I woke up in my room. Why do I have to pass out every time? It's so disorienting... I mentally skimmed over what happened before I had Discord send me back.

I'd taken a good bit of hair from present Vesper (though I suppose she's also technically future Vesper since she's ten months ahead), said goodbye to my alternate, barely-friend friends and Sky, eaten a carrot and had Discord send me back. I need to get the DNA to Zecora as soon as I can. Agreed. And then question Vesper about when my birthday is. No! I need to question her about why she didn't tell me about her's! That too.

I went downstairs to find Twilight and Spike running between bookshelves frantically, throwing books around. Twilight was mumbling something about a legend. I coughed to get their attention.

"Cloud!" Exclaimed Spike. "You're alive!"

"I told you so," said Vesper, who I noticed was perched very, very close to Toasty (the owl in question looked extremely uncomfortable and nervous). "Trans-dimensional teleportation is just really violent." She turned to me. "Hey. What happened?"

"Hey, Vesper," I greeted back. "Discord send me back to the Dongverse to see you be born."

"Cool. So that universe is about nine months ahead right now?"

"Yeah. Oh, that reminds me! Why didn't you tell me that you turned twenty one a few months ago? And when's my birthday?" Vesper groaned.

"So he told you about that?"

"Yeah." She rolled her eyes.

"Great."

"And deductive reasoning leads me to believe that it relates to why you go quiet sometimes. Am I right?" She sighed.

"Yeah, it relates to... That..." There was a moment of quiet.

"Vesper, I-"

"Look, if you really wanna know why I didn't tell you about my birthday and why I go quiet, I'll tell you. On my sixteenth birthday-"

"We don't have time for this!" Interrupted Twilight. REALTA BUCKING DAMMIT!

"What could possibly be so important that you stopped her from telling me?" I asked angrily.

"Pinkie has created an army of clones of herself that are wreaking havoc on Ponyville in an attempt to have fun!" The room fell silent.

"Oh," I replied calmly. "That's a pretty good reason."

"Twilight, I found it!" Exclaimed Spike, holding up a book. Twilight took it from him with telekinesis and quickly read through it, stopping about halfway through.

"Yes, this is it," she confirmed. "'The Legend Of The Mirror Pond'. It describes a spell I can use to send them back where they came from."

"Then what are we waiting for?" I asked.

"There's a catch; if I can't figure out which one's the real Pinkie, I might send her back by mistake."

"Will you be alright to figure it out by yourself?"

"Yes, but why can't you help?" I held up the tuft of hair I took from not-bird Vesper.

"I need to sort this out." Vesper squawked.

"Is that my DNA?!" She asked.

"Yep, you're gonna be yourself again." I looked towards Twilight. "You deal with the Pinkies, I'll help you as soon as I get this to Zecora." Twilight nodded. I ran towards the front door, tore it open and flew towards the Everfree on a Support Circle.

I was at Zecora's house. I'd explained what had happened and had given her Vesper's Pony DNA.

"So how long should it take to make?" I asked.

"It-" She started.

"Without the rhyming." Zecora frowned.

"I will need about a week to gather the correct ingredients and prepare the potion."

"Great," I turned towards the door, "now I can help with-"

"Be warned, your daughter may not be the same as she was." I turned back.

"What do you mean?"

"There is a small chance that the potion may have... Unwanted effects due to slightly altered mutagens caused by exposure to the powerful magical energies cast by Discord."

"Since when did you know about trans-dimensional radiation and mutations?"

"I know of many things. You are not the only one with a strange past."

"My past isn't necessarily strange..."

"You arrived from a different universe with enough power to defeat a god."

"To be fair, she was out of practice."

"Even so, an impressive feat. Matched only by defeating the Queen of the Changelings who had harnessed the power of an even stronger god."

"Is there a point to this or can I go?"

"To reach that kind of power you would have needed specific training, magically and physically, so my question is this: Why did you receive this training? What could you possibly need to fight that would require that level of power?"

"No idea. Bye!" I rushed out of the front door and flew back towards town on another Support Circle. Jeez, she was acting as if I'd never wondered all that myself...

The town was seemingly deserted when I arrived. One quick heat detect spell later and I was headed towards town hall. Inside it, I found the army of Pinkies staring at a wall of wet paint. The others (minus Vesper) were all inside waiting together. Twilight explained to me what her plan was: Any Pinkie that wasn't one hundred percent devoted to watching the pain dry would get zapped by the spell and sent back to the Mirror Pond.

I thought the plan was kinda stupid but, after two hours of waiting and zapping, there was only one Pinkie left. We never actually did any other tests so there was still a pretty good chance that it wasn't the original Pinkie, but Twilight decided that this one was good enough and maybe-probably the original. Afterwards, I went back to the library to talk to Vesper.

I opened the front door and quickly spotted her perched on the edge of the sofa.

"I'm back," I announced as I closed the door. She looked towards me.

"Hey," she greeted in reply. "So where's the potion?"

"It's gonna take a week to make so you'll still have to wait a little while."

"How long?"

"About a week."

"Well, that's better than never."

"Let's continue where we left off earlier."

"What do you mean?"

"Why didn't you tell me about your birthday?" Vesper sighed.

"I've changed my mind."

"What?"

"I'm not telling you. Not today, anyway."

"What?! Why not?!" She groaned.

"It's not something I wanna talk about, okay?" I sighed and facehoofed.

"Fine..." There were a few seconds of quiet. "So when's mine?"

"Your what?"

"My birthday."

"Oh, right. I'm keeping it a surprise."

"Alright, fair enough." The room was quiet for a while. "I'm gonna make a sandwich."

"Okay." I went into the kitchen and made myself a sandwich.

Author's Notes:

What could this mysterious thing that happened to Vesper be?
How awkward are the hints at Cloud's past?
Is Pinkie Pinkie and not a not Pinkie?

It's fun knowing answers that no one else does!