It Was Just Supposed To Be Lunch

Chapters

Chapter 1 — FanOfMostEverything
Chapter 2 — Jarvy Jared
Chapter 3 — PseudoBob Delightus
Chapter 4 — Dashie04
Chapter 5 — Silver Needle
Chapter 6 — EileenSaysHi
Chapter 7 — AltruistArtist
Chapter 8 — The Red Parade
Chapter 9 — Fillyfoolish
Chapter 10 — Bicyclette
Chapter 11 — The Sleepless Beholder
Chapter 12 — Rego
Chapter 13 — FanOfMostEverything

Chapter 1 — FanOfMostEverything

It began exactly as Sunset had envisioned it. Once all of her friends had gathered outside of Canterlot High one sunny spring morning, she pointed to the horizon and boldly exclaimed, “Girls, we’re going on an adventure!”

Everything afterwards did not go as she’d envisioned it. To begin with, rather than cheers or intrigued questions or any of the other reactions she expected, the announcement elicited six groans at varying levels of frustration and indifference. Pinkie Pie smiled through hers, but still joined in.

“Alright,” Applejack grumbled, “who found some Equestrian geegaw and what does it do?”

Sunset frowned. “What? No.”

“I see,” said Rarity. “So it’s some manner of horrendous creature banished from your homeland now in the guise of an attractive young woman.”

“No, it’s—”

Twilight quirked an eyebrow. “Microchips built another death robot named after a seminal figure of Prench literature?”

“It’s a fun adventure!” Sunset shouted. Other students giving them a wider berth did not help her mood.

Pinkie squinted. “Fun fun or ‘we almost get killed’ fun?”

“Fun fun.” Sunset massaged her temples. “For Celestia’s sake, I’m taking you all out to lunch!”

Rainbow Dash perked up from the soccer drill that had taken her attention. “Wait, the principal’s paying for lunch?”

“No,” Sunset forced out through gritted teeth.

“That’s very nice of you, Sunset,” Fluttershy said, blushing, “but I, well, I’m sorry, but I don’t really feel that way about you.”

“Not as a date.” Sunset felt herself flush in turn, averting her eyes from the whole group. “I mean, unless anyone…” She shook her head. “Not the point. The point is that I pulled some strings with Princess Twilight and got a reservation for seven at Le Pâturage.”

Rarity smiled at that. “Oh, that does sound lovely.”

Dash cleared her throat. “Uh, hey, only person here who actually takes Prench? That just means ‘the pasture.’”

“Ah.” Twilight nodded. “That would explain why you got in touch with my counterpart.”

“It’s the nicest restaurant in Ponyville.” Sunset shrugged. “I just wanted you guys to get a taste of my home. Literally.”

Applejack grinned and slapped Sunset on the back. “I getcha. I still remember that summer I spent with my aunt an’ uncle in Manehattan. Bein’ able t’ get home an’ taste Granny’s cookin’ again was the best part.”

“And if I take a good look at the dessert menu, maybe we can make enough pony treats to keep you from feeling homesick again!” Pinkie cheered.

Fluttershy bit her lip. “Are we even allowed to do this?”

“Seniors are allowed to eat lunch off-campus,” said Twilight. “Though I’m not sure whether that extends to parallel timelines.”

“Look, it’s been long enough since my last meal in Equestria that Princess Celestia couldn’t stop me, much less Principal Celestia.” Sunset smirked. “Besides, Shy, it’s not like you’re the most stringent rules-follower yourself.”

Angel Bunny chose that moment to poke his head out of Fluttershy’s backpack and tousle her hair. She gave a quiet laugh, muttered “No comment,” and began the long process of coaxing him back into his hiding spot.

“So yeah,” said Sunset, “this is just meant to be something fun we can do together. Didn’t mean to make everyone assume the world was ending.” She cleared her throat. “Again.”

Rarity gave a theatrical sigh, one hand raised against her forehead. “Given our track record with events that are just meant to be fun, I trust you can understand our hesitance.” She grinned. “Let us hope this one will go smoothly.”

Dash rolled her eyes. “Oh boy. I’ve read enough Daring Do books to know a jinx when I hear one…”

Applejack jabbed her in the arm. “Hush.”

Morning classes went as they usually did; nothing out of the ordinary, no announcements from the principal’s office, no supernatural incidents that needed the united will of Harmony to quell. When lunchtime rolled around, the girls were all assembled in front of the school statue with eager grins as Sunset double-checked her journal.

“On the one hand, I wish I’d known further in advance that I might prepare a suitable ensemble.” Rarity frowned. “On the other, it’s not as if the portal let me keep the last one.”

“Yeah, I think I saw the place when we were sneaking through Ponytown last time,” said Dash. “Pretty sure it’s a no-tie dress code. Or anything else.”

“Splendid,” Rarity groaned.

Fluttershy smiled. “It will be nice to have time to appreciate being a different animal. We were in such a rush to get everyone back last time.”

Twilight sighed. “I suppose. At least this time I’m mentally prepared for equinization.”

Applejack raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

“Neologisms are a useful tool for processing experiences no one has had before.”

Pinkie thrust a fist into the air. “Yeah! Let’s get horsed!”

“Ponied,” said Sunset. “Important difference.” She nodded as the all-clear wrote itself onto a blank page, glad to see everything getting back to how she’d envisioned it. “We’re good to go. Come on, everyone, this’ll be a meal you won’t forget.”

On the list of things one wants to hear as they go through an interdimensional portal, “Oops” is near the very bottom. Unfortunately, as the seven crossed the threshold, that word could be heard at both ends.

Author's Note

"Le Pâturage" is intended to be the Ponyville restaurant with the mushroom tables.

Chapter 2 — Jarvy Jared

Sunset was the first to whom the sense of hearing returned. As soon as the swirling and disorienting spiral of sensation that accompanied traveling through the portal settled, she made out Princess Twilight’s voice: “Spike! What did you do?!”

“It’s not my fault! I was trying to get away from Starlight! She’s gone crazy again!”

“Crazy?! I’m not the idiot who set fire to my prized kite collection!”

“I told you, it was an accident! Dinner last night gave me mild indigestion! It’s not my fault you can’t cook!”

“I can’t cook?!”

Sight was the next to return, and it offered Sunset a strange shot: Starlight Glimmer was chasing after Spike, carrying in her magic what could only be described as a burnt-up mess of string and paper. Princess Twilight, meanwhile, stood off to the side, near a set of machines that beeped and whirled with reckless and alarming abandon. From a printer emerged a long sheet of paper with a red line doing the tango in violent strokes. Princess Twilight seized this paper and read it quickly. A worried look came over her face.

Just then, Sunset heard six other bodies emerge from the portal, all letting out groans of their own. “Oh, heavens,” Rarity mumbled. “No one told me it’d feel quite like that… Why didn’t you warn me, Rainbow?”

“Because we didn’t go through the portal this way last time!” Rainbow grumbled.

Princess Twilight looked up and saw Sunset standing there. Her face broke out into a beaming smile. “Sunset Shimmer!” Dropping the paper and leaving her spot by the machines, she raced over and embraced Sunset. “Oh, it’s so good to see you! And you and the girls are just on time!”

Sunset laughed. “You say that as though we were ever going to be late. Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve had authentic Prench food? Like, actual pony Prench?”

Princess Twilight nodded and stepped back to regard her. But then that befuddled expression returned to her face.

Sunset tilted her head. “Um… Something up? Hello?”

At that point, Starlight and Spike had stopped their chase, and collectively turned to face Sunset. Two sets of jaws slackened, and Spike murmured, “Oh, horseapples.”

Sunset had been in the human world for so long, she’d forgotten about pony idioms and profanities, such that it took her a moment to realize the implication behind Spike’s statement. But for the life of her, she couldn’t understand what was the problem. She looked down at her front, thinking she’d perhaps gotten something on her, but saw nothing.

“Whoa, nelly,” she heard Applejack drawl, “Pinkie, that’s… is that what I think it is?”

“Ha ha, yep! But, that’s not what I usually get! Oh, look, Applejack, you have one, too!”

Slowly, Sunset turned around.

Applejack and Pinkie sat on their haunches, staring at the protrusions coming from their foreheads. Horns. But they, by themselves, weren’t the most striking feature. It was their color. Applejack’s, as opposed to her usual orange, was an exquisite white, while Pinkie’s was a disturbingly familiar shade of lavender. Applejack gaped at the sight; Pinkie played with it, poking and prodding like it was some new toy.

Then Sunset’s gaze turned to her other friends. Twilight and Rarity helped each other up, then stepped back with gasps, each pointing to the other’s sides. A pair of wings sprouted from their torsos, but, as with Applejack and Pinkie, they were a different color from their coats. Twilight’s pair was a butterscotch yellow and Rarity’s was lithe and blue.

“Oh, dear,” Rarity mumbled, giving her wings an experimental flap. “That is… not at all what I expected.” The human Twilight, meanwhile, didn’t say anything, but was craning her neck around to get a better look at the extra appendages.

Only Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy seemed unperturbed, but as they, too, got onto their hooves, Sunset realized with a start that that was because they were without either wings or a horn. Fluttershy didn’t appear bothered by this, but Rainbow took one look at Rarity’s pair and let out an impressively dismayed whinny. “Are… Are those supposed to be mine?”

“They do look a lot like you,” Fluttershy said. Then she looked at Sunset. “Sunset? Didn’t you say you were a unicorn in this world?”

“Yeah…”

“Well, darling, you certainly have the horn for it,” Rarity said, “but, ah, forgive me, but that isn’t usually part of the package deal, is it?”

Sunset didn’t immediately answer. Already she was starting to put the pieces together. Glancing down at herself had yielded nothing, but this time she craned her neck to look around, and that was when she saw them: a pair of impressive wings. They, like the others, were not the same color as Sunset’s coat, but instead, were a deep cobalt, almost as dark as a starless night sky. When she unfurled them, she was in for another surprise; they were easily the largest pair of wings she’d ever seen.

I’m an… alicorn?

A clinical part of Sunset—one that had been nurtured back when she had been Princess Celestia’s personal student—was already filing these observations away and making inferences on the fly. She had heard something just before finishing the jump over. Something that sounded vaguely like an “Oops.” Something, then, had gone wrong with the portal.

She gave another experimental shrug, watching as the individual feathers recoiled and curled. Amazing, she could not help thinking, but also she was beset by considerable curiosity. Limb displacement was not an unheard of concept. The earliest practitioners of teleportation had suffered from it, and the occasional forays into transformative magic had, more often than not, resulted in one’s leg or tail exchanging places with another point on the body. But those were rudimentary and sloppy accidents perfected through careful logistics and an understanding of the thaumaturgical field; what happened here was somehow in defiance of that, for Sunset knew of no magic that could not only displace and re-place limbs from one subject to another, but do so without any apparent issue. That she could control these wings so easily meant that the neural pathways in her brain had been magically rewritten near-instantaneously. Not even the best surgeons were capable of such a feat.

More than that, they seemed remarkably similar, as though she’d seen them before. She brought one wing to her eyes, trying to place them. Nearby, Princess Twilight was muttering something to herself, and Starlight glanced with no small amount of trepidation between the former humans and the portal.

Another door to the castle creaked open, and the sound of metal hooves clinking across a crystal floor could be heard. “Princess Twilight, I am hoping you will tell me this is the result of some asinine prank and not, perhaps, a magical misstep.”

Princess Twilight and Sunset turned, and Sunset let out an involuntary gasp. Starlight chuckled nervously. “Oh, um… Now would probably be a good time to mention that Twilight—er, Princess Twilight—added an extra reservation? Le Pâturage was offering them at a discount, surprisingly enough.”

Princess Luna stood morosely before them, dressed in her usual royal regalia. She glared at them all, but not from anger, it seemed, but rather bewilderment. “When my sister suggested I accompany you to your luncheon, she said it might open my eyes to some new experiences.” She glanced over her own torso. “I did not anticipate what that would truly mean.”

Sunset didn’t need to follow Luna’s gaze to understand. Where there should have been a pair of wings, now there were none—for now they were, apparently, grafted to Sunset’s sides. Tentatively, she raised both and flapped them once, and a strong gust of air blew through the castle, dispelling the sheet of paper that Princess Twilight had dropped, as well as the burnt remains of Starlight’s kite. Princess Luna appeared troubled by the act, though Sunset could understand why, and when she met Sunset’s gaze, it was with a questioning gleam.

“Sunset,” the human Twilight said. Sunset turned around to face her. Twilight trotted over, her yellow wings fluttering almost with a mind of their own. She cupped Sunset’s face, then brought her in close. Her pupils were the size of pinpricks, and though she spoke barely above a harsh whisper, her fear was as evident as the wings themselves.

“Why are all my pony parts wrong?!”

Chapter 3 — PseudoBob Delightus

An orange hoof knocked on the door to Fluttershy's cottage. When she opened the door, she was shocked. Mainly at seeing another version of herself, the retired Princess Luna, and two copies of Twilight. Once she got over that surprise, she noticed most of their pony parts were wrong.

"Why are all your pony parts wrong?" she asked.

"That's what we're here to find out," the Twilight with no wings replied. She took a deep breath, and both Fluttershies covered their ears before she shouted through the doorway, "Disco-o-ord!"

"Oh…" Pony-Fluttershy murmured. "He's, um, not here…"

Everyhumanpony else sighed.

"Yeah, figures."

"That jerk."

"Why does he always have to be involved in this…"

"Balderdash?"

"Precisely."

A shadow responded, "I could ask the same, ladies." Everyone looked, and saw Discord smoking his way out of Pony-Fluttershy's mailbox.

"You!" Pony-Twilight pointed.

"Me!" Discord pointed. "Me. Why is it always me? Why don't you bother, er, what's-his-face, or what's-her-mane, instead?"

A shout almost started from the crowd, but Pony-Fluttershy cleared her throat, which earned some silence. She took a step towards Discord and spoke clearly, "Um, well, it is, usually, your, um, fault, when these things, um, happen…"

Discord tied his arms but considered the sparse words. Then he rolled a sigh and breathed his eyes - or was it the other way around? "Fine. I will admit to causing the pony versions of you lot some trouble. But this," - he pointed to the party of pedestrian-ponies with misplaced pony parts - "was not me. I was busy."

"Okay," Pony-Fluttershy said.

"Not okay!" Pony-Twilight said, holding a hoof over Pony-Fluttershy's mouth. "You were busy? With what?"

"I was on holiday in a little seaside resort called Nunya Business."

Pony-Twilight looked at him.

He put up his appendages innocently. "No, I'm serious! That's what it's called. There's ads in the phone book. Don't ponies read, these days?"

"Ugh, fine, maybe you're not involved - this time - but this sort of thing is right up your alley. Can't you help us? A little?"

Discord was no longer in the mailbox. Pony-Twilight found him leaning over her from a perch on her withers. "Your tone is out of tune, my dear, but fine." He extended a bethumbed cat's paw from off-screen and snapped his furry fingers. There was a spark of light, then-

Everyhumanpony looked at themselves. Nothing appeared different.

"Oh," he said. All colour drained from his face and spilled onto the grass, turning it rainbow hues. "Oh, that's, um. Oh."

Everyone asked, "What?"

""N-nothing!"" he said, though there was an extra set of quotes around his closed captioning entry. "I'm sure it's fine. I just remembered, I left the oven on. And the oven is in my other pants. Which are getting dry-cleaned. Good luck, and toodle-oo!"

With that, he folded himself into a letter and stuffed himself back into the mailbox. A cross-eyed mailpony happened to come by just at that instant, and collected the letter as if it was the most normal thing in the world.

She then looked taken aback, as if she'd just noticed the other ten ponies gathered outside of Fluttershy's cottage.

"Oh, sorry to interrupt," she said sheepishly, "but have any of you noticed that your pony parts are wrong?"

"Yes," Sunset said through teeth.

"Oh. Well, okay then! Bye!"

The mailpony flew away.

"Twilight," Sunset said.

"Yes?" Both Twilights said.

"Does this sort of thing happen to you a lot?" Sunset asked.

Human-Twilight started, "n-" but Pony-Twilight stated a firm, capital, "Yes."

"Oh," Human-Twilight said.

No-one said anything for a while.

Noticing the gap in conversation, Luna opined, "If the trickster speaks true, then our transanatomical affliction may be of natural, rational nature. I would consult the Royal Archives were I not quite famished."

Pony-Twilight nodded along, but everyone else gave the two of them the kind of look that indicated they had no idea what she had just said.

"Oh," Luna said, "Pardon me, I still have to practice my modern dialect. Ahem. If'n that ain't a load o' hogwash, we ken try the libary after we get some grub."

"Yeah, good idea," Sunset said, looking at her phone. "We're already late for our reservation, but could they really say no to two Princesses? Er, would that be three?"

"One," all present potential Princesses proposed. Then they all looked at each other with sour expressions.

Sunset sighed. "I guess we'll figure it out when we get there. Le Pâturage… We're not too far, actually. This way, I think?" She pointed vaguely in the direction of Ponyville. "Man, I wish there were satellites here."

Meanwhile, Applejack mumbled to Pinkie Pie, "Do I really sound like that?"

"Like what?"

"Like what Luna just said."

"Oh, that was her?" Pinkie Pie looked between Applejack and Luna.

"...Nevermind."

Chapter 4 — Dashie04

The ten creatures— seven of which were ex-humans— of poor portal experiences lined up outside the Prench restaurant.

They glanced among themselves. After a mild dissertation, the collective agreed to send Rainbow Dash in. Most other ponies and human ponies all had unusual protrusions that didn’t match the curtains or the drapes. The only other normal-looking one was Fluttershy.

So they sent Rainbow Dash in.

After a quick decision, Rainbow Dash marched in and walked up to the host. He sat lazily, twitching his upper lip— with it his mustache— almost subconsciously.

“Welcome to Le Pâturage,” he said, mumbling precisely as clearly as he wanted to.

“Uhh, reservation for one Twilight Sparkle?” Rainbow Dash asked, hopefully.

“Hmm, yes, yes, here we have reservations for… six as it appears. Is your party with you?”

Rainbow Dash quickly looked behind her, glancing at her motley crew of mismatched friends. “They’re here, yeah. Also we need a table for 10.”

The host quirked an eyebrow in a frankly insulting gesture. “Ma’am, you’ll have to file another reservation or wait for a table. If I could have a name—“

“Table for 10.”

“We’ll get that ready for you, give us 5 minutes.”

Rainbow Dash marched out. Unlike her pony counterpart, who would’ve gracelessly fallen on her face, she was not used to flying. So, her lack of wings bothered her slightly less.

“So… what’s the verdict?” The alicorn ex-human Sunset Shimmer.

“They’ll have it ready in about 5 minutes,” Rainbow Dash said. “Maybe if they saw a princess they would’ve let the reservation go up to 10. I’m pretty sure you’re pretty important here.”

The group sat around, they really didn’t bother to talk much because they knew they’d be called in soon enough.

Sure enough, they heard, “Table for 10!” called out loud in so short a timeframe that Rainbow Dash couldn’t even lie down.

“So… who’s going first.”

“Girls!” Twilight— human Twilight— called. “Just act natural and nobody will ask questions!” Her glasses almost seemed to droop in desperation.

“Are you… sure?” Fluttershy asked, covering her head with her hooves.

“Absolutely!” Twilight, again human, said.

“Come on Fluttershy, you’ll be fine.” Rainbow Dash glanced at her friends. “The others… they’ll be fine too!”

“Well, stop talkin’ and get goin’,” Applejack called, strutting in as if nothing was unusual. Her piercing white horn glittered in the sunlight as she walked in. She was followed by a bouncing Pinkie Pie, who was collecting rocks with her magic.

The now-pegasi came in after, Rarity showing off her cyan wings for everypony to see, while the human Twilight’s eyes examined the scene ever so suspiciously.

Among the last ponies to walk into the Prench restaurant were the princesses, Twilight, Luna, and now Sunset apparently.

“I can’t go in, what if they laugh at me?” Sunset moaned. “I’ve got two off-color things, including these frankly, over glamorous, wings.” She flapped hard, constellations dancing across her membranes as hunters and prey.

“My sincerest condolences. Thine cannot choose their wings, the wings choose them.” Luna cleared her throat and began speaking in an awful Appaloosian accent. “Ah mean, Ah didn’t choose my wings to be all fancy-schmancy.”

“You know, there’s other ‘modern dialects’ beyond Southern, right?” Princess Twilight added. “Regardless, we should be heading in now. We might be able to discuss this… trainwreck over some brie and wine.”

“Wasn’t Celestia supposed to be here too?” Spike added.

Everypony and Sunset Shimmer looked over at each other.

“Right. Spike you’re coming with me!” Twilight called, dashing into the restaurant, swiftly followed by every other princess, fake or otherwise.

Rainbow Dash was able to get Fluttershy off the ground and into the restaurant, and joined the rest of the group at the table. As expected, it was unceremoniously tossed together with a couple tables and spare chairs. They didn’t even bother to toss a tablecloth over it. Rainbow Dash would have to note this under the “alternate reality” section on Yelp.

“Bonjour, good mares,” the server said, in a mock-Prench accent. Clearly he didn’t see the mismatched parts, because he asked his next question completely stoically.

“Do we have any more coming?”

“One more,” Princess Twilight said, waving off Luna when she opened her mouth.

“Very well, can I get you all some waters to start off your meal?”

The table murmured in agreement. The server jotted it down in his notepad, and walked back to fulfill the request.

“So what do we do?” Twilight Sparkle, human, asked, a hint of panic clearly evident in her voice.

“I don’t know,” Princess Twilight said. “But we’ve got company!”

The table looked up, and through the door stepped a pony, regal in name, shining like the sun.

“My dearest sister arriveth,” Luna muttered.

Chapter 5 — Silver Needle

It was not every day that the Princess chose to honour a restaurant with her presence. Shocked whispers and gasps of awe flew around the room as she entered, accompanied by the sound of somepony dropping their cutlery in surprise. Foals craned their necks to stare, many older ponies did the same. For her part, Princess Celestia handled the attention with the poise and grace of a professional. She smiled at them as she drifted past, long enough for them to feel the genuine care she felt for her subjects, brief enough for them to understand that she had business to attend to, that she was not here for them. It was a skill she had practised for hundreds of years, a balancing act of compassion and profession that simultaneously drew ponies towards her while also setting herself out of their reach.

The effect was lost slightly when she caught sight of Luna and promptly tripped over a table leg.

“S-sister?” The royal crown came dangerously close to falling from its perch as Celestia reeled in shock. “What- what’s happened to your wings?”

“Mine wings are fine,” Luna stated, before giving a rather pointed look at Sunset. “They hath simply been… misplaced.”

Celestia for the first time seemed to notice the others gathered there. Her widening eyes drifted across the group of mismatched ponies, some comprehension dawning within as she reached both of the Twilight Sparkles.

“I think,” she said, taking a deep breath, “That you had better start from the beginning.”

The two Twilights started to talk together, explaining to the princess what had happened with the portal mishap, resulting in the mixed-up ponies currently sitting before her. Every now and then, Sunset and Luna would chime in with an addition, resulting in a chronologically upended explanation which made less and less sense the more was said. Luckily the Princess seemed to be able to follow the general gist of it.

“Well, I’m sorry that I can’t offer any immediate help but I’m afraid I’ve never encountered anything like this,” The monarch confessed, as she tended to a slice of cake. “The situation is unprecedented to say the least. The mirror connecting our two worlds is a very powerful magical artefact as you well know, and although I had no hoof in its design, Starswirl assured me that above all else, it was built to be stable.”

The wingless Rainbow Dash snickered at this, whispering something about a ‘horse pun’ to the purple-horned Pinkie Pie next to her. One of the Twilights rolled her eyes.

“What do you mean by that, Princess?” the other Twilight asked.

“The safety of those who looked into the mirror, and those who travelled through it, was always the priority during its design. Starswirl wouldn’t let anypony else touch it until he was absolutely certain it was perfectly secure. Not even me.”

“I remember that,” Luna snorted. “He denied me access no matter how much I asked.”

“Suffice to say,” Celestia concluded, “Your current… state cannot be attributed to any simple fault with the magical workings of the portal. Some other force is at play here. Something more sinister than an inconvenient mishap. Though I hate to raise the suggestion after all of the improvements he has shown of late, Discord-”

“Ah, I was just about to get to that,” the wingless Twilight interrupted. “That was our first thought too, actually. It seemed enough like his hoofdiwork that it was worth a shot. But when we asked, he said that it had nothing to do with him. He couldn’t even fix our mixed up parts when he tried.”

“Is it really all that bad anyway?” Rarity asked, flexing her cyan wings experimentally. “Of course, we all look a little out of place, but it’s nothing that couldn’t be hidden with a brief shopping trip to purchase a small cloak or hat. If I’m completely honest, I feel like I could do with more clothes in general actually.”

The rest of the human-turned-ponies made murmuring noises of assent, but the princess frowned and shook her head, sending ripples through her flowing mane.

“Though I may not have any prior experience with your current condition, It is certainly not a matter which we can afford to hesitate on. The swapping of horns and wings is more worrisome than it initially appears. As anyone who has studied the transplanting of equimagical superanatomy would know-”

“Oh feathers,” Pony-Twilight said, turning pale. “Magical nerve fusion.”

“Precisely,” Celestia gravely replied. “Your time is limited, if you ever wish to return to normal.”

There was a moment of silence.

“And for those few of us who haven’t happened to have studied… magical anatomy?” Rarity asked.

“Oh, yes, sorry.” Pony-Twilight had the decency to look embarrassed. “Um… simply put, unless we do something about our situation very soon, then the magic in each of our respective pony-parts is going to become entangled with the magic in the body of the pony they’re on.”

“And that’s… a bad thing?” Applejack asked, cocking her head. A few sparks flew from her white horn.

“Yes. That’s a very bad thing.” Twilight bit her lip. “At best, we all become permanently stuck like this. At worst… violent internal magical rejection.”

Luna and Celestia winced. The rest of the assembled group decided it would be better not to ask for further elaboration.

“Well this is just great,” Sunset groaned, her recently acquired large dusky wings flapping in distress. “We still have zero leads on how we got like this, and now there’s a time limit we have to worry about too?”

“I am truly sorry.” Princess Celestia bowed her head. “But as I said before, this situation is unlike any I have seen before.”

She got to her hooves. “I will search the royal archives myself. The journey is too long, and your time too short for all of you to accompany me.”

“W-wait, so what are we all meant to do then?” the yellow winged Twilight asked. “We’ve got nothing to go on regarding the cause of our current morphological-mixup, but you surely can’t expect us to just sit around and wait?”

“No, that would be a poor use of time.” Princess Celestia was already halfway to the door, but she turned to give them some final words. “It is not out of the question that your condition can be fixed in a different manner to that by which it was caused. While traditional magic certainly holds no answers as far as I am aware, there exist other avenues that you could pursue. The more medicinal side of magic was always more studied by the zebra than our own healers. I seem to recall you mentioning a zebra who resided in the local area in one of your earlier letters, Twilight? Perhaps it would be worth a visit.”

And then she was off.

Rainbow sighed in relief. “I still can’t get over how she sounds exactly like the Principal but looks like a swan.”

“To seek out the aid of a zebra…” Luna mused. “Not a bad idea, certainly. And yet… I cannot shake the idea that chaos magic was involved somehow.”

She turned to look at Fluttershy, who shrank under the attention. “Do you believe that Discord was telling the truth?”

“Uh-um. I’ve… I’ve never seen him before, Miss. I mean- ah- y-your majesty, um. Princess.”

“Regardless, I would welcome your opinion. Though you may not be the Fluttershy of our world, I have no doubt that you share her insight when it comes to seeing directly to the heart of chaos.”

“T-thank you?” Fluttershy would have been hiding behind her wings had she possessed them. As it was, she had to settle for sinking further under the table. “He didn’t… look like he was lying? I-in fact, he seemed more scared than anything else. Um, in my opinion, at least.”

“Discord, scared?” Luna’s brow furrowed, deep in thought. “That old goat isn’t truly scared of anything. He sees life as a joke, and its inhabitants as passing amusements.”

“He was a weird one, that’s for sure.” Rainbow Dash shivered. “Never seen anything like him before. If he’s all chaos-y, maybe he’s afraid of science? I know I am. I mean, with the results I got last midterm-”

“Rainbow, no one could be afraid of science,” the glasses-wearing Twilight scoffed. “Or if they are, they just don’t understand how wonderful it truly is-”

Luna suddenly wheeled on Rainbow, making everypony jump, and sending the blue pegasus under the table to join Fluttershy in hiding.

“What was it thou just said?!”

“Um.” Came the reply from beneath them. “My midterm results?”

“No, before that.”

“Oh er…” Rainbow’s head poked out. “That Discord dude was well freaky. And that… I’d never seen something like that before?”

“Never?” Luna echoed. She turned to look at the assembled group of human-turned-ponies. “Forgive me, my familiarity with thy realm is few and far between, but I was under the impression that for everypony on this side of the mirror, there was a counterpart on the other?”

Sunset piped up. “That’s the case from what I’ve seen.”

“And yet you have never once seen a single soul who even resembles Discord?”

Silence fell on the group, wordlessly answering her question.

“He’s scared of nothing…” Twilight whispered.

“So what could ever truly frighten him, save for himself?” Luna finished.

Author's Note

Included below by author request are Silver's meticulous notes taken while putting this chapter together:

Chapter 6 — EileenSaysHi

Wallflower Blush twiddled her thumbs.

She glanced back over at her phone, the same way she had five other times in the last minute. Shockingly, it still hadn’t lit up. She picked it up and gave it a tap. No new notification.

What was Sunset doing?

She’d known Sunset and her friends were going to be “out of town” for part of the day – the clever little euphemism she used to avoid the eternal weirdness that surrounded the fact that she was actually a horse alien from another dimension full of magic horse aliens and that she was ever-more-frequently going back to that special dimension of horses. You don’t have to dwell on all those things when you just say “out of town” instead.

Wallflower certainly wasn’t jealous that Sunset hadn’t taken her out of town. Not at all. Even though they were supposed to be dating and yet it seemed like Sunset constantly treated her old friends as more special than her…

She realized she was still holding her phone and gave it another tap. Still nothing.

Sunset had said she’d be back this evening. And sure, there was an argument to be had over exactly what hours constitute evening, but as the last light through the window began to fade, Wallflower felt pretty sure Sunset would be stretching the definition by the time she showed up.

If she showed up.

If she even remembered…

Wallflower gave herself a slap on the cheek. Stop it. Stop thinking like that. Stop thinking of her like that. Don’t be who you were.

Sometimes Wallflower forgot how lucky she was that Sunset was still willing to even look her in the eye, never mind have a relationship with her. And then she remembered, and that brought back all the pain anew.

Still, this was a little weird for Sunset. Especially if Twilight had gone with her. Twilight was about as punctual a person as you could get, and more than once Sunset had admitted she’d had Twilight to thank for reminding her of an outing that might otherwise have slipped her mind. So it didn’t seem likely that both of them would forget when they’d intended to be back. She supposed maybe Magic Ponyland might have had a confusing time zone difference, but then again, Twilight at least would almost certainly account for that.

That raised another, much more alarming possibility – something had happened.

Considering all the wild things that had happened in all the years since that one Fall Formal, it wasn’t out of the question that Sunset and her friends had gotten into some kind of trouble. And while Sunset didn’t talk too much about Magic Ponyland – presumably out of fear of making Wallflower uncomfortable about her relationship technically being interspecies – she’d heard and seen enough to know it wasn’t all sunshine and castles and friendship over there.

(She had a small bud of a carnivorous plant she’d collected amid the chaos of the Tri-Cross Relay to prove it.)

The anxiety was quickly mounting, eating away at Wallflower’s mind, and before she knew a plan had been hatched. If Sunset wasn’t coming back, then she’d have to go find her. She had to at least try. Sunset would do it for her, right? She didn’t know if anyone else would even think to peek through the portal. But she’d do it, because she was Wallflower Blush, and she wasn’t scared anymore. She wasn’t frightened, or bitter, or angry, or hiding. No, she could be brave and strong and daring just like Sunset and her friends, right?

Right?

She could ponder that question later. She had to get over to campus.

Standing before the statueless pedestal that hosted a portal to Magic Ponyland, Wallflower steeled herself.

She’d never heard Sunset and her friends complain about any pain from traveling between dimensions. Her classmates who’d been on that one cruise talked a lot about how surreal and brain-breaking the experience of tromping through another world in horse bodies was, but not anything suggesting pain. So hopefully it’d be an easy trip.

Recalling her classmates brought up another thing her adrenaline had kept her from considering up until then – changing bodies. She knew everyone who went through turned into a pony on the other side. Except the pony world’s Twilight’s version of her dog, who apparently became – a dragon, or something? But Wallflower wasn’t a dog, so pony it was. She couldn’t remember the precise types of ponies offhand – Sunset she knew was a unicorn, so she figured that might be nice to be.

Thinking about dragons sent her mind wandering off to Ray, Sunset’s pet gecko. Should she check to make sure he’s okay?

No, stay focused, Wallflower thought. I’ve got to at least look for Sunset and her friends. If I can’t get some kind of lead quickly, I’ll go back so I don’t get lost there. But I can at least do the bare minimum.

Wallflower took a deep breath, then plunged her head in, the rest of her body quickly being sucked through.

She was in a deep, twisting spiral, swirling around and around as though she were in a whirlpool, but yet there was no water beneath her, and she was falling, falling, into an endless eternity of–

And then there was a surface, and she was staring, dazed, up at a high ceiling.

Blinking, she tilted her head side to side. She was sprawled on the ground, but at the moment, her surroundings had taken priority over her body in commanding her attention. Where was she? She hadn’t really thought much about what exactly would be at her exit point, but… a library?

It certainly seemed that way. The large, circular room was made up almost entirely of bookshelves, stretching all the way up to the tall ceiling. Certainly not a typical place for a transportation hub, though she supposed one anchored to a partially demolished school monument was equally odd. Speaking of which, her eyes gradually lowered to a large contraption in the middle of the room; that must have been what she’d tumbled out of.

In the center of it was what looked like a mirror. Convenient, she thought. At least I won’t have to wonder what I look like.

Wallflower rolled over, immediately noticing the oddness of her form, but holding off on inspecting herself until she could reach the mirror. She stood – on two legs – and stepped awkwardly towards it, feeling something dragging behind her, and noticing after a moment that she was about the height of the mirror. Craning herself forward, she looked, and was astonished.

Her body was long and serpentine, with three distinct shades to it; a black, scaly tail, a sleek tan-furred midsection, and a fluffy green face. Her limbs were nonsensical; the two she was standing on bore a hoof and claws respectively, her left forelimb had fingers bearing talons, and her right forelimb had a paw. She also seemed to have wings, though they were also mismatched. Her face looked positively draconic, and yet her horns – wait, was one of them an antler? – looked mammalian.

“Huh.” She briefly scratched her chin with the left forelimb, then lowered her arm, only to then notice her chin was still being scratched by an appendage that had detached itself from the rest of the limb without her even feeling the separation.

After a moment, she rolled her eyes.

“Of course I get to be a really fucked-up pony. Great.”

Meanwhile, in a dimension that lay outside all laws of pony and nature alike, another draconequus spat out his tea, far more than he had sipped. His eyebrows furrowed.

“So it was a sign,” he muttered. “It’s happened. It’s finally happened.”

Chapter 7 — AltruistArtist

The atmosphere within Zecora’s hut was a salve to the roiling chaos of the day. Layered, earthy scents were in the air, eucalyptus and shea. A burbling cauldron occupied the center of the room and Luna stood beside it, ears turned to its gentle sound, attempting to draw peace into her prickling nerves.

It was a difficult feat when the murmuring from six human–turned–ponies crowded behind her. They may have shared the faces of the Element Bearers, but their youthfulness was evident in their distractibility. Zecora’s shelves were lined with all manner of entrancing artifacts and colorful glass jars to gawk at — and rifle through. An abrupt ceramic clatter rang out, followed by a distinct yelp from Rainbow Dash. For the third time since arriving, Luna held out a foreleg to deflect Pinkie Pie’s questing hoof from reaching the green bubbles rising from the cauldron.

Zecora remained focused on the developing emergency, a credit to her grace under pressure. “Lift your borrowed wing, friend of my friend. To your plight, I will attempt to tend.”

Glancing over her withers, Sunset extended one of the night-dark alicorn wings holding residence on her body. Zecora brought a hoof to its underside, her pendulous gold earring swinging with the lowering of her muzzle. With narrowed eyes, she traced the feathers down to the joining place where they disappeared under the golden hairs of Sunset’s coat.

The hide over Luna’s withers jerked. A phantom itch. It had twinged each time Sunset unfurled those unowned wings, but the sensation dulled with each passing minute, the connection waning. Luna’s silver-shod hoof scraped at the packed earth of the hut floor.

Twilight – the Twilight she knew – was pacing beside Zecora. At her brow, the golden horn formerly belonging to Sunset was restless, flickering with a lurid red field. “Princess Celestia believes your skills in medicinal magic might be able to help us. She’s searching the royal archives for answers, but who knows if they’ll provide anything substantial. According to her, this sort of morphological switching of tribe characteristics is unprecedented!”

Sunset raised her chin and stressed, “More than anything, we need time, Zecora.” She smiled, tight-lipped. “It is Zecora, right?”

The zebra gave a pleasant nod, moving to assess the wing at Sunset’s left. Again, Luna’s shoulder flinched.

“If not for the dire fate of which you spoke, I might have guessed you’d been beset by the tricks of poison joke.” Zecora stepped back, addressing her visitors as a whole. “So through a portal you all did tread, only for wings to switch bodies and horns to appear on another’s head. And if this magical swap is not something you can undo, your new parts will soon be forced out of you?”

Fluttershy whimpered, and Rainbow Dash exclaimed, “You don’t have to say it like that!” Errant pink sparks sprayed from her horn, the same shade of lavender as the one above Luna’s own brow. It was impossible to identify which of the two Twilights they belonged to, or whether that distinction would matter if a solution went undiscovered.

“Was it any better when Twilight called it ‘violent internal magical rejection?’” Applejack asked. Her eyes tilted upward as she prodded Rarity’s porcelain white horn sprouting from under her mane. “No matter how it’s said, it’s bad news for us if we don’t get this sorted out in a hurry.”

Twilight nodded, her teeth chattering with a distraught laugh. “There’s also the possibility our parts might fuse. Permanently. I can’t begin to imagine what it would mean for us, much less them.” She raised a hoof to gesture at the group of six huddled behind Luna. “What might happen if they get stuck this way and return to bodies that don’t possess wings or horns?”

“If, that is, we can return,” Sunset said. Luna’s wings were slack at her sides.

Twilight’s new golden horn resumed its flashing. “The portal between our worlds is what caused this swap. Our working theory is that chaos magic is involved somehow, if that gives you anything to go by.” Drawing a shuddery breath, she beseeched, “What do you think, Zecora? Is there something, anything…?”

Zecora nodded, a dogged squint in her eye. “I may be able to prepare a palliative brew. Rest assured, Twilight Sparkle, I will not allow harm to come to you.”

As though seized by sudden bravery, the bespectacled Twilight trotted forward. Chin jerking upward, she unfurled her twitchy yellow wings, formerly owned by Fluttershy. She rubbed her foreleg and said, “If you need help, I can lend a hand — er, you know what I mean. I’m well-versed in chemistry!”

Zecora smiled. “Your offer of help is appreciated, Twilight’s double. Let us make haste and get your friends out of trouble.”

As a mortar and pestle were retrieved and herbs gathered for grinding, Luna crossed the floor to Sunset and Twilight. “While the remedy is prepared, we ought to revisit the possibility of the other world’s Discord bearing responsibility for our predicament.” Her gaze swept them. “You both would be most adept at recognizing the counterpart of an Equestrian native. In either of your time there, had you seen somepony – someone – who reflected his peculiar anatomy? Or if failing that, a being who embodied his roguish demeanor?”

Both of them shook their heads.

“Without Equestrian magic, his draconequus-ness wouldn’t exactly be present,” Sunset said. “He’d look like a normal man. Well, I guess as normal as a man sharing Discord’s likeness could look.” She forced a chuckle, though her eyes were downcast. Her broad alicorn wings extended, the primaries curling, as if it brought her discomfort to feel their touch skimming her sides.

Twilight brought a hoof to her shoulder. “Sunset, what are you thinking? You’ve been restless since we got here.”

Sunset gave her a wry smile, rocking back to sit in the dirt of the hut floor. “Aren’t we all, given the circumstances?”

Another knocking of glass jars came from the shelf nearest to the door. Rainbow and Pinkie were on their hind legs, inspecting a row of bottles filled with shimmery liquid, whispering to one another. Twilight’s wings fluttered on Pinkie's back.

Luna’s ear flicked. “Not that it would seem.”

Twilight sighed. “I’m just glad they can find something to distract themselves with for now. I can’t imagine I’d be able to keep them calm while I’m already trying to figure this all out.” She breathed deep and let out a measured exhale, touching her chest and extending her foreleg.

Luna’s stiff posture softened. “Have faith in your brilliant mind, Twilight Sparkle. Just as you have faith in Zecora.” Her manner grew gentler, crouching to meet the eyes of both mares before her — mares who, in spite of their great accomplishments, were young, and afraid.

“Sunset,” she said in the tones she used as a dream visitor, the one place her subjects could look to her not as a figure of royalty, but as a bastion of comfort, “what troubles you, truly?”

Luna’s wings flexed through another anxious curl above Sunset’s shoulders. Albeit still tense, Twilight moved to sit beside her. Unable to wrap a wing around her, her tail swept over the dusty floor to rest upon Sunset’s own.

“It’s Wallflower,” Sunset admitted. Her eyes closed; a crease rose above her snout. “If something… irreversible happens. And I can’t go back. She’ll think I abandoned her.”

Twilight was shaking her head. “From all you’ve told me about her, Wallflower’s grown so much. She wouldn’t believe that, not of you. If you were just… gone, she would know something was wrong.”

Sunset shifted, brows furrowed. The short curl of her forelock appeared wilted over the absent space where her horn should have been. “You’re right, she has grown. A lot.” She smiled, staring at the floor. “She knows I wouldn’t leave her to just spend the rest of my life in Equestria, or “out of town” as we’ve taken to calling it. But I’m sure she’s been worried, waiting for me to message her for the past few hours.” Blinking, she jerked upright. “Wait, Twilight — the journal!”

Twilight’s borrowed horn glowed red, as though spurred by the turbulence of her thoughts. “Does she know about it?”

Sunset smiled again, more earnest this time. “Yeah, she does. She actually caught me writing in it a while back and I had to explain myself. The funny thing was, I was writing about her.”

Twilight’s expression was awash with sentiment. “I remember those letters.”

Appearing renewed, she stood, addressing Luna. “As soon as Zecora is finished with her cure, we need to head to my castle. Sunset’s girlfriend is still in the other world. We can send her a message, describe the situation, and we can ask if she’s ever seen someone who matches Discord’s description.”

“I can’t predict how long it might be until she checks it,” Sunset admitted. “But if we’re stuck here for much longer, she’ll start trying to piece things together.” A pause. “I hope.”

Luna was nodding, equally inspired. “For now,” she said, “it’s what we have. And that is preferable to nothing.”

A ‘stabilizing salve’ is what Zecora called the bitter-smelling poultice she smeared across each of their borrowed parts. It was chilly on Luna’s forehead, and drew vexing insects as she and her companions made their short trek through the Everfree, but it had eased the unnerving sensations. Beside her, Sunset walked with an even stride, her dark wings tucked in a natural position of rest. Luna no longer felt an ache in her withers, but this absence comforted rather than terrified her. Zecora’s remedy was at work and for now their bodies would accept their new appendages, neither absorbing nor rejecting them.

“Twilight, dear?” Rarity said. “Once we reach your castle, would you happen to have any outfits you’d be willing to lend us? The girls and I are still a little uneasy at the idea of walking around… au naturel.” The feathers of her cyan wings were ruffled, swept modestly over her flanks.

“Of course,” Twilight replied. “Though, I apologize in advance if my wardrobe is a little plain for your tastes.”

They shared a giggle, their conversation fading into the background hum of the Everfree. Luna’s ears swiveled, alert at the head of their group. Her magical perception may have been blunted, but her corporeal senses were not.

Something was rustling the bushes. It was coming near.

“Halt!” Luna commanded, extending a foreleg to the rest of the group.

Ahead, on the distant shadowed path, a body lurched into view. Moving with an ungainly coil over the grass, the beast rose into a hunch, its posture like a curved talon. It was difficult to make out its colors under the foggy air of the Everfree. But it was horned and serpentine and possessing what appeared to be a disparate assortment of limbs.

Luna was grateful it hadn’t turned to look at them. If she wasn’t mistaken, it was staring at the plants.

Chapter 8 — The Red Parade

Wallflower had never seen a plant like this one before.

It looked like a cross between a common daisy and a vine, complete with prickly thorns that jabbed at her hand (no, claw?) while still having a strange fuzz around it that was slick with dewdrops. She cradled it carefully between two fingers (talons?) and felt a strange, pulsing sensation. Was this magic? The very thing that Sunset had told her so much about? Wallflower wasn’t certain, but she could venture a guess that this “magic” was likely responsible for her current form.

The forest around her was strange and exciting. It vaguely reminded her of the National Parks back in her home dimension, but with its own unique intricacies. It was beautiful nonetheless. How had Sunset never told her that something like this existed here?

As Wallflower straightened herself up (the best she could at any rate) she glanced around her. The library was somewhere in the distance behind her, but Wallflower frankly hadn’t done the greatest job of keeping track of which direction she had gone. “Great… Did you manage to get yourself lost again?” she muttered.

“You!”

Wallflower yelped as a booming voice thundered from behind her. “I didn’t park in the staff lot!” she blurted.

“Discord! Explain your presence!” commanded an unmistakable voice. The mare who shouted was tall, and had her wings spread open in a defensive stance.

“V-Vice Principal Luna? I–”

The horse version of Vice Principal Luna growled and took a step closer. Wallflower couldn’t help but stare at the strange cream-like substance that was rubbed across her forehead. “Explain.”

“Make this easy on yourself,” came another, more familiar voice from behind the winged horse.

Wallflower immediately relaxed. “Sunset, it’s me!”

“I can see that,” said an orange and red pony that had to have been Sunset. “But that doesn’t explain what you’re doing here.”

“W-What? I came looking for you!”

A cyan pony that Wallflower assumed to be Rainbow darted in front of her, leveling her purple horn in Wallflower’s direction. “Well you’ll have to get through us to get her, buddy!”

“No! I don’t want to fight you!” Wallflower whimpered. “This… This is all just a misunderstanding, I swear.”

“Something’s wrong,” declared one of two identical looking purple horses. “Discord, why are you here?” she asked sincerely.

Wallflower groaned, trying to cover her face as if that would help matters. “I’m not Discord! I don’t even know what that is! Sunset, it’s me!”

Sunset gasped. “Wait… Wallflower?”

“Yes!” cried Wallflower, exasperated. “It’s me, Sunny!’

Luna narrowed her eyebrows. “Sunset, explain at once.”

“Wallflower, what are you doing here?”

“I… I got worried, so I followed you through the portal,” Wallflower said, tapping her talons together nervously.

“Why do you look like… that?” asked Rainbow, earning a swift smack from a white mare that was likely Rarity.

“I don’t know! I thought I was going to be a horse or something.”

The other Twilight frowned. “This isn’t good…”

“So does this mean that Discord in the human-universe-whatever is… Wallflower?” asked a mare in a hat that in all likelihood was Applejack.

“Um… I don’t really see the resemblance,” Fluttershy offered.

“She can’t be,” Sunset protested. “It just… It doesn’t make any sense!”

“And that, my dear creatures, is precisely the problem.”

Wallflower jumped as a low voice echoed around them. Where did all that fog come from?

The ponies in front of her all flinched, and Luna narrowed her eyes further. “Reveal thyself!”

A pair of glowing red eyes manifested above them.

“...Okay, I think that’s Discord.”

“Truly paradoxical, isn’t it? For a face to appear again. But not like a changeling, no, no, no. Tell me… What do you think gives you the right to bear that face?”

Wallflower yelped. “I didn’t ask for any of this!”

“It doesn’t matter what you asked for. What does matter is what you have set in motion. The universe is a carefully calibrated balance of things. My very presence is designed to upset that balance, but our dear Galactic Mother is a stubborn one. But with two of us… The balance changes.”

Around them, Wallflower suddenly noticed that the forest around them was… tearing? At the edges of her visions, the dirt and leaves seemed to vibrate slightly, their colors fading and blurring and changing rapidly. The sound of distant birds was becoming distorted, and varying in pitch.

“Something’s wrong,” one of the Twilights said urgently. “Discord, what’s going on?!”

“Imbalance,” Discord answered. “A world tearing itself apart at its seams. Reality collapsing on itself, over and over. It’s just a little bit of chaos, I hear you saying. What’s the problem with that? Even a little too much salt changes the flavor of your soup. A little too much madness will drive anyone insane.”

The eyes narrowed into a glare directed at Wallflower.

“And you. You are a little too much of anything, whether you ‘meant it’ or not. Tell me… Do you know what happens when a fever dreamer dies?”

The eyes widened, and suddenly swallowed the entire world whole.

“Sunset?”

Sunset felt like she was swimming in a pool of molasses. Her vision had gone completely red when the eyes opened up, and now she couldn’t see anything. “Twilight?”

“Sunset, over here!” someone shouted. Something or someone ran into her side, and she nearly fell over. She rubbed her eyes with a hoof and slowly, her vision began to return.

She saw that they were no longer in the forest… At least, not exactly. The world around them was a chaotic landscape of buildings, trees, hills, cobblestone, and a river all mashed together. Branches extended out of skyscraper windows. A cloud made up the roof of a nearby hut. A couple of confused squirrels darted besides an oversized cart.

“Where are we?”

“I… I don’t know,” Twilight answered. “But this is…”

A group of ponies darted past them. The first was dressed in some kind of formal gown while the second was wearing what looked like ancient battle armor. As Sunset continued to examine their surroundings, she saw more ponies, all wearing a variety of accessories.

A red-maned pegasus in a windbreaker and a ballcap with three letters printed on it pushed past her. “No!” she shouted into a small black box she was carrying. “This is a full-scale reality collapse. I repeat, a full-scale reality collapse! I need–”

“Look! Up there!”

Above them, against the blood-red sky, Sunset’s eyes widened as she saw two draconequus-esque forms lunging at one another above them. “Wallflower!”

“Steel thyself!” Luna grabbed Sunset from behind before she could run off. “We must form a plan!”

Behind her, the rest of the girls had assembled, worriedly staring up at the two battling forms above them. But a sinking feeling quickly formed in Sunset’s stomach when she realized what was wrong.

There were no horns nor wings to be seen on any of them.

Chapter 9 — Fillyfoolish

“No, no, no, this is bad.” Sunset muttered to herself, her breathing rapid, pacing around the assembled group. Her human friends-turned-ponies took turns with varying expressions of concern and horror looking between the panicked, hornless Sunset and the chaos landscape formerly known as Ponyville. Meanwhile, the hornless, wingless Twilight and Luna looked at each other. Perhaps they were trading complex nonverbal plans intelligible only to alicorns. Perhaps they were sharing in the same helplessness as the rest of the group, hurt harder by the loss of their magical appendages than the guests who sported them only for the brief window since crossing over the portal.

Whatever they were thinking, Sunset paid little attention. “No, she doesn’t have any experience with this, no, this is all my fault. Stupid Sunset, stupid Sunset.”

Pinkie Pie, taking the chaos in stride, interrupted Sunset’s pacing with a boop on the snout. “You’re not stupid, Sunny Bunny. You’re smarter than I’m not!”

Sunset blinked. “What?”

“What?” Pinkie repeated, a blank smile shining through her lips, radiating enough warmth to poke through Sunset’s muzzle.

“I’m sorry.” Sunset looked at the sky, taking note of two warring draconequus forms: one Lord of Chaos and one wandering monkey gardener. “We just need to come up with a plan to save Wallflower from the chaos she unleashed.”

“And undo all the world imbalance-y things and get the ponies their wings and horns back and get us back home?”

“Yeah, that too,” Sunset said. “But also Wallflower.”

“Sure.” Pinkie bounced as punctuation. “Also Wally.”

Princess Luna cleared her throat. “Indeed. We usually rely on alicorn magic, but with no horn, we are afraid our powers are limited.”

Princess Twilight raised her hoof. “Technically, you don’t need a horn to cast spells. The horn is the conduit for the magic, but I don’t think all the chaos magic and body part swapping has cut off our mana reserves. Haycartes showed that an improvised external conduit suffices for spell casting, although as I personally learned during the Storm King’s invasion, such imperfect conduits have… trade-offs…”

Twilight’s double scrunched up her muzzle. “I don’t think that’s necessary.”

Luna pursed her lips. “Explain.”

The foreign Twilight tapped her hoof against the ground in an idle rhythm. “Back in our world, we don’t have horns, but we can wield magic.”

Sunset shook her head. “Nope, there’s always conduits. Haycartes’s Law.” A beat. “Signed in centuries ago by Princess Celestia.” Luna opened her mouth to object, but before she got a chance, Sunset peeped out, “Kidding. But take the Friendship Games, for example. Your pendant was the conduit before you gained a horn. Since Camp Everfree, you’ve used your geode as a conduit.”

“I guess…” Twilight trailed off, clearly unconvinced.

Her princess counterpart jumped in. “Suppose we had a suitable conduit. How would that help? There’s no conventional magic capable of vanquishing…” She gesticulated her hooves in wide circles. “This.”

“Mm.” Luna hesitated. “When my sister and I fought chaos, we wielded the Elements of Harmony. Sunset, your friends here are the counterparts of our Element Bearers, and we understand you share that role in your land? Perhaps we can retrieve the Elements and then you six can bear the Elements here, in this world.”

“You mean, try to trick an all-powerful magic artefact into thinking we’re somebody we ain’t?” Applejack shook her head. “Ah won’t pretend to understand this here problem, but Ah doubt that lying’s the solution.”

Sunset resumed pacing. “I don’t think we need the Elements. We just need each other, our love. Assuming there’s still enough balance left for this world to be receptive to harmony magic. And assuming our love operates on the same rules in Equestria as it does back home.” She abruptly halted, finding herself next to Pinkie Pie. “Eh, one way to find out,” she muttered as she yanked Pinkie’s muzzle towards her own and planted a sloppy kiss on her friends’ lips.

Pinkie giggled in reply. “You’re cute when you do that, Sunny Bunny.”

Princess Twilight looked like she was ready to explode. “Sunset, you have a girlfriend! A girlfriend who is not Pinkie Pie.”

Sunset darted her eyes. “Yeah, and?” She pecked Fluttershy’s nearby cheek, who smiled softly in return. “I’m doing this for her.”

This answer did not appease Twilight. “What the hay are you on about?”

Sunset didn’t respond, instead trotting over to Twilight’s double and exchanging a happy kiss. Both Twilights’ cheeks burned up in the aftermath, for unrelated reasons.

“Sunset!” The princess exclaimed.

Sunset and the counterpart Twilight pressed up against each other. “In Equestria, the Elements of Harmony are powered by friendship.”

A nod. “Friendship is magic in every world.”

“Ah, not quite.” Sunset raised a forehoof. “Equestria’s magic is based on friendship. Gaia’s magic is based on love. The girls and I figured this out a few monster attacks ago.” Sunset flushed as red as her mane. “Strictly, we figured it out the morning after the monster attack.”

Princess Twilight rolled her eyes. “Riiight. What about when I wielded the Elements with them during the Fall Formal? That was just friendship.”

Rarity snorted in a most unladylike manner.

“What?”

“Darling, do you truly believe your feelings for us were exclusively platonic?”

Twilight furled her brow at the implied accusation. “Of course. I knew you for less than three days.”

“Uh-huh,” Rarity replied in a sing-song tease. “And you don’t think we reminded you of any other mares back at home?”

Twilight hesitated before she relented. “I see your point.”

Sunset continued her explanation. “Usually, there’s enough latent magic that we just need some good old-fashioned gay hand-holding to ignite the harmony magic.”

“Gay hand-holding?”

“Yeah, kudos for figuring that one, Twi.” Sunset wanted to flash Twilight finger guns, but found she could only raise her hoof awkwardly. “You really saved our tails during the Battle of the Bands thanks to that bit of sapphism.” She clicked her tongue. “It’s good we had that ‘slumber party’.”

Twilight tilted her head with a slight frown. “Sunset, I’m sorry, but I don’t have feelings for you.”

“Sure you don’t.” Sunset gave a hearty, self-assured laugh. “Three defeated sirens disagree.”

Twilight darted her eyes anywhere but Sunset’s. “Anyway. If hand-holding is enough, why are you kissing all your friends?”

“For starters…” Sunset raised her hoof and wiggled it around, drawing attention to her lack of a hand. “Hand-holding doesn’t work here. Usually, our magic uses our world’s latent love magic to ignite. With the differing friendship magic in Equestria, we need somewhat cruder methods to start the chain reaction.”

The human Twilight’s eyes popped open with intellectual wrath. “Like starting a car with jumper cables.”

“Sure.” Sunset nuzzled her.

“Or lighting a gas stove with a match,” Twilight added.

“Hot.” Sunset smirked as her world’s Twilight squirmed in realization of their double meaning.

Rarity cleared her throat. “I think we all know what we must do.” She turned towards Applejack and locked eyes. “Dearest, I love you so much.” The pair kissed.

Fluttershy wandered up towards Rarity. “Um, I know I’m not dating like you two, but… um…” She trailed off into incomprehensible squeaking.

Rarity batted her eyelashes. “Yes?”

Fluttershy closed her eyes and forced out a rapid explanation. “I’ve kinda maybe had a huge crush on you for years and wouldn’t mind kissing you if it would help save the universe?”

Rarity turned to Applejack with an inquisitive eyebrow raise. Applejack tilted her head down and grabbed her Stetson. “Don’t let me stop you, Rares.”

“Very well.” Rarity approached Fluttershy and awkwardly they too shared a kiss.

“I’m here too!” Rainbow Dash shouted.

Applejack snorted. “Ah should hope so,” she whispered as she kissed Rainbow, while Rarity watched her girlfriend with a sultry grin.

Suddenly Princess Twilight and Princess Luna jolted up. “We sense a change,” Luna remarked.

“In the chaos magic?” Twilight ventured.

“We don’t think so,” Luna replied. “In our visitors.”

Sunset beamed. “I think that means we’re charged up. I didn’t know alicorns could sense that, neat.” She gathered the group in a straight line, hoof-to-hoof. “Pinkie, the honours?”

Pinkie Pie sprinted across the line kissing lip-to-lip each of her six friends in quick succession before appending herself to the lesbian linked list. “Light ’er up!”

Apparently, this satisfied their magic, as the seven humans-turned-mares radiated a brilliant glow before disappearing into a flash of white light, leaving the Equestrian natives behind.

“Twilight?”

“Yes, Luna?”

“We do not understand humans at all.”

Chapter 10 — Bicyclette

“You know, I think the worst part is the unimaginitiveness of it,“ Discord groused, as he watched himself and the human-turned-draconequus duel each other in the air above Ponyville. “I honestly expected better from her. I mean, really, flying around and shooting magic beams at each other? Is that what a battle between two chaos deities is supposed to look like? What am I, a Marvel movie villain?”

“A what?” said the red-maned pegasus in a half-distracted tone. Her focus was on the two-key keyboard that she was prodding with her wingtips, as the hologram projected by the crystal disk in front of her continued to fluctuate, displaying in miniature the scene that was happening in the nonsensical reality-warped Ponyville in front of them.

“You wouldn’t get it. But trust me, it was a good one! Very topical and funny!”

Discord laughed at the reminiscence of his own joke, to no response. Then, he sighed.

“But, no. The real worst part is how unappreciated the true artform is! I mean, that last line I said to her in the Everfree, I came up with that one on the spot, you know!”

He cleared his throat, narrowed his eyes to a glare, then suffused his voice with all the dark menace that he could muster.

“Tell me… Do you know what happens when a fever dreamer dies?”

He laughed again, suddenly back to his irreverent tone.

“I mean, that is just good!”

Instead of being impressed, the pegasus didn’t say anything, as she focused on the running annotated transcript of the conversation between Sunset and her friends. Neither did the blue-coated unicorn stallion sitting next to her, silently tapping on his own keyboard. The cream-colored earth mare next to him, however, didn’t have a keyboard. Just a ushanka covering her blonde mane, a giant crystalline gun aimed at Discord with her hoof, and a thick Whinnyapolis accent.

“Oh, now, I thought you were just terrific there, Discord!” she said cheerily. “Real menacing and portentous and all that! Exactly the kind of narrative manipulation to steer her into setting up this whole deal here instead of Celestia-knows-what-else, fer sure!”

“Yes, thank you! Finally, someone here gets it!” Discord looked at her. “Though, uh, if you wouldn’t mind, could you point that thing away from me?”

“Oh, gosh, my mistake, sorry there!” She pointed the crystalline gun away from Discord, and back up at Wallflower. “Force of habit, ya know.”

“Speaking of narrative manipulation…” spoke up the blue unicorn stallion, not looking away from the hologram. “It looks like there’s a scene conclusion starting to be set up here. Type Zero.”

“Oh, they grow up so fast!” Discord wiped a tear away from his eye. “By instinct, she knows that she’s in a reality bubble and she’s trying to generate the magical energy to break out of it, using the creatures around her as mere pawns! It’s just like watching a baby learn to walk for the first time! And I do mean that literally. That’s exactly what it is for us draconequuses.”

The pegasus spoke up. “Wait, huh. It definitely is Type Zero. Except they’re doing it by, uh, kissing each other?”

Sure enough, the hologram showed Sunset Shimmer planting a sloppy kiss on the human Pinkie Pie’s pony form’s lips, followed by trotting up to the human Twilight’s pony form and kissing her as well. As the scene rolled on, all four creatures just watched in silence as the mares kissed each other and explained to the pony Twilight’s pony form just why they were doing so.

“Is that, uh, really how friendship magic works over in their world?” asked the pegasus. “‘Cause if you ask me, that sure does look like what a sad, lonely teenage girl would come up with if she could suddenly make reality whatever she wanted.”

“Well, that’s the thing about reality magic,” the unicorn replied. “If it wasn’t the case before, well…”

The unicorn clicked on a key, and a stream of numbers flowed through a corner of the hologram, all glowing green.

“And it’s consistent!” Discord exclaimed. “If you check all your records on their world right now, everything would fit, because it just works from the point of view of consensus pony reality. And there’s no way for you to know if that was her doing or if reality was always like this! Isn’t that neat?”

The unicorn gave him an unamused look.

“We’ll see how it shakes out in the final calculations. Whichever one it picks… I guess that is the one we’ll go with.”

“But you’re unsure, aren’t you? Whether this is reality magic or not. Ha, look at your face! You’re not sure! Now that’s how you bend reality! Oh, I am so proud!”

He turned to the mare who was aiming the crystalline gun at Wallflower.

“What if we kept her? I could raise her as my own! Maybe the experience of parenthood was what I needed all along to be truly self-actualized? Could you really find it in your heart to deny me such a gift?”

The mare gave him a sympathetic look, but didn’t say anything..

Discord tried again.

“Pretty please?” He batted his eyelashes. “I’ve been so good!”

“Oh, I’m sorry, dear! That sure sounds nice, and I’m sure it would mean a lot to ya, but we just can’t have an unaligned reality-bending deity running about, can we? After all, you wouldn’t want your Fluttershy’s biography to be all twisted up accidentally by even the tiniest tendril of reality magic, would ya?“

At this, Discord frowned, clenching his jaw.

“No, I wouldn’t want that.” Ungrimacing, he put a claw up on his forehead as a Rarity-esque woe-is-me. “Oh, what has become of me? Am I really that easy to–”

“We’re out of time! They’re beginning to glow!” shouted the pegasus as she dramatically tapped a key. The hologram shifted from a recreation of Ponyville to a writhing mass of calculations. “It’s now or never, ma’am! Let’s un-collapse this thing!”

“You betcha! Time to do what you do best, Discord!”

Discord let the calculations wash over him, into his own subconscious. Unbidden, his claw reached out to manipulate them slightly, guided by the chaos. “Not bad,” he said. “You ponies are getting better at this. This should work, as far as I can tell.”

At that, the unicorn shut off the hologram, and levitated the crystal disk to affix it to the gun. “Ready, ma’am!” he shouted.

The earthmare beamed at the draconequus.

“You’re our greatest asset, dontcha know!”

She then took aim at the only other draconequus that existed in this reality. The only other draconequus that Discord had seen in millennia. Since before the very first Bronze Age pony tribes built their very first cities in perfectly square little grids.

“We just couldn’t do this without you!”

And as the reality bubble surrounding Ponyville began to dissolve in the face of the human version of friendship magic generated within, she fired.

“And now it’s time for you to do what you do best,” Discord muttered as the local reality faded to red. “Fade into the background, and let us protagonists take center stage.”

Wallflower had never seen a creature like this one before.

It looked like a cross between a horse and a dragon, and a lion, and a bird, and a lizard, and who knew what else. Well, less a cross between those things and more like various body parts of those things stuck together in a way that didn’t even make any sense. It was floating in the air without flapping either of its mismatched wings, not that it would make any sense for such tiny wings to keep it up in the air in the first place. And it was staring at her, wordlessly, with a smile that was so familiar that it was unnerving.

She dug her hoof into the ground, finding a strange comfort in the connection between her hoof and the earth. She wondered if she should say something to this creature, but then what would she even say? She was bad enough at this with humans the same age as her who went to the same school as she did. Could this creature even talk? Did she–

“You!”

Wallflower yelped as a booming voice thundered from behind her. “I didn’t park in the staff lot!” she blurted.

“Discord! Explain your presence!” commanded an unmistakable voice. The mare who shouted was tall, and had her wings spread open in a defensive stance.

“V-Vice Principal Luna? I–”

“Really, now? ‘Explain your presence’? Not ‘Hi, how are you’? I certainly hope you don’t greet all your old friends that way!” spoke an unfamiliar voice, and Wallflower realized that the strange creature could indeed talk, and that the horse version of Vice Principal Luna hadn’t been talking to her at all.

“Worry not, Discord. I do not greet my old friends this way,” stated horse Vice Principal Luna as she flared out her wings even more. “Now. Explain what you are doing here!”

“Well, if you must know!”

Discord floated down to put a paw on Wallflower’s withers, and Luna’s eyes widened as if noticing Wallflower’s presence for the first time.

“I’m here to stop this little runaway from getting herself even more lost in this Everfree before she falls into a swamp or gets eaten by a creature or worse. A runaway who wouldn’t even be here, if that one had been more responsible with her little portal!”

Discord pointed a claw to an orange and red pony that was peeking out from behind Luna’s wings.

“Sunset!” Wallflower shouted.

“Wallflower?” Sunset moved Luna’s wing out of the way. “What are you doing here?”

“I got worried, so I followed you through the portal!” Wallflower shouted, before shrinking back on herself at Sunset’s confused look in response.

“What a heartwarming reunion!” interrupted Discord. “But there’s a much more pressing question here. Namely, what’s with your horn there, Princess?”

Luna, of course, didn’t have a horn, and instead had a strange, cream-like substance smeared on her forehead where a horn would be. Discord was barely stifling a laugh.

“This is hardly a laughing matter! Do you not see that this situation of mismatched parts is most serious?” Luna said, pointing at her own forehead with a hoof, and Discord could not stifle his laugh any longer.

“Yeah!” shouted a familiar, raspy voice, as a cyan pony with a purple horn stepped out in front of Luna’s wings as well. This must have been Rainbow Dash, though Wallflower didn’t know why that caused Discord to laugh even harder. More ponies revealed themselves, their color schemes matching up to what Wallflower could recognize as Sunset’s friends, and each reveal elicited yet another laugh from Discord, especially the two identical-looking purple ponies that must have been Twilight. Wait, how could they both be Twilight?

“Yeah, yeah,” said one of the Twilights. “Once you’ve had enough, could you tell us what’s going on with this, Discord? And how to fix it?”

“Oh, but I haven’t even gotten started! There are so many jokes I could make about this!” he exclaimed, to the unamused look of everypony present except Wallflower, who was just confused.

“But now is sadly not the time,” Discord lamented. “This is the worst day ever!”

Discord struck a dramatic pose, then slowly sunk back down to lay a paw on Wallflower’s withers again.

“But if you must know. The reason for all this is her. She’s not supposed to be here.”

“What?” Sunset said, looking around at her friends. “Are you saying that they shouldn’t have come through the portal?“

”No, I wasn’t talking about them. Just her.” Discord looked at Wallflower meaningfully. “Her being in this universe causes something to… break.”

Author's Note

The rest of Discord's team are as follows:

• The pegasus was brought over from Chapter 8.

A red-maned pegasus in a windbreaker and a ballcap with three letters printed on it pushed past her. “No!” she shouted into a small black box she was carrying. “This is a full-scale reality collapse. I repeat, a full-scale reality collapse! I need–”

• The unicorn is background pony Pokey Pierce/Royal Pin

• The earth pony with the crystalline gun is the Whinneapolis delegate from "Princess Spike," dubbed March Gustysnows by the fandom.

Chapter 11 — The Sleepless Beholder

“What is breaking, exactly?” Sunset inquired.

“Well, how to explain it?” Discord pulled his beard off and started to pet it in thought. “Oh! I know. You.” He pointed at Twilight.

The princess took a step back. “I broke?”

“No, silly. Remember when you did your time traveling stuff with that light-colored version of you?”

“Starlight. And yes, kinda hard to forget.” She brought her hoof to her chin. “I fail to see how that could be relevant.”

“Well,” he pulled a chalkboard from thin air and drew five non-linear lines in parallel . “Due to your now-student friend using the time spell, several realities were created in what technically can be considered the same frame of time, meaning that infinite possibilities were happening and would be jumping from one to the other.”

“Wait, all of that at the same time?” Twilight exclaimed. “I hadn't considered that before.”

“Sounds quite chaotic,” Sunset said before a boom of confetti hit her right in the face.

“She said the magic word!” Discord shouted into a microphone, now in an announcer’s outfit. “Let's see if she can double her score with her next guess.”

Sunset got the microphone shoved against her muzzle, and she first coughed confetti into it before speaking. “That’s what's going on around us? Multiple timelines overlapping and causing chaos and instability that only the Power of Friendship can solve?”

“Exactly, but not at all,” Discord said, Sunset's score going down as the crowd of similar-looking Discords booed. “You're missing a very vital piece.” He turned to the Princess. “Mind illuminating her?”

Twilight just stared at the draconequus and blinked owlishly. “Uhhhh… oh! The map! Starlight used it as the anchor for the spell so it went with me to every timeline! We've to find the anchor that’s causing this, which would be whatever Wallflower broke, and fix it!”

Discord laughed. “Oh, no that's not it at all.” He booped the princess. “The answer was you.”

“Me?” Twilight questioned. “What do you mean?”

“You were a constant,” Discord clarified. “In every timeline that you visited, there was a thing that always happened; You weren't in it. Because you were jumping from timeline to timeline so the ‘role’ of Twilight needed to be left open. Same thing with your dear Starlight.”

“Wait, so Wallflower is the constant?” Regular Twilight asked. “You're making sense but not at all at the same time.”

“Thank you, I do my best,” Discord wiped away tears as he made a little bow to the human. “And yes, she's the constant here. All of us are in a constant fluctuation of possibilities, some wildly different from others, but she is the one thing that remains unchanged. Or at least, she should be.”

“Why her?!” Rainbow shouted. “What makes her special?” She crossed her hooves and a second later noticed everypony glaring at her. “Just curious. We all went through the portal, and Twi's the one with a princess for a counterpart.”

“Well, what have you all just discovered today?” Discord asked the class, who were now all in individual desks.

Luna raised her hoof. “Can you be more specific? A lot has happened recently, and if what you say is true, possibly infinite timelines worth of things at the same time.”

Discord nodded. “It involves all the non-princesses.”

Fluttershy tentatively raised her leg. “Is it, um, Friendship?”

“Close but not exactly.”

“Is it Gayship?!” Pinkie shouted from her seat.

“Correct! A+!” Discord pulled out a gold star and placed it on Pinkie’s head. “Your way of using ‘Magic’ made it to this dimension even before you all started sharing lips.”

“How?” AJ asked, and Discord simply brought Wallflower to the front of the class.

“W-what?” Wallflower looked up at the draconequus in disbelief. “I haven't done anything! At least, not me.”

“You don't need to do much to be loved by many.”

Wallflower blinked, then turned to the class. Sunset just smiled smugly, the rest sans the pony royals evaded eye contact. “Wait, all of you?! How?”

“Well, darling, it's not like we aren't open to multiple partners.” She blushed a bit. “Previous make outs have proven that.”

“Why?”

“Yer cute, hardworking, have wit, naturally make people want to hug you,” AJ counted with her hoof, which was harder than expected. “Do I go on?”

“When?”

“After the Stone incident.” Fluttershy answered. “Once we got the full picture of what you were going through, we all just silently agreed about it.”

“Yeah, I mean, we gave Sunset shit for what she did back then, and didn’t even bat an eye against your quite immoral handling of your pent up emotions and trauma.” Another round of glares at Rainbow. “Hey! That one was positive!”

Wallflower felt like she was going to faint as her brain warred between embarrassment, disbelief, panic and genuine happiness and warmth. “Okay, we’re unpacking that later when we’re back home.”

“Slumber Party!” Pinkie shouted.

Wallflower turned to Discord. “Okay, so, I’m the constant because apparently I’m lovable despite me being me. What is causing things to break? Why am I not doing the ‘constant’ thing you mentioned?”

“Well, to put it simply…” Discord paused for dramatic effect. “The ‘constant’ is missing.”

The gears turned in Wallflower’s head for about a minute before they finally clicked in place.

“Uh, is she okay?” Fluttershy asked.

“Give her a minute,” Sunset assured her.

“She’s vibrating in place,” Luna pointed out.

Discord pulled out a newspaper to wait for Wallflower to finish her processing, but got interrupted as suddenly the trees of the Everfree surrounded him and pinned him to the ground.

“You can't seriously tell me that the REASON ALL OF THIS HAPPENING IS THAT SOMEHOW I’M NOT BEING REGISTERED AS EXISTING !” Wallflower shouted as she glared at the draconequus on the floor.

“Well, you are quite unremarkable,” Discord joked, which got him shoved further into the dirt.

“Should we stop her?” Rarity asked. “She looks like she’s about to turn him into a new flower bed.”

“If he could be killed, he would be dead long ago,” Luna grumbled.

Sunset got off her seat, casually walked over to Wallflower, and gently blew air on her ear.

The earth pony instantly shivered as her ear flicked. “Oh, wow, that was-”

“I know, there’s plenty more I can show you later,” Sunset assured her with a side hug. “But right now we need to focus and not bury the only lead we got.”

“Oh, right…” Wallflower looked at the trees before pointing at them. “Uh, how did I do that?”

“You should stop asking yourself those questions,” Discord said before snapping himself out of the grapple. “It just limits what you can do.”

“Okay, so…” Rainbow said as she flew closer to them. “Could we just throw Wallflower back out the portal to fix things?”

“I don’t think so,” Princess Twilight said. “Even if she left, the constant would still be missing.”

Discord nodded. “Yes, our best bet is to change her ‘missing’ status.”

“How? What is it that’s not seeing her anyway?” AJ asked.

To this, Discord shrugged. “Choosing not to question things has its drawbacks.”

“Great,” Luna facehooved. “So we have to convince ‘something’ that Wallflower is a real, tangible pony. Er, human.”

“Any ideas?” Sunset asked, but no one seemed to know what to do.

“Well…” Twilight adjusted her glasses. “If she’s important because of our love for her, maybe we could use that?”

“I have to kiss all of you?” Wallflower looked around at her friends, and suddenly her freckles were hidden by her blush. “I’m not against it.”

“That would be a start, but I think Twilight’s implying that we’ll need more,” Luna walked closer to the blushing pony. “If she gets enough love to be a beacon of magic, that should make her noticeable.”

“So… we get everypony to kiss Wallflower?” Rarity looked around. “We put up a kissing booth?”

“Or throw a big make out party!” Pinkie cheered.

“I don’t think just getting ponies to kiss Wallflower would be considered ‘love’, it has to be more genuine than that,” Sunset moved over to Wallflower and pressed her lips against hers, melting the pony as their tongues intertwined. “We’ve to make everypony love her for who she is.”

“That’s gonna be quite the task,” Luna pointed out.

Sunset just smirked. “Have we mentioned that Wally here is a passionate gardener?”

Luna and Wallflower looked at each other.

The Princess of the Night smiled excitedly. “Let’s talk while we get out of this forest.”

Chapter 12 — Rego

The trot back to the castle had been enlightening to say the least. Wallflower had never considered herself to be much of a charmer, but Princess Luna had quickly warmed up to her. They shared so much in common despite being worlds apart, each falling to darker magics, forgotten by their worlds, and both enjoyed quieter times among plantlife. Wallflower had slipped up and called her vice principal, but the downgrade in position just made the ancient ruler laugh.

Maybe she was more sociable than she thought.

Eventually, they arrived at Princess Twilight’s castle and headed up to the Cutie Map room. Wallflower regretted not paying more attention to what the others had been talking about, though she hadn’t understood what she had heard anyway. Despite her namesake, she found herself at the center of attention, standing on top of the crystal map table, and surrounded by the most powerful creatures in Sunset’s original world.

“Are you sure this is the best course of action?” the unicorn Twilight asked her taller counterpart. “Destabilizing alternate realities is what got us into this mess.”

“This won’t be multiple, alternate realities, but the multithreading of ours,” the princess assured. “And for it to be genuine love, I can’t think of a better way than this. Unfortunately.”

“Oh, don’t be like that!” Discord complained as he clapped his talon and paw together, and pulled them apart to reveal a cat’s cradle of string. “You’re just embracing the chaos of it all!” He shuffled his hands and fingers around wildly until he’d somehow woven it into a perfect cube of yarn. “And we’re about to have a ball!”

“Wait, so what’s going on again?” Wallflower asked hesitantly.

“Why, making sure you’re so adored that even Harmony itself can’t help but notice you,” he answered as he fanned the cube into a deck of cards. Discord flipped them over, revealing an entire hand of aces of hearts. “You’re about to become the most loved creature in this, or likely any world.”

“W-what?”

“How to explain this…” Sunset pondered aloud. “We need to give the world a little reminder that you’re real, and if it’s our love for you that helps sustain that, then we’ll need you to be truly loved by as many creatures as possible. And since we only have one reality to work with, we’ll be layering those loves as much as possible.”

“So, what do I need to do?” Wallflower asked.

Sunset smiled warmly. “Nothing special. Just be your lovable self.”

The earth pony’s freckles vanished in her blush and she nodded.

“Alright,” Princess Twilight announced to the group. Discord snapped his fingers, summoning a large scroll in front of Starlight. Sunset huddled their friends from the other side of the mirror together. “I don’t know what this will be like with so many magical forces acting upon you at once, but I imagine it will be very confusing. But, we all believe in you, Wallflower.”

With that, everyone began focusing their energy. The crystal table before Wallflower began to radiate with power and a strange dome appeared above them. She felt her hooves leave the ground as it pulled her up. She nearly screamed as she started falling upwards, but then Discord appeared in front of her and caught her with his talon. Before she could thank him though, he snapped his lion paw.

Then, everything went white.

“Good morning, darling.”

Wallflower’s eyes shot open at the sound of Rarity’s voice. She popped up from her bed, or at least a bed. It felt so familiar to her, but completely foreign at the same time.

“You feeling better, sugarcube?” Applejack asked with a concerned smile.

Wait, Applejack? Where’s Rarity?

“I think so?” Wallflower guessed. She remembered catching a bug going around Apple Bloom’s school. Luckily, her loving wife knew exactly how to treat a cold. The earthy pegasus hopped out of bed and stretched her wings.

“Don’t worry about it,” Soarin assured as he gave his marefriend a hug. “I know you grew up around earth ponies. I’m sorry I pushed you so hard.”

Wings? Soarin? And why is everything made of clouds?

“You didn’t push me into anything. I was the one who wanted to get out of my shallow comfort zone for once” Wallflower assured Trixie. The hippogriff trotted up to her precious little performer. “You don’t need to worry about it.”

Vinyl Scratch wiped her eyes from behind her shades and nodded. Wallflower knew what was in the DJ’s heart. No words were needed to express the love they shared.

How Wallflower knew any of this was a complete mystery.

“Surprise!” Pinkie exclaimed as she opened the door to their bedroom. “Twily just got back from solving that friendship problem, so that one more pony to celebrate our Rainbow-versary!”

“I’m sorry, but it’s just the five of us,” Princess Twilight explained with a sad smile.

Wallflower’s heart dropped into her stomach. “But, that’s not even half of the herd.” They’d already rented out the restaurant for their whole sapphic polycule.

Wait… how many mares am I married to again?

“It’s actually called a flock, Flower.” Fluttershy explained as she introduced the geese that had just flown in. “Riley takes the lead of their formation when they migrate.”

“Oh, is it really that important for someone to take the lead?” Wallflower asked with waning interest as she filed her talon.

Now I’m a griffon?

“Of course it’s important!” Gilda yelled as her feathers bristled. “Seriously, girl, stand up for yourself!”

Okay, this needs to slow down!

“No! Faster!” Spitfire ordered. “Get those wings buzzing, lovebug!”

“I’m trying!” Wallflower cried as she dove through another ring. If only Spitfi—no Lightning Du—no-no, Flitter and Cloudchaser let her change into something other than her natural form. Her wings disappeared as she tumbled over and under until colliding with a cauldron.

Stop this! Please! I can’t keep up!

“Patience Flower, there’s no need to race,
Your forest’s gifts will not go to waste.”

The kirin sighed. “I know, Zecora. It’s just Rain Shine said that the village needs—”

“The only thing I need is you, Wallflower.” Rain Shine whispered into the unicorn’s ear. “Your light is what brings me joy every morning. Will you do me the honor of becoming my mate?”

Help! Somebody! Anybody! Help!

Discord sighed from behind her. “Fine. If you must insist on making sense.”

A tug pulled Wallflower away from the kirin’s tender embrace. As she drifted away from the scene, she saw her unicorn self reach up and kiss her towering beloved, sealing their loving union with a kiss. Her attention was turned away from the beautiful moment to face the draconequus and his fishing pole.

“And here I thought you’d be enjoying this,” Discord complained as he plopped his ungrateful catch into a net. “It’s not every day you get to experience hundreds of thousands of possible loves all at once.”

Wallflower shrank away. “T-thousands?”

“What’s wrong with it, my love?” yet another love asked in concern. “I thought thousand island was your favorite.”

“Well, it is, Cadance, but…” Wallflower trailed as she looked up from her salad to see she was now eating lunch with the Princess of Love. They’d met years ago by chance when Twilight’s Sparkle’s parents had mistakenly asked both of them to watch their daughter over the weekend. They two of them ruled the Crystal Empire together.

Wallflower knew all of this innately, like it had always been this way. Just like all of the other romances she barely remembered. She raised a fork to her mouth to take another bite of her salad and saw a thick, muscular hand on the end of her forearm rather than a hoof. Looking up for her salad, she spotted her date, Iron Will, burning with desire for the minotaur sitting at the other end of the table.

“The less you understand, the better,” Discord said. “Just go with the flow.”

“But how can—” Wallflower covered his mouth, surprised by the sound of his own, deep voice. Flash Sentry had fallen in love with it during Karaoke. “It’s happening so fast!”

“To the two of us, maybe. For all the other yous living their lives? Who’s to say?”

“To think I even considered wasting my time with a lowly commoner like you!” Blueblood scoffed and tossed his mane up. “Farewell, you miserable weed!”

“Wait!” she begged, stretching a hoof out to the miserable prince far too late.

Discord shook his head and tutted. “It seems some of yourselves have been less successful than others.” He snapped his fingers and offered the sobbing pony a tissue. “But seriously. The more you try to hold onto any present, the slower we’ll repair this little mess of yours.”

Wallflower hated this. It was all just too much. Happiness, sorrow, elation, grief, joy, terror; there was an endless deluge that just kept coming, all at once, from every nowhere imaginable.

“Are you okay, mommy?” Dinky Doo asked in concern.

Wallflower nodded to her step-daughter as she dabbed the tears from her eyes. She tried blowing her nose, but a stream of fire shot out of her draconic maw, burning the tissue into ashes. “I will be. Just, give me a moment, muffin.”

A firm hoof tilted Wallflower’s weakened head up as she came face-to-face with Chrysalis. The reformed queen’s blue eyes dripped with empathetic passion, the pools whipped dry by her flowing gossamer mane that billowed in the wind. “Don’t worry, my dearest Flower. We will be here with you until the end, just as you were there for me during my darkest hour. You… you can go now. It’s okay.”

“I’m sorry,” the withering Wallflower apologized. She reached her brittle hoof to her eternal queen’s face as all of their children gathered around. The old mare slowly shut her eyes, breathing her last breath.

At least until another kiss stole that breath away.

“There you are, Beloved,” Celestia—just Celestia—said with a serene smile. “You got lost in your sea again.”

Wallflower blinked the soil out of her eyes. “Was I gone long?” Existence trembled at the sound of her voice.

Celestia nestled under her wife’s tectonic wing, breathing deeply of the embodiment of life she’d become. “It doesn’t matter. You came back before the end.”

Both immortals looked up to the countless petals swirling above, each a different, beloved Wallflower living a different life. How long had it been since they’d tapped into its unfathomable power simply to watch? Generations? Millenia? Eons? It didn’t matter. All would be washed away in service of completing the spell.

Beloved had been tempted to stop its undoing countless times. It’d be so simple for the goddess she’d become; less than a bat of an eyelash. But then there’d be no constant, no anchor: nothingness. She and her tiny princess loved everything that had all passed away into nothing so very long ago.

Celestia kissed the loamy wall of fur. “You know that you have to go back now, Beloved.”

“I will miss you, my precious sunflower,” Beloved whispered softly as to not obliterate her fragile star.

“If you can recall our thread, then I am truly blessed beyond measure.” Celestia teleported on top of Beloved’s muzzle and casually strode down the plateau of wildflowers. “It’s funny. We watched eternity play out before our eyes, yet it passed so quickly.”

Her horn lit up, weaving an astral body into the sky. The Celestia woven in stardust, dipped down from the heavens and cradled Beloved’s face in her hooves, just like the days before she’d outgrown being the mere Alicorn of Nature, Princess Wallflower Blush.

“No matter what happens beyond our time, I will always love you, my eternal Beloved.”

Their world collapsed as a portal opened above them, sapping the goddess from her garden of everything, and collapsing infinite petals back into a single bloom that would leave its indelible mark upon every existence.

But the question remained: would it be enough?

Chapter 13 — FanOfMostEverything

As the nigh-uncountable Wallflowers coalesced back into a single consciousness, they/she mostly perceived a blinding white glare of sensory overload. Going with the flow was all well and good as it happened, but trying to reconcile it all was giving her a worse headache than trying to follow the transitions.

“Oh. Sorry, I didn’t see you there.”

As such, she welcomed the distraction, not even irritated by the all-too-familiar apology. Well, mostly not. “Yeah, I get that a lot. I…” She trailed off as the glare faded. “Wait, where am I?”

Aside from the breathable air, Wallflower seemed to be in the depths of space, stars scattered everywhere she could see. When she looked down, she fell to her hands and knees—which she had again, along with her usual outfit—and something told her asking what she was standing on was a very bad idea. She focused on the speaker instead, which only raised more, if hopefully less dangerous questions. “Princess Twilight?”

The purple alicorn bobbed her head from side to side. “Not exactly, though I owe her much. You can think of me as Harmony.”

“Oh. Oh!” The implications took a moment to click. In Wallflower’s defense, there were a lot of them. “Uh, so, I exist.”

That got a wry grin. “I noticed, yes.”

Wallflower blushed. “Right. Sorry.” She cleared her throat. “I’m not used to dealing with, you know, concepts.”

“No?” Harmony tilted her head. “I think you’ll find you have some very fond memories of concepts.” Several rectangles opened in reality, like real-life pop-up ads. Except these were some of the most surreal relationships she’d formed to get here.

“Well, yeah, but they’re not…” Wallflower trailed off as the screens showed moments she hadn’t directly experienced, yet clearly remembered. The magnitude of what she’d gone through hit her. She might not have consciously spent much time with any individual lover, but what they had felt had always been real, and on some level of existence, so too were the creatures she’d loved.

That she still loved.

“Oh.”

“Indeed.” She brought her attention back to Harmony, who watched the screens with… was that envy? Wallflower still wasn’t great at reading pony faces. “You may have overdone it a little, but you definitely got what you wanted. I can see my oversight now, and together we can fix it.”

“T-together?” said Wallflower, eyes widening.

“Don’t worry, you just need to stand there as I get everything set up properly.” Harmony lit her horn, thin tendrils of light going from it out into all corners of wherever they were. “Congratulations, by the way. It’s not every day you get to be the center of the multiverse.”

Wallflower ignored that. She was still working through the previous world-shaking revelation. “So what happens to everyone?”

“Well, their worlds will be stable. No shattered realities or decaying false vacuums.” Harmony raised an eyebrow as the strands went taut, then detached from her horn and began to circle Wallflower. “But I get the feeling that wasn’t what you had in mind.”

“What happens to everyone I loved? To all those different mes? Does it just go away again now that I’ve gotten your attention?”

Harmony shook her head. “That all happened. Or is happening. Or in a few cases, will happen. Causality gets messy when spreading yourself across as many timelines as you did. You’ve brought happiness to so many creatures, Wallflower, both directly and indirectly, and all the different instances of you will continue to do so even if the one I’m talking to won’t always be aware of them.”

“Good. That’s good.” Wallflower looked around the building network of glowing, ever-more-interconnected threads gathering around her, uncomfortably reminded of overgrown kudzu. Or a spider web. “So… what happens to this me?”

“Ah. Yes.” Harmony cleared her throat in a way she’d definitely borrowed from Twilight. “There is a… slight issue there.”

That got a groan. “What is it now?”

“Nothing you’ll need to take care of. It’s just, well…” Harmony frowned in thought for a few moments. “Connecting your home to one Equestria created a thin trickle of magic, one that got widened just a little when various Twilight Sparkles started messing with the portal. And now it’s going to be part of the same connected, overarching existence as many, many more magical lands.”

Wallflower felt a chill run down her spine. “We’re not going to all turn into ponies, are we?”

“No, no, that’s simple enough to prevent. But there will definitely be some… side effects.”

One sunny spring morning outside of Canterlot High, Twilight Sparkle was having the time of her life.

“... and then on Friday, we can all cheer for Rainbow Dash during her soccer game against Griffonstone High, then go and have celebratory and/or conciliatory cupcakes at the Sweet Shoppe, going by Couple Rota D-Two for who spends the most time with whom, ensuring fair and equitable access to all girlfriends. This division of emotional labor will also provide convenient jumping-off points for any more intense displays of affection that may result during or after the scheduled activities. Any questions?”

She got to organize and lecture about a schedule for an eight-person polycule.

Rainbow Dash seemed less enamored with the presentation, going by how she slumped against the Wondercolt statue’s base. “Where the heck is Sunset? I’m not sitting through all of this again when you explain it to her.”

Rarity poked her in the ribs. “Darling, really, you can at least appreciate the time Twilight put into it.”

Dash glanced up at her and smirked. “How long have you been on your phone?”

“That is neither here nor there.”

“I appreciate it,” said Fluttershy.

Dash rolled her eyes. “Of course you do, Shy. According to Twilight’s cuddle wheel—”

“Couple Rota,” Twilight insisted, swiping to the diagram in question on the tablet she’d been using for visual aids.

“According to that, it’s your turn to hug Wallflower.”

Fluttershy did just that, with just the tiniest smirk.

“The Rota doesn’t mean you can’t hug Wallflower,” said Twilight. “It’s just meant to ensure we each give one other some minimum quantity of affection, because you all deserve it.”

Applejack gave Twilight a one-armed hug that was still enough to lift the other girl off her feet.. “So do you, Sugarcube.”

“There she is!” Pinkie called from atop the statue, where she’d been acting as lookout since Dash had asked about Sunset. She waved to the approaching figure. “Sunset! Sunset Shimmer! Over here!”

It was a beautiful day. One could be forgiven for thinking that it was because Sunset was keeping all the stormclouds in her demeanor.

“Everything okay?” asked Wallflower.

“Fine,” Sunset grunted out. She held up a hand. “And I don’t want to hear it.”

Rarity raised an eyebrow. “Wallflower aside, none of us have even said anything.”

“I still don’t want to hear it.”

The others traded uneasy glances. Twilight fiddled with her tablet. Pinkie slid down the Wondercolt.

Ultimately, Dash bit the conversational bullet. “So, uh… Nice view?”

All eyes turned to the immense stem that dominated the sky, arcing up impossibly far with leaves broader than planets to a drooping blossom through which the sun shone. An image replicated on a vastly smaller scale on Wallflower’s backpack.

For her part, Sunset shouted at the much more magical heavens. “It was just. Supposed. To be lunch!”

Author's Note

The title came from that last line, not the other way around. Other titles proposed and rejected during the live reading included:

Everyhumanpony’s Pony Parts in Magic Horseland
Every Time Discord Appears, Take a Shot
The Wandering Monkey Gardener
Under Her Wife’s Tectonic Wing
I Went Through A Portal And Accidentally Became The Center Of The Multiverse
Wallflower Blush: Into the Polyverse

And we've agreed on a ban on Discord for the next one. Whenever someone wants to use him, they're to use Twilight Velvet instead. Shouldn't make too much of a difference. :raritywink: