Twilight Sparkle and the Stupid Original Pony

Mr. Landers was at his desk, in his office at top of the library administration section.

“Hey Boss,” I tried to sound comfortable and casual, “can I have my job back?”

As entertaining as his startled reaction might have been, I didn’t think I looked that much like a ghost.

“Thank you for cutting right to the chase.” Serious look. A pause, and then he smiled. “I’ve worked here for over a century and I expect to be here at least that much longer. During my tenure, a research librarian of your skill and, ah, specialized knowledge will always find employ should they need it. That said, some ever so slight advanced notice of extended absences would be appreciated. After the third week I made some discreet inquiries, checked your domicile for signs of violence, and saw to it that your rent got paid. I–”

“Wait! What? Third week? I was only in Equestria for two weeks.”

“Two weeks? Hmmmm, no, my young Van Winkle, I’m afraid you’ve been missing rather longer than that.”

“Tell me!”

“You’ve been gone a full two years. I recorded in your employment record that you were away for a research sabbatical, should you be inclined to back me up on that detail.”

“I really appreciate it, sir, and I will totally back you up. I’ve even learned some stuff that will help with the Fragments, so its true! But two years? Oh shit, there’s some kind of time differential. I’m sorry for leaving you in the lurch like that. I didn’t think I would be coming back. Ah… there was a girl involved. And apparently time dilation effects I was not expecting.”

“I suspected a girl when your work attendance began to suffer. The operatic strains of Der Berenleid wafting from the stacks before you vanished confirmed my theory. I don’t recall that the original Tengar lyric was quite that detailed regarding Lúthien’s physical charms and her lover’s stamina.” My face grew warm. “Certainly my efforts replacing the security cameras you disabled in your ill-lit trysting spot among the forgotten books paid off.”

“You didn’t.”

“No, I didn’t. I am neither so inconsiderate as to actually spy on your amours, nor so blind that I would need to.”

“Thank you, sir, I’m sorry.”

“But well one might inquire where she took you that you could not send few words to your dear old boss to let him know you were not relegated to an organ farm.”

“Boss, the where is kinda hard to explain and we can discuss it later. A place with no data channel back here. I didn’t want to tell you in case you might be considered complicit—”

Someting changed.

“What was that?” I shook my head – my ears felt funny and the library had gone dead silent.

“I’ve stopped time.”

“How? I mean, how do you know that spell?”

Mr. Landers did not dignify my question with a response; he merely sat, stolidly evincing the air of a man surrounded by the largest collection of arcana known to this reach of the galaxy.

“Oh. Nevermind. Why, then?”

“So we can speak without fear of monitoring. Now, do you mean to tell me that you were trying to protect me?”

“Yessir. My… um Twilight… is from another world.”

“Yes, she’s from another world. In other breaking news, grass is green and Bela Lugosi is dead. I could tell that much without the introduction I was hoping for. Tangent, my dear young person, there is far more to old Mr. Landers than you will ever know. But it may be time for me to reveal just a little.”

“Uh, judging from your choice of words I am guessing you know this too. But there’s something even more awkward I gotta talk about.”

Eyebrows raised attentively, but he didn’t say anything.

“Obviously you know the party line, magic is not real, is bullshit. The fact is that our research would tell us that even if we never saw any evidence. I’m starting to think you’ve figured this out, but I'm a girl now, boss.”

The were a lot of reactions I could have expected from my coworkers. Derision, disbelief, offers to “check if it works”. But Mr. Landers was simply attentive. He nodded and gave me a moment to catch my breath after spilling the news.

“No surgery, no retroviral therapy, no prosthetics or hormone implants, call it magic if you want. Something anomalous happened.”

“I’d say ‘Tanna’, perhaps?”

“What?”

“Potential feminine variation of Tangent, I think.”

“Good call, boss.”

“When can you start work again? There’s a backlog of research and I swear nobody has ever spoke Pnackotic as fluently as you do. What was that for?”

I had twitched when he mentioned pre-human tongue.

“In Equestria they call it Pre-Equiik; they call the writers of the Fragments the ‘Ur-Genitors’, I found that in a book. Twilight speaks the language but only a few of their highest mages know it. She wouldn’t talk about it. I didn’t mention that we possess portions of their original writings.”

“You have just justified my decision to pay your salary for the last two years. If you remember anything else relevant to the Fragments please document it. I want you to split your time between the project backlog and recording what you just told me. Write it with a mind to be useful to researchers in the far future. This could be the biggest breakthrough in Pnackotic Studies since the time of Eibon.”

“Yessir, I can start right now. Where do I sit?”

“I kept your old office intact, but I think I’d like you to move into the empty office next to this one, the one with the connecting door.

“Uh, why?”

“So I can keep a closer eye on you, my wandering prodigy! Also, I’m promoting you two grades in light of your research. The notes you left on your desk are in my safe. I recommend saving that topic for your PhD thesis, it’ll be a shoe-in.”

“Yes sir.”

“Do try to scale down the ‘sirs’. I’m glad to have you back.”

With my gainful employment secured and no idea when Twilight would work things out and return to collect me, there was nothing to do but let life fall back into a routine and bide my time. But it sucked that I would miss my next remedial lesson on how to be an earthpony.

—

Days, then weeks passed as I spent my days at the library and waited for Twilight to reclaim me.

There was plenty to keep me busy. I documented my learnings about the infamous Ur-Genitors from distant un-hallowed eons. Backlogged, and new, requests from state sanctioned researchers were fulfilled with hand scribed notes – of these books it was well said die lässt sich nicht digitalisieren. In addition to my official duties I began a project of the wholesale manual transcription of books I could not obtain my own personal copies of. It would take years to copy everything that I’d like to have a copy of; Twilight would rescue me long before this task was complete.

A month after my return I began feeling consistently unwell.

“Something’s not right,” Bear said on the third day of malaise. “You can either go see your doctor or I will acquire a sufficient complement of biosensors that I can troubleshoot your biological apparatus myself right here. In fact, I’m upgrading my instrument suite no matter what. But I want you checked out soonest and some of these parts will take hours to obtain.”

Such was my misery that I did not bridle at Bear’s orders.

“Okay, okay, I’m going.” I flushed the toilet, rose from my knees. “As soon as I brush my teeth.”

—

I was still in shock when I got home.

“Bear.”

I sat at my little table, head in my hands.

“What did he find? What is it? Even if there’s no known cure I will find one. Please authorize me to access your medical chart.” Bear’s inflection was almost flat, but lifelong familiarity had taught me to recognize the earnestness in his words. I didn’t doubt him for a second, but his worry was unnecessary. His question also informed me that he had honored my standing request that he not monitor me at the doctor’s office – certainly more respect than I deserved after lying to him and almost killing myself. In spite of my spinning head I was grateful for that kindness.

“Oh there’s a cure, alright!” I laughed. “It just takes time. And—” I was remembering the educational material Bear had helpfully retrieved off datalinks for me “—I won’t have to learn how to use a tampon for eight more months.”

—

“Boss.” I stood in the doorway which connected our offices, leaning on the door frame. I was still unsteady. “I’m pregnant.”

“That… is… unusual.” He gestured me to enter and sit; I didn’t react to his timestop spell. At least we’d be able to speak frankly. “It takes a lot of of power and skill to do a fully operational gender swap. But immediately functional? Amazing. Your body must have had an ovum ready and in place as soon as you transformed; I am astounded. Is your baby healthy? I trust that the girl who makes you sing opera is the father.”

“Yep it’s her.” I sighed. “The baby is doing great. She’s about this big.” I gestured, my thumb and forefinger a few millimeters apart. “She’s well placed on my uterine wall. Heart rate is right around a textbook one hundred BPM. How the heck are you taking this so calmly?”

“Remember me telling you that I have worked here in the library for over a century?”

“Yessir. It’s none of my business, but I guess you must have top med. Longevity drugs workin’ good on you.”

“I was lying through my teeth. The correct number is a bit over two hundred years. Nor was I in my first century, or even my second, when I took the job.”

Damn. Some quick addition told me his claimed age was in the four to five hundred range. He was already well over twice as old as I could expect to live with the best of luck, and he just looked like a man nearing comfortable middle life, a man with at least half his life still ahead of him; there was every logical reason to expect that he would outlive me by another handful of centuries. Maybe he was one test cases of the first serious effort at a longevity regimen. The recombinant DNA technology was ultimately an abject failure, but the first twenty years after treatment looked so promising that millions were treated. Starting after a few decades nearly all the subjects randomly dissolved into aggressive, infectiously metastatic, cancer-goo. Entire households and even oncology wards had been obliterated. Some of the tumors were still alive centuries later. The tiny fraction of test subjects who survived –less than a few dozen if government figures were correct– were mostly still alive these centuries later, and keeping a low profile, which tilts the odds against the accuracy of the records.

“I won’t say a thing to anyone, sir.”

“I wouldn’t have told you if I had any doubt of your discretion. The point is, I have seen ‘anomalies’ large and small; you could say that I am unusually well qualified to supervise research in our field. One incident I might allude to was another male who completely changed to female, including DNA. But in spite of the physical changes being instantly complete, it took almost a year for his hormones to regulate themselves to a state where he was able to ovulate and successfully become pregnant. The change in his case was mediated by some rather powerful magery.” The question in his glance sought confirmation but he didn’t really have any doubt.

“Yeah same here. Non-Terrestrienne magic, powerful stuff.” Twilight’s spell had been a doozy even before I foolishly added to it. “I was on her world when things got switched around. We, ahem, did the deed in our altered states and I got kicked off her world by her mentor who did not approve our union. Nor the mess I made at the F.F.F. Fête.”

“What will you do now?”

“All I can do is wait for Twilight. And I’ve been procrastinating about having an anomaly hearing. Now that there’s another party with vested interest in normalizing my legal status,” I placed my hand on my abdomen, “I’d better get that taken care of.”

“There are alternatives, you know a fake ident is not that hard to come by.”

He suggested capitol crime as casually as if it were a dessert option. Fudge sauce or whipped cream?

“It’ll be fine. If I’m stuck here long enough for my baby to need medical care she needs to be in the system, and to be in the system she needs a mother in the system.”

—

In a tightly shuttered room, five friends had met discreetly under cover of darkness, but now their secret conclave was ending. As they prepared to go their separate ways, a few lingering sparks of magic fizzled and black smoke trickled from a cracked crystal ball.

“I’m certainly no fortune teller, that much is obvious” the unicorn said. “But even I can see that this isn’t going anywhere good at all.”