Into the Unknown: Studying & Storytelling.

Twilight sat down at an empty table carrying several books in her magical grasp with Tael on her shoulder "I hope Mikie, Cole, Spike, and Rainbow don't over do it in their morning training." Tael said as Twilight opened the book for them to read.

"I'm sure they'll be fine, Tael, let's read up on this world's history." Twilight said with a smile

"History, huh?" Angel walked into the library, followed by Luna and Indigo. "What a coincidence. We're here to help Indigo here get caught up on the modern day." She smiled at Twilight. "Hey, Twi. Always good to see one of you."

"You keep calling it 'the modern day' as if that has any meaning." Indigo snipped in from behind her, "I'm not 'in the past', it is the present day where I come from, and I'm fairly certain there are some 'other Equestrias' that are older than..." She trailed off upon stepping into the vast library, before sighing, "Okay, this puts the one at the university to shame."

"Hello, would you like to join us? I have most of the early history books here." Twilight used her magic to pull out a few chairs.

"It would be nice to get to know you too," Tael smiled. "My name's Tael, Mikie's Fairy companion."

"And our daughter now, remember, Tael?" Twilight reminded the tiny fairy.

"Oh great, there's another one." Indigo muttered,

"Congratulations," Angel offered while Luna left to search for a few books on electricity and Equish. "It's always a good day when the family expands. So, what do you think of this place so far?"

"Well, personally I find it interesting, this is the second time I've left our Equestria with Mikie and it's marginally better than the first time, no one's died yet," Twilight sighed. "Seeing all these new people and ponies is nice too." She smiled.

"Yeah, It's nice to see Johnny and Jeff again, it's been a while." Tael smiled as she flew onto Twilight's lap to read.

Jeff let out a soft annoyed sigh as he entered the Library with Volvagia's paws on his shoulders and her body firmly wrapped around his neck, chest, and hips. "I swear, Volv, you worry way too much. I mean I was gone for like an hour and I come back seeing you frantically running around in my room?" the hylian asked with a soft huff.

"Volvagia no like Jeff being gone!" Volv said with a growl of annoyance.

"Hi, Jeff!" Tael shouted over to him with a wave.

Jeff softly blinked as Tael spoke out his name. "Uh.. Hi? Did Mike tell you about me?" he asked as he waved back to Tael. The hylian walked over to the group to take a seat.

"Yes, Mikie and Twily told me all about you," Tael smiled. "And Nayru..." She said quietly.

"You're all free to join us to read about this world's history," Twilight smiled. "Or we can converse about our worlds, I'm not against that either." She smiled

"Thaaat might be too much of a can of worms to open up there, or in this case: a book. " Jeff said jokingly to Tael.

"'Tis an most impressive collection," Luna returned with a small stack of books. Most of them she slid over to Angel while she set two before her on the table, gesturing for Indigo to join her. "We have acquired the necessary tomes. One is an guide to reading Ancient Equestrian which should serve a reverse purpose as well. The other is an overview of Equestrian history from Unification to the modern day."

Indigo took a seat, before floating over the guide and cracking it open. "You call this 'Ancient Equestrian'? It looks like a hodge-podge of every tribe's scripture into one!" She blinked, "Wait... that's exactly what it is. So that's what they're working on back at the university. Okay, well..." She muttered as she flipped through the pages a bit, "I can probably figure out what most of this says." She squinted slightly, "Why would they replace that with that? That doesn't make any sense. Really? They went with runes for that character? This cuneiform is all over the place. What were they thinking?"

Luna facehooved. "Bah! Confound Us! We should have obtained a reference to Old Unicornian! One moment." She stood and disappeared back into the shelves.

"Relax, princess, I know every scripture," Indigo turned the book around and tapped the page, "This sentence says: 'The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.'"

Angel chuckled at Indigo and Luna's interaction as she cracked open a book on electronics, deciding to refamiliarize herself with the topic before she tried teaching about it. "That sentence should actually be all you need," she said. "It contains every letter in Modern Equestrian. Would have been cooler if you'd found the sentence that uses each of them exactly once, though."

She then turned to Twilight with a slight frown. "I'm actually relatively new to my Equus. And what I've learned about the lands beyond my native Equestria - which is a standard model as far as I can tell - is far from cheery."

Indigo turned away with her book, before glancing up at the sparkling pink fairy sitting on Twilight’s lap, "That's not a Breezie, is it."

Angel smirked as Luna returned with a book on Old Unicornian. "Hey! Listen!"

"Breezie? What's that?" Tael asked, tilting her head in confusion.

"No, Tael isn't a Breezie, she's a golem fairy, gifted to Mikie by his original Displaced Master," Twilight explained. "After Mikie and I got married he decided we should adopt her so she wouldn't feel left out of the family," She smiled as she brushed Tael's hair.

"No." Jeff firmly said to Angel with a point of his finger. "Just no... Thank the goddesses I don't have to deal with Navi.." Jeff said with a shake of his head.

"A golem fairy..." Indigo repeated, "How does one even create such a construct?"

"All Mikie said was a howler named Cameron Ruff made her for his displaced master." Twilight sighed as she turned the page of the book she was reading.

If one listened hard, you could hear faint snoring coming from somewhere near the back of the library.

Angel decided to answer Tael's question. "A Breezie is..." She hesitated before reaching under her shirt and pulling out a laptop. She opened it up and entered a few keystrokes before turning it around. "This is a Breezie. Feylike ponies. Mostly helpless. Vital to pollination in most versions of Equestria."

"Oh wow, those look cool," Tael flew off Twilight's lap and over to Angel. "By the way what is this thing? It looks so handy." She inspected the laptop.

"I'd also like to know, I've never seen anything like it before." Twilight pried her eyes off her book and stared at the laptop, soon teleporting a notepad and pen.

Angel glanced at Indigo before looking back with a smile. "It's called a computer. Originally they did just what their names implied, computing automatically using electricity. But eventually they figured out how to share information between them, creating the internet, a massive collection of human knowledge. My computer has a copy of the internet at the time that I was displaced, including information about Equestria."

Twilight vigorously wrote down every word she heard, even drawing a crude image of the laptop. "Fascinating," She smiled. "Mikie never mentioned anything about these before"

Angel chuckled before pulling up some schematics of early computers for her. Then - remembering her own Twilight's first experience with her laptop - used a keystroke to freeze the screen.

Twilight intensely copied everything from the screen onto a blank page. "Wow, thank you for sharing this information with me, Miss umm..." Twilight chuckled as she continued to sketch. "I'm sorry I didn't catch your name."

"Angel Johnson," Angel introduced. "And it's my pleasure to share technology."

"...Is it wise to be introducing this kind of stuff though?” Jeff asked in worry of Mike's world taking a small leap in technology.

"There are a lot of steps between this and the internet," Angel assured. "Electronic computers aren't that far off from some of the tech from the show."

"The what?" Twilight asked, a bit confused.

Angel sighed and - once Twilight finished copying down the schematics - unfroze her computer and cued up an early episode of MLP:FiM. "The world of Equestria and the adventures of you and your friends exist in our world as a fictional story."

"It looks like a scrying mirror." Indigo muttered, looking over the device, "And these... studs are what you use to input data so that it may compute?"

"They're called 'keys,' but basically, yes."

"Huh?" Twilight stared at the laptop in utter shock. "Is... Is this how Mikie knew so many things about us and our world?" She leaned back a bit and gained a thousand-yard stare,

She then chuckled at look on Twilight's face. "Yup. Classic Twilight Sparkle overload."

Jeff reaches over to softly poke Twilight. "...I think you broke her."

Indigo glanced up from the laptop, "Twilight... Sparkle?" She asked, "You are Twilight Sparkle?"

"Yes, she is." Tael answered for the mind-broken Twilight. Tael flew back over to Twilight and tried to snap her out of her trance.

"The 'princess of friendship' and wielder of the 'element of magic' Twilight Sparkle?" Indigo demanded, putting her hooves on the table and pushing herself up.

"The very same," Angel answered with a smirk.

Indigo whipped her head towards Angel instead, "I thought you said she was a pony."

"P-princess of... Friendship?" She managed to say.

"Whoa spoilers," Tael managed to cover Twilight's ears.

A loud crash could be heard off in the back, undoubtedly the sound of a collapsing bookshelf

"...oops." Angel swiftly moved on from the "grand destiny" conversation and pulled up the Sliding Scale of Anthropomorphism. "So, yeah. This is a thing. Apparently, some versions of Equestria are at different places on this scale than others."

Indigo gave the screen a hard look, before turning it back towards Twilight, "So you're not some sort of hybrid or something?"

"The Ponies of my Equus would be a one, but Cadance would be a four." Jeff pointed out according to the chart.

"So she's a hybrid." Indigo deduced, looking over at Jeff.

Luna saw that no-one was investigating the crash and so got up with a sigh, wandering off to peruse the shelves again.

"Well yes and no. She was originally a pony before she tried to use the crystal heart to cure her curse, but instead of returning to her originally size, she became what you saw before. She's the only anthropomorphic pony of my world." Jeff explained as he rests his arms onto the table.

"She became like that?" Indigo asked, "Bipedal with..." She glanced at all the other humans and human-likes in the room, "fingers?"

"Yes and yes." Jeff said before softly chuckling as he remembers the day when she tried to return to normal.

Angel thought about it for a moment before blushing scarlet. "Oh. Um, yeah. That would be an adjustment."

"Is all well back here?" Luna called out, looking for the collapsed bookshelf.

There was no response, save for the creaking of a collapsed shelf.

Twilight sits up and smiles. "It seems, Mikie and I have some talking to do..." She said as she returned to her book. "I wonder what else he's been keeping from me?" She said quietly with a sigh, a frown flashing on her muzzle for a moment.

"I'm gonna go check on Aunt Lulu... I mean Princess Luna," Tael said then caught herself tapping her head. "I think she went over here." Tael flew away following Luna.

Indigo looked down at her hooves, "Now I'm wondering what I would look like as that, but transmogrification is not an easy spell, nor is it very safe."

"It can be a bit disorienting at first, going from standing on all fours to standing up on two." Jeff said with a nod as he remembers his first time turning into a wolf.

Luna looked around a little more, finally finding the collapsed shelf just as Tael caught up. "Oh my," Luna muttered, lifting the shelf with her magic.

"Uhhhhhhhh....." Johnny grumbled as the weight was finally lifted off of him.

"Art thou well?" Luna asked.

"Uncle Johnny, are you hurt?" Tael asked as she hovered next to his face with a worried expression.

"Lulu?" Johnny asked, thinking that it was his Luna. "Oh Heya Tink.." He smiled dopily as Tael nearly got headbutted.

Luna chuckled. "Not quite."

"Huh? Oh right, you're that one kid’s Luna..." Johnny groaned as he tried to stand, only to slip on a book.

Luna hid a giggle behind her hoof and set Johnny on his feet with her magic. "Indeed. We are the Undying Angel's companion."

Tael sat on Johnny's shoulder and gave him a hug. "It's nice to see you again, also you might want to start picking up this shelf, Uncle Johnny, before Twily realizes you knocked it over." She said with a smile

"I did? I just remember passing out reading..." Johnny frowned as he looked at the mess.

"Yep, I know you did it in your sleep but, Twily is a bit protective of books no matter if they're hers or not." Tael said with a giggle.

"What wast thou reading?" Luna asked as she started levitating up some books to help.

"Oh.. I see..." Johnny frowned as he knelt down and began picking up some books. Turning to Luna he smiled sadly. "Just... a version of one of my favorite stories... Treasure Island."

"Treasure Island?" Luna asked. "Sounds like quite the tale of adventure."

"Yeah, sounds like a Daring Do book, those are always fun to read." Tael smiled.

"It's a story with Pirates, adventure on the high seas, and understanding one's true worth..." Johnny scoffed to himself as he picked up said book. “How ironic…”

Luna raised an eyebrow but continued shelving. "Ironic?"

Tael flew off Johnny's shoulder and helped pick up a book flapping her wings as fast as she could.

"Don't... don't worry about it..." Johnny closed his eyes for a moment before continuing to clean up the mess he made.

"We are afraid that that is quite impossible." Luna gave him a fond smile. "Thou art close with thy Luna; thou knowest that We cannot help but aid those who struggle with inner demons."

"Please don't push it. It's my problem to deal with..." Johnny said quietly as he shot Luna a warning look.

Luna shrugged. "Our problems are never ours alone; always do they weigh upon those who care for us. But very well, We shall not pry."

Tuckered out from only putting two books back on the shelf, Tael lands on Luna's shoulder and takes a break.

Johnny managed to pick up all the books and shattered wood, standing and sighing. “I think I should go…”

"Before you go," Tael quickly flew over to Johnny and hugged him again. "See you later, Uncle Johnny, I love you." She smiled.

Johnny managed a small smile as he gave Tael a pat. "You too Tink."

Tael flew back onto Luna's shoulder and smiled.

Luna frowned as she watched Johnny depart. "We hope that he will be well, and that his Luna may be able to aid him."

As she watched him walk away Tael frowned and hugged Luna.

Luna chuckled and returned the hug with a touch of telekinesis. "Come. Let us return to the others." She turned and walked back to the table in time to hear the end of Angel's rant.

"-no sense of modesty! Not that they prefer immodest styles; they literally have no sense for it! Which is fine for them, since their tails usually cover everything, but it was so embarrassing having to explain all of that to Rarity!" She buried her face in her arms. "I swear, I almost slit my throat right there and then."

"That's a little... overboard don't you think?" Twilight asked a little unnerved.

Luna snickered behind her hoof as Angel stiffened before looking up with a strained smile. "Ha ha, yeah, obviously. It was just a joke." She shook her head and her expression shifted into a much more natural pout. "But seriously, most embarrassing conversation of my life. My only saving grace is that Rarity was super professional the whole time."

"If you want to talk about embarrassing conversations, Mikie and I were caught by Princess Celestia in the middle of..." Twilight blushed a bit. "You know..." She feigned a cough. "And we got a lecture from her about guest etiquette when staying in Canterlot Castle, while we were covered only by our blanket," Twilight admitted. "That was the most embarrassed I've ever been in my entire life."

Angel waved her off. "Sure, but Mom walking in on you and your guy doing the nasty is a pretty universal experience. At least, I assume it is." She glared off to the side. "Guess that's one silver lining to- OW!" She turned to glare at Luna. "What was that for?"

"Friend Spot isn't here to throw a spear at thee," Luna replied, lowering her hoof with a smirk. "Thus the task of forcefully removing thee from thy 'funk' falls to Us."

Tael returns to Twilight's lap, still holding her frown. "I knew I'd find you in here," Cole said as he walked into the library. "Oh, I didn't know there would be others in here too..." Cole stopped for a moment looking at Luna then he looked away with a blush appearing on his face.

"Oh, hello, Cole," Twilight waved as he walked over. "How was morning training?" She asked as Cole walked over, giving Luna a wide berth, and sat down in an empty chair next to Twilight.

"Not happened yet, we just grabbed breakfast." Cole said as he grabbed a graphic novel from the shelf closest to the table.

Luna smirked and raised an eyebrow. She opened her mouth.

"Don't." Angel sighed as Luna closed her mouth with a pout. "Honestly, you're as bad as Spot sometimes."

"Mike's still eating, like he hasn't eaten in weeks, I don't know where he puts all that food he devours," Cole chuckled. "Name's Cole by the way, nice to meet you." He smiled and waved at everyone who wasn't Twilight or Tael.

"Angel Johnson," Angel introduced before gesturing around. "Luna. Jeff. Indigo." She blinked as she realized that Indigo was no longer there, and neither was her language book or several of the books on electricity. "Huh. Nevermind Indigo, then. Anyway, we're discussing embarrassing moments."

"Embarrassing moments?" Cole raised an eyebrow then glanced at Twilight's blush. "Heh, I got a good one, it's not mine but it's funny, Mike has this magic mask that turns him into an earth pony when he puts it on," Cole began making Twilight's blush deepen as she looked away from the table. "Twilight wanted to study the transformation and my room in the basement currently has all her study equipment..." He spots Tael in Twilight's lap. "Cover her ears real quick, Twi," Twilight nods and covers Tael's ears, confusing her. "When Mike puts on the mask..." He starts laughing. "His transformation was buck naked!" He nearly falls out of his chair laughing.

At the mention of Mike's mask, Jeff let out a soft groan as he held his head, feeling that odd sense of deja vu, feeling as if he's the one who created the mask. The memories are there and yet... not. The feeling of a history rewrite still around him of the two timelines he experienced and yet did not. The man didn't even hear the pun by Cole.

Angel snorted. "Classic."

Luna tilted her head curiously. "Why would that be an issue?"

"Well let's just say the ponies of our world, Princess, walk upright and their privates aren't covered by magic, they wear clothes like Angel here." Cole said, catching his breath.

Luna blinked again, her expression still neutral. "The minotaurs likewise walk upright, but they have no need of clothing as humans seem to." She frowned in further confusion. "And our secret areas are not covered by magic. Merely by our tails."

"Give it up," Angel muttered. "My ponies have no idea what 'modesty' means vis a vis nudity."

"To be honest.." Jeff began as the time displacement headache faded. "You don't see a pony's parts in most worlds across the void."

Cole shook his head and smiled. "Seems that way, Angel," He opened the graphic novel and began reading.

"Should you have told them about that, Cole?" Twilight asked a little annoyed with him. "It wasn't embarrassing for you, only Mikie and I."

"I was still there..." Cole began before being interrupted.

"Laughing." Twilight said with a stern tone.

Cole rubbed the back of his head. "Right..." He nervously chuckled.

"What about the Pink Menace?" Angel asked.

"Pink... Menace?" Twilight asked, confused.

"Pinkie Pie, known to do the unthinkable, illogical, and the senseless." Jeff explained.

"Oh... What about her?" Twilight tilted her head in confusion.

"The native eldritch," Angel agreed. "Praise her name and sacrifice cupcakes to her mercy."

"Laughing," Angel clarified. "I assumed it had something to do with..."

"Oh I was laughing my ass off when Mike turned into that naked pony form," Cole explained. "That's what she meant when she said laughing, It was hilarious he was all super serious until he and Twi noticed he was naked." He chuckled but stopped when Twilight glared at him.

"Ah. I misunderstood." Angel shrugged. "Still, we're missing a story about you, Cole."

"Oh? Are you?" He looked at his book. "About what?"

“Embarrassing moments.”

"Oh..." Cole tried to hide his face in his book. "One moment... Let me think..." He stalls.

Angel and Luna traded smirks before turning to Twilight, and Tael, expectant grins on their faces.

Cole peeked his eyes above the book looking at everyone nervously. "Since you told an embarrassing story about my dear husband Mikie, I'll tell one about you, brother." Twilight smirked as Cole's eyes widened.

"No please." He whispered.

"Too bad, Cole," Twilight smiled as she stopped covering Tael's ears. "We were out at a Hyrulian ranch on our way back from Dodge Town to help Mikie find the Goron Ruby to get back his prized Master Sword when Cole walked up to a horse to pet it." Cole hid behind his book again and shrunk into his chair.

"Oh, oh, I remember this, when he touched the horse it freaked out and kicked him in the no-nos!" Tael shouted as she remembered.

"That's right, Tael, you remembered," Twilight brushed her hair with a smile. "After recovering from that unexpected attack we looked at the cows and he went to pet them too, only to be head butted in the stomach by the cow he touched."

"It seems animals from Hyrule can detect Dark Magic and they..." Cole groaned. "Don't like it very much."

Angel giggled, but Luna seemed slightly uncomfortable. "We know that things are different in other worlds," she muttered, "but it is still strange to hear horses and cows referred to as mere animals."

"Well, they're not native to our world, they're from another world merged into ours," Twilight explained. "Their cows don't talk and their workhorses are much more simple, less color variation."

"They're also not as smart since there were two or three cows stuck in a food grain silo and wouldn't get out even when Mike and I tried to help them out." Cole added as he flipped the page of his book.

Luna's face tinged green a bit and she cleared her throat. "Well, moving on-"

"What about you, Luna?" Angel asked with a smirk. "Any embarrassing stories from your past?"

Luna shot Angel a deadpan glare. "We once went insane, tried to render the world to eternal night, and killed most of our friends."

Angel waved her off. "Old news. And besides, that's tragic, not personally embarrassing." She grinned around the table. "Come on! I'm sure y'all'd love to hear about some royal shenanigans!"

"Well... We shared some stories, it's only fair, Princess." Twilight said with a smirk.

Luna let out a sigh, but she supposed it had been her who had wanted to change the subject. "Very well." She thought for a minute before nodding. "Many millennia ago, Our sister and Us were first introduced to hot peppers. Our initial experience was painful and delightful in equal parts; the aftermath over Our chamberpots was merely painful. Soon after, Our sister, being young and impulsive, dared Us to attempt using a pepper as a suppository. And, being young and impulsive, We agreed." Luna let that hang in the air for a moment. "'Twas an inconsequential experience... until the pepper burst."

"What's a supposi... " Tael began to ask before Twilight covered her ears and mouth with her arms and hands.

"A little too much information, Princess." Twilight sighed.

Luna tilted her head curiously. "Odd. We were sure that suppositories remained a common medical tool."

"That doesn't mean everyone wants to hear about them, Luna," Angel snickered. "I assume your reaction was-"

"Undignified, to say the least. As there is a child present, We shall not repeat the words which We shrieked at the top of Our lungs whilst We ran about as a gamefowl with its head removed."

"You gotta admit, it is a little funny when you think about it." Cole lightly chuckled.

"I'm gonna go check out the rest of this place, you three have fun." Jeff said and poof, he's gone.

Tael frowned for a moment as Jeff left. "Don't worry, Tael, you'll see him again." Twilight gave Tael a hug.

"I know..." Tael sighed. "So do you wanna talk about anything else, Miss Angel?" Tael asked, half smiling.

Angel shrugged. "I was mostly here to help Indigo, but I guess she got what she needed. Unless you have any more questions about computers or what I know of the potential future."

"I'm good on the future talk..." Twilight declined. "But we can continue talking about the computer you have, I wonder if the top scientists in Canterlot can recreate it?" She wondered as Cole chuckled.

"That sounds like fun but..." He looked at a clock in the room. "Maybe I should go check on, Mike," He stood from his chair. "I wonder if he's still scarfing down whatever he can find?" He left the library still carrying the graphic novel.

"I'm game for learning more about computers." Tael said as she flew over next to Angel.

"We will take Our leave," Luna said, standing. She nodded to everyone before departing.

Angel nodded in return before pulling up more schematics. "Okay. So I'm not an expert by any means, but let's see what we can do."

Author's Note

What’s this about peppers? I was just here for Indigo’s part. I’m not going to go in depth on how Phos’s Equestria’s language works. I’ve explained it more in her actual story. Basically, each tribe has their own writing system, which was then combined into Ancient Equestrian, which then evolved into the writing you see in the show. Is it inconsistent? Yes, very much so, but it’s what I’m working with. Are they speaking English? Maybe, probably, some of these jokes only work in English, but it’s not guaranteed, for all you know they could be speaking in pure horse-tongue, and we’ve just perfectly translated it for your reading pleasure. - Conglomerate