Diaries of the Anonymous Filly

My eyes fluttered open, but even the dim light of the hotel room made my eyes hurt. That wasn't the only part that ached though. There was a dull throbbing inside my skull, and if I didn't know better, I'd say that I was hungover. That said, I certainly didn't remember even going near alcohol. It doesn't feel like I was hit in the head with anything either, so I don't think this is a concussion.

Something else unusual was that I wasn't curled up in my self-assigned corner on my big fluffy hotel pillow. Instead, I seemed to be curled up around Serenity in the middle of the bed. Somepony had taken off my glasses, and the air bullet medallion wasn't tucked behind my ear, so it wasn't like I simply blacked out. No, something else had to be up.

With a groan, I carefully rose to my hooves and began stretching like a cat. Once my body felt nice and limber again, I sat on my haunches, grabbing Serenity once more and chosing to take stock of the situation. Maybe then I could figure out what the fuck happened. Let's recap what I remember.

1. Trixie chaperoned me for a trip to a salon to change up my appearance.
2. Somepony Someone invisible was following us.
3. I ambushed the stalker in an alley, and may or may not have put the fear of God in him.
4. Found out that Raging Storm is some kind of mob boss.
5. The owner of the salon knew my Emerald's mother.
6. Met Apple Bloom's cousin Babs, and didn't even think mention the possibility that Bloom might be a civilian POW.
7. Got my mane and tail styled, and then my coat dyed, so now I'm an indigo mane, wings, and magenta streak short of looking like Auntie Twilight.
8. Raging Storm showed up at the salon looking for Emerald.
9. I had a panic attack and bolted.
10. Last thing I remember clearly? A cemetery.

So that begged the question: what happened to me? I felt like I was missing something, but this didn't exactly feel like the time with Bughorse. With Chrysalis, there was this compulsion to forget and not mention it due to that geas she'd placed on me, and most of the time I wasn't even aware what had happened. Did I simply have a panic attack and black out?

From the bathroom, there came the sound of a flushing. How had I not noticed the sound of the fan? It's on the same switch as the light! "Trixie, is that you?" I called out, glancing about the room. The mare's cape and hat weren't hung up on the rack or any of the chairs, not that it meant much; I'm pretty sure I hadn't seen the mare when she wasn't wearing those things, even when she was eating. "Hello?"

The bathroom door swung open, and out stepped Starlight; I'd recognise her coat anywhere. Although she quickly hurried over upon hearing my voice, she had this hesitant look about her. "You're awake," she said in a soft voice. I watched in confusion as she reached over and brushed her hoof across my forehead. Surprisingly, I felt it bump firmly into something dead in the middle. Evidently, we did put the fake horn on during my lapsed memory.

"How do you feel?" Starlight asked. "For that matter, which one are you right now?"

I blinked at her. "What the heck are you talking about, Star?" I murmured. "I'm me; who else would I be."

Although the corner of her mouth quirked upward, the serious expression remained. "It's good to have you back, Anon," she whispered, pulling me into a tight hug. At the same time, I just barely felt her magic washing over me. It felt sorta like the time Aunt Twilight scanned me after that whole escapade with Blue. "For the last four hours, you were Emerald Flicker... or at least, you believed you were."

I was Emerald? That did not instil any degree of comfort in my mind. In fact, if I hadn't been receiving the calming benefit of Serenity, I'd probably be freaking out right now. It was bad enough that I was tormenting myself with the idea that I might not be alone in this body, but now all the bullshit in my life has seemingly either woken up the dead filly inside me... or caused my mind to completely fracture and take on a second persona that is potentially more in touch with Emerald's trauma.

"Can you elaborate?" I hesitantly queried when she released me, unsure if I could actually take whatever she had to say. "Was it a completely different pony with different memories, or was it just personality change?"

Starlight seemed to consider the answer for a few minutes. No, I don't think that's necessarily true. She knew what her answer was, but rather, she seemed to be considering something else. That it was taking her so long to come to a decision was slightly distressing, because such an awkward silence would have had to have meant that something had gone on during that period of time... something that I wouldn't have liked.

"I wish Trixie were here," she said in lieu of an explanation. "Her illusion spells would have made it so much easier to retell what happened. Plus, she could better explain what happened before the two of you returned to the hotel room."

I tilted my head slightly. "If you could dream-walk, I'd suggest showing me your memory that way." Wait, no... I'd have to be the one to enter her dream, and what if she couldn't control her dreams the way I could. "Never mind, that was a dumb idea. I'd have to be the one to do it, and I don't even know if you can recall your memories like I can."

A frown creased her face as she glanced at the clock, and then to something on the bedside table. That something turned out to be a photograph of me, Starlight, Twilight, and Spike hanging out together in Applejack's orchard. In fact, I think it was a copy of the one I left with the human world's Emerald Breeze. Was that Starlight's copy?

"Y'know, when I showed Emerald Breeze the copy of that picture that Twilight reverse pick-pocketed into my cloak," I commented with a smile, "her first question was whether you and Twilight were my Moms."

"You, er, Emerald Flicker asked the same thing," Starlight replied, levitating the photograph over. "As soon as she saw the photo, she recognised herself in you, and seeing you so happy, she asked if I was her Mom now." She giggled slightly and gave me a look. "I don't look that old, do I?"

That elicited a snort from me. "Nah, you don't look like the type to get teen preggo," I replied. "Now, I could buy Rarity secretly being Sweetie Belle's Mom, but you don't look a day over eighteen."

Although she laughed loudly at my joke, the smile she wore didn't meet her eyes. If anything she seemed distracted. What had happened today was weighing down on her, but it was as though she couldn't reach a decision on something. Was Emerald that bad, Star? I wanted to ask, but the words wouldn't come. I should be the one that's more disturbed over this, so why is she the one who looks so upset?

With a great sigh, she reached her hoof over to pat the top of my head. "I almost don't want to tell you, but not for the reasons you think," she murmured, an almost haunted look in her eye. "I scanned you when I hugged you, and although it confirmed something that bothered me, it just left me with more questions." Were those tears forming in her eyes? "If you were just a normal filly like your friends, I probably wouldn't tell you, but you used to be a grown-up, so..."

Her horn began to shimmer as she leaned forward. "It'll be easier to show you," she whispered, pressing her horn to my forehead. As everything went white, I heard her voice. "This might be a little disorienting, but try to bear with me."

~ 35 ~

I found myself walking into the hotel lobby... No, wait, that isn't right; I'm way too tall to be me. "Ah, Ms. Glimmer!" the pony at the front desk called out. My head snapped over to regard the mare, even as I changed my trajectory to go over to the desk. Right, I'm riding along in Starlight's memory, I guess. "A letter was left for you by a messenger from the Royal Guard."

'The Royal Guard?' I heard Starlight think to herself. 'It must be from Prince Blueblood.'

The mare at the front desk passed the letter to me—er, Starlight—and went back to her job. Starlight, on the other hand, took the little envelope over to one of free chairs in the lobby. After dropping her bags beside the chair, she took a seat. It was actually addressed to both Starlight Glimmer and Anonymous Flicker, but nobody really thought of a small filly when it comes to a message from the Royal Guard. According to the writing on the envelope, it was straight from the desk of Prince Blueblood, Provisional Head of State and Field Marshal of the Equestrian Royal Guard.

'If it weren't for the national emergency, I'd think that he was enjoying himself too much.'

Mentally, I shook my head in response to her own thoughts. Even as she slit the envelope open to take stock of its message, I found myself feeling sorry for him. Even though she had seen him in action, leading the Canterlot evacuation from the front, she didn't seem to understand that he was more than he appeared to be. That I liked him after our encounter and day of drunken shenanigans seemed to vex her to no end.

Ms. Glimmer, Anon

Although this breaks so many protocols regarding operational security, my Manehattan counterpart and I have agreed that, given your involvement, you have a right to be made aware. A courier airship from Canterlot arrived this morning bearing a letter of demand from the leader of the Storm King's invasion force. We have been given three days from the receipt of the message to turn over the alicorn responsible for the destruction of one of their airships and the deaths of thirty of their soldiers and air-crew. At the end of this period, if the one responsible is not surrendered to them, Commander Tempest Shadow will personally come to apprehend them.

You'd think that I'd feel a bit more guilty finding out that I took thirty lives with one spell, I mused, aware of how muted my own emotions felt here. So why is it that I feel impressed more than anything else?

'Their commander will come here...' thought Starlight as she paused. 'It's all over, then, isn't it? Even if Anon wasn't suffering the effects of manaburn from that monster of a spell, I don't think she could bring herself to use it again. They might just turn on the citizens of Manehattan in retaliation even if she could.'

As their demand explicitly requests we turn over the alicorn responsible, neither the local guard captain nor I feel obliged to accede to their demand. Even if we were inclined turn over a foal to an enemy force, by the very spirit of their request, it would be impossible, as Anon is not an alicorn, nor was an alicorn responsible for the loss of their ship in the first place. Should Princess Twilight's search for aid fail to yield any results by this third day, we shall meet them on the battlefield before they reach the city.

Do not try to be heroines; although your services were technically acceptable during the evacuation, your continued participation would be illegal under international law. You would be branded unlawful combatants and thus subject to a war crimes tribunal. Instead, I implore you to flee if the battle begins. There is a settlement to the north that may be willing to take you both in and shelter you until this war is over.

Your friend, Prince Blueblood

P.S. If anything comes up during your stay that impacts your safety or is of major concern, feel free to stop by the Manehattan Royal Guard base, or send somepony with a message, and I will do what I can when I am able to help.

'Unfortunately,' she thought to herself as she put the envelope into her saddlebags, 'with the way things have been going, we might need to take him up on that last offer.'

After returning to her hooves and levitating her saddlebags back onto her back, she began making her way over to the stairs that led out of the lobby to the hotel's living areas. She couldn't explain what made her glance at the door, but Starlight got the impression that one of the two ponies—a rather terrified brown unicorn with a black mane, and a teal earth pony with a mane of rust—arguing outside the front door was staring at her through the window. It gave her an uneasy sensation, and she quickly found herself fleeing his gaze.

I, of course, recognised the unicorn, having just threatened him hours earlier. So, he either didn't get the message, or his boss is just that scary. That sealed it; even if I was still suffering backlash or manaburn from that rail-gun spell, I could not remain unprepared. I vowed to prepare something special just for Storm if he tried anything.

Nothing of note really happened while I, er, Starlight travelled through the corridor on our floor. It wasn't like I could retroactively sense emotions in a shared memory, so I couldn't even be sure that watcher dude wasn't invisibly stalking her to our door, but based on how scared he looked when Starlight spotted him, I doubted he would be willing to chance my little psycho ass getting wind of him.

The uneventful arrival at the door of our hotel room was punctuated by an anxious-looking Trixie greeting Starlight at the door. "Hey, Trixie," Starlight greeted her friend, taking note that Trixie was actually stepping out into the hallway. "Did Anon's salon trip not go alright?"

"No, no," Trixie replied, pulling the door shut behind her. "We were able to get her coat dyed and mane styled without much issue... But..." Her voice was little more than a conspiratorial whisper. "Somepony was following us under the cloak of an invisibility spell when we left the hotel. Though she said she dealt with it, that stallion and a unicorn Trixie presumed—based on a threatening gesture she made when Raging Storm wasn't looking—to be the pursuer Anon dealt with, showed up while we were exiting."

Starlight winced. "Did he recognise her at all?" she asked, glancing past Trixie to the door?

With a shake of her head, the magician brushed her mane out of her face. "Thankfully no," she whispered back. "Although she had quite the visceral reaction. She had some sort of panic attack and bolted. When Trixie caught up to her, she was crying in front of a grave in the cemetery."

"Emerald Breeze?" Starlight probed. At Trixie's flinch of surprise, she added, "That was the mare in the picture Anon showed us last night. I take it you're not meeting me outside the door just to tell me she had a panic attack though, are you?"

Again, Trixie shook her head. She looked utterly beside herself. "Anon isn't herself right now," was her answer. "She didn't even recognise Trixie or respond to her own name. It was only when Trixie thought to use the name from the poster that she reacted. It took some convincing to earn her trust, but Trixie was able to get her back to the hotel room. Since then, we've painted that fake horn to match her coat and attached it to her forehead, and Trixie's been telling her stories to pass the time."

With that little briefing out of the way, Trixie opened the door and led Starlight in. I dunno whether it was Star's surprise I was experiencing through the memory, or a bit of my own. Sitting at the room's table, making some sort of sculpture using the clay and tools I purchased for etching spells, was what looked like Auntie Twilight, if she had green eyes and a black mane. Oh, and without the wings or her signature cutie mark. Probably the most surprising thing was that although my mark was still present, it seemed to be faded.

Wait, why isn't she wearing my glasses?

All I could really do was watch as the little filly—was she actually smaller, or was it just her composure that made her seem it?—shied away when Trixie introduced her to Starlight. The fact that the first thing the trembling filly said after introducing herself as Emerald Flicker was, "Please don't take me back to Daddy," sent chills through me. I'd never call that man that.

'A filly should never have to use that word with such a fearful voice,' Starlight thought as she observed Emerald. Even as the filly in my place—or had I always been in hers?—calmed, returning to her sculpting while listening to Trixie tell stories, Starlight's critical eye was taking in every detail. She's too quiet... too well behaved. Anon would talk just for the sake of talking. She keeps her tail tucked beneath her, and though she tries to hide it, she doesn't wholly trust me or Trixie. She keeps glancing at us when she think's we're not looking.

While Starlight seemed to be considering whether or not it was right to use some knowledge from psychology books she'd been reading, I was still watching Emerald through her eyes. It looked as though she was having troubles with her hoof grip, occasionally flinching and fumbling the tools as she slowly sculpted the clay. Currently misshapen though it was, I recognised a familiar scene: a figure bearing the appearance of Princess Celestia standing before a small prone filly. Does she actually remember meeting Harmony, or is that a subconscious thing?

'Is she having trouble with her hooves because of the backlash from that spell?' Starlight and I seemed to share the same thought. 'Anon never really complains, but she might just be better at ignoring pain than Emerald is.' That... isn't entirely inaccurate. It's a conscious thing, just trying to bear with it until it becomes unnoticeable. 'Something doesn't feel right about all of this.'

Starlight began casting a spell—the shared memory told me it was a full medical scan spell she learned not long after I came into her life and revealed myself to be a trouble-magnet. As the magic washed over her, Emerald froze, her breath hitching, but when nothing else happened she returned to her work. A wave of revulsion washed over Starlight as the results of the spell flooded our shared consciousness. Sweet Celestia...

Although that was definitely my body sitting there, it was like none of my burns happened, and her eyes were in peak condition. There wasn't even a healed hole going through her right foreleg. The only scars were small circular burns that peppered her body. Oh there were healed skeletal fractures, but nothing like the ones I'd gotten from my strength amp spell. The ones the spell picked up were a very old orbital fracture along with a hairline fracture on the jaw, one of her back-legs had experienced an oblique fracture along the canon bone, a front hoof that had clearly been broken, and several broken ribs, some old and some new.

Only some of those injuries were from the fall in the ravine...

A strangled sob escaped Starlight as other bits of information hit her, and I found her fleeing the room to hyperventilate in the hall. 'How did her previous medical checkups not pick up on any of this?' she internally screamed as she attempted to make sense of what her brain was telling her. 'This degree of sexual trauma would have been detected when she was checked last month when she was trapped in her own head... and this here indicates she's been exposed an STI in the past as well...'

I was mentally screaming as this information burned itself into mind. All of it was stuff I'd attempted to block out when I'd experienced what should have been Emerald Flicker's last moments. I tried to block it out, so why... I cried out inside my own mind. Why do I know how many times he forced himself on her—on me? How many times he visited me when Mommy was still alive, forcing me to call him 'Daddy' while he violated me? How he let his subordinates do what they wanted with my body once Mommy was gone? Like pain, even if you tried to block out trauma, it'd still be there after all.

"What the hay is going on?" she whispered aloud as tears threatened to spill down her cheeks. She felt like she was going to be ill, and I wholly agreed with that sentiment. If not for the fact that I was trapped here in this memory, I would have been ill.

It took Starlight several minutes before she composed herself and returned to the room. When she did, she couldn't bring herself to look at me—at Emerald. Instead, she snatched up a pad of hotel stationery, scribbling out a message to Blueblood. It contained everything that we knew about Emerald and my link to her, including the theories of my existence. She explained my reaction to the poster, my sudden regression, and that she was unsure what had happened to my consciousness. She explained the contents of the medical scan that went against everything we knew had happened to my body. The message ended with a strongly worded request for a Guard escort to Our Town, pointing out that the Manehattan police and the mayor could not be trusted. Shortly after she gave the letter to Trixie to play courier, the memory ended.

~ 35 ~

"I'm going to kill him," I announced as she pulled away breaking the spell. My emotions were all over the place, but my fear of the stallion was slowly curdling inside of me, transforming into absolute seething rage. It was the sort of emotion that—if I'd had access to it during my encounter with that unnamed goon—would have resulted in me being unable to remain in control. But for the fact that I was still in contact with Serenity's calming enchantment, I would probably have tried to storm out and hunt "If he so much as sends one more goon to stalk us, I'm going to make look like Merry ."

"No you aren't," Starlight said in a soft voice. She patted me gently on the head as she levitated my glasses over. I simply let her put them on me, watching as she went over to the table and started to pore over a take-out menu. "In the morning, we're leaving town... With or without an escort."

I wanted to protest. We couldn't just let this son of a bitch scare us out of this city. Mobster though he may be, Raging Storm didn't own this city, nor did he own us. According to Prince Blueblood, we were goddamned heroes because of what happened the other day. Running from that bastard made no sense to me, like lions running from a cockroach. He'd be so easy to crush, yet the fear is there nonetheless.

Then again, it was clear that I was emotionally compromised. After the day I'd had, the only thing I should plan on doing is centring myself, figuring out what in the fuck happened to me, and preparing for the worst. My mind strayed to the notebooks in the safe here in the room. I hope the changes Starlight helped me make to that spell are enough, even if I hope I never have to use it.

Once I calmed down enough to let go of Serenity, I hopped down from the bed and trotted over to the safe. I was suddenly conscious of the weight of the false horn. Dunno what Trixie and Emerald used to anchor it in place, but it feels solid, albeit unusual. "So, when you scanned me when you were sure I was me," I began, even if I was genuinely curious, it more to fill the air. "I take it you didn't find any of what you found when Emerald Flicker was in control?"

Star watched me with unease as I opened the safe and took out the notebook I'd been using since my trip to the other world. "Nothing," she confirmed, returning her gaze to the menu for what looked to be a pizzeria. "Your burns, your damaged eyes, all the damage to your bones that spell did, it's all there. It's like you were two separate ponies, yet unmistakably the same, like identical twins swapping places."

"I'll try and ask Harmony during my next nap," I murmured. "It's definitely vexing."

When I climbed up onto the chair that Emerald had occupied in that shared memory, I found the end result of her little sculpting session. Sitting neatly atop the sheet of paper was Harmony-Celestia standing before a prone filly, now quite surprisingly detailed for someone who should mentally have been a six-year-old child. The filly's mane, rather than the low pigtails she'd worn in that vision, was more akin to my typical bedraggled mess, and she even had my cutie mark. There was a detail added that I hadn't noticed when I was viewing Starlight's memory, though. There was a roughly pony-shaped shadow drawn onto the paper beside the filly, with 'Who are you?' written beneath in foalish scrawl within a speech bubble.

As an aside, she threw out this little tidbit of info. "The only thing unusual that I did find was how quickly your magic reservoir's been growing; you're almost on par with an adult unicorn now." Not like I was particularly listening now, but I was at least still aware of what she was saying. "Then again, with the spells you use and the strain they put on you all the time..."

It almost seems like she's aware of me to some degree, I thought, gently pushing the sheet and sculpture towards the middle of the table. It was a waste of invaluable clay, but... it didn't feel right destroying it. If only for a few hours, it seemed like Emerald had been alive again, and reusing that clay to make spells that were definitely going to hurt someone felt almost perverse.

Setting my notebook down, I grabbed another sheet of hotel stationery, placed it to the side and reached for my jar of clay. When I was scooping some out to smooth into a ball, I paused and stared at my hoof. Now that I knew what I was looking for, I could feel slight twinge in my mana pathways while I used my hoof fields, but it was so muted that it was like a bitter breeze. Even though our physical injuries differed, magically, we're using the same system.

Slowly but surely, I prepped the clay and began etching out the spell. My eyes kept darting to the notebook where the heavily modified spell was diagrammed. There came places where I either tweaked on the fly, or stripped out safeguards I'd intentionally placed in the original prototype. Although Starlight helped me revise the spell so that it wouldn't have the same nasty after-effects a second time around, this still was a spell that would absolutely do some real damage to a living being, and I wouldn't even be able to practice with it in order to acclimate myself.

I hope I don't have to use this, but... Si vis pacem, para bellum.

Once I finished the spell and used my tools to shape it into a familiar octagonal shape, I slid it across the table to Starlight for her to bake. She took one look at the spell and went pale. "Anon, you don't actually plan on using this, do you?" she whispered, a tremor in her voice. "I still can't believe you convinced me to help make this spell safer for you to use given what it could do."

I shook my head. "To be honest, if I ever have to use this, it's probably going to be a matter of life-and-death either way," I murmured, unable to meet her gaze. "In my old life, we had a saying: if you want peace, prepare for war. I'm not saying I want to use this spell, or expect to have to, but I'd rather have it and not need it, than need it and not have it."

She nodded, seemingly understanding the sentiment. It was, after all, the same reasoning that unicorns often learned a stunner spell or sometimes even a shield. They just didn't take it to the paranoid extreme of almost being able to take on an entire invading army like I did. Then again, most ponies didn't vow to themselves that they would never be helpless, or allow those they care for to come to harm, ever again. Those that did usually joined the Royal Guard. They'd be lucky to have me, but I don't yet care enough about the country to stand and die for it.

Hell, this spell would turn me into a straight-up walking magic hazard. The biggest modification Starlight helped me make would cause my body to practically become a magical vortex, absorbing all the ambient magic around me to fuel the extra safeties. Sure, it'll ultimately ease the strain on my body, but despite the typical rule of inverse proportionality regarding cost and complexity, it's something that's gonna strain my magic almost as badly the rail-gun did. Guards probably taught moderation and restraint, rather than 'P for plenty'.

"I promise that unless you, Auntie Twilight, or anybody else is in danger, I'll never use this spell," I declared, finally meeting her eyes. "Even if Raging Storm sends his goons chasing after us when we flee the city, I'll use the same degree of restraint I used in that square in Canterlot." Translation: I won't seek out the enemy and kill them before they can harm us.

"Changing the topic, what sort of pizza would you like?" she asked, holding up the menu with her magic. "I know you have a taste for spicy things, but if Emerald should reassert herself again during your nap, it might be best to get something a normal filly would like."

I nodded in agreement. "A cheese pizza sounds fine, but whatever you think is good works for me," I said, hopping down from the chair to make my way over to my cushion in the corner. "As long as there's no pineapple. I don't like the sweet and salty contrast of the pineapple and the cheese. Dunno how anyone can tolerate that."