One eye on the living, one eye on the dead.
For some reason, Derpy had liked to think that, ever since she was a filly. It had led to some very interesting conversations with ghosts and some very concerned parents and teachers. These days, she more often tried to ignore the ghosts, which was fine, considering they mostly ignored her, too. Except this one.
Every day for the past week, she took a stroll behind Princess Twilight’s castle in Ponyville, and… it was there.
She stared at it again. No ghost ever stayed in the same place for more than a few minutes. This one hadn’t moved ever since she first noticed it. When her right eye skewed just perfectly, a sort of… well, a ripple hung in the air, like somepony had tried to iron out the day’s wrinkles and missed one.
“Hello,” she said, setting down her picnic basket. “Would you like a muffin?”
It didn’t answer, of course, yet the “of course” part of it niggled at the back of her brain. That presupposed it couldn’t, yet she had always felt like it might, given the right circumstances. Not too warm, not too cold, not too many other ponies around, not too much of a lot of things.
No, it wouldn’t surprise her at all to get a “yes” in response, but it only sat there, wavering in the sun and… watching her. One eye drifted away for a second, fuzzing her view of her guest, but she corralled it back and untucked the cloth from the top of her basket. Apple cinnamon muffins today!
“I’ll just have the leftovers with dinner, so don’t hesitate to speak up!” she said.
And then a voice from a distance behind her: “Who’s she talking to, Mommy?”
The reply was mumbled, but Derpy could guess close enough. She merely closed her eyes to savor the taste, then a breeze tickled her left ear, so she flicked it halfway down, and—
“—can’t even hear—”
Derpy perked her head up and blinked. The wave in the air still hung there, churning as normal. Then she glanced around, but nopony was nearby, including the mother and daughter who’d just walked by.
She peered up at the ripple of light again. She’d heard it. Right? What had she been doing at that exact moment? Eating a muffin. That had never enabled her to hear ghosts before, but Celestia help her if she had to try it with all the flavor varieties. Plus she could have sworn she’d had apple cinnamon here just last week, and nothing then. Closed eyes?
Worth a try. She squeezed them shut. “Hello? I think I heard you just now? Did you say something?”
Only the breeze greeted her. What else, what else? One eye on the living, one on the dead. But neither could do anything if she kept them shut.
She cocked her head. Only the breeze. The breeze that had made her—
Why not? One eye on the living, one on the dead. Why not one ear on the living, one on the dead? And that little tickle had made her flick an ear, too. One straight, one skewed, same as her eyes!
“I’m sorry, please keep talking!” she said as she twisted her left ear down, little by little. Desperately, she resisted the temptation to move it too quickly. If she passed the right spot between words, she’d never know. “I’m working on it, please keep talking!”
A bit further down. “—I don’t even like muffins.” Derpy’s eyes popped open. There the undulation still hovered. “Why do you keep offering them to me?”
“Because I like you.” Derpy gave her most winning smile.
No more words, but she did notice a trembling breath.
“I can hear you,” Derpy said.
“You can hear me,” the voice said, dripping with tears.
They’d spent her whole lunch hour talking about nothing. It made perfect sense—if Derpy had spent years, or however long, without ever being able to simply talk to anyone, she probably would have wasted an hour just reveling in the ability to again. But she had to get back to work, and the ghost at least remembered enough about its life to know what a job was.
Derpy had promised she’d return, and the poor thing had started whimpering again. She’d come so close to feigning sickness for the rest of the afternoon, but her repeated promises had finally calmed the ghost down.
“You came back!” the ripple said as Derpy sat on the grass in front of it and turned her ears just so.
“I promised I would,” Derpy replied with a squint.
The voice sighed. “I’m not used to anyone keeping their promises.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t want to hurt you.” Derpy pulled the wrapped remainder of her muffins out of her saddlebag. “Hungry?”
“I don’t eat.”
“Makes sense.” They sat in silence for a moment, but as they’d spent the afternoon on trivialities, their questions would inevitably come up.
“How is it that you can see me?” the ghost asked. “Nobody else can.”
“One eye on the living, one on the dead,” Derpy answered as if a catechism.
“What does that mean?”
Derpy scratched her head. “I don’t know. Just something that’s been stuck in my noggin as far back as I can remember. I’ve seen ghosts since I was a filly.” Then she tapped her ear. “Turns out I can hear them, too. Never knew that before, but then you’re the first ghost to talk to me.”
“How can you tell?”
“Their mouths never move, but I guess that doesn’t mean they weren’t talking. They do communicate by gestures sometimes, but most don’t.” With a frown, Derpy craned her neck up. “Why, are you using telepathy or something?”
“No. You don’t see my mouth moving?”
Derpy shook her head. “No. I didn’t know you had one. Well—” she giggled “—of course you once did, but I didn’t know you still had one.”
“Then…” Briefly, the voice trembled. “What do I look like to you?”
Hm. She’d never tried to describe it in much detail. Who would she describe it to? Except her daughter—
“Oh no, oh no!” Derpy cried, gathering her muffins back into her saddlebag. “I forgot, and Dinky’s about to get off school. I have to go home and meet her!”
“Don’t leave…”
Derpy reached a hoof toward it. “I’ll come back tomorrow, on my lunch break again. I promise!”
“You promise…”
“I keep my promises,” Derpy said with her chest puffed out.
“Yes,” it replied at long last. “Yes, you do.”
With a swift nod, Derpy trotted off. But she paused and glanced back over her shoulder. “You look like a wave in the air, like…” She frowned and tapped a hoof to her chin. Then she grinned. “Like the way a crystal chandelier casts patterns on the wall when the sun catches it right.”
Derpy held her basket of muffins up, but the ghost never took any. Orange cranberry today, and once again, Pinkie knew just what she needed: something tangy.
“How did you die?” Derpy asked, her mouth half full of muffin.
“What makes you think I’m dead?”
“Well, only I can see you, and that’s usually what that means,” Derpy answered with a shrug. “But on the weekend, I can bring my daughter by. She sees even better than I do.” The silence stretched on like taffy, which also seemed appropriate for Pinkie. “If you remember how you died, that is.”
“Yes, I remember,” the voice growled.
She’d never gotten to ask anypony that before. And now that she had, she probably should have thought about it more first. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories.” Her ears drooped quickly, before she caught herself and got them back into position.
“—Doesn’t matter. It’s just… I don’t know what I am. Dead? Maybe. More like…”
Derpy let out a hard sigh. “Is there anything I can do to help? Anypony you want me to talk to for you?”
“Any… pony,” it grumbled.
“Oh…” Derpy covered her mouth with a hoof. “You’re not a pony? I shouldn’t have assumed, but that’s mostly what we get around here.”
“No, I’m not a pony.”
And Derpy couldn’t help giggling. “Listen to me, and here in Ponyville where we take pride in lots of different kinds of creatures living together. Then I just go and automatically call you a pony.” She jabbed a hoof up toward Rainbow Dash’s cloud house. “We even had a special banner made up for that a few years ago, at the Equestria Games, and—”
“Hey!”
For a few heartbeats, Derpy’s jaw hung open like the drawbridge on Twilight’s castle.
“I don’t need the whole spiel. Just forget it.”
“Sorry,” Derpy mumbled. She’d resigned herself to finishing her muffin in silence and leaving with another apology, but then the voice started again.
“Maybe you’re right. I guess nature has decided I’m dead. What would you call it when you’re the only one left behind from a world that shouldn’t exist anymore?”
Derpy paused mid-bite. “I don’t understand. What does that mean?”
A sigh sounded, but wouldn’t that imply the ghost was breathing? “I don’t know. I don’t understand it either. This isn’t my world, but somehow, I’m stuck here.”
“You’re not from here?” Derpy gulped down the last of her muffin, not even tasting it. “You mean like you came through the mirror—?”
“How did you know about that?”
Derpy flinched and scooted back a few feet. It had sounded so angry. “I’m sorry!”
“Stop apologizing,” the voice grumbled. “I’m just surprised. I thought the mirror was a secret.”
Except for photographs, Derpy had never seen what she looked like with her eyes askew. Not very clearly, anyway. She couldn’t see it in her bathroom mirror, because obviously she’d have to align them to see it well, which defeated the purpose. But that first time she’d seen… another. Another of herself. “Last year some… well, I don’t know what they were originally. But they came here when they were stranded on an island, through another portal, which also changed them into ponies. One of them was even me! Plus there was another Trixie, another Octavia—a bunch of us! Different versions, but still us.”
At least the ghost wasn’t actually mad. So Derpy plucked out one more muffin. “Twilight helped them get back home. I heard they used a magic mirror. So yeah, it’s kind of secret. I don’t know where it is.”
“Oh. Well…” Another sigh. “I’ve gone through it before. I’m originally from here, but everything’s so different. Like that thing behind you.”
Derpy craned her neck around. “You mean the windmill? It’s been there as long as I can remember.”
“No, the huge thing behind you that you couldn’t possibly miss.”
She looked over her shoulder again. “The Castle of Friendship?”
“There’s a castle devoted to friendship?” Derpy could practically hear an eye roll. “How very Equestrian. But yeah, I haven’t seen that before.”
“Really? That’s where Princess Twilight Sparkle lives.”
“Never heard of her.”
“Oh…” But the world on the other side of the mirror still existed, didn’t it? What did the ghost mean when it said its world was gone?
The wind chose that moment to pick up, and the grass tossed and turned like an old arthritic stallion in his bed. Plus it rattled the sheaf of letters in Derpy’s mailbag. She did need to get back to work. So she began to gather up her picnic basket.
“I’m glad,” the voice said. It waited a half-dozen heartbeats before continuing. “I’m glad you talk to me. It gets lonely. But I’m not sure how to… to…”
Derpy smiled. “You wanted to say, ‘Thank you.’” And she could feel wide eyes on her.
“I’ve heard people say that before. But I don’t know what it means.”
“It means…” Derpy held a hoof to her chin. “It means that you appreciate what somepony did for you.” Her smile broadened, then she turned to leave. “I’ll see you tomorrow. And I should bring Princess Twilight with me. She’s the Princess of Friendship, so she should be able to help you with loneliness.”
It stuttered at first, but then it finally croaked out: “What’s your name?”
“Muffins. But my friends call me Derpy.” She cocked her head. “What’s your name?”
“N-never mind. You wouldn’t recognize it anyway.” So Derpy gave another smile and walked away.
“And Muffins?”
A little snort of a laugh popped out. “Please. Derpy.”
“Derpy?”
“Mmhmm?”
Yet another pause, but not so long this time. “Thank you.”
“I had a delivery to make to the castle this morning anyway—” Derpy took a moment to smack her lips. “Wow, Pinkie sure hit the spot today with honey walnut. Oh, um…” She tapped her hoof a few times on her knee. “So I got to speak to Princess Twilight. She said she’d come out and talk to us. Y’know, about your loneliness problem.”
The voice let out a sigh that rubbed rough sandpaper on the wind. “This is what it’s come to?”
If she could, Derpy would have patted her companion’s shoulder. “There’s nothing to be embarrassed about. We take friendship very seriously here. Princess Twilight even has a whole school set up to teach it.”
“I suppose that would be the other large crystal building.”
Derpy giggled. “Yeah! And there’s another one in the woods, too, though that’s really supposed to be just for the students, so I’ve only seen it from the air—”
“Again, I don’t need the entire spiel.”
“Sorry.” That ghost seemed so touchy all the time. It abruptly got grumpy about the oddest things, and tomorrow, a totally different topic would upset it. “Would… would you mind telling me about the world you’re from? Through the mirror, I mean. I’ve never been there.”
The ripple briefly wavered as if shrugging. “I suppose so. More technology, no magic. The dominant species is a primate that walks upright. Not too much different looking than a minotaur, I guess.”
“What about the people?”
“You already know there’s a version of all of you there. Even so, people are people. They’re about the same, whatever world they’re in.”
“Oh…” Honestly, she’d hoped for something more exotic.
“I didn’t mean to disappoint you.”
Derpy waved her hoof in the air as if wafting away a cloud of gnats. “No, no. Talking to a ghost is unusual enough. Plus I like you.”
“Nobody likes me.”
“Well, I do.”
“You shouldn’t.”
“Why not? You’ve been perfectly nice.”
A few birds trilled on the clear air, and the longer Derpy waited for an answer, the more her ears wanted to fold back. But finally it came: “I’m not nice. I hurt people.”
“On purpose?” In the distance, the same filly who’d asked about Derpy’s conversation a few days ago chased after a ball and brought it back to her mother, over and over. The wind started to shake the leaves, only beginning to dry out in the early autumn, from the thinning threads connecting them to their source of life. She had an answer, it seemed. “How long have you been alone?”
A sniffle sounded, and like the sighing before, it had Derpy wondering whether the ghost breathed. “Years.”
Derpy let out a sigh of her own. “I’m sorry. That changes things, and I’d know. I raised my daughter alone, but at least I still had her. I can’t imagine having nobody who could even acknowledge you.”
“I don’t want your pity.”
“Not pity,” Derpy said, shaking her head, “sympathy. I’ve been there.” But now she found herself desperately out of her element. No idea what to say next, and the ghost wouldn’t talk either. Almost time to pack up her lunch anyway, and—
“Who is that!?”
Derpy jerked her gaze around. Then she smiled at the alicorn striding over the grass. “Oh, that’s Princess Twilight Sparkle! I was beginning to think she’d forgotten.”
“That’s the princess who’s supposed to fix everything?”
“Um… yeah?”
The ghost snorted. “She’s the one who killed me.”
Twilight breathed out hard, like the winds that would tear through Ghastly Gorge, and gestured out the window from her old throne. “Can we go over this once more?”
“But…” Derpy glanced up at the clock. Her boss would absolutely detest her.
“It’s okay. I’ll notify the post office that you were here by my request. Nothing will happen to you.”
“But I’m an hour overdue back from lunch, and I don’t know the ghost’s name, and… I just don’t know!”
“Calm down,” Twilight said, but Derpy still couldn’t control the heaving in her chest. “It said it came from here but had spent a lot of time on the other side of the mirror? And it’s not a pony?”
“Yes, I swear!”
“And what did it say about being dead again?” Twilight asked.
At least the princess didn’t seem angry. She’d never seen such a look of longing in Twilight’s eyes. “I… I don’t remember, not exactly.”
Twilight patted her shoulder. “It’s alright. Just tell me as closely as you can.”
“It’s dead but… not dead.” Derpy willed herself to stop shaking, but so little of her body had ever obeyed her before. It wasn’t going to start now. “Like… it was the only one to survive the destruction of its world, which left it like this.”
With gritted teeth, Twilight held her hooves to her temples. “And I’m the one responsible!?”
Derpy could only shrug. And tremble some more.
“How did I not know you could see ghosts!?” Each one of them nearly hyperventilating, gasping for air—Twilight propped herself up on the throne’s armrest, while Derpy had nothing but floor. “And it refuses to talk anymore?”
“Not since it saw you, no.” She held her breath until her head stopped swimming. “…Can I go back to work now?”
“Derpy, would you allow me to cast a spell on you so that I can see what you see and hear what you hear? It’d link us, temporarily.”
Not the most comforting thought, and it pretty much guaranteed she wouldn’t make her afternoon shift today. “Okay,” she muttered. Not a second later, a strange glow filled her sight, but at least it faded away right afterward.
“And one other thing,” Twilight said. “I want you to convince it to talk to me, even if only for a minute. I need to get to the bottom of this.”
Easy peasy, huh? Derpy stood anyway. The sooner she got her no, or more likely no response at all, she could slide behind her mail counter and beg forgiveness from her boss. So she led the way outside, at the back of the castle, adjusted her eyes and ears just right, and walked up to that ripple in the air, wavering even more vehemently now.
Twilight did a double take at it. Then she gulped. “Please. I want to try to make things right if I can. But first I need to understand what’s happened. Please, just tell me your name. That might be enough for me to figure it out. Then I won’t have to bother you anymore.”
Nothing from the ghost.
“Please.”
“She really means it,” Derpy chimed in. “I do too. I want to help… my friend.”
The churning pulse of air slowed momentarily. And it spoke.
Derpy had never heard that name before. But Twilight paled, and the sensory linking spell dissipated like a fog bank in the heat. “She’s right. I did kill her.” Then she stumbled back toward the castle.
“Thank you,” Derpy said, forcing a smile up at the ghostly swirl as she fought to contain her tremors. The name meant nothing to her, so why had Twilight reacted to it so strongly? “And it’s nice to meet you, Adagio Dazzle.”
As usual, Derpy sat in the grass, munching on a muffin—homemade blueberry today—but it was raining, so she peered out from under her small canopy. And it was the weekend! So she’d brought Dinky with her.
For her part, Dinky watched with wide eyes. “Wow, it’s pretty!” she said.
“I know,” Derpy replied with a smile and a pat of her daughter’s withers. “That’s my friend, Adagio Dazzle.”
Adagio didn’t answer. But from a few yards away, Twilight did speak up: “Will you please talk to me?” Spike stood next to her with an arm around her back.
She hadn’t cast her sensory spell again. There would be no need to unless Adagio agreed to talk, and Derpy could simply tell Twilight when that happened. Or if. Derpy once again beckoned to Twilight and Spike to share their shelter and get out of the rain, but Twilight only shook her head, freeing a few of the beads of water to run down her face and drip off her chin. Her sodden mane stuck to her face and neck, and her feathers had puffed out against the cold.
“I can surmise half the story,” Twilight continued, “but I have no idea how you managed to get back to Equestria in the first place.”
Derpy waited a moment to see if Adagio would respond. “Do you mind telling me?” Derpy finally asked. “I’d like to know about my friend. As long as it’s—” she angled her head toward Dinky “—foal friendly.”
With a sigh, Twilight bowed her head. “How much do you know about the time Starlight Glimmer tried to change the past? And do you know who Sunset Shimmer is?”
“Oh, oh!” Derpy said, perking up. “Sunset is the one who brought the other me here, right?”
Twilight nodded. “Yes, and she chooses to live on the other side of the mirror. She thinks she can do the most good there. But do you know her history?”
Derpy exchanged a glance with Dinky and shrugged. “I guess not.”
With a shake of her wings, Twilight sat up straighter, even as the fat raindrops kept pelting her coat. “The short version is that she used to be Princess Celestia’s personal student, but she got impatient and power-hungry, then fled through the mirror, with the expectation that she could raise an army and return to conquer this world. But we defeated her, and then she became one of our best friends.”
“Well, that sounds cool!” Derpy said.
“It is.” Then Twilight frowned. “But the use of magic attracted the Dazzlings, who tried to execute a takeover of their own,” she said, pointing a hoof at Adagio. “Her and her sisters, Aria Blaze and Sonata Dusk. They’re originally magical beings from here, but Star Swirl banished them centuries ago.”
“But Starlight never had anything to do with them, did she?”
“Do you remember what Starlight was trying to accomplish?”
“Ooh, ooh!” Dinky said, raising a hoof. “We’re learning that in history class right now! She wanted to erase your friendship from history, but each time you returned from the past, a different enemy got too powerful for Equestria to fight. But I don’t remember hearing about the Dazzlings.”
Derpy had seen Twilight in an educational role often enough that the biggest “proud teacher” smile she’d ever seen didn’t surprise her. “That’s right! I went through enough scenarios that they didn’t all make the history books. And most of those times, I was able to return to the present fairly easily. But two of them gave me the same problem: Nightmare Moon and the Dazzlings.”
“Oh, oh, Nightmare Moon was the one who captured you! But you tricked her into taking you back to the map so you could use it to escape!” Dinky exclaimed, which got her a big smile from Derpy as well.
“Right,” Twilight continued, but her face fell. “I had to do the same with Adagio Dazzle. But I didn’t get away cleanly. She had hold of me when I returned to the present. When I got back, I didn’t see her, so I assumed I’d left her behind.” She let out a heavy sigh. “Now I know that’s not what happened. I was only back here for a few seconds before I went to undo Starlight’s plan yet another time.”
Twilight sniffled. Her head dipped toward the ground, and her ears drooped. She even… was she crying? Spike gave her a hug. “By the last trip, my friendships had been repaired, but still there was an Adagio Dazzle stranded in the present of a timeline where she couldn’t exist, and I didn’t even know.”
She wasn’t looking, so she wouldn’t see Derpy gesturing to her again. Derpy simply took Twilight by the foreleg and pulled her under the canopy.
“I’m sorry,” Twilight gasped, turning to Adagio. “I didn’t mean to, and it must be torture for you, living like this, but I can’t risk trying to initiate that timeline again so I can return you to it. I don’t even really know: do those timelines still exist in another reality, or were they destroyed when I reset everything to the original timeline?”
Abruptly, Twilight stood and walked out back into the rain, her face glistening with more than just the weatherponies’ efforts. “The piece I’m still missing is… if I never became a princess, how did that result in you taking over Equestria? That should be even less likely if you never had access to the magic of the Elements.”
A snort sounded. “Elements? I don’t even know who you are!”
“Please?”
Oh! Um… “Twilight?” Derpy said. “You didn’t cast the spell again today.”
“Oh, right,” Twilight answered very mechanically, her head sagging like the weighty packages of fruitcake Derpy always had to deliver around Hearth’s Warming. Her horn lit up, and soon Derpy saw the faint glow around the edges of her vision.
“Do… do you know who Sunset Shimmer is?” No answer. “Please—”
“That loser?” Adagio spat. “I felt someone using Equestrian magic. We would have given anything to get that back. I saw her disappear into a mirror, but when I tried it the next day, it didn’t work. She had some minor talisman with her, though, and she thought she could use it to take over the school.” She snorted out a dry laugh. “Spouted something about becoming a powerful demon with it, but she could barely even convince those two stupid boys to follow her around. So I took it from her.”
“That was enough? Only a tiny bit of Equestrian magic?”
“Yeah. We didn’t have to start over like her. We already had some magic.”
Twilight finally looked up at the ripple in the air. “Your amulets?”
“How’d you know about those?” Adagio growled.
“I’ve met you from this universe,” Twilight replied, lowering her gaze.
The rain started to let up, at least a little, and as the water steadily dripped off the branches like the old faucet at home, Derpy pulled her daughter against her. “It’s alright,” she whispered. “Adagio’s my friend. We’ll help her.”
Adagio spilled out a mirthless chortle. “Plus I discovered some enchanted book she kept in her locker. Her plan wasn’t that bad, and after some persuasion, she told me how the mirror worked. With two magical artifacts, we could bewitch the students and invade Equestria. As a bonus, Star Swirl was nowhere to be found.” Then she made the same grumbling noise as the letter-sorting apparatus at work. “Until some unknown purple princess came out of the woods.”
Letting Dinky go, Derpy stood and put a hoof on Twilight’s shoulder. “She’s lonely. Nopony even talked to her for years.”
Twilight took a steadying breath and closed her eyes. “I know. I’m sorry.”
“But wait,” Derpy said, leaning forward, “does that mean there’s another one of her? On the other side of the mirror?”
“Ooh, yeah!” Dinky chimed in. “You said she had sisters, too. Maybe they could come and visit her.”
Twilight wheeled around. “Absolutely not!”
“Probably not the best idea,” Spike added. “You don’t know what they were like.”
Dinky had lifted up a foreleg, and her chin trembled. With a frown, Derpy interposed herself between Twilight and her daughter.
“I’m sorry,” Twilight said again, holding her hooves to her head. “But to have a siren in full view of the public? There’d be a panic! Not to mention they might not even want to come.” For a second, she grimaced. “They’re not exactly concerned with helping anypony.”
Dinky stepped out from behind Derpy, with her cute little face all scrunched up like old Miss Magnolia when she came by the post office looking for a missing letter. “Princess Twilight, she’s my mommy’s friend.” The filly added a sharp nod for punctuation.
“What’s a siren anyway?” Derpy interjected.
Twilight spent a few seconds blinking at Dinky before turning to Derpy. “Large magical flying creature,” she said absentmindedly. “Semi-aquatic, somewhat like a dragon.”
“Is that what you look like?” Dinky said to the ripple. “That might even be more pretty!”
With a chuckle, Derpy touched her daughter’s cheek. Dinky had on a grin even bigger than the new dental hygiene postage stamps. “And I’m glad you decided to talk to us again,” Derpy added. “I thought you were still angry.”
“It’s not like it matters,” Adagio muttered. “Now I’m kind of grateful nobody else can see me. I wouldn’t want to be a public spectacle.”
“Everyone, please!” Twilight stamped a hoof—
Whoa! Derpy flinched from the little spark that shot from the patch of fog gathered near Twilight, and a second later, the princess did as well. She must not have gotten used to her pegasus abilities quite yet. Even Spike rubbed at a little singed spot on his scales.
“…Sorry. I just… I’m trying to think my way through this. If there’s a way to help, I want to find it.”
“Maybe Sunset Shimmer would have some ideas?” She’d probably kept tabs on the Adagio of her world. Which was actually the one of this world, apparently, so was there another over there? Anyway, Twilight had started nodding and looked a little dazed as she headed off toward her castle.
“We’re going to help you,” Derpy hissed to Adagio, then she corralled Dinky along with her as she followed Twilight.
In a room deep within the castle which Derpy had never seen, various magical and mechanical gizmos pulsed and glowed, but they abruptly stopped when Twilight removed a book from next to the mirror and placed it on a random lectern. “Is that how it works?” Derpy asked.
Twilight nodded. “It’s one of a pair, and Sunset has the other. It keeps the mirror connected to combine them. Otherwise, the books always are, but the mirrors only activate once in a great while.”
“What if someone tried to come here now?” Derpy didn’t wait for an answer; she’d already reached toward the book, but a purple magical aura surrounded her hoof and pulled it back to the floor.
A raised eyebrow rather said that it needed to stay there. “They just wouldn’t go through the mirror, but I won’t keep it disconnected long—just enough to write a message to Sunset.”
Hmmm. Now Derpy wished she’d gotten to know Sunset on her brief trip through Equestria, but she couldn’t stay long, not with a bunch of ponies from the other world in tow. But from what she’d heard of Sunset over the years, she was a little more… tolerant of bending the rules.
So Derpy took a couple steps away from the lectern and gave her daughter a surreptitious nod and wink. Dinky walked around to Twilight’s far side, over by some of the now-dormant machinery attached to the mirror. “Um, Princess Twilight? Could you tell me how this device works?”
Twilight positively beamed. “Certainly!”
Nice that she could have a bit of a break from stressing out. She’d taken this whole thing pretty hard. Derpy would have, too, in her place. Yes, this wasn’t just for Adagio Dazzle’s benefit—it would help Twilight as well.
Derpy stepped back over to the book and opened it. Lots of messages inside, and a lot of it seemed like personal correspondence, so no need for her to pry. Page after page was filled, and this was all taking too long, so she flipped to the back page, took the pen on the lectern, and gripped it in her teeth.
Sunset, this is Derpy Hooves, she scrawled. Her mouthwriting had never been very neat to begin with, and now while pressed for time, she could only hope Sunset would manage to decipher it.
We have another Adagio Dazzle stranded here, and she’s terribly lonely. I think she needs her sisters to visit, but Twilight’s against the idea. You probably know them better than anyone here, and you’re good friends with Twilight, too. Is there anything you can do?
Short and sweet, but the details would keep until later. At least she’d made Sunset aware of the situation more than Twilight probably would. But Derpy might never know if Sunset got her message. She couldn’t hang out here forever to see, and she had maybe a minute left before Twilight finished her impromptu science lesson and noticed her there.
For all she knew, Sunset had the journal on a shelf at home and wouldn’t see it for hours.
Just as she began to shut the book and step away, it vibrated briefly, and a few words swirled into view beneath hers: I’m on it.
She hurriedly replaced the pen and closed the book, trying to hide her smile. But it faded soon enough on its own. If this kind of magic became common, who’d need the post office anymore?
Once again, Derpy sat in the room containing the mirror, but this time Twilight had a stern gaze leveled at her. “You should have asked me first.”
“But then you would have said no, and both you and Adagio wouldn’t have ever felt better.” Derpy allowed herself a little smirk. “Plus you must think it’s not that bad an idea, or you wouldn’t have agreed to it.”
“Sunset wouldn’t exactly take no for an answer…” She’d already dispatched Spike and Dinky to cordon off part of the park, which of course would attract an even bigger crowd wondering why.
Suddenly, the mirror flashed brighter, and for the briefest moment, Derpy thought she saw three figures standing upright, like skinny minotaurs without horns. Pretty close to how Adagio had described them. But then they morphed into… well, two were clearly ponies, but the third got even bigger and scaly and with ridges like Spike’s.
Adagio!
She rushed forward and nearly tackled Adagio, but seeing as her target was airborne, it more or less resulted in Derpy hanging from her. Luckily, Derpy’s wings decided to kick in, enabling her to give Adagio a proper hug. Only then did it occur to her that she’d never met this Adagio before. “Sorry,” she said, dropping to the floor and leaving a rather confused-looking Adagio to glance at Sunset, who was barely suppressing laughter.
But the third figure! “Is that what my eyes really look like?” she said to the other Derpy peering back at her.
“I thought you two might enjoy meeting,” Sunset said. Twilight’s glare immediately transferred her way. “B-but just this once, because it’s a special case. In general, we shouldn’t do that.” She added a tenuous grin.
Twilight shook her head, but then she joined in the smile and walked over to give Sunset a hug, with a wary peek up at Adagio. “Wait…” She reached a tentative hoof up to Adagio, then paused. When Adagio nodded, Twilight touched a half-formed jewel around her neck.
She hadn’t asked, but Adagio answered anyway. “It’s like how a snail can generate a shell once the old one is gone.” She gave her gem a loving caress, just like Derpy could imagine giving Dinky, but then Adagio sighed. “Given enough time, a new one will form. Though I don’t blame you for being suspicious.”
At Twilight’s questioning glance, Sunset replied, “She’s different now. I’ll tell you about it later, but for now, we need to help your Adagio.”
Twilight didn’t move right away, so Sunset added, “It’s okay. I trust her.”
Apparently, that was enough. Twilight beckoned them toward the door.
“I have a basket of muffins outside where we’re going to try,” Derpy said. “Do you want some?”
“You… like muffins!?” other Derpy answered. “No way!”
“Hehe!” Of course any universe’s Derpy would love muffins! “They’re right outside with my daughter. I bet she’s just like yours.”
Other Derpy’s eyes shot wide open. “Aren’t you a high school student?”
From over by the stairs, Sunset cut in, “I’ll explain all that, too.”
“Now bend your right ear down a little more,” Derpy said, but other Derpy stuck her tongue out the side of her mouth.
“I’ve never been able to move my ears until today, and it’s harder than it looks.”
Derpy placed herself squarely in front of other Derpy and checked each eye and ear. Yep, it all looked right. “Should be working.”
As Sunset stifled a yawn, Twilight chimed in, “I guess there’s something from your background that makes it only happen for you. I can just include her in the spell. I have to cast it anyway so the rest of us can see.”
Derpy scanned about the park for a second. Lots of onlookers had gathered around the ropes blocking access to the park behind the castle, the vast majority of them gaping at Adagio.
“Once Star Swirl gets wind of this…” Twilight muttered, shaking her head. But she didn’t speak any more, so Derpy held still until the now-familiar slight glow formed around the edges of her vision. Then everyone else gasped, except other Adagio.
“Muffin?” Derpy asked, and other Derpy took one without looking away from the wavering patch of air.
All their eyes were riveted up there.
“Everyone ready now?” Adagio’s low alto rang out from the phenomenon, and Twilight nodded in reply. “Okay. Thank you for coming, Adagio. (It’s so weird talking to myself.)”
“I’m impressed you know the words ‘thank you,’” other Adagio said, her eyebrow arching.
“Derpy taught me”—how nice of Adagio to say!—“and before I go any further, let me just tell you that…” A heavy sigh followed. “Look, I know you won’t believe me, but don’t take Aria and Sonata for granted. Once they’re gone, it’s… well, I miss them.”
Other Adagio wore a curious smirk. “That doesn’t surprise me at all.” A few sounds emanated from the ghost, as if she were trying to find some suitable response. Then other Adagio touched her jewel again. “Honestly, I don’t know what I’m going to do with this thing. In another year or so, it’ll be back to normal. It barely did anything over in the human world”—oh, is that what they were called?—“but when exposed to Equestrian magic, it—”
She grimaced and shook her head, like somepony who’d fallen into a muddy swamp. “It leads to needless temptation. I… didn’t actually expect it to feel this way, returning here. Maybe I shouldn’t have.”
Twilight frowned and took a step forward, but Sunset held out a hoof to block her path. “I trust her,” Sunset repeated.
Beside Derpy, her twin smiled, and Derpy nudged the basket of muffins over. Another muffin soon disappeared.
“A lot has happened since I last saw Twilight,” other Adagio continued with a tremor in her voice. “This Twilight. Well, either of them, I guess.” She let out a groan and held a hoof to her face. “Point is: I have a good relationship with my Aria and Sonata now, so I completely understand why you’d miss them. Except it seems like you just want companionship, period, and you think they’re the only ones who would do that for you.”
“Derpy… says I’m her friend,” the voice said.
Other Adagio formed a gentle smile that reminded Derpy very much of the one that Princess Celestia perpetually wore. “I’m glad you found one. I don’t know if you’ve truly come to appreciate Aria and Sonata, but my versions would totally be willing to visit you, with permission, of course,” she said, nodding to Twilight. “I know the mirror doesn’t open very often, but we’ll come when we can.”
“Actually,” Sunset said, and immediately, Twilight’s face darkened, “the portal is active all the time now.”
“You didn’t need to tell her that,” Twilight muttered.
“I trust her.”
At first, it struck Derpy as odd. But the more she thought about it, the more she realized the struggle Twilight was facing. Shouldn’t the avatar of friendship be acting more in line with the way Sunset had? Years ago, she probably would have, but now she had to lead a nation as well. She was the last word on the safety of her own citizens. “I know you’re also being torn in two directions. It can’t be easy,” she said, at which Twilight blushed a little.
From across the park, Spike and Dinky came strolling back, probably from Spike finalizing Twilight’s instructions for the guards around the perimeter. Dinky had an awed gaze directed at other Adagio the whole way, but she stopped short when she noticed two Derpys. “Mom…?”
Derpy held up a hoof, and other Derpy broke out in a blush of her own, rather profusely. Derpy had seen that often enough when delivering love letters. “This is my daughter, Dinky!”
While those two shook hooves, Spike had taken refuge behind Twilight as he peered up at other Adagio. “Hi, Spike,” the siren said, looking a bit deflated. But Sunset beckoned him out, and he stood at Twilight’s side.
Nobody spoke right away, so Derpy shoved her muffin basket out in the middle of the crowd, and a couple more went claimed.
Finally, Adagio broke the silence from her pocket of shimmering air. “Thank you all for helping. If I can see Aria and Sonata, and… I’d even like to see Adagio, too. That would make things easier.”
“Wait,” other Adagio said, frowning. She tried to touch the clump of air, but her hoof just passed through it, so she settled for holding it as close as she could. “Something’s not right.”
“I thought that was the whole point…” Adagio mumbled.
“No, it’s…” Other Adagio closed her eyes. “Your magic. It’s fighting… it’s fighting everything. Constantly.” Her eyes popped open again. “That’s what is still trying to attach you to the reality you came from.”
(“Wow, she’s just as pretty as I thought she’d be!” Dinky whispered while beaming up at other Adagio.)
“Wh-what does that mean?” Adagio asked.
With a shrug, other Adagio replied, “I can think of a few possibilities. For one, things can stay as they are now. Or you can get rid of it.”
“Get rid of it.” Adagio’s voice practically dripped with venom. “And how exactly would I do that?”
Derpy gulped as other Adagio leaned in with a very pointed stare. “Destroy your amulet. Smash it to bits.”
Another dead silence. Not even any voices carried over from the distant onlookers, though they couldn’t have heard any of the conversation. Finally, Adagio let out a choked gasp. “Why would I do that? It would change who I am!”
“And take it from someone who would know!” other Adagio barked. “That’s not necessarily a bad thing!”
Twilight’s eyes widened, and she shared a glance with Sunset, who gave a knowing nod.
When Adagio didn’t reply, other Adagio continued, “Then you have another choice. Like mine, your jewel will eventually come back, and you’ll be just as trapped. You’ll have to take it off and smash it every time.” She took a few heavy breaths and gritted her teeth.
“I can’t do that!” Adagio screeched. “You’re asking me to change everything I know and—”
“Look around! It’s too late to prevent that. Your world is gone and it isn’t coming back. Nothing you do will change that. You have to make the best of—”
“No! I won’t just change—”
“Do you think I’m asking you to do something I wouldn’t? Did you look at my jewel? It was shattered! Without warning, I suddenly had no magic and nobody to help me find my way. At least you have friends who want to help you.”
Derpy gave Dinky’s shoulder a pat and stepped forward. “Please,” she said. “Listen to them. And I’ll do anything I can, too.”
A sob emanated from the ripple of light. “I can’t…”
“Then you can have mine,” other Adagio said. “It’s attuned with this reality, and it won’t get stuck like yours. As long as you promise never to use it to control anyone.”
“You’d… do that for me?”
Other Adagio gave a vigorous nod, like when Derpy would make her rounds on Hearth’s Warming Eve, and the foals would ask if the packages were really for them. “But I have to warn you: the jewel not only gives you the ability to control others, it makes you want to. It’s not just a matter of not doing it. You’ll have to fight the temptation, every day.”
“And you’ll help?”
Somehow, Derpy knew that question was directed at her. “Of course I will. You’re my friend.”
“We will, too!” Spike said, pointing at Twilight.
“And I’ll bring the girls, too,” other Adagio added. “They’ve also been through this.” She unclasped her amulet, and as she trembled, she paled and shrank a little. “As long as you wear it, you won’t generate a new one. And as long as it stays intact, I won’t either.”
Silence spread its tendrils about the park once more, and then a brilliant flash—
A second Adagio hung in midair, holding shards of a red gem. Then she took the offered amulet and fastened it around her neck. “I don’t know how I can thank you enough for this.”
“Just be someone worthy of it,” other Adagio said with a grin. “And when you’re ready, destroy it.”
Without another word, Adagio settled into the grass and touched her tail, the ground, her face. She wiped away the tear streaks running down her cheek scales.
“I think she’s going to be a little while,” Derpy whispered to her double.
“In that case,” her lookalike said, “do you mind showing me how to use these?” She twitched her wings. “I never got to last time I came through here.”
Derpy scrunched up her nose. “Sure, just give them a flap, and—”
Her twin’s wings buzzed almost like a hummingbird’s, and she quickly flipped over and landed on her back. “Ouch.”
“Don’t flap so fast.”
“But for the size of them and my weight, I was thinking I had to…”
And there was the problem. “Don’t approach this with science and logic. You fly because of pegasus magic. Just imagine it streaming out like a cushion under them.”
Other Derpy closed her eyes and gave another flap, slower this time, then a second. She wobbled and lurched around, but she did manage to hover a few feet off the ground.
Derpy looked up, and it seemed like everyone was starting a procession back toward the castle. “C’mon,” she said, taking wing herself. “Let’s see if you can make it all the way there without touching ground. Just take it slow.” She gestured toward her daughter. “And I’ll explain how time flows differently here.”
And as she passed her Adagio, only now following the others’ beckoning, she stooped to pick up her basket and offer Dinky a leg-up onto her back. “Hey, Adagio! You can finally have one of my muffins!”
Her friend took one. Though Derpy couldn’t tell whether she liked it, she did cry a little more through her grin. By Derpy’s reckoning, just because she could taste something.
Author's Note
This story shares some links with a few of my others. For the back story of this Sunset Shimmer and Adagio Dazzle, check out Ambergris. For back story on Derpy, see The End of Enlightenment. These are not required reading to understand this story, however.
