Reduplicate

If I don't have something or someone waking me up, then I have problems with finding the willpower to crawl out of bed. It's a rare occasion where I can manage to do so without falling on the floor.

So I was surprised when I woke up on my own time from a dreamless sleep, feeling refreshed and invigorated. I caught a glimpse of the mussed mane frizzled out beside my head, reminding me of the past day, but after a moment I decided to ignore it for the time being.

I was in a bedroom, with walls of wood and bookshelves. Ledges stocked with covers flashed unfamiliar titles. The ceiling cut off harshly with a level of raw wood, marked with darker rings of age. Staring at the trunk above me, I perceived the image of a rainbow, colored brown, stretching across the wooden sky.

I fumbled around the covers—it looked as though I'd tossed and turned a bit—and set myself down on the floor. Gasping from the cold, I shuffled my hooves to warm them up and looked up to see a number of makeshift beds rolled out on the floor. Another twin-sized bed held the sleeping form of Lyra, and the others were strewn about in sleeping bags or floor mattresses. Cricking my neck, I walked over to Lyra and gently nudged her.

Lyra groaned and worked herself deeper into the bedsheets. Further efforts to get the stubborn unicorn up did nothing, so I placed a hoof gently around her shoulders and shook her.

I was just about to put my other hoof around her when I snapped my head back. A few panics and fears melted through my mind, but chief among them was what would possess me to get so… close?

I backed away from Lyra, accidentally tripping over something and falling backwards. The object groaned and mumbled a few words that sounded suspiciously like "what the f– gah." Berry Punch batted at the air with one of her forelegs and smushed her face deeper into her pillow. "Leave me alone."

I righted myself and pushed myself off the ground, numbly watching as Berry squirmed. I wasn't really thinking, or trying to think. I was trying to drown my experience with Lyra beneath a sea of suppression, taking deep breaths and emptying my mind. I rubbed the last traces of sleep from my eyes, and the world became sharper, clearer, and more real.

My strange meditation wavered from the sound of a pony rousing herself, and I caught a blue-and-white mane peeking out from the cover sheet of one of the floor mattresses. Turning my head, I examined Minuette as she rose. Her mane was disheveled, a mess instigated by negligence and compounded by bedhead. A faint, unfamiliar scent wafted over to me as she stretched her legs and yawned. Smacking her lips, she saw me looking at her, and reciprocated interest. "Good morn… ing?" Minuette did a double take, scanning the ponies sleeping, then removed herself from her own setup, backing away cautiously.

"Minuette?" I asked, having no idea of what she would be reacting to.

"Where am I?"

"Um, Twilight's house?" I phrased it as more of a question than a statement.

Minuette blinked at me. "Why?"

The cold air clutched at my body, and I didn't move a hair. I gulped. "What?"

"Why are we in Twilight's house? I don't remember getting here."

I stood there, sucking in icy breaths. Minuette's eyes widened, and her eyes started darting around the unfamiliar room. "Why are we in Twilight's house?"

"B-Because we're humans!" In my rising hysteria, I began stuttering my words.

"We're what?" Minuette looked at me uncomprehendingly.

"Oh no, oh no no no no no," I babbled, before hustling back over to the other unicorn in the room. "Lyra," I whispered loudly, shaking her. "Lyra, Lyra!"

"Unf, come on, give me five minutes," came the reply, as Lyra wiggled away from my touch.

Losing my patience, I grabbed Lyra and dragged her back with me onto the floor. "Ow, hey, what's the big idea?!"

"Something's wrong with Minuette," I squeaked, gesturing at the unicorn standing against the wall, looking at us with a blank expression shaded by bewilderment. "She can't remember anything that happened yesterday."

"Ugh, why do we have to deal with it?"

"Because!" I yelled, clasping Lyra. "This is a problem!"

"Aah! Okay, okay!" Lyra shouted, wrestling free from my grip. "Why is this a problem?"

"Because- well, you should know!"

"Know what? You're just yelling at me that Minuette has memory problems! How am I supposed to go off of that?! And where are we, anyway?" Lyra began looking around the room.

I shrieked and backpedaled, tripping over Berry Punch a second time.

"Ow, would you please stop doing that!" Berry thrust her covers back, glaring at me with drowsy eyes. "Seriously, is it too much to ask for you to stop screaming and falling on me?!"

"B… Berry?" I whispered. "Do you… remember yesterday?"

The earth pony snorted. "Not likely I'll forget it. Now shut up."

"No! There's something wrong with Lyra and Minuette," I said before she could slink back beneath the sheets. "They have no idea how they got here, and Minuette's not telling me every sentence her name is Colgate."

Berry Punch groaned, and pulled herself to a sitting position. "What?"

I seized Berry's shoulders, staring into her eyes. "Lyra and Minuette don't remember they were human."

"Oh, sh–… That better not happen to me," Berry rasped, pushing herself off of the floor onto all fours.

Lyra forced herself between Berry Punch and I, shooting each of us an intense, questioning glance. "Okay, I don't know what's going on, but can somepony please tell me what all the fuss is about?" Berry Punch recoiled away, and Lyra turned to face me head-on. "Sweetie, what the hay is this?"

I swallowed down a lump of fear. "Um, okay, Lyra, I don't know how much you remember, but yesterday you, and I, and Minuette and Berry Punch, and those two I guess"—I waved a hoof towards the two bunches of blankets still covering ponies—"all woke up here, in bodies that weren't ours. We found each other here, in the library. We were all humans."

Lyra cocked an eyebrow. "Really? Um, I mean, I thought that wasn't your thing."

"What's all the talk about humans?" Minuette asked, joining our unofficial huddle. "That's just a story, right?"

"As far as I know," Lyra said. "I mean, yeah, it's awesome, but as much as I hate to admit it, it's all just hearsay."

I withdrew from the two unicorns as they talked, and went over to where Berry Punch was watching with a flicker of horror. "See Berry? They're acting like they were never human!"

"Well, um, maybe the real ones got back in their bodies somehow?" Berry alternated between a perturbed look at the unicorns and a hopeful look at me.

I thought of Lyra and how I'd almost hugged her for no reason. "I think… we might be changing into the ponies."

Knowing how Berry Punch reacted to not remembering her own name, I probably shouldn't have said that.

Berry Punch's voice cracked as she squawked in panic, and the earth pony threw her forelegs around me in a bear hug before hopping over to the door. "WE'VE GOT TO GET OUT OF HERE!" Berry's eyes were wide, looking from me to the unicorns to the door as I struggled in her tight grip, wrestling against the crazy pony's hooves and my own rising feelings of alarm.

Berry stepped on one of my back legs and tripped, bringing us into a knot as she fell on top of me. She hugged me, whimpering into my back, as I fought against her squeezing.

"What's going on?!" The cry issued from the other end of the room, and Thunderlane shimmied off his blankets to see me and Berry Punch awkwardly hugging and the unicorns' stunned observance. Thunderlane paused, and I took the opportunity to break free of Berry's chokehold. The earth pony scooted away, slamming into the wall before curling up in a defensive position.

"Thunderlane? Do you remember yesterday?" I fought to keep my voice from trembling, but I knew it was clear that I was afraid.

Thunderlane considered my words for a moment. "Yeah, why?"

"Because these two don't," I answered, gesturing to the two unicorns.

"I don't understand. What's so special about yesterday again?" Minuette responded. "If you could start making sense of-"

"Hold on," Thunderlane interrupted. "You're telling me that these two have no recollection of anything whatsoever of yesterday?"

"And their human lives," I shakily added. I could see in my mind Lyra and Minuette's stares focused on the back of my head.

Thunderlane broke our gaze to inspect the two unicorns. "In that case, we may have a problem."

"You think?!" Berry exclaimed, shoving me aside. "We could just forget who we are! We could… could… die!"

Thunderlane shrank back, jerking away from Berry's anger. "Okay, plan time. What do we do?"

"We find out what's going on, right now!" Lyra answered. "I don't know what all this is about us being humans, but this prank or whatever it is has gone too far!"

"But it's not a prank!" I cried back, having returned to the conversation after Berry had knocked me away. "This is serious business, Lyra, as trite as it sounds."

Lyra didn't answer. Indecision and suspicion dwelt in her expression.

"Please, Lyra," I implored. "I need you to go with me on this. Please, just once."

The sound of Lyra exhaling pierced the disconcerting quiet. Lyra opened her mouth. "I… think you and I are going to need to talk about this." She turned away from me and walked to the only door in the room. "I'll be outside." Lyra's horn glowed, and the doorknob twisted in a green aura before the door pushed open. The unicorn stepped outside, leaving the door ajar.

Giving one glance at the ponies around me, I followed Lyra outside the door to a corridor without a wall, wrapping around the inner trunk before descending down to the library proper, rooted into the side of the tree. Lyra sat in front of me, remaining motionless but for the pricking of her ears at my arrival. I remained standing, and the open room bore down with its cozy atmosphere until Lyra spoke.

"Sweetie…" Lyra paused, then continued with a quavering voice: "You've always said that you thought that the whole 'hu-mare' thing was entertaining, after a fashion, but not your thing, and I've always respected that decision. I know you aren't too impressed with the whole deal, and I can always feel your mild disapproval, even if you never talk about it. But you've always said that I can do what I want and as long as I'm happy, you are, and that means a lot to me. Sure, you poke fun at me for it, but I always know that it's just that, poking fun." Lyra turned her head to look at me, her eyes burning with doubt. "But when you're doing something like this, it's not funny. It's mocking me, in a very personal way. If this really is just a joke, stop it, please. It's hurting me."

I choked down the uneasiness of seeing Lyra so distrustful—so accusatory—and sat down in front of her, pulling her shoulder so that her body faced me. "Lyra, I'm not lying to you about this. It's too important. I need you to trust me when I say that it's true that yesterday, you were just a very confused person trapped in a body that wasn't yours. I need you to trust me when I say that I don't want to see that confused person get lost in some limbo somewhere, alone in the dark. I just… need you to trust me."

Lyra blinked, holding my stare. "Okay. If you're really telling the truth, then I believe you."

I smiled, and we hugged. A part of me flashbacked to when I had almost embraced Lyra trying to get her out of bed, but the majority of my mindset considered the gesture too important, and the situation too serious. I could spare a hug.

After an eternal moment, we stood up together and returned to the guest bedroom. Lyra opened the door for me, and I thanked her before walking in to find Thunderlane, Berry Punch, and Minuette waiting for me.

"So, what happened?" I asked.

"She's on board," Thunderlane replied. "I explained to her the situation, and she's okay with it."

"This is crazy," Minuette added, "but hey, it's crazy in a good way. I like it."

"Okay, cool," I said, not really knowing what else I could say. Something felt off, and as we stood there in indecision I glanced over to the only bedspread not flattened out on a mattress or tossed aside in a heap. "How did Cloudchaser manage to sleep through all our yelling?"

"I don't know, but I guess we should tell her about all this," Thunderlane said quietly, walking over to the bundle.

I turned around to talk to the others for a moment when a yell snapped my attention back to Thunderlane. He was recoiling away from the bundle of blankets.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"She's not in there," Thunderlane said, backing into the wall behind him. "She's gone."

Minuette and Lyra gasped, and Berry Punch sighed and rolled her eyes.

"Where could she have gone?" Minuette asked, trotting over and looking through the covers herself.

"If we knew that, she wouldn't be lost," Berry snapped. "Seriously, think!"

"Hey!" Minuette shouted. "That's not nice!"

"Never mind!" Thunderlane said over both of them. "Minuette, head downstairs and check around the library. I'll go outside and see if I can find her anywhere nearby. The rest of you, stay here and don't fight!"

There was something in Thunderlane's tone when he spoke that I would call "the leader voice." Whenever he barked out orders, the image of a military general would pop into my head. Perhaps because of this, even Berry shut up, and Minuette and Thunderlane both left through the bedroom door.

I sat down on the wood floor, thinking. Lyra began looking around the room, it probably being new to her.

An uncomfortable silence blanketed the room, and the only actions were sighs, sounds of shifting bodies, and the occasional cough. Lyra opened her mouth a few times to say something, or raised a hoof to make a point, but she always stopped herself and continued wandering about.

We stayed there for several minutes before a light tapping came from the window. At first, all of us ignored it, but it became more insistent, until finally Lyra groaned and opened the window with a green flare of magic. Cloudchaser flew in, alighting on the windowsill.

"Cloudchaser? Where have you been?" I asked, walking up to her.

"Oh, this morning seemed so bright and warm that I just had to go on an early fly!" Cloudchaser answered, hopping down and stretching her wings up as she arched her back. "It was great! Sorry I didn't tell anypony, I just couldn't wait to get out there and exercise a bit."

"Well, Thunderlane left to go find you, and now he's probably searching around looking for you somewhere," I said.

"Good, he's not bossing me around," Berry commented. "I don't like his attitude."

"Well, we'd better tell Minuette, at any rate," Lyra interrupted. "Let's go downstairs and meet her."

I began walking towards the door, but was pulled back by my tail. "Ouch!"

"Sorry," Lyra said, levitating over a brush, "but your hair is a mess."

"Wait-ow!"

After Lyra brushed my horribly unkempt mane into something presentable, and chased around Berry Punch trying to fix hers up too until Berry kicked her, we all filed out of the bedroom, descending a level to the main library area. Muted colors of the books' bindings greeted my eyes, and I found myself inhaling the smell of dusty pages. It's really quite refreshing, if you ever get the opportunity to enjoy it.

"Minuette? Twilight Sparkle?" Lyra said, peeking through a door. "Anypony?"

"What's going on, exactly?" I turned to see Cloudchaser looking at me.

"Well, Minuette and Lyra woke up this morning without remembering that they were ever human," I said, feeling a chill run down my spine as I talked about it. The door slammed as Lyra disappeared behind it. "We were hoping that we could ask Twilight about it and maybe stop this mind takeover or whatever it is."

"Sounds bad," Cloudchaser mumbled, licking her lips. "I hope Twilight can fix it; she's awfully smart."

"Yeah," I muttered. "I hope so." Berry didn't say anything, but I could tell from her furrowed brow that she wasn't disagreeing with me.

We stood there for a few moments until we heard voices coming from behind one of the red doors. The door opened, and Twilight and Lyra walked through, talking to each other.

"Oh, look, Cloudchaser's back!" Lyra said.

"Good morning, Cloudchaser," Twilight greeted. "Good morning, Sweetie Drops."

"Who?" I asked, looking around.

"You, silly!" Twilight cocked her head. "Who do you think I was talking to?"

"Wait wait wait," I said, feeling the now-familiar panic rising in my chest. "No, my name's Bon Bon, remember? Right, Lyra?" I looked over at her, desperate for support.

Lyra was looking at me and slightly shaking her head. "No, you're Sweetie Drops."

"No, no, no no NO!" I threw myself at Twilight, grabbing her shoulders and shaking her. "I'm not Sweetie Drops, I'm Bon Bon! I can't be Sweetie Drops! I'm not… I'm not–!"

Twilight's horn glowed, and I was thrust off of her. "Sweetie Drops, I let you off the hook yesterday, but I want to know why you're acting so strange!"

"It's because I don't belong here!" I screamed, locking my front hooves over my hind legs and curling into a ball. "I'm not supposed to be in Equestria, I'm supposed to be on Earth! I'm not supposed to be a pony, but I'm afraid that I'm going to think I'm one! I don't even know my name, and now you're telling me I'm somepony I don't even know! I'm… I'm scared!" I sniffed, and felt my eyes growing wet. "Stupid tears…"

A hoof touched my shoulder. I looked up to see Lyra, smiling encouragingly against the light streaming through the windows. "Hey, don't worry. I'm going to try my hardest to help you get home, okay? I don't want you to lose yourself, either."

Lyra offered me a hoof, and I took it, getting back on four hooves. Lyra drew me closer into a hug, and I returned the gesture, closing my eyes and letting my heart rate return to normal.

We finally broke the hug, and I took one last deep breath before turning to Twilight. "Okay Twilight, we need you to look into finding some way to stop this before things get too far out of hoof." I started, before correcting myself: "Hand. Out of hand."

Twilight either didn't notice my slipup or ignored it. "Okay, let me go look up a few titles that I'm sure will help. Before that, though, I'm sure you're all hungry."

We agreed, and Twilight toasted some bread and served us toast and butter with orange juice for breakfast before leaving us to search the bookshelves. Twilight's little kitchen table was soon filled with smacking and crunching as we all chowed down. A few minutes after everyone finished, I snuck outside the makeshift eating room to see if I could find Twilight. I spotted her at her writing desk, poring over a tome.

"Hey, Twilight," I said, causing the unicorn to jerk her head up, "how are things going?"

"Well, I'm just looking for any possible causes of interspatial or interdimensional travel right now," Twilight replied, pulling another book over with her magic and flipping it open. "There's nothing much when it comes to recorded phenomena, but if I could find everything that's possible, then it shouldn't be too difficult to come up with a number of reasons." Twilight looked up from her collection of books. "Do you want to help?"

"Um, sure, let me get the rest of the ponies."

So we began a long, tedious period of research. Berry Punch didn't help much at all, instead choosing to look through books she found funny. Whenever we found something, Twilight would take our books and double-check us before writing it down on a sheet of paper she had. After a few hours, Thunderlane returned to the library and joined us.

At noon, we took a break for lunch. Twilight slapped together some daisy sandwiches, and it tasted just about like what I'd expected two pieces of bread with a daisy in between would taste like. After scarfing it down, we continued looking for material for a couple more hours.

"All right everypony," Twilight said, placing her quill down. "I think we've just about exhausted the possibilities for this."

We all dropped the books we were looking through and gathered around as Twilight began going down the line. "First off, any possible contact between our universes' respective strings. We should probably stick this as a last resort, since it's so unlikely, and doesn't explain why you're ponies."

Everyone nodded.

"Next, magic on the level of one of the Princesses." Twilight's horn glowed briefly, and the unicorn shook her head. "I'm detecting some sort of magical residue on you, but it's faint, and nothing like what I've felt from any alicorn magic." Twilight's face screwed up in confusion. "In fact, I'm not quite sure where it's from; it doesn't feel like any magic I've felt before."

"Then get rid of it," Berry Punch said. "I mean, if it's what's keeping us here, then just trashing the stupid magic'll send us back, right?"

"I'm not sure what'll happen if I do, if I can even figure out how to do it." Twilight put an X next to the second line. "Sure, it might send you back, but it also might accelerate the process that's consuming your minds, or even kill you."

"Okay, never mind," Berry said quickly.

"Possibility three," Twilight continued. "Some higher power deemed it logical to place six humans in pony bodies." The unicorn glanced over at Berry. "We have Berry Punch over here to thank for that suggestion."

"What? It's possible!" Berry crossed her forelegs and grunted. "Sometimes it's just logical to say 'God did it.'"

"Sure it is," Twilight said sarcastically, putting an X next to that choice as well. "Our next option is… that some sort of mental connection bridged the gap between ponies and humans in some way and from this connection switched consciousnesses." Twilight tapped her quill against her head. "This one explains why it's pony-to-human, and I guess vice-versa, but something would have had to have caused it somehow for it to be plausible. Why else would you six be the first for it to happen to, ever?"

"Maybe we're not the first," I pointed out. "Maybe there were others before, but they forgot that they were human too quick to tell anyone, or nopony believed them?"

Twilight's eyes widened. "In that case, we might have a real possibility here." Twilight marked the line with an O, scratching her chin with the tip of the feather. "Our last bit doesn't explain why you woke up as ponies, but it does make sense. It makes the stipulation that during sleep, a sort of 'snap-back' occurs, which does explain the varying levels of change within each of you. The unicorns felt the effect the most, being closely tied to magic." Twilight hummed. "In that case…" Twilight drew a line between both of the O's on the paper. "We might be able to say that the change occurred during sleep, and while you are unconscious there is some sort of transfer between the two hosts."

"Wait, so does that mean I'm sharing my brain with a pony?" Berry Punch asked. "I don't want a pony using my body! It's bad enough that I'm a pony right now!"

"Calm down!" Twilight said. "If this hypothesis is right, then you might not have to worry; this problem could just correct itself."

"So we just wait?" I asked, suspicious yet hopeful that it could be that easy.

"It looks like it," Twilight mused. "In any case, it doesn't look like anything I could just wave my horn at."

"Well, in that case I guess I'm going home," Cloudchaser said.

"Me too," Thunderlane added. "I can go with you."

"Same here," Minuette chipped in.

"Sweetie, if you want to go home too, you can go with me," Lyra offered, looking at me.

"I suppose," I said. "Not like there's any point in just standing around."

"Hey, what about me?!" Berry Punch demanded. "I don't even know where I live in this stupid world!"

"Woah there, bucko," Thunderlane said. "You don't have to leave the library."

"And get stuck with this pony?" Berry gestured at Twilight. "Not likely."

"You can come with us," I said. I noticed Lyra raising an eyebrow at me out of the corner of my eye, but I ignored it.

Berry snorted. "Yeah, sure, whatever. At least you're sane, for the most part."

"…Says the pony who freaked out over something that wound up just being something that'll go away after a while," Lyra finished, rolling her eyes.

"Hey, you know what?" Berry yelled, leaping over to Lyra and shoving a hoof in her face. "You can just shut the f–…" Berry gritted her teeth. "You can just shut up. I don't care about you, okay? So you can just shut up!"

Lyra walked away, a disdainful look on her face. "I'll be glad when the real Berry Punch is back; she's a lot nicer than you." Lyra exited the library, leaving the door to swing shut.

I opened my mouth to say something, but shut it after a moment. Nothing that I could say would really help the situation.

"Well, I guess we'll be leaving," Thunderlane said, putting a hoof on Cloudchaser's shoulder. "See ya, Twilight."

"Bye," Twilight responded as the two flew out an open window.

"I guess we'd better get going too," I said, looking at the doorway.

I left Golden Oaks Library and caught up to Lyra walking back towards our house. After a few blocks, I saw Berry Punch following us out of the corner of my eye, but didn't mention it to Lyra.

We were heading down a relatively quiet street when a call of "Oh Lyra! Sweetie Drops!" brought our attention to Rarity, waving at us down a ways. We walked over to her, and greeted her.

"Oh, Lyra, how is that dress I made for you last week?" Rarity asked.

"Oh, it's just wonderful Rarity!" Lyra exclaimed. "You always make the best dresses; I'd say you're the best in all of Equestria!"

"Well, I don't know about that," Rarity said, looking off to the side with a reserved toss of her mane, "but I do put my best effort into every dress I make, especially so for friends!"

Tuning out the fashion talk, I looked back at Berry Punch, hiding in an alleyway perpendicular to the street and peeking out at us.

"Hey, Berry!" I shouted, getting the attention to the two unicorns next to me. "Come out and get over here!"

Berry glowered at me, before slowly walking over to our little group. "What'd you have to do that for?"

"Oh Berry, how are you?" Rarity said, in full girl-mode. "I haven't seen you for a while. How's business?"

"How's what?"

Rarity blinked. "The business, you know?"

"No idea what you're talking about, lady," Berry said, examining the tip of her hoof as if it were her nails.

"Berry!" Lyra hissed. Awkwardly laughing, she turned back to Rarity. "You'll have to excuse her, I think she had a funny turn today."

"Funny turn?!" Berry Punch cried out, ignoring Lyra's desperate hoof gestures. "If you'll excuse me, I was a human two days ago, for crying out loud!"

Rarity stared at us. Berry stared at Rarity. Lyra stared at Berry. I stared at my hoof, as it was now resting firmly on my nose.

"…I don't quite know what to think of that," Rarity finally said.

"Well, we'll just be on our way, then," Lyra said, shoving me along the street. "Thanks for chatting with us, Rarity."

"Uh, sure thing, my pleasure," Rarity replied. "We'll talk later!"

"See ya!" Lyra pushed me harder.

"Ouch! Okay, I can walk myself, thank you!" I jumped away from the unicorn's prodding.

"I just want to get away from that Berry!" Lyra whispered. "She's acting terribly!"

"Well, maybe if you were in the same situation, you wouldn't be the model of manners, either!" I retorted.

"That still doesn't excuse all of her flippant comments! I'm tired of it!"

"And I'm tired of you not considering the fact that-"

"What facts?! She was being extremely disrespectful, how's that for a fact!"

"Lyra, do not shout at me-"

"Hey, hey, hey, whoa, no need to argue!" Berry Punch shouted, jumping in between us. "We can all be turds!"

Lyra's face turned red, and a hoof smacked Berry across the face. The earth pony spun around, dropping to the ground.

Lyra's jaw worked for a few moments, before she finally spoke. "Look, I'm not getting into a fight with you, but you seriously need to be taken down a few pegs. And I'm not letting you in my house, ever again." Lyra turned and began marching off towards home. "Come on, Sweetie."

I shot Berry an apologetic look before hurrying after Lyra.

We walked in silence until we reached our house. It was a small confections store, specializing in hard candies and certain baker's goods on-demand. These thoughts came to me from out of the blue as I opened the door, and I felt myself shudder.

Another chill passed through my body as I realized that I had opened the door with my mouth and didn't think twice about it.

Biting my lip, I breezed through the kitchen into the living room, where I sat down on the couch and tried to relax for a bit.

I must have dozed off for a while, because the next thing I remember is Lyra shaking me and telling me it's time for dinner.

We ate a supper of spaghetti with macaroni and cheese on the side; a little strange, but typical fare coming from Lyra.

I sighed as yet another fact about Sweetie Drops' life popped into my head. I wasn't sure if this was going to happen all the time, but remembering things that I know I didn't experience wasn't calming me down.

Lyra cleared her throat after swallowing a mouthful of lettuce. "Sweetie, I want to ask you something."

I paused in the middle of reaching for my glass of water. "Yeah?"

Lyra wiped her mouth off with a napkin. "What's it like? Being a human, I mean."

I took a moment to think. "Well, what do you want to know?"

"I'm not sure. Something about, just, your regular schedule, I guess."

So I talked to Lyra about having to drag myself to school early in the morning, and staying up until midnight surfing the Internet until I forced myself to do my homework. I told her about my family, how I loved them very much and missed them greatly. I went on about my friends, how some of them I kept near because they enjoyed my presence and laughed with me, and others because we could share silence in each others' company. I discussed chores I did for an allowance, and jobs that I did because my parents simply asked me to.

In return, Lyra told me about her interest in humans. The whole thing had started with an elaborate hoax that a construction worker and accomplice set up, and from there exploded into a full-blown following. I guess I could compare it to crop circles, or something similar; Lyra talked about various possible influences ancient humans might have had on modern pony culture, and the funny thing is that most of it didn't seem too far off. I laughed when she said that humans might have looked like swollen horses with slender limbs and gigantic heads, a quadruped version of a Roswell alien; she laughed when I recounted the entirety of yesterday and came to the part when I cheered up Pinkie Pie by falling down all over.

We continued talking until Lyra looked up at a clock on the wall. "Sheesh, is it already that late?" The hour hand was sitting over the ten. "We'd better get to sleep. We can talk more tomorrow, okay?"

I nodded, and the two of us began prepping ourselves for bed. Lyra had to remind me of my supposed "routine," but a couple times when I wasn't paying attention I moved on to what I was supposed to do next without Lyra's prompting, or did something that I shouldn't have known to do. My flares of fear had subsided into uncomfortable twinges every time it happened, as I slowly accepted the fact that Sweetie Drops's life was mine, at least for the time being.

Lyra yawned as she threw back the blankets on her bed. "Alright, I guess I'm going to sleep. You gonna stay up?"

"I don't think so," I answered, snuggling under my own covers. "I'm pretty tired."

"Okay then, goodnight Sweetie."

Lyra clicked off the bedside lamp, and darkness consumed the room. I stared up at the ceiling, wide-awake but feeling like I just wanted to sleep.

When I had first woken up in Equestria, I felt that it was a little scary, not to mention rough, but a beautiful opportunity. Now, I viewed it as a curse, slowly ripping my mind away from me and devouring it. My mouth went dry as I thought of the day before; Minuette was so agreeable now, so passive. After all of our arguments, her disappearance just left a hole. I hoped that empty feeling wouldn't grow, but a small part of me whispered evil possibilities into my head that I would only be able to watch as the rest of the ponies I knew as humans slowly faded, leaving me to struggle alone. My darkest thoughts murmured that I'd have to watch myself begin to doubt my human identity, and inevitably let it float away, into a limbo of outcast souls.

I eventually managed to drop off, but not without at least an hour of tossing and pulling up the sheets, and several long looks at my hooves that were quickly becoming familiar to me.