more surprised about. Luckily, Spike was there to chime in. "Thorax was brought in, along with a changeling doctor, to figure out if you were physically okay," he explained. "They'd never seen anything like what you did to your legs before, but other than that and being unconscious, they said you were a perfectly healthy nymph."

"And Tempest?" I asked.

To my surprise, the door opened at that moment to reveal none other than Twilight. She looked a bit bedraggled, but happy to see me nonetheless. Even as the maids stepped away from the bed, the alicorn princess had already hopped up to join us. Although I shied away, her words still heavy on my mind, that didn't stop her from pulling me and Spike into a hug and wrapping her wings around us both.

"Following the defeat of the Storm King, she remained to unconditionally surrender on behalf of his forces," Twilight explained. "She'll be remaining in Equestria, and has volunteered her services in repairing the damage caused to Canterlot. She was worried about you, too."

She nuzzled the top of my head and whispered softly, "I'm so sorry, Anon... Luna told me what you said, and a bit of what you left out from the story you told on the airship." There was no disappointment in her voice, and upon pulling away, Twi made me meet her gaze. "I never should have said what I did. I was hurting, and I didn't even stop to think about what you'd gone through or how you might be feeling. I never meant to hurt you."

Her words released some of the weight on my shoulders. It was enough that I could bury my face in her neck and cry. It wasn't a happy cry or a stressed sort of cry. It was one of relief. Even if I doubted myself, they were words I needed to hear. Even after I was all cried out, we stayed like that for a while. For her, it was to comfort me. For me, it was admittedly so I could take in some of the affection. Meanwhile, Spike just wanted to be included.

"Whatever happens," I murmured into her neck, "Could you promise not to leave me alone?" Twilight wrapped her wings around me tighter, and I wondered what else Luna told her about the dream. "I know it was all just a nightmare, but it all felt so real... like I've been alone for so long. I don't trust myself to be alone right now."

Entry 44

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Even though I'd apparently been bathed while unconscious, I didn't object to a trip to the baths before dinner. I even knew that, on an intellectual level, that everything I'd experienced and the lingering cold I felt in my chitin wasn't real, the parts of my brain still waking up, or those responsible for fear, insisted I'd just come inside after being in the cold for so, so long. Also, the longer I remained in my 'natural' form, the more my brain insisted there was something stuck either in my elytra or to my wings.

That said, I wasn't fully confident that transforming myself would clean those surfaces, as it had when I'd reapplied my alicorn disguise to clear the overflown emotion ichor. If it was something like debris trapped within it, might even be painfully ejected. For that reason, I'd be visiting the baths in my 'new normal' form. Twilight was more than happy to accompany me, since she still needed to get cleaned up before dinner. To be fair, her mane looked like it could definitely use a quick wash and brushing.

I can only imagine how mine must look.

Her presence was also greatly appreciated. Although I'd been assured that I wouldn't be accosted for the blackness of my shell, I still felt the eyes of others on me as I went, as well as their disgust, fear, or outright hate. I couldn't exactly blame them for that. Many ponies here likely hadn't gotten over the invasion Chrysalis subjected the ponies of Canterlot to. Just because Chrysalis and the other bugs were now 'reformed', it didn't mean the sight of a little bug filly trotting through the halls alongside a princess didn't dredge up bad memories.

Still, nobody was stupid enough to say anything while we went to the palatial baths... With my confidence and self-worth ruined by those months of abuse... No, that was a nightmare, and nothing more, I reminded myself as I tried to shake that thought from my mind. Though the day has come that my courage has collapsed, Twilight's trying to show that my friends haven't turned and left me behind.

I couldn't deny that I might freeze up if someone said anything, though. Every time I thought of confrontation, even verbal, my mind couldn't stop showing me those faces—the seven hapless idiots whose only guilt was associating with Raging Storm, and the two Storm Guards that were just 'following orders'. I know I have more sense than to overreact and kill someone just because they would attack me verbally, so why? My eyes grew misty, and I found myself walking so close beside Twilight that my side bumped her leg. Am I that scared that I might lose control, now that I've seen exactly what the darkest parts of me are capable of? My eyes darted around as we went. Am I scared that the memory of what I've done will prevent me from acting?

There may or may not have also this little worm of concern that occasionally poked its way up out of the wreck that was my emotional state. I couldn't shake this queer feeling that someone was gonna come for me. It could be a family member or comrade of one of the ones I'd killed, or someone with a vendetta against changelings, or maybe even one of the reformed changelings themselves seeing me as a threat to be eliminated. It didn't make any sense, and I knew it; even if I was going to be punished for my actions, attacking me here in the castle was stupid.

The worst part was that you didn't even need to be an empath to know that I was wound way too tight. I could see Twilight giving me the odd sidelong glance from time to time as we walked. She was radiating concern, and there were even hints of regret. Hell, when a random cleaner was startled by my appearance so badly that they knocked over a vase, she paused as I began hyperventilating, and draped a protective wing across my withers. She was even patient enough to wait for me to calm down again.

As far as I could tell, the baths were deserted, seeing as I couldn't feel any emotional presences. That said, there was something unusual in the air, a kind of smell that I couldn't place. I'd caught hints of it off Twilight and Spike back in the room I'd been placed, but I'd had bigger concerns at the time. Like, it didn't smell bad so I didn't really say anything, but it made something in my brain prickle—some scrambled bit of information from Hunger, no doubt. In here, though, the smell was everywhere—practically clinging to the steam that partially fogged up the air.

"Bleh, someone put on too much cologne before they left," I muttered with an exaggerated cough. "The hell is that scent supposed to be, though?"

Twilight looked at me in confusion as she sniffed at the air before shutting the door behind us. "I don't really smell anything," she responded. "It's possible changeling noses are able to pick up on scents that ponies can't, though."

Shrugging, I trotted over to one of the shower nooks while Twilight grabbed a few towels. Before turning the water on, or detaching the shower-head, though, I fanned out my elytra and spread my glossy membranous wings. There were flecks of something closer to the tips, I saw as I turned my head, but whatever was stuck to my wings seemed to be mostly closer to the bases, which were obscured by the protective outer shell.

"Hey, Aunt Twilight?" I called out, turning the water valve, and then the temperature knob down to a more reasonable temperature. Then I switched the detachable head over to the lowest pressure setting. "Could you look and see what's on my wings, and maybe see if it isn't also on the inside of my elytra?"

When she joined me at the nook, she nearly dropped the towels in alarm. "Oh," she murmured. Suddenly, the shower-head was wrapped up in her magic, levitating around to angle at my back. "Here, let me get that."

Not gonna lie, but the feeling of water on my wings? Super weird. It's not exactly unpleasant, but it's really, really different. I just looked down at the drain beneath my hooves, and I understood why she was alarmed. There were streaks of reddish brown washing off of my wings and the inside of my elytra. I felt a little twinge of guilt as she made extra sure to get all of it. "How did that even get there?" I asked with a sigh as she transitioned the water up to my mane. As soon as the water cascaded up my neck and soaking my mane, I buzzed my wings until all water droplets had been either flicked off, or blown off the inside of the protective shell. Once they were safely stored away and protected from any soaps, she dropped some shampoo into my mane and rubbed it in. "How much trouble am I in?"

She seemed surprised by the question. "Anon, what are you...?"

I didn't lookup at her, but my ears folded back. I had to resist the urge to lean into the rubbing. Even though her hooves felt really nice, it wasn't something I felt I deserved at that moment. "Twilight, I killed nineteen creatures when I went on that rampage," I said in a trembling voice. "It's not some clear cut justifiable defence of self or others like with the airship crew or the two that bastard ordered to off me, but I didn't have to kill any of them. I went there fully intending to kill anyone that got in my way..."

The next words that came out of my mouth weren't in my own voice. "After kidnapping Starlight and Trixie... after threatening to kill her... There was no way I could just let them live, Twilight," came the raspy voice of Rainbow Dash as I turned and met her gaze. Immediately, I brought my hooves up to my head and smacked myself a couple of times. "Gah, damn it! Harmony, Hunger, what the fuck did you two do to me!?"

She recoiled slightly, but it didn't seem like it was in response to my self-abuse or the self-recriminating . There was surprise and alarm, yes, but more than that, there was a sense of curiosity. "Anon, your eyes are..." She ran a hoof down my cheek. "They were just like Rainbow's."

I sniffled, looking down to the floor again. "I don't know why this keeps happening," I murmured. "It's bad enough I've got all this guilt, but this was happening even before Hunger transformed me... The moment I made that deal, it started happening. Even though some of it's been kinda-sorta intentional, if not compulsive, it seems like whenever I feel something particularly in line with what your friends represent... that happens."

She wrapped me in a wet, soapy embrace. "After dinner, we can talk to Thorax and Dr. Apocrita," she insisted. Hey, I know that name! "As for what punishment you'll face for your actions on your little rescue mission, that is up to the other princesses. Even then, you're likely to be subjected to a psychological evaluation beforehoof."

~ 44 ~

After drying off and returning to the room, we were left with a little time to waste. Twilight wisely didn't steer any conversations towards what had been discussed in the baths. Instead, she and Spike asked a bit about Emerald. How had we discovered she was conscious? Why had Harmony been so insistent on keeping the two of us bound? What was she like? Why had I so confidently declared her to be my little sister?

So of course, I'd answered each one in order... I explained how I'd had such a visceral reaction when I encountered Raging Storm that I had a bad panic attack and blacked out, only for Trixie to find Emerald in control. Then I explained how Harmony insisted that we couldn't just create a new body from nothing without pissing Reality off—something Hunger apparently had less qualms about—and wanted me and Emerald to simply coexist. I of course couldn't subject a child to me effectively stealing half of her life, and fell under Hunger's influence.

What was she like? Despite all of her own traumas, she could be just as bright and excitable as any other filly. She was apparently really good at sculpting—I hoped that Starlight brought the little sculpture Emerald had made when they both arrived tomorrow. Oh, and she had really good luck at Old Maid; I wasn't gonna be the one to unleash her on the gambling world if that extended to all card games, though. That was my schtick.

Why did I want her as a sister? Well, for one, I admittedly missed Laura and Sara. Then Harmony went and tied my own well-being to a filly. Just like that, my long repressed big brother instincts kicked in. I had to protect her... even from myself if it came to it. It was the right thing to do, and not just because abandoning her when I had so much now was just plain wrong. I made an oath to her. With the bond imposed on us, the memories imparted, and the dream space we now shared even after separation, I was the closest anypony would be able to get to family.

"Family... they're the ones you'd go to Tartarus and back for," I concluded. Refined Skill opened the door soon after, letting herself in. Of course, this could only mean that we were to attend dinner soon. "Protect your loved ones, no matter the cost."

"Your Highness, it is time," the maid said, confirming my thoughts. Her eyes moved from Twilight and Spike to me. "Does Lady Anonymous require any assistance getting prepared?"

I considered it for a moment. There were feasibly three choices available to me. The first being in attendance of the dinner in my new form. Despite the actions leading up to it, or the bitterness I held toward Hunger for her hand in it, I didn't hate being a changeling, nor was I ashamed to be one. Why not show everyone that I wasn't gonna let the past get in the way of my future?

The next option was to attend in my alicorn disguise. Being of the queen genotype made me, as far as changelings were concerned, a royal. So what if I hadn't a crown or a hive as of that moment? I would grow strong, and in a century I might even rival an alicorn. Why not attend in the disguise that meshed my royal bugness with my pony past?

The last option was the most appealing, however. I wasn't used to my new reflection yet, and I think seeing me as I used to be would bring a lot more ponies comfort than just myself. For that matter, in my new natural form, I had no need of the glasses I spent my own money replacing. It was fine modifying my eyes in disguises to make use of them, but I did't wanna chance fucking up my eyes in my natural form if I could help it. Why not get the most out of them?

I went with my gut, moved over to the standing mirror present in the room, and wound up applying my old appearance. A small green earth pony filly with bad eyes and discolourations in her coat and mane squinted back at me as a blue flame rolled up my body. Her mane wasn't as curly-looking as I remembered. It wasn't the perm I'd gotten at Rosie's Salon, nor was it quite like the pictures I'd seen of Pinkie with her mane straightened. It was somewhere in between my normal frizzy mess and that straight-haired look. Come to think, I think the mane discolouration looks quite nice as highlights. I shrugged, wandering over to the bedside table that someone had placed my glasses on while I slept.

"I'm ready to go," I said, initially trotting toward the door. A spark of panic raced through the folds of my brain when I realised Twilight wasn't right beside me. I knew Refined Skill and Natural talent, but I couldn't trust them to keep me safe like Twilight could; they were maids—not guards or trained battlemages so far as I knew. I patiently waited until she started moving to follow alongside. "T-this is just a casual meal, though, right?"

Neither she, Spike, nor the maid commented on the action. In fact, Spike was quick to help redirect attention while walked. "Yeah, even though you and Thorax'll be there, it's mostly just a bit of a thanks for helping fix up the castle," he said, sticking to my other side. "I'm kind of surprised you changed up your mane though—love the new look by the way. Can you just like... make your mane look however you want?"

In a flash of blue, I turned to him, my mane and tail matching Twilight's. "You tell me," I said with a half-hearted smile before reverting it back. "I bet Rarity would ki—" I froze up before sighing. "Gah! Stupid turns of phrase." Shaking my head, I looked up at the ceiling. "I bet she'd sell all her licensing rights to her work if she could just look exactly as fabulous as she wanted on a whim."

I felt Twilight and Spike both start staring at me. Even Refined Skill was peering back at us over her shoulder. It was entirely likely she was wondering when Rarity had joined us. "My eyes are blue right now, aren't they, darlings?" When all three of them nodded, I could only hide behind my mane. "I really hope Thorax or the doctor can explain what is up with that."

There was no further conversation as we made our way to the doors of the dining room. The guards to either side were a lot better about masking their feelings than all the other ponies we'd crossed earlier. Although I could feel their gazes, there was nothing behind it. There was no way they wouldn't know what I was now. I'm just thankful that they are professionals.

When the doors opened outward to grant us admittance, I saw the same table at which the banquet announcing Twilight's new school was held. At the head of the table, the same as before, both Celestia and Luna were seated. Seated on the one side were Applejack, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, a large bug pony whose appearance elicited the words 'big gay moose' and 'stag beetle' in my mind, and a smaller bug pony whose iridescent blue-green chitin reminded me of a parasitic wasp I'd read about once. Probably King Thorax and Dr. Apocrita respectively. Meanwhile, on the side of the table with open seating, there was Princess Cadance, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie.

Part of me wondered if there was symbolism in the division, or if it was just lots drawn. Even as I made my way down the steps beside Twilight, however, I felt the weight of many eyes bearing down on me. It was enough to make me stumble as I tried to reassure myself that I was safe here. It was hard though. Although all three of the princesses felt distinctly neutral, there was fear, hostility, or straight-up distrust in the air of the room. The reformed changelings seemed to be watching in interest, but I couldn't get a gauge on their emotions at all. What's with the look Twilight's giving Rarity, Dash, and AJ though?

The other thing I noticed as we drew closer to the table was that strange scent again. It seemed to be coming from ~~the big gay moose~~ Thorax. There was another scent too... similar, and yet distinct, much less powerful. It drew my eyes over to the smaller reformed changeling. Pheromones... that's what they were! The realisation hit like a freight train. What I'd been smelling in the baths, and in small traces on Spike and Twilight had been pheromone markers.

To my surprise, the stool that'd been set out for me was set between what looked to be Twilight's pillow, and Princess Cadance. Is this a test? I thought as I leapt up onto the stool. The three ponies on the other side of the table tensed, even though the pink alicorn shot me a welcoming smile. Are they worried I'm about to try and drain her? Thorax and the other bug seemed more curious than worried.

"We are glad that you could join us, Anonymous," Luna greeted, although I thought I caught something muttered by the rainbow-maned pony across from me. "Has your mind cleared any since last we spoke?"

Completely unbidden, I saw myself atop the Ponyville clock tower, starved and half-mad. Intellectually I knew it wasn't real... just the result of my mind beginning to fracture from everything I'd gone through. Shaking my head to clear my mind, I felt my ears fold back. My throat went dry and tight, as if the rope were still there. "Not really, princess," I rasped. "It still feels too real."

Both Princesses at the table's head shared a worried look, even as Twilight reached over with her wing to pat my back. For a while, I just sorta blanked as Celestia spoke to the occupants of the table... It was something about how the last week had been trying for everypony gathered—visiting changeling guests notwithstanding—and how the festival could resume now that most of the damage had been repaired. It was probably a good thing that I wasn't entirely there, because I might've pointed out that a lot of civilians might be too traumatised to attend.

Instead, I just sat still, quietly waiting for food, even as the others broke out into quiet conversations. Why are they staring at me? I wondered, keeping my gaze fixed on the table. The three across from me kept staring at me as they spoke among one another. That's when it hit; they'd been among the ones to find those two who were gonna kill me. Oh... They see me as a threat. Although others weren't staring, I could feel their concern.

When finally food was provided, however, I was thankful to be presented with something relatively simple. Even though I felt like I was starving, I wasn't entirely sure I could stomach something like fish, and the leafy greens of a salad didn't really do anything for me right then. Thus I was quite thankful to be presented a vegetable barley soup, with a cheese bun on the side.

The food was delicious as always. Although a bit on the rich side, the broth wasn't too salty, nor was there too much barley either. The bun was quite fluffy, and was quite nice dipped in the soup. The only thing that would've made it all the better was if a certain someone stopped fucking staring daggers at me. I didn't meet Rainbow's eyes, because I didn't want make things worse. That was tantamount to challenging her.

When the main course was completed, various desserts were brought out and placed in front of everyone. Many at the table were presented with either ice-cream, apple pie, or varying numbers of cup-cakes. Celestia had her cake, Luna had an eclair, and there was a flan for Cadance. There was a plate of doughnuts for Twilight and Spike to split. When it came to me, however, there was only a tall glass filled with a pink mist that seemed to swirl on its own.

"It's love, Anon," Cadance explained upon catching my confused expression. "Thorax was kind enough to teach me how to extract and concentrate it."

"We were concerned as to whether you had fed at all since your transformation," Apocrita added in. She and Thorax both had similar glasses in front of them, although theirs didn't look nearly as concentrated as mine. "Queens typically require a steady supply of love beyond what passive feeding can sustain, or else... well, you met the end result of what hunger did to us."

The king of the reformed changelings looked a bit solemn, but when he spoke, it was with a smile. "Despite everything that she did, I'm thankful for what you did for Chrysalis. What she became before she met you was not something I'd have wished upon even our enemies." When he saw that I just kept staring at the glass in front of me, he picked up his own and raised it as if in toast. "Just try it. I know you'll love it."

Hesitantly, I picked up the glass and brought it close to my face. It didn't have any sort of actual smell when I gave it a sniff, but something set off neurons in my buggy brain that just screamed the words love and feast. I flicked my tongue out to taste it, and to my surprise, it was cool and refreshing like ice-water on a hot day, yet it left a blossoming warmth in my chest that immediately reminded me of the love and affection Emerald had expressed when I came back. It was also decidedly sweet. Was that because it was Cadance's?

Before I could help myself, I leaned back and began to greedily drink. It was like everything I'd eaten every day up until that point in my life was but a hollow imitation of food. Those same bug neurons were now telling me exactly where I could get more of this life nectar, and how to do it. I quickly quashed those thoughts as soon as they surfaced, because I refused to think of Cadance, Twilight, Emerald, Starlight, or any of my friends as mere take-out.

I was so absorbed in getting every last drop of that donated love that I didn't even realise when I'd shed my transformation. One moment, I just had my muzzle stuffed into the glass, trying to lick up any residue on the inside, and the next I heard mixed gasps and 'Awws' to the accompaniment of a happy little buzzing sound. I needed more, but I wasn't about to just feed on anypony here, so this would have to do.

"Ugh, this is disgusting!" Rainbow Dash shouted, slamming her hooves on the table, rattling all the cutlery and dishes on the table. "You aren't seriously buying that this little psycho is actually Anon, are you? We should be out there looking for the real one right now!"

"Rainbow Dash, We assure you that this is Anonymous Flicker," Princess Luna admonished, using her own magic to still everything on the table before anything might fall over. "If her cutie mark isn't enough to convince you, then Our word should more than suffice."

"But..."

A strange chuckling filled the air directly above us. I was loathe to look up, because I knew that voice. Lying in the air above Twilight was a familiar Siamese-looking cat woman. She was just floating there as if she were laid out across a chaise lounge, licking the frosting off a doughnut. "No, listen to your Princess, little Loyalty," she said before taking a bite out of the pastry. "She's right after all. That is sweet, naïve little Anonymous, and I'd know, because I made her that new body."

The air in the room was so tense that you could cut it with a knife. My wings stopped buzzing and I pulled my muzzle out of the glass. With a sigh, I gave Celestia and Luna an apologetic look. "Everyone, meet Désirée, Hunger embodied and sibling to Harmony and Chaos," I said in a monotone voice. "She's the patron concept of 'true' changelings—her term, not mine—and self-proclaimed once and future Goddess of the Swarm." My ears folded back and I looked down at my stool in shame. "She used me to gain a body to physically interact with the world, and gave me this form when I was separated from Emerald as a reward."

Putting the glass back on the table, I hopped off the stool. I could feel the disappointment and confusion beginning to fill the room. The part of my brain that was still coming down from that absolute nightmare started to warn that their hate was incoming. "Thank you for the love, Cadance; it was... lovely," I whispered, giving her a quick hug. Before anyone could really say anything, I darted to the exit. Already I was scratching at the door. "I can't be in here with her, not right now."

"Yes, yes; that's fine, my adorable little queenie-bug," the incarnation of hunger purred. Clapping her empty paws together, Spike, Thorax, and Apocrita were swept over to the door on a current of sand. Only then did the doors open. "You can take the two traitors and the dragon with you." Although her glowing blue eyes were looking in our direction, they seemed to be boring into Spike, rather than me. "You take very good care of her now; I put a lot of effort into bringing my changelings back from extinction and I shan't have her life squandered because some mall-cop with delusions of grandeur has a grudge. Am I clear?"

Entry 45

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Outside the door, we were met by Refined Skill. "Sir Spike, Lady Anonymous Flicker, is everything alright?" she said with a look of surprise. It might've been because of the fact that I was once again in my buggy form, or the fact that I was trembling while Spike supported me. Her surprise only grew when she noticed the reformed changelings stepping out the door behind us. "King Thorax, Dr. Apocrita... has something happened?"

The young drake cast a glance over his shoulder as the door was pulled closed by a hollow hand comprised of sand. "Dessert was crashed by an uninvited guest," he explained. When the guards posted outside the door tensed, he just shook his head. "No offence, guys, but she's probably on or close to Discord's level."

I noted that Spike glanced around after having said that, as if expecting the devil himself to leap out from behind a vase or something. Given that Désirée had appeared from literally nowhere, I wasn't entirely convinced such an expectation was wrong. Then again, if the fabled draconequus was gonna show up, I'd think he'd be more inclined to show up when she did. Though it's funny he's left me alone so far.

"The young queen is quite shaken by the appearance of the goddess of the changelings of old," Dr. Apocrita offered in a reverent, if somewhat scared tone. She seemed more awed by the appearance of the embodiment of Hunger than the new King, although from my understanding, she might have also been a generation or two older. It was hard to tell with these reformed changelings. "It is a humbling experience for a physician and historian such as I. None since Chrysalis' rule began even—"

Thorax, maybe having witnessed her ranting like this before, or wishing to redirect the topic, pressed his hoof against her muzzle, silencing her. "It might be best if we return to her room," he explained to Refined Skill, accompanied by an emphatic nod from Spike. "There are things we should discuss."

That last comment got a raised eyebrow from the maid, who was likely thinking the same thing that I was. Even if I was intellectually an adult—or somewhere close to it—I was legally a minor and a ward of the crown. It may not have been what he'd intended, but he'd effectively stated that he wished to discuss things with me without the presence of of a guardian. Spike was too young to count, and Skill was a mere servant of the crown.

Still, we couldn't just keep standing here. The maid was just as aware of this as I was, and thus she acquiesced and began to lead us back to the quarters I'd been assigned. Neither of the 'reformed' changelings—despite the knowledge that had been dumped into my brain, I refused to think of them as traitors—had visible pupils like I had, so it was hard to tell, but I was pretty sure that the smaller of the pair couldn't keep her gaze off of me. It also didn't help that I couldn't gauge their emotions like I could everyone else.

In a way, though, that was a relief. It told me that there was somewhere I could go if I ever needed to get away from all of the mental noise. I imagined, as we walked, that I might be able to read another changeling based on their pheromones, although that wasn't really something I'd be able to make sense of until I took the time to unpack everything Hunger gave me. It might be years before I could manage it all, but despite the bias that Hunger implanted in me, I had hopes that I could get along with these creatures.

To my surprise, however, the ponies along the way through the castle seemed to not look at me with as much disdain. Was it really that reassuring seeing King Thorax and Apocrita walking with me without much fear, when not long before, I'd been with Aunt Twilight and I was regarded as a monster? Ponies make no sense sometimes.

Once we arrived back at my room, I wondered what came next. Even as I flew up onto the bed—looked as though the linens had been replaced—I couldn't help but think that the pair probably didn't just wish to discuss the weather. If there was a topic that they wished to discuss, it was probably me... or maybe attempt transforming me into one of theirs.

Not that it would work. Désirée said that she'd 'fixed' whichever flaw allowed for the old changelings to undergo this harmonious metamorphosis.

I turned around to face the pair as I settled myself down on the pillow at the head of the bed. A moment later, Spike hauled himself up onto the bed and sat a respectful distance from me. "So, Your Highness," I prodded, hoping to move this along. "What is it that we needed to discuss?"

As Thorax sat himself down beside the foot of the bed—the smaller bug remained standing—he just shook his head. "Please, Thorax is fine," he replied in a friendly tone. "As for what must be discussed, I'd like to ask you two things before anything else." He actually looked a bit nervous. "First, do you have any designs or intention toward ruling over my changelings?"

Spike and Refined Skill both looked outraged at the suggestion, but I just laughed. It occurred to me how much I probably sounded like Chrysalis, what with the double-layer to my voice in my new natural form. When Thorax and Apocrita looked nervous, I stopped laughing. "Oh, you're serious?" When Thorax nodded, it was my turn to look affronted. "I'm not sure if you've noticed, but I'm eight. Even if my being of a certain phenotype entitled me to ruling your hive—which it doesn't—I'm not about to rule anything bigger than a box of cookies." I shrugged. "Besides, I'm not some usurper. If I wish to have a hive, it'll be one of my own when I'm good and ready to start a family."

I expected him to look offended, as if I'd just inferred that his hive wasn't good enough for me. Even him being surprised that I'd thought far enough ahead that starting a hive was a possibility made sense to me. Instead, both he and his companion let out a relieved sigh. "That's a relief," he answered after a quiet laugh. "When we received Spike's letter, mention of you becoming a queen—one of the old kind, no less—created quite a panic at the hive."

There was a nervous sound from Apocrita that might have been a laugh. "Pharynx will be relieved that he will not have to purge a child," she added in a 'helpful' tone. "When he heard there was another queen, he began preparing to defend his brother's rule." I recoiled slightly at the mention of purging. I'd barely escaped death, and now I was being told that there was someone plotting my death after all. "We are all thankful, as such an attempt would surely provoke a war."

If I wasn't in shock at her casual proclamation, I'd have had half a mind to point out that this Pharynx would try and fail. Even if I didn't personally swat him like a fly, I doubted he could actually get close enough to harm me—especially now that the threat was out there. Even if Spike didn't mention it to Twilight, the maid certainly would. To his credit, however, Thorax gave her what I assumed to be the stink eye.

"What was your other question?" I asked as my tail flicked with agitation. The initial rush of panic I felt when Apocrita went and stuck her hoof in her mouth hadn't had much time to abate, and I was painfully aware of the fact that Spike was also shaken. If anything, the alarm he was radiating was only pushing me towards a panic attack. "I've only been awake for a few hours after experiencing two months of trauma in the span of two days, and the days prior haven't exactly been a walk in the park, so I'm kind of out of energy here."

Thorax opened his mouth to speak, but the iridescent shelled Apocrita darted over to my side. "If the young queen hasn't sufficiently fed, I will offer up some of my love as penance for my faux pas," she chattered before anyone could say anything. "Love is very import—"

Whatever it was that she was going to say, it died in her mouth when my fight or flight reflex took over and I shot up through the canopy of my bed. One moment, I was there, having my personal space invaded, and the next I was clinging to the ceiling, upside down. I hadn't even noticed that one of my forelegs had once more become the same serrated spike I'd used to prevent my own death only days before. My heart was pounding in my chest, and it was getting hard to get my breath.

"That is quite enough of that," the blue-maned maid snarled, her horn alighting in a glow that matched her sister's pink mane. That same glow wrapped around the changeling physician, levitating her away from the bed. To my utter shock, Skill carried Apocrita all the way to the door and all but threw her out before slamming it behind her. "I apologise, King Thorax, but ensuring the well-being of those under my care is very important, and your subordinate has overstepped her boundaries one too many a time. She may return only when Lady Anonymous allows it."

Much to my surprise, even as I reverted my leg and was trying to catch my breath, Thorax agreed with the maid. "She means well, but she was out of line." Turning his head up to regard me, the antlered king gave a sad smile. "My other question can wait. It's nowhere near as important." He turned to leave, but then paused. "If you do still require love, please send word to us, or Princess Cadance if you would prefer, and some will be delivered. Don't try to actively feed on anypony if you can help it..." At that, he exited the room through the same door.

By the time I was sure I wasn't about to black out from panic, Refined Skill had helped me down from the ceiling and onto the bed. I think I startled Spike when, instead of returning to my spot on the pillow, I instead nestled up against him. I couldn't say why that was. Maybe it was the warmth? Perhaps it was just that he was a fire-breathing dragon and the scared part of my brain insisted he could protect me.

Spike doesn't hate me...

~ 45 ~

I must've dozed off at some point, although not deep enough to end up in the dream room. I almost panicked when I realised that I was hugging an unconscious Spike like a stuffed animal. It took a few moments to remind myself that I was safe here—that nopony wanted to hurt me. I winced at the ponyism slipping through, but didn't open my eyes more than a sliver. Just enough to find the room bathed in darkness, but for an oil lamp on the desk illuminating the maid.

The sun had long since set when Twilight finally returned. She wasn't alone, either. There was someone with her, although their presence was nowhere near as intense as my guardian's. It radiated concern, unease, but an overall sense of... kindness. Fluttershy, then. I didn't look in their direction, though.

"I wish that the others could see this, Twilight," came the quiet voice, just as I had predicted. No Pinkie Pie or Cadance was in range of my senses. "Nopony would think she was a threat if they saw her like this."

Twilight's emotional aura was a bit more negative. There was unease and concern, but also a little bit of fear. It wasn't directed at me, however. I was starting to get better at picking up on whether they were being directed at me, but she wasn't scared of me... Scared for me was more like it, but I mean, look at everything I'd been through. I'm a ticking time-bomb.

Rather than address Fluttershy, I felt Twilight's attention turn to Refined Skill. "Anything of note happen in my absence?" she asked. "I know Thorax wished to ask Anon some questions."

"Any meaningful discussion between the two was derailed before it could even get off the ground, Princess Twilight," Skill stated with an aura of barely-contained fury that didn't at all suit the usually stoic mare. "After clarifying that she had no intent on trying to rule his people, his subordinate revealed that the king's brother is plotting Lady Anonymous' death to preserve his brother's reign. She then promptly invaded Anon's personal space and triggered a panic response that could have resulted in bloodshed. The Young Miss has been like this since."

All at once, the room grew very bright, forcing me to shut my eyes once more. I could hear the crackle of flames, and the emotional presence of my auntie went absolutely cold. Oh no. I am not getting involved when she's like this. I even felt Spike stirring beneath me. "Nnn, Twilight?" he groaned, sitting up and probably rubbing his eyes based on the way I just got smacked with an elbow. With a startled gasp, he struggled out of my grasp. "Whoa, Twilight, what's going on?"

"You, me, Thorax, and Apocrita are going to have a long discussion," she hissed, "about what is and is not appropriate to disclose to a traumatised eight-year-old filly." His weight and warmth suddenly vanished from the bed, and I imagined she'd just levitated her number one assistant over to sit on her back. Already, I could hear her trotting towards the door. "I don't want an international incident, but I will not stand by and let her be threatened. We're just going to sit down and talk things out like rational beings, and then you're going to help him send his brother a very clear message."

When the door cracked open, I heard Spike say, "And what about Anon? Refined Skill can't watch over her forever, and she asked not to be left alone!"

"I don't mind staying with her," Fluttershy offered. I wonder if Twilight knows she's scaring Fluttershy? "After everything she's been through, I'd be afraid to be left alone with my own thoughts too."

There was a thoughtful hum from Twilight, and some warmth returned to Twilight's aura. "Thanks, Fluttershy," she answered after a moment's thought. "If she wakes up, I don't mind if you two leave the room—she's been asleep for two days, so even just a walk around the castle gardens might do her some good. Just... keep her away from Rainbow and the others for the time being. Rarity seems to be coming around, but Applejack's too blunt, and Rainbow..."

"I understand, Twilight." There was a sad tone in Fluttershy's voice, but she seemed more... disappointed than upset. I had to remind myself that if anyone knew Rainbow Dash best, it was her. Even as the door shut behind Twilight, I mused that Fluttershy probably understood exactly why Rainbow was doing what she was doing. All I could do was guess, and my best guess was that Dash thought I was basically rabid dog—a threat to the girls, but more so to the Crusaders.

"Apologies, Lady Fluttershy, but Sir Spike was correct in that I cannot remain forever," the maid quickly spoke up. "There are tasks that I must catch up with, lest I fall yet further behind."

"That's quite alright," Flutters responded as I heard the maid's quiet steps towards the door. "I don't mind at all." When the door shut for a final time, her attention shifted towards me. "Are you feeling any better, Anon?"

I slowly opened my eyes and sat up. "Not really," I whispered, as I regarded her with a wary eye. She was further from the foot of my bed than Thorax had been, just looking at me with a knowing smile. There was some hurt in her aura, but kindness overpowered it all. "How'd you know?"

The pegasus mare didn't answer immediately. Instead, she quietly moved over to the window. It was one that overlooked the gardens, but also had an excellent view of Luna's moon. "My parents haven't always had the best relationship," she explained in a voice so quiet that I had to strain to hear. "They always tried not to fight in front of my younger brother, Zephyr, or me, but that wasn't always possible. I'd come home from flight school, mentally and physically exhausted and nap in the living room, only for them to get into an argument without realising I was home. I'd pretend to be asleep if they entered the room, just so they would tone it down or take it elsewhere."

Giving me a sad look over her shoulder, she shook her head. "It came out in a family counselling session that they always knew when I was awake because of my ears." She actually managed a giggle. "Ponies can't help but track things while they're awake, and it would seem changelings are no different."

Oh. Come to think of it, back when I first met Princess Cadance, she knew I was fully awake that time I was napping and Flurry stepped on me while snuggling. The more things changed, the more they seemed to stay the same. It wasn't a perfect sign that everything was going to be alright, but in a way, it did make me feel a bit better.

After a moment's consideration, I turned my head to regard my back, or rather, my elytra and the membranous wings protected beneath. I needed to move, but I also had the strange desire to spread my wings for a bit. "Auntie Twilight's right," I said, hopping down from the bed and joining Fluttershy at the window. "Some time outside will do me some good, and I think I want to get a bit more practice with my wings."

She looked a bit hesitant at first, watching me as I attempted to hover, only to succeed in flipping myself onto my back. Fluttershy was, after all, not the flight expert that Rainbow Dash was. That said, she was an expert in critter rehabilitation, and she probably knew a bit more about insect wings than Dash. I didn't even have to whip out my sorry excuse for puppy-dog eyes.

Of course the mare eventually caved. We didn't just end up going out the window, though. Not only was that a breach of security, protocol, and such, but it was also dangerous. I wasn't an earth pony anymore, so even a drop from one level up could fuck up my shell—my words, not hers. I believe her reasoning was that until she was convinced I could hover properly and slow my fall, we'd start from the ground.

As we walked through the halls in order to go down and out into the garden, stuck close to her side. If she was at all worried or concerned over that fact, she did a very good job hiding it. I felt nothing but her compassion. In fact, the only time I felt anything besides that the entire way out to the garden was when a door slammed somewhere in a hallway somewhere behind us, and we each tripped one another whilst trying to hide behind the other. It was all the funnier when a guard came to investigate the noise we made, only to find us laughing at the absurdity.

When it came to stepping outside, I was incredibly hesitant. The last time I'd actually been outside, the air had been an oppressive cloud of despair and hate that had left me oozing concentrated emotions and at risk of dying. There was still a teeny-tiny bit of fear lingering in the air when Flutters coaxed me out into the garden, but it wasn't anywhere nearly bad enough to cause health complications.

So for the next hour or so, Fluttershy sat on a bench, patiently watching me as I practised flight. I wasn't perfect—not that I expected to be—but she was kind enough to offer advice. It helped that she pointed out that I was trying to imitate how pegasi flew, while using a completely different wing structure. Go figure. Spend long enough around winged horses and you expect that's how you're supposed to fly when you're a bug, even when you have all these instincts and instructions stuffed into your head.

I was kinda tempted to practice in pony form as well, but I clearly hadn't recovered entirely from my ordeals the last few days. My energy ran out long before too long. That ended up with me lying on my back, panting as I looked up at the stars. There were still lingering thoughts of the nightmare, especially being up on the Ponyville clock tower in the middle of the night, but there was none of the emotion I'd felt then.

To my surprise, I actually didn't notice any emotional presences that joined us in the garden. Maybe physical exhaustion is key in trying to block it out? It wasn't until I heard Fluttershy gasp and whisper, "Maybe we should go, Anon," that I clued in that anything was up.

When I sat up and looked in the direction she was staring, I was surprised to see the form of Tempest Shadow at the doors to the garden. The dark unicorn wasn't wearing a scrap of her dark armour. She was being shadowed by a pair of night guards, which probably didn't help ease Flutters' nerves. Then again, she was a former enemy, and it'd been a very short time since she surrendered on behalf of the Storm King's army.

I glanced over at Fluttershy, but shook my head. I wasn't going anywhere just yet. "Evening, Commander Tempest," I called out, waving a hoof. Not sure whether the she or the pegasus was more surprised by how casual I was being, or the fact that I almost sounded pleased to see her again. I wasn't exactly... happy to see her, but I was appreciative that I got this opportunity. "I was hoping I'd run into you before too long."

It was hard for me to understand why she looked so surprised that I'd want to see her. Sure, she'd been an enemy and had straight up threatened the extermination of a city if I didn't turn myself in, but she covered for me when I made those guards on that airship look like clowns. More than that, she'd advocated for me, in her own way, before the Storm King. When he ordered me killed, I'd even heard her horrified protests.

After a few moments, her expression softened, and I thought I saw the makings of a smile. "I am glad to see you are alright, Anonymous," she replied. By focusing, I was able to pick up on her emotional aura. There was sorrow, regret, a bit of self-loathing, but also... relief. "There is no expressing how sorry I am that I ever put you in that situation."

To my utter astonishment, I actually laughed. Oh I knew that she was referring to the fact that she brought me before the Storm King to offer me up as a slave and him ordering me killed. "In case you didn't notice, I put myself in that situation by turning myself in," I responded, hopping to my hooves and trotting over to her. My next actions shocked everyone in the garden, the guards included; I took flight, and promptly wrapped my forelimbs around her neck... well, as far around as two stubby foal legs could reach. "I heard your protest and horror when he ordered it... You had no idea he would do that."

The guards nearly lost their shit when she sank to her haunches and wrapped her own forelimbs around me. "At the very least, it should comfort you that you were avenged."

When she released her hug and lowered me back to the cobblestone walkway, she regaled me with the story of what had happened after I had been removed from the room... She mentioned how Auntie looked positively out for blood, and that she probably would have torn the Storm King apart herself if not for having been drained of her magic. Then came the valiant rescue led by Twilight's friends and the subsequent struggle for the Staff of Sacanas... and how Twilight nearly lost her life.

As far as I was concerned, Tempest redeemed herself when she used my gift to her to temporarily blind the bastard, take a blow meant for Twilight, and petrify him even as he was petrifying her. That the bastard was smashed to a bajillion pieces when he fell from the balcony was just icing on the proverbial cake. The celebration upon all the princesses being freed and having their magics returned was short lived, and the search for what was thought to be my murdered body began.

The rest, I already knew, so as her story drew to a close, I looked up at her. "Maybe Aunt Twilight was right, and that not everypony can be redeemed," I said in a sad voice, "but I'm glad that you were someone that could... I'm sorry that your plan to restore your horn didn't work out, too."

Much to my consternation, she lifted her hoof and ruffled my mane. She was pretty muscular for a unicorn, so it was actually kind of rough. "Somepony showed me that there's another way," was the only excuse she gave for the action. "Maybe that pony could even help me get back some of the spells that were lost to me."

I turned and started walking back to Fluttershy. "Maybe," I murmured, casting a glance over my shoulder. "Don't expect any combat magic, though. Auntie would kill me."

Entry 46

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That night, rather than simply resting in the dream room, I was met by Princess Luna. She was already present in the room when I arrived, apparently already having placed Emerald Flicker into her own dream. According to the princess, our minds likely still needed proper REM sleep so that our brains could properly recover, albeit at a lower frequency than regular ponies. You'd think after spending two days in that nightmare, sleep would be the last thing I needed, but she promised me something peaceful and saccharine, so I didn't turn her down.

Emerald was still asleep when I awoke in my pillow pile in the dream room. I could tell because the filly's avatar in this space wasn't moving. Strictly speaking, we didn't even have to breathe here, and she certainly wasn't. Trust me, I was watching for a few moments, mostly because I wasn't entirely sure I wanted to wake up yet. That said, I wasn't sure if I could accidentally wake her up, so eventually I just exited the room into the waking world.

Although I'd fallen asleep resting against Fluttershy—Twilight had apparently still been chewing out Thorax's subordinate, even after my surprise meeting with Tempest—I was surprised to find that I was snuggled up under Twilight's wing when I awoke. It looked like it wasn't quite dawn, but it was coming up soon. She, for her part, was already awake, currently reading by horn-light. Then again, it was entirely possible that she hadn't slept at all.

When she felt me stir, she turned her neck to peer at me. "I didn't wake you, did I, Anon?" she asked, a bit of concern in her voice. "You've only been asleep for six hours, and Fluttershy said you gave yourself a good little workout in the garden." Twilight let out a soft giggle and slowly removed her wing. "You didn't even wake when I brought you back to my room."

I gave her a shake of my head that sorta doubled as a nuzzle. "I surfaced from the dream that Princess Luna gave me on my own," I explained. "I don't know if this new body doesn't need as much sleep as Emerald does, or if I wasn't actually as tired as I felt after exercising."

I perked up when I realised I wasn't passively feeling her emotions. Was it just a state of mind thing? Or was I actually still tired? It'd be nice if I figured out how to... A low growl from my stomach interrupted my thoughts. I looked up at Twilight with embarrassment. She looked more amused than worried.

"Hungry?" she asked, placing a bookmark in whatever she was reading. "It's a bit early yet for breakfast, but I might be able to get somepony to bring you something simple."

My embarrassment only grew, because the source of my hunger wasn't exactly something any maid could just bring me. "Unless Princess Cadance is awake, I think I can wait," I answered with a shake of my head. "No offence, but I... don't exactly trust Thorax and Apocrita right now, and I don't trust myself to actively feed on somepony." She looked surprised at that, although it might've been the pronoun usage. "I mean, I understand the concept and there might be some instincts, but..."

She glanced off to the side, and sighed. Following her I saw that Spike was there, curled up asleep in a basket that looked to be just the right size for him. He was snoring so softly I hadn't even noticed he was there until I looked. Twilight seemed to be considering something as she watched the rise and fall of the blanket.

When she made her decision, I could see the mana coalescing around her horn as she turned back to me and cast a spell. All at once, it felt like her magic was all around me. I couldn't tell exactly what she was casting, but it didn't seem to be dangerous. Hell, now that I was a bit more alert, I could tell that there was no malice behind it either. "I know the last several days have been hard for you, but I need some honest answers from you," she explained. "This is just a privacy spell so that we don't wake up Spike."

That put me a bit on guard. I didn't want to think about those days... especially the day I succumbed to Hunger's influence. I hated myself for giving into that lust for carnage, and I wanted to minimise how much I thought about it. "W-what do you want to know?" I asked as my ears angled backwards. I didn't pull away, but I could see the hurt reflected on her face.

Her violet eyes met mine as she held my gaze. "Can you explain to me why I received a bill from the Mareiott hotel in Manhattan for, and I quote 'Clean-up costs resultant of Anonymous Rule #4 self-defence exemption', and 'Emotional damages inflicted upon members of staff'?" she asked, a tired look in her eyes. "I understand that day was hard and that there was a lot of bloodshed, but exactly what did you do to traumatise the hotel staff?"

I broke off eye contact as my ears drooped down. "I, uh... One of the 'ponies' that delivered Raging Storm's demand letter was one of the monsters he let have their way with Emerald," I explained, a hint of fear slipping into my voice. "I'd made a spell that would surely demoralize anypony who witnessed what it could do to a living being as part of the kit I put together to save Starlight and Trixie... When he revealed what he'd done, I—well... I broke, especially after he inferred I 'play with him' before taking me back to that bastard."

By this point, I had begun to tremble. "The spell I used decimated the beast's neck and lower jaw, painting the hallway with gore and sending the top half of his head down the hall," I croaked, tears now welling up in my eyes. "I'd gone full manic psychopath, and cheerfully informed the front desk about the carcass and where the bill should be sent."

Twilight seemed to be more disappointed than angry. There was no blaming her for that; it was abhorrent, excuses or no. "Could you recreate the spell that you used?" She instructed, conjuring up a pencil and a clipboard with paper. That was not the reaction that I'd expected. Then again, she may be reserving judgement until after she sees the depths to which I've plumbed.

I was tempted to just conjure it up on my shell, but the worried look on her face told me not to fuck around. She had a reason she wanted it on paper, and it probably had to do with a magic blacklist. I didn't argue, but instead, over the next several minutes, I drew out the entire spell diagram, complete with annotations and explanations. The next page was relegated to hosting non-gory visual aides.

When I finally finished and passed the clipboard back to her,she stared down at it for a while, she was just silent. That aura of disappointment eventually gave way to horror, and then sorrow as she sent it away somewhere. "Anon, I..." She put her wing back over me and pulled me forward enough that she could get her foreleg around me. I was then pulled into an upright hug, complete with her head resting atop mine. "I had hoped that your escalating creation of combat spells was just a passing response to the events in Sunset's world—that you would eventually see there wasn't a need for you to be so paranoid and preparing for the worst.

"I wanted for you to recognise that it was okay to just be a foal and let adults take care of these sorts of things." Almost all of the horror and disappointment was gone now, replaced by a bitter-tinged sadness. "Instead, events seemed to conspire to force you to continue to escalate, creating more and more dangerous spells as you yourself began to crack..."

"Aunt Twilight, I—"

She silenced me by nuzzling the top of my head and focusing on her positive feelings for me. "I've seen Blueblood's report on the spell you saved the train with, along with Starlight's recreation of the array," she whispered. "You're so talented, Anon; not only are you talented enough to almost perfectly recreate a top-level blacklisted spell from scratch, but you were able to cast it."

She released me from the hug, but continue to hold me out just far enough for me to be able to look up and meet her gaze. "I hate that your talents are being wasted creating weapons of war and destruction," Twilight tearfully said. "You once mentioned a pony in your old world... <<Oppenheimer>>, whose research into <<atomic>> energy resulted in his greatest legacy being a weapon capable of killing hundreds of thousands in the blink of an eye. I don't want that to be your legacy as well, Anon."

Whatever I was gonna say died in my throat at that. In my first week in Ponyville, when I still wasn't sure if I could trust Twilight and Starlight, I was concerned that I could be being groomed to be Equestria's Oppenheimer. Even when I was in what Twilight proclaimed Sunset's world, I had to remind myself that I shouldn't become exactly that—that anything I made should be strictly for self defence. Even stretching the definition to include ensuring the safety of my loved ones, there came a point where what I'd made crossed from defence to offence.

She's right, I realized with mounting horror. Ever since my visit to the other world, after getting jumped by Lightning Dust, I'd entered into what was effectively arms race against myself. I'd pigheadedly decided that if I was ever going to get into another fight, I would never let myself be hurt again again. My frustrations had only inspired me to find creative new ways to nearly burn my magic out with. By the time I'd recovered from the rail-gun incident, hadn't Starlight said that my reservoir had grown to be on par with the average adult unicorn?

The cost was pretty high... Not only had I allowed myself to slip into a mindset that let Hunger get its hooks into me, I'd committed acts that were, while arguably justifiable, ultimately atrocities. While I was more than happy to stray from Harmony's influence, I'd also begun straying from the guiding tenets that Twilight had been trying to teach me—I'd all but turned away from everything Twilight and her friends represented.

I'd perverted my kindness into a wicked blade of cruelty, violently killing all of Emerald Flicker's abusers to ensure they would never hurt anypony again. There was no laughter or untainted joy to be wrought from my actions; even just in defending myself, I'd put the fear of me into ponies who cared for my friends. Without even realising it, I'd determined lying and manipulating ponies—even if it was mostly just enemies—to be effective tools. I'd greedily seized on whatever options I could to separate me from Emerald and give her a better life... I'd been disloyal to everything Twilight had taught me.

"I... I don't want that to be my legacy either, Aunt Twilight," I croaked. Why do I suddenly feel so cold? "I want to be... Even if I'm not really a pony anymore, I want to be a pony Emerald can look up to... That you all can be proud of..." Who put all this water in my eyes? I sniffled and looked away from her. "I don't want to be a bad pony..."

~ 46 ~

It took a while for me to calm down. I'm not ashamed to admit that I cried—ugly crying, at that. The sun was in the process of rising by the time she got me to calm down. What finally got me cooled off was a discussion of how we were going to redirect my magical education. It was clear to Twilight now that, in the mental state I was in, any self-directed study and innovation would likely only end in the creation of yet more dangerous spells.

Instead, if I was to learn by doing, I would need to have a guideline other than simply telling me what not to create. Instead, she was going to assign me projects, and I would have twenty-three days from the date the project was assigned to tackle the objective or puzzle provided. On the twenty-fourth day, I would present my findings to Twilight, and we would discuss them together. Although my assessment would not be based entirely on whether I created a working spell, if I could, it would certainly reflect better.

The process was mostly designed around the idea of redirecting my focus away from the destructive capabilities of magic. That said, she revealed that Sunset had shared what I'd said to her that time at the firing range, how I said would rather create my own spells from scratch rather than look things up and adapting them. Apparently, while my creative drive was admirable, that sort of thinking would inevitably stifle my progress. She wanted me to seek out other perspectives, and if necessary accept ideas from outside sources.

She wanted to wait until after I'd begun seeing the therapist in the Crystal Empire, and settled back in down in Ponyville before she gave me my first assignment. That said, I argued that I needed something productive to do here. Although I'd tried avoiding doing homework up until the Friendship Festival's original date, I'd still ultimately done it all and even had it mailed back to Cheerilee the day before the invasion. If Ponyville had at all been caught up, who knew when I'd next have homework from her. That meant it was the only busywork I could keep myself occupied when I wasn't keeping Emerald company when she arrived later today.

No sooner than Twilight agreed and provided my first topic—a telekinesis substitute, of all things—did a frazzled looking Natural Talent enter the room. "I apologise for the disturbance, Your Highness," the pink-maned maid apologised in an anxious voice. "I went to rouse Lady Anonymous and ready her for the morning meal, but she was not in her room and none of the guardsponies on shift have seen her." I slowly peered over Twilight's back at the distraught maid. "Have you perchance seen the Young Miss, or should I rai—"

The moment Talent's eyes met mine, probably gleaming eerily in the early-morning light, her jaw dropped. "Sorry about that, Talent," Twilight quickly interjected as she dismissed the privacy bubble. "It completely escaped my mind to leave a note before I brought her to my room. Between her request to not be alone, and everything that happened at and after dinner, it barely even registered."

Smoothing out her mane with her magic, the maid returned her attention to Twilight for a moment. "Shall I take her off your hooves while you and Sir Spike prepare for breakfast?" She looked back to me. "Or are you still uncomfortable without either being nearby?"

That was something I needed to consider. Twilight and Spike couldn't stay by my side 24/7, and even when Emerald and Starlight arrived, I'd still have times where I'd be separated... Yesterday, I'd dismissed the idea almost immediately that I'd feel safe with just one of the maids, and then just hours later, Refined Skill had come to my defence and tossed that Apocrita bug out of my room. The twin mares were probably the first ponies to really get to know me... my first teachers... Friends, even.

I gave my forelimb a sniff, and I caught the slight tinge of perspiration close to the thinner chitin near the joint. Evidently, I'd worked myself quite a bit last night. "I trust you and your sister both to keep me safe," I answered, carefully hopping over Twilight. It was a stupid gesture... she probably smelled like me now if I'd spent the night snuggled up against her. Safety is more than just the physical aspect... "Any idea where my glasses went?"

She nodded as I hopped quietly down onto the marble floor. "They're back in your room." When I joined her at her side, Talent turned, and I followed close beside her. I was definitely feeling a smidgen more confident than I was yesterday, even walking around with my bugness on display. When we reached the door to my assigned chambers, she asked, "Shall we fetch your glasses first so that you can resume your usual appearance? Or would you prefer to bathe first?"

"Definitely bathing," I replied, flicking my tail, watching an armoured pegasus take over for one of the bat-winged nighttime guards. "I was practising flying last night, but I guess I wore myself out, because I never got to get cleaned up."

At that, she led me through the labyrinthine halls of the castle. At this time of morning, it was surprisingly lively. Usually, I was left to rest until around eight, and usually things had calmed down a little bit, by that time. Instead, there were members of castle staff changing out flowers and water in the decorative vases, maids dusting places that dust may have settled overnight, and it even appeared that there were some butler types delivering breakfast to those not invited to the princesses' dining room.

Surprisingly, the baths were neither in use by anyone else, nor were they closed for cleaning. That said, as soon as we entered, I could still pick up the overpowering presence of Thorax's pheromones caught up in the steam. Even as I strolled right up to one of the shower nooks, I waved a hoof in front of my face and commented, "Someone on staff really needs to ask the changelings what cleaning products remove our pheromones." I glanced over my shoulder to her while I waited for the shower to heat up. "If something's not done soon, some visiting bug is gonna think anyone that has bathed here belongs to Thorax."

I managed to somehow not give voice to the dislike to the 'reformed' changelings that Désirée apparently tried to impart on me. That said, as I stepped under the steaming hot stream, a small part of my mind screamed that I should replace his scent with my own. Since this castle is my sometimes home, why shouldn't I mark all who come here as mine? Why let the traitor lay claim?

"I shall bring the matter up at the next castle staff meeting," she commented. Now free of her uniform, she joined me at the nook and began levitating the shower-head around to get spots that I could not easily reach. A few bottles of mane and coat shampoos levitated over. "Do you have any preferred scent for today?"

I quickly transformed into my original earth pony appearance and shut my eyes. No point in shampooing in my bug form if I was gonna transform anyway. "Lavender, please."

~ 46 ~

Not long after my cleansing, I went to soak in the large heated baths. There was yet time before breakfast, so I decided to relax a bit. It totally didn't have anything to do with leaving my bug smells in the water out of spite. Nope. In the meantime, I'd sent Natural Talent off to find out when Starlight's transport was scheduled to arrive, and to then return with my glasses. Why send her off when I didn't feel comfortable being alone? Well, I didn't exactly expect I'd get jumped in the bath.

When it sounded like somepony had come into the room, I hopped out of the bath, expecting the maid to have returned. Their emotional presence was pretty muted, so I didn't really expect it to be anyone else. Instead, when I made my way out of the lingering steam cloud, I was met not with the stoic expression of Talent, but a squawk of surprise followed by a flood of anger and revulsion from none other than Rainbow Dash.

I nearly fell of my face as I scrambled to back away from her. After all, there was a reason there were signs that proclaimed 'No Running' at public pools. Wet floors were no joke. "Ah... Um, good morning, Rainbow Dash."

Even without my glasses on, or squinting my eyes, I could see her narrow her eyes. "Anon," she said in a terse voice. "Applejack and Rarity seem to have bought that Hunger monster's admission of using you, so maybe you are a victim in all this." She sounded angry at having to admit it. "But I've seen and heard what you've done. You're a killer, and a changeling now, too!"

I nodded, trying to ignore the tightness in my throat. "And?"

As expected of the world's fastest living pegasus, she was snout to snout with me in the blink of an eye. "It means you can't be trusted!" she snarled, poking me hard in the chest with the tip of her hoof. "They all might be coming around, but all of my senses are screaming that the girls—the Cutie Mark Crusaders especially—need to be protected from you. Everypony knows you're cracking, and you've done some monstrous things."

A startling feeling of cold calm washed over me right then. I recognised it immediately, as it was the same sort of calm I had felt when I'd found out from Emerald that Starlight had been taken by Raging Storm. Except, that wasn't the only thing about that calm I recognised... It evoked the vision of myself up a clock tower, rope around my neck. That scared me more than Rainbow did.

With barely a thought, I transmuted an earth conjuration spell onto the bottom of my hoof. I fed mana through it, as I held it up, and a nasty looking obsidian knife manifested atop my hoof. Rainbow Dash was so shocked, that she didn't even resist when I grabbed her still extended hoof. She looked down in horror as I placed the blade—easily as long as my foreleg—atop her hoof.

I could feel her fear as I clasped gripped her hoof with mine and guided the tip of the blade to my throat. "Maybe you're right," I said in a lifeless voice. "I am dangerous, and I am cracking, Dash. Maybe you'll even be doing the world a favour." I met her eyes and gave her a sad smile. "If this is what you think needs to be done to protect everypony from me, then so be it."

My gaze hardened, and my grip on both the blade and her hoof grew tighter. I could feel the tip of it on the verge of piercing my skin. "Just remember that it'll be up to you to explain to everypony—especially my sisters and the girls—why I needed to die." Rainbow Dash's anger had all but vanished, replaced entirely by a curtain of terror. "And remember, killing me won't change the number of killers in the room—only the number of people alive."

For what felt like hours, we stood there. Her eyes told me clearly that she wished to be anywhere but right there with me. Meanwhile I stared her unblinkingly in the eye, daring her to just get it over with. "It's what you want, isn't it?" I goaded, unintentionally slipping into her voice. "You wanna protect everypony from the deranged little changeling who only ever killed to protect others, or herself... How loyal and honourable..."

Just as the smell of piss hit my nostrils, I heard a voice that had quickly grown to be familiar shout. "What in the world is going on here?" There was also the sound of a magic discharge, and I felt the obsidian blade disintegrate between our hooves. An instant later, a pair of ponies in golden armour rushed over and separated the two of us. Well, one grabbed me, and the other tackled Dash. "Is this really what a national hero does?"

As I looked from Rainbow Dash to the guards and then to Tempest Shadow, whose horn was still sparking, my mind snapped out of whatever deadly calm had overtaken me. What the fuck was I thinking!? If I made her kill me... I'd be leaving Emerald behind... after I promised her... My haemolymph went cold when I realised that I'd just tried to get myself killed. Even while the guard started dragging me away from Dash, I went limp as I tried to keep myself from having a panic attack.

It seemed like Dash was in shock too, but that didn't stop Tempest from looming over her. "Do you seriously believe that filly is a danger to anypony right now?" she demanded, gesturing at me with her hoof. "Look at her! I've seen the aftermath of what she did to an airship, and the discussion I've had with Princess Twilight just now has painted a frankly terrifying picture of what her magic is capable of. If she wanted to, she could probably have decimated my forces by her self before she could be contained.

"Instead, when I threatened that city if she surrender herself to my forces, this selfless little fool turned herself in without a fight," Tempest explained, casting me an angry glance. "Even when the crew of the ship she turned herself in to reported she was being tailed by the Royal Guard who wished to intercept her... Ponies clearly didn't want her to go, but she did it anyway." Once the guard was sure Dash wasn't about to try anything, Tempest helped her back to her hooves. "Anonymous is no saint, but she doesn't deserve to be treated like a villain. If she's a threat to anypony right now, it is herself."

She didn't address me at all, even though she probably had all sorts of things she wanted to hurl at me. I could feel the pity, sorrow, and revulsion roiling off of her. Instead, she turned to the door just as Natural Talent returned. "You may wish to take Anonymous to a castle physician before she is fed," the battle-hardened unicorn instructed in a strained voice. "I'm not a doctor, but I've seen my share of soldiers with battle fatigue who were holding themselves together better than she is, and if she's not put on some sort of mood stabilizer soon, she might very well succeed the next time."

Only one of the guards followed behind Tempest as she started to exit the baths. The other was still holding me, tightly against her breastplate. I think she was in shock too, because it didn't seem to register that the pony she was supposed to be escorting or keeping an eye on had just left. I had to wonder just how much Tempest and her escort had actually heard.

Looking from my limp form to the guardsmare, and then Rainbow Dash, Natural Talent let out a sigh. For just a moment, I thought I saw her stoic facade crack. "What exactly did Anon attempt, Rainbow Dash?" she demanded in an angry tone. She was probably wondering what had happened that required me to be restrained. "Tell me!"

Entry 47

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I was situated in the corner of my assigned room, facing the corner. There was no cushion beneath me, but there didn't need to be; my purpose for being in that spot wasn't for comfort. I was just sitting there in my bug form, quietly staring at the wall. All pretence of appearing to be a normal pony was cast aside. Anything is better than thinking.

Don't get me wrong... I wasn't being punished—even if I thought I deserved it—for what had happened earlier. Oh, Natural Talent was absolutely livid. Twilight was understandably upset with me, especially after I skipped breakfast to just stare at the wall. I'm pretty certain Rainbow Dash—and maybe that guard that had been escorting Tempest—might be traumatised, too.

When it became clear that I was not going to eat anything, Aunt Twilight had one of the hospital's physician come by to take a look at me. "Without talking to her, I couldn't say for sure what is wrong with her," the unicorn stallion was saying to my guardian. "I'm also hesitant to assign any sort of medication to her without the input of Dr. Apocrita or another changeling physician. Their physiology is unlike our own, and pony medication may not have the intended effect."

At the mention of Apocrita, I felt my wings twitch. That mare was strange. Maybe it was just old age, or perhaps she was responding to my pheromones... Either way, the historian and physician made me uneasy due to the almost zealous energy she had towards me. I could almost even accept that she was simply biologically programmed to as part of a former caste.

"Until I'm certain that mare understands that Anon is a traumatised little filly, and that she can't just invade her space like that," Twilight responded, "I don't want Apocrita anywhere near her." There was an angry huff from the alicorn. "She told somepony, a child no less, that just had a close brush with death that somepony was planning on killing them! Can you imagine?"

The doctor, either having read the room or knowing better than to answer such a question, refrained from answering. "The only thing I can be sure of is that Anonymous Flicker is likely suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder," he said in a soft voice. "Though based on the vague rundown of your time with her, she's likely been coping with a mood disorder for a long time, and recent events have very likely overwhelmed the effectiveness of her usual coping mechanisms."

I knew why she was conversing with him in my room where I could hear them, instead of out in the hall. She was hoping to get me to engage, even if it was just an indignant, "Do you mind not talking about me like I'm not right here?" That had to be it. It was the only thing that made sense to me.

The joke was on her, however. I wasn't gonna get baited into wading into a minefield of conversations that might set me off. It was me that almost died this time, but the next time, somepony else might not be so lucky. Until I calmed down enough to trust myself, I was gonna stay right here and protect everypony from myself.

Eventually, their little meeting concluded with the doctor stating that he would compile a list of the most common mood stabilisers in Equestrian medicine, and take them to the changelings and see if any were compatible. I think because of how quiet and still I was, he did forget I was in the room, because he voiced his doubts to Auntie Twilight that any would be compatible. To be fair, he was probably right. Our brains weren't wired the same. Just being able to deal with reading complex pheromone markers and all the emotions radiating off of ponies was evidence of that.

That left just me and Twilight alone in the room. Truth be told, I don't blame her for not telling Spike what was happening, and asking him to go spend time with Rarity and the girls. Starlight Glimmer and Emerald Flicker wouldn't arrive in Canterlot until just before dinner, and if I had to guess, Pinkie Pie would probably rope Rarity, Fluttershy, Applejack, and Spike into helping set up a party for them ahead of the festival that would resume tomorrow.

From what I heard when Natural Talent brought an update for Twilight earlier, Rainbow Dash was in shock from what I'd done—from what I almost made her do. I couldn't blame her for that; I was still in shock that she set me off like that. It was clear from the way she froze that she'd never been in a situation where she had to confront death like that, never mind the possibility of taking a life. She never had to rely on any sort of hunting to subsist, and if she was one of the pegasi that enjoyed fish, fish were a far cry from people.

If I'm being honest, I also probably would have frozen up if I'd been in a right mind. I might still have killed Emerald's abusers—I'd accepted that as a fact for which I held no regret—but the seven in the room that Raging Storm's goon had called the 'studio' might've gotten away with just 'minor injuries... I don't think I could have brought myself to brutally eviscerate those ponies if not for her influence.

Part of me still wanted to be angry with Rainbow Dash over honestly believing I'd ever be a threat to the girls. After that display earlier, I couldn't bring myself to stay mad at her. This incident had shaken me because deep down I was afraid that she was right. I'm not well, and whatever is going on with my brain has my mood changing like a metronome. Worst was there was probably something in that scrambled bit of knowledge that'd been stuffed into my head that could explain all of this, but I'd still not had the proper time to go through all of it.

A knock at the door interrupted my internal musings. Although I didn't turn to look as Twilight went to answer it, my ears tracked Twilight as she made her way to the door. There was only one presence I could really feel, that being Princess Cadance, but I could smell Thorax's pheromones—and traces of that nutjob's, but that might've just been contact tracing—wafting in under the door. Once she cracked open the door, Auntie gasped. "Cadance, Thorax! Is there something wrong?"

I couldn't exactly see their faces, but I imagined they'd just shared a look before I felt their gazes shift to me in my corner. Cadance quietly said, "Can we talk outside for a moment?"

Twilight followed them out, and although I didn't hear the door close behind them, I didn't hear any further voices, so that meant they were either talking about something classified... or me. Probably me. A small part of me wanted to run, but there was no point in doing so. She wouldn't let them do anything to me, and running would just delay the inevitable.

Eventually, I felt Twilight and Cadance enter the room, but the presence of the changeling's pheromones slowly diminished. Good... I don't think I'm ready to face him again. They weren't speaking yet, however. They were just lingering, watching me. I could tell, and I could already feel Cadance's confusion and surprise seeing me like this.

At the realisation that I'd already encountered a situation like this before, I let out a sigh. "Before you ask, this is my doing." I commented with a sad laugh. "Like Twilight said when we first met, corners make me feel safe. All those foal-abuse red-flags you mentioned..." I'm actually kinda surprised I remember all that. I only surprised myself more when it was Fluttershy's soft-spoken voice instead of my own to come out. "I needed to feel safe so that I could calm down... before I hurt somepony, or myself."

Twilight might've gotten a bit used to my uncontrolled bouts of mimicry, but her fellow princess seemed caught unawares when I turned to her. Now that I knew what I was looking for, I could actually feel the transformation magic as my eyes reverted to their normal green with slit-pupils. Unfortunately it also meant that I was aware of the momentary shudder of fear rippling through Cadance's aura.

Once she tamped down on her own fear, she drew closer. Instead, she was radiating a strong sense of love... and I actually found my brain offering a word to describe the flavour. Storge? Familial love... She, like Twilight, cares as if I were her own. "Anon, sweetie, do you know why I'm here?" she probed, stopping a respectable length away from me.

Food... eat... feast... The presence of such a strong pillar of emotion that my triggered my changeling neurons was getting really strong. "You heard that I nearly killed myself," I whispered just loud enough for her to hear while averting my gaze, "and traumatised at least two ponies in the process."

A pony didn't need to be able to see in order to tell that she winced. "That... is part of it," she admitted. "I understand you probably don't have a high opinion of Apocrita, but she seems to be quite concerned for your well-being."

I blinked and looked up at her. She barely even knows me... Why in the world is that bug so fixated?

"I was woken up by a very frantic changeling pounding on my door screeching that you were unwell and in danger." There was a spooked look in her eyes, so I could only imagine what I hadn't witnessed. "I don't understand much about changeling biology, but she said when she entered the baths, all she could smell was distress pheromones... and that she could tell from the pheromones that your health is degrading quickly..."

Twilight, who had been watching closely from further back, finally joined in. "Thorax explained that although you were relatively healthy when they checked on you when you were unconscious, it was clear to him that you haven't actively fed," she commented with a look on her face that told me that I wouldn't like where this was going. "Truth be told, we were going to feed you more love last night until... well."

Finally, a third voice chimed in, and a chill ran down my spine. "You're a changeling, my little queenie-pie, you need to feed. You can subsist off mere rations and passive feeding when you're fully grown, but you need far more than one glass of pure love." Everypony in the room winced and looked around for the source of the voice. "I'm overlooking your outburst because you are starving right now, but I will not allow my investment go to waste. The Princess of Food offers a grand feast."

When no further input came from Désirée, Cadance continued. "Thorax assures me that your mood should stabilise if you feed," she said in a reassuring voice. "I know you might be scared to feed on a pony, or that you might lose control, but he assures me that you physically couldn't feed on me enough to cause any lasting harm." To my surprise, she smirked a bit. "You might if you were fully grown, but you're just a filly—or nymph, as he phrased it—and I have a lot of love to give."

My brain short-circuited. She's letting me feed on her? I had to be mistaken—mishearing or something—because I'd been told of her history with Chrysalis... She'd probably even been fed upon by her when she'd been held captive. So why was she smiling at me?

Casting a glance at Auntie Twilight, I murmured, "I know in theory how to do this... but I don't know how to control it..."

Twilight gave me a reassuring smile, taking up a position on the floor beside Cadance with just enough space for a foal, or a hungry changeling, to sit between them. "This is as close to a controlled environment as we can get, Anon," she reassured, beckoning me over with a tilt of her head. "If it seems like you're causing harm, I promise to intervene."

I wanted to voice a protest... that this was stupid and I that didn't want to risk losing control. Why not just use the spell you said could concentrate love into a glass? My stomach growled in hungry rage at that thought, and soon after, I realised that I had begun to salivate. My bug neurons were screaming something about food, and I found myself slowly crawling towards her, my belly flat on the floor. No... I think there might be some neurological aspect to feeding directly on a pony that simply consuming stored love doesn't account for.

Soon, I found myself almost snout to snout with Cadance, although I managed to stop before I ended up drooling on her. Maybe it was the hunger and desire to feed, but I could practically see the emotional aura about her. I don't think it was actual sight, but rather something to do with changeling magic; her emotions were a massive tie-dye swirl of pink, with twists of red, blue, and yellow. The most prevalent colour in the swirl, pink, was the love that she was freely offering up to me. Yellow was anxiety or fear; it made sense that she'd be a bit anxious. The blue was some form of sadness directed at me—pity, but not of the condescending kind. The red, however, was anger at something other than me. Probably the situation I'm in, or maybe Hunger.

Since she would feel noticeably drained of whichever emotions I fed on, I considered snapping up all the fear, sadness, and anger first. Then again, fear and anger were strong intoxicants for changelings—for my kind—and toxic in large quantities. Sorrows were also intoxicating, but given that they also acted as a depressant, it'd probably make my young body sleepy before I could get drunk... especially in the small quantity. A nap might help my brain-chemistry unfuck itself if feeding really could mellow me out.

Opening my mouth, I focused on the colours of her aura and, with a little reflexive nudge of magic, gave a tug. It might've been a bit rough, since Cadance gave off a startled yelp before visible emotion started to surge off of her and into my waiting maw. Interestingly, as the blue vanished from her aura, drained away into my hungry buggy maw, a happy green appeared out of nowhere... but I wasn't focused on that.

No, I was focused almost entirely on the fulfilling sensation as I feasted on her love. I was right; it did feel a lot better eating directly from the source. I couldn't explain why or how, but the love felt so much more filling this way... although it might have just been how much more love she had to give. My wings began to buzz with my contentment as I thirsted for more. I could get used to this...

I could feel a bit of drowsiness beginning to overtake me as my belly began to fill. When they both began radiating surprise and amusement, I turned my head just enough to see my belly growing distended. There was a pink glow pulsing within, which indicated that I should probably wrap this up.

I didn't want to stop though... my buggy instincts were quite content and telling me to feed more. Then again, if I gorged too much, that'd make me less of a hunger fae and more of a gluttony fae. A dopey smile twisted my face at the thought of how pissed Hunger would get if I cheated on her and Harmony and birthed a second embodied concept.

"Anon, I think you should stop," Twilight said. When I snapped my attention back to Cadance, I saw that her emotional aura was nowhere near as vivid as it had been. Anaemic might've been a good word to describe it. In fact, she was starting to look like she'd just run a heavy sprint. There was still plenty of love left in her, but I had to be reminded that draining her was never the goal.

"Oops..." I murmured in a sleepy voice as I managed to stop myself from feeding further. I was already feeling a bit better having fed, but I was feeling a bit guilty about just how much I'd drained her. My ears folded back, I crept up to her side. "Um, are you alright, Aunt Cadance?"

It took her a minute to catch her breath. While she did so, they both watched me. They both seemed surprised that I'd just called her that, and come to think of it, I sorta was too... But surprise wasn't all that important. Now that I was full almost to bursting with love, and with some of her sadness acting as a soporific, I was quite the sleepy little nymph... and my brain was telling me exactly who would be the warmest to nap on.

"Yeah, but I think Thorax underestimated how much you could take from me," she finally said. She tensed up as she felt my hooves on her withers. "Um, Anon? What are you doing?"

I just climbed up atop her, placing my back hooves behind her wings. When I nuzzled into the back of her neck and put a firm grip on her, I just smirked. "Revenge for the time Flurry did this to me."

~ 47 ~

I definitely slept for a few hours, but either I was deep enough for me to skip the room and not even realise I'd slipped into my safe void, or not deep enough to even hit the room. It was definitely a relaxing nap, even though I could tell that I had been inconvenient to the Princess of ~~Food~~ Love. How do I know that, one might ask? I could tell that I'd been inconvenient because when I came to, we were not in my room. In fact, she and Twilight were in the middle of some sort of meeting.

"We'd be happy to host you and your entourage while you attend the Friendship Festival, Queen Novo," Cadance was saying as I tiredly tried to roll over on a cushion that wasn't there, and promptly fell off her back. To her credit, she didn't even skip a beat when I hit the couch cushions between her and Auntie Twilight. "Princess Celestia regrets she was not able to greet you personally, but she is currently meeting with Prince Blueblood and one of Twilight's friends regarding happenings in Manehattan during the invasion."

Without missing a beat, Twilight quickly added, "You and your hippogriffs will be assigned quarters next to the ones we've assigned Princess Skystar. The chefs have already been alerted to hippogriff dietary requirements, and you should find everything palatable."

I was dazedly looking around when I locked eyes with the person they were talking to. Although built like an alicorn, the creature I was looking at possessed more hawkish features, including a beak, feathered ears, and clawed front legs. This hippogriff, Queen Novo, was a pale greyish fuchsia, with narrow magenta eyes, and a feathery-looking fuchsia and mulberry mane. "Speaking of wayward daughters," she said with an amused expression, "it would appear yours has awoken."

I blinked owlishly at her, before looking around again. This was the same room that I'd met with Blue that one time. How did she even get up on it without waking me? I turned my gaze to Cadance, and then Twilight, giving them a look of confusion. Before I could open my mouth and say anything that might've made things awkward, Princess Cadance gave Novo an apologetic smile. "Anon's actually not mine," she explained with a soft laugh. "She's Twilight's young ward. This war placed her into an unfortunate situation, and she came out of it a changeling." As if reading the hippogriff's mind, Cadance quickly added. "She fed on love from a pony for the first time this morning, and she overindulged just a bit... Apparently I looked more comfortable than Twilight, and once she was on, she wouldn't let go."

Novo looked a little less amused. Her eyes narrowed further as she regarded me, and I wondered what was going on in her head. There was some hostility, but also confusion. Perhaps her kind had a bad relationship with Chrysalis and her brood. Before she could say anything, I stood up in the space between Cadance and Twilight and stretched as a cat would. "It's an honour to make your acquaintance, Queen Novo of the Hippogriffs," I said, quickly morphing to my less intimidating earth pony form and then giving a short bow. I was actually impressed at how much more responsive my transformation magic felt.

"I'm Anonymous Flicker, rune mage in training and apprentice to Princess Twilight Sparkle, soon-to-be inducted to the Order of Harmony's Hooves—" Twilight and Cadance actually looked taken aback as I glanced at them. "—unless that's changed, trouble magnet, member of the queen caste of the last 'true' changelings... and Herald of Hunger, I suppose."

The two shared a look, but didn't initially say anything to contradict what I said. Despite having to squint, I caught Twilight mouthing 'Blueblood' to Cadance. Meanwhile, Novo's eyebrow seemed to rise as she watched me. "You are quite well-spoken and proper for one so young," Novo commented, turning her gaze back to the two adults. "I find myself at times wishing that my daughter were more like that, rather than seeking out troubles." I'm pretty sure I wasn't intended to hear the muttered, "And drag it to our door."

I kept a straight face as I looked up at Twilight. Do you wanna tell her or should I? To her credit, she only made a nervous chuckle before looking down at me. "I know you don't want to be alone right now, but Emerald is waiting for you with Spike and the others," she whispered to me. "Can you handle being escorted by a guard that Cadance and I both trust? We might be here until just before dinner starts, and then it's festival time."

My ears involuntarily perked, and I straightened up a bit when Twilight mentioned that Emerald was here. I considered my mental-state for a moment... I didn't feel like I was about to have a sudden mood shift or react violently to anything right about now. It was as though the act of feeding on somepony and gorging myself—my tummy was still swollen and still pulsing with pink light when I awoke—had managed to suppress all the negative emotions running through my head, though balanced might've been a better term.

In fact, I was actually beginning to feel closer to myself, and I actually felt playful. That wasn't something I think I'd properly felt since my trip to the mirror world. Oh, there was the almost feline glee in playing with my prey while I was under Hunger's influence, but I couldn't draw enjoyment from that. I knew better than to think that this meant I didn't need mental help after all, though.

As long as nobody besides Emerald, Starlight, Twilight, Cadance, or Fluttershy touches me suddenly, I convinced myself, I'll be fine. Pinkie Pie was a wildcard, and although I reckoned I might be able to stop myself from doing to her what I did to those soldiers, I knew she might end up with brain trauma. Again.

I nodded slowly, glancing from her to Cadance, who lit up her horn and then called out, "Flash Sentry, could you come in here for a moment?"

I peered over the back of the couch as the door opened and an orange stallion in the familiar bronze plate of a Royal Guard entered. "Yes, Your Hignesses?" He immediately snapped to attention once he was inside the door. The moment his eyes locked on Twilight, I could feel attraction, but especially lust radiating off of him. "Is there something I can do for you?"

Cadance nodded and waved him over, but when she started giving him instructions, I turned back to Twilight. "Um... What about Rainbow Dash?" I whispered, still feeling guilty about my earlier stunt. "Where is she?"

"You don't have to worry about her," Twilight responded in a somewhat harsh tone, missing my intent. "She's still holed up in her room." Seemingly as an afterthought, she finished by saying, "Leave her be for now. Even if you wish to apologise, she still needs some time to get her head around what happened this morning."

It was a bit disappointing, but I understood. "I need to get a strap for my glasses so I stop misplacing them," I muttered. "Can you...?"

Without a word, she gave me a wan smile, lit her horn, and deposited my glasses on the end of my muzzle. This seemed to bewilder the hippogriff a great deal, judging by the confusion she was flooding the air with—along with a little indignation at being momentarily ignored. Even as I hopped down off of the sofa to join my escort, she recomposed herself and was asking why I needed glasses if I didn't when I was my buggy self. I giggled when Twilight called me a stubborn brat in a loving tone.

My pegasus escort led me out of the room without a word, though I caught him casting another glance at Auntie. I knew that name from somewhere, though. Flash Sentry... Flash Sentry... Oh yeah! That was the name of the dude I'd given a bloody nose while playing kickball in the other world. I also recalled hearing something about seemingly mutual attraction between her and that human.

Once we were a few turns away from that sitting room, I looked up at him and considered something... That bit of playful energy was acting up again, and ~~God~~ Hunger as my witness, I was going to have some fun. If anypony deserved a bit of fun, it was me, and since this guy fancied my Auntie Twilight...

Interestingly, he didn't have any visible rank insignia on his armour like the protection detail did."Say, Insert-Rank-Here Sentry," I commented in a pitch-shifted version of Twilight's voice. Before he could snap his head down to look at me, I ran a quick transformation. It was pretty simple to throw together, since I could clearly picture Twilight, and distort her appearance to foal proportions. "You like Auntie Twilight, right?"

He froze on the spot and gaped at me. The wide-eyed, slack-jawed expression was almost as entertaining as the mix of emotions that started radiating of of him... Confusion, attraction, fear were most prevalent, but he just couldn't help but feeling that lust. "I, uh..."

"Gosh, Mister Sentry, you must like her an awful lot," I said in a teasing, childish inflection. "You can't quite control your lust for her." The guy's expression became one of horror, and his fear, lust, and confusion began to swirl together, along with a sense of loathing. I wonder if this is the sort of emotion that leads to the 'Why boner'. I started to sashay past him, my tail flicking, but never quite enough to reveal anything. "Maybe it'd help if I went and drain—"

There was a shout of alarm in a very familiar voice at the far end of the hallway. "ANONYMOUS FLICKER, WHAT IN CELESTIA'S NAME ARE YOU DOING!?"

As the guard stallion beside me dropped to his belly on the floor and began to sob in shame, my head snapped around to look at who'd spoken. There, standing with Prince Blueblood, was a haggard looking Starlight Glimmer, glaring at me. She despite how tired she seemed, I could practically see the red of anger surrounding her like a cloud. She started stomping towards me, already breaking into a tirade. "I can't believe you!" she snarled with tears in her eyes. "You left us with hardly a word, after explicitly being told not to go..." I dropped my transformation, and my wings started to buzz with anticipation as she drew closer. "Then you went and got yourself captured, and then nearly murdered! I was worried sick about you, and yet here you are tormenting some poor guard stallion li—"

"STARLIGHT!" I squealed, no longer able to contain myself. Launching myself at her like a black, green, and dark blue bullet, I wrapped my forelimbs around her neck. If I'd still been an earth pony, I might've actually weighed enough to knock her off balance, but my distended, love-filled belly didn't have any actual mass to it. Sucking in a deep breath, I started talking in rapid-fire like Pinkie Pie, but thankfully not in her voice. "I missed you so much! I know you didn't want me to go but I had to. Tempest would've burned the city otherwise. I mean, yeah that's super bad, but she's actually a pretty nice pony with her own traumas once you get to know her. That Storm King guy was a real piece of shit though. He ordered these two goons to kill me and to be honest I was so scar—"

As Blueblood joined us, he said, "It's good to see you in better spirits, my friend," before reaching out to tousle my mane. Probably a good thing that I managed to reign in the instinct that told me to nip him. I wasn't sure if I actually possessed any sort of venom glands, although some changelings apparently were capable of paralytic envenomations, which works super good when the goal is to foalnap and pod ponies. "I was distraught when Luna shared with me the details of your ordeal."

Entry 48

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I was nestled comfortably on Starlight's back, listening as Blueblood regaled me with his exploits in the retaking of Canterlot. To be honest, I wasn't sure if he'd even gotten my message in time to contribute anything. Apparently, though, he personally led a strike team that met up with the other Elements of Harmony and the various new followers their party acquired throughout their own adventure. They didn't remain united for long, however; not long after they met, the Elements headed towards the palace, while Blue worked to free captured ponies in hit and fade attacks.

When he told me of the spell his mages used to mask their approach by train, I was fascinated, and already the magic-focused part of my brain started trying to puzzle out how they achieved it. How could a pair of unicorns in joint-casting render an entire locomotive full of soldiers completely invisible? Did they somehow manage to allow light to pass harmlessly through the train and its occupants? If not for the fact that Twilight had assigned me the task of having a crack at creating a spell that mimicked a unicorn's natural telekinetic use of magic, I would've been on that fascinating line of research like a fly on shit.

What surprised me most, however, was when he partially credited their success in the field to me. When asked how I was a help, he conjured up a familiar looking baked-clay medallion, and levitated it over. The medallion I took in my hooves was the version of my strength amplification spell that Starlight had helped me properly recreate. Not the safety-stripped Berserker revision I'd slaughtered several ponies with, but the one that could still give ponies a fighting chance against larger foes like the Storm King's hedgehogs.

I looked from the medallion to him in confusion, and then leaned to the side to try and get a better look at Starlight. Part of me wanted to be angry that the spell had officially been used by Equestria in a military operation when I never wanted to become a supplier, but I understood the need. "Be honest, do Ah have ta worry about that spell floatin' around and bein' used to cause more hurtin'?" I involuntarily asked in Applejack's voice. "Just how many o' those were made?"

"Sorry, Anon," Starlight answered in a soft voice. "I knew how much you like having Prince Blueblood around, and wanted to give his strike team an extra fighting chance. Only six were made, and I unfortunately ended up using the last of your clay."

"If it comforts you at all, the spell saved countless lives and helped a member of my strike team survive what would have otherwise been a fatal blow," Blueblood interjected as he levitated the medallion back. "This is the last one remaining in existence. Two were destroyed during conflicts, and I personally saw to it that the other three were destroyed once the battle was over."

I nodded. "A jar of clay to help save a nation sounds like a fair trade." Even if the spell could be abused, I was at least happy that it had helped them. "I don't mind if you hold onto that one since you're my friend and I trust you, but I don't wanna find out it's been recreated for regular military use." That actually got a surprised sound of from Starlight, and I watched in amusement as she conjured up a five bit piece and levitated it over to Blueblood. "Don't expect me to start popping out any more spells with intentional combat applications, especially for the Royal Guard. I don't want dangerous spells to be my legacy."

Spreading my elytra, I lifted off from Starlight's back and landed in front of them. "Aunt Twilight and I both agree that until I'm in a better place mentally, my studies cannot be self-directed," I explained in a firm voice. "I want my legacy to be one of helping ponies, not hurting them... To that end, I'm forbidding myself from creating new spells that have intentional combat purposes. After I spend some time with Emerald. I want to spend whatever time I have between dinner and Twilight's festival in the library, getting started on my first project."

The rest of the trip out to the garden—the same one I'd been exercising in just the night before—was fairly demure. I hovered along at Starlight's side, just close enough that I could graze the floor with my hooves. I'd asked where Trixie was, only to be told that she'd chosen to go out to find if her cart was still where she'd left it. Given that she apparently lived out of it, that made sense. Apparently she'd already had to have her cart rebuilt once since getting involved with Twilight's life.

Just before we reached the garden, Blueblood stopped a few steps short of the door. "This is where we part ways, my friends," he said in a girm voice, turning away. When I landed beside Starlight, he didn't look back. His resolve was mustering around him in such a way that it was hard for me to pick up anything he was feeling. "There is somepony I must meet and have words with."

I often played the fool in the past, but I was anything but dumb. If there was someone he needed to talk to that evoked that tone of voice, it could only be the opposing commander in the Canterlot Invasion—Tempest Shadow. Even repentant and aiding in the cleanup efforts, Tempest was still complicit in a great number of crimes against Equestria. I didn't doubt in the slightest that Princesses Luna and Celestia had made their decisions regarding the mare's fate, but Blue was a prince and as such he was still entitled to interview Tempest, and suggest an amendment to her punishment.

Watching as he stalked off through the castle halls, I turned my gaze back to Starlight. "The Crusaders are in there too." It wasn't a question; I could feel three smaller presences out there in the garden with Emerald. Playing, I imagine. Other than that, I could tell Pinkie, Rarity, Applejack, Spike and Fluttershy were there. There was also a stranger there, flitting about in wonderment of everything around them. "Which form do you think I should take?" I asked her, not entirely sure of myself. "The Crusaders saw me disguised as an alicorn back when Tempest led me and Aunt Twilight through the city, but I don't know if anypo—anyone has told them I'm a bug now."

She was about to say something, but I continued. "For that matter, I think before I even go see Emerald and the girls, I need to talk to Applejack and Rarity first." Staring at the door, I felt my wings buzz with anxiety. "Before I even go near their sisters and Scootaloo, I need to clear the air with them. They're scared of me because they think I'm dangerous." A snort escaped my nose, and the next words out of my mouth were in the farmpony's voice. "Let's be honest; they're right... but just 'cause Ahm dangerous don't make me a threat ta them or their sisters..."

Due to my strange outburst, my big sister gave me a wary glance as I shook my head. It was clear that she was wondering the same thing I was; what was causing it? "I can ask them to come out and talk to you," Starlight responded in a measured tone, "but I'm staying with you. Princess Celestia informed us that there's been hostile attitudes towards you from Rainbow, Applejack and Rarity. I'm not gonna let anything happen."

With a grimace, I nodded. A bit late for that. I slowly watched her open the door to the garden and step out of sight. There was a momentary consideration towards transforming, but then a thought occurred to me. They're scared that I'm gonna hurt or drain their sisters. If they see me like this, filled almost to bursting, maybe they're more likely to recognise that I'm not likely to try to feed.

No expectation of trouble lingered in my mind. If they'd spoken to Rainbow at all since this morning's incident, they probably knew fully well exactly who I was the biggest threat to right now. Rainbow... I actually feel really bad about that, now that I'm more clearheaded. Sure, she was being a total bitch, but I think we've all been under a fuckload of stress lately. Even if, y'know, they did abandon Twilight.

The emotional presences of Applejack, Rarity, and Starlight started approaching, and immediately, I reached out to gauge their emotional auras. The farmer was angry, but not exactly at me; about me and the whole situation might be a better interpretation. Meanwhile, Rarity was just sad and anxious. No hostility was present in the mare.

As soon as the pair stepped through the door with Star and saw me, they froze. Their eyes looked from my face, to my distended, glowing belly. Rather than look relieved that they don't have to worry about me trying to feed on them or their sisters, I could feel the fear seeping into their emotional spectrum.

"Applejack, Rarity," I greeted with a quick dip of my head. "Before we start I want you to know how much Ah regret what happened with Rainbow this morning." Their eyes widened as AJ's twang started slipping into my voice, before I shook my head. "Sorry 'bout that, too. We don't know what's causing me to occasionally mimic you and the other Elements of Harmony." I flicked my ears, and sighed. "We've all been under a lot of stress as of late, but things have been especially bad for me."

Starlight flinched, snapping her attention to me. "Wait, what happened with Rainbow?"

Before I could answer, Rarity shook her head. "Later, darling," she said. "I think we should listen to what she has to say."

That drew surprise from not only Applejack and Starlight, but also me. It took me a moment to recover, but when I did, I gave her an appreciative nod. "I'm just speculating, but because I hadn't actively fed on anypony since my... rebirth, I think my brain was on the fast-track to deteriorating to the degree that Chrysalis' probably had," I explained. Even as I spoke, I recalled my encounter with the changeling queen... with how she'd become more lucid when I'd willingly allowed her to feed off of me. "I was starving, traumatised, and losing my grip on sanity. It's a wonder that I didn't melt down at dinner when she showed up. I'm doing better now, since Aunt Cadance fed me."

I stared down at the floor, considering my next words. Transformation magic was welling up inside my body, and I could actually sense it targeting my throat and eyes again, fully intent on causing another Applejack imitation—something I could easily have chosen to stop. I didn't, though. When I looked up at her and met her gaze with her own eyes, I said, "On mah life, Ah swear that, even in that state, Ah would never hurt y'all or the girls. Even if'n they was willin'—an that's the only way Ah'd even consider feedin' on somepony—Ah'd not feed on their emotions, 'cause they're too young." That magic flickered inside me again, and my next words came out in Rainbow Dash's voice. "I'd sooner give my own life than see them harmed or their innocence lost."

They were officially getting weirded out by this whole thing. Even Starlight was beginning to flood the hall with anxiety. Strangely, I wasn't feeling as distressed about the whole mimicking thing as I was before. Instead, I was trying to figure out where it came from. It was coming up most when I was expressing feelings closer in line with the personalities of the others... but why would that cause involuntary mimicking?

Applejack finally chose to speak up. "Ah believe ya when ya say all that, or at least ya believe it yerself, an' it does make me feel a mite better 'bout ya," she admitted, although her tone didn't really agree with that. She was all kinds of suspicious of me, and it was written all over her face. "That really don't change the fact that yer dangerous, Anon."

Rarity gaped at her friend. "Applejack, dear, you can't seriously believe she's still any sort of threat to the girls."

"Anon's only ever been violent to protect others or herself," Starlight agreed. "Remember how she stood up for your si—"

"No, girls, it's alright," I said in Fluttershy's voice. I think I might be starting to understand where it's coming from. Their primary attribute—their element—wasn't something that was all that plentiful in my personality. It didn't come as naturally as it could, and for some reason, my magic was reacting to something inside me, using their voices to supplement my own messages. "She's right, after all. I am dangerous."

They all gaped at me; even Applejack was surprised. "Ah'm right?" she asked in surprise.

I nodded, and glanced at the door beside them. "All things have the potential to be dangerous," I explained, "be it a cornered filly or a stick of dynamite. I'm dangerous, you're dangerous... Even the princesses are dangerous under the right circumstances. It's not that they are or can be dangerous that should matter, though."

I'm pretty sure Starlight had figured out where I was going with this, but wanted to hear what I had to say for myself. "And what should matter, Anon?" she asked with a thoughtful look. "If not the capacity to be dangerous, what should matter?"

With a flourish of transformative magic, I assumed my alicorn disguise—without the injuries, of course. "What should matter is to who or what a thing is actually a danger to," I said in my own voice. "Whoever or whatever threatens my family and friends, that is what I am a danger to. Starlight can attest to that." She paled a bit, but nodded in agreement. "I give you my word that I shall never bring the girls to harm."

To my surprise, they didn't interfere when I nosed the door back open and slid through. Instead, they followed me through, their eyes never leaving my back. The garden was much nicer out here in the daylight, what with many of the flowers now opened to the world. You don't get to see much from poppies, hibiscus, tulips, and crocuses during the night, after all.

It looked like the four fillies had been in the midst of a spirited game, passing a ball back and forth while they ran about under the watchful eye of a few royal guards. They hadn't noticed me initially, continuing trying to keep the ball in the air as they chatted with her. Emerald was struggling a bit to keep up with them, but wasn't complaining; if anything, she looked happy to get to run. To their credit, the other three clearly recognised that she was younger and were more than happy to keep their pace where she could manage.

I was content to just watch them for a few minutes. Emerald Flicker looked so at peace being at play, more like a normal filly than I probably ever had; it looked so natural to her. The Crusaders had definitely accepted her as one of their own. From the buzz of the conversation, it sounded like they were even trying to help her figure out where her special talent might lie.

You'd never know what that poor kid's gone through.

Eventually, when Scootaloo attempted to pass the ball to Sweetie Belle, she put a bit too much force into it, and the ball overshot the little unicorn... landing straight at my hooves. Without even thinking, I used the tip of my hoof to put it into a roll, quickly thrusting that hoof underneath, popping the ball up into the air and catching it on my head. It was only then that they all saw me and froze. "Hey, girls; been a while, hasn't it?"

Although the three Cutie Mark Crusaders stared at me, a mix of confusion, surprise, excitement, and a bit of fear, there was no such reaction from the little green earth pony filly. "Anon!" she cried, rushing over and all but throwing me into a crushing hug. To my part, I reared up on my back hooves, catching her hug and wrapping the feathery wings of my disguise around her as far as they could reach. The affection she was radiating as she nuzzled into my neck was intoxicating, but I knew better than to do anything other than passively bask in it. "I missed you so much!"

A soft chuckle escaped me and I patted her on the back. "I told you that you'd see me again, didn't I?" I asked, before mussing up her mane and then returning my hooves to the ground. Once she released me, I let the ball roll off my head, catching it in my hooves and holding it out to her. "I see you made some friends."

Just like that, the figurative spell holding back the Crusaders was broken. Slowly, the girls approached, eyeing me and Emerald with looks of amazement. They seemed to be comparing the two of us. I could feel their gazes going from my disguise's wings and horn, and the astonishment they were exuding. There was also building amazement

"Anon, is that really you?" asked Scootaloo.

"Was Emerald tellin' the truth when she said ya beat the Manehattan mob?" asked Apple Bloom at the same time. "Oh, an' didja meet mah cousin Babs?"

"Are you really an alicorn now?" Sweetie Belle waited for the other two to talk before asking her own question. "Does that mean you're a princess like Princess Twilight now?"

It's funny. Before the invasion, it felt like my biggest concerns were figuring out whether I could ever trust these three in the wake of my trip to the other world, and getting to the Crystal Empire to get some mental help. Seeing how easily the girls accepted the fact that there were now apparently two of the green filly that blundered into their lives made it hard to associate them with their human counterparts.

Even if you fillies did write a gossip column, I'm willing to give you all a chance, I decided, looking from one expectant face to the next. I just hope you all do the same for me.

Looking to Scootaloo and then Apple Bloom, I nodded. "Yes, yes, and yes," I answered with a forced smile; I still wasn't entirely proud of what I'd done, so the mention of the Blackwing Cartel dampened my spirits. Turning my attention to Sweetie Belle, I shrugged. "Kinda sorta, and not really but it's complicated."

While the first two looked super excited at hearing I busted the mob, they quickly fell into confusion at my last response. "How does that work?" Sweetie asked. "How can you kinda sorta be an alicorn?"

I chewed my lip. "Pinkie Promise you all won't freak out first," I said, ruffling the feathers on my wings. When I'd gotten the promises, I transformed into Apple Bloom's cousin, and gave a flip of my now straight, pink mane. Immediately, everyone but Emerald tensed, radiating a fair amount of fear. Credit to them, though; they're not actively freaking out. "Right... Blame Désirée... She's basically Discord and Harmony's sister. So... ta-dah, I'm a changelin' queen now." At that, I dropped the earth pony disguise completely, revealing my love-bloated buggy self.

Even as the girls cycled through several emotions, Emerald looked from my embarrassed smile to my love-bloated belly. "You got fat, Anon," she noted with a giggle. Maybe it was the fact that she wasn't scared in the least, they seemed to calm down. "How'd you get your belly to glow like that?"

When I snickered, I just transformed back into my normal earth pony Anon form. "I just overate at breakfast is all," I replied with a shrug. "Princess Cadance offered up her love, but since it was my first time feeding on a pony, I kinda overindulged. She says she's okay, but I still kinda feel bad."

Once they were sufficiently calmed, they started barraging me with questions. What was it like being a bug? Could I use my horn for magic now? Have I tried flying yet? How did I end up splitting into a pony and a changeling? Why did I disappear weeks ago? Did I think of a cool Nightmare Night costume? Oh shit, that's coming up real soon, isn't it?

Listening to how excited they all were to see me, and seeing how well they were treating Em, I came to a decision. I would give them all the benefit of the doubt. Even if they had been part of a rumour-mongering column in a kid's newspaper, they weren't the exact same as the three girls who had nearly destroyed Sunset Shimmer's life. They'd been nothing but good to me once they got to know me, and even finding out that I was now a fearsome changeling queen, they were accepting me. That deserved some honesty... I could trust them with knowing what I used to be.

Rather than the order I received the questions in, I decided to start from the bottom up. I explained to them that I'd somehow stumbled into Equestria and for all intents and purposes died, but Celestia, or maybe the Tree of Harmony acting through her, gave me a body. Although I told them that the body had belonged to Emerald, I didn't go into detail as to why she wasn't using it. Apparently, me being an alien in a foal's body was somehow not the most unusual thing they'd ever encountered, and they just... accepted it—even when they found out I used to be male.

Then I moved on to how I'd ended up with the ability to sense other's emotions after my encounter with Chrysalis. That segued into how I'd been sent on a mission by the Cutie Map to the mirror world... They seemed guilt-ridden when they found out what their counterparts had done, especially explaining how I'd gotten hurt, but I waved it off. They weren't their mirror world selves, and Gabby Gums was a far cry from Anon-a-Miss.

That brought me to my decision not to return to Ponyville until I could see a therapist in the Crystal Empire. Emerald's awakening, my deal with Hunger, and my encounter with the mob again remained quite abridged. I pointed out that I'd hurt a lot of people to protect Starlight and Trixie, but that was the furthest I went with them; they didn't need to hear how I'd eviscerated eighteen monsters.

Eventually, that brought us to the day they saw me as an alicorn, where I explained why I was being so placid, and how Tempest wasn't entirely a bad pony. They didn't buy that, but then again, they didn't really get to interact with her; they'd just been stuffed into a cage by those hedgehogs.

As for what it was like being a changeling, all I could really say was it was like being a pony who could transform and eat emotions... and that being around a lot of negative feelings at once was the worst. No, I couldn't use my horn yet—probably wouldn't be able to until it grew in some more. As for Nightmare Night, I said that I had an idea, but I'd need to test something first.

Maybe it was just their enthusiasm and general curiosity, but the realisation that I was a changeling meant that I could turn into a human again. I could turn into my previous self—albeit scaled down since I didn't exactly have enough mass to go fully adult human. Maybe myself at eight?

I tried to imagine what I looked like as a human, but the image wouldn't come. I could get the overall shape right, but the proportions were all wrong. The only things that would come to mind were the mirror world's humans. Hell, the only thing I could picture as me was the form of Emerald Flicker. My old face wouldn't come...

That bitch... she dumped an entire species' repository of knowledge into my head, but now I can't remember my own face?

"What's wrong, Anon?" Sweetie Belle finally asked. She'd probably seen the emotions playing out on my face and got concerned. "You look upset."

I just shook my head and sighed. There's no point in crying about it; it's just another thing to hate Hunger for. "I can't remember what I used to look like as a <<human>>." Instead, I focused on the template of human Emerald Flicker and started adjusting it. I scaled it down to what would be appropriate for a body of comparable age, made the skin a few shades lighter than my carapace, and matched the hair to Emerald's coat. Finally, I decided I had enough stored love to power the transformation—although I'd need to eat a lot of normal food later. Putting my glasses atop my head, out of the way, I grit my teeth. "Guess a mirror world version of myself is the best I can do."

As the flame of transformation magic raced up my body, I shifted my balance so that the change to bipedal stance went smoothly. I managed to come out just a few heads taller than the older fillies, but it was kinda chilly. "I was thinking about collecting candy in this form," I explained, giving a quick twirl. If the girls had been human, I might've felt a bit embarrassed, but we were all ponies—er, ponies and changeling—and they didn't see nudity in the same way humans did. "Although I might need to make an actual costume to go with it... These bodies don't do well with the cold."

~ 48 ~

A while after I caught up for lost time with the girls, I noticed Spike, who'd been conversing with Fluttershy and a young hippogriff, watching me. I presumed the hippogriff to be Queen Novo's daughter, and the source of the wonderment I'd been picking up from outside the garden. What caught my interest more was the fact that Spike had just belched up a scroll. I knew full well about his mail-delivery flames, so when he did so, I didn't freak out all that much.

What did freak me out was when he opened the freshly delivered letter—which contained another scroll rolled up inside—and then paled. He looked slightly spooked as he apologised to his conversational partners and rushed over, holding up the smaller scroll. "Anon!" he called out as he ran. "You're gonna wanna see this!"

I turned to the girls with a frown. "Sorry, I think my time for fun is at an end," I apologised, walking over to meet Spike. Since I was about as tall as Starlight in my human disguise, I towered over him. "What's up, Spike?"

He pressed the parchment into my hands. "It's a letter from Princess Celestia," was his response. "It's pretty urgent." There was an expectant look on his face, and his ear-spines were twitching something fierce, so I figured I better read it quick. Without further prompting, I broke the seal with one of my fingernails and unrolled the scroll.

Anonymous Flicker,

It pains us to do this so soon after all that you have been through, but we must request your presence in the throne room immediately. In an official capacity, the events of the last week, as well as their consequences, must be discussed. Princess Twilight Sparkle will be in attendance at this meeting as your guardian and advocate, but we ask that you come alone.

Present this letter to any guard and you will be escorted to the throne room.

~Princess Celestia

I blinked and sighed. So the other shoe drops. With a nod to Spike, I walked over to one of the guards watching over the garden and passed him the scroll. While he read over its contents, I reverted to my usual pony appearance and removed my glasses from the top of my head, returning them to their rightful place. Without a word, the stallion started leading me through the castle halls.

If not for the fact that feeding on Cadance had done a lot to stabilise my mood, I'd probably be panicking. It'd be so easy to just freak the fuck out over the possibility that Celestia decided I was a threat and that I was to be banished to Tartarus. Was it likely? Hardly. Auntie Twilight wouldn't let her, but I don't think she'd banish a foal to that accursed place. That seemed more like the sort of place you'd send the likes of Sombra, Tirek, or whatever the pony equivalent of Hitler was.

That said, I also wasn't expecting the Sun Horse to roll out a hero's welcome for me. There were things I had to answer for, and consequences to my actions. I had to face them eventually. Truth be told, I think I preferred the idea that we'd be getting it out of the way now rather than when I went to the Crystal Empire when I was planning on healing. If I got lucky, I might not end up locked up for any stretch of time.

"I don't know how ponies can just tolerate her presence," I heard one maid whispering to another as the two of us passed. "They should just lock her up and be done with it! It's what she deserves!"

Even if I wasn't as paranoid or self-hating as I had been while starving, that comment still cut deep. Yet as I felt the fur on the back of my neck begin to prickle with anger, the other maid spoke up and stopped that reaction in its tracks. "You know that's not how the princesses do things. The way I heard it, Princess Celestia already has a plan for how that traitor can redeem herself." Traitor... They're talking about Tempest, not me. "Apparently Princess Twilight herself advocated for leniency."

Although I caught something about a cushy job and Blueblood before we got out of earshot, I didn't hear enough to get a full context. Still, I don't know what Blueblood and a cushy job has to do with Tempest. Instead, I just kept my eyes ahead, my head down, and kept following the guard. It'll be all over soon.

When we finally got to the fuckmassive throne-room doors, I was let right in. There on her big cushy throne sat the white horse herself. At the foot of the dais, sat Auntie Twilight, as well as a grey and black unicorn mare that I'm pretty sure served as Celestia's personal assistant. What really caught me off guard was the fact that Princess Luna was present on a smaller throne beside Celestia's. If Cadance had also been present, it would've been a full-on princess conference call regarding my fate. No such luck, though. Even if she were here, she could only advocate on my behalf like Auntie Twilight.

The doors slammed shut behind me as I crossed their threshold, and the princesses all fixed me with unreadable expressions. The only pony not wearing a masque of professionalism was Twilight. She looked anxious, but hopeful, as her eyes flicked from me to the thrones. Maybe I'm not gonna get ripped a new one?

I followed the carpet leading up to the foot of the dais, and then slipped into the pony equivalent of a respectful bow—folding one foreleg beneath me while the other bent to bring me low. Since this was an official capacity, I knew that I should remain that way until told otherwise. It took what felt like a half-hour before she finally gave me permission to rise... Clearly she wanted me to sweat a bit first.

When I did, and met Celestia's gaze, she heaved a sigh. "Anonymous Flicker, before we begin, I want you to know that this is mostly a formality in response to pressure from external sources," she explained in a soft voice. "That said, I need to be sure; do you understand why you've been called here?" She's speaking to me like an adult... that's certainly a nice change of pace. None of the soft intonations or shit ponies usually do to dance around the point when talking to a foal.

"I do, Your Highness," I answered without breaking eye contact. "I'm to be put on trial—or something approaching one—for the actions I've taken over the last week or so." Rather than say anything, she gave a subtle nod of her head, as if to tell me to continue. Sucking in a deep breath, I girded myself before continuing—intending to mute my emotional reactions as much as possible. "Chiefly, I imagine this pertains to the actions taken under the influence of the entity now known as Désirée: vigilantism, vandalism, assaulting a police officer, the unauthorised use of combat magic by a civilian, eighteen killings pertaining to Raging Storm and the Blackwing Cartel, dark magic, desecration of pony remains, giving form to an Embodied Concept, and disobeying a lawful order from the defacto head-of-state."

Princess Celestia actually blinked owlishly at what I'd just outlined. It was Princess Luna that spoke up however. "We were made aware of most of the items you listed, but could you clarify three of them?" she asked, glancing from me to Twilight. "You listed vandalism, assaulting a police officer, and desecration of remains. This is the first we've heard of any of these."

Biting my lip, I turned to meet her gaze. "I encountered two police ponies while on my way to the Blackwing hideout. One was crooked, and the other was a goody four-shoes who got in the way. I hit them with a pressurised water jet and slammed them into a wall to remove them as obstacles." Twilight slowly covered her face with her hoof and started shaking her head. "Desecration and vandalism kinda go hoof-in-hoof, as I used a pony-turned-carcass as a battering ram through a brick wall." I paused for a moment, caught up in thought. "Oh, and the spell Hunger had me cast literally turned all of the bodies in and around the warehouse into fuel for the spell she cast to separate me from Emerald."

I'm kinda glad Cadance isn't here, was what I thought as Twilight, Celestia, and the secretary went somewhat green, even as their emotional auras filled with disgust. Hell... If not for the fact that I was focusing on keeping my emotions dulled, I might have been feeling a bit ill myself. Even if it wasn't the worst thing I'd done that day, it was probably one of the most vicious. Plus, it made me shiver remembering the way the guy's blood clung to me after.

The only pony that seemed unfazed by it all was Luna. Oh, she was quite good at hiding the disappointment radiating off of her, but there was sympathy there as well. Then again, she had personal experience with this sort of thing. I had to remind myself that I was not the only pony in the world to have had their will subverted, even if only subtly, by malign entities. I also kinda got the vibe from her that she might have been the 'Sword of Equestria' back before her fall from grace a thousand years ago.

Once everyone had taken time to compose themselves, Celestia sighed and regarded me with an odd look. "Those are indeed the reasons you have been summoned here." She didn't seem all that angry—maybe a little tired or frustrated, but it didn't seem directed at me. "We understand the extenuating circumstances that led into this series of events, and those will be taken into consideration when we deliver a judgement, but we are unfortunately unable to simply turn our gaze from all of this."

That made me a bit nervous. Everything about her tone of voice told me that she was going to throw the book at me, even if she didn't necessarily like it. Even Twilight looked a bit worried now. Then again, I wasn't exactly expecting a slap on the wrist for everything I did. All I can do now is pray for lenience.

Instead of continuing, Celestia looked towards Luna and nodded. "From watching your dreams, I know that you would not default to lethal force in your right state of mind," she said, taking the cue to start from the Sun Horse. I opened my mouth to voice an objection, but she gently held my muzzle shut with magic. "Based on the report from the guard that served as a spotter while you defended the train station plaza, you never took easy kill shots. Even then, a discussion with Starlight Glimmer revealed that you were disturbed that you had killed the crew of an entire airship in the defence of the train."

She paused, considering her words. "Because of this, I am led to believe that your deteriorated mental state and outside mental influences played heavily into the eighteen killings. At most, they could be classified as mareslaughter, but Defence of Another statutes also need to be considered." She regarded Twilight with an unreadable expression for a few moments. "If you were older, both physically and emotionally, and acting purely out of self-interest, you would likely face incarceration. As it stands, we have something different in mind. The minimum sentence is probation, and in order to keep you out of further trouble, you are to be assigned a bodyguard who shall also serve a similar role to a probation officer."

I blinked, unsure I was hearing her correctly. Am... am I basically getting away with murder?

"You never should have been put in that situation, and had the Manehattan Police Department been doing their jobs, you wouldn't have," she said with a disgusted growl. This was followed up with a stomp of her hoof that caused cracks to spiderweb across the stone dais. "Those criminals were brazen enough to ambush a Royal Guard escort!"

Celestia nodded, taking over for her sister. "Similarly, the desecration, dark magic, and vandalism are being attributed to Désirée's influence," she added. "That does leave the matter of the illegal combat magic. Although the spell used to defend the train was excusable, those used in your raid on the Blackwing Cartel have been deemed to be military-grade combat magic." Why is she suddenly smiling? "We let you get away with testing spells in the firing range as it is a controlled setting under the watch of an experienced rangemaster, but using them in the field without a license is against the law. Due to the previously aforementioned extenuating circumstances, your fine is being reduced to five hundred bits, and you are barred from taking the relevant licensing exam for five years. Personal defence spells, such as the one demonstrated at the banquet after your return from Sunset's world, are still permitted as a last resort, but only if your yet-to-be-assigned bodyguard is unable to protect you."

I could hardly believe my ears. I was being assigned a bodyguard-cum-probation officer, presumably so that I could be kept out of situations where I'd need to be anything other than a foal, and so that they could keep an eye on me. The whole licensing thing actually surprised me, since it was the first I'd ever actually heard of it, but in retrospect, it makes sense; unless you're a member of the Royal Guard, you'd want to have records of who could use advanced combat magic in the case of a crime. Plus, it sounded like the rest was being dismissed as effects of Désirée...

"As for the matter of disobeying a lawful order from the defacto head of state," she continued with a playful smile, "we are sentencing you to two hundred hours community service. As you are likely going to be spending time in the Crystal Empire whilst seeking therapy, how do you feel about orphanages?"

Entry 49

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After the meeting with Princesses Celestia and Luna, dinner tonight wasn't what I expected. Honestly, I somewhat expected us to once again dine with the royals, in addition to the visiting changeling and hippogriff leadership. Instead, Twilight took us out to a restaurant called the Tasty Treat. Apparently Rarity and Pinkie had solved some sort of friendship problem there, and the restaurant skyrocketed in popularity as a result.

In my old human life, I'd never had an opportunity to try Indian food beyond Masala Chai, which ponies called Manipuri Blend. In my defence, I never had much tolerance for spice. Taco and kebab meat were probably the spiciest I'd eaten. Even coming here, nothing too spicy had been served to me. I don't think anyone was expecting me to take to it.

I was getting ahead of myself, though. It was seven mares, four foals, a young dragon, and one changeling queen nymph in our dinner party. I think Aunt Twilight might even have made a reservation for all I knew. Back on Earth, I think that was even the norm for large dinner parties. After all, if a large group occupied too much space, there'd be less for other customers.

Dunno how they got Rainbow out of her room. To tell the truth, I was kinda surprised that they even invited her given her prior attitude. Hell, she probably was scarred for life after my stunt in the baths, and the others were only barely paying her any mind. I'd never seen the proud mare looking so cowed, and I wasn't without some empathy... figuratively or literally.

It wasn't until we were all seated in the restaurant that it occurred to me that it was basically a charade. Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, and Sweetie Belle had been held in cages by the Storm King's forces for several days, and they needed to be shown that things were alright now... that their lives would go back to normal. If they saw that Rainbow was being excluded, they might ask why. If they found out that Rainbow had been convinced I was dangerous, they might become scared of me. Alternatively, Scootaloo's affection for the mare might be shaken.

I also wasn't sure how well they'd take finding out just how bad my mental state had been while I was love-starved. I didn't exactly want any of them to know that I'd basically been suicidal. Emerald in particular, however, I didn't want to hear that. I still felt incredibly guilty about being so selfish after promising to be her big sister, be there for her, and protect her. Right mind or not, it was a betrayal.

When the hostess, an orange unicorn by the name of Saffron Masala, came to take our orders, I realised that I hadn't really looked at anything in the menu. Although things were certainly described in the menu, I had no real gauge for how spicy anything was. As a result, I ended up ordering two dishes at random—kolhapuri misal, a spicy lentil dish, and malai kofta, a sort of fried potato dumpling that sounded akin to meatballs. Saffron seemed more surprised by the fact that I was ordering two dishes than what I ordered, so I either ordered some mild stuff, or she thought I knew what I was getting into.

The others actually seemed kinda surprised by the fact that I was ordering two dishes too. The thing was... even though I'd gorged on Cadance's love earlier, I didn't feel physically full—not in the way I used to when eating too much as a human or pony. I felt like I could eat my own weight in food. That's the changeling need for biomass for transformation and hive resin, though.

"So, Anon, darling," Rarity asked, trying to break some of the tension in the air while our food was being made. "Now that you have a new body, you could look like anypony, or anycreature really." That got a raised eyebrow from both of my guardians. "Yet you continue to use your old appearance. I was curious as to why."

All the eyes in the group turned to me expectantly. Even Rainbow managed to look at me. To be fair, it was a reasonable question. I mean, I don't even really need glasses anymore; I just use them because I paid good money for them. "Because it's what most ponies know me as... is what I'd like to say," I admitted, momentarily dismissing just the transformation over my foreleg as I held it out over the table. "If it weren't for the fact that many ponies are still afraid of changelings, especially the original variety, I'd unabashedly let my carapace shine in the daylight at all times. Aside from my mane mirroring Emerald's coat, I can't help but see Chrysalis in my reflection, so I can't expect normal ponies not to also see it." I gave a shrug before adding, "I can be me whether I'm black or green, so I might as well make everyone else comfortable."

Auntie Twilight flinched at the mention of Chrysalis. Nobody else at the table really noticed—except maybe Starlight. The only reason I even realised anything was up was because the mere mention of the former queen tinged her emotional aura with anxiety. She wouldn't meet my eyes. Hell, she barely even seemed to notice Starlight's raised eyebrow. What's that all about?

The others seemed to accept my answer well enough. Fluttershy in particular seemed to appreciate it. "That's a very mature way to look at it," she observed, glancing at the trio of fillies clustered between Applejack and Rarity, and then Emerald. "It's a good example to be setting, too."

Unsurprisingly, the Crusaders looked a bit indignant at that. They all voiced various complaints about being older than me, and how they should be setting the examples. Of course, that gets Applejack and Rarity razzing them about all the harebrained schemes the group resorted to while questing for their cutie marks. It was nice to just be around all the casual banter. It makes it easier to ignore the fact that I was even further from the norm.

At the mention of cutie marks, I glanced down at my flank before looking to Emerald. Something I'd noticed while she and the others were playing was that there was no trace of my cutie mark like when we still shared a body and she'd taken control. It made me wonder what Fate had in store for her now that I was my own entity. Would she eventually find her own special talent? Or would Fate be a spiteful bitch now that I'd seized the reigns of my own destiny?

"Say, Em?" I asked as our food started getting ferried to our table. The amount of spice I could smell on my two plates made my eyes itch a bit, but the smell made my mouth water. "Is there anything you're looking forward to once we can get settled and return to Ponyville?" When she gave me a sort of confused look, I clarified. "You've got a new chance at having a normal foalhood. You can go to school, learn more about earth pony heritage... Oh, you like running, right?"

For a moment, Emerald looked like a deer in headlights, and I was worried that I'd said the wrong thing. The comment itself had come from the memory I'd experienced in the mirror world—the one where Emerald and her Mom were discussing other fillies in an athletics program being jealous of her despite her lack of a talent. My mouth sorta just acted before I could think, even though I knew being reminded of Emerald Breeze.

Thankfully, that look transitioned into one of excitement. "Yeah! I still wanna see if I can get my cutie mark from running!" That got the attention of the Crusaders, and soon enough she was grinning at them. "I was fastest in the track club Mommy put me in, and older fillies with their marks got super mad 'cause I had better time!"

"Maybe the girls could help you find some running-adjacent things that might land you your mark," I heard Starlight comment. "Maybe delivering things for ponies?"

That of course set off a whole discussion while we ate, where ponies shared all sorts of courier work they knew about. The Crusaders pointed out that the foal free press needed a new delivery pony. Similarly, Rarity knew some ponies around town who wouldn't mind paying somepony to let ponies know when their orders were ready for pick-up. Or how she could run notes for ponies.

Then of course, Pinkie mentioned how her name might be related to her talent, and she could be super speedy at finding gems. Suddenly she was talking about how her big sister Maud could talk to her, or maybe even take her prospecting. That in turn got Applejack mentioning the Sweet Emerald apple cultivar, suggesting that 'Maybe Emerald's real Pa was an Apple.'

The whole time, I could see that Rainbow looked like she wanted to say something. Going fast was her domain, after all, and yet, she was still pretty cowed by what had happened earlier today. It left me feeling incredibly guilty for what I'd done during my little freak-out, and I wanted to make up for it. How though?

"Hey, Rainbow," I called out in a friendly tone as I inhaled my malai kofta. The mare froze, and all the adults tensed, flooding the room with anxiety and caution. "Emerald's been asleep for a long time, so her body might not be entirely ready to go fast. Think you could put her through her paces, find out where she's at, and then turn her into a mean, green running machine?" Her eyes widened, and even Scootaloo was looking at her in interest. With a smirk, I added, "Hell, I bet lots of Ponyville foals would love to be part of a foal fitness club run by a Wonderbolt."

Emerald all but leapt out of her seat to zoom over to the pegasus mare with an excited squeak, her meal now entirely forgotten. Looking up at her with starry eyes, she exclaimed, "You're a Wonderbolt!? That's so cool!" She glanced back at me and called out, "How come you know so many cool ponies? Four princesses, a really cool prince, a dragon, Big Sis Starlight, the weird cat lady that gave you a body, and now a Wonderbolt? What else are you hiding!? An alien?"

Even as Rarity numbly mouthed the words 'cool prince', Starlight, Twilight, Applejack, and Pinkie all started laughing. Have I ever told Em about literally going to another dimension and meeting human alien counterparts to everyone? Maybe some day we could introduce her to Sunset Shimmer—a pony who lived on an alien world. That might be a little hard for her, but maybe it could give her some closure like I had given that world's Emerald Breeze.

Eventually somepony wrangled her back to her seat so that she could finish off her dinner, and I finally took the time to actually enjoy the food. Honestly, at first I was a bit nervous about this whole idea. After all, I'd heard that capsaicin was poisonous to bugs, and what was I if not a bug horse now? Twilight had assured me that it was completely fine for changelings, though. She also admitted to wanting to see if I had any tolerance to spicier foods. Apparently since it was close to winter, it was about the time of year that Spike started whipping out the recipes with some heat.

Honestly, the food didn't seem all that spicy at all. No mouth burning sensation or requirement for milk to cool me down. If anything, it almost seemed like the food was literally seasoned with emotions. It left a warmth in my belly not unlike when I fed on love, but also burned going down in a way that reminded me of the irritation I'd felt ponies exuding when they were frustrated. There was also the tanginess of excitement that made everything just pop.

I couldn't tell if that was an entirely changeling reaction or a pony one... Hell, it might very well be that because Hunger had a direct part in creating my new body, I could feasibly eat anything organic, and that my new body was designed especially to enjoy new flavours. Regardless, I was looking forward to seeing what Spike had in store for us... as well as finding out if he could make something that was too spicy for me, and what kind of emotional flavour comparison it would provide.

~ 49 ~

While everyone else was digging into their desserts, I commented aloud that I needed to get some air. On my way out, I thumped Rainbow Dash with my tail as I went past. I even whispered, "Can we talk?" shortly after. Honestly, I didn't know what I was thinking, but it just... seemed right, y'know? I needed to clear the air with her—to apologise.

Once I was outside, I shed my transformation, and quickly flew myself up onto the roof, before transforming back into a pony. This time, it was a pegasus variant of my appearance, so that nopony would think twice if they saw me up on the roof, staring at the skies. That was something I noticed early on; nobody really gave a shit if pegasi were on someone's roof, as long as they were quiet and not being disruptive.

As I lay on my back, I stared up at the evening sky, marvelling at how clear it all was. It's gonna be a great night for fireworks, I thought to myself, looking at the moon as it slowly rose in the sky. We were supposed to go join the festival after we all ate, so I figured this might be my last chance at peace before being thrown into the throngs of ponies.

It took a couple of minutes before I heard the front door to the Tasty Treat open up. "Up here, Rainbow," I called out. Given how exposed being on my back left me, I probably should've had a bit more modesty. We were both mares, and while I think I'd started to realise I might have a thing for older women—at least if you could trust my reaction to that lewd painting of Princess Celestia, or the way my eyes had lingered on Vice Principal Luna's ass a bit too long that one time—I didn't have anything she hadn't seen before. If she'd been a stallion, it'd definitely be a different matter, but I'm pretty sure she wasn't interested in foals anyway.

When she alighted on the rooftop a few body-lengths away from me, I looked over at her. Her entire demeanour reminded me of Fluttershy in a way; she looked ready to bolt. "Relax, Rainbow; you're not gonna have any trouble with me," I commented, patting the space on the roof directly beside me. "If anything, I feel like I should be the one in trouble with you."

She didn't move, instead staring at the wings I now possessed. Sighing, I turned my gaze back up to the sky. "Rainbow, what happened this morning... You didn't deserve what I did," I apologised, tears welling up in my eyes as I looked to the sky. "Don't get me wrong, you deserved a good tongue lashing, but I shouldn't have reacted like I did. It was sick, cruel, and wholly intended to cause trauma. I just... I needed you to see the truth... of the matter."

To my surprise, she actually took a step forward. "The truth?" she asked quietly. "What sort of truth could come from trying to get me to kill you?"

Despite tears beginning to roll down my cheeks, I laughed. "You were right and wrong about me being dangerous, y'know?" I admitted. Without even looking at her, I could feel the surprise. "Yeah, AJ felt the same way when I talked to her and Rares earlier. I was... I am dangerous. At that time, though, the only one I was an absolute threat to was myself."

She seemed to be trying to process what I said, but she drew close enough to sit beside me. "At that moment when you laid it all bare, I was in rapid decline to the state that Chrysalis had been in when she took me," I explained, lifting my hoof into the air to put it in front of the moon. "I was growing so paranoid and scared, and I was still reeling mentally from everything I'd gone through in the last few weeks. You know that I almost died in the other world, right? Even before I became a changeling, my mind was fraying as far back as then. My thoughts became consumed with questions like 'How can I ensure that I don't get hurt like that again?' and 'How can I protect those I care about... and protect their innocence?'"

With a rueful shake of my head, I pulled my hoof against my chest and rolled onto my side, facing my back to her. "Then the war happened, I made myself into a killer protecting strangers, and then got stuck in Manehattan. Suddenly, it wasn't just paranoia that I was dealing with... I had actual mobsters out to get me because I was Emerald." With a bit of a sniffle, I peered over my shoulder at her. "I reacted the way I did because I was scared that you were right... That I was just a rabid dog waiting to snap."

For what felt like several minutes, she just stood there, quietly. "Gonna be honest, kid," she finally declared, gently poking me in the back. "What you did back there scared the living Tartarus out of me... but you weren't wrong either." When I turned my head to look at her, I found that she actually looked ashamed. "I was taking my loyalty beyond stupidity, and there was nothing honourable about it..."

There was fear and a bit of self-loathing filling the air around her, and her body language was that of a defeated mare. Worse, she seemed more than a little panicked. "When you made me put that blade to your neck..." She let out a whimper and broke eye contact. "When I looked in your eyes, you looked so dead inside, but what scared me most was that I could see a pleading look behind that deadness... In that moment, you wanted me to kill you."

It was so strange hearing that proud mare's voice crack, and the shiver that wracked her body reminded me of the way I felt when I'd seen my reflection after crippling Lightning Dust and traumatising Gilda—the shock of what I'd done and what I'd put those humans through, as well as the realisation that they really fucked me up. Except instead she was reliving the realisation that she'd fucked up on a celestial scale.

"I got so wrapped up in you being a changeling, looking just like Chrysalis without the holes," she practically sobbed. "Seeing what you did to those Storm Guards, I couldn't see you for what you were... Scared, scarred, and screwed over... The one who needed protection and loyalty most then and there was you... and I failed you." Her emotional spectrum was now entirely made up of grief and self-loathing. "I couldn't even fathom what was going on in your head, and that scared me, and made me scared for everypony, but that's no excuse..."

I'm not entirely certain which of us was more shocked by my next action, but in a single heartbeat, I found myself hanging from Rainbow's neck, hugging her. "I forgive you," I whispered, not letting go. "It'll be hard but we'll get through this... You, me, and even Emerald..." With a tired chuckle, I glanced down at the busy street we'd walked down earlier. "I wasn't kidding when I suggested you help Emerald train. She really seemed to enjoy the hard work she put into running, and she needs more positive figures in her life... Despite your fuck-ups, I trust you with her."

Her surprise was quickly replaced by hope... Hope that her friendships—not just with me, but her friends—could be mended. There was also an appreciative warmth roiling off of her; no doubt she was thankful that I was invoking kindness and forgiving her. Slowly, Rainbow wrapped one of her forelegs around my back, supporting me so that I wasn't just hanging like a necktie. "I bet you also need somepony to teach you to fly when you decide you wanna be an awesome pegasus, don'tcha."

I won't deny that I was feeding a little bit off of her. Not nearly as hard as I'd gone in on Cadance; just enough that it was making me feel a bit sleepy. "Yeah... You caught me," I admitted with a laugh. "Gliding and flying are two entirely different kettles of fish."

~ 49 ~

I don't even remember falling asleep. One minute, I'm on a roof, listening to Rainbow Dash talking about the basics of pegasus flight. The next, I'm curled up on somepony's back. At first I thought it might be Auntie Twilight, but the lack of a pair of wings told me it was probably Starlight, and we were on a balcony that overlooked a plaza. Nearby, I saw Emerald and her friends standing atop some crates, their hooves propped up on the railing. Keeping a close eye on all of them were Twilight's other friends.

It took some time for me to become more aware of my surroundings. The only thing that even clued me in to the stage in the centre of the plaza was the sudden shriek of one, then two, then seven fireworks as they screamed into the air. As each of them went off, bathing the crowd of ponies in a literal rainbow of colours. Then, there was silence as the curtains parted to reveal a pony that I might've seen in a cage a few days ago.

"I know you, you're a special one," she sang. "Some see crazy where I see love. You fall so low but soar so high, big dreamers shoot for open sky."

It was certainly a pretty song, and all the other ponies on our balcony seemed really enraptured by it. "This is nice," I finally said, adjusting myself so I could use Starlight's head to prop up my own. "Almost makes me forget all the bad things that have happened lately. Almost like there was never even an invasion..."

That got a soft hum from Starlight. "You had us worried, you know," she commented in an almost accusatory voice. "Fluttershy and Twilight both seemed worried the two of you were going to kill one another, and you both were gone an awful long time. Then Rainbow comes in with you cradled in her leg, fast asleep like all's right in the world."

It felt like she would have looked me in the eye if she could have. "Yeah, the girls filled me in about that..." I couldn't quite stop myself from wincing, and I knew damn well she could feel that. "Although I'm glad you're feeling better now that you've fed, I'm still hurt by what happened." There was a long pause where we just sorta let Songbird Serenade's Rainbow fill the silence. "I'm kinda surprised, but proud, that you went and made peace with Rainbow like you did." This time she did turn her head, even if she knew it wouldn't do her any good. "Nopony would blame you for holding a grudge, you know."

I just sighed and shed my transformation. With my buggy wings, I quickly transferred myself onto the railing, putting her between me and the other foals. "I'm just tired is all," I said with a sad smile. "All the anger, all the hate, and the fear and pain... I'm tired of it all." I glanced down at the audience by the stage, basking in the positivity radiating off of them. "It's time for me to heal, Starlight, and if I can't do something as simple as forgive a friend for being a fucking moron, how can I ever approach forgiving myself for almost following in <<Keith>>'s and the <<human>> Emerald's hoofsteps?"

Looking back to my big sister, I put on my earth pony disguise and shook my head. "I'm being given a third chance at life, and I'm not sure I'll get a fourth, so I need to make this one count." Over on another balcony nearby, I saw Luna, Celestia, Cadance, and Twilight, as well as Novo and her daughter, all enjoying the show. "I'm looking forward to finally getting to meet this therapist at the Crystal Empire, seeing little Flurry Heart again, and starting my community service."

That got a nod from Starlight, and she commented, "Twilight mentioned that was part of your penance for your actions, but didn't mention what they were going to be having you do."

"There's this orphanage in the Crystal Empire that opened up due to a number of foals who lost their parents because of King Sombra," I explained. "It recently got a new employee, but they still need help, and they reckon that working with other traumatised children might help temper some of my impulsive behaviour." What I chose not to mention was that there was someone there—unaffiliated with Thorax's group—who might be able to teach me more about transformation.

"It's two hundred hours I've gotta burn through, and I know they're not gonna work me twelve hours a day, so I'll probably be staying at the castle." I found myself glancing past Starlight to Emerald. "I know you and Auntie Twilight can't stay there the entire time I need to serve my sentence, and Emerald needs to start getting some semblance of normal in her life, so she'll probably be going back with you guys when it's time... Think you can keep her from missing me too much?"

That got a raised eyebrow. "And what about you? The longest you've gone without me or Twilight is a few days, and both times you've been by yourself..." She actually sounded really worried. "Who'll keep you out of trouble?"

I shrugged, and hopped down onto the balcony beside her. "Apparently I'm being assigned a bodyguard who'll be doubling as a parole officer, so it's not like I'll be alone." I glanced up at her before looking to the door. "Who knows, maybe Natural Talent and Refined Skill would be willing to transfer to Auntie's employ and they could keep me company too." Unable to help myself, I snickered. "Gotta say, their maid outfits are starting to grow on me."

Non-Canon: 'Bad End'

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A while after I made up for lost time with the girls, I noticed Spike, who'd been conversing with Fluttershy and a young hippogriff, watching me. I presumed the hippogriff to be Queen Novo's daughter, and the source of the wonderment I'd been picking up from outside the garden. What caught my interest more was the fact that Spike had just belched up a scroll. I knew full well about his mail-delivery flames, so when he did so, I didn't freak out all that much.

Anonymous Flicker,

It pains us to do this after all that you have been through, but we must request your presence in the throne room immediately. In an official capacity, the events of the last week, as well as their consequences, must be discussed. Princess Twilight Sparkle will be in attendance at this meeting as your guardian and advocate, but we ask that you come alone.

Present this letter to any guard and you will be escorted to the throne room.

~Princess Celestia

"I don't know how ponies can just tolerate her presence," I heard one maid whispering to another as the two of us passed. "They should just lock her up and be done with it! It's what she deserves!"

Even if I wasn't as paranoid or self-hating as I had been while starving, that comment still cut deep. The fur on the back of my neck begin to prickle with anger, but the other maid spoke up and stopped my blood cold. "You know that's not how the princesses do things. The way I heard it, Princess Celestia already has a plan for how that little monster will be punished." Traitor... They're talking about Tempest, not me. "Apparently Princess Twilight herself advocated for leniency, but Princess Celestia overruled her."

The doors slammed shut behind me as I crossed their threshold, and the princesses all fixed me with unreadable expressions. The only pony not wearing a masque of professionalism was Twilight. She looked anxious, but there was something heavier in her emotional aura that almost made me turn tail and run as her eyes flicked from me to the thrones. She's afraid and angry, not at me, but at the Princesses.

When I did, and met Celestia's gaze, she heaved a sigh. "Anonymous Flicker, before we begin, I want you to know that this is mostly a formality," she explained in a soft, apologetic tone. "That said, I need to be sure; do you understand why you've been called here?" She's speaking to me like an adult... that's certainly a nice change of pace. None of the soft intonations or shit ponies usually do to dance around the point when talking to a foal.

Princess Celestia's eyebrow twitched, and it seemed like there was a vein throbbing in her temple. It was Princess Luna that spoke up however. "We were made aware of most of the items you listed, but could you clarify three of them?" she asked, glancing from me to Twilight. "You listed vandalism, assaulting a police officer, and desecration of remains. This is the first we've heard of any of these."

The only pony that seemed unfazed by it all was Luna. Oh, she was quite good at hiding the disappointment radiating off of her, but there was concern, and worry. Then again, she had personal experience with this sort of thing. I had to remind myself that I was not the only pony in the world to have had their will subverted, even if only subtly, by malign entities. I also kinda got the vibe from her that she might have been the 'Sword of Equestria' back before her fall from grace a thousand years ago.

Once everyone had taken time to compose themselves, Celestia sighed and regarded me with a dark look. "Those are indeed the reasons you have been summoned here." She was really good at hiding the anger from her voice, but nothing could be done to hide the red filling the air. "We understand the extenuating circumstances that led into this series of events, and those will be taken into consideration when we deliver our judgement, but we are unfortunately unable to simply turn our gaze from all of this."

She paused, considering her words. "That being said, I also know that from your dreams, you do not regret what you have done, and even if you might deny it, you would be inclined to follow the same path again." She regarded Twilight with an unreadable expression for a few moments. "That you were capable of this at all, with the body and brain of a pony foal is nothing short of monstrous. Now that you are what Désirée has made of you, we have our doubts that you won't relapse should you ever go hungry. Worse, given that you are now destined to live for millennia as Chrysalis before you did, we worry your mind will break long before whatever vows you make."

My ears folded back. Oh fuck, I'm getting the book thrown at me. I glanced to Auntie Twilight, but her ears were mimicking mine. She couldn't meet my gaze, either. The worst part was that I could practically see 'I'm sorry!' written in the regret and sorrow in her emotional spectrum.

"You never should have been put in that situation, and had the Manehattan Police Department been doing their jobs, you wouldn't have had to do any of that," she said with a disgusted growl. This was followed up with a stomp of her hoof that caused cracks to spiderweb across the stone dais. "Those criminals were brazen enough to ambush a Royal Guard escort!"

Celestia nodded, a grim expression playing across her face as she took over for her sister. "Be that as it may, what you did was not justice," she redirected. "While we have no doubt that many of the ponies slain that day deserved their fates, it was not your place to play judge, jury, and executioner. Had you merely rendered them incapable of fighting, and left them to be tried, their families would come to know of their crimes in court, and accept the punishment their loved ones would have received. Instead, all that you have done is thrown an entire city into an upheaval that will take years to settle, all while making martyrs of those you've slaughtered. We see no choice but to imprison you, Anonymous Flicker; the option of one hundred years in stone, or Tartarus—"

Twilight let out an indignant cry, and threw herself between me and the princesses. "Princess! That's too much!" she pleaded, looking from Celestia's grim expression to Luna's mixed look of regret and hate. "Anon has been through so much, and her brain chemistry stabilised once Cadance directly fed her. She's not a threat anymore!"

That elicited a pitying laugh from Luna. "Twilight, were Anonymous any other pony, We might be willing to entertain this argument," she replied. Even though all I could see was Twilight's flank, I could feel the princesses' gazes piercing through her to get to me. "Her talent, creativity, and impulsivity makes her an existential threat not just to Equestria, or merely all life... Given time she could pose more of a threat to reality itself than even Discord!"

It felt like there was ice in the pit of my stomach. Was... Luna giving up on me? Did even the pony who nearly killed all life on the planet not once, but twice see me as that much of a lost cause? I turned my gaze to the floor and stepped around Twilight. Maybe she was right... Just because I feel good now, and intend to get mental help, it doesn't mean I won't have some crisis of faith down the line and break completely. As it stands, could I not already make spells that would cause irreparable harm to the world?

Maybe it's for the best... Emerald will be safer if I'm not around... No vengeance from those I've killed... No risk of me hurting her or the girls... Isn't this what big sisters are for? To protect their little siblings, even from themselves?

"If I am turned to stone, will I be conscious?" I asked, finally meeting Celestia's inscrutable pink eyes. "Will I dream?"

The alicorn seemed caught off guard by my question, and it took her a moment to respond. Finally, she shook her head. "You will not." Her horn lit up, and an illusory copy of me—the me behind the transformation—appeared before her. I watched as the black chitin slowly faded to a stony grey, creeping up the copy's body until she was naught but a statue. "For you, it will be but a blink." Illusory stone flaked away from the copy Anon, and she looked around in confusion. "But everything you know and love will be either gone or irreparably changed."

Again, Twilight interposed herself between us. "Princess, this is monstrous and cruel!" she cried, radiating impotent rage. "I-if you do this, I'll have no choice but to abdicate. Sending her to Tartarus would only make her into the monster you make her out to be, and I cannot in good conscience affiliate with a crown that would do that to a child, even if she has the mind of an adult. I—"

Whatever she was about to say died in her throat as I shed my disguise and wrapped her in a hug. "It's alright, Aun—no, Mom," I whispered. When I pulled away, I could see the tears in her eyes as her heart broke. "If this is how it has to be, it is what it is..."

At that, I lifted off and flew over Twilight, placing myself before Princess Celestia. She looked surprised when I said, "I choose Tartarus, Your Highness." Every single pony in the room gasped as I lowered my head in a bow, submitting myself to my fate. "I would rather be stuck in a place of damnation and watch Emerald grow up through our link than to blink and miss her life completely."

With a sigh, Princess Celestia rose from her throne. "So be it." She actually sounded saddened by this, much to my surprise. "Anonymous Flicker, for crimes against ponykind, and the existential threat you pose to all life, I... Princess Celestia, Sol Invictus, sentence you to Tartarus for a span of no more than twelve years."

A circle of flames formed around me. Chains of cold iron rose up out of the floor and wrapped themselves around my body. I was given just enough slack to turn to look to Twilight. "Goodbye, Mom," I said as the chains slowly pulled me into the floor. "I love you."

~ One Year After Sentencing ~

The chains around Cozy Glow's neck and wings chafed as she followed alongside a Royal Guard. It was clear that the magical restraints had been magically resized for a pony of her diminutive stature—not that they particularly cared, given that she was being taken to Tartarus on hoof. In fact, most of trip had been either by train or chariot, so that she could be brought in through the sole physical entrance to the magical prison that held the worst of the worst, and the most dangerous magical creatures in Equestria. It wasn't all that surprising, given the way magic was still recovering in the wake of her failed attempt to rid the world of all magic.

As she looked around, Cozy couldn't help but notice all of the empty cages and the seemingly preternatural darkness filling the massive cave system that served as the prison. Not only was it dark and creepy here, but it was way too quiet. "Golly, mister guard," she said to fill the silence. "Where is everypony? It seems like there's nopony here but us."

"There used to be," the pegasus stallion commented in an anxious voice. That was when Cozy noticed that the guard was also looking around, scanning the darkness for threats. "Then they put it in here, and all of the other prisoners slowly started disappearing."

A creepy giggle reverberated throughout the cave. It simultaneously seemed like it was coming from nowhere and everywhere all at once. Even as the guard tucked his own tail between his legs, she took an instinctive step toward him. If there was something here that scared even her guard escort, she did not want to be caught unawares. "B-but if there's something loose in here, making the prisoners disappear, wouldn't it be inequine to leave me here all by my lonesome?"

Whatever his thoughts on the matter, he refrained from making them known. Instead, he led her to a large cage in the centre of it all. There was a nameplate, which read Tirek, but the name had been crudely slashed through, and the cage appeared empty. The stallion guided her to a smaller cage and opened the door with a key that had been clipped to his armour.

That was when the creepy laughter began again. "Aww, did you bring your sex-pet by to visit, Flashy-boy?" came an eerie two-tone voice. That was when Cozy realised the larger cage wasn't nearly as empty as it looked. Instead, a tiny black mass—no larger than the new prisoner herself—rose up out of the large pile of straw that served as bedding. Even as a pegasus, she could sense the immense magical power behind those glowing green orbs. "I knew you liked my young Twilight disguise, but damn, you do like them young, don't you?"

Cosy glow recoiled in revulsion as she realised what was inside that cage. It was one of those unreformed changelings, like the swarm that had attacked Canterlot a few years back. Much like the bugs of old, this one's chitin was dull and cracked, her legs full of holes. Her eyes were more like that of a dragon's though, and they had a sickly look about them.

"Anon," the guard responded in a terse voice. "This is your new roommate." With a stomp of his hoof, he added, "and stop suggesting I'm into foals!" Turning to his still-bound prisoner, Flash gave a humourless laugh. "Cozy Glow, meet Anonymous, the Butcher of Manehattan."

Cozy found herself backing away as far as her chain would allow her. She'd heard about that whole thing. During the Storm King's invasion, a foal made a deal with some sort of demon and became a monster in order to save her loved-ones. This was a creature so big of a danger that Princess Celestia herself sentenced it to Tartarus to protect everypony. Evidently, it was dangerous enough that it had dealt with all of the other inhabitants of the prison in under a year.

As she took a better look at the little changeling, her mind drifted back to a photo that somepony had submitted to the newspapers in the wake of the changeling queen's attack on Princess Mi Amore Cadenza's wedding. That said, there were still differences. The mane style, eyes, face, and general look of madness all matched up, but her horn was far too stubby, and she had not a trace of maliciousness in her expression.

"Ohhh, is this the one that got Momma to come all the way from the Crystal Empire to visit and teach me new runes a few weeks ago?" the insane little changeling asked, licking her lips as she gazed at her new roommate. "You must have been a really bad filly. Momma really didn't like having to teach me how to make a portal, but someone was draining all of the magic from Equestria, and ended up trapping her and her friends here. If only Luna had told her I ate Tirek last month."

That actually made Flash tense up. "She taught you... but then..."

"Why am I still here?" She let out a chuckle, transforming herself into a snake and sliding through the bars. Slowly, she slid over to Cozy Glow, and climbed up her body to take a seat upon her head. "Flash Sentry, I'll have you know that I am a voluntary prisoner. Whether they intended it or not, I am the monster they now feed monsters to."

The diminutive pegasus twitched, looking to her guard escort with a panicked look. To his credit, although he looked unnerved—and maybe even a bit terrified—he didn't seem all that worried for his own safety. "Be that as it may, I have orders from Princess Celestia herself that say you are not to eat this one." Such a statement should have reassured Cozy, but for some reason, it only made her more anxious. "Even Princess Twilight believes that, in time, she can be redeemed, but you can't redeem the dead."

Cozy barely even saw the changeling-turned-snake leap from her head. All she really saw was the flash of blue as Anon morphed into some abomination the likes of which she'd never seen, putting herself between the guard and her prisoner. A split-jaw opened to reveal many rows of teeth as she breathed in his face, while a serpentine tail held up all of her body. "I only kill monsters and those that don't give me a choice," she bellowed in a voice that sounded more like clicking and hissing. The stallion winced back, and barely even noticed as her scythe-like appendage slashed cleanly through the chain holding Cozy. Even she was too stunned and afraid to move. "Be grateful for that."

With one scythe-clawed limb, Anonymous snatched the keys from the door of the smaller cell, and started testing for the lock of her own door. Even though her new shape didn't appear to have any sort of ears, that didn't exactly stop her from hearing the guard's muttered comment. "Tell that to the families of the mobsters you murdered." Her tail lashed behind her, nearly clipping the tip of his muzzle. "That's what I thought."

As soon as the door swung inward, the changeling's long, snakelike tail lashed out, wrapping around the young pony, dragging her into the cage. When Anon shut the cage door behind her, she glared at Flash. "Mister Sentry, if I didn't know better, I'd say you were asserting that paedophiles aren't monsters," she hissed with such force that she inadvertently sprayed saliva all over him. "Good thing that Momma seems to like having you around to remind her of her crush from the other world, or I'd do to you what I did to every other monster in this place..."

Her threat seemed to have the desired effect; as the scent of urine began to assail their nostrils, the guard stallion turned the key to lock the door. Then, without warning, he took flight to the entrance to this cavern. Although she wanted to beg him not to leave her here with this... thing. It wasn't safe!

With the stallion gone, however, there was nothing to keep Anon's attention off of Cozy. It was hardly any comfort at all when the changeling reverted to her natural state. It just made it all the easier to see how deranged the creature was. She'd gone from threatening to eat a royal guard to looking like just another excitable foal. That wasn't natural.

It was all Cozy Glow could do to keep from screaming when Anon launched herself at the pegasus. That terror quickly gave way to confusion as instead of an attack, she found herself wrapped in a hug. "Oooh, it's so good to have someone else to talk to in here," she chattered with glee. "Sure, I can talk to my little sister Emerald when we sleep, but it's just not the same as talking to someone face-to-face, you know?" That manic twinkle returned to Anon's eye as she drug her tongue up the side of Cozy's face. "Even though you tried to hurt my big sis, Starlight, I can just tell we're gonna be the best of friends."

~ Eleven Years After Sentencing ~

When Princess Twilight Sparkle's guard captain opened the gates to Tartarus, she wasn't expecting much. More than a decade ago, the creature for whom she'd become a mother figure had been sentenced to this place after her fall from grace. It'd taken Anonymous Flicker less than a year to eat every single creature as her love-starved body tried to sate her insatiable hunger. It had become a place so barren and deadly that only those who earned the death penalty were sent there.

It wasn't until Cozy Glow had been sentenced to the place for her own crimes that the young changeling actually began making demands for foodstuffs to be regularly brought in. It was, after all, a prison for her new cellmate, not a tomb. All it took was a promise that she would stop eating every other sapient they sent in, and Twilight had caved to the request of her daughter.

In recent years, however, the guard staff that regularly inspected the prison had begun rotating out with a powerful geas placed upon them swearing them to secrecy. In one of the letter exchanges, the creature swore it was nothing bad; it was just a surprise she wanted Twilight to see in person some day. Apparently her other daughter, Emerald, was well aware of what the secret was, but had been sworn to secrecy.

She was caught entirely off guard when the door opened to reveal a surprisingly cushy gatehouse that appeared in part to be constructed of changeling hive resin, and old cages. It appeared as though the ponies assigned to guard the inside had made a cosy little home, complete with furniture and beds. That wasn't exactly what caught Twilight off guard, however. Seated at one of the low tables, drinking tea with one of the Royal Guards that she sincerely hoped was off duty, was an unreformed changeling queen nymph with a light-blue mane. Based on the size of her, the little creature couldn't have been older than five years old.

As the pair noticed the alicorn and her guard detail, the changeling nymph ducked beneath the table to hide herself. Her companion, a sergeant who himself had in the past served as part of Twilight's guard rota, just smiled and waved. "Welcome to Tartarus, Princess Twilight," he said before peering under the table. "Go tell your mothers that very important guests have arrived."

Twilight could only watch with surprised amusement as the little foal peered over the edge of the table at her, and then glanced at the guard. She gave him a quick nuzzle before spreading her wings and flying out through the barred windows. "Sergeant Strongwind, was that...?" It was all Twilight could manage as he began donning his armour. "How...?"

He just shrugged and grabbed a keyring off a nearby wall hook. "I try not to think about it, and I really don't want to know," he said simply, leading Twilight and her group over to a gate constructed from yet more cages. "That, at any rate, was Mimic. Nice enough little one, but shy around strangers. Best behaved of the bunch though."

The alicorn could only gape at him as he led them through the gate and into the prison itself. Anon is a mother now... and she's raising multiple foals in what was supposed to be a place of punishment. That was when she finally looked around outside the gatehouse and gasped. Had she not already had her mouth open, her jaw certainly would have dropped. She's turned the most secure prison in all of Equestria into a small city!?

"Welcome to Helheim Hive, Your Highness," the stallion explained as he led her down a lane—illuminated by tall stalks of bio-luminescent fungi—of small buildings. The four closest to the gate-house were large, constructed of stone, and had barred windows. "Those are the newcomer pens. All new Tartarus intakes end up in those, and they stay there, watching the rest of the community Anon has created until they volunteer for a pacification geas."

The further into the cavern they went, the more creatures she saw out and about. It stunned her when many of the creatures she'd personally sentenced here smiled and waved at her as Strongwind led them past some townhouses. It wasn't just ponies or the odd griffon serial killer, either. There were literal monsters that S.M.I.L.E. had likely apprehended and locked away here, and they were just as docile as everyone else.

Despite the fact that her daughter was quite literally subverting creatures' free will, she couldn't help but feel impressed with what she was seeing... especially when the lane passed a large field of mushrooms that creatures tended, while a manticore dragged a cart made of unknown materials over to a storehouse. On the other side of the lane, there appeared to be a lake carved out. Was it her imagination, or did she see a griffon out on a boat on the lake?

Finally, the stallion led them to a stately marble house at the back of the cavern. It was nothing short of a mansion built into the cavern wall. As soon as they got close to the door, it swung open to reveal a familiar pink pegasus in her late teens. Her light-blue locks were nowhere near as curly as they had been when she'd been first sent here. There was just the slightest bit of surprise on her face as she spotted the tall alicorn. "Welcome, Princess," the young mare said without any trace of sarcasm in her voice. When she noticed the sergeant, her wings fluffed a bit as she smiled. "Mimic told us we had important guests, but she didn't say anything about royalty. Please come in while I put some tea on and fetch Anon. Could you lead them to the sitting room, Strong?"

Although Twilight could see the way she sashayed teasingly as she retreated into the house and up a set of stairs, she couldn't help but notice the obsidian ring hanging on a gold chain around her neck. She wanted to ask where the gold chain had come from, but she was completely overtaken by the implication of the ring. An exchange of rings was a unicorn tradition of engagement that the other tribes took on during the unification, but lacking horns, non-unicorns often wore them on such chains. Strangely, when she quickly cast a spell to check for mind magic, she found not one on the mare.

Strongwind led her into a small room with furniture carved—or maybe conjured—from smooth basalt. The sofas were topped with cushions that definitely couldn't have come from anywhere within Tartarus. Is she having the Royal Guard buy things for her, or is she sneaking out to shop from time to time? I never should have taught her those runes, but at the time we had no choice.

They sat in the room for a few minutes before Twilight finally asked Strongwind, "So how long has all this—" She waved a wing broadly as if to emphasise the whole room, or maybe the cavern. "—been going on? This used to be a prison for monsters, but now it reminds me of a marginally less evil version of what Starlight did to Our Town."

"I only joined the Tartarus rota five years ago, but she had this whole home and a few of the domiciles and pens built by the time I got here," he answered, tilting his head toward the dim corridor, where five sets of eyes peered around the corner at varying heights. Two of them, blue and scarlet respectively, had the same split-pupil eyes that Anon had, but the other four were more like those of a drone. "Maybe a week into my first shift, her little brood of terror emerged from their pupae. At least Mimic and Doppelganger keep them in line."

As two sets of hoofsteps began to approach, the watching eyes all vanished into the gloom of the hallway. A few moments later, Cozy Glow rounded the corner, a kettle, a box of tea, and some ornate cups on a tray balanced across her back. This was soon followed by a tall changeling queen in perfect health—a far cry from what she'd looked merely a year into her sentence. If anything, she seemed to be thriving now, whereas she looked on the verge of going mad back then.

It was the first time Twilight had seen Anon in person in six years, and although Princess Luna helped facilitate visitations through the dream realm, Anon's form never seemed to age there. Now, however, she was tall and lanky, her carapace and mane both shined. Around her long, curved horn, she could see a ring of rose quartz. More than that, though, she was quite clearly pregnant.

"Hey, Mom! Long time no see," the changeling queen exclaimed, slowly waddling along behind Cozy. It looked to Twilight as though Anon considered rushing over to hug her, but the way her eyes flicked to the alicorn's bodyguards told her she wouldn't do anything the princess didn't initiate. With a nervous laugh, she glanced at her own egg-laden belly, her apparent marefriend, and the window. "Surprise, I guess..."

As the pair caught up with one another, Twilight felt conflicted. On the one hoof, she was happy that Anon had found someone she wanted to fall in love with and that she already had a family started, and was impressed by what her adoptive daughter had accomplished in turning brutal murderers, rapists, and monsters into something approaching a respectable society. On the other, she was rather upset that—without any sort of input from the crown—she had turned the most secure prison in all of the world into her own little hive, mind controlled prisoners into passivity, and gotten pregnant at fourteen. Then there was the lingering question of how in Equestria she had tamed such a conniving brat, and a further question of how the hell said brat had gotten her pregnant.

"While I'm happy to see you, I don't imagine you came just to be surprised with my fiance and babies." Anon finally commented, sipping at her tea. Setting down her cup, she leaned against Cozy, a happy look on her face. "What brings you to Helheim?"

With a sigh, Twilight set her own cup down and fixed her daughter with a stare. "Two reasons," she replied. "First, I came to tell you that your sentence is up and that you're free to come home." Her eyes flicked to Cozy. "Your entire family, I guess."

The changeling queen shrugged. "I'm content where I am, Mom." She looked to the window, which looked out over all of the cavern. "With nothing else to do, I figured why not do what Hunger asked of me, and repopulate the true changelings, and maybe try to do something good with this place. Helheim is my home now, pacified monsters and all. I wouldn't say no to seeing Starlight and Emerald in person... Oh! Can we hold the wedding in Canterlot?"

Shaking her head, Twilight just laughed. "The other reason I came was to ask for your help," she said with a much more grave tone. "An alicorn from the same lands as Celestia and Luna has appeared, and is causing no shortage of problems. She is trying to sow disharmony among the tribes, and steal all magic for herself... She... refuses a peaceful option, and I fear that she is beyond redemption. Could you... do something about her?"

Nobody spoke for a long time. In fact, Anon shut her eyes, and took a deep breath. "Do you want her dead, or just gone?" Her voice took on a sharp tone, and Twilight could see the tightness in her face. When Anon opened her eyes, they were cold, like that of the unrepentant killers she'd sentenced here. "Either way, gimme a week to lay this clutch and get my affairs in order." A dark smile crossed her face, and she glanced over to the corridor where her nymphs were no doubt eavesdropping. "Maybe it's time I take my son, Doppelganger, on his first hunt..."

~ Elsewhere ~

Opaline Arcana, the Alicorn of Fire, reclined atop her throne. Her castle was empty of any servants at the moment, and she stared down at her scrying pool. It was unusual for Princess Twilight Sparkle to be somewhere she could not see with her magic. The foolish friendship-obsessed whelp seldom left Canterlot or Ponyville these days. It unnerved her, because it meant she could not find out what her foe was up to.

Suddenly, it felt like somepony was talking about her. She'd created a spell to notify her if she'd been mentioned specifically so she could spy on her enemy, and someone was definitely talking about her right now. The fact that she couldn't use her scrying pool to watch them made her very uncomfortable, because it meant that Twilight was likely aware of the spell, as well as the fact that she was spying on her from afar.

Without warning, her blood ran cold in her veins. It felt as though someone had just stepped over her grave. She didn't understand the how or the why, but some strange sense of self-preservation was screaming at her to run... to run fast and to run far. She wanted to dismiss it as just something random, conjured up by anxiety, but she couldn't shake the feeling that death itself was now coming for her.

Entry 50

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As we sat just inside the gate to Canterlot Castle, I pored over a redacted book on magic theory and spell construction. Beside me, Emerald was reading a more age-appropriate book by the name of Little Bunny Kung Fu while she enjoyed the sun and the way my black shell held heat. My reading was more out of boredom than any real desire for research; waiting for the last member of our little party—my new bodyguard and warden—was taking too long. We still had a few hours until we had to board the train, but based on the way Starlight was pacing, she was just as frustrated by the wait.

Personally, I just hoped that whoever the princesses assigned would be understanding about the fact that I was above the mental level of your average eight-year-old filly, and wouldn't view me with disgust for what I'd done and what I'd become. Already, my mind was coming up with possibilities. Sergeant Revelry and his quartet of underlings were a likely pool of candidates. All of them were at least familiar with me, but at the same time, we were maybe too familiar to keep things entirely professional. Plus, if Evening Script could get past me being a bug, she'd probably want to do more of that cosplay shit she had me do that one time.

"Hey, Star," I said aloud, catching not only the unicorn's attention, but also Emerald's. Something had to be done to distract Starlight before she wore a track into the castle grounds. "I know unicorn telekinesis is more an expression of innate magic than any specific spell, but do you think that there's some sort of inherent anti-gravity component?"

Just like that, I lost Emerald's attention. I didn't exactly blame her; I once tried to explain my magic to her, and she just got this far-off look in her eyes. While what I could do fascinated her, when I started 'talking like a grown-up', it was hard for her to follow. At least she was a good kid, rather than someone who would beat me up for my lunch money while calling me a nerd over my knowledge.

Starlight, at least, did stop her pacing. Instead she made her way over to the sunny spot I was lying, and took a seat beside me. She glanced down at the section I was reading and perked an eyebrow. It was all about properly constructing 'classes', 'methods', and 'functions' for parts of a larger spell and calling them in the main spell rather than charting it all out repeatedly. The book had called the style of magic 'object-oriented spells'. It seemed pretty useful for complex spells with a lot of repeated components, especially for spells that only functioned while channelled. A big downside was that a spell became magnitudes less readable, and it could be particularly hard to work into a weaved spiral spell. Plus, once a spell was created, unless it was documented perfectly, modification would be hell.

From the corner of my eye, I caught her cringing. "Oh wow," Starlight answered in a hesitant voice. "I mean, yeah, you could use anti-gravity to lighten a load, but I'm not sure implementing it through that method is the best idea." She conjured up one of my notepads and pencils from the luggage stacked nearby and started writing out something. "If you want to mimic telekinesis through object-oriented spellcasting, you're better off using runes to do things like modify weight, air resistance, and the effect of gravity, rather than negate it."

I looked at what she wrote and felt a bit confused. Even though she was just writing in basic sun-glyphs, it felt like I was looking at something completely foreign. Those were definitely words, but they didn't exactly make much sense.

class object: def __init__(self, weight, colour): self.weight = weight self.colour = colour object.weight = get target.attribute(weight) originalweight = object.weight object.colour= get target.attribute(colour) originalcolour = object.colour while Channelled == True: object.weight = originalweight / 2 object.colour = rgb(255,10,42) check Channelled if Channelled != True: object.weight = originalweight object.colour = originalcolour break else: pass

I looked from the paper to her expectantly. "This is in horribly simplified scroll format, lacking any sort of proper rune interaction," she began, "but basically what this spell would do is halve its weight while turning it a ruddy colour." She pointed to the conditional statement. "Can you guess what this is?"

It took a few moments of examining the paper before I thought I understood. The spell checked whether it was still being channelled. If the caster ceased, I imagined it would draw on just enough magic to reset the weight and colours to their default values. For lack of a better descriptor, it looked to be some sort of fail-safe to return the object to its natural state. "A fail-safe?"

Starlight nodded. "Object-oriented spellcasting, especially when directly modifying the attributes of objects, can be particularly potent, and when done properly, is incredibly efficient." That made my eyes widen. I already knew about the inverse proportionality between spell complexity and cost of magic, and looking at this and how it would probably operate to pull off a light spell, I could imagine how it might be enticing. "The problem becomes that if you don't properly create escape clauses, or leave things exactly as you intend, you could permanently alter an object, or create a spell that drains you dry."

That caused a shiver to run down my back. I already knew too well what it felt like to be burned out. I couldn't imagine how shitty it would be to have something as simple as a light spell kill you because you used the wrong syntax. "If you think that's bad, a sufficiently constructed spell can quite literally bend reality at negligible cost," she continued, noting my unease. "Back before Twilight took me under her wing, when I wasn't as good a pony as I am now, I actually used an object-oriented spell built upon one of Star Swirl's greatest accomplishments: a time spell. I broke the world with that spell and its consequences, and it took Twilight's help to set it right."

Not too far down the path, I heard a familiar voice. "My apologies for keeping you all waiting. As you already know, I am Tempest Shadow, and I am to be your bodyguard and minder from this day forth," said a dark mare in a black suit jacket, armoured black greaves, and black sunglasses that did nothing to hide the gnarly scar over her right eye. Between that, the mane style, and the broken horn, it wasn't hard to recognise who she was. There was a smirk on her face as she strolled up without even a saddlebag. "Princess Sparkle certainly keeps an interesting household."

She lowered herself to get a better look at Emerald, who unsurprisingly shied away a bit. "If I'm to be a bodyguard, I'd best make sure I know who's who. Let's see, you must be the miracle filly, Emerald." She glanced over at Starlight and gave the mare a curt nod. "That makes you the 'big sister' and fellow reprobate in reform, Starlight Glimmer." I could practically see the daggers that Star was glaring at Tempest. "And of course my favourite little maniac," she concluded, reaching over to tousle my mane. "You're looking a lot more stable than you did the last time I saw you."

Before anyone else could say anything, Emerald looked from the intimidating unicorn to me, and then back. "I don't think Anon's allowed to stay at stables anymore."

If not for the fact that I heard ponies referring to hotels as 'stables' shortly before the invasion, I'd have been confused. Instead, I just gave a tired sigh. "No, I'm pretty sure that's all of Manehattan I'm allowed to stay at anymore." Looking from Tempest to Starlight, I said, "If you don't already know the story, ask Starlight about what we went through there."

That honestly looked to be the last thing Starlight wanted to do. I couldn't exactly blame her for not trusting Tempest. The mare had gone from the commander of an invading force—a force that the both of us had personally fought against—to being assigned as my bodyguard and minder. She had every right to be suspicious of the mare. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if it took her years to begin to trust her.

"Well, let's get a move on then," Starlight said in a rather brusque tone. She was careful not to disturb me as she stood up and stretched. With a much more patient gaze, she watched as Emerald and I stood up. She even took the books we'd been using and slipped them away into her saddlebags. "Twilight was kind enough to book us a private car, but it's likely still busy down at the train station." Well, at least I know why we aren't just riding directly with Aunt Cadance now. She may have forgiven Tempest, but it'd be a long time before they'd be able to be in the same room for a long period of time without being discomforted. She cast a wary glance at me. "Just, when we get there, can you promise not to freak out?"

With a raised brow, I shook my head. "Nuh-uh," I responded. "I'm not playing that game, because it never ends well for the person who promises not to freak out. Just ask Auntie Twilight." I glanced at Tempest as I remembered trying to make that exact bargain with Twilight. "If there's something there that you think is gonna distress me, tell me now and I'll retreat into the shared dream space until we're on the train."

Even as it looked like Tempest wanted to ask what I was talking about, Starlight gave me an accusatory look. "You just don't wanna walk to the train station," she said, earning a giggle from Emerald. She wasn't wrong, but at the same time, I did need some time to myself. Finally, she rolled her eyes. "Fine."

~ 50 ~

For the next hour or two, I sat at the small table inside the dream room. It would have been easy to simply use this time to catch a few winks, but instead I was making use of a neat little feature I'd discovered about the place. See, although this place was technically a dream construct, my mind was still connected to it. If I were to conjure up a spell I'd been studying and pick it apart, I could then technically instantly memorise a fragment of the spell by summoning a 'book' labelled 'Memories - Magic' and pasting it in.

Although I was still not one hundred percent settled on the sort of method I wanted to use for the levitation spell, I had a few ideas. Above the table floated a spell matrix encoded in the way that unicorns used to cast their spells. Like the many that I'd reflected on over recent days, it was one I'd pulled out of a book on the magical equivalent of physiotherapy. This one was a spell designed to lift and move specially designed training orbs with varying levels of magical resistance to simulate weights.

On its own, the spell was useless, as it was specifically keyed to the harmonic frequencies of the orbs, but there were very useful pieces to be found within it. As I broke down the obfuscated runes, and stripped out the unicornian style minutia—reflected on the hovering projection—I found there to be a few useful structures in the spell. Even without knowing what some of the runes were, I was able to infer enough to understand that one command structure spoke to forming a magical grip on an object and taking into account the magical resistance. Meanwhile, this other one was all about manipulating objects inside and outside the caster's line of sight.

Definitely wanna keep those two.

Dismissing the useless parts of the spell, I wrote the remaining fragments into my memory and laid my head down on the table. As it stood, I probably had everything I needed to construct the initial prototype of my own telekinesis spell... That said, I'd definitely want to get Star's thoughts on it before I submitted it to Twilight. Even without thinking about it, I could feel a rough spell already coming together in my mind.

Honestly, I was kinda surprised that the entire time I've been in here, Emerald hasn't at least spoken inwardly to check in. Then again, maybe she thought I was actually asleep, rather than working on my homework. It was gonna be interesting when it came to helping my little sister 'catch up'. Her reading level was below what I imagined should be the norm for fillies her—Or is that our?—age, and I got the impression that her maths level was just as low. Even if we eventually had to split so that she could start attending school while I stayed in the Crystal Empire to heal, I was sure I'd be able to help her from afar.

There came a knock at the door, startling me out of my relaxation. Just a bit, though. There was only one pony that visited who bothered to knock. If Harmony or Hunger showed up, they typically just appeared or walked in like they owned the place. With a shrug, I banished the last of my work, and called out, "Come on in, Princess Luna."

When the door opened, and Princess Luna stepped in, there was a soft smile upon her face. "I can never quite get over this anomalous fixture in the realm of dreams," she commented, raising an eyebrow as a teapot and a plate of eclairs shimmered into existence on the table. "With how Harmony has made it permanent, and anchored both your minds to this space, I cannot help but wonder whether either of you would have the capacity for..."

As she shook her head to clear her head, she joined me at the table. Since this was a dream space, I had no limitations like in the physical world, so I wreathed the teapot in a blue aura. At the last moment after pouring, a teacup took form. "It is strange to see you asleep at this hour," Luna commented as she accepted the beverage and an eclair. "Is everything alright?"

I shrugged as, from the same kettle, I poured a mocha latte for myself. "Just taking some time to myself until we're on the train." I took a bite of my eclair, and then furrowed my brow. The flavour was off, but I couldn't put my hoof on it. "Starlight tried to make me promise not to freak out in the train station plaza, but wouldn't tell me why... which meant that it was something I was really not gonna like." I rolled my eyes, and then smirked. "So I said, 'Screw it,' and came here to work on my first study project."

There was a look of recognition on the princess's face at the mention of something I wouldn't like, although she tried her best to mask her reaction. Seeing as she clearly did not want to go onto that topic, and get me riled me up some more, she sipped her own simulated drink. "I know of the matter to which she referred, and I agree that exposure to it would be unwise at this juncture," Luna agreed, letting out an appreciative hum at the calming flavour of French vanilla coffee. "But if you would like some good news, you are likely to find a far more pleasant surprise waiting for you on the train. Consider this to be a gift from both myself and Celestia."

I... am going to the Crystal Empire to face punishment and seek treatment for my mental health issues, and they're giving me presents? I could feel my cheeks flush, even if it shouldn't be possible to blush through chitin. Bah... Dream logic. "That... honestly, seeing you guys giving Tempest a second chance is more than enough of a gift to me." I tapped my hooves together. "Even if she didn't do much, potentially not even for the right reasons, I'm grateful. She saw I was suffering during the march through Canterlot, and chose to do the right thing and get me inside as soon as possible when Auntie Twilight explained that the toxic atmosphere was killing me."

The princess nodded. "We thought you might feel that way, but neither I or my sister would think to dissuade them of their choice." A smile creased the mare's face as she set her empty cup down. Their choice? When our eyes met, I couldn't help but feel she was withholding a bit of mirth. "We hope that you, Emerald, Twilight, Starlight, and Spike enjoy this gift." Rising from her cushion, she fixed me with a knowing look. "Remember to behave for Tempest, as well as for Cadance and Shining Armour, and those you will be working alongside while serving out your punishment. For now, I must take my own rest."

At that, Princess Luna faded out of existence, leaving me alone with my thoughts in the simulation of my bedroom. Although she was clearly inferring that there would be something or someone was waiting for me when I returned to the waking world, back on the train, I didn't choose to wake up right away. Rather, I found myself looking around the room, wondering. How long has it been since I physically slept in my pillow nest? How long will it yet be before I can cuddle up with Serenity in my pillows?

The fact of the matter was, I hadn't looked at the calendar since going to the world in the mirror. It was the seventh of October when I left. I'd been unconscious for a week after the conflict outside Donut Joe's, and awoken on the twenty-fourth. Time got hard to keep track of after that. Was it a week that I spent healing before the invasion? Two? That time was little more of a haze of making and testing spells, dodging Discord, and managing to avoid meeting the ancient unicorn who was very interested in my special talent. We spent at least three days in Manehattan, but that time was kinda hazy too. A few hours on the air ship, followed by two days in a nightmare. Since then, it'd been what, another week?

That placed the date anywhere between the forty-eighth and the fifty-fifth of October. There was at most half a month until Nightmare Night... and I still hadn't considered what sort of costume I might wear. The easy answer would be to go in my changeling queen form, or maybe transform into a human and have Rarity make something cute for me. Scary probably wouldn't be the best plan, because honestly? The scariest thing I can even think of at the moment is me.

'Oh, hey! Anon! Why aren't you dressed up for Nightmare Night?'

'This is my costume.'

'What's it even supposed to be?'

'A war criminal.'

Yeah, that'd go over real well.

With a shake of my head, I dismissed everything I'd conjured up since dropping into this layer of consciousness. Once the room was back to its regular condition, I rose from my pillow. I made a show—to nobody in particular—of brushing the dust off myself as I made my way to the door. Instead of getting on with it and leaving, I cast one glance around the room.

What'll become of this place when I outlive Emerald? I wondered to myself. This place was created by Harmony to serve as a bridge between our consciousnesses—a place where one could rest while the other was in control, when there was only one body between the two of us. Even now, the place persists, and although I have no doubt I could change it, and expand it and those changes would persist, I can't help but wonder. As a changeling queen, I will live for at least a few hundred years longer than the average pony lifespan at a minimum, assuming I don't get my dumb ass killed.

Maybe I should add some things to keep Emerald entertained... Or maybe I should teach her how to do things in the dream.

~ 50 ~

When I came to, much to my surprise, I was facing a bench on which Starlight and Emerald sat, reading. Near the door, I could see Tempest standing guard—alert, but overall disinterested. Why did I find Starlight and Emerald being opposite of me so strange? It may have had something to do with the fact that I was very much aware of my carapace pressing against somepony, and that pony was wearing clothes. Actually, it wasn't even just one pony. I was wedged between two of them.

There was a soft chuckle, followed by a soft voice I'd grown quite used to hearing from all the time spent in the castle. "Dearest sister," came the monotone voice of Natural Talent as she lowered her head to greet me. "I do believe Lady Anonymous has finally awakened."

"That she has, darling sister," came Refined Skill's usual cheerful response as the blue-maned sister also ducked her head into view. "I hope your rest has been a fulfilling one."

As I looked from one to the other, I couldn't help but feel some disbelief. It had been something I'd joked about with Star on the night of the festival, but I wasn't actually expecting it to come to pass. Yet here they were, right beside me. Princess Luna's words in the dreamscape clicked, and I was left with a dumb smile on my face. A present indeed.

"Did you two really transfer to Auntie's service?" I asked, pushing myself up into a seated position. I could feel my cheeks flushing beneath my shell in embarrassment. "Not that I'm not happy you're here or anything... I'm just surprised is all."

Although Talent mirrored my action, Skill removed herself from the bench. Rather than answer my question, she just smiled at me. "Now that you are awake, I shall fetch a meal." She quickly turned to the others and asked, "Is there anything my ladies would like from the service cart?"

While Skill took down Starlight, Emeralds, and—to my surprise—Tempest's requests, I noticed Talent conjuring up a brush out of nowhere. I didn't resist as she started running the brush through my mane. It kinda perturbed me that her sister didn't ask me what I wanted before slipping out of the train car, but I was quickly distracted as Talent once more began to speak. "Truth be told, Princess Twilight should have had staff assigned to her when first she received her Castle of Friendship."

There was actually some slight fluctuation to her voice as she spoke, not unlike the time she showed anger towards Rainbow Dash. "One baby dragon should not be responsible for an entire castle. Especially when he is not a servant. Now that the castle's permanent number of residents is five—" She cast a furtive glance toward tempest. "—six if Tempest Shadow stays on as a body guard once your punishment is fulfilled—it is no longer feasible for Her Highness to not have maids."

Again she chuckled as she observed Starlight reading with Emerald. "Besides, it won't be easy raising two fillies in a castle, even with Lady Starlight and Sir Spike to help." With a shake of her head, she levitated the brush around to the other side of my head and started working down that side. "Busy ponies like them, like most nobles, rely on ponies like us for help explicitly because they cannot be there all the time. Just as I helped you learn how to read, and my sister taught you how to walk and control your hoof fields, so too shall we help you and Emerald to become fine young ladies."

After that, Talent was content to brush my mane out in silence. Not too long after, Skill returned with sandwiches, cookies, and bottled soda for the others. For me, however, I was presented with a large jar filled with concentrated liquid love. Evidently, she'd stopped by Cadance's car, and the alicorn provided her with some love for me to eat. So while the others ate, I forced myself to slowly nurse the jar, listening as Starlight told Emerald a bit more about the Crystal Empire. Even Tempest couldn't quite resist listening in.

The next few hours were filled with quiet chatter, interspersed with quiet periods of reading and dozing. At one point, not long after the cookies, Emerald got the sugar rush and needed to burn energy. Since she couldn't exactly run on the train, or even back inside the castle, she didn't exactly have a great outlet. Being the responsible big sibling, I put on my earth pony form and wrestled with her for a bit. I'd have done so in my changeling form, but I was more used to my strength in my pony shape. I wouldn't have earth-pony magic buffing my strength, but I was capable enough to alter my muscle mass to keep up with the younger filly. Plus, I wouldn't have to worry about my chitin getting crunched.

Starlight wasn't all that thrilled with the two of us play-fighting. Maybe she was worried I might have an episode and hurt Em, or that the contact might trigger something in Em. Either way, she needn't have worried. I actually had fond memories of play-fighting with Sara and Laura, so it wasn't all that hard to make sure Emmy won while still making it challenging for her. To be honest, she probably needed a win.

I think the only unicorn who was actually amused by our antics was Tempest. On top of Star's anxiety, Talent and Skill looked like they wanted to interject, probably because of the desire to see us grow into fine—read proper—young ladies conflicted with the rough-and-tumble behaviour playing out before them. The former commander, on the other hoof, seemed to be considering something, while radiating mirth.

"It's an earth pony thing," she finally commented when Emerald wore herself out. "A lot of the earth pony fillies from the village I grew up in would wrestle to bond, to blow off steam, or to establish a pecking order." Tempest never left her spot by the door to the next car, but she seemed to finally settle into her role as she watched Emerald fall asleep, still draped across my back in the middle of the floor. "With the way she looks at Anon, I doubt it was dominance play, but there was definitely some bonding and blowing off steam."

Over the train's public address system, I heard a mare's voice. "We are now approaching the Crystal Empire's environmental barrier." That caused the two maids to perk up, and I realised that I wasn't the only one having her first trip to the Crystal Empire. "The sensation of crossing through the barrier has been known to cause minor inner ear disturbances in some ponies, and in rare cases, unicorns may experience minor horn sparks. This is normal, and nothing to be concerned about." Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Skill gently rubbing at her horn with an anxious look on her face. "Following that, we will be pulling into Crystalia Settlement Station in fifteen minutes..."

I tuned out the rest of the announcement, instead focusing on the window behind Starlight. It was still snowing heavily outside the train. Yet, as we drew closer and closer, the snow petered out, and the sky started growing brighter. Then, without warning, I felt as if I passed through some sort of field of energy that resisted my entry slightly. On top of dragging my body—as well as the still napping Emerald—a few metres, my transformation was forcibly dispelled. It felt like I was being pressed in upon, at all sides, by various sensations. Then, just as quick as it came, it went.

The adults all let out startled noises at the sight of me migrating towards the back of the car, but I wasn't paying them any mind. Once the sensory overload passed, I was too caught up in feeling. I was no stranger to a place having a strong atmosphere of emotion; I'd experienced it once at Canterlot High School, and then again in Canterlot after the city fell under the Storm King's control.

This was nothing like that, though. No, in this place, the air was alive with positive emotions—joy especially. It brought tears to my eyes when I realised just how much emotion was in the air. It wasn't as filling as love, but it was so rich that even passively feeding would mean I had to start burning a lot more energy. Here, I could just enjoy regular food and collect mass, with the occasional love feeding to ensure I met my neurological needs.

Chrysalis, you stupid, stupid mare, I couldn't help but think as I stared out at the sky. Soon, the train began to turn, and off in the distance, I could see a great crystal spire. If only you knew then what I could feel now... Your hive would never have gone hungry here... You would have been able to step out in the light, make peace with Cadance, and lead the true changelings into prosperity, never having to prey upon others again.

This drove my thoughts into a darker place. If only you weren't so revenge-driven, Chrysalis. If you hadn't foalnapped me and been changed by my subterfuge, Hunger would never have needed to drag the species out from extinction. I might not have fallen to her influence... I heaved a sigh as I cleared my eyes while Starlight watched me with worry. I would likely still share a body with Emmy, but things might've been different.

There was no use in thinking that way, however. It was possible that Tempest might've made good on her threat, had I not turned myself in. My soul was darkened and scarred, but a city yet lived, and I sadly could not deny that Chrysalis and Hunger both had a hoof in that. I wonder, though... If Chrysalis knew that her swarm could subsist peacefully here in the empire... If she tried to open diplomacy, would Cadance have allowed her to move her hive here?

Entry 51

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It was unsurprising when we pulled up to the station and I saw a guard contingent waiting for us. To be honest, I would've expected a carriage waiting for Aunt Cadance, so it was interesting to see that she seemed to be taking the scenic route home. We were probably a few kilometres away from the towering spire that was the castle, but I could understand wanting to stretch your legs after being on a train all day. I wonder if a pony's rear can fall asleep, or if riding on the train in loaf-position is just the norm.

When we exited our car, Star directed our party over to where the guards seemed to be waiting for the princess. Sure enough, Cadance reached the group first, but did not immediately leave. Instead, she waited for our little party to show up. Funny enough, the royal was caught off guard by the presence of Talent and Skill, but made no comment when she greeted us. That said, her gaze lingered on me, and I realised that I was still undisguised.

"Thank you again for agreeing to share your escort," Starlight commented with a pleasant smile. As the group began to move, she took up a position beside and a few paces behind the princess. Meanwhile, the guards assumed position at either side of the procession. "Even though Tempest is here to keep Anon out of trouble, I appreciate the extra security given her propensity for finding trouble."

With an airy laugh and a ruffle of her wings, Cadance dismissed the thanks. "It's not a problem, Starlight." She paused and gestured at the great crystalline city, shimmering in the late afternoon sunset. "I never get tired of seeing the city like this. It makes the walk home worthwhile, even if I'm eager to see Shiny and Flurry again. Besides, I'm sure everypony would love to hear about the city."

She cast a glance over her shoulder as she spoke, and again, I found her gaze lingering on me. There was a bit of anxiety in her emotional spectra, and it seemed to be in relation to me, but I couldn't imagine what the problem could be. Is she worried I might scare ponies? I was tempted to throw on a transformation, but I figured if I somehow got separated from the group, I'd be easier to find.

To my amusement, Emerald seemed to get a second wind as the princess extolled the virtues of her city. Every so often, she'd race ahead of the group, gawping at all the sights and shiny crystal ponies. She especially seemed enraptured by the latter, and whenever somepony smiled down at her, she got this starry look in her eyes. Then she'd race back to the group or attempt to run circles around us, occasionally trying to goad me into trying to race her.

Me, I was just sticking close to Starlight. Play could wait until we got settled, and to be honest, I was willing to bet that Flurry could wear Emmy out pretty easily. I was tempted to try to make use of my wings to get a better look at things, but it would mean that my minder couldn't keep as easy an eye on me, and I was supposed to be on my best behaviour. This resulted in Tempest following beside me, and the two maids a few paces behind me. Honestly, I don't know whether it makes me feel important or crowded.

The city, Cadance explained, was broken up into several different districts, or settlements as they were called. Crystalia was the southernmost of the districts, housing much of the shopping, restaurants, and hotels, as it was the settlement which connected the Crystal Empire to the rest of the world. To the north of the Crystal Castle was the Jadeland Settlement, which was dedicated to agriculture, and to the west was the industry-laden Jewel Settlement. That left Quartzhearth Settlement to the east, which was basically the suburbs.

It made sense that they'd keep a lot of the tourist stuff close to the train station, but I could tell that there were homes interspersed all over the place, otherwise there'd be a lot of space going to waste. Honestly, they could have done worse with this district. Rather than make it ostentatious and self-important, the ponies of the Empire gave it a homey, welcoming feeling. "We want you to enjoy your stay, and hopefully come back," was the sort of display it was.

At about the halfway point, something weird happened. Back in Canterlot, I'd been told that there was a reformed changeling here who might be willing to mentor me, so picking up a pheromone trail wasn't unusual. As we got closer to the castle, however, I began to notice something about the pheromones lingering in the air: they smelled like my own. I'd know what my own pheromones were like because I put a lot of effort into getting rid of Thorax's stink in the baths back in Canterlot.

It was so disorienting that I stumbled before coming to a stop. "Have... have I been here before?" I murmured as I felt a strange draw to the pheromones. Something in my brain was compelling me to follow... to find out and understand. Dimly, I was aware that my bodyguard and the maids were following behind me as I locked on to the trail. They might have even have been saying something, but my brain tuned them out.

Although one end of the trail seemed to go toward the castle, the fresher pheromones seemed to go off onto a side street, so that was where my hooves began to carry me. What is it about this? They're almost indistinguishable from my own pheromones, and almost certainly of a high caste, but there are subtle differences. Not mine, but close...

As I came to a stop outside a childishly decorated building that a sign proclaimed the Second Chance Shelter, it finally hit me. Memories granted by Hunger told me that the only reason my pheromones would be similar to somebug else's would be if they had some sort of familial tie to me. Even as the sound of foals playing filled my ears, my mind finally settled on a word. Mother.

The thought made me somewhat dizzy, and I found myself leaning against Refined Skill for support. There were only two possibilities that I could come up with to explain this. Either there just so happened to be another changeling with similar pheromones to me living at this shelter, or Hunger had used another changeling as a template, and basically 'created' a mother for me. So... not my mother, but a bug close enough genetically that she could have been. No, Twilight's more of a Mom to me than whatever placeholder Hunger put out for me to find.

I finally snapped out of my stupor when I heard Cadance call out. "There you are!" Sure enough, coming up the road was everypony we left behind on the main drag. Her expression was unreadable, and she seemed to tamp down on her emotional presence as she saw the building I felt drawn to. "I see you have found the Second Chance. This is the orphanage you'll be working off your community service at." As if reading my mind, she shook her head. "Yes there is a changeling working here, but you'll get to meet her tomorrow, and in a controlled setting before you start."

Under her breath, she muttered, "At least I hope she'll wait. When she gets a whiff of you, she might not." I was really confused by that, and not just because I was pretty sure I wasn't supposed to hear it. Was this going to become another Apocrita situation with near cultist-like fervour? Was I in danger?

It took some prodding, but eventually they managed to lead me back to the main drag. The rest of the trip was spent in a real daze as my head began to swim. I hated it, but the word mother kept repeating itself whenever I got a hint of that trail. It was almost instinctual, and I was almost scared that I might accidentally call them Mom when we were introduced.

Not helping the situation at all, Starlight was now watching me a lot more closely. I could feel her fear and anger, neither of which were directed at me, but her anxiety was definitely about me. It reminded me that both my big sister and Twilight knew something that I didn't, and that they were intentionally keeping it from me. Either they didn't think it was important that I know now, or more likely, they didn't want to get me worried too.

I can't exactly blame them, I thought as we entered the castle. As soon as we were inside the great crystalline spire, and ascended into a large antechamber, the guards separated from us. Meanwhile, Emerald, Skill, and even Tempest were enraptured by the transparent floor that looked down upon an important-looking plaza. I've only recently gotten myself stabilised and the last thing they wanna do is get me back on a hair-trigger.

The halls Cadance led us through could easily have given a minotaur or a small adult dragon plenty of space to move. Every square inch of it was gleaming crystal, but none of the walls were transparent. It wasn't as if it were cloudy. No, it was more like the walls simply didn't permit a pony to see into the chamber beyond. If I had to guess, this place was probably a marvel of magical engineering.

When we reached a large door not unlike the doors to the throne room in Canterlot Castle, the baby-blue aura of Cadance's magic grasped the door knockers and pulled the door open. There, sitting on a large crystalline throne was a familiar buff unicorn with a two-tone blue mane. Two crystalline guardsponies stood at the base of the raised dais upon which sat the throne. "Shiny, I'm home!" she exclaimed, "and I brought guests!"

As the party entered the throne room, I saw Shining Armour's gaze take in everypony's appearance. Starlight was known to him, as likely were the maids, based on the polite nods he gave upon seeing them. He seemed a bit wary of Tempest, but a soft smile of recognition spread across his muzzle as he spotted Emerald. Wait, has he even been filled in on the whole split thing? If not, he probably thinks Emerald is me.

The moment he locked eyes with me, however, everything went wrong. His pupils dilated, and his distress filled the room. His eyes took on a faraway look as his breathing picked up. Perhaps picking up on his rising panic, Cadance stepped forward and said, "Shining, this is..."

"Chrysalis!" he hissed as a wave of hate roiled off of him. "I won't let you hurt us again!"

A pink aura surrounded his horn, and then, before anypony could talk him down, he fired off a spell. Emerald's terrified shriek filled my ears as I watched in slow motion as a bolt of concentrated energy flew towards me. I had no way of knowing if that was a stunner spell, or if he was aiming to kill. Even as both maids protectively embraced the filly, my fight or flight response settled on freeze, and I found my legs wouldn't budge from the floor.

That was when a black-clad limb swept in front of me, deflecting the spell into the ceiling with a loud crack. In the next moment, a black and purple blur wrapped itself around me, interposing itself between me and my would-be attacker. Belatedly, I realised that it was Tempest, who was now clutching me to her barrel. When I looked up at her, I saw she was glaring in the direction of the throne. A shimmering pane of magic had erected itself between us as Starlight strode over to make sure I was okay.

"Shining, remember what I said in my letter?" Cadance pleaded, as she rushed to his side, attempting to calm him. "That's not Chrysalis! That's Anon! You know, the filly who beat up older two colts to protect a friend?" The mare embraced her husband in a hug as she spoke. "I told you in my letter that she'd separated from Emerald and became a changeling, remember?"

Peeking around Tempest's barrel, I saw his expression of fear and hate deteriorate into one of horror. All he could manage was a scared sounding, "I... you... Anon?" As he seemed to get his head back on straight, Shining managed to look quite ashamed of himself. Half-accusingly, he turned to Cadance and asked, "Why didn't you warn me that she looks exactly like a mini-Chrysalis? I was doing better now that she's reformed and doing something good and meaningful, but Luna's still been working with me on those nightmares."

If not for the fact that I needed to be strong for my little sister, I probably would have lost my shit. My breath was beginning to hitch in my throat, and for a moment, I was back in the hallway in Canterlot Castle. 'I'm a monster who can't be redeemed,' echoed inside my head as the phantom scent of copper and iron filled my nostrils. Feeding and stabilising myself didn't cha—

Tempest stepped back and forced me to meet her gaze. "Anon, I need you to stay in the present," she said in a commanding voice. "Take nice, slow breaths, and focus on me."

It took me far longer than I'd like to admit to understand what she said to me, and longer still to realise that Emerald had pressed herself against my side. Despite being just maids, the emotions radiating off of Natural Talent and Refined Skill made it clear that they were ready to fight the former captain of the Equestrian Royal Guard if it came down to it. That only furthered the belief that they had become protective of me—that I meant something to them. That, more than anything managed to make me feel safe.

Even as the former commander ran me through a calming exercise, I could hear Starlight chewing him out. "What were you thinking?" she yelled, causing both Cadance and the poor redshirts to flinch. "She's a bucking traumatised foal, and we only just convinced her to stop inventing combat spells—that she could rely on ponies like you to protect her so that she wouldn't ever have to go through what she did in Manehattan again." All the while, she kept up the barrier between us and the prince. "The only thing keeping her together right now is the fact that feeding managed to rebalance her brain chemistry enough that she was no longer a threat to herself."

"I..." the stallion could only mumble, wilting in his wife's grip. "I didn't..."

Finally, Starlight turned her back to the royals and dropped her spell. With a flick of her tail, she said, "Come on, everypony. Let's go find a hotel for the night. I'll send Twilight a letter later so we can figure something out in the long term."

Cadance called out in an attempt to talk her down, but it seemed like Starlight wasn't interested in what the Princess of Love had to say. She was already marching toward the throne room doors, but paused when she realised the rest of us hadn't moved. Instead, I was sitting in front of Tempest, glancing back and forth between Shining and Star. It didn't seem right to leave right now.

"Sis, it's alright," I finally managed, making the effort to mask the dual layered bug voice. "I felt his emotional reaction when he saw me." My gaze firmly fixed upon the unicorn on the throne. "Whatever happened between him and Chrysalis, it clearly left its scars on him. I've seen that faraway look he had in my own reflection, and I know what a trauma response looks like. This wasn't his fault." Shaking my head, I sighed. "I probably should have been wearing my normal appearance in the first place."

Glancing at Cadance, and then Starlight, I asked, "Do I really look just like Chrysalis?"

I was not expecting those three—as well as the two unicorn maids—to blurt out a "Yes!" in unison.

~ 51 ~

Once all the tempers cooled down, the evening was a lot less eventful. Sure, Shining was still on edge, but once he saw my cutie mark and I 'put my face on' so to speak, he seemed to calm down a lot. He was still a bit leery of me, but to be honest, I'd be more worried if he wasn't. Still, maybe being here would be beneficial to Shiny, too.

I think what really helped calm everything down was seeing that Flurry wasn't at all scared of me in either shape. In fact, I was in my natural form at dinner when she first saw me, yet she seemed to know I was me. How do I know, you ask? Well, the cry of "Anom!" before tackling me was a good indicator. Yeah, apparently at the start of the month, the little tyke spoke her first words, and since then, she was picking up names pretty easily.

Cadance seemed to think it was funny when, after dinner, I used my powers ~~for evil~~ to challenge Flurry Heart's memory by transforming into various ponies I knew that she was likely to know. You know, take on a form and use their voice to ask who I was. Mama and Dada were the easiest answers, and Anom was pretty self-explanatory. More interesting were Cewes, Luma, Twaiwai, and Sawai. Of course, probably the funniest of them all was Auntie's friend group: Spy, Abbajah, Raibo Dah, Fwutta, Rara, and Scawy. That's right, Pinkie was scary to her. Preach, sister. That mare scares the shit out of me, too, and I'm the one that gives monsters nightmares.

Finally, we all ended the night by letting Emerald and Flurry tire each other out. It might not be the first time I've said it, but Flurry is scary active for an infant, and if she picked up names that quickly, I reckoned she was gonna rival Twilight in intellect some day. It was nice seeing Em get to run around chasing or being chased by the little alicorn. For all the poor kid's been through,it's nice being able to see her enjoy normal kid things.

Tempest, Skill, and Talent were granted their own rooms, but ultimately Starlight, Emerald and I all shared one room, sleeping in a little pony pile, as we'd taken to doing. I worried that it might give Emerald some dependency issues. For the time being, it was more important to show her that I wasn't going anywhere. We hadn't even been separated a few hours before I went and gave myself up to the Storm King's forces, and then scared the shit out of her in the dream world when I nearly got killed and fell into that self-destructive nightmare. God only knows what would happen if she were to find out I almost committed suicide using Rainbow Dash.

Maybe it was the shock of nearly getting killed again, but I didn't dream that night. Instead, Luna was more than happy to let me form my void. To my surprise, I even ended up sleeping in. By that, I meant that I was the last pony in the pony pile to wake up for breakfast. Then again, maybe all this passive love that I was basking in was having a sort of tryptophan effect.

I have to ask whatever changeling I work with if they can teach me how to turn off passive feeding and my ability to read emotions. I thought I had the latter under control, but it was just the exhaustion.

The thing I think I was going to miss the most about Canterlot Castle was the lack of communal baths. There was little doubt in my mind that having Talent, Skill, or even occasionally Starlight or Twilight join me and aid in grooming had spoiled me a bit. What was it I even liked about it? Was it the near familial intimacy that the pony part of my brain craved? Was it just having someone around so that I didn't feel alone? Either way, we only had the individual bathrooms.

Note to self; suggest to Cadance that they open a bathhouse based on the palatial baths in Canterlot.

With me in my pony form, glasses and all, settling in for breakfast was a much more relaxed affair. Shining didn't immediately panic upon seeing me, and we even got to talking about magic. While he wasn't as scholarly as his sister, he still knew some pretty interesting spells that I wanted to get my hooves on. In particular, I'd love to take apart his famous shield spell to see how it works. Combat spells are forbidden, but Mo—Auntie Twilight didn't say anything about defensive spells like a shield.

While I ate a very sugar-laden bowl of oatmeal and chatted up Shining, Cadance was taking time to get to know Emerald. Starlight was just watching me warily, and Tempest simply stood at the edge of the room, watching me. Neither maid was present, but I imagined they might have been taking their breakfast with the servants or guard staff. All-in-all, a peaceful breakfast, right?

Well fuck me for getting hopeful, I thought as the doors to the dining hall burst open. In the middle of the doorway, flanked by two embarrassed-looking crystal guards, stood a tall, fluffy white bug pony. Between the flowing cyan hair, the golden ruff of fur around her neck, and the stunning moth wings, I knew exactly who it was, and felt a degree of guilt upon that sense of recognition. There was the former queen of the unreformed changelings, who I tricked into reforming, and good lord did she look frantic, manic, and slightly pissed.

Beside me, I heard Emmy quietly exclaim, "Fluffy bug pony!" It seemed like she was combating the desire to go hug her. Luckily, common sense and stranger danger awareness kept her close at my side. Even if she was reformed, I couldn't trust her not to hurt Emerald yet.

"Where is she?" Chrysalis demanded as she strode up to the table. Idly, I noticed my bodyguard's presence had come directly behind myself and Emerald. "Where is the juvenile queen bearing my pheromone signature? I know she's here, Cadance."

Even as Starlight Glimmer bristled, her horn ready to cast, and Shining Armour shied away, something weird happened. Cadance merely sipped at her coffee, indifferent to the former enemy standing at the end of the table. "Good morning to you too, Chrysalis." What was even happening right now? Given all she'd done, I'd have thought Cadance would be at her throat. "Please, why not join us? I can have some coffee brought out."

Her pheromone signature... No... No no no. This is gonna get ugly.

The reformed queen ignored the princess, instead glaring around the table. Hateful eyes fell upon Starlight, and she seemed wary of the bodyguard with the broken horn, but when she settled her gaze upon me and the filly sitting right beside me, she looked enraged. Her eyes locked on mine. "You! What did you do, you little monster!?" she demanded, getting as close as she dared until I heard two horns spark in warning. Her gaze travelled to Emerald, who no doubt was so inundated with my pheromones that she was probably indistinguishable from me, especially with how she now trembled against my back. "How have you created what pheromones tell me is my daughter, and why do you force her to wear your appearance?"

A tiny part of me was still somewhat scared of the mare. She had fed on me several times in Ponyville before foalnapping me, and she'd planned to hurt me in order to hurt Starlight and Twilight. Yet, my guilt over forcing the change on her was stronger than that fear. What caught me by surprise was just how quickly I responded to Emerald's fear, and how quickly aggression built up in my chest.

In a flash of blue flame, I shed my pony disguise, and used my wings to lift myself atop Tempest's back. Before I even realised it, I'd transformed my right foreleg into a familiar scythe-limb and hissed at her. "You need to back the fu-freak up, Chrysalis," I snarled. "I will not let you scare Emerald like this, and I will never be your daughter."

It was so satisfying seeing the bug's confounded expression as she glanced from the foal who lacked glasses and burn scars, and then back to me. She even did as I suggested and backed up, shaking her head... "No, no, no," she muttered with an almost manic titter as I reverted my leg. "This has to be some sort of joke. How did she become a changeling? Why? This isn't fair..." She backed herself against the wall and began to cry and laugh as she glared at me. "Why does Anonymous get to be a pure-strain while I was forced to become one of those harmonious mutts!?"

There came an almost sinister laughter filling the air. Black sand appeared from nowhere, blowing into a pile beside Chrysalis before slowly coalescing into a familiar Abyssinian lady with piercing blue eyes, lying sensually on her side. "Why indeed, Chryssi," purred the familiar voice of Désirée as she reached up to boop the bug's snoot. "Why would a mere pawn whose hunger for the power to protect, the acquisition of knowledge, and for revenge ever be worthy to steal away from boring old Harmony?"

Guards, Shining, and Tempest all froze at the sight of the embodied Hunger spirit, but Starlight and Cadance merely looked annoyed, and Flurry merely babbled with interest. Meanwhile, the forcibly reformed changeling glanced from the spirit to me in horror. "The Goddess of the Swarm..." she whispered. I had no doubt that she could feel that answer on a spiritual level, even if she was no longer under Hunger's domain. "H-how!?"

For her part, Hunger just grinned a Cheshire cat grin. "It's as you said when you took her," purred the spirit of Hunger. "'Anonymous... It's such a strong changeling name,' I believe you said. 'It's so deliciously ironic that Celestia would name an outsider-turned-pony like that. If but you had fallen into my hooves before that meddling whorse got her hooks into you, I could have made you one of my own.'"

The cat cackled as she began to rise up into the air and float lazily around the distraught bug. "To be honest, that little exchange is what gave me the idea to steal a pawn from Harmony and ensure the true changelings did not die out," she continued. "Your touch on her mind left her changed, you know. She could feel emotions just as a changeling does, and given time, she might even have changed on her own. Speeding up the process and getting a body of my own was too good of an opportunity to pass up."

Slowly, Désirée floated over to me, and Tempest by extension. The bodyguard luckily had the sense not to strike out at what was effectively a goddess. I hissed and buzzed my wings as she mussed up my mane and booped me on the nose as well. "Besides, this little monster is a natural, Chryssi," commented the spirit with a chortle. "Truly, she is every bit your daughter!" She cackled as I shared a horrified look with Chrysalis. "Even with all the puzzles and scrambled knowledge I've left her, she's adapted quite well. She's even figured out how to alter herself using mass all on her own, as you've seen. How long did it take you to learn under Queen Morpha? A year? Five? Or was it a decade? Anon figured it out in hours with only partial knowledge!"

Slowly, Chrysalis' gaze changed from a look of horror to one of surprise. Dare I say she almost looked impressed? "That's a much better way to look at your new protégé," she crooned. "You're going to be spending a lot of time together, so I want you two to get along... No killing each other. You just teach Anon all she needs to know about being a bug so that it's easier for her to understand everything I put in her head..."

Slowly, she started dispersing into black sand once more. "One more thing," came her voice laced with mirth once her body blew away into a nonexistent breeze. "This new model is immune to being turned into one of Harmony's mutts, so don't even worry about trying to change her out of revenge." There was an airy chuckle, and then, "Although, maybe it would do her some good to look like you do when she helps you at the orphanage. From the outside, it'll be just some nice Mommy/Daughter community service and bonding."

Jesus Christ, that is a horrifying sentence that I never want to hear again for as long as I live.

Evidently, Chrysalis was in agreement. She wilted slightly against the wall as she realised Hunger was probably going to be watching extra close to make sure she didn't try anything with me. "I liked the goddess when she didn't speak so often," she quietly whimpered. "Why is she so much like Discord?"

Meanwhile, at the head of the table, Shining Armour merely gaped at the spot where the cat woman used to be. "What the buck was that?" he finally asked, looking over at me.

The moment I looked over, Flurry decided to add her own two cents. "Buck!" she cried out with childish glee. This was promptly followed by Cadance facehoofing.

Seemingly realising what he'd done, he looked down at the remains of his breakfast with a defeated look. "I'm sleeping on the sofa tonight, aren't I?"

Entry 52

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Once everyone had time to calm down following Désirée's parting, the rest of breakfast broke down into a rather silent affair. Given Shining's reaction to my bug shape the previous day, I was still honestly impressed that he was tolerating being in the same room as Chrysalis. Admittedly, he was refusing to look at her, but he didn't object to her being at the same table as his wife and daughter. It didn't even seem to even bug him that Cadance was somehow on speaking terms with her.

Then again, I think Chrysalis was still technically serving her own penance for all of her crimes. Who better to enact that punishment than the royals whose wedding she derailed? What better way to keep an eye on her and touch base than to have her occasionally dine with you? Besides, maybe it was the fact that she actually seemed healthy now, but the reformed queen no longer had that same starved to madness aura about her.

There was, however, no helping the continued animosity between her and Starlight. Although I couldn't read my big sister's mind, I honestly wouldn't have been surprised if she were to get goaded into throwing a chair; the aggression and hate she was sending Chrysalis' way just gave off that vibe, y'know? I suppose that's just the sort of risk you run after braining somepony with a frying pan and threatening their loved ones.

Strangely, unlike the last time I saw the bug, I didn't actually get any emotional vibes directly off of her. All those weeks ago, when she was chained up in a cell and my empathy was only just beginning to form, I remember being assaulted by Chrysalis' rage, confusion, sorrow, and grief... to say nothing of the hate she held for me. Now, however, she was a void in all my senses but scent, just like the traitor brood. It left me wondering if this was because of the difference in species, or if it was just one big inconsistency—an error in the continuity of reality.

Emerald wasn't all that happy that I wasn't going to be able to spend much time with her today. It took Cadance, Starlight, and Refined Skill taking her aside to help her understand that I was going to be helping ponies as part of the punishment for all of the crimes I had committed. Although they didn't go into the details of just how bad things had been, the princess gently explained to her that from a legal standpoint, I technically should have been put in jail.

Instead, Princesses Celestia and Luna were enacting something known as community-based sentencing. Rather than rot away in a jail cell, I was being made to give back to the community, during which I would be under constant watch. Even once my mandatory service was complete, I was going to be on probation for a long time. All it would take would be one screw-up for me to end up in the slammer.

Honestly, the concept of probation might have been beyond Emerald right now, and I think the talk sent all of the wrong messages. When they were done, she was looking at me with an almost starry-eyed expression, talking about how cool I was for helping Starlight and Trixie, even knowing that I'd be punished, how I suffered so that others didn't have to, and was now helping other foals to atone. I love childish innocence, but the last thing I wanted her to believe was that I was some tragic heroine or a martyr. I'm just a colossal fuck-up with connections.

Finally, just before I had to go start my service, Cadance led me off to a small sitting room while Shining Armour and Starlight spoke to Tempest Shadow. She waited until I took a seat on one of the sofas before beginning to talk. "This will be your uniform while working at the Second Chance Shelter," she explained as she conjured up a small box on the seat beside me. When I opened it, I found a blank lanyard with the place's logo on it, which had spaces for one's name, species, age, role, and a picture. "Matron Tender Reach, the unicorn mare that runs the orphanage, will use a spell to add your details, and enchant it to reflect your appearance, regardless of the shape you take." She chuckled before adding, "She came up with the idea because somepony was being difficult in her first week there."

Beneath the lanyard, there was a baby-blue vest that looked to be in my size, with an open back that would be perfect for my wings if I were to remain a bug or become a pegasus. Hell, I think it'd work just fine even if I was mimicking Chrysalis's form like Hunger suggested. Without prompting, I took the vest out of the box and put it on, noting some zipper-pockets on the inside. That's not usually where those go... "Is there anything I should know before I go there?" I asked, zipping it all the way up before assuming my earth pony shape. Seeing the glasses drop down onto my muzzle from where my horn vanished got a bit of a smile from her. "Anything Chrysalis might leave out to spite me?"

She seemed to consider her answer as she looked me over. After a moment, Cadance nodded. "Not all of the children at Second Chance are local," she explained as she led me over to a window that looked out at the city. "It started out as an orphanage for those who lost their parents because of Sombra and the displacement in time, but eventually, foals began to be brought in when it was considered unsafe for them to remain in their home towns. Some are there because of traumatic experiences and need a safe, stable environment."

From the window, I could just make out the part of Crystalia Settlement that the orphanage was located. "Some of the foals brought in over the last year were in Canterlot during Chrysalis' invasion, or were displaced because of her attempt to replace much of Equestria's power structure." A wave of guilt rolled off her when she looked down at me. "Part of the reason Chrysalis works there now is to see what harm she's done, and aid in their recovery as a form of exposure therapy. Reformed changelings don't provoke as negative a response, but your natural form may. As loathe as I am to take that cat's suggestions, mimicking Chrysalis' form or sticking with one disguise may be your best chance at a comfortable stay."

I regarded Cadance carefully. Although she was correct that taking a form like Chrysalis and playing on the relation aspect would likely make things easier if the kids were comfortable with the fluffy moth horse, was I comfortable with that? In the end, she was still the raging cunt that planned on using me to hurt someone I love. Playing her daughter just seemed fucking wrong. Still... I suppose I could make it part of my punishment.

"I'll consult the Matron and Chrysalis before beginning my shift," I finally said before turning away from the window. Against my own desires, my tail flicked repeatedly in agitation. Sometimes I hate how inadvertently expressive pony bodies are. "Is Matron Reach gonna be alright with Tempest being around? She's kinda supposed to keep me out of trouble, but she's kind of intimidating when you first meet her."

Cadance just smiled at me as she turned and trotted over to the sitting room door. "Shining's provided her with a letter of introduction," she explained as she magicked the door open. "Tender Reach is a very understanding mare. She's not going to fault a very important filly from having a bodyguard or minder. At most, she might be asked to help chaperone outings."

A chuckle escaped the alicorn as the now-open door revealed my body-guard. Tempest was in the middle of getting a bit of an unwanted make-over from the maid sisters. It appeared as though they were trying their best to tame the grizzled mare's mane, but it wasn't giving them a whole lot to work with. The best they were really able to do was create a rather tomboyish bob, and use some of her bangs to cover the broken horn and the scar over her eye. It definitely looked a bit more professional than how she normally wore it, but I imagined that she was probably internally seething about reduced visibility.

As soon as she saw me, I entertained the thought she was gonna try and use me as a buffer between her and the maids. Even after being assailed by them, however, she kept the dignity and poise of a seasoned warrior, merely falling in line behind me as Cadance started leading us down towards the castle's entrance. Once there, she assigned some random guard to escort us to the Second Chance. That was really just to ensure we knew our way there, mind you.

On our journey, Tempest surprised me by reaching into one of her pockets and providing me with a pair of spell medallions, courtesy of Starlight. These were Conjure Light and Conjure Water spells that'd been left in our luggage since Manehattan. I immediately slid those into the two inside pockets of my vest—no, I really wasn't wearing it inside out—and began to move with a little spring in my step. At the very least, I would be able to keep hydrated and find my way around any dark basements I might end up in.

Then Tempest showed me two medallions that Starlight provided her for the express purpose of keeping me safe. Honestly, I was surprised by the amount of trust she was putting in the former foe; if I were to guess, she probably weighed the pros and cons of giving her something other than the wild, raw mana attacks to cast to protect me. If so, she definitely came to the conclusion that anything would be better than risking the kind of damage wild magic like that could do.

My guardian of course wanted an explanation of what each one did in the event she needed either, and I was only too happy to do so. I immediately recognised my Air Bullet spell, and made sure to point out that it was on a five-second delay as a safety measure. The other spell, however, was a modification to one of my own works; on the first glance, it was my Stonewall formula, but the dimensions were altered, and there was a new section added that seemed to banish the conjured rock when the caster stopped channelling it. I definitely wanna get another look at that later.

The remainder of that trip was spent in silence. Although I sincerely hoped that they would be fine without me pretending that I was ~~the same inferior~~ Harmony ~~model of changeling as~~ a reformed changeling like Chrysalis, I was already constructing a disguise in my mind's eye. It was basically a compact version of the moth horse I had a hoof in creating, with some key differences. For one, I envisioned my mane to be green fading to black at the tips. Then there was the fact that unlike Chrysalis' domestic silk moth styled wings, mine would be more akin to a luna moth's, greens included. Finally, whereas the ruff of fur around the reformed queen's neck was gold, mine would be more of a silver. It'll be enough that we'd look related without me just being a mini-Chrysalis, right?

~ 52 ~

Being around Chrysalis was going to take a lot of getting used to, I decided as I sat on a cushion in front of a low desk. Opposite me was the non-consensually reformed insect and an older unicorn mare. The former was staring at me with an inscrutable expression on her face, and I was thankful that I couldn't read her emotions. Meanwhile, Matron Tender Reach—a cream unicorn with greying indigo in her mane and tail—was looking down at some documentation with a mixture of indifference and concern. Doubtlessly, she was having second thoughts about having me.

After several moments of silence, she pushed her thick-lens glasses up her muzzle and looked at me. "I've been made to understand that you've something of a history getting into fights," she broached, watching me intently. "The extent hasn't been fully disclosed, but before I make a decision, I need to get a better grasp on whether you're a threat to my foals here at Second Chance. Could you explain what situations you've found yourself in that resulted in violence?"

I nodded, not bothered by the question. To be honest, I fully expected to have to explain myself. "When I first started school in Ponyville, there were a pair of older colts picking on a filly over things outside of her control. I took their attention off of her, but the unicorn brother—" My form momentarily flickered into that of Ivory Crescent. "—got it in his head that he should dump a thermos of tea on me, scarring me and nearly blinding me. I was still just a pony when that happened, so that was a bit of blinding pain, and blind panic more than any intent to get into a fight. They gave as good as they got, but I admit it wasn't my proudest moment."

That got a nod from the matron. "That much was disclosed, and I thank you for not dancing around that point," she noted, glancing down at whatever document was on her desk, "but the document merely lists 'future incidents' that were otherwise redacted. It worries me that a foal could have so much black ink on her file at such a young age. It makes you seem more like a veteran S.M.I.L.E. agent than any normal filly."

I swallowed slightly. This mare knew about something I don't think a lot of ponies would have common knowledge of. Even I had only heard mention of it ~~while eavesdropping~~ in passing. That was supposed to be some sort of spy agency that fought monsters and other things, right? This mare definitely wasn't just the matron of an orphanage. Is it normal for ex-spies to run orphanages, though? It certainly explained why Chrysalis would be assigned here, and why I'd been assigned.

"I received a 'quest' from an artifect tied to Harmony, one in Princess Twilight's possession, that resulted in me clearing an equestrian citizen of wrongdoing, and in the process fought off five hoodlums to prevent a lynching of the guilty parties," I counted off, wincing at the memory of how cold and scared I felt in that concussed state. "That wasn't fun... Then there was the Storm King's invasion of Canterlot; I used runic magic to aid the Canterlot Royal Guard in securing the train station during the evacuation, and later used magic to down a heavily armoured airship pursuing the train evacuating out to Manehattan."

The way the mare gaped at me left me feeling quite uneasy, especially when my unicorn shadow nodded to confirm it. Tapping the tips of my hooves together, I gave an anxious titter. "The last case worth note was when my adoptive older sister and her friend were foalnapped by the mob." I deflated and looked away. "I may have gone on the war path, destroyed an entire cartel single-hoofedly, and birthed an entity not dissimilar to Discord."

To be honest, I half expected Tempest, who remained quiet by the door, to have to speak up on my behalf, at the very least to confirm my testimony regarding the events of the invasion. Instead though, the mare just shook her head with a sigh. "The worst part is that I can tell you're being honest with me," she muttered, rubbing at her temples. Despite using you, it seemed like she was talking more to herself than me. "So glad I retired from the agency's pony resources division when I did. With that sort of record, I can just imagine how badly the Director must be pushing for you to be recruited."

Fixing me with a more professional stare, she spoke up in a much louder voice. "I won't tolerate any fights here, but it sounds like you're more driven to protect others." With a nod, she fixed her gaze on my lanyard and the affixed identification. Her horn lit up momentarily, and then my picture and details appeared on the laminated card. My role, surprisingly, was listed as volunteer, rather than something more obvious like voluntold. "I'll have you shadow Chrysalis for your first day, but if you find anything you feel you can lend a hoof in, I won't object."

I reverted to my untransformed state in front of the mare, and I was surprised to see the little photograph on the card changed with it. "I'm aware that this form is likely not going to be a big hit with some of the foals, but I don't exactly wish to hide the fact that I am a shapeshifter," I commented, removing my own glasses and clipping them to my vest. "Would you like me to perhaps pretend I am of the reformed tribe?"

"No!"

"Yes."

You get three guesses on who said what, and the first two don't count. Breathing out slowly, I pulled up the mental image of the disguise that I created earlier. With reflexive ease, I then drew upon the magical mechanism that shifted my form, and was once more engulfed in blue magical flames, as I changed shape. When it was over, I saw a smile on Matron Reach's face.

Chrysalis, however, was impossible to read. If nothing else, the mare had years to perfect her craft. Anything I got from her at this juncture would only be what she gave me. Still, based on the way she was schooling her expression, I could only imagine that she was either very impressed at my level adaptation, or jealous of my talent. Either way, I at least knew that she wouldn't try anything. After the revelation of Désirée, I doubt she'd be so stupid.

"Excellent," Tender Reach exclaimed, clapping her hooves together. "The resemblance is remarkable, yet individuality remains distinct." Turning to the larger changeling, the mare continued. "You two can begin your day now; I'll join you all later on, but for now, I need to take care of paperwork surrounding a few new foals joining us at the Second Chance later today."

~ 52 ~

Much of the time I spent following Chrysalis around that morning could be described as like a lost puppy. That is to say, most of my time was spent quietly learning the routines, the layout, and the such. The building wasn't huge, but there were several different areas to it to learn about. There was a cafeteria, a kitchen, a play room, a classroom, the dorms, the nursery, an enclosed playground out back, and the staff lounge... Hell, they even had their own little library here. Truly, it's a well-funded endeavour to ensure these children have a nice stable environment and quality of life. I wonder if a group home wouldn't be a better description for the place?

That wasn't all the initial tour did, though. It introduced me to the many of the foals and the staff in the building. One or two of Chrysalis' coworkers were a little frigid toward her, but I was surprised to see that there were a few on friendly terms with her, and I don't just mean that they were friendly toward her; these were ponies that she seemed genuinely friendly toward in turn. It was weird seeing the former tyrant smiling and joking with the mares in the nursery. I still can't forget her crazed threat to drain me dry and then send me home to Starlight piece by piece.

All of the foals we came across also seemed to like her. Maybe it was just how cute and fluffy she was, or the almost motherly aura she radiated when interacting with them, but it made it especially hard to see her as the villain she'd been... It was maybe half a month or so since she'd been redeemed and presumably sent here to work off her debt to pony society, but the difference was like night and day—almost suspiciously so.

During our stop at the classroom to meet the teacher on duty—a role that ponies apparently cycled through based on their knowledge bases—Chrysalis actually dropped the bombshell that she taught the foals history while the employee that usually did that was on medical leave. Then again, when you've been around since runic magic was in its infancy, it'd be hard not to have lived through some interesting history. At the very least, it's nice to know that I might be able to find out when math is on the schedule for the foals and chip in.

Some of the foals were... a mixed bag. One of the older foals, maybe in his early teens, asked Chrysalis if it was Take Your Filly to Work day already, which got several of the younger foals asking if she was really my Mom; this aggravated the bug to no end. Some thought I'd been brought in to be a playmate for them. Others looked at me with barely disguised disdain, and I could tell that these ones had a problem with authority—especially if it was a foal of only eight was considered 'volunteer staff'. It was certainly a weird situation to be in, but I wouldn't let them get to me.

It was when we were checking out the library that things went off-script, so to speak. While several foals reclined on massive bean-bag chairs with various children's books, the librarian—a mare that could've been Tender Reach's pegasus daughter for how similar she looked—was chatting with Chrysalis. At least, she was trying to speak, but between the hoarse voice and the mask covering her muzzle, it seemed to be pretty challenging for her. God, I can only imagine what it'll be like if I ever get sick. Can I even?

"Ms. Gentle," a little yellow filly of maybe five years called out, approaching with a book balanced atop her head. Honestly, she looked like a tiny Fluttershy without the wings. "Are we gonna have story time today?"

Turning her attention away from bug butt, the librarian shook her head as she lowered herself to the filly's level. "Sorry, Caprice," the mare croaked. Immediately, the filly wilted. "I know how much everypony was looking forward to starting the new Twilight Sparkle and the Elements series, but I don't think my voice will last very long. It'll have to wait until this cold passes, I'm afraid." With a groan belying her achy body, the mare sat upright and rested against her desk.

While Chrysalis looked disgusted at the mention of Auntie Twilight, I couldn't help but perk up. I hadn't realised that somepony was making stories for foals surrounding Auntie Twilight and her friends, but that kinda sounded cool. What if they were historical fiction? It was certainly a neat way to get the foals interested in history if it was.

"I wouldn't mind reading to them, if you'll allow it," I offered, fluttering my wings to hover at the mare's eye level, causing three heads to turn to look at me. Unable to help myself, I shifted my voice to perfectly mimic Applejack's. "If'n it's a story 'bout Twi an' her friends, why not let somepony what's met them do the voices?" Then I threw everyone a curveball and quickly shifted into the Sun Horse's voice. "If you're not sold on the idea, I am told I do a wonderful impression of Princess Celestia. I can only imagine how many fillies and colts would love to have her voice narrate their stories."

Immediately, the young foal looked excited, beaming up at me. "You met them? Honest and for true?" When I nodded, the filly squealed and turned her attention to Ms. Gentle and pleaded. "Can she? Please please please?"

When the librarian gave Chrysalis a questioning look, the reformed bug just snorted. "If Anonymous wishes to make a fool of herself, I say let her." I didn't exactly like the smug look she gave me, but I didn't pay it much mind. "Honestly, the brat could use some humbling, but in the event that she doesn't turn herself into a spectacle, I dare say the foals might enjoy it."

Seemingly convinced, the mare took the book from the little one and led me over to a chair in the middle of an open area. "May I have everypony's attention?" she called out as loudly as she could manage. All of the foals in the library stopped what they were doing and looked over, although they were quickly distracted by me fluttering alongside her. "I know you all have been looking forward to story time. Because I've been sick, the Second Chance's new volunteer, Anonymous, has offered to take over for me."

When I settled on the chair, and Ms. Gentle passed the book to me, I looked out at all the foals. A few were older ones who were just here to read, but most of the fillies and colts that gathered around were about Emerald's age. "Hey, everypony," I greeted, suddenly wishing Emmy could be here to hear this story too. "I'm Anonymous Flicker. You'll probably be seeing a lot of me while I help out, so I hope we can all get along." With an inclination of my head, I gestured towards the big bug. "I'm a changeling, much like Chrysalis over there, so I think you'll enjoy this."

Opening the book, I took a quick glance over the first few paragraphs before deciding on a course of action. Taking in a deep breath, I once more channelled my mimicry ability and began to read, "Once upon a time, in the magical land of Equestria, there were two regal sisters who ruled together and created harmony for all the land." Just like that, many of the children were enraptured. Even the older foals had an ear or two turned my way. "To do this, the eldest used her unicorn powers to raise the sun at dawn; the younger brought out the moon to begin the night. Thus, the two sisters maintained balance for their kingdom and their subjects, all the different types of ponies. But as time went on..."