Dear Princess Celestia,

In my previous letters, I informed you of the situation regarding Ponyville citizen Lyra Heartstrings and our extradimensional visitor. It was my expressed intent to personally aid in the protection of our guest's mind and memories from the Unicornian Memory Redundancy. Given my responsibility in Lyra's access to Starswirl's Consciousness Exchange spell, it only felt right that I do my best to help him. Initially, my plan was to find some method of extracting and making a copy of his consciousness, but even with the best research materials from Canterlot at my disposal, I found that nothing can be done without a vessel for the memories; any other attempts else would simply result in the complete purging of his mind. In the end, I had no other choice but to cast a memory enhancing charm to strengthen his memories and make it more difficult for the Redundancy imprint to do its job. Unfortunately, even that isn't enough, as the charm is completely dependent on the individual's state of mind.

This is wherein my troubles lie. Mister Friedrich, or Soren—and he would likely emphasize the pronunciation Zoo-ren as opposed to a pronunciation similar to the name of a certain Wonderbolt—as he seems to prefer to be called, seems to attract trouble to no end. Primarily, his 'human' body is undergoing a metamorphosis, becoming unmistakably equine with each passing hour and exposure to magic. In no uncertain terms, this metamorphosis is proving Corkscrew the Eccentric's theorem on the effects of magic on beings from non-magical realms. Everything in the research, and all I have seen in the past two days indicate that every magic applied to them will have longer lasting, even permanent effects.

For Soren, who has already been having so many issues just being a pony and mare, finding out that going home is no longer an option, the news didn't have nearly the reaction I expected. Instead of showing any outward reaction, he just walked away, and then acted like nothing at all had happened when I saw him at the party. Right then and there, I should have been concerned, but I'd been pouring too much of myself into trying to find a way to help him. If I'd thought more of it, I might have seen this coming.

The events of last night's after-party are what I think drove him over the edge. There was apparently a drunken tryst between Lyra, Bon-Bon and Soren, an event that a sober Soren would later dwell upon and see as a betrayal of trust. This morning he was so disturbed by it that he teleported himself into the cabinet beneath Lyra's sink. This more than anything I wish I'd known about ahead of time. If I'd known, I would have seen his psychotic episode coming and have been prepared to help him. The whole situation and my inability to do anything substantial was infuriating.

Instead, I sent him off to the quietest park in Ponyville—the one nearest the Everfree forest. Knowing he's already experienced one psychotic episode, Lyra and I felt it would be best if we bound him to Ponyville. It seemed like the best measure if he lost control of his faculties and tried to run off. It slipped our minds, however, to inform him of this. This binding proved costly today, and I can't help but feel responsible.

When Soren appeared on the doorstep of the library this afternoon, I was so convinced that he was having an episode. He was going on and on about a foal and the Everfree. I was so convinced that he was having a hallucination that I didn't even consider that what he was saying was the truth, even when Pinkie Pie, who had been tending the foals of her employers at that same park, arrived concerned about a missing foal. Even when he described Pound Cake perfectly, I was totally dismissive of what he had to say, and he became hostile and angry. This was my mistake. If I'd taken him seriously at the time, and ordered a search of the Everfree from the very beginning, we might have saved the poor foal from his fate. Instead, Ponyville mourns the loss of a foal to a cockatrice that was later found dead.

This, I fear, is what finally broke him. He began to blame himself, as well as Lyra and myself for our parts in limiting him to Ponyville. He became so hateful of us when I returned, and in my grief I lost all semblance of control and yelled at him. I don't know if he was blinded by his own anger and grief, or if he was in some delusional or hallucinatory state, but he flat-out accused me of being an impostor. I'm not even convinced he was truly understanding what was really being said. I tried to speak reason with him, I really did, but his response didn't make any sense. I only asked him how he could say such things, and he acted like I gave him an order of some sort. Soon after, he jumped out the second floor window of the library, and we haven't been able to find hide nor hair of him since.

I really hate to say it, but I really messed up big-time. I doubt he'll even listen to me at this point, and he's almost violently distrustful of Lyra now. Please, Princess, I need your help if he has any chance of even retaining his personality.
He needs your help.

Your faithful student,

Twilight Sparkle

Author's Notes:

This interlude chapter probably doesn’t help Twilight’s case any, but I still felt it necessary to write. The purpose of this chapter is primarily to segue into the following chapters, without leaving to question when Twilight asked for Celestia’s help. I also wanted to accentuate the fact that the main narrative is from Soren’s perspective, and anything he thinks he sees or hears is what you end up reading, even if it may not be what is actually happening.

TL;DR - Twilight’s still a bitch.

Re-Edited 12 July 2017