"Twilight!" The new pony trotted right up to Twilight with a big ole smile. "Finally, a pony that will know what's going on."

Twilight inclined her head at the unicorn. She did not know that pony, but she had been told about them. "Lemon Drops, right?"

"Did everypony get bonked on the head?" Lemon squinted a little before bobbing her head. "Of course it's Lemon Drops. We were classmates? Friends basically forever?! Twilight, what's going on? What is this place?!" She waved a hoof wildly around the magic classroom. "Don't get me wrong, kinda nice. Free food, games, like that part. But where are we? Seriously where are we?"

Twilight reached out a hoof that Lemon didn't stop from resting on her. "You must be very confused."

"Yes!" She was nodding as furious as she could.

"But so am I. What do you remember?"

Lemon sat back and raised her hooves. "That question is way too vague. Today? Yesterday? Back at school? That time you and Moon Dancer made up 'cause that was totally adorable and sweet!"

Twilight couldn't help but to smile a little at that pony's powerful cheerfulness, even in the face of her obvious bafflement. "I don't remember you from school?"

Lemon's hooves fell limply to the ground. "What? Alright. Alright... Forget me! Twilight, you are the one that needs help." She put a hoof to her chest. "What do you remember? Start from the, uh, start. Give me a rundown of your life."

Twilight's smile quirked. "Now I see how large a question that was."

"Right?!"

"But I will answer." Twilight nodded gently. "I was an athletic girl, loved moving, track and field in school, not bad at it. Not the best, but not bad. Then I hit the real world, and that kinda... fell away. I became a manager at a business of all things, less running myself and more running other people." She laughed softly at that. "But I was a human back then, so... Then Ponid, pow, welcome to being a unicorn!" She waved a hoof over herself. "Can't say I miss being a manager, but I still am if you think about it. I just get to manage pony wizards, and that's way cooler."

Lemon Drops blinked slowly before she cycled her hooves wildly counter-clockwise. "Go back, go back. Human. That's what the people in suits are, right? Two legs, two hands?" Twilight nodded. "And you were one of those?" Twilight nodded again. "You... aren't my Twilight... What... What even are you?" Lemon slapped a hoof to her cheek, just starting to get a hint of the situation she was in. "Oh gosh..."

"Don't panic." A fine thing that has always worked every other time it was said. "I'm here to help, and you're not in danger."

"Danger?! I'm, uh, guess not." She laughed a little hysterically. "This place has been really nice, except for the huge cold and the weird dreams." She rubbed at her head. "At least that's past. Oh, and who cut my tail?!" She flicked her restored tail with an angry snort. "Grew back, thankfully."

"And a fine tail it is." Twilight was not paying much attention to Lemon's tail. "Now, I gave you the basic run down of my life. Your turn." A pad hovered closer, ready to take notes. A recorder floated on the opposite side. "Please, be as detailed as you are comfortable."

Lemon reached up to swat at the pad. "Subtle much? Fine." She rose up to her full height. "I am Lemon Drops, born and raised in Canterlot. I went to Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns--"

"Did you say Celestia?"

"Princess Celestia?" Lemon hiked a brow. "You forgot her too?! Or maybe you never knew her... This is so strange..."

"I know... A Celestia..." Twilight wobbled a hoof before her note-taking resumed, the recorder capturing the conversation faithfully. "Can you describe your Celestia?"

"Big." Lemon spread her hooves far. "And a princess, kinda why she's called that. She's super nice and gentle and she's great at parties! She's ruled Equestria for a bajillion moons! At least over a thousand years. Gosh, can you imagine doing a job that long? She seemed alright with it..."

Twilight nodded slowly along with the story, however implausible it seemed. "Equestria?"

Lemon rolled her eyes at that. "Seriously? Our country? Well, maybe just my country? Where ponies live!" She thrust a hoof at Twilight, not making contact. "You are a pony, tell me you at least know that much."

"I am definitely a pony," agreed Twilight with a smile. "As are most of the other spellcasters here, other than the kirin."

"Oh! You have kirin? Awesome! I never met one of those, but I wanted to." Lemon bobbed her head firmly. "But, um, so I went to school... with you, and others... Well, not you? Another you? Like the other Celestia?" She sank suddenly. "How does this even work?" She flopped right over onto her side. "So I graduated, flying colors, and I went on to the highly magical career of... event organizer." She burst into giggles.

Rolling back upright, she nodded towards Twilight. "Guess we got something in common there, Not Twilight. We ended up in a place we weren't trying for, but it wasn't bad, right?"

"Not at all." Twilight made a quick note with her floating pen. "I'm quite satisfied with what I'm reaching for now. However... I would like to go back a little. Do you know magic?"

"Do I know magic? I just told you, I passed school. I was good at it." She sat back up, head held high. "Maybe not my-Twilight levels of good, she was something else, but good!"

"Now... a curious question. Do you remember being a mouse?"

Lemon's brows fell. Annoyance or confusion, hard to tell. "I... had some dreams about it? Kinda strange, really. I was in my old mouse costume, the one I wore for Nightmare Night. Gosh, that thing was silly, but kinda cute. But, here's the thing. I was also really eency." She held up her hooves close together. "I was scampering around all small like and squeaking, like a mouse. Ha... That was just a silly cold-induced dream though, why?"

"No reason." Twilight kept right on taking notes, scribbling busily. "That was a lie... I want to tell you the truth, but it will sound very strange."

"Try me." Lemon rolled her eyes. "I'm talking to not-Twilight. I'm... like on another world maybe? There's no Equestria here. There are a bunch of ponies... who never heard of Equestria. Seriously, try me."

"If you... insist." Twilight cleared her throat and set aside her pad. Her recorder would at least capture it all for later note taking. "You, at least... physically, were not Lemon Drops a few weeks ago."

"I'm pretty sure I remember being Lemon Drops a few weeks ago." Lemon hiked a brow at the idea. "Yep, pony."

Twilight's magic grabbed a folder from a cabinet and drew it over quickly. She flopped it down, opening it in the motion. There was a picture of a perfectly ordinary lab mouse. "This was you. Again, physically. Mentally, clearly not. Mentally... It seems you, Lemon Drops, have moved in completely."

Lemon reached out with a shaking hoof. "That's... That's what I saw, in the dream... I was... Oh wow." She was wobbling as if dizzy. "This... How?!"

"I think it's time I explained what Ponid is."

And she did exactly that, explaining the disease and how it worked.

"Hold up." Lemon Drops clopped the ground angrily. "The mouse shouldn't have turned into a pony."

"Pardon?" Twilight hiked a brow. "Why not? It was exposed to Ponid, likely from Sunburst."

"But it wasn't an injection." Lemon clopped her hoof down all the harder. "It shoulda became a pony-human. Why did it become a pony? Why... did I happen? Would I have... come as a pony human? Gosh..." She put a hoof to her cheek. "Don't get me wrong, happy to be a pony, but that doesn't make sense!"

Twilight soon joined the frown, realizing that Lemon wasn't wrong. It hurt because she should have known that! How did someone entirely new to the situation put that together?! "The only theory I can put forward is that the caster, Sunburst, was in way over his head. With such an imperfect casting, any number of confounding factors could have interacted with Ponid and the mouse to create... Well, you." She tapped at her chin. "We'd need to repeat the experiment to know for sure, but... there are ethics in the way of that idea."

"Oh gosh..." She could imagine more mice becoming ponies. "No! That'd be horrible. Let's keep that at the one we got..." She raised a hoof into her own view. "I was a mouse? Where is that mousey? Did I hurt a mouse?!" Her head flopped limply. "Gosh..."

"You are that mouse," reminded Twilight. "So they aren't hurt. They are you. You... replaced them, mentally."

"Twilight, that's... still basically... I killed that mouse." Lemon Drops rose to her full height. "Sure, it was just a mouse, I guess. But we're all 'just' something. I'm just a pony! I bet something else thinks that's not much. I'd care about it!" She clopped down a hoof and turned away. "Sorry... Sorry... You didn't do this... I... Actually. I really... Really should meet the pony who did. They... It's kind of their fault, all of this, isn't it?" She turned back to Twilight.

"He's a very important pony to our projects. I can't have you hurting him," she warned as she adjusted her glasses.

"What? Hurt him? Gosh, what kind of pony do you think I am? I'm busy being sad about a poor little mousey. Hurting a pony won't help! Still, he... pulled me here, in this confusing place... I want to talk to him. I have that right! ... right?" She smiled hopefully. "I won't hurt him, promise. I'm not a violent pony."

"I will see about scheduling a meeting. But first!" Her magic grabbed a whiteboard and flipped it over, revealing a spell. "What is this?"

"Music?" Lemon inclined her head and began to sing along with it. She was singing magic, though just singing it as music did little to affect reality. "Not bad, not great. Alright. What about it?"

Twilight hissed softly. "I was afraid of that. Alright, can you, please, write down a spell? Any spell. A simple one would be ideal."

"Oh, um, sure?" Lemon looked left and right before spotting a marker and grabbing it in her magic. She started writing. It wasn't English. It wasn't any language Twilight had ever seen before. Almost runic, really. But she wrote something down across the board faithfully. It was intricate, yet rough at the same time. It was a practical language, meant to be able to be gotten down quickly, as a written language must if one plans to use it day by day. "Here you are."

And it was entirely alien to Twilight. "What does that specific spell do?" She gestured at it as her phone lifted into view, snapping a picture of the board. She would have so much data to sift through later!

"That?" Lemon shrugged softly. "Fireworks." She inclined her head as her horn began to glow with magic. "Behold!" And lo did the little classroom become home to streaks of light that exploded into brilliant flares, popping and fizzling in dramatic displays of cheer. "I always loved this spell," sighed out Lemon as she kept it going in various colors. "Now's the part where you say you don't know magic and you break my heart."

"Hm? I know plenty of magic," proudly defended Twilight, raising a hoof to point at the original spell on the board. "Like that one."

"That's a sheet of music," dryly retorted Lemon Hearts, but it hit her a moment later. "That's how you write magic down?!"

"I felt the same way when you drew yours...." Twilight clopped her hooves together. "If you are willing, we should speak on that more."

Author's Note

I hope you were ready for some TRUTH! The reality of things is dawning upon poor Lemon Drops, and Twilight too!

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