The soft light of the midmorning sun streamed through the open window and past the curtains, with the fresh scent of dew from last night’s rain on the wind as I lie awake in Celestia’s bed. Pushing myself through slow difficult movements I eventually dropped from the bed to my hooves onto the soft give of the carpet. After taking a considerable amount more time than usual to stretch and go through breathing exercises, as the pain in my chest and limbs forced me into smaller slower movements, I brought myself to the door and tried my magic to turn the knob. Finding I could conjure none given the presence of the magic dampener I wore, I raised my hoof and opened the door letting out a small but long yawn. Through the portal frame I found Sunset and Celestia sitting opposite each other at a small round lightly stained wood table, which bore upon its surface the weight of a single tea kettle glowing at its bottom the color of Celestia’s magic, two mugs with hot tea poured into them, and a third unfilled at place before a third pillow identical to the ones the mares were on.

“Ah, morning girls,” I smiled. “Oh, uh I’ll join you in a moment, but um, first, uncomfortable question where might I find an uh, a bathroom?”

The bathroom connected directly to Celestia’s bedroom was, like the bedroom, abnormally large for the amount of space it should be capable of filling. I would even say this bathroom was as unnecessarily huge inside as Araragi Koyomi's, which was only as big as it was for artistic reasons. Although none of the walls connected to the outside they all portrayed beautiful imagery of pony history and fairy tales in stained glass illuminated from the other side, providing the only illumination in the room aside from evenly spaced ringed spheres of dim light floating in slow rotation above ornate marble pillars, as I made my way across the white reflective tile.

Returning to the room I took a seat on the third cushion, taking in my hoof the teacup Celestia had filled when I re-entered the room. As per its usual style, Celestia’s mane covered half of her face. I wasn’t sure if it had been my imagination or not, but in the moment she was putting the mug before me; the eye under her mane was visible and had a mild scar over the lids that blinked around her one bright green eye. “Thank you,” I said this carefully with slight apprehension looking her over for other signs of how she had changed since that day. “Celestia.” I watched closely but saw no unnatural reaction in her eyes, nor twitch of her hooves. Celestia, like I was with her, had been taking a measure of my character, looking for reactions, and such abnormality. Her mane flowed with perfect consistency and its usual candy box of colors in ethereal winds. She had not yet put on her crown or any other sign of royalty, giving her a surprisingly smaller appearance sitting on her cushion with the cup of tea in her magic. The only thing truly out of place I noticed was that her wing opposite the one which had surrounded me in the night, but faced me now twitched once, and her tail hadn’t moved at all. Though the observations from my point of view were skewed as I acknowledged in my mind by having so-called ‘normal’ being based on Fluttershy, a pony with a tail articulate enough to use it to play ball at a competitive level and Rainbow Dash who can’t wait to take to the air. Given my bias to these observations, I drew from them no conclusion. “If you don’t mind, would it be alright for me to ask what happened to your eye, Tia?” In asking I put forth no effort towards a poker face, from years of games I had come to learn a poker face shows the most important thing that no emotion does; a poker face shows that one has something to hide. Celestia knew this as well retaining her usual genuine smile, as I brought to mind things that made me sad, namely the recent death of Chiaki Nanami in Danganronpa, a thought which brought me a despair I showed in my expression stopping just short of breaking to tears, though my breathing had been interrupted by the emotion, and Celestia caught it. Sunset, in recognizing the atmosphere as similar to that of when Celestia had met with the diplomats of other lands when Sunset had been in her care, looked between us and sipped her tea. “Ah, apologies, I must have been mistaken, imagination getting to me and all that,” I pseudo tried to back out with a look to Celestia only somepony as experienced as she would recognize so immediately as dishonest.

“It is quite alright my little pony,” Celestia said in her usual tone continuing the smile she always had. “Hunger can cause a pony to imagine things especially in the haze of recent dreams, the same I’ll assume is why you called me by the name that pony did.” Physically she showed no sign of anything out of place entering her mind, nor had her magic holding the teacup faltered as it raised to her lips.

“Indeed I misspoke, and used Luna's words,” I said this without breaking the air I held, yet soon as it had been said I tensed almost reflexively having said something quite possibly wrong, and forced myself to relax again.

“Sunset has avoided the subject of who you are, or where she was. I was hoping you would be easier to get that from.” Though I knew she had Celestia showed no sign of having noticed my tension.

To try getting a reaction from her, and for no greater reason but to see the expression, I decided on a response I doubt she was accustomed to. “You were wrong.” Receiving the desired result as the gears turned in her thoughts, I continued, “Just joking, what do you wanna know, Princess Cake Flank?”

That received the response of Sunset sighing and putting her head down on the table. “Grimoire, you said you wouldn’t.”

“What I couldn’t resist, I have to know if the thing about Celestia’s cake addiction is true,” I shrugged with a slight smile to the pony Princess.

“It is not an addiction,” Celestia replied in an even tone.

“Yep, it’s really Celestia,” I concluded.

“Why would you think I would be somepony else?”

“Well, I omitted mentioning any knowledge of the changelings for a reason, you know. Even you only know what you know, so even you wouldn’t know what I don’t. That aside, I don’t see any harm in telling you where Sunset was, or what I plan to do. My history though, will be best kept as it is. For that, it’s best to tell you the truth that I told you last night. I was an observer of another version of this world, and as an observer is not meant to do, I have now begun to interfere in this one for the sake of fulfilling Sunset’s wish. Being an observer I may have a considerable amount of insight, however, knowledge is something I still lack. In Order to solve that I do have an unreasonable request.”

“Which is?” Celestia had not brought her tea to her lips a second time.

“Trust me,” I declared, taking my first sip of the tea.

“Is that all?” Celestia returned her magic to the teacup’s handle.

“I wonder if you will. I wonder if you can. Trust is hard, forgiveness is harder. If the both of you can forgive each other, is what I want to know. Though we are talking about Princess Celestia, and the bearer of the element of Forgiveness here so it shouldn't be too hard. Anyway, I’d like to have a walk about the castle, may I have my magic back, your highness?” I lowered my head in a soft bow.

“Be safe my little pony,” Celestia removed the dampener from my horn, cast a simple spell, and I left the room.

In wandering about the halls many guards had moved to stop me but returned to their post without a word taking notice of the shimmering gold band of magic which read in clear print Library b. Which I assumed meant I had basic library access. Whether she knew I would have an interest in that by inference given the contents of our bags, or something Sunset had told her made no difference thus I gave no second thought to it. Showing the band to one guard in particular whom I recognized, I told him, “I was told to show you this Flash.” Which of course was a lie but gained me entrance to the library, though the band undoubtedly would have done so alone. In the library, I found there to be a great multitude more books to fit my interest than had been in Ponyville. Ignoring the books on magic I found one book in the fiction section clearly targeted to young adults, and brought it to one of the large library’s tables and began to read. By the time a guard had come to retrieve me I had reached the end of the fourth chapter. That guard as well I recognized, but was surprised to see doing such a task as finding somepony in the castle.

“The princess has sent me to…” He trailed off for a moment noticing the reading material when I closed the book. “Hmm, my sister likes those books.”

“Twily? Really, that’s unexpected of her? I honestly thought she only read non-fiction and sciencey stuff. Oh sorry, I’m sure Celestia wouldn't have warned you, I am a bit odd. I’d like to meet with Twilight Sparkle soon, and I doubt Celestia will actually prepare her for the situation when it is scheduled to happen. Not that it has been scheduled yet, but if she could know that if Celestia calls her in to meet with some pony, that that pony, although we’ve never met, is quite curious about her. Oh, uh n-not in a weird way, Sunset is the pony who has caught my eye, in an academic way is how I meant that.”

“Okay? Well, the princess has asked me to bring you to the dining hall. Follow me.” I did so checking out the book as I left with Shining Armor’s help. “You were right Celestia did not warn me about you, how do you know my sister?” We continued to trot through the halls.

“Long story that I’ll leave up to Tia to share if she thinks it wise,” I replied. “In short though I’m from an alternate Equestria, that I would prefer Twilight not ask any questions about. You know how she can get with those things.”

Shining Armor nodded looking ahead so I couldn’t see his expression.

The dining hall was empty aside from Celestia, Sunset, and I, as the guards had all already taken breaks in shifts for the midday meal. Our possessions had been returned to us and we were to take residence in Sunset’s old room at this day’s end. Though Sunset protested at first Celestia stood firm that somepony needed to keep an eye on us, and had for some reason decided we should watch each other. That and bunk beds having been put in that room at some point suggested either that Celestia already trusted us enough from Sunset’s magic on our bags or through talking to us. Though I thought, it could also be the opposite of that. This is what I had been thinking about as I forked greens into my mouth while taping on the crystal screen of my new computer/phone tablet like thing that my phone and laptop had strangely merged into upon entrance to Equestria. Though it’s form held no significance till now, the importance of a few alterations had become clear to me during the train ride, when I had in taking a break from magic practice, set all of the files to ‘hidden’, the icons to invisible, the brightness to as low as possible, the background to a blank screen, startup screen to a picture I had taken with it of Sunset and I on the train, and putting in an incredibly long password I only remembered because it had been the Elements of Harmony’s original bearer's names listed in the order Twilight called them on that night. As such the guards had come to the conclusion it was a picture frame of some sort with an out of order alphabet that for some reason slid from it’s back. Though to be fair that is somewhat true. Unfortunately, my analysis did reveal that it had lost any sort of input/output ports and that computing power, as well as battery life, had been unfortunately reduced. It did remain able to play music, I had been very pleased to find out.

“Sunset, is he alright? He’s been staring at that picture of you for a while?” Celestia asked with genuine concern.

“What? Oh, no Celestia, he’s fine, that’s not… hey Grimoire, is it alright if I tell her what it is?” Sunset asked.

In response, I scrolled through my pictures and brought a fanart of sunset as a human playing basketball to fill the screen. “Your, wrong Celestia.” I spun the device around pushing it towards her. “It isn’t just one picture of Sunset.”

“Oh,” Celestia exclaimed. “So this is the species Sunset said she became on the other side of the mirror?” Celestia’s smile grew.

“W-wait, what are you showing her?” Sunset nervously reached a hoof to pull the crystal to see for herself. “Oh, um I don’t remember this?”

“It’s one of those alternate realities I was talking about. Well art of one rather, but all the same.”

“I do have a question though, not all of the pictures are of me are they,” Sunset asked. “I mean they can’t be right?”

“Of course not,” I answered simply returning the image to my side and closing the window. “Oh, I suppose I’ll ask about the crystal empire now, insert obvious questions here.”

“Our army overcame Sombra, the empire has been reclaimed. Was there anything more specific?” Celestia put in between forks of greens covering her mouth with a hoof.

“No that was it.” I pushed the empty dish to my side, secretly missing the taste of meat. I sighed putting away the computer and grabbed a banana from the fruit bowl in the center. "Ya know there is one thing that I miss about being an omnivore. It’s being an omnivore.”

“Oh, humans are omnivorous? Sunset didn’t mention that.”

I just shrugged, “ya, though meat, and bread was admittedly most of my diet, even though I like fruit, especially bananas and strawberries. But ya, I really liked meat I’ll miss being able to eat it, but hey I knew that coming here would have that consequence.”

“Yet you did anyway,” Celestia stated not as a question, but still inviting an answer.

“For Sunset, I gave up all my favorite things, meat, the games I played, and the shows I watched. Again though, I still say I would give it all up to be here. I don’t regret it, if you were wondering.”

“Well, that’s rather… cold? Don’t you miss your family?” Celestia asked.

“Some, I miss my friends though. But they know as well as I, the decision to chose Sunset took no more than a heartbeat.”

“Oh,” Celestia said, leaving the table in silence for a time while Celestia, and I filled our appetites with the food servants kept bringing to the table while Sunset watched in amusement at somepony keeping up with the alicorn's appetite while as thin as I was. “I wasn’t expecting you to try keeping up with an alicorn’s appetite. Don’t force yourself my little pony,” Celestia hummed.

“I’m actually about at my limit here,” I said taking another spoon of soup, “But soup, is soup, and I like soup.”

Sunset, and Celestia chuckled. then Sunset declared, “I think I’ll go to revisit my old room, don’t make yourself sick trying to keep up with her Grimoire.” Sunset then got up walking from the room.

“Now that we are alone, there is something very serious I need to talk to you about Celestia.”

Celestia covered her mouth with a hoof, swallowed, and put down her fork before speaking. “Which is?”

“Dark Magic. I’m not stupid, looking at my cutie mark, the black-bound purple book that it is, and my own interests as they are, I can only assume I will end up using dark magic eventually. As I said though, I understand what using dark magic means, the consequences of a non-alicorn using it, consequences which I would most certainly like to avoid. So, Celestia, I ask you to watch over me as I study magic, and when you say I am ready, to guide me in safe and proper use of dark magic. Though I expect that to be no time soon, I ask that when the time comes, you watch over me in that. I don’t want it to do to me what it did Sombra, or cause some quarantine area as is present in the place of the battle of Discord in the south. Oh, also we shouldn’t tell Sunset about this yet, she had some very bad experiences with dark magic in that other world. I don’t want to hurt her.” When Celestia’s only reply was a slow nod, I brought myself to my hooves, and bowed. “Thank you, Princess Celestia, I will do my best to bring you honor.” Rising to my full height I left the room and asked Shining Armor who had been standing by to show me to the room Sunset and I were to share. He did.

Upon entering it became clear that Sunset had claimed the bottom bunk, as she was laying there reading a book of fairy tales from the bookshelf across from the bed onto which the books she and I had brought had also been deposited with the exception of the dull silver crystal book I carried in my magic, focusing on it constantly to keep it in the air as I walked to the bed’s ladder. Once there I stopped, floated it up, forward and released the magic dropping it on the bed along with the book I had checked out. Sunset lowered her book to look at me. “Hey there, how’d the contest go?” She asked in a tone that suggested she was genuinely curious, but also didn’t really care to hear about it.

“I don’t like sweats, so she won when we got to dessert.” I climbed the ladder to the top bunk and rolled under the covers.

“You aren’t going to sleep already are you Grimoire?”

“Ya, I need to focus on healing, the timber wolf fight still has me hurtin’. Nothin’ like an afternoon nap,” I said fluffing the pillow before laying my head on to it, and closing my eyes.”

“Ooff!” I woke up to a book being tossed up and hitting me in the stomach. “Ow Sunset, why’d you throw a book at me?” I asked with only an ounce of anger.

“Sorry,” she winced. “It wasn’t supposed to hit you that hard.”

“It’s fine, what’s up?”

“Dinner time, though I doubt you can eat much since you haven’t done anything since lunch.”

“Can, and should are different.” I climbed down the ladder leaving the crystal book where it was and joining Sunset on the floor.

Exiting the room we found another guard I didn’t recognize outside the door, she didn’t say anything the whole way to the dining hall, just ruffled her feathers in a gesture for us to follow at first remaining stiff and silent the rest of the way. Once we reached the destination she gave a curt bow and went to join some other guards at a table. Sunset and I easily spotted the tallest most obvious pony in the room, and joined her. Although my companions at the table had been brought normal pony food, the pony who brought the food to our table put before me a grilled fish seeming unsure if he was being pranked. Celestia gave the stallion a nod, and I’m sure my expression further convinced him that I did, in fact, intend to try eating meat as a pony. Celestia, and Sunset both along with every pony who had taken notice of the meal before me gave me curious looks as I eyed it. “Well,” I wondered in just below a normal volume, “can I digest this properly? Let’s find out everypony.” Taking my fork in hoof I sampled a small bit and recognized it. “Salmon! So I can still taste it huh? Well, I wonder what consequences it’ll have then.” I then used my magic to levitate a salt and pepper shaker to my place, shook a small amount of each onto it along with the potatoes it had been paired with, and returned them to their previous positions before continuing to the vocalized amazement of the castle workers watching. “

“Wait, Celestia, I know he mentioned it before but, you actually got meat for him already? He is a pony now he won’t be able to digest it,” Sunset worried.

“He might be different, look at his teeth,” Celestia said with an impassive tone.

Now that she mentioned it I realized the teeth of an herbivore should not be ripping through even salmon as easily as this, and found another piece of evidence to a cause I may have been allowed to become involved. And like that cause, I grinned, “Ah, so I’m here then because what’s the fun in making sense. This changes nothing about my plans, but it will make things interesting I guess.” I raked my tongue across my upper teeth feeling that they were left un-dulled by having become a pony.

The rest of the meal passed rather uneventfully with only idol chatter, nothing of any real importance. Afterwards, Sunset and I returned to the room we shared and agreed to take turns in the bath. Admittedly, I proposed the idea of bathing together to… conserve water. Of course, Sunset didn’t bite. While Sunset took hers, and I waited for my turn I continued to practice with levitation. When she got out of the bath I was disappointed to see she had already fully dried her mane.

“Ah, I wanted to see you with a wet mane,” I sighed.

She moved her facial muscles for a few seconds as if trying to form words before deciding on some. “W-well, it’s your turn now. Good night.”

The relaxation the hot water brought was much needed so I lay in the bath allowing my tired muscles to relax in the bubbles. Eventually, I had been in the bath for what I guess was an unnecessary amount of time because of the event that came next. Sunset opened the door, trotted over, and shook me with a hoof. “Hey, you alive in there?”

“Huh,” I stirred. “Oh ya, I just let myself relax too much. Ah, the bath just feels good.”

“Well, Get out soon, or you’ll end up spending the whole night in there.”

“I wouldn’t mind spending the whole night in here if you join me… I’m sorry, I should get out soon this is getting to me.”

I got out, sunset lit up her horn and I was instantly dry. “Go to bed,” Sunset said unsure of the emotion to feel.

Author's Note

Hello every pony, griffon, dragon, human, etc. Thank you, for reading this story, and of course a special thanks to all ya'll who have favorited and/or liked this story.

How is the story pacing so far? The parts coming up may skip multiple days at a time like the show to get to the actual consequential events like in the show, or I can continue to take it slow day by day, as each day will have it's own events. The choice of which to do will mostly be affecting the telling of the actual act of traveling around equestria to the different places Sunset, and Grimoire will need to go, and quieter resting days in between that would be more slice of life while in the setting of adventure. So those can be ether in skipped over events as it usually is on TV, or detailed as I did with the train ride to canterlot, in some cases being more detailed if the journey takes longer. (EX: Getting to Starlight's Village.) Personally I am leaning toward the latter option, for the sake of exploring this version of equestria in greater detail. If you have an opinion on that or anything else, I'm always open to constructive criticism.

If it applies though please tag your opinions as wrong. Just kidding, opinions are opinions.