The Other Side of the Mirror: Volume I

Chapter 4

Founded in 1326 in the wake of the First Revolution, Canterlot Academy is the premier educational institution of Wyvern. Named by its founder after the mythical city of the sky in Arcturian legend, a great home to scholars and intellectuals, Canterlot Academy seeks to live up to this venerable reputation. This principle is upheld most vigorously through the institution’s teachers. It was originally a private academy, but after dire financial troubles in 1421, Canterlot Academy applied to the state for assistance. Because of its proximity to the Sigillandic border, accepting the state’s aid meant that Canterlot Academy had to become a military academy and train the students as a reserve force in case of war. Since then, all students at the Academy have been required to pursue both a military and civilian degree in a four-year program. Several prominent officers in the Haustran Armed Forces have graduated from the academy in the years since; including Lieutenant Colonel Celestia Astrus, the current headmistress of the academy, and her sister Captain Luna Astrus, the current dean, who have served together since 1435. The campus of the academy is built to the west of Wyvern, with spacious hills and woodland used for combat and orienteering practice. As such, the campus is closed to the public, though one can still admire the buildings from the Rue de Armand or apply to the Office of the Military in Wyvern at 1536 Rue Émil Pike if one is planning an extended stay and has the patience for military bureaucracy.

Twilight put a bookmark in A Guide to Wyvern and its Environs and set it aside. The last week had been a whirlwind of new and confusing ideas, but she was finally starting to get a handle on some things. Her classes were demanding, especially since she possessed little to no foundation on which to build new knowledge. She was just barely getting by, and when she wasn’t in classes, she spent all her time researching in the library or her room in order to retroactively build a knowledge base so she could make heads or tails of her notes. At least the school week allowed for a day off from classes, which she always devoted to her extracurricular studies.

Twilight Sparkle had learned a lot about this world in the past eight days. It was fortunate that she’d chosen Illean History as her civilian major, because it meant nobody questioned why she was checking out so many books on history and geography from the school’s library. She now had a muddy but (hopefully) passable concept of the continent of Illea and its major players. The nation she’d read the most about was the one she was currently in: Haustra, or the Third Haustran Republic if one wanted to be official. The painting of Liberty that Twilight had spotted in the cafeteria was indeed meant to represent an idea and not a monarch, as the people of Haustra had overthrown and beheaded their king and his family over a century ago. Twilight would have known this already if she’d read Star-Swirl’s notes earlier, for the ancient sorcerer had written at length about the revolutions that had shaped Haustra into the revolutionary republic it was today, as well as ones he had personally witnessed. Forty years had passed since Star-Swirl had returned to Equestria, but things were largely the same when it came to the nations of Illea.

Bordering Haustra to the southeast was the next most important nation for Twilight to know about: Sigilland. A longtime rival to Haustra, it was considered a militaristic monarchy and roundly despised by most of its writers and freethinkers. Star-Swirl had left this world shortly after a defensive alliance had been made between Haustra and four other nations against Sigilland, and he’d predicted a war would come from it sometime in the next half-century. Sigilland’s border was near Wyvern, the city in which Canterlot Academy was located, so there was a higher concentration of military personnel here than in other parts of the country. At least, that’s what the literature led Twilight to believe.

The military training going on at Canterlot Academy was meant to prepare the students for a future war with Sigilland, something taken for granted as inevitable. Twilight wasn’t sure that would be good or bad for her situation; the chaos could allow her to more easily retrieve the Element of Sorcery, or it could cause her to lose it altogether. She had looked into Fort Krahn and concluded that stealing her Element back from it would be impossible. It was a closed fortress that only Haustran soldiers could enter or leave, and they were thoroughly checked in both directions. Such a feat might have been possible if she still had her magic, but without it, attempting to steal back the Element of Harmony would create more problems than it would solve. She would have to go through with her studies at the academy and retrieve the Element when it was brought back at the end of the term.

To make her own history more plausible, Twilight had also studied the nation to the south of Haustra: Sottsland. Despite a large minority population of Sigillanders in the north and the fact that it was a monarchy, Sottsland was a staunch ally of Haustra and was one of the members of the North Star Pact against Sigilland. Star-Swirl’s mirror had provided her with a convenient alibi for not knowing the conventions of Haustra; she could claim the misunderstandings of a foreigner. That would work for most things relating to government and culture, but it wouldn’t protect her from the fact that she was out of her time.

Though history books were easy to pass off as being related to her civilian studies, it was more difficult to explain the considerable number of technical journals and guides that she checked out from the library. From her studies, Twilight established that her own world’s technology was roughly equivalent to what this world had seen eight centuries earlier, and they had made a lot of advancements since then. One of the most obvious differences was apparent with Twilight’s military studies: the change in weaponry. The little that Twilight did know about military tactics was completely obsolete in this world. Melee weapons had fallen by the wayside, except when used by cavalry soldiers to cut down enemies from horseback—horses, Twilight had discovered, were biologically similar to ponies, but had no sapience in this world and were used as beasts of burden or a conveyance. The gun—a device capable of firing a projectile at incredible velocities—had replaced the bow, sword, and pike as standard weaponry. Infantry soldiers wielded them, and artillery soldiers positioned and fired larger versions of them. In almost every aspect of her military studies, Twilight was starting from scratch.

It wasn’t just military technology that had changed, however; there had also been great evolution in everyday technology that had fundamentally altered the world from one Twilight might had recognized to an utterly alien landscape. The devices she had seen in Luna’s office and the office of the Canterlot Clarion were called typewriters and allowed the rapid printing of words upon a page with uniform characters. Even more impressive however, were much larger devices serving a similar function that could print identical versions of papers and books in the thousands or millions. It boggled Twilight’s mind that this world no longer needed nuns, monks, or scribes to copy books or sorceresses to enchant them in order to preserve them; they could always print more.

Light was provided within buildings during dark hours not by candles or magic but by lightbulbs, glass spheres that turned electricity into light. This electricity was like captured lightning, but it was not produced by capturing storms or generation through sorcery; rather, the energy was generated by factories using burning fuels or flowing water. Wires along streets and between buildings brought this electricity to everywhere that needed it, while other wires were used for telegraphs or telephones—contraptions that allowed instantaneous or near-instantaneous communication with others, even from the other side of the world. Ships were able to travel far from shore and against the wind under their own power, steam locomotives transported goods and people across the continent along rails, and automobiles allowed local transportation without tiring like a horse would. Complex mechanical technology allowed for machines that could perform tasks and think in a very basic way, such as Canterlot Academy’s library system. It was all so much to take in, and Twilight didn’t know if she could ever understand everything that the residents of this world took for granted.

As she set aside her books, which formed a prodigious stack on her room’s desk, she felt at last that she had a little bit of breathing room. As always, more research would be required, but she was finally in a position where not knowing more details didn’t seem like such an existential threat. Twilight had no further classes to attend for the day, so she intended to make an outing into Wyvern to see the city. One weakness in her alibi that others could easily call her out on was how she’d gotten to Canterlot Academy, so she needed to have at least a passing familiarity with the route between the train station and the school. It would also give her an opportunity to see more of this world and let Spike roam around outside the confines of her room or satchel for a few hours. Making use of her guide to Wyvern, she’d plotted out a course on the city’s highly reputable electric tram system to travel to the train station and then to Dragongate Park, where a solitary gate stood as the last remnant of a wall that had once bisected the city when it had been divided between Haustra and Sigilland in the distant past. Apparently, the Dragongate was such a popular sight that no first-time visitor would have passed it by, so Twilight had to see it in order to firm up her story.

“You’re sure you want to do this, Twilight?” Spike asked as she made room for him in her satchel. “What if we can’t find our way back?”

“Of course,” she replied. “I need to familiarize myself with this world outside of Canterlot Academy. I cannot be certain that I will be able to stay here at all times, and this is a safe opportunity to test my ability to venture beyond the academy’s walls. Besides, I am confident that we will not get lost. I have consulted several maps of the city and taken notes about the streets near the points we will be visiting. I have also taken other complications into account and have adequate funds to deal with any of them.”

Twilight Sparkle was glad that she had brought some Cant’r Lahtian coinage along with her through Star-Swirl’s mirror, as paying for goods in this world wasn’t something which she’d given much thought. The bits, shillings, and pence in her coin purse had been transformed by the mirror into the currency of Haustra. In some cases, the coins remained coins, though with a different metal composition and imprint; however, some of her money had been transformed into paper banknotes that purported to have the same value as a set amount of gold. (Twilight had discovered that this was supported more by agreement of value than by any intrinsic worth the paper might have or the supposed gold backing.) That was how this world operated, so she had to trust the system and that her money would be usable here. At least they were Haustran banknotes and not Sottsish, though that was another mystery for which she might need to come up with an excuse.

“Huh, you know, out of anyone who could have been sent to this world, you may be the best equipped for it with your tendency to overplan everything,” Spike said as he hopped into her satchel.

“I will take that as a compliment,” Twilight said as she left and locked up her room.

As she headed down through the dorm hallways and along the path between the dormitories and the main lecture hall, something seemed different. Other students usually ignored her other than to make sure they didn’t collide, but now many of them stopped and stared or snickered. She wasn’t sure what to make of it, especially as the behavior became more frequent as she entered the main lecture hall’s courtyard, though maybe that was just because more students were starting to relax here between classes. Had she done something wrong? Was there something about her appearance? She’d briefly considered wearing something other than her school uniform to visit the town, but the only other clothes she had were her sorceress robes, and those had drawn enough attention when she’d first arrived in this world. Everything seemed in order, so she didn’t know why they would be looking at her so strangely. Perhaps it was just one more mystery of this world.

As soon as Twilight entered the main lecture hall to pass through to the academy’s entrance, she was forcefully pulled aside. Thinking at first that Sunset Shimmer had come for her, she prepared for a confrontation but quickly lowered her arms when she saw it was someone else who’d pulled her into an empty classroom. Examining her with thumb and forefinger at the edges of her mouth was a girl with pallid white skin and elaborately curled purple hair.

“Rarity?” Twilight said in surprise before realizing she shouldn’t have spoken her name, since they’d never met before. “What are you doing?”

“Sorry, darling, are you alright?” Rarity asked, seeming to snap out of a trance.

“Of course. Why would I not be?” Twilight asked suspiciously.

“Oh, I’m glad I was able to find you so soon, then,” Rarity said as she stepped closer. “Hmm, there isn’t much we can do, is there? We could dye your hair, but that would only help with those who have already seen you, unless it’s remarkably different. We could change the style, I suppose.… It’s a pity we can’t do anything about your clothes.”

“Wait a second,” Twilight said as she put her hands out to ward Rarity off. “What is this about dying my hair?”

“Well, the camera doesn’t capture the full color, now does it?” Rarity asked as if the answer were obvious. “We would have to make a radical change, or—again—change the style instead. I don’t know how long it would be effective, though. You have chosen a very unique position, so it won’t hide you for long. Maybe long enough for things to die down …”

“Sorry, I still have no idea what you are talking about,” Twilight said with some concern. Is something wrong with Rarity?

She was saved, at least for the moment, of hearing more plans to change her appearance by the door to the classroom opening. In walked Applejack, followed by Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie.

“There you are, Twilight Sparkle. I thought I saw you pulled in here, though I don’t know why it would have been by you,” Applejack said as she crossed her arms and stared down Rarity.

“For your information, I was trying to help disguise her to protect her from ridicule,” Rarity said defensively with a hand placed histrionically on her chest.

“Yeah, that’ll work really well,” Applejack said sarcastically.

“Stop! What is going on?” Twilight demanded, unable to accept any more of her unanswered questions.

“Oh no, she hasn’t seen it yet,” Fluttershy said quietly.

“I have not seen what?” Twilight asked, running out of patience.

Applejack pulled a newspaper out of her satchel and laid it down on the desk in front of Twilight. It was the latest issue of the Canterlot Clarion and featured a black and white photograph of Twilight Sparkle on the cover running frantically across campus with her arms loaded with books. The headline read “Newest Combined Command Student Clueless.”

You may have seen her around campus or read our introductory article, but we are now going share with you the unfortunate truth about Canterlot Academy’s newest student in the Combined Command program: Twilight Sparkle Haltrotsun. She began by arriving late, two weeks into the term, and has done nothing to redeem herself since. Mlle. Haltrotsun has done abysmally in all her military courses, proving herself ignorant of even the most basic subjects. In a lecture on mobilization, she asked a question on levy obligations, something that has been obsolete for centuries even in a backwards monarchy like Sigilland. Students in other classes with Twilight Sparkle had noticed this is part of a pattern, stating that “she doesn’t seem to comprehend anything” and “it’s as if she’s never read a book or paper in her life until this moment.” Lecturers who wished not to be named were no kinder, saying that they’d never seen someone do so poorly at Canterlot Academy.

Clueless Twilight brings up an important question for Canterlot Academy: how could this have happened, and how could the headmistress allow this to continue? It is true that Canterlot Academy accepts students from all corners, but should they not at least have some basic competency? How did Twilight Sparkle Haltrotsun manage to gain entry to our academy in the first place? It is this reporter’s understanding that Mlle. Haltrotsun is a foreign transfer, which brings into question that process: can we really trust non-Haustran schools to properly educate their students before sending them to us, and are we to accept their word that they’ve been prepared in advance? This situation begs us to reconsider accepting any non-Haustran, whether they be from ally or colony, into Canterlot Academy. The Canterlot Clarion will not stand by and let our academy be overrun and have its reputation tarnished by incompetent foreigners, and we call for your support in this fight by petitions to the headmistress’s office and continued purchase of this publication to keep us speaking truth.

“I … what?” Twilight said in dismay as she let the paper fall to the desk and sat down morosely.

She knew she had been struggling in her courses, but she hadn’t imagined she’d been doing this badly. Wasn’t this a bit premature? She had only been here a week and was still catching up. Was she truly doing so abysmally that students and teachers alike were questioning her right to even be here? Was she in danger of being removed from Canterlot Academy? How was she supposed to regain her Element of Harmony then?

“It is all over,” Twilight said weakly.

“Now, now, I’m sure it’s not as bad as all that,” Rarity tried to comfort Twilight, though she didn’t seem wholly convinced herself.

“Why’d you even let this character assassination get printed? Is this what you call good journalism?” Applejack demanded of Pinkie Pie.

“I toooooold you, I don’t have any control over what stories the editor prints!” Pinkie replied angrily. “Take it up with Marcel! He decided to run this after Sunset Shimmer visited; I don’t know how she was able to convince him to do it!”

“It seems like she’s really mad about you opposing her for student leader. She doesn’t just want you out of the way, she wants you expelled,” Fluttershy said as she petted Spike, who’d found it safe enough to leave Twilight’s satchel. “Unless ... you don’t think she’s attacking you because you stood up for me, do you?”

“Very interesting,” Pinkie said as she looked at Fluttershy with narrowed eyes. “But maybe that’s not it at all. Maybe you’re … a spy!”

“What?” Fluttershy said as she recoiled and hugged Spike to her chest.

“I’m just saying, how do we know you’re not an agent of Sunset Shimmer here to sabotage Twilight’s chances for the Acclamation Crown?” Pinkamena said.

“That is not it,” Twilight broke things up as Fluttershy glowered at Pinkie in silence. “Sunset Shimmer is coming after me, but I do not know why she is being so bold unless it is just to spread how obvious a novice I am at everything. No matter what I do, she has ensured everybody will think of this first when the time comes to vote.... Nobody is going to want to vote for me now.”

“I will,” Fluttershy said quietly while looking sidelong at Pinkie, who continued to regard her suspiciously. “I promised to help, and I will. If you need help with anything in your studies related to medical or psionics, I’m here for you.”

“Or I could give you some real help on artillery,” Pinkie whispered extraordinarily loudly to Twilight. “It’ll be worth it to keep Sunset Shimmer from winning again.”

“Real help?” Fluttershy said angrily. “I’d steer clear if I were you. Pinkie Pie doesn’t take anything seriously.”

“I do so!” Pinkie insisted.

“She has a point, darling,” Rarity said icily. “You and all the artillery students think the world is your playground.”

“Not true!” Pinkie said angrily, “We’re doing serious work while you engineering students are building sandcastles!”

“Oh, that’s what you think, is it?” Rarity said with a huff. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised you’d rather destroy than create.”

“Give it a rest, will you?” Applejack said. “I thought we all came here to help Twilight Sparkle.”

“Well, we certainly didn’t arrange this meeting,” Rarity said. “Not when you burst in here accusing Pinkie Pie of every crime in the Clarion. I see that hasn’t changed. I’d wager your pointless feud with Rainbow Dash hasn’t vanished, either?”

“It’s not pointless to stand up for yourself,” Applejack said testily. “She’s just like all the other jerks in the Cavalry Department, thinking they’re at the top of the heap.”

“She’s right,” Fluttershy piped up. “Rainbow Dash is the one who burned those bridges, and you know it.”

“Two spies!” Pinkie cried as she pointed at both Applejack and Fluttershy with her arms crossed. “You’re in cahoots!”

“Of course not,” both Applejack and Fluttershy said at once, which only seemed to reinforce the theory for Pinkie.

“Enough!” Twilight Sparkle cried, unable to watch these alternate versions of her closest friends bicker anymore. “What is happening? Why are you all against each other instead of being friends?”

“Friends?” Applejack asked. “We’re all so different. Why would you think we would be friends?”

“You used to be, did you not?” Twilight asked. “I saw an article about it in an old issue of the Canterlot Clarion. It was hopeful about the academy’s future because together the five of you represented every military department. What changed?”

“First term follies,” Rarity said regretfully. “I don’t know if things were any different where you come from, but it’s not uncommon here to make early friends with students in other departments. However, you quickly learn you’re better off with others like yourself.”

“That idea in itself is a folly,” Twilight objected. “The divisions between departments … I do not believe it should be like this. Is it not the purpose of the departments to provide separate functions but to work together toward a greater whole? Is it not the purpose of the Combined Command students to bind the departments together? Ironically, it seems the only Combined Command student who has actually managed this is Sunset Shimmer, and I am not convinced that she did not also cause or exacerbate the existing divisions between the departments to keep her opposition disunified.”

“I realize you’re upset about Sunset Shimmer’s attack on you, but you can’t pin everything on her,” Applejack said. “She had nothing to do with us splitting apart.”

“Maybe not, but I believe the departmental factionalism that seems to plague this school has,” Twilight said. “Did anything major about you change from when you became friends to when you split apart?”

“No,” all four girls answered almost simultaneously. They looked ready to contest each other’s answers before realizing what Twilight was getting at.

“Nothing changed, but you began to see each other as from rival departments first and as friends second; that is what tore you apart. There is nothing I can see that keeps you apart other than minor slights magnified through the lens of departmental friction and social pressure to maintain that friction,” Twilight Sparkle said.

The other four were stunned into silence, and Spike emerged from where he’d hidden during the earlier fighting.

“Could it … really be true?” Rarity asked as she reexamined her past along with the others.

“I never wanted to stop being friends with any of you,” Fluttershy admitted, “But … maybe I did start to see things differently.”

“Well, I’ll be,” Applejack said. “That article must be a complete and total lie, because you’re plenty smart, Twilight Sparkle. Imagine, all this time, and none of us realized it.”

“Well, it is easier when you are looking at things from the outside,” Twilight said. “And thank you, Applejack, but I truly have been doing terribly in my classes. I will not give up, though, and I will prove I can improve.”

“Hey, I know Pinkie and Fluttershy already said so, but I think we’re probably all willing to help you out with your studies,” Applejack said as she clapped a sturdy arm over Twilight’s back, and Rarity nodded. “Better than that, we’ll help you dethrone Sunset Shimmer and win that crown. You deserve it. Nobody else has managed to bring together—well, back together—students from all the military departments like this.”

“Well, not all the military departments,” Rarity pointed out.

***

Instead of taking a tram to Wyvern Central or Dragongate Park as she’d planned, Twilight Sparkle found herself standing outside of Canterlot Academy’s stables with Rarity and Pinkie Pie. Applejack and Fluttershy were standing some distance away talking to Rainbow Dash. This world’s version of Twilight’s Hunter friend was dressed in her cavalry field uniform, a grand affair with golden braiding and a helmet in place of a soft cap, and leading two horses. Things seemed to be going well between the three of them, and soon they were walking over to join the other three.

“So, you’re Twilight Sparkle, huh?” Rainbow Dash asked dubiously.

“Yes, that is me,” Twilight replied.

“Hmm, name’s Reyna Dash. Call me Rainbow,” she said as she stretched out her free hand to shake with Twilight. “Cavalry Department, obviously. So, Applejack and Fluttershy have been telling me about you. You’ve got some interesting ideas, and you’ve certainly seemed to fire them up. You plan to stop Sunset Shimmer from winning student leader this term, right?”

“Yes, I hope to, but I am going to need some help,” Twilight Sparkle said.

“Hold your horses now,” Rainbow said and chuckled to herself. “You want my help, you’re gonna have to race me for it.”

“R-race you?” Twilight asked in confusion as Rainbow Dash handed off the lead to one of the horses.

“The track is right here,” Rainbow Dash said, gesturing to the dirt circuit that abutted the stables. “You and me, five laps.”

“I have never ridden before,” Twilight she said as she looked dubiously at the horse in front of her, which looked dubiously back.

“We gonna do this or what?” Rainbow Dash asked skeptically as she climbed atop her mount.

“Of course,” Twilight said, making up her mind before she could overthink the situation.

She unslung her satchel and set it down on the ground before trying to mount the horse Rainbow Dash had passed off to her. She tried to follow how Rainbow had swung effortlessly into the saddle, but it took her a few tries and a bit of struggling to get on. As Rainbow cantered off to the starting line, Twilight tried to urge her horse on and had mixed success. Somehow, she eventually managed to get lined up with her opponent. Rainbow Dash pointed authoritatively at Pinkie Pie, who apparently knew what was expected of her.

“On your marks, get set, go!” Pinkie cried, and Rainbow Dash shot off ahead.

While Rainbow spurred her horse onward, zipping around the track like lightning, Twilight struggled to get started and up to speed. She was much higher up than she’d expected to be on this horse, besides the fact that it was incredibly odd to be seated on a creature very much like herself in her home world. As she picked up speed, she was also unprepared for the wind in her face or how to control her mount around corners. She’d barely taken off by the time Rainbow Dash shot past, lapping her; like with everything since she’d come here, she was at a severe disadvantage, due to her unfamiliarity with this world. Twilight would persevere, though. She wouldn’t give up on her studies even if the Canterlot Clarion used her as an example to bar foreign exchange students, and she wouldn’t give up here even if Rainbow Dash lapped her again. Which she did.

Twilight Sparkle kept pressing on, learning how she was supposed to control her mount through observing Rainbow Dash and her own many mistakes. Rainbow Dash lapped her a third time before she finished her first circuit, but she kept going. Rainbow Dash finished her fifth lap before Twilight did her second, but she continued to carry on. Rainbow Dash had said five laps, and she wasn’t going to quit until she’d completed them. The other five and Spike watched her as she fumbled her way around the course in a third lap, but she made it, and then followed up with a fourth and a fifth. By the time she was done, Twilight was sore and quite sure her mount wasn’t very happy with her, but she’d done it. Rainbow Dash took the reins back, and Applejack helped her down off the horse. Whether she had Rainbow Dash’s help or not, hopefully she’d done something to improve their relationship, or at least help mend the cavalier’s bond with her former friends.

“Wow, you really went all the way,” Rainbow Dash commented once Twilight had dismounted. “Alright, let’s take down Sunset Shimmer.”

“You will help me then?” Twilight asked. “Even though I lost?”

“Of course you were going to lose,” Rainbow Dash said nonchalantly. “You’ve never ridden before, and I’m the best equestrian at Canterlot Academy. But even despite that disadvantage, you stuck it out and didn’t give up. You’re gonna need a lot of that in order to win the Acclamation Crown. I read the article in today’s paper. You’ve a lot of room to improve, Twilight Sparkle, but it looks like you’re willing to put in the work.”

“I am,” Twilight replied.

“Great. Let’s get started,” Rainbow Dash said.