The Little Curiosities

Chapters

Hold Your Fire
On the Subject of Cute Ponies
The United Phrases
Born in the Right Generation
The Ballad of Lyra Heartstrings
Big Sticks
Part Two: The Squeal
Burden and the Beast
Age of Enlightenment
A Necessary Post-Mortem
Keep Talking and Nobody Gets on Fire
Forever Blowing Bubbles
The Continued Struggle of Tin Foil
Hillbuddy Music
Erysimum Fields
That is Hay
Abby's Road
Dance for the Moon
Adaptation Anticipation
The New Bearers of Bitter Fruit
Here Comes Trouble, Make It Half
Dare to Archaeologize
Kettle Meadow
The Metaphysical Coma
Food on the Table
Born in the Righter Generation
Pets and Livestock
The Self Agency
Cloud Nine Yards
Boldly Gone
Games People Play
Re-Reboxing With Spike
Cocoons
Expecting the Unexpected
Inter-Crush
Tender Love and Care
It Ain't Easy, But It's Worth It
Roll for Irritative
Immaculate Inning
Terminal Flights
Meteors from Millville
Play It Again, Spade
Dark Magic for Dummies
Meet the Sparkles
Quibble's Trifecta
On All Hands
Anthropocentricity
Parthenogenesis
Yule Time to Shine
Reset And... [Them's Fightin' Herds]
Siren Famous
Binary Sunsets
Dining Etiquette
Spring Fix-up
Starkest Madness, Averted
Trix of the Trade
Taxity-Tak
Balagan
Sta Astéria
Needless Needles
Post-horse
Special Weapons and Magic

Hold Your Fire

Another shot down Spitfire’s throat. Hard vodka: it scrapes her throat falling down.

Rainbow takes a swig of former human beer, wiping the too-bitter taste off her mouth. “I get that you’re not exactly calm in drill sergeant mode, Spits, but… you know they’re not exactly born for your brand of flight training.”

“Yeah, yeah... rub it in, why don’t you?” A yellow foreleg rests on the counter. She then smacks her muzzle on said counter. “Their first real flight lesson is botched all thanks to me… at least, according to you.”

A roll of the eyes, a concerned sigh come out of the commander’s friend. “I know this is going to sound rich coming from me, but have you considered that you were... too much of a hothead?”

The veteran huffs a snort fit for a gruff mare. “And what makes you think that?”

“How you constantly shouted at your other self for every little mistake?”

Spitfire freezes. Vodka splashes onto the counter in drops.

“Look… you want to see them succeed. Yeah, participation trophies ain’t your thing. Still, a little mercy won’t hurt, ‘specially since they’ve had wings for only… what, two weeks?”

“So?” Calmly wipes the counter clean from vodka-smelling evidence of weakness. “It’s a chaotic dragon-eat-dragon world out here. They gotta learn how to roll with the punches and take control of their new abilities.”

“Yeah… but they’re barely ponies. Not the same way we are for the last… well, lifetimes.”

The rainbow horse resorts to another sigh. A swig of more beer. Hard day of her own earlier on: the pegasi were clueless but remained eager to learn evasive maneuvers—self-defense in mid-flight. Something these ponies really need.

She puts down the mug with a deep thunk!

“Think of them as foals, Spits. Foals in adult bodies, but still foals. You got the discipline part down and that’s good... but they need somepony who understands that two extra limbs and being able to fly… that’s all new to them. Trust me: I helped Twilight cope with her wings when she became a princess, and at least she’s best friends with me and Fluttershy. These guys… they used to think pegasi were just myths!”

That’s enough to get Spitfire’s head rolling—would have blurted out, That’s ridiculous, but courtesy gets to her. “Alright, fine. I’m a hothead, I made somepony cry, and I’ll learn from it, yeah?”

Rainbow merely cocks her head to the side. This isn’t over yet. Spitfire should know: having a poster child for friendship and harmony in the team, she has realized, stirs up the conscience once in a while.

“Okay… I guess you expect me to go to her house and ask for forgiveness, huh?””

“Yup.” With crossed forelegs and all. No irony, shame; not even a drop of sarcasm.

Spitfire takes it as a cue to order another shot.

When it slides her way, she mutters, "Remind me to do it in the morning, Crash. I’ll be too plastered to apologize tonight.”

She drinks up, much to the dismay of Rainbow with her shaking head. But she drinks up with her anyway. It’s been a long day.

On the Subject of Cute Ponies

The question does not fully dawn on Sunset yet. “You’re asking me what?”

In the work-in-progress-again sushi bar, Fluttershy happily explains: “I was just checking myself in the mirror, brushing my mane and all… and then it sank in: I’m actually a horse.”

Sunset takes a bite of some hay-filled sushi: tastes good. “Yeah, and where are you going with this?”

“Well, after looking at myself for a very long while—and maybe it’s obvious to you—I think I’m... that I’m cuter as a pony.”

“Heh… should’ve known you’d be the first to come to the light.”

“… what?”

“Yeah.”

Sunset’s muzzle plays a smug smile. “Honestly? Humans may look cool, handsome, or beautiful, and wearing clothes all the time’s awesome too… but you know what I thought when I first came here?”

“That we looked weird?”

“That humans were just a bunch of overgrown lanky apes.”

Fluttershy chokes on her glass of water. “Oh… wow, that’s….”

“I wasn’t exactly a good pony out there, and I got used to being a human over the years. Now that I’m back to being a pony full-time, though, I’m not afraid to say it: human looks suck, pony looks rock!”

Blushes and giggles from Fluttershy come out cute, somewhat embarrassed. “I guess I should’ve saved you for last. Should’ve known being born a pony made you biased.”

“That’s okay, though I’d like to hear how the rest of the girls think about their new cuteness.”

Rarity levitates a new batch of dresses from her Equestrian self, restocking inventory with clothes that can fit her clients’ new bodies.

“Asking me whether I’m cuter as a pony? Why, the matter must’ve escaped me: I was all too busy re-learning the art of the dress. But, since you’ve asked… why, of course, I’m cuter as a divine mare and I like it!”

“Really? I… didn’t know what to expect.”

“Well, Sweetie Belle and I used to dress up as unicorn princesses. Besides that, unicorns always seemed just majestic to me ever since I was a little girl.” She lights up her horn in excitement: the fabrics glitter. “You could say I’ve turned into my spirit animal! After getting over the post-human blues, it really feels like a dream come true….”

“It’s good to know that you’re taking it well. Poor Zephyr’s still distraught about it.”

“Oh. I do hope he’ll get over it with your help; maybe show him the wonders of flying since he’s a pegasus, hm?

“Anyway… I believe you should ask Pinkie next. She’s never shied away from being the cute one, after all.”

“… If I were a plushie, I’d squish and hug myself all day long! I’ve even had this Manehattan stallion call me Cutie Pie… could you believe it?! The pun’s been there all this time, but someone gets it after I turn into a pony? Hah!”

Waiters on roller skates sail past tables. It’s Pinkie’s break time at Sweet Snacks Café. Hasn’t bothered to take off her dress to get comfy.

“But… well, what do you think about your human self?”

“Oh, let me tell you: I was cute too! Always have, always will be! Although I don’t know why a pony’s cuter anyway. Maybe it’s the size or we’re now all magic or what… but, uh, is that all you wanted to ask?”

“Um, yes.”

“Alrighty, then! Who’s next on your list?”

There’s a tap and another on her chin. “I mean to ask Twilight about it.”

“Technically, I am prettier and more beautiful as a mare than as a woman. However, that doesn’t automatically mean I prefer being a pony.”

Twilight has her intrepid questioner following her on the way home from Canterlot High. Time to get back to the lab after a couple hours of teaching nascent unicorns.

“Do you?”

“On the whole, yes. My old self would be baffled at me because she’d never believe me yammering about the possibilities of magic and what not. Still, I don’t really care much about being a cute pony. It’s the pony part—the pony magic, actually—that matters more.”

“I see....”

Twilight notices the pegasus’ hesitation. “Well, it’s never wrong to ask a question like that. It’s just that I’m focused on something other than how cute I am.

“Heh… speaking of cute, I’d like you to tell me how Applejack answers that. Maybe she’d appreciate a pony’s beauty more than I do.”

Applejack stops bucking an apple tree. “Wait, you’re sayin’ I’m cute ‘cause I’m a pony?”

“Ponies in general seem cuter than humans,” answers Flutershy. “I think we’re all cuter as ponies… but what do you think?”

“Hmm... Fluttershy, I don’t know. This pony thing is still new and all. Can’t really care much about comparin’ my new self to my old self… not to mention my own horses being there too. Argh. Maybe I’m cuter or maybe not: what I really need now is to just get this pony thing nailed down.”

The pegasus backs off a bit. “I see. Sorry if I interrupted you.”

“That’s okay; it’s always good to have you up and about.” Another buck at the tree and a few apples fall into the baskets. “Say, you said I’m the second-to-last pony you’ve asked. Who’s the last?”

“Um, Rainbow, I know that this is a big deal for you, but—“

“I’m cute?!” Rainbow yells, lying on her bedroom floor, wings flapping tense. “H-how did I not see that?”

“I think it was easy, especially since we were in Equestria for a while. Also, I believe we’re cuter because, we’re smaller, we’re ponies with unusual colorations—“

“That only makes it worse!”

“… but, I thought you were okay with ponying up. Weren’t you?”

“That’s because I looked cool and awesome with pony ears and two wings, back when I still looked cool and awesome! Being a cute, adorable, cuddly pony—“ shivers down her spine “—I’ll be ruined!”

“You could still fly like no pony here has ever flown before.“

“That won’t matter! Why? They’ll look at me fly and think I’m cute for trying so hard!”

Then, her wings stop. Stares at her friend with narrowed eyes. Fierce fires burn under their lids.

“You know what? I’ll prove them wrong! They’ll call me cute? Well, I’ll challenge them to a race—any kind of challenge! That’ll show them they just got beat by a ‘cute’ pony!”

Fluttershy’s head falls to the side in confusion. “But every pony else is also a cute pony.”

“Don’t ruin the moment! It’s the only plan I’ve got to save myself!”

Minutes later, Rainbow is found daring Principal Celestia to a race.

The United Phrases

In the headquarters of the Convocation of Countries, at one of the lower floors, a griffon looks out the window: a vista of Manehattan under reconstruction splayed out; dots represented creatures speeding away to get the city back up again.

In his suit, Gestal—President of the Republic of Griffonstone—lets out a sigh. Sunlight rains on his glasses.

He hears little, nigh undetectable flaps. Whirls his head around and sees the suit-wearing breezie hovering his way. A tiny angel, he rests on the window.

“Seabreeze?” inquires the griffon. “I thought you’re still duking it out with the others.”

A loud click of the tongue is the response of Gaothlub’s head of state. “That shouting match is going to kill me at this size. In fact… I thought you stayed; I know how immovable you are with your stances. Took me a while to notice you disappeared.”

The griffon feels a weight put on his shoulders. “Cooler heads must prevail. When it comes to something as simple yet as important as our slogan, I am astonished that only you’ve followed my example.”

To take the weight off for a moment, he looks outside.

Pegasi and hippogriffs scout the city out from above, the former controlling the weather while they’re at it. Earthbound creatures on the streets: buying and selling, helping each other out, teaching each other how to pony or how to griffon or how to hippogriff. How to whatever else they became.

“To think the Convocation was making much progress: no wars for almost a century; proxy battles dropping off cliffs; our arbiters doing everything to keep the world from falling apart and, somehow, the world didn’t. We were on the way to world peace, and it’d take a worldwide tragedy to undo everything.”

His claw falls toward the window. A shrug with a beaked groan.

“Then this happens. Just to think we might finally unite humanity, finally have everyone getting along just for once, this happens. Can’t even unite under the same species anymore. As if bringing different nationalities together is hard enough….”

A claw on the head. Feathery forehead: rub it with those scraggy talons to nurse the headache away.

Realizes he’s almost hit Seabreeze.

“Sorry about that.”

“Agh… it’s okay. I’ve gotten used to it.”

The breezie sits on the window.

He too lets the weight off his shoulders: Horse-drawn carriages pass by on these calculated roads; they’re most likely from that other world. By their side, somepony trying to start up his car: definitely from this world.

The pony drops his tools: no horn, apparently. Keeps digging his head under the hood, biting the tools once more.

“At least I won’t take this lying down.”

Makes Gestal look. “What do you mean?”

“You and I know we don’t want to fight… well, not a lot, but, still, fighting’s bad.” Rubs his eyes: tired from beholding his opponents on the other end of the table back there. “What I’m saying is… you’re not alone, and it’s not just me being with you.

“I know this because deep down, we’re all just trying to survive this without going mad. Trust me: I now know what it feels like to be on the other end of my showboating.”

Gestal taps his chin. A light bulb plugged to the socket but no one’s turned on the light yet. “Right. Weight of the world or at least the nation on our shoulders. Well, that and then the additional sapients too.”

“Ah, yes, them too….”

The light bulb turns on, but above Seabreeze: eyes widening to the size of thimbles.

“Ah! We’re stupid all along! Why haven’t we included them in this? Argh… I’ll tell that Celestia or the other one about this and—“

An imaginary crack! The bulb shatters as a smile breaks out on his tiny face.

“I guess that’s a new slogan choice to add to the poll, Gestal. Can’t believe we’re all overthinking this... how blind we nincompoops could be!”

The idea still escapes the griffon, but it draws him in. “What could that slogan be, then?”

Painters and engineers come over to the headquarters on the next day. The old slogan must go: this is their job.

A globe on a pedestal is the Convocation's logo. The slogan lay underneath. Truth, Freedom, Justice: To and For All Humanity.

As tasked, they remove the last word.

They pack up and leave, much to the surprise of the watching crowd and the press.

Born in the Right Generation

“Wow! What’s this book?!”

The fascination of the twin birthday foals (seven years old now) warms their father’s heart, especially with Pumpkin Cake—big reader she is. “It’s not just any book! It’s a little scrapbook we made for the both of you!”

By his side, Cup Cake brings the book closer, opens it before them. “This book is full of memories we’ve all had together since the day you were born!”

The two growing foals blurt out their Woah!’s together: near the book’s end the background and its decorations are cut-outs and drawings of school bells, notebooks, pencils, and crayons. The taped-on pictures speak for themselves: There’s Pound taking his first proper flight lesson, laughing joyously as he did his first loop-de-loop in front of family and friends. Here’s Pumpkin just after her first proper magic course, her horn glowing at recess with the other unicorn foals glowing their horns too and levitating their food trays to some music from the phone—a juvenile competition on who could glow the brightest without getting out of sync.

“I wanna see Pound’s birthday face last year!” shouts Pumpkin, glaring at her brother.

Despite Pound’s reasonable protests and sensible arguments against the action, his parents give in with a teasing snicker of their own, and they turn a few pages forward. On birthday number six: Pound’s finest hour as he blew the candles, excitement getting to his wings, and said wings pushing him forward to make his face meet chocolate cake. His face, literally caked with frosting.

“At least I lived up to my name,” brags Pound, pointing at his devious sister. “I don’t see you smacking your face into cakes or pumpkins!”

“At least I could help grow pumpkins and make cakes!”

A yellow hoof shields the two from each other. “Hey, hey... let’s not get into fighting here. Let’s… uh, anything else you want?” A nervous sweat bead forms on his forehead, but his big-chinned smile distracts them.

“I’m older!,” Pound Cake insists. “That means I’m first in the baby scrapbook! You gotta show Pumpkin that!”

Pumpkin’s horn glows in irritation. “We’re twins, which means we’re equal!”

“But I’m five minutes older than you!”

“Who cares? Doesn’t mean you can act all bossy like a real big brother!”

Ignored in the childish debate, the parents exchange troubled looks.

Cup then puts a hoof on Carrot’s withers.

“Remember, Sweetie: that’s why we pushed ourselves to make this in the first place. Gotta show what it was like back before.”

“Right… to not delay it longer,” he replies with an uneasy voice. Reassurance comes a second later.

He flips the scrapbook loud—pages slamming against one another—all the way to the beginning.

The noise silences them, but the photos keep their attention: two babies swaddled in white cloths, resting on the same cradle.

“Uh… what are those?” Pound asks.

“They’re… you,” he says, pointing at the two figures. Standing outside the cradle and smiling for the camera are some bipedal creatures. The babies themselves look much like them, it turns out. “And, yes, that’s me and your mother.”

A gulp could be heard riding down Pumpkin’s throat.“But, you look so… weird.”

Some discomforting cold breeze goes down Cup Cake’s back, but she puts on a smile just as big as her husband’s. “It was a very different time back then. In fact, you were barely weeks old when the world became the way it is now….“

The two would sometimes sleep in each other’s beds.

This time, it’s Pumpkin’s, complete with a few stuffed dolls and a big school tome about magic for grade-schoolers. Tucked into their blankets minutes ago, the twins stare up at the stars painted on her ceiling. The fake celestial bodies glimmer under the moonlight zooming in through the window.

“You know what, Pumps?” Pound doesn’t take his eyes away from the stars.

“What is it?” Neither does she.

Silence punctuates the smile on his face. “I’m glad I’m not some weird magicless ape.”

It is met with a light punch to his head, courtesy of the filly. “Dad’s gonna pull your tail if he hears that!”

“Come on, Pumpkie! I can’t imagine life without my wings and—face it—you wouldn’t like having your unicorn magic taken away from you, huh?”

A frown falls over her. A yes in her mind, but a no in her heart. “Argh, you got me there. Still, Mom and Dad and all the grown-ups lived like ninety-nine percent of their lives like that.”

Pound turns over in his bed, turning his back to her as he closes his eyes. “Means we’re lucky.”

Pumpkin is left staring up at the ceiling, being lucky or not coming to mind again and again.

The stars and his snoring will not be enough to put her to sleep.

The Ballad of Lyra Heartstrings

Lyra Heartstrings and city parks have been a peaceful pair: ten years and counting. Her lyre’s gentle melodies jibed with the park’s tranquil winds and greenery. She would become the center of a paradisaical retreat from downtown’s bustling deafening clamor, dizzying motions, and the nose-crinkling stink of smoke and smoke. Never the type to busk for profit. Then again, she has never been the type to conform to Big Music’s dictates: she was the weird gal who grew up with some ancient instrument from Attacka.

Today, ponies find her relaxing with the lyre: their sturdy strings thrumming under the shining glow of her magic—all as she rests from an informal open-air “class” of how to be a unicorn. Lucky her, unicorn being her new lot in life: couldn’t imagine how hooves would strum it well, though she’s heard of Pinkie playing the drums—with drumsticks, somehow.

Grass flows under her. She’s sat like this for the past week: sitting on her fours—or, worse, reclining on her four hooves, too much like a real horse. The inhumanity! Strangely comforting to rest anywhere now, but the nagging at the back of her mind persists: this is wrong.

Over there, a bench. It’s occupied by Shoeshine polishing her horseshoes—not sure if it’s her classmate or the farrier from the other side. Doesn’t matter: she’s sitting all comfy on fours, taking up two human spaces when she could take up only one.

The glow disappears from the strings; the humming dies. If she won’t have her humanity back, she’ll make some of her own.

So the walk begins, each step a thunderous declaration. Lyre levitates above her head like a mystical plumb bob telling everyone that, yes, this is Lyra, and she will take back her dignity.

Shoeshine scrunches her nose at the approaching Lyra. “Um… sorry, ma’am. I don’t have any bits to give to you…?”

A huff comes from Lyra, lyre looming over her as a specter. “I don’t need bits today. What I need is redemption.”

The blue stranger’s eyes follow Lyra’s: the empty spot on the bench. “Um, okay… suit yourself, I… guess? Just don’t do anything illegal….”

With a curt nod, Lyra raises herself to her hind leg. Just like the human she was, she sits down on the bench.

She also sits on her tail’s dock.

“Aaaahhh—!”

“I know this will sound crazy, officer, but—“

“I live a train’s trip away from Ponyville, Miss Shoeshine. I’ve seen more than my fair share of crazy.”

“Doesn’t matter: things still get crazy there… oh, you want me to get on with it? Right. See, it started when Lyra—that Lyra from Earth, I think… it started when she wanted to redeem herself by sitting on her tail….”

Big Sticks

Moss and vines draped on the Hive’s irregular rock walls do not possess any strategic or tactical advantage in warfare: to Pharynx, that is, and even then, for changeling warfare only. Non-changeling allies could equip themselves with the funny plants as camouflage in jungle environments.

The buzz of wings lifts his ears. The visitor of the hour arrives: his other self, fast to an empty seat, lays down a suitcase of shining metal—raise his love for bright lights. The smell of synthetic rises: something from the two or three times he’s infiltrated an Equestrian city before the changeling reformation.

Past the window which is really a big hole in the wall, the visitor flies over to him and offers a hoofshake. “Pharynx, Head of Changeling Kingdom Patrol, I presume.”

“Yes, that’s me.” He returns the offer. “And—correct me if I’m wrong—you must be your nation’s Secretary of the Defense Department.”

The secretary nods. His looks turn to the suitcase, leading his Equestrian self that way.

“So, tell me what are these high-tech weapons you ‘humans’ have, Mister Secretary? I do hope they’re compatible with magic.”

“We’ve tested it out with both normal changeling magic and unicorn magic. Those with feathery wings don’t have much difficulty. Those without any of that will have a hard time, but I don’t see that being a problem with you.”

“Alright, I know enough. Show me what you got.”

A grin flashes across the secretary’s face. Two loud clicks with his magic: the suitcase opens.

An assortment of firearms, all in monochrome fashion, couched in multiple levels of rich fabric as he puts the compartments away for the patrol head to behold the whole array: a modern-day pistol sitting across a revolver; a submachine gun along with an assault rifle for company; sniper rifles becoming strange bedfellow with shotguns. On the last compartment are spread out hundreds of bullets, dozens of loaded magazines, and a hooffull of grenades.

A feast for the eyes, venerating the display without full understanding. “Amazing! If I see this right, these must be some sort of miniaturized cannons.”

For the newcomer, having the locals thrilled with human weaponry pleases him beyond joy. “You could say that. As for documentation, it’s inside: a bit outdated since it’s pre-Change, but I trust you can translate it into terms your forces can understand.”

Hooves tap the table in excitement. “Color me impressed. However, as ‘advanced’ as you are with this technology of yours, I would like to have these demonstrated under magical pressure. Eqeustria’s background magical field may not agree with your—“

“Maulwurf!” screams a high-pitched voice.

Look out the window hole. A couple of changelings tending to plants: they flee from the shaking and crumbling ground.

Up comes a bear-mole monster, rotten teeth big enough to be rocks. It swipes a changeling in its claws, but the guard buzzes into the scene, faux chitin armor glittering under the sun.

A couple clicks turn the patrol head round to their source. Floating right before his other self’s eyes is an assault rifle coated in his magic: he squints through the iron sights.

“Wait, Mister Secretary, what are you—?!”

Ears flatten: cover the bangs but they ring muffled in his hurting brain. Flinches: instant gusts blasting against his chest. The bright explosions coming out of the muzzle do not stop: not powerful enough to tune out the screams from outside.

It is over. Brings his ears out and hears metal jingling. The last few bullet cases just dropped to the floor.

He grabs the secretary by the shoulders. “Are you crazy?! You could’ve killed a changeling!”

“Don’t worry! I’ve made sure that none of your people died.” A scratch on the back of his withers. “I must apologize for being rash, but... let’s say I took care of your monster problem.”

The two Pharynxes look out the window hole again. There is the monster, but it is lying down. Changelings inspect the unmoving body. A guard shouts something about blood. Another checks its pulse, hears for a heartbeat, and shakes his head to the cheering of the patrol.

The assault rifle still floats in his field of magic, smoking hot. “There, problem solved and a demonstration of what these bad boys can do. Certainly makes you menacing. A panacea if you believe in deterrence.”

The patrol head looks back at the compartments of weapons and ammunition. “Thorax isn’t going to like how we permanently solved our Maulwurf dilemma when he comes back.”

“It’s not the only Maulwurf in existence, I hope, right?” For the first time in the meeting, anxiety comes through his voice.

“It isn’t. We’ve encountered at least three of his siblings. But, when it comes to defending ourselves….”

He catches the glimmer of the guns thanks to the sun.

A smirk creeps up the changeling’s face. “What are your terms, Mister Secretary?”

Part Two: The Squeal

A woman stands at the edge of the river under the pitch black midnight sky. A man—her lover—walks up to her in slow, calculated steps.

“Mustard?” she asks, only looking at her own reflection. “Please, don’t….”

“I’m not here to tell you about that.”

Only then does she look at him. That almond mullet: oh! how she looked upon him and that out-of-style hairdo back in the coffee shop all those years ago.

“Then what is it?”

His feet shuffle, his hands squirm in his suit’s pocket. “If this is the last night this wretched city will have us, in case they ever pull us apart for good—”

“Spit it out, Mustard, what is it?!”

He gulps. That is almost never a good sign.

Mustard kneels down, those dreamy eyes beholding her all the same.

Out of his suit’s pocket comes a little leather box. The opening reveals a ring studded with diamonds: the inheritance his dying mother told him to save for that special someone.

“Turmie, my dear... will you… w-will… will you—“

Squeal!

Rarity and Sunset busy themselves cleaning the sofa and the carpet from the mess of popcorn and ice cream. The romance movie on TV is paused.

“Always expect the unexpected, huh?” Sunset chirps, glad to bamboozle Rarity with a curve ball of a film.

The other unicorn gives off a lady-like giggle. “Touché! However, I wonder how Mustard would deal with the unavoidable divorce papers….”

Blush appears on her white cheeks. “Not to mention my little outburst there… I’m so sorry for that, Sunset.”

“Don’t get hung up over it! It’s fine.”

As Sunset turns on her vacuum cleaner with her magic, she glances at Rarity scrubbing the carpet with a wet rag. “I think I know where you’re going with this.”

“Yes, that whinny I made—“

“That’s a squeal.”

“Alright, a squeal… I must admit, I am not yet entirely used to… horse sounds.”

Sunset bumps her brows in acknowledgment. “Ah, you mean the whinny, the nicker, the snort… funny you mention it. When I came here, I was expecting to hear monkey sounds. That never happened when I realized: humans just… talked.”

“I take it that conversations in Equestria are spiced with creature noises, aren’t they?”

“Not every single sentence, not even every day at times, but it’s common enough. It’s not just the ponies too: griffons screech and caw, donkeys bray… don’t know what seaponies would sound like, but I’m sure they do something.”

“Yes… we don’t have any human noises, as you might’ve figured out already.”

Sunset nods. “You okay though?”

Rarity’s cute smile comes across, her horn’s magic tinting it in blue. “It’s a thing I’ll get used to eventually, although the unicorns in my fairy tale cartoons never squealed so coarsely….” A shudder slithers down her bones. “Don’t you know how humiliating that is, climbing the social ladder and then you squeal like a little filly?”

“If it helps—“ Sunset turns the vacuum off, the carpet free from popcorn “—the nobles in Canterlot squeal a lot because it’s dramatic. Maybe you should add that to your arsenal of hysterics….”

“What do you mean, ‘You’re being kicked out of the theater?’ Do you know who you are talking to, you…?”

“Name’s Sight See, and I know who you are. Doesn’t mean you get to make stupid sounds in the theater.”

Rarity squeals at the accusation, her horse noise echoing across the hall. “Don’t people gasp at some big reveal or laugh at a universally funny joke? Why, I’d say that you do not like ponies trying to be ponies!”

A horsey snort is what Sight See gives. “Not like I have a choice on being a pony, ma’am.”

Burden and the Beast

It’s the end of the work day. Applejack pours the last bushel of apples into the cart. She hitches herself to the cart’s harness and begins the short trek back home.

Wheels meet the grass, producing a rural rhythm under the heavy wagon. The weight of the cart and its cargo rest on her newfound Earth pony power—not that it was much of a surprise to the girl with the geode-powered strength, but still. To know that she is pulling the cart and not a horse—of course, she is a horse now, hooves and tail and all.

“Big Mac?” she asks her brother who is also pulling a cart of apples beside her.

He chews on his straw of wheat; that hasn’t changed with him turning into a hunk of a stallion.

“Eeyup?"

Silence passes as the sun approaches setting time. The two ponies themselves pass by apple trees, the sun’s rays peeking through the leaves and filtering into heavenly rays.

“Don’t you find this ironic?”

Big Mac looks down at her. “What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean: we’re now beasts of burden, pull big weights around like it’s no big deal. Not that I’m complainin’, but I can’t say I expected the full horse experience way back when.”

Big Mac looks serenely forward to the sky, chewing more on his straw. “I don’t mind it much. We’re still doin’ the same thing in the end. ‘Sides, don’t our other selves buck apples and carry ‘em home too?”

She lets out a thoughtful sigh. “Yeah, they do... guess it’s not that different. I’ve known that, but it still don’t feel like it though when things get switched around so big.”

A while later, they close in on the edge of the apple orchards, home in sight. Granny Smith and Apple Bloom are at home. From the looks of them trotting in the kitchen, apple pie must be for dinner.

Big Mac takes the straw out of his mouth. “Speakin’ of switcheroos, I’m glad our horsies are enjoying themselves.”

Applejack could not help but smile. “Yeah. Them becoming more human, huh? Huh… we become more like them, they become more like us. Just hope they’re not gettin’ into any trouble.”

“They’ll be fine. I was the one who got them here in the first place, remember? If anything, they’ll find their way through on their own. They’ve always been smarter than they look anyway.”

“Yeah. I just hope they’re havin’ a great time minglin’ with the ponies there. The portals bein’ public’s got them jittery since they opened.”

“Eeyup.” Big Mac looks up to the sky. “A world where horses are the ones who rule the land. I’m sure they will learn much from the ways of Equestria.”

In Equestria’s Canterlot, three uplifted horses found a bar. Now, they swing drinks around in their hooves and magic.

“I didn’t know beer would taste this good, Oaks!”

“Uh, Cookie, would you please calm down? That’s your eighth beer mug!”

“Like you’re not drunk yourself—hiccup!” Cinnamon wobbles a glass of wine in her magic. “Though, I shall say, this complicated grape juice is delicious!”

The two bartenders standing behind the counter watch the three newcomers with wild eyes. Cinnamon’s magic grip slips, spilling wine into Cookie’s mug while the mostly middle-class clientele look on.

“You think we should bring the manager?”

His friend nods very, very slowly.

“We’re going to be so dead.”

Age of Enlightenment

“So, to put it simply, you know some former cult leader, now student of the Princess of Friendship, because you grew up with her, and you’re indirectly the reason why she started her cult in the first place?”

“That’s right, Sunburst.”

“Uh… could you tone it down? Having myself calling myself by my own name freaks me out.”

Two Sunbusts sit at the table in the house of the local analogue, a chemist and part-time historian in Everton City. Stacks of papers and books lay sorted in his wall-lining bookcases. The only mess here is the rejected thesis drafts scattered few and far between.

“It doesn’t seem like you’re taking it well,” the foreign mage says, creasing his brow.

“Oh, it’s not that; not like I’m trying to reject reality here, especially when that reality is plainly undeniable.” He looks over his white lab coat which magically adapted to his equine body when the Change came over. “It’s just… just that, as a scientist, it's been both a humbling and a wondrous experience.”

The wizard nudges his glasses up with magic. “As a fellow scientist, I think I’d be able to relate.”

Nervously, the white-coat researcher scratches his mane. “See, what you just said illustrates my point.”

He slumps down on his chair: not an easy thing to do when ponies usually place all their hooves on the seat.

“In this world, we grew up believing magic was just a myth. Might’ve been a shocker to you, but to us, that’s what’s real. Although The Accounts of Neighnia was my favorite book series and I GM’d much of the O&O club back in college, we always did it knowing that magic didn’t exist. It was just a fake thing we took part in some of the time.”

“What about when the Geodes of Harmony came over?” asks the wizard. “Surely, that must’ve been unheard of in this world.”

“That’s true: it was unheard of. I even got excited at first, thinking it was a real game changer. However, it was mostly isolated in one city, and the ones who dove in first and tried to study it told us, 'Don't bother.' Our models and machines couldn’t work on something that never operated by our rules, so we left magic alone. We just trusted that whoever was using the magic knew what they were doing.”

“But then the Change happened,” the visitor chimes in.

The researcher curls his lips. “Yes, that… this Change... it’s the most extreme paradigm shift known to humanity. We now live in a world where someone who’s studying magic can seriously be called a scientist, two high school principals raise the sun and moon and the stars, and once-mythological abominations can be defeated by the laser power of friendship! The world’s turned into a mockery of itself!” His forelegs splay out on the table.

But, the wizard notes the slight happiness in those last words. “So, what are you saying?”

The researcher’s horn lights up, levitating a cup of coffee from the coffee machine which just dinged to complete the brew. “For one, reality as we knew it got broken. Everything we thought was the closest to the truth? It’s all mixed up now.”

The researcher nudges his own glasses up with a hoof. “But, tell me this, wizard me: did you ever get bored studying magic, even for just a second?”

The wizard's stocking hoof strokes his goatee, something the other Sunburst lacks. “Hmm… yes, I confess that I have been bored in my mystical endeavors. Why do you ask?”

“See, that was part of why I wasn’t as bummed out as I thought I’d be when I turned into a unicorn. We’ve just completed the standard Periodical Element Chart, and we’ve been slowing down with breakthroughs with regard to the elements, especially the later ones on which we have little data on. To be honest, I was beginning to run out of time; it’s a publish or perish world out there, after all. I was pretty much begging the elements to please do something interesting.”

Like his namesake, a smile slowly bursts onto his face. “Then, the Change happened. The day after that, they fired me anyway. They said it's downsizing to cope with the worldwide transformations.”

The revelation catches the wizard off his guard. “Wait, you’re fired? But they said you work for Futurities and Tailor!“

“People still say that? Huh. Guess the Change really hit the old grapevine hard.

“But, yes, I’ve since gone independent for the most part. I banded up with some firees with one simple goal: figure out what kind of brave new world we live in today. Magic plants, exotic creatures, locations and artifacts charged with thaumaturgic energy, completely different demographics with wildly different physiologies, and so much more. There are so many things to explore, so many things to uncover, that even with collaboration from your side, we’d still have a gargantuan task to map out as much as we can!

“So, I guess it took becoming a unicorn and getting booted out of Futurities to get that spark back. Back then, I felt like I was fruitlessly slaving away at a white-collar dead end. Now? I gotta say: it’s been pretty good.” To top it off, he slurps down his coffee.

Wizard Sunburst's horn glows with excitement. “I’m sure Starlight and the other mages helping out would love to hear your story! But, I must let you know—“ he casts a glance upon the high-tech coffee machine “—I am also quite interested in the many inventions humans have made, and I'm sure the others are too. Perhaps we could, if you want….”

Research Sunburst extends an open hoof. “I’ll see what my co-workers have to say about that, but teaming up for a project doesn’t sound like a bad idea at all, Sunburst.”

The two Sunbursts thus shake hooves.

A Necessary Post-Mortem

“Will you excuse us for just a moment?”

And Starlight poofs herself and Trixie away from the portal and into one of Canterlot High’s empty classrooms-turned-supply-storages. Outside ponies and other creatures could be heard hauling boxes of relief goods meant to help the former human populace back onto their non-human feet.

Trixie snorts with her signature eye rolls. “Look at it this way, Starlight: If there is anyone to blame, it’s him. He asked about how my life was like since I was born a unicorn into a family of unicorns who live in a world filled with magic... and unicorns.”

“That doesn’t mean you should rub your equinity over his no-longer-human face!” Starlight shoots back. “That’s just plain speciesist!”

“Are we not superior?” Trixie says. “I mean, you yourself told me what they used to be: they have no magic, they do everything they can by their magicless selves, they leave the rest to fate, and they eat innocent creatures for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.”

“Fluttershy takes care of carnivores, we’re literally allied with the griffons and the hippogriffs, and we’re best friends with a bugpony who’s okay with eating bugs.”

“A-ha! You haven’t refuted my first two points!”

Starlight sighs. “Okay, Trixie, let me put this in another way: In a world without magic, is there anything wrong with having no magic?”

“Yes.”

“… why?”

Trixie harrumphs self-assuredly. “Because there’s no magic!”

Starlight resists the urge to slap her own face and risk accidentally stabbing her hoof with her horn. “Alright, Trixie, I want you to put on your empathy goggles for just a moment.”

Trixie holds her head high and puts on the imaginary empathy goggles. "I'm listening."

Starlight takes a big breath. “So, you say they do everything by themselves without magic, right?”

“That’s true! Could you imagine ponies surviving without magic? Not even our ancestors before Hearth’s Warming would have liked this outrageous idea of no magic!”

“By that logic, then, you’re saying that humans accomplished what we would consider impossible.”

“That would be surviving without magic, wouldn’t it?”

“Well, for starters, they couldn’t control the weather at all.”

“Pfft! Easy! They just build shelters for themselves just like the non-pegasi did! They probably couldn’t match up to Earth ponies’ sturdy architecture.”

Starlight blinks a little tighter than usual. “Comparing apples to oranges aside, what else did you think they had to do without magic?”

Trixie performs a long hum of thoughtfulness, a rare sight and sound for her friend. “Crops. Crops without Earth ponies would be lame. Ah!—I bet missing out the whole magic thing, not just the unicorns, would make for a dreadful world too.”

“But it wasn’t dreadful and you knew it,” Starlight answers. “I went here and what I saw wasn’t a dreadful world, nor was it conquered by evil magic forces that feed on hate.”

“You’re saying they’re just painfully average?”

“Maybe yes, maybe no, but I told you all about humans and their world those few times I came over here: how humans have all of this technology, all of these cool inventions we’ve either just prototyped or don’t even have at all! Drones, cellphones, cars, artificial satellites, invisibility spells but without the spells—those are things you read about in science fiction, Trixie!”

“So they’re a sci-fi species.” She shrugs. “Good for them.”

“That's not just good, Trixie. They made all of this without magic. No magic powers to aid them or stop them; it's only the environment and themselves. They make their own magicless magic, tinker things around, and, before you know it: modern civilization without magic!”

Trixie remains unblinking in the face of fact. “So?”

“I don’t see Twilight clobbering other creatures for not being a pony. I’m sure you don’t see me clobbering others for not being a pony too. Other good-hearted creatures don’t clobber us for not being yaks, dragons, or changelings.”

The stage magician twirls her hoof around. “And…?”

Starlight lowers her head a little. “No matter what creature one may be or used to be—even if it’s across universes—they’re all unique and special in their own way, in their own environments, and in their own cultures. As long as they aren’t evil and oppressing others like what Chrysalis did, we should let them be or, better yet, join them and be part of each other’s lives.”

A deep, solemn groan fills Starlight’s being. “That only makes losing humanity much more tragic.”

Trixie then stares off into the distance, looking out the window. “When you put it that way, Starlight… point taken! Now, let’s get back to work and maybe we can buy some ice cream—”

“That doesn’t mean you’re off the hook.”

Trixie rolls her eyes again. “You’re seriously going to make me make it up to him, aren’t you?”

“Uh, who are you and why are you at my house?”

For the twentieth time in the span of half an hour, Trixie sighs, the unicorn standing at his doorstep. Unbeknownst to the householder, Starlight lays watching in a nearby bush.

In a dramatic voice, Trixie declares, “I sincerely apologize for being speciesist toward you. I shouldn’t have brushed off your humanity like that. It was very wrong of me to say that you should’ve been born a pony.”

“Oh, is that all?”

“Yes. That’s all. What else would you want, Mister Flash Sentry? Invite me in for some biscuits which you seem to have in your human vending machines?”

“Not really.” He glances at his flapping wings. “I just don’t mind. I’ve always dreamed of flying. When I got the hang of it, I was golden!”

Trixie stomps the ground in delight and victory. “Hah! See, Starlight! I told you he wouldn’t care!”

“Why are you talking to a bush?” He looks over Trixie’s withers and sees it trembling. “Uh, why is the bush smacking itself on the head?”

Keep Talking and Nobody Gets on Fire

Rays of the setting sun shoot past the hills. Finally, the sun crosses the horizon, plunging the sky into a starry and beautiful moon-graced darkness.

“Behold!” yells the Earth pony tour guide. “The Applelachian Mountains at night!”

The wow!’s come from her travelers who follow her outstretched hoof to see: mountains, an endless range of mountains gilded in moon-given outlines of silver.

“Now would be a good time to set up camp… and good place too!” she says. “We’ve got a nice view which will be great to wake up to in the morning, enough trees to give us shade from the sun if you want to hole up here, bushes with natural berries galore… oh, it’s beautiful! I can’t wait for campfire time!”

“Uh, but what about the firewood for the campfire?” quips the only griffon in a group mostly composed of ponies. “I thought we were going to have flashlights.”

“Well, Gilda, that’s why I brought my assistant over here for a woodless campfire!”

The tour guide turns to a pony-like creature in the group. “Hey, Autumn Blaze! Now’s the time!”

Days later, at a lodge where staff for Applelachian tours and camping trips reside, Autumn Blaze could be found chatting with her co-workers by the water cooler.

“So how was your first time being a live campfire?” asks her stallion co-worker.

Autumn Blaze’s eyes light up at that. “Oh, it was great! I get to hear everyone’s ghost stories, I smell like sugar and spice thanks to all the marshmallows my body heat’s roasted, and… did you know that sleeping while you’re on fire feels like a cozy nap in a warm blanket with the most snug pajamas in the whole wide world?”

“Uh, I’m a pony so I don’t think I’d like a blanket of fire on my bed, thank you very much. Anyway... which one do you call yourself again?”

“It’s all modal, so it depends, though updating my tour guide license got a little confusing since they asked for both of my species—okay, so, right now, since I’m not on fire, I’m currently a kirin. Anyway, the only downside to the whole campfire thing was staying in place the whole time, which is boring after an hour! You saw me come out of the boss’s office, right? That’s because I requested her to have me in as a dynamic campfire! As in… you know! Why do campfires always have to sit there and do nothing all day anyway?”

“Uh, because they’re logs?”

But the kirin goes on. “I was already telling my own tales to the others and they were laughing at my jokes! You don’t hear of a comedian campfire out in the woods, right? Maybe if the comedian’s speaking through fireproof speakers in the fire, but that’s beside the point, because if we can have comedian campfires….”

As for Gilda, she takes the train ride home. No flying today; she is more used to trains. Trains may be slower than flying, but sitting down with dozens of wheels carrying her across the land sounds better than flapping her wings for hours on end.

“So how was it?” asks Gabby beside her. “Was it fun?”

Gilda rolls her eyes. “It was fun until our campfire couldn’t shut up.”

“But you could refund, right?”

Gilda glares at her. “That’s not how refunds work. ‘Sides, I booked this no-refunds tour a year in advance.”

“But, you know… the both of us turning into griffons… didn’t that make you stop and think that maybe your plans have changed a lot and that you might not have wanted to go camping?“

“I don’t care if I turned into a stupid breezie and got burned alive by some loudmouth campfire. I paid for it and I was way past the refund period. I was not going to let my money go to waste."

Forever Blowing Bubbles

Derpy takes a long sip of her own milkshake. It’s very sweet, even by her standards. Then again, in a magic world where a bakery called Sugarcube Corner is helped up by none other than this world’s Pinkie Pie, that is to be expected.

She puts the diabetes-inducing drink on the table, looking as best as she can at the pony across the table. “Oh, I just don’t know what to do after high school.”

Mailpony Derpy blinks at her high school self. “That sounds a lot like a cutie mark problem! I know the Cutie Mark Crusaders! They can help you with that.”

“I thought of going to them,” says the student. “But, when Sunset told me that I had a pony version of myself here, adult with a job and all… why go to some cutie mark specialists when I can go to my older self? She has a job, she has her own house, and her life’s all stable. If you’re like that, then maybe doing the mail is my destiny.”

The mailpony takes a sip of her own milkshake and puts it aside. “Oh, I don’t know about that….”

“But we have the same cutie marks!” the student retorts. “We have the same names, we have the same voice, same personality….”

“I don’t think so,” Derpy answers with a shake of the head. “I know we’re very similar, but I grew up with ponies in a village with magic all over, you grew up with humans in a city with, um, not magic all over. Those are two very different places to grow up in.”

“Uh-huh… but we’re both ponies, you look like me, and we have the same cutie marks. So if you’re a mailpony, does this mean we have the same destiny?”

Derpy shakes her head again, her hat bobbing here and there. “I guess that means you didn’t blow bubbles when you were a foal, did you?”

“Um… yeah, I did! But not as a foal, of course… just as a kid.”

“Wow! I didn’t know you call your young by goat children!”

The student just blinks at that. “Okay… but what about bubbles? That’s what our cutie marks are, right?”

“But have you ever wondered how I got my bubble cutie mark?” Without waiting for an answer, the mailpony jumps in: “Once upon a time, when I was a foal, I blew bubbles. One day, I made a bubble so big, I got inside and I flew everywhere in my bubble! When it popped, they told me that I got my cutie mark! It was bubbles! Story finished!”

The student blinks again in amazement. “But that doesn’t make sense. You’re a mailpony now, not some professional bubble blower. I don’t even know how bubbles relate to mail.”

Derpy the mailpony lets out an airy giggle. “I hear lots of used-to-be humans like you make that mistake, but that’s okay—all this magic stuff can be very confusing.

“’Cause, actually, cutie marks don’t predict what your job is. The job thing’s just a bonus. What they really tell you is what makes you unique and special.”

A look of confusion is the only look the student could make. “So if it’s not literal bubble-blowing, then what does your cutie mark mean?”

The smile on the mailpony’s face, coupled with her askew eyes, make her tremendously cute. “Glad you asked!”

She scours for something from her bag, and takes out a soda-flavored bubble blower with her mouth. Her wings unscrew it, and she dips the blower into the bottle—now it’s wet with bubble solution.

A breath later and bubbles fly, hovering over the table and their heads. They capture the attention of both Derpys, wowing them and keeping their jaws dropped in child-like wonder.

Then they pop, sending the student back to reality. She looks to her natural-pony counterpart. “Um… why? Why did you do that?”

The mailpony raises a hoof to the air, pointing at where the bubbles had been. “When I got my cutie mark, I never thought about becoming a mailpony. Actually, being a mailpony’s new for me. I used to do heavy-duty delivery for Crafty Crate, helped out with the Ponyville team for the Equestria Games, even bottled some homemade cola for a pony who attacked Canterlot!… yeah, life’s weird like that sometimes.

“And that’s the beauty, Derpy. Coming here, I thought you wouldn’t worry a lot… ‘cause I don’t.”

The student’s hind legs squirm at that. “Yeah, I don’t worry too much… usually. But, you know, now we’re going back to school, and it won’t be too long before I graduate. I’m not sure where to go to college, or even if I should go to college or just get a job already… and I don’t know what kind of job I’d get! And it’s not like many of my classmates are so sure of their lives too….”

Then, her ears perk up. Something on her shoulders. A pat on her shoulders?

Yes, a pat on her shoulders, from none other than her adult mailpony self who flew to her side of the seat.

“High school me… are bubbles beautiful?”

The student cheers up at the question. “Oh, they’re so beautiful!”

“And how long do they last?”

“… well, not for long.”

And the mailpony nods. “Bubbles don’t last long, but they’re beautiful and so fun to look at!

“Each day’s like that.”

She blows another bubble. This time, it settles down gently on her upraised hoof.

“I live each day like it’s a pretty bubble, and each day is a surprise. Isn’t always a wonderful surprise, but they’re here one day, gone the next.”

The peering-in head of the student approaches the tiny bubble. “So… what are you telling me?”

The mailpony claps her hooves and the bubble pops with it.

“Live life!” the older Derpy declares. “Worrying too much about my past or my future never helped me grow taller or live longer or be cool with the friends I do have. I make plans, but even my plans can change the next day!” She looks out the window and flies to it, enjoying the sunshine. “So, here’s today’s bubble. I’ll enjoy it and see where it takes me.”

The student forms a little smile of her own. “So… it’s okay if I’m not a mailpony?”

“I’m more than okay with that! You’ll never know where the bubbles will take you… but it will be exciting, isn’t it? And there’ll always be something beautiful and pretty in it, right?”

The student blushes as she scratches the back of her head. “Yeah. I guess it is comforting when you put it that way.”

The mailpony ganders at the menu. “Hey, after one more milkshake, I’d like to come over to your world! You’ve got anything to do?”

“Um… me and my band will practice tonight—”

“Wait, you have a band?”

The student—and musician—could not contain her glee. “Yeah! It’s the Pony Pickers! I play the saw.”

“Cool! I play the triangle!”

The glee explodes in the student’s heart. “You play the triangle?! We already have one triangulist… but two in the same band? We can rule the world if we team up! Down for a duet?!”

“I’m down for a duet!”

The Rainbooms and a few other Canterlot High pupils sit down in the school auditorium, watching the Pony Pickers play with their musical saw, their cowbell, and their two triangles. Most notably, two Derpys are front and center instead of one, sawing and triangulating to their hearts’ content.

Rainbow Dash’s ears twitch at the avant-garde music blessing her ears. “Sunset, tell me again why we’re doing this.”

“’Cause why not?” Sunset says with a shrug, rocking her head to the beat. “Not a lot of ponies can say they’ve attended a Pony Pickers concert, right? And support and all that.

“And, come on, they’re having lots of fun too! Not even PostCrush smile like that when they play.”

The Continued Struggle of Tin Foil

“And now we’re back to Data Battle with yours truly, Tin Foil! For today’s point of contention, we’ll be tackling what they’re calling cutie marks.”

The video feed switches to footage of pony citizens trotting around in an Equestrian town. With the lack of clothes on display, their cutie marks casually show.

“Believe it or not, yes, cutie marks is what the natives of this alien dimension call the magical and unique identifiers on their flanks. However, benign as the term may be, remember that they are only on ponies. You do not see any of them at all on other creatures.”

The feed cuts to a candid recording of Princesses Celestia and Luna meeting and conversing with Earth’s leaders at a fancy hall. “I don’t need to tell you where this is going, but, for those just tuning in, the relationship between cutie marks and many of us Amareicans turning into ponies with said cutie marks: It only goes to show that the Equus Marenerva Order is further colluding with The Global Conspiracy. How? Exactly: our cutie marks are magical trackers.”

The feed cuts to Data Battle’s live studio. Tin Foil, a purple mare with a stuffy beret, looks straight in the camera’s eye. “I must give credit to the Order for throwing all of us off their scent, even with all of our seasoned researchers and our ever-skeptical philosophers. That this planet’s very leaders did not show any resistance at all to the pony princesses but instead acquiesced instantly showed from the start that there is a secret agreement between them—and if this reeks of the Molly Tough-Ribbon Trot Treaty from a hundred years ago, that’s because it’s exactly like this! The Panamare Papers uncovered untold amounts of golden coins from a still mysterious source a full day before the Change—who knows what else our so-called leaders received for the magical subjugation and conversion of our world into the inhabitants of the alien overlords’ planet?

“Of course, it is a shame to them that the world did not all turn into ponies; otherwise, the infrastructure for a global totalitarian surveillance state would be laid down. However, let’s not celebrate too early. Amareica is a great testing ground and I am not surprised that we, the most free nation on Earth, have been turned into creatures who have natural magic trackers that you can’t remove! This is worse than being tracked by your quote-unquote ‘social’ media without your explicit consent. You don’t even need to lug your phones around to be watched now. And, and... let me tell you that both our trusted scientists and the ‘scientist’ mouthpieces of the mainstream tyranny testify to a single magic field permeating the whole universe. As much as you hear that Dumb Door wannabe Star Swirl the Bearded tell us otherwise, unicorn warlocks and witches from the other side can and will track your every move, especially if they’re from the government and extra especially if they’re ambassadors or otherwise coming over to help us integrate into their subjugation—all just by sensing your cutie mark magic from far away! If we can transfer and track information via Wi-Fi, then it will not be long before they start using this magic field to track us via a magic version of wireless Internet!”

Then, Tin Foil moves out of the way and gets out of the table she has been sitting at, allowing the camera to see her the rest of her body which was covered in a black dress.

“This dress is made from recovered material from an anti-magic throne, purportedly from a known dictator-on-the-run, Queen Chrysalis. It will take us a few days to synthesize and replicate the material so that we can make this available to all who can tune into this transmission despite past the numerous forces that be trying to stamp us out from the public who needs to hear the truth! With this dress, I am magically invisible and undetectable from unicorns trying to spy on me!

“Next up, we’ll have Chive Parsley and how Equestrian weather volunteers plan to instill addicting dependence on outside help, taking away our trust in real government and to force us to become slaves to corporate cronies.”

All the while, Sunset watches Tin Foil and Chive Parsley ramble on about the evils of weather patrol, chuckling to herself that such a group charged through the Change unscathed. Recharged, even.

When today’s episode is done, Sunset stares out at the laptop. Onto her TackTube channel she goes, setting up her camera and microphone. Right before recording, she types the title of her video for tonight’s vlog:

Sunset Shimmer’s Critical Analysis of Today’s Data Battle Episode.

Hillbuddy Music

… and I will never stray far from home,

With you I roam.

The palomino Earth pony opens her eye, having finished a famous Dirk Thistleweed song on a high note, sitting in the ranch’s golden wheat field. “So… what do ya’ think?”

Dirk Thistleweed is speechless, mouth opening and closing in a way that would make a goldfish proud. His horse, singing his songs like she’d been singing all her life. To think, too, that to call her his horse does not sit well with him too.…

The country singer finally finds words to say: “Wha… h-how? Sadie, how’d you do… that?”

Sadie’s smile glimmers in the sunrise. “Well, bein’ a free-willin’ freewheeler travelin’ to the other side got my noodle bakin’. I saw one of them artists just like you: bluegrass and all, but they’re a pony! Asked one of them ponies to teach me how to play the guitar an’ banjo. Next thing I knew, I’m right there playin’ yer’ greatest hits in the magic horse world!”

Dirk could only blink. His ears fall flat at it as his lips tremble. “Ah, Sadie! And to think, all this time seein’ you grow and bein’ a mighty close friend on the ranch through my whole career… why, Ma’s was right to gift me you.

“You’ve truly grown up now. She would’ve been proud if she were here, and we’d—“

“Dirk? Are you crying?”

The violet stallion looks up. The nascent sunlight tints his appearance with gold: that slick purple hair turned into a slicker mane. His wide eyes glitter with water in the sun’s rays.

“To do it… on my birthday of all days, Sadie… I’d never thought about you having such a beautiful singin’ voice! To hear my own horse sing like an angel! And to learn guitar on top of that!”

Sadie chuckles. “Know what? I’ve been meanin’ to tell you….”

He chuckles back, seeing Sadie’s head rock to the side with blushes. “Tell me what?”

She makes a snort. “That I always thought you were just making noises that sounded beautiful. I didn’t… no, I couldn’t comprehend it was singing. Though, now that I can and do know what it is... I’d say I can get used to this singin’ an’ guitarin’ thing.”

A lump comes up Dirk’s throat. “Yup, there it is. And… well, it did all start out with makin’ all the melodies come together nicely and jus’ seein’ others smile. The fame and concerts was a blessing, but... I’ve never had anyone sing back to me like that, back in the old days when it was just me, Ma’, Pa’… and you.”

He is not surprised at his own snort as he wipes a tear away. “’Till now, that is.”

She snorts: he could hear her voice. Ever since the Change, she surprised him and herself with discoveries in her newly sapient life. Teaching her what thinking and truly deciding for herself meant, all while she taught him all the horsey stuff. Each day, he just couldn’t shake off how sweet of a person she is; an innocent soul, like a yearling seeing the world anew.

“Hey, I’ve got a great idea!”

Sadie looks away from the rising sun. “Going to a concert with you?”

“Who cares about concerts now?” Dirk says with a shrug of his hooves. “I’ve got my kin’s next o’ kin comin’ for Sunday dinner as usual. I’m sure we’d be better off serenadin’ before familiar faces.”

“As in a duet? Like, just the two of us?!” Her hoofnails get bitten in anticipation. “I… I don’t know what to say!’”

“Well, you were Ma’s birthday gift to me. Guess it’s ‘bout time I turn the favor your way.”

By sunset, a wagon of ponies comes along, carrying cousins and other relatives from across the state.

The scent of fresh corn fills the little ranch. The sun sets golden across the blond wheat fields. Open lays the door as it always is for family.

“Heya’, Thistles!” shouts an uncle as he steps down from the wagon. “Smells just like Ma’s like every time! Whatcha’ got whipped up?”

He enters and turns to the dining room, his familial entourage accompanying him. Those eyes ignore the long table of food. They skip ahead to Dirk Thistleweed and his former horse Sadie holding guitar and banjo, both ponies sitting down on a pair of wooden stools.

“Some good food and some good music, like every time,” Dirk replies. He then gestures to Sadie: no patting like she is “just” his horse. The gesture means great respect: an acknowledgment of her as his equal, just like him and all the other former humans. “This time, it’ll be with my trusty ol’ Sadie. It’s her first time singin’ in public, so it’ll be quite the treat.”

Sadie blushes at those familiar faces. Names and experiences run across her brain, all ending in joy over being at their level now.

She clears her throat and waves at them. “Howdy, y’all. Thanks for coming along, and I hope you’ll love our music… and the food too which we both made together.

“What I’m sayin’ is: enjoy!”

With that, the visitors get to the table and pile their plates with plentiful food. All the while, hooves strum guitar and banjo strings, soothing all ears with familiar melodies and nostalgic songs from decades and even a century ago.

As cousins gorge on their many corn dishes, they do not notice Dirk and Sadie’s silent tears of joy at their voices blending in perfect harmony.

On that day, a friendship is born anew.

Erysimum Fields

Wallflower Blush follows the hiking trail, gazing upon the green beauties that weren’t there in her last visit: the swaying bushes, the rocking trees, the flowers bobbing back and forth as they react to her every move in slow grace.

She couldn’t help but double down to one of the flowers, fragrant as ever.

The flower smiles. Or, it smiles as much as its petals could form some kind of happy expression. Petals curve upward, and Wallflower gets the message.

“They say the plants here have fallen under her happy rule,” she mutters to herself, remembering the words of those who have visited the camp recently. “Timber said if a flower treats a visitor kindly, it’s a sign of her acceptance—even friendship.”

She shakes her head and chuckles to herself. “Still can’t wrap my head around all this magic stuff.”

Despite that, Wallflower’s heart gladdens upon encountering a lighthearted Gloriosa Daisy.

By the dirt path, the camp director and local druid busies herself with beautifying the trail by growing exotic flowers from above the ground, nurturing them with her nature magic-filled hoof: flowers striped with different shades of green, their stems and leaves scraggly just like the visitor’s mane.

“They told me you were coming, Wallflower,” says Gloriosa before turning around to see her. Around the druid, flowers and tree branches turn toward Wallflower too, gathering around Gloriosa to form a halo of plants around her, not to mention her older “halo” of daisies that has adorned her head for years.

With a kindly look at the unfazed green mare, she asks, “What brings you here? Is there some new plant I can bring for your medicines?”

Wallflower paws the ground nervously. “Well, that’s the problem. I think medicines alone won’t cut it for me and Rose these days.”

Gloriosa’s brow arched in confusion. “Is that so? That’s interesting! Let’s talk about it over some tea, shall we? Oh, I’ve always liked the tea that grows around here….”

The two Earth ponies sit at a table made solely of plant stems, branches, and vines. No chairs: they sit on the grass.

Wallflower is already half done with her herbal tea, the aromas enhanced by the magic spices mixed with it: a healthy and delicious scent. After all this time, it came as a surprise to her that Gloriosa makes good tea; it stretches back to the director’s childhood when she found out that she could make tea out of flowers, and if she could make tea out of flowers, she could make it out of daisies.

Gloriosa lets down another helping of tea down her throat before setting her cup on the table. “So, in short, you’re telling me that since everyone’s getting healthy, your shop of cure-’em-all’s isn’t going well.”

Wallflower nods. “Yeah. I figured that Zecora and others like her could survive because Equestria hasn’t much modern medicine like we do. They’ve got hospitals like ours, sure, but when there’s so many magic healing plants and potions out there, why bother?”

That prompts Gloriosa to lift a flower up to her hoof and pat it like a pet dog. “That is how it is with a magic world. Why mix chemicals and turn them into pills when a drink from an enchantress would do?”

The recently-graduated mare slumps on the table. “But, that doesn’t solve anything. That just proves my point: we do have hospitals and all this modern medical stuff, and even they are catching up with the times. I still have to think of something beyond cures for our venture. I’ve tried cooking, but I’m not a good cook nor is Rose, and I doubt her florist friends are good cooks too, and that’s without any of the magic stuff which makes cooking even more complicated.”

“Uh… don’t you do well with plants?”

“I’m a gardener, not a farmer,” replies Wallflower. “I’ve tried growing cabbages. Let’s say I once made my Home Economics teacher cry. Don’t wanna think about that….”

While the green pony mulls over the thought anyway, a light bulb pops over Gloriosa’s head. “You know, considering what you’ve done in your school, I’m surprised you don’t see the obvious answer.”

Wallflower shoots a curious glance. “Uh, what do you mean? And please don’t go all cryptic druid on me like the last time with those love pine trees.”

Gloriosa chuckles again. “That was just a prank, remember? Still….”

Her magenta hoof hovers over the table, causing a couple flowers to burst and bloom into life on the surface: lilacs, daisies, roses, lilies, even a few bonsai trees.

Another flower ripens right before Wallflower’s teacup, slowly shining under the sun. Its petals are striped with green.

Gloriosa looks upon the flower and her guest with a motherly smile. “I think it’s time you got back to what you’re really good at. Time to return to pure gardening, you know?... you still take care of gardens, right?”

Wallflower props her head back up to face her host. “Yes, I still oversee Canterlot High’s Gardening Club. Though I’ve moved on from high school, they’ve been happy to keep me as supervisor and I help out in the garden once in a while.”

“Then maybe you should scrap the cures as your primary thing… oh! I got it!” A big flower grows behind her and blooms over her head, literally turning on like a green light bulb. “I could help you with your store’s renovation! I’ll send you all the flowers you need so you can work on them. Then, it will be a true flower shop!”

Vines and flowers jump in joy as she stood on the table, proclaiming, “It shall be called, The Flowers of a Wall!… or something like that.”

Wallflower fulfills her namesake by blushing. “Becoming a professional magic florist, you say? That is going to be a big move… but do you think I could do it? Like, actual magic flower gardening?”

Some packets of assorted flower seeds slither their way on vines to Wallflower, courtesy of Gloriosa’s magic. “You’ll never know if you don’t try, Wallie! If you can make magic cures like an Equestrian enchantress, then I know you’ve got this!”

At those words, Wallflower smiles and takes the seed packets.

“It’s been the fifth set you’ve tried!” shouts a galloping Rose. “You have to admit that—“

“My name is literally Wallflower Blush! You can’t tell me I’ve lost the floral touch!”

It has been weeks after the trip. With the store temporarily closed for renovations, there has not been as much backlash as the two owners expected. However, with almost forgetting her experimental flowers in the dark, Wallflower has zoomed through the city blocks for painstakingly long minutes and has not slowed down a bit.

With key in her mouth, she unlocks the door to her house. An explosion-like door slam later, she turns on the lights just in time for the magic flowers to not roast in the darkness too long. A minute too late and the spell would go wrong and the flowers would wilt.

Wallflower stands frozen.

“Alright, what’s the hold up?!” Rose yells agitated, pushing Wallflower to the side. “First, not every pony is as fast as you! Second, now you’re being too slow with—oh, wow!”

What catches Wallflower and Rose stuck in their places are some potted flowers with names on them.

The flower labeled Rose is a brimming rose with red and pale yellow petals, more thorns and stems rising from the soil. For the one named Lily Valley grows a couple lilies but not in the white she would wear on her head; instead, the star-like petals shine yellow and raspberry, the colors of her mane and coat, with stemless flowers covering the soil. The same soil decorations go for the plant called Daisy, another old classmate to remember, with her namesake flowers the color of green and purple just like her, garnished with a miniature rainbow streaming above. For Derpy, a bonsai tree sits over there in its pot, a hoofful of magical bubbles staying still on the soil.

Then, there is the one with the florist’s name on it, joining the names of her Gardening Club best friends: a lone stem of wallflowers for Wallflower Blush, its stem a striped brown like her signature sweater and its petals a glowing and pulsating magiluminescent array of green.

The surprised Rose regains enough composure to check on Wallflower.

It does not take Rose long to hug her friend as she sits down on the floor.

Wallflower cries tears of joy. Rose joins in her tears too as she hears her friend mutter, “This garden… these flowers… b-back to where I truly belong….”

That is Hay

In a sleepy suburb one hour away from Manehattan, First Straw gets off the bus home, driven by a griffon whose claws could still handle steering wheels. After several minutes of trotting, she makes it to her house.

Inside, she finds her husband, Horizon Grate, with an untied necktie hung around his withers, having just arrived home from a meeting with Equestrian businessponies and some agreed-on projects to help out Earth. The stallion now shoves veggie burritos into a microwave.

“How’s your first day back at Out on Bale?” asks Horizon in a hoarse voice.

Straw puts the saddle bags down on the sofa. “Hectic. The haypacking industry exploded because almost everyone we know’s turned into hay-eating animals. Our foreign investors aren’t too hot about it, but the demographics don’t lie: everyone’s going crazy for our hay.”

Horizon nods while setting up the dining table. “Guess that would happen.” Then, he looks at her: busy taking off her own tie, an Earth pony without pegasus wings or unicorn levitation to shortcut things. “So what’s the plan?”

A comb goes over her mane, looking at herself from afar through the bathroom mirror. “We’ve all but left agriculture as we know it. Bale won’t just be a farmers’ brand anymore since we decided to be more direct: we pack hay from small to economy sizes, and we deliver it to the groceries where the average pony can buy our hay. The farmer part of it is already a boon since we can get discounts on hay from our leverage and our deals with them. We’ll just have to wait and see how the consumer end of things goes.”

His ears perk up in delight. “So you’re like a bread factory now, huh?”

“No doubt about it.” She throws the comb away in her saddle bag and settles down at the table. “It’s a radical change, and there’s some pushback especially from the non-herbivores on the board… but, hey, if hay’s part of our diet, might as well hop on the opportunity as best we can.”

“True.” The microwave dings and Horizon goes there to get the burritos.

Having brought the saddle bags to her chair, she puts them on the table. “Say, how’s it going on your end?”

“It’s going alright, I think,” he says, holding the hot burritos on a plate balancing on his back. “I’d have to say, Equestrian business can be backwards sometimes. Some of the big cheeses don’t even know concepts like vertical integration—“

While Horizon sets the plate on the table, Straw brings out a couple chock-full bags of hay on the table, emanating a sweet fragrance which makes Horizon close his eyes and sigh in delight.

Then, he shakes his head back into his senses. “Oh, no… don’t tell me that that will be our dinner too.”

She opened it and out pours hay on her plate. Fresh, not too dry, and with leaves to boot just like good hay ought to have.

“Hay subsidy!” she declares with a beaming smile. “Gotta love that about them, no? As we say, ‘With us, you can never run out of bale!’”

She bends down to have a bite of hay, chewing on it cutely.

The stallion cannot help himself but eat hay with her too. The burritos can be their dessert.

Abby's Road

The pride of North Humcolt County is its redwood forests. Even before Equestrian magic graced its landscapes with unheard-of species of enchanted animals and plants, the tall timberlands turned over many myths and legends of mysterious disappearances and mythical sightings. Disregarding that, the forests were and still are undeniably astounding to behold: even the tallest of former humans prove ants compared to the trees of great stature.

National parks reserve most of the woodlands, although, over the decades, the county’s commission allowed more than just roads to be built in the forests’ unreserved brothers. Bustling cities never appeared, but small towns flourished among the trees along with the occasional lonely cabin on a lonely road.

Such is the cabin Sunny Flare finds herself at the front door of, knocking on it with her hoof. There, the unicorn waits, her ears on the lookout for any hoofstep ringing the inside. The dim reflections on the windows remind her of the pinkening sky above: the sun will rise soon.

Magic tinkles in the air and into her ears. Those ears prop up, and her eyes lock in on the fuchsia magic turning the door knob.

The unicorn who opened the door looks down on Sunny. She is taller than the visiting student but not by much. The cabin dweller bears the same coat color as her, though the mane is darker and curled. Her cutie mark is an image of the big jewel she’s worn on her sweater for many years in her profession before retiring due to extraordinary circumstances.

It takes a few seconds for Sunny to reel from the resident’s steely look before reverting to something more serious.

“Auntie Cinch? May I… talk to you?”

Fireplace, bookshelves, fridge, and—as stereotypically expected from a woman packing on the years (though Sunny is sure that older mares do it too)—knitted sweaters of her own making. She could see all these through the windows.

They completely pass by the cabin and venture farther into the forest. The unicorn pair of aunt and niece trot on the dirt path, meeting the many glorious redwood trees in their majestic forms. Sunny has never seen these in the flesh, this up close, so she cranes her head upward. No need to check the magic plants like the rare bit of poison joke or the magic animals like the casual jackalope. Their sheer skyscraping height, the monstrous shadows they cast, the lofty creases and grooves in the barks….

But a twig snap later—it is her fault—and her mind is yanked back to an unflinching, forward-facing Cinch trotting by her side.

“Only our bloodline would give you reason to come here, and I do not believe you would come this far just to greet an aunt,” says Abacus Cinch. That dark and rich voice has never lost an ounce of its principal authority. “Why go through the trouble of finding me?”

Eyebrows cross on Sunny’s face. “I wanted to check in on you, see how you are.”

The ex-principal shakes her head and fires off a sarcastic smile. “My apologies for not being so exciting to see. I still read, I still knit. I sometimes still do either by a campfire outside. The locations have merely changed. And, before you worry about my funds becoming insufficient, the school board’s hefty severance pay is not yet half-used.”

“You’re missing the point, Aunt Abby.” The niece does not notice her own hoofsteps becoming louder, becoming harder on the dirt. “This is the first time I’ve seen you since turning into magic horses. That’s not even the half of it: I’ve spent months of on-and-off searching, researching, asking random ponies on the street… if it went long enough, I would’ve put up an online missing poster. You know that.”

Cinch grunts as they keep walking, the forest opening up with the end of the road closing in. “And why would you bother? You can tell that I am not in any serious need thanks to the board’s lucrative offer retirement deal. Besides, I do recognize that I was getting old, maybe even senile, during the latest Friendship Games. Those Games were a sign that my time was up and that new blood must fill the ranks.”

“You’re an old hermit making sweaters no one wears, reading decades-old books about outdated Amareican school policies. That’s not the Aunt Abby I know and love.”

Her aunt snorts at that, the horse sound blending with that accent of smug authority. “Rarely does a person love who they call a pragmatic, cutthroat opportunist.”

Sunny rolls her eyes. “That’s not what I want to talk about… even if you were, okay, a pragmatic, cutthroat—“

“So you admit it?”

“Let me finish.”

The two do not stop. They keep trotting, their path’s end almost here.

“You weren’t exactly the best principal in Crystal Prep, Abby, but at least you had determination and drive. Maybe you trained us to beat Canterlot just so you can feel good about it, but you ended up teaching us discipline and high aspirations—”

“Which, as my detractors would say, is not an excuse for my behavior,” Cinch answers pointedly. “Tell me, Sunny, and tell it straight: what exactly do you seek to gain from me at this point? I hold no position of great benefit to anyone. My reputation has fallen off the face of this planet so that schools even outside the state would reject me on sight. Also, let us not forget that it was I who enabled Twilight Sparkle to almost tear apart this world.

“Tell me, my dear niece: what is it that you want to gain from someone who is so ready to admit her fall from grace?”

Sunny lets a few seconds pass in thought. “Having my aunt back in the land of the living would be great… but I want you to gain something too.”

It is the end of the path. The two unicorns stop.

A cliff stands at the end of the path.

An explosion of color accompanies the rising of the sun, pink turning to star-banishing gold. The valley, its rivers, and the little villages below shine and reflect the morning rays of light.

Cinch does not notice the caring hoof on her withers. In the months she has been here, this view has never graced her. Never, until now.

“We’re still trying to figure out what to do in this new world. Indigo Zap told me she’ll apply for some elite pegasus stunt team in Equestria after graduation. Sugarcoat is looking into sculpting as a career thanks to seeing a couple native ponies do it on the other side. Sour Sweet’s been at her cousin’s cranberry farm for the past few weeks to self-reflect. As for Lemon Zest… she’s always been a wild card, but I could tell even she is reconsidering things.”

“That the Change has changed much is obvious,” Cinch says in reply. “But you know there will be those like me who will merely continue on as best they can.”

“For them, maybe that’s for the best… but that’s them, not you.”

A couple crickets chirp unseen in the bushes and the grass. They are the last few chirps before the crickets sleep in for the day.

“This Change can be a clean new slate for you, Abby. Magic’s everywhere, everyone’s trying out something new. I’m sure you’ll find your place in this world again.”

“As if a big change like this would suddenly absolve me of my sins.”

She has a point, Sunny admits, the hopeful student keeps on a sympathetic face. “Yes, it will not be easy, but we can start out with baby steps. You could even start with us Shadowbolts… or, at least, start with me.”

That is enough to make Cinch whirl her head toward her niece in shock. “You… forgive me?”

The answer begins with a little hug on her withers. “I already have, but saying it again won’t hurt.”

For a minute, they stand there in that little hug. The sun slowly dawns on them.

For a minute, Cinch’s heart is warm and a smile emerges.

“At least you stopped being mean and manipulative, which is a start, Abby… but I do not think you should stop there. And I don’t think you should do this alone.”

With the hug over, she takes a step back and stretches a hoof out to her aunt. “Come back home to Canterlot City with me. If anyone asks, I’ll stand up for you, and I’m sure the rest of the Shadowbolts would too.

“Besides, I’m sure the new principal’s taught them that grudges are too heavy to carry.”

With that, Cinch is led away from the cliff, trotting back with her niece.

She does not say it, but, to her, a restart in life now sounds better than withering away in some lonely cabin by some lonely road.

Dance for the Moon

In Equestria’s Canterlot, Minutte knocks on the door of her bookworm friend, Moon Dancer. She lets the knocking unicorn in with a magic grab and turn of the door knob.

“Did you hear the royal proclamation?” Minuette asks right as she goes through the front door.

Moon Dancer rises from the study desk to see her visiting neighbor. “Apologies for not catching up these days. I’ve been devouring this rare copy of Marechia Whinny’s political treatise, The Princess!”

“Uh, no offense, but this is much bigger than some dead mare’s out-of-school essay.”

Moon Dancer frowns half-seriously as she closes the old tome. “What is it?”

Minuette then levitates a short scroll from her saddle bag for her friend to read. As it unfurls, Moon Dancer could espy a royal seal on it as well as the hoofprint of Princess Twilight herself.

“In short, Twilight and her Ponyville friends know about an alternate world without magic,” says Minuette as Moon Dancer checks out the announcement with a push of her glasses. “Something went wrong that made our magic leak into their world. Now, they’ve turned into Equestrians like us, they can’t turn back, and they don’t have a clue about how magic works.”

Moon Dancer does a double-taking blink. “Oh, boy. That’s a lot to take in.” She squints at the final paragraph. “And… we can volunteer, right?”

“Yup.” Her bright teeth carry a little light in the darkness. “We can help any way we can to keep their society from falling apart. Lemon Hearts is already organizing the Canterlot effort of giving them resources on magic.”

The bespectacled unicorn shakes her head in wonder. “Wow… this is big. Really big. Like… since Twilight’s the Princess of Friendship, does this mean we’ll be friends with a whole new world?”

“Seems like it. The scroll did say she has friends there.”

A pensive expression washes over Moon Dancer’s face. “Okay, but how am I supposed to help? I still have no good idea what a ‘human’ is. I don’t even know what it’s like there.” She looks out the window as if she could see the portal to the other world from here. “Do I need a special uniform or something?”

“It’s all in the attached note,” Minuette says, levitating a piece of paper on the scroll which Moon Dancer has not noticed yet. “No special uniform or anything though: For starters, they need unicorns like us to train the humans who turned into more unicorns. If you’re not up for that, we could go in and help make things Equestrian-friendly—things like their weird technology and simple things like chairs and tables. Even something as easy as sending over a couple bits and spell books would do.”

But Minuette is taken aback at the giggle Moon Dancer makes when she finishes the note. “Of course,” Moon Dancer says, pleased with herself, “the most important bit is to ‘befriend them and be there for them through this unusual time.’” Her smile then falls over. “What did it say?—magicless bipedal ape-like creatures? This is going to be such a tough time for them….”

Minuette could not help but give a moment of silence for the former humans. “I’ve already arranged my schedule over the weekend for a trip to one of their far-off cities. What about you?”

Deep brainwork fills Moon Dancer at first, especially with such a bombshell of an announcement dumped on her.

But her eyes glance over her old rare book, and she could not hide her giddy grin.

“Alright, every pony!” Moon Dancer announces in a high school at the edge of Amareica’s West Coast. “Today, we’re going to be learning more about the Fundamental Theory of Magic according to Newtrot in his famous spell-books! This time, we’ve got textbook copies for every student courtesy of Princess Twilight’s book-copying spell. So, let us now turn to page 255 where we’ll learn about the construction of magic amulets!”

The class of former human unicorns groan at the exciting lesson, unaware that Moon Dancer is finally sharing her decades of knowledge with dozens of ponies, and no one is going to stop her.

And, who knows? She might just strike a life-long friendship with a student enthusiastic over the arcane magic arts. Somehow.

Adaptation Anticipation

Canterlot Mall’s Flixiplex Cinemas are full houses tonight as creatures from all over the planet and across the inter-dimensional divide pack every movie house seat for tonight’s last showing of the first Equestria-Earth film collaboration in history: a movie adaptation of the traditional storybook A Hearth’s Warming Tale, fitting for both worlds’ onset of winter.

However, despite this significant cinema moment and despite the more significant change over the world, Canter Zoom has been taking longer than expected to let his niece back in the film industry proper, not to mention how the Change took the whole industry by storm, by the throat, and pinned it against the wall for a while.

In the meantime, Juniper Montage ushers in the movie-goers, popping up popcorn and taking in tickets along with Sight See, her partner in crime whose blank face looks more bored than corporate or official. At least Juniper puts on the effort to wear her heart on her sleeve, hyping the would-be audience with a smile threatening to break her jaw. This continues well into the night’s final showing with the late attendees met with a tired but still present grin. As for Sight See, his face droops to new levels of boredom, meeting customers’ needs but only barely.

By the movie’s end, one last crowd leaves the theater all abuzz. As they pass by (with a few of them thanking the theater ushers themselves out of the kindness of their hearts), Juniper overhears another batch of praise for the movie.

“Wow, Ma!” shouts an enthusiastic filly from Equestria. “That… that’s what they call an Earth movie?! It’s so real! They’re so much cooler than the films back home!”

Over there, an Earth pony—appropriately, from Earth—chats with a fellow cinema geek. “It’s amazing how Equestrians are tackling our technologies and our techniques in their own way. Who knew they would latch on to the dolly zooms so many times?”

Juniper could only hear more: applause for Equestria’s finest film directors somehow translating well into a new global market, innocent Equestrian joy from seeing advanced Earth technology at work, and shared appreciation for an old tale told in a new fashion.

But the night’s sugar high crashes for Juniper when she sees the last of them leave the place, replaced by an incoming janitor levitating broom and mop in his dual magic grip.

Juniper sighs and puts her head down on the counter, using her hoof to adjust her glasses.

“Wanted to watch, eh?” Sight See asks with a jaded smirk.

A groan is the yes her co-worker is looking for. “But… of course, Sights, I have to wait until at least three weeks from now.“

“Sucks to work on Friday nights.” His voice comes off with worn-out familiarity as he shuts off the popcorn machine. “And to think turning into a pony would at least make things easier. ‘Course, silly me didn’t know any better.”

Juniper watches the janitor’s magic-fueled sweeping for any source of entertainment. “Well, I’ve gotten used to it.“

“Stockhock Syndrome?”

“I don’t think so. Like, I’ve been fine waiting for every last Saturday of the month to watch everything I want, but I’m missing out on something historical with this holiday film!”

“Turning into a horse isn’t historical enough for you?”

The answer he gets is a pointed glare served up Juniper-style.

“Okay, okay!” as he holds up his forehooves in surrender. Sight See quickly turns back to the counter. While the both of them wipe the counter clean to distract themselves from each other, he mutters, “High school kids these days. Can’t handle going over to night shifts after just one week—“

“You just graduated from college.”

“That’s why I said ‘high school—‘“

The argument drops dead when they hear their boss coming in: the flaps of his wings as the pegasus glides onto the floor with a hoof around his mop, sporting a slightly fancier uniform which distinguishes him as their supervisor. Unlike the usual stern expression, however, he sports an apologetic face especially as he points the janitor towards one of the cinema houses.

“Sorry for the short notice,” he then says to the two ushers, “but I’m having everyone on overtime.”

“Again?!” The two ushers do not realize they have cried it out together.

A slow nod gets to him. “Urgent work in Cinema 1. A technician there will tell you what to—“

“How long?” Juniper asks

“An hour and a half. Shouldn’t be much longer than that… oh, and I’ve already informed your uncle on this. He’s okay with it. Now, hurry up. Everyone else is waiting for you.”

Juniper rolls her eyes as she trots her way to the cinema, the boss and Sight See in tow.

They amble through the double doors into the cinema’s dark freezing halls: the prologue to a good movie.

Her ears perk up. The rousing notes of something which her industry experience tells her is not typical end credits music.

Instead, it’s the public service announcements with their over-dramatic background melodies: do not be noisy, please be considerate of others watching the movie with you, no littering….

“Uh, what are we doing exactly?” asks a puzzled Juniper.

To her surprise, she only gets a calm serene smile on her boss.

They trot to the cinema proper and see the big screen with the same announcements over and over again. At the front, a few lines of chairs are filled with ponies and other creatures with the same uniform as hers, chatting excitedly with each other in quavering anticipation. On each chair is provided a big popcorn bag and an extra large bottle of soda.

Juniper gives her boss a strange look. “Sir, a-are you…?“

“Hey, it’s been a rough time for all of us.” A nonchalant shrug accompanies his words. “Pony world and all that jazz... and I’m sure it’s been hard for you too. So, here’s something way overdue: a late night screening of A Hearth’s Warming Tale with every pony in staff.”

As he finishes his words, a phone rumbles. It is Juniper’s, and she quickly opens her saddle bag to get it.

It’s a text from her uncle. Hope you enjoy the surprise “overtime,” Junie! ;)

Her resultant scream is so high-pitched, dogs might have been tortured over it. Luckily, the Diamond Dogs working in Flixiplex Cinemas work the day shifts she used to operate in.

The announcements are over and the screen fades to black. Juniper hastily thanks her boss, strings Sight See over to the final empty chairs, and grins like a morally dubious baby with stolen candy.

Then, holiday bells jingle, signaling the start of A Hearth’s Warming Tale.

The New Bearers of Bitter Fruit

1:00 A.M.

The dark hallway’s clock tells her that much. Her hedonistic party-party brother usually comes much, much later. Stupid drunkard, stupid posh university party lifestyle. Empty-nest parents live on the far-off coast to chase adventure on sailboats with some seapony friends. All of her own friends are uniform day larks. If it isn’t any of them….

Teeth bite her lips. Blood runs faster than a storm of buffalo. It hits her.

Burglary.

The not-so-lonely Earth pony zooms down the hall in tip-toe. Tip-hoof quietly. Tries to listen for unknown hoofsteps.

Time to be brave with spoken questions: “Hello? Is there somepony there?” Hopefully, that would alert the burglar and scare him off.

Stupid in hindsight. A regular burglar would not reveal his presence and location so easily.

Clink!

But they can make mistakes. Here’s hoping her enemy is an edgy teenage novice in the art of theft.

The mare’s ears swivel toward the living room, the source of the offending sound. Yes, the living room, the room of valuables bar none save for the occasional bedroom: television, sofa’s spare change or secret money, outdated stereo players, mid-rate paintings, expensive pottery, and precious jewelry.

Have to think, act, like a burglar: trot quietly, don’t let the other pony notice the approach. She creeps up closely to the living room’s door.

Clink! Another blunder by the bumbling burglar. All of doubt’s shadows are banished from the mare’s mind: there is an intruder.

Her head pokes through the door ajar.

That’s the one! Unicorn mare, inspecting the TV remote. Not much else to describe thanks to her baggy black clothes topped with a balaclava. Couldn’t see her cutie mark; would have been a surefire way to get the cops clamping her down.

The unicorn cocks her head. She turns to the door.

The hopeless inhabitant pulls her head back in.

A flash later, the robber is gone. The remote, too.

A few seconds of waiting, just in case the robber might give her the jump. Don’t close the door. Don’t touch the door. Don’t approach the door. Stay as still as possible until the coast is clear.

“Don’t move.”

The mare would have screamed at the robber’s voice, but hooves silence her muzzle. Her legs kick in muffled desperation, but they kick nothing.

The robber’s breath drags dread up her spine.

“Didn’t expect perfection my first time through.” The robber does not speak; she mumbles with clarity. “Still, I’m getting sloppy. Should be easy robbing the homes of new ponies like you.”

Another scream is what the mare tries. It is futile: her mouth is now gagged.

“No matter. Your new-fangled technologies will fetch a high price back in Equestria. My boss has bidders in Griffonstone, Klugetown, and even the Dragon Lands. They are dying for those devices which can hold a hundred museums’ worth of paintings!”

It has to be her phone. Good thing she placed it under the mattress when the suspicious noises cropped up.

“Anyway, I shall take these other valuables plain and simple. Try someone else on some other day, you see? Ah, and if you contact the police…well, you’ve seen me teleport, haven’t you? So, you better watch out.”

The victim is served a big smack in the head. Then, pushed against the wall, kicked multiple times on the back for good measure: a world of pain throbbing everywhere in her body.

A poof and a flash bring the robber back to the living room. The mugged mare could barely stand up, fatigued and damaged, so she could only stare in her own helplessness as the Equestrian criminal levitates all the jewelry and the pottery in sight.

And vanishes in a teleport into the night.

The resident passes out seconds later.

1:02 A.M., reads the dark hallway’s clock.

Here Comes Trouble, Make It Half

Before the Change, Tirek was a middle-aged bodybuilder whose arrogance was backed up by his strength. Hailing from the Deltoro Republic, he quickly rose in popularity during the turn of the century due to his great feats of strength despite pushing past thirty at the time: carrying a ton-heavy anvil on his back, ripping apart two phone books to celebrate getting his first cellular phone, daring a pick-up truck to run over his ab-riddled belly to end up surviving without a scratch, and funding not just one but two video games made with his likeness... or close to it, since he was depicted as a villainous centaur there.

At first, he welcomed the Change. Like many of his fellow Deltorans, he became a centaur with a form that matched his athletic physique. Getting used to six limbs proved to be a minor inconvenience, but at least he did not lose his hands like the ponies over in Amareica. Thus, life went on almost normally, with the minotaurs and centaurs of the country working together to rework everything to fit their new bodies.

What Tirek did not expect was being summoned by Princess Twilight Sparkle herself.

Hence Tirek is now incarcerated in a royal carriage big enough for his size and then some, locked in with a variety of magic spells that would zap any unauthorized intruders and Tirek himself if he went out without Twilight’s permission.

“Look, I assume you’ve read all the articles about me,” he says grumpily, “but, with all due respect, Princess, I have no plans to dominate the world… neither world, in fact. I’m not even sure where to start if I wanted to do that.”

The little princess—for he overshadows her even while sitting down—scribbles something on her clipboard. “By chance, do you have any criminal record?”

The centaur could only sigh after almost ten minutes of interrogation by a colorful pony. “Drunk driving, yes, but that was thirty years ago! Ask the police, if you have to; they’ll vouch for me. Really, I think if you would like to see how bad I am, you should check my posts online and how I stir the ire of those who are too lazy to get their bodies in shape….”

Twilight rolls her eyes to spare herself from the bicep-flexing of her guest. “If that is the case, then I must apologize for making a mountain out of a molehill.”

The adorable smile she gives softens Tirek’s heart a little, but he scratches his graying goatee in thought.

“Let me ask: why are you doing this anyway? I don’t see you randomly summoning others like this. Say… is it because I’m a celebrity who just looks like a bad guy?”

“Not really,” Twilight says, “although being a celebrity of some kind has been a common factor.”

“Common factor?” That gets his brain jogging.

A couple pictures levitate in her magic. “Ever since we realized this alternate world exists, it was fascinating to know that me, my friends, and many others have their own counterparts on Earth. However, I soon realized that the villains of our world may have their own versions here too.”

He soon realizes where Twilight is getting at. “So you’re saying that I am a villain in your world, then?” The frown morphs into a glower, though, as he asks, “Was it because of that Rise of Tirek game, wasn’t it?”

Being the unfazed diplomat and negotiator she is, Twilight hides her shuddering well. “Well, that was the start of my investigation regarding you. I was then told by the game shop owner that you were not some evil dictator from the underworld.”

Tirek could only let out a groan. “Okay… that embarrassment aside, let me guess: he is on the loose in your world and you want me to stop him somehow.”

“He was on the loose. Our Tirek currently trapped in Tartarus—“

“Wait. You have a literal underworld in your kingdom?”

Twilight nods matter-of-factly, knowing that she thought underworlds were also a thing on Earth until proven otherwise.

“What else is there? No, no… don’t tell me that. Just tell me who else you flagged down for this.”

“Hmm… to begin with, there was Sombra who I discovered was a dictator of Caneighda until he was imprisoned in a revolution. There was Chrysalis who was the last of her royal bloodline in Cambling before Thorax got elected and turned it into a republic. There was also this beggar on the street named Disc—“

“I am surprised to be in such company. Truly, I am.” Tirek then glances at his watch, deliberate in his movement. “But, again, with all due respect, Princess, I do have an appointment at the gym.”

Twilight may as well be bouncing with the amount of enthusiasm and embarrassment in her smile and gait. “Oh, yes! I do apologize for keeping you up longer than necessary, Sir Tirek! I’ll let you out, then. Thanks for your time!”

And as Tirek steps out of the carriage he then looks behind as the princess leads the carriage on. It soars across the sky like a pumpkin turned into a vehicle fit for a sleeping royal beauty.

He shrugs and groans at his lost time as he walks to the gym. “Stupid pony princess.”

Dare to Archaeologize

Far over in the continent of Zebrica, in the southern arid deserts of Anugypt, a group of field archaeologists of different stripes, colors, and species are coming over to excavate a never-before-explored site. The credit is due to some random colt throwing a rock at some obscure cave in the mountains, hearing the sound of pottery breaking down, and then discovering that the cave was more than met the eye.

Donkeys, mules, ponies, horses, zebras, and the local Anugyptians who have turned into jackals make up the team as they enter the cave, carefully going over the jars and picking up the scrolls to ascertain their contents and meanings. It is not just the scrolls that catch their attention: the designs on the jars themselves, the precious metal found in the ancient coins, handling the tools held by humans thousands of years ago….

“So this is the kind of work you really do, huh?”

Earth’s A.K. looks at Equestria’s Yearling with a nod. “Yup. When I said I was an archaeologist first and a writer second, this is what I meant. Given how the world’s changed so much, I’m just glad we can still do this like we used to. Besides, everyone’s paying more attention to it these days since we’re now stepping into a bygone era in more ways than one.”

Yearling takes her counterpart’s words into heart. Her keen eye scans the caverns of jars and carved-in shelves where more of the scrolls have lived away from human contact. “Hmm… no magic artifacts?”

“Here’s hoping there isn’t.”

Yearling reveals a little smile for her flustered friend. “Come on! There’s magic on Earth now. Back in Equestria, finding magic artifacts is like finding your house keys in the morning. It’s an everyday archaeologist thing.”

A.K. returns the smile but pays the words not much heed as she picks up a coin and dusts it gently. She puts it down on some cloth to take careful pictures of later.

“That may be an everyday thing for your kind… but I guess that’s why archaeology in Equestria isn’t much of a big deal like you said back on the way here. I say, from what I’ve read of your world, there’s already ancient relics of dark power alongside evil monsters just around the corner… and then you told me about how archaeologists need to go through boot camp just to be on the safe side.”

“And it’s just smooth sailing here,” Yearling replies. “Not that I’m saying there’s no danger to it. It’s just….”

“Normal,” says A.K. in between picking up coins, tools, and other things that have fallen on the ground and stayed there for centuries. “Mundane, even. Maybe for your pony archaeologist friends, it’s boring, but it is what it is. Plus, it was good ol’ humans who made these things in the first place… there are traps, sure, but that’s super rare. No parkour, no riddles, no mystic rings to rule kingdoms with, no self-destructing hidden Shangri-Lamb, no descendants of some Marenaissance explorer….”

Yearling follows the rambling A.K. closely, doing her bit to help by taking down the pots gently, dusting off more artifacts, and taking discreet pictures of each item uncovered while writing an exhaustive description for it. She even chips in her own ideas on what the scrolls could mean since they have turned out to be written in a rather localized ancient language that not many truly understand.

Lunch break comes and the crew come over to the mouth of the cave to eat their packed meals away from the precious but fragile scrolls.

Over hay sandwiches, A.K. looks at Yearling with a smirk as they eat at easy-to-assemble tables. “So, what do you think of how we do archaeology here? Oh, and that’s just the field work, by the way… I may not look like it, but I’m more of the office type.”

“I see.” She takes a bite of her own hay sandwich: an essential to pack in long journeys to the temples of treasure. “Well, I wouldn’t want to just say, ‘Whatever floats your boat—’”

“Oh, sure you can! Our worlds are different… in many ways, still.”

Yearling shares a chuckle with her counterpart, and with her mouth full, too, before swallowing. “To be honest with you, Daring Do’s pretty much a reflection of how we ponies do archaeology anyway.“

“As in your world is threatened by ancient evil forces every day?”

“Not exactly. If that’s the case, then Princess Twilight Sparkle and her best friends are also archaeologists just because they use the ancient Elements of Harmony.”

“… good point. Seriously, though: you’re saying that you archaeologists are a lot like action heroes, then?—saving the world and all that jazz?”

“Not to the level of Daring Do. Around ninety-five percent is an exaggeration. Still, if I told someone the tale of Daring Do without saying it’s just a story, it wouldn’t be that far-fetched.”

A.K. takes the last bite of her hay sandwich. “And you still do things like consulting archaeologists just to be sure your story is not too far-fetched?”

“Yes. I make sure to get consultations for each and every book from archaeologists, paleontologists, and even the occasional anthropologist or two.” Yearling, the adventuring archaeo-paleo-anthropologist Daring Do herself, has broken no sweat in telling this lie.

“Hmm… wait. Rainbow Dash was there in that one book and she’s no scientist in any field—“

“She taught me a lesson on not working alone,” Yearling cuts in, acting a bit too confidently for what is technically the truth. “I’ve extremely dramatized it so it fits with the story, of course, but still… she brought me through more slumps than one. I wouldn’t say she’s a close friend, but she’s the closest she can get these days.”

That raises A.K.’s suspicion. “You’ve got no best friends? In a world where friendship is literally magic?”

“Rainbow’s a loyal and dependable pony. She’s one of the few rabid fans I let into my secluded abode.”

“Heh, I can relate. And to think the Rainbow Dash here is just some student… who, okay, saved the world once or twice, but still….”

The two share a laugh over their respective Rainbow Dashes out in the middle of the desert mountains.

Kettle Meadow

“All I’m saying is that it would be both fun and educational if you came over for the first day of classes, Miss Meadowbrook.”

The esteemed mage from Equestria sits across the table. The Celestia in this world, this principal in her rather mundane if very modern uniform, is a world of difference from the Celestia she is familiar with, the princess in all her present-day and millenium-old regality and formality.

“I will try, Miss Celestia,” says Meadowbrook kindly. “My specialty is medicine and healing, though. I hold no ill will towards you, but I don’t think I’d be willing to get animals sick just for a demonstration.”

“Oh, I am not asking you to do such a thing. Still, there must be something you do know of that is… how shall I put it?… flashy.”

Meadowbrook ponders on the thought for a moment. “I know a few.”

“So, will you?” A bit of desperation in her voice: in a world teeming with the real-life fantasies of fairy tales, children have retained that uncanny disdain against organized and regimented education. This has remained true even for the newly-added and supposedly stimulating subject of alchemy.

Meadowbrook hums along. “No guarantees if it’ll be a success, ma’am, but I’ll be there….”

“Oh, that’s good! And….”

The principal’s wide smile twitches as she stares past the shoulder of her guest.

The sorcerer looks swiftly behind her. There is nothing now, though she swears she could’ve seen some sort of hat passing by the door’s window.

“What was that?” Meadowbrook asks, still on the alert.

She could hear a sigh from the principal. “Snoopers. They always try to stay a step ahead of me with pranks and other surprises.”

“Even during summer vacation?”

Celestia taps her chin before taking a deep breath of relaxation. “Not really… but I would like to put it all under the benefit of the doubt. There are a couple students and alumni here, as you’ve seen, but it’s to set up the clubs for the coming school year. Not even the class clowns would try their tricks this time of year. Now, where were we?…”

When Mage Meadowbrook returned from limbo, seeing modern-day Equestria was already a big enough surprise. Seeing modern-day Earth, then, was enough to knock her socks off: all the glories of Manehattan were somehow set even further into the future with Canterlot City’s televisions, smartphones, computers, and Internet, among other non-magic marvels. She even wondered if she could replicate their functions with her own sorcery back home.

But the thoughts are banished from her mind as she notices the teacher in the classroom giving the cue. Having stayed outside in the empty school hallway for the past ten minutes or so, Miss Hibiscus is wrapping up the orientation for Alchemy with the announcement of a surprise guest.

Once she hears her name muffled through the door, Mage Meadowbrook steps in.

The classroom looks like a study right out of a book series centered around wizards, magic schools, and the occasional villain killing the protagonist’s parents while the hero was yet a baby. To a former human, it looks like a science lab but with less monochrome metals and plastics and with more brown timber and scrolls, furnished with spell books, magic ingredients, and containers ranging from test tubes to full-on cauldrons. A few students look bored; it is enough to worry the mage, but she keeps that worry from expressing itself on her face.

“Good morning!” she declares to all her temporary teenage scholars. “Miss Hisbiscus here introduced me to you all, but, in case you haven’t known—“

“You’re one of them old Pillar ponies, aren’t you?” asks a pegasus raising his wing.

Meadowbrook nods. “Why, yes.”

The whole class gasps and cries out in astonishment, gazing upon her. Now, she is classified as one of the cool teachers; a shame, then, that she is only a guest teacher, but they already start hoping for her return.

“Is it true that you’re over a thousand years old?!” pips up another student, scrutnizing the mage’s face which certainly fits the range of late twenties to early thirties.

“Not necessarily,” she replies with a giggle, “especially when limbo was more like being transported forward in time, but enough of myself. I’m here to show you what alchemy can do in your hooves!”

And at that, she steps up to the big cauldron by the teacher’s desk, and as much as Miss Hibiscus is concerned about the students probably stampeding the Equestrian visitor, Meadowbrook welcomes them.

The mage brings out a couple of leaves and a few pouches of powder, putting them up on the desk for the students to see and touch and ask about but not to ingest, of course.

“What are you going to do?” inquires a griffon.

“Why… well—“ she turns to the rest of the class with a sweeping view of the room “—is there anyone here that is sick among you?”

There is none among them. No raised hoof, wing, or other appendage. Disappointment rises up within her, but she keeps that smile on.

“That’s good! No one is sick today, though you may know me as more of a healing sorcerer. However, as you know, potions can do more than healing: they can poison someone or cure them of said poison; they can be lethal in one sip or be used to bring life even to inanimate objects; they can change how you look like how a changeling does or give you powers for a limited time… ah, but we’ll make something whimsical today: Who wants to float around in the air for a few minutes?”

More gasps surround her, especially among the wingless students. The opportunity to fly despite getting a flightless species in the transformation dice roll excites their imaginations.

“Alright!” Meadowbrook says. ”Now you… high schoolers, as they say these days, should stand back. This could get explosive.”

With that, Meadowbrook brings out the first flower in her arsenal, already putting it over the bubbling cauldron, happy that Miss Hibiscus remembered to heat the pot beforehoof.

“So, the first thing that we’re going to put in is this—“

“Teacup!”

A magic beam strikes Meadowbrook. She turns into a teacup and falls to the floor, fortunately not breaking into pieces.

After screaming in horror, the pupils turn to the unicorn who has just opened the door, decked out in her typical wizard garb, pointed hat and all.

“And that is how magic should be done, mares and gentlestallion!” proclaims Trixie. “I learned that spell while I trained under Equestrian mages, by the way.”

“She’s an Equestrian mage too, you dolt!” Miss Hibiscus yells.

“Tomato, to-mah-to! Same diff.” Trixie crosses her forelegs and bows before her impromptu audience. “Also, if you didn’t know, kids, I used to study here. Just graduated last school year and now I’m a part of a traveling magic show slash band. Plus, I would like to thank my spy network for shadowing Principal Celestia so I can do this trick!”—never revealing that she was the only spy in that so-called spy network.

“Can you turn her back?!” demands the teacher.

Trixie blinks at that. “You mean… turn her back… into a pony, right?”

“Yes!”

The great and powerful magician furrows her brows at this conundrum. A sweat breaks out here and there, and she scratches the mane under her hat.

“I’ll get back to you on that in… say, twenty-four hours! I’ll just, um… heh-heh, pick up this Equestrian mage of a teacup and bring her back home! All would be swell, right?”

“Trixie, you—“

She smoke bombs out of the place, galloping her way to the portal in downtown Canterlot while holding on to the teacup for dear life.

The Metaphysical Coma

In a hospital, a draconequus lies on his bed unconscious. A blanket covers all but his head. All alone in a special room where he is the only living creature in the vicinity.

All alone except for Princess Twilight reading a report on the patient and Discord sitting on a director’s chair, watching his counterpart lie there idly.

“So, what, we’ll make this a semi-yearly thing, then?” Discord asks.

“Hopefully not,” replies Twilight without taking her eyes off the report on her clipboard. “However, finally getting this from the doctors… which, between restarting medical infrastructure with completely new species and having to diagnose a mishmash of a creature—“

“Well, I am quite the charmer, Twiley.”

A blank expression is registered on the alicorn’s face. “Anyway… between all of that, it’s not surprising that they took so long figuring out just what was going on with him.”

Discord plays a tiny smirk on his fanged mouth. “Look here: You have the spirit of chaos standing right here in the same room as this world’s me, and you have the gall to wait for some white-coat doctors wearing all those ridiculous ties for work?” He puts on such a tie: a striped blue-maroon piece. “Actually, this is a lovely pattern, if I do say so myself.”

“I just wanted to be sure, Discord. I’m not saying that you’re not trustworthy. It’s just… I didn’t expect you to be a medical expert.”

“Oh, I’m not, but I can make educated guesses.” He puts on a pair of round glasses and snaps a lab coat onto his body. “If those stuffy sawbones are a bit too dry for your taste, I could give you a valuable second opinion.”

Twilight rolls his eyes and proceeds to scan the report before her.

“So… to make it plain and simple,” she begins, “he has been in a coma since the Change, with very little documentation for the few minutes we have documented while he was still conscious… and the coma is due to… wait, a seizure?”

“Ah!” Discord gulps down a sports drink before chucking it to a garbage can. “Now it’s all plain and simple to me too: humans weren’t made for basic magic, let alone chaos magic with all its sheer power and what not.”

“So he got overloaded with magic which led to shock, then? But… that doesn’t make sense! That sort of thing usually kills creatures!”

That elicits a chuckle from Discord. “He’s chaos now; of course, it doesn’t make sense, at least to a smartypants like you, eh? Eh?”

Twilight does not mind the mounted police uniform Discord has on now. “Alright… so why do you think he’s in a coma, then?”

The draconequus slithers over to his vegetative counterpart, checking his pulse and patting his head gently while putting a stethoscope on his eyes. After a few seconds of humming analysis, he slithers back to Twilight.

“I see it now. See, chaos magic leads to… quite the unnerving litany of revelations. Now, I feel a little Socratic, so tell me this: I can tell that Pinkie has a bit of chaos magic in her, so what makes her different from the usual pony?”

Twilight lets out her own hum. “Well, she sometimes pops up in rather unexpected places. If she were a unicorn, it would at least be somewhat reasonable, but as far as I know, an Earth pony can’t teleport.”

“Then why do you think she can do that?”

Twilight giggles at him. “You’re asking me to question Pinkie Pie. Trust me, you know I’ve tried it before and that’s led to madness… and a friendship lesson too, but still.”

“Guess I have to beat you over the head with a hammer then.” He throws a toolbox filled with hammers into the garbage can. “Next question: Does she talk to herself without exactly talking to herself?”

All the princess could give is a weird look. “Well, there was that one time the morning after we saved Nightmare Moon. We found her outside Ponyville for some reason, and she told us she was just talking to… viewers... of some sort.”

“Now you’re almost there! Come on, you’ve watched some theater, you genius Canterlot snob. What concept is this exactly?”

Ignoring the jibe against her, she looks straight into his eyes. “Talking to viewers… like someone in the audience viewing a play… is that the fourth wall?”

“Bingo!” Discord yells, complete with trumpety game show music playing in the room, while he spins a wheel with the pointer landing on $1,000,000!

Twilight then inspects the patient on his bed, game show music still playing in the background. “So… you’re saying that he’s like… seen this fourth wall in real life?… which caused him to just freak out and have a seizure?”

“Well, it’s not the only cause,” Discord clarifies. “There’s also the reality-bending part and having the powers to match, becoming a meta-narrative personality so that you see things in terms of scenes, episodes, and/or chapters, which I guess is still part of the fourth wall thing… it’s all maddening, you see, and I know you don’t fully understand it yourself because you haven’t gone insane.”

“At least I know it’s certainly made you mad,” Twilight says, proud of her own jibe against the spirit of chaos himself. “This is the real world… or the real worlds. It’s silly to think of reality having a fourth wall, much less of breaking it.”

Discord takes out a button to press it, and out comes canned recorded studio audience laughter from all over the room.

“Keep telling that to yourself, dear princess,” he says as he turns to his patient, laugh track still running. “As for my dear old guest… oh, he will have such a great awakening when he does wake up.”

Twilight arches a brow at him. “So you think he will wake up, then?”

Discord sips some coffee, back to sitting on his director’s chair. “Why, yes. It will take some more time, but he’ll come about. And, before you say anything, I will know when he’s awake and I shall guide him on how to use his powers responsibly.” A halo and a pair of angel wings float down onto him for good measure.

“Promise me no shenanigans?”

The halo and the wings fall off and clatter onto the floor for the paper mache props they are. “You must allow the two of us some shenanigans. If you must, give him a new home with a hundred-meter restraining order where chaos can reign beautifully. You know what happened when I promised no shenanigans for Fluttershy.”

A freezing breeze falls over Twilight. “Right. You almost faded from existence.”

Discord nods. “Trust me, Twilight. If you want someone to take care of chaos, then I’m the best draconequus for the job!”

“I… don’t think that’s encouraging… but sure.” The reluctant smile on her face slowly becomes genuine. “Trust is important, after all.”

Twilight goes back to reading more of the report while Discord pranks his counterpart by putting shades on him and shooting selfies with himself and his other self.

Food on the Table

A party is happening at the Apple family garage-and-barn. Unlike the raving hoedowns over at a night club, this one is a simple get-together organized by Applejack to celebrate this year’s bountiful harvest.

As several ponies dance to vinyl-player country music, Applejack sits at a table with a couple friends, all munching on dishes that show the apple as an ingredient of all trades: apple pie, apple fritter, apple cake, apple turnovers, and apple Brown Betty (the delicacy, not her aunt). Two seats are empty: Rarity and Fluttershy are at the dance floor, the former teaching the latter how to dance formally for the stallion of her dreams, even if that stallion is mostly of Rarity’s deluded invention.

“I’m amazed you threw the party this time!” yells Pinkie after chugging down another slice of apple cake. “I thought you’re going to have Thanksgiving!”

“We still are.” Applejack downs a bottle of apple soda, her trusty hat angled sideways. “The harvest haul is just thatgood. We’ve got enough apples to feed this party, get Thanksgiving for the whole Apple clan, and supply three more holidays through the winter… and we’d still have leftovers! I’m surprised we got so many!”

Sunset winks at her. “That’s magic, baby! Earth pony magic, specifically.”

Applejack chuckles. “Yeah, I reckon that’s gonna kick in. Still, I didn’t know it would be that effective.” Then, she looks around the room—lots of familiar faces dancing around or eating; a not-so-short line of customers waiting for their apple cider fix courtesy of a chatty Apple Bloom. “S’well as how everyone’s now buying apples like it’s the next big thing. Like, I know it’s great food, bein’ an Apple an’ all, but still….”

“I guess that’s the pay-off for being magic ponies,” Rainbow quips before finishing a half-full bottle of soda. “Gotta say, I’ve never been much of an apple-eater until I got ponified. Fruits taste a lot sweeter with these pony taste buds.” She sticks her tongue out to prove her point. “But I guess you know that, Applejack.”

The apple pony couldn’t stifle a chuckle before copying Rainbow and downing some more soda. “Then there’s hay too. Apple Bloom told me that when the whole magic leak was goin’ on, she caught Big Mac eatin’ hay. Now we’re all eatin’ it up and we don’t even think about it. It just is, an’ we cook it up in all different ways.” She turns to Sunset. “How big is hay back there anyway?”

“Oh, it’s so big, we don’t think about it too!” Sunset clears her throat. “Our prehistorical ancestors grazed on it, just like how the horses here used to do I. When we got agriculture going, we started discovering ways on how to make hay better, how to cook it….”

“So, it isn’t that much different from the hunter-gatherer humans of old?” asks Twilight.

“Yeah… but cross out the hunter part. And the gatherer part too. Why gather berries and fruits from the bush when there’s food wherever you go?”

“And I can’t wait for the day when they make sweetened grass fields!” Pinkie declares like a bomb exploding with words. “Just imagine my house, and the front yard is green grass… but it’s tea-flavored with sprinkles!”

“Now here’s a mare with ideas!” shouts Sunset.

Everyone at the table laughs, drinking more soda and munching on more apple foods.

After that, Applejack pensively checks Sunset out as the native-born unicorn takes one more sip of soda. “So, uh, Sunset, I can’t deny that you’re happy to get home cooking back, what with the hay and all.”

Sunset pauses a little before speaking. “Uh, yeah.” She fidgets with her curly mane. “Truth be told, I’m glad to be eating the pony way again, much as I got used to how humans do.”

“Ooh!” Twilight levitates a notepad and a ball pen for note-taking. “Now that brings up a good question: How did you handle your new digestive system when you came over here?”

Sunset lets a second of awkwardness at her evil past pass by. “Not too well, not at first. I thought I wouldn’t go hungry because there was grass everywhere, but I realized eating grass here was a social sin. Let’s just say I got caught picking grass at someone’s front yard and somehow avoided arrest….

“Because that happened, I had to observe. Realized humans didn’t eat grass but still ate the usual pony foods: fruits, vegetables, bread and baked goods, even junk food like potato chips… but then someone called me Bacon Hair out of the blue.”

Her friends inspected her mane. “Yeah, I can see why,” Twilight observes. “Now that you mention it, it does look like a strip of bacon. Hey! What if—“

“You will not use me as bait in your griffon experiments.”

“I was merely suggesting!”

Sunset shrugs and rolls her eyes. “Anyway, I was curious because I thought that was an insult. Nopony calls a stranger such meaty words with a good heart, so that got me thinking: If these humans were okay with calling me Bacon Hair, that means they’re okay with literally eating bacon. That’s when I encountered the local deli.”

Sunset shudders at the memory. “I should’ve had nightmares. Maybe to you, it was all just normal, but to me—a pony in an alien world—to see dead meat just hanging there like it’s nobody’s business and to see these humans ordering them, making sandwiches and other foods out of dead animals… though, back then, I didn’t know pigs and cows weren’t sapient, so I just braced it and ordered some bacon and eggs anyway.”

Twilight lets out a giggle. “’Cause you were evil and you just didn’t care?”

“I was curious!… but also evil. Like, ‘Celestia won’t let me explore eating meat? Whatever!’ Plus, thanks to my human nose, bacon smelled good all of a sudden.”

Applejack’s brows shoot up. “Yeah, I’m surprised you didn’t go vegan even after the whole Fall Formal thing.”

“Eh, I’ve grown used to it. Plus, I really love bacon ever since I got my first taste. Too bad that’s gone now.”

“But pigs aren’t sapient, not even in your world.”

“Yeah, but you know what I mean. Can’t exactly eat bacon these days because you’ve got your new digestive systems out in full force, and—“

“Oakley, stop!”

Their heads turn to Cookie and Cinnamon galloping to Oakley who is first in line at the apple cider line, much to Apple Bloom’s surprise and much more so as his breath reeks of alcohol.

“I just want… one… hck!… more….”

“Alright, that’s it!” yells the bartending Apple Bloom. “That’s enough for you!” With an apology to the others in line, Apple Bloom and the others carry an intoxicated horse out of the barn.

Applejack keeps her mouth shut at the scene for a few seconds. Then, “Welp. Looks like I’ll give a stern talkin’ to when this night’s over.”

Born in the Righter Generation

“Hey, come on, your Grampa Carrot’s just around the corner!”

Pound Cake strings his daughter along hallways of the old family abode—now the home of only the aging Cake couple. Following behind is his sister Pumpkin Cake, affectionately called Auntie Pumpkie by the filly, and his wife, Coral Currents, whose ruffled mane looks like the beach and its waves.

“I don’t know,” Pumpkin says. “You’ve been hyping up Dad like he’s the best thing since sliced bread.”

“Guess that means he raised the both of ya’ right,” says Coral in a relaxed, surfer-dudette tone. She tears apart the bangs from her face. “I don’t wanna stop him from gushin’—he’s so excited about his father! ‘Sides, it’ll do Sea Salt Cream some good—isn’t that right, Creamie?”

“So it’s true Carrot made cakes for all the presidents in the world, Da’?” Cream asks her father.

Pumpkin glances at her brother’s cool-headed spouse who does not seem to care at all. “Exactly my point.”

But she could not protest any longer as they enter the room. There on the rocking chair, in the bedroom for two, sits Carrot Cake reading a food magazine. Several aprons hang on the wall along with a few newspaper clippings featuring The Sweet Shoppe diner he and his wife have operated for decades now.

Carrot Cake lowers down the magazine, revealing his gray-orange goatee and a dozen dimples blotching his glasses-wearing face.

“My son!” Carrot yells, hoarse but still possessing that twangy old fifties accent. Pound flies into his embrace and they hug tight.

The hug lasts for several more seconds before Pound lets go. “Sorry I wasn’t able to visit last week. The bakery up in Applewood is—“

“I see you’ve brought everyone else here too!” declares Carrot, receiving a happy hug and a heartfelt greeting from his daughter. With a mischievous smile and a wink, he asks, “Where’s my grandfoals, eh?”

“Father, no!” Pumpkin pulls away from the hug. “Chip Mint and I just got engaged! Wasn’t it you who told us to not rush the important things in life?”

Carrot leaves it at that with a chuckle of his own as he looks at the filly by Pound’s side. “Is that… that’s Cream, right?”

“Sure is!” rings out Coral. “She’s joined the Cutie Mark Crusader branch over here. She’s already caused a thousand bits in property damage! Now isn’t that swell?”

Pumpkin’s eyes twitch, but Carrot pays no mind. Instead, he grabs the little filly with his forehooves.

“How are you, my little Cream?” he coos. The old stallion nuzzles the foal and holds her close before tickling her. Cute giggles gurgle from her mouth.

Pound gives Pumpkin a smug glance. “See? She’s already warmed up to him. He’s gonna be the coolest grampa on the face of the Earth.”

“Alongside the coolest uncle in the world,” Coral chimes in. “Seriously, she should try surfing with my brother after this. Sandbar would go wild seein’ her cutie mark in ridin’ the waves.”

Held in Carrot’s grasp, Cream looks up at Grampa’s old, haggard, happy face. Out of the blue, she asks, “What was life like when you were not old?”

Carrot smiles, the joy of storytelling to youngsters welling up in his heart. “Yes, uh... Pumpkin, could you lend me the scrapbook by the cabinet?”

As he says it, Pumpkin turns on her horn and levitates the scrapbook—all preserved and free of dust—into her father’s grip. Yet, while she does so, there is a little wince on her face.

Coral nudges her on the shoulder. “Honey Pumpkin, what’s wrong? You seem… out there.”

Pumpkin shrugs. “It’s just the usual. You know how it is with our silly baby pictures in there.”

“It’s a small price for showing her what Dad looked like!” Pound says over his back. “And he’ll show off how much cooler I am than you.”

“Is that a threat?” Pumpkin growls in jest.

But the sibling rivalry melts when Carrot opens the book and begins the tale. Everyone turns their attention to the Cake patriarch.

“So, Cream, the story of your father began when I met Chiffon Swirl. I’m sure you know her as Gramma Cupcake.”

Cream laughs in recognition. “Gramma Cuppie! Yeah, I know her!”

And then, the filly looks at the romantic photos of the couple in the photo. She could recognize that those were smiles on the faces. She could see their blush, and even could recognize that the male was kissing the female lightly on the cheek.

There is only one problem.

“Grampa, what are those?” she asks as she points at the figures in the pictures.

Carrot looks her way. “Ah, that’s a bow tie! I used to wear it a lot myself, and—“

“No, no. Dad told me what a bow tie is.” A frown falls over her face. “I don’t know... who’s wearing the bow tie.”

Carrot looks confused; so too do the other guests in the room. However, Pumpkin and Pound quickly share knowing glances: the brother in fear, the sister in vengeful self-satisfaction.

“Oh, that’s me and Chiffon! Your Dad’s parents, remember?”

Cream stares intently at the weird figures in the book.

Pound flattens his ears at the giggling.

To drown out the world, Pound keeps his eyes and ears closed. Coral and Cream are inside with Carrot, the mother disciplining her about respect for elders while Carrot keeps saying that it’s okay, it’s okay—she’s a filly who doesn’t know better.

“I guess it runs in the family, huh?”

Pound breathes an exasperated sigh. “Oh, come on. Please don’t rub it in on something I said twenty years ago.”

His sister breathes her own sigh. “At least Cream’s his grandfoal, so it isn’t that bad. Still though, at least you just said something crass when you were a foal“—

“Thanks a lot.”

—“while Cream just tore through the scrapbook and laughed at every human she saw.”

The stallion throws his hooves up in the air. “Then I don’t know!”

For a while, they just sit there outside in the hall.

Pound sighs. “I guess, after Ma’ and Pa’s lectures about how we used to be human, seeing Cream just bawl like that is unnerving.”

“She’s never been human to begin with. We’ve been humans for, what, a few weeks? Even though I don’t remember any of them at all….”

“Yeah.” He lets out a little chuckle to break the tense silence. “I can’t believe it… I sound a lot like the ‘kids-these-days’ oldies. And I can’t believe it, but I think I’m fully on board with that.”

“About how your children just won’t care that much about humanity at all? Tell that to Canterlot High’s history teacher. Sir Keep’s been doing a pretty good job having everyone love the human past.”

“But it’s in the past.” He fiddles his forehooves about, nervous. “Keep’s gonna die eventually, we’re gonna die eventually, and then you’ll have no single former human left because everyone’s just gonna be a pony!“

“Don’t be so melodramatic, Pound. We have the principals—“

“They’re the exception. And it’s not like they’ll entertain each and every foal for history class. It’s just that….”

Pound rubs his tired eyes. “I… I guess you were right. A lot more right than I first thought.”

The unicorn recalls: the spat they’ve had that one night after their parents first showed them the scrapbook and what the world used to be like.

“I… I don’t know, Pumpkie. I… certainly feel some human duty or dignity. Whatever it is—the something that makes us different from the Equestrians. I just… don’t want to see Creamie go like that and….”

Pound is silent. Pumpkin gives him a gentle rub on the back.

Then, they wait for the whole thing with Sea Salt Cream to blow over from outside.

Pets and Livestock

By the Apple family home, the apple fields lie majestic and grand. Plenty of apple trees bask in the sunset of a harvest day, their ripe fruit concealing great sweetness. Applejack and her siblings buck each tree in happy routine, her friends chipping in to help: Twilight and Rarity with their unicorn magic capturing the fruits with their magic fields, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy with their wings lifting them up to pick fruit from the air, and Pinkie Pie with her successful attempts at applebucking.

Spike sees it all through a window in the dining room, watching his former master levitate a couple apples to her mouth only to be lightly reprimanded by her apple pony friend.

At the table, the dragon takes a bite off of a gem—something he never dared eat as a dog, but becoming a dragon instilled a new appetite for the spectrum of sweet, sour, salty, and bitter deliciousness found in the realm of tasty jewels. Good thing Ponyville gems are cheap and abundant, almost like underground grass.

Across the rest of the table sit the Apple horses, all munching and drinking in their snack time, having just prepared some apple pies and put them in the oven. Now commences the waiting game.

“So, you turned sapient and got uplifted long before everyone else?” Cookie asks in great excitement, sipping on her tiny box of apple juice and eating a couple chocolate chip cookies afterwards. All the heightened tastes, the ability to eat almostanything a supermarket could offer—it cheered her to no end.“Wow! That must’ve been great… but also lonely for a while.”

“It was alright,” Spike replies. “Being a talking dog that could also think like a human—“ he sighs “—it was quite the discovery.” He takes a clawful of gems to his mouth and chews on them like a bored human would on potato chips. “They could finally understand me, especially Twilight. We got a lot closer because I could truly be her best friend: we shared our secrets, hopes, dreams, worries… and we can talk back and reassure each other.”

“What about talking with the other dogs?” says Oakley. The pegasus still smells like fresh trees, oak to be precise—tryouts for being a lumberjack in the city outskirts went pretty well early in the morning, especially with the rush of air he got from zooming between each tree, axe in his mouth. “Did they get jealous that you could talk?”

Spike scratches his scaly head. “Not really. A few shied away from me because I sounded like a human—couldn’t shake off the feeling that I sounded a lot like their masters—but most dogs just didn’t understand me to begin with.”

“I take it they treated you just fine, yes?” Cinnamon says, sipping her cup of tea—cinnamon tea, specifically, and she loves it. After turning into a pony, the allures of (former) human society’s high-class nuances attracted her. Now that she could participate in them with full understanding, she stopped in fascination at phenomena like proper manners and etiquette, fancy clothes and fashion, and foods tailored for refined tastes such as tea and biscuits. “Either way, it is good to know that you hung out with your fellow canines.”

“Oh, that’s true! But, the alienation…. You did say I got uplifted just like you did, and, well, I’m sapient and they’re not. I understood what they said, but it’s what most humans expected: eat food, protect master, have fun, chase tail, bark loud, go to sleep, so on. I think Twilight’s the one who said it—metacognition…Icould do that, but every other dog couldn’t.”

Cookie’s eyes brighten at his language. “Wow, that’s a fancy word! Uh, what does it mean?”

“It’s the ability to think about your thinking,” Cinnamon answers. “You are aware that you are thinking right now, aren’t you?”

“Oh, yes, it’s all fun, much more fun after the Change! So many imaginations in your head—it’s like pretty pictures but they’re not exactly pictures I can see—and it’s like you’re the character of your own story and you’re writing it and you’re wondering what went wrong or right and—“

“I keep forgetting that you’re smarter than you look,” Cinnamon says before taking another sip of tea. If she were far less sophisticated, she would have shoved a hoof into Cookie’s muzzle.

Oakley takes the pause in the conversation to look at Spike. “You’re one of the lucky ones, then. What about the dogs that didn’t turn into dragons like you?”

Spike takes another bite of a gem, gulping down the shredded remains of a ruby. “Like Winona? I’m not sure. Winona’s fine. She doesn’t have that many dog friends to begin with, so she doesn’t know anyone who’s turned into a dragon except me. All the other dogs I’ve met: only a few are jealous or mad about it. The rest are… uh, not sapient enough to hold any long-term grudges.” He checks his bowl only to realize it is empty. “Still, dragons and dogs stick together. At least we know where we dragons came from.”

The dragon pushes the bowl away from him. “So, ponies, how’s your new lives treating you?”

Oakley snags a biscuit from Cinnamon, much to her silent chagrin. “Pretty good. It’s like the world just got a whole lot bigger. I mean, I could fly, Cinnamon can do unicorn witchery, and Cookie’s much stronger and faster and more connected to the soil than us—you should’ve seen her grow grain from concrete!”

“Yeah, but I had to sleep for like twelve hours after that!” Cookie whines before sipping more on her juice box. “It sucks!”

“Why, yes,” Cinnamon chimes in, continuing the conversation with Spike. “To think on the human level—or to be sapient, really, and going to Equestria where horses think for themselves and make their own societies since day one—it was living the dream. You could even say it was beyond our wildest fantasies! A world where we’re our own bosses! It was… heavenly.”

“Not that we’re saying we don’t love Applejack and her family!” adds Cookie with a slurp, a sign that she ran out of juice in that tiny box. “We love them to bits, and we thank her and them all for bringing us all together here and for taking care of us… but, you know that feeling that you can do more, so you… want to do more.”

Spike sighs. “Yeah, I get that feeling. When I was just a smart and talking dog, we’ve had a couple conversations with Twilight, that I’m more than just a dog or man’s best friend. After a while, she started treating me more like a human than a dog—no baby talk, no dismissing me with treats, nothing like that. I even played fetch with her with me calling the shots! It was better than my old dog self could ever think about… and now, I’m a dragon, you’re ponies, and we’re all on the same level as our former masters. Independence and freedom—we all have that in spades, and I think we’re just getting started.”

A bark catches his attention. Spike and the three ponies look out the window.

There, Winona licks a happy Applejack who hugs her back. The farmer’s friends stop their work for a while to adore the dog.

The dragon rests his eyes on the sight before him. “Okay, most of us are just getting started.”

The Self Agency

As the worldwide Earh-Equestria portal system develops—first from the megacities and then trickling down to the regional centers—a novelty spanning the two worlds emerges among the minds of many: the existence of mirror counterparts.

Famously, the Element-bearers have their counterparts: some snappy spunky high school teenagers with relatively the same attitudes as their pony versions. More famously, there are the princesses and their principal versions who work in the same high school as the former-human Elements of Harmony. Still more famously among Ponyville citizens, the filly Cutie Mark Crusaders had the teenage Canterlot Movie Club, although the parallel acronym alone made their neighbors—on both worlds—fear for their lives because it meant the two sets of unwitting troublemakers could team up.

To accommodate this out-of-both-worlds novelty, the counterpart matching records were born, found in most travel agencies that keep up with inter-universal developments.

Canter Crowhop goes to work in a Canterlot City travel agency, doing so before the sun will rise—a couple shots of coffee should do the trick. Moving to Earth and working on the other side of reality’s lawn proved to be a learning experience: studying and discovering a world which is now similar but still quite different from her homeland of Equestria, with former humans still getting used to the nuances of the creatures they’ve become.

By the time the coffee kicks in, the pink unicorn sits down at the front desk, her job being a cross between a clerk, a gopher, and a full-on travel agent—arranging hotel or bed-and-breakfast accommodations, making the right calls and going across the portal and back to finish the proper appointments, and otherwise updating the records on a slow day (which almost never happens during the first few post-Change years).

The routine of the day is broken whenever the matching records are brought up.

“Oh, hello!” Crowhop cheerily greets the first customer of the day: a sweatered and bespectacled unicorn, sporting a somewhat unkempt mane and tail. “What can I do for you, ma’am? Would you like me to schedule you a trip to Manehattan or Las Pegasus or even take up our today-only deal of an Appleloosa tour?—all on the Equestrian side, though we also provide Earthside deals for the same.”

The would-be traveler sets her chin on a thoughtful hoof. “I’d… well, I’d like to see whether there’s someone who’s just like me here.“

“Your counterpart, right?” Crowhop levitates a book and plops it on the counter. The words Alter Ego Census shimmer under the establishment’s fluorescent lights despite the rising sun outside—only for her to take note of the here her client used.“Hmm… you’re looking for a counterpart here on Earth, am I right? Equestrian looking for an Earther, Miss…. ?”

“Moon Dancer.” She finally takes Crowhop’s cue to sit down—that’s what the chairs are for. “I would like to meet her…. Ah, I just know she would be fun to hang out with! We could geek out over lunch about Equestrian magic, Earth technology, and… well—“ she pats her very full saddle bags “—I’ve got enough books and scrolls to keep us occupied for weeks!”

Crowhop’s smile grows; the joy of other ponies infect her easily. She hums a little ditty while she scours the records, landing on the M names and flipping through the pages to reach Mo.

Most of the time, it would be an Earther trying to find their Equestrian counterpart, and, most of said time, there are no matches. In her orientation, the supervisor drilled into her the great population disparity between the two worlds: Equestria’s Manehattan, the most populous city in the known world at a staggering one hundred thousand living souls across all creatures, could not hold a candle to a multitude of smaller Earth cities shooting well past one million. Thus, a former human either had to live in a big metropolis or be lucky enough to be born in Canterlot City to stand a chance of having a counterpart.

Most of the time, Crowhop had to frown, saddened by the lack of a connection. In reality, much of it was a losing game. Still, it was a game many risked playing since checking around was free money-wise and, at worst, only fetched five minutes of their time.

However, Equestrians looking for their Earther counterpart is a different story.

“Why, yes, there is a Moon Dancer on Earth!” announces Crowhop, eagerly turning the book around for the visitor to see her local self’s contact information. “She lives right here in Canterlot City—currently a student at Canterlot Charter High, if I recall correctly. Would you like me to call her on your behalf?”

“Why, yes—no, I’ll do it!”

Crowhop puts up a telephone, dials the home number, and—she swears she just saw twinkles and sparkles in Moon Dancer’s merry eyes—speaks softly to the pony on the other end, notifying them of the pony dying to speak to her (although not exactly in such exaggerated words).

“Oh, really? My counterpart from… Equestria?” If it were not for the little crackles telephone lines are giving to her voice, Crowhop might mistake her for the happy Moon Dancer in her presence.

“Yup! She’s excited to see you. She would like to talk about—“

“Equestrian magic, Earth technology, and everything else? I’ve got enough books and e-books in my personal library to hold the both of us down here for weeks!”

Crowhop sighs with a smile. “You two are just meant for each other, don’t you know?”

She takes the telephone away to the Moon Dancer in the building.

The travel agent clerk lets out a bigger smile and a happier sigh when she hears two screams of joy from both Moon Dancers. She could only imagine the glorious geek out that could only happen when they meet face-to-face.

Cloud Nine Yards

Not far off from Canterlot City hangs a big lump of clouds. Like ants to unsupervised candies, trails of pegasi fly to and from the lump, carrying supplies and construction material most of which is processed cloud to be processed further by pegasus magic into proper building resources.

To those who could not fly, the pegasus movement can be likened to one of those famed dragon migrations from Equestria. The pegasi were also considerate to them: to allay any fears that non-pegasi would not be able to visit their pegasus friends, there would be regular balloon trips from Canterlot City proper to the new neighborhood in the clouds.

This new neighborhood shall be called Horizons.

Horizons nears completion: only a few buildings are left in the construction phase with several more in the stage of interior design. Paved roads made of flattened and hardened clouds cut across front yards of finer clouds along with the occasional plant—for those with Earth pony lineage in their blood, there are some plants which do grow with clouds as their soil, taking up water from the clouds which is, for all intents and purposes, water in another form anyway: it often leads to the case of “rain” falling upwards to the soil instead of falling upon it from above.

Amid the traffic of pegasi carrying boxes and construction matter, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy carry a big box, the last one their client needs before moving in can be completed, while speeding past stores, houses, and other pegasi that are not as fast as them. Or, at least, not as fast as Rainbow Dash.

“Careful, Dash!” Fluttershy’s voice carries above the whirl of the wind. “We’re not supposed to go too fast with—“

“I know, I know!” She rolls her eyes but not too much—have to stay focused on what’s ahead of her. “But, seriously, it’s just wood. Intricately carved wood, yeah, and onlymost of it is wood,but it’s wood. I can make it fall at terminal velocity sideways and there won’t be any damage. Okay, not much damage—”

“Rainbow!” The glare would have turned into the Stare.

Good thing Rainbow is not Angel. “Just guessing, Fluttershy! Hey, right turn!”

They turn around the last bend, the two pegasi shifting the box’s weight so that none of the wooden pieces there would fall or otherwise scratch itself in the impact.

There’s the house. They slow down and gently put the box down by the front door. Fancy columns fixed into the walls greet them, reminding the pegasi of the ancient city of Airthens across the Amblantic Ocean. Unlike the architecture of Airthens, however, the cloud abode is not all straight: the ceiling is slanted, even curves at spots, giving the house a cartoonish look. It does not strike them as weird, for most other houses in Horizons are like that—a lot of Cloudsdale houses they saw from their trip there also had that look, to be attributed to how clouds aren’t straight lines. Horizons is only following the taste, aesthetic and practical, of the engineers and architects hailing from Cloudsdale and other cloud cities back in Equestria.

Rainbow knocks on the door. No hoofsteps to watch out for. Instead, her ears perk at the flapping of wings.

The door opens to reveal a happy pegasus family, all hovering above the floor made of cloud.

“Finally!” The father is a red stallion with a metal heart for a cutie mark. “You brought the board and tabletop games! Are they all in peak condition?”

“You bet, Mister Ferrum Heart!” Rainbow rips the box open.

The whole family poke their heads into it. They see it all: checkers, chess, backgammon, the Equestrian import of the guessing strategy game Cloud Grid, and a couple wargames with their numerous miniatures of insane detail.

“We’re glad you’re absolutely right!” The white-coated Trotpowski with a hint of a thick Russhaft accent is the mother; Rainbow recognizes the chess’s queen piece on her cutie mark—only to wince since it reminded her of when she played chess with Twilight, lost in four moves to her queen, and called chess lame. “We were very worried that things wouldn’t be the same since we’ve all turned into pegasi. Our daughter just couldn’t stay still without our family-bonding game nights, now that she can pace around the room in the z-dimension too.”

Fluttershy nods before turning to the parents’ teenage daughter. “And… um, I’m sorry for forgetting your name, miss, but what’s your name again?”

“It’s Cozy Glow!” declares the young mare. Her mane can be likened to a messy shelf of scrolls somehow tied together by the white ribbon at the top. If it were not for politeness, Rainbow would have groaned at the rook which is Cozy’s cutie mark. “Hanging out with Scootaloo and her Movie Club is sure fun, but it’s never the same when I’m always watching their movies and they don’t get to play some Battlemallet Seventy-Thousand with me!”

“I told you, Cozy,” Ferrum begins, “they’re just not that interested in a dark lore-heavy wargame, tragic as that may be. You’ve asked them like a dozen times by now.”

But Cozy Glow ignores her father, going straight to Rainbow Dash. “You know Scootaloo, right? Can you… can you tell her that Battlemallet is just so cool?”

The multi-colored pegasus eyes her back—the teenager’s name has felt familiar, but she shrugs it off. “I’ve never even heard of Battlemallet Seventy-Thousand.”

“It has battles, wars, mechas, tanks, and lasers… all that and more in space!”

That settles it. “Okay, I’ll keep that in mind when I get around to Scootaloo!” Looking to the parents and past their withers—the living room is already well provided, complete with a wireless television (she left the matter of sky electricity to the Cloudsdale engineers). “So, is that everything for you guys?”

Trotpowski nods with a grin shiny enough to blind the visitors after a few concentrated seconds of staring. “Thank you all for your big help with these moving boxes. Now we can finally lay down and take up our new lives in the clouds.”

With farewells being said, the two spunky teenage pegasi leave the house and have the door gently close behind them.

“That went off without a hitch,” says Fluttershy, remembering how sweet Cozy Glow was.

“You tell me!” Dash glances at the orange sky, a sign that sunset nears. “Looks like we’ll watch that Daring Do movie right in time! Still wanna come? Scoots is comin’ too, and—“

One huge flap and one whoosh of falling wind later, Twilight Sparkle lands right behind them. One big gasp after that, she asks, “Just to check, uh, are you my Equestrian friends or my local-universe friends?”

“Princess Twilight?” Fluttershy asks, fearful of royalty coming straight out of nowhere to her, although she was and still is her friend and even then as pen pals only for now. “Wh-what are you doing here?

“Haven’t you heard the news?!” Her wings flap in panic. “We’ve just wrapped up another Class A disaster—“

“The one with the failed attempt to drain magic from Equestria for, like, an hour?” Rainbow proposes.

“It would’ve been days were it not for the extra help from this world,” Twilight manages to get out of her hungry-for-air mouth, “but one hour is already bad enough!” Her eyes check her pegasus friends wildly. “I just… well, I have a new counterpart to check villain-wise.”

“Let me guess,” Rainbow starts: “pegasus, since you’re up here?”

“Yes! Now, have you heard of a filly named Cozy Glow?”

The pegasi’s eyes shrink into pinpricks. “Cozy… Glow?” Fluttershy asks, her voice quieter and higher with each syllable.

Astute enough to catch Rainbow’s nervous glance towards the house, Twilight trots up to Cozy Glow’s home. “Don’t worry, Fluttershy. It’s just a few questions and then I’ll be off. Hopefully.”

Rainbow Dash sighs as the paranoid princess knocks on the door. Still, the pegasus understands: with two worlds to consider, there are two world-sized sources of trouble to worry about.

She understands, even if she does not like it.

I mean, how fragile is Equestria anyway, Twilight? Did a schoolfilly just wreak havoc on your world or what?

Boldly Gone

The ship stares Cartie Graph in the face. The dock he stands on is a plank to glory or doom.

Sometimes, on the way here, he wondered if his peaceful station in life—or even his destiny, now that he has a cutie mark on his flank, proclaiming to the world his talent if he did not put on a pair of pants—would ever kill him. Compared to the safety of making maps on a commission to tabletop game enthusiasts, up-and-coming fantasy writers, and big-pocket antiquarians, this is fast becoming a death sentence.

Sometimes, on the way here, he wished he never took that online cartography course to boost his credentials. Now that they knew he had some real education and experience in real map-making, he was up for grabs by the highest bidder. The pay was quite good, and the waiver was humane or equine enough.

In his quest for more money and some additional stability in life, though, he forgot to check where exactly Sound Line’s End was. All he knew was that it was an ambiguously defined region at the edge of Equestria’s known world. His task there: chart the uncharted, know the unknown.

Having faced the unknown up close and personal, he wants to scream and gallop back home. However, that would mean going back on his word, and his employers expected him to understand the terms and conditions of his job before jumping in. Too bad: he thought he understood them while he skimmed the words.How high his confidence was. How far his stupid mouth got him into the abyss.

Cartie does not complain as he boards the ship—modern enough to have been a vessel from Earth. He hides a wince or two as the anchor is pulled up and the land begins to disappear into the horizon. One uneasy laugh is all he allows out of his mouth an hour later when he realizes he could no longer see even the faintest hints of land.

Three hours after leaving shore, conversation is had, and it is with the captain who is some surly and bulky hippogriff. “Sir Cartie! I apologize for not entertaining you any sooner! You seemed to be quite busy with your food and your notes—and when you weren’t busy, the crew’s always got something for me to check. See, these modern ships you’ve got are quite something!—running on this diesel substance I still can’t get a crack on. But, anyway, what’s got your goat?” He sits down by the pony’s side, resting his feathered shoulder on the table. “You don’t seem too happy about things. Something wrong? An ill omen from the sky? Bored that you haven’t seen any new continents or islands yet?”

The circumstances are loose enough that a second uneasy laugh is allowed passage. “No, it’s not that.”

“What is it, then?”

On top of all this magic madness, my boss is an eagle-horse. A hawk-horse. A… bird-horse… that can turn into a seapony. And he’s riding a boat. “I’m just surprised. How far… it’s….”

“How far it’s what, my good sir?”

No energy to fake a good-natured laugh at him. The hippogriff is too sincere and too polite to offend without good reason. “Just… how far are we going, exactly?”

“I thought you read the terms of the job, mate!” The captain slaps him on his withers without a trace of ill will. “Looks like you’re so eager to map everything out, you leaped before you looked! I shall backtrack for your sake: we’re going off as far as is possible in two years. Either we discover new lands, or we reach the edge of the world. The rumors and legends imply nothing else!”

“Edge of the world?” he asks. “I thought this world was round!”

“So eager to join us, you didn’t even check basic information you may not deem necessary! Not even that new-fangled Internet thingy helped you, eh? See, sir, the world is flat.The princesses say so, and they’re the ones controlling the cosmos.”

Ah, yes: the flat world. I’d have been called a lunatic if I said that back on Earth. Not even then! Calling someone a lunatic might be blasphemy against Princess Luna too.

“Why not send satellites, captain? We’ve got some.”

The hippogriff pulls a hearty laugh at the suggestion. “Are you crazy? I may not know much about your satellites, but I’ve heard Princess Luna said no because they couldn’t orbit something that’s flat anyway! They’d just fall flat and crash onto the ground—plus, our cosmology is just not compatible with Earth satellites, I’m afraid. I’m sure she didn’t want to see billions of bits thrown down the drain.”

Cartie discovers that he is running out of options. Time to pull out the trump card—one that disappeared from his mental bag of marbles until it flew back in right now, hundreds of miles from terra firma: “We have drones! They could assist us, and—”

“You should’ve said it while you were still inside Equestria’s borders! Even then, didn’t they say the best drones last for just a day or two? That’s hardly helpful. Besides, we need all claws and hooveson deck. It’s a claws-on experience, you see, which is something those digital things can never substitute.”

The captain rubs Cartie’s mane as one would rub the head of his son—Cartie saw him do so to his actual son, a sailor on this ship. “I know it may take a while to get away from those phones or whatever they call it—or to get used to seeing no land, seeing you’re not a pegasus—but we’re good company! We’ll make the next two years the best two years of your life, you’ll see! Oh, and mapping the unknown, of course! What was it that the Element of Laughter said? ‘Time flies while you’re having fun’?”

Only then is the captain called out to another duty, leaving Cartie Graph on his own. He is surprised that the hippogriff left him a plate of fried hay and flowers without him noticing.

Before taking the well-needed bite, for he is hungry and scared and confused and also stressed, Cartie asks the only question he could ask when someone is at his wit’s end, jumps across it, and only begins to understand the consequences of his jump from halfway down:

“What did I get myself into?”

Games People Play

A good bed, a dozen fashionable clothes in the open wardrobe, a couple posters of some foreign boy band (who turned into pegasi), and a collection of albums from crooners and pop stars alike.

What takes the cake are the weird boxes under the widescreen television. Wires imply their electronic nature, though a few wires snake their way to some many-buttoned devices. Discs lay on the side for things that look like movies but the visitor could not help but get an uncanny feeling. If they are anything like those magical DVDs, they would not be like that, would they?

“Um, what’s that?” Sweetie Belle finally asks.

Her Earther alter ego, more than half a decade older than her grade school-aged Equestrian self, turns to the filly’s objects of curiosity. ”Oh, those things? That’s my Playstable Four and Xbronc 1. I was supposed to get aNineTandem Swish for the holidays, but ponification set production back big time.”

The filly shakes her head. The funny-name boxes only confuse her. “Uh, so, exactly what are they?”

“You don’t know?” She levitates a disc box to her. “These are video games!”

The younger Sweetie takes the box into her magic field. The title proclaims itself to be the fifth of its series. The blurb on the back rambles on about its award-winning stealth, action, and storytelling rolled into one serviceable game, featuring some human soldier as the hero.

But the screenshots of the game freeze her eyes. “Are you sure this is a video game? I’ve never seen a video game that looks so much like a movie.”

Surprise falls over the elder sort-of-sister’s face. “Okay, there’s cutscenes… forgot; you don’t know what that is.Anyway, believe me when I tell you this is a game.”

The curiosity from a while ago tilts the child’s head. “A game.”

“Yes.”

“That likes look a movie.”

“Yes.”

“Which you can play. Because it’s a game.“

Half a groan comes out before the filly could notice. “Yes.”

That is enough to satisfy Sweetie’s destructive curiosity, the source of which can be traced to her Cutie Mark Crusaders membership. However, it is not destroyed; it is merely channeled towards the bulky many-buttoned devices with wires attached. An epiphany occurs: “So those are controllers?”

“Yeah, they are. Seriously, though, you don’t have something like this?”

“Um, we have video games, but they’re not things you can take home unless you’re super lucky or super rich. Button Mash has one of those arcade machines at home, and only because his Dad used to work at an Applewood arcade.”

A mischievous grin lights up the teenager’s face. “Oh, you’re in for a wild ride! We’ve moved on from arcade machines decades ago!”

If the pint-sized Sweetie were tired, drool would have poured out of her mouth like a waterfall. Nonetheless, her shrunken eyes drip fascination. “You moved on from arcades?”

“Yeah.” A pair of controllers levitate to their faces, courtesy of the teen. “We’ve got like eight hours until Apple Bloom and Scoots come home from visiting Equestria, right? Might as well give you a crash course on how games work around here.”

With a flash from her horn, she turns on the Playstable Four. The sound of a bell heralds its activation.

“Sweetie Belle, welcome to the future.”

Sweetie Belle does not welcome the future. The teen lied.

Sweetie Belle is welcomed by the future.

This future greets the country-born foal with all its high-definition 4K glory. This is freedom from the shackles of a lone joystick and a cathode tube projecting simplistic challenges to get a high score. (Is this what her crush talked about a week ago? Of Button gabbing over the latest releases from the other side? At least the NineTandem Swish sounded very familiar to her.) Back then, she imagined the same arcade games but just bigger and better. Maybe Button Mash was exaggerating when he styled himself as a visionary, a witness to masterpieces from another universe.

But he was right. The masterpieces were real and the exaggerations were as true as the existence of the sun.

The sound effects and the title screen music kick in first: no beeps or boops or baps, but notes and melodies from an orchestra or a Vinyl Scratch concert if she were feeling melodramatic. The graphics: so realistic, so high-quality, so not-2D—these are interactive paintings. The controller too: a hassle to get used to, but the thought of having at least twelve buttons to think about, of the many functions they could bring and the complex gameplay they could create: from sneaking around in a military compound to outright shooting in an open grass battlefield, from racing cars in a police chase to platforming across a cityscape with nothing but the heroine’s hands and feet, from adventuring as a bard/mage hybrid in a land where dragons rule the world to building some space empire with enough statistics to make Twilight Sparkle wish she would die right there and then—

What have I been missing? This is perfection! This is human technology at its finest! Button Mash was right when he said they’re the best things ever!

This has got to be the top. It’s never going to get better than this.

“Sweetie Belle!”

Lights turn on to attack the four eyes of two Sweeties before the ponies gasp at their unwelcome guest: Rarity. Judging by the lack of that distinctive three-diamond hair clip, the filly gulps: it is her Rarity.

“Pff-kch-tsh!”—the beatbox of posh shock. “Sweetie Belle!” Her gaze is upon the younger of the two. “What is the matter with you? You’ve stayed up for far too long! Do you not know it’s an hour past your bedtime?Now you won’t have the seven to nine hours of sleep necessary to prepare you for the first day of school!”

“School’s tomorrow?!”

“Honestly, those high-tech human video games—“ the words come out in exaggerated luxury, like an amateur actress with a great voice trying too hard “—you will drag yourself to the gutter with those things if you do not control yourself!” It is now the older Sweetie’s turn to get the Rarity gaze. “And you of all ponies should know better than to enable her. You know she’s younger than you and not as immature as—“

“Hey!” both Sweeties shout.

The older sister backspaces her words. “Yes, I believe you are a big and mature pony Sweetie Belle—the both of you. However, whether you are big or small, discipline is good for you. Thus, for your own good, this gaming session has ended.”

Thus, after a few seconds of whining, Sweetie Belle is coaxed into leaving the room and the family home on Earth. It is not without a few thank you!’sfor how cool human video games were. Rarity could not help but stop when her ears register the two Sweeties calling each other sisters. It is a novelty, finding someone almost exactly like you, and Earth is full of them.

The door closes upon a sighing teenage Sweetie. Alone again: her sister remains busy at her own boutique, learning the ropes of post-human fashion (complete with part-time lessons from Rarity herself plus the occasional outside help from one of her fashion-world contacts).

The gaming console is turned off and discs are put away, only for her ears to turn toward the door. A jingle, a jangle, a glow of blue. The door opens again, revealing good company: her sister.

Almost her sister.

“Sweetie Belle?” asks the Rarity from Ponyville. “I’m… yes, I am sorry for the mess I have made. Before you ask, I’ve apologized to my sister about my behavior. Taking her out might have been necessary, but there could have been better ways of handling it.”

“That’s okay.” This Sweetie’s lower teenage voice strikes the nostalgic valley for Rarity: nothing like the little sister she grew up with, who she sometimes called Squeaky Belle. “I’m sorry for keeping her up so late too.”

“That is fine. These are extraordinary times, hm? Learning about each other so fast… I am surprised cultural and technological exchange has not taken off sooner.” Her brows rise and the lashes slightly point somewhere else. “Speaking of technological exchange….”

The mare’s look falls upon the discs and their consoles.

“To tell you the full truth, I have been keeping very occasional tabs on video games—our world’s video games, that is, until recently. From what I could gather, we are so many years behind in that particular industry. Even then, I have indulged in her gaming hobbies once in a while, mostly when we are in a big city. While far away from being my go-to- choice, I must admit it is an adequate way to relax after a long, stressful day.”

Sweetie nods. Her Rarity has her fair share of long and stressful days at the boutique too, complete with sudden deadline changes and picky or undecided customers. “Yeah, I understand. She sometimes plays with me too. But it’s not just that. They’re also great for bonding with friends.”

A couple video game boxes levitate in her green glow. “I’ve got a couple multiplayer games. Road Brawler V, Above and Beyond: Present-Day War, Plumber Cart Racing—though, I’d suggest leaving out the war game for now, heh-heh—“ leaving out the fact that she was introduced to above-her-age games a long time ago.

The green field of Sweetie shifts to Rarity’s blue. “At least this is another way to bond with Rainbow Dash and maybe Applejack. You know how competitive they can be, don’t you?” Deep thought clenches her jaw. “One more thing.”

“Yes?”

Rarity notes the number of controllers connected to each of the consoles: three. Good enough for sisterly rivalry with enough room for CMC gaming.

The number is insufficient. “Can these games support six players? Maybe even seven?”

Sweetie’s white hoof tugs at her curls in her own version of deep thought. “That requires a LAN party, and I was born just in time to see that fall away. Still, there could be a chance….”

It is a few months later in Ponyville, on one cool Friday night. Keen observers would note that there is a bleary flash of colorful light streaming from one of the boutique’s windows.

“This laser sight gives me ten percent more accuracy than pure iron sights, but I’ve played enough sessions of O&O with my brother to know there’s got to be a catch in this set-up somewhere. Any hidden crutches you were able to find so far, Rarity? Or perhaps I should add more attachments… but then that leaves me with less space for the special abilities.”

“I do apologize for sounding a little exasperated, Twilight, but we are down by ten confirmed kills! Rainbow Dash, can you at least try to hold Pinkie Pie off and stop her from firing whatever a bazooka is?!”

“I know I’m awesome, but I can’t carry the whole team for much longer! I’ve still got get the hang of these super-realistic moving pictures on the screen—hey, AJ, what gives?!”

“Uh, that ain’t me. I think these machine gun thingies don’t hit well this far off. Pinkie Pie?”

“I have the bazooka, remember?… uh, Fluttershy, what’s that new weapon over there? Like, what’s a sniper?”

“Um… uh, Spike?”

“I’ve a flamethrower, not a sniper. Admit it, Fluttershy: You’re scary good at cold-blooded killing.”

Re-Reboxing With Spike

No shakes or jitters in the making of this live recording. No video stabilization is required for their viewing pleasure. No stuffy paws with weak grip or dexterity on the camera. All set: the show must go on.

“Hello, fellow paw pals—or, should I say claw pals? Sorry for the huge delay from the last episode, but I bet you were all kinda’ busy with the whole magic species-change thing.”

His scaly shoulders droop, perfect companions to his little frown. “As you can tell from the title of this episode about a new season and a new look, I have to move from my old unboxing videos. I’m a dragon now and I just can’t get into dog things like bouncing balls and eating bones anymore, especially when gems are a lot tastier. Don’t you worry, though: I can still unbox some dog stuff on the side like flying discs. Just don’t expect me to order stinky socks because my nose can’t stand them anymore.”

His claws reach out to the off-screen world. A box is shoved into view: leather-made. An old box since cows gained enough sapience to protest against the taking away of their hides.

“I’d like to thank our sponsor for this video: Rarity Belle! She was generous enough to send this box for the season premiere, and, you’re about to see how good her tastes are, in both fashion and gems!”

Gentle in their movements, he rotates the box around slowly. Have to feed the camera good angles, give the box a great first impression. “The material used here just oozes of high-class fashion. You can see a golden cursive R on the front—most likely fake gold because, sadly, she’s not that rich, but a drake can dream, right? But enough talking about what’s on the surface: let’s get straight to the treasure!”

After unlocking the box with a special key provided in yet another fancy leather box—coupled with a few minutes’ worth of commentary on how special this box is along with the golden key inside—the little treasure chest is finally opened. As is standard procedure for vloggers buying too much stock in Suspense Inc., the cover of the box faces the camera, still blocking the treasure from the camera’s view. This is to the anticipation or agony of more than a few viewers.

Spike’s eyes grow wide and drool pours out of his fanged mouth. “Oh, wow! I… I expected a lot, but this is just pure beauty!”

The box is slowly turned around—invest in viewer anticipation/agony—to the camera. To some watchers’ disappointment, a fine layer of Neighponese paper covers the prizes underneath. More of those cursive R’s dot the sheet of luxurious paper: another marketing ploy from Rarity the budding entrepreneur.

“With inside packaging like that, you know it’s going to be good!” He rubs his claws vigorously. “Now, let’s see what we’ve got here.” Grabs a delicate hold on the paper, cautiously lifts the sheet up.

Cotton packaging: another security layer “Alright, you can tell this is going to be very premium stuff. Two packaging wrappers, eh?” He removes this line of defense, impatience on his facial features.

Impatience wiped away by the jackpot: a great array of jewels, set in various necklaces and bracelets and tiaras and crowns; set in watches too, of gold and silver and platinum, their faces embroidered with topazes, rubies, emeralds….

An uneasy smile comes up. “Hmm… I know this is live—and I am quite enjoying this new live feature TackTube’s trying out—but… wow… this has got to be scripted! First episode and this is where we’re going with, Rarity! I’m just… um, so very impressed with what you’ve got, and… wow, it’s beyond pretty good, see?”

The comments for each individual piece of wealth crop up. His fanged smile graces each work of art and his silver tongue will endear his audience to him and to the goods on display.

But no matter how good he is at acting, acting is merely professional lying.

The next day, Rarity comes over to hang out with Twilight at the mad scientist-witch’s manor to visit her laboratory-turned-alchemy-tower. While she is happy to see how far her friend has taken her magic abilities to new heights, there is another reason for coming over: to thank Spike for showing off her accessories made to low-key promote her upcoming fashion line. Her stylish machinations already include a future cross-promotion with Spike’s vlog on the next episode of Street Chic with Rarity.

But Rarity does not meet Spike. The former canine has decided that a simple meeting would not do. A confrontation, on the other claw….

“Why, Spike, what do you mean by the word scam?”

A blush appears on his scaly cheeks: regret rises quickly. “Okay, maybe not a literal scam, but you said there would be gems galore!”

“And was that not true?” Her tail rises too in worried concentration. “I gave you a lot of things. Even if you take away the brand perspective, they are quite good, modestly speaking. Such gems are a display of grandiosity, and whether you want to own it or not, you must admit that they are pretty!So to the small screen it goes, in your web series where everyone can have a free taste of the riches!”

Sheer enthusiasm would not be enough. “But you said there would be gems.”

”There are! I have just told you! Or perhaps you are referring to the hoards dragons create in Equestria?”

She still does not understand. “I thought there would be gems. Tasty gems. You know, gems to eat.”

Rarity rolls her eyes, a common occurrence for the sophisticated mare. “Seriously, Spike, people tuning in to watch you eat? I know of a TackTuber who has uploaded over a thousand videos of himself drinking water. Niche, but the point stands—“

“But what about all of those, uh, mukbang videos I saw like last year?”

“You mean that trend from South Koroan? I know it comes to personal preference, but would you like your public image to be that of someone binge gorging on gems forever? Would you like that to be your premise from now on?”

“Dragons have high metabolism, don’t you know?”

A posh sigh. “Point is—aside from how out of fashion viral binge eating is right now—I simply don’t have gems to eat. I am more of a, hm, fashionable pony rather than a culinary one when it comes to shiny objects. You’d best have to go somewhere else for that kind of agreement.”

Before any more arguing is made, Twilight calls upon Rarity to check out a new spell she has just learned. All Spike could do is to follow. Best not to make a fuss out of it for now. One Rarity down.

But Spike prepared a back-up plan just in case the deal went wrong.

The footage showcases a dark and damp place, rocky here and rocky there with nary a source of light. Nothing except for his miner’s helmet.

“Hey, everyone, especially to all you claw pals! Welcome to the second episode of Unboxing with Spike, Season Two! Today, we won’t just be unboxing things! No, we’re going straight to the source on this very special episode!”

Rarity, the one from Ponyville, moans at this little project of his in the local caves. At this point in the script, she is about to introduce herself to the audience, mining helmet and pickaxe and all. To think that the dragon from the other side used exposure as leverage. Still, it ought to give her some notoriety on Earth—of course, with considerable payment from Spike himself; to sell herself short would mean death to her business in the long run.

Despite the business savvy, Rarity rolls her eyes seconds before Spike aims the camera at her. “Such frivolities, such vanity! Why do you post-humans gather in the tens of thousands to see someone else merely open a box?”

Cocoons

They sit on a hill and hide in a bush: two changelings in black chitin and with hole-riddled legs. The prison below lies under their binoculars-powered watch. Night’s cover provides them another layer of concealment.

“Know what, Humerus? I take it back.”

“Take back what, Nastic?”

“Everything I said about stakeout: wearing you down, keeping you numb, so on. Maybe that’s true for the newbies, but we’re no newbies. We’ve got royal escort training while she was still our head—by the way, isn’t the Thorax from the other side a king? Anyway, I’d say stakeouts aren’t too bad. Adrenaline alone won’t save the day.”

“Psst! Someone’s coming up the hill! You think it’s her?”

A pair of ears first before the rest of the body comes into view: a red-maned unicorn with a knack for ladybugs judging by her cutie mark. A camera is slung around her neck, her gray green coat blending with the grass underneath.

Her gaze turns to their bush. “Your undying loyalty will be rewarded, my subjects. Follow me into the woods.”

In unison, “Yes, your Majesty.”

The two changelings don pony disguises, wearing cameras in imitation of the visitor. They trot towards the nearby forest, stopping sometimes to take good landscape pictures. Potential onlookers would be none the wiser. We’re just nature photographers! Nothing suspicious to see here!

A minute into the forest, there is no way anyone would still be on their tail. The disguises are shed in brilliant flashes of light, revealing the changelings’ true forms. The mare, in her transformation, shows her true height and her true figure: size larger than life, translucent mane and tail damaged with their own holes, punctured wings of shining fragility. A flash on her head bestows upon her a crown of jewelry and gold.

Her two subjects fall to their knees. “Our One True Leader, Queen Chrysalis!”

Her fanged teeth prop up a sinister smile. “I must apologize for the wait. I had to ensure that President Thorax”—the word rolls off with audible venom—“and his misguided lackeys became complacent enough with their spiels of ‘mercy’ to relax jail security.”

“The revolution against you was a horrible betrayal!” yells Humerus from out of the blue. “Now that this great magic Change has occurred, the tides turn in our favor! What is the next step to your royal restoration?”

Her irises shrink in focus. She notices that her subjects would never have her more human-like eyes, stuck with their more buggy and complex equivalents. “It is convenient that we are changelings now, yes? So we do what shapeshifting creatures do: shift our shapes. Infiltrate, disguise, deceive—covert operations and espionage taken to the next level! We will not need a battle in the open for, in the end, our enemies will battle themselves in their own foolishness.”

A growl is sent in the direction of her prison: her home for her post-revolution years, the years since the pretender Thorax took over as the leader of the Cambling Republic, renamed from the Grand Monarchy of Cambling from olden days.

“Thorax has led my people astray, the people whom my forefathers and foremothers have entrusted to me since the crown was placed upon my head! Instead of a caring mother who will do anything for her citizens until death do them part, they have in my place custodians and hirelings whose goals are exorbitant pay and reputation! The monarchy and its rightful throne must return—and, for your loyalty to crown and country, you shall be rewarded beyond measure.”

Nastic nods. To play such a part in returning something great, to hear his heart pound and see the future resurgence of the way things must be—“Shall we spread your word to the others?”

“Yes! Spread word of my freedom! Do not bother hiding my escape, for the prison guards will know eventually. Their so-called ‘freedom fighters’ shall have fear struck into their hearts.”

“But, where will you go?” Humerus asks, concerned.

“Substandard conditions and living on the run do not faze me. They are the cost of my noble mission. To be fair, sleeping in a monarchist sleeper cell will boost morale too.” A hiss unveils her forked tongue: a welcome addition in her arsenal of intimidation and terror. “Now, lead me to your hideout; that shall be our base of operations. From there on—“ a cackle ripples through the air “—we’ll make our move.”

The three changelings then fly off farther into the forest’s depths.

Expecting the Unexpected

Doctor Smart Apple has his attention occupied. A married couple are the recipients of such in his office. “… Plus, the extra two or three months should give you more time to prepare for the foal than you would have had before the Change.”

Orange Laser nods in meek understanding, her wings flapping in anxiety. A frantic Monolight, meanwhile, levitates the brochure before him in a gray glow: a guide to taking care of a pregnant mare and how to deal with one’s own foal.

“How normal would my birthing be?” She rubs her belly: no visible bigness yet, normal for being a week into the cycle. “Do I have to stand up like the old horses or do I have to lie down like a human?”

The doctor winces at the former idea. “We do it the latter way. It is strange to hear of horses giving birth like that: standing up and having the foal ready to run in a matter of hours. But that is then, this is now… well, and we also have the option to have a unicorn levitate the foal through the process, but it’s experimental back in Equestria and progress is rightfully slow because we can mistakes. You surely do not want your child to be a test subject, as do most mothers—which is why we only apply it to life-and-death situations. Things would hopefully not go so downhill for you.”

Laser’s ears flatten in fear. Grunts from Monolight come through, worried as he attempts memorization of the entire guide and be his own wife’s doctor if the real one’s away. “How different is it,” he asks, “taking care of a foal instead of a human baby?”

Smart Apple prepared for the question; it has been a common inquiry among humans. “Not that much different. Crawling and walking are not too different from each other, but that is all. Oh, and you may have to deal with surges depending on your foal’s tribe.”

The couple behold each other, discerning their significant other’s features—the horn on Monolight, the wings on Laser. In the stallion’s curiosity, “What are the chances of us having an Earth pony, doc? Both my parents turned into Earth ponies, but hers are all pegasi.”

A cluck of the tongue indicates the doctor’s thinking. “It’s mostly a fifty-fifty chance of unicorn or pegasus with a very slim chance of Earth pony. Though, if you remember your genetics lessons, he or she will have a greater chance of having Earth pony offspring later on: recessive traits, as you know. On the side, we historically would not be able to know what tribe your foal would be until Laser’s due, but we have been doing our best to adapt to your—what do they call it, hypersounds?—without the foal’s magic messing the technology.”

“Ultrasound,” the couple reply together.

The correction is acknowledged. “With that being said, you do have to prepare for your foal’s surges. Pegasi are a hoofful when they get their wings fully functional: easy to slip away from you, especially since only one of you is a pegasus. Unicorns? They’re going to have a period of swells when their body can’t control their growing magic levels: they could levitate things en masse, teleport here and there, and, in the worst cases, cause explosions and walk through walls. On the slim chance you get an Earth pony: they won’t know their strength which can lead to tearing half of your house down on accident or getting sensory overload while being in touch with the soil or while inside a forest—they can end up growing a lemon tree out of nowhere in a few seconds, if you did not know.

“And, of course, I expect you to read the guides on cutie marks, how to balance freedom and duty there, no matter how early or late they get their cutie mark and no matter what that cutie mark may be. Harmony can and will lead them in ways you cannot see.”

Monolight runs a hoof through his sweaty forehead, bumping his horn. “It sounds like our foal’s a criminal in a maximum-security prison.”

“I wouldn’t put it that way. But, knowing how baby humans sound much tamer from the stories I’ve heard, I understand your concern.”

A little smile lets out. “However, I think you do understand that you signed up for this. You were willing to go on, get married, and raise a family even after the Change and after you’ve heard truthfully that baby ponies are harder to take care of than human ones. The cost does not change because of your sincerity, but I do admire those who want to take it to the next level anyway.”

Something warm falls over Laser’s heart. “Human or not, we still want a family. A little bundle of joy or two, someone to send to the future with a big heart… especially, since you’ve got magic friendship and a literal Princess of Love.”

A chuckle comes from the Apple doctor. “I bet you can say that.”

Oblivious of Smart Apple’s comment, the couple smile in a daydream. Thoughts of their future foal come to mind: cuddling cuddles and nuzzles, showers of gifts and love, all under the rising sun. While waking up at night to coddle them from crying too much or changing diapers with their jaws taint the vision, the fantasy ends in the family playing around and laughing until the sun sets, maybe with a younger sibling, on an open grass field.

“Oh, what should we name them?!” Orange yells in excitement.

The doctor shakes his head. “I suggest you wait until after the foal’s born—“

“Toffee sounds good!” Monolight suggests. He rubs his rumbling stomach. “Chocolate Toffee, maybe?”

And Smart Apple allows them to wallow in their pre-parent thrill before taking a cup of apple tea. “I suppose Harmony always finds a way.”

Inter-Crush

Preparing a riverside picnic by their road-trip van did not work as planned. Her unicorn friend just played the guitar. Or, more accurately, rubbed her hooves against the strings and produced sounds comparable to music. Unicorn magic is up next, but four days in that magic-riddled body is not enough to lend her equine skills in melody. The guitar player keeps playing the guitar.

Something touches her withers. Maybe the wind, but that is quelled when the touch turns to hoofsteps which then turn into the only other pony out in the middle of nowhere with her.

The Earth pony sits down by her side. The rising sun shines on her yellow face, cheeks pocked with sticker hearts. “Still annoyed about the pony-up thing, K-Lo?”

“Not that per se.” The guitar floats in her magic: something her self-taught “training” got her. “It’s that it ruined the plan.” The river water cascades past the rocks, a speeding fish catching her attention for a second. “Retiring Post-Crush sounded like a great idea at the time, but I miss giving everyone a good time with our music and I know you miss that too. However—“

“It had to be perfect, right?”

“Yes, it had to be! For once, we were about to go off without a hitch: advance top-billing reservations for the Starswirled Music Festival, PR saying it would be a one-off gig with room for a full comeback—we’ve already written half an album’s worth of new material. But then, this stupid pony thing undoes everything!”

“Don’t you mean it kicks everything off?”

K-Lo’s ears fall back in her lack of understanding. “Why would you say that?”

The question does not bother the drummer: it emboldens her. “We have the element of surprise! We’ve been so famous for months post-retirement, I said the world had to literally end to get the spotlight off of us… and it did! Now it’s just gonna be the two of us, driving on a Friday, coming back home, using up our hard-earned—I’m just gabbing on Root Beetles songs again, am I?”

A ray of hope comes in the form of a K-Lo laugh. “One of those rare moments when your extreme optimism pays off, I must say.” A good look at the guitar dampens the mood. “Although, ideally, the plan is to come back with our ability to use our instruments. I have telekinesis on my side, but that’s not enough to reliably play a chord. On the upside, the festival’s got to be delayed after this huge change.”

“That means more time to get things done! And a pony tutor!”

“We’re in the desolate wastelands of Whinneyoming.”

“Who needs Whinneyoming when you’ve finally got signal!” Her phone appears out of her candy-colored mane. “See? They’re already posting tutorial videos on pony things. Now, remember the Rainbooms? The Chance to Prance band? Their rhythm guitarist’s confessed she’s from that Equestria dimension—who would’ve known? But there’s more! Sunset promised she’ll talk about pony music techniques when she gets her hoof feel back.”

The phone is laid on the ground for K-Lo to see. In the vlog’s latest episode, Sunset rambles on about the high metabolism of ponies. A gentle hoof press pauses the video.

“See that poster over there?”

K-Lo squints at said poster on the wall, the video’s low quality to be blamed on the weak signal around these parts. In the end, recognition brightens her eyes. “She’s a fan, isn’t she? Are you thinking what I’m thinking!”

“I don’t know! But, anyway, first thing we do is contact Sunset anonymously. After that, here’s the deal….”

“We’re going to have our first guests coming in from far-away Whinneyoming! Just in time too, you legendary Shimmerers!” (The blush comes from her slip of the tongue: a borrowed phrase reserved for the fans on her gaming channel.) “Sorry I couldn’t get the Rainbooms around, but as I’ve said last episode, they’re busy getting their own pony affairs in order. Alright, that’s the doorbell, so they just arrived. Said they’re superstars in their hometown, and they’re ready to rip and shred! Prepare for a jam-packed three hours of live learning and music goodness!”

The door swings open and the levitating camera catches the two surprise visitors on digital film. Unseen is Sunset’s eye twitch and unheard is one skipped heart beat.

“A-are you… y-you are…?”

“Yes, we are! This is K-Lo, that is Su-Z, and we’re here to tell everyone that Post-Crush is back from the dead and back on tour!”

The feed goes black with a thud. The background croaks up gasps. A few seconds of silence.

“Good news, K-Lo, she’s not dead! Sunset’s ratings must be skyrocketing through the roof!”

“Sunset just fainted.” Scrambled clip-clopping of hooves. “I’m calling 911. Um, Shimmerers—is that the right term? Anyway, legends, we’ve experienced some technical and personal difficulties. See you on tomorrow’s episode...?”

Tender Love and Care

“Here’s my homemade burgers, you lovebirds!”

That’s enough to get roaring laughter from the table’s griffon and hippogriff occupants. Hot steaming hamburgers with delicious scents assault their senses: bacon, beef, pork, mushrooms, ketchup, four different kinds of cheese, and two buns in between The fast-food buffet is up for grabs: four burgers for Gallus, four burgers for Silverstream, and four burgers for the cook herself.

Ocellus fixes the apron over her chest, secretly happy then sad that none of her vegetarian best friends could enjoy her greasy cooking anymore. Smolder is the gem-eating wild card, but her loyalty remains with Sandbar, and if Sandbar couldn’t eat meat, then Smolder wouldn’t either. “I am curious. Can I ask again why you invited me to your date? I can tell it’s not just for the cooking.”

Gallus lids his eyes as a claw rests on Silverstream’s withers. “Love counselor. Isn’t that obvious?” A shake of the head and a roll of the eyes means Ocellus gets the joke. “But, of course, you make the meanest sliders and fixings in town.”

A huge chomp is heard, and the griffon takes a gander at his hippogriff fiance digging deep into the burger. Oil and ketchup drip from her beak. “This is delish! What did you put in here?”

Sincere flattery puts pink blushes on Ocellus’ chitin cheeks. “Oh, it’s nothing special! Just some TLC: a dash of love and a cup of care!”

While Silverstream digs in some more, Gallus hesitates before biting. “You mean that last one metaphorically, right?”

“No, really! That’s how they do it back home these days.” Mischief could be found in small traces if one closely examines her smile. “Here, I’ll show you.”

From her apron shines a jar of glass. Inside, magic clouds of pink something swirl around.

Gallus is engulfed by a gulp. “Don’t tell me it’s what I think it is.”

A hint of shapeshifting magic brings four cute fangs to life in her mouth. “It is what you think it is.”

Silverstream stops mid-bite. “Wait. This whole time, you took our love and cooked it?”

“More like used it as seasoning. It’s a dash of love, after all. Still, what do you think? Does it enhance the flavor?”

The lovebird duo exchange curious glances. They planned this date with love in the air but never expected it to be in the frying pan too.

Silverstream speaks up first: “It’s great! The burger at least. Not sure if I can taste the actual literal romantic love between me and Gallus, but it’s certainly tastier than last time, that’s for sure!

“If that’s so,” moans Gallus, “this is the worst Romuleo and Jennyet rip-off I’ve heard of.”

“At least we are Romuleo and Jennyet! Except for the bad ending—eh, just ignore that! We’re living the dream, Gally! Woo-hoo!”

Her unending excitement lures her lover in. Eyes close halfway, a laugh of amour comes about, and the two bird creatures lean in for a nuzzling.

“Oh, can you just kiss already?”

That steals the admirers’ attention from each other. Ocellus hovers a couple feet away, chewing on her own burgers.

“Yeah, this is gonna get awkward pretty fast,” Gallus says.

Silverstream giggles and lands a smooch on him. Before he could banish the blush from his flustered cheeks, she replies—much to the stirring squees of the changeling— “Just roll with it, Gallus. We’ve got a love bug here.”

The two nuzzle each other affectionately and even land kisses on the cheek. All the while, a love-hungry Ocellus calls out, “Would you like me to prepare a candlelit dinner too?! I’ve got jazz music and sparkling grape juice!”

It Ain't Easy, But It's Worth It

A pony head pierces the curtain from the stage’s side. The stallion yanks his head back into the backstage. “Ready for the big speech, Mister Seabreeze?”

“Yes, I am ready. Hopefully I’ll get the last laugh before these clowns take their potshots at the world’s smallest head of state.” Sitting on a high stool, the breezie shines in his sophisticated suit and tie. That his assistants stand orders of magnitude bigger than him is a bother but only of the little sort.

After the announcer on stage formally introduces the leader of the now breezie-populated Gaothlub, it’s show time. Seabreeze glides the winds onto the lectern, paying no heed to the cameras carrying blinding flashes nor the applause which experience tells him is scripted but respectful. An audience of various creatures line the chairs: ponies (Equestrian or Earther, he cannot tell), griffons, yaks, deer, etcetera and so on and so forth ad infinitum.

On the front row sit an adorable horde of breezies: his fellow citizens, having gone from ordinary humans to frail butterflies with hooves. Nations from around the world forked out relief goods and relief efforts to make things bearable for the shrunken population: from big houses to tiny cottages inside mushrooms, tree trunks, and the crooks and nannies of attics everywhere. The result was the shell of a ghost town hiding centers of commerce if one checks the colony of fungi by the corner.

An ahem forces out of his throat; the microphone, two or three orders of magnitude bigger than him, picks it up. If it were a week after the change, many creatures would laugh at him: Did you drink a glass of helium this morning?! Truth is, he did not drink a glass of helium this morning nor in any of the mornings before. No one will laugh at his pitch-shifted voice today. Greater matters lay ahead.

“I thank you all for being here. This grand paradigm shift was a surprise to everyone even with our utmost attention paid to the pockets of magic found in Amareica. You have heard my fellow leaders speak about it, so I shall dispense with the general history and get you up to speed on how we—what Equestrians call breezies—have fared in the aftermath of this magic storm.

“It is true: We declined in our stature in more ways than one. We have grown too small for our homes and workplaces, physical fragility complicating our efforts to grasp this magic. Our cities stood still in the chaos. A great economic crash would have devastated the country were it not for the miraculous efforts of our friends in the global community and benevolent nations from our neighboring universe.

“But I will not ask you to pity us. We may be small, but we Gaothlubians, we breezies, have taken matters to our own hooves. With our can-do attitude, we’ve turned our weaknesses into strengths: for example, our electronics and computing industry. We may no longer type or code as fast as we could anymore, but our size grants us the ability to make literal cottage industries for circuits and transistors, and you have heard the tales of how we made our own keyboards and other input devices fit for our sizes. We are also lucky to have a whole new market opened to us: Many Gaothlubians are pioneers in Equestria’s modernization campaign that they may experience the benefits of twenty-first century technology.

“While some of our businesses will and have faltered—as is the case with our car manufacturers closing down—new commodities rose up, catering to the new needs of a new world. These hard times have turned many of us into industrious workers and thinkers, helping themselves and each other up as they made local weavery to expand the expressions of our culture, small arms with which to defend ourselves as we re-organize our military, and magic potions and spells that provide many quality-of-life improvements to the way we live. We may be rocked by change, but you can never say we run away from it. No! We have charged right into it!

“And what about our population? It’s true that disaster can bring out the worst in us, but I am glad to report that the inverse is much more true: that disaster can bring out the best in us. For every photo of an abandoned house or a decrepit store, there are ten more of breezies bringing in multiple families and even whole communities into their doorstep, turning the living room into a brand-new village where the values of hard work, happiness, and justice reign supreme.

“Here we are, half a year after the Change. See where we are now! Companies, countries, and so many creatures look to us for support, and our work is still cut out for us. Many counties seek full restoration and reclamation, and we receive daily assistance from Equestria’s Breezie Kingdom on these efforts.”

His tiny sigh is barely recorded. “I am human. A better term would be person. I’m a person, and a fallible one at that. As president, I’ve seen and prepared many emergency plans, but a magical mishap on this scale had never been on my mind. When I and my family transformed into breezies, I thought the end of the world was at hand: how could we recover from turning into tiny little fairy horses? Forget about popularity, ratings, debates, and policies: I was afraid. I was scared.

“But when I took the office of presidency years ago, I sacrificed myself to a greater cause: the nation, the people I was responsible to. Even when we’ve turned into storybook fantasy creatures and even when magic spread around the world to usher us into an uncertain future, I could not let personal fears get in the way of serving the people.

“I did not give up. Our people did not give up. Behold Gaothlub now: we have persevered and prospered. This is only the beginning. We will rebuild, we will thrive, and we will seek greater harmony than ever in our nation and the extra-global village of both worlds.

“So, from what so many have called the smallest head of state in the world, let me say: Thank you. Thank you all for your support through these past six months. May this new age of magic and wonder ascend beyond our wildest dreams.”

A second of silent amazement is enough time for Seabreeze to return to the backstage before the audience erupts in earsplitting applause.

“How’d it all go?” asks his stallion bodyguard, looking at him eye-to-eye.

Humble arrogance flashes through the hovering breezie president. “Could’ve gone better, don’t you think? Asking me to make a rousing speech like that is a tall order.”

“I don’t think so. You’re pretty good at public speaking.”

“You didn’t get the joke, did you?”

It does not take long for the groan of realization to kick in. “I wish I could squash you right now!”

“Assassinate me and my fairy spooks will come after you, buddy.”

The two creatures share a laugh and, later, a drink over it.

Roll for Irritative

“Sorry I’m late! Didn’t know you guys moved. Good to see yer’ enjoying yer’self, big brother! Uh, y’all late too? Why’re you just settin’ things up? Snips, where’s Trixie?”

“Today’s just gonna be me, Snails, you AJ, and your brother. Spike’s supposed to debut this time—long story—but Twilight’s got him tied up on a magic experiment.”

“At least Trixie’s character’s trapped in a dungeon. We could do some quest-findin’ in the local tavern, then?”

“Nothing too big though. Taymer-Eel guards keep witches in the dungeon for a month before they move them to the penal colony of Arzkabell, so we’ve got lots of time. Hope Trixie doesn’t mind.”

“I reckon. Speakin’ of Trixie, why’s she missin’ out? I thought Ogres & Oubliettes is her favorite game in the world!”

“You know Trixie: Always looking for a way to spice things up with more magic. That’s why she’s Trixie the Great and Powerful!”

“And how exactly is she bein’ Great and Powerful right now?”

“Taking a trip to Equestria and taking an O&O guest session there. See how the locals do the fantasy genre in a real-life fantasy world. She’s so smart like that!”

“So you’re telling Trixie this campaign is set on present-day Earth. With humans.”

“Why, yes, you cross-dimensional transplant. That is par the course for your world’s Witches of the Shore diversifying their portfolio. What did you expect, Miss Great and Powerful? Something we’re all used to like, oh, I don’t know, a magic fantasy land?”

“Oh, well, why, yes, Discord the Lame and Miserable! I came here to learn the best of the best in the most magical environment possible! I even have this world’s Big Mac and Spike to bring about maximum magic knowledge!”

“Uh, I signed up to be Garbunkle the Prench Mad Scientist just to enjoy an Earth campaign. Also, shouldn’t you be asking Twilight for maximum magic knowledge? She is the Princess of Friendship, a librarian too, and a crazy powerful spell-caster.”

“Anyway, I didn’t come here to be regaled by scenarios in boring old pre-magic Earth. Discord, you’re the one with all this powerful chaos magic—that’s what I’ve heard around town. Show me how magical this game can really get!”

“Even though you have actual magic in your world now?”

“Yes!”

“You are an idiot.”

“Prove it!”

Talons snap, a bright flash is had, Trixie is gone.

The rest of the playing party check their surroundings, wearing the costumes of their main campaign characters.

“Uh, Discord?”

“Who is Discord? This is Captain Wuzz speaking, Garbunkle. I am the archer who’s taken away Trixie and, thus, destroyed her silly idiocy over tabletop gaming.”

“In simple Ponish?

“In a heavily-guarded dungeon over the hill, Spike. Multiple ways of approach to satisfy your creativity: come in weapons blasting like that crowbar nut or sneak around like some solid snake. Either way, Trixie will face the most cliched fantasy military operation possible, complete with inept guards, treasure chests everywhere, and—no offense—full-grown dragons.”

“Discord? I know you’re not exactly the nicest person in the world, but isn’t this a bit too harsh?”

“It’s a win-win situation! We can weld this snippet into our campaign’s canon while having a jolly old time, and Trixie gets to realize that the point of all this is how much fun you have, no matter the setting, in-universe or otherwise! I’m sure her playmates back on Earth will appreciate her change of mind. Now, Garbunkle the Mad Wizard and Sir McBiggun the Fresh Knight of Apple Air, we have a poor wretch to save. Let’s get to adventuring, shall we?”

Immaculate Inning

“Thou desire to purchase our daughter?”

“Nothing of the sort, Mister Pie! We just want to loan her for a couple of weeks. If you’re concerned about her welfare, there’s no need to worry. We have the best training facilities in the league.”

“The best in the league, thou proclaim… on Earth.”

“Yes.”

“Pinkamena is here to commemorate the marriage of her older sister to her betrothed. This business of sports and loaning shall taint this sacred revelry.”

“Then we could arrange for the loan to happen after the marriage!”

“Thy world has souls numbering to a thousand multiplied by tens of thousands. They are many compared to those who inhabit this wide and open land of Equestria. Surely there are a multitude of athletic ponies surrounding thee. They will be found if thou would only but look.”

“That’s the thing. We’ve been given a year to get it all going, but a lot of players are still figuring out how to play football without tripping up on their legs. We also have multiple species playing the sport now—it was made for humans and just humans a century ago, you see—and I don’t want to talk about the horrible mess of meetings that finally got all of us to agree on the new rules to accommodate everyone, but that’s beside the point. The point is: we have heard from our scouts that Pinkie Pie—semi-professional buckball player for Ponyville—has shown she could adapt to our sport quickly. Her natural equinity could be of great benefit to the both of us.”

“Pray tell, what is the great benefit that thou presume to promise for this humble family?”

“I guarantee we’ll win the championship with Pinkie on our side, and you know how championships have big money pools. We’ll give you a lot of bits so you can upgrade this homestead into something more gentrified along with a bunch of other luxuries and amenities.”

“A sober and satisfying life shall never be achieved without peace and contentment in thine heart.”

“But, sir, you have to understand: she’s the best in her buckball position in this world—in both worlds. My scouts say that she’s even expressed implied interest in joining us for the playoffs and taking a football crash course when they talked to her back in Ponyville!”

“I have not heard her express such interest. More over, her actions reveal her interests, that they lie in seeing our second-born unite with her beloved in holy matrimony.”

“If you want, we could come inside your home and work out whatever concerns you may have regarding the arrangement. We’re willing to shell out enough bits to have her home in a jiffy after each game. You value family a lot, and that’s good!“

“Our daughter can look after herself. She will be home on time thanks to Harmony’s mysterious ways.”

“But we can cover everything else! You don’t have to pay a single bit!”

“These designs mean that we confer to thee our daughter’s time and presence. They hold infinitely more value than any tangible gift thou could hope to offer us.”

“Sir, the benefits I’ve yet to layout—and this is not without precedent! Many teams are already pushing the transfer market across worlds and the players they sign are given way more than humane treatment—“

“If thou do not know the meaning of this simple phrase, ‘less is more,’ thou have no right to speak to this family’s patriarch. Now, begone, you pig of greed, and I pray that Harmony and Providence open your eyes to a greater purpose than trophies of temporary gold.”

“Oh, y-yes, well. I see what you mean. I’ll be out of your tail, but the offer is still open if you have any last-minute changes!”

“Farewell.”

“Hi, Dad! I heard you were talking to somepony outside! Who was he?”

“Do not dwell on it too much, Pinkamena. He is merely somepony from the other world, wishing to borrow thee at unconscionable interest for your services in the sport of… football.”

“Amareican or association?”

“I do not know what you speak of.”

“Well, to-may-to, to-mah-to! On second thought, I think I have met some of those guys, but they looked kinda’ funny and were talking about trades and contracts, so I—“

“Hey, Pinkie! I need extra hooves for the rock porridge!”

“Sorry, Dad, gotta go! Limestone needs help with the cooking for like the tenth time in five minutes. Maybe we can talk about it later, right? Right? Oh, I can feel Limestone’s anger going through the roof! Limey Pie, I’m coming!”

Terminal Flights

The little community of Whicker, Ohayo, is most famous for its little domestic airport. A flyover town in a flyover county of a slightly flyover state, its small-town culture is a commodity tourists ignore for other small towns or, worse, mom-and-pop’s conveniently placed in big cities.

That is why its impending closure has caught its passengers off guard.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” grouses Paper Trail. He has arrived from Fillydelphia to visit his grandmother and his rural relatives for Thanksgiving, now eating hayburgers in the cafeteria. “You still have the winter holidays!”

“We’ll be operational until after New Year’s.” The currently-on-break luggage handler, Nerve Bag, is a familiar face to Paper Trail over the years. She takes a bite off of her hayburger and a loud sip of her soda. “Then, this ship’s gonna sink.”

Airplanes come up and down, few in their number. Whereas the turkey holiday packed the stands with an army of aircraft in previous years—Whicker being one of many stops connecting Western residents to the East Coast metropolises—the outside this Thanksgiving’s resembles a dying strip mall’s parking lot on a lazy Tuesday afternoon. The terminal itself takes its cues from an oversized gymnasium with a small hoofful of passengers milling about and snaking around too many staffponies with too much time on their hooves.

“It’s the wings you see,” Nerve says. She points at the one common attribute between the two of them: their wingless torsos. “Census is slow this year, but the results so far say Whicker’s mostly pegasus country. In fact, Ohayo’s a pegasus-majority state. When our neighbor states are also big on the wing department, who needs planes?”

A pegasus couple fly in the sky. Daredevils, racing one of the planes while winged police are hot on their tracks.

“Good to know you’ll still be around for the rest of the year. Grams might have wings too, but I don’t think she could make the trip all the way to our side for New Year’s. I mean, what’s with pegasi and flight anyway? I’ve seen pegasi go on airplanes—a griffon was my seatmate on the way here!” He flails his forelegs up in the air. “My point is, flying yourself is different from sitting on a flying chair in a flying vehicle. I don’t see why airports have to close.”

“It’s experience plus practicality. They’ve already set up motels and stops in the sky. It’s like trucking except you’re not driving anything, you have wings, it’s in the sky, and the only cargo is yourself and whatever you’re bringing—oh, and Feather Express is rolling out pegasus-pulled trailers, if you haven’t heard. There're ponies too old or too young to go hundreds of miles, but for everyone else, it’s cheaper than a flight.”

He slumps. Drinks an ounce of watery soda. “What about me? There’s non-winged creatures in the world too.”

“Well, we’re planning to liquidate the whole thing. The board’s investing in some cheaper flight alternatives. You probably didn’t catch it, but we did a test run of zeppelins back in September. Was decent, but it wouldn’t be enough to keep up an airport for planes.”

“Blimps, huh?”

“Yeah, blimps. By the way, that’s Equestria’s most advanced flying vehicle. I swear, we’re in this weird limbo where we’re progressing and regressing at the same time, but it doesn’t matter because magic.”

A phone rings. “Oh! Uh, sorry, Nerve. That’s Grams, so I gotta scram. Don’t want to ruin everypony’s day by being late.”

“Oh, okay! See you on the trip back home?”

“Yeah, see you.” He stands up and trots away from the table. “Um, hello, Grams! Yeah, Happy Turkey Day to you! No turkey this year, you say? Oh, right.”

Meteors from Millville

“Aww, it’s cute that you’re doing this, Flash!”

“Don’t mention it, Sunset. After seeing you stressed out on the last vlog, it’s the least I could do.”

The least he could do was buying Sunset tickets for today’s baseball game at Canterlot City’s ballpark for big league action—nine innings of being together with a snuggle or two.

As the pony athletics trotted to their places on the field, Flash continued, “It’s amazing how fast they adapted to all this: all the practice, the training… and, you know, the ponying they had to do.”

“So pretty much Equestrian baseball?”

Flash blushes. “Save for the non-ponies in the field, yeah. I didn’t even know Equestria had baseball.”

“Heh. Parallel worlds are parallel. At least baseball plays a much larger role in the pantheon of sports here. Back there, it’s something a couple farming villages can compete in and not much else.”

And with that, the game begins, with an Earth pony holding a wooden bat with his mouth.

“See that guy?” Flash points at said guy along with hundreds of other ponies taking pictures of him. “He’s Mackerel Trout. Used to fish as a kid, but he played a couple games for his high school and… well, the rest is history. He’s very good.”

“Yeah? How good?”

On cue, Mackerel Trout swung his head around and struck the ball, sending it soaring across the sky.

Sunset beams, surprised enough that her horn lights up for a second. “Wow! That’s powerful! I’ve never seen a pony do something like that before!”

“Yup!” Flash nods, eye still on the ball. “And he runs fast to and… yup, that’s a home run and then some. It’s going and going and going and…”

But Sunset’s smile drops as that ball dips into familiar territory. “Wait a minute. That’s going way too far. Wait, wait, is that going straight to my—“

“—computer?!”

A snort escapes Sunset as she flicks her tail sharply, levitating her computer’s CPU: crushed into smithereens thanks to a home-run ball having crashed through her brick wall.

Mackerel gulps, still in uniform. “Look, ma’am, I’m truly sorry about what happened. I—“

“I don’t care if you’re some goody-two-shoes big shot!” Sunset yells, hoofing the broken computer to him. “This is way too specific to be a coincidence!”

“Ma’am, I’ve assured you a couple of times already: it’s just a really bad coincidence, and—“

“And how do you plan to pay for this? How much does your team pay you, huh? Do you know I have to do an episode later tonight, and I—“

Flash Sentry steps in between his marefriend and the sports hero, carrying a bag of hay for Sunset to chew on. “Uh, yeah... about that... w-would you mind if you just, uh, walk off outta’ here, Mister Trout? It’s, uh, personal. Personal business. We can handle this on our own.”

Mackerel nods, blushing in embarrassment, blushing at the romantic tension. “Y-yeah, yeah. I see.”

“Oh, and—“ Flash fishes out that fateful ball “—would it be alright if you signed this?”

After Mackerel signs the thing with his mouthwriting, he is politely shoved through the door and out of Sunset’s house. Leaving behind some shouted heartfelt conversation, he leaves the dynamic duo be as he returns to the stadium.

“Hey, we could sell this ball on Ewe-Bray! It’ll get thousands of dollars, enough to pay for a good CPU! Come on, Sunnie!”

“Don’t you Sunnie me!... Stupid Earth pony strength—doesn’t he know this computer helped me get the hang of hands in the first place?! And now he comes destroying that like nothing!”

“But it’s just a—“

“And that ball better be a million dollars!”

Play It Again, Spade

The tapping of the typewriter stops when the incessant door-knocking cannot be ignored anymore.

“Do you mind?” Dashing Courbette says in her highfalutin accent. “Writing a mystery novel with magic is hard enough as it is without riffraff like you!”

“Sorry, ma’am,” says the stranger on the other side. “Important delivery.”

Patting her trench coat’s pockets to check if they’re full, she stands up to get the door. “Fine, fine... but I sure don’t remember ordering anything—“

Hit with an uppercut to the horn, and she goes down. Courbette screams, but the newly-teleported gag on her face does her no favors—along with the tying her body down. She can do nothing as the burglar ransacks the room for stuff and then...

“Ah, yes!” He holds up the typewriter and a box of manuscripts in his magic grip. “This will sell well in the Mareidian black market... oh, you don’t know how many ponies want a piece of salaciously unfinished writing! It’s like literary gold... black gold! Ha-ha! You can’t... w-wait, what’s that?”

And Courbette cocks the pistol in her magic hold. “A gun. Never heard of these before?”

“Argh! I only have knives! Well, no matter! Can’t shoot me when I’m gone!”

In a teleporting flash, he disappears and with him, the typewriter and her manuscripts.

In her pillaged room, she looks on in dismay. Any temporary triumph was vanquished into horror at what lay before her: an empty desk, her hard work down the drain.

Something coming loose off her body: the rope.

Her gag comes off and a face comes into view. “Need a helping hoof?”

Courbette gets up with the help of this newer stranger, holding onto her for support. The visitor wears a thicker trench coat than hers, tied up with a ribbon—and a fedora all ribboned up too.

The unicorn scans her up and down. “Huh. Didn’t expect a fan to help me up like this.”

“Oh, I am not a fan, Miss Courbette.” The visitor bats a heavily-eyelashed smile. “In fact, I’m just the pony you need... and you’re just the pony I need.”

And Courbette blinks, stepping back from this pony’s voice. “You sound just like me! Unless... o-oh, no, th-this can’t be happening, can it?”

“It can happen, and, yes, I’m you from the other world.” She straightens her coat, completing an image too familiar to Courbette to classify as mere happenstance. “However, between you and me: you don’t dive into some private sleuthing of your own, do you?”

Courbette shakes her head still spinning from that uppercut jab. “I... no, I don’t. I used to have a detective for a friend, but that’s all.”

“That’s alright.” The visitor paws the floor in thought. “Earth really hasn’t prepared for inter-dimensional crime... but, really, deep down, I just do the best I can for fellow ponies when not even the Royal Guard and their best lawyers can solve the case.”

And Courbette’s mind clicked. “Wait... y-you’re not just another Courbette... y-you’re... Sh-Shadow Spade?!”

Shadow Spade tips her hat. “The one and only—and I didn’t stutter there, mind you, so you know I play the part well. Living in seedy Manehattan will turn any kind heart to a vigilante.” She takes off her fedora, letting it hang on her ear and exposing her curled blue mane. “I used to just write mysteries like you do. When the Colic Nostra tried to siphon money from me because my stories were too close to the truth, however, I was plunged into mysteries and conspiracies far more sinister than I could’ve ever imagined... so I thought, might as well give them the humiliation of being beaten by some ‘fake hard-boiled detective.’”

Courbette remains in awe as Shadow Spade trots deeper into her room, Spade’s keen eye taking in every single detail—especially the empty table.

“With Earth’s sudden transformation and Equestria’s urgent need to send in aid,” she monologues as she holds up a magnifying glass against the table, “there just wasn’t enough security measures to catch aspiring crime lords. Felons here see Earth as a whole new playground for their filth: so many things here to steal and profiteer from, you see—and then you have post-humans who’re clueless in every facet of magic. Now, that stallion who just broke in your home?” She turned back to Courbette, flashing a smirk for her alter ego. “That’s Seawall Mortis. Once held in high esteem in the Equestrian Royal Navy, he soon realized the hideous pay-off in smuggling Earth trinkets into our world. And that’s why I’m here: to track him down and find out who he works for. Once we make him talk, I’ll be one step closer to figuring out the syndicate behind all of this.”

Courbette gulps. “’We?’ But I’m just a writer!”

"Nonsense! You’re me, and if there’s anything I know as someone who’s written and lived the noir genre, it’s that you’re analytical, you know how to smartly approach a case, and you can think outside a dozen boxes.” She frowns upon seeing the rope again. “Physical strength may be lacking, but that’s nothing a few days of crash course training can't fix.”

She espies a glimmer from Courbette’s holster. “Plus, other than just an extra set of hooves, you know better how to use human guns than I do. Equestria’s felons have no idea what kind of power you have in those tiny portable cannons.”

It makes Courbette stop, now aware of the pistol on her belt. She spins it around in magic, making outdated gun safety regulations cry uncle. “Why, yes, I do know a bit or two about that.”

“Then cancel your appointments for the next few days, dear me!” She stomps on the floor with theatrical flourish, stringing Courbette along by the hoof. “We have a mystery to solve!”

Dark Magic for Dummies

“…and for Canterlot City proper, there’ll be some gusty winds coming in from the coast helped out by the local weather team as they redirect cold air to the city. Over the weekend, there’s a one-hundred percent chance of cloudy days all the way in a Sunday night thunderstorm charging into Monday morning. And as always, if you are an able pegasus, you can chip in for the storm by hauling up water from a nearby lake! And that’s the weather!”

After the commercial break, Open Skies flies to the employees’ lounge, taking a sip of water and hanging out with pundits, technicians, and other reporters taking drinks and snacks.

“So I heard that you’re volunteering for the weather team,” Sunshower says, chewing on donuts and sipping on coffee. “They’re just gonna let you in like that?”

“Oh, they will. I mean, it’s a job I can work on the weekends. It’s bonus money!”

“But do you even know how to use weather magic? I’ve been moving fluffy clouds around since I gained these wings and I still can’t get the storms out right.”

“That’s because it’s a community effort! But there’s also actually being good at it yourself too. I wanted to be super ready for it, so I practiced and got myself a book from Equestria! Look!” and he pulls out a book from his bag.

Sunshower’s eyes widen in horror. “Um, that looks like it’s been necromanced back to life.”

“Yeah, it’s the Necumulicon!” He knocks some dust off the book. “I have a contact who told me it’s Old Ponish for Book of the Sky. Pretty cool, huh? Said it has super effective techniques that’s fallen out of use for hundreds of years!”

“Skies, are you sure you can trust that contact of yours? This has Don’t read me written all over it.”

“Nah, he’s trustworthy. Besides, if it’s forbidden stuff, the weather team could just, you know, stop me because it’s illegal or something. I mean I’m just one pony. Mess the weather magic up and I’ll just zap myself silly and I’ll return the book. What’s the worst that could happen?”

Storms ravage Canterlot City and tornadoes close in from all sides. Police squads and the weather team try evacuate everyone out of the eye of the tornado-hurricane-thunder hybrid with rain strong enough to sting. Lightning sets trees and buildings on fire while winds strip away roofs and cars into the turbulent sky.

Standing at a nearby hill, Sunset and her plucky classmates withstand the tempest, wearing their geodes around their necks as a battered city lies ahead. “Are we seriously doing this again?”

“Hey, at least it’s the weather!” yells Rainbow. “I can totally handle this!”

“Except we’re not all pegasi, Dash.”

“And seriously?” Twi cuts in. “A weather reporter caused all this?”

“Welcome to Equestrian Earth,” Sunset replies, “where dark magic can corrupt any well-meaning rando’ into causing city-level destruction.”

“Hey! I resemble that description!”

“That was more of reality-level destruction. And transformation.”

But lightning strikes again, scaring everyone out and Twilight charges forward. “Less talking, more saving the world! Let’s go mares!”

Meet the Sparkles

“About time I met the royal family, Twi!”

The unicorn snickers at the front step of her home. “Just because I live in a manor doesn’t mean I live like royalty, Timber!”

The Earth pony eyes her suspiciously. “There’s a Princess Twilight Sparkle across the portal, so it’s close enough.”

They laugh at that as they enter the Sparkle family home to hang out. Not to date. That’s what she insisted no matter what her friends said about it. Even Sunset wished Twilight well on her totally-not-a-date hang-out.

“So—” Timber blushes already “—it’s been, uh, six months. Sorry I couldn’t see you right after the whole magic ponifying thing. Had to literally weed out literal monsters from the camp and get it in working order.”

The tinkle of bells perk his ears up. Twilight levitates a pair of bowls for snacks, and Timber switches between her glowing horn and the glowing bowls, both in a raspberry glow. “Oh, wow! That’s so—“

“Cool, right? Rarely see unicorns at camp?”

“Yeah. Turns out we live in Earth pony country in the Everfree Forest. Whole family’s turned to Earth ponies, actually.” The bowls land on the table and the magic glows disappear. “So what’s it like, floating things around with unicorn magic?”

“Well, it’s not that ground-breaking. All it’s like is—“

“Oh, hello!”

They look up, seeing Twi’s dad walk in with a newspaper in his magic grip while writing neatly on the crossword—pencil also in his magic grip. Even his coffee cup floats in his magic. He puts both newspaper and coffee down on the table.

“Uh, um—“ Timber gulps “—hello, Twilight’s dad!”

“It’s Night Light,” he says. “And... hey, you must be the Timber Spruce my daughter’s gone googly-eyes over since the field trip! Wasn’t that Gaea Everfreee monster your sister?”

“Ah, yes, lots of people know my sister! She’s quite the personality! But they often forget that it was I who made sure the camp was safe and sound by saving Twilight here from a nasty fall off the docks!”

It’s met with a Twilight giggle. “It wasn’t even—“

“I’ve heard of that,” says Night Light with a nod. “You’re a brave fellow! Now I’d like to stay and chat, but I’ll see if I can make a thaumaturgical formula that will fill out the crosswords automatically.” With a wink at his daughter, “Thanks for the spell book!”

Timber leans back on his chair. “What?”

“Yup. Ever since my family all turned into unicorns, I decided I’d do more than just help them cope. You could say I’ve given them advanced magic lessons.”

“How advanced were these magic lessons of yours?”

Screams arise as a barrel shoots past them, flying like a rocket through the rooms.

Timber shakes his head. “Wait, was that your mom?!”

“Yeah! I helped devise a barrel-propulsion system that would scan any structure it is placed in and map waypoints across it so it can fly around without crashing into anything. It’s big enough to fit the whole family, but Mom’s having a hey day over it!”

Timber chuckles at the magical madness on display. “Uh, yeah. If you didn’t tell me, I thought your mom had become a witch, broom and all.”

“Oh, flying brooms?! Why didn’t I think of that? Ha-ha-hah! Oh Timber, you should join my experiments more often! I know I’m not all big on this crazy little thing called ‘common sense’ so, heh-heh...”

Twi turns around to see her brother standing by an open doorway, levitating a notes-filled scroll with his magic. “Oh hi, Shiny! This is Timber Spruce!”

And Timber looks at the muscular hunk of a stallion before him, gulping at his unreadable face. Musters up a cheerful, “Hi there!”

“I see,” is what Shining can manage. Looks down at his sister’s crush, analyzing him from head to hoof, reading the scroll for a second before looking back at him and slinking away, eyes still on him until the big brother disappears.

Timber looks back at Twi. “What’s that all about?”

Twi sighs. “Oh, you know how big brothers are even with my B.B.B.F.F.”

“Heh. He’s reading up on me, huh? At least he cares a lot for you, doesn’t want to see you hurt—“

“He wasn’t reading about you.”

Timber scratches the back of his head. “Then what is it?”

“A scroll on magic traps. I lent him that since he told me he wanted to protect the house against intruders and—oh, uh, um, oh no... I-I didn’t know he thought you’d be an intruder!”

Timber shows no sweat at all despite his nervous smile. “No problem! Give it time! Shining and I will be bros before you know it, right? Now about those imported oats I brought along...”

After a quick snack, they move upstairs. Hallways give way to less modern housing and more ivory walls. Even a couple faux stained-glass windows hung here and there.

“So you’re leading me to your mad scientist lab, huh? Because this looks more like a witch’s tower than a lab so far.”

“It’s because the builders of this house were the only medieval enthusiasts in the city. It wasn’t anyone’s house for a long time: switched hands between LARPing location and haunted house every once in a while. Was ‘till my parents bought it on the cheap and renovated it since no one else knew how to deal with this tower.”

“So your modern science lab is in some medieval ivory tower?”

“Why ask me when you can finally see for yourself?”

Twi unlocks the metal vault door with a hoof-scan. Seconds of gears and magic locks turning pass, and then: the lab.

The lab possesses the usual machinery along with standard science paraphernalia beaker tubes and graduated cylinders along with wires and computer screens spewing out gigabytes of data per second. However, there also lay newer, mystical additions: old dusty tomes bearing arcane symbols, scrolls boasting magic runes and other sigils, potions from enchanted plants, and kooky artifacts from dig sites across Equestria. A fancy old chandelier hung from the top, completing the lab’s schizophrenic aesthetic.

All the while, Spike takes notes and munches on a couple gems. He stands to attention at the ponies’ approach. “Hello there! Didn’t expect to see the both of you here!”

Timber ignores the ex-canine and stands in awe, turning in circles to capture the entire laboratory panorama. “Wh-what? But the lab pictures you sent me online—“

“Were from before the Change, silly! After the Change, it was simple: I turned into a unicorn, magic was a valid field to study in, and the next thing I knew, I was getting magic lessons and buying books and potions and magic equipment from Equestria en masse.”

“And… Spike too. Your talking dog.”

“Dragon,” Spike corrects. “Talking dragon.”

“Right. Little buddy, how’re you taking things?”

Spike shrugs. “Eh, it’s not too different. ‘Cept now, I can breathe fire and eat gems. Walking on two legs isn’t as hard as I thought. I mean, it’s so easy, you should try it!”

“It’s not that hard, you just—“ almost falls over trying to stand on two hooves. “Oh, hardy-har-har. Very funny, Spike.”

But the dragon scampers away to the beat of a disappointed Twi’s shaking head. “Who knew Spike was a prankster all this time?”

“Yeah, who knew? But at least I got a good impression of your family. They’re pretty cool.”

“That was a good impression?! Oh no, that’s just the start of it! You should come over tomorrow for our weekly O&O family sessions!”

“Let’s take it one step at a time and let today guide us!” but he blushes at how fast Twi’s taking it. “So... uh, where were we?”

Twilight giggles one more time, levitating a witch’s hat onto her head. “Peer research!”

Timber sighs. To himself, “So this is what a date with a sorceress feels like.”

Quibble's Trifecta

“That vegetarian Canterlot plague again, huh?” Quibble asks Clear Sky as his fingers grab the burgers from the cashier.

“It is trending, after all,” she replies beside him, followed by her freshman daughter Wind Sprint. Passing by long lines of people standing around, they get a table in the fast food chain and unwrap the burgers from their covers. “Still no other symptoms other than the rare craving for hay.”

Wind Sprint stares at her meaty pulled-pork burger. “Do you think it’s magic?”

Quibble laughs at the idea and sips on soda. “Of course, not! What makes you say that?”

The teen arches a brow. “Like the rumors of Gaea Everfree being real in Camp Everfree? Or the Rainbooms’ music videos where they pony up? Or the time someone leaked footage of the Rainbooms’ concert versus the Sirens? Or what about multiple amateur videos on TackTube where they film their concerts and they keep ponying up? Or footage of a giant woman rampaging through Canterlot Mall? Or even—”

“You’ve watched way too much Z-Papers or Professor How! It’s either unsubstantiated rumors or top-notch special effects. Haven’t you seen what deepfakes can do these days? I mean, wow, but enough talking. Let’s eat, eh?”

He takes a bite.

And politely spits onto some tissue paper. Clear Sky and Wind Sprint spit more discreetly, wiping their tongue off their disgusting meal.

“What? They’re already putting worms in the burgers already?” and he scratches his head. “This is a new low. Though the lettuce tasted a lot better than last time, I’ll give them that.”

And Wind Sprint’s eyes go wide open. “Wait. That’s exactly the symptoms of the—“

“—Canterlot Plague, I know.” Rolls his eyes. “Seriously, with how sneaky it is and how many tourists go through this fine city of Mareami, I was wondering when we’d finally get this over with.” He chews on the burger’s delicious lettuce as other customers complain about the burgers to the staff. “At least we’re not dealing with measles. Uh, Clear Sky, what’s gotten you glued to your phone?“

“Look at this.”

She turns the screen around for Quibble to see the short MyStable video set in Canterlot. A bright light engulfs a local and disappears, leaving him as a pony with wings and all.

It elicits a groan from the man. “Really? They don’t call Downtown Canterlot Silicon Fields for nothing. That’s some really good CGI... and the physics of that pegasus won’t fly at all. The wings are too small to carry a creature that heavy.”

But Wind Sprint gasps, her face against the screen. “Unless it’s magic!”

“Okay, Wind, enough of magic this and magic that. So you have a bunch of weird rumors ‘substantiated’ by social media. It’s called urban legends. Be lucky that—“

His phone dings and he takes a look at it. A news notification: Unknown magic transformations happening worldwide.

Quibble taps on the news item and skims the article: rough pictures and footage of humans turning into magic pastel ponies and other fantasy creatures across the world. Already, he hears hubbub from the other tables about the same headlines.

Clear Sky looks up to Quibble with a loud gulp, half-standing up from her chair. “Uh, honey? I think we should get somewhere safe. Just in case.”

Quibble snorts eerily like a horse. “The news are pretty desperate for views if they’re hiring amateur TackTube green screen artists. I know a couple of guys who can photoshop this stuff in an hour. These guys are just hopping on the Canterlot plague—turns its patients into vegetarians, so of course it turns them into magic ponies, like that’s a logical progression.By the next forty-eight hours, we’ll hear that it’s some inside job or an internet troll and the world’s back to normal.”

A screaming pegasus crashes into the building across the street.

Quibble sighs as customers stand up and hurry out the restaurant. “Ugh. Sheeple. What else do you expect when everyone’s just eating up the news without checking their sources?”

“You just saw a real-life pegasus outside!” yells Wind Sprint, panicked.

“The pegasus, again, can’t fly with small wings like that. That’s pretty much an animatronic we just saw. Shows they’re very dedicated to the prank, just shooting it through the window like that. Must have a very prestigious degree in robotics and some good lawyers so they won’t get sued for defenestration—“

“Quibble, your ears!”

“Clear, I know we’re probably halfway to freaking out, but this is hysterical. What are ya’ gonna tell me? That I just grew pony ears?

And he touches the now-empty sides of his head. Slowly moves his hand up to find his ears on the top instead. Triangular ears too. And they move.

It only gets a laugh from him, “Alright, nice try, but just putting a battery-powered headband on me while I wasn’t looking won’t scare me. The moving ears are a nice touch: that’s dedication!Now I’ll just get them off and—“

Fails to get them off. Tugs at his skin and head instead.

And Quibble’s eyes shrink. “Wait. It’s real?!”

Then he glows in white-hot magic.

Days after the Change

Clear Sky busies herself with cooking breakfast the unicorn way: flipping pancakes and sunny-side up eggs with a pan held by her magic grip. When it’s done, she hums on the way to the table where a happy Wind Sprint and a confused Quibble Pants sit together.

The teen buzzes her little wings like an insect. “I can’t believe I’m already getting flight classes! Flying on an airplane was cool, but flying on my own is so much better!”

Quibble beholds the family he’s gotten himself into: a lovely unicorn wife with her high-energy pegasus daughter. And he’s an Earth pony with the strength, endurance, and magic of one too.

When his plate of pancakes and eggs levitates its way to the table, he gives Clear a knowing look. “Honey, I think we need to talk.”

Wind Sprint blinks, her buzzing wings screeching to a halt. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing, dear,” says Clear Sky as Quibble stands up. “Go eat your pancakes, sweetheart. Q and I will be back in a minute.”

The two adults trot far enough from the table. Clear snaps a concerned look at him. “What is it?”

Quibble rubs a hoof across his mane. “I just… well, do you get that feeling when it feels like the whole world just turned upside down?”

She purses her lips. “We’re far from the only ones.”

“Sure, but look at this world now! The magic, the creatures, the pegasi, the unicorns, the dragons, the portals, the artifacts… and me! I’m a talking pony with a striped grayscale rainbow for a mane and tail! You’re a pink unicorn and Wind Sprint’s a pegasus! Her wings are too small to carry her and yet they do because of magic!”

Clear Sky sighs, a comforting hoof on him. “And where’re you going with this?”

“I… just don’t know at this point. The world made sense back on Monday, but now, I understand nothing. Physics don’t work the same. Science doesn’t work the same. Rationality doesn’t work the same.”

Clear Sky musters up a smile straight from their dating days. “But at least you have us.”

“Yes, that’s true, but Wind’s got it better than the both of us. She’s read lots of fantasy books and—“

“And that means we can ask her for some help,” she says. “But I don’t think this is like any fantasy book at all. You and I know it’s a lot deeper than that. Just know that we’ll all be there for each other... because I certainly still have a lot to learn about unicorn stuff,” gazing up at the horn strutting out of her forehead for the past few days.

Quibble’s mouth melts into a smile like hers. “Yeah. At least we have each other. Heh. Thanks for the little pick-me-up.”

The both of them share a peck on the cheek. “So no ranting about this and that?”

The stallion shrugs. “Can’t promise you on that. I still have to figure out why in the world those ponies from the other side keep talking about friendship being magic. I mean, it’s not like friendship is an actual kind of they can use to beam others into submission, right?”

“But how is that even remotely a thing? You use the Elements of Harmony as a weapon which is far from being friendly to your enemies. If it were up to me, I’d have a more realistic set of world-saving crystals: there’d be the Elements of Harmony as usual for your friendship problems, but you’d also have the Elements of, say, Power which you can use for the more forceful stuff when necessary like actual attacks and invasions from a rival state. You may say that absolute power corrupts absolutely, but that’s what the Elements of Harmony are for—to offset that corruption, to balance the Elements of Power. And the Elements of Power will offset the Elements of Harmony by not turning ponies into hyper-friendly doormats that will let opposing forces come into town just because they asked nicely. But wait! I have a third proposal on how to fix the problem with the Elements of Harmony and that involves doing away with them entirely. We replace them with a security plan following the chart I have here. If you have some pencil and paper and draw with me, you’ll see clearly that—“

Princess Twilight ends the phone call.

Sunset sits dumbfounded beside her, at table with the other princesses on the matter of Earth-Equestria diplomacy. “What was that?”

Twilight shrugs. “Wrong number. Was wondering when some ex-human would rant about how ‘irrational’ our world is. I mean, the world going around the sun? That’s crazy talk!”

And Sunset bangs her head on the table at the irony.

On All Hands

“So long time, no see, huh, Sweets?” and Sunset drops a couple fries into her mouth. “Sorry I couldn’t get to you sooner. You know, busy with the vlog, the magic lessons, trying to get everypony into the new swing of things. Speaking of, how’s things?”

Sweetie Drops chews on her hayburger in Sweet Snacks Café, letting it become her food to fuel her thought. “Honestly, it’s nowhere near as bad as I thought. I thought it’d be the end of the world, but things didn’t break down. Wasn’t there supposed to be like, you know, cities burning because of transformation chaos?”

“That caught me off-guard too, but I think it’s pretty much harmony keeping us safe at this point.”

“Let me guess: friendship is magic, love is magic, and now harmony is magic too. What else is new?”

It makes Sunset laugh. “But really, how’re you coping with pony life? It’s nice to catch up with you when it feels like I’m a diplomat, a vlogger, and a student all in one.”

“Eh, not that bad too. I had to get used to four legs and hooves, but then everyone else here’s like that.” She turns her hoof around for closer inspection. “These things are surprisingly dexterous. And holding things with my mouth too. Plus those vlogs helped a lot, like the one where we shouldn’t think too much about it and just let our hooves do the work.”

“Heh, that’s my most-viewed video. And thanks!”

Then Sunset spots the empty seat beside the Earth pony. “Huh. I thought she’d be with you here. You know, besties and all.”

“Well... argh, you know. Ever since she got arrested for disturbing the peace at the park, it’s been a roller-coaster.”

“Get away from me! Don’t infect me with any more pony stuff!”

“This is ridiculous, Lyra! We’re both ponies!”

“But no, they’re already eating hay, Drops! They’re neighing around, galloping like actual horses, and everypony is... no! I’m even ponifying the words! I didn’t even think about them!”

“Lyra, please, I need you to calm down! You can’t just fix this in a jiffy—“

“Right! But what if I can?”

“Don’t get any stupid ideas!”

“So you’re telling me she tried to fix it? Even though Equestrian magic’s welded so tightly to this world’s reality, to fix it would destroy the universe?”

“Pretty much. She had unstoppable determination, I can’t deny that. But she’s too stubborn for her own good. At first, it was some innocent stuff...”

“Lyra, what in the world is that?”

“It’s tape! Why do you ask?”

“You’re taping a fork and knife on your hoof. To eat bread.”

“And I wish I could’ve eaten all those cans of corned beef but no, I just had to turn into some stupid vegan unicorn and give it to some griffon next door. I’m pretty sure he’s having the best time of his life.”

“Why are you taping them to your hoof though? Why can’t you just eat with your mouth? Or use your fancy unicorn magic?”

“Because that’s not human!”

“You’re not human!”

“Stop reminding me of magic ponies ruining my life!”

“I’m a magic pony now and I’m at least trying to make my life work! Please, Lyra! If not for your own sake but for mine, would you please...?”

“I can see where the silverware may be a problem.”

“Yeah. Not just the silverware. Didn’t you have to learn how to use hands when you came over here? I just... practiced using my hoof and mouth for everything and Lyra got into it as well. Even if she didn’t do put her heart in it. Still wanted hands, wanted to be human again.”

“Yeah... but wait, you said Lyra started doing silly innocent stuff. It got worse, didn’t it?”

A shake of the head and one long sigh over her half-eaten hayburger. “She... she was so obsessed with the idea of being human again, she started dabbling in dark arts. She understood none of it, but she kept on going until... well, I thought she just summoned death itself.”

“Lyra, is that a monster?!”

“I don’t know! It just came up!”

“Came up where? Wait, that book you’re holding and those amulets... Lyra, what did I tell you about shady ponies in dark alleyways! No... n-no, Lyra, you have hands?!”

“Yes, I have hands and just a few more minutes, I’ll glow and I’ll be a human again! And the shady pony was fine! He... he heard me mumbling about not being human anymore, and he told me he had just the thing to help me get back on my feet.”

“What? I thought you told me he gave you an early Night-terror Night trick-or-treat!”

“Yes, but... agh! Uh, monster still on the loose?”

“Why do you think I’m kicking the thing as hard as I can? Where’s your magic? Have any spells to hold it off until the police arrive?”

“No spells! I know how to stop it! The book told me!”

“Then why aren’t you doing it!”

“Sweetie Drops, I... it’s just, I... my old life...”

“So she destroyed the book. She just had to in the end: the monster could’ve eaten the both of us if she didn’t do it at all. Lyra lost her hands and her chance to be a human again. Not like it’d help her fit in or anything... but she cried for a long time.”

She looks deeply into her empty plate, rubbing an idle hoof on it. “I did the only thing I could do then: stay with her all the way and let her let it all out. She’s such a foal some of the time, but I’ve been with her long enough to know that when she breaks down this bad, what she needs isn’t help. Not yet. All she needs is somepony to be there with her before I can say anything else.”

Wipes a tear. A little smile slowly lifts her muzzle. “When everything was over, I told her that not much really changed. I’m still Sweetie Drops; I’m just a magic colorful pony now. And she’s still Lyra. Being a pony didn’t change her personality or anything: she’s still the excitable girl jumping up and down at everything and playing that outdated lyre like a pro just because no one else does these days.”

And Sunset lets out a smile. “So she got better, then?”

“Yeah. Today is her first time going to Twilight for an hour of unicorn magic classes and exercises. And really, I think you should be the teacher!”

“Hey, my vlog reaches all the unicorns in the world, and I already have my hooves full as is, juggling Earth-Equestria stuff.”

“Ah, I get it.” Sweetie Drops pulls out a couple banknotes as the roller-skates waiter picks up their plates and cups. “I just hope that today gets better. Maybe Lyra ends up learning a nifty spell or two. Or at least finally dosome telekinesis.”

And Sunset lights up her horn. “From what I’ve seen, once you dive into magic, you’ll never want to get out of it!”

After an afternoon of helping other ponies refit their homes to be equine-friendly—complete with door handles instead of door knobs along with tons of power tools—Sweetie Drops wipes the sweat off her brow and heads home.

The front door doesn’t budge. “Uh, Lyra? Are you in there?”

“SD, is that you? Hold on!”

And the door handle glows in a golden aura. Some unlocking sounds later, the door opens as if on its own.

“Wow, Lyra!” Sweetie says as she enters. “You’re finally using your—woah!”

And there’s Lyra sitting on the couch, blanket covering much of her. She reads a book which floats in her magic, hovers a phone playing some of her recorded lyre music tunes, and levitates a hot cup of tea. Growing on her face is an amazing grin. “Why didn’t they tell me that I could up my chillaxing game with magic? This is so cool, Sweets!”

And Sweetie Drops closes the door with a smile. “Glad to see you safe and sound. How was the unicorn thing?”

Lyra levitates everything onto the table and hops out of the sofa. “You have no idea! I can’t believe it myself, but—“ her horn illuminates the room like a light bulb, and she jumps like an excited schoolfilly “—they somehow made magic better than hands!’

Sweetie Drops can only smile even wider. “Let’s talk about it over dinner, Lyra. I’m getting famished!”

“Don’t worry! I already cooked up some hayburgers! And I pumped them up with maple syrup!”

The Earth pony shakes her head with a laugh as the unicorn hops to the kitchen to levitate a plate filled with syrup-filed hayburgers. “Oh, Lyra, never change!”

Anthropocentricity

For Bon Bon, coming home from the Ponyville Market is usually topped with a sing-song greeting from Lyra and the smell of grilled hay and fries. Therefore, coming home instead to Lyra levitating a box full of unknown items doesn’t bode well for her. “Lyra, please don’t tell me that’s what I think it is.”

“Of course, it is!” she says, putting the box down on the dining table. “Here’s some human stuff a couple ex-humans gave me before I left!”

The Earth pony rubs her suddenly aching head. “You told Twilight that you were going to the other world to help the natives out and to study their world. What happens if she finds out you’re hoarding some... some random black rectangles while bringing along some of the locals into this house without my knowledge?”

“Hey, these aren’t just black rectangles!” Lyra holds them up in her magic aura. “This is a laptop and that is a smartphone!”

“Don’t they require some kind of net to work?”

“Internet, and no, not necessarily. They just need electricity! And I brought the chargers too!”

Bon Bon ignores the technobabble and peers into the box, still unimpressed and irritated. “And these books are...?“

“History books and atlases about Earth!”

“Why?”

“Study, duh! I feel like I’m studying in Celestia’s School again with all of this new stuff! Did you know that these ex-humans have these things called nuclear missiles which are like very powerful fireworks but instead of making colorful lights in the sky, they carry super big explosives that can destroy like fifty miles of land and kill everybody?”

“Why in the world are we talking about—“

“And they also like to watch cats online?”

“Like surveillance or just watching because they’re all cute and—“ she shakes her head. “No, I’m not diving into this rabbit hole with you!”

“But Bon Bon, this is a whole new world to study and learn from! And it’s right in front of me! Twilight Sparkle’s our neighbor, she has the original mirror portal in her castle, and I’m not going to throw this opportunity away! It’s a completely foreign field of study! Can’t you see? It’s anthropolo—“

“Fine,” and Bon Bon rolls her eyes. “Just don’t spend every waking hour on it. We have more important things to deal with. For example, I still need your help with making all of the candies for Nightmare Night—“ she gestured to the cart of groceries she parked outside “—like right now.”

“I know, I know!” She puts the books and devices back in the box. “You’ve been yapping about it since Sunday! What exactly do you need to make?”

“Well, we can start with a hundred of those orange-flavored jawbreakers—“

“I’ve got a human recipe book!”

“No. Just, no.”

Lyra pokes her on the shoulder. “I’m kidding, Bonnie! I know what you mean! Say, I can pull some friends into this. What say you?”

A huge sigh escapes her muzzle. “That would be much appreciated. When are they coming?”

“I actually asked them to come by right now!”

“Aww, how thoughtful of you!”

And the two pull in for a hug.

Then Bon Bon’s eyes fly wide open. “Wait. Which friends did you bring in?”

The door creaks open. A familiar voice cries out, “Reporting for duty!”

Bon Bon raises a brow and turns to the guest. “I didn’t expect Derpy to be our help.”

“You didn’t expect a Derpy to be our help, you mean?”

Alarm bells ring loud in Bon Bon’s head. “No, no,what did you do?!”

And more ponies come in: ponies who look like her neighbors but aren’t really her neighbors. Davenport, Octavia, Vinyl Scratch—even Pinkie is here, balancing bags of sugar and flour and saying, “Hello! It’s nice to be here for like the tenth time in one week, but Lyra called and now we’re ready to make this the sweetest Nightmare Night ever!”

At the end of it, the living room is half-full with aproned ponies raring to make candies. It leaves a stunned Bon Bon to ask in deadpan, “Is that all from the… the human world?”

“Almost!” and Lyra whistles at the door. “It’s your turn, you two!”

And into the house come two mares eerily identical to Lyra and Bon Bon. Not even a change of mane style or anything like some of the other former humans Bon Bon herself occasionally saw these days: it’s too much like staring at the mirror, except the mirror can talk back.

“I still have no idea how much of this works,” says Sweetie Drops, “but if your Lyra’s anything like this Lyra here, then something crazy good’s here.”

And the ex-human Lyra nods with her Equestrian self. “I mean, I know a few candy-making tricks, Bon Bon, so I think I’m ready for eating all the—I mean cooking all the candies... yeah! Who’s with me?!”

The ponies holler a war cry, rocking the cottage and wobbling Bon Bon’s legs. Only for Lyra—the Lyra born and raised in Equestria, Bon Bon checks just to be sure—to bump her on the shoulder. “That’s anthropology for you! Now let’s get cracking, eh?”

Parthenogenesis

Secretary Epiprocta hurries to the queen’s office in the royalist hideout, her insectoid wings buzzing over her hole-ridden legs.

She quickly slams the door shut once she’s in. “You said you wanted to see me, Miss Chrysalis?”

“It’s Queen Chrysalis,” snarls royalty herself with only her head visible above the desk, “and you must address me as Your Majesty just like everyone else. I may trust you to keep a secret, but do not forget your place.”

Epiprocta then bows low from afar. “Apologies, then. Must be the secretary routine settling in hard, especially after Sir Compound died in a raid and I had to take his place and… never mind.” Keeping her head low, “You said it was urgent, and I hoped that a less formal tone would also help ease your concerns.”

Chrysalis fiddles with her hooves. “It’s not exactly a threat.”

The secretary looks up. “It is not military force, then?”

“Perhaps it’s worse than that.”

Epiprocta lets out a nasty hiss. “A traitor then in our midst, then! Where is he?!”

“Nothing of the sort!” while Chrysalis waves her hooves in the air. “It’s... well, do you plan on getting married?”

The underling lowers a brow. “I’ve had plans once, but we got cut off at the last minute due to a particular something I could’ve never expected.”

Chrysalis sighs, hoof on cheek. “None of us expected the Change to turn the world upside down.” She shakes her head. “But enough about that. I would’ve asked you about your kids, but I realized you don’t have any.”

“And why are we talking about kids now?”

Her answer is a desk levitating in the queen’s sickly green magic, pushed to the side to reveal the rest of Chrysalis ordinary form sitting on the floor.

And a pile of thick-skinned ovals oozing with a mysterious substance.

A curious Epiprocta takes a step forward. “Are those what I think they are?”

“Eggs!” shouts a bewildered Chrysalis. “I’ve just given birth to all thirty of these in the past hour! I-I’m not married, I’m not even illicitly seeing anyone! This is... this is...“

The secretary hovers to the pile of eggs, landing nearby to examine them closely. “They’ll be fine.”

“I’m sure they’ll be fine, but am I fine?!” She points at herself. “This isn’t how I planned the future of the kingdom to be! Imagine: thirty princes and princesses vying for my throne when I die!” And her eyes bug out. “I’m a mother of thirty!”

Epiprocta rolls her eyes. “You shouldn’t get hung up over this. Equestria’s Chrysalis has been the mother of a million over her thousand-year existence—“

“You’re not helping!”

After a moment of awkward silence, Epiprocta sits down by her side, caring eyes boring straight into the queen’s soul. “Look, Miss—er, Your Majesty. What’s... what exactly is wrong?”

Chrysalis just rocks her head, groaning long. “I think... no matter how long this has been going on, no matter how much I get used to this horsefly body and changeling magic, I still won’t really get used to it. I... I guess having enough love going around in this hideout will eventually make that happen to me—I mean, I know I’m going to lay eggs sooner or later, but having it actually happen is another thing, and…”

She rubs her eyes and groans again. “Anyway, take my mind off of this and tell me how’s the love collection going.”

“It’s going splendidly,” reports Epiprocta with a snarling grin. “We’ve captured some of those colorful imposter changeling couples loyal to the Thorax pretender. That alone will be enough to power us for half a year, and that’s without factoring in the pony lovebirds from last month.”

Chrysalis lightly scratches the desk. “And tell me again why we turned into love-starving predators while Thorax and his ilk get a mostly harmless diet? Just because I bear a striking resemblance to an evil villain from the other side doesn’t mean I should become one and be cursed with this eternal love hunger!” She ends with a dramatic gesture with her hooves.

She smacks an egg away on accident.

“No!” and she flies over to it, picking up the still-solid egg and cuddling it to her face, squishing her cheeks against it. “Don’t you worry, my child! Mommy’s got you! Mommy didn’t mean to do that to you. She was too rash for her own good. Now who’s a good baby? You are!” The queen then showers the egg with kisses. “There, all better now?”

Epiprocta chuckles at that motherly affection. “You’re quite sappy for a queen.”

“Well, these are my children! No matter how unusual and disgusting it is to just pop out thirty babies in the same day, they’re living beings, and they’re my living beings! You better give them the respect they are due as future royalty!”

“And how do you plan to name them?”

Chrysalis’s eyes shrink at that. “A good point to raise up. I think I should spend time naming them. I’ve already spent a decade pondering on what to name my first child. I might as well brainstorm with the others on the matter and much more.”

She narrows her eyes toward the secretary. “I order you to find me mothers who can take care of these eggs. I am ignorant as to how to care for them all, but I am sure you will find capable changelings who can teach me.”

And Epiprocta bows down fast. “As you command.”

Yule Time to Shine

Sunset and Twilight step out of the redhead’s row house draped with glaring festive lights as music blasted from inside. Thick hats on their heads and scarves around their necks, the two mares trot outside on the sidewalk’s thin blanket of snow; around them, the noise of others’ Yule Time parties rage on from other houses and other blocks.

“…and I really can’t imagine what happened with all eight Pie siblings from both worlds at the rock farm,” Sunset goes on in a semblance of staying casual.

The frown on Twilight’s muzzle breaks all pretense.

A sigh from Sunset as they amble onward, away from the house aimlessly. “What’s got you, Twi?”

At that, Twilight breathes out cold white winter air. “Well, it’s Yule Time.”

“Yes, it’s Yule Time. And…?”

Another sharp breath, then a lowering of her head as her ears falter. “And after Yule Time, we get New Year’s.”

“That’s true…”

“And after New Year’s, spring comes up. And you know what happened back in spring?”

“Alright, where’re you going with this?”

Twilight stops in place and stares at her. “The Change.”

It’s Sunset’s ears to falter now. “Oh. Wow… though to be fair, time flies when you’re busy with helping everypony with their pony things. And a vlog on top of that. And the Rainbooms. And correspondence and collaboration with Princess Twilight and her crew. And also my part-time job at The Sushi Shindig.”

“Yeah, I know,” and Twi sits down on the freezing sidewalk. “It’s just… I knew back then on that fateful Monday that it’d be irreversible. But I never truly knew the gravity of that irreversibility. Until now.”

Sunset sits down with her, hoof on her friend’s withers. “Look, Twi, we’ve talked about this before. Remember that it’s not just your fault, and even if it was… you did not have any evil intentions.”

“But I still should’ve listened to you and not just barged into Equestria like a fanfilly. I should’ve been cautious about Midnight Sparkle from the very start.”

“Well, it’s not like you could anticipate every conceivable possibility.”

“Sunset, you’re talking to me, the science mastermind of Crystal Prep and now Canterlot High! If anything, I should’ve mapped it out, gone to counseling sessions about my literal inner demon, and charted my progress on keeping her down with a productivity app on my phone, but no, I was so blinded by my curiosity of all things magic that I dove in without thinking about her, and…”

A cold breeze falls upon them. A chill up their spine, to shiver.

“And now it’s Yule Time. It’s been three quarters of a year in, and I’ve never really noticed how much time’s passed, but now… now I have an inkling of how big this change really is. It’ll get to the new year and then it’ll have its one-year anniversary and then we’ll graduate and go to college or get jobs or both and then we’ll travel the world and some of us will settle down with the best men—no, the best stallions—we could ever ask for and then we’ll have foals who have no idea what being a human really means… and if I live out my average life expectancy, not even a quarter of my life will’ve been human! And it’s not just me, but my friends, my classmates, and it’s all—“

Yellow hooves on her withers, Sunset’s face covering much of her vision. “Breath, Twilight! You’re hyperventilating again! Just breathe.”

And Twilight sucks in a huge gulp of breath. And breathes out. Breathes in, breathes out, taking in the snowy air to cleanse her lungs and clean her soul.

She shakes her weary head. “I’m… I’m sorry if I keep on being like this. So many times… face-to-face, text, calls—I wake up every day, and when I see I’m still a pony and everyone else is still a magical creature, I see my fingerprint on it all…”

Sunset nods, pulling in close for a half-hug. “It’s okay, Twi. I mean, that’s what friends are for, right?”

“But wouldn’t you want me to at least stop… repeating the same things?”

“You’re repeating them less often, so it’s progress,” Sunset says. “I know it’s not easy, feeling like you’ve caused all of this, but look at what’s happened. Aside from a few fires and some blackouts, there was no major damage across the world. I was surprised at how everyone adapted fast and got by well. But it’s a little logical: they don’t have time to ponder about the human past or what they’ve lost. They’ve still got families and friends and school and jobs and companies to get to the next day, hands or hooves.”

A sigh from Sunset. “Life’s messy like that. There’s no clear happy or sad ending because there’s always tomorrow with its own problems. Now, Midnight Sparkle’s gone, the world’s getting on, and yes, this’ll be a long rest-of-our-lives as ponies, but we’ll take it one step at a time, no?”

Twi nods, a smile creeping back onto her face, but it’s stopped—“But what if there’re reatures out there who’ll still blame me? That I should be punished or something?”

“Ever heard of this tiny thing called mercy? Plus, you know it’s not just your fault. I and Princess Twilight should’ve done more research on the portal and on the effects of Equestrian magic in this world. Leaving the portal around without serious monitoring, coupled with reports of magic leaking even as far back as what happened in Camp Everfree… we shouldn’t have neglected that. But the headaches from trying to fix this whole mess is enough of a punishment. Besides—“

“Our past is not today?”

Sunset bumps her best friend’s hoof, glad to have Twilight back in a festive mood. “Now that’s more like it!” and she stands up with Twi, pulling her back up onto her four hooves. “It’s almost midnight. Let’s get back before Pinkie opens up all our gifts, huh?”

“Race ya’ there?” and Twilight stretches her legs and cracks her neck, raring to beat her companion to the metaphorical finish line.

“To get your mind off the sad stuff? Oh,” and Sunset smirks, hopping in place and getting her muscles warmed up against the chill. “I’m the three-time champion of my pony school’s triathlon. You sure about that?”

“Your past is not today!” and Twilight gallops off ahead of her.

With enough pun-fueled rage for Sunset to burn the whole city with: “Twilight Sparkle!”

Reset And... [Them's Fightin' Herds]

Cartdiff is a lush and precious land of grass and forest. It isn’t much compared to most other nations in Foenicia, especially Long-Shan and Cariboue which many to this day call the Old World’s Manehattan, but it is home to the proud and tradition-loving Feltics of which the stereotype of sheep-flooded fields has much truth. Still, the grass is greener on the other side, so tons of youngsters take the opportunity to leave home for a change of scenery like Amareica.

But no one puts Turn into a unicorn in their itinerary.

Least of all, me.

I am a history undergraduate, interested in ancient-era texts and their insights as to how society was like back then. With an intent to collaborate with Amareican archaeologists and to contribute my knowledge of Cartdiff’s primeval pagan practices to the cause of discovering who we were so we can move forward all the wiser, I left my family and neighbors behind for better academic weather.

Things went well at first, taking jeeps to dig sites and consulting real historians in the flesh, but there was something amiss that Sunday. In Everton University, not too far away from the future ground zero that would be Canterlot, I was analyzing newly-found historical documents alleged to be written by the esteemed founder of Neo-Modern Amareican Faeianism, Lock Lee, when said documents glowed. When I saw these purportedly magic documents manifest what might’ve been actual magic, I cast them away from me.

With levitation.

I threw them in panic, but they floated gracefully above the table, as if unkempt and untouched. Had magic not been involved, they would’ve crumbled into dust, and I would’ve faced consequences far worse than a lecture on being careful with priceless artifacts. It was almost midnight, however, so I chalked it up to disorientation from lack of sleep.

How naive I was, for when Monday’s magic shenanigans began in earnest, I was among their first targets. A flash of white light, and in the next moment, I’d become a unicorn.

When it dawned on me that this wouldn’t go away, that we were all stuck as these creatures for the rest of our lives, I let it slide. I’ll finish my studies here, human or not. I did not endlessly whine about my situation unlike my moodier travelmates. No fingers? No problem! That Sunset Shimmer vlogger was quite helpful, though me being what others dubbed “a classical Cartdiffian unicorn” rather than an Equestrian pony did help, having cloven hooves to uncomplicate my grip on things (though how those Earth ponies hold things on their own, I’ll never know). And for a time, I was vindicated in my one-track persistence: I would not let a flurry of magic activity and my becoming a unicorn stop me from my work.

Then one day, I accidentally turned on my phone’s Internet. I usually kept it off (my laptop had the excuse of being my workstation; do not ask me how hooves and unicorn magic mesh well with a touchpad and keyboard) so I wouldn’t be distracted by funny EweTube videos and MyStable happenings. It was Sunday then, so I said, “Why not?” and indulged myself to see how those back home were taking it (I immediately messaged my parents about how they were since that Monday; I am not that cold-hearted). I did plan to send off some greetings of concern, and I admit, there’s some morbid fun in seeing everyone screaming virtually at this whole new world.

But at the top of my notifications lay a group chat I’d never thought would see the light of day again.

The Happy Hexad.

Forced alliteration, yes, but the group’s admin had been fond of wordplay for some time. The Hexad was a group of gaming nerds I’d joined to let off some steam and because my parents wanted me to spend some time with others my age; getting myself into studies and extended discussions on theories with “old dusty professors” wasn’t something they wanted me to partake in all the time. Truth be told, much study is weariness of the flesh, so I hung out with the Hexad some of the time. Always ended up in the admin’s house at the outskirts of town, playing several games in the space of six or so hours—everything from chess (which is one of the few games I am more than willing to pay attention to) through Ogres & Oubliettes and all the way to, yes, video games. Especially that one fighting game with cutesy, almost anime-esque, graphics.

Scrolled down to see the whole thing. In online text form (and the occasional picture, despite the difficulty of taking one without hands), there it was: the plight of my five acquaintances.

The admin kicked it off by asking if everyone was okay. Paprika was so caring that she waited for everyone else to say their piece before she talked about her now-alpaca self. She loved hugs and other public displays of affection (of the platonic kind, to be sure); it’s only fitting that she became a very huggable creature (their wool is not expensive without reason!) though she did struggle with tight spaces and small doors thanks to her super long neck.

Arizona and Pom had turned into a cow and a sheep, respectively. Literal livestock. Fortunately, much of the Foenician continent didn’t turn into predator creatures unlike Equestria with griffons, Diamond Dogs, and Abyssinians; these two didn’t need to worry about becoming somecreature’s well-done beef and mutton dinner. Nonetheless, it had been jarring and ironic for the grill-loving Arizona and the wool-clothes-collecting Pom. They’d coped the best they could, quadruped difficulties notwithstanding; seeing a video selfie of the two of them meeting for the first time post-transformation was heartwarming, actually. “I know that voice anywhere! Pom, is that you?”

Velvet became a reindeer. Vain woman-doe she was, Velvet became terrified that she’d “become such a ghastly specimen of vildlife!” That was until she stopped dramatizing on the phone and looked herself in the mirror. She then praised herself for becoming “zhe stunning pinnacle of reindeer beauty!” And just like a unicorn’s horn, her antlers were her magic conduits, giving her the power of levitation and ice magic. She made snow appear out of thin air along with making snowcones. And then she used her ice magic to prop up her homemade brand of ice cream and advertised that like crazy.

As for Tianhuo, I expected her to become a dragon, but a half-horse hybrid is a nifty second place, able to fly around with wings made of fire. How that works, I’ll say magic. Aside from partnering with Velvet to cook spicier dishes with her fire breath, she sometimes just flies around on her own, whichis to be expected. For a literal hot head, she’d been the most calm and contemplative of the bunch. No wonder she gives me grief in chess, although I hope she doesn’t burn my personal wooden chess set on accident.

Of course, thanks to the nature of MyStable’s messaging application, everyone else saw that I just opened the whole chat. They then bombarded me with a gluttony of greetings, asking me how I am, what it’s like to be a unicorn (I updated my profile picture to fit my current appearance), and how things were going in Equestria especially near Canterlot where much of the magic had flourished.

I wanted to get away from it all. Turning into a unicorn and having the whole world change with me had done little to stop my historian’s pursuit, to uncover great things for the world’s benefit all on my own. Why should I let some dormers get in the way of that?

As I left to go to another tab on my browser, I caught a glimpse of a message Paprika sneaked in. I would’ve ignored it, but curse my curiosity! I clicked, and I saw, and I was conquered.

The face of a sad alpaca, frowning at me. Below the forlorn picture:

We miss you, Oleander. How’ve you been over there?

Why didn’t I just move away? Rationalized it away: it was the weekend, I was too bored and curious for my own good, the face was rather adorable and I had a soft spot for cute things like little flowers, others saw I’ve already seen the message and it’d be impolite if I did not respond.

A train hit me. In the heart.

I never asked much of them, never checked up on them much, yet they kept wondering about me. The right response was to be disappointed or angry in me. Judging from the times we’d had, they were good times: laughing over a silly Fool’s Mate in chess, angrily (but in jest) flipping my cards and the table over a game of Alakazam: the Assembly to much laughter, and trying to speed away from the cops in Motor Vehicle Theft 5 while armed with C4 and rocket launchers. They must’ve remembered that more than the times I’ve ghosted them.

And Paprika kept calling me friend. But it wasn’t just her, nor did I need them to throw friend around to know they saw me as one. Yet, I didn’t return the favor—or was it really a favor? Maybe they didn’t expect much from me, didn’t expect me to give much in return. Even outside the little games we played, they treated me well—Paprika was also a good cook, but it wasn’t just her, too. Arizona knew the ins and outs of barbecue and grill, and she rodeoed a few times in her life—had many such experiences to talk about, and of course, I engaged in the discussion since Cartdiff also had much of its roots in wrangling cattle.

Pom was into fashion though that didn’t mean she was snooty and uptight; she found beauty in the simple things and wasn’t afraid to show it off in what she humbly called peasant’s clothing—though making some of her own clothes merits her some well-deserved pride, even if she is too shy at times to show off her own work—nice of her when she showed me a dress she made just for me, little black dress it was.

Speaking of fabrics like cashmere and denim, Velvet, along with Tianhuo, were entrepreneurial folk, though I was surprised when they came to me one day and asked if I could provide some insight, some very informal consultancy. Apparently, a historian-in-training could help with seeing trends in past financial statements to see what the future may hold, and studies in history do hone skills of intentional and purposive analysis and reasoning.

The sad alpaca got to me again. That alpaca and that message of hers.

I cried in my sleep, having spilled out all my guts to these five acquaintances I’d sworn I’d forget the moment I move on from college. I missed them, missed their company—I had good travelmates as history-passionate as me, but the schedule was tight; how could I ever bond with them? And my own chase after extra-curricular stuff, looking after my own career—

To imagine myself as a lonely unicorn, sheltered away, giving all of myself to the world to show them their past, holed up in a library that may as well be a mountain monastery, talking and speculating with other ivory-towered airheads like me about some new discovery here or there.

A sigh later, I knew I could not be content with my future. Not if I did not make the best of my present.

From that day forward, I made an effort to talk to them every day even when I did not feel like it, even when it was simple small talk. How else could I respond to all those good times, these good people? And how I longed for their presence! No matter how many video calls we did, even while playing games online, there was nothing that would match their presence face to face.

So fast was the time, shock overtook me when I realized it was the last day of my studies in Amareica. To be sure, I did not neglect my studies in the slightest, but it seems that I’ve neglected something far more important than that for the longest time.

Every hour on the way back home, joy welled up in my heart, butterflies consuming my stomach from within. For one, I would see my home for the first time post-Change (as they’ve started to call it), and from what I’ve gathered, my family had also turned into unicorns as well as most of my hometown; I’d be remiss to ignore them. There was also that studious spirit of mine: considering the extraordinary circumstances, indulging one’s self in post-human sightseeing wouldn’t be a waste of time and money.

But the chief reason for coming here—it wasn’t just about a good semester break. That reason—as well as a taxi driven by an alpaca who clearly can’t fit his car thanks to his stupidly long neck so opened the window and drove with his head out of the vehicle—brought me here to the front door of Paprika’s house, the now-alpaca having moved from Surian to study in the same prestigious univeristy I was in.

One knock at the door, and the most adorable marshmallow I’d ever seen attacked me. Said attack turned out to be a hug, and when I opened my eyes, there sat Paprika’s ecstatic face. “I’m so glad you got here! And the sun just set—ooh! Sun’s moving fast! Lookie! Anyway, less talking, more doing things! Come inside! We’ve got something special for you, since, you know, you’re here again, but not really the old you but the new unicorn you—anyway, get inside!”

And after her wildly gesticulating and cooing self opened the door to let me in, into the living room we went.

Paprika shut the door behind me and zipped to the dining table. By the side was her huge TV where a game of Power of the Flock—that cutesy fighting game—was paused mid-fight. In the shelves lay tons of games she’d brought over from her place: video games, board games, tabletop games, war games... with this much on her plate, it’s a wonder how she didn’t drop out of college.

But sitting at the table were them. They were there to greet me, chomping happily on spiced salad and hay topped with fresh fruits—no meat which I’d gotten used to. Everycreature dropped their dinner to greet me, everyone from longma and deer to sheep and cow.

“Heya’!” yells Arizona as she jumps down the chair to meet me up close, and she hugs me close, holding me tight. “I’ve really shrunk, huh? Eh, doesn’t matter! Yer’ here, and that’s what matters! Y’all like family ‘sides my actual family!”

“Indeed,” I politely reply, and after a few seconds to break the ice, hoping she’d end the hug but also returning it with a pat on the head—“by the way, how’s your family ranch? Getting past the awkward stuff with your cattle?”

“They’re new buddies, and I ain’t complainin’! I even let Mesa try out potato chips for the first time. He loved the good ol’ chippies!”

“At least the host of this house wants all of us to be healthy,” Pom says by her salad bowl with her cute Trottish accent. What an adorable sheep she is in person! “It’s an admirable effort—“

“Ah yes,” goes snooty Velvet, slurping a blue smoothie quietly. “Zhe same host who’s given us soda, chips, and pizza over zhe past hour? Please. You might as vell be ordering diet soda to complement your deep-fried zhocolate bars!” That vain deer eyed me with all the power vanity had given her. “At least you have not grown fat!”

“I assure you, I’ve eaten well! Unlike you sipping around with your smoothie.”

“Vell, if Tina here vould stop her flames for just a moment!“ and she glared at longma Tianhuo still heating up her bowl to a fiery crisp with actual body heat.

“Hmph,” and Tianhuo turned her flames off. “Perhaps if the smoothie is not to your liking, I shall have it.”

“Hey! No takezies!”

“I am making forays in fertile country to supply myself with food.”

“Solar Shoo’s The Mastery of Warfare, Chapter Eleven, Paragraph Twenty-One!” I said in glee, jumped for joy. “It’s a delight to know you’ve caught up with ancient texts!”

Tianhuo slightly bowed to me. “But it was you who recommended them to me,” she said with a wink not really directed at me. Made me turn around, seeing the paused game on the screen. “Speaking of warfare—“

“Eeeee!”

And the alpaca raises me up to the air, crushing me with a super-fluffy-wool hug, all while I flailed my hooves around in a tint of fear.

“And we now all talked to you just like that! Oh, I so missed having a full house here since you were gone, but... oh, this will be a special night! I’ve got so many things prepared! I’ve got Monopony, Ninja-XX, Pioneers of Canter, even that new Werehitpony Mafia card game!”

“But Mafia lasts days if you wanted the optimal playing experience!” I cried.

That’s when Paprika winked at me. “Class isn’t starting again until a month and a half from now, so...”

And with that, I could get everything back. The time I should’ve spent with them, all the years I’d known these wonderful creatures over: now, I could have the best times of my life with my friends. And not just through games. I think we’d gotten way past being that small little gaming group to let off steam; now, we could go out, eat at cafés, talk about the craziness of turning into magic creatures and living in a magic world, and just get on with life together.

And that’s how I’m here, a unicorn using her magic to wrangle a controller to make some hairdo’d muscle army guy fight against a sheep’s wandering ninja, getting cheered on by a cow (carrying a stupidly heavy stack of board games on her back) and an alpaca (using her own wool as thread to fix up a shirt that no longer fits her) while a deer sips melted smoothie with disdain and a longma coaches me from behind about what tactics to employ against the aforementioned ninja, and we’re all screaming and laughing at each other. And a drink gets spilled and we all laugh at Velvet screaming at her stained floof like it’s the end of the world.

I won’t have it any other way.

Author's Note

Thanks to StatiZkyZ for pre-reading.

Siren Famous

“Alright.” Adagio rubs her scaly hooves in the middle of a moonlit lake. “I have an idea.”

“We already booked ourselves a spot in the Starswirled Music Festival and decided to do a duet… sorta’… with Dirk Thistleweed a week after,” quips Aria.

“If it’s concert fatigue you’re worried about, it’s meant precisely to solve that.”

And Sonata widens her eyes, nibbling on a piece of dying fish. “What’s that? Are we gonna become streamers… no! Gamers?!”

Adagio slaps her own head. “Go professional. I know we did a couple concerts in Manehattan and the other big cities already, but now… now that we have much sway over the world’s population—“

“Because of social media—?”

“Stop interrupting with exposition!” One huff later, “Anyway, it wouldn’t be right to stop at concerts and just have creatures sing our songs from memory… or lyrics unofficially posted online. What we need is that official presence, proof that we’ve arrived!”

“But what do we need all the additional money for?” Aria says, mindlessly inspecting her hoof. “We can travel to any lake or ocean in the world if we want food, we’re too big to fit in any ordinary house in this planet, we can still live in a big cave like back when we were young… and we’re sirens. Even without our gemstones—“

“Who said it was about the money or the living conditions?” Adagio says. “Money has its uses, but we’ve outlived them now that we’re sirens again! Concerts are lucrative enough as they are! And as much as I’d love having a lair in a cave deep in the sea, we must be on the move! Mobile!”

And she rubs her hooves. “We will dominate their minds! Albums, merchandise, licensed songs, convoluted lore across our entire discography—the works!”

Aria blinks. “Wait, that requires actual hard work for something we’re gifted at. We made all our songs so far in our free time… and now you’re gonna put our talents down to a tighter schedule than before?”

“It’s called getting it together,” Adagio says, crossing her legs as her tail splashed around in the lake, disturbing a couple fish. “Now, in the spirit of cooperation, we will have one idea each that we will pursue.” Pointing at herself, “As for me, an album will be nice… a concept album, even! I’ve read them before; they are like the ballads of old but modernized! Musical epics the humans adore for their exquisite storytelling such as Other Side of the Lunar Rock and Quartermania, so why not make our own?”

“Nah, I don’t wanna go all professional like that,” Aria replies with a snort, “but I can see some work in still going on in concerts and the occasional theater show… the scary ones, not the lighthearted musicals. Other than that, why don’t we just do what Sunset’s doing and make our own vlog? That seems easy to maintain compared to having tons of music on a tight schedule.”

And the other two look at Sonata already giggling with delight.

“Sonata, I swear, if it’s tacos—“

...get ready to go loco, and put on your wackos!

It’s time to get some fresh Five-O Tuna Tacos!

The three sirens watch the TackTube ad as they sit on the beach, staring at the horror in the super small screen of a hippogriff’s phone—that hippogriff manning a stall where griffons, changelings, dragons, and other hippogriffs are lining up for the fresh smell of tuna tacos+.

And Adagio’s cheeks burst red. “Seriously?! We’re the Sirens, Equestrian monsters hatched from underwater, sowing discord and disharmony among the land and even among your land… and you just have us do this?! What is wrong with you humans?!”

“Shh!” says the hippogriff making the tacos. “You’re distracting them!”

And Sonata then sits on the sand, blushing a bit. “I mean, you saved my idea for last, but the record labels didn’t like your idea for a bunch of songs about darkness and conquering Equestria back in the old days.”

“And making Sunset go deaf after she beat us up in that Globe of Navies gaming session,” Aria says. “So much for crossing over the vlogs…”

Sonata smiles, taking up her own fair share of tuna tacos. “Hey, at least my idea worked! And I get tunas and tacos! Sweet!”

“Oh hey, look! A cruise ship! Another chance to go viral!”

Despite Aria’s incessant groaning about their Cartdiff fans being put on hold, the trio pause their trip across the Amblantic Ocean and surface in the sea, heads bobbing as they witness the luxurious behemoth of a boat before them.

Already, a crowd forms by the railing.

Taking the cue, Adagio leans forward, taking center stage as the waves crash against her and the ship. “How wonderful it is for your ship to be graced by the Sirens! I’m afraid we don’t have much time here, but, at our merciful discretion, you can request any song for us to serenade you with.”

A colt almost jumps over the railing to make his raised hoof seen. “Ooh, ooh! I know, I’ve got a request!”

Adagio smiles, the sharpness of her teeth dulling the sincerity of her smile even as she gently pats the colt on the head with her humongous hoof. “And what do you request, little one?”

“The taco song!”

And Aria smacks a hoof against her head all while Sonata has a hard time keeping her screams of joy to herself.

That leaves Adagio to deal with the colt. “Young human… former human, ex-human, whatever… I mean a real song. A song that has sense, a song that befits our regal stature as The Sirens!”

And the colt blinks.

Tears forming in his eyes.

“What is it with the creatures of this world?! We’re the Sirens! We are famous, we are massive, and we are dangerous when we need to be even without our gemstones! Ponies feared us back in the day, and now these pathetic excuses for ponies think they can just trot up to us and say, ‘Hey, can I get your autograph?’”

“Ahem.”

A curtain opens, a technician looking over at them, headphones in and all.

“You know they can hear you outside, right?”

With closed eyes and rubbed temples, Adagio groans, staring madly at her bandmates in the severely cramped backstage. “Why didn’t we just stick to feeding on ponies’ negative energy? That’s much easier than being weird celebrities…”

Binary Sunsets

...and that’s all for today’s episode! Be sure to share this video with your friends, and, until next time, this is Sunset Shimmer on The Sunset Vlog! See ya’ ‘round!

And Fizzlepop levitates the phone back into her pocket as she trots to her van parked by the local MacDapple’s fast food chain, all under the cover of night.

Leaving her friend, Sunset Shimmer, to groan by her side. “Do you really have to watch all her episodes as they come out?”

“Why not?” Fizzlepop taps on her prosthetic arm-turned-foreleg. “Need to get used to the magic four-legged life! Being a unicorn farting out magic certainly beats prowling the neighborhood, whipping up gang signs and hitting drive-bys in enemy turf.”

“There’s tons of other TackTubers out there.”

Fizzlepop raises a brow. “You wanna watch a let’s play or some parkour compilations over pony tutorials from the one Equestrian who’s lived in our world for some time now?”

“Excuse me, Miss ‘Tempest from the Streets,’ but that Equestrian happens to be my counterpart.”

The taller unicorn rolls her eyes as she enters the van, getting onto the backseats and stepping over pillows and blankets, reaching into a little pantry of food and water along with Sunset’s NineTandem Swish. “We’re not having this conversation again.”

“We absolutely are because this is inconsiderate!”—slams the van’s backdoor, locking the both of them in.

“Come on, Sunnie, you’ve got to let it go! She probably doesn’t know that you exist!”

“Timing’s too convenient”—floats a bag of potato chips and stuffs her mouth with the crispy things. “I’ve done my own sleuthing, and you know what I’ve found? I found out that she came into our world mere days after I ditched that city for good! Lucky her that my guardians had been long dead, so it was just business as usual… until this happens!”—at which she raises her hooves in the air, pointing at her horn.

Fizzlepop frowns. “You know it’s not her fault.”

“If it weren’t for her, I wouldn’t be a unicorn, we wouldn’t have to deal with this magic trouble, and identity theft wouldn’t be legalized!”

“Who said she legalized identity theft?”

“Well, they aren’t fining her for looking like me.”

And her friend grabs Sunset by the shoulder, shaking her while shouting, “They’re! Parallel! Worlds! It’s not like her parents knew about this world and decided to replace you decades before the fact!”

“Well, why replace me? What about that Twilight princess? She also went through the portal—“

“To save her world and that crown, whatever it is, and this world’s Twilight didn’t leave Canterlot—“ slaps herself on the forehead, careful to not hurt herself by stabbing her horn “—we’re getting nowhere at this rate! Sunnie, what do you want to do about this problem of yours?”

And she pumps a balled-up hoof to the air. “I’ll have her pay me a commission for using my identity!”

An exasperated sigh. “She was born as Sunset Shimmer.”

“I know! But… wait, wait! Hear me out: You know the Selvage Parsley impersonators in Las Pegasus?”

“Are you seriously comparing Sunset to the Emperor of Rock and Roll? And no, you can’t just have solo acts as Sunset while the other Sunset has The Rainbooms. Plus, by your logic, shouldn’t she be your impostor?”

“Right, right… argh! She’s always a step ahead!”

“A step ahead of some random mare—“

“She’s my counterpart!” growls Sunset, cheeks and eyes flaring red. “And it’s not like everyone here has one! I’m the special one!”

Fizzlepop rolls her eyes. “Can you just breathe for a moment?”

And with that, Sunset breathes in, breathes out, the red in her cheeks fading away.

Her friend levitates a pillow, making her bed as she arranges the sheets. “Now, listen: What about we change it up? Instead of figuring out how to get her to do what you want… what about you ask her what she wants?”

That takes Sunset aback. “What?! Make me concede to her wishes?”

“She seems reasonable, so don’t worry! Now… what do you think she needs?”

And Sunset furrows her brows, scratching her chin. “Well, for one… I’m her counterpart. She needs to meet me—“

“Why would she need to meet you?”

It’s Sunset’s turn to raise a brow. “Curiosity? Closure? She looked my identity up when she went to our world, so she’ll be tying up loose ends by meeting me and knowing for sure that I’m not dead in a ditch.”

Fizzlepop taps her chin. “Makes sense. But then what?”

“Well, actually, the next step would be to appear on her vlog!”

“Don’t tell me you’re going to take it over by murdering her and having no one know.”

“I’m not that desperate!” And Sunset quiets herself. “Anyway… what topic would she go on about with me—ah! I got it! It should be about me!”

Fizzlepop smacks herself on the head, careful not to hit her horn. “You’re taking this way too—“

“No, no! As in me… and her! Counterparts!”

And that perks Fizzlepop’s ears up. “Hmm. It’s not too important to talk about counterparts since there’s the whole population gap between the two worlds—“

“But it’s interesting enough, it seems magical, it looks like an unsolvable mystery, and the heroes who tried to save the world also have pony selves in Equestria who did save their world a couple times!”

“You’re missing out the times they stopped the Sirens—“

“Let me call her now!”

And Sunset takes out her phone, pulling up her e-mail application—

One look at her video game console, and she grins. “And one more thing to sweeten up the deal.”

The van pulls up by the little brick row house, but no matter how many relaxing breathing exercises Fizzlepop gave her, Sunset can’t stop the adrenaline from rushing through her veins. “This is it, Fizz! We’re gonna meet the one, the only… other me! And we’re going to settle on an agreement! In public!’

“Calm down,” Fizzlepop says. “You’re not meeting a god or anything—and no, ‘She’s me!’ isn’t a valid excuse.”

But already, the front door opens. “I heard someone park, so I just had to—oh!”

There, the two Sunsets stare at each other: finality, swelling in the former human’s heart.

“Wow.” That’s the Equestrian Sunset, amazed. “I… I knew it’d be strange meeting you in the flesh, but it never beats really… you know, meeting you.”

“Same.”

And the Equestrian Sunset smiles, gesturing towards her house with an awkward laugh. “Let’s get this over with, shall we? First we do the live vlog on counterparts, and then some co-op ShimmerCode with Don’t Stop Saying Words and Everyone Lives?”

“…while you also promote my growing let’s play channel!”

Fizzlepop shakes her head with a smile, staying at the steering wheel. “I’ll park this by the Canterlot Mall. Call me up when you’re done, okay?”

With a yes, the two Sunsets go up together and the van chugs away.

As the unicorn pair go up—“So, Sunset… uh, I know I said it before on the e-mail, but I’m sorry for all the confusion this must’ve caused you, taking your place here in Canterlot City and all.”

And the other Sunset smiles, laughing awkwardly. “Yeah, yeah. You already know I just hop from town to town in a van. Low-cost living and all.”

“Doesn’t sound good if you ask me. If you want, though, I can refer you to one of my friends. I’m sure they can give you some work around the house or recommend you to a spot where you can flip burgers for decent pay, or maybe you can live with me—“

“Nah. That’d be way too awkward.”

The Equestrian Sunset nods slowly, biting her lip. "Yeah, I was hoping you’d say no to that. I don’t want to know what it’d be like to live with myself.”

“But yeah, thanks for the offer! Don’t know if I’ll just bounce from here after a few days, but you never know, right?”

And the two Sunsets stop as they reach the part of her apartment set up for vlogging: a green screen on the side, a microphone and headphone set, and her desktop computer complete with a glowing mouse.

But it’s not the fancy set they look at but each other, recognition and resolution shining in their eyes, both of their hearts welling up just a bit.

“Whether you stay or not, Sunset, it’s finally good to meet you.”

Dining Etiquette

For some, proper dining etiquette is to be observed at all costs. Rules for such basic decency include but are not limited to: waiting until the food has been served to everyone before touching your utensils, taking a bite of your food before adding a dash of salt or pepper, and only talking when your mouth is free from food. Needless to say, eating without utensils is given a big fat no.

For others, especially those who are not named Rarity, “Etiquette, schmetiquette! I’ve got no hands!”

And Pinkie smashes her face right into her café’s dinner, eating as a customer and not as a waitress, eating primarily as a dear friend of Rarity.

But not as somepony with basic decency.

“Pinkie,” Rarity starts with a tone holding back disgust, “just because you are a pony doesn’t mean you should act like one!”

The hungry mare looks up, muzzle covered in her waffles’ syrup and whipped cream. “Don’t normal ponies just eat grass from the ground, anyway?”

“We are not talking about the old horses of yore.” To accentuate the point, Rarity levitates her fork, wiping it clean with tissue. “We are talking about cultured, sophisticated, genteel Equestrians! They are a civilization of advanced creatures who have gone beyond rummaging for food and dining straight from their hands—er, hooves!”

“What about potato chips?”

“Darling, have you seen me eat potato chips with my bare hands?” Floating her fork into a thin slice of waffle, Rarity then takes a bite out of it, closing her mouth before discreetly swallowing the morsel. “Being a pony is no excuse for being an animal.”

“Well, there’s your problem!”—and Pinkie flicks Rarity by the horn.

“Ow!” Rubbing her irritated horn, “Why would you ever do that?!”

“You can hold forks and knives with your unicorn magic!” Pinkie replies, still all cheerful. “I’ve seen Fluttershy use her feathers like fingers for her spoons and forks. Rainbow Dash, uh, she just eats straight outta’ the plate, so that doesn’t count… but we Earth Ponies? It’s just hoof and mouth. Not that I’m complaining! Who needs the middlemen?”—and smashes herself into some more waffles.

And Rarity gulps, averting her eyes from the catastrophe across the table. “I, for one, can at least back myself up with a family who can follow proper etiquette in such fantastical times!”

Horror, etched into Rarity’s face as she stares at her family, revulsion seeping through her twitching eyes.

“F-Father,” she mutters, “M-Mother... wh-what crime are you committing this very instant?”

Hondo Flanks levitates a piece of cake and stuffs it into his already dirty muzzle. “Certainly’s a crime! Managed to snag the whole cake for five bits; what a bargain! And all ya’ gotta do is hop over to the Ponyville bakery!”

“They’re quite generous with us new ponies,” adds Cookie Crumbles before slicing out some cake, then gobbling it up with only her magic, knife and fork untouched.

It leaves Rarity stuttering, at a lack of words. “But we’re unicorns! We’re dignified, distinguished creatures! We’re not supposed to be eating like literal horses!”

“I’m a literal horse!” says Sweetie.

“That gives you no right to—Sweetie, why are you eating ice cream with a knife?! And no spoon?!”

And the teenager puts the knife back on the table, levitating a sliced scoop of ice-cold goodness right before her eyes. “It’s fewer dishes to wash, right?”

Spring Fix-up

“An urgent letter for Princess Twilight!”

And the guard-slash-messenger rushes into Twilight’s office, holding up an envelope. The princess floats the envelope onto her desk, cuts it open with a royal cutter, and takes out the stapled stack of papers inside.

“What’s it say?” asks Spike, taking a closer look.

“It’s from Earth,” she says, standing up from her hair. “The Convocation of Countries have detected a pattern of anomalous storms in the Pace-ific Ocean. It’s already capsized two cargo ships and narrowly sunk a cruise ship. Most of them believe it’s Equestrian magic at work, and this report’s already been carbon-copied to S.M.I.L.E.”

“That secret anti-monster agency? Why are they involved?”

“They’ve been closely involved with Earth, checking the news to see if there’re reports of mysterious events that might’ve been caused by local artifacts dumped over there. As much as I love and adore Starswirl the Bearded, his example of just throwing stuff at magic mirrors isn’t exactly his best moment, not to mention that everyone else copied his behavior at the time…”

She coughs. “Anyway, S.M.I.L.E. notes that this suggests the presence of residual Storm King magic. If left unchecked, it may grow, but even now, it will continue to claim ships and even precious lives. They’ve tried adjusting the sea lanes, but the storm just spreads around, so the ships are just avoiding that huge chunk of ocean altogether.””

“So what are we gonna do?”

A royal sigh.

A hatch opens up, a staff flying straight into her magic grasp: the Staff of Sacanas.

“We coordinate.”

In the middle of the ocean, a storm rages on, clouds touched by the two-pronged symbol of the deceased Storm King himself as waves crash against the metal hulls of beastly aircraft carriers. Not too far ahead lies an island, surrounded by cragged rocks which, in lifetimes before, have sunk vessels and wrecked ships of great magnitude.

As the Staff is planted on the shore and then activated, sucking in the dangerous storm and quickly lightening up the sky—as officers and diplomats watching from afar cheer at newfound peace in their time—the princess stands in the middle of a dead plant monster, staring down at a pool of quicksand, which soldiers in advanced Earth-tech armor secure and lock down.

“Another portal from before the Change,” she mutters to herself, ignoring the researchers by her side already taking down notes on their papers and laptops. “This must be how the Storm King’s magic entered Earth. And to think... there may be others like it out there that we don’t know of! Creatures just falling through portals out of nowhere!”

“Hello?!”

And in the middle of a camping trip through the Everfree Forest, Silverstream and her crew stop, eyes already bugged out. “I know that voice anywhere! Hold on!”

Despite cries for her to not plunge into a clearly dangerous cave, she flies in anyway, appearing a few seconds later with a bigger hippogriff in her hold.

“General Seaspray?!” Sandbar yells. “Wh-what are you doing here in the Everfree?!”

“The Everfree... Camp?!” he yells, eyes darting everywhere. “I’m not on Earth, am I?”

Smolder crosses her arms. “Oh. You must be Seaspray’s lame Earth cousin or whatever.”

“Lame Earth cousin?!” he yells, flapping out of Silverstream’s grasp though with tired wings. “I am the Captain of the Luxe Deluxe, and I need to be back by tomorrow to handle my ship!”

“Ship going where?!” yells a curious Yona.

“International waters, which means... tax-free shopping!” shouts Rarity as she prances around on the deck of the ship.

And as Rarity gallops back inside to spend lavishly, her friends look outside: a couple ponies swimming by the pool and a seapony as well, other seaponies swimming with the ship as security guards in case other aquatic creatures try to sabotage the ship, Pinkie carrying home a box of cupcakes, and a couple older stallions and mares playing bingo on the side.

“And if you look to your right,” says a burly minotaur, whose loud voice apparently did not negate the need for a megaphone, “you’ll see Lightning Island!” There, an island sprouts up, holding up flags with the Storm King’s insignia on them. “This is the island where the Storm King’s magic leaked into the world from Equestria, and it contains one of the very few known naturally-made portals between Earth and Equestria! Now, it’s also a beautiful place to visit and get souvenirs, and if you have your coupons with you, you’ll get a fifty-percent discount on all Storm King bobbleheads!”

All the while, Sunset and Twilight lean by the railing, sighing together and enjoying the sunshine.

“I’m glad we can finally do something without having to battle evil Equestrian magic for a change,” Twilight says, relaxed.

Sunset raises a brow. “I still have to do today’s episode where I’ll be PSA-ing everyone about finding hidden artifacts or portals in your backyard.”

“But you get to do it on a luxury cruise ship and a fancy island!”

“...alright, fair point.”

Starkest Madness, Averted

Before the mall opens, Juniper Montage and Sight See look at their boss, Eleven Film, sweeping the floor of a theater as its big silver screen looms over the three uniformed ponies.

“…so we got word on Wednesday that some spots are open for a brief internship with a couple other big mall cinemas for diplomatic and cultural exchange with Equestria. Everyone else’s gobbled up spots for all the other places, though—just got that e-mail this morning—so it’s us Flixiplex Cinemas with the Dragon Lands.”

“What’s our deal?” Juniper asks, flailing her hooves about. “Isn’t that exciting? You get to introduce a whole new world the wonders of high-definition E-BIG films!”

“Don’t you think that’s scary?” Sight See smugly asks with a raised brow. “It’s another world with magic, and it’s all propped up with portals, as if dealing with magic as ponies here isn’t bad enough.”

“Precisely,” Eleven says, “which is why everyone else declined the offer… but we can’t just throw away the chance to engage in something historical to someone else.”

“Which is why you’re here to give us a pitch on why it’s a-okay to send us to a land of dragons and teach them the magic of film—“ and Sight See groans. “Hey, don’t the ponies already have films?”

“They’re technologically lacking,” Juniper replies. “Their most advanced movies are comparable to ours back in the sixties. They’ve got very few cassettes, no CDs nor DVDs… they strangely have 3D glasses, but that’s more like a schizo tech thing than anything else in their world, not to mention that—“

Eleven gives her a look.

And Juniper blushes and grins. “Whoops! Heh, got carried away.”

“That’s alright; at least your enthusiasm is much appreciated.” With a sigh, “But I still want to volunteer you for the job and give you a choice. I do understand if it’s way out of your paygrade—going to Equestria and then traveling to the Dragon Lands with all those scary dragons, their volcanoes, and their lava and sulfur… but the Dragon Lord is more than willing to pay volunteers a hefty one-sum ‘cause she said she wants to help advance the Dragon Lands with Earth tech.”

“How’s film gonna do that?” Sight See asks with a shrug. “They’re just gonna watch our movies and then make dragon films?”

“I honestly have no idea, but the Dragon Lord is the Dragon Lord for a reason, and I’m in no position to question the leader of aggressive fire-breathing lizards about her intentions.”

He gives the both of them an asking look. “So, you up for it? If for nothing else, it’ll look very good on your resumes: establishing cultural relations and exchange with the Dragon Lands! Doing the same with a bunch of breezies doesn’t have the same ring to it, does it?”

The two employees share a glance, although it’s mostly Juniper grinning and squealing at Sight See.

That’s the cue for Sight See to back away from the excited mare. “Oh no, Juniper… yes, more money’s good, but not at this rate! I may be an Earth pony, but I don’t think I can survive some jerks throwing me around for fun! And they’re predators! How can they—“

“—treat me so well?”

And, in the middle of a stinky molten landscape of barren rocks and erupting volcanoes, standing inside a temporary spherical building fit for the most optimal on-the-go E-BIG viewing experience, Sight See still has his eyes stupidly wide open at the crowd of dragons leaving the cinema, chewing on popcorn and all.

They aren’t badmouthing the movie—a sci-fi adventure about trekkers hiking in some galaxy’s stars—so he breathes a sigh of relief, wiping the sweat off of his brow.

“See?” Juniper begins as she leaves the cinema and enters the reception with the popcorn machines by Sight See’s side. “We’ve weathered the storm and brought filming civilization to these folks!”

“I still don’t get the point,” Sight See says, long-working fatigue straining his voice. “They’re still dragons. They burn fires so hot, one of them’s manning the other popcorn station for gems—“ at which he points at Smolder spewing flames at some popcorn seeds for the last few customers leaving the cinema. “Face it, Juniper, let’s just treat this as the ladder to some better jobs, then—“

“So you’re the Earthlings they sent here, right?”

And the two ponies look up at the Dragon Lord herself, standing tall over them despite being smaller than most of the other dragons they’ve seen so far.

While Sight See gulps, adrenaline gripping his heart, Juniper lights up with a smile. “Yup! How’d you like Earth theater, Miss Dragon Lord?”

And Ember taps her chin in thought. “It’s… interesting. The movie’s fine and super crazy… Those are the fairy tales you give your young or something, no?”

After some enthusiastic nods from Juniper, “Well, it’s good to know what you humans… uh, former humans do. Culture and all that, with your lasers and spaceships and harnessing the power of the sun.”

Sight See smiles smugly. “Oh yeah, we’re a very powerful intergalactic species—“

“It’s mostly fiction!” Juniper says, shoving her head in front of Sight’s. “The movie, I mean, not our culture… but yeah! Th-thank you for gracing us with your presence!”

Ember rolls her eyes at the over-respect. “That’s fine, that’s fine… oh, and I shall soon pay a visit to your theaters and coliseums. You’ve shown us some of your stuff, so we should be showing you some of ours.”

Sight See gulps as endless terrifying possibilities assaulted his imagination. “Stuff like…?”

“...and one more time, it’s the Dragon Bowl! May fortune forever be in your favor, fighters!”

And Ember needs no microphone to drop, for her voice alone carries across the Saddle Amphitheater and beyond, setting the stage for the two armor-clad dragons to duel with each other on ground and sky, with hundreds of ponies and other creatures watching on the seats.

All while Sight See serves popcorn and soda alongside Juniper, scared for his life at this piece of reciprocal cultural exchange, the two fighters beginning with spewing fire right at each other’s faces…

Trix of the Trade

“Dad, hello?”

Trixie stands alone in the school’s parking lot, cold under soft night lights. A car whisks by on the road. The suburbs sparsely illuminates from within little homes at this late hour.

The phone levitates in her magic grasp. “How are you? I’m sorry for not calling sooner; I just got back from my apprenticeship with my Equestrian self.”

“That’s okay, dear,” comes the other voice in the line, loud and clear. “At least you’ve had it better than I have: getting stuck in a magical mishap with Big Bucks and having the RV nearly totaled. We had to jump the battery a few times, could you believe it?!… Mother told you I arrived here just this afternoon, yes?”

“But that’s been… two months!” Another pair of headlights pass the school by; griffon inside pays Trixie no mind. “You’ve been out for that long… are you okay?”

“Yes, dear, I’m okay. Road trip tales can be saved for another time. What’s more important is whether you’re okay… so how are you?”

“I’m doing fine. Actually, I’ve… never been better now.”

A little silence. A hum in the background, thrumming—“That’s encouraging, first time hearing from you since the world’s decided humans had their time.”

“Hah! I did like how things ended up, though. I’m a unicorn now, able to do much more magic than before! And Mother’s a unicorn too!”

So it hits her:

“Dad… are you… are you a unicorn too?”

Some shifting on the side. Rumbling from his end of the line. “Well, I’m a stallion now and I have a horn on my head, so…”

Unbelief washes over, and Trixie jumps in joy, almost dropping her phone—a teenage mare hopping all over the parking lot. “I can’t believe it! The whole family’re unicorns! We can levitate everything together, we can do magic tricks together, we can…”

Holding the phone close to her ear, even as the humming increased in the back: “Dad… have you used your magic a lot?”

“My magic? Well, not too much. It’s already weird enough walking on four legs instead of two—“

“Dad, listen to me.”

The surprised silence is what Trixie wanted. “Well, what is it, dear?”

“I… don’t you see?” Up there, the moon and the stars… several flying creatures, of pegasi and griffons—“It’s the start of a new age! You told me… you told me that magic shows were going down these days because of phones or games or because they’re old or whatever… but you kept doing it! I kept doing it too, with street magic and all… and at school too…

“But now, Dad, real magic is everywhere! We’re not limited to pretend-cutting people up or throwing knives or sleight-of-hand card tricks! We’ve got… magic! We can make things float with our minds, we can create our own fireworks with magic, we can light everything up… and there’s spell books! There’s many old books about ancient magic on the other side, they’ve got potions and spells galore—they’ve got everything to spice up your act, Dad!”

At his side of the call, metal creaking like gears. “Hmm, is that so? I’ve… thought about it for a long time… that Sunset—“

“Yeah, yeah, Sunset’s great and all, but she’s only teaching us how to get by. Dad, I wanted to be magical, and now that we’re unicorns… even Fuchsia and Lavender are unicorns too!”

“Well, too many cooks in the kitchen can spoil the pot, but perhaps you can teach me what your Equestrian other’s taught you? And we can do a show or two together… how’s that sound?”

“Oh, that’d be great! When?!”

“Well, look up.”

So the rumbling grows.

Grows beyond the phone.

Lights—a pair of headlights turning to the school parking lot, so she looks up:

A big RV painted blue, stars and cards painted all over. They fit in tonight, complementing the glittering evening sky tonight. And in neon cursive, the words lay across the whole length of the van:

Jack Pot’s Magic Moment!

Anticipation overwhelms as Trixie sees her father’s face plastered on it as it’s always been—his human face, at least—dapper in his clothes colored like that of a Roamane Emperor who happened to live long enough to encounter top hats.

Then out the door trots the new Jack Pot: a unicorn stallion, the creases on his forehead betraying his age but his signature attire magically fitting his new form still makes him quite the looker.

And his hat lands on Trixie as she disconnects the call. “Oh… so you’re picking me up? I thought Mom was going to do it!”

“She was… then of course, you called, so behind the scenes, I decided to take you in instead.” A frown later, “I must apologize for being away so much these days… but with our talents in renewed demand, perhaps I can make up for it, dearest daughter…?”

A smile breaks out. Trixie then takes out from her saddlebags a variety of notebooks and tomes threatening to spill onto the asphalt below. “We’ve got lots of reading and practice to do! I-I still can’t believe it!—we’ll be showing the world what magic really is!”

“That we do,” he mutters, bringing his child up into his RV with all her magic materials, “that we do…”

“I’m glad we can finally relax after all that principal work, huh?” Trixie says to Starlight as she sits down in Las Pegasus’ famed Ponet Fantastique Theater, getting a front-row seat beside her friend.

“Yup!” Starlight then levitates a brochured schedule of tonight’s shows. “Anyway, before Haphazard Pay’s Comedy Night, we have a one-time magic show all the way from Earth! Now that’s a treat… and the name’s a secret too!”

Trixie whickers. “Really, now? At least give us a sci-fi play… they can always talk on their phones and it’s like Spike’s delivering messages everywhere all the time. That’s magic I’d like to see from those post-humans, not—“

“And hailing from Earth,” proclaims the announcer, “we have two unicorns from Earth! This father-daughter duo will dazzle you by escaping from chains and a straitjacket… against each other! Who will reach freedom first? Please welcome—“

The curtains part with great smoke and fog coming off, spotlights turning on—

“Oh… wait!”—and Starlight gasps. “Trixie, that’s you… and your father?!”

“Wait, I have a father?!” And a gulp. Then a rush of a myriad of emotions ranging from anger to joy—“D-Dad… is that you?!”

Taxity-Tak

“So what other jobs can I do?” asks Yitterby, the weight of the matter and his yak body crushing the poor couch beneath. “Amareica’s the land of opportunity, and Manehattan’s the city of opportunity… and taxis! They can’t just take my license like that!”

“Boss’s got a point, though,” says Gadolin, his griffon neighbor and owner of the apartment room he’s currently crashing in. The smell of sizzling bacon breakfast lifted in the air, disgusting the yak. “Five hundred kilos of meat’s gonna kill any car any day of the week. You can’t fit in one of those anyway.”

“And what’m I gonna do? I can’t just wait here!” Yitterby gets out of the couch, already feeling the springs about to break. “I already spent a week getting out of that stupid ‘magic’ yak dialect… now that I can speak better than a fifth-grader again—“

“Welp, job viability’s your choice, not mine.”

“Says the one who still has his license.”

“Alright, fair enough. But look on the bright side… we’re a month into this mess and lots are still scrambling to get their jobs right… or find other ones. Or make new ones. See, my friend’s making a killing now that he can sell all kinds of meat to us carnivores like rat, rabbit, boar—”

“Then what am I supposed to do?”

And with that, Gadolin lazily floated himself to Yitterby’s back, resting there and taking a long sip off of some leftover rum. “Your call, your call, Yit.”

“Hey, get off of me! I’m not some camel!”

“Oh hey! Ugh, fine—“ and Gadolin’s off his back, flapping over him. “Though, you are a yak; you might as well be a camel.”

“Are you calling me an animal?!”

“Hmm… actually, camels are known for their transportation capabilities—“

“I am not stooping that low, alright?!”

But a lightbulb popped up for Gadolin. A mischievous clinging and wringing of claws later, “Well, humans won’t stoop that low, but we’re something else now, aren’t we?”

“Wait… Gadolin, what do you mean?”

“I hate this meaning.”

“Come on, Yit, consider this a temp job for now. No one else is doing it. Not that many yaks around here in Manehattan, and the cab fleet’s still climbing back to a hundred percent… carpe diem!”

Yitterby can only sigh as he puts on a rug and saddle, screaming Ottimo and the ridesharing app’s logo. “This is embarrassing.”

“Yeah, and the horse-riding ranchers aren’t more embarrassed than you now, are they? Hey, I used to go into the sewers around here and dig up feces for biofuel for big cash back in the day! Gotta swallow some of that pride.”

So, .with nothing but an upgraded saddle with locked pockets to hold one’s stuff—not even a wagon or a carriage—Yitterby goes off, phone hidden in his thick fur—

Vibration, then the phone speaks: “Job auto-accepted. Copper Avenue 376, Halter District—“

“Yes, yes, I know the place!”

And the door opens, revealing a disheveled, groaning yak crashing into the Gadolin’s same old couch.

“How’d the experiment go, champ?”

A raised hoof, but Yitterby never looks back. “I’ve had… families, friends, entire parties of creatures dancing on my back. Even those with wings! They weren’t after the transportation, were they?”

“I believe they were. Just that you also had the bonus of being a yak.”

“And the selfies, Gadolin, the selfies…”

“Hey… at least you’re back on your feet—uh, hooves, yeah…” He flicks a looked outside. “Big pay day for you out there. Ottimo’s just a start-up, anyhow. Catering to big-boned creatures like you while you get to do your sorta-old job… it’s a win-win in the end, no? Just be like the good ol’ taxi days… without the car radio.”

“I’ve got a phone.” A lingering stare outside, indulging himself in the breathtaking view of skyscrapers and the flying creatures blessing the air. “But the streets… you know there’re still a lot of taxis, driven by ponies and even a couple cat people and those hunchback dogs.”

“Makes you stand out more. It’s a more… personal feeling, you know? No vehicle: just you and the passenger, hm?”

A somber hope lit up for the future. Another day of fares tomorrow. One step at a time.

“Yeah, sure, Gadolin.”

Balagan

Paf!

“Fluttershy, you’ve got to follow me now! The other Discord’s going to wake up!”

“Oh, uh… yes, Twilight! Discord told me before he went out—“

“You’re coming with me!”

Three directors’ chairs—named Faust, Renzetti, and de Lancie—sit across the other Discord’s medical bed. Monitor’s beeping signs showcase an increasing trend, more activity than a pulsating beat to doze off to.

“At least Equestria’s had some history with you!” Princess Twilight says panickedly to Discord on her left. “Earth may learn from your bad deeds, but that’s nothing compared to having their own Discord unleash chaos on these newfound creatures—!”

“Didn’t you say he only has chaos power,” asks Fluttershy, “and not the reality of chaos itself? Or something like that with dimensions… or equal stuff, or—“

“Shh!” His ear perks up, perches on a tree to sing. “Do you hear that? That’s the sound of—“

Boing!

Turn to the bouncy sound:

Coma patient’s uneven eyes wide open.

A flash of white and the Equestrian Discord’s by his bedside, round spectacles to provide a brain surgeon look. “I need to tell you something, buddy; please listen, and don’t try panicking. You’ve been in a coma for nine mo—“

“Wh-what am I?!” And up shoot his claw and paw, down to the rest of his serpentine body. “N-no! I… I’m just like them now, right? I saw everyone turning into weird things like you… and you, the little ponies!”

The two mares begin to stand from their seats, ready to act, but Discord puts up a mirror, showing his other self the full package. “You’re a draconequus. What’s your name, again?”

Unfazed by his appearance now; it’s just like the lunatic before him. “Um… uh, I’m, well, Discord! I-if you must know, I’m the son of Strife and de Vizion!”

“Hmm… parents? Check.” A scribble on his clipboard list. “Let me guess… oh, you’ve also gained that awareness, haven’t you? Sweet freedom sauce from the constraints of your reality, hm?”

Fragmented memories of nightmares past. Looked into the other side, peering in: other eyes reading, eyes somehow realer than him—

“Check. The crazed look in your eyes confirms it—“

A hitched breath. A claw to hold, raw energy coursing through his veins. “I can feel… so much change… so much power…”

And Twilight steps out, horn alight. “Alright, Discord, we’ve got to stop this! He’s clearly not well—“

“Oh, isn’t that right?!” the other Discord yells, hopping out of bed, patient’s clothes gone and IV detached, leaving behind rapid-fire beeps from the monitor. “Your world’s magic turned me into some demigod with insane powers, all after sleeping for months… and you think I’ll be alright?! I… I feel like I can do anything, really! I can bend time and space, I can feel like turning all of you into potted plants, I can summon every monster from my childhood dreams and turn them real, I can bankrupt everything by wishing for a mountain of gold… is that all true?!”

A gentleman’s cough leaves the Equestrian Discord. “Yes, my dear other-me, it—“

Paf!

In the far-north state of Mid-knight, a cabin not too far from civilization rages alone against the arctic, snow falling useless against the shack’s shabby planks.

Within this wood house Discord finds himself in, following the magical signature of his target’s fresh teleportation.

Said target now sits at a table, chisel in his claw.

“You don’t just run off like that! You haven’t even gotten through the tutorial! Though it’s hypocritical of me, I must guide you about your powers—“

“I’m… chaos, amn’t I?”

“Yes, yes, let’s establish that quickly!”—Discord flashes identification papers in, ranging from passports to driver’s licenses. “That’s the fun part… well, take fun responsibly—“ a beer bottle falls out of his limbs “—so as much as I hate to be some pony princess’s dog leash, you need some training wheels.” Roller skates manifest, given as an offer.

His other self blinks. Puts down his chisel, away from his work in progress.

And snaps the roller skates out of the cabin.

“Hey, what gives?!”

“Discord, please. Listen to me.”

“Listen to you?!” Storm clouds rage from above his head, lightning scorching the floor. “From what I’ve heard, you were just a beggar on the streets! The stars just happened to align so that you were to be this world’s Discord at the same age as I look when I was introduced to the wider world… while I… Discord, I am chaos itself, from time immemorial until time itself breaks down into nothing! So you better listen—“

“No, you listen.”

Authority from old age, wisdom forgotten, rasp scraping against his hoary throat: these, tucked into his answer.

A stool builds itself from nothing, falls under the Equestrian’s legs. “Fine. What’s your little sob story?”

Inhale the warm scent; breathe in a tinge of varnish, the crisp scent of sawdust that once lurked around here. That phantom sense of fingers in brand-new talons and paw-digits, groping against raw wood.

“I was only a beggar for about a few hours. Before then, I lived off my parents’ pension, separated though they may be… who knew woodwork wasn’t so profitable in the world-famous Silicon Fields of Canterlot City? Bah! It was a mistake moving from Mid-knight, try to hit it big time in Canterlot, only to have eight generations of lumberjacks and carpenters end with me unable to afford the little apartment we’ve had and kicked out to the urban wild… for a short time, mercifully.”

“Serendipity this Change is, don’t you think?”

A glare is shot, enough to silence any future witty remark.

“You might’ve figured out what this place is, Discord: it’s my family home. Or a part of it, at least. The old one from long ago. And you wanna know what we made here after a hard day of chopping down ancient trees that reach as high as the sky?”

Without the assistance of convenient chaos magic, he walks over to a door, to open. A beckon with the paw, and his much older counterpart leans in to behold:

A little chamber, a tiny archive, of cabinets and drawers stacked upon one another. No crystals to shoot the price up nor precious metals to churn out an automatic antique: only wood, curls and mountains and faces carved into timber in exquisite detail, particle-esque. And the smell, that redeeming smell of wood collected over the years floods the senses, a hint of mint like many of the pine trees occupying these cold northern territories.

“You… partook in cabinetry?”

“Yes, Mister Discord. I partook in cabinetry because that’s who I am. That’s who my family is… or was. Within cabinetry, whenever you let your hands shape wood into something much greater, you partake in the simple joy of creation.”

“Let me guess: This is a moral lesson primed to shame me in dragging you out.” He takes the dunce hat off his head. “And before you speak… yes, I know what it’s like to create and not just get whatever I want, whenever I want. Being friends with Fluttershy has taught me how mortals like what you used to be saw things. So what’s your point?”

Against this old draconequus, the former human can only sigh. “If you’re the spirit of chaos, the best thing you can do is to let me be. You have my word to the pony princess or whoever that I don’t want to cause chaos.”

“But you’re me!”

“We disagree, don’t we? Then that should be enough. I’ve already had enough of your chaos powers… coma nightmares peering into the beyond, rambling about canons and readers and typing commas… just go. Let me make something in peace.”

And after a reluctant while of seeing whether his Earth-self would change his mind, Discord snaps himself away.

A smooth blow on the surface, just to be sure, and it is done. Sharpened saws and their dust, banging hammers and tapes to measure with, stains and finish to complete the look:

A cabinet. Specifically, a drawer. Fit across a bed or gracing a beginner’s living room. Nothing too fancy. Had to resort to power tools, though; paws and claws are awkward against a now fat-handled chisel. Still, there’s always next time, precious time to get used to the abomination he’s somehow become.

Now, a return to form. A time to admire the fruit of his work.

“Uh, Discord?”

Scared out of the living daylights. “Wh-what are you—oh… you’re one of the ponies from the hospital, right? How did you get here?”

“I, um…” Rubs a foreleg; a familiar face yet not the same. Has to remind herself of that. “I had Discord… well, our Discord bring me here. Oh… before I forget, my name’s Fluttershy.”

A claw is sharpened, feeling out its talons as he scratches them. “That funny witchcraft, teleportation is.”

“Yes. But it’s now a part of you.”

“So what?” A pair of crossed arms. Sits down on a chair though he’s conscious of his lankier figure needing more control, more thought, just to stay upright. “This eagle’s claw is a part of me, but I’m not going to use it to tear flesh apart. Anyway, why are you here? Can’t you see I’m busy?”

There are a few sideways glances. Sawdust tucked away in a neat garbage bin, a couple planks of bargain plywood but also some pine and fir, some sturdy cedar—even the western favorite redwood is among its ranks. A couple labels abound, citing trees’ names; a bucket list hangs on a forgotten noticeboard, with expensive timbers such as bubinga, bocote, purple heart…

“You’re pretty lonely here, Discord.”

“Psh. Thanks for stating the obvious.”

“No, really.” Her soft whisper of a voice versus his authoritative yet cranky ring. “It wouldn’t hurt to… understand you more, right? Or at least… to just spend time with you and…”

Up to a chair she flutters, to sit down with him. To look around and take in her surroundings.

Not much left to see.

On a desk, family photos of a younger Discord. Grandfathers wield axes together at a reunion, beards as long as a wizard’s, swapping tales about broken metal heads and having trunks almost land a friend in the hospital. Father wears a jumper, directing everyone’s attention to his cabinets, photo in high enough quality to churn out the sweat frozen at that moment. Mother kisses her son on the cheek, the little boy embarrassed, yelling Mom! as hesawed off a tiny plank: his first step into a long-standing bloodline passion.

“I don’t feel like I deserve it.”

That prompts Fluttershy to turn around, to question. “But why? You clearly have a talent here.”

A paw points out the dust and cobwebs collecting in a corner. “Talent enough will not suffice. I have used it well for the longest time… until we moved to Canterlot. I was able to sustain us for a long time, but…”

“But what?”

“Ugh… I got caught up, okay? You pluck some rural boy from the arctic woods and drop him into the big city just like he asked, and what do you expect? The booze, the women, the rock and roll… I’m not even old enough to say that last part and sound out of touch. Argh… it’s simple: I blew it all off. We had to sell our little branch here, and it was me making cabinets on contracts out of our little apartment, annoying Mom and Dad at night every day. And the neighbors…

“And what do I get for all this? After practically sending my parents to an early grave and spending the little I had to make sure they had a decent funeral and getting kicked out? The magic thing happens, and the universe’s cursed me with… magic.”

“Magic isn’t so bad, Discord—“

“Says the talking horse with wings. But…” His look droops. “This doesn’t feel fair! I poured my ancestors’ legacy down the gutter, and the magic lottery comes up to give me absolute power as my reward! You know the saying, don’t you? Absolute power corrupts absolutely!”

“And what are you going to do about it?” she asks innocently.

“I was…”

Then, staring off. Off to the window. Past the window, snow continues to fall against bleak autumn darkness. Hints of light outside, the faintest reminder of civilization.

“I don’t know. Imprisoning myself in some bubble… but I wouldn’t want that. I still want freedom, but I feel guilty over being free like that… and what about my relatives? My cousins… would they be like me or would they just be ponies like you? I’m the black sheep of the bunch, so… why? Why me? It’s… just not fair…”

And a hoof over him, to comfort. Not exactly a hand, but it’s assuring enough.

“If we had to be fair all the time, then we wouldn’t have second chances.”

That’s enough for Discord to look, to peer into her eyes.

“You can still work wood… but now there’s magic. Chaos magic… one of the most powerful forms of magic out there.”

“But surely, you must remember that it can still corrupt!”

“Then that’s one reason to have friends around here.” She spreads a wing, sweeping the whole place with one turn. “You must’ve worked with your father here before you moved, right?”

“Well, yes… and Grampa Dissonance as well.”

“Then maybe you can invite them here! And with magic, you can certainly add something new to your talent, right?”

“I can at least make myself… different, stand out from the competition, sure…”

“But don’t you see, Discord? This is a second shot, your second shot! Not all creatures could get one after messing up so badly, and not everyone who does still accept it, but with you, maybe…”

She trails off, and Discord can’t help but sigh. A curse but a blessing. Even the meta stuff he’s held off from mentioning to Fluttershy yet—all the stuff about an audience, a TV show spin-off further spun off into the realm of fanon, ramblings about fourth walls and seeing beyond some cave’s shadows—but he holds tight.

Holds her hoof tight.

“I’ll think about it.”

Six months later

“So what do you want to show me?” Princess Twilight asks Fluttershy, the pair fresh from crossing Mid-knight’s portal terminal with Equestria.

Already, a little line has formed up by a newly opened shop, about to spill over to the sidewalk. Reading the shop’s sign from afar—“Oh, it’s a familiar face!”

Once inside, Twilight can’t help but muffle a gasp too loud—

“Ah, hello there!” And Discord bends down, bowing down before royalty while a customer nags him about some prices. “I did not expect your esteemed presence to bless our day.”

Twilight can only blink, nudging a hoof toward the errant mare tailing him. “You seem… tame today.”

“Compared to that crazy old geezer you have back home, yes, I am.” His smile is genuine, though sincerity is difficult with a snaggled tooth jutting out. “Why don’t you come take a look at my wares? They are quite a treat… and yes, madam, we’ll get to your little issue in just a moment.”

So Discord leads the way, discussing how his higher-than-average prices are fair enough, leading them deeper into his cavern of timber.

“He’s really down to earth,” Twilight begins, exchanging a glance with Fluttershy as they both window-shop from within, beholding a variety of shades and textures, of cabinets and bureaus. “And orderly. Almost too orderly.”

“Oh, just you wait,” goes Fluttershy, a knowing brow rising to action.

Then, Discord steps up on a platform. There, a desk already taking its place center stage. Ordinary: an unassuming drawer, made of oak as advertised. Still, the name given to it on the poster is Discord’s Determined Destroyer! rife with metal guitars and lots of fire graphics.

“Of course, madam, recycling and reusing things can only get you so far. There are some cases where you just want something to disappear completely! You can order a shredder, but some hyper-paranoid government agency can just send top agents to find the missing strips and piece together your precious secrets. So what do you do?”

His claw snaps.

And fire lights up the desk’s surface, ablaze to burn the stack of papers away, its ash floating upwards and dispersing into nothing but perfume-scented motes. Smells of wood, even, as ooh’s and aah’s shoot through his ears.

“So of course, dear lady, I can’t sell this special, one-of-a-kind drawer at the low, low price you’re asking. As you can see from this amazed audience, demand for such a thing is high, and while I can make a dozen more over a few weeks… leveraging my one-of-a-kind chaos magic for profit is a viable strategy.”

And the mare gulps, already feeling the wallet in her saddlebags burning up. Metaphorically and hypothetically, most fortunately.

“Oh, but wait, there’s more!”

And a slew of platforms rise up from the ground at the snap of a lever… and there, several more cabinets come up, complete with their own posters: a table bursting with flowers from within its aging cracks, a cabinet with a one-in-five chance per week to grant the owner a free bar of chocolate when a certain drawer is open, and a bed frame that bends the mattress and its own wooden structure to accommodate the sleeping posture of the buyer—

A poof, with everyone distracted. Even Twilight and Fluttershy haven’t noticed.

In the shack’s bitter cold, exposed now as winter barely turns to spring, he sighs in relief Being a showman, acting the part, is pretty good; chaos magic was pretty much showmanship personified, taken to the extreme with nigh unlimited resources.

He dismisses the thought of them, everyone watching him there. Dismisses the very concept of you and me, ready to be alone.

And there, a little box to hold. Made of wood—simple enough, made of cheap plywood. A little heart, etched onto it.

Within, photos of him and all his family, even up to the fourth generation—smiling. The bedraggled beard of his father, the tender hug from his mother—the thought of them still living, surviving… changing with him, staying with him. At least, to be there as constant guiding lights—

“Papa Discord! Look what I made!”

And down he looks: there, a drifter, barely beyond a teenager yet still wearing that funny little propeller cap of hers. Adopting a little case like her, even if as just an apprentice for now—to nurture, to cultivate, help pass down the talent along his line. Her cutie mark even had a screw in it, and the other half of her cutie mark already offered opportunities to expand…

She holds up a baseball bat she made: good and strong. Fresh, scented—from a touch, there’s a hint in his mind that it’s made of maple, not like ash which is to be found in most major league teams. Already, a bevy of ideas invades his mind: bats heavy enough to throw basketballs and even bowling balls high into the sky, making a couple of bleachers that pitch up and down like a high-tech cinema—

“Why, you’ve hit this one out of the park, dearest Screwball! You want to test it out?”

With that, sharing her giggles, he turns to accompany Screwball down to another table where she’ll make another one just like this.

And with a claw outstretched, he closes a literal door on us, leaving him to enjoy his time in peace.

Sta Astéria

The moon and its stately accompaniment of stars: they hold the gazes of two nightly alicorns, identical in all but clothes.

The one clad in regalia looks to her counterpart, the latter’s horn glowing blue. “It seems that raising the moon is noticeably more difficult than manipulating the stars for you. It is a much more delicate work, after all. Say… have you ever sewn or crocheted?”

A nod comes from the local Luna, adorned with nothing but a spare collar from her vice principal wardrobe. “Yes, I have. My sister was more adept at it, to say the least.”

A star slowly rises, but like a rock too heavy to bounce on the lake, it falls.

“Though, of course, I was adequate at it because I had fingers.”

More stars reach up, ascending but without the glory for they wobble.

The glow on her horn stops; the vice principal, exhausted. The princess could clock her other self’s stressed-out breathing.

“You are overthinking this, Lulu. It is true that they are stars and no mere objects, but you are not supposed to do this on your own.” She taps her own horn: a quiet thunk! thanks to her royal horseshoe. “You are not supposed to hold full sway magic. Remember: let the magic guide you. Direct your magic to the stars and let it take you there: let it help you make what you desire to make.”

A question pops into her head. “Although, what did you intend to make back there?”

The vice principal gives only a knowing grin. “I will let you judge for yourself. For one, it is one of my favorite things since childhood… and yours too, I believe.”

“Oh?” A blink and she is back to her professional teaching self. “Perhaps a good way to aid you is if you close your eyes and only remember the patch of stars over there… perhaps only then will you let go enough of yourself to let the magic flow through you.”

So the vice principal does. With a serene breath and a shutting of her eyes—chilly is the night, and the peace of the dark blue evening: right in her element—her horn glows, the tinkling of magic tickling her ears.

To the princess’s surprise and tears, the stars form a crescent constellation.

Needless Needles

“That was a pretty good episode you did today, Sunset! Gotta say, Rarity’s been aggressive with her cross promotions, but she’s much more tasteful than most sponsors.”

“It’s par for the course, Twi. When you talk about proper mane care, Rarity has to jump in. She’s got an eye for details, and we know it’s more than just horse shampoo, after all.”

“Huh. That explains why your hair always shone different.”

“Was it really that noticeable?”

“Not much. Just had the feeling it was… off.”

“Yeah. Hey, I’ve noticed something about you.”

“What?”

“Vlogs. TackTube channels. Now I know why I there’s something off with you in the vlogosphere.”

“What do you mean?”

“AJ’s got her DIY shtick, Pinkie’s got her baking channel, Rarity’s got her online fashion show, Rainbow has her stunts, I do gaming streams, even Fluttershy’s become the occasional star for the animal shelter ads. It just… never crossed my mind that you didn’t do anything like that. I think it’s Spike’s fault.”

“What does Spike have to do with it?”

“Spike’s your pet—or used to be—so I counted you in by proxy.”

“Yeah, it’s not my thing. I’m more of a stay-quiet stay-in type of study gal.”

“Oh, yes, the stay-quiet stay-in type of study gal who goes ballistic at the mention of the tongue map myth and subjects her friends to half-hour lectures on quantum computing.”

“You’re my friends; it’s different! If I’m vlogging, I’d be vlogging to random strangers! Besides, what would I vlog about anyway?”

“Other than half-hour lectures? Well, why not your experiments? You’ve gone crazy over the weekends with potions and spells in your witch tower.”

“It wouldn’t be viable in the long run. More capable spellcasters from Equestria will get a hold of the Internet and explain things much better than I can.”

“But ponies would be getting an Equestrian’s perspective if they listen to the old wizards.”

“Isn’t that a good thing?”

“For the most part, but most ponies here used to be human so Equestrians would miss the human element. I was nostalgic when I saw you tinker with magic the other day like a foal taking control of her magic for the first time. With an eternally-curious human mind like yours, you’re bound to think a little different—or a lot. You were a mad scientist before the Change anyway. At least, I could say that because you made a robot dog just so Spike could have a canine friend when you could’ve saved yourself time and money by going to some little pet shop.”

“But pet shops don’t have dogs with extra senses for scouting and off-world research, reinforced steel plates protecting their vital organs, and expanded vision covering the infrared and ultraviolet parts of the visual spectrum!”

“Look, what I’m saying is: you’re crazy—”

“Thanks!”

“—so make a crazy show.”

“… like Neighponese levels of crazy?”

“Not that crazy. Just think about it: Equestrian magic meeting planet Earth is bound to cause antics out in the wild. Tons of myths and rumors will pop up, and you won’t be able to tell which is the real thing.”

“So we’re busting urban legends and myths?”

“Or prove them! For example, Clover the Clever went here about a thousand years ago. That’s a topic you can lean on and correlate with those Big-Hoof sightings from, say, a thousand years ago. Still, yeah, narrowing somepony like that down is like finding a needle in a haystack, so scratch that.”

“Could you do that though?”

“Might be hard to verify right now. The conspiracy forums are hard to coordinate with when tons of them accuse me of boosting an Equestrian cabal to conquer Earth—“

“No, the needle in the haystack!”

“Um… I’ve never tried finding needles in haystacks—“

“Yes, I’ve got it! That will be my pilot episode: using magic to find a needle in the haystack and update the Equish language once and for all!”

“Twilight, you can’t be serious.”

“Hello, world! My name’s Twilight Sparkle! I used to be a human, but I’m a unicorn now, as you can see! Today on this live premiere of The Sci-Twi Project, I’ll attempt outdating an age-old adage once and for all: that finding a needle in a haystack is extremely difficult!

”I’ve whipped up this spell which I’ll explain in painstaking detail after the test, ‘cause the algorithm here favors cool action stuffover the rational reasons and causes behind the thing, but I’m sure you purists will forgive me for this.

“Simply put: it’s a spell written specifically for differentiating different materials from each other. It’s roughshod, but I’ve had weeks’ worth of studying just to get it to function in the first place. However, we’re going to be testing it for real right now! Are you excited about this? I know I’m excited because this could be revolutionary!

“… okay! Right here, in this air-tight box is a haystack made according to international agricultural industry standards. I asked my dog-turned-dragon to insert a needle there while I was away. What I’ll do is cast the spell through this hole which will convey it hermetically into the box and into the haystack. If the workings of my spell fit perfectly, the needle will come out of the haystack like two magnets on the same pole repelling each other! You got all that? One, two….”

Poof!

“Huh. It actually worked. I was expecting some kind of catastrophic failure that—wait, it worked?! Yes! An idiom dies tonight! You think finding your car keys is like finding a needle in the haystack? Think again!”

“Twilight, this is ridiculous.”

“Don’t ruin the moment, Sunset! It’s the science of magic enlightening our vocabulary! What else is next?!”

“You’re really a mad scientist, aren’t you?”

Post-horse

Cookie can only frolic around on the grass in something resembling worship.

“I can’t believe it!” Cookie yells, kissing the ground while being ignorant to the taste of dry dirt. “This is the Equestria, the land where the equines reign and did their own thing with their own cities and... their own everything! It’s a dream come true!”

“Dreaming about horse world domination?” Cinnamon asks smugly as she slowly pulls the rolling pony up so they won’t get any more stares from the Ponyville populace.

“Yeah, hope not!” Oakley says, already hovering a few inches above the ground like a natural. “That’s bad, right?”

“Yeah—“ and Cookie nets another surprised look from a local citizen. “Hello there, fellow pony! How are you today?”

And the mare stares at her for a second before backing away from the suspicious trio.

“Cookie!”—Cinnamon grabs her by the withers. “You can’t just greet them like that! Do you even remember where we’ll start here?”

Cookie opens her mouth wide, gasping. “Oh yeah! The local baker, and you know who I mean!”

“Aah! Pinkie! As in, the Ponyville Pinkie!”

“That’s right!” says Pinkie herself as she serves up a box of cake to a line of wagon haulers delivering non-meat food to Earth. “And what can I help ya with?”

While Oakley and Cinnamon are already seated at their chairs in the bakery, Cookie stays up front with Pinkie at the counter. “Wh-what’s it like to be... well, a pony all your life? With all this knowledge and higher-life functions and all that?”

Pinkie looks up, tongue curled outside. “It’s not too hard, you know? I was a foal once upon a time, but as I grew, I started... becoming more! Know more stuff, try out new things, and next thing I know, I was spitting words and carrying rocks for the family farm! After that, you go up Mister Mason Roan’s hierarchy of needs—I think that’s how it works for you, right? Like, you were just thinking about how to survive and wanting to be safe... and maybe some friendship here and there, safety in having a loving family, right?—back when you were horses, I mean.”

And Cookie nods, following the baker’s train of thought. “Yeah, that’s... that’s what I remember a lot. I just can’t think of anything beyond that...”

“Yeah, but now, you can have more than just your basic needs! Grass and smiles ain’t enough! You start to ask the big questions like: Why do I want to be with others? Why are friends so good? Why do I want more out of life than just existing and living? What’s the purpose of life? Why are we here? Why is this my cutie mark?... and then, sooner or later, poof! You’ve got us!”

That gets Cookie smiling wide. “Yeah, all that higher-level stuff! I... I never asked the big why’s in the first place, but now... why?”

“Well, that’s for you to find out!” Pinkie says, getting up another cake for another customer. “Got a wagon? Read the manual! Something like that for wisdom in your life-searching. As for me, I want to spread joy to other ponies and make ‘em smile!”

“Wow, that’s nice!” she says. “I thought you were just a really hyper gal, judging from the Pinkie we have on Earth.”

“Oh, don’t be silly! If she’s anything like me, she’d say the same to you!”

After hanging out with Pinkie, there’s another guest on the list, though they meet her unexpectedly as Rarity was on the same Canterlot-bound train they got on.

“...and that’s how Prince Blueblood has somehow managed to retain his status of royalty,” Rarity finishes, turning her eyes once again to Cinnamon paying much attention to the fashionista.

That makes the new unicorn shakes her head, rubbing her horn. “Wow, that’s... that’s a long history for him... and for the whole city of Canterlot, really. I knew Equestrian society isn’t exactly simple, but all of this just stemming from one city and one stallion...”

“The same can be said for the equally complex human society, no?” asks Rarity.

“Yes, of course, but it’s just... it’s strange having all these complex things stem from ponies. From horses, equines...”

Rarity sighs. “I will admit, other universes and worlds aren’t my specialty, but I can say that that is how things are: we are here with our cities and histories and civilization, our dreams and tragedies both individual and collective, intertwined with each other’s histories and hopes. It is something beyond what you had back when you were—what was it?—not yet ‘uplifted,’ am I correct?”

“Yes,” Oakley replies. “It’s just that part of our visiting Equestria here is seeing this horse world for what it is, and it’s scarily amazing… and amazingly scary.”

Rarity purses her lips. “Fluttershy’s clarified to me the distinction between us sapients and the animals she has in her care. I can only imagine what you must’ve went through when you suddenly had… for lack of a better term, the lights switched on in your heads.”

Cinnamon smiles. “But we’re here now, and… well, Canterlot does have tons of libraries and museums, right?”

“Oh yes,” she says. “Canterlot is the Equestrian capital, after all! There is no better place to dive deep into for histories and stories than Canterlot.”

After yet another loop, the stupendous Rainbow Dash lands right in front of them, skidding to a halt to the applause of many nobles, a couple former humans helping with supplies, and the three used-to-be horses, finishing an impromptu demonstration in the middle of the square.

Once the crowd’s been dispelled with autographs and pictures, Rainbow takes a look at the three of them that haven’t left.

Oakley’s eyes, already brightened with adrenaline and cheer. “Wow, that’s amazing! Those spins and barrel rolls and the works and… everything!”

“Yup!’ Rainbow says, pumping her chest. “Glad you can see what these bad boys can do!“—and she brings up her wings once more.

“Wow, and… there’s more, right? Like controlling the weather?!”

“Yup!” Rainbow says. “We pegasi take pride in the sky. You ain’t used to that, are ya, Oaks?”

“Nope!”—and Oakley hovers over the ground now, feeling the wind underneath his wings. “I’ve been like this for a month, and I still don’t get tired of it!”

“Oh yeah!” Rainbow says. Then, looking at the near-sunset sky, “Well, I can’t really stay much; gotta get back to Ponyville and handle some of the stuff we’ll be sending to your world, not to mention arranging some special Wonderbolt help for you folks.”

“Yeah, do ya know any good place to eat here?” asks Cookie, stomach grumbling.

“Hmm.” Taps her chin in thought. “You know what? You ex-horses… but still horses—whatever, you’re now ponies, so to celebrate that, here’s some bits—“ she hoofs them a little parcel filled with money “—which should be enough to get you a good meal in this place and then some. Take it as my parting gift, okay?”

“Oh that’s great!”

“But what restaurant here do you recommend?” Cinnamon says, brows raised. “We’d like to experience some real fine dining. None of that simple salt or sugar cube and hay stuff anymore!”

Rainbow scratches her head. “Okay, there’s this bar I went to with Rarity once, and it has some good food and some real good drinks…”

Yet in the whirl of a few hours, there lies nothing but a painfully pleasant/ pleasantly painful blur to remember, addling their alcohol-stenched minds.

So when they wake up with hammering headaches later on, they first think that the shaking all around them is a humongous earthquake. However, upon closer inspection, it turns out that the buildings around them aren’t crashing down— they aren’t even the high-rises of Canterlot but some cozy cottages instead: back in Ponyville, and then back towards some trees, past Ponyville proper…

Apple trees.

Their prior drunken condition falls apart as recognition opens their eyes wide—

“Applejack?!”

And the wagon stops, the driver stopping as she turns around to face her cargo of passengers. With her trusty ten-gallon hat, looking upon the three of them with her freckles and ponytailed mane—

“Applejack, it’s you!”

And the three of them leap from the wagon to tackle the mare in a group hug, shooting her off the dirt path and rolling onto some grass, smothering the apple pony with cuddles and an embrace.

“A-alright!” Applejack yells, struggling to get off of them. “So you must be the… agh! You must be the… the ponies she’s been talkin’ ‘bout, no?”

“You mean our Applejack, right?!” Cookie says. “Aww, she told you about us, didn’t she?!”

“She said that weeks ago already,” Cinnamon says, though unable to contain her joy at seeing Applejack.

“Yeah”—and Oakley lifts the farmer up onto her four hooves. “And… w-wow, it’s very good to see you, Applejack… another Applejack? Applejack, part two?”

And the mare chuckles, then sniffs. “Well, you best at least be goin’ home with me first. I picked you up ‘cause I saw ya goin’ around drunk while I was deliverin’ apples to some noble in Canterlot, an’ somepony told me they last came from Ponyville, so—“

“It was fun getting drunk!” Cookie yells, hoof raised in the air. “Rainbow said it’s the best place in town!”

And Applejack sighs. “Let’s just fix you up with a proper dinner first. Can’t believe Rainbow’d snow you on that…”

They ate in the kitchen, consuming rather late dinner: some apple turnovers and a few reheated slices of apple pie.

“Wow, it’s just like back home!” Cookie yells.

“Yup!” Oakley says with a nod, taking a huge bite of the steaming hot, delicious pie. “But it’s… somehow better! You can’t possibly beat our Applejack, can you?”

“This is not a competition,” Cinnamon says, testing the food out with a fork in her magic glow. Turning to Applejack, “I figure it’s Earth pony magic enhancing your produce?”

“Sure as gravy,” Applejack says, “though I wouldn’t say that it’s better than the apples from my other self back home. We’ve got magic an’ they’ve got all those fancy-schmancy science stuff humans have, like ‘tractors’! What in the world’s a tractor anyway?”

And the three horses laugh at that, trying and failing to describe the vehicle to her.

But after the mare gets it anyway, she then looks at her inter-dimensional guests enjoying their time, eating and laughing, sharing jokes and family stories…

And her heart melts.

“So… what was it like being her horses?” she asks. Awkwardness at the thought of horses being corralled around just like that, set aside.

“Oh, she took care of us really well!” Cookie begins, hooves moving around to trace the story. “Sugar cubes, riding around, good grass… never really left town that much except for that one time we raced a couple other farmhands’ horses here and there—we did more, but… but we just had Applejack, Big Mac, Apple Bloom, Granny—even Bright and Pear when they were still around, and…”

A wiped tear later, Oakley steps in. “I guess what we’re trying to say is… is she took care of us really well, and—wow, it feels weird talking to her and not talking to her at the same time, you know, AJ… well, it’s not just her, but all of them. All of us… as a family.”

And that brings a tear onto Applejack’s cheek. “And now that you’re all… actual ponies just like us, with all these big noggins and all…”

Cinnamon nods at the prompt. “Yes, we were able to thank her a lot when she came home… and then after a while, there was… a time when she wasn’t sure about accepting us into the family because we weren’t humans… not really born with Apple blood, you know. But we got better.”

“Oh yeah… when you discovered she was doin’ rodeo stuff with me, huh?”

And Oakley snickers. “Yup, something like that.”

After a while of amiable silence across the table, Applejack extends a hoof to shake. “Well, it’s good to meet you for real this time. We haven’t been with each other long, but I can already tell that you’re Apples through and through—“

And Cookie hugs her tight. “Yes! We’re part of two Apple families now!”

The others chuckle at that, Applejack patting her on the withers. “Now, now, we have to actually get you back home. But first, I’ve got an idea…”

“So you’re tellin’ me that Cookie, Oakley, and Cinnamon got drunk in Equestria?”

“Eeyup.”

“And that they managed to smash a couple glasses and some property when they got wild and had to foot a triple-digit bill?”

“Eeyup.”

“And then the other me’s givin’ them a sleepover so they can bond with her family?!”

“Eeyup.”

And Applejack sighs, shaking her head at the other world’s Big Mac, hitched by the yoke to a crate of premium apples to ship around.

Applejack shakes her head. “Well… are they at least behavin’?”

A ghost of a smile tugs at his lips. “Eeyup.”

And a sigh of relief comes out of her, holding back a tear of concern—relief, as she hugs Big Mac tight for safety. “At least they’re all okay…!”

Special Weapons and Magic

“…and how’s Epsilon doing?” President Aspen asks in a briefing report as deer officials of the Skogur government are gathered to discuss and debate.

“The newly revamped police tactical unit is making leaps and bounds,” goes Vice President Blackthorn, “considering the many newfound opportunities that’ve been given us.”

“Really? How so?”

In a gun store’s basement, a couple Equestrian unicorns rummage through the boxes, uncovering increasingly dangerous alien weapons: pistols, shotguns, rifles, grenades…

”Well, that was easy,” says one of the thugs. “Just knock ‘em out with a baseball bat floating behind their heads! I swear these deer aren’t like the deer back home… real deer would have eyes behind their backs!”

“Yeah, yeah, now let’s get all this in—“ and the leader shoves several weapons into everyone’s saddlebags, dismantling them if needed. “I don’t wanna go through the chore of guard-hunting—“

Hoof step.

“Who’s there?!”

All aim weapons at the door now suddenly open, though a hint of green just leaves their vision: potted plants right in front of them.

And a unicorn picks up a rocket launcher, loading it haphazardly—almost fumbles, nearly drops the rocket to the floor. “Hey, I’ve got an explosive weapon, and I’m not afraid to use it! Catch!”

“Wait no, Salt! You’re gonna kill us—!“

Click, off it goes—

Then a deer, all covered in bulletproof armor, antlers glowing—

Plants turn into vines, growing stems—

Rocket caught, midair, gently laid down to the ground. Defused after one more glow from the deer to deactivate.

“Get down on the ground, now!” the Epsilon deer shouts, antlers glowing, flashlight blinding from his rifle—

Jangling, multiple flashlights. Multiple guns aim at the pony perpetrators. All the Epsilon squad gets are a bunch of pistols floating at them and a sniper rifle angled the wrong way—

“So what?” says the criminal leader aiming at himself with his rifle. “You think you can outsmart us? You barely know how to use magic; we were born in it!”

“Didn’t you just see me decommission your rocket?”

“Beginner’s luck!”

Inches closer for the assault rifle with the leader’s head in its sights. “You just committed robbery, you are highly armed and dangerous, and you think this is just a game? Hands—hooves on the air, now! Weapons on the ground!”

“Make me, you mangled ex-ape!”

Clink!

Something rolling on the ground. Enough to make the criminal leader look—

A little metal can.

“Really? Some soda bottle? What do you think we are? Animals? You can’t just treat us like your old horses and—“

Poof!

Coughing, wheezing everywhere—smoke covers, squeezes their eyes.

Deer and helmets charging in, criminal weapons put aside as evidence (especially the rocket launcher). Shouts to get down on the ground now, hoofcuffs locked in, and already, perimeter set with official yellow tape.

“Well, that’s one thing taken care of,” an Epsilon member says as the rest of the police come in, already bagging several items of interest as more evidence. “Now if they weren’t so… dramatic…”

A bag of money is plopped onto the mastermind’s table.

“Eh? What’s this, Fosi?”

And the little leader sits down on the chair, sitting in the dank room—the den of his criminal society covered in filth and trash way back in Equestria.

“I’m done, boss. I’m done. I… if those ex-humans can call in… magic flashes without any magic at all and smoke from soda cans, I’m…”

“Once you’re in, you’re in, buddy.“ And the leader’s leader shanks a hoof down on the table. “You can’t just—“

“They’ve got… big weapons, boss! Like armor that can block arrows like nothing… but it’s is still lightweight! And I… well, I do have some of their guns, but they’re nothing like what they have! Like, like… machine guns! They go pew-pew-pew—but it’s so much faster! Like—“ spits on the table for each bullet per minute “—and they’re—“

“Look, you’re an exaggerating phony full of baloney. Even if you aren’t, you’re too much of a scaredy-cat! You leave those buckaroos to me, ya hear? Those new foals don’t know how to respect our magic legacy—“

A stream of bullet holes right on the wall seals the deal.

It leaves the mob boss with a strange feeling that he has never felt before: dread. “Wh-what is…th-that?!”

“Machine gun.”

And the Epsilon deer holds the hefty contraption up in his magic: a hybrid between metal and bark, stems and leaves serving as a lightning-quick reloading mechanism.

“We… usually don’t lug it around. It’s too heavy and it’s impractical in emergency situations… but I’ve heard that it scares the living daylights out of Equestrians like you. Oh, and the plants are usually for show… but don’t tell them that.”

“Oh really?! Well, what about I break your little gun?!”

Magic activated, to destroy—indeed, the gun breaks into pieces, but all guns aimed at him—

“Yeah, yeah, what’re ya gonna do? Shoot me! Because I’ve got reflexes—“

“Uh, boss?” And Fosi bumps his head honcho on the shoulder, hiding behind a crate. “Should you be tempting fate right now?”

“We’re rising stars in organized crime! We’re gonna take over the Colic Nostra, no problem! All these bullets are just smoke and mirrors… they’re nothing without real magic! Ay, come on, you deer! Put up a fight—

“Ayuh!”

Falls to the floor thanks to a wayward vine tripping him forward.

He hasn’t noticed the potted plant right beside him. Wasn’t there before.

“…so you’re saying we can rely on grenades, machine guns, and potted plants to do the job?” asks a befuddled Aspen.

The Vice President nods. “Yes. That is true.”

And Aspen looks at all the other members of his cabinet around the round table. “Well, that… settles things for now—“

And his heart skips a beat upon seeing a potted plant by the corner of the room—

“Oh, that’s just… the same potted plant that’s been here for… years. Stupid magic… why does it have to make nature so complicated?”