The Wrong Side of the Mirror

“Argh!” Jumping backwards through a portal would have been one of Rainbow Dash’s easiest exercises, even without knowing what was on the other side. But doing so while transforming into a pegasus pony midjump was something new. Am I bleeding? She tried to hold the part of her head she had hit against the door frame while falling out of the portal. “Argh!” she screamed again. Instead of softly holding her head with her hand, she had rammed her forehoof against the wound. Now I’m definitely bleeding.

Rainbow tried to get on her hooves. They slid away a few times, but her dexterity hadn’t left her, so she figured it out quickly. The only door out of the room was the next problem. How to pull a door handle without hands? First she tried pushing it down with her chin. It worked, but she couldn’t apply any backward momentum to pull the door open that way. Finally she decided just to bite in it and pull it with her teeth.

Is that the normal way how ponies handle items? Just take them with their mouthes? Seems a bit gross. I have no idea how many ponies had that in their mouthes before me. She spit out. Sharing a glass or a cigarette with someone else had never been a problem to her, but only with people she knew.

Okay, time to find my way out of here. Rainbow looked around. A corridor opened in two directions. At her right side, it led to a balcony. She stretched her wings. Better not, she thought as she got there. It are at least twelve feet. Don’t want my first attempt of flying be my last one if I don’t get it right. So she went in the other direction until she found a staircase and followed it down.

After wandering around some more minutes through what had to be Twilight Sparkle’s castle she found a big hall with six thrones in it. One of them was occupied by a lavender colored winged unicorn, a smaller chair right next to it by a tiny dragon. Spike and Twilight, most likely, Rainbow thought. They look similar enough. Twilight was dictating a letter to Spike.

“Good, you can send that off to he mayor of Fillydelphia. Hi, Rainbow. What are you doing here?”

“Nothing special,” she replied. “Just having a look around.”

“Rainbow, are you hurt.” Twilight gave Rainbow’s head a worried look “I think there’s blood on the back of your head.”

“Just a… little stunt went wrong while… flying. Nothing serious.” The second part wasn’t even a lie, she was hardly feeling it any more.

“As always,” Twilight sighed. “See you this afternoon. And try not to break any more body parts until then.”

“Can’t make any promises.” Rainbow laughed and walked through the main door which she hoped would lead out of the castle.

“Something is wrong with Rainbow,” said Spike. “Look at how she’s walking. As if she had never been on hooves before. Do you think she has a concussion? Or is she drunk?”

Twilight shook her head. “She didn’t smell of alcohol. And it isn’t cider season. She would not be drunk such early. Or at all, as she promised me to help me with some of the letters later. She likes to drink from time to time, but she’s not an alcoholic. But, on the other hoof, the wound really did not look too serious. She’s been walking straight after worse. Don’t know what’s up with her. But she would have said something if it was serious, so nothing to worry about.”

“One more thing,” said Spike. “If she hit something while flying, how did she hurt the back of her head? Well, maybe she was trying to fly backwards. Where that all letters before lunch? My claw is hurting and I’m starving.”

“Just one more to Princess Celestia. And it will be a short one. Only five letters and one number. ‘Rook d4.’ If I haven’t missed anything, that might save my bishop.”

“Don’t tell me you’re still playing chess with her.” Spike looked at her. “Have you ever won a game?”

“Of course not, Spike. Don’t be ridiculous. She has a few thousand years more experience than me. But three times so far, I got a draw.”

“Okay. Just imagine I am a plane. Starting against the wind. Stretching out the wings. Running as fast as I can. And then just lift off and start flapping.” Rainbow Dash looked around to make sure nopony was watching. She had selected a soft, barren field for her first attempt to fly. Even if she might crash, it would not hurt to much. “Well, time to give it a try.” She ran off, flapped her wings as hard as she could, and actually got some air under her hooves.

“I did it! I did it! Too bad I don’t have an audience.” She tried maneuvering left and right and quickly got the hang out of it. “Not as difficult as I had imaged,” she said to herself. “Well, I’m just good. And it does feel great! Yuhah! But how do I land?”

She was flying way too fast and high to just hit the ground. However, she saw a lake not a mile away. Water is soft if you hit it the right way, she thought. And horses can swim. The water is clear and at least 20 feet deep. I’ve been jumping of the 10 meters diving platform before, I should be able to pull that off.

She did, but breaking through the water hurt. After losing her orientation for some moments she spotted the surface and came back out of the water, gasping for air. Better not try that again. Not without asking Rainbow how to land. She slowly swam to shore and lay on the grass to relax and dry in the sun. Not gonna get up form here for at last fifteen minutes.

After a few minutes she changed her mind. Flying was awesome, she would not let one little setback stop her. She would figure out how to land. In the worst case, it would be another water landing.

It didn’t take her long to slow herself enough while flying to make a safe landing. Flying was exhausting, but learning it felt rewarding. It also distracted her from the evergrowing need for a cigarette.

After over an hour of flight training Rainbow Dash was smiling brightly. She was feeling great. Her knees were scratched from failed landings, her wings were hurting from over exercising, the wound at her head was feeling worse again, and she was dying for a cigarette, but she didn’t care. She had been flying, and that was worth any pain imaginable. “I have to do that again. But I can’t leave my other self hanging. I’ll have to get back.”

She walked back to Twilight’s castle and entered the throne room. As she didn’t know the castle’s layout and didn’t want to try a landing of such a small space as the balcony of the castle she had to backtrack the way she came out. But Twilight and Spike were still, or maybe again, in the throne room.

“Hi again,” Twilight said. “You’re a bit early for helping me with my sport and flying related letters. Haven’t sorted them out yet. By the way, I’ve seen you flying earlier. What was up with you? You looked like you never did that before.”

An excuse, please, let me find an excuse. “Well, it’s just, you know, I’m actually good at flying, but, well, as a good flier I sometimes, well, have to train the newbies. So I was practicing flying like they would. I’ll just go to the toilet for a minute and let you sort that letters. Maybe I should have gone before I came here.” She left the room through the door leading to way to the mirror.

“I really think there is something wrong with Rainbow, Spike. If she wanted to train newbies, she would take it slow and not do her usual tricks, but she wouldn’t deliberately make mistakes like holding her wings wrong. And the shortest way to the toilet was the other direction. Do you think her head wound is worse than it seems, or is it something else? She sounded a bit like she was making half of this up. But why should she?”

“Okay, time to go home. Other Rainbow Dash, here I come.” Rainbow Dash took a running jump against the mirror, and bounced off. “Ouch!” She pushed herself against the mirror. She hammered against it with her forhooves. Nothing worked. “Stupid thing. Open! Open! Must be broken. Well, I’ll do the same thing to you like when my computer doesn’t work. Power off and on again.”

Rainbow Dash removed the magical book from Twilight’s apparatus powering the mirror portal. A few seconds later, she put it in again. Nothing happened. The mirror was still closed. “Dammit! Well, at that point I’d call customer service. Which would be Twilight in this case. How should I explain that to her without letting her know we switched placed. You’re a really stupid mirror. And why do I talk to you like you could understand me?”