It started at the 8th reunion. Every year, the ponies who had been taught by Cheerilee came together and chatted about how their lives had progressed. Equestrian schooling doesn’t typically extend very far past elementary school, since most ponies simply take up the trade determined by their special talent. As such, even now, at the 8th reunion of their graduation from mandatory schooling, the ponies were still young mares and colts.
The three mares who founded the company known as the “Cutie Mark Crusaders,” now a national institution whose purpose is helping young fillies and colts discover their talents, were hanging out. They stayed close after school, though they did have less free time, since they were in the process of building their lives. Scootaloo had been the first of the trio to find hers. They had been in the Everfree forest, trying to get some sort of forestry cutie mark, none of them could remember anymore what it was, but the wagon that Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle rode in got detached and Scootaloo didn’t realize until she was already far away. While rushing through the woods in search of her friends, she sped faster than she ever had before. That was when she truly realized how much she loved going fast, something she’d never really been able to accomplish beforehand. By the time she found her friends, a flaming scooter wheel was emblazoned on her flank.
Sweetie Belle’s story was equally impressive. She was trying to help her sister with some menial chore when she broke into song. At that moment, a musical director had been passing by and immediately requested Sweetie to preform in his next show. The unicorn obliged and, during the climax, realized how much she enjoyed letting her vocal chords ring, enchanting the audience, and simply bringing joy to the faces of others with her singing. At that moment, a silver bell with a note stem on top appeared in a flash of glory on her flank. That was said to be the best show the troupe had ever preformed. She had moved on from that particular troupe, but was still involved in musicals.
Apple Bloom was, like the rest of her family members, the last in her class to get her cutie mark. She’d been dejected when Sweetie Belle got her cutie mark, leaving the yellow earth pony filly as the only remaining member of her class without one. Her friends were supportive but she still needed something to cheer her up. She eventually took up wood carving. Her reasoning was that it was therapeutic, and found herself making beautiful works of art. While she recognized that she was good at wood carving, she still didn’t feel like it was her special talent. She began to experiment with other things. She remodeled her room, she made a few tweaks to her sister’s gala dress that Rarity had apparently overlooked, and she completely redid the Cutie Mark Crusader clubhouse, adding another floor and making the whole thing look objectively better. It was then, when she was looking at her work, that she realized she could do this with anything. After that moment, it seemed like everything she touched looked better than it did beforehand. It was around that time that an apple flower appeared on her flank. She didn’t really know what this meant at first, so for a few weeks she simply tried everything relating to flowers until, eventually, she realized that her special talent was generally beautifying anything. At first she was unhappy, after all, what use was beautification on a farm, but she slowly started to accept it and took up carpentry.
“Hey girls, how have you been?” came a voice that, for years the trio had dreaded. They turned toward the smiling pink mare walking their way, flanked by her silver, spectacled partner and cream colored, purple-maned fillyfriend.
“Hey Diamond Tiara” Sweetie Belle waved, “hey Silver Spoon, hey Alula.” The mares waved in response. The girls had gotten over their differences a while ago and, after quite a few apologies, had worked up the courage to actually become friends with each other. Sweetie Belle looked at her two friends and decided to start. “I’ve been good, still with Trixie’s Traveling Theater, we found some help while on the road, I actually invited one of our new actors, she should be here soon…”
“Sorry I’m late Diamond!” came a voice from behind them. Puzzled, Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, Diamond Tiara, and Silver Spoon looked toward the voice to see Alula flying in their direction.
“Alula?” the pink mare exclaimed, “then who’s…” she looked at the Alula standing next to her, who grinned and giggled before exploding in a green light. Standing in the spot where the Pegasus had been was a light blue unicorn mare with a sandy brown mane with a magenta streak in it and gold colored eyes.
The other five mares looked very confused but Sweetie Belle simply went over to the unicorn and hugged her. “Girls, this is the actress I was talking about, we call her Nova.” She smiled “she’s a changeling, in case you couldn’t tell.”
Diamond Tiara looked offended, “I knew something was up with Lulu, how dare you impersonate her you-“ but she was cut off by the very same mare she was defending.
“Woah you got my mane just right! And even my wings! What’s it like being able to transform? Can I try?” Diamond Tiara smiled at this and shook her head.
Sweetie Belle stopped Alula’s stream of questions with a hoof, “now now, Nova’s not great with our language yet so don’t ask her too much at once, she’s used to just reading lines, speaking of which, what do we say when we meet new ponies Nova?” She asked her friend, smiling.
“N-nice to meet you” the changeling managed, with a visible but unidentifiable accent. She turned to Diamond “Sorry for being the loved one, you are really love.”
The gathered mares smiled at Nova’s attempts. Scootaloo frowned, “but why do you need a changeling to preform your shows?” she asked in the least offensive way she could manage.
Sweetie Belle smiled “they make great actors, they can look like anyone and the praise feeds their need for love. They don’t make great villains though, I’ve pretty much perfected my maniacal laugh at this point.”
They all tried to imagine the adorable unicorn mare as an evil villain, failed at doing so, and broke down laughing at the prospect. Sweetie puffed out her cheeks “hey! I can be evil if I want!” This caused even more laughter, even among Sweetie and Nova, the latter of whom didn’t quite understand the joke.
Scootaloo was the first to stand back up after rolling on the ground laughing. “Alright, Sweetie Belle showed her surprise, now it’s my turn!” She grinned and shot into the air, climbing higher and higher. It wasn’t hard for the ponies below to guess what she was attempting, after all, Scootaloo had been admiring Rainbow Dash for years, it was no surprise that she would attempt her own version of a sonic rainboom, though Nova and Alula weren’t as well acquainted with the Pegasus, so they merely looked up in fascination. Once she was high enough, the orange Pegasus shot downward, increasing her speed and gradually building a cone around her, but the next part was what astonished them. Instead of breaking through the cone, Scootaloo turned upward, causing it to dissipate and fail to create the “boom,” however, Scootaloo was able to make a purple streak appear behind her for a few seconds. The Pegasus was clearly trying to draw something in the sky using her trail, but it dissipated too quickly and they couldn’t figure out what it was. Still, the attempted rainboom was very impressive, especially for a Pegasus who, for longer than most other pegasi, was incapable of flight.
Scootaloo descended near the gathering with a dejected look on her face. “I was trying to draw my cutie mark, guess I’ll have to keep trying” she sighed and, as she landed, was immediately ambushed by Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom, who threw her into a group hug. “Well, I appreciate the affection but- urp- you’re kind of… strangling me.”
Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle let go and smiled sheepishly. “It was still amazing!” Sweetie Belle exclaimed. “Who’d have thought you could make the rainbow trail without the rainboom!”
Scootaloo smiled, “well, it’ll be better once I can actually do the boom.”
The friends continued chatting for the rest of the gathering. There were no more big surprises, though Apple Bloom was practicing martial arts, Silver Spoon proved herself to be the strongest of the group, after working all day with a smithing hammer, and Diamond Tiara and Alula denied allegations that they were getting married any time soon. Eventually, the other members of the class had gone home, save Snips, Snails, Pip, Twist, and the aforementioned seven. It was around the time Silver Spoon decided to head home that it happened. A tall figure emerged from the woods. It appeared to be a pony but its hind legs were significantly shorter than its forelegs and it had a hat covering its face. It looked at the eleven assembled ponies and nodded, before chanting under its breath. At this point, a few of the ponies had started to notice the dark figure. Twist, the ever spunky young confectioner, trotted up to it and tried conversing, after all, she got much better at it after losing her lisp.
“Hi, what’s your name?” no response, “are you from around here?” no response, “excuse me what are you—“ Twist was cut off when a circle appeared around her feet and started glowing. “Wh-what’s happening?” she panicked.
“Twist!” The others yelled. The circle disappeared and Twist turned toward them with a cold look in her eyes, which had turned from their normal light pink to dark purple. Quietly, she started chanting the same words the figure was chanting. All of a sudden, the circles appeared under the feet of each of the assembled ponies.
“What’s going on?!” Snips yelled before his eyes turned the same color as Twist’s.
“I’m scared” Snails whimpered before he too fell under the spell.
Gradually, all the ponies’ eyes turned purple. Once its goal was accomplished, the figure held out a hoof and the ponies nodded and began to chant. Gradually, they all disappeared. All of them save one. The light blue “unicorn” kept chanting the nonsense words she didn’t understand. The figure merely looked at her and walked away. Relieved that she was alone, Nova changed her eye color back to the gold it had been before. She bit her lip, she had no idea what had just happened, so she did what her changeling instincts told her to do, she asked someone of authority. Sweetie Belle’s stories had told her of two individuals who likely knew enough about strange magic to help, though she didn’t know how to get to the hut owned by the zebra known as “Zecora,” so she instead trotted into town in the direction of Golden Oaks Library.
Nova arrived at the door of the large oak tree that made up the library. She rapped on the door three times with her hoof and waited. Almost immediately she heard “I’m comin’ I’m comin’” in a young male voice. The stage actress was surprised to see a small purple dragon open the door with a tired expression on his face.
“You are Twilight Sparkle?” she asked, utterly confused. Sweetie Belle hadn’t mentioned that Twilight was a baby dragon.
The dragon gave her a look and called up the stairs, “Twilight, you have a visitor, some unicorn” he yawned and addressed Nova. “She’ll be right out, come in and sit down.”
Nova complied and sat on one of the cushions in the living area of the library, waiting for the real Twilight Sparkle to appear.
“I’m sorry, I was actually getting ready for bed, what is it you needed ma’am?” Twilight asked, descending the stairs.
Nova smiled and was about to speak when she noticed something about this mare. She had both wings and a horn. Her eyes nearly jumped out of her head and she hastily bowed before the alicorn.
“Uh… excuse me?” Twilight asked, visibly uncomfortable with the display of subordination.
Nova, still on the floor, managed, “you royal?”
Twilight smiled, realizing that a language barrier existed. Her horn lit up magenta and Nova began to hear a voice in her head.
“Sorry about this” it said “I just feel it would be easier for you to speak in your own language. Please think in order to communicate, and please don’t bow, I’m not very comfortable with it.”
Nova’s jaw dropped open and she hastily sat up. “You’re Twilight Sparkle correct?”
“Yes” the voice replied.
“I need help” she explained, and relayed the events that had just transpired, with the strange spell and the disappearances of her newfound friends.
Twilight frowned, “that sounds odd, I’ve never heard of earth ponies and pegasi using magic of that caliber before, normally if they want to use magic it exhausts them after only a few seconds of using a simple levitation spell, how in Equestria did you escape?” she asked mentally. “And how did you change your eye color like that?”
In response, Nova transformed into Twilight herself and smiled before changing back into her preferred pony form. Twilight merely nodded. Changelings as a species had been pardoned several years ago by Princess Celestia with the condition that the queen live with Twilight in the library for a year, alongside one of the friendliest members of Ponyville next to Pinkie Pie. Eventually the two had moved out and found their own place and changelings became a regular part of society, though they did still occasionally experience some discrimination.
“I think it would be a good idea to relay this story to Zecora, if anyone knows about magic that can be performed by non-unicorns it’s her.” Twilight led Nova out of the library and off in the direction of Zecora’s hut.
“So” Twilight continued, “tell me a bit about yourself, you only really told me about what happened. I don’t know any changelings very well so I’d love to hear how you grew up and everything.” Twilight’s eyes sparkled at the idea of learning about the mysterious insect-like race.
Nova blushed, “well, you ponies know about bee colonies right? Our hive is a bit like that, though not all the drones are male. In fact, changelings are encouraged to get in relationships and feed off each other’s love. Changeling love isn’t very tasty so we don’t like to do it, but if we have to it’s nice to have a staple. I’m number 934, though when I left the hive to join Trixie’s Traveling Theater I had to use a name, so I chose Nova, since it’s close to the word for nine. When I was there, I met Sweetie Belle, who invited me to the reunion.” Nova stopped mentally communicating and walked in silence for a while.
Twilight looked over to her, a bit disappointed at having obtained so little information about changeling society, though she did learn that they could make family units. They were arriving at Zecora’s hut though, so Twilight didn’t push the issue. Instead she knocked on the hut’s flap and waited for the zebra to open it.
“Ah, it is Twilight I see, but this other pony is new to me,” said a zebra, who Nova presumed was Zecora, looking outside the tent flap.
“Hi Zecora, we have a problem and we need your knowledge to figure out what to do.” Twilight explained, “oh and this is Nova, she’s a changeling who’s friends with Sweetie Belle.”
“A changeling is a rare sight indeed, please come in, the way I will lead.”
Twilight and Nova entered Zecora’s hut and Twilight relayed the story to the wise zebra. Zecora mostly sat there, listening and drinking tea. As the story went on her expression became more thoughtful.
“It sounds like they were using dimensional spells, tell me Nova, do you know what the chant they were saying spells?” Zecora asked.
Nova looked confused and turned to Twilight.
“Do you remember what they were chanting?” The lavender alicorn translated.
Nova nodded and repeated a few of the words but stumbled over the complicated verbal patterns. “Uh, I know, but can’t say right.” Nova explained.
Twilight nodded, “just having trouble with pronunciation then, alright we can figure it out, for now, Zecora, do you have any idea why this might have happened?”
Zecora scratched her chin with a hoof and replied “Perhaps the question should not be why the young ones are gone, but what we can do to make them return.”
“That doesn’t really rhyme…” Twilight began but shook her head, deciding it wasn’t very important at the moment. “Right, I’ll research what happened to them, come along Nova, we have to figure out what the words they were chanting were.” They bid the zebra shaman goodbye and returned to the library, where Twilight brought Nova to a room in her basement, where she hooked her up to a strange machine and put a hat that looked like a strainer with wires sticking out of it on her head.
Nova looked at Twilight curiously, “what—“
“Ok, now, think back to what they were chanting, I want to get all the data down, no need to say what it was, this machine will pick up your brainwaves.” Twilight explained.
Nova was confused but she nodded anyway. She thought back to the creepy chanting, the words that stole her new friends from her and whisked them away to somewhere unknown. She repeated them in her head while Twilight looked at the data streaming out of the machine and nodded thoughtfully. The whole process took only a few moments, after which Twilight ordered Nova to stop.
“I think I know what kind of spell they were casting, it should be in one of the books in the library. I’ll do some research, for now, how about you explore Ponyville? We’ll meet up tomorrow and see what we can do.” She noticed Nova staring at her, looking apprehensive. Twilight smiled, “don’t worry, we do this kind of thing all the time, I’m sure we’ll have them back within the week. Oh and you can sleep at the library tonight.”
Nova nodded, reassured but still uneasy, and left the library. She wandered through the town, glancing at landmarks but overall too distressed to really enjoy anything. After a bit of wandering, she sighed and returned to the library. Nova certainly liked Ponyville, after all, it was where Sweetie Belle grew up, so it must be a good place, but she couldn’t really get her mind off of what happened.
“Back so soon?” Twilight asked, as Nova trotted in through her door, “I’m sorry I haven’t made much progress, I’ll tell you more in the morning, Spike can show you where to sleep tonight.”
“Spike?” Nova asked. As if to answer her question, the purple baby dragon from earlier walked into the room.
“I’m Spike, here let me show you where to sleep” he said, leading her up the stairs into a room next to Twilight’s. “The library has a bunch of rooms, not that we need more than one, so Twilight accepts guests pretty often. Sorry if stuff’s not up to your standards.” He yawned, “now if you’ll excuse me, I have a bed of my own to get to.”
Nova watched Spike shuffle away, mumbling under his breath about having to make breakfast for three in the morning, and entered her own room. It was sparsely furnished, by nature of being a guest room, but Nova was used to this kind of thing. Actors don’t usually make a lot of money and changelings don’t ask for it, so she was pretty used to sleeping on the ground, so even having a bed was a blessing for Nova. She trotted over to it, sniffed the sheets, and climbed under the covers. What followed was her least favorite part of her nightly routine. As Nova began to relax, her form started to change, until her blue unicorn persona faded and a disgusting, black and green insect-like creature sat in her spot. Nova shivered, refusing to look at her own body, as she closed her eyes and went to sleep.
Nova woke up a few hours after falling asleep. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and looked around the room. Where am I? She thought. Oh right, I stayed the night at that library. Sweetie Belle! Oh I hope that Twilight Sparkle pony found a spell.
Nova tried to get out of bed but got caught in the covers. After some fumbling, she managed to fall flat on the floor. “Ow…” she groaned, rubbing her head with a hoof. She then noticed that her hoof was black. “Gross” she grumbled and, in a flash of green light, turned into her blue unicorn form from before. The changeling allowed herself a rare smile, she liked this pony, she even thought it up herself, right down to the cutie mark; two masks, one of which was laughing, the other was crying, colored green. They were typically what ponies think of when they think of acting, and the green was her own personal touch. Nova quickly let the smile fade. Changelings can survive for a long time on a small amount of love, with the nourishment diminishing depending on how negative the feelings are, but showing emotion of their own diminished their stores. Already Nova was starting to feel peckish. I wonder if Twilight Sparkle has any love to spare… she shook her head, no, I must earn my own food. And with that, Nova trotted out of the room and down the stairs.
Surprisingly, it was still night time out. I must not have slept as long as I thought Nova mused, as she approached the desk Twilight Sparkle was slumped over. She doesn’t really seem like a princess right now does she? She seems like a college student. She giggled at the thought that Twilight Sparkle was a regular college student and looked over her shoulder. The book she was sleeping on appeared to be a “how to” book on teaching young unicorns how to do magic. Gently, Nova poked Twilight with a hoof.
“Hm?” the princess groaned. “Oh I must have fallen asleep studying again.” She stretched, “nothing yet. I’ve looked at everything in this library but I can’t find anything on the strange magic that your friends used. I’m sorry Nova.”
Nova nodded, “It is ok Princess.”
Twilight rubbed her head with her hoof, “please, just call me Twilight. I never really got accustomed to people calling me Princess.”
Nova nodded and wandered around the library. She lazily skimmed the book titles. “An Analysis of Equestria’s Mountain Ranges,” “The Anatomy of the Blue Frilled Water Strider,” “Door.” She stopped. “Door?” she wondered aloud, and looked back toward the book she had accidentally skipped past.
Twilight walked up behind her. “Ah, that book. Every reshelving day I cast the spell to remove the books from the shelves and it just stays there. No one checks out books on doors so I usually just ignore it. Come to think of it, I don’t even think I’ve read it before.” Reaching out with her magic, she pulled the book out, but instead of floating down to the pair like it should have, it simply turned and made a clicking sound.
“Huh?” Twilight wondered. She reached out with her magic again in an attempt to force the book into her grasp when Nova tapped her on the shoulder and pointed a hoof in the direction of a large wall that had opened up in the side of the tree house.
“A secret passageway?!” Twilight exclaimed. “I never knew about this, I wonder what’s down there.” Quicker than Rainbow Dash on an off day, which is still quicker than Twilight’s ever moved before, she dug her way into the hole, exclaiming, “By Celestia’s mane there are a lot of books down here!”
“Convenient” Nova pondered.
“Oh yes I’d say it was, but hey I needed to push you in the right direction if I want those mares back, do you know how much havoc their little apprentices cause? It’s delicious.” Came a voice from behind Nova. Whipping around, she spotted a large, snakelike creature with body parts of a multitude of different animals adorning his body. “Oh hello there, you’re Twilight’s new friend aren’t you? Are you the one who’s going to go find all those ponies who disappeared a night or two ago?”
Nova nodded.
“Good, those ponies are under someone’s control, there’s no fun in that.” He grinned, “I wish you luck in your little escapade. Tootle loo~” He waved and disappeared in a flash of light.
Nova blinked, confused as to what just happened but came out of her reverie when she saw Twilight Sparkle ascending the stairs with a pile of books the size of two ponies standing on their hind hooves.
“Oh there you are, there were so many new books down there! Oh I’ll read these right now, you go back to sleep, I’ll wake you when I’m done.”
Nova opened her mouth, “uh. Done sleep,” she said, in her broken Equestrian.
Twilight raised an eyebrow at this but quickly composed herself. “Oh don’t worry! I’ll help!” and as her horn started to glow, Nova’s eyelids started drooping and she saw a smile on Twilight’s face, the crazy smile of someone who’s way too into books. Nova blacked out and Twilight levitated her back up to her room. “She needed rest anyway” she reasoned, and opened the first of the books.
Several hours later, Nova felt herself waking up. It wasn’t the normal method, it was more like she was coming out of a trance, and once she was fully awake she realized that that’s exactly what was happening.
Twilight’s horn stopped glowing and she had a grin on her face. “Hello there Nova, sorry to wake you, you just looked so tired” she gushed.
Nova put a hoof to her head, only to realize it was her jet black changeling hoof. She yelped and abruptly transformed back into her ponysona. She looked up at Twilight, an embarrassed blush adorning her face, but the purple alicorn didn’t seem to notice.
“Well now that you’re up I have so much to tell you! First things first, Starswirl the Bearded knew a lot more about parallel universes than I originally thought. As it turns out, he was part of a society of Starswirl the Bearded but from a bunch of different dimensions. Collectively, he, well sometimes she, er… they came up with multiple theories and laws about parallel universes. For one thing, our worlds are defined by how we differ from a certain universe, which he dubbed the ‘canon’ universe. I don’t know why he called it that, I guess maybe he didn’t have the word ‘constant’ 1000 years ago. Either way, the canon universe is the first option that appears when traveling between dimensions, which is why it’s identifiable at all. We’re not the canon universe by the way, we’re an offshoot caused by some decision in the past, I wasn’t able to figure out what that was though, but how fascinating is it that we currently live in a parallel universe?” She stared at Nova, eyes shining with the acquisition of new knowledge. “I can’t believe I’ve been living in this library all these years and never found that room! I mean sure the ‘doors’ book was pretty inconspicuous but I should have noticed when the reshelving spell didn’t work on it, come to think of it can changelings do the same type of magic as ponies? We should try out some spells with your hor—“ she was silenced by a light blue hoof.
Nova stared at her, removed her hoof from Twilight’s mouth, and opened her own to ask a question. “So how do I help Sweetie Belle?” she asked, choosing her words carefully so as to not stumble.
“Oh! Yes, yes. You see the issue is, Starswirl the Bearded wrote the words for the spell in an ancient language that I can’t read. I haven’t a clue why he decided to do this but the only way I could think of would be for you to travel there on your own, after all, the words are somewhere in your subconscious. You can’t remember all of them on your own but they’re in there, so if I use those words I think I can send you to the worlds that our friends were sent to.”
Nova perked up at this. “Really? Why do we wait?” she asked excitedly. She could rescue Sweetie Belle and the rest.
At this, Twilight bit her lip. “Well, the thing is, the magic’s not easy to do. I don’t think I can send you more than once.” She looked toward Nova, who appeared to be about to break down crying. “Oh! B-but chances are I can send the others once you rescue them. You’ll each just end up doing your own rescue missions.” Twilight smiled, “don’t worry, we’ll fix this, we always do.”
Nova nodded and smiled weakly before taking a deep breath and asking, “what now?”
Twilight blinked, “well since neither of us necessarily know the words I’ll have to figure out which spells to use, then I have to find the actual universe jumping spell itself. You should probably gather some supplies, I don’t know what you’ll see out there or how much it will differ from our universe. The other ponies were sent there for some reason so we can assume they’re capable of supporting life, so I don’t think you’ll need to worry about oxygen, though I don’t know what will happen to you or your counterpart in that world, if one exists. Will you replace her? And if you do will you keep your body how it is now? We’ll just have to find out.” She looked at Nova, “are you sure you can do this? I’m sure we can figure something else out if you want to let me or the other former bearers of the Elements of Harmony to go in your place.”
Nova shook her head, “quicker is better” she replied. “Also, seems fun” she gave a small smile. “I go get ready now,” and with that she trotted out of the library.
Twilight smiled as she left but when she was gone her smile faded. “I’ve never traveled between worlds before, I really hope they’ll be ok…” sighing, she got back to work. “I’ll just make it as safe as I can.”
Meanwhile, Nova was trotting through the streets of Ponyville. She hadn’t brought anything to the reunion, since she didn’t expect to stay for more than a few hours. She laughed bitterly at the irony of that, she had no idea how long it would take now; she could be gone for months depending on how long it took to rescue Sweetie Belle. Eventually, Nova noticed her stomach growling. She sighed, she would have to find some way to get some love, preferably without deceiving anyone. After the incident with Queen Chrysalis all those years ago, which gave changelings a bad name, they had tried to avoid deception, but sometimes it was the only option. Sighing, she looked around and noticed a couple sitting on a bench. One was a sea green unicorn with a two-tone mane of white and the same color as her fur, and the other was a cream colored earth pony with a blue and pink mane. Maybe I can just go back to the library Nova thought, but as she was turning around, she saw the unicorn get up and trot away with a strained look on her face. Nova sighed, I’m sorry, ponies as she transformed into the sea green unicorn from before and walked over to the cream colored earth pony.
“Oh Lyra, back from the bathroom already? Did you forget to wash your hooves again? I told you, just because you don’t have fingers doesn’t mean you don’t have to—“ she was cut off by the fake Lyra’s lips touching her own.
As quick as she started, Nova finished her kiss, mumbled “sorry,” and ran away, leaving a very confused Bon Bon sitting on the bench.
Soon after, Lyra came back from the bathroom, grinning. “Bon Bon, I remembered this ti—“ she was cut off by a hoof striking her across the face.
“Not in public!” Bon Bon yelled and ran away.
Lyra just stood there, holding her hoof against the area she got hit. “Uh… what?”
Nova galloped back to the library, guilt absorbing most of the emotion she ate. She slowed down and tried to calm herself down. That Lyra pony didn’t see us, so I didn’t ruin the relationship. Everything’s ok, everything’s ok… Nova took a deep breath and walked into the library.
“Oh hello Lyra, how are you today?” Twilight asked once Nova had reached her.
Looking down at herself, Nova realized she was still using the sea green unicorn’s form. She blushed and transformed back into her personal ponysona.
“Oh! Nova, I’m sorry I thought you were Lyra.” Twilight blinked, “uh, probably because you looked exactly like her…” she trailed off. Shaking her head, Twilight regained her train of thought. “Sorry, do you have everything you need?”
Nova nodded.
“You don’t appear to be holding anything, are you sure you want to do this without any supplies?”
Nova blinked, looked around, picked up a book with her mouth, and stood there staring at Twilight.
“Uh, you don’t necessarily have to bring anything, it’s just a suggestion.” Twilight clarified.
Nova spit out the book and said “oh.”
There was an awkward silence until Twilight spoke up. “So, you’re ready then?” Nova nodded. “Ok! Let’s go down to my lab, I have everything set up down there.” And so, with that Twilight led Nova downstairs to a room with a large number of machines whose functions Nova could only guess at.
Seeing the amazed look on her companion’s face, Twilight smiled and explained. “I supposed I’ve built the place up a bit over the years, originally it was just a chair with a strainer that I used to try and figure out the pinkie sense once.” She shook her head at the memory, “anyway, let’s get this done” she motioned Nova toward a pentagram-looking shape on the ground.
Nova stepped into the center and looked around until Twilight started talking more. “Ok, now I want you to think back and try to remember the spell that they were chanting, I’ll start casting the spell.”
Nova thought back and tried to remember the words the ponies were chanting. She could only find snippets of her friends’ voices, but when she opened her eyes, the pentagram was glowing a pinkish purple color, the same as Twilight’s horn. “Keep thinking of them” she commanded, and Nova complied hastily. “I think… I’ve got one! I don’t know which pony you’ll be looking for there and I don’t know what it will be like. Try to keep your identity hidden, we don’t know what they think of changelings in that world, and above all,” She opened her eyes and looked at Nova, “be safe.”
At that moment, the pentagram lit up and obscured Twilight and Nova’s vision.
When it finally calmed down, Twilight looked at the pentagram on the floor. Nova had vanished, as expected. Twilight closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Good luck.”
