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Destinies

by Sharp Quill

Chapter 12: 12. There's No Place Like Home

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Meg hovered next to her saddlebags, still hanging off a thick branch of the old oak tree, contemplating how to get them onto her back. Rainbow Dash was hovering beside her, willing to assist, but she was determined to do it by herself. After all, she was getting the hang of her magic. She learned how to fly, how to “boss” around clouds, and she had just finished learning how to manipulate wind.

Just grab it with my front hooves, lift it over my head, past my wings, and onto my back. It seemed simple enough. She lowered herself enough to touch the padded straps on either side of the branch, magically glued her hooves to the straps—no, that won’t work. The straps would go upside down as she rotated her forelimbs back.

New plan. She put her hooves under the straps, magically glued them in place, and lifted, then raised her entire body until the bags were clear of the branch. That accomplished, she moved away from the tree into the nearby uncluttered air.

The next step was to lift it above her head. Done.

She just needed to get it past her wings… except her wings were flapping. Landing would not work, because her front hooves were otherwise occupied. Maybe I should have laid down on the branch. But it would have been too easy to tip over and fall off.

She really had but one option. This requires precise timing. On the next downstroke, she put her wings all the way down and forwards, holding them there for a split second, while simultaneously tossing the straps past her wing joints. Once she felt the straps land on her back, she resumed flapping, having dropped only a foot.

“A bit clumsy, but not bad for a first attempt,” Rainbow Dash said appraisingly. “Ready to go?”

“Not quite… I want to take a picture first.” Meg turned her head to reach into her saddlebag and pull out her phone, but discovered her flapping wings were in the way. She couldn’t suspend flapping for the time it would take to retrieve it. Guess I’ll have to land first. She did so, extracted her phone, and transferred it to a hoof. Hovering so that she had free use of both front hooves, she woke up her phone.

Crap. Tom had tried to call her. She’d completely forgot about that planning meeting for the contest. Slowly and carefully, she tapped out her password to unlock the phone. Hands would be really nice right now. Praying that she didn’t drop the phone, she climbed a hundred feet to ensure some privacy—at least, as much privacy as she could expect with another pegasus around, which wasn’t much as it turned out.

Meg returned the call and it was quickly answered.

“Hi, Meg.”

“I’m so sorry, Tom, but something came up and it completely slipped my mind.”

“Did you learn a lot of weather magic from Rainbow Dash?” he asked with a straight face.

A few seconds passed before Meg said, “Excuse me?” He must have talked to Steve, but he would never have told him that. What’s going on? Rainbow Dash was hovering a half-dozen feet away, clearly listening in and mystified by what she had just heard. Meg looked her in the eyes and put a hoof to her mouth, warning her to stay quiet.

“Oh, it was something Twilight Sparkle told me.”

“You talked to Twilight Sparkle,” Meg droned, as the other pegasus got closer. Meg repeated the hoof-to-mouth gesture, with emphasis. Dash rolled her eyes then pantomimed zipping her mouth shut.

“Oh, lighten up, Meg, I’m not going crazy. Steve was with someone who could do a killer Twilight impression and she played the role of a contestant for me—could do a good Celestia too.”

Meg exchanged a look with Rainbow Dash. “That’s… interesting. Didn’t know she could also do a Princess Celestia impression.”

“So you know who she is?”

“Uh, yeah, I’m pretty sure, but I can safely say she won’t be entering the contest.”

“That’s what Steve said. Just as well, considering her… unconventional head canon, at least as far as Lyra was concerned.”

The subject of Lyra came up? In front of Twilight and Celestia? And now Rainbow Dash, she thought, as she quickly glanced at the perplexed pegasus. “That doesn’t surprised me,” she glumly admitted.

“Anyway, I assume we’re still on for the next meeting in two weeks. Can you do something sooner?”

“No… I don’t think so, sorry,” she said. “I’ll be sure to have my scenarios done in two weeks.”

“See you then. Bye.”

“Bye.” Meg ended the call as she looked cheerlessly at the subject of many of those scenarios, who was questioningly looking back. She really didn’t want to deal with this. “Look, I’d rather you just ask Twilight,” she pleaded. “It’s a safe bet she’s already asked them of Steve.” Would this make a good scenario? she sarcastically wondered.

Dash considered her request for a second. “Fine,” she grudgingly agreed. “You need to get your camera out of your saddlebag?”

“What?” Meg was already scouting out the best vantage point for an aerial photo of the homestead. “No, this phone is also a camera.”

“That tiny thing?!” Dash exclaimed, pointing at it with a hoof. “How can film even fit inside it?”

Meg was already flying off to her chosen vantage point, not really in the mood to explain human technology. “I’ll prove it to you once we meet up with Rarity. I have a bunch of photos I can show you.”


“So,” Twilight summarized skeptically, “you’re telling me the whole Lyra thing got started because of this one image.” Twilight was scrutinizing said image on the tablet. It was a frame capture from near the beginning of Dragonshy, showing Lyra sitting on a bench like a human, next to another pony lying down.

“Uh huh.” Steve was just waiting for her to point out that not even a human could sit like that on a park bench, not as they actually exist in Equestria.

“And because she’s sitting like that, everypony deduced she’s obsessed with human hands.”

“Even better, the camera’s rapidly panning at that point, so blink and you’d miss it.”

Twilight looked up at Steve, unhappy with the non sequitur.

He sighed, admitting, “It’s not just because of the cartoon.” He really didn’t want to open that can of worms, but what choice did he have?

“I’m listening,” she said firmly.

Steve briefly looked at Celestia, who maintained her serene smile, a poker face perfected by millennia of practice. She had been content to let Twilight drive the conversation. Just so long as you don’t banish me to the Moon, he facetiously thought.

He had no choice, apparently. “There are also works of fiction written by fans of the show,” he began, as if exposing the skeletons in humanity’s collective closet. “They aren’t canon to the cartoon, and they don’t describe your reality. That’s not really even possible, as they’re written by thousands of people, so inevitably they contradict each other.” Getting to the point, he concluded, “Nonetheless, there are certain themes that most of these stories have in common, themes not addressed, for whatever reason, by the cartoon itself.”

“Like Lyra’s obsession with human hands.”

“More like an unhealthy interest in humans in general, with hand obsession being a sub-genre. Often, in these stories, no other pony believes humans exist.”

Twilight was having trouble accepting that; evidently, it did not describe the Lyra she knew. But how well did she actually know her? They never interacted in the show.

“And other themes?” she asked, hoping for something more plausible.

Steve wondered how deep a hole he was digging for himself, as he mentally enumerated a list of candidate themes and decided which one to start with. “Does Derpy have a unicorn daughter named Dinky?”

“Yes,” Twilight immediately answered.

“Is she unusually intelligent?”

Twilight did not answer for a half-second. “I was going to recommend she apply to Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns, yes.”

Starting to believe, eh? “Are Lyra and Bon Bon romantically involved?”

This time, it took her several uncomfortable seconds to answer. “It’s why Lyra moved to Ponyville from Canterlot, yes.”

Might as well end this with heavy artillery. “Is Scootaloo an orphan, or does she come from a broken family, or will she never be able to fly?”

The seconds passed as Twilight examined the simulated stone floor, struggling to come up with a response. Finally, she said, “Out of respect for Rainbow Dash’s wishes, I won’t address that.”

Did that mean one or more of them were true? Or simply that something else just as bad was true instead? Not that he was going to find out then and there. Steve decided he had said enough and remained silent.

“Regardless,” Twilight said with renewed conviction, “there’s no way for the real-life Lyra to know about humans, much less be obsessed with them.”

“How can you be so sure?” he sincerely asked.

“Humans aren’t even mythological creatures,” she irrefutably declared.

We aren’t? Humans being creatures of myth was usually a theme of Lyra stories, when humans weren’t physically present. But something wasn’t quite adding up. “That’s quite curious, because human mythology is full of creatures that only exist in Equestria: manticores, hydras, griffons, minotaurs, dragons, not to mention unicorns and pegasi. And then there are all the animals and plants that are common to both our worlds.”

The implication was that the two worlds had once been in contact. If those creatures had visited the human world, then how could humans not have visited this world? Twilight was fully capable of putting two and two together.

“That’s an interesting observation, but it has nothing to do with Lyra,” she said, but lacking the absolute conviction she displayed earlier.

Steve pressed his point. “Maybe you’re right, but maybe you’re not. Even if there are no records of humans ever having been here before, even in myth, that doesn’t mean there haven’t been any. Somewhere, in the middle of nowhere, there could be physical evidence. It’s possible Lyra had stumbled upon this evidence, but for whatever reason has decided to keep quiet about it.”

“You know I can’t prove a negative,” she said, frowning. “But why would she be in the middle of nowhere looking for such evidence? How would she even recognize it? She’s a musician, not an archeologist.”

“Steve may have a point.”

Twilight looked at her mentor in surprise. “He does?”

“He does,” she gently confirmed. “After Lyra Heartstrings graduated from my school for gifted unicorns, she attended Canterlot University. She majored in musicology, as you might expect, but because of her interest in ancient music and musical instruments, she also minored in archeology.”

That pulled the rug out from under Twilight’s conviction. “That’s… unexpected.”

Indeed, thought Steve, agreeing. There might be something to Lyra and humans after all, even if it wasn’t clear what form it would take. Nor, apparently, did Twilight know Lyra all that well, otherwise she’d have known this.

Twilight looked at Steve, conceding the argument. “Would it be possible for me to read some of these stories?”

“Yes… it is…” he said. He paused to take a breath, grimacing. “I’ll be blunt: that terrifies me.”

Twilight looked at him, not knowing what to say to that.

Steve reluctantly continued. “You have to understand: they think of you as a fictional character, to do with as they please. You will not like some of it.”

“All the more reason for you to read it, Twilight,” Celestia said as she walked over to her former student.

Twilight looked at Celestia, once more an inexperienced foal in her presence.

“It will be good practice,” she explained to her faithful student. “Plenty shall be written about you, now that you’re a princess. Some of it you will not enjoy reading; I can assure you of that.”

That’s an interesting way of looking at it. At least writers of fan fiction don’t believe she’s real; the same could not be said about what Celestia’s referring to. Twilight didn’t look thrilled about that. I guess she hasn’t experienced it yet.

How to make it happen? It would be easiest just to let her borrow the tablet, but he didn’t want to grant her full access to the Internet. Maybe Meg could figure something out. “I’ll see what I can do.“


“Can it really be that difficult?” asked Rainbow Dash disbelievingly as she watched Meg fumble with her phone.

“I’m not used to hooves; what can I say?”

Somehow she had to hold the phone with one hoof, without obstructing the lens or screen, so she could tap the shutter release with the other hoof—preferably while not dropping the phone to the ground dozens of feet below. The natives made it look so easy.

She ultimately went with placing the side of her left hoof under one end of the phone, the end opposite the lens, and magically holding it in place. The magical glue seemed more than up to the task. Just how strong is this “glue?” Strong enough, she was certain, that tapping the screen wouldn’t send the phone plunging to its doom.

That done, she framed the homestead and captured it on digital film. There were many other pictures she’d like to take, but the logistics of using her phone with hooves was proving to be a little too much. Besides, Rainbow Dash was getting impatient.

That left her with a new problem: how to get her phone back in her saddlebag without first setting down on the ground. Why not ask an expert? “Hey, Dash! How do I get my phone back in my saddlebag while flying?”

“Easy,” Rainbow Dash smirked. She grabbed the phone with her hoof, positioned herself above and slightly behind Meg, reached down with her other hoof to open the saddlebag, put the phone inside, then closed the saddlebag.

Not exactly what I had in mind, Meg thought, but she couldn’t deny its effectiveness. If only it was possible to hover without flapping her wings. Why was the mechanical action of flapping wings necessary to magically ignore gravity? Who—or what—came up with these rules?

“Come on, let’s get going,” Rainbow Dash said impatiently as she started flying back into town.

Meg quickly followed, and discovered, once again, that to keep up she had to fly near her limit, much faster than the leisurely pace she flew early that morning. She doesn’t let up, does she? At this rate, it will take only a minute to reach Carousel Boutique.

Could I go faster? Airspeed was determined by thrust and drag. Both were obviously benefitting from magic, but how? It felt like her wings were pushing against something much denser than just air, but whatever it was its density decreased with airspeed. Even with magically reduced drag, that put an upper limit on her velocity.

Meg chose to focus on thrust, willing higher density. Like that morning, when she focused on ignoring gravity while climbing, it had some effect, increasing her speed; and also like that morning, Rainbow Dash instantly matched it and maintaining it was exhausting. Before she had to back off, Carousel Boutique came into view, causing Rainbow Dash to slow down and begin their descent.

It looked just as absurd as she expected: a cylindrical building, covered with a cone-shaped roof painted in a pastel pink and purple checkerboard pattern, which was topped with what sort of looked like an actual carousel with pony-shaped mannequins—ponnequins?—mounted on the poles. Naturally, those ubiquitous pink hearts decorated the building.

Yet, like Sugarcube Corner, it worked far better than it had any right to, with it being an actual, physical building instead of a cartoon drawing. It was enough to make her wonder if magic was somehow involved. Did Rarity come up with this look, or was it already like this when she moved in?

Meg followed Rainbow Dash as she came in for a landing in front of the entrance, touching down beside her. There was a “closed” sign in the window; it did not list business hours, but that probably didn’t have much meaning in a small town where a pony’s residence and place of business were one and the same. Dash reached up a hoof to press the door bell, triggering a melodious sequence of chimes.

Dainty hoof steps approached from inside. A few seconds after they stopped just short of the door, it glowed a light blue and swung open, revealing an alabaster unicorn with an over-styled, purple mane. As her horn stopped glowing, Rarity greeted her guest for the afternoon. “Meg! You finally made it. Come in, darling, come in!”

Meg tentatively walked inside, her eyes scanning the showroom. The color scheme was more of that pastel pink and purple. There were plenty of full-size mirrors and ponnequins, many of which modeled a dress. Drapes covered nearly every wall, hanging with generous folds. Accents of hearts and diamonds decorated the walls. On display against a wall… are those what I think they are?

Rarity gleefully trotted over to the objects of Meg’s attention. “Aren’t they simply magnifique? They’re some of my best work.”

Meg walked over to the five gowns on display. “Didn’t you wear these to Twilight’s coronation?” That’s what they looked like, but these weren’t some simple cartoon drawing. Not that she knew much about such things, but… the fabrics, the craftsmanship, the details, the jewels—okay, jewels aren’t as precious here—regardless, they had to have been incredibly time-consuming and expensive to make. Who paid for this? It seemed crass to ask.

The fashionista gave her a studied look. “I’ve heard about that cartoon of yours, naturally, but…” Her face lit up. “It showcases my work?”

Meg wasn’t sure she liked where this might be going. “I guess? Sort of… I mean, I’m sure many people in my world would love to commission something from you…”

The fashionista began to squee.

Me and my big mouth.

But before Rarity could finish squeeing, Rainbow Dash came to the rescue. “Get real,” she scolded the unicorn. “You know the Princesses are in no rush to make a decision, never mind how they’ll decide.”

“Well, ahem, yes, of course,” Rarity said, collecting herself. “You’re quite right. But a girl can dream…”

Changing the subject, Rainbow Dash addressed Meg. “You were going to show pictures taken by that camera thingy of yours? I need to get going soon.”

“Right.” Meg fetched her phone from her saddlebag with her mouth. She then hovered, freeing up her front hooves, and transferred the phone to her left hoof. After some very careful tapping with her right hoof—it did seem to get easier with practice—the last picture she had taken was on the screen. She invited the other two mares to look at it.

“That’s Sweet Apple Acres, isn’t it,” Rarity asked. “I’m not used to seeing it from that perspective.”

“Yeah,” Rainbow Dash confirmed, sounding impressed. “I was there when she took it.”

“Do you have pictures of your realm? I haven’t had the chance to visit it myself.”

“Sure do,” Meg replied, as she navigated to the vacation photos. “These are photos from our vacation in Hawaii a few months ago.” The first photo looked down the beach of Waikiki, with plenty of palm trees and sky-scraping hotels visible. “It’s a subtropical island a few thousand miles away.”

“Too bad it’s so small,” Dash said, as she leaned in close. “There’s lot’s of detail.”

“More than you can see, actually. It’s possible to zoom in… well, using hands anyway.” After thinking it over for a few seconds, Meg put the phone on the ground and used both hooves to do a stretch gesture. It worked, giving a better view of the pedestrians on the sidewalk.

“Aren’t they dressed differently than in your city?”

“Let me look,” Rarity quickly said, as she moved in, prompting an annoyed Dash to step aside. She quietly examined the picture for a bit. “Such bold colors… garish, perhaps, but there’s a certain logic to it.”

“Then you’ll love this one.” Meg swiped a few times, bringing up a picture of a rack of Hawaiian shirts in a store.

“Oh, my… yes, definitely giving me ideas…”

Dash headed towards the entrance. “Sounds like you two are hitting it off, so I’ll be on my way.”

“Bye!” Meg quickly called out, before she was gone. “If we don’t see each other before we leave, I want to thank you for the lessons you gave me.” Oh, right, gotta say it. “It was awesome!”

“I’m glad some ponies can see that,” she smirked as she went through the door.

“Must you encourage her?” Rarity said with a slight, disapproving frown.

Huh? Sure, that pegasus was full of herself, but really? “Well… she was an awesome teacher.”

The unicorn exhaled, as she returned her attention to the picture currently being displayed on the phone.

“I mean… I know where you’re coming from, but is it really that bad to give her a little joy?”

“I suppose not,” Rarity nonchalantly conceded. She spent the next few minutes viewing the other pictures, doing the swipe gesture herself, having had observed Meg doing it.

“Have you taken many pictures of Equestria?” she casually asked once she saw the last picture.

“No, just that one—so far.” She sheepishly looked down at her hooves. “I’m finding it difficult to hold and operate my phone with hooves. You ponies make it look so easy.”

“I’m guessing Steve is finding it much easier?” Rarity asked. “Being a unicorn,” she quickly added.

Meg remembered when he took a video of her hovering by Twilight’s Daring Do books. “Yeah, telekinesis is awesome,” she said half-heartedly. But wings are awesome too, she reminded herself. Twilight’s so lucky to have both.

A smile erupted on Rarity’s face as she grabbed the phone with her magic. “Come along, darling.” She trotted off to her workshop in the back room. “I believe I have a solution for you,” she sing-songed.

Meg blinked, then trotted off after her. It wasn’t hard to guess what the unicorn had in mind. At least it wasn’t a dress. She’d been half afraid that the fashionista would insist on taking her measurements, offering to design the perfect dress for her and refusing to take no for an answer—because she was the Element of Generosity, don’t you know. This would actually be useful.

Meg entered the workshop. It was as messy and chaotic as the showroom was neat and organized. Piles of fabric bolts everywhere. Numerous ponnequins modeling dresses in various states of completion. Uncountable shelves and drawers lining the walls. Off to one side, a table bearing a sewing machine, various scissors and other tools—and, for now, her phone.

A bolt of thick, durable black fabric was floating in the air. A pair of scissors floated over from the table and cut out a rectangle. It was long enough to wrap around a pony’s fetlock and then some. As the fabric levitated back to a random shelf, a drawer slid open. Out of it came something circular; it floated over to the rectangular piece.

Purposefully humming to herself, Rarity positioned circular thingy so that it was about a quarter of the way from one end of the rectangle. With a quick glow of her horn, the two were bonded. Another spell caused the far end to glow for a second.

“Hold out your forelimb,” she instructed Meg.

She did so, curious as to how the fashion-related magic she was witnessing was going to work. The strap—for it was now clear that’s what that rectangular piece was—wrapped itself around the upper end of her fetlock. It was long enough such that there was an inch of overlap; upon being pressed together, it held, like velcro. She could now get a good look at the circular part. It had a metallic frame filled with a felt-like shallow dome. So what? Just put the phone on that?

In answer to her unspoken question, the phone came floating over and placed itself on the felt dome. It wasn’t centered; the bottom of the phone was positioned over the dome, with the top of the phone pointing towards her hoof. The phone was pushed against the dome, which she instinctively pushed back against, and the light blue glow vanished. The phone stayed in place.

Meg experimentally raised her fetlock to her ear. The bottom end, the part with the microphone, was angled away from her mouth. It’d probably work, but not ideal. But the camera lens… not gonna work.

Rarity knew what she was thinking, and with a smug look lit up her horn once more. The phone rotated a quarter turn clockwise, locking into position with a click. The lens now had a clear view. “I assume that piece of glass on the back is the camera lens. You can rotate the other direction too,” she explained. “It will hold any angle, so long as no twisting force is applied.”

Rotating the other way would take care of the microphone, if necessary. Meg tried rotating it back with her other hoof. A certain amount of force was needed to get past the detent, but then it offered little resistance until it clicked into position parallel to her fetlock. It was looking quite promising.

“How do I get it off?”

“Just grab it with your hoof and pull. The magical bond is designed to release with the application of hoof magic. Same for taking the strap off.”

Quite promising. Eager to try it out, she navigated to the camera app and rotated the phone once more. She was about to take a picture of Rarity when the unicorn objected.

“Not in here, please!” she exclaimed with overly dramatic horror. “You can take pictures in the showroom.”

Fair enough, she thought, though she didn’t mention her workshop was in several episodes. They went back into the showroom. “Why don’t you pose next to the coronation gowns?”

“Gladly,” she said with pride. She trotted over to the display as Meg hovered about seeking the ideal vantage point.

Once she had it, and Rarity settled on a pose, holding out a hoof in the direction of the display, she snapped the picture. After taking a quick look to see that it came out okay, she flew over to Rarity and showed it to her.

“Quite impressive. You know if it is good or bad immediately,” she said approvingly. “Too bad it’s so small, and there is something to be said for a photo you can frame and put on a desk, hang on a wall, or give to somepony else.”

Meg silently groaned. Time to do some explaining—again.


It was finally time to go home. After spending an hour taking pictures around Ponyville, with Rarity as her guide—the fashionista certainly had a good eye for the picturesque—Meg thanked her for her assistance and flew back to the castle. Pausing long enough to take some pictures of Twilight’s current residence, she went indoors through the balcony and into the library.

She found her husband already there, practicing spells under Twilight’s tutorage. A metal object levitated in the air in front of him, changing size and shape. Upon noticing her arrival, he put the object, now in the shape of a simple cube a few inches across, down on the floor. Meg went over to him and gave him what would be their last pony hug and nuzzle for a while.

It was hard for him not to notice something attached to her fetlock. “Did Rarity make that?” he asked.

“Yep. It’s really useful.” Meg presented it for his inspection, showing how the phone could rotate. “I took a lot of pictures around town.”

Steve used his telekinesis to rotate the phone, then tried to pull it off, without success. “It does come off, right?”

“It responds to hoof magic.” She demonstrated, grabbing it with her hoof and pulling. It came off easily. That actually worked. She hadn’t tried taking it off before, but there was no reason to doubt Rarity’s instructions.

Twilight had been watching with amusement. “You should put that in your saddlebag,” she warned. “Otherwise, you won’t have it when you become human again and you’ll have to wait until you turn back into a pony to get it back.”

Just like our clothes, but in reverse. “We should take our saddlebags off too?” she asked, after putting her phone in them.

Twilight shook her head. “No, leave those on. They get special treatment. I’ll carry your backpacks.” They were on the desk, ready to go.

Meg exchanged a silent gaze with Steve. There wasn’t much point in delaying their return home. As fun as it was being a pegasus, she wanted to be human again—if for no other reason than to prove the transformation was reversible, that she hadn’t thrown her old life away. “Ready to go?”

“Yes, I am,” he said with only a slight hesitation.

“Then let’s be on our way,” Twilight declared. She levitated their backpacks over to herself, and then levitated over one of those plaid pills that had also been on the desk. The two visitors walked over to her, as she engulfed them in her magic. She swallowed the pill.

This time, Meg was prepared to experience her transformation as it happened. It won’t pass by unnoticed.

The home office replaced the library. I’m still a pony? There had been no sensation of change, except… the room was its normal size, and she towered above the desk. Looking down, she saw she was standing on two feet and wearing the same clothes she had been wearing yesterday morning—hard to believe it was only yesterday. Her saddlebags were hanging from around her neck.

She reached up with her hands and lifted the saddlebags from around her neck and held them in front of her. Welcome back hands; I missed you. She put them on the desk, next to their backpacks; Twilight had already set them down there. Steve did the same. The alicorn was diligently observing them.

Hands. Meg inspected hers, as if they were something novel; but quite the contrary, she had just used them as if they had never been swapped for hooves. Hopefully, the same would be true of her hooves and wings when she became a pony again.

Wings. She no longer had wings. She tried to image them sprouting from her back, but could no more do so than she had been able to imagine fingers sprouting from her equine hooves. Once more she was a creature of the earth. She was already missing them.

“Everything okay?” asked Twilight with a look of concern.

Or at least it probably was a look of concern; perceiving with a human brain, it wasn’t as clear anymore. She briefly glanced at Steve, and noted he looked exactly the same as just before being ponified; presumably the same was true of herself. “Yes, everything’s okay. Just being introspective, I guess.”

The alicorn smiled, reassured, and walked over to the doll to conduct her measurements ritual. A minute later she had finished and was ready to depart. “Progressing as expected,” she reported cheerlessly. “I’ll be back, usual time tomorrow.”

“Okay,” Steve said. “We’ll try to have something set up for you by then so you can read fanfics and watch episodes.”

“I’m looking forward to it,” she said more brightly. Twilight invoked the return spell and vanished.

They both stared at the space formerly occupied by the pony in silence. Steve then gave Meg a recap of his day. She was unsurprised to hear it included explaining Lyra fanon to Twilight and Celestia.

“Any ideas on how to make that happen without giving her total access to the Internet?” Steve asked.

“Yeah, some…” Meg replied as she got some stuff out of her saddlebags. Her cutie mark adorning the saddlebag caught her eye. It still felt like her cutie mark, even if it was absent from her body. Supposedly absent. I’ll check later. “The episodes can be downloaded onto the tablet, so no problem there. I think I can set up some filtering to restrict Internet access; that’ll handle the rest.”

Steve finished retrieving stuff out his own saddlebags. “I’d appreciate that. Let’s go out for hamburgers. I could use a bacon cheeseburger, hold the daffodils.”

“Works for me,” she heartily agreed.

A few minutes later, they were outside heading towards their car. They were going down the stairs when a woman, professionally dressed and carrying some kind of device, appeared at the bottom, blocking their exit.

“Mr. and Mrs. Coleman?”

They came to a stop at the bottom. “Yes?” Steve replied questioningly.

“I’m Agent Jessica Fowler of the FBI,” she said as she presented her badge. “May I have a few minutes of your time?” The device she was holding in her other hand was making occasional soft, random clicks.

“Uh, sure… is that a Geiger counter?”

“It is,” she said, as she put the badge away, got out her phone and made a call. “I’ve found the Colemans.” A few seconds later, she said, “Okay,” and put the phone away.

This can’t possibly be a coincidence. She remembered the white van that had been parked out front a few days ago. “What’s this about?” Meg asked, anxiety creeping into her voice despite her best efforts.

Next Chapter: 13. Government in Action Estimated time remaining: 7 Hours, 35 Minutes
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