My name is Florence and I am about to give my first lecture at Crystal Empire Polytechnic University.

I’m Dr. Florence by the way, Dr. Florence Lim. Not a medical doctor, but a doctor of science. Chemistry, focus in supramolecular chemistry and material science. Yas, I’m a science girlie, isn't that slay (it’s not).

Basically, I make shit in the lab. Due to my ‘unique’ circumstances, I can make whatever shit I want now. Apparently I’m a genius or something. At least that’s what Twilight calls me. She fast tracked my PhD for me after we developed a new ‘hypermagic’ catalyst. I think the article title was Novel Metal Organic Frameworks (MOFs) in Magical Storage and Catalysis.

Yes. Magic. This world has magic and I was a victim to it. I’m over it though. Mostly. It has been a year and a half after all. It sucks. There is math behind it but it’s all thermodynamics shit meaning it doesn’t make any sense. Also it’s pretty ridiculous, with things like emotions and whatever coming into play. But then again, Twilight called quantum mechanics ridiculous (rightfully so) when I explained it to her. She came around after I mathed it out. She practically had an orgasm when I showed her atomic orbitals and how to linearly combine them.

Anyway, Twilight and I had developed Au/ZIF-6-C supercatalysts during my short tenure at University of Canterlot. That shit was pretty easy to synthesize all things considered, Twilight helped a lot. She’s cool. Smart girlie like me, I can respect that. Princess of the land.

But then again this is a ‘mare’s world’ which is really weird for me. I had to work my ass off to get noticed back home. Fuckers wanted to relegate me to fucking lab technician jail.

My hands are freezing right now. It’s really cold in the lecture theater. Scratch that. It’s really cold in the Crystal Empire in general. Ponies walk around in fur all the time. I have skin. At least Rarity made me this big winter trench coat before I left Ponyville based on a few designs I haphazardly drew on a napkin whilst off my head on AppleFarmstm cider. Element of generosity my arse, I had to pay 500 bits for it.

My time in Ponyville sucked even though I didn’t really spend much time there. I was mostly commuting into Canterlot daily to hit the labs before heading back. I didn’t make any friends because I was depressed as hell. You know, loss of family, new world, the works. Plus I’m intimidating? Dunno, I was always that slightly rebellious, unflashy girl that everybody ignored. Kinda weird to be stared at so intensely.

Actually, to say I didn’t make any friends is disingenuous. I did make a friend. She didn’t help the stares.

Chrys, the emosquito. Emo because she eats emotions which is weird enough. Mosquito because she looks like a bug. Not like gross or anything. Kinda like a hole-y pony-bug hybrid thing? Don’t ask.

She was great. Ponies can't really take snark, they get sad too quickly. Chrys wasn’t like that, always willing to joke around and tease. Plus she was an outcast, like me, which made connecting easy. I have very fond memories of just hanging out in her cell. Sometimes we’d chat and joke. She’s really funny. Sometimes we’d just kinda hang out in respectful silence.

Once ponies found out that she and I were hanging, I was very quickly branded as the town dope. Not really sure who leaked it, I have a feeling it was that guard. The one with the red mane. Probably had family back home in Ponyville.

Apparently Chrys is an evil villain of the highest nefariousness or whatever. She really doesn't seem that evil to me. I mean she told me about what she did and all, but she seemed really sad about it. Her children were starving after all. And then they abandoned her. Nopony cares. And I’m the ‘meanie pants’.

That’s why I left, I couldn’t take the staring anymore. City is way better than small town. More weirdos in a city which meant less stares (or shrinking). Couldn’t go to Canterlot because everypony there knew. At least the pay they were offering at Crystal Empire Polytechnic was fucking insane. Chrys didn’t come for obvious reasons. But she says she’ll come visit me once she’s figured some stuff out.

I really miss her.

Ponies start to filter into the lecture hall. I know my class is going to be small. I double check the handwritten slides. Still somehow better than powerpoint. Today was induction day so my slides are simple. Simple to me but it’ll probably scare the shit out of them. Looks like everypony (finally got used to that) is here, so I start. I click the projector on, silencing the room. It beams a picture of my face to the class.

“Hello. My name is Dr. Florence Lim and I will be teaching the COM0030 module otherwise known as ‘Introduction to Advanced Chemistry’.” I start, cringing when my voice cracks a little at the beginning. I take a sip of water.

“Now, you lot are here because you A) chose to take this module, but more importantly B) received distinctions on your first year exams. Firstly, congratulations. Secondly, don’t think that means anything in my class.” I get a bit of a rise out of my students at that statement, they mutter to each other nervously. My lecturers were brutal, so I will be brutal too. It made me into what I am today and I hope to be able to shape them into powerhouses of their own. I insert my second slide into the projector. It displays a list of topics that will be covered this year.

“This class will be very hard. We will discuss concepts and ideas that are way beyond the scope of what most of your other professors will be talking about. I’m not just talking in terms of chemistry, I’m talking physics and magic theory as well. There will be no textbooks. You’re welcome.” The joke falls completely flat, they’re scared shitless. I cringe again.

Fuck’s sake Florence.

On and on I drone about the various topics and projects that will be taught/done during their time on my course. It’s all really boring to be honest. So is home life.

Blah blah quantum mechanics blah blah organic synthesis blah blah catalysis and inorganic chemistry blahhhhhh.

I’m so alone.

I fucking hate it.

I really wish Chrys was here.

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My name is Cadance and I am currently trying not to strangle the pony sitting across the table from me.

I really don’t like her, which is fine because she also doesn’t like me very much. I can practically taste the hate radiating from her. It’s always been like this with us.

“Why did you ask to meet me?” I bluntly spit. Probably should have worded that with a lighter tone, I am a princess after all. Chrysalis writhes a bit in her seat. I can tell she’s deciding between spitting vitriol at me or answering my question in earnest.

“Isn’t it obvious? I want to visit my friend in the Crystal Empire.” She languidly replies to me, trying to play it cool. I see right past her, nothing escapes my emosensing, she's anxious. I narrow my eyes, trying to pick apart whatever scheme that could be cooking in her head.

I really disagreed with Twilight when she told me that she wanted to give reforming Chrysalis a shot. I said that there was no possible way that anypony in their right mind would want to be friends with her. She is crass. She is rude. She is a megalomaniac of the highest order. She is the very definition of irredeemable.

“You have friends?” I shoot to wound, raising an angry eyebrow at her stupid face. Ah there she is, putting on her mask of stoicism as her plans crumble against my iron will. Stupid bugface and her stupid evilness! I will not be pushed around by this-

Why the buck am I feeling sadness?

She’s radiating it. It’s suffocating.

My brow immediately tightens, frustration growing. She’s just sad because she can’t enact her stupid evil plans. I lock eyes with the evil creature. That bucking buck! She dares to ask me for favors after what she did? To me?! TO MY DEAR SHINING?! There is definitely NOT any kind of friend-missing sa-

Oh.

No, there is no friend-missing sadness.

It’s a different kind. A powerful, raw sadness.

Holy shit.

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My name is Chrysalis and I am really nervous right now.

My request was approved after an incredibly terse and pointed negotiation with Cadance.

I think she knows.

The train rattles, shaking the chains that I currently have strapped to each of my legs. I’ve got a magic suppression ring on too. Across from me sit two guards who I don’t think have blinked this entire journey. Outside the carriage stand the most elite guard force between Equestria and the Crystal Empire.

I’ll be there soon, the Crystal Empire. The land of my nemeses.

But also the land of my best and only friend.

Before her I was alone. No hive, no future. Until she fell out of the sky and into my life. She changed it forever.

Before I would sit in my cell while that insipid princess of friendship Twilight Sparkle would come and lecture me about the values of friendship and how I was ‘redeemable’. Truly rancid.

And then she came and made my life so much better.

She wouldn’t run. She didn’t hate me because of who I was. She made me feel wanted again. She made me see that I could change. That I could be better.

After her we were miserable together. That made all the difference. Suddenly I saw a future explode before me, of happiness and change. In my dreams, we would run far away from every creature on this cold and uncaring land. We lived in a cottage.

I do not hate her for leaving me. I understand why she did it and I could never hate her anyway. Not after all the time we’ve spent together shooting the breeze while life passed us by. Not after all the hope she gave me.

She is a genius, so incredibly smart, so talented. She told me all about the fantastic and awe inspiring science of her world. How they conquered all with the power of their minds. She would come visit me in the dungeons after working in the lab. She showed me what she was working on. A supercatalyst that could store practically infinite magical energy.

All that came from her mind! She had only been studying magic for five months and she had created something that was the wet dream of every archmage across Equus.

She told me on her planet there were many disasters. Disasters brought on by themselves when they burned too many ‘thousand year old liquid dead bodies’. She was working on something that would have helped. An… electrocatalyst? I think…

I really missed it when she’d talk to me about her work.

Her smile.

The little hints of blue in her brown eyes.

Her scent…

But I wouldn’t have to miss it soon.

I’m sure I’ll tell her this time.

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My name is Shining Armour and I’m having a really weird day.

So, Chrysalis. The changeling who almost toppled Equestria, put me under a mind control spell, kidnapped my wife, and almost killed my sister. She’s here and she’s hanging out with the new lecturer my sister recommended for the Polytechnic. The changeling and the hairless ape. You can't make this up. They’re hanging out in a little cafe on 4th and 11th. We picked it because it had great sightlines directly into the shop. No chance of escape.

Flurry is under lockdown, so is my wife. I’m not taking any chances. I’ve called the reserves into active duty and have every archmage I could wrangle casting changeling disguise detection spells on every block.

I’m absolutely flabbergasted that my wife would even entertain the idea of letting that hole filled bug anywhere near us again. When she told me that night I literally laughed out loud, thinking she was telling some elaborate joke.

She was not joking.

Chrysalis has to be plotting something, right? I mean there is absolutely NO way that she’d come all the way here to not enact some perverse revenge. I narrow my eyes from my perch in the opposite building, screwing the binoculars closer to my eyes. Soundbug spells are relaying their conversation directly to me.

They’re having a blast! Talking shit, drinking coffee, generally having a great time.

I’ve never heard Chrysalis laugh like that before.

I am reminded of what my wife told me, right after I lost my mind at her for approving Chrysalis’ request.

There’s no possible way that can be true, right?

But she looks so happy.

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My name is Chrysalis and I am a bucking coward.

I couldn’t do it.

I was too afraid to lose her.

What is wrong with me?

Next time. I’ll tell her next time. Six months of good behavior earned me this visit, surely I’ll get another one soon.

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Two months later…

My name is Twilight Sparkle and I am currently looking at mathematical perfection.

Dr. Florence Lim has bucking done it again. She is the genius of our generation. I trace my eyes from the first postulation, gently working through the algebra in my head. Her math is hard to follow, that's because it’s so new.

She starts simple. Schrödinger’s equation. She taught me that one. Quantum mechanics, so beautiful. Poetry in motion.

She’s quantized magic.

I trace the beautiful integral she had laid out. Limits zero and two pi. I had never thought that magic could behave like a harmonic oscillator until reading the math she put out. It all made sense. There was a singular moment of magic, a building block that exists no matter how cold it got or how little matter there was in the room.

With this, we could revolutionize spectroscopy! We could build that ‘nuclear magnetic resonance’ machine that she always banged on about, using magic to replace the magnets required for it to work. Machines of her world were now possible using magic because she had figured out what the base Magical Harmonic Frequency was now. We can build plates that either store two times the base frequency or one, corresponding to a zero or one.

Those computers she had talked about! They were possible now without us having to accelerate and develop our material technology for ages and ages. Or figure out exactly how to store electricity properly.

I can’t contain my excitement, I turn to her shouting: “You’re a bucking genius, Florence! You did it! This is so…”

She is hollow.

She looks like she’s about to burst into tears.

“Keep looking, Twilight.” She whispers to me, her voice is hoarse and cold. I draw my eyes back to the blackboard, confused at what she meant.

“I’m not sure what you want me to look for? Everything seems all good. I mean barring material science, we are pretty much good to go for everything. All of this work is very practical, you literally proved it without using any approximations. And development will be easy with-”

“Fourier transform the signal, Twilight!” She shouts, cutting me off entirely. I turn to rebuke her before it hits me.

Fourier transform. Waveform into signals.

We can scan now. And magic could travel faster than light.

That meant we could find her home, given enough of a magical power output.

We could calculate how far it was depending on the magical decay constant. Linear teleportation spell and she's right back where she came from.

Magic power wasn't an issue. Au/ZIF-6-C would take care of that. Another stroke of genius from Dr. Florence Lim.

I am really confused. This is a good thing, right? She had wanted to return home for so long and now she could.

Why does she look so sad?

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My name is Florence and I’m currently making my way down Canterlot dungeon.

My palms are really sweaty. Never been this sweaty before. Not even for any of my vivas.

I’m making my way over to Chrysalis’ room. I just had to see her one last time before…

It’s all too soon! Why did I have to work it out? Why couldn’t I just be happy about the way things were. Why did I have to keep pushing for an answer, a way to get out. Ignorance certainly is bliss. The wise are all fools.

The way she laughs, the way she smells, the way she told me I wasn’t an ugly monster ape that should crawl back to whatever hole she came from.

They keep replaying in my mind.

I reach her door, the guard deftly unlocks the multitude of locks on the cell door. She swings it open with a mighty shove, startling Chrys as it smashes against the wall with a boom. Her eyes dart to the door, panicked and afraid, then back to me. They soften instantly as she lets out a massive smile.

Oh god I can’t bear to look.

I force the strongest smile I can back at her. I step in the cell, the guard closes it behind me with a loud slam.

“Hey! I didn’t expect to see you here. You miss me that much, slag?” Chrys ribs, shooting one of her classic smug glances my way. Her cute little ears are so cute when they’re vibrating like that. Her eyes are also so beautiful.

Jesus, is it normal to think she looks pretty? Like in that way?

Despite my best efforts, I can only offer a weak chuckle. The cute ears droop not so cutely toward her skull. I take a seat next to her. She looks really nervous. We stare off into space for a little bit.

“Are you okay?” Chrys asks me. God I can’t reply.

God when the light catches her mane in that way it looks so majestic.

She looks so unbelievably dejected. The guilt makes me blurt it out.

“I found a way.”

She turns to me curiously.

“Home. I can go back. I solved it.”

Dead silence.

Broken by a strained voice.

“That’s great...”

I can't bear to look.

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My name is Chrysalis and today, I have been broken.

I thought she was coming here to see me. That she missed me and she wanted to talk to me or hang out with me. We’d have a grand old time and then I’d save up enough brownie points with Twilight Sparkle to gander a visit to her.

How naive.

I can't meet her eyes. She can't meet mine either. I can feel the tears starting to form.

But I won't cry. Not in front of her.

She’s going, isn’t she? Why wouldn’t she?

She left me for the Crystal Empire.

I hear her stand up. Leaving me, going forever.

Even though...

But it’s my fault, I should have said. That time I visited her I should have had the bravery to say it. Florence, I love you, I would like to spend the rest of my life with you. Florence you are wonderful, you make my boring life beautiful. Florence you give me life, you give me a reason to keep living.

No, don’t cry! She probably never saw you that way anyway you monster. You ugly shit. You bucking stain. Go back to that hole, you worthless, good for nothing, useless, disgusting, filthy animal! My vision turns greyer and greyer.

She could never love me! How could she?

“Chrys, before I go I gotta tell you something. I’ve got nothing to lose now anyway.” Florence says. I struggle to meet her gaze. I try to smile. She’s about to tell me how she never really cared about me. She’s about to tell me that I was just a convenient acquaintanceship.

“Chrys. I think I love you.”

She loves me?

The color returns. I stare at her in shock as she nervously shuffles.

“I know you probably don’t feel the same way but I think you’re really pretty and if you don’t like me the same way then- MMMPH”

I pounce, uninhibited, smashing my lips against hers desperately. She falls backward in shock. I try to light my horn to break the fall but the inhibitor sparks and mutes the spell. We tumble downward. I prepare to break the kiss.

I can’t.

She’s kissing me back. Her arms wrap around my barrel as she presses her body against mine. I can feel her heartbeat pulsing in her chest. I count each beat preciously.

She loves me.

And I love her.

Author's Note

Halor. Wrote this on a whim because it would noT get out of my HEAD .

Hope you enjoyed. This is romance practice so feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Sorry if I'm a bit of a paragraph abuser .

THANKS FOR READING MY INCOHERENT WORDS.