First Contact

by Versylfa

Rating: everyone
Tags: Twilight Sparkle, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Princess Luna, Tragedy, Adventure, Princess Celestia, Human
Length: 51130

Twilight invents a portal spell, and it takes her a little farther than she had intended. She finds herself not in a distant part of Equestria, but in a different world entirely.

Twilight Sparkle attempts to create new magic, a lasting portal from Ponyville to Canterlot, because trains are slow and teleportation is difficult. However, something goes wrong and she rips open the fabric of spacetime to find a different world on the other side. A world of order without harmony, one where the laws of nature enforce themselves with no Princesses to guide them. A world without magic and severely lacking in friendship.

This story contains some math and physics. Side effects of reading may include learning something.

Published 2014-10-25 14:10:03 UTC
Last updated 2015-10-24 04:15:34 UTC

Prologue: The End

A woman walked, alone, bare feet leaving prints in the sand. Her long blonde hair fluttered in the slight breeze coming off the lake. In the distance, seagulls swooped, boats sailed, the fountain sprayed its water over a hundred meters into the air. Life seemed normal. Too normal, the kind of normal it had been before. Before everything. The other world, the ponies, she and her two sisters. The war.

“Planet Earth,” the woman said, speaking aloud to no one in particular. The beach was empty on this side, though across the lake she could see children playing by the water. “This is where I was born. And this is where I died.” For a moment she thought she heard someone laughing nearby, but she didn't bother looking around. “For the first twenty-nine years of my life, nothing happened. Nothing that could ever compare. And then I met Twilight Sparkle, and she showed me a world of magic. I thought I might never go back. But I was wrong. My name is Chryasor Xlevrata, and this is the story of how I died.”

“Oh, stop being dramatic, sister, you're not dead yet.” A new voice came from behind her. The voice spoke a language not of this world, but it was one Chryasor knew. She whirled around to look at the speaker, already knowing who it must be but unable to believe it could really be her.

“How... how did you...” Chryasor was at a loss for words. Tears began to well up in her eyes. “I thought I'd never see you again. What about–”

“She's fine. It's over now. Everything is better again.” But she could see by the look on her sister's face that Chryasor had a different opinion about this last statement. “Wait a second,” the visitor said. “Were you about to kill yourself when I popped in? Is that why you said this is where you died?” Chryasor said nothing, but again her face betrayed an answer. “No,” her sister said. “You must not. There is still hope. But I must go soon; magic of this caliber takes tremendous energy to maintain.”

“Just... just show me. Show me there really is hope.” She took a step forward and reached out to touch her sister's arm, but her hand passed through with no resistance. “Oh no...” she said softly to herself. “I've gone mad, haven't I? As if the rest wasn't enough, now I'm seeing visions, hearing voices... Enough, I'm done with this.” She reached into a pocket and produced a knife.

“No!” the apparition screamed, lunging to grab the knife away even though she knew she could not touch it. But that was enough, as Chryasor reflexively dropped it in fright as she backed away. “No,” she repeated. “I am real. As real as you are. Just... elsewhere. Now, go home, and leave that thing behind.” She looked down at the knife laying half buried in the sand. Looking back up, she noticed Chryasor would not meet her gaze. “Remember, Chry, hope. The one thing no one can ever take away from you. There is always hope.” And with that, she closed her eyes, and her body momentarily shimmered with a rainbow outline before fading away.

Chryasor stood, alone, staring at her footprints in the sand. Her sister had left none behind when she vanished. In the distance, all was normal. A few boats were starting to head toward shore as the sun went down. And the knife lay still at her feet. She felt drawn to it, as if it were somehow daring her to pick it up again. Would she give in to the temptation, and wade out into the water to end it all? Or would she leave it in the sand, and walk the other way back towards home?

Could she really not be insane? What rational senses she thought she had left were telling her that there was no way her sister could have been here, that it was all just a hallucination. But somewhere deep within her, there was a glimmer of hope that somehow it had all been real. That both her sisters still lived, and maybe, just maybe, she could too. She told herself that this was crazy, that it was impossible. But the glimmer of hope remained.

About a year earlier...

1. Parallel Experiments

Author's Note

This story begins around the middle of Season 3. It will probably end in the middle of Season 4. I will do my best to make everything as consistent with canon as I can.

1. Parallel Experiments

Monday, September 13, 2021

"Let's hope this works", Twilight said as she surveyed her latest invention. She had been working on building a lasting portal between her treehouse home in Ponyville and the Magicians' Guild laboratory in Canterlot for weeks now. Teleportation worked well as a means of quick transportation, but it required recasting the spell every time, and was very tiring to do frequently. With a portal, Twilight hoped, she and others could move quickly and easily between faraway places with only minimal effort. Unfortunately, portals had proven to be maddeningly difficult to produce. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that nopony had ever done it before, not even the greatest unicorns.

Twilight's first attempt had been the simple brute force approach to magic: just keep throwing more and more power at something, with minimal direction, until it does what you want. That method worked for a few simple things, but more often than not the power simply released in the form of an entirely different spell than the one intended. Twilight had read many horror stories about uncareful unicorns setting fire to their homes or to themselves. Twilight had no intention of letting that happen to her. But sadly, even the Element of Magic herself can't get her way just by flooding an area with too much magical energy. There were no fires to deal with, but one wall of Twilight's basement was now twisted and warped into a beautiful, but rather unhelpful, non-orientable surface.

After that, Twilight had tried using an ancient style of magic that hardly anypony used anymore: geometrical rune magic. The unicorns of the ancient era, before Celestia, before even Discord's rule, had drawn diagrams and pictures to help them focus their magical energy. According to the one book Twilight had on the subject, anyway. Not much of recorded history had survived the age of chaos. Mostly it came in the form of spoken tales passed down over the generations, such as the story of the founding of Equestria and the first Hearth's Warming.

Every still-flat wall in Twilight's lab was covered in various diagrams and designs. She tried a pentagram, most commonly used for summoning spells, to see if she could somehow “summon” another place and anchor it to the place she was standing. There was no effect at all. She drew a triquetra, a trefoil knot with a circle wound through its loops, symbolizing the three kinds of ponies and their interconnectedness. Twilight speculated that this bond was related to the magic of friendship that she studied, so perhaps she could extract something useful from the shape. But even this was not to be. The three loops of the knot flared different colors, and then the entire triquetra faded into nothingness.

Twilight had really liked the triquetra idea, and she kept returning to it in the hope that somehow, this time would be different. It never was, apart from the varying colors of the disappearing shape. But there had to be a way. Maybe if the magic number 5 from the pentagram was not enough, and the power of 3 from the triquetra wouldn't do the job either, maybe she could somehow combine them.

A few days and many pages of abandoned drawings later, Twilight had come up with a new idea. A figure that had either threefold or fivefold symmetry depending on the way you looked at it. A shape the geometers and mathematicians respected and feared, for it wreaked havoc on countless otherwise elegant theories. A figure so full of magic that Twilight was surprised she had never read about anypony using it in a spell before. The Petersen graph.

“This had better give me a portal,” Twilight muttered to herself. “It's a counterexample to so many nice ideas; now let's make it an exception to space itself.” She concentrated on the chalk figure and began to perform the latest version of the spell. She pictured in her mind a perfect image of her intended destination, just like for a teleport spell. Her horn began to glow a soft purple. Instead of the usual trick of envisioning the destination image expanding into the space all around her and using a surge of power to make it a reality, Twilight tried to “push” the picture out of her mind –not like forgetting it or thinking of something else, but literally moving the image of the Canterlot lab out of her head and onto the wall in front of her.

The unicorn's horn glowed brighter. "Just a little farther," she whispered. "Just another hoof and I'll have it on the graph. Then comes the really difficult part." She allowed herself a small sigh, careful not to break her focus. She pushed her mental image onto the diagram and locked it in place with a parallel spell, as she had grown accustomed to doing in previous trials.

With the destination established, Twilight turned to the next stage of the spell: providing the power necessary to twist space and move all that annoying distance out of the way. Where that distance would go afterward, she had no idea. Anywhere but between her and Canterlot. She glared at the wall as if daring it to defy her will, and flexed her magic equivalent of muscles as hard as she could. Her horn's glow intensified through several more shades of purple and started emitting white sparks. Every surface the sparks touched seemed to distort just a little bit, as if trying to break free of reality's grip but being quickly brought back into line.

Twilight noticed a strange sensation spreading throughout her body, a sort of lightness. Maybe the floor had been replaced with clouds and she was somehow standing on them, or even floating in midair. She didn't dare look down to check. Fringes of black crept into the edges of her vision. It was only then that Twilight realized she had been holding her breath since the spell began and was about to pass out. She quickly relaxed her hold on the spell and forced some air into her lungs. The cool, crisp air felt wonderful, but she was still a little lightheaded. She closed her eyes for a moment and–

"Twilight! Twilight! Are you there?" A faraway voice called to her. Twilight opened her eyes, but saw only the stone floor and the bottom of a table in front of her. The area under the table was filled with a truly surprising number of dust bunnies. Mental note: add “clean basement” to tomorrow's checklist, Twilight thought. Better yet, add it to the monthly schedule. This place is disgusting. She would have been perfectly happy to plan out the entire new schedule right there on the floor, if not for that voice again, calling to her. “Twilight? What are you doing down there? That's a strange place to take a nap.”

Twilight quickly scrambled to her hooves and turned around to see Spike standing on the stairs. “I– I was working on a spell... I guess I was trying a little too hard. How long have I been down here?”

The dragon stopped to think. “Um... a few hours at least. You came down here to work on that spell again right after breakfast today, and it's a little after noon already. Want to get some lunch?”

“Oh, I'm sorry, I'm not really that hungry at the moment,” Twilight replied. “Magic can be hard work, but it's not really the kind that gives you a big appetite. Why don't you go get yourself something nice to eat, and I'll join you a little later. I want to try this one more time.”

“Okay! See you later, Twilight!” Spike made his way back up the stairs and disappeared onto the main floor of the library.

Now, where was I? That's right, the Petersen variant. I could feel the power in that one; it should have worked. Twilight sighed in frustration. I can be so stupid sometimes. Seriously, forgetting to breathe –who does that? She positioned herself in front of the diagram again. Breathe in. Breathe out. Destination visualized... placed on graph... locked in. Breathe in. Breathe out. Magic energy building up... a single white spark appears. Breathe in. Breathe out. More power, more sparks. Twilight willed the magic energy toward her target and watched in satisfaction as more and more sparks landed on her diagram. She heaved another deep breath and prepared for the final push of energy.

Twilight's horn was enveloped in a brilliant sphere of light. White beams spread outward in every direction. The lines on the wall in front of her each glowed with constantly shifting iridescent color patterns. In the center of the diagram, Twilight saw what looked like a ragged hole appear and slowly grow to fill the entire graph. Through the hole, nothing was visible, just perfect blackness. The black was deeper than any Twilight had even seen before: blacker than King Sombra in a cave on a cloudy night, blacker than the view through closed eyes while blindfolded. It was as if, within the hole, light simply did not exist.

That doesn't look like Canterlot... Twilight was confused. She was sure she had cast the spell correctly. Maybe it's not possible to bring distant places into perfect contact, and this is the minimum possible separation. Something anypony can step through easily if they try but enough to prevent accidental crossings. I'll have to study this in detail later –but for now, I should just go through. Despite her confusion at the odd appearance of the portal, she was elated at the thought that finally she had done it. Twilight Sparkle had invented the first portal spell! That was a major point on the checklist she could finally check off.

Still, there was something vaguely unsettling about that region of nothingness. Twilight couldn't quite place the reason, but nevertheless she briefly entertained doubts about whether this portal really was what it claimed to be. Come on, Twilight, don't be scared of your own magic. What could possibly go wrong? She asked herself the question that must never be asked. For that question demands an answer, and the universe is rarely merciful in providing one. Twilight, oblivious, stepped forward and entered the blackness.

۞ ۞ ۞

It was an important day at the SMAC lab. The newly built Superheavy Matter-Antimatter Collider was scheduled to be turned on for the first time that afternoon, and physicists everywhere were waiting in suspense to see if it would work as planned, and making bets with each other about the kinds of new discoveries that would be made. As with every new particle accelerator, the media worried about the formation of Earth-swallowing black holes, or cancer-causing stray radiation, or countless other wild speculations not grounded in reality. The unanimous opinion of the experts, that there was absolutely nothing to worry about, was not sensationalist enough to merit being printed. The truth was, operating at only 102 tera-electronvolts, SMAC was still a hundred million million times too weak to produce a black hole. The goal was to search for extremely high-energy sleptons and bosinos: the final test of the popular, but so far unsupported by evidence, theory of supersymmetry.

“Five minutes to beam.” An announcement came over the loudspeakers. The control room, already buzzing with excitement, was stirred into an even greater frenzy. Everyone crowded toward the middle of the room to get a better view of the main screen, which would be showing a real-time visualisation of the first beams and collisions. Everyone except Dr. Csilla Ziegler, that is –as director of the research program, she had to be at her desk to start the beams. There was no dramatic oversized lever to pull; instead it was simply a mouse click.

“It's almost time... Let's get this thing started.” Zai, a physicist, looked at her watch impatiently. The watch's second hand ticked slowly around. Too slowly. For what seemed like an eternity, Zai stared at the little glass face. Eight fifty-six. Eight fifty-seven. Eight fifty-eight. Three seconds before the eight fifty-nine mark, another announcement was made. One minute to beam, it said. I knew that watch was going too slow!, Zai thought triumphantly. Three whole seconds behind. But sadly, even setting every clock in the world forward wouldn't make time pass any faster.

Finally the moment came. “First beam activated,” blared the loudspeakers. All eyes turned to the screen on the front wall. The screen showed five circles of widely varying size, representing the SMAC tunnel and all the smaller accelerators that came before it, all connected together. A blue dot appeared in the smallest circle and began circling around faster and faster. After a few seconds, the beam of lead nuclei reached the top speed that little accelerator could provide, and whizzed off into the next one in the sequence to circulate even faster. And then the next, and the next after that. The beam was now in the second-to-last circular tunnel, the old Large Hadron Collider, and was crossing back and forth over the Swiss-French border eleven thousand times per second. Finally the SMAC circle on the screen lit up with a brilliant blue glow. The biggest machine ever built was working properly.

“Second beam activated,” Dr. Ziegler announced. This time, a red dot appeared on the screen, meaning anti-lead nuclei. The dot circled through the smaller rings until it reached the LHC, and then it too passed into the largest tunnel, but in the opposite direction from the first beam. The director made another anticlimactic mouse click to adjust the magnetic fields in the ring ever so slightly, then turned to her microphone again. “We have collisions. The Superheavy Matter-Antimatter Collider is operational.”

The crowd of physicists, mathematicians, and engineers erupted into cheering. Around the world, similar groups opened bottles of champagne, and the optimistic among them collected their bet winnings. All attention was focused on the screen, so nobody noticed the small black spot hanging in midair behind the crowd, slowly growing. A spot of such perfect black that its exact shape was impossible to determine, for no light reflected off of it to give an impression of depth. The emptiness grew to more than a meter across, then stopped. But it was no longer empty, for a figure moved within, a nearly invisible shape of regular black set against the infinite darkness all around. The being approached the edge of the hole, hesitated for a second, then stepped out into the room.

۞ ۞ ۞

Twilight was lost. She had never seen or read about this place before and had no idea where she might be. Around her, there was only blackness, but in the distance she could see lights. She looked down and there was no ground, only black space with more shapes of light far below. Behind her there was a single light, seeming to be much closer than the rest. In the center there was a pentagonal region through which she saw her laboratory in Ponyville, and all around it Twilight could see other places in Equestria, diminishing in size the farther out she looked from the center.

Could this really be all of Equestria laid out before her at once? A great glowing disk hanging in the nothingness, and Twilight was above it all. Was this the aether, where the sun, moon, and stars resided? But that was impossible –according to Rainbow Dash, a pony could go as high into the sky as she wanted and never get any closer to the stars. She knew because she had tried it. Twilight looked closer and thought she could make out some tiny points of light, mostly obscured by the face of Equestria behind them. They looked almost like stars, except they were between her and the ground. But then she saw two great shining circles, one golden and one silver, which could be nothing else but the sun and moon. There could be no more doubt: Twilight was on the other side of the heavens.

How did this happen? She thought frantically, heart pounding as the realization sank in. I wasn't trying to go here. I didn't even know this was possible. Does Princess Celestia know about this place? She turned and began walking toward Equestria, but stopped after a few steps. She turned back and looked around at all the other patches of light all around. Was every one of these a whole world like Equestria? Maybe writing to the Princess about this place can wait a little. I should try to learn more before I go back. Twilight sat down on the nonexistent ground. That seemed like as good a start as any, figuring out why she could stand and sit and walk in the midst of all this nothing.

Twilight looked down at where the ground should have been, only to find that she could not see her hooves. She twisted around to look at the rest of her body, but that too was seemingly missing. She held up one hoof in front of her face. She had the distinct sensation of having one hoof held up, but she saw nothing where it should have been. She waved the hoof in front of a distant world and sighed in relief as the point of light was blotted out –that meant she was not invisible or incorporeal, just somehow coated in the same blackness that filled this place. I hope this washes off, she thought. I don't really want to be solid black forever. And Rarity would throw a fit if she saw me like this.

The thought of her friends made Twilight start to worry again. It seemed like ages since she had left Equestria, though she knew it had only been a few minutes. Sure enough, the sun and moon had not moved at all. Spike probably hadn't even finished eating lunch yet. Twilight decided she should go take a closer look at one of these other nearby worlds. But which one? From this far away, they all looked mostly the same. The only distinguishing characteristics seemed to be the overall shape of the world and the type of heavenly bodies above them.

Maybe that spherical world over to her left, with a sun and three moons –a white one, a red one, and a black one. A round world would be an interesting contrast to Equestria's flatness, and four Princesses would surely have interesting things to say. Twilight was walking over to the other world when suddenly a great flash of light came up from below her. She looked down in alarm and saw that the light seemed to be originating on the surface of yet another spherical world far below. On second thought, maybe that one would be the best world to visit. But how would she get down to it?

Twilight screamed in surprise and dismay as the “floor” under her vanished. She was falling through the nothingness at an alarming rate. Don't panic, she told herself. It will be okay. There's no bottom to crash into. But that was little consolation, for she could easily imagine falling forever, never able to return to Equestria. Her friends would miss her, never knowing where she had gone. And Twilight would miss them too. And what if Equestria needed her magic again? Twilight didn't want to keep falling forever.

And suddenly, she was standing on solid nothing again, instead of falling endlessly through the blackness. That's strange, she thought. Strange, but good. I stopped falling! She grinned and did a little dance. All she had to do was really want to stop, and she did. Twilight realized that her descent had started at the exact moment she decided she wanted to go downward. Maybe I have more control over this place than I realized. Let's try this... I want to go to the source of that flash of light. Twilight immediately found herself flying in the direction of that strange world. The sensation was not nearly as pleasant as Rainbow Dash always said flying was –in fact, the unicorn was starting to feel a little nauseous. Change of plans, she thought. I don't want to go toward the light, I want to already be at the light.

And so she was. With no effort at all, she had teleported across a vast distance and was now standing before the foreign world. With an event that powerful and unusual-looking going on below, somepony probably needed help, and now Twilight Sparkle was here to provide it. She thought about opening a gate into that world, really wanted a gateway inside to open up... and one did. A pentagonal region just like the one she had created in Equestria. She stepped forward cautiously, unsure of what she might find on the other side. Just before the portal, she hesitated –was this really a good idea? It was, she told herself. Now that she knew how that strange nothingness worked, she could return to Equestria at any time if she needed to. For now, she wanted to help out the ponies of this other world, and learn from them. She took a deep breath and took her first steps into the unfamiliar surroundings.

2. Communication

Monday, September 13, 2021

Twilight looked around her in utter astonishment. This room was unlike any she had seen in Equestria, filled with strange machines of metal and glass. But the strangest sight was definitely the crowd of... beings... standing in the center of the room, facing away from her and making quite a lot of noise. They certainly were not ponies of any sort. They stood on two hooves instead of four –and what strange hooves they were! They seemed to be divided into five segments that each moved independently. The closest resemblance Twilight could see to anything Equestrian was that these beings' hooves were similar to the tail on Ahuizotl from the Daring Do books. But he was just a fictional character, and these beings were most definitely real.

And these things had such strange coats too. All patchwork colors instead of solid, usually blue or beige on the bottom half and some other color on the top. It took Twilight a moment to realize that every one of them was wearing clothes. Had she walked in on some super-formal gathering? She immediately felt self-conscious and wished she had some sort of dress on as well.

But it was rude to stare –or at least in Equestria it was. Twilight decided she ought to introduce herself and try to find out what was going on here. “Hello,” she said. “My name is Twilight Sparkle. I'm from Equ—”

She was cut off by a bloodcurdling scream from one of the strange beings who had turned around to see who was talking. All the others turned to look as well, and they all backed away in surprise and fear at the sight of Twilight. Or maybe it was the sight of the gaping hole in reality right next to her; she couldn't be sure. The one who screamed covered its eyes for a moment and then looked again; upon confirming that the visitor was indeed still there, it collapsed onto the floor.

“I'm sorry for scaring you,” Twilight said. The beings seemed to not understand her, and pushed even farther away. Finally one of them had the courage to speak.

“¿Þevor... þevor viytrekoy kørð?” The being uttered a few words Twilight couldn't understand. It seemed to be asking her a question. She took a step back and tried to find any sort of meaning she recognized in the words, but it was completely unfamiliar to her. We don't speak the same language, she realized. This is going to make everything a lot harder. This is an entirely different world –why was I expecting everypony to speak the same language? Well, there were only a few likely possibilities for what she had been asked; the being almost certainly wanted to know who she was and how she had gotten there.

“I am Twilight Sparkle,” she repeated. “I am a pony from Equestria.” She gestured toward the portal behind her. “I am here somewhat by accident, but I wish to learn about your world.”

“¿Viytrekoy... Twoyløyt Sparkuwl?” It mispronounced her name, but at least it seemed to have learned it. “¿Þebist zøyrg-tekuwekoy? ¿Viytrekiytid demal ziy kørþ? ¿Viytrekiy uwl irv sormelk?” It became agitated and spoke louder and faster; upon hearing it, the group showed signs of fear again. Twilight put on her best I-dont-know-what-you're-saying face and remained silent. The being turned and addressed its fellow whatever they were. Several of them conversed for a while without paying much attention to Twilight, though she could tell they were talking about her. She took the opportunity to explore the room they were all in. Meanwhile, the being who had fainted upon seeing Twilight began to wake up.

There were several curved desks, and each one held quite a few strange flat objects with pictures on one side. As Twilight watched, one of them suddenly changed its picture to solid black with a swirl of color twisting around in it. Moving pictures, thought Twilight in amazement. What kind of strange magic is this? She walked over to take a closer look at it. It seemed to be just a flat piece of glass, encased in a bit of metal. She picked one up with a levitation spell –which seemed to take more effort here than it should have –but even examining it from all angles did nothing to demystify the device. They seemed to be the main focus of whatever was done here, since there were more of them than there were living beings, and most had a chair sitting by them. Clearly the beings must be able to manipulate these moving pictures, and somehow that worked its magic and created an effect in the world.

“Excuse me,” she said to the group of beings. “What do these things do? How do they work?” Several of the beings jumped, startled by her voice, and one stepped forward to answer. This one's mane was as curly as Pinkie Pie's, but jet black. It was a lot less hyperactive than Pinkie as well. It said nothing and instead began a series of pantomimes. Smart move, thought Twilight. Words weren't helping us much before. It pointed to a clock on the wall and arranged its top legs to match the positions of the clock's hooves, then slowly rotated one through a half circle. It must want me to wait –something will happen when the clock matches that second position. Twilight nodded her head to acknowledge that she understood, then sat down on the floor where she was.

She couldn't quite read off what time it was exactly, since the clocks here were divided into twelve segments instead of the standard Equestrian eight, but if she assumed the short hoof went around twice each day, that would put the time at either mid-morning or mid-evening. Neither option was the just past noon when she had left Equestria. This world's Princesses must move the sun and moon on a different schedule, she realized. That's going to be confusing if I keep crossing back and forth to study this place. But just like in Equestria, clocks always seemed to stand still when one had nothing else to do but wait for them. Twilight was bored, but she didn't want to risk angering the beings by moving around the whole time. And so she continued to wait.

۞ ۞ ۞

The control room was a buzz of excitement. Everyone was cheering and laughing and remarking what an amazing achievement it was to get a machine that large running on the first try, especially since its predecessor, the LHC, had failed almost immediately upon startup. Zai found it all rather pointless. She was a theoretical physicist, so whether the SMAC worked or not was not critical –her job was to come up with things to test for, not do the tests herself. And she just wasn't really a partying sort of person anyway.

But then, amidst all the clamor, there came a new voice, one Zai didn't recognize. She and several others turned around to see who was talking. What stood before her was simply unbelievable. Could that really be a purple unicorn standing next to a black hole? No, not a black hole, a wormhole –a black hole that size would have more mass than the entire Earth.

Apparently everyone else saw the same thing she did, since the newcomer's speech was cut off by a high-pitched shriek from one of Zai's coworkers. She looked over toward the source of the noise and couldn't help but laugh at who had made it. Robert, the hyper-masculine asshole engineer who we would love to fire if he weren't so depressingly good at his job, screaming like a little girl. I wish I had that on camera, she thought. But she was not disappointed, for a second later, Robert fainted. Zai pulled out her phone and took a few pictures of him lying on the floor, then turned back to the real issue at hand. One of the experimentalists tried speaking to the strange being who had appeared.

“What... what are you?” he asked. The unicorn took a step back, and a brief look of surprise and fear flashed across its face before it responded.

“Ilv viytrey Suwlsɤwznelk Eleniyesk. Viytrey irv puwniy zøyrg Ekwestriyu.” It tipped its head to the side to point its horn toward the inky blackness beside it. “Fley tekuwork nerelelkɤrb, bin ilv sigumey nanbrisk pors il viytrɤwv kørþidik.”

Zai didn't catch a single word of what the unicorn said, only that its name was quite long and ended in a K. Her coworker didn't seem to get any more than she had; he tried to repeat it back and completely mangled the unfamiliar name. This language barrier is going to be a problem, Zai thought. At least our little visitor here doesn't look too dangerous.

“Where did you come from? Are there more of you? Is this an invasion?” The poor man just didn't get it, did he? Zai sighed; he was making everyone afraid again when so far they had seen no reason they should be. The unicorn didn't answer and just stood there looking confused. Zai decided she just couldn't take any more of this kind of jumping to conclusions. She had to act.

“Alright everyone, look here,” she said. “There is absolutely no reason to be afraid of anything. We have seen no evidence that our visitor here means us or anyone else any harm.” She raised a hand as another coworker tried to speak. “I'm not finished. Let me remind you all where we are. We work at the biggest research facility in the world, on the most advanced experiments anyone has ever done. We are not ignorant fools who run and hide at the thought of anything new. We are scientists, damn it, so let's start acting like it!” She paused to take a deep breath and then continued.

“We are scientists, and what does that say about us? Everyone, think about what made you interested in physics. We are all here because we are curious about how the world works. Well, maybe not the engineers; we just hire them to build stuff for us. But the rest of us want to unlock the secrets of the universe! Look what an amazing opportunity we have been given: we built this machine to find physics beyond the Standard Model, and here it is. Irrefutable evidence that our understanding is not complete.

“Another civilization has contacted ours –peacefully, I might add –and it is our duty to foster good relations so that we may learn from each other. This is no time for fear! This is the moment when we, as a species, join something bigger than ourselves, when we take our place in the cosmos. And the first thing we have to do is learn to communicate with others. I'm going to tell our guest here that a translator will be arriving in a half hour. And you know how I know there will be a translator here in a half hour? Because we're at CERN, and the Geneva office of the UN is just a twenty-minute drive away. All it will take is a phone call, and a new era of humanity can begin!”

The rest of the room stood in stunned silence as Zai finished her speech. She turned away from the group and took a few steps toward the mysterious visitor, who now appeared to be inspecting the computers. She paused a moment to calm her nerves and brushed a stray strand of hair off her face. She had the unicorn's attention now, so she had to start the message whether she was ready or not. Hopefully they had clocks on whatever world this alien came from. Zai pointed to the clock on the wall behind her, then carefully matched the position shown with her arms. Could it really be only ten minutes past the hour? It felt like it had been so much longer already. She carefully swung one arm through a half circle to show a new clock position, then let both hands drop to her sides.

The message seemed to have been received properly; the unicorn nodded and sat down. That was a good sign –communication through sign language and acting things out was a little more awkward to use than speech, but at least it worked. Zai pulled a chair out from the nearest desk and sat down as well, facing the door so she would see immediately when the translator arrived. She had a suspicion she might know the person the UN chose to send, but she couldn't be sure... She would just have to wait and see.

And this waiting was the perfect time to think about what she wanted to do from here on. One thing was certain: Zai wanted to learn all she could about the aliens and what they knew about the universe, and about their world and their technology. Clearly it was much more advanced than human technology so far, so the potential for revolutionary discoveries was huge. But what if the unicorns didn't want to share freely, if their visit to Earth was not one of altruism? Zai considered the implications. This was a unique opportunity in human history, so did they not have a duty to take it to the fullest extent possible? And the best way to learn about a place is to be there, so...

She had made up her mind. Somehow, she would find a way to cross that still-open portal into wherever the alien had come from. Rules and obligations be damned –what she brought back would be more important than any old duties she neglected. But still, patience was key; she couldn't let anyone else know of her plans. Soon there had to come a time when Zai would be alone with the portal.

۞ ۞ ۞

Chryasor stepped out of the official UN transport vehicle and walked across the parking lot toward the CERN control building. She was accompanied by two guards just in case the alien turned out to be hostile. Her supervisor had told her that the report was of a peaceful contact, but they always preferred to err on the side of caution. Normally they would send an entire team as well, but Chryasor happened to be the only highly skilled linguist or translator available on such short notice. That's an impressive mural on the wall there, she thought, looking at the three-story-tall painting of the accelerator's inner workings on the side of the building. A pair of simple glass doors stood before them. As Chryasor approached, one was pushed open from the inside and the research director Dr. Ziegler stepped out to greet her.

"Ms. Xlevrata?" Chryasor nodded. "The alien is just inside, in the main control room. So far it has been completely peaceful; we have hope that you will be able to communicate with it better than we have."

"Thank you, Dr. Ziegler. I admit, I am not sure what to expect from an alien language –but I will certainly do my best to learn it."

The four humans walked inside and entered the control room. Chryasor was amazed at how orderly and quiet everything was. Everyone was sitting at one end of the room, most of them staring at smartphone screens. They all looked up when Chryasor entered, and several almost dropped their phones in amazement. Oh great, not this again. Every time I meet new people... Chryasor liked to describe her height as "an inch short of two meters", just so Americans and the rest of the world could be confused equally by the mixing of measurement systems. People were always so surprised to see how tall she was –the reactions were understandable since most people had probably never met anyone six foot six before, but it really did get old after a while.

"Attention, everyone. This is Ms. Chryasor Xlevrata from the United Nations, here to deal with this... alien." Dr. Ziegler couldn't bring herself to say "unicorn", no matter how much it looked like one. Unicorns weren't real, everyone knew that. Right? "First Nguyen, second Nguyen, you go with Robert and Zai and help Ms. Xlevrata here with... whatever she needs. Everyone else, back to your regular positions; we still have particle collisions to analyze here."

Nobody called the two Vietnamese physicists by their actual names; they were just numbered instead. As twins, they were interchangeable, right? Even being fraternal twins of different genders didn't stop people from treating them identically. Second was actually the older of the two; they had been assigned by the order they walked through the door on their first day rather than the order of their births. Recently though, people had started just calling them "the Twins", which of course they spelled "the Tnguyens", just to be difficult. First and Second didn't seem to mind.

Chryasor walked over to the small group Dr. Ziegler had designated, leaving her two guards standing awkwardly at the door. “Hello again, little sis. Good to see you're doing all right out here.” Chryasor laid a hand on Zai's shoulder. “By the way, nice speech earlier. You almost sound like you're running for office.”

“Thanks, Chry! I just... Wait a second, how do you know what I said? That was before you got here.” Zai looked at her sister in utter confusion. She couldn't figure out how Chryasor could possibly know anything that had taken place earlier.

“Oh dear, how unobservant of you. Dozens of the most brilliant minds in the world all gathered together, and not a single one of you realizes you left the cameras on.” She gave a short laugh. “You were on worldwide TV for the accelerator start-up, and then when this happened you all just completely forgot. I've been watching the show.”

“So wait... have people been watching this the whole time? The entire world knows we have an alien visitor?” Zai's face changed from confusion to horror. “This could get out of control really fast. The last thing we need is for this to become a political issue where everyone wants to get involved.” She could imagine it now, hordes of people with torches and pitchforks surrounding the CERN campus, demanding all sorts of unreasonable demands. She tried not to think about it, and instead simply walked over to the pair of cameras in the corner of the room and shut them both off. Alright world, show's over. Let's get to work.

With a grim expression, Zai returned to her sister's side only to find Chryasor already talking to the alien visitor. She wasn't entirely sure what she was supposed to do to help, and it looked like the Tnguyens and Robert didn't know either. At least Robert had shut up for once; after all that had happened, Zai wasn't sure she could endure the stress of listening to him as well. She pulled up a chair and made herself comfortable, content to watch her sister work and wait for further instructions.

Chryasor was kneeling on the floor and was still significantly taller than the standing unicorn. They had exchanged names already and were now teaching each other some basic words. Chryasor pointed to herself and said “Human.” She pointed at Zai and said “Human” again, then the same for Robert. Finally she waved an arm at the entire room and said “All humans.” She extended a hand toward the unicorn and adopted a questioning look.

“Irvtigaptit,” came the reply to the implicit question. It raised a front hoof and touched the tip of its horn. “Il tigaptit ilvik,” it said. “Irv tigaptit ilvik.”

So the unicorn called itself a unicorn too, in its own language. “Tigaptit” clearly meant “horn”, and “irv” was therefore likely to be the number one. That third word, “ilvik”, was still unclear to Chryasor. She pointed to the floating blackness that still remained behind the unicorn and asked, “More... irvtigaptits?”

“Demal irvtigaptitid. Tuwvu ikritid int nimaskitid.” The unicorn nodded, but then elaborated on its answer with words Chryasor couldn't hope to guess. Could there be more than one intelligent species where this being came from? The unicorn looked around for a few seconds then, not finding whatever it was searching for, asked, “¿Porifekey qorlefesk irvid þeŋwɤrkid?” It moved one hoof along the floor as if tracing out symbols.

Chryasor turned and addressed the four bored-looking people beside her. “Hey, can we get some paper and pencil over here? I think our friend here wants to draw something.” Immediately First produced a notebook from his bag of work supplies and handed it to her.

“Just ignore all the math in there; there are blank pages near the back. Or don't, if you just really want to read about group representation theory as applied to particle physics...” He pulled out a pencil and handed that to Chryasor as well.

The translator thanked him and passed the items on to the unicorn, which picked up the pencil in its mouth and drew sketches of itself, then a version with wings and no horn, then one with neither like a regular horse. Impressive control there, writing without hands like that, First thought. I guess they get a lot of practice –I don't think I could ever manage that. Then a new thought came over him, and he turned to Zai.

“Are you and she really sisters? I mean, you don't have the same last name or anything. But you know each other and I thought I heard her call you 'sis'.”

“Yes, we are,” Zai replied. “We all chose different names than the ones we were originally given. Would you believe I was once called Veronica?”

“I just can't see that being you at all,” First said, his mind filled with images of prissy, stuck-up, pink-loving little girls, so unlike the serious and determined Zai he knew. “And you said 'all' of you –how many are there? Just you two?”

“There are three of us. I'm the youngest and Chry there is in the middle. We have an older sister as well.” Zai fell silent for a moment. “We don't really have much contact with her anymore, or I don't anyway. I'm not sure we'd even be on speaking terms if we did happen to meet again.”

Just then, Chryasor stood up and turned to face the physicists. She inquired as to whether there were any unused rooms nearby; apparently she and the unicorn were both finding it hard to communicate with so much other commotion around. They were directed to a small conference room down the hall. Zai offered to stay there and help out, but was told she didn't have to. Chryasor would simply text her if she needed anything. Reluctantly, Zai walked back to the main room and took a seat at her usual desk. Back to work, she sighed inwardly. Back to doing math while my sister gets all the glory of being the first to communicate with aliens. She would just have to be patient. Her time would come soon enough.

Author's Note

That picture I link to when describing the room really is the CERN control room. I visited there a few months before starting to write this story.

3. Reverse Crossing

Monday, September 13, 2021

Her coworkers were all out at lunch. The cameras were all turned off. Her sister and the unicorn had gone to another room. This was her chance. The only things standing between Zai and a new world were her own fears.

Would she be okay on the other side? Well, the unicorn seemed to be fine on Earth without any visible exosuit, so the atmospheres and surface gravity must be compatible. Would she walk in on a group of alien scientists? Hopefully not, but possible. How bad could it be? Would she be able to get back again? Well, the portal had allowed travel to Earth once already and stayed open on both ends, so there was no reason for it to change now. Would anyone notice she was gone? Not if she got back fast enough. This could be a scouting mission to prepare for longer journeys later.

Zai slowly walked forward to the edge of the blackness. She looked around at the room behind her one more time. It was still empty. She took a deep breath and cracked her knuckles in preparation. She looked back one more time, just to be absolutely sure. Then, with an almost manic grin on her face, she held her head high and leaped through the portal into whatever lay beyond.

Zai landed with a thud on the other side of the portal and looked around at her new surroundings. Everything was a deep black, studded with points and shapes of light. I'm in space! she thought. That's the Earth below me! She paused, for something didn't seem quite right. If I'm in space, then what am I standing on? And what am I breathing? She clapped her hands once. And how is there sound? Slowly she came to the realization that she was not, in fact, in space.

So where am I? she wondered. This doesn't look like an alien mothership to me. There's no ship at all! This can't be right. But if she wasn't in any sort of spaceship, she had to be in space... She became very worried. There was no way to reconcile what Zai knew about the universe with what she was seeing. Everything she had ever learned said she could not possibly be alive out there. And yet she was.

Zai knew she shouldn't be able to stand, or breathe, or hear. And the longer she stayed there, the more it seemed like she was slowly sinking and the air was getting thinner. She looked around but saw no way to get back to Earth, except maybe to fall onto it from however far up she was. And that would certainly kill her, if she didn't suffocate first. This air is definitely getting thinner. And I'm falling faster, she thought. As soon as the words formed in her mind, they became a reality; Zai gasped for breath as if she were at the top of a tall mountain.

There's no air! There's no floor! I'm in space! Zai thought triumphantly. A moment later, her joy turned to panic. Being in space was not a good thing. Her lungs pulled in vain against the vacuum all around. I'm going to die out here, she thought. And no one will ever know what happened to me. Consciousness fading, she desperately screamed out into the emptiness. If there are any gods out there, hear me! I know I haven't exactly been pious up to now, but I need you! I don't want to die in space! I want to go back to Earth!

Zai opened her eyes and saw a blank white surface maybe ten feet in front of her, featureless except for a row of rectangular lights across the center. Still somewhat lightheaded from her recent experience, it took her a few seconds to realize what it was. That's a ceiling, she thought. So the flat thing pushing against my back must be a floor. She grabbed the leg of a nearby table and pulled herself to her feet, only to be overcome with dizziness and nearly fall over again.

She was in the empty SMAC control room, exactly where she had left from just minutes earlier. It had been just a few minutes, hadn't it? She checked her watch. To her surprise, it showed that only seconds had passed since Zai had entered the portal, as if time simply stopped on the other side. Or maybe it was just her watch that stopped on the other side. It certainly was a strange place over there, first livable and then not. Maybe it cycled between habitability and vacuum, or there were pockets of air constantly moving around, or the whole place didn't exist and she was hallucinating... And how exactly did she get back to Earth anyway?

Nothing Zai thought of to explain it made any sense. The other side of the portal seemed to defy all the laws of physics she had invested so much time and effort in learning. And perhaps the strangest thing of all was the complete lack of unicorns. Could she have gone to the wrong place? Or maybe... what if it wasn't some sort of instant connection between distant places, but instead had some internal length? That was how wormholes worked, wasn't it? And wormholes were permitted by the equations Zai knew.

That must be it. No alternate universes or extra dimensions or anything like that. Just a wormhole, which had to be traversable because someone had already crossed it. So the interior had to be survivable, somehow. She had to try again. But it had nearly killed her the first time... She would try again anyway. Just like the proverbial cat, her curiosity drew her onward regardless of the danger. But unlike that cat, Zai planned on living to tell the tale.

This second attempt would take some preparation –getting ready not physically but mentally. She had to temporarily suspend all of her beliefs about how the universe worked and simply accept how things were without being biased by previous expectations. She couldn't breathe in space –but what if she could? There was nothing to stand on up there –but what if there was? She couldn't move around without something to push against –but what if she could? She couldn't reach the other end of the portal –but she was going to!

She walked up to the edge of the blackness again. Everything will be okay, she told herself. There is absolutely nothing to worry about. I can do this. Then, without giving herself the chance to change her mind, she quickly stepped through to the other side once again. The blackness enveloped her as she stood on who knows what down below. Just don't think about it... So far she was doing just fine; everything worked the same as on Earth.

She took a few tentative steps on the impossible floor. It seemed to stay just as solid as ever. The only problem was that she didn't really know where the other end of this wormhole was. It certainly didn't look like a tunnel leading to a ship or a planet. It looked like outer space, and– No. No thinking about space. She was most definitely not in space. I wish I knew where the other end of this portal was, where that unicorn came from, she thought. And then, inexplicably, she just knew. One of these spots of light all around her was the other end, and she even knew which one.

I have no idea why I'm so sure of this, but that little circle way up there is my destination, she thought. But how to get there from here? This place was strange enough already; Zai hoped there wasn't going to be antigravity or anything like that too. If this place, whatever it is, has told me where to go, then I ought to know how to get there too. Zai listened for any stray thoughts popping into her head, but nothing came to her. That was unfortunate. She wished she could just be there already and not have to figure all this out first.

Zai blinked and tried to make sense of her new surroundings. The constellations of points and shapes all around her had suddenly shifted, and now in front of her was a large glowing circle of blue and green and white. It almost looked like Earth, except the continents were all wrong. How did I get here? I was just thinking about how I wanted to get here and suddenly, here I am. Zai was quite puzzled. It's like this place is responding to thoughts and wishes... but that's got to be nonsense. Consciousness isn't special to the universe. There she stopped herself. This was a difficult belief to give up, but she had to try. What if consciousness is special? Or... what if I'm not in the universe anymore?

But standing in the middle of all this nothingness was still a little bit disturbing, so Zai figured she had better go ahead and enter the other world. After all, she could come back at any time to study this place more. One last experiment and she would be satisfied for now. Here goes... she thought. I want to land on that planet in front of me, in the place that the unicorn who went to Earth left from, and I want the portal to remain open after I've crossed. Apparently the nothingness understood, for she immediately found herself once again sprawled out on a floor, staring up at the ceiling in front of her.

Should have asked for a gentle landing too, she thought as she struggled to her feet. The room around her looked like something one could find on Earth. It was a fairly normal office or lab; the only unusual thing about it was that every surface was made of wood. She took a look at the papers laying on a nearby desk and was surprised to see that she actually recognized some of the work. Is this graph theory? she thought. I hated that stuff in school. All the endless graph parameters, and finding each one takes two separate proofs. Matchings, independent sets, covering sets, cliques, colorings... so many colorings. She cringed at the thought. Vertex coloring, edge coloring, list coloring, fractional coloring, forbidden subgraph edge coloring...

At least the place was deserted, so she didn't have to deal with any unicorns wondering what she was and why she was there. Still, she couldn't shake the feeling that somehow she was being watched. Every time the table creaked or an air current rustled some papers, she jumped and looked around. Zai might have just been paranoid, but then again she was trespassing somewhere she really didn't belong. And the longer she thought about it, the less this place looked like an official research lab; more than anything it looked like a private residence. Not because of any clutter or unprofessionalism –the place was meticulously organized –but just from the small size of it, and how all the writing was in the same ink. But this was where that purple unicorn on Earth had come from, so the homeowner was most definitely not going to be around.

۞ ۞ ۞

It was a beautiful sunny day in Canterlot. Princess Celestia walked down an ornate palace hallway and gazed out a window wistfully, wishing she could be out there. Being co-regent of a large and prosperous land was certainly a good position to have, but it afforded her very little free time. No matter how many diplomats she met with or disputes between the noble Houses she mediated, there always seemed to be something else. Usually the “something else” involved paperwork to sign.

She had just finished with today's Noon Court, a maddening hour and a half of listening to various nobleponies complain about one thing or another and maintaining an appearance of calm. Everypony was welcome to come and voice their concerns, but most ponies who actually worked for a living had neither the time nor inclination to come stand in a long line all morning. Celestia liked the ones who did show up; they were the interesting ones. They brought the legitimate problems, and Celestia was always happy to make accommodations as needed. But for the most part, the day-to-day petty politics of the nobles dominated Court proceedings. The Princess would never admit it, but sometimes she almost wished for some great catastrophe to befall Equestria, just to break up the monotony.

That was one of many reasons she liked Twilight Sparkle and had taken her on as a student. Trouble seemed to follow Twilight wherever she went, even from a very young age. Celestia remembered the day Twilight had first come to her attention, back when she was still just a blank-flanked little filly applying to the Princess's magic school. She had blown the top off the entrance examination –and the building where she had taken it.

Recently Twilight had told her she was interested in creating a portal spell. She had tried to make it sound relevant to her assigned task, studying the magic of friendship, by saying friendship connected ponies and portals connected places and that was somehow the same. The justification was nonsense and it was clear Twilight knew that. But she was glad to see Twilight extending her knowledge of magic, especially by inventing a new spell. If this worked, it would be good practice for the test Celestia had planned for her...

As if on cue, the telltale trail of smoke signifying a letter swirled up and a scroll poofed into existence in front of her. Maybe she's really done it, Celestia thought. Let's see what my star student has to say. She always enjoyed reading Twilight's letters, for they reminded her of life outside the palace, and of friendship, which the Princess had never really had. Not the way other ponies did anyway –being an alicorn, nopony was ever quite able to treat her as an equal.

She had reached the doors to her personal chambers. She opened them with a quick wave of her horn and entered the opulent rooms beyond. The floor was covered in a thick carpet, in sharp contrast to the smooth marble just outside. An enormous window took up most of the far wall, looking out over the castle gardens. Celestia always set the direction of the sun's travel across the sky to maximize the time it spent shining through her windows. She sat down on the overly large bed and unrolled the letter.

“Princess Celestia! This is Spike writing. Something terrible has happened! Twilight is missing, I don't know where she is. And there's this thing in the basement. I've never seen it before, never seen anything like it. And there's a hole in the wall! Not like a regular hole, it's a... I don't know. It's just black. Is that a portal?

“Okay so, panicking over now. I don't think the thing has seen me. Well, panicking not over, but less. So a little while ago I went to Twilight in the lab downstairs and asked if she wanted to get lunch. She didn't so I went to Sugarcube Corner and made sapphire muffins with Pinkie. After a while I figured Twilight might have gotten so involved in her work that she forgot to eat anything again, so I went back to find her and she was gone.

“Do you know what this thing is? It walks on two legs like me but it's not a dragon. It has claws instead of hooves, but I don't think they're sharp. I don't see scales either, but it's wearing clothes so it's hard to tell. So far it's just been walking around looking at all of Twilight's magic notes, but it will come up here eventually, I just know it. Is this thing dangerous? What should I do?”

The note ended there. Princess Celestia wasn't sure whether to be proud that her student had created new magic or alarmed at what said magic had caused. For she did indeed know what that strange creature was, and what its kind were capable of. It was a good thing there was only one of them. But if Twilight was on the other side, alone in that world... Celestia had faith in her student. Twilight would be okay. She had to believe that.

Celestia pulled gently on a small silken cord hanging next to her bed. Elsewhere in the palace, a bell rang, and within seconds a palace servant was dispatched to the Sun Princess's quarters. Celestia opened the door to find a scared-looking young pony already outside waiting for orders. Maybe it was the first time she had been sent to the Princess directly.

“Hello, little one,” Celestia said. “What's your name?”

“W-winter Heart, ma'am. I mean, Princess. W-what are your orders?” The poor filly looked terrified. Celestia smiled warmly in an attempt to put her at ease.

“Well, Winter Heart, I would like you to carry a message to my seneschal, Purple Quill. Tell her that I would like all my appointments for the rest of the day canceled. She'll probably throw a fit –she always does when I reschedule things –but something has come up.”

The young pony nodded and started to turn away to deliver the message, but Celestia called her back again.

“One more thing. If Purple Quill absolutely demands to know where I am and why I'm moving all the appointments around, tell her I'm in Ponyville. This is not an official visit, so you don't even need to tell her unless she asks. That's all for now.”

The messenger hurried off and Celestia shut the door to her suite once again. She needed to get to Ponyville quickly, so the usual royal carriage was out of the question. Flying under her own power was an option, but even that would be slower than Celestia would have liked. And it would certainly attract a lot of attention. The best choice seemed to be teleportation, but to where? Popping out of nowhere in the middle of the town square might be a bit obtrusive; she needed a more secluded location to appear in. Fluttershy's cottage would be a perfect location, except that the sound might scare all the animals there. Sweet Apple Acres would be a better choice, far away from everypony but the Apple family, who needed to be involved anyway.

Princess Celestia sent a surge of power through her horn. The bright glow briefly illuminated the room before it vanished, taking the alicorn with it. Air rushed into the empty space she had left behind, producing a loud clapping noise and sucking a stack of papers off her desk. She could clean up the mess later, or somepony else could do it. That stack had already been signed anyway.

Celestia appeared with a bang of displaced air outside the Apples' front door. She raised a hoof to knock, but the door opened before she could. Applejack had heard the sound of teleportation and come out to investigate.

“Howdy, Princess! Ah never reckoned Ah'd see you here. What can Ah do for ya?”

“Applejack! Equestria has a problem. Twilight has gone missing, and there may be a new invasion on the way. I need you to gather your friends and meet outside the library. Don't go in until everypony is there.”

“Will, do Princess!” Applejack dashed off to find her friends, and Celestia turned and walked toward the library as fast as she could while maintaining proper royal stateliness. As she walked through the town, every pony who saw her stopped and bowed down as she passed. And as soon as she was far enough away, they all got up and started telling all their friends how they had just seen the Princess. News traveled fast in Ponyville, so before long a rather flustered Mayor Mare appeared before her and started apologizing profusely for the lack of preparations for a royal visit.

Finally she reached the Golden Oak Library, where Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, and Pinkie Pie were waiting. Fluttershy was nowhere to be seen. Pinkie Pie was bouncing up and down with excitement.

“What's in there? Threats to Equestria are fun! Especially when they come with chocolate rain! Will there be chocolate rain?”

“Last Ah checked, Discord was still a block of stone,” Applejack replied. “No more chocolate rain for another thousand years.”

“What is going on, Princess?” Rarity too was curious. “I was peacefully working on my latest design, when somepony burst in and tracked mud all over my nice floor.” She glared at Applejack. “And all she said was 'Twilight's gone; meet at the library'. What kind of explanation is that?”

Celestia sighed. “Well, the truth is, I'm not entirely sure. Spike sent me a letter saying that Twilight had apparently succeeded in creating a portal. She told you all about that project, didn't she?” The four ponies nodded. “Well, it seems that portal didn't go where Twilight intended it to.”

Just then, Fluttershy ran up to the others. “So sorry I'm late. I had this sick bunny I had to take care of. He's doing better now. I hope I didn't cause too much trouble...”

“It's no problem. I was just explaining the situation to everypony.” Celestia continued her explanation. “As I was saying, Twilight seems to have opened a gate into another world. According to Spike's letter, Twilight has gone through and something else has come into Equestria. I want you to capture that something and keep it from reporting back to wherever it came from. Perhaps we can stop an invasion before it even begins.”

Just then, the library's front door opened and Spike came running out. “You're all here! Quick! I think it heard me and now it's coming upstairs!” He left the door wide open as he ran to the safety of the group of ponies.

Rainbow Dash took up a position right in front of the door, ready to charge in. Applejack got out her lasso from wherever she kept it, and Pinkie somehow produced a second lasso. Fluttershy took a step back and looked around nervously. A hush fell over the group as they waited for any sign of movement inside. Finally they heard heavy hoofsteps and a strange being came into view. It walked on two legs and had a mane but no tail, and had small ears and a flat face. Rainbow Dash zoomed through the doorway and tackled it to the ground. Moments later, it was securely tied up and surrounded by ponies.

“Well, that was easy,” Rainbow said. “What's next?”

“Þevor ip kørørgaþom?! Suwnorqøroytid ilv!” The newcomer clearly was not happy. It continued shouting unintelligible phrases in its own language. But then it paused and said, “Deksiwekoytid... Twilight Sparkle?”

All eyes turned to the strange being. Princess Celestia stepped forward and tried asking it some questions, but it seemed to understand nothing beyond Twilight's name. She turned back to the five friends and said, “I leave this being in your care. If this is what I think it is, you must not allow it to return through the portal. Individually they are no stronger than an average pony, but in groups they become fearsome. They are a warlike race, intent on conquering everything they come across. We can only hope Twilight returns to us soon. Good luck, my little ponies.”

With that, Celestia's horn flared once again and she vanished in a burst of white light. The strange being's face took on a look of amazement as it sputtered a few words more. “Þ-þevor?! Þeris li'uwmrekiy...?” Finally it just gave up trying to understand and surrendered itself to the ponies.

4. Sisters and Friends Reunite

Thursday, September 16, 2021

Three days later:

Twilight had not been home since she first crossed into the other world. This place was interesting and new, and she knew it was important to build good relations with the humans, but she was really starting to miss the familiar sights and sounds of Equestria. Though it had been mere days, her memories of standing in the library casting powerful new magic seemed like an eternity ago. By one measure, her home was just blocks away, an hour's walk across this city. By another, it was impossibly distant, farther than the stars.

The tall human with the long golden mane, the one she had met and talked to outside the portal, had brought Twilight to her own home. They were communicating fairly well already, at least on simple subjects. The human's name was Chryasor, but Twilight did not know if that meant anything in the human language. Pony names always had some meaning to them, but there was no reason this had to be true in other worlds as well. From what Twilight understood so far, Chryasor's job was to listen to some humans talk and then tell other humans what they had said. She wasn't quite sure why such a position existed. Twilight had tried explaining her mission as well; she thought the “student” part had been understood but “the magic of friendship” was a rather complicated idea to get across.

Currently Chryasor was fiddling with some device that she said could let her talk to her sister even though she was not present. These humans had devices for everything. It was probably to make up for their total lack of magic. Twilight had managed a few simple spells soon after crossing, but they had seemed inordinately difficult, and as soon as she left the immediate area of the portal she was unable to do even the most basic magic. As a unicorn, this was very disturbing to her, but at least it was not totally unfamiliar –after all, she had been unable to use magic for a while when Discord returned.

“Hakɤwelk! Sliyx køy reliyriy.” Twilight looked up as Chryasor exclaimed in frustration. Upon seeing Twilight looking at her, the human tried to explain in a way Twilight could understand. “My sister does not... reliyresk. She is not... not with the nefrawtɤrk.” She sighed. “I can not say it.” Chryasor held up the device and pointed to it. “This is a nefrawtɤrk. I have one, my sister has one. I speak to her but she does not speak to me.”

“Is your nefrawtɤrk working?” Twilight didn't know how the devices were meant to talk to each other, but humans probably did.

“Working? What is this word?”

“Doing what it should do. Um... uwmrelx þɤwvor sliyj yasiy uwmresk.” Twilight felt very proud of herself for being able to say this. It was almost a full sentence.

“Ah... nuwfselx. I think it is... working. But hers is not.”

“Isn't there an easier way? In Equestria we always just go visit each other when we want to talk. She can't live too far away if she works at the place where I entered this world.”

“I'm sorry, what?” Twilight had said too much, too fast.

“Can you go to her? Ey slijx goyjinesk? Without nefrawtɤrk, talk as we are?”

Chryasor stopped what she was doing, and a look of realization slowly crept across her face. Twilight knew she must have been right. Hopefully the human would let her come along; Twilight wanted to get out and see more of this strange new world.

۞ ۞ ۞

Chryasor sighed in frustration as her phone failed to make a call yet again. An almost brand-new iPhone 9 and it couldn't even get its most basic function right. And it wasn't even the normal error code either: not the usual "your call could not be completed as dialed", but rather a "the number you are trying to reach is out of range". And that was very odd. Practically the whole world was blanketed in 6G networks now, and Chryasor didn't know of any dead spots in the Geneva area. Had her sister hopped on a plane to Antarctica or something? It must just be an error in the phone system somewhere.

All she wanted to do was talk to Zai again; was that really so much to ask? After seeing her at CERN the other day, Chryasor had realized just how long it had been since they last were together. There was so much to catch up on –over a year's worth of news, not to mention all that had taken place since the unicorn's sudden appearance. Being out on assignment helping politicians speak to people of other countries was pretty nice since she got to travel all over the world, but Chryasor did miss being at home after a while.

The unicorn saw Chryasor's frustration and asked what was going on. That was the more immediate problem –her new assignment here at home. Knowing what to call her was important; apparently all names had meaning in their culture. The unicorn had drawn a picture of the sun with an arrow pointing below the horizon, implying her name was Sunset, or something similar. For the second part of her name she had just pointed to a piece of shimmering, sparkling fabric. Chryasor wasn't sure how to interpret that. Getting the species name correct was also going to be important, since according to Sunset they were not all unicorns. Three different kinds existed, all basically equine but with varying extra characteristics. Going by their size though, “horses” seemed like the wrong word –a better term would be “ponies”.

Chryasor had to explain as well as she could what the problem was, which was difficult not only because of the language, but also because Sunset seemed to not know anything at all about electronics. How it was possible to get to another world without electronic devices she didn't know, but that was a question best left to the physicists. Like her sister. But then Sunset suggested she actually go visit Zai in person instead of worrying about phone problems. She didn't know why that had never occurred to her; after all, they did live in the same city. In fact, this could be a good opportunity to show Sunset around Geneva, to show her what normal human life was like.

They set out on foot for maximum sightseeing along the way. Sunset seemed amazed at even the most mundane facts of city life, like the existence of cars. And streetlights, and bicycles, and the prevalence of signs everywhere. Was her world completely pre-industrial?

There were fewer people out on the streets than Chryasor was used to seeing. Maybe they were scared of having aliens in their city. The world media had gone into a frenzy for about 24 hours, but then the whole situation had started being dismissed as a hoax. Every TV station had only the same one video to show, and without new material most had moved on already. Still, for the people of Geneva it was closer to home so they were being especially cautious.

As the pair walked along, they got a wide variety of strange looks from the people who did pass by. Many were surprised and confused, some fearful, and some purposefully looked away as if to deny the existence of what was in front of them. But up ahead there was one man who was different. A homeless man with an old beat-up violin, playing for coins from the passersby. He looked everyone in the eye and smiled as he played, hoping to provoke feelings of empathy in the normally apathetic citizens. When he looked toward Chryasor and the unicorn, his music faltered for only an instant before being renewed, as lively as ever. He had seen so much in his time that no strange new appearance could faze him now.

Sunset seemed intrigued by this fearless musician. Chryasor could only watch as her companion trotted up next to him... and began to sing. She harmonized perfectly with the existing violin melody, and though Chryasor could not understand all the words, it sounded beautiful.

“Køy fley adþilork irv eywom
Þɤwvor viytriy ziy uwl.
Amgisentuz biviniy selgnork;
Uwl viytrɤwv akzorelx biviniy kalidork.”

How is she doing that? Chryasor wondered. She's making up a song on the fly, words as well as notes, and fitting it in with music she's never heard before. That's really amazing. She stopped walking and listened a while longer.

“Paludesk het nimaskɤrkid
Viytriy þɤwvor ilv toðkley.
Setagey irv pondu kørpaltelx,
Elgjep yasey viytresk nanbrelx.”

She's really good at this... Actually, they're both really good. What's a guy this talented doing living on the streets? Chryasor dug through her purse and pulled out a handful of change. She leaned down and dropped it into the open violin case sitting on the ground next to the man. It was probably the biggest tip he'd ever received, over ten Swiss francs. Chryasor waited until the unicorn reached a break in her song, then called out to her.

“That sounds great, Sunset! But we really should keep walking.” She had a sister to visit, and there was a lot more city to see along the way. Reluctantly, Sunset ended the duet and the odd couple continued on their way. Behind them they heard the homeless man start singing himself, trying to imitate the unicorn's melody. Chryasor smiled; his voice was not nearly as good as Sunset's but it would still bring him considerably more donations than the violin alone. He would live a little bit better now, thanks to this visitor from another world.

A few minutes later, Chryasor and Sunset reached an important landmark in the city: the main train station. Located not far from the United Nations office, it was a regular sight for Chryasor, but Sunset seemed very excited to see it.

“You have repeysitid!” she exclaimed. “Something the same in this world and mine!”

“We call them 'trains',” Chryasor replied, in the same language. She was getting a lot better at understanding what Sunset said now, missing only the words she had never heard before. Sunset was learning a little English too, but it seemed easier for both of them to just use the pony language.

“Where do the trains go? In Equestria you can go from any train sɤwznom to any other.”

“They go far, all of this country but not to the entire world. We have...” She was unsure how to say 'oceans'. “We have places with water, too big for a train to cross.”

“Oh, morfwit viytromid. Humans live on both sides? We are all connected, one land.”

Shortly after passing the train station, they came to one of the several bridges across the Rhone river. To their right the river wound off into the distance, but on the left it widened out and became Lake Geneva. The enormous fountain in the middle of the lake was clearly visible from the bridge, a tower of water hundreds of feet into the air. On the other side, Chryasor turned and led Sunset along the shoreline, through the old English Garden.

As the pair exited the little park, they were approached by two police officers. Both were unarmed and on foot, the standard across Europe, but Chryasor had grown up in the United States where the police were a paramilitary organization to be feared. I hope they're not coming for us, she thought. Damn it, they're definitely coming for us. Better get my UN badge ready.

“Bonjour,” one of the officers began. Chryasor stopped walking and faced them.

“Sunset, wait,” she said in the pony language, then switching to French, “How can I help you?”

“This is just to inform you that within the city of Geneva, all pets must be on a leash at all times. You can't just let them run free like this.”

“And what is that anyway?” the other officer asked. “I've never seen anything like it before. Are you sure that's even legal at all?”

Chryasor thought quickly about how to respond. Stick as close to the truth as possible, only embellishing details when strictly needed. And above all, sound confident. If they think I have authority, that I know what I'm doing, they won't question me. “This,” she said, looking the second officer in the eyes, “is a unicorn.” She turned back to the first officer. “And she is not a pet. She is a visiting dignitary of a foreign land, and I, as a representative of the United Nations...” She pulled out her identification card and flashed it at the two policemen, carefully keeping her thumb over the “translator” designation. “...I am giving her a tour of this city. Now, if you will please excuse us, we would like to get on with our walk.”

With that, Chryasor quickly turned and began walking away before the policemen had a chance to respond. Please don't follow me, she thought. It's not worth your time or ours. Just let us go. Thankfully, there was no call of “Arrêtez!” from behind her. She and Sunset continued on their way, and a half hour and a few more kilometers later, they arrived at their destination without further incident. It was a fairly standard apartment complex in a decent neighborhood, with flats comfortably livable for one person but no more.

Chryasor stepped up to the door of Zai's apartment and knocked loudly. There was no answer. She pressed the little buzzer button next to the door and spoke aloud, her words carried inside by the built-in loudspeaker system for the apartments.

“Hey Zai, you in there? It's me! And I've brought someone else to visit too.” She got no reply, and the door still did not open. Turning to Sunset, she said, “This is strange; it's after work hours so she ought to be around. Let's go in just to make sure she's all right.”

“Go in? How?”

“I have a key –we both have keys to each other's living places in case of emergency.”

“Just you two? Didn't you say you had a third sister too? What about her?”

“Oh, she lives far away. Across the ocean. Zai and I moved here years ago to follow our jobs, but she stayed behind. We still write to each other; at least I do anyway. I don't think she and Zai really get along.”

Chryasor unlocked the door to her sister's apartment, and she and Sunset stepped inside. No lights were on anywhere, and it was completely silent except for the sound of their steps. They split up and looked through each of the rooms, neither finding anything, and finally met up again in the kitchen. It was there that Chryasor saw something interesting: dirty dishes in the sink that looked several days old. Zai never left things in that state for very long –everything had to be cleaned, dried, and put away in its proper place. That kind of slightly OCD, perfectionist tendency ran in the family, not too strongly in Chryasor but more severe in both her younger and older sisters.

“This doesn't look right... She hasn't been here in a while.”

“Then where is she? Working at that place where I first came here?”

“Not at this time of day, it's after work hours now. And she would never spend the night there. But maybe some of the people she knows there can help. Come on, let's go back to my place now before it gets even later.”

They left the apartment and Chryasor locked the door again behind them. They began the long walk back, taking a different route than the way they had come. Chryasor knew the city well enough to find her way back home from almost anywhere; there were enough landmarks that she could always tell where she was.

“The sun sets so slowly here,” Sunset remarked as she stared into the bright orange-red sky in front of them. “In Equestria we do it quickly. It takes maybe a minute at most.”

“You... what? How? Why would the sun set so fast?”

“That's just how the Princess does it. It's day, and then it's night. There's no need for anything in between.”

Now Chryasor was even more confused. “You make it sound as if you control it. Or this Princess does. But how? Your world must turn just like any other; it's not going to change speeds. Is it?”

“Oh, right, this world is round. I remember seeing it from outside. But if it's spinning all the time, how do you all not fly off?

“Because it's... You seriously believe your world is flat? I... I don't even know what to say.”

“I know it is, I've been outside it. It's a circle. The sun and moon go around it.”

Chryasor and Sunset had both thoroughly confused each other. Both were so used to how things worked in their respective universes that they could hardly imagine anything different. They walked onward in silence, arriving back at Chryasor's home just as the sun finally disappeared completely from view. Once inside, the unicorn spoke again.

"So, you said before that you listen to some humans talk and tell others what they said. I think I'm starting to understand what that really is. Those two who stopped us when we were out walking earlier, I couldn't understand anything they said. But you could. I guess I just didn't really believe that humans had more than one language –we ponies can always understand each other."

"Yes, we have thousands of languages. Humans are terrible at communicating with each other. Want to see a demonstration of what my job really is?"

"Sure."

"Let's turn on the news. It will be in French, the same thing those two police were speaking. I'm going to translate to English at the same time that it's playing."

Chryasor walked into the next room, motioning for the unicorn to follow. She picked up the TV remote off a table; with the press of a button, the black screen on the wall flickered to life. It showed a pair of news anchors in the middle of a heated discussion –but they were speaking English, and the debate was about national politics, which Sunset probably would not be interested in anyway. She changed the channel to a local station which she knew broadcast in French. She paused to listen to the first sentence from the TV, then jumped in with her own simultaneous English version.

"Thanks everyone for listening; we'll be back with more after the break. Tune in for breaking news about new alien sightings in our very own city of Geneva!"

With that, the news program switched to commercials. Chryasor turned to her small audience and tried to explain what commercials were, without much success. A few minutes later, the news came back on and she resumed her demonstration.

"Welcome back, everyone! We have some very exciting news for you: it seems that the reports of aliens in Geneva this past Monday may not have been a hoax after all. The aliens, or rather alien since we have so far seen just the one, has been sighted again, this time walking the streets. Joining us for an exclusive interview we have Monsieur Durand, who got a close look at it just a few hours ago.”

"Thank you. It's an honor to be part of your show today."

"So first, can you just confirm for us what you saw?"

"Yes. It was a purple unicorn. It was only about a meter tall, maybe a little more. I've never seen anything like it before."

"How did you see it? What led you to go investigate?"

"There was a woman with it; they were just walking along as if unicorns were perfectly normal. My partner and I were on patrol and from far away we thought she was walking a dog without a leash, so we went to talk to her about it. But that was no dog."

"But you're absolutely sure this was an alien?"

"Completely. It's the same as what we all saw the other day. And I could tell it was intelligent –it was talking. A horse, saying actual words! I couldn't understand what it was saying, but that woman could, she talked back!"

"That is truly amazing. Do you have any idea who this woman is?"

"Sorry, no. She flashed some sort of badge at me, I don't remember what exactly but it looked very official. I never got her name."

"Well, thank you for joining us tonight. And a big thank you to everyone for watching. More news after the break."

Another set of commercials came on, and Chryasor stopped her translation to speak as herself again.

"How much of that were you able to understand?" she asked, switching back to the pony language.

"More than I thought I would," Sunset replied. "It was fast but I think I got a lot of it. You've taught me more than I realized.” She paused for a moment. “You've done so much for me since I got here. I'd like to show you some of my world as well. You can meet all my friends –oh, and my teacher too, the Princess. I'm sure she'd love to meet a human.”

Chryasor considered the offer. It was certainly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, a chance to visit another world. But she had duties to take care of on Earth. Or did she? Her work didn't technically require her to be on Earth the whole time; in fact this could help her learn about these ponies even better than if she stayed where she was. And she did really love to travel...

“That sounds great! I'd love to come see your world. The building your portal is in will be closed by now, so we'll have to wait until tomorrow. But then we–” She broke off midsentence and whirled around to face the TV again.

“...reported missing by her coworkers earlier today. Her name is Zairovsa Elviria, and she was last seen Monday morning. If you have information regarding her whereabouts, call this number...”

Even though Chryasor knew her sister had disappeared somewhere, hearing it confirmed like this was rather disturbing. She must have looked visibly shocked, because Sunset noticed and asked what the TV had just said. Chryasor tried to answer in as calm a voice as she could. Sadly, there was nothing she could really do except hope that Zai came back –she couldn't devote any more time to looking for her sister when she had such an important job to do.

۞ ۞ ۞

Friday, September 17, 2021
The next morning:

"Here we are," Twilight said. She could feel the power emanating from the blackness ahead. Soon she would be back in Equestria, where all her friends were, where magic still worked as it should. She could feel the stares of all the humans nearby as they looked away from their work at the visitors. Twilight was a little uncomfortable with all the attention, though more than a few of the humans seemed to be focused more on Chryasor instead.

"So we just step through here and we're in your world?"

"Well..." Twilight had a pained smile on her face. "I'm afraid it's not that easy."

"How so? Isn't this the portal?"

"The problem is, there's a sort of space between worlds. I call it the Void. It's a very strange place."

"So what do we do?"

"We need to stay together. If we get separated in there, what you have to do is just wish to return here. The place responds to thoughts; it will send you back."

"It responds to thoughts? But that's... That's impossible! The universe doesn't care about thoughts."

"That's exactly it –it's outside this universe. Outside every universe. Come on, we don't have to be there long. I'll lead you to the portal into Equestria."

"Okay..." Chryasor sounded very hesitant; Twilight could tell the human was rather nervous about the whole process.

"Enter on three. One... Two... Three!" They both stepped through the portal into the darkness beyond. Twilight looked around her but did not see her companion anywhere. She looked down and realized there was one important detail she had forgotten about until now: she couldn't even see herself while in the Void, so how could she and Chryasor see each other? I hope she remembers what I told her about getting back, Twilight thought. I've got to go back there and find her so we can figure out a way to stay together. Okay Void, I want to go back to Earth, right where I left it.

Twilight exited the portal gracefully, hopping out headfirst and landing on her hooves. Chryasor was already back on Earth, holding her head and trying to recover from a very non-graceful entrance. The surrounding physicists were trying not to laugh.

“Are you okay there?” Twilight hoped the human hadn't hurt herself. At least she had made it out of the Void easily enough.

“I'll be fine in a minute. How did we get separated so fast?”

“Sorry... I forgot one feature of the Void. When inside, you become invisible, even to yourself. Let's try that again, and this time we should be connected. Hold on to my mane and don't let go.”

The pair stepped carefully back through the portal, maintaining contact the whole time. Twilight could feel a gentle pull every time she turned her head, so Chryasor must still be there. I wish we were at the entrance to my portal into Equestria, she thought. In the blink of an eye, the speckled pattern of universes all around shifted, and the great blue-green disk of the pony world was before them. Twilight took a step forward and felt the resistance from the human's hand still on her.

“This is it,” she said. “The doorway is that pentagon in the middle.” There was no response. It seemed the Void's enforced alone-ness extended to hearing as well as sight. Twilight would just have to pull forward and hope Chryasor got the message.

Moments later, they passed through the other end of the portal, and Chryasor got her first look at Equestria: a dim basement laboratory, filled with arcane drawings and dense magic-theory research. It looked just the same as Twilight had left it. Let's go find my friends –I hope they haven't been too worried about me while I was away. Wait, how long have I been away? Is time the same across worlds? Twilight had so many questions to research, but first she had friends to see and a tour to lead.

“What is this place?” Chryasor asked. “Is this where you work?”

“Where I do research, yes. When I don't want to be interrupted. But my studies can take place all over Equestria. There are lessons to be learned everywhere. Come on, let's go outside and introduce you to my friends.”

Twilight led the way up the stairs to the main floor of the library. The pony-sized door at the top was a struggle for Chryasor to get through, having not been designed for humans, especially not tall ones. At least the ceilings were high enough that she could stand normally. Twilight pulled open the front door with a basic telekinesis spell. It feels good to be able to do magic again, she thought. It's almost like a part of me was missing in the other world. She looked over at her guest to find her staring in amazement.

They left the library, only to be faced with a shimmering, translucent barrier forming a dome over the entire tree. Where'd that come from? There shouldn't be a force field here... Well, we need to get past it, so let's take this thing down. She reached out with a tendril of magic and touched the barrier, trying to sense what it was made of, and who had placed it. Every unicorn had their own unique magical signature, a combination of various senses which is infused into every one of their spells. Twilight was told hers included the smell of lilac and a constellation of twinkling stars. This force field carried the feeling of warm sunlight on one's face and a pale sky-blue color, with an undercurrent of crackling lightning. Twilight recognized it immediately: the warmth and calm on top of rarely used but formidable power could only be Princess Celestia.

“Why would the Princess seal off my library?” Twilight wondered aloud to herself.

“I'm sorry, did you say something? And what is this wall? Some sort of force field? I went over and touched it and it shocked me.”

“Actually yes, that's exactly what it is. I'm trying to figure out how to lower it.”

“Well, I'm afraid I can't help. This all seems like magic to me.”

“Of course it's magic! All Equestria runs on magic. Not just the unicorns like me; everypony uses magic. It helps pegasi to fly since otherwise their wings aren't big enough to lift them. Magic also gives earth ponies their increased strength.”

“Oh. Well then... it's your world so I guess I'll just trust you on how it works.”

Twilight turned back to the force field and began analyzing how it was constructed. It was not a particularly strong one, not like her brother Shining Armor's force fields. In fact, she could sense a flaw running right down the middle of the spell. It was not like Celestia to do sloppy work, so it must have been intentional, a deliberate back door left as an easy way through for anypony who thought to look for it. She pushed a wisp of magic into the weak spot, expanding it and thinning the barrier. Just a little more... and she was done. A hole appeared in the veil, and Twilight watched as cracks shot outwards and the entire dome shattered, falling shards of magic disappearing into the air before striking the ground.

“There we go! Time to show you around, and maybe find out why the Princess had my home closed off.”

Twilight led the way out into Ponyville, with Chryasor following closely behind. It was a nice day and many ponies were outside; they drew a lot of attention, but nopony was brave enough to approach. Mostly they just continued on their way, trusting that Twilight Sparkle knew what she was doing. It didn't take long before a certain pink pony came bouncing down the street toward them.

"Twilight! You're back! And you've brought another one of those supposedly super dangerous but really kind of boring things with you!"

"Good to see you again, Pinkie! Where's everypony else?" Twilight trotted over and gave her friend a big hug. "Wait... another? You've seen a human before?"

"Of course we have, silly! She came around the same time you disappeared. Spike found her looking through your papers in the library. We were all so worried about you. Princess Celestia came and everything!" Pinkie had a troubled look on her face. "The Princess said these thingies were dangerous. She didn't want us to let the first one go because she said it would just come back with more."

"Who is this human you have here?" Chryasor asked, even though she was sure she knew the answer. "Does she have black hair –I mean, a black mane –and blue eyes, and a watch on her right arm? I mean, on her front right leg? And she doesn't talk much unless she's really excited or mad?"

"Wow, that's right on! Are you psychic?" Pinkie looked incredulously at the new human.

"Am I... What? That word... Your language is still new to me."

"New to talking? You don't look like you were born yesterday to me. But if you were, that's okay too. Come on, you big foal, let's go see your sister.”

“Okay... but how did you know she's my sister?”

Pinkie had already started bouncing away, so Twilight answered for her. “You really don't want to ask that. With Pinkie, we've learned to just accept whatever she does whether it makes any sense or not. Sometimes I think she really can see the future or something. I've given up trying to explain it.”

Twilight and Chryasor followed the party pony all the way to Sugarcube Corner. Inside, the two Cakes were busy baking some sort of sweet treat, and off in a corner there was a rather annoyed-looking human who Pinkie was trying to get to smile. The human looked to the door as Twilight and Chryasor walked in, and immediately stood up and walked quickly over to them. Twilight recognized her as the one who had first talked to her after she arrived in the human world.

“Hey Chry, I see you made it here too. Did you come looking for me? Don't tell me you're stuck in this place like I am.” Twilight found she could understand a surprising amount of that particular human language, even if she had a hard time actually speaking in it. She listened to the sisters' conversation as well as she could.

“Good to see you too. Don't worry though, I was invited to come for a visit. I assume you came on your own –no one back home knows where you've gone.”

“How long has it been back home? I hope time is at least close to the same. But I suppose if you're here then I haven't missed a hundred years or something on Earth. It's only been a few days here.”

“Just a few days there too, though that was still long enough to get you reported as missing. I'm just glad you're okay. Why haven't you been back?”

“Because they won't let me. I don't even know why because I can't understand anything they say. But they've been treating me well anyway –I don't think they really know how to take prisoners. Half the time they act scared of me, but the rest they just seem curious. The only really unpleasant part is the food; I'm getting pretty tired of salad and cupcakes now.”

“That's very strange. Let me see if I can find out why they want you here.” Chryasor called to Pinkie Pie, who was enjoying a cupcake of her own –something she never got sick of. “Excuse me! Your name is Pinkie, right? I'd like to ask you a few questions.”

“Mmhmfmglf!” Pinkie gobbled down the last of her cupcake. “Okie dokie, question away!”

“Why is my sister being kept in Equestria? You said the Princess ordered it?”

“Yep! We don't know why. Nopony's ever seen one of you before, besides the Princess. But she thinks you could be a threat to Equestria, and she's always been right before. You don't seem that bad to me though, just a little... serious. Are you going to suck all the fun out of Equestria? That really would be bad.”

This talk of Princess Celestia worried Twilight –she had found the humans and their world to be pleasant, if a little unfamiliar. But Pinkie was right, the Princess had always been correct about threats in the past. Twilight wasn't sure what to think. She wanted to believe everything would work out, that ponies and humans could be friends, that she could explore their world and they could explore hers in peace and harmony. But she also trusted in her teacher.

“Chryasor, stay here with Pinkie and... Zai, was it? I need to talk to Princess Celestia about all this.” And with that, she hurried off back to her library. She had a letter to write.

Author's Note

In case anyone was wondering, the song Twilight sings is the first couple verses of Strange New World, from the first Equestria Girls movie. The translation isn't perfect, but it's fairly close given the limitations of this other language. I actually did better than I expected getting those few lines to rhyme.

5. Worries and Plans

Thursday, September 16, 2021

"Something is not right in Equestria," Celestia said with a sigh. "Something terrible is coming, and I don't know what it is." She hated to spoil one of the two short moments each day when she could talk to her sister with work and worries, but it had to be done. It was Celestia's dinnertime, Luna's breakfast, just before sunset; that and the corresponding time right before dawn were the only times the two Princesses' schedules overlapped.

Princess Luna looked across the table at her sister. "You're still worried about this other world? I wish I could have seen it for myself all those years ago; maybe I could help better now."

"One of us had to stay and take care of Equestria. In retrospect, I should never have crossed either. It was not a good experience."

"And now you fear for your student Twilight Sparkle. I do not know her like you do, but she was nice to me when nopony else was, and I would hate to see her come to harm. Are you sure these 'humans' are really so dangerous?"

Celestia sighed again. "That's the thing; I really don't. After ruling Equestria for so long, I've developed a sort of sense of when a great danger is approaching. I sense it now, but I can't tell what exactly it is. It's maddening, not knowing what to prepare for. The only thing I can think of is humans, but Twilight's latest letter says they're good! I just don't know what to do."

"You say Twilight Sparkle is ready for your test? Should we give her Starswirl's diary now? A fourth alicorn would heighten our defenses against all manner of threats."

"No, not yet. We need Discord on our side first. He could perform the transformation spell much more easily than we could. And to reform Discord, we need the Elements of Harmony together in Equestria, which means we can't have them all distracted by this other world. The dilemma is this: if humans really are the threat I sense, we should cut off contact immediately and focus on promoting Twilight. If they're not –if they've changed since I last saw them –then we should try to build good relations, and perhaps gain a useful ally. And we have no way of knowing which is the case."

"Then, since we are equally uninformed either way, would it not be better to take the path of least effort? Namely, assume your Twilight is correct and the humans are friendly, and get to know them better? Now, sister, finish your dinner and lower the sun. Take an early rest; you deserve one. You always work too hard. I will go talk to your student and see if anything more may be learned."

۞ ۞ ۞

Twilight sat alone on one of the library's many balconies. Below her, a welcome home party raged on, soon to enter its fourth hour straight of continual Pinkie-style excitement. All her friends were there, and so were the two humans, but Twilight wasn't sure where to go. On one hoof, she was glad to be back in Equestria with all her pony friends, but on another she felt like she ought to stay with Chryasor and her sister Zai, because she was the only pony they knew.

The sun was still high in the sky, but Twilight knew it should be almost time for nightfall. That was something she wanted Chryasor to see, to show that Equestria really did work under different rules than her world. Twilight stepped back inside to see the human sitting comfortably on a table with her feet resting on the floor. Chryasor was talking and laughing with the ponies all around, while her sister was standing awkwardly on the edge of the room with a mug that had once held cider. Twilight made her way down the stairs again to the main floor of the library.

“Hey, Chryasor, Zairovsa, come with me for a minute. There's something I want you to see.”

Chryasor excused herself from the group she was talking to and motioned for Zai to come over. “Zai, tekuwøroy. Suwlsɤwznelk sigumiy ilvid goyjinekeytid þorv sliyx. And Twilight, just call me Chry, it's simpler.” The younger human glanced around for a second then just sat her empty mug down on the floor where she was, before slowly walking over to the base of the stairs. She had a rather disgusted expression on her face, though she almost smiled at Twilight as she got farther away from the main party.

“Þevor viytriy? Kiygedrøroytid, vuwþevor niviytrekiy siymuws ey uwv.”

Twilight didn't catch all of what Zai had said, but the general idea seemed to be that she was not enjoying the party. Hopefully this would cheer her up a bit. She led the way back upstairs and onto the balcony, the humans following closely behind. Once they were all outside, Twilight closed the door with a gentle magical push and addressed the guests in her best English.

“Welcome to Equestria. I hope liking you are it what you see. Now it will be a very important thing: day going to night. The Princesses's doing-thing, what different is to your place. Enjoy the wonder and peace, and love the night as the day. They should are equals. Look.” She turned around to look out over the edge of the balcony. “Any minute here, it will do.”

The two humans stepped up to the railing as well, and looked up at the sky. Then, perfectly on time for Twilight's prediction, the sun began to move. In a matter of seconds, it was lowered from almost directly above them to near the horizon, and after a few more seconds it was gone from view completely. The sky faded to near total black, but only for an instant, as it immediately began brightening again into a deep purpley blue. Stars appeared one by one, filling the heavens with tiny points of light. Then came the moon, rising up from the same point on the horizon that the sun had just vacated. A glowing silver disk, full as always, now illuminated the sky and the ground with a soft light.

“That was amazing,” Chryasor said quietly. “When you were describing it before, it all sounded so fantastical, and I wasn't sure if I really believed it. But now I've seen for myself –this world is magical.”

“Niþuntekoytid vit ilv nimbey tixrevesk?” Zai sounded annoyed. It must be hard being the only one around unable to talk to anypony else. Her sister quickly translated her previous remarks to the human language. The two of them conversed in English for a few minutes, while Twilight remained nearby, looking out over the balcony and admiring the nighttime landscape.

Just then, the moonlight seemed to brighten for a moment before a dark shadow passed in front of it. Twilight looked up in surprise, but there was nothing there, only the moon again. It still looked brighter than usual, as if it were somehow concentrating its light on the library. She heard the sound of wings flapping and turned toward the sound, and caught a fleeting glimpse of a dark tail out of the corner of her eye. There was a thud from the other end of the balcony, and she saw Chryasor gasp and take half a step back.

Twilight whirled around again, only to come face to face with Princess Luna herself. She lowered herself to her knees and bowed her head, hoping the two humans would follow her lead and do the same.

“Arise, Twilight Sparkle,” the Princess said in a rather loud voice. “I take it these are the two humans?”

“Yes, Princess,” said Twilight as she got to her hooves again. “This is Chryasor, and her sister Zairovsa.” She pointed to each of them in turn as she said their names. “What can we do for you, Princess?”

“We have –I have come on behalf of Princess Celestia to discuss this other world. It is good that these visitors are present. Can they speak to us? Are they intelligent?”

Twilight opened her mouth to answer, but Chryasor spoke first. “Yes, Princess. I can speak to ponies, but my sister has not yet learned your language well. And yes, humans generally are intelligent. We do have our share of idiots, but most are okay.”

“Hmm, I see. And you come without ill intent? Are you here in peace?” Princess Luna's voice grew louder and louder as she spoke. Chryasor stepped back and nodded her head silently. Zai was already at the far end of the balcony, watching but trying not to get involved.

“Volume, Princess! Remember, we don't shout anymore.”

“I apologize. It is still hard for us –for me –to adjust to this new style, though I am getting better. And the stress of having these show up is not making it any easier.” She continued in a softer voice. “We simply must know whether these humans pose a threat.”

“We mean you no harm,” Chryasor said, holding her hands out open in front of her. “We only wish to learn about your world, just as your student does with us.”

“My student? Nay, she is with my sister, the Princess of the Day. My own student passed away long ago, barely two decades after his birth. But he had a long, full life in between. I grew up reading his books when I was just a foal myself, then later when he was young I passed the knowledge back.”

Chryasor stood there, trying to understand. Twilight leaned over and whispered to her, “Starswirl the Bearded. A unicorn famous for inventing time travel, among other things. Don't think about it too hard.”

Luna paused for a moment, then addressed the human again. “Would thou –you –permit me to verify your intentions, through magical means?”

“Certainly, Princess. We have nothing to hide here.” Chryasor turned around. “Zai, tekuwøroy. Paludøreytid peþru div sliyx.”

Zai reluctantly walked over to stand next to her sister. She was looking around nervously, unsure of what was about to happen. Twilight stepped off to the side so she would be out of the way of Luna's spell. Once everyone was in place, the Princess lit up her horn with a blue glow. A single spark emerged from the tip and floated up to hang above the two humans' heads. It pulsed a few times and then exploded into a shower of sparkling dust, which drifted down and thoroughly coated the humans. On Chryasor it glowed a bright gold color, pure and unwavering with just the tiniest hint of purple, but on Zai it was a pale ice-blue shot through with streaks of a bilious green.

Twilight watched as Luna examined the humans. Clearly she was getting more information out of this spell than just a color, but Twilight couldn't tell what exactly she was doing. It looked like very advanced magic –any form of mind reading was beyond her abilities. Luna made a face as if thinking very hard about whatever it was she was seeing in the humans. Finally she looked at Twilight and spoke, carefully choosing each word.

“I do not believe that these two humans intend any harm to Equestria. But neither do they serve its best interests as we do. I see the potential for both great good and great evil within them. This tall one who shines gold, she is good. The other... I cannot tell. The rest of their kind may also swing either way. Continue contact with this other world, but be careful.” Princess Luna stopped for a moment, then addressed Twilight again. “I am not certain I have the authority to say this, but I would like you to expand your mission of studying the magic of friendship. Teach it to the humans. Let them be good. But above all, Twilight Sparkle, be safe. I would be sad indeed if anything were to happen to you.”

Twilight was confused by these last words. Luna's eyes went wide, as if she too could not believe what had just come out of her mouth. Surely she had meant to say her sister would be sad. After all, Twilight was Princess Celestia's student, just a pupil at her School for Gifted Unicorns; why would she be important to Princess Luna? Twilight wrote it off as just a slip of the tongue.

“Of course, Princess. Would you like weekly reports on my progress?”

“That will not be necessary. Simply carry on as you have been. You do good work for a noble cause; surely it will be rewarding.” Luna blinked once –no, was that a wink? It couldn't be. She spread her wings and flew off into the night sky. She circled the library once, began to pass in front of the moon again, and teleported out at the precise instant she was silhouetted against the glowing disk.

Twi, Chry, and Zai all stood on the balcony, trying to make sense of everything the Princess had said. Zai had the easiest job of it, since nothing made any sense to her. Chryasor seemed proud of herself, but was looking at her sister with a worried gaze.

“Well, um, you've now met Princess Luna. I have to say, that was not part of the original plan for tonight.” Twilight looked over at Zai, who was still not really paying any attention. “Chry, translate for her, would you? If she wants to learn about Equestria, she needs to learn to talk first. Sign language only gets you so far.”

“Hey Zai, yasoy daðmisk. Nitorjumey sril kørþ.” Chry got her sister's attention and prepared to translate everything Twilight said into English.

“Okay, so again, that was Luna, the Princess of the Night. She thinks you can be trusted, which is good. You're interesting, your world is interesting; I'd like to see more of it. But for now, I think we should all return to our respective homes –it's been a long day for me, and I'm sure for you as well.” She glanced back through the open door behind her. “Looks like everypony is starting to lose steam down there, even Pinkie. Let's all get some rest.”

The three filed through into the library again and went down the stairs. Twilight greeted her friends again, but did not stop to talk further. She led the humans down to her laboratory in the basement, where the portal stood like a black stain on the wall.

“Do you want me to guide you back across, or do you think you can make it on your own?” Twilight asked. The two humans conferred with each other for a moment, then Chryasor told Twilight they would be okay by themselves. After all, Zai had managed to cross with no assistance at all, and since they had both been to the Void before they knew how things worked. What to do to get to Earth, and especially what not to do. The humans stepped up to the edge, but before entering, Chryasor turned to speak again.

“Thanks so much for letting me come visit Equestria, Twilight. It's been really great, and I can't wait to see more. Come on over tomorrow or the next day, maybe bring all your friends too. We've got two entire worlds in contact here, let's not limit it to just a few of us ever crossing.”

“Good idea. I'll talk to the others and see what they think. Good night, and be safe!”

“You too,” Chryasor said with a warm smile. She took her sister's hand in her own, and together the two stepped forward and vanished from sight. Twilight lingered there for a moment longer, then made her way back up the stairs.

۞ ۞ ۞

Friday, September 17, 2021

Zai stumbled out of the portal into a brightly lit, crowded room. Clearly it was not after dark here; in fact it looked to be barely past lunchtime. Ugh, suddenly it's light again, she thought. Wasn't expecting that. Why can't it be the same time everywhere? She blinked in the bright fluorescent light and looked around. Oh no, this isn't good, no no no no no–

“Well, look who's back. Did you have a nice trip? We've been doing some very important physics while you were gone.” Dr. Ziegler's unmistakable Hungarian-accented voice sounded from across the room, as she made her way around the maze of desks to stand face to face with Zai. Okay, plan A, pretend ignorance.

“Trip? What? How long has it been?” Zai put on her best puzzled look. But the scheme was destined to fail, for her sister and travel partner was not an accomplice.

“Zai, I told you when I first found you, remember?” Chryasor interjected, unaware of Zai's plot. “You disappeared on Monday, and it should be Friday now. And hello, Dr. Ziegler. So sorry to keep walking through your workplace like this.” She slipped over to the door as unobtrusively as she could.

“It's no problem,” the director replied, before turning to Zai once again. “You, however, do have a problem. You can't just go disappearing on us like that! You, who never come late or call in sick, just gone without a trace. We were so worried –not to mention down a researcher on our first week of operation!” She took a deep breath and shook her head. “I honestly don't even know what to do with you right now. Skipping work is bad –but I can't say I wasn't tempted myself, with it right there and everything. I suppose I'll record it as you taking some vacation days. Just don't do it again. Are we clear? Good. Now find some data and start analyzing it; we've got more than we can handle already.”

Zai hung her head and walked slowly over to her desk, not saying a word. She sat down and booted up the computer in front of her, and as it was loading, she turned to her neighbor.

“Hey Second, what's been happening here? Anything good yet, any groundbreaking new discoveries in the first week?”

“Well actually... sort of yes,” the Vietnamese girl said. “We're not sure yet, but –”

“But if it's true, it would be really cool,” her twin brother interrupted.

“Well that was fast,” Zai said. “So what is it you think this great machine has found?”

The Tnguyens began speaking at the same time, each talking over the other but the two somehow managing to produce a single coherent thought between them. “So the first collisions are between lead and anti-lead nuclei, at an energy of about eighty-five teraelectronvolts. Mostly we get pretty normal stuff, you know, a big mess of quarks and gluons, assorted hadrons made up of those, some muons, some taus, even some Higgses. And most of the time, if we add up the energies of all the pieces that come flying out, we get exactly the same energy that we put in, as we should. But not always. Sometimes, there's a little bit missing.

“Missing energy is a really great sign that we're on to something. Because it's not really gone, it's just being carried away by something we can't see. There's a new particle out there. We may have just created dark matter in the lab. Of course, we don't see the missing energy every time –very little actually, barely enough to count as more than a statistical fluke. We're nowhere near the six-sigma standard for claiming a discovery yet.

“The really interesting part is the precise amount of energy that's missing from these collisions. It doesn't match what we would expect from axions, or sups and sdowns, selectrons or sneutrinos, or really anything else at all. It's not a particle we've seen before, and it's not anything in the hypothesized models. And you know what that means, right? We need a new theory to explain it. And you're a theorist –it looks like you've got work to do.”

Zai was absolutely shocked; she hadn't expected anything like this to happen, certainly not so soon. She tried to ask for more details, any guesses the others might have toward a solution, but the Tnguyens weren't done speaking.

“Oh also, Zai –probably should have said this earlier, but whatever –welcome back!”

“Thanks, you two. It is good to be back again, even if I am jetlagged and immediately thrown back into work again.” She groaned and rested her head on her hands.

“But why did you go?” First asked, his sister staying silent. “You had no idea what you might find; weren't you at all scared?”

“Of course I was,” Zai responded. “But you can't let that get in the way of curiosity! That world is something I knew nothing about, but I had the opportunity to learn. I'm a scientist; how could I resist? How did you resist?”

Zai could have sworn she heard the researcher to her other side mumble something like “some of us have some self-control...”, but when she turned to look, he was staring intently at his screen, saying nothing.

“Anyway,” Zai continued, “learning's not all I got out of that visit.” She reached into her pocket and withdrew her hand clenched around a small object. Carefully, she lifted her fingers to reveal a thick gold coin. It had words and pictures imprinted on both sides, but none of it understandable to humans. “This seems to be their currency. From the weight of it I think it might be solid gold. I'll need to test it to be sure, of course. But if it's gold, I know where to get a lot more. Ponies toss these things around like it's nothing –it takes two of these coins just for an apple pie. Granted, they make some pretty good pie there, but on Earth this could be worth several hundred francs! I want to get back there and sell them stuff before anyone else realizes the exchange rate.”

“That's pretty cool. And it shouldn't be hard to test either; just measure the density and compare it to gold. A scale and a beaker of water is all you need. And there's one other important property it has too, something you haven't mentioned.”

“Oh?” Zai was intrigued.

“It's not made of antimatter! Coming from some distant part of the universe, ponies and their stuff might have been, and then this whole place would be one big smoking crater.”

“Hmm, yeah...” Zai was envisioning the situation. “That would have been bad. I wonder... just how big an explosion would one unicorn worth of antimatter make? The energy released would be double the mass times the speed of light squared, so...” She grabbed a pencil and began writing down estimates for the various numbers involved. Half a page of calculations and a couple Google searches later, she announced, “A hundred times the largest nuclear bomb ever detonated. About one percent of one percent of the dinosaur-killing meteor.”

The Tnguyens laughed at their colleague's dedication to detail in the imaginary situation. “Come on, Zai, let's work on something real here. We'll send you the data we've been looking at.” Finally, the three physicists each turned back to their own screens and began to work.

۞ ۞ ۞

"Good afternoon! Happy Friday! Just to remind everyone, this is a special briefing and will be kept short. There will still be time for a few questions at the end. First, I have a statement from the Secretary-General on Nigeria. The Secretary-General urges all parties to work together toward a peaceful solution to this conflict, whether it be one state or several. A coherent national identity is of paramount importance for the stability of a state, and he calls for all Nigerians to focus on their similarities, not their differences. He asks that all parties respect the ceasefire of August 23rd and refrain from further hostilities.

"Next, a statement on Cataluña. The Secretary-General commends the new republic on their successful peaceful transition of power. He advises that diplomatic talks and trade with Spain should be resumed. He encourages the people of both nations to remember their shared history and heritage, and to see each other as friends once again.

"The office of the Secretary-General has also received reports from North Korea. Sources say that Supreme Leader Kim Jong-Un is severely ill, but have been unable to confirm the nature of the illness. The Secretary-General wishes him a full and speedy recovery, and encourages him to open relations with the UN and its member states. We are prepared to offer aid, if he requests it.

“Finally, we come to the primary purpose of this briefing: alien contact with Earth. I'm sure you have all heard the rumors by now of a mysterious portal opening at CERN, and a purple unicorn emerging and walking the streets of Geneva. These rumors are true. I repeat, true. Our friends at CERN asked the United Nations for a linguist to help them communicate, and we have provided one. Her first report indicates that all is going well and that these aliens come in peace. The Secretary-General wishes to outline a five-point plan for dealing with continued alien contact.

“First, communication. Reliable communication must be established before anything meaningful can be done. We have faith in this first translator's efforts and we intend to have more people learn their language as well.

“Second, we must arrange a meeting of the world leaders of Earth with the equivalent among these 'ponies'. We must build trust between our races, and show each other that neither side wishes the other any harm.

“Third, we must facilitate transportation between our worlds. So far there is but a single point of entry, located in a building which has significant other purpose. If these aliens have the technology to build one portal to Earth, surely they can make others, if we ask for them.

“This brings me to the fourth point, which is trade. From what little we have seen of their abilities so far, we already know they have much to offer us, if they are willing to share it. We must show that we too have things of value, whether they be materials, services, or ideas.

“The final challenge, the hardest one, is about ourselves. We must overcome our fear of the unknown, the fear of all things different from ourselves. We must learn to see past differences not only of skin color, or body shape, or ethnic or religious affiliation, but also of species. These ponies are fundamentally different from anything we have seen before, but we must make them our friends, and we must be friends to them in return. The Secretary-General has high hopes for us. For all of us, for humanity.

“This concludes the press briefing for today. I will be taking questions for a few minutes, and I am sure you all have many; however, remember that we still know little about our new neighbors so questions on that subject may go unanswered. To those of you leaving now, I wish you all a good day, and a good weekend, and a good future!”

6. The Eldest Sister

Sunday, September 19, 2021

Two days later:

Chryasor walked up the driveway and into her house, a thick stack of mail in her hand. It was just after five in the afternoon, though at this time of year it wouldn't get dark for an hour or two yet. She shut the door behind her and tossed the papers onto the table to deal with later. As the envelopes slid across the smooth surface, one caught her eye: a plain white one with none of the usual markings of some company's bill, and with the address written by hand. She quickly pulled it out of the pile, ignoring the rest, and looked at it more closely. The return address said simply “Phaedriel Arisaema, Eastern woodlands, United States” –not enough for the postal service to go on, had they been unable to deliver it to Chryasor. She eagerly tore open the envelope and pulled out the single sheet of paper inside. These letters didn't come nearly as often as she would have liked, but even this little bit of contact was precious. She sat down and began to read.

“Dear sister,

“They're doing it again. Those damned bureaucrats and contractors are coming for my land again, going to build houses on it. This is the third time now in as many years. It looks like I'll be migrating south for the winter a little early this year –by the time this letter reaches you, I'll probably be halfway there. You know my winter mailbox.

“Anyway, apart from being evicted from yet another very nice forest, things are going fairly well for me. I've been healthy, and the weather out here is comfortable. Rivehne is growing up to be a proper hawk now –you remember that little red-tail chick I found, right?

“How's everything with you? Still traveling the world? I don't know how you put up with all those people you have to work with. If I was in your job I'm sure I would have strangled one of those shortsighted, self-serving politicians by now. But if you can get along with them, and that's what you're happy doing, then good for you. Write back soon.

“With love from your BSBFF, Phaedriel.”

Chryasor slowly placed the letter back on the table and sat for a minute, contemplating how to respond. She was continually amazed at her older sister's willingness and ability to forgo all the comforts of modern life, even though she had been doing it for years now. Chryasor had no idea what she did out there in the wilderness, but she always seemed fairly happy in her letters. Maybe she's got the right idea, Chryasor thought. Life sucks sometimes. Getting away from it all sounds nice...

Every time a letter arrived, she always ended up wondering if maybe she should go join Phaedriel, at least for a little while. It was so tempting to just run away from all the problems of civilization. But every time, she stopped herself. Running away was not the answer. Or was it... No, she had to stay and play her part in society. Especially now, with ponies coming to Earth and Chryasor as the only human who could talk to them. She had a duty to complete. The whole world –no, both worlds –were depending on her, and she couldn't leave them.

But speaking of ponies... A sudden realization came over her. I bet Phae would like Equestria. The culture I saw is so different, so much more... harmonious. So unlike what we grew up in, what drove her to leave it all behind. She could understand why Phaedriel had done it, even if no one else seemed to. The temptation was always there for her as well. And she doesn't have a place to go back to next summer anymore either. I wonder if she's heard the news about the other world yet.

Now Chryasor knew what she wanted to say in her return letter. Phaedriel probably hadn't ventured into town for a newspaper in months, so she wouldn't know anything about ponies. I need to tell her about Equestria, Chryasor thought. She ought to meet Sunset. Or Dusk, or Twilight, or whatever her name is. Now that she was learning more how the pony language worked, she was starting to have doubts about her initial translation of the name. Maybe Twilight would be a better translation. Twilight Shimmer? Maybe. Twilight Shine? Sounds awkward. Twilight Sparkle? That has a nice ring to it. I hope I've got it right this time...

Chryasor sat the letter down on the table and got up to locate some blank paper and a pen. A minute later, she sat down again with the materials and began to write a response. After a few lines, she discarded that draft and started again, only to scrap the second attempt as well. She knew what she wanted to say, but couldn't quite express it properly. Starting off with “Have you heard the news” was no good; that would imply that she didn't care about Phaedriel's problems and only wanted to show her own stuff. Starting with a response to the living arrangement situation was better since it led into suggesting Equestria as a new home, but then Chryasor wouldn't be able to talk about anything else in her letter without some awkward transitions. And yet beginning with another topic clearly would not do either, since a subject of such prime importance as the other world should not be relegated to the back, like an afterthought.

She sighed heavily and crumpled up another sheet of paper. She wished she could talk to her sister in person, but there was no way that was going to happen. They lived on different continents, and Phaedriel didn't have the technology to do a video call. She didn't even have a phone to call or text. If only there were some other way to contact her... I wish I could just teleport over to America for a while then back again. I should ask Zai about that. I know I've heard her mention teleportation in serious scientific context before. There's no way I could actually fly there and back; I have to stay near Twilight and keep teaching her English.

Chryasor sighed again and leaned forward to rest her head on the table. Now she wanted to talk to both her sisters again, and was unlikely to get either. But wait... maybe there was another way. A way to not only talk to Zai and Phae, but to get them speaking to each other again too. Zai is going to hate me for this, she thought. And here she thought being the youngest sibling would get easier...

She pulled out her phone and scrolled through the list of contacts. Some friends from work, a few friends from college she still kept in touch with, one more coworker, a couple diplomats she'd gotten friendly with on recent travels... she skimmed past them all. All the way down to the very end, where a single name was listed under Z. A few quick taps on the screen brought up Zai's contact information, ready for a call at any time. She took a moment to consider how best to say what she wanted, then pressed the glowing phone icon on the screen. It rang only twice before being picked up on the other end.

“Hello, Chry. What is it?”

“Hey. Just calling to see how you were doing, and all that.” There was a pause before the younger sister answered again; Chryasor hoped she hadn't become suspicious already.

“Everything's fine with me. I've been doing a lot of math lately for work; we've made this new thing and no one knows what it is and I'm trying to explain it.”

Chryasor laughed. “Sounds a lot like my work these days too. Except I can talk to the new thing that's suddenly appeared. You're adjusting okay to being back?”

“Yeah, I'm fine. It's good to have normal food again, and internet service, and human bathrooms. And being able to walk through doors without being afraid of hitting my head every time.”

“Oh, come on, no complaining about the doors. You at least fit without having to bend over. Aside from that I thought it was pretty nice over there.”

“Nah, if I had to travel I'd rather go somewhere else.”

“Well then, you're in luck!” Chryasor seized the opportunity to change the subject. “You get to go somewhere else now!” She could practically see the confusion and horror on her sister's face right now.

“Um... what? Are you... I can't go traveling around again. I mean, vacations are nice every once in a while, but not now. I'm in enough trouble at work already from last week. I can't leave again to go somewhere with you.”

The poor girl still had no idea what was really in store for her. It was time for Chry to tell her what she actually wanted. “Oh, you're not going somewhere with me... You're going somewhere without me. Specifically, you're going to America, to go find Phaedriel and bring her here.”

“What? No way! I already said I can't go anywhere now, and I certainly don't want to go see her!”

Chryasor has anticipated this kind of response, and she was prepared. “But what if you could go somewhere now? Your boss seems nice; I'm sure I could convince her to let you go. Besides, you can do math anywhere. I'll even buy the plane tickets for you –or rather, I'll have them bought for you. I may not be a high-profile diplomat or anything, but I still work at the UN. I can pull a few strings and get it covered as a necessary work expense.” After all, since the ultimate goal was to get Phae to Equestria, it wouldn't be too hard to make up some stuff about the other world for the reimbursement application. She sat down at her computer and started looking up plane tickets.

“Well, if you want Phae here so badly, why not go yourself? I'm sure she'd much rather see you show up than me.”

“Nope, sorry, my work actually does require me to be here. And really, you two need to talk to each other again eventually. It will be good for you.”

“Pfft, good for me?” Zai sounded thoroughly disgusted. “I've managed just fine for the last six years. I don't need her. I don't want to go.”

“How bad could it possibly be? You two are not that different. You never were –the odd one out in our family was always me. The only one with no talent for math, the one who takes after our grandparents instead of either of our parents, the one who tried to reason through disagreements instead of running for the wooden swords. Remember how well you and Phaedriel got along as kids? You could have that again, if you only gave her a chance.”

“A chance for what? What could we possibly still have to talk about? And why do you want her here so badly? Don't you write to each other? How do you know she'll even want to come? Look, I really don't think this is a good idea.”

“Believe it or not, Zai, but I'm not trying to torment you. I'm trying to help, both you and Phae. I want her to come here because this is where the only portal to Equestria is. She would be happier over there, I think, and you both would be better off if you acknowledged each other's existence. Maybe you could even try to be friends again. You know what friends are, right?”

“What? Of course I know what friends are.”

“Just making sure, since you don't seem to have any. I don't mean people you talk to at work and think are nice, I mean people you hang out with outside of work. People to just call up at random times and go do stuff with.”

“Well, there's... um, I mean... I talk to–”

“Yeah, I thought so. So, how does a flight tomorrow at nine twenty sound?”

“Ugh, fine. I hope you know what you're doing here.” Zai began to lower the phone, but Chryasor could hear her mutter to herself before the line went dead. “I can't believe I'm doing this...”

۞ ۞ ۞

Monday, September 20, 2021

The next morning:

I hate long flights, Zai thought as she walked through the Atlanta airport toward the baggage claim. At least Customs didn’t give me any problems. It helps to still be a US citizen –though I’ll be officially Swiss in another couple years. Hopefully I’ll never have to come back to this insane country after this visit. A single terrorist attack twenty years ago, and the security nuts freak out and never recover. Zai arrived at the carousel to find it empty, luggage not yet unloaded and sent to the claim area. She checked her watch impatiently, only to find it six hours ahead of the proper time. She set it back, noticing that the local time was barely an hour after the local time she had left Geneva.

I had forgotten how things don’t run on time around here. They need a good dose of Germanic culture. If they’d put me in charge I bet I could fix this country up in no time. Let’s see, we just need to have me as President, make the entire Congress resign for fresh, less crazy replacements, and maybe have Supreme Court justices retire at 65 instead of serving for life. That sounds like a good start anyway. Only one problem: I’d probably hate running a country.

Finally Zai was able to claim her one suitcase and head out to the car rental area. She pulled out her phone and loaded the maps app, making sure she had the proper address typed in. All Chryasor had been able to provide as to the location of Phaedriel’s winter home was her winter mailbox address and the words “near the water”. Zai was going to have to rely on her phone’s GPS capabilities, which thankfully did not require internet access to work. She made sure to pre-load a large section of the map in case she lost service later.

She approached the counter and asked for the cheapest rental car available. Size didn’t matter, and she hoped to only need it for one day. If everything went according to plan, there wouldn’t be any problems here. Of course, things going according to plan would require first having a plan… She could come up with something during the drive. Zai followed the agent out to the parking lot, where she was shown a small white car. It was six years old and American-made, so it ran on gasoline only –not electric like most of Europe had switched to, not even a hybrid.

A few minutes later, after some minimal paperwork, Zai was on her way, driving east out of the city. The directions were simple so far: just follow Interstate 20 until reaching Madison. It was about an hour drive, longer than Zai was used to but not terrible. It’s strange not being able to see mountains in the distance anywhere, she thought. Oh, there’s a sign for Oconee National Forest; I guess that’s probably where I’m going. She exited the interstate onto a smaller road, and passed through the middle of Madison without stopping. After another few miles she came to a bridge, the official entrance to the national forest.

Zai parked at the visitor center but did not go in. Instead, she simply picked a direction and started walking in a straight line away from civilization. Impossible to get lost this way –all I have to do to get back is turn around. Or just follow the edge of the lake back. Let’s hope Phae is actually around here… Zai quickly got out of sight of the road, surrounded by trees whose leaves were just beginning to turn orange and red.

Am I still going in a straight line? she wondered. It was impossible to tell, since there were no recognizable landmarks anywhere around. Just trees stretching as far as the eye could see, all looking the same. The sounds of human life faded into the distance, being replaced by birdsong and the rustle of leaves. She had forgotten to check the time when she started walking, so she had no idea how long she had been out there, no idea how far she might have come.

Zai stopped for a moment to rest her feet. She leaned up against a big tree and looked all around. There was nothing out of the ordinary. Suddenly, she heard a loud thunk, and looked up in surprise to find an arrow embedded in the tree barely six inches above her head. As she was standing there in shock, she felt a sharp prick of pain in her neck, followed by a spreading numbness. Her eyelids felt heavy. She struggled to stay awake and upright a little longer, tried to raise a hand to her neck, and finally collapsed to the ground.

Zai awoke with another sharp pain to the neck. She slowly sat upright, noting with pleasure that she seemed to not be tied up or restrained in any way. That was good; one instance of being captured and held after trespassing somewhere was enough. A figure stepped into view, speaking with a familiar voice.

“What are you doing here?” It sounded more like an accusation than a question. From the emphasis it was clear that she wanted to know why it was Zai in particular who she had caught trespassing in her territory. She reached out and pulled the arrow out of the tree above Zai's head, and tucked it back into the leather quiver she wore across her back. Zai opened her mouth to respond, but she was cut off before she could speak.

“Never mind, I can guess. Chryasor sent you, didn't she? You'd never come here unless you were looking for me, and you'd never look unless you wanted something from me or if she made you come. And we established long ago that we wanted no part of each others' lives.”

Zai sighed heavily and got to her feet. “You haven't changed a bit. Well, not in terms of personality anyway. Your appearance is another matter.” She grimaced and subconsciously brushed her own hair back into a neater arrangement.

“Never mind that. What does our sister want? I hope she's got something important and isn't just trying to make us talk to each other for no reason.”

“Well, if you'd let me talk, I would have told you already. Anyway, the other day Chry got a letter from you, and–”

“And her response is sending you? What did I say to deserve this?”

“Phae...” The younger sister facepalmed and sighed again. “Just hear me out. I guarantee that you will like what I have to say.” She crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow at her sister. “Can you listen to me for once without interrupting with what you anticipate I'm about to say?”

“I suppose I can try... This had better be good.”

“Oh, it will be. Anyway, Chry got your letter about you losing another summer home. She thinks –I'm not so sure about it –that she has found you the perfect place to live year-round.” She could tell Phaedriel was skeptical, but there was no interruption. “Have you seen the news recently? As in, within the last week?”

“Of course I haven't. I sent that letter three weeks ago and I've been hiking south ever since. I just arrived here two days ago. What's going on out there that could possibly affect me?”

“Aliens, that's what. We've made contact, and when I say 'we' I don't just mean humanity, I mean literally myself and Chryasor. One of them has been to our world, and we've both been to theirs –though I wasn't exactly invited like Chry was.” Phaedriel was getting impatient now; Zai had to hurry up her story. “Anyway, Chry thinks you should go live in this other world.”

“Does she now? I don’t suppose you’d happen to be carrying a spaceship with you, would you? Oh, that’s right, I already looked at what you have there. Not a single rocket.”

“You searched me? What was that you shot me with?”

“Just a sleep dart. The arrow was a distraction –it made you look up and expose your neck for the second shot.”

“A distraction?!” Zai practically shouted at her sister. “You could have killed me with that!”

Phaedriel only smiled, unfazed by the outburst. “Of course I could have. But I decided not to. Do you honestly think my aim is that bad, that I would miss a target by several inches?”

Zai’s anger slowly turned to amazement. Could she really be that good? Maybe she is… But I need to get us back on topic here. “Anyway,” she said, “you’re correct in noticing that I did not in fact bring a spaceship with me. That’s because we don’t need one.”

“Really? Maybe you have something interesting after all. Alright, tell me then. How do you plan to get me to this other world, and why should I go?”

“Okay. So, first, how to get there. There’s a magic portal. No, seriously, that’s what it is. The Earth end of it is in Geneva, so you’ll have to get to there first. But that’s not hard to do.”

“Not hard maybe, but certainly very unpleasant. You’d better have something really good to balance that out.”

“And that leads us to why you would want to go. First, of course, there aren’t any humans over there. Instead there are little rainbow-colored ponies. Second, very near the portal there is a forest, bigger than this one, which I’m sure you’d like. Chry thinks you might actually want to live in town, but I have no such delusions. Um, let’s see… no one there speaks English, so if you don’t want to talk to anyone you have an excuse not to. And they control the weather so you’ll never be surprised by it. But I think the main selling point for you is never having to deal with humans again.”

“Hmm, that does sound tempting… as long as these pony-aliens are actually better.” Phaedriel stood, one hand on her chin, contemplating the options. “Let me think about it for a bit. While I’m doing that, you can go locate my passport, in case I do decide to go with you. You’re lucky it’s around here and not up north somewhere.” She pointed off into the distance. “Walk that way about a quarter mile and you’ll see a giant tree split in two. In the middle I’ve left a little shovel. Take that, then turn right and go until you see a red rock. You’ll know it when you see it. Move that rock and there will be a box underneath with some important stuff in it. I’ll meet you there when I’ve decided.”

“Seriously? You’re going to…” Zai sighed and shook her head. “Fine. If it’s the only way to get a decision…” She started walking in the direction Phaedriel had indicated. She’s being deliberately annoying now, she thought. Back to normal I suppose. There was that brief moment of civility when we were talking, but it’s gone now. Oh well, let's just do what she wants and get out of here.

It was not very far at all to the split tree Phaedriel had mentioned. Zai found a little hand trowel tucked inside the opening, the kind used for gardening. Maybe that meant it would be a small job. Or maybe it would be difficult and Phae just wanted to watch her struggle. Zai took the trowel and headed off toward where the box was supposed to be. This part turned out to be quite a bit longer, which was probably why Phae had neglected to mention the distance earlier.

After a good half hour of walking, Zai finally saw a distinctive reddish rock sticking out of the ground. And there was another detail Phaedriel had so conveniently omitted: it was a rather large rock, and oddly shaped. It was oblong and sticking out of the ground at an angle, like a giant spear thrown into the earth. This is definitely too big for me to pick up and move, Zai thought. But maybe I can just tip it over. Let’s see, assuming uniform density throughout, the center of gravity should be around… here. She placed a hand on the stone and pushed, but it didn’t move at all.

Looks like I need this tiny shovel after all. She began digging around the base of the rock, stopping every minute or so to give it another push. Eventually, after she had moved a large amount of earth and was thoroughly drenched in sweat, the rock started to shift. Just a little more, and it finally toppled. Zai poked the trowel into the ground where the rock had been, and heard the clink of metal on metal. Well, she wasn’t lying about this being the spot, that’s good. But how did she get this set up in the first place? She’ll probably never tell…

Zai excavated the small metal box and examined it. It was locked. “Why can’t anything ever be simple?” Zai muttered aloud.

“Because,” said a voice from behind her, “what fun is there in making things simple?”

Zai turned around to see her sister standing there with a smug look on her face. “How long have you been here?” she demanded. “You could have been helping.”

“I’ve been here this whole time. It certainly took you long enough to get that rock out of the way. You are going to put that back again, right?”

“What? Of course not! Just give me the key to this thing so we can leave already.”

“Key? I don’t have the key. Why would I need one, when I have these?” Phaedriel produced a pair of thin metal rods from some hidden pocket in her obviously self-made clothing. “Give me the box. You can… I don’t know. Just stay out of the way while I pack everything.”

Zai handed over the box and watched as Phae picked the lock. “So this means you’re really coming?” I don’t know whether this is good or bad. It will make Chry happy, but it means I’ll be stuck on a plane with her for six or seven hours straight. But maybe she’ll be less of an asshole if she’s dependent on me for getting her to the other world.

“Of course I'm coming. I knew I wanted to go as soon as you mentioned it. I don't care what these ponies are like; they can't possibly be worse than humans." Phaedriel pulled out a dirty blue booklet from the box. "Here we go, one dirty but valid and unexpired US passport in my name. I suppose I should take the birth certificate and social security card as well. Everything I need to take with me I have on me right now.”

“Everything? Chry mentioned you had a pet now; is that right?”

“Oh yeah, Rivehne. I found her as a chick and was raising her myself, but she’s not actually very tame. She’ll be fine here. Plenty of mice and squirrels around to eat. Anyway, let’s get going, get this travel through human-land over with so I can live in peace again.”

۞ ۞ ۞

Wednesday, September 22, 2021

"Phaedriel? Is that you? Oh, you've changed so much since I last saw you! It's so good to finally see you here!" Chryasor called to her across the airport lobby.

Phaedriel was standing still with her arms clutched tightly around her, looking quickly all around and scanning for potential dangers. At Zai's urging she walked over to the middle sister's side, but became no less jumpy than before. "Get me out of here," she hissed in a low voice. "I can't take any more of this. Where is this other world you promised?"

"It's not far," Chryasor reassured her. "Can you manage one little car ride?"

"Not far at all," Zai said. "Just at the heart of all progress in high-energy physics for the past sixty years, right on top of the biggest machine ever made."

Chryasor glared at her younger sister. "You're not making this any easier, are you? Go pick up the luggage while I take Phae out to the car. I parked close by, just in the A5 section."

The two sisters walked out through the sliding glass doors, Phaedriel tightly holding onto Chryasor's hand. She was still looking around constantly, jumping at every sound. Luckily, they did not have to board one of the crowded, noisy trams to get out to the farther parking lots. Before long they arrived at Chryasor's car, a light blue Honda Druid, 2018 model.

A few minutes later, Zai walked up with the suitcase, and they all got into the car. There was a moment of awkward silence, finally broken when Chryasor spoke up. “So Phae, I’d love to hear more about your time out in the woods. But first, there’s one thing I’ve been wondering ever since I saw you arrive. What in the world did you do to your hair?! It used to be brown, and wavy, and almost as long as mine, and now… it’s shorter. And straighter. And silver! I mean, I’ve heard of natural plant dyes, but…”

“Oh, yes, much more silv than it used to be. What? Does English still not work like that? What a silly language. And I didn’t dye it with anything." Phaedriel watched the looks of confusion grow on her sisters’ faces. “I electroplated it. Electroless deposition of nickel, to be exact. Doesn’t require a power source, and works on nonmetallic surfaces. The perfect way to get a nice permanent silver color."

“But why? Wouldn't dyeing it be easier?"

“Yeah, but if I dyed it, it would just grow out brown again. And it would still get dirty every few days, and the dye would fade and wash out. Now I don't have those problems. The chemicals did something to the cells up there so it doesn’t grow any more –and it also hardly ever breaks or falls out. And it doesn’t get oily all the time. I love permanent solutions –I solve a problem and it stays solved. Anything less isn't a real fix at all."

Now Zai piped up with her own questions. "How did you get the materials? And know what to do?"

“Oh come on, just because I didn't stay in school doesn't mean I wasn't paying attention while I was there. And I do have money, you know. Probably more than you do." Phaedriel felt quite confident in asserting this, as the three of them had all inherited equal amounts and she had never spent any on a house or apartment like her sisters had. Most of it was just sitting in various bank accounts and the stock market, passively collecting interest as the years went by.

“So, how was the flight? You two managed to sit next to each other for seven hours and you’re both still in one piece, I see.”

Zai spoke up to answer. “It was pretty uneventful actually. I got some math done. Phae slept through the whole thing.”

“Impressive; I can never sleep on planes very well. And I’m the one who really needs that skill.”

“She kind of cheated though. She used a sleep-potion dart on herself. I have no idea how she got it through security.”

“Oh, it wasn’t hard,” Phaedriel said. “Anything attached to your sides, below your arms, can fool the detectors. It shows up as black on a black background on their screens. And the poison bottle is less than three ounces. That’s another important skill you should learn, how to get stuff past security checkpoints. Especially if you plan on visiting me, since I’m sure eventually there will be a lot of security around this magic portal thing.”

“Yeah, good point I suppose,” Chryasor replied. “And speaking of portals, we’re just about here. Before you go through I want to teach you a few basic words, so you’re not completely lost. You’ll need to know ‘my name is’; that’s ‘il nefrawtu ilvik viytriy’. You’ll come out into the home of a pony named Suwlsɤwznelk, which translates to Twilight. The word for ‘forest’ should be ‘oyagom’; I’ve never actually heard it used but it would follow the patterns I’ve noticed.”

“Is that how you get so good at languages so fast? You just make things up and hope they’re right?”

“Basically, yeah. Speak with confidence, even if you have no idea if you’re right. This one in particular isn’t very hard either, not like some of the Earth languages I've studied. Oh, and here we are. It's in that building right over there."

Phaedriel got out of the car and kicked off the shoes she had been made to wear while traveling. She collected all her stuff from out of Zai's suitcase and the three sisters began walking toward the building. Upon entering, Zai went immediately to her usual desk and got out a notebook and pencil. Phaedriel saw the portal hanging there in midair and walked over to it, but she didn't want to just jump through without confirming with Chry that that really was how it was supposed to go. But Chryasor had started talking to one of the other people there, something about getting her own access key to the building. Phaedriel wished they would hurry up; it was very uncomfortable having so many people staring at her.

After what seemed like a long time, Chryasor finally came over to the edge of the portal. “Ready?” she asked. Phae nodded. “Then take my hand. The crossing isn’t as simple as you might hope. I’ll lead you through.” The sisters held hands, and together stepped forward into the darkness.

7. Transuniversal Mechanics

Friday, September 24, 2021

"Welcome, everypony, to the wonderful land of... Earth!" Twilight's words rang out over the assembled group. "...I was really expecting there to be some humans here. Looks like the random time difference is messing with us again. Oh well, the sun’s up already so we probably aren't too much too early." Twilight turned back to her companions instead of staring at the empty room. "Pinkie? Where did you get a cake?"

"I don't know. I was just thinking about cake, and then there it was! There was ice cream too." Pinkie smiled. "I like that Void place!" She tried to gobble up the entire cake in a single bite, but ended up smearing most of it across her face. She was then unable to just lick it off and had to resort to using her hooves to funnel cake into her mouth. Once that was finished, she pulled out an ice cream cone and stuck it on her forehead. "Look, I'm a unicorn! I can create yumminess out of nothing!"

“You were all supposed to clear your mind and not think of anything while in the Void. I know it’s hard to do, but it’s the safest way. You could have summoned something dangerous.”

Then Rainbow Dash spoke up, ignoring the antics going on nearby. "What's wrong with the air here? Why can't I fly?"

Twilight looked over to see her friend flapping her wings frantically, barely rising off the ground. "Oh! I hadn't thought about that before, but that makes sense," she said. "Magic doesn't work very well in this world. Pegasi use magic to fly because otherwise their wings are too small to carry them. In Equestria that's not an issue because there's a background of magic everywhere, but in this world... It's going to take a lot more effort than you're used to." She stopped to think for a moment, then started reciting a passage from one of her many books.

"Magic in Equestria has two forms: casting and channeling. Casting draws on a unicorn's inner reserves of magic energy to create an effect in the world. Within this category there are many classes of spells, requiring varying levels of... Let's skip this part, it's pretty unicorn-centric.
“Channeling is a fundamentally different type of spellcasting: instead of a unicorn using her own power to perform a spell, she draws on the power of Equestria itself, merely acting to direct it into the desired effect. It can be identified in others by looking at the eyes, which often go entirely white while the connection is open; the horn also glows white regardless of the unicorn’s usual color. Channelling is generally reserved for powerful spells which cannot be done via normal casting, as it is also much more dangerous. The magic background is so strong that if the flow is not tightly controlled it will burn the caster from within, in some cases even killing them.

“Non-unicorns do not have active casting powers, but they still possess internal magic –they use magic all the time, whether they realize it or not. They can even do a small amount of channeling, though their eyes rarely change. The reasons for this difference are still unknown. The most prominent example of such magic is the leaving of trails by pegasi when flying at high speed. Experiments done with Professor Fairy Day’s magic-suppressing cages indicate that pegasi in particular rely on the magic background much more than on their innate power. However, earth ponies rarely channel and derive their strength from their internal magic.

“And so, Rainbow, there’s your problem. This world doesn’t have any magic of its own; all we can use is what’s inside of us. And even that isn’t as easy as it should be, though I’ve noticed I've been getting better at it with time.”

“This place may not have magic,” Rarity interjected, “but it certainly has style. Just look at all this glass! So elegant and neat –though the walls could use a little more color.”

The six ponies heard the sound of a heavy door opening somewhere nearby, and thudding shut again a second later. There was a jingle of keys, and then the door into the room they were in opened as well. A single human walked in, who Twilight recognized as the one in charge of the science that was done here. “Hello,” Twilight said, trotting over to greet the human. “Your name is Star, correct? These are my friends. We am sorry we are too soon; time is not always the same.”

“It’s Csilla. In my native language, ‘csillag’ with a G means star, but I don’t translate my name to anything. How are you today?”

“Oh, good. Let me greet my friends you. They speak not this language.” Twilight went around to each pony in turn, introducing them to Dr. Ziegler. “How time-far is until Chryasor comes?”

"She told me nine, which is when most people get here. Should be just twenty minutes or so."

"Okay. While we wait, would you tell us about what exactly you do here? I know it is science, but I do not know it. It is different to our science."

"Of course! Are your friends interested as well? Can they understand anything I say?”

“They’re not really the sciencey type,” Twilight said, looking over her shoulder at the five ponies talking among themselves. “They can entertain themselves for a time.”

“Okay, then let’s begin. I don’t know how much physics you know, so I’ll start off simple. Basically, what we study here is the smallest building blocks of the universe. So, everything is made up of atoms, and there are lots of different kinds of atoms, all the chemical elements.” So far Twilight was understanding everything, nodding her approval. “But all atoms are made of just three kinds of particles: protons and neutrons in the center and electron clouds in the space around. Electrons can’t be divided further, but protons and neutrons can.”

“Wait, slow down… too many new words here. Sorry, Chry hasn’t taught me any of these technical terms. So, protons and neutrons, that’s the down lightning weight in the center, and the electrons are the up, the part that can leave the atom. They go around in circles, not indefinite clouds.”

“Lightning weight? You mean… electric charge? We call the two kinds positive and negative. Anyway, each proton and neutron is made up of three things we call quarks. Quarks stick to each other with the nuclear strong force, and that’s why atomic nuclei don’t fly apart from all the positive charges there. There are six types of quark but only two are used in normal matter; as far as we know, they’re fundamental and can’t be broken apart. But that doesn’t stop us from trying.

“Here at the SMAC, we take all these tiny particles and smack them together as hard as we can. We make them go really fast and run them into each other –all that energy can’t just disappear, so it goes into creating new particles. We have a lot of different detectors to measure various properties of the stuff that comes out, and we use this data to test theories of how the universe works at its most basic scale. We discover new fundamental particles and new interactions, and use these to revise our theories, and then the theories point us in new directions to either confirm or refute the proposed explanations.”

Twilight was confused. That description of physics didn’t match what she had learned in Equestria. “Are you sure that’s right?” she asked. “In Equestria we have never anything seen to suggest these protons and neutrons are made of anything smaller. They stay together with one side of the magic force: they have black color weight and electrons are white, and opposites push apart while the same pulls together. If we did this in Equestria, I don’t think it would make anything new. We would get space waves and a loud sound. And energy doesn’t need to stay the same; it can always transfer into the background.”

“Hmm… we have really good evidence for quarks and all the rest. Two quarks, a heavy lepton, and a neutrino, all that three times, then all the bosons –the photon, eight gluons, two Ws and the Z, the Higgs, the graviton… and then all the supersymmetric partners of everything, which we’re still looking for. But if you created a portal across the universe, you must know better than we do how it all works. Where did we go wrong?”

"Honestly, I have no idea what means most of what you just said. I came here with magic, and there is no magic here. Our worlds have similar rules, but I think not they are exactly the same. But both of us do not perfectly understand, so we could gain from studying each other's physics."

Twilight heard a sound behind her and turned around to find several humans, including Chryasor, now in the room. She had been so engrossed in conversation that she had not even noticed them enter. Her friends were all staring at her, waiting; as soon as she turned around, all five suddenly looked up at the clock.

“Two minutes eighteen seconds! Who was closest?”

“Ooh, that was me! I said two and a half minutes before she notices.”

Twilight facehoofed. “Really, girls? You’re ready to go, but instead of getting my attention you just wait, and take bets on how long it will be before I see you?” She stopped to think for a moment. “At least you didn’t just leave without me. Though now that I think of it, I might actually want to stay behind anyway. They do some interesting stuff here, stuff I’d like to learn more about.” Twilight turned back toward Dr. Ziegler. “May I stay and work with you today?”

“I’m sorry, what was that?” Dr. Ziegler had a confused expression on her face. Twilight realized she had forgotten to switch languages. I wonder how many languages these humans have, she thought. I should try to learn them all. But master one first before moving on, of course. Twilight repeated her question in English, and was told that the SMAC team would love to have her help out for a day.

“Are you sure you want to stay?” Chryasor asked. “There’s still a lot to see out there.”

Twilight nodded. “There’s a lot to learn in here too.”

“Well, okay then. We’ll come pick you up at five –or maybe earlier, I don’t know –then we can all go out for a nice Earth-style dinner. There’s a good vegetarian place not far from here.”

Chryasor and the five ponies started making their way toward the door. Before they left, Rainbow Dash turned around and said, “You know, Twilight, if you’re going to be here doing this egghead stuff all day anyway, could you work on making the travel easier? That black place was weird. Why do we need that? Can’t you just put it somewhere else?”

“I don’t know,” Twilight replied. “It just happened that way when I made the portal. Maybe there is a shortcut; I’ll see if any of the humans have ideas as well. After all, one end is in their world too so maybe their physics can help.”

Twilight’s friends filed out of the room, and she turned to look for a place to sit and someone to talk to. The black-maned one Twilight recognized was here, but she already had other humans to both sides. But there was an empty chair a few spaces over; Twilight quickly walked over and claimed it before one of the others sat down there.
She looked over at the human next to her; this one had a somewhat darker coat than Chry and the others, and seemed to be male. It was strange having to look at their chests instead of the shape of their heads. Twilight also found their lack of color variety interesting –maybe that was why they all wore clothes all the time, because without them they would all look too much alike. This one also wore glasses; she wondered if they enhanced creativity like the ones Rarity wore when making dresses.

Twilight introduced herself. She was finding conversation with humans a lot easier now, after all this practice. I’m sure I’m still making a ton of mistakes, she thought, but at least they seem to understand me most of the time. My friends all need to learn too –good thing they’ve got Chry to interpret today.

“Nice to meet you, Twilight. I’m Toán. But just call me First; everyone else does. Do you know all the others here? There’s Alex down at the end of the row, then Zai who I’m sure you’ve met, then my sister Ánh Sáng –people call her Second –then me and you. Looks like John isn’t here yet, or he’d have taken that chair you got. On your other side there’s Kenzie.”

“Wow, that’s a lot of people to remember. And that’s just one row. You must be working on something really difficult to need so many.”

“It certainly is. In theory, if we completed everything we set out to do, we would be able to predict literally everything. The entire universe. Everything that’s possible, we would know how it works. But that’s not going to happen any time soon. Unless you’d like to tell us.”

“Sorry, First, but I don’t know either. We’re still working on our own universe; we don’t know how things work in yours or the space between.”

“Space between? You mean… the braneworld hypothesis is correct and we’re confined to a four-manifold embedded injectively into a higher-dimensional space? And you’re from a different brane, crossing through the bulk into ours? That’s really cool. Or do you mean actual different universes –because that would be even cooler. A lot less useful, but cooler.”

Twilight struggled to comprehend what First had said. “What’s a ‘brain world’? I’m pretty sure Equestria and Earth are different universes. What do our brains have to do with it?”

“Branes are… well, it stands for membrane, like a sheet. They’re a generalization of strings to more dimensions. Some people think we live in one and there’s a bigger space outside. But practically by definition we can’t test that… except you’re here. But anyway, we should get to work on our actual project. The great machine down there is giving us data and we have to sort through it and hope we find something interesting.”

Twilight moved her chair closer and looked over First’s shoulder at his screen. She still didn’t understand how these ‘computers’, as they called them, worked without powerful magic. She had to remind herself several times to concentrate on what was displayed on the computers rather than on the devices themselves. First did his best to explain what was going on, but there was significant background knowledge about the human universe which Twilight lacked.

The laws of nature seemed to be very similar across the worlds up to a point, but as soon as the word ‘quantum’ appeared, everything became very strange. First spoke of energy only coming in little packets, rather than the complete range Twilight was used to. And the uncertainty! Fundamental limits on what could be known made Twilight kind of uncomfortable. And then there was the whole business with things being in two places at once… Eventually Twilight became more used to it, at least to the point where she could follow what was going on, if not completely believe it was real.

After a while, the conversation turned to Equestrian physics. There was only so much data analysis one could do at a time before needing a break. Twilight couldn’t help but think about what Rainbow Dash had said as she left that morning –the Void really was inconvenient, and it would be nice to bypass it. She introduced the problem to First, and together they began modelling the situation and calculating how best to proceed.

A short time later:

"Success! I think." Twilight looked up from her work. She had been writing equations for over an hour now, filling many pages with more and more complex and confusing symbols. "I think it's possible after all. We can cross worlds without going through the Void every time!" But she was speaking to a mostly empty room.

Twilight got up and trotted around to stretch her legs after sitting so long. A clock on the wall said 12:30. I guess the humans are all out getting lunch. Food would be good about now, Twilight thought. Chry and my friends must still be out seeing the city somewhere. I’ll pop over to Ponyville and bring something back. And then whenever they come back I can tell them the good news.

Twilight jumped through the portal and navigated back to Equestria with practiced ease. Soon, however, even that minimal effort would not be necessary anymore. Twilight walked up the basement stairs, hoping Spike hadn’t done anything foolish during her absence. Thankfully, there were no empty ice cream tubs laying around –at least, not in this room. She prepared a simple daisy sandwich and slowly munched on it while heading back downstairs.

Upon arriving back on Earth again, Twilight noticed that the clock had jumped forward a few minutes more than she would have expected. The rate of time flow between the worlds seemed to vary wildly, though so far she had not yet observed either running backwards relative to the other. She hoped it would stabilize with the worlds more directly in contact, but there was no way to be sure. Just then the main door opened, and in walked Chryasor, followed by the five ponies.

“You’re back early,” Twilight remarked.

“Yeah –have you seen the weather out there? We didn’t want to be walking around the city in that. And there are too many of us here to fit into my car.”

“Oh, I haven’t looked. But it’s good that you’re back. I think I’ve got a way to get rid of the Void travel every time.”

“Hmm, that’s good. Not needing such careful guiding for new people will be very useful, since I’m sure some world leaders here are going to want to see Equestria soon. Actually, I’m surprised they haven’t tried to barge in already.”

Twilight turned her attention to the ponies standing next to Chryasor. "Alright, let's do this. You five go to Equestria; I'll stay on this end. We need a magic-user in both worlds to pull this off. That means you, Rarity –we need you to handle the Equestrian end of this portal. Here's the instructions for the spell." Twilight lit up her horn and a scroll floated out of her saddlebag. Performing magic in this human world seemed easier now, at least in the vicinity of the portal. It was still nowhere near as easy as in Equestria, but she no longer became exhausted after the simplest levitation.

"Do you want me to guide you back across? I've gotten pretty good at it by now." Twilight offered to help her friends this last time, but the five ponies shook their heads. She had showed them well enough the first time. "Okay then, in two minutes I'll start the spell on this end. That gives you some time to get over there and prepare. Good luck, Rarity. We can do this!"

Twilight watched as her friends disappeared into the blackness. Her pony friends, that is. Chryasor was still here, and Twilight was starting to think of her as a friend as well. She waited patiently as the clock on the wall ticked its second hand around, then around again. It was time.

She walked over to the edge of the portal and carefully placed the tip of her horn just inside. She took a deep breath to calm herself and summoned up a surge of energy. Her horn began to glow, brighter and brighter as more magical energy flowed through it. From purple through a more pinkish lavender, all the way to a brilliant white with just a hint of pink left, so bright it cast shadows of humans working on the far wall. Any sparks given off at the tip were inside the Void and could not be seen, but still several humans looked away from their computers to watch what was going on behind them.

Twilight was concentrating as hard as she could on the spell. She blocked out all sights and sounds from around her and focused on Equestria, and on Rarity. She hoped her friend was doing the corresponding part on the other end. If the spell worked, then they should be able to sense each others' magic as the worlds got closer. Rarity's magic signature consisted of the clinking sound of silverware on a crystal glass and the prickly feeling of tiny needles not quite breaking the skin. So far, Twilight felt and heard nothing.

She was beginning to get tired. Too much magic at once, held for too long, in a place where all magic was weaker already. She held the spell a moment longer, tried one last pull toward Equestria, then let the magic fade. The spell hadn't worked, and now she had to find out why so she could fix it.

"Is that it? Can we just walk straight through now?" Chryasor wondered aloud.

Twilight turned around with a tired smile on her face. "No, sadly not. It didn't work."

"Why not? What happened?"

"That's what I need to find out. Magic is a complicated and precise business; any number of things could have gone wrong. I just hope my friends all made it to the other side. That would mean one of us just wasn't quite casting it right, or we just lacked the power. If they never got there at all..." She trailed off, preferring not to think about it. "I'm going to go over there and find out what happened on their end."

"Okay. I'll stay here for a bit. Good luck; easier travel would be really good to have."

Twilight bid the human farewell and stepped through the portal herself. To Equestria! she thought, visualizing the now familiar disk in her mind. Even after seeing it this many times, Equestria still looked strange from this outside perspective. Twilight couldn't explain why features appeared larger near the middle of the circle and vanished into points around the edge. Even more curious was the fact that the portal's end, her library, was in the exact center. Something seemed off about that, but sadly there were no books on the subject for Twilight to consult.

She hopped out the other end into the basement laboratory. To her great relief, her five friends, and Spike too, were all there waiting for her. Rarity was collapsed on the floor, and part of her mane looked singed. She was also sopping wet and shivering, which likely had something to do with the suspicious-looking empty bucket in the corner.

"Are you all right? What happened here?! Somepony go get her a blanket. And a towel. Or a towel and then a blanket."

"I'm on it!" Spike jumped to his feet and ran up the stairs. At the same time, Fluttershy made her way over to Twilight to explain, quietly, what had taken place.

"She tried to do it, she really did. I've never seen so much magic at once before –aside from you, of course. It's not her fault the spell failed. I mean, not to imply it was your fault or anything..." She trailed off in embarrassment. "I'm so sorry, we just don't know what went wrong. One second she was casting the spell–"

"And looking absolutely fabulous while doing so, I hope," Rarity interjected.

"Oh yes, of course. But she was doing her magic, all sparkly and glowy, and then suddenly she was on fire."

"But we put it out," said Rainbow Dash from across the room. "Well, Pinkie did. I don't know where she got the water."

"I have buckets of water hidden all over Equestria in case of flaming-pony emergency!" Pinkie declared triumphantly. "And now I have to go fill this one up again." She picked up the bucket handle in her mouth and bounced away up the stairs and outside.

Just then, Spike returned, carrying both a towel and a thick blanket. No, two blankets. And a pillow. Walking down the basement stairs while balancing that great stack of stuff in front of him, it was surprising he made it even halfway before tripping and tumbling down the rest of the stairs into a pile of fluffiness. Rarity was quickly dried off and made warm and comfortable.

"Spike, take a letter," Twilight said, and began to dictate what she wanted written. "Dear Princess Celestia, today I learned that you should not assume your friends are good at the same things that you are. Each of us is unique and different, each with our own skills, and it is good to respect that. While pushing our limits is good, we should not try to become somepony we are not –or make somepony else try to be us.” She almost told Spike to send the letter like that, but decided to add a bit more on the end. “Also Spike, tell the Princess that I'd like some magical help here, to review my calculations and help analyze the problem, and to recast this spell if we figure out how." She turned to Rarity. "You should rest. Try to avoid using magic for a while; after a burnout like this it can be painful."

Spike finished writing, rolled up the scroll, and sent it off in a blast of fire. The smoke had to travel all the way upstairs to find an open window to fly out of. Just a few minutes later, Spike coughed up a return letter. He unrolled it and read aloud to the group.

"Dear Twilight, I am sorry to hear about your magical troubles. I hope your friend feels better soon. This kind of magic is unfamiliar to me as well, and I would love to see your work myself. However, royal duties keep me very busy. I am sending a member of the Canterlot Magicians' Guild out to help you; I have one particular pony in mind who will be there as soon as she is available. P.S. Give your friend some hot tea; I have found that helps one recover faster."

Several hours later:

"You think maybe she forgot?" Rainbow Dash was slumped over a desk, propping her head up on one hoof.

"No, she'll come. Whoever she is; the Princess didn't say. She must have gotten tied up in other business. And you know, you don't have to stay here if you don't want to. Everypony else went home a while ago."

"Nah, you need the company. Don't go sitting around in a dusty basement all by yourself. Besides, I'm Loyalty; it's practically my job to stick by you." She yawned. "Even if it means missing my afternoon nap."

"Okay, I suppose I would go a little crazy down here with nopony to talk to. But it isn't dusty. Is my basement really dusty? I thought I cleaned in here just a week ago.”

“I'm sure you did... You really should invest in a nice cloud floor. They're soft, and warm –and self-cleaning! Any dirt is collected into the water droplets and rains out the bottom.”

“Sounds nice, but I'm not a pegasus or an alicorn. And I don't expect to suddenly turn into one either. Is that even possible? I don't think I've ever read about any cases of ponies suddenly sprouting wings before.”

Just then, there was a loud bang from outside, immediately followed by a knock on the front door. Twilight jumped up and ran up the stairs to go answer it. Rainbow Dash followed close behind, curious to see if this was the visitor they had been awaiting. Twilight pulled the library door open, and her eyes went wide in amazement.

“Princess Luna! What are you doing here?” she exclaimed.

“Greetings once again, Twilight Sparkle! And... Rainbow Dash, I believe?” A familiar voice came booming out. “I was told that you hath a magical mishap and required assistance. I am here to assist.”

“Oh, um, well then. Princess Celestia told me she was sending a member of the Canterlot Magicians' Guild.” Twilight was a little flustered, but continued on. “I thought she might send Thunderclap, or maybe old Amber Eye. I never expected you, Princess.”

“But we –I am a member of the Magicians' Guild. Verily, I am the guildmaster! 'Tis just an honorary position, to be sure, but an important one nonetheless. As the original bearer of the Element of Magic, I suppose they thought it fitting to nominate me. I also lead the Astronomers' Guild, which makes sense, though I haven't a clue why I am honorary guildmaster for the Sailors' Guild, or the Basket Weavers'.”

“Oh, well, come on in. The portal's just downstairs.”

Twilight trotted back down to the basement laboratory, Rainbow Dash still following. Princess Luna walked through the door and shut it behind her, then leaped from the top step and spread her wings, spiraling downward onto the basement floor.

“Here are all my calculations,” Twilight said, picking up an enormous stack of papers and levitating them over next to Luna. “The only thing I'm really unsure about is the parameters for the Void, though if you could check the rest too that would be great. Right now I'm using the magic vacuum permittivity constant, and assuming the speed of magic is the same everywhere.

"The spell is designed as a kind of mix between a summoning and a mass teleport. We want to bring the other side to us and push our side to them at the same time. I was thinking it would be easier to focus on the other pony rather than the other world, and bringing us together from opposite sides would result in the portal shortening."

"Interesting idea... What's this part over here? This doesn't look like either summoning or teleportation." Luna flipped through the pages and pulled out one from the middle.

"Oh, yeah. I suppose I did create a bit of my own there." Twilight looked over sheepishly at the Princess. "That's okay, isn't it?"

"Of course! That section is what holds it all together. I am somewhat worried about this integral here, however. Are you certain that it converges?"

"I don't think it does –but I also don't think it really needs to. Leaving one tiny flaw is okay, so we can get back into the Void if we want to. There's still a lot to study in there as well.”

Luna studied the calculations a while longer, still not quite convinced it would work as intended. “Have you considered adding an incantation? It would serve to stabilize the spell and prevent unwanted effects. I cannot understand why ponies do not use them anymore; they really do help.”

“Hmm, okay...” Twilight grabbed a quill and scribbled a few lines onto the bottom of the page Luna was looking at. “How does that sound? Do we have to say the same thing on both ends or can it be different?”

“It should work either way. And I believe we are ready now –that incantation will do very nicely. It reminds me of Starswirl, actually; my sister and I are amazed at how similar you two are sometimes. If you would like to cross over now, we shall begin the spell momentarily. Rainbow Dash, stand back, and no distractions please.” Luna looked over the spell one last time, then sat the papers down on a table and walked over to the edge of the portal.

Twilight stepped out of the portal into Earth, expecting to see an empty room, but all the humans who were there when she had left were still present. "Hello again," she said. "I thought you'd all have gone home by now."

"Hello, Twilight!" Chryasor got up from a nearby table and walked over next to the unicorn. "It's only been an hour since you left. I've just been talking to some of these people here. Did you get the spell sorted out?"

"I think so. We're ready to try it again now. Have everypony stand well back; we're not entirely sure what other effects there could be." Twilight turned around and placed the tip of her horn within the blackness again. "Alright, let's do this.” She took a deep breath, lit up her horn with the first trickle of power, and began the incantation. “From one to another, another to one: two worlds' destinies no longer alone, intertwined. Let us come together, our peoples as one, in learning and in love, in friendship without end!”

Twilight increased the magic flux through her horn, bringing its glow just to the border between purple and white, and sent out her first call toward the other end. She could feel an answering ping from Luna, transmitted instantaneously across the indeterminate distance of the Void, and she worked to isolate that from all the other sensations around her. Luna’s magic felt like a cool breeze over wings –a strange sensation for a unicorn –combined with a flowery smell Twilight could not quite identify. The same lightning that underlay Celestia’s magic was present here as well, but it seemed closer to the surface, not as suppressed. Twilight tried to narrow her broadcast of magical energy and focus it in the direction of Equestria –not that direction really had any meaning in the space between universes, but in Twilight's mind it made sense. She sent out a stronger pulse, again receiving a confirmation and reply from the other side.

Okay, we've definitely found each other, she thought. Now to come together. Twilight focused as hard as she could on Princess Luna, maintaining her part of the magical lock between them, and mentally pulled as if trying to levitate the pony to her. She felt a tingling sensation all over her body, and the portal in front of her took on a slight blue glow over top of its infinite black. Twilight concentrated even harder, practically screaming her thoughts out across the emptiness. Princess Luna! Come to me! Come together!

A point of light appeared in the center of the black region, slowly growing outward. Twilight felt as if she were zooming down a long tunnel, and she closed her eyes to keep it from distracting her. Almost there, she thought. We can do this! She leaned forward a little to make sure her horn wouldn’t accidentally break contact with the portal. Surely the ends had to be almost connected by now. She resisted the temptation to open her eyes and look, fearing she would lose her concentration at the last moment.

Twilight felt something solid click against her horn. The sense of Luna’s magic signature was overpowering now. She felt dizzy and opened her eyes to see if everything was alright. This only made things worse, as the room around her seemed to have vanished. She felt an overwhelming sense of loneliness. She looked up and saw Equestria in the sky; the floor had turned to gray, dusty stone. Twilight was confused. But then, without warning, the loneliness faded away, leaving the confusion to grow in its place.

The ground became checkered with shades of blue. Trees and buildings tumbled aimlessly through the air. Twilight was wearing her Element of Magic, and carrying the Elements of Honesty and Generosity as well. Beside her, her older brother Shining Armor carried the other three. No, not Shining Armor, her sister. Twilight didn’t have a sister. But she felt like she should…

For some reason the thought of having a sister made Twilight inordinately angry. The chaos all around faded, and the throne room of the Canterlot palace appeared around her. Not Canterlot, something didn’t seem right… But her sister was there, challenging her. Taunting her. Laughing in her face about how she was better, how their subjects liked her more. Subjects? Twilight had friends, not subjects.

Suddenly, a new presence materialized behind her. No! it screamed. Not here! Get out! Twilight was picked up by some unknown force and hurled backwards; the walls faded out before she crashed into them. She picked herself up off the ground –a ground which was now covered in grass. There was a book open in front of her, a book she recognized as one of her textbooks from magic school. She remembered this place, this book… but there was somepony else here, and Twilight had always studied alone.

Twilight turned around to look, but there was nopony there. Instead, there was a cart with a spotted purple egg sitting on it, along with a sign indicating the egg was supposed to be opened. She felt the eyes of the magic school admissions judges upon her, and again there seemed to be one more pony there than she remembered, standing beside her and just out of view. Why am I remembering all this now? Twilight wondered. What happened to the outside world, the portal, the spell? A new wave of confusion washed over her, bringing with it fear and helplessness.

And then the scene changed again, to something which only amplified the feelings she was having. Twilight stood surrounded by black crystals at the top of Sombra’s tower, trapped and unable to carry out her mission. And somepony else was with her, sharing in the despair. Twilight was reliving one of her worst moments, and even though she knew that this crystal cage was no more than a memory, she was also trapped in whatever strange flashback phenomenon this was. Could she ever get out, or was she doomed to relive random moments of her life forever? And some of the scenes had seemed so wrong, as if they weren’t even her memories at all. Twilight wanted to get out. She shook her head to try to clear it, but nothing changed. With fear building up in her throat, she reflexively pulled back–

–and blinked in the bright light of the human laboratory. She found herself staring into Princess Luna’s face, barely a hoof-width away. She stumbled a step back so they weren’t so awkwardly close, and asked, “What was that? What happened to me? The spell was working, and then suddenly… I don’t know. I saw…”

“You saw me,” Luna said, looking rather shaken as well. “And I saw you. Our entire lives… but undirected, flashing between moments of the strongest, most pure emotions.”

“But how? Why did this happen?”

“Our horns touched. We both had them inside the portal for the spell, so when the ends came together they must have crossed.”

“But… that shouldn’t… I’m sure I’ve accidentally bumped into somepony before and knocked horns, and I’ve never had that happen.”

“It wouldn’t have. It did here because we were both using magic at the time. Magic which was focused on each other. I am sorry for what has happened, Twilight Sparkle. I should have recognized it in the spell design and said something. I hope thou wilt not think any less of me.”

“Why would I? I should be worried you’ll think less of me, after seeing me like that. On the tower, how completely useless I was.”

“I saw terrible things which were done to you. You saw terrible things that I have done to others. It is not the same.” Luna looked down at the floor. “After everything I’ve done… why am I still here, still allowed to rule? My sister too –why does anypony still trust us to do what’s good?”

Twilight stepped up and gave Luna a big hug. “Oh, Princess, don’t say such things. The past is… well, it’s the past. It’s gone. Learn from it, of course, but you can’t dwell on it forever. You’re carrying so many experiences with you, and they’re weighing you down –things ponies today have never seen. The rest of us are not immortal; we’ve only seen you these last three years. Nopony is judging you for past deeds. You can let it go.”

“Let it go? How? I’ve tried. I can’t go back and undo it, I can’t just forget. But as you saw, it is all still there.” Luna sighed. “I apologize for throwing you out of there so violently. Some places in my mind even I dare not go anymore. Like that day…”

Twilight’s eyes went wide with realization. “That was the day you… oh. But you were forgiven, you’ve returned now. You can move on.”

“But I can’t. It always comes back, haunting me. What if I had done some action differently, or some other? And there’s also…” Luna’s voice dropped to a whisper. “There’s still some part of me that thinks that I was right. That I should have fought harder. That I should do it again.” Twilight could only stare in shock as Luna spoke. "Because I could do it again. It would even be easier now. Neither I nor Celestia can wield the Elements now; if I transformed again I could kill her before you arrived to stop me. And if just a single one of your friends were incapacitated or missing, all of you would be powerless as well. I beg of you, Twilight Sparkle, do not let me do this! Do not let me become a monster again!"

Twilight looked up into the Princess’s face and was surprised yet again. Was Luna… crying? Twilight was speechless. She had no idea how to respond. Nothing like this appeared on her social interactions flowchart, but she didn’t want to just stare awkwardly when there was clearly a pony in need. She decided to go for another hug, this time not letting go. Hugs made everything better, right?

A voice came from behind, calling for her attention. “Hey Twilight, is everything okay there? I see your spell worked, but your partner there doesn’t look like she’s doing so well. Are you hurt? The people here want to talk to you; apparently their measurements started going crazy when the portal locked in.” Twilight knew she ought to pay attention, but she tuned out Chryasor’s voice. Taking care of her Princess was more important.

Author's Note

I was originally intending to follow the Mane 6 on this chapter, but I wrote the spellcasting scene first and it got so long that I decided to split this into two chapters and add more Twilight. The next one will take place at the same time as this chapter.

8. Tourist Trap

Friday, September 24, 2021
Meanwhile...

Five ponies walked out into the cool Geneva morning, manes gently waving in the wind. Behind them, their human guide shut the door, and began leading the way off the CERN campus. They soon came to a street corner, where Chryasor had to quickly warn the ponies not to just walk out into the road. Humans' cars were much faster, heavier, and generally more dangerous than the pony-drawn carriages of Equestria.

After crossing the street and walking a little farther, the group arrived at a little glass enclosure with a bench and several posters depicting the city's metro system and schedules for the trams.

“What's all this stuff here? Why are we waiting on this bench?” Applejack inquired as to the nature of their stop. “Twilight told us y'all humans have got all sorts of crazy inventions. Is there somethin' here?”

“...I suppose you could call this a crazy invention. It's pretty normal to us. This is how we're going to get around today –it's a system of trains, just all within Geneva instead of between cities.”

“Ooh, fancy!” Rarity exclaimed. “I heard Canterlot is planning something like this. I get to use one before everypony else! Oh, all those high-class ponies will be so jealous! I'll be the pony they all will want to know.” Rarity looked unsteady on her hooves, almost falling over before she realized the ground was dirty and there was nothing soft around to land on.

The others laughed. Pinkie was looking around frantically, and finally turned to Rarity. “I'm sorry, Rarity,” she said. “I knew you wanted to faint there so I tried to get a pillow, but I couldn't do it.” Pinkie looked quite distraught. “The tingly barrier that's around us sometimes, it's not here. There's nowhere for me to pull things out of.”

“The what now? Ah don’t follow. What barrier?”

But Pinkie never got the chance to explain, because just then Chryasor called for their attention and started passing out little purple slips of paper to each of them. "These are your tickets," she said. "There will be a little box you put them in to validate them once you get on. It should be here in just another minute."

Sure enough, a tram soon pulled up and stopped in front of the glass booth. Pinkie smiled and waved at the few humans who got off; they all looked very confused and hurried off to wherever they were going, trying not to make eye contact. Chryasor entered first and demonstrated the ticket-validating process, placing her paper into the slot provided and immediately pulling it out again, with a small hole punched in one end. The five ponies followed suit, and each took a seat as the tram began to move.

They had gotten on at the end of the line, and for a while it remained empty inside, as the few humans who were commuting then got into different cars than the one they had taken. But after three or four stops, some new humans got on: a mother and her child, a young girl of maybe eight years. She took one look at the colorful ponies and exclaimed, “Pferdchen! Sieh, Mutti!” She grinned widely and pulled on her mother's arm. She looked up with practiced puppy-dog eyes and asked if she could get a pony of her own. “Kann ich ein Pferdchen haben? Bitte?” But her mother quickly vetoed the idea and told her to sit down.

Hearing all this from farther down the car, Chryasor gently nudged the orange pony sitting next to her and said, “The little girl down there likes ponies. Why don't you go say hello? Better make it quick though; our stop's coming up soon.”

Applejack trotted over and, with an elaborate flip of her head, tossed her hat into the air and caught it in her mouth. She did a quick curtsy before tossing the hat back to its usual spot and extending one foreleg to shake hooves. “Howdy, little one. Ah'm Applejack. What's your name?” The human girl smiled happily and started to extend a hand of her own, but her mother snatched her away and held her tightly, eyes wide in fear.

“Sie sind Freunde,” Chryasor said, loud enough for the other humans to hear. They are friends. The mother seemed to calm a little bit but still held her daughter's hand. She allowed the little girl to shake Applejack's hoof, but her daughter's idea to “ride the horsey” was instantly denied. Applejack looked back at Chry, asking what had just been said, but upon hearing the translation she too decided that was definitely not going to happen.

Meanwhile, Rarity was looking out the window, muttering to herself in what seemed to be rhyming verses. Chryasor strained to hear what she was saying, curious but not wanting to actually ask. “What a huge bustling community. Oh Geneva, what you do to me... no, that would sound better switched. What else rhymes... opportunity! There's always opportunity, to... oh, fuzzbuckets, I'll just save this song for the next big city I'm in.”

The tram pulled to a stop, now close to the center of town, and the other humans stood to get out. The young one didn't want to leave, but her mother dragged her along by the arm. She finally exited looking backwards and saying how she would tell all her friends at school about how she met the ponies. Applejack stood by the door and waved.

The next stop was where Chryasor and the ponies got off. “This is the most central downtown stop on this line,” Chryasor said. “I'll give you a quick tour of the area and then you all can decide what looks interesting. We don't all have to stick together either, as long as you can find your way back.” She led the way down the street, pointing out buildings and teaching the group a few important words they might need. The most important word, of course, was “bakery” –this was a European city, after all. And in a country with four official languages and many others spoken, that meant there were actually several words to learn. Not just confiserie, Bäckerei, and panetteria, but also pékség, fırıncılık, so many others.

But they had made it barely a block and a half before Chryasor felt a drip of water on her arm. And then another, right on her nose. She looked up at the sky and sighed. “This wasn't supposed to happen...” she muttered to herself. “Only twenty percent chance of rain, they said. It'll be fine, they said.” She led the ponies onward at a quicker pace and started looking around for a building to go in if it started raining hard.

At the end of the block the road widened out into a roundabout, with a statue in the center of a stern-looking man holding an open book and a cross. “Who's that?” Rarity asked.

“John Calvin,” Chryasor replied. “He was very influential around here five hundred years ago. He doesn't have many followers today, but...” She trailed off, realizing the unicorn was paying less attention to her words and more to the increasingly frequent droplets of water falling from the sky.

“I'm sorry, do go on. But can we please go inside?” Rarity's voice took on a whiny tone. “My hair is going to be absolutely ruined if this keeps up. I can't be seen out in public like that, certainly not in a new city! I don't want everypony's first impression of Rarity to be just some wet, straggly-maned unicorn.”

“Honestly, Rares,” Applejack said, “Ah don't think any of these here humans are gonna think that when they see you.”

“You don't? But still, I can't take the risk.”

“Nah, Ah reckon their first thought'll be more like 'Oh my Princess, she's a unicorn'.”

Rarity glared at Applejack. “Yes, and isn't that unicorn just the most beautiful and elegant creature you've ever seen? That's what I want them to be thinking. Not that you'd know anything about elegance, of course.”

Applejack started to say something back but Chryasor called for their attention first. “There's a place up ahead here that looks good,” she said. “Let's go in there and you can all have a pastry while we wait for this storm to blow over. I'm sure it won't be long.”

The group hurried forward and crowded into the entrance of the small bakery. There was one person at a table in the back enjoying a chocolate croissant, but other than that the place was empty. Most people took their orders to go rather than staying to eat. Behind the counter there were two workers, both fairly young, who stared slack-jawed at the new arrivals to their shop. After a moment of stunned silence, one finally managed to speak.

“Are those... are those the, uh, aliens?” he spluttered out in French. His eyes were still wide, staring at Chryasor as if afraid the ponies would vanish if he looked at them. “I recognize you –I saw you on TV that first day. It was all over the news for a week but lately there's been nothing.”

“Yes, these are ponies and I'm their translator,” Chryasor answered. “There haven't really been any new developments, just me learning how to talk to them. But that's coming along quite well. Anyway, can we get six small coffees? With one of those cherry things there, and...” She had no idea what the ponies might like. “And five randomly selected other pastries.”

“Of course!” He passed the order along to his coworker, making no attempt to help prepare it himself. “Hey, could I get a picture with all of you? This is just so cool.”

“Sure, if they don't mind.” Chryasor turned to ask the five ponies, who had taken over a large table behind her. “Suwþeksil, piŋiwøroytid sril il noyrotsit.” She quickly pulled up another chair to the table as the boy got out his phone. He opened the camera app and held the phone at arm's length, leaning back over the display case to get everyone in the frame. A virtual shutter clicked, and everyone relaxed out of their picture-ready poses.

“Thanks so much! My friends are not going to believe this.”

Just then the other cafe worker walked over, carrying a tray with six little mugs of coffee. “Here you go, ma'am. Have you decided what pastries you want?”

“Oh, I really have no clue,” Chryasor said. “Just get us an assortment of your favorites –whatever you'd recommend to someone who's never had human food before.”

“Okay then, coming right up.” He opened the display case and selected five different items, putting each on its own plate next to the one Chryasor had ordered for herself. “Your total today will be seventeen Euros sixty-eight, please.”

Chryasor swiped a card and then carefully carried the two trays over to the table and sat down. “Well, everypony, here's your chance to try some traditional human fare. Here we have a– oops, wrong language.” She switched back from French to the Equestrian language and repeated what she had just said. She tried her best to describe each of the baked goods in front of them, but these words were not ones she had heard used before, and not ones she could easily guess. And there was no reason why Equestria should even have the same foods as Earth anyway, though they certainly did have something that looked and tasted remarkably like apples.

"What'd you call this stuff again? Coffee?" Applejack looked down at her half-empty mug. "It's a mighty strong brew, but it's good. What's in it?"

"It's made from, well... coffee. It's a kind of bean. We grind them up and put it in hot water, and it turns into that."

"So you mean it's a kind of tea?" Rarity suddenly became more interested. "Maybe it's not that bad after all..."

"Personally, I don't really like the taste of it," Chryasor said. "But I drink it anyway because it gives me energy and helps me wake up. Many people put milk or other things in their coffee to make it taste better."

Applejack had already finished her coffee and moved on to Fluttershy's. The yellow mare had taken a sip and quietly pushed the cup away, disliking the bitterness of the drink but not wanting to make a fuss about it. "Ah think Ah can feel the energy already," Applejack said. "After buckin' apples all day, this stuff could keep me going to buck apples all night too! Ah wish Ah could take a barrel of this back for the family reunion day after tomorrow. We're all farm ponies, and Ah'm sure it'd be a big hit. Just imagine how much more we could get done –startin' earlier, never fallin' asleep on the job..."

"It's not a miracle drug," Chry said. "It just gives you that little extra kick to get started."

"Little extra kick?" Pinkie said incredulously. "I feel like I've been kicked from Equestria to the moon and back, and landed in a cloud full of lightning. I've got so much energy!” She started grinning widely and bouncing up and down in her seat.

“Just what she needed, more energy...” Rainbow Dash groaned. “And speaking of rainclouds, those don't look like they're going away any time soon. I want to get out there and clear them.” She stood up and flapped her wings slowly in an attempt to hover, but didn't even rise off the floor. “How am I supposed to be awesome if I can't even fly?”

“Hey, earth ponies can be awesome too, ya know,” Applejack replied. “Remember, Ah'm the Iron Pony.”

“No you're not, I am! I won three times as many events as you did.”

“Only because you cheated and used your wings. Hey, now there's an idea, a new competition here...”

While those two bickered, Fluttershy turned to the human sitting next to her. “I saw another human in Equestria the other day. Did you bring it?”

“Oh, yes, that was my sister.” Seeing Fluttershy's puzzled look, Chryasor clarified. “Not the one who wandered through on her own. I have two sisters. Did you talk to her?”

“Only a little. She said her name was... um... I don't remember. I'm sorry. I invited her in for tea but I don't think she understood. She just walked off, right into the forest!”

Chryasor nodded grimly. “Yep, that sounds like her. And her name is Phaedriel. She'll be okay.”

“Will she? I've been worried about her. The Everfree Forest is scary. I never go in there unless I really have to.”

“There's no need to worry –she's pretty tough, and she's used to living all alone out in a forest. She's more capable than most people realize. More capable than even she realizes, most of the time.” Chryasor sighed. “I wish there was some way to make her see that she's not as worthless as she thinks. She could be really great if she didn't run away from all her problems.”

“What's her special talent? Surely there's something she's good at.” Fluttershy glanced down at her own cutie mark. “I was pretty worthless too before I found mine. I still am sometimes. I'm such a pushover.”

“A special talent? I don't know really. When we were in school, I remember she was pretty good at a lot of things. But never good enough to be satisfied. Humans don't get marks like you do to tell us when we've found our calling. But who knows, maybe she's already doing whatever she's meant to do.”

“Out there?” Fluttershy still sounded worried. “But what if she needs help? She should live in town –maybe where I do, on the edge. When we get back I should go find her. Oh, but that would mean going into the forest...”

“Really, she'll be fine. Come on, let's see what else there is to show you around here.” Chryasor took her phone out of her pocket and pulled up a local map with popular attractions labeled. “Hmm, there's a museum nearby; that's something indoors to do. But the history of the EU might not be too interesting for you. A local church is having a pipe organ concert... oh, that was yesterday. Well, there are always more bakeries, though I'd rather have an actual event or thing to see. Weather forecast now says... fifty percent chance it'll be like this all day.” The five ponies all seemed to be paying good attention, but she couldn't tell if they were really listening or just staring at the piece of human technology in her hands.

“Ya know, Chry,” Applejack said, “it might be better if we just tried this again some other time. It's real nice of ya to take us all out like this, but if we're going to do somethin' special Ah think it's worth it to make sure everything's perfect. If things we got no control over get in the way, then oh well, we can adapt. Besides, it don't feel right, us leavin' Twilight behind like this. Ah know she said she wanted to stay and do her sciencey stuff, but she's our friend, and she deserves to be here with us. Ah vote we go back, meet up with Twi, figure it out from there.”

There were murmurs of agreement from around the table. “You're sure about this?” Chryasor asked. “There are things to do inside. But if you all really want to go back now, I guess we can. Try again tomorrow, with Twilight?” The ponies nodded. They finished up their assorted pastries, swapping pieces around so they could all try several and find ones they liked. Finally, when nothing was left but crumbs all around, the six friends got up and started retracing their steps back toward CERN and Equestria.

۞ ۞ ۞

Eleven humans sat around a long wooden table. Ten of them were old, white, and male. The last was old, black, and male. All wore speckled green and brown uniforms, their sleeves bearing four silver stars inside a golden frame. The one at the head of the table glanced around to see that the others were paying attention, then stood up from his chair. He sported a crew cut, as did all the men here, but only on half of his head. The other side was a mass of scar tissue, the result of an improvised bomb many years before, reaching down from his scalp across the side of his face. His right eye was nothing more than a blue glass marble, but he wore no patch over it.

“First of all,” he said, “let's all be completely honest here. After all, we all have top-level clearance and we're meeting behind closed doors with no record of us ever being together. We're allowed to be honest in here. So, who do we want to go to war with next?”

One of the other uniformed men chuckled. “Right to the point, I like that. I can see why you were chosen. And you're absolutely right: the economy's not doing so well, so it's our job to make a good old-fashioned military stimulus. Like how the production for World War II brought us out of the Great Depression, or how the Third Gulf War stabilized us after the fracking bubble burst. We need more war!”

Everyone at the table nodded. One of the others spoke up, proposing Russia for a target.

“No, not Russia,” the man at the end said. “We don't seriously want to fight Russia, we just want to look like we want to. Whether we tell the public or not, we've been in a second Cold War for a decade now, and the same rules apply. Mutually assured destruction: we nuke them, they nuke us back. No, we don't want a fight there.

“But we do want the cold war, for it serves a different purpose; namely, to increase our military budget each year even more than it otherwise would. That money is used to manufacture arms, to be used in the hot wars we also manufacture here. And, of course, to pay our salaries. But let them not call us greedy –not completely greedy, that is –because we do give back to our communities. When we make war, we make jobs. Jobs creating the guns and tanks here at home, jobs fighting for our freedom over there.”

One of the others piped up. “Fighting for our corporate profits, you mean. But you know what, that's close enough.”

The one-eyed man ignored the interruption and continued speaking. “What say you all to a war in Europe? We haven't had one of those in a while. I'm sure you're all just as sick of the Middle East by now as I am.”

The reaction to this proposal was mixed, mumbles of agreement and of concern both heard around the table. One of the dissenters spoke up first.

“I'm going to put this bluntly: that's a terrible idea. Our oldest and best allies are in Europe. We don't want to alienate them, certainly not fight them. The Middle East is an easy target; we can just use the whole terrorism thing again. The last twenty years are a perfect testament to how the public will buy any story we feed them. We've cultivated fear and hatred of Islam for so long; why give up that great explanation now?”

“Oh, we can still play the terrorism card,” the first man said. “In fact, I think it would work even better outside the Middle East. We give the impression that our enemies are everywhere, infiltrating even our close allies. If nowhere is safe, that means more fear, which is exactly what we need. The public knows that the Islamic State controls all of what used to be Iraq, and much of Syria and Turkey as well. But what if they also had a presence in, say... France?”

Now one of the other supporters of the plan chimed in. “I think it could be great if we could pull this off. It would become the biggest operation in years, easily. But to start it we'd need the biggest threat in years as well. And why France? There must be better places than that.”

“Negative. France is just the opening; it has what we need right now. Any one of our allies would do, but this is convenient timing and has the bonus prize of Switzerland right next door. Why haven't we heard much from those aliens that landed a couple weeks ago? They must be hiding something, so whatever it is, we want it. But first things first: here's how we're getting in.”

He walked to the edge of the room and pulled down a projector screen, then pulled a USB stick out from one of his uniform's many pockets and plugged it into a nearby computer. At the press of a button, the projector mounted in the ceiling whirred to life, showing the first slide of a presentation.

The ten people still sitting at the table gasped in shock. “Don't you think that's a bit much?” one asked. But their leader was expecting such a reaction and was prepared.

“Overkill, you say? Maybe. But overkill is the best kind of kill.” He clicked to the next slide, and the next. “We want to make absolutely damned sure that we get what we want, what we need. This would do it. Just think about what would happen next –I can't think of a single way this could be bad for us.”

“I can think of one. The President would... oh wait. Never mind. ...I never thought I'd condone this sort of thing, but it might actually work.”

“Are we all in agreement then?” The one presenting the plan looked at each person in turn, watching them nod with varying degrees of reluctance. “Good. We'll want to move quickly to hit this window of opportunity before it closes. The next might not come for a while.”

9. The Origin of Harmony

The Everfree forest was a beautiful place. Phaedriel wandered, alone as always, deeper and deeper into the woods. Ponies never dared to come this far, for they were all too scared of the monsters that were said to lurk among the trees. But Phaedriel didn't care. Most of the monsters and ghost stories were just that, stories, made up to keep troublesome foals in line. Some were probably true, but the human was confident in her survival skills; after all, she had lived in similar places for a long time before. The only thing that could really scare her was other humans and their unpredictable ways, and there were none of those here.

Phaedriel’s first priority when arriving in a new place was always water. She could do without shelter for a little while, and food was everywhere if one knew what to look for. She had crossed a small stream just outside the town, before even entering the woods. That had looked clean and fresh, but it would be better to find a bigger source, and one farther away from civilization. She expected the ponies were probably less annoying than humans, but still, a little more isolation couldn’t hurt.

As she walked onwards, the ground began to slope upward. The trees were thinning out. The same eerie silence as the rest of the forest persisted here as well, but seemed even deeper than usual. It was as if instead of animals hiding and being quiet, there was no wildlife around at all. There were no young trees either, or shrubs or flowers, only the ancient growth. Trees over a meter across, which must have been standing for centuries, at least. The place almost felt cursed, as if nothing new could enter it. But Phaedriel continued on.

Eventually the trees thinned out even more, and she could see that there was some great structure of stone ahead. A castle, built ages ago and now lying in ruins, crumbling blocks now covered in moss. That looked like an interesting place to check out. If it was safe inside, if it was really as abandoned as it looked, it would make an excellent shelter. The only problem was getting to it, as it stood on the other side of a deep ravine.

The divide was too wide to jump across, and too steep to safely climb down and up the other side. Phaedriel walked up to the edge and looked around. This place must have been carved by water at some point, but there was nothing flowing at the bottom now. Below, there were a few roots protruding from the side of the cliff, but they weren't big enough to be trusted to hold if she wanted to climb down the side. To one side there was nothing, but the other way there seemed to be something laying across the gap, maybe vines or a fallen tree. It was too far away to discern exactly what was there; Phaedriel began walking along the edge toward whatever it was.

Upon getting closer, she found that it was actually a bridge, if one could call something in such a state of disrepair still a bridge. It consisted primarily of a few lengths of rope strung across and tied to posts at either end, with some old wooden planks loosely bound between them. Well, it's better than nothing, Phaedriel thought. If it's not rotted through, that is.

Phaedriel examined the two posts holding the bridge on her side of the ravine. The ropes seemed to be tied securely. She picked up each of them in turn and leaned back to test the ropes' strength and their fastenings on the other side. If they can hold my weight like this, they can hold me while I'm crossing. I'll string up a new one as I go so I can get back easier. She slipped off her backpack and pulled a long rope out. She looped it around the trunk of the nearest tree and tied it off with a sturdy knot that wouldn't slip.

Phaedriel shouldered her pack again and carried the loose end of her rope to the side of the cliff. She cautiously stepped out onto the first plank; to her relief, it held strong. The second, however, gave out an unsettling creak as she put weight on it. Holding onto one of the side ropes, and unwinding her own behind her, she slowly made her way farther across the treacherous bridge.

Finally, as she was just over halfway to the other side, a plank snapped. Phaedriel stumbled forward, landing heavily on her stomach across the next two boards. That was close, she thought, carefully getting back to her feet. She started to take another step and heard a crack from behind her, and suddenly the entire bridge tilted sideways. One of the posts the bridge was tied to had broken, after the sharp shock from her fall had weakened it.

Phaedriel found herself hanging with a rope in each hand, suspended in the middle of the ravine. The remains of the bridge hung a few feet above her, supported by only one side now. Well this sucks, she thought. This bridge was supposed to be better than nothing, but I guess I was wrong. No bridge is better than a broken bridge. So, what to do now...

The rope in her left hand was the one she had attached to the tree above. That certainly wasn't going anywhere. The other rope connected her to the far side where she wanted to go. I could let go of either one of these and swing to one side or the other. I really shouldn't though; I might hit too hard. Same for dropping straight down, I'd probably break an ankle at least. But then an idea occurred to her. She wasn't holding the ends of these ropes but rather the middle of each. With some care, she might be able to lower herself slowly to the bottom by letting out the slack.

That plan would have to do. Phaedriel loosened her grip just a little and slipped down a few feet. The sliding of ropes burned her hands, but she had to continue. Finally, after a few agonizing minutes, Phaedriel's feet touched something solid. She let go and collapsed onto the ground, taking care not to touch anything with her badly lacerated hands.

I made it! she thought triumphantly. Well, most of me made it. Still, ropeburn will heal a lot faster than a broken ankle. I'm not sure I have the strength to climb to the top again right now though. Phaedriel stood up and looked both ways down the ravine. There seemed to be a slight bluish glow coming from one direction.

She set off walking toward the source of the glow. It got steadily stronger as she approached, until the blue light was casting shadows of the small plants that grew along the ground. Phaedriel rounded a corner and came out into a large open area, and saw what was producing the glow. A giant tree, at least as old as any of the ones up above, seemingly made of solid crystal. Its trunk and branches were all straight lines and sharp angles. In the center, right where several large branches emerged, it had a six-pointed star etched into the trunk; below that, a sun and a moon. And on the other side of the space there was an equally amazing thing: a set of stairs carved into the rock, leading all the way to the surface again.

Phaedriel practically ran over to the tree. She had never seen anything even remotely like this before –a tree like this had to be magical. She reached out and gently touched the tree's trunk; it felt smooth instead of like normal tree bark. The cool surface soothed her injured hands, and she sat down at the base of the tree to rest for a minute. What is this? she wondered. How can there be a tree made of crystal? How did this come to be? Suddenly, she felt a tingly sensation in her hands and her back where she was leaning against the trunk. A wave of intense dizziness washed over her; when she regained her senses, she was somewhere else.

Phaedriel found herself standing in a small plaza paved with cobblestones. In the center stood a stone altar, inscribed with unintelligible runes which were mostly worn away. The edges of the square were lined with arches ten feet high forming a complete loop around the space. Beyond that, nothing was visible. A thick fog filled the air all around, making even just the opposite side of the square difficult to see at times. Every surface was stone, and it had a sort of timeless quality to it. The square could have been built yesterday or a million years in the past and looked the same. She couldn't quite explain why, but she felt as if this place ought to be on a mountaintop, isolated from the rest of the world. Maybe it was the mist obscuring everything outside from view –was there even any “outside” out there at all?

From the left there came two ponies, both with wings outstretched and horn held high. One of the alicorns had a black body, and his mane was a swirling mass of blue and silver, interlaced with wisps of color from across the spectrum. Stars and nebulae, entire galaxies seemed to dance within the infinite depths. The other was beige, with her mane and tail each a tangled knot of green. The hairs almost seemed to be vines, complete with leaves and flowers.

From the right side of the plaza there emerged another being. This one was a curious amalgam of many different beasts: one claw like a raptor and one paw of a lion, one leg from a goat and the other from a lizard. It had horns, one zigzag and one forked like a deer's, and wings like a bat and like a bird. It did not walk, and neither did it fly, but rather twisted and writhed through the air, moving with no apparent propulsion.

The trio met in the center and spoke, though Phaedriel could not hear their words. Both sides seemed wary of the other, but respectful. Each placed a hoof or claw on the altar, and though nothing visible occurred, she could sense that something terribly important and powerful had just taken place.

From somewhere out in the fog, a bell rang once, its deep chime echoing off the stone columns all around. The complex pattern of reflections made it impossible to discern the location of the ringing's source. It chimed again, and the scene around Phaedriel vanished, to be replaced by another. Now she was hovering high in the air, with a seemingly infinite expanse of land and sea below and an equally vast sky above. The sky was dark and full of scattered stars, with no sun or moon in sight. Instead there was a great arc of even more stars, like the Milky Way seen from Earth but even brighter and more colorful.

She felt a rush of air and looked in surprise as the two alicorns from before zoomed past. They left trails of green and blue behind them as they flew, twisting upwards in a double helix. They flew together, circling around each other with the tips of their horns touching between them. Where their horns met, a spark of light shone outward with a peaceful, comforting glow. The light flared brighter for an instant and emitted a smaller spark, which floated upwards and planted itself as a new star in the heavens. The entire firmament was slowly turning, the stripe of galaxy remaining always in view but the stars around it flowing freely in and out of the sky.

Out of nowhere the great bell rang once more, and again a new scene flashed before Phaedriel's eyes. She was on the ground now, with the strange patchwork being. It snapped its fingers –or rather, its claws –and a bird with beautiful red and orange plumage appeared before it. The bird fluttered up to a nearby tree, and as soon as it landed, the tree twisted into a new shape, causing the bird to fly again. The strange creature snapped again, this time creating a rabbit which changed grass randomly into flowers wherever it hopped. A third snap produced a duck-billed platypus, an animal much more reminiscent of its creator. But then the bell rang again, and Phaedriel was whisked away to a new scene.

Countless visions flashed before her, punctuated by the ever-present bell. Eventually, the scenes began to form a coherent story. Phaedriel had wanted to know how this great shining tree had come to be, and it was telling her. And to explain itself, it had to go back all the way to the beginning of the world. The alicorns of earth and sky represented the fundamental force of order and harmony, and the other being was chaos and discord. Together, they created a world in balance between them.

But then the alicorn couple had foals, twin sisters, one white like the glow of a single star, and the other the deep blue-black of the sky. The lord of chaos saw them and became enraged, for in his mind the balance had been upset. In his anger he struck down the elder two, but left the Night and Day alone lest he too disturb the grand design. The galactic arc winked out and the sky ceased its turning; there came a new cycle of brighter light and darker night in its place.

But the elders' magic was not lost, for from their remains a new life grew. A great tree, mightier than any oak, whose roots spread throughout the entire world and with the sparkle of the stars in every branch and leaf. And there it stood, passively observing the evolution of the world, giving gifts and blessings where it could. It gave its foals six jewels of immense power, but in such a ghostly state it could not tell them of their meaning or function, or warn them of the consequences if the artifacts were misused.

It watched as the world fell into disorder, since the alicorns' deaths had unbalanced the world far worse than their children ever would. It watched as the two foals rose up against the chaos and overthrew it, locking away the other primeval force in a prison of stone. It watched as its children turned on each other, shattering the link between them and the Elements, and as one sister was cast out of Equestria. It watched as a pink pegasus was elevated to the godly state, and as its long-lost second child returned with the help of a purple unicorn, then as that unicorn herself ascended.

But that didn't seem right, for Phaedriel had seen this purple one and she was definitely a unicorn only. The tree must have shown her a glimpse of the future as well as the past. Or at least one possible future, if certain conditions were met. She knew she should not ask what other futures might occur. But it was just so tempting... Maybe just a peek forward, into a couple of different futures.

Phaedriel once again saw a vision of the purple unicorn being promoted. But this time, she continued the connection and looked further. Not long after the coronation, a dormant chaos came forth after thousands of years hidden away. The Tree watched as its children were taken away and trapped, and as it too was ensnared. With the pink alicorn away, and the purple one overcome with doubt and feelings of inadequacy, unstoppable vines grew outward over the land. Chaos reigned once more, never to be broken again.

But none of that included humans and the connection to Phaedriel's old world. Maybe she could add a little direction to the visions. She concentrated, and saw Equestria and Earth in contact. In one future, there was peaceful immigration and travel both ways, and a new golden era encompassed both the worlds. In another, humans invaded by the thousands, by the millions, plundering riches and resources to ferry back to Earth. And in between there were countless variations, with their splitting points very often hinging on the actions of a small group of humans and ponies working together.

Phaedriel broke contact with the Tree and contemplated what she had seen. The entire history of a world, told in just a few short minutes. It was a lot to take in. This world had started off so well, perfectly in balance –a precarious balance, but present nonetheless –but it seemed plagued with catastrophes aiming to undo all that had been achieved. But still, Harmony was in control for now. For now... many of the futures Phaedriel had seen did not look good at all. Who were these humans and ponies who could change the world's destiny? She hadn't gotten a good look. Surely Phaedriel wasn't one of them; she wasn't anything special, was she? Changing the world was too big a task –she had learned that back on Earth. Better to stay out completely than to try something and fail.

She stood up and took a few steps toward the stairs at the far side of the room, then stopped. Something felt different now. Her pack was on, and it felt balanced. Everything she kept in her pockets was still there. Finally she realized what had changed. “My hands! They're healed!” she exclaimed aloud. She turned back to the Tree and smiled. “I think you're my new favorite tree.” Maybe it was just a sudden breeze, but Phaedriel thought she saw one branch wave at her. She reconsidered her decision to leave and instead went back and put one hand on the Tree.

You can understand me, can't you? she thought, closing her eyes and picturing the words flying outward into the glowing trunk. You're not just a recording of history, you're conscious and intelligent. Phaedriel immediately felt silly for trying to talk to a tree. But the feeling vanished when she got a response.

Indeed, it said, I am... conscious. The Tree's voice was deep but not rumbling, and slow. It somehow sounded female despite the low pitch. It spoke directly into Phaedriel's mind, its words appearing alongside her own internal voice. Conscious... in some... sense. I... dream. There was a pause. Speaking... interacting... with the world... it takes... effort.

But how do you know what I'm saying? You were a pony once, an alicorn. I don't speak pony.

I speak... in concepts... ideas... meanings, not words... You... hear words... because... you... expect them. Words... make sense... to you. Suddenly Phaedriel felt dizzy again, similar to when the Tree had shown her visions of history but not as strong. And you... speak... pony... the Tree said.

What? Did you just...? Thank you for that. You've given me so much –is there anything that you need, something I can do for you?

Nothing... not yet. The chaos... is... coming. And... maybe also... no. No... You should... go. I... must conserve... strength... to resist.

With that, the Tree fell silent. Phaedriel removed her hand from its –or was it her? –smooth crystal surface and slowly walked away, looking up at the clear blue sky through the branches. The sun hadn't moved in a long time, which was worrying since that was what Phaedriel used to tell the time. She did have a watch, but she sometimes forgot to wind it and it might not be accurate on another world anyway.

She crossed over to the steps on the far side of the room and began climbing. It was a long way up. Halfway to the top she stopped to take a drink of water from her bottle and noticed it was nearly empty. She would have to fill it up again soon. Finally Phaedriel reached the surface, and she took a moment to catch her breath after the long climb. She seemed to be on the same side of the crevasse that she had started on, the crumbling castle still visible in the distance on the other side. That exploration would have to wait a little while longer. For now, she needed to get back to that stream by the town.

She set off back the way she had come. It was not far, maybe a few miles at most, and she expected an uneventful journey. But not long after she left the old-growth area, when she was back in a more normal forest, she detected a strange foul smell up ahead. She stopped walking but it continued to get stronger. Phaedriel turned to go around whatever dead animal or object was causing the stench, only to be met with swirling sickly-green vapors on every side. There was a growl from one of the bushes nearby, and an odd wolf-like creature emerged.

That doesn't look very friendly, Phaedriel thought. The thing looked like it was made of wood, if that was possible. Phaedriel quickly slung her bow off her back and nocked an arrow. She shouted and waved her free arm in an attempt to scare the creature away, but it kept advancing. Worse, she heard similar growls from behind her now as well. She let the arrow fly and it buried itself in the wood of the creature's head, perfectly between its glowing eyes. The wolf flinched but otherwise seemed unharmed.

Well shit, arrows don't work, she thought. So I doubt a little pocketknife or some darts will do much either. And I bet they run faster than I can too. She looked around for any means of escape. Wolves don't climb trees. At least Earth wolves don't... Phaedriel put her bow away and ran to the nearest tree to begin climbing. She could hear the footsteps of several wooden wolves behind her, but she made it to the first branch without feeling a bite, or even a tug on her clothes or pack. She looked down and saw four of the creatures pacing around the bottom of the tree, looking up but not trying to come after her. She pulled herself up one branch higher just to be sure.

It would be slow going, trying to jump from tree to tree along her way, but at least the forest was dense enough that it was possible. It was a wonder any shrubs and flowers could grow at all in here, given how thick the canopy was above. Phaedriel had to step carefully, testing every branch before putting weight on it, all the while watching the pack of wolves following on the ground below. The stink of their breath was overpowering, and it didn't get any better with longer exposure. Where does their breath even come from anyway? she wondered. They're made of wood –and magic, obviously –why do they need to breathe? Or eat, for that matter. It would be nice if they'd leave me alone.

What can I do to get rid of them? she thought. Not arrows, clearly. The wolf with an arrow sticking out of its head was down there with the others, looking as healthy as ever. What about fire? Wooden things probably hate fire. I have my flint and steel, but I can't make a fire while I'm up here. Maybe if I just get outside their usual hunting grounds instead. And so she continued running through the trees, more quickly now that she had some practice and was used to the way things grew in the Everfree.

After what was probably about an hour –she couldn't tell exactly because that damned sun just wouldn't move –Phaedriel finally came to the edge of the forest. Up ahead the trees ended, giving way to a field with a small stream winding through the middle. And on the banks of the stream there was a yellow pony, crouched down talking to some small animal. She looked familiar; what was her name again? Phaedriel hadn't been paying attention when she passed through before. Oh well, it didn't matter. Time to try out the Tree's gift...

“Yellow one!” she called. The pony looked up in surprise and glanced around until she found where the voice was coming from.

“Oh, hello there! I –” Suddenly she made a strange sound, a sort of cross between a scream and a squeak, and fluttered up a few feet into the air. “T-t-timberwolves!” she stuttered. “Everyone run, hide!” A white rabbit streaked across the grass away from the forest; there were several plops in the stream as frogs and turtles entered the water. “Why are there timberwolves here? Get them away!” the pony continued, maintaining a good distance from the trees and still hovering in the air.

“'Tis not my fault. They followed me, and mine arrows are useless. An I could, I would gladly be rid of them. Knowest thou, how one may escape pursuit?” The pony language came so easily that it was hard for Phaedriel to believe that just hours ago, she had known nothing of it.

“N-no,” the yellow pony replied. “I don't go in there, it's scary! I can’t even talk to them since they’re not real animals. I stay out here, where the timberwolves don't go.”

They won't leave the forest? Phaedriel thought. Seems plausible, though I'm not sure I'd want to risk it. Still, it may be the only option I have… She took her pack off and looked through it until she found her flint and steel; those were placed into a pocket for quick access. The rest of the pack, and her bow and quiver, she tossed into the field, as far as she could without worrying about breaking anything inside. She took a deep breath and looked down one last time, then leaped out of the tree toward her pile of stuff, executing a safety roll upon landing to prevent injury. She snatched up her pack and bow again and sprinted toward the little stream, not looking back until she had made it over to the other side.

The wolves had not run after her, and were instead pacing back and forth right at the edge of the trees. But then the one Phaedriel had shot earlier stepped out of the woods and began slowly advancing, not really wanting to leave the Everfree but angry enough to do it anyway. The others followed closely behind. Phaedriel pulled the flint and steel out of her pocket, quickly gathered a handful of leaves and twigs, and started striking sparks onto the pile.

“Excuse me,” she called. “I am sorry, your name escapeth me, but I require assistance. Wouldst thou kindly go and catch the wolves' attention for a moment? I believe I can repel them with fire, but I must have the time to build it.” The yellow pony glanced quickly back and forth between Phaedriel, the timberwolves, and the direction of the town. She tucked her legs closer to her body and fluttered a little higher. “Flee not,” Phaedriel said, “for they will follow. One moment of bravery is all I ask. Canst thou do it?”

“I... I don't–”

“Think of thy rabbit, thine friends, thy town! Whatever thou willst, I know not. But thou must keep them back!”

The pony still seemed reluctant, but she finally began moving in a useful direction. The timberwolves had covered half the distance to the stream by now, still creeping slowly but more confidently now. Phaedriel continued striking sparks until the pile of leaves caught. She fed small sticks into the flame to keep it going. What can I use to get this fire onto my arrows? Something to wrap around the heads. Cloth would be best, but I'd rather not use something I'm wearing... Oh, I know, the spare bits I keep for patching stuff. I hope there's enough...

Phaedriel rummaged through her pack and pulled out a handful of small pieces of cloth in various shades of green, brown, and gray. She hated to part with any of her materials, but it had to be done. She grabbed a gray bit first and sliced a strip off with the sharp tip of an arrow, then tied it around that same tip and held it in the fire. The cloth caught quickly, and seconds later Phaedriel launched the flaming arrow. It landed squarely in one of the timberwolves' sides; the creature yelped and broke off its pursuit of the yellow pony to run away into the forest again.

Stupid thing, there's water right here, Phaedriel thought. About what I'd expect from something with wood for brains. She tore off more strips of cloth and one by one set them alight. Her next shot clipped a wolf on the shoulder and skidded off into the grass; luckily the grass was green and did not start to burn as well. Two more arrows dispatched two more wolves, leaving only one still present: the one with the arrow in its head, who seemed to be the leader of the pack. Phaedriel began preparing the next arrow, but as she was tying the strip of cloth she heard a terrible scream from across the field.

She looked up in shock to see that the last wolf had leaped into the air and grabbed hold of the pony's tail in its mouth, and was clawing at her back legs as they both fell to the ground. That beast would have to pay for hurting such a peaceful, timid creature like this pony. Phaedriel nocked her arrow and pulled the string back, carefully looking down the shaft. Don't aim for where it is, aim for where it's going to be... Better make this shot a good one.

She took a fraction of a second longer to be sure of her aim, then let the arrow fly. It followed a graceful arc through the air, heading directly for the space between the timberwolf and the pony. The wolf lunged forward to bite the defenseless pegasus, only to be struck in the side of the head with the flaming point. The impact knocked the wolf onto its side; by the time is scrambled to its feet again, flames were already spreading over its head. It tried to run back into the forest, but there was no escaping the fire. Blinded, it crashed headlong into a tree, stumbled a few steps to the side, and collapsed to the ground.

“Art thou greatly injured?” Phaedriel hurried across the grass to where the yellow pony still lay on the ground. Her hind legs didn't look too bad, only a couple claw marks and none too deep, but she was covering her eyes and shivering, and not responding to any questions. She's in shock, Phaedriel thought. What's good for shock? Poppy seeds. Those and thyme. I should have at least one of those...

“Remain here; I can help thee,” Phaedriel said as she ran back to her supplies. It didn't look like the pony was going anywhere. She pulled open a side compartment and rummaged through it for a moment, then triumphantly pulled out two small handfuls of herbs. Returning to the yellow pony, she held out one of the herbs and said, “Chew on this. Thou wilt feel better. The thyme will calm thine nerves.” Phaedriel took the other plant and began chewing on it herself, making a paste that she then spread gently on the pony's wounds.

The thyme worked quickly, and it was not long before the pony seemed to calm down. Her breathing slowed and became more regular, and she began stretching out of her previous curled-up position. “Are... are they gone?” she asked timidly.

“Indeed, thou art safe,” the human replied. “Thou shouldst return home and rest. Give thine legs a few days to heal. The poultice of horsetail hath stopped the bleeding, but it will still take time. Livest thou in yonder cottage?” The pony nodded and struggled to her hooves, wincing a bit as she put weight on her back legs but staying upright. Phaedriel guided her across the grass and up the hill to the little house. It seemed to be getting darker as they walked –or maybe it was just her imagination.

The pegasus pushed open the door to her cottage, and a moment later a flash of light came through the window on the far end of the room, as the sun quickly passed by on its way to the horizon. Phaedriel shielded her eyes and once again marveled at how strange this world could be. In some ways it was almost identical to Earth, but then there were things like this which made no sense at all.

“Oh, I didn't realize it was so late,” the pony said. “I should feed the rest of my animal friends and go to sleep. Thank you for dealing with those timberwolves.” She started to turn around and go inside, but then reconsidered. “Do you have a place to sleep too, somewhere safe? You're welcome to stay here if you want.”

“Oh, no, thou art too kind. There was somewhere I wished to explore, but I, ah... had some difficulty in getting there. I shall simply find myself a suitable tree for tonight.”

The yellow pony looked shocked. “A tree?! No, it's the least I can do to give you a place to stay. There's always room for one more at Fluttershy's cottage! If I can fit a bear in here, I can fit a human.”

So that's her name, Phaedriel thought. Fluttershy. That's a pretty name. And it makes more sense now that I know the language. Speaking of which, the way she talks sounds strange, like it's not quite correct. Oh well, I'm sure I sound strange to her too. Might as well accept her offer too, I suppose –it's only one night. “Well, if you're sure,” she said aloud. “I don't want to intrude. I'll get my own place tomorrow.”

With that, the two of them walked together into the little house. Phaedriel was amazed at how many creatures lived inside: everything from small birds to mice and squirrels to even a seal. “Watch your step!” Fluttershy warned. “Angel, be nice, we have a visitor. Yes, I know, I'll feed you all in just a minute. Oh, your wing's feeling better? I'm glad to hear that.” She spoke constantly to all the animals in her house as if she could understand them. And maybe she could; in a magical world it might be possible.

Phaedriel followed up a flight of stairs as the yellow pony flew ahead. This cottage was bigger than it looked from the outside. At the top she was led into a room with a large bed in it. Wow, it's been a long time since I've used one of these, she thought. This is going to be weird. I don't really like sleeping in an enclosed space like this, but at least there are windows. And still having the sounds of all the woodland creatures below will be nice. She settled in as well as she could in the unfamiliar softness and tried to clear her mind of any worries. That could all wait until tomorrow; she would be up with the sun and ready to take on a new day.

Author's Note

The inspiration for the creation scene comes from the Montserrat monastery, which is on a mountain just outside Barcelona. I didn't see any alicorns when I was there, but maybe they were just hidden in the fog.

10. Friendships Tested

Monday, September 27, 2021

"Hello, Ms. Xlevrata. And you too... Twilight, you said?" A heavyset, bespectacled man leaned across the conference table and shook a hand or hoof of each of his guests. The sharply-dressed woman sitting next to him did the same. In a corner of the room, a bored guard leaned against the wall. "Before we begin in earnest, however, if I may ask a question?"

"One hundred ninety-seven centimeters," Chryasor said, answering the man's question before he could even ask it. "And no, I don't play basketball."

"Oh." The man looked flustered. "I'm sorry, you must get that a lot." Chryasor nodded, with a pained smile on her face. "Well then, shall we begin?"

The man and woman simultaneously reached down into briefcases sitting by their feet and each pulled out a pad of paper and a pen. "So, as you know, you're here because we want to evaluate your performance over the last couple weeks. The reports you've sent in indicated that you were having considerable success, but there are some concerns we would like to address as well. First, however, your progress on the language."

"Well..." Chryasor said, "I have definitely had success with the language. I can speak the pony language well enough to communicate, and I have taught Twilight some English as well. Isn't that right, Twilight?"

The pony looked over at her human friend, seemingly startled out of a daydream. "Um... yes," she said. "I can... English talk. A little. It is more hard than Equestrian. You have..." She turned to Chryasor. "Susegjutid?"

"Signs? No, probably 'rules' would be better there."

"Rules. You have rules but not follow them. The your language is strange."

The woman across the table scribbled furiously on her pad of paper. "Not bad," she mumbled to herself in German. "The talking horses are creepy as hell, but she's done a good job." Finally looking up, she addressed Chryasor. "Quite impressive actually, for only two weeks and no outside help. I knew there was a reason the higher-ups called for you specifically. So, there are some questions we're supposed to ask, since until now we haven't really had much contact with the aliens."

She reached into her briefcase again and took out a sheet of paper with a list of printed questions. "First," she said, looking at Twilight, "what is your name or designation, and what is your mission here on Earth?"

"My name is Twilight Sparkle. I not had a mission, but after I came she gave I one."

"She? Ms. Xlevrata here?"

"No, my... leader? Tohitu div kørsuwlun."

"The Princess of the Night," Chryasor explained. "They have a dual monarchy and one of them gave Twilight a mission. I was there but didn't understand all the words at the time."

The two reviewers wrote all this down. "So why are you here? What did she tell you?"

To... do what I do in Equestria. To make... friendness. But there is no magic."

"Friendship? So you come in peace?" The humans looked confused, but relieved. That poor guard by the door especially; he had been listening in on the entire conversation and was glad to hear there would not be any conflict.

"Okay, on to the second question." It was the man's turn now. "How much do you know about humans? Have your kind been studying us? Relatedly, what drew your people to Earth rather than somewhere else?"

Twilight didn't answer for a moment as she tried to puzzle through the English words. Finally she just asked Chryasor, who translated the questions easily. "I know very little of humans," Twilight replied. "I came here... nerelelkurb?"

"Intend to, gerund form, without... By accident." It was not a word Chryasor had heard used before but the meaning could be figured out simply enough from existing patterns.

"Ah, I remember now. Thank you. I came by accident here. I left Equestria and there was many worlds. Not ending sight of worlds. Yours had a light, and I followed it."

"So you weren't intending to come to Earth? Well, it's good that you're here. This is the first time humans have ever met another intelligent species. And you just happened to land in Geneva too, where to closest thing we have to a world government is located."

"This is where the light was. It shines in the place between the worlds." The two humans were very interested now. Chryasor could see the words "CALL CERN" written on the man's paper in big capital letters.

"Well, this makes a lot of our required questions kind of irrelevant, if you weren't originally intending to come to Earth. There are still a few though, I think." He marked a few bullet points on his sheet and showed it to his partner. The woman took a quick glance at it and proceeded with the interview.

"Where is the planet you come from? How far away from this one?"

Twilight was unsure how to answer. Could a distance even be defined? She had traveled to the wrong side of the stars, beyond anything she or anypony else had ever experienced before. And Equestria's stars were supposed to be infinitely far away, impossible to fly up to. Finally, not having any better answer, she just said, "I not know."

The humans seemed disappointed. "So how does the portal work then? Are your people willing to share the technology?"

"I show you all, if we be in Equestria. It is magic." Twilight closed her eyes for a moment and lit up her horn, trying to sense any magic around. "There is not enough here. You not can make one. Maybe with time. It grows."

The interviewers' next question was directed to Chryasor. "What is this 'magic' she keeps talking about? There's no such thing as magic. Why did you teach her that word when there's got to be some other explanation?"

"Actually... in her world it really exists. I've seen it. Force fields, levitation, the whole deal. And I don't think it's just fancy technology either. Things just don't work the same way over there."

The woman's eyes narrowed with skepticism. "We'll investigate this more later. But this brings us to the second reason for our meeting here: you haven't exactly been following the instructions you were given. If I recall, you were supposed to learn how to communicate with the aliens and that was all. From Geneva. You and no one else, since the department was unable to provide a full team at the time. However, you yourself reported that you traveled to the alien planet –and not only that, but others have been there too!"

Now the other interviewer jumped in with his own commentary. "Do you have any idea how much of a problem this is?" he asked. "The United Nations has this whole long list of protocols to follow in case we ever made contact with aliens, and you've broken a hell of a lot of them. You said you met their... Princess of the Night, or whatever. Sort of negates the whole 'our leaders talk to their leaders first' thing, now doesn't it? You were supposed to act as translator for Secretary-General Torres, Presidents Sanders and Putin, and all the rest, not be the visiting diplomat yourself! You need clearance for that sort of thing.

"And you let this Zairovsa Elviria person through too. While our scientists do need to talk to their scientists, that comes later. Much later. Probably after we've figured out they don't want to kill us all, not before. At least she's out now; we don't want random civilians running around in the way of sensitive operations."

He paused to catch his breath and Chryasor finally was able to get a word of her own in. "But sir," she interjected, "she went through without my knowledge. I was doing my job perfectly well at the time. I crossed over as well because I was invited to by Twilight here, and as soon as I did, I found Zai and escorted her back. Do you really think it's good foreign policy, after showing a visitor around our planet, to be so impolite as to refuse an offer to go see theirs?"

"Zai? Do you know this person?" the man asked, seemingly ignoring most of what Chryasor had just said to fixate on that tiny part. He looked incredulously at her over the top of his glasses.

"Well I would certainly hope so, since she's my little sister. I've known her since the day she was born."

"Oh, that just makes this whole mess even worse," the woman sighed. She was anxiously tapping her pen against the table. "They're going to think you have a conflict of interest and want you reassigned somewhere else. Personally, I think you've done such an amazing job with the language that they can overlook some of this other stuff, but remember we only make a recommendation –the final decision of what happens next is up to them."

"I don't think they'll be able to ignore this one though," the man said, holding up a document Chryasor found rather familiar. "This is a reimbursement request for two plane tickets. It's titled 'Equestrian Immigration Initiative'. I don't recall there being anything like this."

Chryasor was amazed. "People actually read those? I always thought it was just some guy with a rubber stamp approving everything.”

"People read them when they come from you," the man explained, "because right now you're important. Other requests not so much. So would you care to explain what this is? No such project was ever authorized."

"Of course it wasn't authorized. It's an initiative. I took the initiative to do some good in the world, without wading through years of red tape first. The 'project' consisted of relocating a certain individual to Equestria. That's it; it's done now. The project is complete. No need to worry about it anymore."

This elicited a chuckle from the other humans. "Nice try," the woman said, "but we're going to need a bit more than that. Who was this person you sent to Equestria, and why?"

"And why did you think you could do something like this? You had to know that would be against the rules."

Chryasor took a moment to think of a good answer. "The person's name is Phaedriel Arisaema. I have known her a long time, and she poses no threat to anything the UN or anyone else wishes to do. She was dissatisfied with human life, so I helped her escape it. I assure you, she has no desire whatsoever to get in your way." That would have to be good enough. No need to mention the fact that they were related; that would only make it worse. Having chosen different last names made it easy to deny.

The reviewers scribbled more words down on their pads of paper. "Would you excuse us for a moment?" They got up and left the room, shutting the door behind them and leaving Chryasor and Twilight alone with each other and the silent guard. Chryasor took the time to fill Twilight in on all that had just been said, in case she hadn't been able to follow all the English. She listened carefully and tried to make out what the reviewers were saying outside, but only caught fragments of the conversation.

“So what do you think? There’s good and there’s bad here. If we say…”

“...the only one. Can we afford… now?”

“The world leaders will be all over us… impatient… Already we’ve seen…”

“...good reason too. What about…”

“...could be… idea. We still need… eventually… agree?”
Finally the door opened again and the two humans returned.

"We have a decision," the man said ominously. "The following is what we will send to the committee as our recommendation. We believe this is the best course of action, and that the committee will agree." He looked over at the woman, cueing her to start reading off what they had come up with.

"First: it is recognized that Chryasor Xlevrata has successfully completed her assignment of learning to communicate with the aliens. We find her level of competence with their language impressive. However, we feel obligated to also note the existence of numerous breaches of protocol in relation to unauthorized crossings of the border between our worlds. In light of both these things, we recommend that Ms. Xlevrata cease all contact with the ponies and their world, and instead teach the Equestrian language to others, who will then serve as the translators we need."

Chryasor could only stand there, shocked into silence. No more contact with any ponies? She had started to get rather attached to this little unicorn and would hate to never be able to see her again. But what could she do? She could always appeal any decision they made, but it was unlikely to change anything. And anything she did to protest could damage her reputation and her chances for advancement. She opened her mouth to thank the reviewers for not saying anything really bad about her and to accept her new assignment, but Twilight spoke first.

"No," the pony said. "You may not this. Chryasor is a friend my. I do not leave my friends." She stepped closer to Chryasor, putting herself between the unfamiliar humans and the one she knew.

"Twilight, I must go with them," Chryasor said. "There is nothing we can do." Addressing the other humans, she said, "I realize I did things I should not have, and I thank you both for your leniency. I look forward to teaching people how to talk to these wonderful ponies." She started walking over toward the others and the door, but suddenly felt a strange force pulling her back. Her entire body was engulfed in a pink glow, and she stumbled backward a step.

"Twilight," she said, "I am going to miss you. I really am. But you have to let me go." She continued in Equestrian so the others would not understand. "If I don't go then I will be in serious trouble. But if I accept it peacefully, I have a chance to redeem myself and maybe they will let me come back. These people need me too. I will be okay. Our friendship will be okay."

The reviewers looked a little impatient now, but thankfully not too suspicious of whatever Chryasor might have just said. "Ready to go?" the man asked, pulling open the door. "You can expect a formal email with everything by tomorrow afternoon at the latest. We will have someone escort Twilight here back home. Hey, what's she doing?"

Chryasor turned around to see the unicorn's horn glowing, brighter than she had ever seen it before. "I don't know," she said. "Suwlsɤwznelk, ¿þevor uwmrekoy?" But the pony didn't respond. She looked like she was concentrating extremely hard on something. Chryasor began to feel tingly all over, the sensation growing stronger and stronger. "What the hell?" Suddenly, there was a flash of pink light all around her, and for an instant it felt like she was submerged in some icy fluid, flowing past at an incredible rate.

She opened her eyes after the pink flash to find a very different room around her. It was full of desks and computers and people working. And people stopping work to turn around and see what that loud bang and flash of pink light was. Chryasor didn’t even have a chance to say hello to her sister before a translucent pink film appeared over her and she was carried backward into the library basement beyond the portal.

۞ ۞ ۞

Zai stared at the math-filled paper in front of her in frustration. Nothing made any sense anymore. All she was trying to do was come up with a theory of how magic worked –that couldn't be too hard, could it? Somehow those ponies were able to lift and manipulate objects without touching them, and even create wormholes through space, all without any sort of visible technology. It all just seemed impossible. And yet it couldn't be, because Zai had seen it firsthand. She picked up her pencil again and looked over her work, not knowing that in the Canterlot Royal Library there was an entire wing devoted to magic theory that still didn't have a complete answer.

Come on, Zai, you can do this, she thought to herself. This is just like your PhD thesis material. Non-gravitational interactions among dark matter particles. Forces beyond the normal four we're used to. I should go back and reread my own work and see if any of it could apply here. Might as well try some simple explanations before getting into the crazy stuff though. Think back to the beginning. It's freshman year at MIT, I'm in intro physics learning about electromagnetism. The force is a constant times the product of the charges over the square of the distance. If magic does the same, I understand it. I don't understand it, so it must do something weird instead. What if it's the cube of the distance? Then.... I don't know, but I could work it out. What if there are just more than two charges? What if there are infinitely many?

She started writing down all the magic effects she had seen so far, to try to look for patterns or ways of explaining things in terms of familiar processes. There was levitation, which resulted in both the horn and the object glowing. And there was the portal creation which she hadn't seen, and the portal locking which she had seen one side of. Levitation was clearly the simplest of those. Suppose there was an invisible beam connecting horn and target, something that worked sort of like light but wasn't. That somehow exerts an upward force... but where is the equal and opposite reaction force? The glow meant that whatever magic particle is involved had to have some electric charge, so at least Zai knew something.

Maybe her theory could use some inspiration from reality. “Hey First, how's the SWITCH data coming today? Still chasing down that missing bit of energy you saw before?”

“No,” First sighed. He waved a hand at his computer screen, where several complicated data plots were showing. “See for yourself. The thing's gone crazy. It's supposed to be the Survey of Weak Interaction in Top and CHarm quarks, right? Studying the decay paths of heavy baryons. But it just doesn't make any sense anymore. It's violating conservation laws all over the place.”

“Well that's good, isn't it? It means there's new physics out there. And if there's stuff we can't explain, then that keeps me in a job because somebody has to figure out how to explain it. Who knows, maybe this will be the penguin.”

“The what?” First tried to puzzle out what Zai could possibly mean.

“Oh, sorry, I forgot that wasn't standard usage. It's an acronym –because, you know, physicists just love to make everything an acronym. I had to follow the tradition. It stands for the Final, spelled with a PH, Experiment to Know, ignore the K, Grand Unification In Nature. You know, the experiment that finally gives us the last piece of the puzzle.”

"That's, um... That's definitely a name only you would come up with."

"Hey, it's not as bad as ALFALFA, the Arecibo Legacy Fast Arecibo L-band Feed Array. They used the name of their observatory twice in the same acronym.”

"Okay yeah, that's just silly. But anyway, I'm not sure these readings mean anything beyond the fact that the detector might be broken. It's been like this ever since that thing–" He pointed over his shoulder at the portal. "–had its little whatever with the two purple horse aliens and we started being able to see through it." He rolled his eyes. "I swear, I thought looking at that portal was bad enough before, when it was just black. Every morning when I walked through the front door, I would end up staring into the abyss, and it would stare back into me just like Nietzsche said. Now I just stare into someone's house. But that manages to be even worse, because no matter where I stand in this room, when I look at it I see the other side from the same angle. It really just messes with your head, you know?"

Zai nodded. "Yeah, it seems to be three-dimensional on this side and two-dimensional over there. No clue how that works. I wonder what it looks like from the other side now –would you see out in every direction at once? That would look pretty weird." She smiled widely. "I might have to go find out..."

"Oh, no no no no, I know that look. That's the look you get when you're about to do something you shouldn't." He held up his hands in a cautioning manner and spoke slowly, as if to a child. "It is okay to not act on every impulse that goes through your mind. Really. You don't have to. How about, instead of that, you take a look at this and tell me what the hell is going on.”

Zai let out a dramatic sigh. “But... but science! Observation! Experiment! Alright, fine, what have you got?”

“What we've got is... very weird. New particles, lots of them. One has the same charge as the electron but the mass is like seventeen electron masses. Then there's something that looks like a scalar boson but it's not just a Higgs. And a whole collection of others I haven't identified yet. And you know what we're not seeing? Bottom and strange quarks, the ones these top and charm quarks are supposed to turn into.”

“Wow, yeah, that is weird. Are these supposed to move that way in a magnetic field?”

“Nope. I'd say they're monopoles, but those don't exist.”

“Well, they're not supposed to exist. Maybe they do anyway?” Zai picked up her pencil and twirled it through her fingers. “It would mess up two of the Maxwell equations but probably wouldn't have too much real effect, right? Let's see, if we–” She broke off suddenly as an exclamation was heard across the room.

"Oh, shit!" Zai and First both looked over toward the sudden sound. Was that Hannah? I think that's the first time I've ever heard her swear. I wonder what's going on over there. But there was no need to wonder long. "Everyone, come look at this!"

Zai dropped her pencil and made her way over to where the commotion was. Several other people were also converging on that spot, but just as many were content to just listen from their usual desks. It was a good thing Dr. Ziegler was tolerant of people taking breaks from working at random times to do other things. After all, letting one's mind rest for a few minutes could easily restore productivity and more than make up for time lost.

Hannah's screen seemed to be showing a news article. That was fairly normal; she was always interested in what was going on in the world. More so than many of the other scientists here anyway, who were often rather isolated from the mundane existence around them. Who cared which team had won the World Cup, or what the latest celebrity gossip was? Who cared even what parties controlled the Federal Assembly, as long as they didn't decrease science funding?

But as Zai got closer she could read the headline on the screen, and it was definitely something to care about. "United States President assassinated!" it screamed in big bold letters. Oh shit, indeed, Zai thought. He was one of the good ones, too. I don't live there anymore but it's still important who's in charge. She leaned over to read the text of the article.

“President Sanders of the United States was assassinated today during his visit to Paris, France for the G17 climate summit,” it read. “Eyewitnesses report that a bearded man in white robes jumped out in front of the President's car, forcing it to stop. The man did not produce any weapon, but rather shouted at the vehicle and set himself on fire. No reports indicate what exactly the man was saying, but one witness has asserted that it was Arabic. While the driver was attempting to turn the car around, a single gunshot entered the front windshield and struck President Sanders in the chest, killing him instantly. Police are attempting to track down the shooter.”

Zai skimmed over the rest. Hmm, no ID found on the distraction guy. He must have dental records somewhere though. They're still working on the ballistics, what kind of gun was used and from where. Whoever did this was clearly a professional. I hope they catch him. Or her or them, I suppose. She motioned for Hannah to scroll down and noticed some new information at the bottom of the page.

“Update (10:40 am): Three members of the French parliament have been found dead in their offices. All three appear to have been suicide, however further investigation is ongoing.
Update 2 (2:15 pm, 8:15 am local): On her way to the Capitol building to take the oath of office, Vice President Warren's vehicle was struck head-on by another car. She has been transported to the nearest hospital and is in intensive care. The other driver was pronounced dead at the scene. Authorities are investigating whether this could be connected to the attack on President Sanders earlier today.”

Wow, it gets worse. There's no way this is just coincidence, not this many deaths. But who's behind it? It has to be a country for something like this, not a lone person. The US has made a lot of enemies with its blundering foreign policy. Most recently Russia; the proxy war in Syria ended badly for both powers, with the various groups they supported joining together against foreign influence. But never mind that, what's going to happen next? How does this affect me? There's no denying this is bad, but can I make anything good come of it? I'm sure it's already too late to do anything in the markets.

Oh well, at least we're pretty isolated from the fallout here. Switzerland is great for staying out of things. I guess I should get back to work... Zai sat back down at her desk and returned to staring at her calculations. Magic really shouldn't be this hard to figure out. There must be rules to it somehow. Then an idea struck her: the ponies would certainly know. They had scientists too. And more importantly, they must have textbooks somewhere –probably in that library right next door. She eyed the portal, trying not to look too suspicious. Knowledge is power, she thought. Of course, knowledge is good for its own sake too, but power is nice. I just have to find a way to get it.

۞ ۞ ۞

Phaedriel awoke with a start. Where am I? she wondered momentarily. Oh right, in this pony's house. That really happened. Well, the sun's up; I should get up too and stop intruding on this poor pony. I'm sure she has much better things to do than have me around.

She moved to push off the light blanket but felt an odd resistance, something holding her arm to her body above the elbow. Using her arm as well as she could, she inched the blanket down until she could see the problem: a pale yellow foreleg, most likely attached to a pale yellow pony laying behind her. What? What's she doing here? Phaedriel thought frantically. Why am I being hugged? No no no, I am against the hugging! I need to get out of here!

She struggled to free herself but every movement only seemed to make the yellow pony hold on tighter. All Phaedriel managed to accomplish was to roll onto her back and push the covers off the top half of her body. I need to get some clothes back on before she wakes up. Still no idea why she's even here either. I thought she was going to be downstairs or something. Oh, this is not good.

Phaedriel looked over at the pony still sleeping peacefully by her side. She contemplated trying to gently pick up the hoof and slip out without disturbing anything, but she never got the chance. Just then, Fluttershy shifted her weight and threw a hind leg over Phaedriel's waist. Well shit, I'm not getting out of this, am I? And the situation only got worse when the sleeping pony decided that Phaedriel's naked breast would make an excellent pillow.

Okay, um... really not too comfortable with this... I'm naked and there's a pony laying on me and I really wasn't expecting this to happen. The sun is up and I'm trapped inside this building. But let's try to look on the bright side here. Is there a bright side? Um... I don't actually have anything that needs to be done today, and it's a soft, comfy bed. Pretty soft pony fur too, almost like a cat. Hmm, that's actually a good comparison; she's pinning me in place just like my kitty Ginger used to when I was little.

Well, it looks like I'm being snuggled whether I want to be or not. Might as well try to enjoy it, I suppose. Just pretend she's a giant yellow and pink cat... Phaedriel rolled onto her other side and placed one arm over the pony's body. She buried her face in the flowing pink mane, closing her eyes and trying to fall back asleep. It was difficult to make herself relax, since she was used to getting up so early, but the warmth and feathery softness helped. Maybe this isn't so bad after all, she thought. I haven't shared a bed with another intelligent being in... how many years? I don't know, a lot. Might even be coming up on ten now since that half a year I spent in college.

Phaedriel lay there for a while, half-awake, pondering events she hadn't thought about for almost a decade. Once upon a time, she had been a freshman student at the University of Chicago, trying to decide whether she should major in chemistry or psychology. It was her first time living away from home for more than a couple days, and so for the first time she had had the chance to fully explore more aspects of her identity. She had had one good friend there: a girl named Lynn Kirsche, interested in the same sorts of subjects as Phaedriel, and a member of the school's orchestra, and an enthusiastic political activist.

They became very close during their first few months there, and gradually each began to realize that maybe they wanted to be more than just friends. Phaedriel had never dated anyone before –having always been told that boys were her only option, she hadn't thought she was interested in relationships at all. Eventually she and Lynn paired up, and with a little reshuffling of roommate assignments they moved in together. But sadly, it did not last long.

For all this coincided with the beginning of Phaedriel's first wave of depression and cynicism. Lynn's political involvement made Phaedriel realize just how broken the world really was –she had heard bits and pieces before, but seeing the issues firsthand was quite a revelation. All the protests taught Phaedriel only one thing: that resistance was futile. The corporations always won. No matter how hard one tried, it was impossible to make any real difference.

So what was the point in even trying? Why stick around if everything you do will surely fail, if none of your effort matters? Phaedriel decided that she just couldn't take any more of this, so one day she just gathered up some basic supplies, made a quick stop at a camping store on her way out of town, and walked off without a backward glance. Lynn had refused to come with her, so apart from occasional correspondence with her sister Chry, she had been alone ever since. Until the last few days.

Suddenly her peaceful life had been disrupted by a surprise visit from her other sister, the one who embraced the system of the world and loved all the things Phaedriel had sworn to leave behind. The one who had caused the death of their mother just by being born, the reason why Phaedriel's earliest memories were marred by sadness. Nothing good could come of them being around each other. But the chain of events that had brought them back together had just as quickly separated them again, and sent Phaedriel into this other world where, with luck, she would never have to deal with humanity again.

No humanity, only ponies. Like the pony right here in her arms. Her mind's wandering had finally reached a conclusion, returning to the present moment. And so, thinking done for a while, she gently slipped back to sleep.