Distance Education

Chapters

00 - Made of Starstuff
01 - Hello, World.
02 - Entrance Exams

00 - Made of Starstuff

Everything was perfect. Or at least, as close as one could get to perfection outside of a hypothetical environment. I mean, our plane of existence does have its own avatar of chaos. Entropy and imperfection, while they could be offset, couldn’t be eliminated while he was around. Or rather, they couldn’t be eliminated without freezing all of existence in a single moment for all eternity, and even I wasn’t so full of myself as to think that was a good idea.

Stop looking at this entry like that. I only know that would happen because I’d asked Celestia why perfection was unattainable over tea one morning. The broad thrust of her answer was that without the destabilizing influence of Discord on the fabric of reality? All of existence would be frozen in place while our thoughts carried on, and eventually every living creature would quietly go mad and stay that way forever.

Naturally, after cleaning up the tea I’d spilled across the table, I agreed to drop the matter of perfection. Some avenues of research just aren’t meant to be fully explored, like polyazide chemistry.

So instead, I settled on research into advanced summoning spells. I may be the Princess of Friendship, but friendship is magic in a very real sense, and the reasoning I gave was that it might be nice to make new friends without worrying about the boundaries of time and distance. In reality, and I suspect Celestia knew this the moment I brought it up, I just wanted a hobby to keep my mind occupied. In the twenty years since my ascension, I’d come to terms with my immortality as best I could. My friends...

It’s still hard to think about the future. We’ve been enjoying our time together, but I realize it will eventually end. I felt that if I had something to do beyond my royal duties after that point, I’d be able to handle it better. I told Celestia as much about a year ago. I won’t lie, I broke down. All of my fears and worries about the future came pouring out, and I wound up sobbing into Celestia’s shoulder for… Well, for long enough.

There’s a reason our early histories refer to her as the all-mother. They’re wrong, or so Celestia claims, but that’s not the point. She’s just so naturally comforting, it’s easy to make the association. As I was calming down, I felt a splash of something warm and wet against my neck. Naturally, I looked to see where it came from.

She was crying too. It wasn’t the same full-body production I’d gone through, but those were still tears pooling in her eyes, and as I watched, a second droplet rolled down her cheek. For as long as I live, I will never forget what she said next.

“My faithful…” There was a pause around here as she swallowed, and to my surprise, she knelt before me and bowed her head. “There is nothing in this world, or any other, that is more important to me than supporting you in your times of need. I would be honored to know the mare Twilight Sparkle as more than simply a student or a peer of the realm.” Then she raised her head, just enough for me to see the hopeful smile on her face. “If you will have her, then Celestia Invictus will happily call you her sister.”

There was only one possible answer, but I was too wrapped up in my emotions to say it. So instead, I pulled Celestia into a hug and wept anew. Not out of fear or anguish, but out of joy. Once we’d calmed down, we immediately cleared our respective schedules and spent the rest of the day just getting to know each other better. Favorite foods, favorite authors, favorite kinds of cake and ice cream… We were able to set our regalia aside and simply live.

When Luna heard the news, she didn’t hesitate for a moment to recite the same oath. Then, naturally, she declared the day a national holiday. Neither Celestia or myself could stop her, at least not without starting a diplomatic incident, but she at least allowed me to decide the “precise manner of the day’s celebrations.”

Then all three of us spent a week off just getting to know each other. There is far more to Celestia and Luna than anypony suspects, and I cannot overstate just how much it means to me that they have accepted me as a sister. Though, given that they also consider Cadance to be a sister, that has certain implications on her relationship with Shiny that I think I’m going to spring on him the next time I visit. Purely because I’m his little sister, little sisters excel at making their big brothers uncomfortable, and I have backup.

Yes, my new sisters and I are going to prank my brother together.

He won’t know what hit him. Insert mock evil laughter here.

Sorry for going off on a tangent like that, but I figured a bit of background would help set the stage, and I guess it got away from me. Things are put into a whole new perspective when you consider that the diary you write in is also considered to be an historical document, and I’m still getting used to the idea.

Anyway. Everything was going fantastically. I’d finally finished the spellwork for my first summoning a week previous, Celestia and Luna had both looked it over to ensure I wouldn’t be contacting anything dangerous - the last thing we needed was another Tirek, or worse - and had given me the go-ahead, and Celestia and I had just finished laying down the wards, runes, and circles in my sub-basement lab at her castle to contain whatever it produced. Even if my experiment didn’t work, I’d have still spent quality time with my… My big sister.

Creator, that’s still a strange thought to have. Not bad, though. Just strange, like breaking in a new set of saddlebags. Something that you know you’ll get used to in time, but the newness is still off-putting. I suppose I’ll grow used to it over time.

So, yes. My sister and I finished the physical portion of the spell layout, and after a brief break for lunch - I am still amazed at how talented a chef Spike has become, but that’s a completely different entry in itself - we went back to the lab and I began the ritual. Celestia was there as a contingency, at her own insistence, and I certainly didn’t disagree. If something were to happen to me, somepony would need to shut the spell down, and Luna was off negotiating with the gryphon clans over mineral rights to some distant corner of Equestria that a dragon had abandoned for some reason I’m still not entirely clear on.

Everything went as expected during the initial casting. Mana flows were steady and unimpeded, the brass runes I’d set into the floor charged exactly as I predicted they would, every layer of shielding lit up as intended, and I carefully drew back the power from my horn as I reached the first checkpoint. Celestia and I took a moment to inspect the precautionary wards and barriers before continuing.

Unfamiliar spells are best done in stages, with carefully-defined inspection points to guard against cascade failures or unintended consequences. I still remember the time I accidentally swapped Rarity and Rainbow Dash’s subspecies with what I’d thought was a simple disguise spell. If you’d like to know more, go back about five years from when this was written. We all learned something valuable that week, and we all had something to add to this diary, but when it was over the girls all made me Pinkie Promise never to cast an unfamiliar spell on a whim again.

If there is one thing I have learned, it is that you never break a Pinkie Promise.

Ahem. Moving right along. The casting went largely as expected. I’d energize the various runic patterns in the concrete until I reached a pre-determined stopping point, my sister and I would inspect the casting to determine if it was safe, and I’d continue.

Time passed, as it is wont to do, and we eventually reached the final checkpoint. The room was humming with power, to the point I could actually see the magical interference patterns affecting Celestia’s mane and tail. It was certainly a novel sight to behold, and I only wish I had thought to have a camera nearby so I could have shared the moment with Luna. A thorough inspection proved that we could stop for a short supper while Celestia lowered the sun, and I could tell from the smile on her face that she was genuinely enjoying the time we were spending together.

After the moon had risen, we entered the lab again. A quick double-check of the spellwork proved redundant, but I’ve learned it’s always better to be safe than sorry. It may not happen often, but the times you don’t double-check your work are more often than not going to be when you’ve made a mistake somewhere. That was another reason I was glad to have my sister with me - a second set of eyes can often catch a mistake you’ve overlooked, after all, and with a working this charged? It was worth having the extra precautions.

We stood in silence for a moment after we finished our inspection. I was admiring the magic itself, looking for ways I could possibly improve the spell’s efficiency in the future, and I’m positive that Celestia was proud to see the lessons I’d learned reflected in how I’d built the summoning spell’s containment system.

But one can’t admire one’s spellwork forever, particularly when it’s still incomplete. I glanced to my sister - as I said, I’m still getting used to the idea, but I find myself liking it more and more with every mention - and was happy to see her nod at me to continue. I took a breath and stepped into the energizing circle one last time, then I lit my horn. A moment later, my eyes followed suit.

Instantly, the summoning spell before me was laid out in front of me like a flowchart. Ultimately, the spell would summon an entity that was no more harmful to Equestria than an upset yearling who had been told to eat their vegetables before they could leave the dinner table, but could still bring knowledge we hadn’t yet discovered to our attention. If it could not do that, it would power itself down in a controlled manner.

Really, it was a simple spell. My sisters and I use something similar all the time to send paperwork back and forth between our respective palaces. The real effort had been in designing it to handle the higher energies I intended to put at its disposal, and to transport a living being or the essence of a living being, and that had meant some low-level changes in how it handled energy. I didn’t expect any catastrophic side effects, but since expectations and reality often conflicted with one another, I’d surrounded the summoning spell with every type of shield, ward, and barrier I knew of. Better to have them and not need them, after all.

Funny thing about controlled magical overload. Your perception of time slows to a crawl. My pre-fire inspection was as thorough as possible, but I only felt my heart beat once. I was satisfied that my sister and I had done everything we could to prevent a negative outcome, and I was ready to energize the summoning spell proper. I lowered my horn and, with a sense of finality and acceptance, poured power into the spell.

The effect was immediate. Images of other beings on Equestria flashed by me, too fast for me to register more than rough impressions of species, then something changed. A starfield blossomed across my vision, and a blur of color poured past me from each speck of light. Then… Then I saw the realm where I had met Celestia when I ascended, only for a moment, before my point of view was shot from a cannon.

Beat.

I found myself plunging through countless planes of color and light and sound, each one passing over and through me in an instant, and I somehow knew that each one of these planes was another universe entirely. Each one an entirely different realm of existence, populated by beings I couldn’t name or describe even if I wanted to. And it was beautiful.

Beat.

I could feel the slow pull of muscles as I began to smile, and the softness of tears welling up in my eyes. That… Magic like that is what I live for. Nopony had ever attempted something like this before, and I was the first to experience this. I was expanding the boundaries of Equestrian knowledge, like Starswirl the Bearded before me, and it was beautiful.

Beat.

The plunge of my consciousness across dimensions stopped, and an unfamiliar starfield bloomed before me. Every speck of light glowed in turn, and then one was highlighted by the glow of my magic. The spell had found something that fit its criteria.

Beat.

I found myself looking at a world not unlike Equus, from what I suspected was its moon. It was blue and green, slightly more of the former than the latter, with puffy white clouds swirling through its atmosphere. My attention was drawn to… It’s difficult to describe, but I will attempt it.

Imagine a small square stage, just big enough for two ponies to stand side-by-side upon. Bevel the corners slightly, until the ninety-degree angle between two sides is flattened to two forty-five degree angles. Attach a spindly leg to each of these shorter sides, and elevate the stage until its base is roughly level with the height of Celestia’s knees. Now cover this structure with copper foil and set it on the surface of the moon.

Off to one side was a small, bent flagpole. The flag itself was faded, but I could still make out the pattern. Thirteen stripes, alternating between white and what may have been a vibrant red at one point. The quadrant nearest the pole’s tip was a field of what I can only assume had been a rich blue, possibly equivalent to Luna’s coat in hue, with fifty five-pointed stars spaced evenly upon it. I could not tell what had bent the flagpole, but there were what appeared to be faint scorch-marks upon the platform’s foil covering.

Beat.

I felt my magic spread across the surface of the moon. Nothing lived upon it, and my spell turned its gaze to the world itself… And it was full of life. Billions upon billions of minds, each one unique in its own way, each one striving to make their lives and the lives of their loved ones better… But they were being disqualified almost as quickly as they were being counted. Violent tempers, xenophobic attitudes, fear and anger and hate… I could still feel the tears forming in my eyes, but now they were of regret. This world had so much potential in it, but its inhabitants were unknowingly squandering that potential to fight amongst themselves.

Beat.

Then the spell found what it was looking for, and it released me. In an instant, I was back in my lab. With a gasp, I staggered back from the charging circle. Celestia moved to abort the spell, but I shakily waved her off. She hesitated, then nodded and walked over to let me lean on her. I hadn’t expected the spell to take that much out of me, and it was clearly showing.

Before either of us could relax there was a sharp crack of displaced air, like the sound of a quick-and-dirty teleportation, and a swirling orb of color appeared in the center of our containment measures. I didn’t need my magic to know it was the essence of whatever entity had been selected by the summoning spell, and I smiled.

Then an arc of power lept from the charging circle to my horn, like a continuous bolt of lightning, and from there it jumped to Celestia’s horn. But it didn’t hurt. It just… Tingled. Not entirely pleasantly, but not unpleasantly either. It simply was. Before either of us could react, the energy arc dissipated. My sister seemed worried, and I was too, but I at least was confident that whatever happened wouldn’t be outside of our capacity to deal with.

Now, this may seem fantastic, but that sphere of otherworldly essence began swirling faster and faster, compressing down into the shape of… Well, the shape of an alicorn. She was somewhere between myself and my sister in height, her coat and feathers were the color of deeply blued steel, and her mane and tail reminded me of a wheat field at harvest time.

And she didn’t have a cutie mark.

In hindsight, I think that’s what struck me. Here was an entity that had been granted the form my sisters and I shared, one that was revered by all as a symbol of what it meant to truly be Equestrian, but that one missing piece was enough to set her apart from us in a very unreal fashion.

I looked it up before I began writing this entry, and the effect is known as the ‘uncanny valley’. It’s a hypothesis that states there is a point where increased realism in a fabricated equine appearance only serves to more profoundly highlight any differences between the construct and an actual equine, and thus instills a sense of unexplainable revulsion. It’s most prominently used in horror novels - zombies, for instance, are squarely in the middle of the uncanny valley - but examples can also be found in paintings, sculpture, illusion spells, and puppetry.

The spell released her a moment later, gently setting her hooves on the bare concrete at the center of my inlaid spellwork, and her eyes opened. They were the color of polished gold, and her irises shrunk to pinpricks as her gaze frantically darted about the room. Her wings snapped open, and she did everything she could to look back at them without actually moving her head or neck. One of the muscles under her left eye even developed a twitch.

And in that instant, the uncanny valley disappeared. This was no longer a thing, this was a mare, and she was more terrified than anypony I had ever known. In spite of that fear, however, her attention finally focused on Celestia and I.

The fear, as Luna would likely have said, had been doubled. She outright stared at us, the way I had once stared at a full-grown dragon that was about to kill my friends and I, and her muscles began trembling under her coat. But in spite of all of the signs that she was going to try and bolt - which, thanks to the layers and layers of containment measures we’d set up, wouldn’t have gotten her very far - she spoke. Her voice barely wavered from an even conversational tone, even as her body language was screaming.

“Where am I?”

01 - Hello, World.

One moment, I had been working at my lathe. The next, I felt a peculiar tugging sensation along the back of my skull and spine. It was like the feeling you get trying to hold a magnet just over surface of a sheet of steel, only your body is the steel and someone else is holding the magnet.

Naturally, being a good machinist, I shut my lathe off. If this feeling was some sort of neurological disorder, I certainly didn’t want a machine capable of inflicting grotesquely fatal injuries running on the off chance I fell into it. Better odds of getting up to call the paramedics that way.

I blinked, and I was elsewhere. A concrete-lined room with no windows, with all sorts of glowing alien iconography inlaid in the poured stone. I wasn’t in pain, but something seemed off. I felt like I was standing on my toes and fingertips, and my vision was oddly fisheyed...

Adrenaline hit my bloodstream like liquid nitrogen, and I felt my heart hammering in my chest. I heard a rustle of feathers behind me, and somehow managed to look over my own shoulders without turning my head. There were wings behind me. Exquisitely plumed wings that shimmered like engraved, blued steel in the light. I traced them back to their roots with my eyes, and found a vaguely equine body attached to them.

Okay. First rule, no panicking. That’s a quick trip to Injurytown, population Me.

Time to take stock, then. Four legs, likely capped with hooves, and my vision was obscured somewhat on one side by a drape of hair that was the color of lightly-toasted bread or grain, or possibly a light brass. I could assume, by the sensation on the back of my thighs, that there was a similarly-colored tail attached to my ass.

Oh, and I was naked in front of two creatures that I could only assume resembled me, and given the surroundings were very likely intelligent and responsible for my appearance here. So, as calmly as I could muster given my circumstances, I spoke.

“Where am I?”

Oh God, even my voice wasn’t the same. I shifted my balance slightly, afraid to try and walk for fear of becoming intimately familiar with the concrete, and a realization struck me upside the head with a lemon wrapped ‘round a gold brick when I noticed something was missing. Heedless of the potential for injury, I bent my neck to peer at my undercarriage, and was somewhat surprised to find out that I had enough flexibility to do so. Sure enough, something was in fact missing, and I straightened up

“And while I’m at it, where’s my dick?”

The slightly shorter, purple half of the pair looking at me opened her mouth. Then she blinked a few times, looked at her companion - who was absolutely owning the market for calm, serene smiles - then looked back at me. “...Your what?”

“Dick.” I looked again, just to be sure it was gone. Yup. My gaze returned to the purple one. “Cock. Dong. Wang. Prick. Flesh flute. Third - well, in this case, fifth - leg. Heat-seeking moisture missile. One-eyed trouser snake. Pork sword.” With every euphemism, I could actually see the blush forming on her cheeks get deeper and deeper. “You know, the ol’ twig n’ berries, bedroom boomstick, joy rod, kickstand, lap rocket, love muscle-”

“Your penis.” The white one finally spoke, though there was definitely an amused quirk to the corners of her mouth. “Are we to understand that you weren’t female before you were summoned here?”

“If I was, it’s news to me.” I glanced at myself. Either I was hallucinating, or I was in the strangest Goddamn afterlife ever. “Pretty sure I wasn’t a horse, either.”

“Pony. Horses are one of our distant ancestors.” The purple one seemed to take refuge in the simple act of correction. “We’re Equus Sapiens Aleph, they were Equus Ferus. The skeletal structures are broadly similar, but we diverged from them millions of years ago.”

...Or I was speaking to aliens. That was also a possibility.

“As for where you are,” she continued, more than happy to ignore my earlier commentary, “that is going to take a moment to explain. Rather than transport you bodily across dimensions, the summoning spell I crafted made a duplicate of your mind and memories. The original intent was to also recreate your body, but it seems one or more of the physical laws of your universe is incompatible with our own, or the inverse is true, so the spell appears to have crafted a body for you based upon our own forms.”

And it seemed they have magic. Which, given how my first thought upon seeing their horns - and the one jutting from my own head, don’t remind me - made me think of magical unicorns, made a certain amount of sense. I took a breath and pointedly ignored the continued hammering of my heartbeat in my ears. “So, if I’m understanding you right, the.. pony standing in front of you has the same memories and personality as a being that you non-destructively… scanned?”

“That’s an accurate summary, yes.”

I took another breath, focusing on one thing at a time. “And, from his perspective, all he would feel is the weird sensation of something tugging at his head and spine for a moment before it went away? No harm done?”

“Hypothetically, yes.”

And the adrenaline went away, replaced with a profound feeling of relief. I felt the wings on my back droop, and the strangest tingle of sensation as the their tips brushed the floor. I let out the breath I didn’t notice I was holding, and I smiled. “If I know myself, and I do, he’ll shrug it off if it never happens again.”

The white one quirked a brow at me. “You seem to be taking this awfully well.”

I tried to shrug with my eyebrows. “Not really much I can do about it, and I get the feeling I’m not the one with leverage here.”

“Hm. A practical, reasonable, and adaptable mind.” She smiled at her companion. “Aside from the minor issue of mis-aligned physical gender, it seems your summoning has gone well.”

“Certainly seems that way.” The purple one’s attitude brightened somewhat at the praise, though there was a definite rosy hue to her cheeks, and she turned to me. “Welcome to Equestria, and I am so sorry for the accidental gender reassignment. I hadn’t even considered how to handle that while writing the spell, and I suppose the magic itself felt it was simpler to model your body off of ours than to try and create a male version of either of us.”

“No harm done. I’m still me, just in a different casing.” I just couldn’t stay upset at that face. But the way she was talking about magic and spells like they were everyday things, that was different. “So… Magic is actually a thing here?”

“You didn’t have magic?” From the look on her face, it was like I’d just said I was used to breathing wood and eating babies. “But how did that platform get on the moon?”

The white half of the pair looked at her companion with no small measure of concern. “Are you okay, Twilight?”

“The spell dragged me along with it during its search, the way a find-it-fast cantrip does, only on a much broader scale. I’d incorporated elements of that working into my search methodology, but I hadn’t expected the same visual feedback.” Twilight, as she’d been named, pointed a hoof at me. “I saw their world, Celestia. Not from the surface, but from its moon, and there was a clearly artificial structure on the moon there with me.”

My jaw went a little bit slack, and I couldn’t do anything to keep the tone of reverence out of my voice. “If I’m understanding you right, you saw one of the Apollo landing sites. There were six of them over the course of the entire Apollo mission program. Apollo Eleven, Twelve, Fourteen, Fifteen, Sixteen, and Seventeen all set down on the moon, and they all left something that could be described as a platform behind.” I couldn’t keep myself from smiling, even if I wanted to. “You are one lucky pony, Twilight. You saw something that only twelve out of seven billion people have ever seen.”

Both of them stared at me, but Twilight recovered first. “Your species visited your own moon, without magic?”

“Unless you count basic chemistry and orbital mechanics as magic, then yes.”

Twilight’s eyes went wide, and she turned her attention to her compatriot. “Do you have any objections to lowering the protective enchantments?”

“None of any consequence.” It seemed the white pony with the weirdly-billowing mane, Celestia, was just as impressed as Twilight was. “You were quite correct, there is much we have yet to learn as a species, and this seems to have been a remarkably efficient way to discover those gaps in our knowledge.”

Twilight virtually exploded into motion, rushing around the edges of the room and touching her horn to various glyphs and sigils embedded in the walls and floor, until she was just outside of what I estimated my new wingspan was. There, she paused and met my eyes. “If you do anything to endanger Equestria, its citizens, or our world?” There was strength beyond measure behind her voice, the calm assurance that she would follow through on whatever she said if I wronged her. “My sisters and I will not hesitate to end your life. Do you understand what I have just told you?”

“Yes, ma’am.” I nodded, just once. Who the hell would I be to argue with a being that, by all accounts, had just made a copy of me without any regard for the boundaries of space and time as I knew them? “And while we’re being honest with each other, I was wondering when you were going to say something like that. I can understand why. I’m a mountain of unknowns, and you’re taking a big risk.” I sketched out a very shaky bow, unfamiliar muscles trembling as I struggled to maintain my balance. “I swear, on penalty of death, that I bear no ill will towards you, your people, or your planet. Should you decide I am an existential threat, I will gladly face your judgement without protest.”

In the background, I noticed both of the white pony’s eyebrows crawl towards her horn. Then there was a flicker of light from Twilight’s horn, and the air around me shimmered like a soap bubble. “We shall hold you to that oath.” Twilight offered me a calm smile, the sort you expect to see on the face of someone put in a bad position due to circumstance. “Not out of malice or spite, but caution. As you said, you are a risk, though your willingness to cooperate is a pleasant surprise. You aren’t a prisoner, merely a pony of extreme interest.”

I was in the middle of the delicate process of straightening back into a standing position when biology decided to inform me that just because I had changed species was no reason to stop what it had been doing all my life. I imagine the look on my face went from concentration to sheer embarrassment in the blink of an eye. “That’s, uh, that’s nice. Better than I expected, really. But before anything else, may I ask a question?”

“Of course.”

“Is there a bathroom nearby, and could I trouble either of you for assistance to get there?” I just sort of glanced at myself and tried to look sheepish. “I’m not naturally a quadruped, this extra-wide visual field is disorienting the hell out of me, and I really don’t want to trip all over myself in this condition.”

I could almost swear I heard Celestia giggle, and I know I saw her horn light up. Gentle bands of pressure wrapped around my legs, and when I looked down I saw ethereal golden braces around my limbs. “I’ll take care of this, sister. I’m sure you’re eager to write your notes while they’re fresh in your mind.”

At the mention of note-taking, Twilight’s eyes lit up and she… Well, she quite literally disappeared in a flash of light. I counted myself lucky that I had reached the point where nothing could startle me, or else my request for assistance might have been rendered moot. So, I turned my attention to Celestia. “How is this going to work? Are you going to move my legs for me, or are those just going to keep me from tripping?”

“A little bit of both, if you must know. I learned the spell while I was brushing up on my physical therapy training.” She crossed the room with a smile and stood next to me, just close enough for her to drape a wing across my back to keep me stable. “If you reach the point you can’t hold it, just tell me. I’ll get you to a shower.”

I glanced over at her as I took a tentative step forward. I wobbled a bit, but sure enough, the braces and that stabilizing wing across my back were enough to keep me from making out with the concrete. “Most nurses where I come from don’t wear fancy jewelry like yours, ma’am.” I set my mind to the task of learning to walk as I spoke. “I’ll admit, it might be different here, but you don’t strike me as just a nurse…”

“Oh, nursing is just a hobby of mine. I like helping ponies, and I always have, but my real job isn’t specifically in healthcare.” I nodded, a bit preoccupied with managing two extra limbs and two brand-new limbs to speak, and she continued. “My sisters and I are heads of state.”

“I’ve never met a politician I can tolerate for this long. Pull the other one, it’s got bells on.” I snorted, still carefully setting one… hoof in front of the other. “Is the jewelry some kind of magical protective gear for scientists? Ceremonial, maybe?”

Okay, that got her to giggle. “Ceremonial, yes. Even without it, I am still Princess Celestia, and I can and often do raise the sun in the morning without wearing any of the trappings of my office.”

“Really? You’re a princess? And you raise the sun every morning? Now I know you’re stringing me along.” I smiled as we entered the hallway outside the lab I had been… well, the lab I’d been summoned in. “Next thing I know, you’ll be telling me how pretty your wings are or something.”

That earned me a pop on the back of the head. “Are you saying my wings aren’t pretty?” Oh my lord, she even stuck her tongue out.

“Maybe in the right lighting they could be, but proper lighting conditions can make anything look good.” I’ll admit, I was taking a risk talking back to my impromptu caretaker like this, but I’ve always believed in taking refuge in audacity. “But nothing can really beat the shine of properly blued steel, no matter what the lighting, and given the nature of my plumage? I’ll just bet my wings are prettier than yours.”

“Kind of hard to judge when they’re tucked up against your barrel like that. Oh, sorry, my mistake.” She grinned a trickster’s grin, “You don’t know how to move them yet.”

“You don’t need to rub it in, sunbutt.” Well, that caught her off guard. She spluttered, somewhere between righteous indignation and uproarious laughter, and I continued. “Yeah, I might have only gotten them a few minutes ago, and I might still think this is all awfully freakin’ weird to say out loud, but I still think my wings are prettier than yours.” I grinned a bit wider. “It’s okay, though. The newer models always look better than the ones that came before. Iterative design just works like that. It’s nothing personal. Can we still be friends?”

Apparently, Celestia had decided on the laughter option. She wiped at her eyes with a hoof as we walked. “Oh, of course, of course. This is a fantastic start to a friendship, if Twilight has taught me anything about the subject.” She smiled, relaxed and easily comfortable. “It has been far too long since anypony has been so candid with me, particularly on a first meeting, and here I am not even knowing your name. Twilight has doubtlessly already recorded you as ‘subject alpha’ or some other sort of scientific nonsense, but that’s less a name than it is a file number.”

Hm. That was a good question. Technically, while I may have the same personality and memories as the man I remember being, I was still someone new. “I don’t feel it’s right to use the name I remember having, to continue my habit of honesty.” I frowned, ever so slightly. “I would ask you for suggestions, but I suspect you’d take advantage of the offer to get back at me for the crack earlier.”

“And you’d be correct.” Celestia smiled like the world was the most enjoyable play she’d ever witnessed, and then gestured at a push-door with an iconograph sign on it along the wall. “We’re here. The facilities ought to be easy enough to figure out, but if you have any questions, I’ll be right here.”

“You’re not coming in with me?” I frowned a bit deeper. “Can you maintain the braces without line of sight, then?”

“I haven’t been maintaining them since we left the lab, my not-so-little pony.” Celestia winked at me. “You’ve been walking just fine on your own. You’ll be fine, so long as you don’t think of your body as an overly complicated piece of machinery.”

I glanced down at my legs, and sure enough I was unencumbered by magical constructs. “Huh. Well, alright then.” I returned my attention to the door, thought for a moment about how I would approach the problem, and then biology issued a red alert. I abandoned my plans of calmly walking into the bathroom and instead lunged for the door, blindly trusting my limbs to not tangle themselves into each other, and made for the nearest stall before all hope was lost.

I will state only the facts surrounding my first experience using an Equestrian restroom. The room itself was clean, well-lit, and pleasantly designed. Quieter than I would expect a room done in mostly hard surfaces to be, too. The fixtures I used were quite functional, as well as ergonomic and pleasant to look at. A model restroom if ever there was one, in my opinion. There was only one hiccup, and it was one of procedure rather than design.

I, quite literally, did not know how to wipe my own ass.

I came out of the experience with a basic grasp of, and fine appreciation for, the glorious skill that is applied telekinesis. This is not a terrible thing by any stretch of the imagination, but it came at a cost to my dignity, and that particular commodity was in short supply.

“I don’t know about you,” I grumbled as Celestia led me back into the hall, “but I would like it if we never spoke of this again.”

“I can understand your embarrassment. Most adult patients at the hospitals I’ve volunteered in are the same way.” Celestia smiled over her shoulder at me, the very picture of an understanding authority figure. “You’re an adult, but the body you find yourself in is different from the one you grew up learning to use, and now you have to learn all the annoying little things related to maintaining a clean and healthy body all over again.”

I tossed my head to get a bit of… mane out of my eyes, and glared at the offending lock when it slid right back into place. “It’s not that I don’t appreciate the help, I’d just prefer to put it behind me.”

“Of course.” God, her smile was infuriating. Or maybe I was still grouchy about having asked for her help. “Have you given any thought to the matter of your name?”

“Only that I want it to reflect who I am, not who I was.” I snorted, and was quietly amused at just how similar the noise sounded to that of the horses I was used to. “But all that I can think of are various alternative and historical names for different kinds of metals. One of the hazards of being a machinist, I suppose. Spend so much time thinking about metals and their properties, and the mind defaults to that train of thought.”

“Is there a particular reason one of those names wouldn’t be suitable?”

I sighed and let my head droop a bit. “They’re names associated with things, not people. When was the last time you met someone named after a thing?”

“Just the other day, actually.” One of my eyebrows crawled up my forehead as Celestia spoke. “I was interviewing applicants for the Royal Guard’s armorer position, and one of them was an enthusiastic young pegasus named Silver Wing.”

“Well…” It feels damned weird to furrow your brow when there’s a horn sticking out of your skull. “Huh. Unimaginative parents, or are your naming conventions looser than the ones I’m used to?”

“The latter, I would imagine.” Celestia didn’t even flinch. Apparently, I’d have to step up my game to reliably get a reaction out of her. “And ponies throughout history have petitioned the government for an official name-change, if they feel the one they were given doesn’t suit them. It happens quite frequently.”

“Well, in that case-” I tried to shrug, only to feel the decidedly odd sensation of my new wings twitching against my sides. Then I tried to shrug again, and got the same result. “Huh. That’s different.”

“Hm?” Celestia glanced over her shoulder at me. “Have you had some variety of life-altering revelation as to the nature of the universe you find yourself in?”

I made another attempt to roll my shoulders, paying particular attention to how I moved compared to what I was trying to do, and there was a faint rustle of feathers as my wings shifted against my sides. I could even feel a bit of sensation from them. “I guess you could say that.”

“I see.” The corners of Celestia’s eyes crinkled slightly, but that was the only sign of her smile. “When should I expect the wing-measuring challenge?”

I snorted again. “You know you’d lose.”

“Ah, the folly of youth. You’ll figure things out in time.” She smiled, so calm and serene and ridiculously punchable. “I suspect you had a revelation of some kind concerning your name, prior to that?”

“Right, right.” I peered at my wings. I mean, okay, it’s weird that I’m apparently a sentient technicolor pony now, and it might seem like I’m taking it well? But no, I’m just really good at ignoring things. The matter of having my mind duplicated and transferred to what I had been led to believe was an entirely different universe was just slightly more concerning than the fact that my body plan had been so radically altered. “Names. If your culture’s got such loose conventions surrounding names, then how about Ferrum Veritas? It’s just a couple of words I picked up from a dead language I learned as a hobby, but it’ll do as a name.”

That got a raised eyebrow, and we walked in silence for a while. I used the time to experiment with moving my wings around, and had just figured out the basics of extension and retraction when Celestia spoke again. “Is there a reason why you chose that as your name?”

“I am, or at least was, a metalworker by trade.” I smirked. “And telling the truth is important to me.”

If I was reading her right, the small nod of her head seemed to indicate she was satisfied with that answer. “Welcome to Equestria, Princess Ferrum.”

I stumbled.

Okay, okay. I caught the tip of a hoof in the carpet and tried to compensate by putting too much force into my next step, which led to that hoof sliding out from under me. Thus unbalanced, my rear hooves shot out from underneath me, and there was a sound not entirely unlike dropping a rolled-up carpet from shoulder height as I hit the floor. Happy?

“Oh dear, I didn’t anticipate that reaction.” Celestia was standing over me immediately, clearly concerned with what just happened. “Are you hurt?”

“Did… I…” I ignored the bruises I could feel forming along my side in favor of trying to spit something other than word salad from my mouth. “Princess?”

“Let’s get you back up first, hm?” Celestia lit her horn, and a faint glow wrapped around me. Without a single bit of effort, I was floated into the air and carefully set down on my hooves again. I didn’t flinch as my weight settled, and that golden glow faded away. “Do you feel any pain?”

She had the right idea. I’d just fallen pretty hard onto what I can assure the reader was not a soft surface. I shoved the panic onto the back burner and did my best to try and flex everything, only to wince a bit as the wing I landed on shifted around. “A little. Probably just bruising, but if these are as delicate as the ones I’m used to seeing on birds…”

“They’re not, but I can understand your concern. Let’s have a look at you.” Her horn lit again, and this time the glow of her telekinetic field only wrapped around the wing I was worried about. Have I said how weird it is to have wings? Yeah, imagine how much weirder it is when someone else is manipulating them to see if they’ve been damaged. After a few moments, she smiled and eased the appendage into its folded position. “A few broken leading feathers and some bruised muscles. You’ll be sore for a few days, and if you knew how to fly you’d be grounded until you shed the damaged plumes, but it’s nothing to worry about.”

Okay, basically a badly scraped knee. Good. I could let the panic come back, but I wouldn’t let it rule me. Instead, I was going to use it as fuel. Sure, the Sith are a fictional organization, but they had some good ideas regarding anger management. So I took a deep breath, blew it out my nose, and met Celestia’s eyes. “You referred to me as a princess. Was that a joke, or does leadership work that way here?” My tone of voice was calm, conversational, and polite.

The words that came out of my mouth… Well, I wasn’t planning on having them match those criteria. “After all, I’m still learning how to do everything, up to and including wiping my own ass. I’d like to remind you that I’m an alien - not just from another planet, another dimension - and I’ve been stuck into a body that is so radically different from my own that I might as well be a jumbo-sized newborn that can walk and talk. And you, joking or not, casually throw a title at me that I associate with being a member of the ruling class? Do you think this is a game? Am I only here to amuse you? ‘Oh, let’s make a copy of an alien species we don’t know anything about and see how it reacts to becoming one of us! Won’t that be a laugh! Come, sister! Let us poke it with sticks to see how it responds to outside stimulus!’”

Call me butter, ‘cause I was on a roll. “You’ve ripped me from the world I was born into, dropped my mind into the body of a species I know nothing about, and on top of that you seem to be completely and utterly unconcerned with the psychological repercussions of such a sudden change of gender - not to mention the compounding effects of a radical change of species. I’m not some new and exotic thing you can keep as a pet or use as a toy, sunbutt, and if I think for one moment that I am being used as just that? I will gladly violate the oath I made to Twilight in order to remove myself from this universe in the most expedient and damaging way possible.”

“I assure you, I-”

I cut her off. “Before you say anything, ask yourself this. Do I look like someone who has anything to lose?” I didn’t even glare at her. I just pulled the emotion from my face and stared into her eyes. “Because, as the history of my species has shown, the most dangerous thing is someone with nothing left to lose, and I would hate myself if I had to demonstrate why.”

For several seconds, the hallway was so quiet you could have heard a gnat fart.

Finally, Celestia spoke. “I apologize if I overstepped the bounds of humor in an effort to help you adjust to your new life. It was never my intention to make light of your situation in a damaging fashion, and you have my word that I will assist you in settling into your life here.” Then I felt a wave of heat wash over me, so intense I had to squint to focus on Celestia through the sudden haze surrounding her. “However, you are a guest in this realm, and I expect you to behave as such.” And as suddenly as it had appeared, the heat was gone. “Do we have an understanding?”

Okay. Mental note. Do not taunt happy fun sunhorse. I swallowed. “I don’t hurt your people, you don’t find out what my autoignition temperature is?”

“Crude, but ultimately correct.”

“Then I do believe we have an understanding.” I took another deep breath. Not to focus myself for another ragegasm, but to try and fight off the adrenaline. Again. “In all seriousness, though. Why did you call me ‘princess’?”

“You are an alicorn, are you not?” At my look of incomprehension, she sighed. “Regardless of your personal feelings on the matter, you are a pony with traits from all three races. Unicorn, pegasus, and terallion - though the last are more commonly known as earth ponies. You have magic, flight, and an intimate connection to the physical world.”

“And… How does that make me qualified to be a head of state?”

“Alicorns have an instinctive urge to care for the other races. We are not perfect, not by any stretch of the imagination, but we do tend to act with the best interests of the herd in mind.” She was interrupted by a gurgle from my stomach, and she gestured down the hall with her horn. “Come, I can answer your questions while we find somewhere to dine. I only ask that you refrain from sharing your true nature with anypony who is not an alicorn like ourselves. At least, until we can arrange a temporary escort for you.”

At the mention of food, I felt myself salivate, and I became acutely aware of a gnawing hunger in my gut, and I followed along beside Celestia. “So because I’ve got wings and a horn, I could run for office and likely win just due to what I am?”

“If for some reason my sisters and I declined to coronate you, that is quite likely.” Celestia’s smile, much like the Mona Lisa’s, was enigmatic and full of meaning I couldn’t figure out. “Despite your earlier outburst, I believe you would make a lovely princess. You have displayed several of the qualities I respect in those who rule, as rough as they happen to be in your case.”

Great. Guess I’m gonna be a pretty little pony princess, then. “If you say so.”

“I certainly do, Princess Ferrum.”

This time I only stumbled a little, but only because I decided to aim for a wall rather than the floor. I flicked my uninjured wing a bit, trying to brush plaster dust off my coat. “You did that on purpose.”

“Indeed. It’s been quite some time since I’ve had somepony who reacts so delightfully to a battle of wits.” Celestia’s smile widened into something warm and welcoming. “I suspect you will either get along swimmingly with Luna, or she will repeatedly threaten to have you publicly executed for your… What would she call it? Ah, yes. Your ‘disrespectful tongue.’”

“Joy.” I deadpanned, but I couldn’t keep my face straight for long, and I found myself smiling back at her. “I’ll try to make a good impression, really. On another subject, if you don’t mind?” She nodded as we came to what looked for all the world like an elevator door, and it slid open. Fortunately, it was large enough for the two of us to fit without jostling on the way in and out. “Food. Specifically, what can I eat?”

“Our diets are primarily vegetarian.” She picked up on my arched eyebrow as she flipped a switch on the control panel with her telekinesis. “Is this a problem?”

“Psychological.” I felt the telltale lurch of acceleration as the elevator activated. “I’m used to being an omnivore.”

“Ah. Then you should be pleased to know that we do consume some animal protein. Primarily fish and unfertilized avian eggs, though some ponies on the borders do find gryphon cuisine and its reliance on large cuts of cooked muscle tissue more to their liking.”

I frowned in thought. “Would there be any issue if I asked for something like that? I wouldn’t want to frighten the kitchen staff.”

“The castle staff are all consummate professionals, Ferrum.” The elevator slowed to a stop and the doors slid open, and Celestia led the way. This time, instead of what looked like cheap painted drywall, the surroundings were more in line with what I would expect from a high-end hotel. “If I were to request a whole-roasted pig, or even a cow, the head chef would do little more than raise an eyebrow and quietly suspect I was throwing a surprise party for a large flock of gryphon dignitaries.”

Or a castle. Yeah, I could see this hallway belonging in a castle. High ceilings, stained-glass abstracts for windows… Oh, and other ponies. Much smaller ponies, actually. “That does make a certain amount of sense, I suppose.” I noticed that we - or rather, I - was gathering attention from the guards and various functionaries we were passing. “If I might exhibit more of my blunt personality, ma’am, why is everyone staring at me?”

“You are the fifth alicorn they know of. The last ascension to happen in recent memory was Princess Twilight’s, and that was twenty years ago.” Celestia’s voice was level, even slightly amused. “And on top of that, you have no cutie mark and nopony recognizes your colors. Like it or not, Ferrum, you are something of a novelty.”

“Hm.” I continued along in silence for a few moments, hoping the lack of expression on my face wouldn’t be seen as anger, then spoke again. “I suspect you would appreciate it if I were to tread carefully?”

“Very much so, yes.” Celestia’s horn lit, and a faint buzz filled my ears. “Privacy spell, sound dampening and visual blur. We may speak freely. My sisters and I will assist in building a cover identity for you. I believe an orphan would be a good start, as it’s well known that Luna donates much of her stipend to such charities and your coat is quite similar to hers. There is nothing to say that she hasn’t groomed a student of her own out of the public eye, and that her time came sooner than expected.”

“No.” I shook my head, ignoring the mention of spells and magic and so on. “Build from the truth, if you have no choice but to lie.”

“Oh? And how would you suggest we do that?”

“Broad strokes?” I flinched a bit as I rustled my wings. Stupid shrug reflex. “Traveler from another world much like this one, stranded here by an unforeseen twist of fate, willing to dedicate her life to the society she’s found herself in. That way if anyone does find out the truth, it’s seen as a simple polish job instead of an outright fabrication.”

Celestia raised an eyebrow at me and smiled. “And you thought you weren’t qualified to be a head of state.”

“Politicians where I’m from might be slime, but they’re very crafty slime.” I smirked. “Had to learn some of their tricks, if just to see through them.”

“A fair point indeed. We can work with the outline you’ve provided.” The buzz in my ears went away as Celestia’s horn went out, and we approached a reasonably sized set of double doors. Celestia’s attention turned to the guards at the door. “Please inform Princesses Twilight and Luna that my companion and I are taking our dinner here. Only they and our trusted kitchen staff may enter.”

Without a word, the pegasus on one side of the door nodded and took to the air, while the unicorn on station lit his horn and pushed the doors open for us. I don’t know what I was expecting, but professionalism to that degree wasn’t it, and I kept my mouth shut as Celestia led me into the dining room.

It was… Cozy, I suppose is the best word. There was a small dining table at one end, and the opposite end of the room was home to a few bookshelves and a small collection of pillows roughly the size of couches. Sure, trying to hold a banquet in a room this small would be problematic, but for a small meeting over a meal between a handful of ponies? It seemed about the right size. “Huh.”

“Yes, Ferrum?”

“Just appreciating the design, ma’am.” I walked in a slow, small circle to take in the room, nodding a bit. “There’s places where it reminds me of home, if a bit fancier than I’m used to, but that just makes the differences stand out more.”

Celestia opened her mouth to answer, but was interrupted by a strobe-light flash that left Twilight standing between us. “Sorry I’m late, I was still working on my notes. Has she given a name yet?”

A second flash of light, brighter than the one that had heralded Twilight’s arrival, cut me off. In its place was a third alicorn, roughly my height, with a dusty royal blue coat and a mane that acted much like Celestia’s. Fortunately, her back was to me. “I apologize for the delay, but there was one noble who simply would not leave me be after my arrival. Thou both understand that I do so enjoy our meals together, and would not normally tarry in such a manner, but it would have been seen poorly had I ordered him forcibly removed from my presence.” She ruffled her wings, and I saw the faint hints of a smile affecting her jaw. “Has a meal been decided upon in my absence?”

“It hasn’t, Luna. However, before we move on,” Celestia’s gaze met my own, and I immediately saw what she was doing. “I would like to introduce you to a traveler that Twilight and I met this evening.”

“A traveler? Why, how novel! Perhaps the bardic traditions are not as dead as I suspected they were!” Luna certainly seemed to be amused by the idea as she turned… Then she saw me, and her face fell. “Sister… This is an alicorn.”

“Yes, she is.” There was a twinkle in Celestia’s eyes, and I could tell Twilight was doing everything in her power not to giggle. No, seriously. There was a shimmer of light around her horn, and while I could see her laughing? I couldn’t hear a thing. “Princess Luna Noctis, Guardian of Dreams and the Innocent, Protectress of the Eastern Wilds, and sister I hold dearest, I present to you Ferrum Veritas.”

The temperature of the room dropped at least ten degrees in an instant, and I saw frost patterns forming on the polished oak table. Then I noticed Luna’s gaze boring into me, and I felt like someone was slowly tapping an icicle into my heart. “Is this one of your pranks, sister? Thou are well aware of how poorly I have reacted to your more ambitious plots in the past, but this is very close to crossing the border between humorous and painful.”

Twilight, to her credit, sobered up immediately. Her horn went out, and she trotted into Luna’s field of view. “Luna, do you remember the summoning spell I was working on in my spare time? The one I was going to use to find an entity that could help us learn more about the universe we live in? Well, this is who it came up with.”

Luna’s eyes went pure, silvery white at this, and her horn lit with a glow that reminded me of cherenkov radiation. An instant later, I felt a vice tighten around my throat and drag me into the air. “Defiler. Liar. Poisoner. Foal-killer. We have a great many names for thee, Nightmare, and We shall feed them all to thee on salted iron before thou art finally extinguished.” I tried to claw at the construct around my throat with my hooves, but… Well, you can imagine how that worked out for me. “Cease thine struggles, wretch. Thou-”

“Princess Luna Noctis.”

The words were like a thunderclap in the small room, and it distracted Luna enough for her to loosen her grip on my throat. I took a great heaving breath, and color started returning to my world. I missed you, color. Please stay. We’ll have such fun times together, you and I.

Celestia cleared her throat as she stepped between Luna and myself. “Under penalty of banishment, you have my word that this pony is not the entity you have accused her of being. The color of her coat and plumage is nothing but an unfortunate coincidence. Please, set her down.”

For a moment, it looked as if Luna was going to object. Then the moonlight in her eyes vanished, the tension left her, and the vice around my throat dissipated into a gentle full-body cradle. There was a soft click as my hooves touched down, and Luna spoke. The rage from before was gone, and I could feel the room warming again. “You have my deepest and humblest apologies, Miss Veritas. You are a guest in our home, and I was gravely overstepping my authority.” She looked… Almost timid, provided you overlooked the fact that she had been choking the life out of me not thirty seconds ago. “I would very much like to know you better, if you feel such a thing is possible after my outburst.”

“Anything is possible.” I coughed and rubbed awkwardly at my throat with a hoof. “This particular thing you’re asking for is contingent on your answer to one request.”

This got Celestia and Twilight to look at me with something akin to shock, but Luna simply nodded. “Name the price of your forgiveness, and I shall happily pay it.”

Well, that went far better than I expected. I quickly demonstrated to the three mares in the room that I have clearly never been introduced to the concept of a poker face, and I suspect I was showing a few too many teeth in my grin to be considered entirely sane. “You’re willing to let me name the price of my forgiveness?”

“Of course. I threatened you with a painful and lingering death that was entirely unwarranted, and I wish to make amends.”

I continued grinning, dredging up half-memories of old folklore as I ran my mouth. What the hell, let’s try a hail mary. “I ask you a second time, Princess Luna. Are you certain that you are willing to pay this price?”

That got her to raise an eyebrow at me. “My personal treasury should be more than adequate to meet any request you make, and my own abilities are well in excess of most ponies that are currently living in our realm.”

Time for the kicker. “A third and final question, Princess. Are you willing to abide the cost of whatever I name to be my price of forgiveness?”

Clearly, Luna was expecting something far more direct than what I had in mind. She lingered over the decision for a few moments, then she nodded. “Yes, and I do applaud your use of the old forms, as poorly executed as they were.” There was a smile on her face. “Name your price, you clever mare.”

Well. That was an interesting coincidence of mythology and reality. Glad it worked in my favor. “I wish to strike you a single time, as hard as I can, at the time and place of my choosing.” I grinned incrementally wider. “With no repercussions from you or any of your associates.”

Luna stood there for a moment. Then, slowly, her smile melted into a grin. “Well played and well met, Ferrum Veritas. I look forward to the moment when you claim your due.”

“Wait.” Twilight glanced between the two of us. “What just happened?”

“‘Tis an old but fair form of settling debts of honor, Twilight. Having agreed thrice to abide the terms offered, I have little choice but to accept them or be disgraced.” Luna smiled, clearly enjoying where the conversation had gone from where it started. “How a summoned being would know of our traditions is concerning, but I trust the judgement of our older sister.”

Alright, I couldn’t help myself. “You think I knew what I was doing?” I shook my head and laughed. “With all due respect, ladies? You terrify me, and I’m as surprised that ploy worked as you are that I thought to use it.”

“Truly?” Luna’s eyes twinkled. “Then perhaps we can renegotiate terms?”

“If I didn’t suspect you’d turn me into paste, I’d demand satisfaction for insulting my intelligence like that.” I shook my head again, still grinning like a fool, only for my stomach to remind me that I had yet to be fed. “Sorry, Princess. You made a deal and admitted its validity before you knew I had no idea it would work. You’re stuck with it.”

There was a light giggle from the darkest of the three princesses. “I suppose I am. Shall we dine?”

My mouth got away from me. “I sure hope so. I’m so hungry, I could eat a horse.”

There was a crash from behind me, and I turned to look. Apparently, my timing could stand for improvement. One of the kitchen staff had just entered the room, and had been carrying something when I shot my mouth off. Now the poor mare looked terrified, and there was a stainless steel tray and a small army’s worth of finger foods on the floor.

“Er, metaphorically.” I tried my best to look innocent, but that only seemed to scare her more. “Look, ah, I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just a saying…”

Celestia spoke up, just as calm and serene as anyone could want. “Oh, miss Sweet. I’m sorry if our guest frightened you, but she genuinely wasn’t trying to frighten anypony. You see…” And she launched into a lightly-sanitized version of who I was and where I came from. Really, the only things Celestia didn’t mention were the gender confusion, the bathroom adventure, the various exchanges of threats, and the case of mistaken identity on Luna’s part. And, y’know, I completely understood their omission.

I, meanwhile, was being given an eight-credit-hour graded course from Professor Twilight on which set of silverware was for which dish in the space of about two minutes. Right about the time the last of the lecture was leaking out of my ears, Celestia was finishing up her monologue.

“You see, Caramel? She’s just like any other diplomat from a foreign land. Some of the things she says might sound odd, or even frightening, but there’s no malice behind them. They’re just things that her culture says for one reason or another, and they stopped considering the origins of the phrase long ago.” Celestia took a seat across from me, and I had the good sense to try and look a little bashful. “The only difference, really, is how far away her home culture is.”

There was a tentative nod from the young mare. “I suppose you have a point, but I’m still sorry about the sandwiches. I would’ve expected a phrase like that from a gryphon or a sphinx, but from a pony? It was a bit startling, and I guess I just forgot to hold on to the tray.”

“And that’s perfectly understandable, Caramel.” Yeah, they saw Celestia as a mother figure alright. “In fact, I think the only other time you’ve dropped something was…”

The terallion hostess hung her head in resignation. “My first day, when I tripped and spilled a carafe full of hot cocoa down your back.”

“And that was what prompted me to start using chocolate-scented bathing products. I simply hadn’t realized I enjoyed the smell so much until then. You see? Mistakes are how we all learn new things.” Celestia smiled. “ And speaking of learning new things, I think I’d love to learn what our head chef has come up with this evening. Could I trouble you for menus?”

And with that, menus were handed out, orders were jotted down, and special requests were made. Twilight blanched slightly when I asked for a small cut of whatever meat the chef thought would go best with my meal, while Luna raised an eyebrow and made the same request.

I was going to have my work cut out with that one.

The three alicorns I found myself sharing a table with were content to converse among themselves as Caramel Sweet left, and I’ll gladly admit that I tuned it out. I didn’t have the context to understand even a quarter of the things they were talking about, and on top of that, it seemed to revolve around local politics. Which, as you probably already guessed, I knew nothing about.

It was actually sort of relaxing. I had a rough idea of where I stood in relation to the world around me, I didn’t need to use the bathroom - and if I did, I could make it through that particular trial without assistance now, and nobody was threatening my life. I mean sure, I was a technicolor pony now, but in the grand scheme of things? I was still me.

...Right?

For better or worse, my reverie was broken by the arrival of our meals. Salads and soups all around, and small cuts of some kind of red meat for Luna and myself. I made it a point not to show too many teeth when Caramel Sweet came around with my plate, which I think might have helped smooth things over… But the enthusiasm I turned to the task of consuming my steak probably cancelled it out.

Oh, that steak. That steak deserves a national holiday all its own, honoring its valiant sacrifice in the name of sating my hunger. It was seared and seasoned to perfection, just the right shade of pink in the middle, and even though I didn’t have the same array of dental hardware I was used to? It still melted in my mouth, with barely any chewing needed. It was, in the most classical sense of the phrase, awe-inspiring.

And then it was gone.

I shall remember you fondly, steak. You were delicious to the very end, and your sacrifice was not made in vain.

Then I noticed the looks I was getting; Quiet amusement from Celestia, blatant amusement from Luna, and a mix of fascination and horror from Twilight. I opened my mouth to fire off something to the effect of ‘What, never seen someone enjoy a steak before?’, but what came out instead was a belch best described as gnarly. I’m pretty sure that if it had gone off right next to someone, it would’ve blown their hair back. I felt recoil from that sucker, and I’m pretty sure I heard an echo. In gamer terms, that belch had a freakin’ mana bar.

In its wake, the four of us sat there in stunned silence. Then, ever so slowly, I heard someone clap. Not applause, not hate-clapping, but the slow kind you’d expect from one who respects a well-performed art. I blinked a few times to focus my eyes again, and found that it was coming from Celestia. She was smiling, and it was pure, honest appreciation.

I had no idea how to react to this. “Um. I’m... sorry..?”

She actually giggled. “Ferrum, you are a breath of fresh air. Figuratively speaking, at least.” That drew a snicker from Twilight, and she continued. “I’ve lived long enough to see such behavior shift from an honest appreciation of a good meal to something that only ‘low-born dullards’ do, and to be completely honest? I vastly prefer the first interpretation.”

“You may wish to restrain such behavior during prominent social functions.” Luna chuckled between bites of her salad. “The nobility doesn’t appreciate such things in this age, sadly.”

“Luna, the nobility doesn’t appreciate much of anything aside from their horn-waving contests.” Twilight rolled her eyes. “Honestly, if they had any idea how good it feels to stop pretending to be somepony you’re not, they wouldn’t be half as stuck up as they are.”

I loaded a fork with some of my own salad, barely nodding. I wasn’t sure if moving my horn affected my telekinesis, but I didn’t want to find out right now. I was still hungry. “More folks need to realize that being true to yourself is better than putting on a mask every morning.” There was a rustle as I tried to shrug my shoulders instead of my wings, and I took a moment to quietly frump at the body I’d been transplanted into. “Not just the rich or the nobility, though. Everyone.”

“Agreed.” Celestia nodded, with a certain sense of finality, and turned her attention to me. “Though we’ve been monopolizing the conversation with local matters when we have a visitor from another world sitting at our table, who I’m positive is only seconds away from dying of boredom.”

I snorted. “I wouldn’t go that far, but I have been more focused on my food than the conversation.”

“We can’t really blame you, Ferrum. You don’t have the context to understand what we’ve been talking about, and in politics, context is everything.” Twilight paused to enjoy a bit more of her soup, then continued. “Is there anything you feel like sharing about your world?”

...That was a loaded question. “In general, specifics…?” I tucked a bit more salad away to buy myself some time to think, swallowed, and shrugged. Or at least, tried to shrug. Instead, I fluttered. Stupid wings. “I tend to work better if I’ve got a prompt to work from. Anything in particular you’d like to know?”

“Well, while I was in the grip of the spell, I didn’t really get the best impression.” She gestured aimlessly with a quarter of what looked like a grilled cheese sandwich. “Don’t get me wrong, it’s impressive that your species managed to visit your world’s moon without the aid of magic-”

There was a soft ting of silverware falling onto a ceramic plate, and Luna stared at me. “Is this true?”

“Well… Yeah.” I shrugged again, and resigned myself to feeling my wings rustle about every time I tried to make that particular gesture. “Twilight said she saw one of the landing sites, and they’re kind of a big deal. Why would I have any reason to lie about that?”

There was a momentary quiet while Luna composed herself. Then she asked one simple and yet complicated question. “How?”

I sighed. “How familiar are you with chemistry and physics?”

I noticed Twilight’s face split into a grin out of the corner of my eye. Apparently, her native language was Science. “Very.”

“Okay. Stop me if I get too complicated.” I blew out another sigh. “Imagine self-propelled fireworks, the sort that go shooting up into the sky under their own power when the fuse runs out. Now scale one of those up to the size of a.. Well, larger than a tall grain silo, and replace the explosive payload with a crew capsule that’s capable of detaching from the main propulsion assembly.”

They nodded, and I continued. “That’s enough to get into space, provided you can generate enough thrust and control the direction well enough, and as long as you can do the math to establish a properly stable orbit you can stay there until you feel like coming back. Though, due to atmospheric friction, you need a heat-shielded crew capsule if you want to come back down in one piece. To get to the moon and back, though? You need a few more things, like liquid-fuel rockets so you have fine throttle control, and a tighter grasp of orbital mechanics, plus a plan for how to get your crew back after they land. I don’t know the calculations myself, but I do know it took an entire government-funded agency to get to the point where it was possible.”

I was confronted with a trio of stares.

“...What?”

Luna recovered first. “That sounds unreasonably dangerous. Why did your culture put so much effort into such a risky endeavor?”

“Hm.” I stuffed a bit more of my salad into my mouth as I thought, then I… I can’t really call it a shrug when it doesn’t involve my shoulders any more. Damn. I ruffled my wings a bit. “Two reasons come to mind. The first reason is simple. Competition. The nation I lived in was in, as Twilight put it, a horn-waving contest with another nation at the time, and wanted to prove once and for all that they were better. As for the second reason?” I stuck my fork into a cherry tomato and gestured with it. “Well, why does anyone climb a mountain? Because it’s there.” And I popped the poor, unfortunate red sphere into my mouth with a smile.

“Hmm. As good a reason as any, I suppose.” Luna ruffled her wings. “I must admit a certain morbid curiosity, however. How many were lost during this effort?”

“During that particular program? Three during a launch rehearsal, and that problem was discovered and fixed rather quickly.” And the last of my salad finally disappeared. “Nearly lost another crew three years later. One of the liquid oxygen tanks popped on the way to the moon, but they were able to recover and come home unscathed.”

“Hm. And do you know how many total, for your nation?”

“Luna, is this truly polite dinner conversation?” Celestia arched a brow at her sister. “Really, asking about deaths?”

I waved her off. “That I know of? Seven in an accident after launch, seven in an accident during reentry. Damaged solid-fuel booster that was approved for launch despite protests and a damaged heat shield, respectively.” I tried to shrug, but only managed to ruffle my wings again. “Plus five more if you include training accidents like the one I mentioned earlier.”

“Twenty-two, then? Hm. Considering the risks involved in space travel, that is an admirably low number.”

“If my memory’s right, yeah.” The bottom dropped out of my voice, and I noticed a bit of wobble on the edges of my vision. Damnit, emotions. Not now. “They were heroes.”

“This is a subject dear to you, then?” Luna bowed her head. “My condolences. ‘Tis not a pleasant subject, yet it is still an inspiring one. A campaign of discovery persisting in spite of such losses is certainly worthy of respect.”

I couldn’t do much more than nod, and I heard Twilight clear her throat. “Yeah..?”

“I think I know why the spell picked you, out of all the minds it encountered.” I glanced over, and she was smiling. “Would you like to know?”

“Couldn’t hurt.”

Twilight’s smile widened, ever so slightly. “You seem to care for everyone, not just yourself.”

“I have that impression as well, to tell the truth.” Celestia nodded. “You may have your moments of anger, depression, or fear, but so does every other thinking creature.”

“And in spite of what I saw of your world during the summoning,” Twilight continued, “you still see good that can be nurtured.”

I cocked a brow at Twilight. “Just what did you see..?”

She blew out a sigh. “A world that doesn’t need Discord to stay chaotic.”

“I… Kind of lack the context to know exactly what that means, but chaotic is a good way to describe where I came from.” I ruffled again. Damnit, I missed my shoulders. “That said, I still miss it. Knowing that there’s still a version of me back there helps, but…”

“It’s not the same as being there.” Twilight nodded. “That’s understandable, and I feel absolutely terrible about making you go through all this. If there were any way to safely send you back, I would be more than happy to help, but the lack of magic in your home realm is far too large a hurdle to reliably clear.”

I nodded, trying to keep my sudden case of the sniffles to myself. “Yeah, I imagine it would be.”

“You are not going to be abandoned like yesterday’s newspaper, Ferrum.” Celestia smiled at me. “You will have our full support, as well as the support of the Crown, in finding your place here.”

“It is as my sister has said. You will find your place eventually, and we will be happy to help you along the way.” There was a smile from Luna as well. “Pray tell, what trade did you practice before you were summoned? Perhaps we can assist you in finding a similar line of work, if you feel the need to occupy your mind.”

Before I could answer, Caramel Sweet came back to gather our empty dishes and distribute dessert menus. It was a welcome distraction from the dark thoughts filtering through my head, to be honest. There was a bit of deliberation over the matter, but my three hostesses decided to simply order the contents of the menu to share amongst ourselves. Something about how they wanted to make a celebration of the evening, considering how infrequently they entertained guests outside of their obligations.

When the matter was settled and Caramel Sweet trotted off, I found myself returning my attention to Luna. “To answer your question, I was a machinist. Thought I was having a stroke at my lathe when that summoning spell hit me, then I blinked and found myself in Twilight’s lab.” I glanced over at Twilight and smirked. “Still not sure I can write off the stroke hypothesis, actually. I mean, rainbow-colored ponies with wings and horns? Brain injuries can have all kinds of odd effects on the mind, including hallucinations...”

“Hey..!”

“What? I’m just saying it’s not outside the realm of possibility.” I am terrible at controlling my facial expressions. This is easily proven by the fact that I often find myself grinning without realizing it. “Though, if that is the case, this is a much better hallucination than the last one I had.”

That got all three of them laughing, to some degree or another, and the rest of the evening was spent just… Living. They asked me about humanity, I asked them about their culture, we kicked jokes back and forth, and between the four of us? We demolished the dessert tray, and I have to say that Equestrian pastries are nearly as divine as their steaks. However, I suspect this may be bias on my part, or perhaps the fact that they were prepared for royalty.

Regardless, I lost track of the time as we sat around the table and talked. It was downright enjoyable, though there was an abrupt interruption when Celestia and Luna stopped talking and simultaneously lit their horns. A few moments later, rays of morning sunlight filtered in through the windows.

I may have gaped, just slightly. “...Have we really been at this all night?”

“And you’re not tired. Yeah, it takes some getting used to.” Twilight smiled. “I’ve been trying to figure out the precise mechanism behind it, but something about our biology or our naturally high thaumic flux makes it possible for our race to go without sleep for far longer than the others.”

“I have told you before, little sister.” Luna shook her head. “It is not wise to make a habit of such behavior, considering how the processes of the dreaming mind help to maintain one’s mental stability, but we have found it to be a useful trait from time to time.”

“I seem to recall saying the same to you at some point, Lulu. It’s good to see you’ve matured over the centuries.” Celestia smiled as she got back to her hooves, pointedly ignoring how Luna blew a raspberry at her. “I have thoroughly enjoyed spending an evening with my sisters and our new friend, but alas, there are certain responsibilities I must attend to.”

And with that, Celestia departed for points unknown. Her throne, maybe? Hell if I knew.

...Wait.

“Centuries?” I felt my eyebrows climb towards my horn again. “Did I hear that right?”

“Indeed you did. My eldest sister and I have been alive for several tens of centuries, and we easily expect to live for hundreds more.” Princess Luna ruffled her wings. “If I may be so vain, I should think the years have been quite kind to us.”

Something important inside my mind flipped a table and walked out of its office, leaving me to sit at the dining table with a stunned expression on my face.

Luna arched a brow at me. “Do entities such as ourselves not exist in your native realm?”

“We…” I swallowed. Audibly. “We may need to define the length of a century in scientific terms. Your definition of the unit may be different than the one I’m used to.”

“Oh, that’s easy.” Mention science, and you have Twilight’s attention. “One century is one hundred years, one year is three hundred sixty-five days, one day is twenty-four hours, one hour is sixty minutes, one minute is sixty seconds, and one second is equal to the length of time it takes one atom of caesium one-three-three to oscillate…” She took a breath. “Nine billion, one hundred ninety-two million, six hundred thirty-one thousand, seven hundred seventy times within a thaumic field just powerful enough to contain it.”

Well. That settles that little hiccup in understanding.

I promptly fainted.

02 - Entrance Exams

Consciousness came back to me slowly, as if it was afraid of what it might find.

First in line were balance and touch. I was laying down on something soft, likely a bed or a cushion of some sort. Then came my sense of hearing, informing me of muffled voices and the faint clip of hard-soled shoes against tile flooring. Next was smell and taste, and the Cliff’s Notes of their report was simple: I’d eaten recently, sweet and savory alike, and was in a room that smelled faintly of old upholstery and older books.

Then, finally, sight. My eyes struggled open, and confirmed the fact that I was laying on a large cushion in a room with a number of bookshelves in it, as well as a freshly-cleaned dining table on the opposite side of the room. They also confirmed that no, I had not been dreaming, I was still a pony.

Damn and damn again. Well, like it or not, I was awake. No sense in laying around.

The problem, of course, is that I didn’t know how to stand up.

Let’s throw another damn on the pile for good measure, shall we?

I tried a number of things to get my hooves under me, and came closest with a sort of rolling motion similar to one I’d learned decades ago after a back injury. Unfortunately, close only counts in horseshoes, hand grenades, and thermonuclear warfare. I wasn’t engaging in any of those three activities, and as such, I found myself stuck in gravity’s clutches for the time being. Rather than get angry at myself, I tried to analyze my failures. Maybe I hadn’t put enough force into the roll? It certainly felt like that was the closest…

I lay there thinking for several moments, then my mind suddenly twigged to the fact that the room was darkening quite rapidly. It wasn’t the same effect as oxygen starvation - I was very recently familiar with those symptoms, thank you very much. Rather, it felt as if something was soaking up all the ambient photons and disposing of them in an unmarked black hole somewhere on the rim of the galaxy.

Get up, Ferrum Veritas.

The words slipped into my mind like a steel wire into a block of soft cheese, and I felt the decidedly odd sensation of goosebumps under the fine coat of fur that had so recently come into my possession. I tried looking around for the source, but there was hardly enough light left to see the tip of my own horn.

Get. Up.

The words coiling inside my head went cold, the last of the light vanished, and a moment later the fire of adrenaline hit my blood. Before I knew what I was doing, I was on my hooves and trying to look in every direction at once.

The darkness melted away in an instant, revealing Princess Luna standing near the door with a smile on her face. “Good. Your instincts are reliable, and while I would have liked to have seen an attempt at a light spell? I am willing to overlook its omission for the time being, given your unique circumstances.”

I stared at her, and fought off the urge to vent my spleen in her general direction. Instead, I closed my eyes and took a moment to breathe. When I opened them again, she was still smiling. I took another breath and blew it out through my nose before I spoke. “Are you attempting to anger me, Princess?”

“I would hardly call it a mere attempt, Miss Veritas.” One corner of her mouth quirked upwards, just slightly higher than the other. “It worked.”

I inclined my head, mostly out of respect. “That it did, though you will have to do better than that to make me claim what I am owed prematurely.” Mostly.

“Indeed?” Her eyes gleamed with amusement. “I must compliment my sisters, finding a new sparring partner for me is a fantastic way to make up for the day I awoke to find my chambers had been filled to capacity with sweetened gelatin during my slumber.”

“...Seriously?”

“Nay. Though I suspect I ‘had you going’ to use the modern parlance, if only for a moment.” Her smile split into a friendly trickster’s grin. “Unlike my sisters, I have no true obligations ‘til sunset, and it has been far too long since I’ve provided a tour of the castle grounds to a guest like yourself.”

“You sure that’s a good idea? From what you told me last night, you and your sisters have been the only members of your kind for quite some time…” I cocked a brow at her while I stretched out a few odd aches in my neck and legs. “And I can’t help but think that there’s someone out there who’ll see the two of us together and think we’re related, if just because of coloration.”

“Let them think what they will. Those who blindly trust rumors are of little consequence, and our staff are certainly not the sort to do such a thing. They may spread rumors, of course, but they’re intelligent enough to investigate such things to discover the truth. Eventually.” There was a gentle flick of her wings to go with that trickster’s grin. “‘Tis quite the amusing hobby, tracking the path of such things through the castle. Why, for an entire month I had the kitchens convinced that ‘Tia was on the verge of banning cake due to its impact upon her figure...”

I snorted. This sort of mischief, I could understand. “You know your people better than I do, ma’am. Lead the way.”

Unsurprisingly, the castle halls were far busier than they were when I came up from the labs. Guards, nobles, bureaucrats, maids and butlers… Name a job you’re likely to see in a castle, and it was represented in the crowd that parted for Luna and I. And while it was a decidedly biased cross-section of Equestria’s inhabitants? I still found it quite enlightening. There were looks of pleasant surprise on all the faces I saw as they noticed Luna, followed swiftly by curiosity as their eyes found me, and what little conversation I heard in our wake…

“I didn’t think she had a student, let alone one ready to ascend…”

“Wow, look at those colors. ...Do you think they’re related?”

“I didn’t think a princess could be a blank-flank. Think I would get in trouble if I told my daughter?”

Well, let’s just say that the rumor mill had a fresh load of coal in the boiler, and judging by the smile on Luna’s face as we made our way through the castle? She was enjoying every second of my casual exposure to this small fraction of Equestria.

Most of the tour was boring and ultimately inconsequential, as tours often are. Entry hall, the doors to the throne room - it was in use for Celestia’s court, and Luna didn’t seem to want the general public to know about me just yet - and gardens, a glimpse into the library… I found myself yawning, and it wasn’t long before my guide noticed. “My apologies for boring you, Miss Veritas. I expected that experiencing an entirely new culture would be invigorating all on its own.” Luna quirked a brow at me. “It seems I was wrong. Is there anything you would like to see?”

“Guilty as charged, ma’am.” I fluffed my wings again, and failed to hide a wince as one of my bent feathers was tugged at by its neighbors. Stupid alien body. “I’ve always preferred seeing how things work and how they’re made to seeing the things themselves. There wouldn’t happen to be a metalworking shop on the premises, would there?”

“Hmm. The likeliest place for such a thing would be near the royal armory, I suspect.” There was a slight frown and a brief flicker of her horn, and she turned to walk away. There was an air of… I wouldn’t exactly call it anticipation, but the way she moved spoke of a certain fondness for this particular topic, and she smiled over her shoulder at me as I trotted along behind. “While I have implemented stricter training programs since my return, I have yet to perform an unannounced inspection of the facilities at the disposal of our Guard. I believe this may be quite fun.”

“I thought the guards in the palace were strictly ceremonial.” And I had, honestly. The thought of tiny technicolor horses making war simply hadn’t occurred to me. “Are you telling me you maintain a standing army?”

“A modest one compared to the grand armies of yesteryear, yet an army all the same. In these times, they serve purely for the defense of our country.” Luna flashed a grin that was equal parts prankster and predator. “Those chosen for our personal guard are our finest, Ferrum. They may be polite, and their garb may be more suited for a parade ground than a battlefield, but they are still the best our kind have to offer. You would be wise to remember this.”

Hm. That made a certain amount of sense. After all, the Swiss Guard looked utterly ridiculous in their ceremonial garb, and they still knew how to kick ass with the best of them. “If they give orders, listen to them?” I nodded. “Don’t have to tell me twice.”

“Excellent.” She glanced at me again, and the corners of her mouth twitched upwards. “Though I suspect if you were to defy them in an emergency, they may hesitate to treat you as they would any other defiant civilian. There is a certain institutionalized reverence for our kind within their ranks, which we have not moved to counteract in any great degree in recent years.”

“I’m not going to be treated like a god that’s come down from on high, am I?”

“Of course not. I challenged a single platoon of our infantry forces to a sparring contest long ago, and as a unit they were more than my equal. An analysis of that trial has been part of our tactical curriculum ever since.” There was a shrug of her wings. “They still respect our kind to a remarkable degree, but they will not mistake you for a deity.”

I let out a sigh of relief. “Good. I’m not sure if I could put up with ponies bowing and scraping whenever I went outside.”

There was a titter of amusement. “I believe Twilight said something similar shortly after her ascension. Do not fret, the majority only bow out of respect for our station, not out of worship.”

“Your station, ma’am.” I cocked an eyebrow. “I’m not exactly thrilled by the idea of assuming a role in your government.”

“You are under no obligation, Miss Veritas. We merely wish you to consider all of your options before deciding upon a course of action.” There was another flick of her wings as we drew up to what definitely resembled a guard checkpoint, where the ponies on duty saluted and waved us through. “Regardless of if you accept our offer, the Crown will provide a monthly stipend to cover your living expenses. Something We wrote into the constitution, in case my sister or myself wished to live a quiet life for a few centuries, but the wording allows it to be applied to you as well.”

“Much appreciated.” I smiled a bit as I looked around. The decor had gone from ‘opulent’ to ‘practical’ the moment we rounded the first corner after the checkpoint, and most of the ponies I could see were wearing armor. “Let me guess. This is the wing of the castle with the barracks?”

“Among other facilities for the Canterlot Defense Force, yes.” Luna’s gait developed a certain spring to it as she spoke, and there was a definite smile on her face. “Fully half of the castle grounds are dedicated to their training, housing, and assorted other needs.”

Okay, even if I still didn’t know how big the castle grounds were, that was impressive. “Holdover from an earlier time, or…?”

“Precisely. My sister and I have never seen the logic in demolishing that which may be useful in the future.” Yep, moonbutt was enjoying herself. Either she was glad to be out of the more public spaces of the castle, or she was a military-minded sort of mare. Hard to tell, and I wasn’t about to ask. “While the facilities have been renovated countless times over the centuries, the structures themselves have seen no major modifications since their construction.”

“Huh.” Her claims were quite easily verified as we exited into a large walled courtyard, and it certainly reminded me of the various pictures of restored castles that I’d seen. Only this one wasn’t full of tourists. It was full of ponies, organized into various groups for training exercises. Some in armor, some not. Some armed, some unarmed. It was... “Interesting to see a structure like this still in use. Most of the old buildings where I come from fell out of use centuries ago, and time caught up with them. The ones still standing are mainly preserved for historical tourism.”

“Loss of such important structures is unfortunate, but it is good to know your kind respect their past.” I didn’t think it was a good idea to correct her, particularly given how fondly she seemed to be regarding the sparring groups we were walking by. “‘Tis easy to repeat mistakes when one forgets what came before.”

“Yeah, I hear you on that.” I tried to shrug, only to grumble in my own head as my wings rustled around. “Where are we headed, anyway?”

“The armorer’s workshop. Thou did inform us of thy prior occupation, as well as an interest in seeing the extent of our industrial skills.”

We walked along in amicable silence after that, and I tried to ignore the looks I was getting from the ponies we passed. None of them were staring outright, and if there was any conversation about who I could be, I wasn't hearing it. Professionalism over curiosity was definitely a good sign, though it was still unnerving to know that I was drawing so much attention. I'll be honest here, I wasn't particularly fond of being in front of so many ponies. Scratch that, I was straight-up uncomfortable with being looked at like I was some kind of alien. I mean, technically, I suppose I am an alien, but still. I wasn’t that far off in appearance from Luna, and one would think they’d be used to seeing her around.

Fortunately, it wasn't long before we passed through an archway and into a short hall. It was wide enough for eight ponies to stand side-by-side in, and the ceiling was high enough to allow for flight traffic, but it was still a welcome change from the busy training yard. It was still rather short, however, and I found myself blinking in confusion as we entered another courtyard. Well, more of an atrium, really. It was somewhat small, maybe forty by seventy feet, and there were a variety of workstations set up and segregated by task. Metalworking on one side, woodworking on the other. And, judging by the aural atrocities coming from the bench lathe on the far end of the room, it was currently in use.

The array of available tools was nothing short of impressive. There was the bench lathe of course, as well as a vertical mill, a couple of grinders with an array of different heads on a rack underneath them, a belt sander, a bandsaw… It reminded me of nothing less than a high school shop, minus all the extra space needed for students to stand around and hurt themselves in. Granted, all of the tools were mounted lower to the ground than I was used to, and there were a considerable number of changes to the controls to accommodate the nature of their builders, but that didn’t change the fact that these tools were built to do the same things as the ones I’d learned to use.

I couldn’t help myself. I smiled at the familiarity.

After a few moments, the unicorn at the lathe shut it off to inspect the part he was working on. Apparently satisfied, he pulled it from the chuck with his field and turned to bring it to the workbench… Which gave him a clear view of Luna and I, and his muttered grumbling came to an abrupt stop.

“Are we interrupting your work, Glitter Chip?” Of course Luna would take the lead in the conversation. “If we are, we may return another time. It was not my intention to be a bother.”

He immediately relaxed, and a smile appeared on his face. “Yoo're ne'er an interruption Princess, ye ken 'at. Jist in th' middle ay makin' some spaur parts. Whit can Ah dae fur ye?”

Oh, sweet bouncing Jesus on a stick. A Scottish pony. Somebody stop the world. I want to get off.

“Actually, it’s what you may do for my acquaintance that interests me. This is Ferrum Veritas.” Luna gestured in my direction with one of her wings, and I inclined my head. “She is a traveler from quite far away, unfortunately left stranded by circumstance. As she wishes to contribute to our society and claims to have experience in this field, I believed it would be to her benefit to show her what is at our disposal.”

“Ye say yoo're a crafter, dae ye?” There was no mistaking the raised eyebrow on his face for anything other than doubt as Glitter turned his attention to me. “Woodworker, machinist, a bit ay baith...?”

“I was primarily a machinist, before I came here.” There was a flick of my wings as I tried to shrug and failed. “Wood never really caught my interest the way metal did, even though I did mess around with it every so often.”

There was a slight frown as his brow furrowed. “Cannae rightly say I've seen a pony yer age withit a cutie mark, an' aam hesitant tae lit ye wark withit knowin' whit yoo're guid at.”

...I had no idea what he’d meant, but it still felt like my credentials were being challenged. “How about I prove it, then?”

“Whit sort ay proof did ye hae in min'?”

“Basic safety and tool identification.” My wings flicked again, and I tried to hide my annoyance at my lack of proper shoulders. “Same as any student entering a classroom for the first time.”

He gestured at the room with a hoof. “Tak' it awa', 'en.”

“General safety, then.” I took a breath, closed my eyes, and dug into my memory. “Check and adjust safety devices before starting a job, including guards. Ensure all stationary tools are secure before use. Ensure an emergency stop is within easy reach of the operator. One operator per machine, though all operators should know how to stop any machine in an emergency. Ensure keys and adjusting wrenches are removed before-”

“Nae, nae, nae th' things ye shoods be daein' every time ye donner intae th' shop.” He cut me off, and I opened my eyes to see him shaking his head. “Whit shooldnae ye dae?”

Safety is something that any good instructor drills into your head, and mine had made sure I could recite the rules from memory. I didn’t hesitate. “Never distract an operator. Never think of the machines as toys. No loose clothing or jewelry, and long hair should always be confined so it doesn’t get caught in the machine. Never clear cuttings while a machine is running, and always use a brush or other tool to do so. Never leave a machine running unattended. Never free a-”

He cut me off with a hearty laugh and another wave of his hoof. “Lassie, Ah micht nae ken whaur ye learned yer way aroond a shop, but ye clearly ken whit yoo're daein'.” I caught a smile from Luna out of the corner of my eye. Clearly, his grin was infectious. “Whit abit th' tools?”

Compared to reciting safety rules? This was the easy part. “The ones I recognize?” I pointed out each tool with my hoof as I named it. “Center lathe, vertical mill, bench grinder, and bandsaw. The controls aren’t anything like what I’m familiar with, but it’s hard to build the working parts any other way.”

“Weel, whit ur ye waitin' fur?” He set the part floating in his magic on a nearby workbench and stepped aside, gesturing at the shop. “Gang gie comfortable wi' 'em. Ah troost ye willnae rip aff a win' while mah back is turned.”

“Er…” I glanced over to Luna, received a nod and a smile, and gave another flick of my wings. “Guess it couldn’t hurt.”

“Nae unless ye gie yerself caught in somethin'.” Glitter Chip waved a hoof at me with a smile, then turned his attention to Luna. “Coods Ah hae a wuid wi' ye, Princess?”

“Of course, my friend.” Luna smiled and lit her horn, and I had a chance to see the effects of the privacy spell from the outside. I could tell their mouths were moving, but there was a ridiculously potent blurring effect that kept me from trying to read their facial expressions. Huh. Maybe once I had a better idea of how the thing sticking out of my forehead worked, I could learn how to cast it.

Ah well. That was a worry for Future Me. Present Me was more concerned with figuring out the controls of the various machine tools, particularly the lathe. Let’s see here, if that’s the compound rest, then these dials must be the X/Y adjustments… Interesting solution for a quick-change toolpost, given the lack of opposable thumbs...

After several minutes of fiddling and poking at adjustment dials and levers, I stood triumphant against the wall of machine tools. I’d finally figured out their various controls to my satisfaction… And found myself wanting to do something. Luna and Glitter Chip were still talking, or so I assumed, so I looked around the shop for inspiration.

I didn’t have to look far. The part that Chip had been working on was sitting right next to a diagram of what it would look like in a finished state, and there was a note of how many he needed in the corner. It was a simple design, really. Little more than a batch of flanged brass bushings for… some purpose or another, it wasn’t listed on the diagram, and I didn’t particularly care. It’s easy enough to crank out bushings on a lathe, particularly when there’s a diagram right there describing the end product, so I glanced around the shop until I found the thick-walled tubing he’d been using as stock - the fresh-cut end was a dead giveaway. Another moment’s scrounging turned up a grease pencil, and I started measuring and marking the pipe to cut it into workable sections with minimal lost material.

I glanced over at Glitter Chip when I was done, and if he had any objections? He didn’t act on them. So, with a flick of my wings - seriously, is it too much to ask for a proper set of shoulders? - I made my way over to the bandsaw. I checked to make sure the right blade, then flicked the machine on with my telekinesis. Nobody yelled or tackled me, so I proceeded with the cuts without issue and shut it down, then made for the lathe.

I’ll be honest here, I was in the zone. I’d found a project to do, complete with a wonderfully precise diagram of what the end product was intended to be, and I had the tools and supplies to work on it. I didn’t hesitate as I chucked in the first hunk of stock, set the right tooling into quick-change holders, and set to work.

Time, and chips of brass, flew by as I worked. Sure, I stopped occasionally to double-check my measurements, but that didn’t register as a break as much as a part of the process. I take pride in the fact that I only make mistakes when I’m not following a plan, and I was following a plan so simple that a freshman could turn the parts out without issue. In what felt like no time at all, I’d cranked out ten of the remaining eleven bushings. The finish was a bit rough, but some time with a decent polishing compound and a buffer wheel on the grinder could take that right out.

As I cut the last bushing free of the stock I’d used as an anchor in the lathe chuck, I smiled. Everything was within the specified tolerances, and all that was left was to put a good finish on the batch. I was just about to move from the lathe to the bench grinder when I heard Glitter Chip’s thick brogue fill the room. “Mah wuid, lassie. Ye ur exactly whit ye said ye waur.” I turned just in time to see a thick silver aura wrap around one of the parts I’d set on the workbench, and it floated over to the stunned unicorn for him to inspect. “Stoat grasp ay plannin', ye clearly ken hoo tae maximize yer part yield, an' I've certainly seen waur roogh finishes come aff mah lathe...”

Luna favored him with a smile. “You approve, then?”

“Dae Ah approve? Sweit Tartarus, Princess, Ah want tae offer 'er a job!” There was a laugh just begging to be released behind his words as Chip turned his attention to me. “Whit dae ye say, lassie? Ye feel loch workin' fur a livin', insteid ay sittin' oan yer crease in th' castle? Pay's naethin' tae laugh at, hoors ur flexible, an' ye clearly hae th' chaps tae keep up…”

“I…” I decided honesty was the best policy. “I don’t know what to say, sir-”

“Dornt caa me sairrr, Ah wark fur a livin'.” There was a deep, bass chuckle. “An' yoo're supposed tae say ‘yes’, lassie.”

I glanced at Luna, only to find her expression was unreadable yet positive. “Well, in that case…” There was another flit of my wings against my sides. “Yes?”

“Stoat, ye start noo. Finish up those parts, 'en i'll shaw ye whit we've got tae wark wi' haur.” Glitter Chip’s face split into a friendly grin. “There's mair tae th' job than spinnin' bits ay metal aroond, ye ken.”

This managed to extract a giggle from Luna. “It seems you’ve gotten your hoof in the door sooner than expected, Miss Veritas.” She turned, making to leave, and smiled over her shoulder at me. “I shall arrange for temporary lodgings within the castle for you, as well as consult with Princess Sparkle on the matter of your magical education, while you settle the formalities of your apprenticeship.”

Before I could say a word, Glitter Chip dove headlong into the process of acquainting me with all the various tools available in his workshop, and it was all I could do to tease out the meaning of his lessons from behind that ridiculously thick accent of his. I’d already shown basic competence with the machine tools, so he focused more on the woodworking equipment to fill in the blanks in my knowledge, as well as a few of the more commonly-used hoof signals that would let the two of us communicate while the machines were running.

Have I said yet that I don’t like woodworking? Because I don’t. But, when in Rome...

To say that the next few hours were busy would be an understatement on par with ‘the ocean is somewhat damp’. Time flowed by as I cranked out test pieces using bits and bobs from the scrap bin. Arrow shafts, wooden handles - or more accurately, mouth-grips - for tools and weapons, roofing slats, and all manner of miscellaneous woodcrafts passed through my kinetics to be judged by Glitter Chip’s expert eyes.

Around the time I started feeling like there was an inch of sawdust caked to my everything, Glitter Chip signaled for me to stop. Funny how a pantomimed throat-cutting motion meant the same here as it did at home. So, I hit the woodworking lathe’s power switch and waited for the wagon wheel spoke I was finishing to come to a stop. “What’s up, boss?”

“Ye swatch loch ye got in a barnie wi' mah dustbin, lassie.” I had no idea what he’d said, but I suspected it was related to the layer of sawdust and assorted wood chips stuck in my… Well, everywhere that could draw line-of-sight to the tools I’d been using. “We're dain fur th' day anyhaw. Wa dornt ye gang gie cleaned up? I'll tak' caur ay th' mess.”

The Scottish-to-English translator in my head took a moment with that, and I blinked. “We’re done? Already?” I glanced up at the sky, then down at the shadows on the ground. “What time is it?”

“Jist abit noon.” He shrugged with a single foreleg, and I made an effort to try and remember the gesture. “She tauld me yer story, ur as much ay it as aam cleared tae ken, an' Ah dornt want tae explain tae th' Princess wa Ah ran ye ragged oan yer first day.”

Guess that explains why the privacy spell had been going for so long earlier. “So you know that I’m not exactly from around here, then?”

“Aye, an' yoo're daein' a bang-up job sae far.” Glitter’s face split into a grin. “An', if ye dornt min' me sayin' sae, yoo're a secht easier oan th' een than mah lest apprentice.”

…Was he hitting on me? Did that mean I was… No. That way lies madness.

“Anyhaw, yoo've got a thrang day aheid ay ye, an' it'll be damned mair comfortable efter a shower. Th' mare's locker room shoods be clear thes time ay day.” He lit his horn and floated a variety of basic cleaning tools from their resting place in the corner, then made a shooing motion at me. “Jist ask a guard ootwith tae shaw ye th' way, an' teel 'em yoo're mah apprentice if they gie ye lip.”

“I, uh. Okay?” I’ll be honest, I could only grasp the broad strokes of what he was trying to say. “Thanks, by the way. For the job, I mean.”

“Ah doobt yoo'll make me regrit it, lassie. Jist shaw up aroond th' sam time tha' moorns nicht, an' we'll pick up whaur we left aff.” My new boss gestured mock-menacingly at me with the broom in his kinetics. “Noo quit dawdlin' an' gie cleaned up, ye hae mair important things tae dae than watch me sweep th' floors.”

“Same time tomorrow?” He nodded, still smiling, and I silently thanked whoever first came up with the concept of reflective listening. Maybe I wouldn’t have such a hard time figuring out how to understand Glitter Chip’s accent after all. “See you then.”

I walked out of the workshop with a head full of ideas relating to how I could adapt the tools I was familiar with to work for ponies, only paying enough attention to my surroundings to navigate… And I promptly bumped into a lightly-armored pegasus.

“So sorry, Princess...” Her expression went a bit cockeyed as the realization dawned on her that I was not, in fact, one of the alicorns she was familiar with. There was a moment of careful examination, then she re-settled her wings against her sides. “Apologies, ma’am. Specialist Lemon Snap. I get the feeling you’re the VIP that Princess Luna assigned me to escort?”

“First I’ve heard of it, but I sure won’t say no.” I raised an eyebrow of my own. “How much did she tell you about me?”

“Short version? Traveler from another world, you’re stuck here for the long haul, and you’re not used to having wings or a horn.” She gave me another appraising look. “Glitter had you for the morning, didn’t he?”

“That obvious, huh?” I shrugged on reflex, which wound up ruffling my wings instead, and I scowled as I felt sawdust start scratching against my skin. “I’ve got sawdust in places I know I wasn’t born with. Mind showing me to somewhere I can get cleaned up?”

“Sure, mare’s locker room is this way.” Specialist Snap trotted off, and I easily made up the difference with my longer strides. “I’ll also introduce you to the basics of wing and horn maintenance while we’re there. Knowing how to preen yourself properly is a skill worth having, unless you’re absolutely drowning in bits to throw at beauty salons, and proper horn care is vital to keeping the feedback from your thaumic projections from giving you a permanent case of brainburn.”

“Learning wing care from a pegasus, I can understand.” I shot a glance at the feathered appendages folded against my sides, then went a bit crosseyed looking at my horn. “But shouldn’t I be learning about my horn from someone who also has a horn?”

“With all due respect, ma’am? I’m a trained and licensed physical therapist for all three of the majority races living in Equestria, and I’m set to graduate with a master’s in gryphon-specific physical therapy within the month.” There was a ruffling of her wings as she glanced back at me. “I understand that you’re not from around here, so I feel I should tell you I’ve seen fights started over remarks like that.”

...Well, piss. I had the good sense to try and look embarrassed. I even felt my ears fold back, which is a ridiculous sensation all on its own. “I, uh. Wow. That’s…” Words just kind of tumbled past my lips. “I didn’t mean it like that, I just-”

Lemon Snap cut me off with a smile. “I’m not mad at you, since I know it was a genuine case of misunderstanding. It’s easier to learn about these things now, when most everypony you’re going to meet knows you’re not from around here, than out in the real world.” She flicked her wings a bit. “Less chance of somepony trying to kick your head off, for one thing.”

I blew out a sigh. “Still, now I feel like an insensitive jerk.”

“I can kick your flank, if it’ll make you feel better.” Lemon Snap grinned back at me. “I’d rather not, but all you have to do is ask.”

Let’s see. Feel like a jackass, or get my ass beat by someone who beats asses into shape for a living. …Nah, I much prefer metaphorical pain over literal. “I’m pretty sure I’m outmatched by a toddler. Maybe in a few years?”

“Hey, better than the outright no I got last time I asked an alicorn for a sparring session.” There was a grin as she lead me back through the training grounds and into another hallway. “If you’ve got the spare time, I could set you up with one of our gentler recruit trainers.”

“Once I’ve got a better idea of what my life’s going to be like, I’ll let you know.” I suppressed the urge to shrug, since I didn’t need a fresh round of itchy wings. “It’s nice to have options, in any event.”

Lemon Snap nodded, and we continued in silence for a while. It was certainly different, walking through the world of another sapient species, especially one that was so similar to my own that the inhabitants spoke a language I could understand and had very nearly the same definition of a second as the one I grew up with. In so many words, it was a lot to take in.

I would like to point out, however, that I am not a clever person. I was determined to take in as much as I could, since an absence of information can lead to making worse mistakes than the ones made with an abundance of information. One particularly confusing bit of information I gathered as I was led towards what I could only assume would be the mare’s locker room was this: All of the ponies wearing armor looked the same.

No, really. It looked like the majority of the armored ponies filling the halls were the same, like the factory had made too many and the Princesses had snatched up huge numbers of them at a discount. There seemed to be three predominant color-and-species combinations; white pegasi like Lemon Snap, dark gray unicorns, and light gray ponies with neither wings nor horns. It was like someone had dumped me in the middle of a batch of clone troopers. The only individuality cues I could see were in gender and body language.

Before I could ask my escort what the hell was going on, she led me through a set of double doors set into one wall. The sound of hooves on wood was immediately replaced with the click of hooves on tile, and a quick look around showed that I’d been introduced to an open-plan locker room. Fortunately for the gibbering remains of my dignity, there weren’t any other ponies present.

“Think you could help me out of this armor?” Lemon Snap trotted over to a locker, presumably hers. “I can doff it myself, but it goes faster with help from somepony else.”

“Sure, I guess.” I picked my way across the tile a bit more carefully than she had, all too readily remembering the fun I’d had with Celestia earlier. Hooves are not the grippiest appendages, let me tell you. “What do you need me to do?”

“Let’s just get this off first…” She lifted a foreleg in a way I would have never expected - ponies clearly have a much different shoulder structure than horses, to put it mildly - and slid her helmet off. There was a shimmering distortion around her as she set her helmet on its rack in her locker, and her coloration went from white and blue to eye-searing yellow and fiery orange. “Once I pop the clasps in the peytral and under my wings, just lift the rest of the barding clear and hang it on the rack under my helmet.”

“Sounds simple enough.” I quirked an eyebrow as she went through the motions. “Let me guess. There’s some kind of magic on your armor that makes everyone wearing it look the same?”

“Yeah, just a basic uniform enchantment. White for pegasi, dark gray for unicorns, light gray for earthies, and everypony gets a blue-on-blue mane and tail.” Lemon Snap stretched her wings as I lifted her armor clear and set it on the rack she’d indicated. “Commissioned officers have the option of showing their natural colors, but it’s not common. Why?”

That answered that. “Thought I was in the middle of a book about evil clone armies for a minute there, that’s all.” I shook my head, which served to dislodge a cloud of sawdust from my mane. I frowned mightily at the sight. “Mind giving me a crash course in basic hygiene? This is starting to get on my nerves.”

“Sure. First, let’s get you rinsed off.” I followed my guide over to the bank of shower heads jutting out from just above head level, and she cranked two of them on. “Get everything nice and soaked. Mane, tail, wings, the whole package.”

Obligingly, I stepped into the warm water and flexed everything I could under the deluge. I even stretched out my wings and let them soak under each showerhead’s spray. There was an unfamiliar twinge of pain from each of them, particularly the one I’d landed on earlier, and Lemon Snap caught my flinch. “Muscle cramp?”

“No idea. I’ve barely had these things for a day.” I let my wings relax, primaries nearly touching the tile as water drizzled down them. “First thing I did with ‘em was trip and fall on the left one, right after I picked up on how to move ‘em.”

“Alright, stretch that sucker out as far as you can, let me get a look at it.” She stepped into the spray as I held the more-damaged of my wings out for inspection, and I got to feel the curious sensation of another pony’s hooves working over my plumage. After a moment, she nodded. “Yeah, there’s some deep bruises, and a bit of a tension cramp. You’ve been holding your wings against your barrel all day, haven’t you?”

“Yeah.” I closed my eyes as I turned into the spray from one of the showers. “Not a good idea?”

“Not really, no. Pegasi are built to stretch their wings every now and then, and alicorns are the same in that regard.” She brushed a bit of wet mane from her eyes. “Once you’re clean, I’ll show you a few stretching exercises that ought to help.”

“New body, new rules? Makes sense to me.” I shrugged my wings, wincing a bit at the one I’d fallen on. “Celestia mentioned I had some damaged feathers, too. Anything I can do about that?”

“Unless you want ‘em plucked, which hurts like Tartarus even if they’re not blood feathers, all you can do is wait. They should fall out during your next moult.” She nodded up at me. “Mind if I get a look at your horn?”

“I don’t see why not.” I lowered my head down to just below her eye level, she lifted a hoof to run it along my horn, and - OHHH SAY CAN YOU SEEEEEEEE, BY THE DAWN’S EARLY LIIIIIIGHT

My vision went a bit hazy. My knees went weak. I think I might’ve made some rather inappropriate noises.

Lemon Snap looked positively mortified. “Oh hay, I didn’t know your horn was that sensitive. I am so sorry, ma’am…”

Yeah. I’d moaned. Fantastic. Once I found my voice, I coughed. “It’s okay, honest. I just…” I swallowed back a sudden case of the giggles. “I didn’t know either. Let’s chalk this one up to a case of interspecies awkwardness, alright?”

“Sounds fair to me, ma’am.” The look of shock on Lemon’s face diminished somewhat, though there was still a bit of a blush tinting her cheeks. “I’ll understand if you want to move on.”

“No, no, I think I can ignore it now that I know what to expect.” I bit my lip. “But if you’re not comfortable, I’m sure I can find someone else to learn about horn care from.”

Lemon Snap closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and blew it out in a sigh. When she opened her eyes again, she seemed much calmer. “I’ve worked with all kinds of high-sensitivity cases, this isn’t any different.” She gestured to lower my head again. “All I need to do is make a surface inspection, and touch is more sensitive than sight when it comes to detecting imperfections in a surface, so I have to touch your horn with the frog of my hoof. If at any point you think I’m going too far, tell me to stop. Okay?”

I obligingly lowered my head and nodded, just enough to make the tip of my horn bob. “And if you think I’m getting too worked up, hose me down with cold water.”

There was a snicker. “Deal.”

“Whenever you’re ready.” I closed my eyes and started mentally working my way through a pet project I’d been working on before I was summoned, relying on the fact that a distracted mind is very difficult to arouse. It wasn’t much of a project, I’ll admit. Just a custom prop, something that I’d intended to be uniquely mine while still being recognizable as a weapon from the films I was drawing inspiration from.

There was a delicious wave of sensation from the thing sticking out of my forehead. If-

No. I buried that particular train of thought with a mountain of mental diagrams that laid out exactly what cuts could be made in what order, what sorts of threading to use to join parts together, what kinds of metal to use, how deep the knurling and threads should be…

“Done.”

My eyes snapped open, and I looked around. The first thing I noticed was that my wings were at full extension, and Lemon Snap was blushing profusely. I put two and two together, and opened my mouth to make sure the answer was in fact four. “Let me guess. Physical sign of arousal?”

“Yeah.” She fluffed her own wings a bit, still blushing. “I’m kind of impressed, actually. I’ve never seen anypony with a sensitive horn control themselves quite so well during a tactile exam. What’s your trick? I might be able to teach it to some of my patients.”

“My trick? Think about something else, anything else, that engages your brain.” I sighed, still idly turning over the plans in my head to calm myself down once I realized I could hear my heart throbbing away in my ears. “The more detail, the better. Keep your mind busy. For me, it’s a pet project that I want to recreate. Doesn’t do anything for raw physiological responses, but it’s a good way to keep yourself from doing things you shouldn’t.”

“Makes sense. Anyway,” there was a bit of a nod as she continued, “your horn’s in fantastic shape right now. A light polishing once a month, or whenever you notice ridges start to form between the grooves, should be enough to keep it that way. You might have a bit of trouble with keeping the tip rounded over, given how long yours is, but some ponies like having a sharp tip for the fine control it gives them.”

I felt my ears flip back. “And the sensitivity..?”

“From everything I’ve heard? Polishing compound on a soft cloth feels nice, but the grit keeps it from feeling too nice.” She smiled and waved a hoof. “You won’t wake the neighbors, I promise.”

“I’ll hold you to that.” I smiled as I felt the tense muscles in my wings start to relax, and the sopping plumage draped to either side of my body. “Any suggestions on soap? I’ve never dealt with anything that had fur and feathers before.”

“Whatever brand you like the smell and taste of, and I only mention taste because preening’s best done by mouth. Better control that way.” She shrugged and turned the water flow down to a trickle, then trotted over to her locker to retrieve a squeeze bottle. “Other than that, avoid medicated soaps unless your doctor tells you otherwise. They taste horrible, and sometimes there are unpleasant side effects if you don’t have the condition they’re meant to treat. I know a stallion who had all his feathers fall out that way, and it took a full season for them to grow back.”

“I can honestly say that I didn’t consider that until now.” I flicked my wings a bit, shedding water in the process. “I get the feeling the rest of this little adventure is going to be a scrub-down, drying, and preening lessons?”

“Yep. Mind lending a horn? There’s places most ponies have trouble reaching without help, and it’d be nice to have my mouth free for a change.”

“Sure, just show me a brush and I’ll do the best I can.”

From there, it was a fairly typical shower scene. Not the giggly-bouncy-let’s-have-fun kind of shower scene, though. Just two mares helping each other clean up, with one giving the other various sorts of tips and pointers in how to best care for herself. Y’know, nice and businesslike.

I ignored the tiny little naked ape in the corner of my mind screaming about how I was naked and showering with a woman. His opinions weren’t important right now, and I could deal with them later.

I gotta say, it’s one thing to know I’ve got a completely different body, but it’s something else entirely to be guided around the particulars of that body with the intent of cleaning it to societally-acceptable standards. Sure, the shower only took a few minutes since I was the one who really needed to be cleaned up, but I’ll be damned if it wasn’t an informative few minutes. Most of what I learned was related to keeping my wings and horn in good condition, but there were some meandering bits of conversation that touched upon everything from proper exercise and nutrition to body language and how to avoid accidentally sending the wrong messages with it.

Like all good things, however, it had to end eventually. Lemon Snap cranked the showers off and gave herself a shake, spraying water in pretty much every direction. She was still wet, mind you, but not soaked. “It’s always a good day when I can rinse off the PT grime in the middle of my shift. You feeling more comfortable?”

“Definitely, but not comfortable enough to replicate that little trick.” I scowled at the wet tile. “I don’t trust my hooves on wet tile, and I’m not exactly eager to hurt myself. There any towels I could use instead?”

“Towels? Nah.” She grinned and led me over to an empty corner of the locker room. “We’ve got something better. Stand over there, will you?”

I peered at the corner. Other than what looked like a large steel ring embedded in the tile, wide enough for five ponies to stand side by side inside its boundaries, there wasn’t anything notable. “...Why?”

“You’ll see.” Lemon Snap flapped her wings a couple of times, shedding what little water was left in her plumage, then took to the air. “Stand in the ring and spread your wings a bit.”

I shrugged. Ruffled my wings. Stupid body confusion. “If you say so.” I had my head on a swivel as I stepped into the ring laid into the tile, and caught sight of a cloud forming underneath Lemon as she hovered in place. A white, fluffy cottonball of a cloud. Indoors. And it wasn’t being beaten to hell by the downdraft from her wings. “Uh. Specialist, are you aware that a cloud is forming underneath you?”

“Yeah, I know, it’s not common to build clouds indoors.” Her grin got a bit wider, and the head-sized cloud started darkening. “But I don’t know any other way for a pegasus to charge an artifact.”

“...What?”

Rather than answer, Lemon Snap gave the miniature thundercloud a kick. There was a crack of electricity and a flash of light as a bolt of lightning struck the ring I was standing in. Much to my surprise, I didn’t find myself writhing in pain. Instead I felt the air around me stir into a respectable updraft, warm and dry in sharp contrast to the humidity that had filled the locker room a handful of moments ago. She gave the cloud another kick, knocking the spent thing into mist, then swooped into the column of warm air and lazily glided around the perimeter of the circle, just over my head. “You alright, ma’am?”

Yet again, magic was leaving metaphorical mushroom-shaped bruises all over my face. I blinked a few times, clearing the spots from my eyes, and shook my head. Nothing hurt, aside from the dull ache in my wing. “I will be.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, I’m not hurt.” I glanced down at the faintly-glowing ring in the tile and slowly spread my wings, careful not to catch too much air underneath them. Yeah, it felt really nice having warm air blowing through my plumage. “But I’m not used to magic, either.”

“Were you an earth pony before you came here?”

I snorted. “That’s one way of putting it.”

“Hm. But they have magic too, it’s just not flashy…” Lemon Snap peered down at me. “And you do have a decent idea of how to grab things in your field…”

“I have Princess Celestia to thank for that.” I quirked a brow at her and smiled. “But that doesn’t change the fact that I’m not used to magic.”

“How can you not be used to magic? It’s everywhere.”

“From what I was told over breakfast, different worlds have different rules.” I shrugged my wings, a bit more carefully than usual, and shivered at the feeling of warm air blowing under my feathers. “And, if Princess Sparkle is right, the one I’m from has a set of rules that don’t allow for the existence of what you call magic.”

“And since ponies need magic almost as much as we need food, water, and clean air? That means you weren’t a pony at all.” Lemon Snap smirked at me. “Or at least, not what we’d call a pony. So what were you?”

I paused, remembering Celestia’s earlier request not to reveal precisely what I… Used to be. “Something else.” I shook my head and gave my wings a gentle flap, mostly just to get the warm air moving between the feathers a bit more. “I’ve been asked not to discuss the details.”

“One of the Princesses told you not to let it out?” She smiled and shook her head when I nodded. “Don’t worry, I understand what that’s like. How’re you liking the changes so far?”

“Now that is a loaded question if I’ve ever heard one.” I snorted and glanced over my shoulder, making a show of peering at myself. “The wings are certainly nice, though I need to learn how to use them, and I find myself appreciating telekinesis more and more…”

“But?”

“But it is still damned weird.” I put a conscious effort into relaxing my wings, and was surprised to find the gentle breeze rising from the floor was enough to keep them open. “Think about how strange it’d be to spend your whole life getting used to all the little quirks and eccentricities of your body, only to be stuck into one that’s completely different.”

“How completely are you talking about?”

“For starters, I was male.” I snorted. “So, y’know. There’s that.”

“Wow. That… Actually explains a few things.” There was a brief clicking of hooves on tile as Lemon Snap set down next to me, then the updraft tapered down to nothing. “Guess the next stop is for a full physical, then?”

“...You’re serious, aren’t you.”

“As a heart attack. Mind lending a horn with the armor again?” I lit my horn, ruffled my wings a bit to settle them properly, and helped Lemon get back into her armor. Watching the uniform enchantment ripple across her coat as she walked to the door was fascinating. “We’ll have to see if any of the Guard medics are cleared for alicorns, otherwise you’ll be seeing the royal physician.”

“My anatomy’s a state secret?” I followed along, confusion warring with amusement on my face. “That’s a new one.”

“It’s an old, old law. Dates back to the founding of Equestria, actually. I only know about it ‘cause I just had a refresher course to keep my certification updated.” My escort glanced over her shoulder at me. “And it’s really just a combination of enhanced privacy measures and subspecies-specific care plans. All that extra mana flow of yours can mess up treatments that’d work on the rest of us.”

I blinked. “So, wait. Are you cleared to treat alicorns? ‘Cause that’s what it sounds like.”

“Basic care and emergency first-aid only, sorry.” She flashed a grin over her shoulder at me. “But if you catch me off-duty, I’ve been told I can play doctor well enough.”

“Uh.” I felt warmth spread across my face, and fought to keep my wings against my sides. “I mean, you seem nice enough, but-”

“Sorry, sorry, I couldn’t resist after what happened earlier.” She didn’t laugh so much as she snickered. “Your plumage is astounding, and I do have a reputation as a shameless flirt to uphold. I wouldn’t hear the end of it if I didn’t at least try, especially since I’ve done the same to all four of the Princesses at one point or another. You’re just the first I could be so direct with. No hard feelings?”

“No hard feelings.” I shot her my best deadpan look as I tried to keep my wings settled. “But only because I don’t have those parts anymore.”

Lemon bounced mid-stride, just once, and I swear her grin was emitting light. “Helpin’!”

So. Fun fact. Canterlot Castle is... Huge is too small a word. Enormous? No. Gargantuan? Nah. Ah, there we are. Labyrinthine, and positively massive in scope. Virtually a city all to itself, which explains why there was an entire hospital in the east wing.

As it turned out, the only medical pony in Canterlot qualified to provide a full physical for an alicorn was the royal physician. So, with the help of a courier, Lemon Snap and I had met Book Princess at the waiting room. Lemon, being a Guard, was doing Guard-ly things outside the door. Like you do. Which… Left me alone in the royal physician’s waiting room with Princess Twilight Sparkle.

The mare responsible for my current condition.

After a few minutes of awkward silence, I spoke up. “So…”

“Hm?” Twilight glanced up from the medical journal she was reading. “Yes, Ferrum?”

“Just how…” I gestured vaguely with a foreleg. “Invasive, would you say a physical exam is? ‘Cause if you recall, there’s… Stuff I’m not used to, to put it politely, about this body.”

“I was wondering when you’d bring that up.” Twilight set the publication aside and focused her attention on me, smiling vaguely. “Put simply, unless there’s a solid reason for invasive procedures, specialized diagnostic spells and thaumometric tests are all you’ll be exposed to. They might feel a bit weird at first, but they’re harmless and completely non-invasive.”

“So…” I raised an eyebrow. “No cold medical devices in uncomfortably personal places?”

“Not unless there’s a legitimate need to do so. We have magic, remember?” Twilight smiled, and I have to admit I couldn’t help but relax. “Doctor Equinox is a lovely old mare, and she’ll answer any questions you have. I’ve been seeing her ever since I ascended, and I’ve already given her a copy of my notes from your summoning. It’s okay, Ferrum.”

I blinked and reeled back a bit. “A complete copy?”

“Yes. You can be as honest with her as you are with me or my sisters.” Twilight’s smile warmed. “Or more honest, if you like. Anything you say in her office is protected by laws that even a Princess can’t get around without dealing with centuries of accumulated red tape.”

I opened my mouth to reply, but was cut off by an elderly voice. “Ah, this must be the newest jewel in the Crown, so to speak. Ferrum Veritas, was it?” I turned my head to look, and saw a lovely older mare with a lab coat draped over her back. “Pleased to meet you, dear. Doctor Celestial Equinox, at your service.”

“Hi..?” As far as introductions go, that one could have gone better. “I suppose you know as much about me as the Princess here, huh?”

“Oh, yes. Absolutely fascinating stuff. I’m sure our little Twilight will make headlines in the thaumatological papers when she decides to publish,” she waved a hoof as a blush tinted Twilight's cheeks, “but we’re not here to talk about her, dear. We’re here to find out how you tick. Follow me, if you would please?”

I got up and made to follow, glancing over my shoulder at Twilight in the process. She smiled and went back to the medical journal she’d been reading earlier, so I walked along behind the doctor as she led me to an exam room. She gestured at a sitting-cushion similar to the ones I’d seen at breakfast and lifted a thick folder from the counter in her magical field. “Have a seat, dear. How’s your day been so far?”

Huh. “Not exactly what I was expecting, really. It’s not every day you get your consciousness copied into a whole new universe and put into a whole new body that’s nothing like the one it developed in.” I shrugged, and peered at the folder. “Are those Twilight’s notes…?”

“They are indeed, but they’re mostly background information at this point. I suppose they could be considered your birth records, from a certain point of view.” She smiled, and the mischievous twinkle in her eyes reminded me of nothing less than my grandmother. “You’re the only pony alive that actually has the legal right to say that Celly and Twily are your parents, though I suspect they’d both rather you keep that to yourself.”

Okay, that managed to coax a smile out of me. “So then... Luna’s my aunt? Neat.”

“That it certainly would.” Doctor Equinox flipped through the file for a few moments, then made a curious noise in her throat. “It says here that you claim your original body was male. Do you have any interest in regaining that?”

“Right to the heavy questions, huh?” I sighed and stayed silent for a few moments, tossing ideas around in my head before I started to think out loud. “On the one hand, it would be a reassuring bit of continuity to have that back, even if the form is altered. On the other hand, I’m technically not the same person anymore - and I don’t want to make such a drastic change without thinking it over first. I mean, what if I wind up wanting to start a family at some point in the future?”

“Hm. Intelligent, analytical… Twily’s notes are spot on about your personality, I’ll give her that much.” The doctor made a vague head-bob, then closed the file and set it aside. “I can tell you right now, gender reassignment spells do exist. They’re complex and they’ve never been tried on an alicorn before, and I suspect your innately higher magical flux would cause complications, but if you want to go through with that it can be an option. It may just take some time for such a spell to be made for you, but time is something you have plenty of.”

“Don’t remind me.” I muttered, then snorted out a breath. “Can we table this line of questions for now? I’m more concerned with knowing if this body’s gonna self-destruct on me or not.”

“A fair concern, given the circumstances of your… Birth, I suppose it could be called.” She lit her horn. “If you could stay still for a few moments, please?”

I obliged, and felt the most curious tingling-squirming sensation pass through me, from the tip of my horn all the way down to my rump. Then it reversed course and made a few more passes over my hindquarters. “Something wrong…?”

“Not wrong, per se. Just… Unusual.” Doctor Equinox put out her horn, the weird fluttery feeling in my gut went away, then she lit her horn again to make some notes on what I was assuming was my chart. “If it weren’t for the most profound case of infertility I’ve ever seen, including documented cases from medical literature, I’d say you’re in peak physical condition. Though I suppose, since your body was magically generated, the flaws could have been much worse…”

I blinked. “Well, it’s not like I’m trying to start a family right now.”

“That is true, that is true…” She finished writing, then met my confused gaze. “Even still, it’s a shame to see somepony have that option closed to them so early in their life, dear. Do let me know when you make up your mind about your preferred gender, hmm? The sooner we get the ball rolling on that research, the sooner it’ll be done.”

“Wait, that’s it?” I blinked. Then I blinked a few more times for good measure. “That spell gave you everything you needed?”

“Of course. What use would a medical diagnostic spell be if it didn’t?” She smiled and gave another one of those curious head-bobs. “Infertility aside, you are a prime example of alicorn health, my dear. Immune system is top-notch, thaumic system is in good shape, nervous system and musculature are in peak condition… I dare say you could give your aunt a run for her money if you put in a century or two of training. Unless you have any questions, you’re free to leave.”

I got up and took a step towards the door, then a stray thought got lodged in my throat. I turned to look at the doctor over my shoulder. “Just one, actually. What if I change my mind in the future and want to start a family, as I am now?”

“Hmmm.” Doctor Equinox tapped her chin with a hoof as she thought, and a moment later she made a vague waving gesture with that same hoof. “I suppose, if such a thing comes to pass, you’ll have to look into fertility treatments - or if those don’t work, donors and surrogates could be arranged, and there’s always adoption if nothing else works.”

I nodded, even smiled a little as I opened the exam room’s door. “Better to have the information and not need it than the other way around, I suppose. Thanks, doc. If I have any more questions, I’ll make an appointment.” And with that, I didn’t bother to think as I walked back into the waiting room. Twilight stood up as I came out, smiling. Always with the smiling. Doesn’t it hurt to smile that much? I didn’t pay attention beyond that as I strode for the door, only to be snapped out of it as Twilight’s magical field wrapped around the door before I could push it open. I didn’t even put the effort into glaring at her. I just looked in her direction. “Yes?”

“Ferrum, is something wrong?” God help me, she actually looked concerned. “She… She didn’t find anything bad, did she? I mean, it’s always a possibility with magically-generated organisms, but the signs would’ve been there from the start if you were unstable, and-”

“No, Twilight. I’m in perfect health.” I cut her off like a BMW driver jockeying for position in Los Angeles traffic: Ruthlessly and without a shred of emotion. “I’m just a little overwhelmed. Is there somewhere I can lie down?”

“Oh. That’s… Good, I suppose.” She seemed to brighten a bit, but she still had that vague furrow of concern on her brow. Nevertheless, her horn went out and the haze of magic around the door went with it. “I was hoping to learn more today, but I understand if you need some time to process what’s happened. There’s a guest room set up for you in the towers, Specialist Snap can show you the way.”

I couldn’t not smile at that. Sure, as far as smiles go it was the runt of the litter and sickly to boot, but it was still a smile. “For a talking purple horse with wings and a horn, you’re alright. Thanks, Twilight.”

Apparently my sense of humor had grown on her, and a brief giggle snuck past her lips. “Go relax, Ferrum.”

“Jacob.”

That caught Twilight off-guard, and she blinked. “Is… Is that some kind of farewell?”

“No,” I pushed the office door open, “that’s who I was.” I stepped through before she could reply, the door swung shut behind me, and from there it was just a matter of asking my escort to show me to my room. When we got there, she gave me a quick tour - bed, vanity, wardrobe, attached bathroom - then took up station outside my door.

Once the door clicked shut? I gingerly settled onto the bed, stretched out, and relaxed.

Then, quietly, I wept. Tears rolled from my eyes and soaked into the pillow as I grieved for who I had been. That lifetime of experience, all the pain and all the joy, the hobbies and annoyances… None of that mattered anymore.

The man I had been was dead.