Victory for the Dark Horse

Chapters

Intro
Part 1, Side A
Part 1, Side B
Collision
Part 2, Side A
Part 2, Side B
Outro

Intro

"Tell me more about this mirror world," Mayor-Mare said. Her eyes widened just enough to express a twinkle of interest behind her glasses. Her hooves brought her mug of tea up to her muzzle for an eager, long sip.

"Well, in my two trips there, I've been able to learn a lot!" Princess Twilight Sparkle smiled and flapped her forehooves excitedly. The gesture lasted only for a moment before she turned to the daisy sandwich in front of her. There truly could be no finer spring day for the monthly lunch meeting between Ponyville's two resident politicians. "The craziest thing is that their whole planet only has one sapient animal! Speciesism just... isn't really a thing for them."

Ivory Scroll nearly swallowed her tea down the wrong pipe. "On-only one? Dear me, that's rather preposterous. Doesn't their kind get lonely?"

"No," Twilight said, taking a bite of her sandwich. "At least, not as far as I can tell. They still have pets."

"Well, that's good." Mayor-Mare hummed, setting her cup down daintily. "Just what kind of animal is the ruling sort there? These 'humans' don't sound like anything I've ever heard of."

"Oh!" An excited sparkle came to Twilight's eyes. "This is the neatest thing! The 'humans' are an evolutionary off-shoot of apes! I know, it's a shocker, right? Imagine how silly it would be for apes to lumber out of the jungles and all over the world. Humans don't even have much variation either — their skin is as many different colors as equine coats can be, but that's it. No other humanoid beings exists. It's like living on a planet where a pegasus is the only kind of pony! I'm surprised that they aren't bored out of their minds. The only humanoid variants that exist among them are either extinct or in their fantasy novels."

"My goodness," Mayor-Mare murmured. Her ascot ruffled in the breeze, and she eyed Twilight's friendly bewilderment. There was a purpose to this conversation, a motive to this lunch that hadn't quite existed in all the others. Like all good things, it would come in time. Ivory Scroll only needed to be patient. "That really is a dull world. You say they only have pets to ease that kind of lonely existence?"

"More or less," Twilight replied, tilting her forehoof in a 'so-so' gesture. The mane of the lesser alicorn was pulled up neatly with a Rarity-made hairclip to keep it from the wind. "Another funny thing is that humans don't really see themselves as animals."

Ivory Scroll blinked, her mouth falling open. "I... how? What else could these simians even have to... compare themselves to? Except for animals, that is. Are they animals? You said that they were, but—"

"Of course they are!" Princess Twilight nodded rapidly, utterly oblivious to her own interruption before she rambled on. "Humans certainly aren't demons or any kind of magical constructs. They're animals, but the ones that actually think they're animals — or, uh, at least other animals — are considered mentally ill."

"Um?" Ivory Scroll looked over the rims of her golden half-moon glasses. For that bizarre remark, Twilight Sparkle needed one long stare. It was the kind of look that only older mares — and Cheerilee — knew how to give. It was one that the Mayor-Mare was certain Twilight Sparkle must have seen many times as a little filly.

Twilight Sparkle gave an enthused nod, chomping into her daisy sandwich once again. Of course, she would be the one who was unable to read such a clear signal, even one as blatant as a matron's delicately reproachful look. "Yes, though the condition doesn't exactly have any professional name — those kinds of people are called 'furries' which is the closest thing that they appear to have to an informal diagnosis of the ailment."

"I... excuse me, but what are these 'people' that you've mentioned? I though you said the planet was ruled by 'human' creatures."

Twilight flicked an ear. "Ohmygods! I'm so sorry, Mayor! 'People' is one of the words humans have to refer to one another. It's... sort of like when we call distinct groups of ponies in society herds? Er, that is when the secondary meaning for non-polyamorous closed family units is factored—"

"I'm quite aware of what you mean, Princess Sparkle," Ivory said. She was able to keep too much terseness from her tone and from rolling her eyes. Not a single passerby in Ponyville thought that anything was amiss, and why would they? More importantly, how could Princess Celestia have managed to put up with all these quirks in an adult pony? Princess Sparkle acted like everything but what her title suggested.

That was something Mayor-Mare was not exactly peachy-keen on... for a number of reasons.

Twilight Sparkle gave an overly apologetic, too sheepish smile. "My apologies!"

"Now," Ivory began her next words slowly, "you said that everypony has counterparts in that world?"

"Yes, almost everypony! I haven't met Discord's, Sunset Shimmer's—"

"Who?"

"Oh gods," Twilight said, flashing that same smile once more. "I really should have started telling everything from the beginning, shouldn't I? Dear Celestia, that was just so inconsiderate of me to start in the middle. Nopony starts stories in the middle, or they shouldn't because—"

"It's nothing," Mayor-Mare said kindly, waving a hoof dismissively before she slipped more sugar into her tea. "Why don't we start somewhere small. I wrote to you asking about this world because I think that if a magical portal is going to be kept in m— our town, there are things that should be understood about it. Wouldn't you agree?"

Twilight nodded again, nibbling at some stray crust from her mostly devoured lunch. Must she still be a sloppy, chews-with-her-mouth-open eater even in polite company? And in public? What would it take to teach a grown mare that there was nothing too flattering in maintaining such a slobby habit?

"Now, maybe I started asking after things that were too out-there. Humans, evolution, and species awareness. That's all macro fussiness. Let's start somewhere easy-peasy — and fun! What do you know about my counterpart?"

Part 1, Side A

It was almost a month since Twilight Sparkle gained her wings. That was when Ivory Scroll realized that something was wrong. She had gone through her days as she always had, with cheer upon her face and Princess Celestia's light shining upon the world. Not a single thing had happened in Ponyville since then that was out of the ordinary. None of the duties for being Ponyville's Mayor-Mare had increased. The Mayor simply retained all her good spirits and warm politeness because it was habit and job alike.

It was only one morning when she paused over her afternoon coffee that she realized something. The sense was even fainter than a mare twice her age recalling she left the tea kettle on. There was no ceremony to the realization, no dramatics or cutting feeling. Instead, there was only the dullest realization that of everything to happen since Twilight Sparkle's latest surprise, she had not felt very much.

It was not that she had been feeling happy for Twilight, or even especially angry toward her. There was no quiet simmering of resentment. In fact, it was just like somepony had noticed Ivory Scroll had so much goodness in her and decided to scoop it out and borrow it for a while.

Unfortunately, they forgot to give it back.

...

Ivory was not the kind of pony to blame others. She didn't have to, not when she had little in the way of problems. The waving of a hoof, snipping of a ribbon, or calling of a town meeting was usually what was required in Ponyville. Before Twilight Sparkle, the worst possible problems all came from the Everfree Forest. Accidents could happen, and they could be deadly. It was not called Equestria's most dangerous forest for nothing. Timberwolves, ancient ruins, and the other leftovers of the divine were all perfectly natural plights within those deep, dark woods. Yet, most ponies didn't realize that there were other kinds of violent wildlife and other more mundane disasters that lurked there.

Quicksand was one of them, and it had claimed a couple ponies here and there. The sleepy little town had its newspapers publish the story for a short while, doing all the needed legwork to proclaim it a tragedy, and then things would return to normal faster than Applejack sold her fresh fritters on a Friday afternoon. That was the way of things, for ponies to turn up their muzzles away from the darkness the way a mouth turned up in the slimmest of smiles. To say one saw no evil was essential in being a pony and a politician. Everypony cared an awful lot about the next sunny day, so it was better to tell them that the month had twenty-seven scheduled days of sunshine instead of daring to acknowledge that four days of rain would be required.

It was better for Ivory to ignore the quicksand feeling in her chest, and in her life. Doctors were for ponies with broken bones and broken heads, and ponies who had broken heads weren't taken kindly to. There were special smiles, special ways to handle the kinds of ponies who mucked things up with gloom like the Everfree quicksand mucked up the forest. Ivory Scroll was not going to be one of those ponies. She did not see or tell anypony about her problem, because when your problem exceeded the bounds of friendship and polite conversation, it was unlikely that you had a problem. Ivory and everypony else had it drilled into her since forever that those were the kinds of situations when you likely were the problem. The kind meant for keeping quiet about in a nation of herd-creatures that thrived on everything but silence.

Besides, the quicksand feeling had nothing to draw on, and yet that feeling of nothing felt like it was sucking everything with it.

...

No genius was required to put together the puzzle of a problem that Ivory Scroll faced. It should have happened after the coronation, certainly. Mayor-Mare had just felt the slowness of quicksand over her life since Twilight Sparkle pranced off to Canterlot and Princess Celestia showed her off for the world to see. She smiled no less, and did no less of what she had to do to keep her town running. Because really, it was her town, and hers alone. That's how things should be. Her herd of ponies had selected her as the Mayor-Mare of Everfreeshire. She had decades of experience and all Twilight Sparkle could do was smile and wave.

She had seen that mare before, that young little thing. Twilight Sparkle was nothing more than the freshest purple grape thinking she could be wiser than a raisin. One did not declare a daisy-fresh filly barely over the age of majority a princess, yet Princess Celestia, the goddess most high, had done just that. Ivory Scroll was old enough to remember when Princess Mi Amore Cadenza was first brought to Canterlot, something certain ponies in Ponyville weren't even born for. That one had been paraded around like a favorite piece of silverware at pre-Summer Sun Celebration brunch for years. Only then was Equestria a nation of two princesses — led by an absolute queen in all but name, and her little mortal helper who supported and extended the former’s will.

Two princesses later, and Mayor-Mare finally felt the shadow over her.

...

It was nearing four months after Twilight Sparkle had been made untouchable via coronation when the visit happened. Princess Celestia came to Ponyville in a golden chariot no mere mortal could hope to stand beside. In a way, it was how their goddess often appeared before them — half of the times, she descended upon them unannounced. Yet, she was always with gold-armored guards and shining in full formality, no matter the occasion.

Mayor-Mare was half-asleep at her desk, wishing that she could come up with all the right words to send to the Mayor-Stallion of the next shire over. Her fountain pen was clutched in her mouth, and she bit at it with more pressure than normal, though that did nothing to make words come easier. It was like the quicksand had sucked all of that out of her too. Princess Celestia could have found her in any better way.

She didn't even knock; Princess Celestia never had to. Her guards opened the door for her, and they did not knock either. They bowed as the startled Ivory Scrolls looked up as far as she dared.

Her goddess was standing in the doorway.

All government buildings across Equestria had to be specially made to account for the stature of the sun goddess. Princess Luna was lucky. Though she was taller than any pony mare, she was not so tall that any drastic measures had to be taken for a door's frame.

Mayor-Mare could not have refused her, and could only bow her head modestly from her desk.

By the end of their meeting, Princess Celestia had declared all of Everfreeshire — a few villages and the rolling countryside bordering the Everfree Forest — as a principality within the Equestrian kingdom.

It was to go to none other than the newly-minted Princess Twilight Sparkle, the lesser of the two goddesses but the superior to the mere mayor.

And Ivory Scroll could never have refused her goddess.

...

Obsolescence managed to be horribly simple and complicated all at once. No longer was Ivory Scrolls the Mayor-Mare of the biggest settlement in the whole shire, subject to only the ascending authority of the Royal Guard, Princess Cadance, and the Royal Sisters — in that order. She was now less than the biggest of royal servants, Twilight Sparkle herself. There was no authority she could claim. Her duties were a trickle, and all her ponies began to look to their newest princess for guidance.

Ivory Scroll had always heard that if you struggle against quicksand, you will sink faster. Never did she expect to be engulfed by never resisting. Ponyville may be her herd, but Ivory was still no more than a mere member of the biggest herd of all. That herd was none other than the one whose every breath was dictated by Princess Celestia herself.

She never stopped treating Twilight Sparkle with kindness — to do so would be unfathomable — but Mayor-Mare was in a position that taught her so much, so easily.

Sincerity was not essential to kindness, nor had it ever been.

She regarded Twilight Sparkle with more kindness than there could be books in her new castle. Every pony was taught through the distant words and writings of Princess Celestia that destiny was to be submitted to, and Ivory was not an exception. Ivory did not insist that she had planned to lead town functions when Twilight put forth her interest in a greenhorn's bumble. When Twilight Sparkle confessed her anxieties over ribbon-cutting ceremonies, Mayor-Mare was trained in just what to say. Not once did she do anything more than passively bask in just how ever-inept her new lavender overlord was. Many times, Mayor-Mare wanted to furiously scribble a scroll to Princess Celestia — did she not see that Twilight Sparkle was ill-equipped for her new horseshoes? Did she need to record every critical look, every politely delivered observation that other visiting politicians confided in Ivory Scroll?

All the little mares in Ivory’s line of work came to a unanimous conclusion — Twilight Sparkle had decades of work ahead of her, minimum.

Of all the little mayors, only Ivory Scroll realized that her success was dependent on a world without a Princess Twilight Sparkle.

Part 1, Side B

The Florida heat would be the death of Ivory Scroll more than Amareican politics would ever be. Her blouses were damn near stuck to her every day, even when her office's walls were all she saw on any particular day. Canterly's money was funneled into repairs after the hurricane season more often than not. That meant that any hopes of bringing the miracle of air-conditioning to the old, wide-patioed town hall died quicker than Raven's houseplants. Sighing, Ivory eyed the stack of paperwork that accumulated on her desk. Already, the stack next to her whirring, and overheated computer was close to reaching past the monitor. Her whole office was as much of a hectic swamp as Everfree Natural Park was, only she was lost in seas of paperclips and the woods were the sheer volume of unchecked agenda items.

Such was the fate of being the Madam Mayor of a not-so-sleepy Southern town. The Sunshine State always slept with one eye open, and that single eye belonged to something that wasn't exactly human. Heat made people do crazy things, certainly. Perhaps that was the case for other states in the region, but Florida was different. On any given day, Ivory Scroll would receive at least two dozen complaints that managed to slip past her secretary, Miss Raven. Contained within each complaint was a true snack platter of Floridian madness. A woman would think that every member of the government needed to be annihilated because they were all anthropomorphic insectoid creatures. There was at least one man who managed to write to the mayor every year, pleading to be able to legally wed the ghost of his pet alligator. A convict who tried to butcher his neighbor with a machete named Kindness wished to be pardoned on the basis of his supposed wit. Another unique Floridian desperately wished to know why appearing on the property of an in-session elementary school clad in only smears of feces and cake frosting while attempting coitus with a riding lawn mower was illegal.

It was events like these that made hearing about the unexpected places spaghetti could be found during a cavity search barely different from accusations of flying demons in a high school. For goodness sake, back in Ivory's day they just called those cheerleaders — and they were considered quite normal, thank you very much.

Ivory sighed, gave her fingers a good stretch, and returned to her typing. Slants of sunlight shone through the blinds in her polished, professional office. None of it eased the squint that Ivory focused with, her single-track mind tiredly returning to the droll in front of her.

...

The thing that Ivory Scroll hated the most about being Madam Mayor was that people called her just that. 'Madam' came before her job title — and really, what else was needed to show that there was irregularity than that? Ivory had not grown up seeing women in her position, and modernity just wasn't modern enough if a mayor who happened to be a lady still had her gender pointed out to her. 'Mayor Scroll' wasn't exactly harder to say, although it was much less snappy. The whole thing was a bunch of fiddlesticks, that was for sure. Women like Raven were more common to see in Ivory's field, or perhaps it was a matter of location. The one normal thing in Florida could come down to the gender ratio of elected officials — and what could be more normal and more Flordiaian than the sole normal thing to be the least expected or interesting.

'Normal.'

Ivory sighed. The light on her phone was blinking with all the unanswered messages Raven had left her to drown in.

...

"Madam, you have a me-meeting with the rest of Canterly's council," came the soft and monotonous voice of Raven.

Ivory looked up immediately — and tiredly. Raven was a slight woman, with pale skin and a constantly timid expression. Every shadow and doorway appeared to swallow her, just like the entryway to Ivory's office did. Even Raven's pencil skirt managed to engulf her with its dark colors — everything about Raven's demeanor and attire had simply never evolved past the 1960s. The only remotely youthful things about Raven were her child-like stutter, that she couldn't drive a stick shift, and her coffee orders were practically filibusters.

"Thank you, Raven," Ivory said, rubbing her temples. The last cup of coffee she had was long-gone, and Ivory was already contemplating her twelfth cup that day. "I'll be there shortly."

Heavens knew she would be needing all that coffee too. One of the most persistent petitioners in all of Canterly was none other than Abacus Cinch, the ex-principal of the private Crystal Prep Academy in the next town over. Crystal City was nowhere nearly as grand in scale in its name suggested, merely wealthy and well-liked to anyone who wasn't from Canterly. Mayor Ivory Scroll could only purse lips in the thinnest of smiles each time she heard its name or the mention of its Grand Witch of education fiascos. Cinch's young son, Gaylord Blueblood, had run against her. The whole family never got over the loss — even the 'nice' side, two sisters so distantly related to the father of the current Blueblood they might as well be strangers.

The Galaxia-Cinch-Blueblood family was a disaster, one that wasted the time of good people like Ivory Scroll. Abacus was determined to bring her every personal issue to a civic level. Resigning just wasn't enough for some people.

Ivory sighed once Raven closed the door. It was all she could do. There was nothing in this world that was determined to bury her with that which was beyond her capabilities.

...

All that Ivory had wanted in her life was a spotless career. To her, there was more admirable about the idea of being a mere civil servant than that mere part to it. With its quaint shopping centers, semi-quiet suburbs, and especially easy access to beaches and the Everfree, the Canterly area was utterly unassuming. There could be no place more perfect for a respectable and unremarkable career to serve others, and all her aspirations to foster community could be fulfilled.

She had been wholly convinced that she could make a difference, that the first term of Ivory Scroll would be more than a continuation of the last mayors.

She could be more than another portrait in the hall of a municipal building.

Ivory could only sigh when she, at last, parked her car. The key twisted, her car's engine died, and her office loomed not far away. It was just a reminder that 'civil servant' was no different than saying 'civil slave' — which was the truth about what Ivory Scroll had become.

...

The greatest conflict in Ivory's life was that she wanted to be normal, and her calling conflicted with that completely and utterly. To do good was something that required one to be anything but normal, and she hadn't realized that until long after she had been elected. She really could be more than another portrait in the hallway, but the real question was: did she want to be? To do otherwise, to be that everywoman was a drumbeat that pulsed so deeply, one that overwhelmed her more than being drowning ever could.

She could be a normal, neighborly member of the community who just happened to be the mayor.

Or Ivory could be a good, upstanding individual — ah, that was the rub. To be upstanding one had to stand out.

All Ivory Scroll had wanted, more than that was for the eternal summer heat of her town to lull her into the same stupor everyone else found themselves in. To sit down instead of standing up — or standing out. There was a cake of life that she could be content with, and it was on a window sill she was not sure she could reach — or she simply hadn't tried to.

Ivory sighed, knowing that she was all but wishing for everything to magically disappear.

Collision

Twilight Sparkle could be convinced to open her castle with surprising regularity. The death of Golden Oaks meant that the town's library had to be repurposed. Where better for the new Ponyville library to be than with the most memorable librarian that Ponyville had ever had? While being the private residence of a princess took precedence over any of the public's possible wants, a semi-public library was still better than no new library. There was an array of new events that Twilight Sparkle had been crowing about all over Ponyville. The new library sections of the castle were spacious enough to provide spaces for multiple book clubs, birthday parties, and other community-related get-togethers. The beautiful, original town hall no longer had to be the only area for public speaking when the new library of Twilight Sparkle could host multiple events in the same spaces. Quiet reading time for Ponyville's schoolhouse could happen alongside prep for sending the reservoir's water to Cloudsdale.

Mayor-Mare could not help but notice that regardless of how useful it was, Twilight Sparkle's castle cast a long shadow. When Ponyville's citizens were invited inside for another open-castle day, Ivory could not help but focus on that. It was like her whole town had been subjected to an invader on par with Tirek or the changeling queen, except this one was simply royalty endorsed.

Twilight Sparkle was too naive to ever suspect that there was anything unusual about Mayor-Mare checking out the fifth volume of Legends of the Everfree alongside a book on picnic lunch ideas and safe hiking.

...

Ivory Scrolls waited until Raven had left the room before she cracked her knuckles. Nobody could know that their modern Southern belle of a mayor had such an unrefined habit. Only then did she reach for the hot cup of coffee that Raven had set on her desk. This was her ninth cup of the day; it was shortly after ten-thirty in the morning. Madam Mayor was long past the point where she could get through a day without the intake she had become accustomed to.

Self-medication was not a crime.

...

Mayor-Mare readied her saddlebags with a renewed sense of purpose. Could she say that she was happy? That was hardly the case; she just had something to spur her like she hadn't in months. Her whole town may see her as little more than an old gray mare made even older and useless, but that was their folly to accept. She could not live a life where all the world called for her to slip into the nap of retirement. Unlike the Alicorns and their lesser counterparts, she had no other chance to live her life than what she was doing now — all that her cutie mark called her to. Princess Twilight Sparkle did not get to strip away everything that meant anything to Ivory Scroll in her life — not when she was not wiser or more capable since she first got her wings.

Let the great sun goddess keep throwing her former Faithful Student and the other Bearers on more hero-errands. She was successful at those, certainly, and the classic smile'n'wave. Politics still eluded Twilight Sparkle more than dancing skills.

Crammed into Mayor-Mare's saddlebags were a variety of books. Other than Legends of the Everfree she had left all the other titles that she had borrowed from the library behind. Next to that book were a variety of books about Equestrian history, the Equuish language, and a book on safe excavation. Wedged between them was the slimmest volume of Ponyville's collection on Equestrian law she had. The smallest map she had was wrapped around various photographs of her, Ponyville, and a few aged newspaper clippings. To complete this miniature library, Ivory Scroll had her secretary, Inkwell, transcribe all of Twilight's testimony about the mirror-world. Every detail about the bizarre and dangerous land of the simian creatures was captured in perfect mouth-writing.

Two substantial payments of bits had been exchanged for Inkwell to make that book, and the promise to say nothing about it. Ponyville's country positivity didn't mean it was wholly wholesome — Ivory knew how to make a payment that wouldn't show on any record when she needed to. Did she do that often? Oh, certainly not, and she definitely was not one to do it for any especially criminal purposes. Sometimes a mare just needed a job done or a little extra of her own bits to keep.

One of those jobs might just have happened to be an itsy-bitsy matter of transportation. A mare like Ivory Scroll couldn't exactly have a teleporter node be on her record of trackable purchases. Nodes were clunky, fickle things rarely available to citizens. The vaguely crystalline platforms required massive amounts of magic to work — the kind even Twilight said were best performed by gods or through the work of dams. It was Twilight who had rambled about them to Ivory at one of their lunches, and who had let it be known that nodes rarely had enough magic channeled for more than two charges before burning out. That kind of unrefined, eccentric, and thoroughly impractical invention was beyond the scope of the mere citizenry. Only a pony with the right kind of acquaintances could hope to purchase such an object.

Ivory Scroll just happened to have one waiting for her in the Everfree Forest, right in a protected clearing too close to the borders for beasts to wander. The kind of place a secret could be buried if she left the right materials behind for somepony to use.

And there was only one destination in mind for the sole charge needed.

...

Madam Mayor of Canterly was a lucky woman. She would never have to know her world's Twilight Sparkle. The young woman would never go on to outrank her, and for that, she would never understand how blessed she was.

...

Tossing her shovel to the side, Mayor-Mare let out a relieved sigh as it hit the dirt. She wasn't going to be the pony that needed it, not anymore. Forest life teemed around her, and the sound of creaking branches and rustling leaves was enough to stir cautious adrenaline in the older mare. The rest of the contents of her saddlebags were safely secured within their respective pouches and strapped around her barrel. The tightness of it was as much of a reminder of her quest as the reward of food was to a hungry foal. A small purse of gorgeous, golden bits she had scooped out of one of Ponyville's many wishing fountains was nestled within the cloth.

Greeting her was a magnificent sight. From under the shallow hole where it had been concealed, a node was pulsing with dim light. Based on the exact luster, there was more than one charge in here. That was all that Ivory would need. Flecks of dirt streaked across the crystalline surface from her efforts, and her hooves were quite muddy. All of that still meant so little to Ivory. A mussed mane and dirty hooves were the marks of one as earth pony strong as she. They were short term issues, one not worth dwelling on for an unfussy pony such as herself.

Ponyville was lucky to have a source of hydro-thaumic power in close proximity. The village dam certainly was not the best, but it was serviceable. Each edge of the rounded node was all carved up, and much of the aura it was emitting collected around that grounded areas had predominantly gathered the bulk of.

Ivory gulped; as soon as she stepped onto this platform the latent magic in her body would finalize the roughly-cast spell. At first, she stretched out her foreleg hesitantly. One nervous thump of her heart later, and she had abandoned such needless behavior. Ivory jumped onto the crystal and let the magic slam into her. The power was still too feral; she could immediately understand why nodes were rarely used by unicorns, if at all. The experimental technology had to 'read' the destination that was forced to the forefront of the mind, much like how unicorns envisioned their desired destinations with supreme focus. For a pegasus or earth pony, using a long-distance node required them to wrestle with their own thoughts and strain themselves to focus on absolutely nothing but that destination as magic was pulled about her in unnatural ways.

Only then did she appear where she intended to be, all dirt brushed from her coat, and within the darkened halls of Twilight Sparkle's castle.

...

Ivory Scroll was tapping her pen against her desk furiously and utterly delighted that no one else was in her office. Right now, if anyone were to see her, they would spy the way her forehead was creased with thought and the tightly contained rapidity of a coffeeholic in her eyes. Every word she could hope to grasp was evading her right now, ebbing away in a manic haze that practically bled from her.

Heat smothered her, and her own thoughts were a vice she couldn't escape. She needed air; she needed anything but the walls of this office pressing down on her.

...

Twilight Sparkle's castle hadn't been given the same level of security that Canterlot Castle had. At least, not yet. Mayor-Mare could have asked for no bigger favor. During their lunches, Princess Sparkle had blabbed about Princess Celestia. The sun goddess had not been able to work the same impenetrable wards over Twilight's home yet. According to Twilight, it was a matter of royal duties keeping Princess Celestia from having the time to make the trip to Ponyville. Ivory Tower couldn't help but see that as a stroke of good old fashioned luck being on her side.

She had to hold in her breath. Even exhale felt like it would give away her presence. Rarely did Ivory Scroll have to slink around, and now she was going about the castle of an Equestrian princess — her superior — on tippy hooves.

That is, until she nudged open the half-closed door that contained the very magic mirror she had been looking for.

...

No one was supposed to wait for Ivory Scroll when she drove to Canterly's town hall. She had her own keys and never needed any help bringing anything with her. She hardly ever found herself needing to carry more than her spacious faux leather handbag with her. Raven's car was already parked in her designated spot, the vintage compact car shining in the morning sun. What made the sight so unusual on this particular morning was the woman leaning carelessly, unsteadily against Raven's car.

Ivory's grip tightened on the strap of her bag. The stranger wore a veiled hat that stood out far too much. Not only was the weather wildly inappropriate for such attire, but it was entirely anachronistic. Madam Mayor imagined such fashion would have last been in-style when her great-grandmother was alive.

Immediately, the thought to call the police was abuzz in her mind.

Only the too-friendly, too-familiar wave of the strange woman halted the thought.

When the stranger pulled off her veil entirely, Ivory Scroll dispelled the thought entirely.

Standing across the parking lot, she finally took in the full appearance of the other woman. Her handbag was a larger, bulging thing — yet extremely posh in style. Her blouse and pin-striped pants were a pinnacle of perfection and looked exactly like something Madam Mayor would wear. In the sunlight, the white sparkle of the buttons was telltale about the material — it was very likely Madam Mayor's namesake. From under the flared pant legs, Ivory caught sight of two polished, uber-feminine heels that matched her own pair.

As soon as the other woman pulled off her strange headwear, Ivory Scroll discarded all thoughts of calling the authorities. Instead, she stared across the lot at a woman who wore her face.

...

"Heavens above, were the shapeshifter conspiracy theorists right?" gasped Mayor-Mare's doppelganger. Even from across the smelly, dull asphalt lot, the ex-mare could read the shock in the face of her simian counterpart. She had squeezed her coffee cup so severely that the contents were starting to spill on her hand.

Ivory knew immediately that she should have packed a few hoofkerchiefs. Her new, awkward limbs were optimal for keeping herself unbalanced and little else. The slim digits were not the sort of thing that could be flexed in unison, but she was already guiding them to her bag. Each of the saddlebags that she had was incorporated into the fabric that covered her nigh-hairless form. The rest was reflected in the clothes that had materialized when she tumbled out of the mirror's other side. Inside, the newest addition to all her possessions was nothing other than a crumpled schedule for a metal caterpillar of a train car that barrelled along the narrow tar paths that passed as roads here.

Without it, she would have never been able to locate her otherworldly twin. Equuish runes were not the predominant script here, but the Roaman alphabet adopted by unicorns since the Tribal Era was in wide-use. Only the use of bizarre pictographs most frequently featuring eggplants, puzzled expressions, feces, and assorted fruits was the close, if incomprehensible second.

"Wait — Ivory Scroll, please wait!"

The other Ivory's face flushed scarlet with mortification. Her unusual paw immediately plunged into her purse.

"You mustn't leave, not when I have so much to tell you." Mayor-Mayor immediately whipped out her slightly crumpled photographs and her coin purse. She let the latter be seen plainly, and it jingled something fierce — that action was particularly deliberate. "If you can spare the time for coffee, I promise that everything I tell you will make sense. Search my purse, myself, anything! I bring harm to nopony!"

The other Ivory took one large, visibly anxious breath in. She cocked her head to the side, eyes blank with how stunned she was. "Any... pony?"

"Anyhuman?" guessed Mayor-Mare, balling her free paw clumsily. "Esteemed Mayor-Lady of Canterly, I need only a few hours of your time."

Something about the way that Mayor-Mare addressed the other Ivory Scroll made the latter's lips curl into a thin, easy smile. "Only the time of a coffee break you say?"

"Yes!" Mayor-Mare insisted. "I am a mar— woman of my word, as I'm sure you are too. Please, if we give the impression that there is a scene transpiring, what will the pedestrians think?"

Oh, gods! Mayor-Mare's last words struck a clear sour chord — the mirror world's Ivory frowned visibly with the last question. "Yes, I do suppose that is true, who knows what my town will think..."

"Just give me a coffee break's worth of time," Mayor-Mare said, her voice dancing between firm and pleading. She gripped at her photos and coin purse even tighter. "I promise that what I say will be enough to change your life — and you clearly could go for a new coffee. I'll pay."

At last, the second Ivory took one step forward, towards herself and towards her future.

Part 2, Side A

Mayor-Mare had never been happier to wake up before the dawn in her whole life. The sun had not yet stirred and no magic was reaching to the heavens, nor would it ever do so again. Not for Ivory Scroll. Her pre-sun hours no longer pulled her from sleep; from now until she was ready for the grave her mornings would begin before the sun rose over a godless world. The blaring, nightmarish alarm that jolted her from sleep every single day came from a mechanical box, one that flashed hours influenced by a mechanical universe.

She would amble out of bed clumsily. This was due in part to her age and the intense fragility that humans had. Two legs were an unsteady inconvenience at their best. The nagging feeling of uncanniness that they brought was a phantom always haunting the back of Ivory's mind, though she wished it were not around. It was one of many aspects of her transformed life left unacknowledged. Her new home was a manor in a world where politicians did not bother with maintaining a citizen facade that ponies had always eaten up. She lived alone in her wide-verandaed house, because the previous Ivory had neither spouse nor children. For all those things, the heart of Ivory Scroll was always aflutter, knowing that she was alone, save for duty and glory.

She lived and worked in buildings as sleek and grandiose as she needed them to be. The coffee she drank was the necessary jolt she required in a world without divine eyes, crown-wearing watchmares, and all the magic that made life feel like living. But over time she had begun to like these things. To be called Madam Mayor meant that she was remarkable in herself, an exception among the everyday. Canterly was not podunk Ponyville, and there was always something to be done.

New worlds meant new problems — and who better to look at them than new eyes?

...

The prospect of an exchange had become a seed of curiosity over coffee. Two plain cups, taken black except for sugar, had ordinary wisps of steam rising for them. It was the perfect cover for a not-so-ordinary exchange that followed. The simian Ivory knew how to make a face extra forgettable — and even though humans lived in a world where they were more likely to know trigonometry than their neighbor's smile, Ivory could not have a sudden twin. Before entering the coffee shop, all that had been needed to make a dimensional sister into a distant cousin was no more than makeup, sunglasses, a wide-brimmed hat, and altered hairstyle was enough.

Not a single human stopped to listen as their happy chatter had begun. Their shared selfhood made them click, alternating between awkwardness and nigh-constant feelings of déjà vu.

The contents of Mayor-Mare's bag only solidified this. One only needed to have stopped and really looked into the eyes of Madam Mayor to see what was kindling there. Slowly, genuine emotion had emerged on her face; what she had been seeing was little more than her life and secrets represented in alien equines—

And it was enough to hook her.

...

The hardest thing about the world of humans was managing their machines. Every device they had was a kind of medical mistake. Each piece of the technology that infested their world where magic would have reigned sorely complicated things. This was to the point where Ivory had to work on relearning much. Earth pony model typewriters with twin dials — twist rings to land on a shorthoof character then press — were replaced with the new, bizarre computer. Roaman characters littered each a keyboard befitting models traditionally reserved for unicorns accompanied every device Ivory encountered.

Within the confines of her home, one such keyboard previously belonging to the simian Ivory was hurled against the wall.

Even though the small cartridge she was required to carry around received messages non-stop, Ivory did like it. Knowing she was summoned through the bright screen so much only emphasized how essential she was to Canterly. In the small-screens smaller boxes were a variety of two-dimensional archives into a life she had never lived. She could study snapshots of a history alongside an array of electronic messages that was hardly different from a diary. The other Ivory hadn't spoken been too different in her manner or general habits. Meekness and a coffee habit were not enough of a severe discrepancy between the two Mayor Scrolls, and Ivory had been faking the former for a good long while before she came to this world. Whether it was dealing with Twilight Sparkle or somepony else, one always had to take care to craft the same masks that reflected the traditions of Princess Celestia.

At least, it was nowhere between level between an aspiring scientist and lesser royalty. One would have the greatest thing in her life be the amount of debt she owed for her degree. The other decided how much others were indebted to her.

For once in Ivory's life, the living was easy — largely because all her obsoletion had ebbed away, and she had stepped into a world where she could not sense any divine eyes upon her.

...

Politics had many mottos, and to fake things, until one made them so — or merely to appear so — was close to the top. The lawbook one Ivory had lent another was too intricate to be faked. Her other cache of belongings and the solid gold of her bits only served to lessen every worry that the simian creature sitting across from her had possessed. Ivory had watched her human self closely in that moment. She noted how every measure of disingenuous primness cracked and smothered the full extent of her emotions. She had her reservations about the display, but her later dives into the news of this world only confirmed her hunch: watching any politician in this world so free of crowns try and display emotion was like watching a doll try and come to life.

Equestria’s mayors were similar, of course. Their queen in all but name was very clear in her conduct. A mayor was to imitate humility, a citizen-act, and to kowtow to Princess Celestia twice as much as the goddess usually requested. The manner of one’s predecessors were only valid in how they measured up to the imitation and reverence of Princess Celestia herself, the mare of stark, incompatible dualisms. A queen who thought her absolute authority could be convincingly hidden with the more paltry title of Princess. The mare who lived in the highest luxury and cooed over the wealthy trinkets of high society — wines, gowns, decorum, parties, and more — but still tried for an obliviousness of humility. She called you her friend before she referred to you as her subject, but only after you bowed long enough for her liking.

That was just one of the many ways that Ivory came to know that Princess Celestia would be too perfect for this world — so much so that she’d be seen through in an instant.

Only one last trip was needed from there, and the privacy of the native Ivory's horseless carriage had enabled them to talk in privacy. That was something the visiting Ivory quickly managed to learn about humans. Their society was less collective and less private all at once. There was no herd abilities among them, or any similar powers inherent to any creatures. No shred of a collective resembling anything ponies could pull together could be found in these disobedient monkeys. Corruption was no different than cracks in a sidewalk to their world, and yet Ivory could not have imagined dark magic would sow itself as easily here, there was just too much that wasn’t right and she couldn’t wrap her head around what that was. That was the one moment she actually, really wished Twilight Sparkle of all ponies was there in all her new royal existence. Matters of dark power were completely out of the hooves of all mayors, and the secrets of such magic were reserved only for those with authority beyond what all the Ivory Scrolls of all worlds could attain.

The more they learned of the other's life, all that grew clearer was that they had to have it.

When Mayor-Mare showed her other half the way her fist phased through the horse statue, not a single shred of doubt remained.

...

"Mmm," Ivory Scroll let out a tired hum. She knitted her fingers together and stretched her arms out and away from her.

The 'telephone' next to her computer had a red light flashing on it, and a single-digit number within that artificial glow. Ever since Ivory had adjusted to the rat race humans immersed themselves, things had been whipped into shape around the Canterly office. The time she took to answer the readings stored within its curious depths had decreased substantially. When Ivory first exchanged places with her human self, that number had been higher than Fluttershy and Tree Hugger after a Mid-April spring festival. Everything smelt like the contents of the Pine-Sun bottle (one with a curious amount of lemons but no pines pictured on it) that Mayor Ex-Mare had seen in the supply closet closest to the kitchen. This proximity and packaging displaying delicious fruit may have had some involvement in her being sent to the hospital for accidentally consuming the contents in want of fruit juice.

"Raven?" Mayor Ex-Mare called out. She pressed one of the many buttons before her on the tele-box, allowing the messenger to recite whatever they wished to the pseudo-magical compartment where it would be stored. "Raven, where are you?"

A slender, younger ape-creature popped her head in. Oversized spectacles with enormous, thick black frames were perched on her nose. Her long, wide skirt absolutely dwarfed her. The shape was also more befitting a bell in one of the many temples to the gods that were across the other side of the mirror. Every bit of her fashion was just enough to not quite fit in with the style of the other human-creatures about her age. Ivory knew almost immediately after meeting the woman that she dressed straight out of the history books of this world without ever having to see one.

"Y-yes, M-madam?" she called mousily, in a stutter that was absolutely unlike the low and quiet voice of Inkwell, Mayor Ex-Mare's old secretary. "Has something g-gone wr-wrong?"

Privately, Mayor Ex-Mare was starting to wonder if maybe everypony didn't have a perfect copy on the other side. Inkwell sure didn't, not if Raven existed. When had there ever been a Raven in Ponyville?

"There was a meeting coming up tomorrow that I'm... well, I believe that I misplaced a few sheets of my preparation notes." She gave Raven the cool, passionless smile that one could observe constantly pasted to the muzzle of Princess Celestia.

It was the kind of smile that took no questions, accepted no refusals, and dripped with even more raw kindness than Fluttershy thinking that Applejack telling somepony 'bless your heart' was a kind of compliment. Things had always been that way; it had just taken Ivory Scroll a world away to realize the full depth of what had been swimming in so shallow a smile. Princess Celestia's smile took a particular kind of politician to see past — and Ivory Scroll was just the breed.

Through the partially opened door, Raven was unable to hide the twiddling of her thumbs. "Oh d-dear," she stammered, "b-but that me-meeting was sch-scheduled three months ago! Oh goodness! What if our visitors from re-real Boara-Boara think that our efforts to establish a Li-little Boara-Boara we-west of downtown if we lost n-notes! What if the celery platter explodes—"

"I, umm... Raven, dear? I only asked for some of the notes. You see, I believe that I may have just misplaced the most recent ones... and I thought you might be able to help me find them..."

Ivory Scroll had always used 'dear' the same way that one would be expected to pat a child on the head and give them a rote speech about whatever worry they felt was trite and how grown-ups could solve everything. It was the embodiment of all the speeches on civics and Equestrian values that Ivory had ever given to half-asleep foals at the Ponyville schoolhouse and the glazed-eyed adults in the town, and around other areas in Everfreeshire. She'd done every single one by leafing lazily through guidebooks on Celestian values and snatching up the most well-trotted phrases, just like every other mayor before her. Being an elected official was a blessing from Celestia herself when you were elected to serve in a nation that changed with every rising of the sun, and still managed to land you in the doldrums no matter what.

Equestria was a chameleon land where only those who embraced that status could survive. Things could only ever change, and would do so with radical inauthenticity. However, no creature ever doubted that a chameleon was still a gods-darned lizard at the end of the day. However, Florida was merely a crack pipe that was shaped like a chameleon — and Ivory Scroll found that nightmarish, trashiness to be its own kind of desirable.

Part 2, Side B

Ivory Scroll would always wake up well before the dawn was brought to the world now. Lying with blankets pulled past her new muzzle and resting just under her eyes made her feel safe. Their warmth brought her the same sense of safety she had as a little girl, back in the days when she thought the aliens in her science fiction magazines (the ones her mother insisted rotted her brain like candy ruined teeth) would crawl out from her closet and take her away. Here, in a world where science fiction was little more than a dozen titles produced over the last few centuries, that feeling was real and right. The sun was like an eye, and each cold morning a goddess greater than it threw the fiery orb across the horizon. This was a world where the heavens were inferior, for they had owners. It was why Ivory liked to lay in bed with the covers pulled up, otherwise who knew what kind of magic could see her?

She needed to feel safe. What she had left behind was a world full of monsters for one that made that word all too literal. And Equestria was just one nation on a planet that wasn’t fully mapped, where real gods ruled for longer than she could dream, and one of Ivory’s greatest problems was that a town resident kept eating her tulips. On the very edge of an outright murder-forest (the records of the town hall were very adamant about the dangers and deaths in the forsaken god-space) and in a village with a history of monster attacks, the most that Ivory had to worry about was the flower-eater caper... in a world of ponies.

The darkness brought on by the night goddess made her itch without her blankets. It was why she kept herself close to mummified with how she rolled and pulled them around. Ivory had a sinking, cold-claws-tearing-her-tummy-from-within kind of feeling that the stars were hungry jaws aiming to sear away any liars who dared stretch so much as a hoof out from their blankets. The way that the night and all its sights absolutely lived in this world was an awe-inducing gut punch that had yet to go away, unlike the mad, rattling howl of wolves that Ivory could name. (Those beasts drove her under the blankets too. She could hear them from the forest.)

She didn’t know why she always woke up so early; even if she had long since made a habit of it what willed her to do so was primal and nameless. There was nothing she missed of where she came from, except maybe some odd conveniences, the kind of soda pop her grandmother didn’t have, and a way to numb the maddening gallop in her head that was left where television ought to be. But this world didn’t have television. Even its predecessors, like telegrams, Morse code, and radio, had not been created or even left to whispers and dreams yet. Other than mail, not a single cross-country or international communication standard existed. Ordinary ponies like herself were stuck with hoping the speediest pegasus was fast enough, or the typical form of long-distance delivery: any wingless pony pulling a cart across the winding dirt roads of the nation. Only the town's highest official, one Miss-Princess Twilight Sparkle, had anything better. Her dragon servant was filled with magical flame that whipped communications directly to the greatest light: one sun goddess on a mountain throne higher than any other.

(Even a television set couldn’t keep away this night, or any other on this world. Magic could practically be breathed through the air once the soft stage of dusk was done, such was how palpable the sensation was made by the other goddess of Equestria.)

Ivory just knew how she hated lying in the dark and the way that it crept past the skin to pare away every thought that kept her from herself. All mornings in Equestria did was renew that feeling until the shock of dawn was over. In her home world, Ivory had only been a morning person because she had to be. Now mornings were made up of how she would have to lie there and take the empty feelings, assessing the weight that they shouldn't have and the shadow of how much of an imposter she was. Only when the moon was coming, high, or going did the cold dread of honesty seek to peel all she was away. She would just bask in everything that made her too much of Ivory Scroll in the imperfect ways that politics could only mask.

That was the kind of kingdom Equestria was. One where even the oldest and grayest of mares huddled under blankets from stars and themselves. Then, when the first light of morning was but a faded, pleasant brightness, the same old gray mares could skip along to the market with the young mothers who swarmed across the local commons in chatty hordes. The latter ladies would have their produce baskets slung across each side, awaiting flowers and fruits, while their ears would not heed the hoofsteps of their foals stumbling after them as their bellies swelled with another little one who would be lucky to be thought of just as absently. Across both worlds, mothers had more appetite for gossip than they did an ear or eye to spare for the most vulnerable among them, like youngsters. Yet, country ponies had a deeper simplicity to them than country people, something that made their commitment to a herd and crown stronger than chains.

Ivory could not tell whether that deeper-than-blood quality of ponies was something she could never possess or a siren song that would pull her below the waters of this social machine in time.

Just like the day before, Ivory Scroll would wait for the height of dawn to pass into a mindless, bright mellowness. By then, she would be wearing the same kind smile as every other pony.

And they would never think not to love her for it.

...

Ivory Scroll hadn’t said goodbye to her other self. Not in any way that mattered. After their minor outing, the two of them had debated briefly in Ivory's car (with her equine counterpart having to be kept from trying to eat the Little Tree) whether it would be worth returning to her home. All it had taken was the weight of all the trinkets of her foreign self pressed into her palm to convince her otherwise. Her home was as austere as the rest of the life that she had, something between a manor and a cottage, but the home of her mare-self was one that held itself at a distance from the label of a home. The inside was decorated with popular, unremarkable prints of museum art in tidy wood frames. Small religious trinkets from amulets to statuettes of creatures called Alicorns were neatly arranged on shelves and above painstakingly cleaned cobblestone fireplaces.

High-end, luxuriously comfortable furniture in oddly depressing earthy hues dominated every photograph. Vases filled with flowers that looked tasteful for a funeral had been placed here and there as if they had a mind of their own and were reluctant to cause clutter. Many of them had obvious twins and triplets that could be spotted between pictures. An office looked like it was the only room that had been lived in, with enough scrolls, quills, and battered volumes existing in a wave about the pull a twin-sized bed into the sea of parchment.

None of them had ever married, or thought about wanting another around, even just as a special someone. Ivory had never met another human being who wanted as little to do with anyone when it came to intimacy before.

Her pony-self had made a remark about getting her quills and many of her sofas at the same store when they were in the car. Ivory had still been looking at the pictures, a mix of photos, sketches, and other proofs of an unknown world when she said that. There was so much to take in about just how little there was in this house, how utterly her it was, how it looked like a model rental property and someone's very traditional grandmother mixed their wares together as sparingly as possible. She asked her mare-self how long she had lived in the house.

What she was told was that Mayor-Mare felt like she had been living there her whole life...

...which was hardly an answer at all.

...

In Equestria, there was a rarely spoken of and totally strangling stigma against showing anything less than kind, happy herdship — even if that meant being an utter fraud with a sweet front. Adhering to this strict need to mingle pleasantly among ponykind kept Ivory on the toes she no longer had. Politicking across both worlds always required the development of personas and to say exactly what you did not mean in order to ensure that people (and ponies) would continue to listen — and to do so happily. For ponies, this need for kindness in excess was something that grew to the point of addiction.

Back on Earth, Ivory had a second cousin who had worked for the local news channel. She had known him about as well as she knew all the characters to Neighponese kanji, but they were good at pretending as the years went on. During family reunions, once the subjects of weather and traffic were done away with, the pleasantry subject of work would always emerge to disguise that family reunions were time loops straight out of Tartarus where you put your best acting forward. How else was one to repeat the same twelve conversation steps with people who never stopped being strangers? When speaking of careers, one thing that Ivory and her cousin could both agree on was the importance of the human interest story across any kind of communication. Of everyone in the Scroll family, they were the two who knew that reality could be marketed as skillfully as much as any sorcery and swords novel for the tweens these days.

It was the human interest story that acted as the easily digestible tale for all ages, one that sold the most impossible fiction to an audience who would keep coming back for more as long as they never knew better. People and ponies were eternally starving, and the human interest story was a feast of fattening cake that brought nothing but sleepy bodies. Meanwhile, that oozing, oversaturated benevolence was nothing more than cement-thick layers of the most artificial frosting, something that was borderline suffocating when once tasted, and it made the mind sleepier than any amount of cake could be once the short buzz of a sugar rush came crashing down.

Being surrounded by ponies taught Ivory that her skills wouldn't be wasted here, not when there was something simultaneously challenging and easy living among these colorful equines. On one hoof, Ivory's endurance in keeping her muzzle facing upward to the sun and trying to be everypony's friend would be challenged. As for the other... Ivory had spent her whole life being the walking, talking advertisement for the kind of foolish fiction that ponies would probably damn near throw a temper tantrum for if they went without it. Why, if horses had television, they would want nothing more than twenty-four-seven channels of hu-horse interest stories, each more dripping with unbearable, unreal saccharinity than the last. Talking to ponies was like trying to feed a child that would eat nothing that could leave them diabetes-free before middle school. No wonder her other self could not stand it here; all that happened was a sleepy town's humdrum wrapped around a world beyond any Earthly fantasy writer's wildest dreams. And crowding every happy little cottage were giddy creatures in a world with the mentality of the manchildren of Ivory's old world, not realizing that they couldn't be happy all the time and trust everypony forever, that Ivory was not Mayor-Mare so much as she was the Mayor of Fools, or the sheer hypocrisy that such an ignorant attitude had in a world with real rebel goddesses and nefarious powers—

Everything was so special and horrible all at once and Ivory needed just as much of it, if not more, of what her ponies had spent their whole lives submerged in.

"Well, how do you do this fine afternoon, Madam Mayor?"

The familiar voice of a stallion pulled Ivory from her thoughts, and though she had no wings, the sensation was not dissimilar from plummeting. A smile had graced her muzzle long before she turned to face him, her voice free from the faint gentlestallion's drawl he possessed. "I am doing ever so fine. Our goddess has brought an especially lovely day to us all. Though, when has she ever shown us anything less?"

She almost wanted to point out that this word still had storms, droughts, famine, and other weather-related catastrophes which negated the idea that the sun goddess was what he thought, but she did not admit the heresy. Who was she to pull the wool from both of their eyes about this new world?

The bubbling brook below the bridge did absolutely nothing to reflect how hearing those two words grated on her when he said her title. A talon worked its way inside her, clawing tallies in all her ribs each time she had to hear them and be reminded of a world where she had been outside of the sacred bounds of normalcy, and that even among the insanity that ruled Florida she had been made out as an oddity with every passing reference to her station. It was in this world that she never had to stand out. Her duties could consist of the usual feigned passion in speeches or tying the bright bows bearing her re-election buttons in a world so simple its average citizen still believed heroes could win.

Men and stallions only wore different skins.

That was the only thought that could squirm through Ivory's mind as she released the blue and pink ribbon she had tied with her teeth. In her long-gone world, Ivory had always been a stickler about only working with the former out of need. While she had no liking for women and mares, her utter neutrality to them was nothing compared to all the ways that she had an honest dislike that she held for the males of either species. It was a heaping helping of their manner, ambitions, and idiosyncracies that led to her conclusion.

"She sure doesn't bring the rain to Ponyville as the pegasi do, Mayor Scroll. I'll tell ya that." He chuckled. "Why, just last week my lil' Diamond Tiara has been poutin' up and down the halls just because Ponyville needed some pourin' over all her farms and meadows. Diamond had wanted to go outside with one of her little friends, playin' window shoppin' games with her in the town square of this gorgeous little village." The laugh lines under Mister Rich's eyes creased, and he tutted at the memory the way only a parent could. "Great gods, I swear that only foals and grown ponies with the minds they think foals have are the ones thinkin' that everything ought to be endless sunshine. You don't need to know the Apples to know that just ain't right; Ponyville needs her showers and cloudy skies."

Ivory offered a friendly nod, never slipping into anything as inauthentic as a laugh would have been then.

The posters rolled up and jostled in his well-tailored saddlebags. Such smartly-made attire stuck out like a sore hoof in a place like Ponyville, especially considering Rarity primarily drew in mares as clients. Well... mares and certain kinds of males, the ones that Ivory's grandmother would call 'friends of Ruby Slipper' and Ivory herself dared not label in any way that came across as partisan.

"I'm having an absolutely lovely time. Cloudsdale's goggled cumulus-kickers sure have been given the campaigning weeks some of the finest weather we've had all year."

Ivory tossed her wavy, silver mane. The warm sunshine had made it so that a faint sweat shone on her coat, but the anxiety of the time wasn't helping either. She just had to get re-elected, and to make sure she started off oh the best hoof possible, Ivory Scroll had used the most bright and pleasant ribbons bits could buy to display her campaign posters to the town. Emblazoned alongside glossy sketched busts was the usual bold calligraphy that was so popular for the printing presses of ponies and obsolete from common use in the human world. Nothing drew the attention of the common pony quite like the assertive, feminine font. Most of the ponies who lingered to look at them the longest were mares, and Ivory always felt warmer than a gator sunbathing at the peak of summer knowing that it was the gossip of mares that acted as the nail between the horseshoe of elevating Ivory closer to the great hoof of the gods residing in Canterlot.

Why, a gaggle of a few local mares was trotting over to some of the flyers that had been tied around town earlier. Their eyes were friendly, and the way they whispered with interest among themselves between their everpresent Ponyvillian smiles. Ivory beamed at them and then returned her focus to Filthy Rich. "Mr. Rich, I can't help but agree. This season is going to keep everypony on their tippy-hooves with your platform and the heat wave all the almanacs have pre-arranged this year."

Out of the corner of her eye, Ivory saw Mr. Rich smile, and smile wider in a need-to-stay-strong way when he heard one of the mayors whispering about how she just couldn't trust Mayor-Stallions as much as Mayor-Mares. Her friends were an uninterrupted, uniform chorus of murmuring agreements on the sentiment. There was such a charm to this world and its hidden treasure trove of reverse sentiments that could turn up here and there — even the prejudices. Though, to Ivory that was such a harsh label — 'sensibilities' was a much better term, one that conveyed the simplicity of knowing women (and mares) were just better at all things relational and requiring leadership than any man (or stallion) could ever hope to be. It was just the natural order of things, one that Filthy Rich's wasteful notions of free school lunches provided to every foal made so laughable — ponies could graze if they were that damn hungry, and they had so many other stupidly easy ways to get food. There was no sense in talking of feeding them what they already had — school-foals were expected to bring lunches anyway — and the talk of getting guild chapters present for bigger towns in a place like Ponyville was not the kind of government overreach worth investing in.

One of the things that she had come to love about Ponyville was how unnecessary she truly was, but how she was beloved as though that were not the case. With a princess living so that the shadow of her castle loomed over them and cast certain cottages and shops in a darker night than others as soon as the sun went down, there was always a sense of eyes being on Ponyville. Ivory had picked up on it almost as quickly as having two left legs. Favor from royalty could mean plentiful rewards, and it could also mean the reward of assurance that all is well. That was the kind of reward that promoted looking away from Ponyville at all the right times. It was why her platform of Twilight Sparkle appreciation, Element Bearer hero reverence, and good ol' Celestian values would resonate so well — the dedication of statues, promotion of tourism, and greater emphasis on Twilight's authority over her would make her victory seem so much more benign. After all, who secures privileges without the want for the full power that came with it too?

Filthy Rich smiled and said something Ivory Scroll didn't catch before he did something so plainly pony-like. He reached into his saddlebags and passed a poster to her with his forehoof. "If you wouldn't mind, I think this here'd be a delightful spot for advertising, and a bit of friendly competition as well. Wouldn't you agree?"

His smile told her he meant it. Even among lower politicians, like elected officials, ponies had a tendency to focus more on the 'friendly' instead of the 'competition' and very few of them were as willing to do something decent and exploit it as a front like Ivory knew that they ought to. This type of camaraderie was a tradition that the books Ivory borrowed made plain enough.

"Of course," she said, forcing the kind of quiet grace that made her think of Princess Celestia, "I'd be more than happy to."

When she accepted his campaign poster, he took that as a sign to grip her hoof in a vigorous hoofshake and heartily wish her farewell before slowly trotting off into the sunshine. Ivory looked at the image on his: a plain font among a smattering of bullet points, one of which listed the date of a speech where catering would be provided to all creatures who showed up, courtesy of Barnyard Bargains. Behind a rather simple geographic background was a glossy photograph — somepony had certainly gone through a lot making these — of Filthy Rich shaking the hoof of somepony Ivory Scroll could only place as one of the shopkeepers.

Ivory had tape in her saddlebags for when ribbons wouldn't do the trick. She liked to be prepared. And she would have to hang this up. To throw it away or dispose of it in some other fashion was unthinkable. It would out her as a poorer sport faster than Rainbow Dash getting tickets to the newest Wonderbolt show. Her roll of tape was already partially used, and as long as nothing else happened to the other posters Filthy Rich made, everything would be fine. She just wouldn't use exactly the right amount of tape in the right way to secure it to the bridge post. The weather would do its job, and nopony could blame her for being one or two pieces short, not when Filthy Rich had seen her roll was not anywhere close to full. It wasn't too much, nor was it too little. All she was doing was a perfectly healthy private show of playing dirty to get a bit of mud on a poster.

And maybe the election itself didn't have to be so cleanly won either.

...

For Ivory, the books had been a mixed blessing. They had been loaned to her from the library where they had been plucked. They waited for her in a neat pile, each boasting the basics of a new world where unfortunately would have to handle reading just enough fine print. She had to make sure she fit in somehow, unless the actions of her counterpart were to be unmasked and both of their new lives ended up being uprooted. Her mirror-twin had now been unprepared. She told Ivory where she would end up, and showed her the trinket that would save her on the journey's last leg.

It had looked faintly like a wedge one would put under a door, only perfectly sized to fit a standard horseshoe, and built of sturdier, heavier stuff. Otherwise, how else was it supposed to handle the fact that Ivory Scrolls would be a horse clocking in at just over nine-hundred and thirty pounds in her new home? She'd been assured that the crystal would handle the weight and that the number was perfectly healthy for a creature who lamented surrendering her trim one-hundred-and-twenty-pound human form. The horseshoe shape carved into it had just a few specks of dirt on it, but inside, Ivory had spotted what made the cloudy, quartz-like crystal so truly rare: a few runes had been etched into the interior, and their magnetic allure had enraptured Ivory so much she had only half-paid attention to her twin's story about who helped her make the final touches on this essential piece.

The remote teleporter was simple: two uses were all it was potent enough for, and it had to be reunited after the second charge, lest it destabilize. Alternatives to purer magics for those without horns were often clunky, unstable things, especially when hastily made. And, as her pony self had explained, it could not be used to travel too far from the platform her piece connected to, she was already using what was considered a long-distance node, at least for an earth pony. Once she was through the statue and found herself on the other end of the mirror, she was to slip the horseshoe her beloved black heels would turn into right in the groove. The friction from trying to step forward and the grating of her metal would spark the last potency in the runes, while the base had to draw from other magics.

And it had. She had not stumbled, face-first onto the crystalline floor of a castle. Instead, Ivory had vanished in a blink and found herself locked in a rough-hewn crystal platform half-buried in excavated dirt. The node had been half-dead as soon as the first Ivory had left, and the arrival of the second Ivory had drained it, causing the lock-and-key piece to grind into one final place that resisted all movement and left her in an awkward pirouette. The sounds of a forest so overgrown and dim she could not tell if it was daylight had overwhelmed her, and she could not believe that with their sounds or threatening atmosphere and hulking shadows in every corner that she had barely been past the treeline. At least, she hadn't believed it until she stumbled out into a meadow. Only the reminder from her pony-self to have the platform broken to bits as a final precaution and disablement then disposed of somewhere, lingered in her head.

Those thoughts were a shred of a whisper; how could they not be? Here, Ivory found herself spellbound by a night richer in color and starlight than any other, with a moon more perfect, brighter, closer, and bigger than any on earth. The planet she was on was no longer called Earth! The books waiting for her in the home she had waited for her to sneak into told her even more: this world's moon gave off its own light, one essential for the magical strength and health of the world, a foreign thing her Earth would have no equivalent to. There were no pale imitations here, where even the breeze felt as though it were breathing down her neck, heavy with the knowledge that she was a stranger.

...

The banner promoting her last speech was a welcome one, and felt like a fraction of victory already. Maybe Filthy Rich was still in the race, and sure, not a single vote had been cast. However, Ivory Scroll felt assured in her victory. She had her methods, and they gave her every reason for those feelings to be justified. Right now, she only had to enjoy the first look at three of the nations princesses gathered together. The last speech in an election season was able to be visited by royalty very easily. The window for elections had some variance across Equestria, especially with the different founding dates of every locale big enough for a shire to have a mayor. Thus, a fine tradition was born. Ponyville being so close to Canterlot meant that both goddesses could visit Twilight Sparkle in the lavishly decorated town hall.

Twilight Sparkle hadn't met this Ivory Scroll, and she would never know that. The casualness actually made it easier for her to take in the appearance of the little non-goddess. She was downright scrappy compared to the others, with only a few anatomical hints different from the common equine she was born as. Her longer horn, different stature, and bigger wings were hardly different enough to be of notice compared to the other two. Despite being full-grown, there was something diminutive and childlike about what was otherwise a mature adult, albeit one that was stuck in such a compact form compared to what were supposed to be — but clearly anything but — her peers. She was cutesy, in a rather unripened way, the way of things that would always stay unripe. Upon her head, Princess Twilight Sparkle wore a tiara with pink gems at each point, and Ivory Scroll could not help but feel that the tiara looked almost like a little comb with how it was arranged in Princess Twilight's mane. A bustle of noisy purples couldn't hide that Twilight Sparkle wore her mane and tail with the pin-straight cut of something better suited to a school filly. Her eyes went from happily lit as she spoke to friends to worshipful and lost in the sight of the bigger goddess.

Princess Celestia was the sight of sights. There was one that Ivory Scroll recognized as a peer, somepony not unlike herself. The smile of the goddess was whiteout-bright and pierced the presence of every other creature, regarding them just like the words meant to be blotted out. Such was the power of its blatantly artificial sheen, one Ivory had seen in lesser form upon every human politician but the young ones who had yet to be broken into the real world — those ones might was well be called Twilight Sparkles. She had let this look shared by Celestia claim her after a time; Ivory had to. Princess Celestia carried herself with the radiant, alien smarm that was exclusively bred in the raisin-shriveled hearts of mothers. She had eyes that were soft and unclear like a portrait that had dried in a smudged way, but only around those robbed eyes. They were faintly wet, and the immaculate goddess had an obvious affinity for fake eyelashes. It was her eyes that gave away what her divine form and politically corrected manners never could, especially not in a world drunk on sunshine and sweetness. Those eyes were just as distant, hazy, and tired as a petting zoo beast in Ivory's homeworld. The comparison wasn't helped by how obviously overweight that this princess was compared to the others.

The last one was equally unique, with a one-of-a-kind balance between svelte and curvy's golden mean. Her height soared well above any of the ponies, well above Princess Twilight Sparkle. She had eyes that you didn't want to meet — and in turn, they did not want to meet anyone. They shone from within the one time Ivory Scroll saw them fixed anywhere but the unpopulated background of the event, like there was a secret world that she could not share. Otherwise, this mare who acted simultaneously as both a negative and positive space to the world around her showed undisguised boredom.

Except for the one time that those turquoise eyes met Ivory's own with a cool look that was unreadable except with how they narrowed every so slightly — their suspicion was unspoken, and just a touch above ambiguous that maybe there was a cause for worry.

Outro

Ivory Scroll found that hands were a lovely thing. While they were not quite enough to make up for the loss of her magic, she would choose them over hooves in a heartbeat. Fine motor skills was not something she had to worry about faking at her age. As a pony, she had nearly two and a half centuries for a possible maximum lifespan. Here, the single sapient animal species — humans — could hope for about eighty. Whether she would still retain her equine vitality or now was faced with the fragility of unmagical apes was an uncertainty she was willing to accept. For an old maid like her, that sacrifice was nothing. She had a job she had married, not a pony. Ivory certainly didn't plan on marrying a person — as they were called here — any time soon, either.

Sometimes, fame was enough. For Ivory Scroll, no better source of accomplishment could be found than making a whole city into her success story. And now she had a whole city, just for that! Everything she now faced was so much better than sleepy, sweet Ponyville. Here, she had a city's worth of excitement in the tumultuous city of Canterly, all of which was located in the even more chaotic state of Florida. There were no herds or princesses to loom over her, only tangles of bureaucracy knotted into the inevitable disaster that a damnation such as democracy set forth. A land where monarchies were taboo did nothing to dim all the renewed excitement Ivory hadn't felt since she was a spry young mare.

It's just a shame that she was three years into her first term, and there was no guarantee she might secure her second victory. This strange ape planet — this Earth — wanted complications in its politics so drastically different from the one she had come from. In the kingdom of Equestria, one only had to tote oneself as a most Harmonious and upstanding citizen who emphasized civil servitude, and knowing who to bow to and saying what ponies wanted to hear. The only trick to Equestrian politics was that Harmony took the back seat of the carriage compared to the real ruling philosophy of Equestria. Celestian ideals were how to go beyond winning simply 'friends' and influencing ponies. Humans were not ruled by any gods that Ivory Scroll could see, and morality was a role that was not always worth playing, at least judging by the history of the nation she lived in or how her peers behaved. To succeed at Amareican politics required real work instead of kindness, and that was wholly refreshing. It at least made up for the gross bias favoring something as grotesque as republicanism over the nobility of civilized forms of government.

Ivory Scroll's mouth curled into a smile, and her fingers paused in their incessant drumming of her desk. Perhaps there was something that could be done to make her next term just a smidge more certain...

Author's Note

This was a combonation of a writing challenge, as well as a nagging idea that refused to leave me alone. I just had to empty it from my head. Minimal dialogue stories have been very easy lately, and this was the result.

Five scenes per 'side' chapters
Intro/outro in opposite worlds
Minimal dialogue
Weird fuckin' mirror sentences
Please just let me play with my words in peace
Equestria Girls world-building practice
Uhhhh puns, I guess?
Try to use some of my less-frequent genre tags
Quicker/monologue-like scenes