HAVE YOU EVER DONE done something in life that just makes you want to turn back time and prevent yourself from doing whatever it was you did? Maybe you called your English teacher Mom, or perhaps you tried to paint a fence with your friend and ended up cleaning your hands with bleach instead of paint remover. Maybe you got in a fight and lost, or flunked a test, or forgot to put the dog out and woke up to a nice coil on the carpet. I've done a few things that I wanted to go back and change, and the biggest one happened pretty recently. If I could go back in time and prevent myself from doing it, I would totally snatch up the chance.

What I did was come home. According to the text I got from Sandy, I had made the biggest mistake of my life on March seventh, 2034 at six-eleven pm.

I walked though my front door and fell into Equestria.

If I had been just a few minutes sooner, or later, then maybe the portal would have missed me, would have disappeared and left me alone, but noooo, I had to time it perfectly. Me wanting to come home before my parents was the biggest mistake of my life, because now I'm trapped in this world filled with four-foot-tall talking ponies with horns, and wings, and eyes way too fucking big for their heads.

The only real upside to this place is that there are twenty-two other humans that went through the same thing I did, and seven of them are in the castle with me. Dean said I was the twenty-forth human to arrive in Equestria, so I guess my numbers don't add up. Well, I asked Dean about that one day when he was checking up on me. He avoided the question, tried to talk me into leaving the room. I didn't want to, really, mainly because I would have two ponies tailing me wherever I went. Those two subjects are linked, truthfully. I got Dean to spill the beans about both of them on the third day he visited me after my episode.

One of the humans that arrived here took his own life a few weeks before I arrived. Forty-three days prior to my arrival, just over six weeks exactly.

His name was Aisaya Ki Twain. Born in Hong Kong, moved to China, and lived there until he was stolen to this mystical plane of existence. He was the last arrival before me. From what he told everyone (more like what they could figure, since his English was something to be desired), he was single, had no close family, had only a few drinking buddies, and his world revolved around technology. His only real skill was soldering wires and making computer chips and that stuff. Equestria's most advanced tech were in the hospitals, and most of it was powered by magically charged batteries. He didn't take it well.

He sat around for a few months, wasting away, like Dean said I was doing. Didn't really eat, drank only what he needed, didn't socialize. At least, at first. The last month before he died, Aisaya's personality did a one-eighty; he was happy, he ate to his fill, he joked around with the other humans, and even a few guards, he played games with them. He seemed to finally have accepted the idea of living in Equestria.

Then he jumped out one of the windows and fell off the side of Canterlot.

Fun fact, Canterlot is zero-point-eight miles off the flat ground the rest of the continent live on. Aisaya freefell forty-two hundred feet to his death. There is a small memorial dedicated to his short memory in Equestria at the base of the mountain. Dean sugarcoated a lot of it, but I understood it. Someone committed suicide because they didn't want to live here, in another dimension on a different planet. That day I learned three things.

One; I learned why the windows were enchanted.

Two; There are secrets in this castle, and I would most likely hear a few of them.

And three; Fearing a repeat incident may occur with me, Princess Celestia had put me on suicide watch. Whenever I left the room, I would be accompanied by two friendly ponies, but I didn't have the chance to meet them yet, since I haven't left the room yet, who were equipped with communication crystals. Dean explained them to me, saying they were sort of like cellphones, but made of blue crystal in some form of necklace or pendant that could easily contact the guards or the princesses. Yes, princesses, as in more than Celestia. Her sister Luna, their 'not-by-blood-relation' niece Mi Amore Cadenza, and some newly-crowned royalty Twilight Sparkle. Dean had explained that I would most likely be meeting with the rest of them later on, but then turned that conversation into one trying to get me to leave my room. I promptly ignored him, not wanting to. In fact, I rarely left the bed. It hurt too much to really move much more than that.

I didn't take the fact that everypony thought I was gonna kill myself too happily, but then again, I haven't been happy in... what is it now, eight days? No, nine. Nine days since I broke down in Dean's arms. And while I wasn't happy about being under surveillance, I can kinda see why.

In nine days, I haven't left my room. I stopped eating after the third, and because of that I was losing weight. I didn't bathe. I didn't talk to anyone, except Dean, mainly because he was the only one who would come into my room and force me to at least yell at him. Though, I would mostly answer "yes" or "no" or maybe a "get the Hell out," and maybe he could get a sentence out of me that wasn't too rude, but that was it. And it was setting everyone one edge, but who really cares, right? Celestia thinks she does, but... really, she's the co-ruler of an entire continent full of talking ponies, and I'm just a single human among a handful of them. And truthfully, depression isn't that bad.

It had been over a week and I still wouldn't really do anything. At first, I would just listen to music and think about home. Then the battery died in my iPod and I just didn't want to recharge it. Not because I was too lazy, but because if I did I would think abut home again in greater detail, and I really didn't want to cry again, so... Sometimes I would just stare at the ceiling. I only left the bed to go to the bathroom in the morning. Recently, I stopped going to sleep. Not really, but at the same time, yeah. I didn't decide it was time to sleep, instead I would black out, or go into some sort of trance and see that a few hours had passed. Dean would visit me constantly, doing anything he could to help me.

Dean made his visits routinely, six times a day. Three of those times a day, Dean would bring in one of those fancy silver dining carts that you see waiters at big restaurants wheel out with a big order, and try to get me to eat something. Just like he was now.

"Jenny, please," Dean said with a pleading tone, "you have to eat something."

"I'm not hungry," was my reply, just like always. I rolled onto my side, which took a lot of effort to do so slowly, because not eating a single thing in six or seven days had, in fact, left me with a terrible stomach ache. Movement in general stabbed my midsection, and while I didn't like it, pain was just a side effect, and so was the feeling that if I did eat, it felt like I would immediately lose it. And it was manageable.

"Jenny, please," Dean repeated once more. "You have to eat, everyone does. You can't keep doing this to yourself."

"Not hungry."

"Jennifer..." I felt Dean sit on the bed with me. "I understand what you're going through, we all do. It hurts to be suddenly ripped away from what you know, what you love, but this isn't healthy." He put his hand on the uncovered section of my waist, making me wince from the light pressure. I gently moved his hand away from my stomach and pulled at my shirt. It was riding up from me moving, and even though I didn't have my pants on, my legs started to itch. I didn't move to scratch them though, I was just so tired of feeling... anything.

"Don't do this to yourself, Jennifer," Dean said softly.

"I'm not doing anything," I said weakly.

"Jenny... Please."

"Knock it off Dean, and leave me alone." I shifted a bit and scratched my bare leg. I had foregone my pants so I could just lay around in my underwear and undershirt. It was my room, after all, so I should be able to do what I wanted. "I'm fine," I slurred out, trying to fall back asleep.

I heard Dean half gasp and half choke on his own spit, and that kinda caught my attention. Then he grabbed my shoulders and pulled me up into a sitting position. My eyes found his, and he looked... somewhere between angry and afraid.

"Don't give me that," he said sternly. "Jennifer, look at yourself!" Dean nearly yelled at me, his voice starting to increase in volume. So... I did. Nothing new.

"What about me?" I asked him, which made him grab a lock of my long hair. And I flinched at the sight of it. It looked like straw, nothing like the silk it use to. I guess I hadn't really noticed, but constant rubbing between my body and the sheets do that sort of thing.

"Look at this! Your hair has lost it's sheen. It's splitting, tangled, and filthy!" He grabbed my face with his left hand and brought my nose close to his. "Look at yourself, you look like a damn skeleton!" To emphasize his point, he lifted up my shirt just enough to see my stomach. I looked down between my still-covered breasts to see myself. My midsection was a tad swollen from neglect, and my ribs and hips were starting to poke out... Okay, they've been like that for a bit now, even before all this, but not nearly this bad. Truthfully, it bothered me, but not too much to really care. Dean let my shirt drop and grabbed my right arm, bringing it up between us. Again, not much change, just slightly paler skin. "Jenny," Dean said quietly, painfully, "this isn't healthy."

"Health is just an evaluation seen through the eyes of others to gauge bodily or mental functions," I said mechanically. "Am I still alive? Yes. Is my brain still functioning? Yes, so my health is none of your concern."

"It is my concern, Jennifer," Dean said angrily. "I'm your physician."

"You're a nurse," I corrected him.

Dean grunted angrily. "I was, and still am, training to be a professional surgeon. I have more than enough experience to call myself a doctor."

"But is it legal?" I asked him.

He ignored my question. "It concerns me to see my patient, and friend, slowly kill herself!" I took my arm away from his hand and fixed my shirt a bit more.

"I'm fine, I'm just... not hungry." Dean stood up and offered me his hand. "...What?"

"You're not fine," he stated.

"I am," I argued.

"Are not."

"Am too."

"If you're fine," he said curtly, "then stand up."

"Don't wanna."

"Oh, for the love of—" Dean pinched the bridge of his nose and huffed. He didn't like to curse, said he didn't want to taint his peers' innocence. It didn't stop the guards from talking like sailors when he was gone. It was funny in a way, mainly because even though this is a different world, these ponies had some of our curse words, as well as their own. Ponyfeathers, that one always made me smirk. But Dean still got angry. "Jennifer, stand up!" He yelled, really yelled this time. "Show me that you're not in as terrible shape as everyone thinks! Show me that I'm wrong to worry about you!"

I had a hard time keeping his gaze after he stopped yelling, but managed to not break our staring contest. After a few moments, I swung my arm up and took his hand. With his help, I stood up as well, swaying a bit as I tried to keep my knees from knocking together. The action of standing, though, was much to quick, and pain flared up in my stomach. Dean noticed my very obvious discomfort as I took my hand from his and used both of mine to clutch at my gut.

"Jenny, what's wrong?" he asked, suddenly bent down a bit, ready for anything.

"It hurts," I managed to say. I slowly sat back down on the edge of my bed, the pain starting to fade to a dull throb that corresponded with my pulse. "Standing hurts. Moving hurts."

"Where does it hurt? You should have told me if you were in pain." Dean straightened his collar and sat down beside me. I just waved my hand around my entire right side, trying not to reignite the feeling, to show him. Dean slowly reached out and did the same thing, being careful not to touch me, then mimed the action on himself. "...I need to go, I'll be back soon." With that, he got up and opened the door wide. "Stone, inside. Keep an eye on her... And try to keep her talking." I heard the door close and waited a bit before looking up at the newest entry of my room.

It was the brown earth pony that Dean always seems to be talking to. He's not a guard, or a medic, or really anything. He's just there whenever Dean's around. Seeing him made me remember back when he and Dean caught me, or I caught them, as I exited from my first and only bath since dropping into this weird world about nine days ago. Same dark bluish-green mane—I kinda wanted to call it sea foam green, but it was too dark—pulled back into an (ironic) ponytail with this really feminine bright green ribbon, the same evergreen eyes, same weird star-inside-a-circle tattoo on his flanks.

I sat in silence as he slowly approached me. This was kinda the first time I really saw one of them move, like really noticed. I could see the muscles under his skin stretch and bulge ever so slightly as he walked, effortlessly carrying his sorta-large frame across the room. Can I call ponies large? I mean, most of them are only, like, four feet tall. His walk had something else to it; it had a hitch, like he wasn't sure how close he should get. He was nervous. The pony sat down about two feet from me, and eyed me up and down.

"...Hi." That was it, that's all he said.

"...Hi," I returned, deciding it would be more trouble for me if I didn't respond.

"...How are you feeling?" he asked. His voice was strong, but held a calm and soft tone. Kinda like he was talking to a friend he's known for years. And that friend was, like, waaaaayy younger than him. His voice held something with it as well, it just came out... silky. No, that's not the word. Placid? No. Smooth? Yeah, that's better, he had that smooth tone of voice that could easily get him a job singing... if he can carry rhythm that is. He also had the slightest hint of an accent, I didn't know what, but it sounded like if it was any broader, he would start dropping letters from the ends of his words.

"Could be better," I said slowly. I chewed my lip a bit, something bugging me. "...I've seen you a few times, but I don't think we've really met."

The stallion nodded. "Dean said it would be best if you didn't meet me until you were ready," he said. "I was, and still am, supposed to be your roommate."

"You're supposed to be this 'buddy' Dean spouted off about before?" I exclaimed.

The pony nodded again. "It helps the humans get used to the idea of living alongside us if they get to know one of us first," he explained. Then he held out his hoof. Straight out, elbow locked. My dad held himself the same way when he needed to shake someone's hand, a handshake that was strong, firm, and trusty. "My name is Spectral Stone, though everypony just calls me Speck."

I looked at his outstretched hoof just for a second before reaching out an awkwardly wrapping my fingers around it. I didn't want to do anything, but I didn't want to not do anything. This was... a nice change of pace, I guess. I gave him a firm shake, well, as firm as I could right now, and the left corner of my mouth twitched upward.

"I'm Jennifer Hawkins, but you can call me Jenny if you want."

Our handshake—hoofshake?—came to an end and we both pulled our limbs from the meeting, which brought upon us another lengthy silence. Spectral Stone scratched at the back of his head with a hoof, which made me wonder how effective that would be instead of fingernails. I stared at the little alarm clock Dean brought in on his first visit. It was an actual alarm clock, complete with two little bells on the top that got smacked with a little dinger when it goes off. I've honestly never seen one before, but I suppose that's what I get growing up in the digital age... At least, until now.

"...So, Spectral Stone..." I said, testing out the name. "...That seems kinda off for an earth pony name." At least, it seemed to be. I had caught the names of some of the maids and guards as they walked by or came in to dust, and they all seemed to match the theme of their races. Like the guards that sat outside my door were both pegasi, and they both had weather terms for their last names; Drifting Storm and Cold Rain. And no, they were different from my escorts; still haven't met them, so it'll be a surprise. My comment made his ears perk up, his left ear catching his ponytail and flicking it up over his face. It was cute. "Is there a story behind it? Stone I can understand, but Spectral kinda sounds unicornish."

"Yeah, there is, actually," Spectral replied. "It's not a long one, though, pretty short and to the point. I used to live with my parents back in my home town of Everglade. It was a little half community of earth ponies and thestrals that sat a little bit in the Whitetail Woods, almost sidled up next to the Smokey Mountain."

"What are thestrals?" I interrupted. "Never heard that term before."

"Thestrals are a... how to put this..." Spectral Stone rubbed his chin as he thought, finally fixing his ponytail as he did. "...I suppose they're a different breed of pegasus, maybe a sub-species, I'm not sure. But they are a type of pegasus, and their most noticeable traits are their cat-like eyes and leathery bat wings. Most have fangs as well to help the crack open hard-shelled fruits and nuts that they like to grow and farm, and their special choppers got them a terrible rumor that basically says that if you're alone at night, a thestral could come and swipe you up," he said while actually imitating the action with his forelegs, "biting your neck and turning you into one of them." Spectral looked back up at me, and I guess he saw my expression. "A stupid rumor, but everypony has stupid beliefs for stupid reasons. We have a few stationed here in the night guard, so you may see them sooner or later."

"Night guard, eh?" I repeated as I straightened up, glancing towards the door. "...I've heard of the guards talking about a specific 'batpony' that gets on their nerves, is that a slang term for thestral?"

"Not really slang, just an ignorant nickname," Spectral corrected me. "The kind of same ignorance that keeps them from truly mingling with the rest of ponykind. Just because a pony has fangs, it doesn't make them a monster, but then again, thestrals are known for having veracious appetites, especially when there's fish involved."

"Fish?" I ask him. Honestly, hearing anything about an herbivore eating meat got me thinking.

"Yeah, fish," Spectral said calmly. "Ponies eat fish once in a while, the oils help keep our coats healthy. But pegasi lean a bit more into the carnivorous parts of their diet, eating more fish than the rest of us earth ponies and unicorns. Keeps their feathers strong, you know?" Spectral asked me, probably assuming that I did know. "Thestrals don't need to eat as much fish as they normally do, since they don't have feathers and their coats are normally shorter and more coarse than the rest of ours, but... I guess it's just them being them." I shrugged and gestured back to him.

"...Sorry, we got sidetracked. You were saying?" I asked, trying to get things straight again.

"Hm?" Spectral looked down at me for a second, then seemed to remember that he was talking to someone. He turned his face to look straight down at the floor, while sinking his head a bit into his shoulders. "Oh, yes, Everglade." Adorable. "Um, oh yeah, me and my parents lived back in Everglade all my life until I moved up here to get some better pay for my jewels."

"Jewels?" I interrupted once again.

"Yeah," Spectral confirmed, "but I'll tell you that in a sec, it goes with the rest of the story. Anyways, why my parents named me Spectral Stone, it's kinda because Everglade is that sort of eerie magical place that you only read about, you know what I'm saying?" he asked me and I nodded. "It's got this weird little vibe that follows every foal that's born there, just like me. So, Spectral was the perfect fit for an eerie but mystical feeling name, or so my parents told me."

"You asked your parents why they named you Spectral Stone?"

"Almost every foal asks that eventually," he said, shrugging off my question. "Have you ever...?" Spectral trailed off as he realized what he was asking me to think about. I looked away, but started to answer, my voice a few tones lower and a bit more quiet.

"No, I never did ask them why they named me Jennifer. Hawkins is my dad's last name, and it normally gets carried over to the wife's side when they get married, and to their kids as well, so..." Forcing myself to smile, I looked back at Spectral Stone, and pointed up at my face. "But I don't have the cheeks for a name that ends in 'er' like some of my old friends, like Xavier. He was kinda heavy. Oh, and Alexander! He was a barrel of pudgy laughs. You gotta have a wide face capable of showing a lot of emotion. That's why I like it when people call me Jenny." I shook my head softly, then stopped and fixed my hair to cover half of my face again. "I'm sorry we keep getting sidetracked. Please continue."

"...Okay." Spectral kinda scooted across the carpet and turned until his back was pressed up against the edge of the bed with me. Not wanting to be all alone up here anymore, I slowly and carefully slid my way off the edge onto the carpet with him. Weird, he was taller than me when we sat down, by almost a full foot. But then again, his head stayed in practically the same spot whether he was standing on all fours or sitting down. For some reason, it made me think my legs were too long and my body was too short.

And come to think of it, why did I not want to be alone up on the edge of the bed? I had basically pushed Dean away at every chance he got to come into my room, but he was always annoying the crap out of me. Spectral Stone was different from Dean, though, and not just because he's a furry quadruped. He didn't have Dean's calm, but demanding mood swaying over his back and shoulders, Spectral had his own homely feel to him. Something strong, and tough, but soft when needed... Don't take it that way. It felt nice to talk with him. And, honestly, I kinda wanted to keep talking.

"Well, Everglade has this really special time of the month where the air is just full of magic," Spectral continued. "When the moon is full, it just brings out all the excess mana from all things, the rocks, the grass, the trees, even us ponies. Have you ever seen mana? Pure magic?" he asked me, knowing full well I hadn't. "It's amazing. Beautiful. The ground gets covered in this mist that... kinda looks like your eyes."

"My eyes?" I reached up and felt my right eye socket. "What do you mean?"

"The mist is made of mana," Spectral answered, looking anywhere but at me. "Most of the time, it's blue, but around my house and near the edges of the woods, its all greenish yellow because there's so much plant life around. My parents have a little garden that they just pour their lives into." Then he looked straight ahead, a distant gaze on his face, and his lips in a small smile. I noticed he had a small scar on the left side of his mouth where the fur was a slightly lighter color, right under his bottom lip. "It was really something, seeing it for the first time. Or at least, being able to remember it for the first time. My parents loved their garden so much, put so much work into it, and they still do, hopefully, that it basically got saturated with their native magic, and that showed on the nights of the full moon. And then... When I was eight years old, I got my cutie mark because of that garden."

I absentmindedly looked down at his flanks, more specifically the star the sat within a circle. Guess that must be a cutie mark. Then I realized that I was looking at a dude's ass, and quickly brought my eyes back up to Spectral's face. He was still staring out in front of him.

"A cutie mark is kinda like a picture representing your special talent," he explained. "When a pony finds their special talent, they get their cutie mark on their flanks."

"What's yours?" I asked without thinking. My question broke Spectral's staring contest with the wall, and he looked down at me.

"Mine is... well, I can make jewels."

My head cocked to the left. "You can... make jewels?" I asked him, trying to clarify.

"Yeah..." Spectral looked right at me as he took another breath. "When I was eight years old, one night the full moon was out. I had woken up and looked out of my window to see the mana crawling across the ground, swirling like it had a life of its own. It was the most beautiful thing in the world I had ever seen. I ran out of the house and basically prance around in the mana mist. Pure mana has this weird feel to it, kinda like it was vibrating and you felt wet wherever it touched you, but at the same time it was warm and dry. I actually dunked my head under the fog layer to try and taste it," he said while trying to hide a blush behind his hoof. The whole scene made me smile.

"What did it taste like?" I asked, trying not to smile to largely.

"Stupidly enough, it tasted like rancid pineapples." Spectral and I caught each other's gaze before we broke out into a fit of giggles. His went unhindered, a gentle laugh that eased my pain. But it wasn't enough to keep me from grimacing and clutching at my stomach after the first guffaw. Laughing really fucking hurt; it felt like each pulse of my abdominal muscles sent a hot blade into my side so deep it throbbed all the way through my midsection. Fuck, that sucked so much...

Spectral Stone's laughing stopped as soon as he heard my groan of pain. I had my eyes screwed shut, but I still heard him shift and he turned to put his hoof on my shoulder.

"Hey, you okay?" he asked me, leaning in closer to hear my response.

"Hurts to laugh," I croaked out. Spectral moved again to pull me a bit closer to him, but I wiggled in his grasp, which made him let go. "I'm fine, I'm fine," I repeated multiple times, almost like a prayer. "Keep talking," I told him, "it helps to listen to something."

"What should I say?" Spectral—stupidly, might I add—asked me.

I managed to crack an eye at him. "Jewels? Mana? Your story?"

"Oh!" The realization of something we were giggling at nearly thirty seconds ago made him facepalm. Facehoof? Damn these ponies and their non-matching biology. "Right, right," Spectral continued. "Uh, yeah, the mana mist that flowed from the ground around my parents garden tasted terrible, but that didn't stop me from trying the blue stuff that floated near the streets." He nudged me with his elbow, being mindful of my midsection. "The blue mana tasted like olives. Eww~" That got me to smile again, and for some reason, I didn't realize I was leaning into his arm, er, foreleg until he settled a tad lower to make me more comfortable. "Mana just doesn't taste good," he concluded. "But, it's still amazing to look at.

"And my special talent is making jewels that are also beautiful, if I do say so myself," Spectral bragged. "Can you see where I'm going with this?" I thought for a second before shaking my head. Spectral wrapped an arm, leg, whatever! He wrapped a limb around me before he started talking again. "Even though I'm an Earth Pony, I have a high level of magic in my body. My special talent is that I'm able to manipulate mana and magical energy into solid forms, like jewels and gems."

"No way," I scoffed. Even if magic was really real here, it... you know what? I don't really know anymore. The logic in this world is already so different, what's one more thing like life-energy manipulation?

"Yes way," the stallion said in defense. "When I was eight, my parents were celebrating the twenty-ninth anniversary of their union."

"You mean marriage?" My question got a shrug.

"Well, not really. Marriage is usually used for powerful families to combine and share their then-greater power to help them do what they want. It's kinda rare for ponies to get married just for the official unionization of two individuals." I felt Spectral shift a bit, his tail flicking out from under his flanks and out into the open space between us. There wasn't much space between us anyways, so I ended up feeling the whole of his tail swish against my side where my shirt had ridden up a tad. Really smooth, like mine used to be. "My parents aren't married, but they're together, you know? Special someponies," he said.

"Significant other," I added. "I get it. Humans just get married when they find their partner, but only the right one. And even then, divorce is a common thing."

"That's saddening," Spectral stated.

"Keep talking," I told him.

"Okay." I managed a half-breath chuckle without hurting myself. Spectral took it as a good sign. "So, it was the night after my parents' anniversary, and I had gotten them a hoof-carved picture frame for a family photo we were gonna take later in the week. But I didn't think it was enough. So, on that one special night when the moon is full and all the mana floats on top of the ground like steam, I went out to brainstorm ideas."

"And taste the magic," I added with a cheery, but weak, tone.

"Yeah, and to taste it," Spectral said as he laughed. "I wanted to give them something they would remember for the rest of their lives, the perfect gift, you know? And then, I found it. By tripping over it. And by 'it,' I mean a rock."

"A rock?"

"Yeah, a rock. After picking myself up, I picked up the rock itself. And then... I just kept holding it, and thinking that I just wanted it. I wanted it to be something special, I just wanted it so bad... my gift I mean, not the rock. And my will was so powerful, I started to actually grab some of the mana floating around me and basically willed it into the stone. I didn't know what I was doing back then, just kinda wanting, but I kept doing it, and doing it, and subconsciously willing the rock to be something else, something awesome like I wanted my gift to be. I never expected anything to happen, it was just something my dad taught me while we tended to the garden. He taught me how to use my earth pony magic to help things grow properly. And I was doing that to the rock."

"Then what happened?" I asked him, hanging on the edge of my... panties. I let go of them before I ripped the fabric.

"I forced so much will and mana into the stone that it just... shined like the sun. It was so bright, it hurt." Spectral shook his head and sighed with a smile. "But it was so worth it. The useless hunk of stone, changed by my will and the mana around me, had been turned into something gorgeous. A round pearl, about as wide as my hoof back then," he said while bringing his hoof in front of my face. "About the size of an apple," he continued. "And it was... alive.

"The pearl was just filled with mana, swirling around and crashing into opposing currents with the stone. I had taken mostly green mana, but a swirl of blue had made it in as well, and when they mixed, only to be separated again... it was hypnotic. It was like having you very own galaxy in your hooves. When I presented it to my parents the next morning... I had never seen my dad cry, but I think it was because I had gotten my cutie mark. My cutie mark in 'making things so beautiful the world just had to see' he said. Mom said that I truly lived up to my name."

We sat like that for a while, Spectral kinda-but-not-really hugging me, me hugging my knees and leaning into him, just talking. Spectral said that the only reason he was even up here in Canterlot was to get away from his parents; they had kept trying to introduce him to different mares, trying to spice up his life. They ended up getting into a slightly heated discussion, but the heat was one-sided, but it was enough to decide that it was time to get out and explore the world on his own accord. Spectral Stone didn't like the fact that his parents kept meddling in his love life, and it kinda ticked him off when he admitted he really didn't have a love life. But Spectral didn't stay angry long.

He ended up talking with me for a good half hour, bringing to light answers I had questions to. He lived in the castle right now, working as an errand colt for the guards. Outside of the castle, and whenever he was free, he would go down to this little shack on the edge of the city and meet up with his friend, and partner, Rosy Meadows, a unicorn mare that helped him with his gems. Spectral had learned that he could turn any form of mana into a swirling pearl of beauty, so long as he had a way of accessing it and a catalyst to put it in. Rosy helped extract the mana from whatever the customer wanted to see, be it a family item, a special plant, or even the pony themselves. The ones crafted with the mana taken from ponies were significantly smaller, about half the size of a golf ball, while others jewels made from plant life and such to about twice as large. But on full moons, when the natural mana of Canterlot was easy to use, Spectral and Rosy would go out and, using her magical expertise, bottle the loose mana and use it with others to create extraordinary gems that really caught the eyes of the nobles here. They made a lot of money together, and it had only been about three months.

Spectral Stone had this calming aura about him the relaxed me enough to start talking about my own home, back in Michigan. I told him about school, about the hotspots that me and my friends like to hang out at, about my parents, about my brother. Talking about home really got me thinking about them. What was going on back there? I had been missing over a week, if time passed here the same as on Earth. It made me, and Spectral actually, wonder how they were taking my disappearance. Spectral comforted me when I thought too heavily, threatening to start crying again. Not seriously body-racking sobbing, mind you, I couldn't reach that point right then. He felt like someone, or somepony, I could talk to just to talk to, no reason or motive behind it. Kinda like a family member. Kinda like...

...Kinda like how Celestia made me feel when she and I were talking.

"...Fuck," I murmured, but loud enough for Spectral to hear.

"Something wrong?" he asked me, hugging me a bit closer to his body. To answer him, I held out my right hand almost in front of his muzzle with a blank look on my face.

"...Give it here."

"...Give what?"

"Give it here," I repeated, not wanting to really play this game. "I don't know what it is, or how it works, or if it's a spell or something, but gimme. Something's up, I know it."

Spectral Stone didn't move for the longest time, his eyes trained on my palm. For what seemed like an entire minute, but really wasn't, he sighed and reached up into his mane. His hoof came away from his hair with a small square of folded parchment covered with odd symbols. The ink was well dried, but looked like it was glowing. The soft luminescence faded as soon as he dropped it into my open hand... which made me think how the absolute Hell he did that with no fingers.

"How did you know?" Spectral said as I unfolded the paper to examine it.

"A week of moping suddenly ends when you come in?" I shook my head once I saw Celestia's royal sun insignia in the top right-hand corner of the now flattened out paper. "No, I should have known. This some sort of spell card?" After a moment, Spectral nodded. "And this came right from the sun goddess herself, didn't it? To get me comfortable around you, right?"

"...Ordered by Princes Celestia, provided and casted by one of her Archmages," came the stallion's answer.

"...Whatever." I crumpled up the paper and chucked it over my bed. It probably landed on Spectral's, but wha'chya gonna do? The stallion currently holding onto me was probably expecting me to slap him or something, because when I snuggled my way deeper into his side, I felt him shift. "Next time, just be yourself."

"You... You're not mad?" Spectral asked me in a tone I couldn't place.

"...Eh, nah. Mad ain't the right word." I tauntingly put a finger up to my chin to simulate deep, and mischievous, thinking. "Miffed? That's closer. Annoyed doesn't sound right. Maybe... I don't know what to feel really. Seeing that Celestia went so far as to enchant you to make you more likable... sounds like she was trying to get you and me to share a bed tonight," I said with a grin. I felt Spectral flex, and I heard him swallow.

"I, uh, I'm pr-pretty sure only the paper was enchanted," he managed to say. I couldn't help but weakly giggle. It didn't hurt too badly.

"You're cute when you're embarrassed."

"How can you even tell?" He countered. "My face is basically on top of your head... Unless humans have a second set of eyes."

"Some people can be trained to have eyes in the back of their heads," I replied. "Not really though, it's just a way of saying that some people can sense someone behind them. And right now, you feel kinda-but-not-really tense, and if I were to look up, your face would probably be red."

"That's kinda cool." We sat for a second before he added, "But why are we still sitting like this?"

I shrugged. "Because you're warm," I answered. "Can we sit like this for a bit longer? It's kinda nice."

I didn't even get to hear his response before the door opened roughly, causing both me and Spectral to jump. We looked over to see Dean in a different set of clothes, the shirt, tie, and slacks a dark blue, with a light gray lab coat and brown loafers, and a unicorn mare beside him. Her coat was a bright orange—her fur coat, her lab coat was a stunning white—and her dirty red mane was done up into a tight bun. Her tail was cropped short as well, and her fetlocks trimmed nice and neat. A cartoon heart with a white bandage sat on her flanks, indicating that her profession was either romantic psychiatry or, more likely, something in medical training. Eyes of bright golden yellow scanned the room for a second before they landed on me and Spectral.

"God damn it, Dean, what now?" I growled at the human as he walked over to us. "We were having a nice time until you slammed the door open."

"Jenny, listen to me," Dean said firmly. "This is for your own good, so don't start, okay? Can you please sit up on the bed for me?" I rolled my eyes and began to stand. Spectral helped me up by serving as a surface to push down on. A quick jump back and I was sitting back on the extra comfy bed. "Good. Doctor Marmalade, this is Jenny," Dean said as he gestured to the orange unicorn walking closer. "She's gonna do a little spell on you, okay? Nothing more."

"Fine, fine," I said. Dean was really riding on my last nerve, though that may just been because he wouldn't leave me alone this whole week. He's a good guy, has good intentions, but he's so... Deany.

Marmalade sat down right in front of me and squinted her eyes. Her horn began to glow a pale yellow, and soon I felt a very fuzzy feeling pulse through my abdomen. I sat up straighter and looked down to see my whole midsection was encased in the aura. A loud crackling got me to look back at Marmalade, but she was looking at something else. So was Dean.

Some futuristic looking hologram from one of those Sci-fi movies was floating in-between us, apparently facing Dean and Marmalade because I could barely see anything due to the angle and reflected image. It, too, was surrounded by Marmalade's golden magic, and soon it stretched to give them a bigger image.

"Hm, what do you think Dean?" Marmalade asked. "From what I'm seeing, it's just a mild case of bowel inflammation."

"Yes, but look at the location," Dean said as he pointed to something on the spellscreen. "That's what's worrying me." Was something going on inside me? This whole thing is starting to spook me... And this spell was gonna make me hurl if it didn't stop soon. "Marmalade, do you have anything that can give us more detail in the scan?"

"I'm completely unfamiliar with human anatomy Dean," the unicorn said as she shook her head, which made the spellscreen move back and forth as well. "For a more in-depth scan, you would need a magic-sensitive viewing spell. I don't know how well you humans absorb magic, since you didn't originally have it in the first place, so since I don't know what would happen if I used normal magic on her organs, I am not at liberty to start pumping it into her system because of the risks."

"Then we'll go see Doctor Cutter or somepony," Dean stated. Marmalade got up and started walking to the door.

"Okay then. Good thing you thought ahead, Dean. I'll get the chair."

"Chair," I asked, finally finding my voice. "What chair? What's going on?"

Dean looked at me, then Spectral, then Marmalade, then at me again. He sighed and rubbed the back of his head. Marmalade made a quick return with a foldable wheelchair in her magical grasp. I looked at the thing, worry balling up in my insides, when Dean spoke again.

"Jenny, we need you to come with us," he said quietly. "We're gonna need to take you out of the castle to the hospital for a check-up, okay?"

"Why can't we do it in the infirmary?" I asked him.

"That's just what it is, an infirmary." Dean took a step closer and grabbed my arm, pulling me up into a standing position. "Ponies and people go to the infirmary to be watched, and right now, you need to be tested and checked out by professionals, okay? Not just me."

"Can I come, too?" I heard Spectral Stone ask as Dean helped seat me in the mobile chair.

"I don't see why not," Marmalade answered. "Now come on, let's get going. The sooner we get to the hospital, the sooner Jenny can get back to bed, and you'd like that, right dearie?" she asked me with a small smile.

"Uh, right." Dean got behind me and started pushing me out the door. One of the guards outside my door, Cold Rain, took one look at his partner, who nodded, and ended up walking alongside us. I put my eyes forward and sighed. "Fuck me, can't I get a break?"

"You've been in bed for a week, Jenny," I heard Dean say sarcastically, "you've had too long of a break."

"Fuck you too, Dean."

Author's Note

Sorry about the delay, the fires in California caught a few of my family, so a few funerals were set and I needed to be present. The next chapter will also take a while to be put up, since my family needs to go and spread some ashes up in the Great Lakes.

I'll re-read this chapter in my free time and work out any errors I missed with my first few readings, so bare with me if you find one.

Till then, take care and keep reading strong~