Chapter 4

The sun is shining through the open window above my bed, and I can feel a gentle summer breeze on my skin. Twilight opened it a few minutes ago, and she brought me a change of night clothes too. Thankfully, she had the foresight to have brought my dresser with her when she took me from Earth, so at least I don’t need to worry about that. But regardless of how my clothes got here, it definitely feels nice to be wearing something clean and crisp.

I yawn, and sit up in bed, stretching all of my poor muscles that have gone almost completely unused while I was temporarily comatose. I wanna ask Twilight about getting a shower or something later, too, I still feel all sticky from sweat. Ponies have showers, right? I can’t imagine they would fit very well into a bath, and they’d probably slip around comically on the smooth surface. I snicker at the mental image of Twilight slipping and sliding around, Looney Toons style.

I lie back in bed for a while, enjoying the fresh air, until Twilight returns with a plate and a glass floating along beside her. It’s surprising how quickly seeing the unicorn has become mundane, but I guess I’ve been interacting pretty much exclusively with her since waking up. That’s no bad thing though; ponies populate this country, and if I was shocked every time I saw one I’m sure that would be a real hassle.

What does throw me off a little is how uncharacteristically quiet Twilight is being today. It might be pretty early in the day, but so far she’s always been pretty energetic in her interactions with me- bordering on manic, even.

“I don’t suppose there’s any chance that’s more of Spike’s amazing toast?” I ask, and by way of reply, she places a plate piled high with toast onto my lap. I start munching on it as soon as I can, and as I do she levitates over a glass of apple juice to the bedside table, and takes a seat on the floor. Twilight then pulls a book absentmindedly from the shelf, and opens it to the first page, before putting it down for a moment to look over at me.

“You seem a lot better.” she says, and I nod. I certainly feel a lot better too, and hopefully I’ll be out of bed soon. A question does cross my mind though. Between tasty bites, I ask. “Does that mean it’ll be soon, then? My transformation, I mean.”

“It’s hard to say. When the magical circuits in your body complete, you should transform rapidly. But as for how long it’ll be until then, I can’t say, sorry.” I feel a pang of disappointment, and we sit in silence as I eat and drink my breakfast, and Twilight reads.

“So you guys are able to eat toast, then?” I say, trying to strike up a conversation. She doesn’t even look up from her book. “Mhmm, and I noticed you had bread in your home when I took you back here, so I figured it would be ok for you.” She replies.

“Ponies are herbivores, right, will you have anything more substantial that I can eat? Man shall not live by toast alone, and all that.” She still doesn’t look interested, what’s up with her today? I’m trying my best here, work with me Twilight.

“I’ve been playing safe for now, but you should be able to eat pretty much anything a normal pony can, except for flowers.” I open my mouth to probe further, but I jump as she snaps her book shut suddenly with her hooves, and looks up at me with a little irritation. “I’ve studied biology and biological magic extensively, and I just know, alright?”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you…” I say, feeling dejected. She sighs deeply at that, and massages her temples before gently putting the book back on the shelf using her hooves. “I’m sorry too. I’m not really angry at you, don’t worry.” She gives me a sad smile. “I’ve just been very busy lately, and getting a special assignment from the Princess was not something I had left room for in my schedule.” I wince. Looking closer at her face, I can actually see dark bags under her eyes.

Now I really feel bad, I hadn’t really stopped to think that rescuing me and keeping me safe was probably an incredibly time-consuming and difficult task. What could I do here? So many options presented themselves to me, but all hit some snag or another. I’m basically powerless in this world, I have no money, and I don’t even know what I can eat without poisoning myself. I’m so comically pitiful that I’m surprised she even agreed to look after me in the first place.

“Cheer up, ok?” Twilight’s voice pulls me out of my thoughts before they can worsen, and she pulls a chair over to the bed I’m in and sits by me. She takes a deep breath, visibly relaxing as she exhales. “I have to go out soon, and Spike will look after you while I’m out. But five minutes won’t be the end of the world, you must have a lot more questions, do you wanna ask me a few before I go?”

I can’t help but smile giddily at such an offer. I have so many questions it’s hard to know where to start. If I can make nice with Spike I can probably ask him some of the simpler questions- some technology and society questions, where I am in a more specific sense than the country I’m in, that sort of stuff. More specialist questions, though, I should ask now.

“I guess let’s start with the transformation?” I say tentatively. When I don’t get a response besides a raised eyebrow after a few seconds of not actually asking anything, I take that to mean that I’m good. “Is there any way of knowing what kind of pony I’ll become? Because being able to levitate things looks really useful, and I definitely think magic would be cool to try!”

Twilight nods affirmatively. “I’m sure you noticed in your thaumatogram yesterday, but the patterns that your body’s magical circuits are forming into look similar to mine. I think it’s quite likely that you’ll be a unicorn, like me.” She says, practically glowing with enthusiasm as she continues, becoming a lot more animated. “And magic is more than just useful, it’s a constantly moving field of research! With dedicated practice and study, a unicorn can learn spells that allow them to do amazing things.”

I’m dying to know about magic. Various fantasy worlds are brought to mind, I wonder if they got anything right? “What sort of cool spells are there?” As soon as I finish saying that, in a sudden flash of brilliant pink light, the plate and glass from my breakfast vanish, to my awe. Teleportation for a start, then. Damn. The applications of something like that are nearly limitless, my god.

I can hear a chuckle from the doorway, and when I dart my eyes over, I see that Spike is leaning against the frame with a knowing smirk on his face. “If that surprised you, you should see what she can do when she’s really trying.” he says. I give him a quizzical look, and he continues his thought. “Oh yeah, she can cast all sorts of awesome spells. She’s the most powerful unicorn in all of Equestria, after all- and the number one student of Princess Celestia too! Show her, Twilight!”

‘Most powerful unicorn’, oh my.

We both turn to look expectantly back at Twilight, and she blushes. Fidgeting a little in her chair, she says “It would have to be some other time, sorry Spike.” He breaks out the most adorable puppy-dog eyes, and my heart melts.

“Spiiiike…” she complains. “Come on, you know how busy I am, but I promise that when there’s a good time, I’ll take you and Bookish somewhere so we can show her some advanced magic.” Spike pumps his fist with a cute ‘yes!’ of victory.

My mind is consuming all this new information with voracity. “Magic is dangerous, then? More advanced spells aren’t safe to cast indoors?” I think aloud, and Twilight surprises me by shaking her head. “That’s a common misconception. Most advanced spells are actually very intricate, and act on a smaller scale, such as turning one object into another.” I cock my head in confusion. What spell was Spike thinking of, then?

“Spike probably wanted you to see some of the combat magic I know,” she clarifies. “I don’t use it much, because casting spells like that without proper safety measures could very easily end up with somepony in the hospital.”

The little dragon has stars in his eyes, and nods fervently. “She used to study it all the time, at Celestia’s school, and she was all zzzmm and the spell was all zap!” As Spike mimes the spell's effects with his hands and claws, I giggle. He’s definitely her biggest fan. When he realises that me and Twilight are both staring, he blushes, and sheepishly scratches the back of his head.

As we share a smile, a realisation strikes me: I’d better take advantage of the good mood and apologise to Spike now. Thank you, lucky stars, for a chance at this!

“Listen, Spike, about yesterday…” I start. “I’m really sorry I was so rude to you. I won’t say I didn’t know better, because I do know better than to make assumptions like that. I hope you can forgive me...?” I sit up fully, and he moves from the doorway over to the bed, on the side opposite Twilight. He offers his claw to me, and I reach over the bed to shake it.

“We’re good, Bookish.” He cups his mouth with his hand and leans in close, continuing: “Any filly that lets Twilight talk for this long about magic without trying to run away is good in my book.” he says, pulling away and giving me a conspiratorial wink.

As endearing as that was, hol up a second there Spike. I was hardly a horse girl as a kid, but I have read a lot in my spare time. If memory serves, this means I have to ask some serious questions. As Twilight gets up, a pleased smile on her face, I frantically draw together the question I need to ask before she leaves to get on with her day. “Twilight, how old are you?” I blurt out, in a stunning display of bad social skills and a lack of tact.

She stops in her tracks. “I’m 44 years old, why do you ask?” she replies, nonchalantly. I’m on a hair trigger, and immediately shoot the obvious followup question. “And how many days are there in a year?” She gives a huge and fascinated smile, and immediately a notebook and quill hover next to her. “Luna did say you were 23, I didn’t think it made sense! I knew it, your years must be between 714 and 928 days long! It’s the only way it makes sense!”

I could swear my jaw just hit the floor. “...Or they could be closer to the 360 days of our years, whoops?”

Whatthefuck, whatthefuck, what the fuck?! Is she crazy old? She didn’t come across as old, so did that mean ponies had super long lives? How the hell do they even manage that, anway? Argh, this was an insane piece of information to drop on me, did nobody think to tell me this sooner?!

“So by pony standards, I’m… I’m a ‘filly’, a child?” I manage to say, voice a little shaky. Twilight was older than my mom! I swear to god, it’s Tolkien elves, all over again!

She smiles, and responds after a brief pause. “By our law, yes. Your magical circuits confirm it’s true physically, too. Ponies are said to be mature at about 36, and most live for just under 2 centuries.”

‘It’s the magic, isn’t it?’ I realise. It was pretty obvious when all the pieces were in front of me, magic was meant to be the power of nature or something, it only made sense that creatures with vastly more magic than humans would live longer.

And in hindsight, my treatment here also made a lot more sense. Doing the math, I could guess that I was probably the equivalent of a teenager to them, so from their perspective they were rescuing a kid suffering from a horrible curse. The Princess having put me in the care of (tempering Spike’s praise) an incredibly powerful and well-studied royal protege, and, now that I think of it, even being offered her tutelage in the native written language... It all made sense.

A hoof is waved in front of my eyes. “Bookish, hello? Bookish!” she calls, and I let out a gasp I didn’t know I had been holding in. I need to stay in the moment, no matter how tempting it might be to let my imagination run wild.

“You were an adult, on Earth?” she asks, and I can’t meet the mare’s eyes, which are definitely hungry for information. I rest my gaze instead on the notebook held aloft in the air, the quill working overtime to take notes for her.

“I was, for a few years- Humans mature at about 18. Not that it matters now, apparently.” The irritating scratchy noise of the quill stops as soon as I say that. My tone is bitter, I know, and I don’t regret it. I nearly say more, and I feel anger building inside me, I just wanna scr-

“Twilight, don’t you have to hurry? The girls are all waiting for you, aren’t they?” I hear Spike’s voice urge.

Come to your senses, Bookish. Get your emotions in line. If it hadn’t been for him bailing me out, I might have said something I’d regret...

Twilight mutters to herself, and I catch something about how it’s ‘always Pinkie wanting to meet at the crack of dawn when she knows I’m busy’. She hurries out of the room, and I can hear her muffled voice yell from downstairs. “You’re in charge while I’m out, Spike! Remember the list in the kitchen!” After saying that, I can hear as she slams the door shut behind her.

The purple dragon hops up onto the bed. His whole body is the size of my torso, and apparently that means he’s perfectly sized to give me the perfect hug.

“I’m sorry,” Spike says gently. “She can be like that sometimes... You don’t need to hold it in anymore, alright? It’s okay…”

I wrap my arms around him, instinctively cradling his head with my hand. “I don’t need to-” I start to say, but the last word catches in my throat. I give a little sniffle of protest, but I let out the feelings I’d desperately been holding in since I got here.

I cry for my parents, my friends, my life of comfort, for all the fears for my future. I cry until I’m spent, Spike keeping me in a tight hug all the while.

Author's Note

Sorry for the late chapter, and although it has been a little slow to start, I promise that next chapter we’ll be going a little faster with the pacing.