My Little Twilight

by Zobeid

Rating: everyone
Tags: Twilight Sparkle, Slice of Life, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Alternate Universe
Length: 4985

Twilight has to grow up all over again on Earth

Cast into a world populated by humans, all memories gone, and reverted to the form of a small filly, Twilight Sparkle has to grow up all over again -- while trying to figure out what she is, where she came from, and where she belongs.

This short piece is inspired by "My Little Dashie", but with a couple of twists and a very different tone.

Published 2012-02-05 13:56:59 UTC
Last updated 2012-02-05 13:56:59 UTC

Letter to Myself

Dear Twilight Sparkle,

It sure does feel weird writing a letter to myself, but I have good reasons for doing it. You, my future self, have recently lost a huge amount of memories, a big chunk of your life. I can't help you get those back, for reasons that I'll explain shortly, but I can at least leave you this summary. You deserve to know what has happened. I also need to ask a favor from you, but I'll get to that later.

All this started when I was investigating a strange old book called Rivers of the Dead, by a mysterious author known only as Webb. I won't explain how it happened, and in truth I only remember vaguely, but apparently I used the book to accidentally cast myself out of Equestria and into another world.

Strange as this must sound to you, the world where I landed was populated entirely by humans (an obscure race in our world, but you can look them up in The Encyclopedia of Monsters). Neither ponies nor any other race that we're familiar with had developed intelligence, so the entire global civilization consisted of roughly three thousand million humans. Just like humans of our world, their ability to perform magic is minimal, but they seem to have compensated by developing more advanced science and mechanical arts.

Incidentally, the natives called their world Earth, just as we do, but the country where I found my new home was called America. It was much bigger than Equestria, although there were some odd similarities that I now wonder about.

I can't tell you in much detail about my arrival in that world because the teleport had severe side effects. It erased every memory of my previous life in Equestria, and it physically reverted me to the body of a little filly, barely more than a foal. I couldn't even speak, and all that I really know from that time is what was later told to me.

I was left on the doorstep of a human named Frank Gawlick. He believed that I was left there by some traveling peddlers, and he said I was in a cardboard box marked only: TWILIGHT SPARKLE and PLEASE CARE FOR HER. How the people who originally found me and marked that box could possibly have known my name remains a mystery.

Frank and his wife Lola took me into their home, at first thinking of me more as an unusual pet than as a person. After I started speaking, calling them Papa and Mama, they quickly realized they had something more than an exotic animal. I'm not sure how long it took them to decide to effectively adopt me, but it must not have been long. As far back as I can remember, they were already treating me — and speaking of me — as their daughter.

My earliest memories of that life are some of my fondest. I remember when Papa lifted me onto the back of a horse and let me ride. I suppose that must have been a hysterical sight, although I was completely too young to understand the irony. I remember when I found a venomous copperhead snake in the back yard and ran to tell my parents, and how impressed they were that I'd identified it and recognized the danger. I remember that we had a bodark apple tree in the yard, and I'd sometimes kick fallen apples through the fence so the horses could eat them. (You should ask Applejack if bodarks exist in Equestria!) I never even thought of biting into one myself, oddly enough, although I did sometimes chew on chunks of cow feed.

I remember my papa letting me ride with him in his pickup truck (that's a sort of mechanically powered wagon) when he went to feed the cows or fix fences. It must all sound pretty weird to you — and it was a very different life from the one you remember, growing up in Canterlot. Our home was so far out in the country, I didn't even know how far or in what direction our neighbors were. To me it seemed like wilderness in all directions, to the horizons and beyond.

Although we were isolated, I had a window into the outside world. We had a "television", or TV, which is an electrical device that receives moving images and sounds across great distances. Because our location was remote, the signal was weak and the images often faded in and out, but I was fascinated anyhow. Some of the shows were made to entertain and educate children. I was particularly fond of the cartoons, which I can only describe as drawings brought to life with motion and sound. They were among the more magical things that I experienced in that largely magic-starved world.

Although a few people knew about me, Frank decided to keep me hidden from the world at large. Since nothing like me had been seen before, as far as he knew, he was very worried about whether scientists would want to study me, or that sudden fame might be too confusing and harmful to me. For a while it was almost a moot point — even if I'd been a human child, I'd have been pretty isolated where we lived. I wasn't what you'd really call lonely, but I think I became quite introverted and didn't develop any social skills.

When I was old enough for school, though, we had a problem. Dad saw that he'd have to teach me himself, and so we had school at home — in the living room, and at the kitchen table.

What a revelation it was when I learned to read! I picked it up so quickly, I surprised not only my human parents, but also myself. If you're sensing some parallels between my (and your) two childhoods, that's OK. I guess some things are just innate. So anyhow, it didn't take long to start collecting children's books for my own little bookshelf.

I sometimes wished I could play with other children, like the ones I saw on the TV. I gradually began to understand how different I was from them, and what it meant that I wasn't human.

Still, I was happy. I had a carefree life in a safe and loving home, and I had some toys and a dog to play with, and my books and my TV, and that was enough. It was when I started getting my magic that things turned more complicated.

It wasn't much at first: glows and lights and minor levitation. It was both exciting and confusing, and a little scary, but my dad quickly realized it was only the beginning of something bigger.

Unicorns are not entirely unknown in the human world. They are regarded as mythical creatures with great magical power. My dad had previously assumed my resemblance to those mythical unicorns was only superficial. After my magic started to manifest, he changed his mind and decided I had a lot of magic potential. He encouraged me to practice my magic and learn to control it.

He also started gathering all the books he could find that might relate to my situation: mythology and folklore, mysterious and unknown phenomena, as well as books about magic. The latter, you can probably imagine, were hard to find in the human world. However, despite their lack of a horn or innate magical powers, the human civilization is much older than ours, and they have dabbled with magic for thousands of years.

My dad and I collected everything we could find on the subject and studied it together. I eventually had such exotic tomes as the ancient Book of the Dead (not too useful for the still-living, but some of the material was 3,600 years old!), The View Over Atlantis (geomancy!), Nostradamus's Centuries (largely indecipherable) and The Golden Dawn (which nearly scrambled my brain). Honestly, human books about magic contain a lot of nonsense. Without the ability to directly sense or manipulate magical force, they were groping in the dark most of the time. They were very imaginative and determined to try, though.

An early breakthrough for me was The Modern Witch's Spellbook. Most of the spells were trivial, but it was written in plain English (which has a striking similarity to the Equestrian language — that's another mystery to ponder) instead of deliberately obscure codes and puzzles. From then on I made slow progress piecing together my own unique blend of unicorn-powered human magic. And of course, I began keeping a journal and writing my own personal spell book.

Despite all my study, the first time I teleported was completely unplanned. Nothing I'd read about human magic even suggested that physical teleportation was possible (although they have written a lot about astral travel).

I'd been roaming around the woods, rocky hills and creek banks, an activity that consumed countless happy hours when I was growing up. Our ranch was nothing like the manicured and park-like environs of Ponyville. If anything it was more like Everfree Forest, minus the monster population. The most dangerous animals were venomous rattlesnakes, and I'd been warned many times to be alert for them.

My dog, Smokey, and I were chasing an armadillo (an animal I won't describe because I'm quite sure you wouldn't believe me) when I suddenly heard the loud buzz of a snake's rattle near my hooves. A jolt of fear shot through me, and I jumped. I didn't even know what direction I was jumping, and I found myself tumbling down a steep creek bank. By some minor miracle I managed to hook my front hooves over a protruding tree root and stop my slide, but I was left hanging over a deep pool of water — and I'd never even learned to swim!

I hung there for a while and yelled for help, but of course there was nobody around to hear — except Smokey, who barked like mad but didn't have enough sense to leave me and get help. Feeling desperate and overcome with fear, I closed my eyes, felt magic gathering in my horn, and... BAM! I was back above the creek bank again, disoriented but safe.

That was also when I got my cutie mark. My parents and I had never heard of such a thing, so the sudden appearance of this strange glyph on both of my hips caused a lot of concern and speculation. After a while we figured out that it wasn't anything harmful, but I'm afraid we never did really come to understand its significance. My magical ability developed even faster and more easily after that incident, of course.

My next big breakthrough was when I developed an illusion to let me pass for a human. It wasn't perfect by any means. Because I was still walking on four legs and didn't have any hands, I couldn't physically interact much without disrupting the spell. I wouldn't have been able to attend school, for example. However, with practice I was able to make the illusion look realistic enough, and last long enough, that I could follow my human parents on trips to town, for groceries and the like.

I was terrified at first. Just being out in public, with strangers walking around me, was a bit of psychic shock. Mom and Dad pushed me to talk with people, though. As scared as I was, I was also thrilled at being able to go so many new places. We went on shopping trips before Christmas (which is similar to the Hearth Warming holidays — including decorated trees!). We also went on a few vacations, or "road trips" as the humans call them. America has a very highly developed highway network, and we had a large, comfortable automobile — another mechanical conveyance. Those trips were joyful to me.

I kept working on my magic and eventually achieved something I'd been striving toward for a long time: a temporary physical transformation to human form. This was very awkward at first, as I had to get the hang of standing upright and doing things with my new hands, and also wearing clothes. (Humans are quite averse to nudity.) I also found that without my horn I couldn't perform any further magic until the spell expired and I returned to normal. I later learned to keep my horn as a human and conceal it with an additional illusion.

Even with the difficulty of the spell and all the practice it took to master my new shape, it was totally worth it. Finally I was able to go to school and interact freely with humans. I could learn to ride a bicycle and drive a car. I could get a job. All of my possibilities were opened up.

I can't say I was totally happy. School was kind of rough. I made good grades, sure, but I was often very lost in my dealings with the other kids. I just didn't have the social experience to understand them or make friends easily. Maybe they could sense there was something else different about me too, but I was never sure.

So that's how things went for a few years. I slowly and a bit painfully learned to fit in, and it seemed like I could make it in the human world without giving up my secret. Then something hit me like a bolt from the blue.

I'd never really outgrown watching cartoons on the TV. So, I was interested when I saw a cartoon called "My Little Pony" was coming up. I decided to check it out. What I saw, even within the first minute after the show started, floored me. These candy-colored little horsey things were way, way too much like me to be coincidence. They even had symbols on their hips.

The real clincher was the unicorn pony named Twilight. Her coat and mane were a lot more pale than mine, and her cutie mark wasn't really the same, but... She teleported. Across a river bank, even! I went a little crazy for a while after seeing that, and the rest of the show was sort of a jumble to me.

Later, after I'd calmed down, I got together with Mom and Dad, and we put our heads together to try and figure out what it all meant. After a long discussion we came up with a theory that there must be other unicorns in hiding — a whole community of them, or maybe even my real family — and that they were searching for me. The opening sequence of that TV show was too on-target to be coincidence. It had to be a message meant for me personally!

So, we arranged a trip to investigate the studio where there cartoon had been produced, and tried to contact the producers, the writers, or anybody who might have been behind the insertion of that message into the show. I'd love to give you a full account of that trip, in which I did get into some trouble, but this letter is already running long, and my time is limited. I'll just have to settle for telling you that we were badly disappointed. We never were able to locate anyone who knew — or would admit to knowing — of any connection between the TV show and real unicorns.

Our failure was both frustrating and puzzling. It didn't make sense that somebody had gone to the effort of creating that message and spreading it, then didn't provide any way to respond.

Incidentally... Later a second My Little Pony cartoon was produced, and after that it became a recurring series. It wasn't anything great, but I had to remind myself the show was actually designed for selling toys to small children. I kept watching anyhow, and I kept hoping for more secret messages or insights, but it was a dead end.

I didn't give up. I turned to scrying and astral travel to try and solve the riddle of my existence. These subjects were well covered in my library, since humans apparently have some limited, erratic ability to perform them. By this time I'd even begun to understand parts of The Golden Dawn, although it still gave me a lot of headaches. I also got some of the My Little Pony toys, figuring maybe there was at least some kind of psychic connection, and I used them as loci for my scrying efforts.

I managed to summon some visions of Equestria, but they were confusing, and I didn't fully understand what I was seeing. I was saddled with a lot of self-doubt, unsure whether they were genuine visions or mere figments of my overheated imagination. However, I began to understand that I might have come from another world, from a parallel universe.

I reviewed my books of unexplained phenomena throughout human history, and particularly the various stories of strange creatures that seemed to appear out of nowhere: the Green Children of Woolpit, the Beast of Le Gévaudan, Spring-Heeled Jack, the Jersey Devil, the Dover Demon, the Mothman, and the Hopkinsville Goblins. Such incidents were rare, but they added up, and the parallel world theory looked like my best explanation.

It occurred to me that if I could just send a message across to that other world maybe the unicorns over there could help bridge the gap. I began working on a spell that combined elements of both astral travel and physical teleportation. If I could transmit a letter, even a small scrap of paper, it just might be enough to open the path.

I got my dad and one of his close friends to help set up the ritual site for the spell. Pushing a physical object, even a small one, across the dimensional barrier was going to require some power, so we used a stone circle — we'd already constructed it a few years earlier during my magical training. We'd even managed to set up a rudimentary set of ley lines using standing stones to draw in magical energy and concentrate it in the circle. (What the ley complex lacked in size it made up with accuracy. Those humans have extremely precise surveying methods.) Cleaning up the site and purifying it for the ritual took a couple of days. I wanted to make sure this was done right, and I also wanted to wait for a full moon when the mystic rhythms were most favorable.

Thankfully the weather cooperated and the ritual went off without a hitch. As I watched my note dissolve in green flames above the brazier, all seemed well, though I had no way to be sure it had really gone to its intended destination. We'd just have to wait and see if I got any response. And if not? I could always try and send another next month when the moon was full again.

Assuming I got a reply, I didn't know if it would come directly to me or appear back at the stone circle, so I went to check the circle every day. That turned out to not be necessary, because on the third day I got a response at home — and it was a doozy.

I was in my room when I heard the front door, followed by unfamiliar voices. I heard my dad call for me, loudly. He usually keeps his cool pretty well, so when I heard the tone of his voice I knew something had really alarmed him. I paused for a moment to cast my human illusion — much faster and easier than physically transforming and getting dressed — and I went to peek around the corner from the hallway into the living room.

I couldn't believe it. The room was full of ponies. Some had horns, some had wings — and one, of course, had both. I didn't even recognize Celestia, and I didn't recognize most of my friends. They seemed just as confused until I remembered the illusion I was wearing, and I dispelled it.

Then they were happy, calling out my name, prancing, coming over to nuzzle at me — and I was still scared and confused. I still didn't know what was going on. When they realized that I wasn't joining in the fun, that something was wrong, that I didn't know them, then the mood became somber once again, and the explanations started.

I'd disappeared from Equestria only fifteen days earlier. It wasn't until they'd gotten my note that Celestia was able to trace the magical connection back to the world of its origin and locate me. They were appalled to learn I'd not only lost my memory but spent fifteen years growing up all over again in the human world. (Our best guess is that I was thrown backward in time by the same spell effect that reverted me to a filly.)

Princess Celestia was sure that she could restore my memory when she took me home. Home? I thought I was home. I'd been struggling for years to learn where I came from, but in a heartbeat the whole quest had spun out of my control. I was about to be taken away from the only home and family I knew by a bunch of... strange, candy-colored horsey things!

Mom and Dad tried to comfort me. Dad said it would be for the best that I go with Celestia. And yet, I could tell they were in shock too. They'd poured so much of their hearts and souls into caring for me, educating me, helping me seek out my answers. And now I was just going to be — gone? Would they ever hear from me again?

That's where we hit a stumbling block. Celestia was very sympathetic towards them, and grateful that they'd cared for me, but she said my memories of the human world would have to be erased. If my memories from Equestria were restored, and I had two complete sets of memories at the same time, there was a risk that my poor brain just wouldn't be able to handle all the conflicts and confusion, and it would drive me crazy.

I couldn't accept that, I just couldn't.

My human dad had always supported me in all my crazy pursuits, while my mom had been almost supernaturally patient with both of us. Dad held unbridled enthusiasm for helping me be the best and most magical unicorn I could be, while Mom was practically indifferent to my species, and I loved both of them for it. To simply erase them from my mind was something I couldn't accept.

It was enough to give me cold feet. I bawled. I clung to my mom. I clung to my dad. I didn't want to go. And of course, all my pony friends were there watching the whole thing unfold, getting torn up over it.

I think it was Applejack who turned me around, when she came over to talk with me. She was the one pony that I recognized, sort of. By some odd quirk of fate, one of those cartoon characters in the My Little Pony show had been almost identical to her in both name and appearance. She spoke with a familiar and friendly sounding accent. (Incidentally, everyone says my own accent now is hilarious. I assume that'll be gone by the time you read this, which is kind of a shame.) She even wore a scruffy old cowboy hat like the one my dad so often wore when he was out working. She seemed like someone — somepony — I could trust.

So, Applejack calmed my fears, and we all talked some more and came to an agreement. Celestia agreed — reluctantly — to restore my memories of pony world without erasing the ones of human world. I'd be risking my sanity, but I wanted to try anyhow. She insisted she'd check up on me closely to make sure I wasn't going nuts, though. That seemed fair enough.

There were a lot more hugs and tears shed all around, and then it was time to go. I was awestruck by Celestia's power as she transported us across the dimensional barrier — which had taken all of my best efforts merely to push a small note across.

That's been a couple of days ago. It’s been great to be back home, to my library and my pony friends who I can remember now. Pinkie Pie threw a huge party, of course. Epic, even.

My headaches and bouts of confusion are getting worse. There's no longer any doubt, my gamble has failed. Two Twilights are more than one head can hold. I have no choice but to have my memories of my life among the humans erased before my mind breaks down completely. I've already discussed it with Princess Celestia. The good news is, she agreed to let me pen this note to myself. We're pretty confident that it won't hurt me (or you, my future self) to read it, as long as it doesn't bring back any direct memories. So, you can at least have some idea what you've lost — a bittersweet knowledge maybe, but I always been taught, in both worlds, that any kind of knowledge is better than ignorance. I've instructed Spike to allow you (or me) a week to fully recover before delivering the letter.

So, that brings me to that favor I mentioned way back at the beginning.

I know you can't remember or feel anything for them, but I'm having a hard time with my human parents never knowing what's happened to me. It's not just that I had to leave them... That happens, in time. It's just horrible that I had to leave them so suddenly, so completely, with little warning and no word of my fate. They deserve better.

I've enclosed with this note a scrap of paper from the original letter that I sent across the barrier. With it you should be able to make the magical connection back to my home in human-populated Earth. It'll probably lead back to the stone circle, I suppose. I beg you send them a letter and let them know what's happened and that you’re going to be okay. Don't be afraid to tell them about the memory erasure. That news will sting, but I think they'll understand.

If you can send them a note once in a while, even once a year, I'm sure it would mean a lot. It might even be possible to get a reply back somehow, but I'd better wait until my (meaning your) head is clearer and not throbbing so much before trying to work that out.

Good luck, and thanks in advance!

Your Self,

Twilight Sparkle

Epilogue

Dear Twilight Sparkle,

Words can’t express how much your letter has meant to your mother and me. (She is right here looking over my shoulder as I write.) Just knowing you made it to your world okay and are safe and sound is an enormous relief. To learn that you have a more normal life now among all your pony friends seems like vindication for all the work that you and I did, when we were trying for so long and hard to figure out your origins and where you belong. Even if the way it worked out wasn’t what we imagined.

I’ve got to admit it’s rough for us to learn that you had to lose your memories of us and your time here — but you know, your well being was my greatest concern, so I can’t argue if this is what had to be done. I can only guess it all must seem awfully strange and unreal to you, and it’s very kind of you to go to all the trouble to send your note back to a couple of strangers.

Your absence here is deeply felt. It was pretty rough at first. For all that, we are holding up okay, and especially since we’ve heard from you. I hope in the future we’ll be able to continue to correspond and that you may come to know some inkling of the fondness in which we still hold you. With that thought in mind, I decided to try an experiment and send you something. I noticed the magic box you rigged to return has enough room for a small parcel in addition to this letter, and I can’t resist seeing if I can get it to take a gift back to you. Or maybe I shouldn’t call it a gift, since it’s something that belongs to you.

I considered putting your journal in the box, but then I figured giving you that kind of personal knowledge might risk bringing back your memories and getting you messed up all over again. I just couldn’t take a chance on that. So, I decided instead to include one of your favorite books. I know you have read it many times — and if you’ve forgotten, then maybe you can now enjoy discovering it all over again.

With All Our Love,

Frank & Lola

Twilight place the letter back on the table, the glow around it fading as she released it from her magical grasp. She look back to the metal box, and her horn glowed again as she lifted the brown-wrapped object from within. She leaned forward to sniff at it, cautiously. “A book from another world!” she said softly, speaking only to herself. Her curiosity was almost overwhelming as her magic tugged at the wrapping, peeling back the tape and brown paper until the book was free.

The book’s dust jacket was black and had some rips along its top edge from age and handling. Large and colorful, somewhat ornate, lettering announced its title:

THE LAST UNICORN

a novel by

PETER S. BEAGLE