For the first time in what feels like years, I wake not to the feeling of pain or restraints, but a very large pillow beneath me. It's curious, given that I was on a hospital bed before I fell asleep, but I'm not going to complain. It's nice just to be able to stretch like a cat and not have to worry about contorting myself awkwardly against the restraints intended to keep me from hurting Lyra's body any further.

As a rather strong gust of wind tousles my mane and making me very aware of the small horn now atop my head, I open my eyes and look to my left and spot Lyra lying there in the hospital bed. A wave of guilt washes over me as I gaze upon her battered and bruised form. She's been relieved of her restraints, and now her dislocated leg has been put in a sling. Her opposite shoulder and much of her chest has been covered in bandages, and several small scratches on her face look to have been recently healed, leaving small patches free of fur.

Rising from my potentially provocative position, I look to the door and the young CNA that’s been keeping an eye on me. She definitely looks the sympathetic sort that, in a different life, I could probably see myself talking to. Unfortunately, there’s nothing for us to really bond over, so it just... doesn’t seem worth it to try and chat her up.

With a sigh, I catch sight of myself in the reflection on Lyra’s bed-frame. The image is super distorted, but I definitely look like a horny little pony. It seems like something I should be super excited about, but after spending a whole week or so in Lyra’s body, it’s lost some of the glamour. Oh yay! I have my own magic with which to try to harm myself and others with now.

“Are you okay?” the white and red little pegasus asks.

Rather than answer the question, I walk past the young mare, careful not to brush up against her. “Candy Stripes, wasn’t it?” I ask, glancing over my shoulder. “Lyra’s probably not gonna be feeling all that great when she wakes up. Can you be there for her and get her anything she needs?”

She tilts her head at my request, and a few strands of red mane drop in front of her face. “But I was asked to keep an eye on you, Miss Soren!”

I flinch at the sound of my own name, a bubble of bitterness and bile rising in my throat. “I’m not injured, not physically at least,” I answer in as firm a tone as I can muster. “Lyra’s body was the one admitted for medical treatment, so she’s the one who needs somepony to watch over her. I… I just need some time to myself, to figure things out.”

“I...” she starts as I walk away. What’s the point in letting her try to cheer me up? She has no idea of just how much I’ve lost, and even though she’s an adolescent and already got a talent pertaining to medicine, it would be cruel of me to lump all of this burden on her. Where would I even start?

“Orderly! Don’t let her leave! We were told not to let her leave!” I hear her call out behind me. You’d think that’d give me a sense of urgency, but the halls are surprisingly crowded. Breaking the line of sight with her is a breeze.

It’s not right of me to just shrug her off like this; there’s just this... finality about it all, y’know? Deep down in my heart, I know that my parents aren’t going to take me back. All of my worldly belongings... all of my games and internet friends... even my writing... There’s no going back to that.

As my mind wanders to dark places, my hooves lead me down several halls and out of the hospital. Ponies watch me go, but none really stop me. All they see is a small mare—naught but a filly, really—finishing her vigil over a friend they’d seen her visit several times prior. They don’t know much more than that, because I look normal to them, and if there’s one thing that I’ve realized in my week or so in Equestria, it’s that ponies don’t question normal.

Eventually, I find myself in a small park at the edge of the city. It takes some effort given my size and inexperience with the form, but I’m able to climb atop the wall to look out at the horizon. Oh, I have no intention of jumping, but I also have no real urgent sense of self-preservation, either. It’s not like I don’t deserve the fall. Mental illness or no, I said some... awful things to a lot of ponies and put a number of them through even more grief than they were already going through. I’ve made accusations that aren’t entirely based in fact.

I... I almost killed a pony. No, not just a pony. I almost killed the pony that I look up to. I nearly murdered Twilight in cold blood. Why? Because I couldn’t handle all the stress? Because I started hallucinating and thought she was a changeling? Mental infirmity isn’t an acceptable excuse for trying to kill the one pony that could possibly fix everything...

In spite of this, the princesses refuse to punish me. Tears begin to roll down my cheek. Do they really believe that I am no longer a threat? That I have been punished enough? I look out over the fields and forests beneath the mountain city of Canterlot. This—all of this—is my punishment for the arrogance of believing myself a hero, and being foolhardy enough to have even indulged Lyra’s message. My crimes of vandalism, disturbing the peace, assault with a deadly weapon, and attempted murder...

Anypony that might come this way would probably assume I’m just a foal. They would think I’m either too daft to realize the danger, or think I’m going to jump. Even as I turn my gaze downward, at the ground far beneath the edge of the city—not that the conveniently placed lake would help an earth pony or unicorn like me—I know that I would never actually jump.

“Even if God has forsaken me, I could never kill myself like this,” I whisper aloud, seizing a flower from a nearby patch of grass with my magic. I stare at it: a sunflower. With careful deliberation, I pop off the petals and just drop them over the edge.

As the wind catches the petals and carries them away, I think to myself, It’s strange how the destruction of something can be so beautiful. “Maybe that’s why I want to be punished so badly,” I murmur. “If I can just face real punishment for my actual crimes, I move on?”

Before I can reflect any further on my predicament and how the crown seems content to let bygones be bygones, I hear the tell-tale clip-clop of hooves coming up the path to my back. Not one, but two sets, metal-clad. Horseshoes? Angling my ears back to get a better read of things, it occurs to me that one is larger—or heavier—than the other. There’s even the odd metallic clinking. A guard and a civilian, maybe?

“Are we sure we want to do this?” asks a male, somewhat familiar voice. “A foal is a big step, and we’ve barely settled into Sombra’s old castle. Neither it or Canterlot Castle are a place to raise a child, and I’d rather not have to fight conniving nobles off with a stick. If they caught wind that we were here for fertility treatment...”

“I know, Shiny,” replies an equally familiar female voice. “It just seems like the only good in my life these days comes from what little time our jobs allow us together or when I get to see Twilight.”

Completely reflexively, my back straightens, and I fall backward off the wall, into a nearby bush. There’s a sudden clatter, and by the time I roll out of the bush, two ponies are standing above me, looking down at me in concern. It takes me a minute, looking up at them, to realize that I’ve seen them before. Princess Cadance in all her regalia, and the Captain of the Royal Guard, Prince-Consort Shining Armor in his different armor..

“What were you doing up there, young filly?” Shining Armor asks, a conflict between concern and reproach playing out across his face. “Don’t you know how dangerous it is to be up there on the wall?”

Princess Cadance swoops in and pulls me to my hooves before I can speak, fussing over my appearance and brushing some leaves out of my mane. “You weren’t going to jump, were you?” she asks at the sight of my guilty expression, horror etched across her face. “Why would you do such a thing?”

I shake my head. “No, Your Highness; I wasn’t going to jump.” It takes a lot of effort to not to smile at the shock as they take in the maturity of my voice. Certainly, it wasn’t the voice of a foal my size. “My God would never forgive me if I ended my own life, for all the good he’s done me lately.”

“Your... God?” Cadance asks, before Shining can speak up. “Is that your pet? A parent’s name? It’s not a word most ponies would know.”

I shake my head with a sad smile. “No, ma’am. God is what those of the faith I was born into chose to call our deity. ‘Thou shalt have no other gods before me.’ Original, right?”

Much to my amazement, Cadance’s mouth opens and closes like that of a fish whilst she struggles to comprehend the idea that a pony could have religion. She’s even mouthing a thought to herself, as if tasting the words: “She’s so young, though.”

Instead of staring at the alicorn until her brain reboots, I turn to Shining Armor. “Captain Armor... Your Highness... sir?” There’s a struggle in my brain in how best to approach the stallion given what I’m about to say next. “I find myself in a bit of a conundrum. I am guilty of several crimes, yet Princesses Celestia and Luna have seen fit to forego trial and address me no punishment. That isn’t right.”

Just by the look on his face, I can tell he rather agrees, even if his instinct tells him that the Princesses have their reasons. “It is not my place to question the decisions of Her Royal Highness, Princess Celestia, young...” He trips over his tongue, likely realizing that calling me filly might come off as condescending. “... lady. If they’ve chosen to overlook your crimes, they mustn’t have been too severe.”

A lot more effort than is necessary is required to look the Captain of the Guard in the eye. “My first crime is vandalism. Through the act of self-defenestration, I damaged one window in the library in Ponyville.” At the mention of the town and library, he visibly tenses. “In addition, I am guilty of disturbing the peace in the midst of a day of mourning in the aforementioned town.” Tears well up in my eyes once more, and I break eye contact, turning my gaze to the ground. “Finally, I am guilty of assault with a deadly weapon and the attempted murder of Twilight Sparkle.”

~ 1 ~

The bars and concrete of the cell here in the guard station is a welcome change to everything, as strange as it may sound. It’s the first bit of structure I’ve had in my life since Lyra came into my life. Sure, they don’t have any magic suppressors in my size here at the guard station Shining brought me to, but I think he and the staff here can tell that I want to be in a cell, and that I’m not looking to get out. Maybe that’s why they didn’t bother locking it.

Or they’re humoring me until they can get info or find my ‘parents’. Shining Armor definitely seemed upset by the prospect of someone having attempted killing his sister, never mind not having been immediately appraised of the situation upon arriving in Canterlot. If not for Cadance, they probably would have at least gotten out the foal shackles… if the guard even has such a thing.

“Name?” the desk sergeant—an earth pony mare—asks from the other side of the bar.

“Soren—pronounced Zuu-ren—Friedrich.”

Her eyebrow raises at the peculiar name. “Date of birth?”

“Twenty-first, October... I’m not sure how the calendar converts, so put down whatever year it was twenty-two years ago.”

The guardsmare gives me this look as if to ask, ‘Are you yanking my chain.’ “Place of birth and current place of residence?”

“Kingston, Ontario, Canada... Terra Firma.” She gapes at me. “And as far as current residence... this cell. I have no home now.”

Shaking her head, the guardsmare writes down some more things on the parchment. “Outside Equestria, no fixed address, no cutie mark, no Equestrian Citizenship Number.” The mare idly chews the end of her quill for a moment as she scans the document, and then reads aloud, “Vandalism, disturbing the peace, assault with a deadly weapon, and attempted murder of the Captain’s younger sibling?” She looks at me with doubt. “You’re telling me that a blank such as yourself attempted to kill the Princess’s prize pupil?”

I look her in the eyes and say evenly, “You’d be amazed just how far the element of surprise will get you. If not for Her Highnesses intervention, I probably would have succeeded. Nopony expects a pony to catch a thrown object outside their field of vision and have it pressed against the base of their skull.” Shaking my head from side to side, I roll over on the cell’s bench and hug myself. “I’m glad they stopped me... I’d have hated myself for it.”

“And you think about how to... kill ponies often?” the guard asks, backing away with her paperwork even as her eyes flick to my horn.

“No, I abhor killing, but I’m not about to lie down and just die, either.” I hold a hoof above me, marveling at how close in color I am to the walls of the cell. Just do something about my mane and tail, close my eyes, and press myself flat, and bam! Miniature chameleon horse. “I don’t think like prey, I guess you could say. I’m no good in a straight up brawl, but if you want something dead, I can usually think of a way or two.”

She’s straight-up shivering now. Is it the casual apathy in which I speak of taking a life? The fact that fact that I look like an adorable little filly but talk like an adult who’s seen some shit? At the same time, though, she also looks kinda curious. “How, then, would you deal with a den of diamond dogs?”

I blink at the mare, even as I ponder the idea. “As a group, or alone?” When she confirms as part of a larger force, I think about it. For several minutes, I just sit there, my gaze focused on the ceiling.

Ponies lose the effectiveness of pegasi underground, and likewise, just a small group of dogs would probably have the advantage over a battalion of mixed ponies in the caves. So, to even the battlefield, make them come to you. “Block all entrances to the den but one, and either fill it with gas to smoke them out, or have unicorns burn out all the oxygen in the caves by firing fireballs down the cave mouth. Any dogs that don’t suffocate from carbon monoxide or whatever gas you flood the cave system with would probably try to surface straight up. Station pegasi in the area above the area as spotters, and have ponies with crossbows take them out should they not surrender.”

She’s absolutely green around the gills now, but there’s another expression on her face: awe. “Why didn’t we have a mind like yours at the Breaker Mine Slaughter?” she whispers, her eyes brimming with tears. “So many good ponies could have lived if only we had somepony like you. My husband...”

She breaks off into silence, and I honestly don’t feel much like talking any longer either. It does make me think, though. From everything I’ve ever seen, the Royal Guard is next to useless. A bunch of untrained civilians have a better combat record than the actual armed forces. Was it just My Little Pony just giving the girls all the screen time? Or are the guards just that impotent?

Then there’s what the sergeant just said; if they’d had a pony like me at this Breaker Mine, a great loss of life might’ve been prevented. Did that imply that maybe the Royal Guard corps screened people with a mind for dark things? Even if I wasn’t excluded from service in the guard for my history of mental illness and criminal record, I’m sure I’d get screened out for being able to think like that.

Finally, I look back at the guard. She’s composed herself. “I’m sorry for your loss, Sergeant… um...”

“Wind Whisper.” She smiles a hollow smile and packs up the document, quill, and ink. “Thank you, Soren. You should get some rest, though.” With a glance toward the clock, she adds, “If nopony comes for you soon, you’ll probably be here the whole night.”

~ 1 ~

For whatever reason, dreams do not visit me the entirety of the night I spend in the cell. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that the bed is a nothing but a mattress upon a metal frame suspended from the wall, or my not having a blanket to cover myself with. Maybe it's just because I feel like the guard, Wind Whisper, won't stop watching me from her station at the desk. Either way, the night is anything but restful.

So color me surprised when I wake up to see three very royal ponies staring at me: Celestia, Luna, and Shining Armor. Nothing quite like being like a zoo animal on display. I mean, I probably deserve it, but still.

"I am very disappointed that you held Soren for an entire night in a guard station without alerting us to her location," Celestia says, rubbing her face with one hoof. "There are a number of ponies, myself and Luna among them, concerned for her safety and very disturbed to find her gone without a trace."

Rather than look to Celestia, Shining Armor stares at me in an appraising manner. "Given the severity of the crimes she claimed to have committed, I felt it prudent to investigate her claims before cutting her free." I return his gaze and nod. After a moment, he turns to the princesses and frowns. "Princess Celestia, is it true that this... pony is the one that was occupying the body of Lyra Heartstrings of Ponyville on the day my sister was challenged to a duel that you yourself intervened in?"

"Yes, Captain, it would be accurate to say that she was," Celestia replies in her typical serene voice. "However..."

"So by all rights, she should go to trial," Shining interrupts her. "She herself has expressed a desire to be punished for what she's done."

"But she was not of right mind, Captain," Luna replies. "Her mental competency was compromised."

I cough to make myself known, as it is clear the two princesses had either ignored the fact that I was awake, or had completely forgotten me in lieu of getting to the bottom of Shining Armor's apparent betrayal. "Princess, just don't. Regardless of my mental competency, I nearly killed somepony who meant more to me than any of you could know. What I did to Twilight was nothing short of evil, presence of mind or no."

My statement catches them all off guard. Again, I'm reminded that the only horse in this world who knows that their entire reality has been serialized as a cartoon is Lyra. And myself too, I suppose. Either way, they can't possibly understand that Twilight's adventures helped me through a dark time, or that Purple Smart is best book horse. Until Lyra shows them all My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, they'll never know why I look up to Twilight as the intelligent and strong, but adorably awkward, mage she is. As it stands, I assume that they simply believe that I'm basing my opinion off some of Lyra's inherited memories of childhood friendship with the mare. Maybe I am, too.

I roll off the bunk and stagger into a standing pose, suddenly aware of how hungry I actually am. "I wanted to be held accountable for what I did because of it. Even if I've lost everything, that's the cost of my crime of hubris." Some effort is required, but I'm able to move myself over to the bars before my legs turn to jelly. "The least you can do is pretend I'll be punished for my other crimes."

The princesses share a look, and then Luna breathes out a heavy breath. "Soren, we do not desire to punish you. It is through no fault of your own that our ponies have brought about such great misfortune to your life." She surprises me by coming alongside the bars, shocking Shining and the ever present Wind Whisper, and sliding a wing through to embrace me. "Shouldering their blame in this might be a coping mechanism, but make no mistake; their actions broke you, and you may never be whole for a long time. Our... forgiveness of your crimes is the least we can do. We owe you at least that much."

That's certainly... one way to look at it, I suppose, and can I say my thought processes are flawless right now? Wasn't it just a few days ago that I was completely out of control and touch with reality? It almost sounds fair when she says it aloud, but still...

What would I even do, now that all of this is done? What can I do? The show only ever focused on Twilight and her friends, and given that the third season was yet to premiere when all this happened, there hasn't been too much world building for me to base much knowledge off of. Before I can even seek any meaningful employment, I would probably need to get whatever passes for a GED. Then there's also the whole unicorn thing. I still have Lyra's knowledge of the telekinesis spell, as well as the way I modified it on the fly to slow Sweetie Belle's descent that time... But I'm probably too old to attend Celestia's magic school. Not that I’d want to.

As fun as being a mage and studying magic might be, I want to help ponies. I want to make sure that there will never be another Pound Cake. Ponies need to grow up safe, even if they do live at the edge of the most evil forest in Equestria. But surely the Guard will never take me. Not after what I did... not with who's in charge. So how would I help ponies? Become an unassuming hoofmaiden-slash-bodyguard to some noble?

"I just want to help ponies," I say quietly. "I'm no hero, but if I can spare families the grief of learning their loved one died to a monster attack... If I can make sure even just one mare or stallion fighting alongside me gets home safe each day, that'd be enough for me." My eyes flick past Princess Luna to Shining Armor. "I'd gladly enlist to serve as penance."

Somehow, I don't imagine this is how Shining Armor, Celestia, or Luna expected this to turn out. From the way Luna was talking, it almost sounded like she was offering me a comfortable life on a silver platter, and instead of taking that offer, I slap it away, looking for some further form of penance. I could probably ask for them to make me a noble and they'd say yes. Part of me almost wants to, because I can’t even imagine how the nobility would take that.

"Would this be agreeable, Captain Shining Armor?" Celestia asks, a coy smile gracing her lips. "You were saying when you brought us here that you thought she ought to be watched at all times. I can think of no better place for her than to serve under you."

He balks, if only for a moment. "She's a bit on the small side to be serving as a guard. If she was a pegasus, she could serve as a scout maybe..." A thoughtful look crosses his face. "A blank flank—and a diminutive one at that—could get into places a guard might otherwise not. She’d be better suited act as an under-cover bodyguard or spy..." He shakes his head. "There's the matter of her education as well. If she really is from another world, she'd likely have to get an Equivalent Education Diploma before she would even be admitted as a recruit. Finally, she'd need to be tested for magic aptitudes, but from everything you've told me about her, telekinesis is the only spell she knows concretely, with one accidental translocation to report."

Finally, Luna smiles. "It sounds, then, like Soren will have a lot to achieve in but a few months, if she so wishes to catch the spring guard enrollment."

Soren... They keep calling me by that name, but even they have quickly taken to calling me by female pronouns. It's almost as if they already see me as one of their little ponies. But Soren Friedrich, for better or worse, is dead. My folks would never have me back as I am, even if I could spend time on Earth without dying from lack of ambient mana. I'd always be hiding in the shadows, a freak until I died, or Equestria opened diplomatic relations with Earth.

But, if I'm not Soren, who can I be? Silver Script, the name that Luna suggested by way of the dream she gave me, is an alright name, but it sounds like a pencil pusher or maybe a doctor. I don't want to just sit back and wait for wounded to come to me. If anything, I’d want to make sure there weren’t any wounded to begin with.

So not Script, but Silver is definitely an apt name. Silver what, though? Silver Dream? Silver Wisp? No...

"I can't be Soren Friedrich any more, your highness. If I hang onto that name out of some flawed hope that I'll retain my humanity, I'll just end up a mess," I say tiredly as I push myself back up onto my hooves. Climbing onto the bed is a lot more effort than it's probably worth. "Please, call me Silver Penance." When my stomach makes itself quite known, I stifle a nervous giggle. “Or... you could call me hungry.”

~ 1 ~

It honestly takes a little work to get my housing arranged. I don't really know anypony here in Canterlot, and I can't in good conscience take a suite in the castle proper, even if I were under house arrest. That said, Princess Celestia did manage to convince Twilight to give me a crash course in everything I'd need for an EED, magic included. It took even more cajoling for her to understand that she shouldn’t treat this like a punishment. I mean, I know I'd think it punishment to help... rehabilitate the very pony who very well near killed me. Then again, I've been told I'm abnormal countless times in my life, so hey, who's counting, right?

Getting her not to fear me, on the other hoof, is going to be a completely different undertaking. I mean, I nearly became death personified for her, so I can't rightly expect her to not be on edge around me. It wasn't something I initially picked up on when we spoke back in the hospital, but if I move suddenly, she'll try her best not to flinch.

So how in the heck did I even end up sharing in her old dormitory tower?

Oh! Right! The princesses want Twilight to teach me about what it is to really be a pony, to teach me the social graces and facts not imparted to me by Lyra's partial memory overwrite. There may also be some magic training in there too, because clearly we need to give the psycho midget more tools to hurt herself and others. To be honest though, I'm not sure if she's been made my teacher, or if she's actually been put into a mom-ish role so that if my diminutive size gets me into trouble, she'd be able to get me out.

Of course, there's another reason they're keeping me in Canterlot on the palace grounds. Shining Armor certainly wasn't kidding when he thought that I should, at the very least be under the watch of the guard at all times. Honestly, it's more of a blessing than a curse, though. At least the guard assigned to watching me doesn't seem to have much of an issue running me through exercises I'd be doing for PT as a guardsmare.

Still, it's hard to believe a week has passed since I got my own body back. It's so darn weird being so small though; I'm still used to being just under six feet tall. Given that I was half-that when I was occupying Lyra, and half as much again, it's pretty disconcerting how short I am. At least when I had Lyra's body, I could still look ponies in the eyes. Now, I'm about as tall as your average foal, without the benefits of being nearly as cancerously cute.

I just wish the meeting with my parents the other day had gone any different. When Twilight ripped open a subspace highway back to my old home, my folks vehemently denied that I was once their son. No, Soren went missing, is all. I’d like to say that I didn’t see that coming, but there was always the implication of ‘unfuck yourself or don’t come home at all’ when this whole thing began.

So I guess all I can do is learn how to be a pretty little unicorn, right? Well, pretty until I join the Royal Guard and buck myself up. Then we can see how adorable I think I am.

As I go through my daily brushing after bathing, I can't help but go over in my head some of the mental exercises Twilight suggested to fine-tune my control of my magic. It's one thing to be running off of Lyra's memories of how to control her magic, but another to have your own actually tailored to your specific body. That is one of the first things Twilight taught me about magic. No two ponies have magic that behaves exactly the same.

Rather than pull exclusively from your own reserves, it is best to pull in the ambient magic around you and augment your spells with it. She makes it sound as easy as breathing, but it's akin to somepony telling you that you are breathing and then having to make a conscious effort to breathe until your body takes over again.

A spell comprised of fifty percent ambient magic and fifty percent personal mana—magic processed and refined by the body—will be relatively weaker, but the ease of control and effectiveness is inversely proportional to the strength. This much actually makes sense. All areas have ambient magic, but there are some places, like the Everfree Forest, where the magic... likes, for lack of a better word, the way things are, and puts up resistance to spellwork in the area. By including the local magic in the spell, it allows your spell to bypass some of the local resistance.

Of course, that said, one must also take into account their environment when casting a spell. For example, higher up on a mountain, a pony might not need to use as strong of a telekinesis spell as they would at the foot. In a swamp, a fire spell might ignite a pocket of methane. Water and lightning spells should be pretty obvious.

Of course, Twilight's method of utilizing ambient magic is actually a pretty advanced skill that is almost mandatory for higher-level casting, and not easily picked up. Why she decided to start with that is beyond me. Still, I haven't started a fire that wasn't on purpose yet. Not setting water on fire is a talent, right?

To be fair, she's right. It does make it a lot easier, especially since I have an admittedly small reserve. Practice and exploring should help remedy that, but we're operating on the understanding that I might not grow any larger. Reserves are almost universally proportional to the size of a pony. There are exceptions, but I'm just happy to be the exception to the 'should be dead' rule.

What surprises me most about all of this isn't how quickly I'm adjusting—and finding out that some of the things Lyra told me were toxic were actually just coincidental allergies has made that adjustment easier—or how things are working out so well. No, it's how easily I've taken to using magic. Manipulating a brush is foal-tier levitation, but most ponies don't also manipulate their manes ahead of the brush to prevent snags. Sure, its slower-going, but it's so much less painful than accidentally hitting a snag with too much force.

“Hey, Penny.” I groan at the nickname I've already been given. Darn Pinkie's out to ruin me, I swear. “Do you mind if I ask you something?”

From the corner of my eye, I glance at Spike, who has patiently stood at the door for the last ten or so minutes. He's kind of an odd kid. Like Twilight, he seems to be somewhat bothered by the fact that he's basically been ripped away from his friends and family, but he's not... scared of me. Curious, maybe, but no malice in how he goes about things. Then again, it might be that Twilight wants him to keep tabs on me while I'm getting used to this transitory period in my life.

“'s up, Spike?” I murmur around the hairpins I'm holding onto with my lips. Once I'm finished with the brush, I set it down on the small table beside the futon mattress that serves as my bed. “Something on your mind?”

His eyes widen as I begin to utilize my telekinesis field as I would fingers. I pull the back part of my mane into a ponytail and then divvy it up into three equal diameter strands, twisting them every which way to form a braid. That's another thing I picked up on quickly. Things that would normally take multiple, split TK fields can be accomplished easier if I reshape my spell to mimic the behavior of a hand. It works well enough, given that I've got twenty-some years experience using them.

“You used to be a guy, right?” he asks with all the childish innocence you’d expect from a being his age. Still, the question catches me off guard, and I pull my mane a bit tighter than I’d like. “You seem like you’ve adapted to being a mare pretty well.”

Pushing the bobby pins to one corner of my mouth with my tongue, I suck in a sharp breath through the other corner. “This isn’t something I’m particularly comfortable talking about, Spike,” I reply in a measured tone. “I’ve got a lot going on with a number of Lyra’s memories still floating around in my head, and I had a number of personal problems beforehand. It’s nothing personal.”

Thankfully, he takes the hint, and after about another minute, he shakes his head. “I've been around ponies all of my life,” he comments, holding his claws out to the sides with their palms up. “In all the time I've spent among them, I haven't seen a pony take to something like you've taken to magic and not get a cutie mark related to it. How can you be good at something after only two weeks and not have it considered your talent?”

With thoughtful smile, I turn to face him completely. “A pony can be good at many things, yet none ever really has more than one special talent,” I explain as cross the room to join him at the door. “I could very well be talented with magic, but is that definitely tied into my personal destiny? It could be, however I don't think a pony gains their mark until they can actually recognize something as what they are meant to do.”

He nods. “Twilight figured you'd say that.”

“Yeah, well I got news for you, kiddo.” I pat him gently on the shoulder with a hoof. “I personally think it's because my transformation was flawed.”

He arches an… actually do dragons even have eyebrows? I mean he certainly raises something, but can it really be considered an eyebrow if it’s more of a patch of darker colored scales, rather than hairs? No, stop. Overthinking is bad. He arches an eyebrow. There.

“Look at me, Spike, really look at me,” I order, gesturing at my small body with one hoof. “Before this transformation, I was a fully-grown adult of my former species. I know enough about ponies to know that they age similarly. Why, then, would the natural conversion of my form put me in the form of a foal?”

He shakes his head. “Dunno, but that sounds like a Twilight question more than a Spike question.”

With a sigh, I push past him and begin making my way out of the sleeping area of the dorm. “It was a rhetorical question anyway,” I answer, walking down into the lower level and joining Twilight. He’s right there at my side, seemingly watching for any instability. I only fell once, darn it!

“Point is that for me to be this small, the process that converted my body from human to pony is highly undocumented, and likely not entirely perfect. The process may have converted my extra mass into energy to fuel the transformation, or even attune me to the natural ley lines of this world. What I’m saying is that there’s no way the process accounted for everything, like possible genetic abnormalities.”

There, seated at a desk with a stack of papers, quills, and textbooks is, of course, Twilight Sparkle. Her head perks up at the mention of ley lines, documentation, and genetics. For a moment, she seemingly even forgets her unease. “It’s, at the very least, a sound hypothesis,” she confirms. “You may have had some sort of previously unknown condition that, when the conversion occurred, manifested as dwarfism. Alternatively, the process may not have actually fully translated your genes, in which case it’s a miracle you’re even fully functioning.”

Completely forgoing breakfast, I take the seat across from her. “Regardless, it’s time to learn.” Glancing at the spines of the books on the stack, I can see a mix of basic equestrian script, which I can apparently read without any problems, and then some sort of text that is alien to me. “Before we start, however, I would like to go over why I can read some of those titles, but not all of them.”

This leads to a very lengthy lecture regarding the enchanted ink that many unicorns choose to write their magic books in. As it turns out, spell books not intended for beginners often contain spells that could bring a user serious harm if they aren’t prepared to cast them. Therefore, for safety reasons—although sometimes it’s just to lord things over the non-unicorns—books are often printed in this ink.

To this end, the ink is doubly enchanted. The first effect calls a diagnostic spell that measures a unicorn’s synchronicity with their own personal magic. If it’s not within a certain level, it activates the second enchantment, which scrambles a pony’s perception of the ink. This means that, though a pony may be able to otherwise read the written text, it will be indecipherable if the reader is not sufficiently skilled.

There are even varying degrees to which the enchantments are imbued upon the ink. There are some inks that are intended for use in printing a foal’s first spell book. Until they can read and are well past the point where they’re having bouts of baby magic, the books are useless to them. Likewise, some of Starswirl the Bearded’s work is written in ink so strong that, for the longest time, the documents were on par with the old Voynich manuscript.

From there, we quickly delve into my ‘homework’ of having to practice writing the script with a quill. Honestly, you’d think she was being vindictive, but no. It’s just more professional if I write with a quill. Again, I can understand the actual lesson behind it. Sure, a pencil with parchment is doable, and allows you to learn a good modicum of finesse, but it takes just the right amount of contact with the parchment to get only a reasonable amount of ink with a quill.

So on and on we go. A bit of history of the world, a bit of the history of magic… Heck, she’s even being kind enough to go over equine body language, since it’s clear I don’t know everything from Lyra’s leftover memories. All the while, I’m actively burning through mana by levitating all of the books around me.

When finally we break for lunch, we go outside and meet with the guard that watches over me from a respectable distance. As we eat, he goes over the exercises he’ll be running me through this afternoon. The sedentary homebody in me groans inwardly at all the exercise, but the part of me striving for personal growth is starting to overshadow that old part of me.

Finally, at the end of my the day, just before dinner, Twilight whips out some magical test. The first time she did it, just a few days ago, I recall grumbling about how impossible what she was asking such a rank beginner to achieve. Instead, she’s not actually asking me to achieve something outside my skill range. She’s instead testing my creativity and applications of what I know.

Honestly? It’s kinda fun. Sure, it’s at the end of the day when I’m low on mana and physical energy, particularly after skipping breakfast, and it leaves me drained. At the same time, though, it leaves me too tired for fitful dreaming.

Today, she takes me out to a sizable field on the castle grounds—the sparring grounds, the guard points out. Her request for the day, you might ask? Try, by any means that I can, to get through one of her barrier spells.

I wonder if this is how Princess Celestia trained her, I wonder to myself. Did she test Twilight occasionally and then adjust her lessons accordingly?

When Twilight throws her dome shield up and shouts, “Ready,” I smile. She let her voice carry through the barrier on purpose, so maybe she doesn’t expect me to try a sonic attack? Or maybe it’s a trick, and she’s seeing if I can be baited. Then again, I’m nowhere near ready to even begin casting sound-based spells.

With a deep breath, I reach out with passive magic sense and examine the dome. It’s a perfect sphere, above and below ground. It’s very firm, but… it’s also somewhat porous to allow air and moisture through. Gotta breathe, after all.

Now, I don’t have nearly enough reserves or built-up magical strength to brute force it. Short of Shining Armor or the princesses, I’m not sure anypony could crack that with raw power. It’s just not feasible.

I pace around the shield, eyeing it up. How would I get through or around it, then? I don’t have nearly enough experience to attempt a controlled blink or translocation. Similarly, sound spells are out. But I gotta keep it cool if I want to… Oh… that could work.

With slow deliberation, I begin to draw in ambient magic from around me. There’s not a whole lot, because Twilight’s pumping all of the local energy she can into her shield. Still, there’s a little bit I can use.

Actually, no. That’s not true to the fullest extent. There are other sources of magic that are available to me. Oh, Penny, you clever—darn it, Pinkie! Now you’ve got me doing it!

~ 1 ~

Twilight watched the diminutive mare through the magenta haze of her shield. Though the thought challenge may have been a bit too hard for a pony of Silver’s low skill level, there was still something about her that made her feel she might be able to do something special.

Soren, or Silver Penance, as she’d taken to being called had a mind for problem solving. She’d seen it the day that she’d been bested in the duel. Knowing that Twilight had her outclassed, the mare had found a way to get an edge in on her—literally and figuratively. Even when she was put into a position where she shouldn’t have been able to win, she used her mind to turn a loss into a win.

Frankly, that scared the hay out of Twilight more than anything. To put things plainly, if this pony wanted to seriously hurt somepony else, she’d probably find a way to make it happen. Yet Twilight was teaching her about magic… giving her more ways to hurt somepony. Sure, she had a temperament where she’d likely need a reason to hurt somepony, but she’d do it, sure as the day is long.

She could feel Silver reaching out and examining the shield. It didn’t surprise her that the first thing she did was zero in on the tiny openings allowing air in and out, although she was impressed by how fine Silver was able to narrow her focus.

At the edge of the field, near Silver’s guard shadow, a number of guards began to congregate. There were many whispers, she imagined ponies in the guard had heard tales of the times when she had trained under Princess Celestia upon this very field. Likely, they were curious as to what this ‘apprentice’ could do.

An aura lit around Silver Penance’s horn, a now-familiar navy shimmer. She could feel the inexperienced mare attempting to force one of the air holes to give. It wasn’t a particularly elegant attempt, but few beginners did so with the poise of a princess.

Then, a second aura began form. A second pressure was exerted on a second spot about a foot away. The mare began to sweat, and a third point, a foot equidistant from both points began to strain. What surprised Twilight was that she couldn’t feel much at all of Silver’s presence, as if it was all the magical energy being forced at these points was purely from the local area.

A third cone of aura ignited brightly, and Twilight found she actually had to narrow her eyes to keep her in sight. The sudden show of force distracted Twilight almost to the point that she almost didn’t notice that something was tugging and leeching energy away from the areas Silver was exerting pressure upon. She quickly diverted a sliver of power from other parts of the shield, and then smiled as the drain became minute and the energy distribution balanced out.

That smile quickly became a wince of pain as a visible spiderweb of cracks snaked across the barrier in front of her. It was only then that she could actually feel Silver Penance’s raw mana spread throughout the surface of the shield dome and she realized what the mare had done. She’d used Twilight’s mana to lessen the resistance of the shield and spread tendrils of her own mana through the shield like a creeper vine.

The tiny mare was actively trembling as the cracks spread across the shield. This couldn’t have been an easy feat for her; with the small pool of mana she had from the outset, and the reduced level that she could operate at, she had to be bordering burnout.

A loud whistle came from one of the guards. “Ain’t never seen anything like that before,” one unicorn guard said. “Most ponies wouldn’t think to use another’s own spell power to augment their own inadequacies.”

“Wonder if she’d give the Captain a run for his bits?”

“Who, the Cap’? No way!”

With a guttural scream, Silver lowered her head and a lance of violet light shot from her horn. When it made contact, she was astounded by how much of her own magic was infused in the blast. As the shield collapsed into shards of disintegrating glass, the amount of backlash she felt nearly floored her.

Instead, the only pony to drop was the tiny gray one, who fell to the floor laughing and crying. At first, nopony even reacted, clearly too shocked by what they’d just witnessed. A pony, who effectively looked like a foal, had just bested the princess’s star pupil, a formidable mage in her own right. The little sister of the best shield caster bested by a rank amateur.

It wasn’t until Silver’s flank began to glow and smoke alongside her horn that ponies rushed over.

The scent of burnt fur, horn, and flesh assailed her senses as she drew near. Having spent enough of her life using magic that could be considered dangerous, she was not at all unfamiliar with the smell of scorched fur and alicorn, but the smell of seared flesh was something that brought her to the brink of becoming ill.

The sight before her eyes didn’t help ease her stomach any, either. Where most ponies would bear a cutie mark, the fur was burned away and bare. A shape not unlike a shattered kite shield would occasionally flash upon her flank before quickly fading away, accompanied by a fresh wave of that awful burnt-flesh smell.

“Sweet Celestia...”

In spite of the pain she was in, Silver opened her eyes and looked to Twilight. “H-hey, Twi,” she said with a strained smile. “Didja see? I was like ice...” Her eyes then promptly rolled up into the back of her skull and the seizures began.

~ 1 ~

You know, I gotta stop waking up in hospitals in this world. First day here? Hospital. Three days after the duel? Hospital. New body? Same room Lyra occupied, still counts. Now? Pff. Where the hay do you think I am?

So, you know, just lemme muster up what remained of my shock. Oh wait. My shock tank’s empty. How ‘bout the reserves? Gone. Well what do we have? A massive fucking headache, Captain! Lovely.

Now, before I even open my eyes, I know I’m in a lot of pain. My muscles are all stiff. My head and horn especially hurt, and by God does my arse-end hurt. Yeah! I’m in enough pain that whatever Lyra’s partial overwrite of my mind didn’t have the strength to override good ol’ human swearing.

“Th’ fugg happen?” I grumble, straining myself to rub at my face with a hoof. Amazingly, I’m not restrained this time. ‘cause, y’know, the last time I was officially checked into a hospital, I was stark raving bonkers. “I know I asked Twilight to light a fire under my arse about my studies, but this is absolutely ridiculous.”

I do manage to open my eyes just enough to see a familiar unicorn doctor looking over a printout from a nearby machine I’d not heard. “You certainly manage to attract trouble when it comes to Miss Twilight, don’t you?” she asks, just the barest hint of humor in her voice. “Complete aetheric burnout, experiencing an anoxic seizure, and body rejecting a cutie mark… and that’s to say nothing of your, and pardon my language, completely bucked genetics.”

With a nod, I manage to focus my eyes enough to make out the stethoscope draped over her withers. “Probably some unknown genes bearing similarities to something you’d see in simian DNA, right?” When her eyes widen, I smile. “I read a lot. Not a whole lot to do when you have or had no job. When I wasn’t writing, I read up on various subjects.”

She nods. “In this case the abnormal genes were occupying sectors most commonly used to find familial matches. Given your history of having formerly been another species, it makes sense.” She looks back to the printout. “That’s what caused your body to reject your cutie mark in a most spectacular fashion.”

From the doorway steps a conflicted looking Twilight, followed by Princess Celestia. “With a lot of careful spell work, we were able to repair the damage and replace the bad sectors with a donor sample,” the latter says. “Your body has now successfully accepted your new cutie mark, and you are not likely to experience renal failure in the next ten years.”

A lot of words that she just said don’t settle well with everything I heard from the doctor. They ‘fixed’ me with somepony else’s genes. The genes replaced were markers indicating familial relations.

“Please tell me Twilight’s not my mom, now” I say a bit too quickly, panic rising a bit. I like Book Horse a lot, but I don’t think I could stand being her ‘daughter’. So much pressure about study, you know? Plus, there’s the whole Gary Stu/Mary Sue factor. That’s important too; I don’t wanna live a super fantastical life because magical bullshit.

Twilight looks a bit indignant about that comment, but thankfully one of the two white mares in the room exerts their white privilege and speaks up. “Even if some ponies might see it like that, the law and the therapy don’t work like that.”

“Besides,” Twilight speaks up. “The template came from my brother.”

I blink. Instead of the hangers-on genes that held my last relationship to my parents, I now bear the genes of Prince-Consort Shining Armor. No fucking way. Nope. I didn’t get disowned by my parents for feeling a little horse just so I could technically be Shining Armor’s bastard.

A lump of ice lodges itself somewhere behind my heart. Before, even though my parents had disowned me, I could have at least said I was still somewhat human, but what do I have now? A few knickknacks from home that basically equate to “Been there, done that, got a t-shirt.” No real evidence of my heritage left except for partially overwritten memories.

Oh god…

“Genetics don’t work that way!” I titter, shaking my head. Where once only silver locks would dance across my vision, silver with a streak of light blue dances instead. My gibbering increases and I look at Celestia pleadingly. “I call bullshit!”

Author's Note

That’s right, folks. Silver has been upgraded from wing-y pony to crazy pointy pony. Now with more accidental murder and magical bullshittery! It’s only gonna get weirder from here!

Meet Silver Penny, the pony Soren Friedrich would become in timelines where she becomes a unicorn. Besides the obvious pointed addition to our fine, genre savvy friend, we get to encounter the first major differences between Silver Penny and Silver Script’s timelines. Many of you who’ve read When a Pony Calls and the Alchemist’s Heart may remember that Silver Script wound up befriending Candy Stripes and Dr. Forceps, who would end up housing her during her studies. In this timeline, Silver never ends up bonding with Candy over the ‘Wind Sight’, and thus our first variance: she has nowhere else to stay but in Twilight’s tower.

The second [and third] difference comes in that Silver does not take more than a year to develop her cutie mark. In the Alchemist’s Heart, though Silver Script studied and practiced alchemy, she remained a blank flank until she consumed the ‘Eros’ potion, which had purged her of her genetic abnormalities and lingering human genes. Here, we see what would have happened had her mark come before the change. Her quirky talent, by the by, is mana manipulation. Things that involve the use of her personal mana, or the essence of spells cast by others, come easy to her.

The final difference is that, in coming across Shining Armor and confessing to her crimes, Penny has put herself on his radar. The reasoning for his genes being used comes up in the next chapter in true Silver fashion.

Seeya next time!