In the Royal Hospital Wing of Canterlot Castle, there was a sudden surge of urgency as Princess Luna teleported in with a pony in a strange outfit, barely alive.

Doctor Second Opinion and his team were already preparing to stabilize her with Luna ordering her racing guards to alert Celestia of the situation, with another code phrase uttered, before teleporting back to her moon to conduct another search.

The helmet the mare was wearing came off easily enough, causing more than one eyebrow to be raised as she had just come from outer space and nearly all ponies needed air to breathe. The suit was also surprisingly easy to remove; it came apart as Nurse Crystal’s quick diagnosis spell caused it to split in half, negating the need to cut it off.

Pulling the top part of the suit off the unicorn, they were further surprised to see the green coated mare was an alicorn. There were a few ponies looking very uncertain but Second Opinion did not become the presiding doctor to the princesses by being thrown by something like his patient turning out to be an alicorn.

Snapping off orders to get their mysterious mare onto a gurney and check her vital signs, Second Opinion quickly saw she had no heartbeat and began to pull the magic in for a defibrillation spell to shock it back into action.

Adjusting for what he knew about alicorn biology, he shouted Clear before shocking the unidentified mare, only for the heart to stay silent.

“Again,” he barked, building up the spell before shocking the mare again. Her heart stubbornly was staying unresponsive and he frown as he built up the power of his spell. “Clear!” he shouted, shocking the mare once more.

Snarling in anger at himself, he did not want to explain to Princess Luna why he had lost his patient. Preparing for one more try, he tilted his head down to her chest when there was a sudden spike on the heart monitor. Turning his head in confusion, he let out a gasp of surprise as the mare grabbed his arm and pulled him in close to her face.

“Stop shocking me, it’s starting to annoy me,” the mare barked at him, glaring at him with sharp blue eyes. Her head then fell backwards on the gurney and she started to make sounds that sounded like she was snoring.

By Celestia’s hoof, the mare was sleeping!

“What should we do doctor?” Nurse Crystal asked, tilting her head at the mare who was still snoring away.

Second Opinion looked at his patient and then at her vitals to see everything was normal. “Let us monitor her for now until either Princess Celestia arrives or she wakes up. Until then, keep quiet about her being an alicorn, I do not want a circus outside my doors.” His nurses nodded their heads with Second Opinion letting out a small sigh. I have a feeling it is going to be a long night, he thought to himself.

Spliced Genome let out an annoyed groan as she went through the standard ten deaths per dream cycle and finally started to wake up.

It had been very unusual as she dreamt of another pony, and she supposed she could spend some years on theorizing the exact reasoning for it.

Rubbing her eye with her wing, she could tell from the way some unknown object was poking at the back of her head that something was off but she couldn’t put her hoof on what it was.

“Hello there, it is good to see you are awake,” a soothing voice caused her to freeze and direct her head upwards to see a Pure, an actual pony, staring at her! “How are you feeling?”

“Go-good,” she said, looking around the room before glancing at the pony in front of her. Spliced was in some sort of very basic medical room with simplistic monitors watching her vitals. The pony in front of her was a larger white mare with pink eyes and what had to be some sort of holographic mane with a sun as a cutie mark. The mare was wearing what appeared to be golden shoes and a necklace and a crown on her head. Flicking her eyes around again, she saw a Third in the garb of a doctor, although if this was a Pure’s medical station, he had to be a nurse. “Who are you?” Spliced asked while trying to form som sort of plan.

“I am Princess Celestia,” she introduced herself. “This is doctor Second Opinion, head of the Royal Hospital Wing who has been treating you.”

“Oh you are a doctor,” Spliced said in pleasant surprise. “Wow, you are a real credit to your kind to reach this kind of station.” Spliced blinked and winced at her words, realizing that her words might not be considered polite and get her into trouble. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. Just that I am surprised to learn that a Third is the head practicing physician of a facility, let alone of a royal facility… I’m not doing a good job here,” Spliced traied off, rubbing the back of her neck as she saw the looks she was getting. She looked at the mare again and said, “You said you’re a princess?” Spliced was surprised to be in a place that used a monarchy as they were almost always an outdated style of governing.

“Yes,” the mare said without missing a beat. “I-”

“May I speak to your father or mother,” Spliced asked with all of the tact she could.

“Excuse me?” the princess looked very surprised at this as did the Third.

“Yes, either the King or Queen or whomever is in charge, your highness,” Spliced said, pushing herself upright.

“I-” the mare blinked in confusion before she settled back into those blank faces politicians were known for. “I am one of the diarchs of this land Equestria with my sister being the other, miss…”

“If you two are leaders, why do you call yourself princesses instead of queens?” Spliced asked, tilting her head.

“Our ponies tend to view princesses as something more pure and trustworthy while queens have a slightly negative view,” the princess said with complete dignity. “Also, princesses are younger than queens,” she said with a giggle and giving Spliced a wink.

“I see,” Spliced said scratching the back of her head. Vanity was always a thing, Spliced thought to herself.

“I suppose things are different from where you are, miss?” the princess said, reminding Spliced the mare asked her name.

“Ah yes,” Spliced said, blinking her eyes. “My name is Spliced Genome, your highness, and I wanted to ask for-wait, when you said land of Equestria, did you mean we’re planetside?” This caused the princess to blink in confusion again before she nodded her head. “Excuse me then, I need to do something.” Spliced replied before trying to push herself out of the bed.

“I’m sorry, but doctor Second Opinion here and I insist you stay in bed until everything is cleared up,” she said, looming over Spliced which told her the princess might be suffering some form of gigantism.

Still, she should be biologically the same…

“Sorry ma’am, but I need this,” Spliced whispered as she grabbed the mare’s shoulders and brought her head into the white mare’s nose, breaking it.

As Spliced predicted, the doctor was more concerned about the mare with the bleeding nose than her. Spliced didn’t care that her future endeavours here might be in jeopardy as she had more important personal matters at the moment.

Luna had teleported herself from a fruitless search on her moon to find herself in the midst of her ponies panicking.

“Guards, what is going on?” she called out to her guards running around, issuing orders before stopping before her.

“Your highness, the mare you brought here has assaulted your sister and escaped the hospital wing,” a guard snapped a wing to his face while his fellow Lunar, and Solar counterparts, continued to move down the hallway. “We are securing the castle to find and recapture her, ma’am!”

“How is my sister?” Luna demanded, forcing herself to keep calm as it would only worry her ponies if she were visibly worried herself.

“She is okay, Princess Luna,” the guard said, suddenly looking very nervous. “The doctor says he'll be able to fix her nose once it stops bleeding.”

Luna pulled back in surprise, tilting her head in surprise. “Excuse Us, did thou thus proclaim thine sister’s snout was injured?” Luna asked, slipping back in the old manner of speech.

“Ye-yes. She broke Princess Celestia’s nose by headbutting her,” the guard gulped, twitching his leather wings. “We are still searching for the mare, Princess Luna. We would be grateful for your aid.’

Luna nodded her head and closed her eyes and began to search out for the mare. It was easier than normal due to the fact that mare’s magical background signature differed from every other pony of Equuis, another sign this mare was from another dimension.

Locating the mare moving deeper inside the castle, Luna teleported herself ahead of the mare to put an end to this chase. Appearing in front of the mare who was an alicorn, unsurprisingly due to the fact she had traveled through dimensions somehow, the green mare let out a yelp before trying to halt her movement.

“Stay where you are, and explain why you assaulted my sister,” Luna ordered as she prepared several powerful containing spells as well as a few more lethal spells in case the mare proved difficult.

“You look just like her,” the mare muttered under her breath before shaking her head and getting to her hooves. “I’m sorry for breaking your sister’s nose but…” the mare bit her lip before shaking her head. “This will sound crazy but I have been trapped on the moon, my world’s moon, for four hundred years. I haven’t felt the wind on my back for so long, I haven’t breathed fresh air so long, I’m sorry but I just needed to get outside and she was in the way and-”

She let out a squeak of surprise as Celestia teleported herself and a detachment of guards next her. Luna stole a look at her sister and her nose was stuffed with tissue paper. Doing her best not to fall the floor in laughter at her big sister, Luna looked at the stranger and gave her a gentle smile.

“I believe you,” Luna said, recognizing the same desperation and painful need to be outside after being sealed away for a thousand years on her moon. “If you promise to answer our questions and not assault any us or any of our ponies, I will lead you outside.”

“Yes, I promise,” the mare promised with desperation in her voice. “Please, I never felt this badly about anything else in my entire life.”

Luna walked over to the mare, placing a wing on her back. With a gentle smile, she directed the mare to a door and led her out onto a balcony.

Spliced Genome took tentative steps onto the balcony and felt a wave of sheer pleasure roll over her. She could feel the wind rush through her coat, she could smell a world alive around her, she could hear the bustle of a city below her. Spreading her wings out, she took a deep breath of fresh air, and felt a smile settle on her face.

“Are you good, miss…” the other princess asked her gently, with her sister keeping her gaze a bit more cautious, although it was hard to do with her nose stuffed up with tissues.

“My name is Spliced Genome,” she told the mare as she turned around to join the Pure princesses. “And yes I am.”

For I am free.