Okay. You know those times when you do something that you think is funny, but nopony else shares your sentiment? Evidently, jumping off the edge of the city—regardless of whether or not I’m still being shadowed by the guard because ‘Daddy’ Shining is having me watched—is neither funny or dramatic. It’s cruel and stupid.

That’s why, instead of getting a further chance to be out on the town, I’m being marched into the castle with a fucking magic suppressor on my horn. Like I’m actually going to try to escape using magic or something. Oh wait. This is for my ‘protection’, because clearly if I dove off the side of the city, I’m ‘mentally unstable’ and a threat to myself any everypony else.

I suppose not having to wear chains is a blessing. It’s bad enough being paraded into the castle by Twilight and a pair of guards, an obsidian hex nut around the base of my horn, without looking like an actual criminal. At best, I look like somepony being punished for being a bit too rebellious.

Still, ponies are looking at me. Do they know? No, that’s impossible.

Twilight, to her credit, is doing a very good job of not flipping her shit. Sure, she’s almost literally smoldering by this point, but she could be giving me an angry lecture while we go, rather than just wordlessly leading me to my doom.

Well, I say doom, but God knows that I’m afraid to find out what fate awaits me now.

As Twilight approaches the big-ass doors into Celestia’s throne room, the pair of unicorn guards to either side usher us in. “The princesses and the captain are expecting you.”

Princesses: plural. Celestia and Luna? Maybe I actually am getting killed. Especially if Shining’s also there. What if that godawful laughter woke the princess of the night and I’m getting the death penalty out of vengeance?

“If I’m getting the death penalty, I’m coming back to haunt Spike,” I grumble, loud enough to be heard by Twilight.

She doesn’t take the bait, though her ears do flick back a fair bit. Instead, she just leads us right through the door. Spike, on the other hoof, looks at me in horror from atop Twi’s back. “Why would anypony want to kill you?”

As I pass through the door, a shiver races down my spine as a magical field passes over me. I hadn’t seen anypony in the room from the outside, but once we were through, several ponies were revealed in plain sight. An enchantment?

Celestia, Luna, and Shining Armor being here is pretty much what I expected. Seeing Cadance at the foot of the dais beside her husband, however, causes me to halt in my horseshoes, so to speak. I’m not actually wearing any, but it’s a common phrase in pony books. Sue me for adapting.

“Indeed, Silver Penny. Do tell us why anypony would bring you harm,” Celestia says in her usual serene voice from atop her throne. Admittedly the effect is lost when she’s failing to hide a smile.

She pauses at the sight of Twilight’s barely contained rage. Flicking her eyes to me, any hints of a smile vanish. In fact, all eyes on the room are on me. “And why in Equestria is your magic bound?”

I don’t get the opportunity to speak for myself.

“Your Highness, shortly after the young dragon mistakenly sent a letter that was never meant for your eyes, Miss Penny began to chant something before leaping off the side of the city,” one of the guards reports. Fuckin’ rat. “A limiter has been placed on her horn under the impression that she is a threat to herself or others.” The guard casts an apologetic glance to Shining before adding, “Again.”

Except for Twilight, Spike, and the pair of pegasus guards accompanying us, all jaws in the room drop. Celestia and Luna look positively horror-struck, as though they’d never imagined a pony could take their own life over a letter. Shining looks quite conflicted for some unfathomable reason.

Cadance? She surges across the room on wings of wrath. Though Love Horse stops just shy of tackling me, she does not stop herself from wrapping me in a bone-crushing hug. “How could you?” she demands in a horror-struck voice. “You said to me once that you would never take your own life, because your God would never forgive you! Was that just a lie?”

I cringe and flinch away. Of course she’d remember my words from that day. With a shiver, I find myself wishing she’d ask my consent before hugging me. “In my defense, I thought that Princess Celestia was going to kill me, and decided to be dramatic, because I knew those two were watching.” I can’t bring myself to look at the princesses, but even without looking, I can tell my words are like a slap to the Sun Horse. “Even then, I’d rather chance the damnation of God than whatever fate the Sun Goddess would bestow upon me for sending that godawful letter.”

You know, there are times when I wonder whether or not someone’s jaw dropping when they already have their mouth open would lead to their head hinging 180 or something. It’s not a feasible expectation, but neither is actually having to confess that I everything I’ve ever been told about these pretty pony princesses paints them as sort of demigoddesses. Hell, Twilight practically worships Celestia like my folks worshipped the Lord. Is it so hard to believe that I came to the conclusion that Celestia and Luna are basically gods?

That said, when I explain to them the concept of damnation and how I thought that would be a preferable alternative to being potentially destroyed by the pony with the power to raise the sun, it doesn’t make any of them very happy. Pretty much everypony but Celestia looks at me in horror at my suggestion that she’s evil enough to come down upon me with the full extent of her power over a perceived slight.

Celestia? She gives me a hurt and disappointed look.

“I’d hoped you thought better of me… of all of us,” she says, casting a sideways glance at Luna. “How could you think such a thing? Of either of us? I thought we’d dispelled the idea that we are wrathful beings.”

I cast a glance at Twilight. “Ignorance and an instilled wariness of divine power, I suppose.” With a heavy sigh, I droop my head. “Where I came from, the planet Earth orbits a star with a radius of roughly seven hundred thousand kilometers. It’s approximately one hundred forty-nine point six million kilometers away from the Earth. Having not been instructed differently as of yet, I assumed it to be the same here.”

Barring Celestia, Luna, and Twilight, all jaws fall off of their respective heads as I explain this. Twilight, who probably best understands the magnitude of what I’m describing, nearly faints. The elder alicorns, however, pale.

“The power to move such a heavenly body would be positively monstrous,” I hear Celestia murmur in a grim tone. “No wonder you think me some sort of divine being.” Speaking up, in a tone I’m definitely supposed to hear, she says, “It is good that you will have more time to study under Twilight then. We should seek to weed out as many misconceptions as possible.”

With a gulp, I nod and glance at Spike. “About that letter, I...”

“I normally wouldn’t approve of such dark humor, Penny,” she says, sounding every bit the mother figure she’s been depicted. “That said, it was highly amusing in that it all just felt so… out of character to hear Twilight described in such a way.”

“So you can’t turn me to ash with just a look?” I ask, shuffling my hooves as my ears do their pony thing and fold back.

“Oh no; I most certainly can, my little pony,” says Celestia with all the seriousness of a judge. I slowly shuffle backward a bit. After a minute, she appears before me in a flash of magic. As she reaches out to touch the end of my nose, she grins. “Gotcha.”

~ 6 ~

Dear Lyra,

I know that you are probably still pissed off at me for being such an unstable shit and basically vanishing on you. It was horrible of me and there’s basically no apologizing for it. Especially when the only things you’ve probably heard about me came when Twilight and the Princesses showed up to learn about the show. I should have written sooner.

That said, I spent the last few months figuring myself, being a pony, and this whole world out for myself. It’s been hard on me, and probably even harder on those around me, but I think I’m starting to become happy with how things are turning out.

The first few weeks after I woke up as the new me, I was a complete mess. Even earning my cutie mark in the first week wasn’t an easy thing for me; I lost another piece of my humanity that day when my blood ties were finally severed.

Did you know my transformation into a pony wasn’t complete? As it turned out, I still had a few human genes left. Whole lot of familial stuff. Found that out when I got the damn mark and they had to do emergency gene therapy on me. Don’t know who the fuck my apparent mother is now, but I’m legally recognized as Shining Armor’s bastard daughter.

It’s funny, though. When I later asked why nopony was concerned about ponies utilizing gene therapy to worm their way into shit where blood ties mattered, they explained that the legal system has rules in place for just such an occasion. Sure, somepony can get the therapy and inherit the genes of some celebrity or noble, but there are indicators about the therapy present in the blood, so it’s up to the head of the family to decide if the recipient of the therapy is a member of the family or not. I wouldn’t have thought Shiny liked me that much, but it did make it easier for him to keep an eye on me.

That shitshow aside, I spent the rest of that month learning, and exercising, and working toward joining the Royal Guard. That idea’s a lost cause for reasons I won’t get into, but I still learned some real neat things and met some really great ponies in the week I spent with the Guard.

The next two months went by too quickly as I worked extra hard. It was stressful, trying to cram all of the knowledge I needed for the EED, but I wanted to get the test in before the autumn. The sooner I was free of Twilight’s obligation to teach me, the more time I’d have to go out into the world and find my place.

There were a few things that I’d like to do once I was on my own. A trip to explore the world came to mind first and foremost. Braving the elements in a wilder area of Equestria, using only my magic and brain to survive, or studying and hunting monsters sounded interesting.

That said, I also don’t want to be around anypony for my first birthday in Equestria. Even if you see me in Ponyville come October, I don’t want you to say anything about it.

Unfortunately, when it came to study, I could only absorb so much on the first pass. The historical, social, and geographical stuff was especially bland, despite my teacher’s assurance otherwise. What can a mare do, though, right? It’s pretty hard going.

Magic’s gone a lot better, though. Enchantment was surprisingly simple once I understood the workings of a specific enchantment. By channeling my mana into something, I’ve learned to shape a spell-matrix in that object, rather than merely using my horn as a focus; even an object created through prestidigitation worked with some tweaking. After the matrix was set, it was just a matter of pinching off enough magic to maintain the matrix. The end product was even entirely self-sustaining, pulling in ambient energy as needed.

It isn’t perfect, mind you. We ran multiple tests on my constructs, since I learned the standard strengthening matrix, and the longest any of my ‘trinkets’ has remained without touch or input from me was four days and thirteen hours. Maybe once I’m ready for the unbreakable enchantment matrix, things might be different. If nothing else, I could go to a small town and play artificer for bits.

Aside from training in enchanting, we’ve also gone over spell tags, minor elemental spells, lesser transmutation spells like mend and minor alter shape, and most importantly, stunner spells! Finally, I have an option other than brawl or fall! Gotta say, it’s definitely more fun being the pony shouting dodge, chasing around your teacher and firing stunners.

Today is one of my off days, though. That means I’m free to do whatever I want with my time in the morning, with an opportunity to go out into public in the afternoon. With that in mind, there is something I’d like to achieve…

~ I scare myself sometimes… ~

When I was in the hospital and still stuck in Lyra’s body, Princess Luna helped me make peace with the personification of Lyra’s unicorn memory redundancy. Sure, my mind was on stopping any more of my memory from being overwritten, but something she said to me then has been on my mind for a week or two.

“Before my banishment, it was regular practice for unicorn scholars to commune with their memory imprints as a form of enhanced recall.”

At the time, it wasn’t overly important to me, but today it’s the sort of thing that might be pretty damn useful. If I can learn to access the imprint that’s been building over these last few months, and converse with it… I’ll have a study partner who works just right with my learning style.

That said, meditation’s always been pretty difficult for me. I’ve got a mind that can be going off on several different tangents at once, which makes it much harder to quiet. Add in the extra magic sense, and it’s a wonder I ever even get to sleep at night, never mind into a meditative state.

To this end, I’m using a visualization aid to focus my mind: a lit candle. Ideally, I’d be able to just visualize the flame in my minds eye and work from there, but with so much going on in the ambient magic around me, a less metaphorical focus is a better starting point.

Of course, I’m seated on a floor cushion in as close an approximation to the lotus pose as a pony’s leg articulation will allow for, each forehoof touching its opposite back hoof. With my gaze locked firmly on the flame, watching it flicker in the slight breeze of my cracked window.

Before all, there was the flame, I tell myself. An eerie stillness overtakes the room. After all is gone, only the flame will remain.

It guides through the dark, and warms us in the cold. A slight tingle works its way down my back. It is a balance of creation and destruction: the transition from one state of matter to the next.

My ears twitch as the numb tingle overtakes them. The outside noises in the world fade away, and my peripheral vision fades, but there’s still the ever present buzz in the back of my mind. If anything it’s gotten worse. It’s the ambient magic… So close to two princesses, it pretty much has to be.

Taking care not to think about anything other than the flame, I pull the edges of my magic inward. At first, there’s a resistance, like I’m not supposed to be in this deep… and then it just folds in on me, plunging me into complete silence for the first time in forever.

When I open my eyes, I tell myself, even as they fall shut, I will be in the embodiment of my core. There will be only me, myself, and the flame. I know this to be fact because that is what I need this to be.

After a short internal countdown, I open my eyes. Though there is a candle in front of me, it seems less… real—almost two dimensional. Around me, the world too appears quite limited. It’s not my room, nor any room I recognize.

Imagine a library inside of a tree. Now, turn all that wood except for the bookshelves into brick, make it square, and give it a face-like pattern on one wall. Place yourself smack dab in the middle with a little raised dais in the center. That’s basically what it feels like. Now smack yourself in the head, because it’s not a tree anymore.

I’m not sure what exactly what I was expecting, but this just seems pretty underwhelming. Like, is this the best my imagination can come up with? Or is this just how the mind chooses to project the concept of my core?

“Now, how do I go about making contact with… memory me?” Yeah, gonna have to work on that. ‘Head Lyra’ was a stupid name when I was hearing her voice in my head, so the least I can do is give my brain denizen a better name than that.

“Yo. Anybody home?” I call out. “Come out, come out, wherever you are!”

Surprisingly, there’s no answer. Unlike with Lyra’s body, there’s no ‘door’ for the memory imprint to enter from; there’s just me, the dais, a two-dimensional candle, and a fuck-tonne of books.

Maybe I’ve not been a pony long enough to have a fully fledged imprint. Or maybe I’m brain damaged. Maybe that’s how I’ve survived this long in horse land.

I attempt to conjure or manifest the embodiment of my memory imprint, but it’s no good. All I can manage is a migraine headache. So maybe this is a bust…

With a sigh, I move to examine the bookshelves. Well, I say move but it’s more like… I look there, and suddenly I’m there. Almost like I’m in a dream, movement seems to be secondary here.

Putting the thought aside for the moment, I examine the bookshelf I now stand before. At the top, I see a label: “Human Memories.” The shelves beneath it are also individually labeled based on category, but what strikes me is the presence of a few books that seemingly don’t belong. Bearing Lyra’s cutie mark and being that teal color of hers might be lending credence to that belief.

Makes sense, given that some of my memories were overwritten and never actually expunged. Why they’d be presented here instead of their own shelves is a bit weird, but I’m sure my subconscious has a good reason.

That in mind, I move to another shelf. By merely thinking about history, I end up at a more sparsely populated bookcase. It has only two shelves on it, and it’s broken up into two categories: Recorded History and Speculative History.

I hover my hoof over one of the speculation books for a moment, but I get the feeling that it’s just hokey old unconfirmed speculation based on the show. The spine on one of the books under the factual stuff, interests me, though. The Mystery of Starswirl the Bearded: Paraphrased. Given that I just read a biography on him yesterday, I figure it’s as good a place as any to start.

I pull out the book, and nearly drop it in surprise when it floats from my hoof and opens by itself.

“Star Swirl the Bearded is argued to be the most important magical mind of the pre-classical era,” the book reads aloud in my voice. “Considered to be the foremost pioneer in transfiguration, space-time manipulation, and teleportation, it’s little wonder why many mages look up to him…”

Even as my own voice reads the words from the page, I find myself smiling. Before the voice reaches a word, the ink looks faded, but the moment it’s spoken aloud, it darkens and becomes more readable. What’s more, I even feel more confident in my knowledge of it.

“I love my brain,” I say with a giggle. “It has given me audio books.”

The book pauses its reading, and then I hear an echo of my giggle. “I love me too,” it says in my voice. “Just remember: if you mistreat me, I know how to turn off your autonomic functions.”

Aaaand just like that, the novelty is gone. I take it back; my brain is a scary place. Please don’t inconveniently make me shit myself.

“Be good, and I won’t have to.”

With that, I go back to ‘studying’.

~ 6 ~

… I’ll try to contact you again if I do decide to swing by Ponyville before my month of solitude. If not, I just want to say that even though you and Twilight are equally responsible for all of this, I don’t blame either of you any more. I have a chance at a new life… a better one where I wouldn’t be persecuted by my religion and my parents for daring to be what I want to be.

Maybe, just maybe, shit’ll work out alright for me this time around.
Take care,

Silver Penny

Author's Note

End Act 1

PS: She named her memory imprint ‘Book’.