"Your mind." Large Twilight waved a hoof slowly at David. "Is a portal. You already know that."

To an extent, I did. I liked to imagine such a thing when I sat down and let the words come out. It was easier, in a way to imagine I was just seeing what could be, instead of spending time deliberating on it. I didn't plan or hem or haw, I just wrote, and the words came out as quickly as my fingers cared to move.

"How does that help you get home?" I gently pet the smaller Twilight. "I am listening, promise. Tell me."

"Glad to hear it." The Larger Twilight directed a hoof at her own head. "I can't do that. I can imagine only what I know. I can imagine things I know doing other things that make sense. I can't imagine a thing that doesn't even exist. That you can is the key."

Little Twilight frowned with a little hum, not moving from my lap, but clearly thinking big thoughts. "I never sat and thought about thinking about..."

"I have." I tickled down her back. "All the time." I reached past her, resuming the typing I had been in the middle of before the big thoughts started.

Large Twilight nodded. "I should imagine so, given your condition. That precious machine is being damaged. Now..."

She pointed to the monitor. "You've seen many Equestrias. You've even written about some of them. They've been kinder, and crueler, and some libidinous and others chaste."

I warmed at her talking. "I thought you just peeked at a fanfic?"

"I'm a fast reader." Twilight looked quite pleased with herself. "And you have an active imagination. As I was saying, you can see many Equestrias."

I chuckled, equal parts abashed and impressed at Twilight's apparent whirlwind delve through my pony fanfic archive. Well, she was never one to leave a book unopened after all.

"Fair enough, oh scholarly one," I teased gently as I gave Little Twi's mane an affectionate ruffle. "Though maybe we keep the racier realities on the down low, eh?"

Big Twilight simply smirked and continued. "The point being - somewhere in that kaleidoscope mind lies the coordinates to my Equestria specifically." She tapped my forehead again. "You mentioned already grasping at visions untethered to this world. Well, isn't that what brought me to life before your eyes?"

She swept a hoof around dramatically. "The creative channels that envisioned me also see endless alternate worlds. Mine must simply be one of them...we merely need locate the right frequency!"

I sat back, intrigued by the notion my writing tapped not just imagination but literal alternate universes. Could focused energy pierce the dimensional veil again if these visions held deeper truth?

Little Twilight glanced between us curiously. "How do we sniff out the proper You Equestria dimension though? His head's already rather crowded in there from what I've gathered..."

"Worry not! I have some theories..." Grinning eagerly, she dove right into dense arcane babble that surely made sense, if you happened to be Twilight Sparkle.

I was not that. I wasn't even a pony. Just a human that wrote about ponies. I had no idea what she was going on about.

She seemed to notice this as she reached a spot to take a breath. "So... You... did not catch any of that."

Little Twilight shook her head. "I didn't either. Do you have that in book format? I could read it."

Large Twilight sighed. "I didn't think to pack that book with me... Now, let's back up a step. My world."

"Your world," I echoed. "What about it?"

"It is, by the terms I've seen, fairly 'realistic'. That is a spiteful term." She rolled her eyes. "Even simple worlds are entirely 'real' to the ones inhabiting them. Calling one more realistic than the other is a crude way about it. Either way..."

She cycled her hooves. "Before I was a doll, I was a pony. I had to eat, breath, and make use of a bathroom on occasion to maintain homeostasis. Should I fail to do any of these things, my biological systems would begin to fail, ultimately resulting in a complete shutdown, and the creature known as 'Twilight Sparkle' would cease to exist."

Little Twilight angled her head. "Bathrooms are where you take baths, right? I don't want that." She felt over her own cloth exterior. "I'd get soggy..."

Large Twilight gestured at her smaller twin. "There. She is living a simpler life. She does not eat, breathe, or any of the other things. It is a simpler life, but a life. She could be killed, and she doesn't want that."

"I do not!" She stomped a hoof on my leg. Fortunately, it was a soft plush hoof. It didn't hurt, at all. Just a little thump.

I winced in sympathy and reached to give Little Twi's back a reassuring scritch. "Easy there, no stomping required. Nobody's getting unalived on my watch."

Though the existential crisis of a possibly immortal doll confronting her ephemeral nature almost made me chuckle despite the tension. We living folk did tend to forget not all things feared the void.

Big Twi gave her own head a rueful shake as if chiding herself. "Sorry, that came out rather heavy hoofed. I sometimes get caught up itemizing differences in an abstract sense without considering emotional impacts."

She offered her tiny doppelganger a conciliatory nuzzle. "You're as real and valid as any pony, my little friend. And we'll certainly ensure no harm comes to you either way."

Little Twi leaned into the comforting contact, the fear in her button eyes already receding. "Yeah, I know, I'm being silly...not like I have organs to damage." She managed a plush smile. "Forgot myself for a minute there!"

Seeing the two reaffirm their bond helped settle my own briefly frayed nerves. Last thing I wanted was the Twilights questioning their right to existential security under my roof. They deserved gentle assurances, not detached analysis...

I gave Little Twi one more reassuring scritch before smiling back up at her big sister. "So, trying again - let's talk dimensional mechanics in nice calming terms, yeah?"

Big Twi nodded, fluffing out her wings with renewed focus. "Quite right. Now, what I was getting at was that we don't want a world devoid of lustful thoughts. My world had them. That's how you got more creatures. Two met, and more result, younger, of course. The cycle would continue in perpetuity."

She rolled her eyes. "I don't want to return to a world without it, even if I don't partake in it often myself. It's still part of my world."

"Following you." I was typing even as she talked. The words had to flow. "So, how does this help?"

"We begin with explaining." She tapped at her own chest. "I can't imagine what I've never even conceptualized, but I can certainly describe and imagine what I know. I will describe my world. I will go over it in exhausting detail, until you, strange alien, feel like you're walking in it."

I paused my steady stream of key clicks, swiveling to face Big Twi with fresh intrigue. "Get to know your Equestria inside and out you say? Well, I am always eager for more insider pony lore straight from the horse's mouth..."

I smirked playfully at the common phrase while Twilight simply rolled her eyes with a snort. Clearly some idioms didn't cross dimensions cleanly. But her blunt honesty about a world where basic animal needs were met without fuss or filtering sounded good. She was not a 'simple world' denizen. Her world had complications.

"Please, educate away!" I encouraged. "The more facets I understand about daily life there, the more immersive scenes I can envision. Tiny telling details really hook the imagination." I steepled my fingers eagerly as Little Twi also scooted closer, just as keen to hear her sister's world brought to life through words alone.

Big Twi lit up at having such an intent audience. With a slight glow Enhancing her imperious air, she launched into a vivid oral treatise on Equestria's lands, customs, flora and fauna. No tidbit was too small or mundane - with scholarly attentiveness she crafted a rich tableau of a living realm complex, colorful and wonderfully commonplace. Just the way she clearly loved it.

And with every new elaboration, I felt stirred to manifest this world made word and picture in my mind to the fullest sense...what better guide back home than one who knew every inch of its fabric? If I could card and spin such fleece into being, perhaps together we'd weave the way for a long lost pony to step back into her rightful place at last.

Her Equestria was not the one, or any of the ones, I knew. Sure, some of the people were there. She was still friends with Rarity and the rest of the girls. She was not the direct heir of Princess Celestia. She was just one of many talented unicorns to emerge from that school. She eagerly searched for new magical data, working in Ponyville's library.

She had lived a life of adventure, her world just as magic as the one from the show. With every detail, my interest grew and grew. "One thing."

Twilight paused in her droning. "Yes?"

"Once I have it all locked in." I tapped at the side of my head. "What do we do with it?"

"I use magic." She lit up her cloth horn softly. "It's a much simpler version of the spell if we have a good lock on our destination. If you're already shoving a hoof in, bridging that gap will be simple. I'll hold onto you and shove you the rest of the way. We'll both fall into the world you're seeing."

I blinked dumbly at that. "Um..."

Little Twilight arrived at the problem swiftly. "That means he'll be in your Equestria."

My own blinking slowed as the implications sank in right behind Little Twi's frank observation. In our creative eagerness to pinpoint Big Twi's home realm, somehow we had glossed right over the inevitable outcome - me hitching a ride with her across dimensions. Leaving everything I knew behind for the pony promised land.

"Oh...so it would seem," Big Twi conceded, a touch sheepish. "In my fervor to explain planar passages, I failed to consider the passenger implications." She gave me an apologetic smile. "Though I suppose that would solve your health woes..."

I chewed my lip, visions of my mother and unfinished manuscripts swirling with tempting equine eternity. To abandon all I'd built or to be made whole and unencumbered? Did I dare entertain notions of...

A tiny hoof tapped my wrist gently. Little Twi gazed up with those reflective buttons that still somehow held such emotion in their sheen. "What do you want?" she asked simply.

A good question indeed. Even without the permanence, did curiosity and my longtime imaginative affinity beat out duty and hearth? With possibilities unknown but eagerly offered, what DID my wandering spirit crave most?

"One thing..." I pointed at the larger Twilight. "You said it would cure my health. Sounds great, but how?"

"How? That's obvious." She clapped her hooves together. "Once we're back in my world, and I'm not a doll, I'll have full and complete access to my considerable arcane knowledge. I will, gladly, assist you." She buffed her chest with a hoof. "I don't mean to brag, but I do have quite a few awards in the field. I won't stop until we have you in top physical condition."

Little Twilight frowned with a loud hum. "But your magic, not to put you down, Large Me, is made for ponies."

"Yes, and..." It was at that moment Large Twilight remembered that I was not a pony. I was a strange interdimensional monkey with fingers and a strange brain she wanted to make use of. "Oh... That does complicate things."

She crossed her plush arms, wings flapping slowly. "Let me think..."

Author's Note

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