Your Family and You

As I slowly returned to the world of the living, something felt off. There was a strange cramp in my sides that I’d never felt before, and no matter which way I shifted, it never got better. Not only that, but my arms and legs felt stiff and awkward. To top it off, a dull ache permeated my head and neck, and the familiar, horrible taste of ‘morning-after-drinking’ was in my mouth.

Hello, booze-breath, my old friend…

Keeping my eyes closed, I rubbed my head against my pillow before stretching in an attempt to pop my joints. Instead of relieving the tension though, the action only seemed to make my stiffness worse. My shoulder twinged and I felt the muscles in my back pull taut, almost as if my arm wasn’t supposed to move that way at all.

Holy shit, did I sleep on it wrong?

As I lay there, half-heartedly trying to work the kinks and knots out of my body, and wondering why everything felt wrong, I heard the sound of a door clicking open and hoofsteps on a hard surface.

Oh good, I grumbled to myself. There’s Twilight to tell me I’m sleeping in too late again and then yell at me about my drinking. Not opening my eyes, I continued to rub my head against the pillow, trying and failing to scratch a particularly annoying itch. A yawn escaped me as I debated the pros and cons of getting up before Twilight could come over and start her spiel.

Instead of Twilight’s voice though, the hoofsteps moved past me before the sound of curtains being pulled open caught my ear, causing it to twitch and swivel about. Sunlight immediately hit my face, and I scrunched up my eyes in annoyance.

Oh, she’s going with that tactic, huh? Refusing to wake up just yet, my ear twitched again and I started to roll over.

…

Wait.

My ear moved?

It… it’s not supposed to do that.

My brow furrowed in confusion and after a moment of struggling, memories of yesterday’s events began to swim up to the surface. Oh yeah, that’s right. I’m currently in the body of—

“Good morning, princess!” A loud—and distinctly not Twilight—voice suddenly cried right next to my head. “Goodness, aren’t you in bed late! Time to rise and shine, sleepyhead!”

“OH SHI—!” At the sound of the unknown voice, my heart rate skyrocketed immediately. Inhaling sharply, my eyes snapped open and a sudden burst of… something erupted from my core and shot up through my neck and head, straight into my forehead. A moment later, there was a bright flash of light followed by a concussive blast.

KA-THUUUM

...

Coughing, I struggled to my hooves, trying to extract myself from the remains of Celestia’s four-poster bed. Chunks of marble littered the floor and a thick haze of dust hung over the room, swirling and wafting out of the new, massive hole in the side of Celestia’s bedroom where it curled upwards into the air.

“What the… what the fuck happened?” I wheezed. Stepping through the hole and out onto the balcony, I glanced around, looking for the pony that had startled me. However, there was no sign of anyone outside, and upon sticking my head back through the hole, I couldn’t see anyone inside either. “Oh shit. I… I hope I didn’t vaporize someone…”

As pegasus guards began to circle the area, something in the sky caught my eye. Looking up, I studied it curiously. It was a long, thin line of vapor, almost like a contrail from a plane. Except, there were no planes in Equestria, and despite their flight capabilities, I had yet to see a pegasus create such a phenomenon.

Contemplating what I was seeing, I noticed that the contrail was lengthening, heading away from the castle. My head slowly tilted to the side before, with growing horror, it suddenly dawned on me what I was seeing.

Eyes widening in alarm, I turned and sprinted for the door, screaming as I did so. “Luuuna! Heeelp!”

~ ~ ~ ~ > > < < ~ ~ ~ ~

“I am sooo so sorry.” Adrenaline still coursing through my system, I couldn’t help but dance on the tips of my hooves. I knew I probably looked ridiculous doing it, but it just felt… natural.

I wasn’t sure how close the mare had come to becoming a pancake in the time it had taken me to find Luna and explain what was happening (“Luna, help! Magic. Accident. Explosion! Pony space program! Not good!”), but several broken branches and leaves accompanied the pair when they teleported back into the castle.

Now the mare was crouched behind Luna, trying her hardest to hide from me. Her light gray coat was paler than usual, and her brown mane—once done up in a neat bun—was disheveled and hanging loosely about her shoulders. A pair of black-rimmed glasses sat skewed upon her muzzle.

Upon seeing that I was trying to catch a look at her, she squeaked and ducked down further behind Luna, who just rolled her eyes.

“Ms. Inkwell, enough of this,” she said, lifting a hoof and trying to step aside. The mare followed her though, like a foal trying to remain under its mother. “Cease this at once! We already explained it to you! This is not your fault. Our sister is not upset at you. She is just feeling under the weather and lost control of her magic when she sneezed, nothing more!”

“S-sorry, your majesty,” Raven stammered. “I know what y-you told me, but I-I just… it was a l-long… long way down.” She shivered, and her pupils narrowed. “I… I could see both coasts. A-at the same time. East and West.”

“Is… is she going to be okay?” I asked Luna.

She shrugged. “We caught her just above the treeline of the Hayseed Swamps. From her trajectory though, we estimate that her maximum altitude was impressive. We doubt any pegasi has managed to get that high before.” She patted Raven’s back with her wing. “Congratulations are in order, dear Raven. You have undoubtedly set a few records that shall never be broken again.”

“I saw the curve,” Raven mumbled. “There was a curve. W-why? Why was there a curve? A curve.”

“Oh god, Celestia’s going to kill me,” I whispered. “I traumatized her aide for life.”

“We doubt it’s that severe,” Luna scoffed. “Here, we shall settle this matter here and now. Ms. Inkwell?” Turning to look down at the mare that was still trying to use the alicorn as her personal shield, Luna clicked her tongue. “Take the rest of the day off to recover from this surprise. Rest, relax, and keep your hooves firmly on the ground. Maybe a trip through the gardens will help.”

Raven perked up, and the color in her cheeks began to return. “B-but… what about Day Court?”

“Do you really think you can do your duty in such a state?” Luna asked, cocking an eyebrow.

“Well, I…”

“You can barely look at my sister right now. How do you plan to stand beside her for the next few hours?”

“I…” Raven glanced over at me only to flinch back. “I guess you’re right. I’m sorry, princess. I… I don’t…” She swallowed thickly and hung her head in shame.

“It’s fine, Raven,” I said, trying to sound as much like Celestia as possible. “Go, take some time to recover and we’ll deal with this incident later.”

“We shall just have to cancel Day Court for today,” Luna said. “With your current mental state and my sister’s cold, it would probably be for the best to cancel. Post a notice upon the throne room doors, if you would, Ms. Inkwell. If there’s an item of importance that was supposed to be discussed today, move it to Night Court. And then you may have the rest of the day to yourself.”

“T-thank you, princess.” Turning, she darted down the hall, her tail tucked firmly between her legs.

“Why do I feel like this is going to come back to bite me in the butt later?” I muttered as I watched her disappear around the corner.

“If it were anypony else, we’d call you paranoid,” Luna said, “but given the current situation—” she looked at me, her eyes darting up and down Celestia’s body “—I’d say your paranoia is founded. But that is a problem for a later time. Come, we have work to do.” Turning, she headed off in the opposite direction.

“Where are we going?” I asked as I fell in line behind her.

“To the Archives,” came the answer. “We need to find the reversal spell and get Celestia back in her proper body before any more ponies find themselves spacebound.”

“Har har har,” I grumbled. “I didn’t do it on purpose. She just startled me, is all. Besides, aren’t the Archives massive? How the fuck are we going to find a specific spell in the sea of books and scrolls? It’ll take years, if not decades to go through it shelf by shelf!”

“For you, perhaps,” Luna tittered, “but we have more precise means to find our desired material. This shant take more than an afternoon, at most.”

I snorted and rolled my eyes. “Oh, I highly doubt that.”

We moved down the hallway together, Luna leading slightly as I still had barely any idea of where anything was in this place. I could probably move around the private royal apartment areas—Twilight and I stayed here enough times for it to start to seem vaguely familiar to me—but the rest of the halls might as well have shifted and changed for as much as I remember them.

Every so often we’d come across a maid or two, the mares busily cleaning the various furniture and decorations that lined the walls. One of them—a pegasus mare with cherry red fur—hovered in front of one of the massive stained-glass windows, wiping each pane of glass carefully with a rag. It was easy to tell which panes she had already finished; the dirty ones were dull and faded while the clean ones shone like colored fire.

Sunlight…

…

Wait a second.

A hint of a grin flickered across my muzzle as I sidled up next to Luna. “Sooo, I’m in Celestia’s body, right?”

“That is correct,” she said, an ear twitching.

“That means she’s in my body, right?”

“Again, you would be correct.”

“And neither of us can use magic at the moment, right?”

“It would stand to reason.”

“And, unless I’m very much mistaken, the sun is currently in the sky,” I smirked. “It’s almost like… it got up there all on its own. Without someone using magic to raise it. Almost like it moves on its own.” A wide grin split across my face. “Checkmate, alicorn.”

Luna gave me a confused look. “What are you talking about? We raised the sun earlier, after we lowered the moon.”

“What?” I deadpanned.

“If my sister is not present or preoccupied, we can move her celestial body around,” Luna said, “just as she can do the same with our moon. It’s how she managed the day and night cycles when we were imprisoned for a thousand years.” She shook her head at me. “Because Celestia was unable to, we took over the duties of raising the sun today. That is why it’s in the sky, despite the fact that neither of you could do it this morning.”

“Bullshit,” I grumbled. “You just don’t want to admit you’ve lost.”

“One of these days, we’re going to sit you down, and make you believe us,” Luna huffed, “but ‘tis not this day.”

“And why not?” I asked. “Because you can’t actually do it?”

“No. Because we’ve arrived.” Turning the corner, the Archive’s entrance came into view. The pair of gilded doors at the end of the hall were still framed with vines carved into the dark oak wood, but the golden unicorn bust was missing, replaced instead by a dragon’s head with emerald eyes.

On either side of the door, the Archive Guards stood. A pair of unicorns in gold-trimmed crimson robes and large golden decorative collars. Their golden helmets, covering their entire head except for their lower jaw, glinted in the sunlight streaming in from the windows.

As we approached, they both raised their heads.

“Good morning, Princess of the Moon,” the one on the right called out. From the voice, it was a stallion. “How may we be of service today?”

“And a good morning to you both,” Luna answered. “We have need of a certain spell that is behind these doors. May we enter your domain?”

“We suppose you may,” the one on the left answered, the voice that of a mare. “Take as long as you need, and as usual, please try to not get lost.” Raising her halberd, she banged it on the ground, and the massive doors began to grind open. A blast of cold air rushed over both of us, bringing with it the musty smell of old parchment and dust.

“Here we go,” Luna said before striding forward. I hurried after her into the darkness, and a moment later the doors slammed shut behind us.