Derpy couldn’t react. She felt for one of the kitchen chairs and went to sit down, but missed and collapsed to the ground on her flanks. If it hurt, she didn’t notice the pain as she continued to stare straight ahead.

Karyn had an idea of what she was seeing in her mind, because it was the same frame of reference she had, and the only thing she had heard of like this.

Long before, when Derpy and Karyn had taken a guided tour of the land of the Mules, they had encountered a few ponies there, one of whom was a unicorn who said that he no longer had any magic. He seemed beaten down, broken by the work he was doing and how low life had brought him. Derpy was seeing Dinky in his place, an exile from her home, never to see any of her friends or family, living out her remaining years in constant loneliness.

She finally regained her senses, and silently vowed that her daughter would not suffer the same fate. She would bring her home and care for her the rest of her life. But as she did, she realized that this was what Dinky had feared, that she would forever be an invalid, dependent on her mother’s charity. Derpy would never have any of the nice things she wanted, would never be able to retire and leave the post office. And when Derpy got so old that she couldn’t work, what then?

Well, it didn’t matter. She got up and said, “Don’t worry. We’ll get through this together. We always have. We’ve had a lot of troubles together as a family. If this happens to be one more that’s been laid on us, so be it.”

Dinky began crying again. “You don’t understand, Mommy. This is my fault.”

“I don’t understand. Please explain.”

Sniffing, Dinky tried to bring herself up to full height. To Karyn, she looked like she was facing a firing squad. “When I was at Celestia’s school, we did some research on old and lost spells. I found one that I used on myself. It was supposed to give me more energy, take away stress, make me happier. And it worked! There was one test, I was so burned out before I took it, I would have flunked if I hadn’t used the spell. I knew it was dangerous. The first thing they teach you as a unicorn is to never cast a spell that affects your own mind. How this can happen if you do. But I thought that I could just do it once and forget about it.

“Then I couldn’t stop! I did it again and I told myself that that was it, but over and over I felt more stress and more lack of energy and more need for it. Then it started getting harder to use my magic, and the only way I could do it was by casting the happy-spell. That would get me back to normal for a few days, and I would lose it again. At last it got harder to even cast the happy-spell, and it wasn’t as effective, and I panicked. I didn’t know what to do, so I came here.”

Derpy shook her head. “But why didn’t you tell me? Or Princess Celestia? Or your teachers or a friend or...anypony?”

“I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. I didn’t want to have you think of me as being so easily tempted, of having used a forbidden spell. Of course, you know now, so there was no point, but I couldn’t see it that way.”

“We could have helped you though, stopped it before it got to this point.”

Dinky’s lip quivered. “No, nopony can. There’s no cure for this. I read through every book I could find and nopony’s ever found a cure.”

“Oh, Dinky, why?!”

Karyn recognized Dinky’s pattern of behavior, understood it better than Derpy. Though she didn’t know any addicts herself, addiction was talked about far more on Earth than in Equestria. And she knew that Derpy had cried out because of frustration, but seeing how Derpy’s outburst only redoubled Dinky’s malaise, she interjected. “Derpy, it’s not going to make sense, it was just a bad mistake. It’s not going to help getting mad, because—“

She cut herself off. Half listening, she heard Derpy ask for forgiveness and revert to comforting, but it was muted, like a radio pointing the other way. Her mind was racing.

Karyn was not given to inspiration. She was more of an analytical, one-step-at-a-time thinker. It befit her as a technical support person and, given time, she might have come to the same conclusion anyway. But in the midst of the emotional scene before her, and her own desperate sympathy for Dinky, it hit her like a bolt of electricity. Several disjointed pieces of information coalesced in her brain, and she saw her course like a perfectly balanced equation.

Half in a trance, she stood up and walked out of the house. If either of the two ponies noticed, they didn’t react, being too wrapped up in each other. The walk wasn’t too far, and Karyn opened the door which was not locked, as she expected. As the door closed it rang a bell.

“Just a minute!” the house’s owner said. “I’m with somepony else right now, but I’m almost finished.”

Karyn nodded, even though she was the only one there. Taking a seat, she stared ahead as Derpy had, but out of resolve instead of shock.

The pony came out with a younger one in tow. After a few words of advice, she let her out and turned back to Karyn. “Is everything all right?”

“Hello, Colgate,” Karyn said, distinct purpose in her voice. “I need your help.”

Colgate cocked her head in confusion, and Karyn laid out everything that had transpired in Derpy’s house moments before, dryly and factually, letting Colgate fill in the emotional blanks herself.

“That’s tragic,” Colgate said. “How can I help?”

“I remembered how a long time ago you were very interested in my changeling magic. You called it ‘loose,’ not well attached to me. So what I want you to do it to take it out and transfer it to Dinky to restore her own magic.”

Colgate paused herself, taking in the idea, then shook her head. “Magic doesn’t work that way, Karyn. You can’t just pull it out and put it back in like a tooth.”

“You’re right, I know nothing about magic. I come from a world where it’s only found in storybooks. But from what I do know it follows certain rules, and sacrifice is one of them. Besides, you’re wrong about one thing. My magic was put into me by Queen Chrysalis. So it’s happened before. We just need to figure out how to do it again. And by ‘we,’ I mean you.”

“But even so, why me? I’m not any kind of archmage or theoretician. I’m an amateur student of magic who’s curious about how it can help me in my dentistry. If you want to try, we need to call in a doctor, or maybe one of the princesses—“

Karyn held up a hand. “No. That’s the other part of this. We have one chance to fix this where nopony but the four of us will ever know. I need you to swear that you’ll never tell anypony else. You can’t write it up for a magical journal. Or, maybe you can, but not for a long time, and not by naming any names. If everypony knows what Dinky did to herself, they won’t treat her the same. They’ll snigger behind her back and make fun of her. Or else they’ll treat her extra-nice, like she’s still weak somehow. No, I want to save my friend’s reputation as well as her ability.”

“But it’s still a moot point. You see, magic is an individual thing. Certainly unicorn magic is. The way a unicorn horn works...” Colgate trailed off, and now it was her turn to adopt the thousand-yard stare. “Huh,” she said. “Huh.”

“Yes?”

“It’s possible, but...you might not have such a crazy idea after all. If it’s the case that...huh,” she repeated one more time. “You said that Dinky’s over at her mother’s house now?”

“With Derpy, yes.”

“Let’s go over there and talk this out. Wait, let me just get a few things.” Colgate went back into her surgery and returned with a small bag. She and Karyn fast-walked back to Derpy’s house.

Dinky and Derpy had recovered enough to be sitting at the kitchen table, but Derpy was still half stunned, and Dinky was still quivering. Karyn felt a pang of remorse as she feared that they might have thought she abandoned them. No matter. It was time to fix everything.

“Dinky,” she said, “I don’t know if you know Colgate.”

Colgate spoke before Dinky could get her head turned around. “I’ve worked on her teeth a time or two.”

“I brought her here to help. I’ve explained that what we need to do is take my changeling magic, get it out of me, and put it back into her so she can use magic again.”

A flicker of hope came across their faces. But Derpy, still with sadness in her voice, said, “Karyn, I can’t ask you to do that. It’s giving up too much.”

“It’s giving up something that I was never supposed to have in the first place. I was born a human, a mundane, a muggle. It’s what I’m supposed to be. Dinky is a unicorn. That’s what she’s supposed to be. We do this, and everything goes back into balance.”

“But still, you’ll lose out on so much.”

Karyn had not been unaffected by the emotions of the issue, and it came out as a weary anger. “What kind of person do you think I am? Could I go around the rest of my life using these powers when I know that a good friend is suffering, and that I could help? I can’t do that. Tell me, if you could restore Dinky’s magic by cutting off your wings, would you?”

“Absolutely,” Derpy said without hesitation.

“So how about it, Dinky? Are you in?”

Dinky kept her face sober, but though she did not smile, Karyn could see the glee in her eyes at the prospect of having her problem solved. “I don’t know how I’ll be able to thank you.”

Karyn got very serious. “There’s one thing. I need to know that you’re not going to use this spell ever again. Because we can only do this once. If we do it, and it works, and then you go and lose it all again, then I’ve thrown away my powers for nothing. That I won’t do. So it’s got to be absolute. Not once more when you’re desperate, not when you’re feeling your worst, not because this time you think you have control. Never.”

Neither Dinky nor Derpy had ever seen Karyn speak this way before. It was no longer the voice of a young college student. It was the voice of a woman.

Dinky’s glee went away, and again her eyes got misty. “Oh, Karyn, I promise, I swear it. By my mommy’s wings I swear I’ll never even look at it again! I’ll burn the scroll and I won’t even think about it!”

“All right. I believe you, if that’s what you’re swearing by. Let’s get to business.”

Colgate had stood idly by, and now Dinky looked at her for the first time. “Do you really think we can do this?”

“Not for certain,” the dentist said, “but if it’s true that...let me start at the beginning, for Karyn’s and your mother’s benefit. You’ve studied all about unicorn horns, but they don’t know about them.”

She opened the bag she brought and took out a film. “Karyn, I’ve seen that you have x-ray machines on Earth, so you’ll understand that this is a see-through picture of a unicorn’s head. It shows the hardest and most dense material as the whitest areas. Now, you both probably think of a unicorn’s horn as just being on her forehead. Well, take a look at this.”

She held the film to the light and let Karyn and Derpy look. The horn came through clearly in white, but then the white area kept going into the unicorns head, past the light gray of the skull. There it branched off, into large white lines at first, but then into smaller and smaller branches.

“It looks like an ice cream cone,” said Derpy, “if it fell on its side.”

“The horn reaches deep into the head. At the cellular level, it becomes the same size and shape as the neurons in a pony’s brain. Magic works because the unicorn has to think of what the spell they’re casting is. Then it gets ‘translated’ to the horn. With me so far?”

Derpy nodded. Karyn said, “I think so, but then how does the horn actually make the thoughts...do the magic?”

Colgate leaned in. “That, nopony knows for sure. But here’s the thing. Unicorns can use their magic to magnify things so that they can see them. It’s a field of magic called microscopy. What those unicorns who have taken magnification to the extreme have discovered, is that everything is made up of tiny particles that we call atoms. I don’t know if you can fully understand it because you don’t have magic and can’t see the atoms, but trust me that matter, down tiny, is all these little things.”

Karyn didn’t think it was the time to argue about the state of Earthly science, and let Colgate continue.

“Now, I said that everything is made up of these atoms, but that’s not technically true. The one exception is the horn of a unicorn itself. If a great microscope focused on anything in this room, even our bodies, they would see tiny bits interacting. But not if they looked at my horn or Dinky’s. No matter how much power they used, my horn would still show up as a field of blue, and Dinky’s a field of purple. That’s why it always shows up on the x-ray, even though we can see through the bone.”

This was going far afield from what Karyn knew about materials. She was just as enraptured as Derpy.

“This substance,” Colgate continued, “which we call alicorn, the same word for a winged unicorn, is unlike anything else in the world. Now, nopony understands it fully, but there’s a theory that it’s not even a true part of our universe, but a projection of some extra-dimensional being. We know that alternate dimensions exist, and even have the proof of it right here.” She gestured to Karyn.

“It’s all fascinating,” said Derpy, “but what does it mean for fixing Dinky’s magic?”

“We know that mind magic is dangerous and can cause this sort of malady. If the theory of the alternate dimension is true, then a horn isn’t even part of us. It’s a symbiote, a separate organism that helps us do magic. What it gets from us, we can’t say. But it’s possible that, by altering your mind, Dinky, you’ve denied your horn what it wants from you.”

Dinky looked up at her forehead. “And what could that be?”

“Your horn helps you interact with the world. If you benefit from it, you need it and will take care of it. But if your mind is completely happy, then you don’t need it. You don’t need anypony. You wouldn’t be of use to anypony or have any reason to interact with the world. You would have altered your brain so much that you’ve pulled away from your horn. In the x-ray I showed you, the cells of the brain are linked to the horn. In your case, you would have smoothed the edges. It’s like...” Colgate struggled to think of a simile.

“It’s like when I lock the fingers of my hands,” said Karyn, demonstrating. “Like this, my hands can’t be pulled apart. But if I make a fist and try to grab it, it doesn’t want to go.”

“And that’s why this crazy idea just might have a chance. I was telling Karyn before that magic can’t just be transferred from one to another. Even if we had a unicorn willing to give up her magic for Dinky, there’s no way to do that. Not with unicorn magic. But changeling magic? That we know even less about, and as Karyn pointed out, it’s already been moved once. What we need it to do is just make one last change, for Dinky. Not to your appearance or your body, but to your brain. If Karyn’s changeling magic can be used as a permanent graft, to make your neurons take the same form as they did before you started using the happy-spell, then maybe, just maybe, your horn will start talking to your brain again.”

Karyn chuckled. “It’s funny. We use the same metaphor in computers. We’ll say that two devices are talking to each other, when it’s digital communication. I guess that idea is universal.”

Colgate seemed not to understand, but what she did get was that Karyn was nervous as the time to actually begin the procedure approached. “All right, let’s set this up. Just so you know, this isn’t going to be quick. If I do it wrong, terrible things could happen. Probably something terrible will happen anyway, but like Karyn said to me, we’re trusting on good faith and hoping. Let’s get Karyn and Dinky comfortable.”

Looking around the house, Derpy came back and said, “Don’t you think we should do it in your surgery? The place where you’re most comfortable operating?”

“No. I’d prefer it there if I were doing a procedure that I’d done before, but this time I’m experimenting. I think that it’s more important that Dinky be comfortable. Remember, Dinky, this all depends on you putting your own brain in the state it was before you started using the spell. So we want a homey atmosphere. How about in your room?”

“We can go there. Fortunately Mommy’s been keeping it clean for me.”

They all headed upstairs and Dinky lay down in the bed that she had just gotten up from an hour or so before. But Colgate turned her attention first to Karyn.

“You need to make yourself comfortable too. Actually, don’t get too comfortable yet. There’s some things we have to do. Dinky, you can relax as well, relax from being comfortable I mean.”

They had a laugh at this, while Colgate got serious and pointed her horn at Karyn. Light came from her forehead, but no other effect was seen. “What’s going on?” she asked.

“I’m scanning. Derpy, do you have a piece of paper? As much as you can give me. And a quill.”

Derpy flew out, anxious to aid her benefactor in any way possible. One advantage she had of keeping her house so tidy was knowing where odds and ends were, and both scrolls and flat paper were passed over to Colgate. “I assume you want ink too,” said Derpy, and got the bottle.

As soon as they were available, Colgate set up. She used both types of paper, explaining, “I’d prefer the flat paper for everything, since it doesn’t roll up on you, but there are some things I’m going to have to write on the scroll.” Her horn went back and forth from Karyn’s head to the quill, which traced out many marks on the papers.

“I can’t read any of that,” said Derpy.

“No, this is unicorn script, which can only be written and read magically. We don’t generally use it, precisely because pegasi and Earth ponies can’t read it, but for some terms it’s necessary. I’m making notes on where Karyn’s magic is.”

“Thank you for being so patient with me. I just want to understand as much of what’s going on as I can.”

“Patience shouldn’t be a problem. As much as I can do to get things right before I start taking action...” Colgate trailed off and turned to Karyn. “All right, let’s see some simple transformations.”

Karyn was caught off guard. “Anything in particular?”

“No, just let me see what you can do.”

Karyn went with her morning routine changes, altering her clothes and hair. After each one, she had to stand still for more scanning by Colgate. It took a long time, and reminded Karyn of the time when the language translation spell failed, and she had to sit there for hours while Lyra rebuilt the magic into it.

Meanwhile, Dinky just sat there feeling guilty for all the work everyone else was putting in. “Is there anything I can do to help?” she asked. Derpy gave a little smile of pride at hearing her daughter use her expression.

Colgate didn’t even look at her. “No, not at this point. I guess you can’t even decipher what I’m writing down. This is the main problem with all of this. At some point I’m going to need you to give me feedback about what’s happening with your magic, but all the ways that we communicate like that are themselves magical. In other words, it would be a lot easier to fix your magic if you already had it back.”

Derpy cocked her head. “But then you wouldn’t have to do the procedure at all.”

“That’s right,” said Karyn. “On Earth we call that a Catch-22.”

“I’ll have to remember that term.” Colgate made more notes. “All right, try the most outlandish transformation you can. I need to see the extent of your powers.”

Karyn didn’t even know herself, and she hadn’t seen the need for extreme uses of her power, and she didn’t want to go too crazy, so she decided to go with something that was part dragon, part changeling, and part chimera. It seemed to satisfy Colgate, who kept on making notes.

“One more thing,” Colgate said. “I need you to try what we’re going to have Dinky do. A transformation to your brain.”

“Whew. I’ve never done that.”

“Yes, you have. You just didn’t realize it. When you switch to different animals your brain shape alters to fit the animal you’re in. Try a transformation like this.” She pointed to some of the writing.

“I can’t read that.”

“Oh, right. Sorry, I’m getting punchy with all this. Before we begin the actual operation I’m going to need a rest. But...how can I say this? Try an animal transformation that only affects your head, then put your own face back on.”

Karyn’s best animal transformation was to her pony form, which she demonstrated for Colgate. “How’s this?”

“Perfect. Just hold still.”

Without moving, she tracked her eyes to Derpy and to Dinky. This was the tense moment that anyone had while waiting for a doctor to tell them news that they hoped was good.

Derpy, desperate for something to do, started out of the room. “I’ll get you some water or something, for when you’re ready.”

“Yes, I think I’ve got about all the notes I can get. Everyone get yourself prepared. Karyn, take a seat on the chair or something. Dinky, lie down. Derpy...give me all the good wishes you can.”

Dinky did as Colgate instructed. Derpy seemed more confused. But Karyn ignored the instruction and remained standing. “Just a minute,” she said. “I want to do one more thing. Derpy? Do you remember back when I was first made aware that I had these powers? I was suffering from the side effects of having not used them, and Queen Chrysalis said that I needed to transform in order to stop the buildup of excess magic. I made a transformation then, because it was the only one I knew how to do.”

Karyn closed her eyes, and one more time green light came from nowhere and surrounded her. When it ebbed, there she was, standing there, a perfect copy of Derpy.

“I think it’s fitting that the last change I make be the same as the first.”

Derpy smiled at her. The gesture had said more than any words could. It made her finally understand how Karyn saw Equestrian magic, and what she meant by balance. It showed how both she and Karyn liked the poetry of repetition, of ending where you began, of events that were apropos to the situation.

Karyn went back to herself, dropped all disguises, and sat in the chair.

“Ready now?” asked Colgate.

“Yes, I am.”

“Dinky?”

“I...I think so.”

Colgate huffed and muttered, “Still don’t see how this is going to work. Poor kid’s got no magic, can’t even figure out what I’m doing.”

Karyn didn’t know about magic, but she was able to dimly see what Colgate was thinking, and to come up with an analogy in her head. “Wait. Don’t try to do this all at once. Get Dinky just enough so that she can read the unicorn script that you wrote. Maybe then she can help you with the transfer.”

That got Colgate in her blank-stare thinking mode. “Magical rapport. Could work. Haven’t used that since I was a filly, but if we can get that going...nice idea, Karyn. How did you think of it?”

“It’s the same way we start computers on Earth. A simple computer is used to turn on a bigger one, and then all the higher functions come on afterwards.”

“Hm. We’ll have to talk about that later. OK, let’s do this.”

Colgate took Karyn’s hand in one hoof and Dinky’s in another. It amused Karyn to think of this as a hybrid of a seance and an exorcism, with the joined appendages and Dinky lying in bed. Then she got serious. This was real, even if it was magical, and her friend’s quality of life was at stake.

She felt the effects of Colgate’s magic as the blue glow suffused the room. Her head tingled all over like she was getting a scalp massage or was having a bad reaction to a new shampoo. It started all over, then localized to the top of her head. Trying to hold still, she snuck a look over at Dinky.

There! It was a magical glow from Dinky! No, wait, it was the wrong color. Colgate was working on Dinky’s head. Karyn could only wonder what was going through her mind as a third glow appeared, this time on the scroll where the unicorn runes had been inscribed.

The strain was getting to Colgate. Karyn had only once ever seen a unicorn push that hard, and that was when Twilight had lifted the ursa minor through her relaxation course, lifting what must have been thousands of pounds of weight. But that was physical force, even though it was magic. This was brain surgery.

Karyn lost all track of time as she felt Colgate’s power inside her skull. All that mattered was holding still enough to let it happen.

And happen it did.

All at once Dinky levitated off the bed, her horn in full strength, eyes dilated. This too was something that Karyn had seen once before, when Twilight was overcome by her surge of magic at the moment she got her cutie mark. And just like that time, it only lasted a moment. Dinky collapsed back down, ruffling the covers. Colgate released her spell and fell backwards. Derpy raced to see if her daughter was all right. Only Karyn remained still.

Colgate made it to her hooves first. She was panting, and her coat was flattened to her skin by the sweat pouring off her. “Hardest spell I ever cast. Kind of spell a unicorn dreams of casting, prove how good you are. Can’t tell anypony about it, but I’ll know. I’ll remember the day that I left it all out there.”

“But did it work?” asked Karyn.

“Your powers are definitely gone. Dinky?”

Derpy helped her off the bed. “I don’t know,” Dinky said. “I definitely felt something there at the end, and I was seeing the runes during it, but now....” She looked around the room and found a brush for her mane. She tried to levitate it. Her magic had the same pale straw color that they had seen when it was fading out.

“Take it easy,” Colgate said. “Don’t strain yourself too much. A lot was lost in the transfer from Karyn’s brain to yours. You don’t have full power yet. Perhaps, in time, you and your horn will get closer together. I think that your brain will have to form some new pathways to your horn, but it has the roadmap to do that. We’ll figure out the best way for you to practice, get you enough use to strengthen your magic again without hurting yourself. It’s going to be a long process.”

Derpy grapsed her hoof. “You’ve done something amazing. My family is forever in your debt. Can I get you anything? More water? Something to eat? Do you want to rest and stay over?”

“Thank you, no. If I may, I’d like to return to my surgery. I believe that I’ll cancel all my appointments for tomorrow and reflect on what we’ve accomplished here.”

She walked out, treading the stairs with a heavy plod. Derpy watched her to make sure she got out all right, then turned to Karyn.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes. Actually, I’m surprisingly good. I don’t think I realized how much that was actually weighing on my physique. You remember that it made me sick that one time, kept coughing and passing out, like I had trouble breathing. Once I started using the powers it didn’t happen anymore, but I think it still cut my lung capacity. I feel like I’m breathing easier now. Maybe it’s just knowing that my powers are where they belong now.”

They both approached Dinky. “How are you feeling?” asked Karyn.

“Overwhelmed. I don’t know what to do now? Mommy? What am I supposed to do?”

Derpy didn’t answer, so Karyn had to be the first. “Just get through tonight. We’ll have dinner, get to bed, wait for the sun to rise. When the new day comes, you’ll take that day and figure out what to do with it. Then the same thing with the next day. Try to make each one a little better than the last.”

“I’ll write to Princess Celestia,” said Derpy. “and explain that you’ll be staying home for a while. You won’t take any tests now, and your progress will have to go back if you return to school. I’ll be discreet, tell her that you’re going through some issues right now. Which is true enough. So I’ll leave it open. Who knows? Maybe you’ll get all your power back and be able to go to school and pick up like none of this ever happened.”

“No, I’m not going to do that.” Finally, all the fear had left Dinky’s voice. “I’m going to remember this for the rest of my life. I’m not a strong mare. I’ve got a lot of flaws in my character, and sooner rather than later, I’m going to have to learn how to overcome them before they get out of hoof. I’m very lucky to have people who care about me, and who are able to pick me up when I stumble.”

“Come on. Dinner’s probably cold by now. I’ll have to reheat it, and hopefully it won’t have just gone off.”

The two mares went down to the dining room. Dinky was still trying out her horn here and there, and to Karyn’s eyes the color was already getting brighter, though she realized that that could be wishful thinking. She was the last one out of the room, and as she shut the door she realized that they had left her there, as if she belonged, as though she was part of the family.

She felt for the part of her mind that was gone, focused, and tried to make the same effort that resulted in her transformation. Nothing happened. Karyn smiled to herself. She was a perfectly ordinary young human woman. But she was also a special person, because she had friends.

Author's Notes:

Clip show next week, but then we go full out to the finish! Twenty-six more weeks!