Poor Reflections

TWILIGHT

The light was blinding, and Twilight's head throbbed.

“Well, that didn’t work,” Discord’s voice mumbled to her left.

Twilight felt a violent shudder reverberate through her as her senses tried to adjust to her new surroundings. Everything hurt. Her ears rang, her stomach churned, her skull pounded, and she slowly sank to her knees, clutching her head.

Wait... She sank to her bipedal knees. She clutched her head with her hands. She pulled them away and looked at the foreign-yet-familiar digits attached to the end of her forelimbs.

Twilight shut her eyes tightly. “Discord? Why do I have hands?”

There was a pause before he replied. “Why wouldn’t you?”

Damn you, Discord. “You could have warned me we were heading to the human world. Why did we go through all that when we could have just walked through the magic mirror in the castle?”

“A human world. This isn’t the same one you’ve visited before.”

What? “That doesn’t make any sense.”

There was a sigh, and Twilight’s headache worsened as Discord began to lecture her. “Twilight, there is a nigh-infinite number of universes out there. Some worlds are ruled by ponies. Some – a lot, actually – are ruled by humans. Others are inhabited by a conglomeration of all manner of sentient species. One of the worlds I visited when I first got free was inhabited solely by semi-sentient flower gardens.” Another sigh. “I’ve never been more soundly defeated.”

Twilight opened her eyes. “You’re making that up–”. Her breath caught in her throat as she stared at Discord. He was wholly transformed; where once there had been a chaotic mish-mash of animal parts, there now stood a distinguished, if ostentatiously dressed, human male – in the later stages of his life, given the creases on his face and veins of silver running through his otherwise dark hair and beard. His nose was a bit large for his face, but otherwise...

He blinked at her with eyes that were now a vibrant blue, instead of their usual jaundiced red. “What?”

“You just look so, uh,” Twilight fished for the right word, “... normal.”

Discord grimaced. “Ugh, there’s no need to be rude.”

Twilight pulled her gaze from Discord’s new form to take in their surroundings. They seemed to have arrived at the top of a hill, in a public park of some kind. A gentle breeze blew through it, carrying with it scents that spoke of summer. Twilight smiled at the familiarity, but she saw Discord’s ear twitch. His face paled somewhat, and he said in a quiet voice, “We need to move.” He scanned their surroundings until his eyes fell on a maintenance shed. “Come along,” he said as he started to walk towards it.

“Wait,” Twilight called as she staggered to her feet and adjusted her saddlebags – no, her backpack, now – to more evenly distribute the weight across her back. Her knees wobbled a bit as she found her balance, then stood up straight. I guess I’ve had plenty of practice at this, she thought as she frowned at Discord. “I think you owe me a bit more of an explanation of why I’m here.”

He ground his oddly even teeth. “Twilight, there are two types of rules that govern the universe,” he said as he held up two fingers. “The first, the kind that Celestia and Luna invented, were made to be broken–” Twilight’s frown deepened, but he ignored her, “–and the second are the rules that keep the universe from flying apart into its constituent atoms.” He spread his hands wide for dramatic effect. “Those are the rules that you don’t break without a very good reason, and I just broke almost all of them in order to get you here. It was not subtle, and it certainly attracted attention, from the entirety of this forsaken city if nothing else. And if by some blind chance nothing else noticed then we will have been very lucky indeed.” He looked around nervously. “I doubt very much that we’re that lucky, however, so we need to move.” He turned and strode off to the maintenance shed without waiting for a response.

The fact that Discord seemed frightened of the consequences of his actions unnerved Twilight more than anything he said, so she pushed her follow-up questions to the back of her mind and followed him.

They stopped in front of the plain beige door of the shed. Discord tried to open it, but it was locked. “Good. Twilight, please use the key I gave to you to open the door.”

Twilight had been wondering if there was a way for Discord to make even less sense, and now she had her answer. “Discord, there’s no way this key is going to fit into that lock.”

Discord rubbed his matching human hands across his face. “Twilight, please. Just do this last thing for me, and I can explain everything on the other side of this door.”

“Why didn’t you just hold onto the key and use it yourself?”

“Because then the door would be keyed to me!” Discord looked like he was on the verge of having a seizure. “Please, Twilight. Just trust me. Touch the key to the lock.”

Twilight snorted, but she reluctantly obeyed and touched the key to the doorknob.

A jolt of energy shot through the key and up her arm with a loud snap, and Twilight recoiled. “Ow!” She shot another glare at Discord.

He had a hand across his face as he motioned for her to get on with it with the other. “That was the key binding itself to you. Only you can use it now.”

With an angry huff, she thrust the key at the far-too-small keyhole.

To her shock, the key slid into the doorknob anyway, surrounded by a pale lavender glow where it should have been forced to stop. She turned the key and heard a low clunking noise of a lock being undone. Jaw open, she removed the key and tried the knob, and found it was now unlocked.

“Excellent,” Discord said, and as soon as the door was open the tiniest sliver, he shoved it aside, took Twilight by the shoulders, and dragged her inside with him. She tried to protest as he slammed the door shut and turned the lock, but he wasn’t listening. He simply leaned against the doorjamb and–

Twilight gasped as she realized she recognized the entryway. She slowly turned, jaw agape, as she realized where that door had led.

It was the Golden Oaks Library.

Or rather, it was a very good imitation of it. The more she stared, the more tiny inconsistencies she saw. The bookshelves were emptier than they had been, and what books were there were out of order. The patterns on the rugs were either too simple or too complex from what had been there previously. The room smelled too clean, as though each of the books had been printed yesterday, rather than the sometimes decades-old tomes she was familiar with.

Still, there was no denying it – she felt like she was home. There were tears in her eyes as she tried to find the words. “Why?”

Discord turned away from the door, head bowed. “I blame myself for you losing your home, Twilight. I thought that, since you would need a temporary home on this world, I could at least make it somewhat familiar.” He looked up and met her gaze. “What do you think?”

Twilight couldn’t decide if this was the kindest or the cruelest thing Discord had ever done. She considered the way he was looking at her expectantly, and couldn’t detect a trace of malice.

After a long pause, she decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. “It’s lovely, Discord. Thank you.” She offered him a sad smile, then looked around the room again.

Discord saw the followup questions on her face. “So, ground rules. That key around your neck is what stores this pocket dimension when it’s not in use. When you use the key on any door, locked or otherwise, the magic flows out of the key and creates a portal here. Once on the other side, locking the door seals off the library, and the door back on Earth can be used normally again.”

“So the key can be used on any door? And it opens back up to where we came from?”

“Indeed it does.” Discord smiled back as he gestured towards the door. “Shall we?”

Twilight blinked. “Right now?”

He took out a pocketwatch from his vest pocket. “Well, soon. You don’t want to be late for your first day of school, after all.”

Twilight groaned. “Alright then, let’s get this show on the road.” She adjusted her backpack as she walked towards the door. Rehearsing, she said, “‘Hi, I’m Twilight Sparkle, pleased to meet you! Hi, I’m Twilight Sparkle–”

Discord looked startled as he moved to lean against the door to keep it shut. “Actually, no, you’re not.”

Twilight was puzzled. “Not what?”

“Twilight Sparkle. That’s not exactly a name on this plane of existence. You’ll be taking on your counterpart’s identity while we’re here: Talia Singh, foreign exchange student.”

Twilight’s face scrunched up with confusion. “What kind of a name is ‘Talia Singh’?”

Discord sighed. “This is going to take some explanation.” He unlocked the door and stared through the peephole as though searching for something. Apparently satisfied, he opened the door and motioned for her to go first. “At least we’ll have something to discuss on the bus.”