Chapters A journal lies open on the table. It’s bound in leather, and looks well-loved. You open to the middle, and it’s a mess of calculations and diagrams one might barely realise are notes. Flipping to the first page, there is the following written:
You can take this as some sort of omniscient flashback. A written mix of what I know now and didn’t know then, somewhat coherently combined into what I hope is not a boring read. I’d like to hope it’s just me reading this, a collection of my thoughts and experiences arranged not-so-neatly for my own benefit- but I know how tempting it is to see someone’s diary and wonder what exactly goes through their mind. If it is not me reading this, I ask that you at the very least keep what you find within to yourself, as some of it is very personal to me.
Now, where were we?
My story starts at the end of another, and one that should be far more familiar to you. The element bearers stand before discord, and, through their harmony and friendship, at last unite and summon the power to return him to stone.
“Noooo!” he cries out, attempting to shield himself from the blast of raw, unfiltered magic. It’s in vain, as you know, but he attempts one last act of escape, tries to flee to another dimension.
Of course, he’s not successful. This story would not have come to pass if that were the case. Or maybe it still would have, in its own way, at another time, but that’s somewhat besides the point.
Discord’s attempt to escape failed, but he did still open a crack into another dimension, for the smallest of instants. The tiniest of cracks, leaking the tiniest amount of the wild magic of equestria into my home dimension of earth. Earth is a low-magical dimension, and if you were a unicorn scholar, you might know that creatures in such places have adapted as such. All life does exist with a certain amount of magic inside of it, and it requires a proportional amount to survive. The dominant race there, for example, are almost entirely magically inert; they’re nearly 100% magic-proof. The only exception is the tiniest amount of magic they soak up from the world to sustain themselves. And I’m sure you can guess what happens next.
By pure dumb luck, or perhaps the opposite, I was close enough to the crack when it opened for my body to have absorbed that tiny mote of foreign magic. It would have dispersed into the earth if I’d not been there to catch it, maybe making some odd amalgam, like a platypus or an otter or something along those lines. But the fact remains that I was there when that crack opened, and took the magic into myself. The thing I’d soon come to learn about equestrian magic is that it is powerful .
Imagine that your body is a drinking glass, and that the magic running through you is like the water inside it. If you left it outside, it would fill up with the rain, and it would start to evaporate in the sun, but always would contain water. Understanding how catastrophically damaging foreign magic can be to you comes next: imagine that you put a single droplet of the blackest of black inks into that glass. Ink clouds in the water, and stains the vessel. The sun evaporates the water, but the pigment in the ink will remain. Probably. Try it, if you’re curious! The metaphor kinda stops working from here, I’m not exactly a genius, but this does give the general idea. We’ll come back to this at some point, but keep it in mind.
So, my body is dyed with equestrian magic. Now, equestrian magic tends towards states of increased harmony. Nasty concept, harmony, if you consider the implications. Apparently, ‘harmony’ means ‘the quality of forming a pleasing and consistent whole’. Hah! It’s not an incorrect description. Something so powerful, in a body that seemed almost magic-starved to it? It did the thing it always does. It fixed things, to create harmony.
It started off well enough, it just left me feeling so alive! Walking through the forests nearby my apartment was surreal, it was as if I could feel some pulse, some through-line of nature that I had somehow missed before. I was in-tune with the world, and loving every second of it. Next, better still, I found my focus improving greatly, and my body and mind felt stronger and faster than they’d ever been. Naturally I wasted that on video games and little else, but all the same it was, again, amazing.
Though, after the first few months, the nightmares started. They started off infrequently, just once every week or two, but they were unpleasant enough for me to remember them vividly even to this day. They were always the same: there was on a boat of some sort in the middle of an ocean in a raging storm, and as odd as it sounds, I was the ocean. But I was also the storm, angrily tearing at the waves, pulling and striking the surface of the water. The battle between the storm’s pull and the oceans sheer brain-melting scale and size raged on for a long time, until eventually, the storm would grow frantic, and attempt to swallow the ocean whole. I’d wake up, then, in a cold sweat usually, near-delirious from the stress and the strain on my body.
After that, it was all downhill. I’d start to get fevers and migraines in the day, something I had been prone to, but weren’t common, and in the nights I’d have the nightmare again. The physical strength I’d found myself with was stripped away and I found myself weaker than I’d ever been.
Eventually I’d come to call these effects “Reality Sickness”, something that I doubt any potential reader of this knows about. We’re getting there, but for now I ask you to be patient.
Turns out there’s a lot more of my story than I can be bothered writing down in one go, so any curious other will have to read another day for that.
The rest of the journal is filled with various scribbles and writings, but flipping through it reveals no other entry that seems to directly continue this story.
Author's Note
Well, here goes nothing! I was a little anxious about writing a blatant self-insert HiE story, but what the heck. Any feedback would be appreciated, and I hope that it was enjoyable so far!
1: Dream Sweet, Restless Dreamer
Chapter 1
Ah, great. This nightmare again. I let the chaos of it play out before me, submitting to the nauseating feeling of eating and being eaten, spanning out over miles and miles of turbulent water.
I’m standing on the deck of the boat now, and I’m me: a tall girl in her twenties, shoulder-length dirty blonde hair, jade green eyes hidden behind a pair of glasses. I groan, clutching my head as the feeling of the dream continues. “I thought the idea of knowing you were dreaming was being able to not have the dream fucking suck!” I yell.
“Indeed.” Echoes a woman’s voice. “This is most unusual. Allow me to assist.”
As if by magic, the storm stops. The waves stop beating against the boat, seemingly suspended in time, and I can now look up to see a clear night sky. How odd. I guess my subconscious is here for the win, I wonder if I can think up other things?
“That is the idea, yes. Though I am not your subconscious. I am Luna, Princess of the Night, Warden of Dreams.” her voice held a grandeur to it as she introduced ‘herself’ to me. She sounded like some stereotypical fantasy character with an introduction like that.
“And I’m the queen of mars, nice to meet you.” I say sarcastically. A crown appears on my head, and I wave. My eyes narrow, and I look around suspiciously. “Why can’t I see you?” I wonder aloud, not quite ready to play along. I suppose that something in my own head can’t hurt me much more than the nightmares do, but it never hurts to be careful.
“Your form is nothing like I have ever seen.” She says. “I do not want to risk the stability of this dream by startling you with my appearance.” A dream still operates on some logic, then? And I suppose if she were a part of my subconscious she’d just have appeared when I wanted her too. Let’s go with it then; hail to thee, thane of Dreams! I mentally cringe, that one was a stretch, even for me.
“Alright then. What are you doing here, dream guardian? Not that I don’t appreciate your help,” I hastily say, gesturing to the boat and still-unmoving ocean. “But I don’t know why you’d choose tonight of all nights to stop this nightmare.”
“You were not in my reach before. Tonight I simply felt your mind cry out, and came to assist.”
I scoff at that. “Sure, whatever. I don’t know how your magic dream crap works, but even I could come up with a better hand-waving excuse than that.”
“My unique abilities allow me to walk between the dreams of my subjects.” She says, and I raise an eyebrow at that. “I must admit that I am intrigued to see that seemingly includes you .”
“Must be handy for quashing all those peasant uprisings.” I quip, but I won’t deny being curious as well. Who is this voice, and what exactly is she? Some sort of magical creature? ‘Subjects’ implies that she’s some sort of ruler, but ruler of where?
I snort, I guess she’s reading my mind, then? Or maybe that comes with the territory of dreamwalking, she was already inside my thoughts after all. Never mind a despotic ruler, even the CIA would have a field day with a power like this.
“You can walk the dreams of literally everything that is sentient in your dimension?” I ask. That’d be a lot of work, there’s no way that she can have been telling me the complete truth there, unless she can divide her consciousness somehow, and be in many dreams at once.
There’s a hesitant silence, and she replies with a vague “This is indeed the reputation I hold.” She ought to be careful, or magic 8-balls will start charging her for real estate. I knew that managing the dreams of what was probably millions or billions of people was impossible, but I don’t wanna dwell on thinking about how she might manage it all the same.
Whatever force was holding the waves steady gives out, and they start to rock the boat again, though weaker than before, and with them comes the consuming feeling gnawing at the edges of my mind. I reach up with my hands and scratch at my neck feverishly, in some vague attempt of making it stop.
“Cease!” Cries out the voice, now coming from above me. I look up to see the moon come into clear view, and a strange form appears suddenly before me in silhouette. I do as she says, and resist the urge to scratch at my now inflamed neck. Squinting, I try and get a better look at her, there’s 2 grand wings, and some sort of horn…?
No way, she’s some sort of winged unicorn? I try and ultimately fail to conceal a grin as she stands there in front of me, bathed in moonlight as if she were some majestic goddess, and she’s a fucking horse! I let out a burst of laughter, much to her chagrin, but I get over her appearance after a few moments and her expression softens. I have got to hear about the dimension she comes from, I bet it’s all rainbows and sparkles. I’m about to open my mouth when she next speaks.
“Your questions can wait. This dream is familiar to me.” Pardon? I would understand if this were a dream about being naked in school, or arriving at the final test for a class I’d missed, but I’ve asked my friends and even checked a little online, and I’ve never heard of anyone having a dream like this before. “Obviously so.” she says.
“It’s kinda creepy that you can read my mind, by the way.” I say, and she makes a shrugging motion with her wings, which are now folded neatly against her sides.
“It is efficient.” she simply states. “Time may be of the essence, after all. Tell me, do you have this dream every night?” I nod, and she continues. “And I can see the feeling it brings. Does it weaken your body, and bring fever?” Again I nod. She’s starting to worry me, the fact that she seems to know exactly what’s happening to me is, in this context, not something that’s comforting; as if she was reading a diagnostics list. In my quest for answers, a bit of googling had turned up nothing that fit anywhere near as closely.
She nods encouragingly. “You are suffering an ailment of my world, one that requires immediate attention. You must tell me, where is your body in the waking world?” Why does she need to know that? Is she gonna abduct me or something?
I know she’s still in my head, so I try my absolute hardest to not think about where I am right now, but, like not thinking about a pink elephant, it doesn’t do me any good. “Thank you. I shall send for someone to collect you with haste, and we shall tend to you until you are well.”
My heart races and I start to panic, the phrase ‘alien abduction’ coming to mind. Everything starts going blurry, and I find my body too sluggish to even rub my eyes before I fall to the ground, the dream fading away around me. Luna sighs, and a single thought is clear to me: I have to get away from her.
I wake with a start, in the relatively comforting darkness of my apartment. I’m in my bed, sheets a tangled mess as always, and the tank I sleep in is drenched in sweat. I try and leap out of bed, the urgency of needing to escape still at the front of my mind, but my body barely responds. It’s like moving with blur, a half-second of delay between my decision to move and my body complying. I trip over myself a little, and the soothing cool of the floor helps a little to ground me.
I’m burning up, I can feel it. So unpleasant is the feeling that I can barely think straight, and it’s growing stronger by the second. I try and reach up for the water on my nightstand but the half-second delay has evolved to complete paralysis. Great, I think, my vision blurring at the edges, I’m gonna die a failure.
What did I do with my life? I checked out of life a while ago, barely sustaining myself with money I made from tutoring, and from my parents. A life online, fulfilling in spirit but not in body. I could’ve been something, done something, but I spent it online.
“What a waste...” I rasp.
Ugh! This vectors question was giving me such a headache, had Satan himself written it to annoy me?
“x&8*£$#.”
“I’m nearly done with this question, one second!” I call back. I was out of time, I knew, but I was so close to an answer, and this math problem had been bothering me all day.
I keep trying to write the final few lines of working, but the ink evaporates from the page as I blink. Huh? Is the question changing, too? No, it was definitely still a calculus worksheet. I have to hand it in to my teacher in 10 minutes, hop step, me! I shake my head to clear my thoughts and keep up my apparently futile attempts to finish writing.
“x&8*£$#!”
Ah, she made a good point. I’d forgotten about the other triangle- what a dumb mistake. Definitely the headache’s fault, I was not on my best form today.
All at once I feel my stomach lurch, I realise that I’m on the deck of a boat at sea, and lucidity at last returns to me as I notice the large blue winged unicorn standing nearby. She’s very noticeably worried, but I can’t quite seem to grasp at the memory of why that would be…? Thinking is starting to hurt, and I decide to sit down until the headache leaves.
“Human!” She calls. “I sensed your return here, did you not wake?”
“Nn….” I mumble. Even that much exertion makes pain pulse through my body, and I shut my eyes. The pain isn’t stopping, and I curl into a ball, hugging myself.
Luna hushes me. “You need not speak, human. Calm yourself, and answer through your thoughts, when you can. The one I have sent to retrieve you can treat you, but she must know your condition.” I try and focus myself, but it’s hard. Eventually the pain subsides enough that I can clearly respond to her, but it’s taking all of my effort to do so. I try and focus on how my body felt when I was awake, and I recall in my mind what had just happened.
“It is as I suspected. Be at ease, for you will be in capable hooves. I only wonder how it is possible… I offer my condolences, human.” A blue glow washes over me, and it soothes the headache a little. I can think clearly now, but my body is still out of commission for now. Hearing that though, something snaps in me. God, I wish she wasn’t so fucking CRYPTIC ALL THE TIME! I wince, and clutch my head as a fresh wave of hurt washes over me, and I curse myself. ‘I wonder if you mind sharing with the class, Luna?’ I think, with much less vigor.
I can hear an exasperated sigh. “Yes, by all means. You only had to ask…” I hate her guts right now. “Your body is shutting down due to a lack of sufficient magic.”
Uh, what? Humans aren’t magical, and I’m pretty sure I hadn’t missed a letter to Hogwarts. “All creatures absorb magic from the world around them to survive,” comes her explanation, “And life evolves in a world to adapt to the amount of magic around it.”
Oh, I guess that makes sense. So why am I sick then, do I need to take some sort of ‘magical supplements’? I can only hope the solution is that simple.
“Unfortunately not. It is my guess that your body has been ‘infected’ with something from my world somehow, and is now requiring more magic than you can passively absorb from your Earth as a result.” Wait, what, like a parasite or something? Shit, maybe this is how I die?!
“You misunderstand; the nature of magic in my world can cause it to ‘overwrite’ other magics with a similar function.” That wasn’t very relieving, Luna. She really needs to work on her bedside manner. What would make her jump to a conclusion like that anyway? How are you sure I don’t just have my ‘chakras’ blocked or some crap?
“To put it simply, your nightmares, and what they bring with them. They’re something of a…” she hesitates then, almost as if wondering if she wants to tell me the complete truth or to water it down so that I don’t panic again. Secretly I wish she’d do the latter. “...Something of a ‘pulling force’ towards the dimension something belongs.” she finishes. “If you are experiencing that, and I can walk in your dreams, it seems only reasonable for me to assume something of my world is in your system, does it not?”
Why does she have to make so much sense ? That does still raise a lot of questions though, and I am fully expecting to get an answer to each and every one of them. I’m about to put the first into words when she walks slowly over to where I lie on the floor, and sits next to me. “I am sorry, human. You do deserve answers, but the time we have together grows shorter. When you awake, the one caring for you will be able to tell you what you want to know.” I suppose that would have to do, then. She’d better be telling the truth though, or I swear to god I’ll come back here and, and… My mind draws a blank. What could I do to her? It wasn’t as though she were actually here, after all. Whatever. I’m still gonna be mad if I can’t get my answers soon.
“I am as good as my word.” she says, and I feel a gentle warmth cover me. Her wing? It’s soft, and the effect isn’t too far from being draped in a blanket. “I will soothe your mind, and invite dreamless sleep. When you wake, you will be in a better state.” I’m not even able to murmur a ‘thank you’ before I feel my consciousness slip away from me, and everything goes blank.
Author's Note
Chapter 1 accomplished! I do wonder if the prologue is entirely necessary, but I suppose I’ll have to see what y’all think. Assuming anyone’s reading this, that is!
Chapter 2
I’m awake, unfortunately. It’s too bright for me to sleep like this.
I groan, and try to roll my body over to block the offending light source. When that doesn’t help, I blearily open my eyes- I must have forgotten to shut the stupid curtains…
A chill runs down my spine as I open my eyes and see that I am not, in fact, in my apartment, but in some sort of rustic wooden-walled room. The shock wakes me up enough to remember last night, and I take a deep breath. Okay, calm, let’s take stock of what’s going on. A cursory glance around the room doesn’t yield much information; there’s bookshelves on all 4 walls, there’s the normal furnishings of a room, a desk, a chair, a bedside table. A simple door lies on the other side of the room, and I can’t really hear anything coming from the other side from where I lie. The only thing of interest is that I’m apparently hooked up to an IV, and after gingerly running my finger over the point where it goes into my arm, I cringe away, imagining the needle tearing whatever it was that it went into.
Well the room doesn’t look out of the ordinary, but how am I? I’d missed that I was hooked up to an IV, but in my defense it doesn’t really feel like much. Other than that, I do notice that my body seems to ache- the muscles in my arms and neck are screaming at me, and when I flex my legs experimentally, those are the same. There was no use fighting something like that, I suppose, so I lay back down and stare blankly at the ceiling. Hopefully whoever’s meant to be looking after me comes in soon, because I have some questions.
As if on cue, I hear the door open softly, and I resist the immediate urge to sit up and look at the stranger. “Good morning.” I say pleasantly.
“Good afternoon , and hello. I see you’re awake!” The voice is female, and seems rather pleased. “Was I out for a while?” I ask. I know I’m currently sick, but I still feel a little guilty that this woman has carried my unconscious body to what I can only assume is her house, and is tending to me. “Mm, a few days now,” she hums, as if that were the most normal thing in the world. A few days ?! I didn’t let work know where I was, and shit, I’d planned things with my friends! Ugh, why couldn’t Luna have just told me about this sooner? “But that’s perfectly natural though, so don’t worry too much.” She must’ve picked up on my reaction. Though it would be quite the effort to conceal my facial expression with everything aching like it was.
“This happen often?” I joke, and she giggles. “Something like that. I’ve brought myself to magical exhaustion quite a few times in my schooling career, so I’m used to dealing with it.” Interesting, I wonder how that happens? I try and fail to recall any relevant information that Luna had given me in the dream last night, but it’s all starting to blur away. A dream is still a dream I guess. She walks into view now, and it’s still amazing to me that sentient magical horses have somehow evolved in this place. I take a minute to look her over; she’s got a pastel purple coat, and her mane is a deeper purple with a pink highlight, which is striking enough, but what really stands out to me is that she has a horn. “It’s not polite to stare.” she says, and when I shake myself to my senses and look at her face, I can see she’s teasing.
“Sorry, it’s quite a surprise to see a real unicorn.” She smirks, and gestures to the IV as if to say ‘oh yeah? watch this’. I crane my neck, and see as a shimmering purple haze surrounds the dial. I can only gaze in awe as the dial turns slightly, and a little more of whatever I’m getting dosed with drips into the bag. I look back at her, mouth agape, and her horn is surrounded in the same shimmering purple. She’s grinning like a cat, too.
“Was my reaction that entertaining?” I say, laying back down, and she lets out a little laugh. “Sort of? Magic is something so simple that we take it for granted. Especially such a simple spell- even a child can manipulate objects with their aura.”
I can hear her busying about, and when I look over next, she’s produced some strange sort of device from god-knows-where. I can only describe it as being as though someone merged a tripod camera and a strange steampunk microwave, all gears and dials on the side. I’m about to ask what it is when she saves me the trouble. “It’s a thaumatogram,” She explains. “It takes a photograph of the magic inside of a creature or object.” I raise an eyebrow, hoping that the seeming similarity to x-rays ended with being able to see inside what it was pointed at. “That’s pretty cool, how does it work?” Her eyes light up, and she stops whatever she was doing with the device. “Well, you see, the technology in here uses the first principle of Thaumaturgy to-” She tuts, apparently remembering that I have no way of knowing what that is. “The first principle of Thaumaturgy is that free magic is attracted to focused magic, it’s how your body absorbs magic from the atmosphere, for example.” She explains rather hastily. “Anyway, yes! The device uses that principle to make an image of the magical circuitry of what it’s pointed at, and then when the shutter is pressed, the runes inside convert the image it has into a photograph.”
I roll my eyes. She’s clearly not used to teaching things to people who know a lot less than her- or maybe the foundational knowledge at play here is so basic that nobody here would really know how to explain it? Regardless, that satisfied my curiosity about how that thing works for now, and thankfully it didn’t seem like it would expose me to any radiation. “Cool,” I say. “What do you need to look at, anyway?” She’s back to work adjusting a few dials, and it takes a minute or two before I hear the shutter click and she feels the need to tear herself away from what she’s doing and answer my question. “Oh, I’ve been taking these daily, I just wanted to see your progress.” The emphasis she put on ‘your progress’ was worrying. It was the same emphasis a mad scientist in some tacky movie might put on the phrase ‘my creation’.
I’m almost afraid to ask, but I’m nothing if not curious, so I don’t let it stop me. “What do you mean, ‘progress ’?” I ask, narrowing my eyes. She just nonchalantly walks over to me, and five photographs float over to her from the thaumatograph as she moves. “Take a look!” One of the pictures floats down in front of me, and she looks expectantly at me. I give it a look, and put simply, it looks wrong. The picture shows a winding map of faintly blue tendrils running in a vaguely human-shaped pattern, but where in some places the tendrils are thin and simply arranged, in others they are wide and twisting, making strange eldritch patterns and occupying far more space on the diagram. What immediately concerns me is the head area, where the patterns are most wild, and tendrils most concentrated- the effect is eerily similar to the roots of a tree, running down through my body.
“Th-that’s… Me?” I choke out. The picture is pulled back a little, and arranges itself as the fourth in the series of photographs as the rest levitate in front of me in order. “Yep! You see what I mean about progress?” She says excitedly. Even a child could tell you the trend in the images. The snaking tendrils of magic in the image were growing stronger as the days went by, and after only five days… I looked at the last image, in which the roots were notably more equal, and the swirling snaking patterns more frequent. “This much, in only five days…?” I whisper. The horse woman titters, and the fifth picture is pulled to the right of the other four. “Sorry for confusing you! No, you’ve only been here for four days. The last one is of me- I tried my best to get my body in the pose you have while you’re asleep, and apparently I did too good a job!”
I should be worried, but instead I feel a sort of nervous excitement, maybe it was some morbid curiosity. I pluck the last two pictures from the air, much to my host’s chagrin, and compare them more closely. It’s a lot clearer upon closer inspection that the fifth belongs to her, and when I think about it, the increase of thickness in the magical tendrils was surely a lot more when it was to-scale than it appeared on a relatively small image. The only clear similarities are that the patterns in the heads of both images are uncannily similar. Almost identical, in fact.
“It’s fascinating, isn’t it?” She says, snapping me out of my trance. “The Princess did tell me to expect something like this, but I didn’t think for a moment that she’d be so precisely accurate.” Ah, yes the Princess. Apparently it wasn’t only her that spoke in riddles around here. “Do you mind sharing with the class?” I say, trying my absolute best to not smirk at getting to say one of my favourite snarky lines twice in as many days- or I suppose days conscious. “Oh, right. She did say she didn’t get to explain everything.” No shit, sherlock. “Basically, looking at the timeline of this, a type of magic from here latched onto you and has been slowly trying to ‘fix’ your body for a few months. Princess Luna told me to expect that you were suffering severe thaumic exhaustion, because the world you lived in was very low in magic, so I brought you here so that you could recover!” She has a beaming smile on her face, as if incredibly proud of her role in this. This is a lot to process though, what the hell?
“What do you mean ‘fix’- and, wait a second, I’m not on earth?!” My eyes dart around as if there’d be a helpful sign, or I’d be able to see a green sky out of the window. She cocks her head to one side. “Did the Princess not tell you that?” I shake my head, and she facepalms- or the equivalent of doing that but with hooves. “That was one of the things I was meant to tell you, whoops?” She offers, sheepishly. “You’re in the Kingdom of Equestria, which is a large country in our world of Terra. As for the ‘fix’ part, we think the particular type of magic you came across was Harmonic magic. It’s meant for purifying evil, or for healing, so it’s basically harmless to ponies, but it does also have a slight tendency to, well…” She shuffles her hooves awkwardly, not making eye contact with me. “To what?” I prompt, when she doesn’t seem quite ready to continue. Awkwardness be damned, I ought to know. “Well, it has a tendency to change whatever it affects, physically or otherwise. I think it’s trying to make you, well, like us.”
I blink. I blink again. Two more times.
I hadn’t misheard or misunderstood, had I? I’d better check. “It’s going to make me into a pastel colored magical horse?”
“We’re ponies, not horses!” She huffs, before clearing her throat. “But, ah, yes, that’s the long and the short of it. I don’t know how long it will take, but I can say with certainty that it’ll happen.”
I let out a little chuckle. “I wake up after a four-day coma, and a magical unicorn pony I don’t even know the name of is telling me that I’m on an alien planet and I’m gonna turn into something just like her. I don’t know if I should laugh or cry!”
I opt for both, and to her credit she waits for me to finish before offering a slightly sad look. “I know it’s not much help, but I swear by the Princess that I’ll do my absolute best to look after you and help you acclimate here…” While I can’t say I don’t appreciate the sentiment, and obviously I’d rather have the offered help than not, I’m not too enthused about being a stranger in a strange land.
“My name is Twilight Sparkle,” she says, abruptly launching into a new thought, in that way she does. “You can just call me Twilight though. I wanted to know your name, and Princess Luna didn’t tell me yours- she said something about you having a lot of them?”
I let a smile cross my lips. Hah, take that Luna, your mind magic is no match for my ridiculous number of internet pseudonyms. Oddly, I do feel a bit better after that, whether it’s from the crying or from finally knowing the name of the pony that’s been taking care of me the past few days. I open my mouth to tell her my name, but for some reason, I hesitate before giving my automatic response. I feel a little of the giddy excitement of before creeping back in as I settle on the answer to give her.
“Thanks, Twilight. My name’s Bookish Velvet- nice to meet you!”
Chapter 3
It’s the next day, and though I had protested when Twilight suggested I go back to sleep after such a short time awake, it wasn’t hard to drift off- I wonder if there was something in the drip for that, or if I was just so exhausted by the revelations of yesterday?
More curious is that I’m pretty sure I didn’t have a dream last night. I’ve not long since woken up, and I definitely can’t remember anything at all. Hard to say if that’s due to Luna’s magic or, again, something Twilight is dosing me with, but it’s still interesting to me.
“Good morning, Bookish.” She says cheerily, walking into the room and swiftly over to my bedside. Speak of the devil. “Morning, Twilight.” I greet, and when I sit up to look at her better, I see she has some sort of strange purple and green lizard following her. It looks a little stressed, poor thing. “What kind of pet is that?” I ask, and to my surprise the little lizard huffs in what I can only assume is annoyance, and folds its arms in a pout. Twilight shoots me a look. “He is my number one assistant, Spike the dragon.”
I swear under my breath, and I think she caught me because her expression settles into a scowl for a few seconds. “Uh- um, sorry Spike, I’ve just never seen a baby dragon before, in fact, we don’t--” but he cuts me off before I can finish. “--Have them at all where you’re from, yeah, yeah. Nice meeting you, but I’ve actually got some chores to do, maybe I’ll see you later.” it’s a noncommittal greeting, and his tone of voice is very much tired. I feel a pang of guilt as he walks out of the room, gently closing the door behind him, I get the impression that people treat him like this a lot.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend him…” I mumble. I expect another dirty look from her, but apparently all I earn this time is a sigh. “I know you aren’t used to things like this, but you really should work on your manners. Even if ponies didn’t already treat Spike like a novelty, that would have been really hurtful.”
I wince, and it really hits home. “Will he let me apologise to him?” I hope it could be today too, you know what they say about first impressions. Disappointingly, Twilight shakes her head. “He won’t be ready to talk with you again for a while, and I doubt you’ll still be awake by then.” She does perk up a little though, and she levitates down a plate I had completely missed earlier onto my lap.
On it may appear to lie two simple slices of buttered toast, but oh no. The toast connoisseur in me sees more: the lovely farmhouse bread toasted golden in the middle, but not the edges, the generous spreading of lovely melted butter, and it’s even cut into triangles . Needless to say, I greedily munch up the first piece, and I’m halfway through my second when Twilight speaks again. “That answers my questions about appetite and if you need any help to eat, I suppose.” she says, with a little hint of a smirk at my ravenous display. I’m too hungry to care though, and when I finish I’m offered a glass of water which I gulp down. “My compliments to the chef.” I joke. She rolls her eyes at that. “Spike made that, I’ll let him know you at least liked what he brought you.”
Awkward . “Well! Today, we have some things to settle, and we should get started right away!” she declares, and a notebook flies from the desk behind her to just in front of her face, and she pages through it before finding an empty page. “We’re going to see if you can read and write, since you’re gonna be staying.” I nod along. “But if you can’t, please don’t freak out too much?” She drops the notebook on my lap, and levitates a quill and inkwell over, dipping the former in the latter before pushing it into my hand. ‘Hello, world!’ I write, adding below it ‘My name is Bookish Velvet, can you read this, Twilight Sparkle?’ My arm’s aching after that, so I kinda awkwardly offer the quill to her, and when she takes it, I let myself drop back down into bed. I know I wasn’t so fit before this, but I guess being unconscious for the best part of 5 days has really put a strain on my body.
She’s been staring at the page for what feels like a week before it unceremoniously hurtles back across the room in her magic. I won’t lie, it's almost creepy that she can even move things she’s not looking at. I make a mental note to ask about that if a time ever presented itself. “The script , I recognise.” Twilight says at last, voice all scholarly interest. “The words though, I haven’t seen anything even a little similar to before. Sorry.”
That sucks. I wasn’t great at foreign languages at school, and now I have to relearn written english? Or, hmm. “What’s your language called, anyway?” I say. No use wallowing in small things for now. At least the letters are the same, thank god. “We call it Equish, but in other lands it’s just called Pony,” she explains. “Other lands?” I think aloud, and she smiles. “I see you’re curious! There’s the Griffon Kingdom to the East, and the country of YakYakistan to our North…” is that a hint of a frown on her face? “Nothing really lies in the badlands to our South, oddly enough, but there’s apparently an Empire of sentient bipedal cats far to the West!”
“So probably four languages.” I muse, and Twilight nods. “I guess that’s not bad considering each country at least sounds like it’s home to its own race. So what, we’re in the kingdom of unicorns right now?” She groans, and ‘facehooves’, I think? “I can’t believe I missed another thing… You remember seeing Princess Luna, right?” Really, Twilight, you need to ask? How could I not remember that? “While I only have a horn, she also has a pair of wings. She’s what we call an Alicorn, a divine combination of all pony traits.” I had actually kinda written that off as some sort of queen thing, like in insects, oddly enough, but I’m glad to be getting the real reason. “She embodies the strength and fortitude of the Earth Ponies, the flight and agility of the Pegasi, and the wit and magic of the Unicorns.”
I whistle in amazement. “She’s kind of a big deal then, I take it?” Twilight scoffs at this, and I swear to god I can see twinkles in her eyes as she carries on her impromptu speech. “Nothing compared to her older sister, Princess Celestia! She uses her incredible wisdom to rule the nation, and her great magical power to raise and lower the sun every day!”
That definitely makes me skeptical, but there’s not really any scenario here where I gain anything by questioning this. If she’s doing her best impression of the wizard of oz (in glorious technicolor) and I attempt to expose that with my science-y knowledge, which may I add I have no way of proving, I can foresee in my future a very short meeting with lions and tigers and bears, oh my! On the other hand, Luna apparently can traverse dreams, and if her sister can raise the sun, I don’t think I really want to do anything that might be considered an insult to one or both of them.
I listen pretty intently as Twilight lavishes Celestia with praise, but as she goes on and on, I decide that I prefer Luna more and more. I am a little confused with the continuity of the stories when she goes back and explains about this one time Luna tried to take over the kingdom, before hastily glossing over the actual details of that, saying something about her and her friends and the ‘magic of friendship’, before launching straight into another tale. God, she really is gonna keep going with these stories, isn’t she? I close my eyes, deciding to let her stories wash over me and lull me to sleep.
-
“Bookish Velvet. A wonderful name, with wonderful reason behind it. I must admit to having been curious as to which of the names you’d pull from inside the chaos of your mind, and I am glad you did not disappoint.”
I jolt to attention. I’m standing in a blank white space, and in front of me is the familiar face of Princess Luna. I can’t help but compare her soft features to some of the stories Twilight has told me, and it’s hard to reconcile the past with the Alicorn I can see in front of me. “Quite. Though, if my sister had shared your hesitation, I imagine I would be regarded as much greater a monster. If any stood to regard me at all.” Mind reading, right, right, I’m dreaming. Hah, does that mean…? Luna snickers. “Indeed, my sister’s faithful student quite literally put you to sleep with boredom.” I get a laugh out of that, and Luna joins me.
I pull the chair back, and sit down. Luna takes her seat across from me, and levitates a few bread rolls from the basket in the middle of the table onto each of our four plates. “But hey, I like the name too. And don’t go sharing round the rest, some of those deserve to have died in highschool…” I cringe at the thought, and Luna winks at me. “Your secret is safe, human.”
‘Human’. Hearing her call me that irks me for some reason, so I take a few steps down the ladder, and pull out a different book. It’s the one that has the thaumographs in it, and once I’ve climbed all the way down, I pin them to the wall opposite Luna. I try and think of what I was gonna say next, but I’m finding it hard to focus on the images, and I frown, shaking my head to try and clear the fog. “Allow me to help you with that.” calls Luna, and the world is coated in a deep blue aura for a moment before everything comes into crystal clear focus.
“Thanks.” I say. I gesture to images four and five as I turn to face her. “What I was wondering, Luna, was if I’m even still human. I mean, I know I’m becoming a pony, but what does that make me right now? Am I gonna wake up one day fully transformed? Is this gonna get all kafkaesque? I know I can’t go home, but I wonder if I even should , after seeing this…”
She starts a slow walk towards me, and wears a thoughtful expression. “While I cannot definitively tell you, Twilight would undoubtedly be able to answer your question. But I don’t think you mean it in an entirely literal sense, do you?” She’s right of course, she’s good at being right. Quite like Twilight, in that regard. “It’s an interesting question, I agree. You were beckoned to cross a threshold, and now wonder if, crossing it again, you will become who you once were when you stood there last.” There’s a wistful smile on her face, and the world around us jarringly lurches, and a myriad of doors melded together now covers on each wall. “But deep down, you know that you cannot cross the same threshold twice. It is a tragedy we all must face, at some point in our lives... I’m sorry that this wasn’t the answer you wanted, but I do not think it right to lie to you after what has happened.”
I lean up to the wall, and slide down it to a sitting position. Knowing the answer, but not liking the one I’d been given, that was irrevocable in the same way, I suppose. I jump, feeling something warm and fluffy push against my face. She’s nuzzling me- does she feel bad, or just want to comfort me? I can’t say I mind either way. I stroke her head, and she cozies up to me a little. A light scent of lavender hangs over her, one that I hadn’t been able to notice before, and I breathe deeply of it, and relax.
But although my body is loose and relaxed, my mind still races. I’m going to be completely transformed, at some point. I’m stuck here, with no way of contacting my family or friends again. Surely at some point I’d be written off as missing, presumed dead, and my parents would probably-- No, I don’t want to dwell on that right now, so I retrace my thoughts. Transforming, I can live with. It sounds far from ideal to have no fingers or thumbs, but, if I’m lucky enough to be a unicorn, I could learn to move things with my mind like Twilight.
If nothing else I’m sure I would at least be able to make a decent income as a tutor or teacher of maths again, after some work. I could save up some money and explore this magical world, which seems to be pretty idyllic from what stories I’d actually been listening to. Yeah, I’ve lost a lot- a moment of silence for my computer, please- but in a way, coming here might even be an opportunity to change for the better.
I sit still, after thinking through that. The Princess’ warmth is comforting, and knowing that someone went to such lengths to help me, no matter what my body ends up like, means a lot to me.
“I am glad you do not hold any resentment for me.” She says, after a period of comfy silence. “I had worried that you would come to hate me for bringing you to equestria, but for you to be so understanding, I-'' Was she crying ? Luna clears her throat. “I could scarcely believe that you held me in such high regard, that you even considered me to be your savior…” I guess I did think of her like that, a little at least. I’d take her over some high-and-mighty sun princess any day, that’s for sure.
Luna chuckles, but it turns into a yawn half way through in the most adorable fashion. “You must forgive the brevity of our parting, but I require my rest- and so do you. I hope your tomorrow is a pleasant one.”
I nod, suddenly feeling very sleepy. “Bloody dream magic…” I slur, before remembering myself, and quickly add “But, uh, thank you, Princess, you sleep well too.” I can’t tell if she was smirking or frowning at that, but that’s like, at least a 50% chance of having accidentally made Luna smile, which I guess I can take.
“I shall return you once again to a dreamless sleep. Sleep well, Bookish Velvet.” She says, and I can’t even think up a response, as the words simply drift alongside me, peaceful, and still.
Author's Note
Another chapter done! I’ve had some trouble with moving the story along without rushing to an absurd degree, but I think I’ve found a good pace for now. Next chapter is written but not fully edited, so expect it any time within the next week, and once again I hope you’re enjoying it so far!
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.
Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter. 6: Equal and Opposite Reactions
Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter. 7: Small Talk; a Little Progress
Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter. Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter. 9: Really Lame Slumber Party
Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter. 10: Changes Within, Part 1
Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter. 11: Changes Without, Part 2
Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter. 12: Staying the Same, Part 3
Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter. Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter. Interlude: Breakfast at Canterlot Castle
Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter. 