Lady Luck meets Lord Chance

Reflections are strange, almost surreal. One never sees one’s face unless staring into a mirror, or looking at a photograph, and how strange is it to stare at someone that looks exactly like you? Besides being contained to the dimensions of the mirror, there being staring back supposedly has a thinking mind, like you, a beating heart, like you. That is if it wasn't just a projected image reflecting back for you to see.

Twilight Sparkle stared at one such mirror, just a solid substance of silver nitrate, distilled water and ammonia. She had found it in the back-room of the fourth floor of the sub-basement while searching through the older and rarer collections of books and tomes the casual public didn't know existed let alone check out of the royal library. It had been covered by a rich red velvet curtain; surprisingly clean despite the dusty old room, which was what had piqued her interest. Pulling the curtain off, it fell to the floor like a heavy cloud and revealed the mirror. It looked boring, to be completely honest. The alicorn’s purple hues stared at the mirror diligently, why would this mirror possibly be here?

If she said it was clear, she’d be lying. With a hoof, Twilight tried to clean the surface of the mirror, there was something a blurry about it, but it remained with the same almost translucent look to it. Suddenly, the glass swirled and her reflection disappeared. It almost looked like a portal.

“I wasn’t prepared for this.” muttered the purple alicorn under her breath. Twilight wanted to figure things out; she wasn’t the type of pony to just let things go, especially when she had yet to fully comprehend the entire situation. However, she had been completely side tracked by the mirror, not yet finding the copy of Encyclopedia Equestria V retold by Starswirl the Bearded hidden somewhere in the library. Twilight could have used a basic analyzing spell to check if the mirror was of magical origin, she could have done some mathematical equations to figure out if it was a physical deformity with the mirror. Instead she did something she claimed as her last resort option, the end all failsafe, no regrets method.

She flipped a coin, calling heads to take care of the situation herself, tails to ask Celestia about it next time.

The shiny bit coin fell like a comet and landed into the alicorn’s purple hoof.

“Tails.” Twilight said, a little disappointed.

With a begrudging sigh, she levitated the velvet curtain, about to cover the mirror, when suddenly a large purple blur was hurled from the mirror and into one Twilight Sparkle.

“Discord’s beard!” she grunted, struggling to get off from under the weight of whatever had fallen on her. Dazed, but otherwise okay, she dusted herself off and glared at the figure; it was a pony. A purple alicorn!

Oh my goodness, that’s another alicorn but that’s not possible because I would know if there was another alicorn, no, no, no.

Her thoughts were panicked and jumbled as she trotted around the mysterious pony, who was still groaning from the impact. It had a violet coat, a darker purple mane cut with a streak of pink. In fact, it looked a lot like Twilight herself, although the mane was much too short. But the cutie mark! It was the same, the chances of that was 1 in 978 931, not quite a million but it was close. She knew, she had done the math on a lazy Sunday afternoon once back in her fillyhood.

By Luna’s mane that has to be my evil mirror twin reflection from Equestria 2 bent on replacing me and befriending my friends and destroying Celestia and Luna and taking over the world!

Perhaps she had watched too many sci-fi horror movies with her good friend Pinkie Pie, but in Twilight’s shocked state, it was about as solid as a theory she could ever come up with.

“Oh, Solaris, I’m sorry about that, I’m not sure what happened.” came the apology from the pony.

It stood and tried to smile, “I’m really sorry, again. My name’s Dusk Shine, and well, you see I had found this mirror and it-”

But for once, Twilight wasn’t absorbing information; instead the mare was staring at what she honestly had thought was her reflection, her mirror double if you will, coming to life. But it wasn’t really a double at all,  it, or rather he, was standing a good hand and a half taller than her, had a stockier build and the most important part was he was male.

“And then I apologized and told my story and here we are, all caught up.” finished the stallion.

“Dusk…Shine…? asked Twilight a little less than eloquently, “Do you know what’s going on?

The stallion shook his head, “When the mirror swirled, my first instinct was to learn more about it, so I went through.” He looked around, “My theory is that I’m now in the mirrorverse and you’re my reflection, but you’re a…”

“A mare?” finished Twilight.

Dusk Shine shrugged, “It doesn’t add up.” he hesitated, “You’re not evil, are you?”

And at that comment, the female alicorn bursted out laughing, she knew what he was thinking; she had her own theory about evil doubles taking over her world. Dusk Shine, whoever he was supposed to be, wasn’t a threat.

“I’d be frightened by your evil laugh, if it was 50% scarier and 99% less cutesy. “said Dusk Shine with a  grin.

“Evil mastermind was never really a fitting career path for Celestia’s star pupil.” stated Twilight.

The Stallion cocked his head, “Celestia? Who’s that? I honestly would have assumed to know everyone you do; if we were truly…” a pregnant pause as he searched for the term, “I’m going to say alternate universe copies of each other.”

Twilight’s eyes narrowed as she frowned, “Do you like the sun?”

Dusk Shine waited for her to continue, only looking mildly offended, “Well, the Sun gives light, heat, energy, etcetera, etcetera, it’s very vital. Celestia just so happens to be the princess that raises said star…she’s kind of a big deal.” Twilight rubbed her eyes with her hoof tiredly, “I’m sorry for my sarcasm, but she’s the princess of the sun! You really aren’t from here.”

“That’s interesting,” he murmured, “Back home; it’s a prince that raises the sun, Lord Solaris. I’m his star pupil.” There was a trace a pride in his voice, similar to the kind of tone Twilight has when she talks about her own studies under Celestia.

Playing with the velvet curtain beneath his hooves, Dusk Shine suddenly perked up and smiled, Twilight almost raised an eyebrow, she knew that look.

“You have an idea.” stated Twilight as a matter of factly, at the same time the stallion announced, “I have an idea.”

“This world, it’s amazing. It’s an identical, maybe, copy of mine, except for a few differences, gender being one of them.”

“What are you getting at, Dusk Shine?”

Like a giddy colt, he bounced ever so slightly in his seat, “I want to explore your world, learn new things, meet not so new ponies! It may be, dare I say it, fun!”

Twilight Sparkle was appalled, “Are you sure you’re me? Because I would never, ever, explore an unknown world without being prepared, having some knowledge, or, or some backup! And what if this little rift of the time space continuum is horribly unstable and we ruin the fate of our two worlds?!”

“Wow.” mused Dusk, “I really do watch too many sci-fi movies with Berry.”

“What? Who’s Berry?! No! Never mind! You cannot come.” Twilight put her hoof down.

The male could only sigh, “Look, I understand your concerns, but you have to understand my own curiosity. Are you seriously telling me that you,” he paused in mid-sentence, “I never got your name.”

“Twilight Sparkle.” sighed the mare.

“Right, are you telling me, that you, Twilight Sparkle, prized student of Princess Celestia, wouldn’t be the least bit curious to understand the mechanics of a working parallel universe in a world where all her friends are of different genders and history itself could be potentially drastically different from your own?”

Twilight shifted uncomfortably, the scholar inside her agreed with the stallion, and she also wanted to ask him questions about his world. “When you put it like that, I hate you.” she grumbled, “Fine.”

Dusk Shine grinned widely and flew into the air, “Let’s go meet your friends then!”

“Wait, what about the mirror? Surely we can’t just leave it here.”

The purple stallion frowned, “Who else would take it?”

Twilight groaned ever so quietly, “To be frank with you, I just want to take it back to Ponyville so if something goes horribly awry I can just shove you back through and it’ll be like nothing ever happened.”

“Duly noted.” said Dusk Shine levitating the curtain back over the mirror and then levitating the entire thing, “We’re just borrowing it, it’s in the backroom on the fourth floor of the sub-basement, who’ll miss it? “said Twilight quietly to herself. The stallion gave her a look of concern.

Twilight only shook her head before exiting the room, “Come on then.”

The two hurried out of the royal library, and began flying back toward Ponyville, mirror in tow. Twilight occasionally glanced beside her at the stallion, not too sure how things would play out. She almost laughed, how conspicuous did this sight look, two almost identical alicorns flying across the night sky, levitating a curtained mirror beside them. It almost sounded like a bad fairy tale.

“You know,” said Twilight pointedly, “curiosity killed the cat.

Dusk Shine grinned and rolled his eyes, “But satisfaction brought it back. To life that is.” He added, “I never liked how that saying ended so ambiguously just to rhyme.”

“Oh, brother.”

The stallion grinned even wider, “I basically am!”

Twilight dead panned, maybe morning would come and this would just be another over studying induced state of delirium.