🎂

I glided through the air with my wings, my hooves dangling under me. They slid through the surface of the water, and rainbow-tinted droplets splashed around me in an arc.

Flying was easy. If I wanted to go somewhere, I simply thought to move in that direction, and so my body complied. I could see myself, a majestic pegasus with grand wings and a baby blue coat. Not a little pony, but a full grown horse. But I had a saddle, and upon it sat human me. Except human me was a young girl, blond locks flapping in the air behind us, and upon her face a beaming smile. I was free. For the first time, I was free.

From cloud to cloud we hopped. Dashing into a blanket of white fluff became a wild leap into a waterfall of colors, and then a race through a tangle of tree canopy. And ponies were there, except they were the size of little fairies. They smiled at me. One looked like Fluttershy, but her hair was wild like a fire. And then there was a stallion. He didn’t look anything like Robinwind, but I knew it was him anyway. He was wrapped in paper chains and looked terribly depressed with his human face.

“Let me go,” he said. I realized the paper chains led up to me. But I looked back up to Robin, and it wasn’t Robin anymore, but my face; the old male one of which I wanted nothing to do with.

“Go away!” I told the caricature. Scissors appeared and cut the chains away. The slips of paper all came undone and I was again awash in a world of color. Image, thought, and idea ceased to have any meaning. Tail. Hand. Or was it hoof? Both, together. I had hands, but they were missing all but my thumbs.

A pressure in my forehead. Pleasant. Warm.

Twirl, twirl, little ballerina. Spinning so fast I was getting dizzy. And that pinch on my forehead. Deeper, deeper; my tiara was too tight.

I was floating. My forehead was hot. And I was spinning. I had little blue hooves. Red light drifted in from the curtains. A mirror was floating, too, and a bunch of little pictures. I could feel them in my hands.

Wait. Memories came flooding back, and I realized I was awake. Wide awake.

“Ow, ow, ow, ow! Okay, it’s time to stop now!” I told my horn.

It didn’t listen, and the pain shot in and out. Was that my pulse? The tactile sensations around me came too fast, one after another, begging for attention. Now the pain was spreading around my head.

Notcoolnotcoolnotcool.

Inspiration suddenly struck me. Rarity had a problem like this once, and knew how to stop it almost immediately. I quickly brought my hoof to my mouth, licked it (which had an oddly sweet taste) and pressed it into my horn.

“OW!”

The horn was hot. Stovetop oven hot. My leg shot away and my entire body jerked in reaction. A sizzling sound came from the top of my head.

“Some-p-p-p-pony help!”

The sizzling turned to crackling, and then popping.

VOOM. A burst of turquoise fire shot in every direction. And then I fell onto the floor. “Ow, ow, OW!” And then everything else followed. One crash after another, the shattering of the mirror and a few glass trinkets. There went the dresser, splittering and snapping apart. And then the many bookshelves, planks of wood flying apart, while books poured onto the floor. There wasn’t much left of the bed curtains. Then the mattress, which bounced a few times before flipping towards me.

“Wah!” I felt like jello. I suddenly felt pressed into the floor, but it was as though I sank into it, too. Like the floor wouldn’t stop coming, until I was finally smashed between it and the mattress. My body felt out of place. My legs were supposed to be there, nor my shoulders here.

I wiggled my way forward until I could slide my head out. There was a quick POP as my head moved of its own accord. Then I realized what had happened. I was just pancaked. With some difficulty, I squeezed one leg out, and then the other. Both quickly inflated like balloons to their natural size.

“This is not how I wanted to spend my morning. Or, whatever.”

What remained of Twilight’s room was a complete disaster. And there was the terrible smell of something burning.

The door slammed open. “Is everything alright right, I heard–” Starlight’s eyes went wide.

I gave a weak giggle. “S-sorry?”

“What happened?” she asked. “And… is something burning?”

“I…don’t…know…” I say, struggling to wiggle my way out. “I…mean…about…the…burning–”

A cyan aura appeared over my hooves and I found myself yanked forward. The same sudden POP as my hindquarters reinflated. My left eye twitched and I found myself back on my own hooves.

“Lilyheart?” asked Starlight.

“I can’t control my magic!” I said too loudly. “This is the second magical surge I’ve had. This time it happened while I was asleep. I woke up and… I was floating. And it hurt!”

Starlight stepped into the room, her eyes still wide. A piece of glass crunched underneath her hoof. “Twilight is going to be so disappointed with me,” she said.

“I’m sorry!” I squeaked while crossing my forelegs. My eyes were getting wet. No, not again. The moment I tried to keep the tears in, they immediately began pouring, as if to spite me.

“You didn’t mean to. I’m the one Twilight left in charge of her castle!” Her tone immediately softened when she saw me, and I suddenly found myself embraced in a hug. Warm, fuzzy, soft… immediately my guilt was evaporating. “It’s not your fault. I should have realized something like this could have happened when you mentioned the magical surge before.”

“But you can’t blame yourself,” I said. Her purple mane pressed into my cheek. “Twilight isn’t the sort to get angry with you over a mistake.”

Starlight let go. “I guess you’re right, this was just an accident. I just don’t want to let her down.”

“Thank you,” I said, wiping my tears with a hoof.

But inside, I was still processing the shock from the kindness. I just destroyed her room, at least, Twilight’s room and… she wasn’t even angry? No sign of being annoyed with me. And the moment I showed any hurt, she was more concerned with my feelings than what I did. The tears came harder. Dang it. Will I ever go more than an hour without crying in Equestria?

“But, we’re going to have to do something about your magic,” said Starlight.

“Oh?”

The next few minutes were spent cleaning up what we could of Twilight’s old room. Starlight’s magic certainly made it quicker, and I was tempted to even step back and let her take care of all of it. But my desire to help overpowered that thought.

Focusing on the books, I had to pick each one up in my mouth and stacked them in a series of towers next to the door. I was careful to examine each cover before picking up each book. Some had various degrees of being burnt, and were warm against my lips. I made three towers, burnt, badly burnt, and pristine. But what really interested me was the covers. I couldn’t read most of the titles. Most had a series of straight lines assembled into various block patterns, vaguely similar to Korean. But a few featured what looked like a pony version of windings, a series of unicorn horns, pony heads, and hoof prints. But the rest, which seemed to be the most recent, had legible English titles. Ponish titles? Is Ponish English? Or have Robin and I been speaking a completely different language since being ponified?

Some of the legible books had titles that made me guffaw, like Macbronco, Little Fillies, Canter Bucket and the Cheese Factory, or The Griffon, the Witch, and the Teacup. I would have to make sure to read that last one later. Was the teacup the portal to another world? And what pony-punned author wrote it? CS Lewis… Colt Stallion… Leg? Legwis? No, there must be some other pony L word that works better.

But most titles seemed like the sort of books only a nerd connoisseur of the highest order would read: Botany of the Unicorn Mountains, Proper Utensil Etiquette, Canterlot Cantabile Volume XVI, Yowms and Other Forgotten Creatures, Medieval Hoofcare: A History, An Analysis of Griffon Talons… I mean, some of them seemed interesting, but the mere range of subjects and precision of the topics were amazing. And Twilight read most of them for fun? She wasn’t just intelligent, she was Equestria’s version of Newton or Franklin, dabbling her hooves in every subject she possibly could and absorbing all of it like a sponge. No wonder Celestia chose Twilight to replace her.

Meanwhile, Starlight just magically repaired broken furniture. She grimaced slightly while she returned the mattress to the bed before then removing the burnt curtains. If she had trouble lifting a mattress, how come I can do it by accident? To be fair, I was grimacing a lot, too.

“Mind stepping back a moment?” she asked me.

“Oh, uh, sure,” I chirped and quickly moved backwards. Little fizzy joy. I chirped!

Starlight gave a look of deep concentration and her cyan aura appeared over the various glass shards, and the mirror quickly reformed together, and the little pictures reattached to it. It was like watching a video in reverse.

“Heeeeeeeeee!” I whinnied, rocking back and forth on my hooves. Am I prancing?

“Heh. I don’t think I’ve anypony so excited to see magic before. Except maybe for foals,” said Starlight. “Not that–”

“No offense taken,” I cut in. “From a world with no magic, remember? Seeing that–” I pointed a hoof at the mirror. “I’ll be able to do that someday?”

“Well, I don’t know. Maybe? Obviously you can do magic, but not every unicorn can mend, at least not without a lot of practice. It also depends on your special talent. What is the meaning behind your cutie mark?”

I turned to the side, so Starlight could see my flank, and looked over to it as well. Lilyheart.

“Well… the big lily represents somep-p-p-pony I respect a lot. And the little lily is me,” I pointed with my hoof. “And the little bud is for… the ponies who come after. Together, the lilies represent my desire to be like… the pony I respect. And the bud represents my hope to inspire ponies after me just like she did me.” Little tears. No, we’re not doing that right now. “And the heart is because I’ve always valued compassion and love…” I fell silent, not sure what to describe more than that. Was this even a real cutie mark? It’s not like I ever earned it. “Sorry if that’s vague…”

“That’s a remarkable special talent!” Starlight answered with excitement in her eyes.

“It is?”

“Of course! Although… since that means you’re not specifically talented in magic, higher level spells might not be for you.”

“Oh,” I answered.

“I mean, you can still learn high level magic if you want to, but it will probably be more work for you.”

“I was kind of hoping all these magic bursts were a sign of me having a high magic potential, or whatever,” I said.

“Actually, the magical bursts I’ve seen from you so far aren’t much different than the ones newborn unicorn foals have when they’re cranky. Just, mare sized. Your body is probably still getting used to having magic.”

“Oh,” I said. “Wait, you’re saying I’m basically having magical temper tantrums?”

“Well… yeah, basically,” she answered with a smile.

“Sorry.”

Starlight giggled. “It’s not your fault. It’s not like you can control your magic. But with some help, we ought to be able to get you up to shape in no time. I’ve already been helping Sunset learn how to control her magic. I can teach you two together.”

“I would love that!” Learning from one of the most powerful unicorns in terms of both raw energy and knowledge, plus as my second favorite pony as a peer? Yes, please! “So, Sunset also had giant magic surges when she first came to Equestria?”

“Nope, she was already figuring out the basics on day one,” Starlight answered cheerfully.

Great. “Thank you for the offer, Starlight. I really look forward to it. But, what about the books?”

“Oh, right.”

Starlight wasted no time taking from the pristine and lightly burnt piles, but when she saw the thoroughly burnt ones, she grimaced. “We’ll probably just have to throw these out.”

“You can’t put them back together, like with the mirror?” I asked.

“I don’t have anything to put back together. These books are part ash and smoke now. And reversing magical burns isn’t easy. It’s the same with the curtains.” She pulled the neatly folded, but charred curtains over to show me.

“I’m so sorry,” I squeaked. Here’s the part where my apologizing gets annoying. “But, the books! Twilight loves them!”

Starlight scrutinized some of the particularly burnt books. “Honestly, now that Twilight is in charge of Equestria, the chances she’ll ever notice these missing books are really slim. Plus, she has copies of most of them.”

Of course she does.

An odd rustling and banging interrupted our conversion. I looked out into the hallway to see Robin’s doorknob jingling, but the door remained closed. Starlight and I both stared uncertainly at the door.

“I don’t suppose your brother is trying to get out?”

“Oh, yeah.” I hopped over to the door. It was obvious now he was on the other side, desperately trying to use his hooves to get it open. I gently moved my head over, bit my teeth onto the knob, and twisted my head ninety degrees. But before I could pull, Robin’s weight slammed it open, taking me along with it.

“Wah!” Darkness. Pressure. Pressure from all sides. Body… discombobulated.

“Thank you for opening the door, Starlight,” said Robin. “Where’s Lilyheart? I thought I heard… her talking.

A moment of silence.

“I don’t understand,” said Robin.

Help. Please. Try as I might, my body was stuck in place.

“She’s behind the door!” Starlight’s voice rang loud and clear.

“How can she be behind the door?” asked Robin.

Pony physics, that’s how, Robin! Stop asking questions and open it! I mean, close it! Whatever! Roooobin! If I couldn’t whine vocally, I might as well do it internally.

“Just open it!” said Starlight.

Suddenly, the pressure was relieved, light returned to my senses, and the feeling of being an inflated balloon returned again as I crashed on the floor. It was a bit like cracking your knuckles, only weirder and all at once, all over the body, and rather than pleasant, incredibly uncomfortable. I hiccuped.

“Second time I’ve been pancaked since waking up. Not a good feeling.” My voice was raspy.

“I am so sorry!” cried Robin. “Are you okay? How did…”

“I’m fine,” I hiccuped. “Just a little disoriented.” Hiccup.

Author's Note

Special thanks to spectacular editors Ashel and Rainy!