Shimmer slowly came to; her head pounding. She couldn't open her eyes yet, but knew she was on a stone floor. It was cold, hard, and while great pains had been taken to make it smooth, it still had that perpetual stony roughness.

She also knew that every muscle in her body ached.

As she tried to get up, nothing seemed to respond as it should. Her arms and legs were no longer her servants and were in apparent open rebellion against her. She tried to open her hands, to grasp at anything, but nothing happened. In fact, she couldn't even feel her fingers anymore.

"Don't try to move," Sunset said. Her voice was sympathetic. She had obviously been through the same thing and was now helping Shimmer out as best she could. "Let your eyesight come back first. Trust me, you'll need to see yourself in order to understand."

"I'm back, I'm . . . home," Adagio said in wonder as she looked around the room. It had been over a thousand years since she last set hoof in Equestria. Here she was now, back (albeit in a room that looked like it was part of a castle which Earth had plenty off). It felt exciting and anti-climatic at the same time.

She turned to Sunset and saw her true form. She was as beautiful in this world as the other. Her proud horn, elegant wings, amber fur, and sun cutie mark (cutie marks! she had forgotten about those); all came together in perfect balance. "You really are a princess," she gasped in awe.

Sunset turned to Adagio and gasped herself. "Dag, didn't you say you were an earth pony?"

"Yes," Adagio said confused. "Until the gems transformed us. Why?"

"Uh, I, go look in the mirror."

Adagio was now fully concerned. Something was wrong; she could hear it in Sunset's voice. Had she been on Earth too long? Had the gems done something permanently to her looks. She rushed and looked at herself in the mirror they just came out of.

"I'm a UNICORN!" Adagio gasped in a combination of surprise, happiness, and horror. "How is this possible? I . . . I . . . I,"

"I don't know," Sunset said, still surprised herself. "I've never heard of that happening before. Unicorn to Allicorn, yes, but not earth pony to unicorn."

"What are you two talking about?" Shimmer asked in confused anger. Nothing they were saying made sense; especially those bits about unicorns and what not.

As she had finished speaking, her eyes finally opened. They were in a stone room like she had guessed. It looked like the room of a medieval castle. It was bright, shiny, almost crystal like. She looked all around to get a full measure of the room. As she she did, she kept getting glimpses of things that didn't make sense. Finally as she turned her head to look at the floor she saw that where her arms should have been, there were now two horses legs sticking out from her. She quickly turned to where she had heard Sunset and Adagio speaking and saw not the two girls she crossed over with but two ponies, both with horns, one with a set of wings as well. Shimmer screamed in horror and the one with the horn and wings walked over to her.

"It's ok Shimmer. It's me, Sunset. And that one is Adagio." Sunset raised a leg and pointed it at Adagio. "This is who we are, how we really look. It's how you look as well now. Whenever you cross over into a new dimension, you take the form of the dominant lifeform on that planet. It can be a bit much at first. Take it slow. Get used to how your new body feels and moves."

Soon shock and terror gave way to curiosity. Shimmer slowly tightened and relaxed her various muscles to see how they felt. Eventually she became the master of her limbs again. Slowly, wobbly, she got up on her new four legs. Then she spread her wings out and brought them back in.

She smiled and turned to Sunset. "Too much!" she said in joyous amazement.

"I'm glad you like," Sunset said, pleased by her Earth self's reaction. "Come. There is someone; er, I guess, somepony I want you to meet. On the way I'll fill you in about my home." Sunset turned to Adagio. "I guess you as well. I mean, how long has it been?"

"Over a thousand years," Adagio said in a way that was one part amazement at being back and one part embarrassment at admitting how long it had been.

"Wait," Shimmer said, confused. "You're over a thousand years old?"

"Actually, around fourteen hundred, give or take a decade or century."

"No way! And how old are you?" Shimmer asked as she turned to Sunset.

"Thirty. I know, not as impressive as Dag over there."

"Yeah, but still, you're thirty, yet you look like me. Well, you look like me when we're in my universe. How does that work?"

"Honestly, I don't know. I mean, how does it put and take clothes off as well?" Sunset replied.

Shimmer got a quizzical look on her face for a second and then finally realized, "I'M NAKED!" She immediately tried to cover herself.

"Don't worry, " Sunset laughed, "nudity isn't a thing here like it is on your world. We're all naked pretty much all the time. It's perfectly ok."

Shimmer could feel herself blush. She looked away shyly but got up none the less. "Well, when in Rome," she laughed nervously. "So, who are you taking me to see?"

"The ruler of Equestria, Princess Celestia."

Author's Notes:

Alright, this is from another long chapter I've decided to break down into smaller, more manageable bites.
The following chapters will fill you, the readers in on what's been going in Equestria over the past three weeks (in story time), delve into some of Celestia's backstory (I'm bringing Justinius back), wrap up some lose ends with Starlight Glimmer, then bringing both Shimmer and Sparkle back to Earth. So, yeah, now you see why I'm breaking this up.

After that, we'll get a chapter with Rainbow Dash and Scootaloo, one with Apple Jack and Big Mac, then a whole lot of people are going to die and that'll wrap up Book 4 and then it'll be on to the final book. I know I said I was going to do one just devoted to Equestria, but considering how long this is taking, I decided to just condense it down.

So that's the road map going forward. Hopefully you decide to remain.