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There are No Ponies in Equestria

by TheDriderPony

Chapter 4: No Ponies Acting and Reacting

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No Ponies Acting and Reacting

Ponyville
Approximately 30 minutes post-Rhapsody

Three ponies sat quietly in a cozy, private booth in the otherwise loud and raucous Sugar Cube Corner. All around them ponies danced, drank, and partied as their true selves, but this little corner was quiet.

“So.” One of them eventually ventured.

“So…” Replied the second, just as enthusiastically.

“Okay, you know what? какого черта.” The third member of the group stood up on her chair. “We’re all thinking it and one of us is going to have to say it so it might as well be me.” She raised a hoof with all the portent of an executioner's sword and pointed it at the first speaker. “Human?”

The accused hesitated a moment, but quickly sighed, shrugged, and relented. “Human,” Applebloom acknowledged.

The hoof moved to the next in line. “Human?”

There was even less hesitation. “Yeah, human,” Scootaloo confirmed.

Finally, the hoof rounded on its owner. “And me makes three,” said Sweetie Belle as she sat back down.

"And just to be clear," Apple Bloom continued, "We all knew about the show, and we all knew that all the crusades we did were going to fail?"

"Yeah, but I still wanted to do them." Thus far, Scootaloo had been taking the news the best of the group. "Far as I knew, I was getting to hang out with some of my favorite characters."

"That's... fair." The farmer relented.

"Still," Sweetie Belle chuckled, "This is a pretty crazy situation, amirite?"

The wall of tension that had been building finally broke down as the other two laughed as well. With a situation this absurd, what else could you do?

"Y'know, Ah don't know about you two," Applebloom said, "But Ah came to Equestria completely by accident."

"Really? Me too."

"Me three."

"Ooh, fun! Storytime!" Scootaloo cleared away some crumbs and propped her head up on the table in a more comfortable listening position. "Let's all say how we ended up here. Sweetie Belle, you go first."

"Oh, um, ok. It's a bit of a long story." The others gestured for her to continue anyway and she relented. "Alright then."

Sweetie Belle leaned back in her chair and took a sip from a glass she'd acquired from somewhere. She grimaced, as though displeased with the taste, but took another long draw anyway before starting. “I was part of a group of hobbyist roboticists who all happened to be pony fans. So, naturally, we tried to construct a functional pony-shaped robot. A Sweetie Belle shaped one. Things went well for a few years; we were making good progress in both design and functionality, and our patreon was doing better than ever. I remember there was a convention coming up, I forget which, and we wanted to load our little bot with some new walk cycles and gestures to show off the redesigned joint systems. But time was short, so we decided to take a few... shortcuts." She sighed and took another sip.

"We were... cocky. A we hadn't had a significant setback in months, and everything we tried seemed to just work. Then Dimitri found us this new, unlicensed motion capture software. Top of the line. Body sensors, EEG cap, the works. It'd shave weeks off our schedule. I volunteered to get into the rig. Everything was going well; the signals were clear and we were getting good data... and then some Сволочь tripped over a cable, caused a short or something, and next thing I know, I am Sweetie Belle."

She took another pull from her glass and noticed the other's expectant expressions. "That's it. That's my story."

"That's it?" Scootaloo questioned, "Just... pull out the wrong cable and poof! you're a pony?"

"Pretty much."

"That's... weirdly close to what happened to me," Applebloom mused, "Though Ah don't have the luxury of having someone else to blame."

"Oh?" Were you also making a robot?"

Apple Bloom shook her head. "No, Ah was programming an Applebloom AI."

“Ah used to work fer a company that made AIs, you know, fer video games and data analysis centers and interactive toys and stuff. Simple ones, no true AIs. Anyway, Ah had a side project that Ah tinkered with when my workload was light. Ah called it 'AI-pplebloom'."

“Seems there’s an awful lot of people trying to bring ponies to the human world, aren’t there?” Scootaloo commented.

Sweetie Belle nodded. "Though that is a terrible name."

That earned her a glare from the programmer turned farmer. "Let me hear you come up with a better one then." When her friend failed to respond, she continued, "Anyway, Ah’d made this training algorithm for it based on the Apple Bloom-centric episodes. The closer the AI behaved to how Apple Bloom acted in a canon episode, the higher score it got, and the more likely it survived to the next iteration.” She sighed, almost wistfully, “I was nearly a million generations deep before things went wrong.”

“Let me guess:” Scootaloo interrupted, “Something went wrong?”

"No, something went right. Too right. The program did so well, grew so complex, it started taking up too much space on the company servers, more than it rightly should've been able to access. People were starting to notice the lack of resources as it siphoned off more and more processing power. Then the men in suits turned up. Turns out, we had a secret department making AIs for the military, and they thought there was something espionage-y going down. Ah tried to shut it down, tried to delete her... but Ah couldn't. When Ah tried to wipe the hard drive there was this rush of color and sound like a rainbow exploding in my face."

Her breaths came in short pants and gasps as the memory triggered buried anxieties. Almost instinctively, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle scooched closer and laid a comforting pair of hooves over their friend's withers. Actual pony or not, they were still her friends. She took a few deep breaths and regained control. "Thanks girls. It's not a pleasant memory."

"You don't have to continue if you don't want to," Scootaloo offered.

"да, we get the gist."

Apple Bloom shook her head. “No, Ah'm alright now. Ah need to talk about it. Anyhow, next thing Ah knew, Ah was on the Apple Ranch. And from that point right up to the song earlier, Ah always thought that Ah was trapped inside my own simulation. That if Ah didn’t act perfectly like Applebloom, exactly like her in every scene, then Ah’d fail the test and be deleted like the countless other AIs that hadn’t passed." She raised her head. Tears glimmering in the corners of her eyes, but her voice was strong. “You have no idea how happy Ah am, knowing that Ah’m not in the computer. That Ah can do anything Ah want now without risk of being deleted." She laid a hoof on both of her friends. "That you're both real, thinking, living, people."

She sniffed a little and tried to wipe away the pre-tears. "Look at me, getting all sappy on you."

Sweetie Belle offered her some of her drink. "Hey, don't be like that. You've had it really hard but now the bad times are over."

Applebloom smiled and took a sip of the drink. Immediately she spit it back out all over the table, making the other two fillies rapidly throw themselves back to escape the splash zone.

"какого черта! What was that for?!"

"That was beer!" Applebloom shot back, "Ah thought you were giving me water. Who even gave you a beer, you're like ten!"

"It was a lager, and a good one too! And she did." Sweetie Belle pointed across the room where Berry Punch, who was now a unicorn apparently, was eagerly refilling any glass that was raised into the air with frothy liquid from one of a pyramid of six barrel she sat atop of. "And if you count human years then I'm at least twice old enough for a drink."

"Alright, just... Ah'm sorry." Applebloom apologized, "You were trying to help and you caught me off guard." Hoping to change the subject, she turned to their mutual pegasus friend. "Alright Scoots, you're next then."

Scootaloo tensed up. “Yeah…” she rubbed the back of her head, “I gotta say, after hearing you guys' experiences, my story’s a little less… I don't know..."

Applebloom looped a foreleg across her shoulders. "Hey, it's fine. None of us had any control over how we got here."

“Alright, well, you know the movie Weird Science?”

Applebloom scratched her head thoughtfully. “I think so. Is that the one where two guys get high and hook up a bunch of wires to a barbie doll and turn her into a living breathing woman?”

“That’s the one.” A slight blush grew on Scootaloo's cheeks as she continued. “I… had a bit too much to drink one night and tried to do that to a Scootaloo plush. Clearly, it did not work out.”

Wait,” Sweetie Belle interjected with a concerned expression, “In the movie, they brought the doll to life because they couldn’t get girlfriends. Are you saying you were attracted to-“

“No!” Scootaloo yelled, garnering the attention of a few ponies who just as quickly returned to their own things. “Holy-No! I was just depressed! And alone. And also really drunk cause I’d just flunked my midterms and probably ruined all my chances at graduating. And I thought, you know, having a cuddly pony companion might makes things a little better."

“But instead of getting a cuddly pony…"

Scootaloo rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah, I became one instead. Explain to me how that works out."

Sweetie Belle had another sip of her lager, which had been refilled during Scootaloo's story. "So we all ended up here from science mishaps. What are the chances of that?"

"Low, Ah'd bet." Applebloom agreed, "Then again, if you asked me yesterday about the chances of there being a second pony in Equestria...

"It’s almost funny," Scootaloo commented idly, "It’s too bad we never met each other back home. Between the three of us, we could probably actually succeed at making a pony."

The trio chuckled at that, but the laughter died away quickly as realization set in. Sure, they had not met back home, but they had met here and were together now. Not to mention they now had magic and an ample amount of free time.

“To the clubhouse!” They cried as one and scampered out of the eatery, eager to take another stab at their old passions.


Outside Ponyville
Several hours post-Rhapsody

"In the beautiful nation of Equestria, there was a town called Ponyville. A road led to this town that wandered and meandered through the countryside like a river flowing to parts unknown. Along that path there was a cart, a most magnificent cart, surely an expert piece of craftsponyship. Even the dust of the road built up on its sides could do little to mar its color and brilliance. And yet, even then, the cart found itself outshone by the pony pulling it. A most epic pony, whose power and might was matched only by her beauty and grace. With lithe muscles taut under an azure coat, she trotted as though the wagon weighed nothing at all. Her stellar mane, coiffed and without flaw, showed not a trace of the dusty roads it had seen, yet another testament to her awe-inspiring skills. She-"

"Trixie, what are you doing?"

"A pony leaned out the front window of the cart, her voice disturbing the peaceful tranquility of the countryside. Who could it be? A stowaway? A brigand? Nay! It was merely Starlight, loyal friend and assistant of the one who pulled the cart."

"Merely?"

"Normally, such a devoted friend would walk alongside her great and talented comrade, but today, she had decided to ride inside the wagon, not only leaving her most magical companion with nothing to do to pass the time other than narrate her life, but also increasing the heft of the wagon's weight by a noticeable margin."

Starlight raised an eyebrow. "A noticeable margin? I was making you a snack in here, but now I'm starting to reconsider that offer."

"Trixie is done with her narration now," Trixie said quickly and with only the smallest hint of embarrassed blush at how easily she'd caved. "Trixie would also like to thank her most fit and athletic assis- friend for taking the time to think of Trixie's hunger." She paused, then figured a little extra butter wouldn't go amiss. "And for coming along with Trixie on this long and arduous journey."

Starlight laughed lightly and hopped out of the door to walk alongside Trixie. "All is forgiven. Although, I wouldn't really call a four-day trip to some shantytown in the southern wastes to get a custom order of smoke bombs a 'long and arduous journey'."

"Well we had to fight that spiny monster didn't we?"

"You mean that guard you tried to haggle the entry fee with at the front gates?" Starlight replied plainly, "And then immediately caved when the he motioned to call his buddies over?"

"Still!" Trixie raised her head proudly, "We emerged victorious!"

"If you call paying full price and an extra fee for the disturbance a victory," Starlight murmured under her breath before changing the subject. "Say, Trixie? How far out would you say we are from Ponyville?"

The showmare consulted the topography, the position of the sun, and her own memories of prior travel. "About an hour and change. Maybe closer to two. Why?"

She pointed ahead. "Because there's something strange headed our way."

As the mysterious figure grew closer to the pair of magic mares, it became that much clearer just what what stumbling back and forth across the road. Though it was clearer to Starlight, who had spent much more time living day-to-day in Ponyville and getting to know it's eccentric residents that Trixie had.

"Pokey Pierce?" she asked in surprise, "What's he doing way out here?"

The unicorn in question stumbled down the road with a giddy grin on his face as he belted out out the lyrics to some strange song. Even at a distance the pungence of alcohol saturating his body and breath alike made both mares gag.

"We shan't discriminate great from small. No we'll serve anyone, meaning anyone, and to anyone at aaaaaaaaaall!"

"Hey!" Trixie snapped when he was finally close enough to speak to, but still far enough away that they could breath. "What's your deal? What's with the singing?"

"And why are you so far from town?" Starlight added, hoping to cover for some of Trixie's brusqueness. But if Pokey was offended, he didn't show it. He just grinned loopily at the pair.

"What am I singing? I'm singing anything I want! I've unlocked Equestria+! There's no restrictions now!" He stumbled towards them, blinking rapidly as if only just recognizing them.

"Well hellooooo there Comrade Glimmer." He slurred. The unicorn tried to strike a salute, missed, and whacked himself in the head. "Ow! How's- how's that manifesto coming along? Shall we be seizing the means of production today, or do we wait till next season finale? Whoops!" His hooves slid out from under him and he collapsed heavily into Starlight's side, much to her disgust and confusion. "You know, you were always my favorite. Much better than Chrysalis."

Starlight looked to Trixie, a silent cry for help screaming from her eyes. But Trixie barely registered it. There were far more important things that had just been said that needed further clarification. Now.

"What was that about a season finale?" she pressed as Starlight shoved the stallion back onto his own four hooves.

"You know," he said unhelpfully, not a trace of a thought behind his glazed eyes. "The My Little Pony show. 'S a good show wasn't it? Everybody's talking about it."

"Everybody?" Starlight pulled in close, his smell long forgotten. "What do you mean everybody?"

He squinted at her. "Where've you been? Haven't you heard? Ponyville's got more people in it than ponies. It's all anybody's talking abou- abou..." His sentence dissolved away from him into a noxious yawn. "Man I'm tired. Where's my bed? I should have reached it by now."

Starlight, too confused for complicated thought, answered him. "Pokey, you live on the West side of town. This is several miles South."

He yawned again. "So it didn't wander off then." His eyes began to droop even as he stood. "Ooh, I think I may have had a teensy bit too much to drink. Look, it's already getting dark."

"No! Pokey stay awake! I need answers!" Trixie grabbed him in her magic and shook the poor stallion like a ragdoll. But whatever he'd been drinking must have been top shelf stuff, as he did nothing but snore. With a frustrated grunt Trixie tossed him into a bush on the side of the road.

"Trixie!"

"He'll be fine, let him sleep it off!" the magician snapped before rounding on her friend, "More importantly, we need to get to Ponyville now. Can you teleport us both?"

"I-" Starlight's confused gaze wavered against Trixie's piercing determination. "I could. But just us. The cart is too big."

"Leave it then," she answered immediately.

Starlight gasped. "But... it's your precious-"

"There's no time!" Though Trixie's voice was angry, there was an almost pleading look to her eyes. Starlight hesitated a moment and then gave a grim nod.

"Alright. I don;t understand what's going on, but if it's that important-" She lit her horn and bathed the area in azure light. "-then there's no time to waste."

And in a flash of magic they were gone.

They reappeared in the middle of a state of chaos. This was not unusual for Ponyville, but somehow this chaos was distinctly different. It had all the flavor of a Ponyville party, but with a lot of elements Starlight didn't recognize. The platters of food and tables of drinks were par for the course, but there were many she didn't recognize. For once the culinary theme of the buffet seemed to be savory rather than sweet, with pastries being in surprisingly short supply.

But it was not just the food, the ponies themselves were acting odd. In the far side of the town plaza, two teams of ponies were repeated tackling one another. It looked violent, yet no one seemed to be getting particularly injured. Every few moments the broke apart, stepped back into a formation, then tackled again. Zecora stood nearby and occasionally called out odd phrases like 'That's a first down for Team Woona' and 'Foul on Team Molestia'.

In another corner, a group of ponies, some of them foals, crashed foaming mugs together and sang an upbeat tune that seemed to describe in details the ways all their family members had died. Elsewhere she overheard a couple arguing over whether Tirek or Grogar would be the queen bee if they were highschool mares and which they'd rather see in a swimsuit of all things. Strange statues of odd bipedal creatures dotted the pavilion as earth ponies carted in fresh blocks of stone or wood to ponies apparently gripped by mad artistic fervor.

And all around her, on every side and from every angle, ponies spoke gibberish. Strange haikus of short phrases and nonsense context-less dialogue that somehow everyone else seemed to not only understand, but find great joy in.

All of this Starlight took in within the first few seconds post-teleport. It usually paid to have stellar observation skills, but now it left her more confused than ever. It was a sensory overload of the worst kind; the kind where no matter how hard she tried, she could not decipher a structure or meaning.

Meanwhile, Trixie had also regained her bearings. And in response to all the chaos around her, the first thing she said was:

"Why is there a statue of Rick Astley in Ponyville?"

“Practice.” A stallion covered in flakes of chipped stone and dust said as he came up from behind her. “A couple of the guys from the construction team wanted to show off what they could do. Someone just ran off to the library to look for any spells about golems so we can make it sing. I hear they’re going to try and make a Gundam later.”

Trixie nodded slowly, caution apparent in her every motion. “And we suddenly know about all these things because…”

He gave her a skeptic look before his eyebrows raised in realization. “Oh! You weren’t here earlier were you? That explains it. Yeah, the Princesses did an announcement. Turns out basically everyone in Ponyville used to be a human.”

“They what?”

"Oh yeah. We sang some Queen, it was real nice. You should’ve been there.” He offered a friendly hoof. “I’m Roger, by the way. Nice to finally meet you honestly.”

“Everyone is a human?” Trixie repeated, still stunned.

“That’s right,” Roger confirmed, lowering his hoof since it was obvious she wasn’t going to take it. “One way or another, somehow we all ended up here.”

Trixie practically flipped around as a wide grin split her face. “Starlight ! Isn’t this great!”

The mare in question gave an awkward chuckle. "Yeah... I guess? I mean, I really don;t understand, but you seem to be happy about... whatever this is."

Trixie cocked her head. There was something off about Starlight. For some reason she didn't seem nearly as over-joyed at the prospect of more humans as Trixie felt. "What do you mean? Everyone is a human, just like us. What's not to be excited about?"

"Trixie…" Starlight hesitated for a moment before finally letting the bomb drop, "What in the wide world is Equestria is a human?"

The showmare's ears drooped as some of the sparkle left her eyes. “Wait... you aren’t one? But… but you got all my references! You laughed alongside me."

"Trixie, I laugh at all your jokes cause I know how it makes you happy. Even the ones I don’t get, which was, admittedly, a lot of them."

“…No. No! You have to understand!” Trixie gripped Starlight by her shoulders, forcing the mare to meet her desperate gaze. “I wasn’t always Trixie! I didn’t even used to be a pony! I was someone else, something else; a human called Miami Sodelle! You can’t- please don’t stand there and tell me… that when suddenly every pony is a human, my one friend, my truest most deepest friend, is the only pony who isn’t?!”

"No!" Starlight exclaimed fearfully, "I- I don't- I'm not- I have no idea what you're talking about!"

"You can drop the act Glimglam." Starlight turned to find herself face to face with a filly from the Friendship School. A sweet little pegasus who had never once referred to her as anything less respectful than 'Miss Guidance Councillor Ma'am'. "It's all out now. Everyone's a human. Everyone's from Earth. Here, have a beer."

Starlight looked at the offered drink in horror before instinctively knocking both mugs to the floor.

"Hey!" The sweet little filly scowled. "Well screw you too!" She buzzed off in an angry huff.

Starlight's mind reeled. What new madness was this? Trixie suddenly claiming she was somepony else? Sweet fillies suddenly turned foul-mouthed drinkers? Ponies speaking in tongues and behaving erratically? Day-drinking?! It was nearly too much to bear.

No, she resolved herself. She couldn't falter here. Somepony had to save the town from... whatever this was, and it might as well start with her! She'd held her own on several adventures; she could handle some Ponyville chaos. Right?

Shifting mental gears, Starlight looked again at the chaos before her with a new analytical lens. Yes, chaos. That was a word for it. Yet it lacked Discord's distinctive touch. Behavior aside, nothing had been transformed. No crazy colors, no inversion of physics, no Discord himself present to watch his work unfold. He always liked to watch. That ruled him out. But what else could make this many ponies behave so oddly? A revival of evil changelings? Magical illness? An evil artifact? She quickly realized that, a few successful adventures aside, she might be out of her depth.

"Hello? Earth to Starlight? You in there Glimmy Glamorama?"

She blinked. At some point Trixie had apparently moved in front of her, her face creased in worry. "Are you okay? I was starting to get concerned. You completely zoned out there."

That did it. Finally, it clicked into place what had unsettled her so much about Trixie's earlier speech, and at once Starlight knew she was completely out of her depth. Anything that could cure Trixie of her illeisms was way above the pay grade of a part-time hero, part-time counselor. Time to bring out the big guns.

She laid a hoof on her friend's shoulder and spoke softly. "Don't worry Trixie. I'm going to fix this."

Trixie blinked and cocked her head. "Fix what? I-"

"Sh-sh-sh-sh-sh." Starlight smothered her words. "It's okay. I'm going to go get Twilight and she's going to fix this. Then you, and everypony else will be back to your old selves in no time."

"Starlight, I am-"

"No words." Starlight removed her hoof and gave her friend one last lingering look, laden with worry yet tinged with hopefulness, before she turned tail and took off in a full gallop towards the Castle of Friendship.

Gotta hurry, a voice in her head urged her, Gotta find Twilight. She has to be able to fix all this. She has to!


Canterlot
Three days post-Nationwide-Revelation

It was just after lunch on the third day after the announcement that Celestia met with her small council. Though she had given most of Equestria a vacation, unfortunately, the government still needed to run. A sentiment that was thankfully shared by most of the important ponies in her government.

Unlike the rest of the city, and the palace specifically, this meeting room was small and practical. A week ago, a passing observer might have said it reminded them of a Manehattan office. Now, they would say it reminded them of Earth; an almost stock-photo-ready meeting room from its long angular table to its wall of plate-glass windows. Of course, there were some differences: the leather stools and chairs were artificial, and the windows were one-way enchanted brickwork, but the feeling the room gave off was still familiar to any former white collar worker.

With her everyone having made themselves comfortable and the complementary waters and teas distributed, Celestia brought their meeting to order.

"First off," she began, "I'm letting you know now that you can drop most of the royal formalities of you want. We're all on equal footing now and you shouldn't feel you have to continue to treat me special just because of a quirk of luck."

The gathered ponies shared uncomfortable glances at that, each daring another to go first. "If you don't mind my saying so Princess," the Minister of Agriculture said, "In these turbulent times, I for one would appreciate some element of stability, even if it is just an obviated title or two." A few others nodded in agreement. "Regardless of who you were before, you're Princess Celestia now. And that title carries weight."

The princess nodded. So much then for her plans for some less formal relationships. She'd figured the odds were a toss-up at best anyway. "As you wish. Let's begin this properly then, shall we?" she with segued with her usual skill. She turned to the first pony on her left." Minister Holiday, were you able to look into those things I asked you about?"

Minister Holiday, a middle-aged pegasus mare with a bob cut mane, rose to reply. "Indeed I have. As you predicted, we've seen a skyrocket in orders for both mane and fur dyeing tonics as well as gender-swapping potions. Thanks to your forewarning, the Guild of Alchemists and Potion Makers was able to stockpile the necessary ingredients before the buying surge hit." She coughed. "And, since demand for these particular products was rather low to begin with, no one seems to have noticed the sudden hike in their price."

Celestia nodded in thanks as the mare sat back down. That was excellent news. With all the changes that would doubtless be coming soon, they would do well to have a larger-than-usual surplus in the discretionary budget. There were new industries to subsidize, infrastructure to bring up to modern standards, countless hundreds of man-hours of overtime to process the inevitable storm of upcoming paperwork that loomed at the edge of the future like some subterranean behemoth. Just thinking about it gave her a headache, one which the money did at least a little to alleviate.

She addressed another pony, a well-groomed noble from a prestigious bloodline, one who she was sure had no quarrel with the lot he'd been cast in Equestria. "Doctor Syringe? How goes your project?"

The green stallion sighed. "It's been... slow, your highness. I've put together a committee to try and fine tune a method to determine which medial professionals actually earned their degrees and which merely 'inherited' them, as we've been calling it, but it has proven more difficult than expected. Most of the frauds who managed to stay in the profession have passed thus far because they're good at bluffing. We've had greater success in small town hospitals where smaller staffs meant less ponies to push their work onto, but the larger hospitals are still giving us trouble; Manehattan and Canterlot General most of all. Especially since so many people are still out celebrating."

"That reminds me," the Minister of Agriculture who had broken the ice earlier spoke up, drawing the group's attention. "As you've probably noticed, my sister, Minister Flask, is absent from our meeting. However she asked me to pass along a message that she has her people taking similar steps within the scientific community."

"Oh dear," the Minister of the Treasury murmured, "It's not like her to miss a meeting. Is she alright?"

Syringe replied with a small smile. "He, is doing fine. Just recovering from the side effects of a gender potion."

Celestia hid a wince. She owed Luna twenty bits now. And she'd been so sure that out of the twin ministers Cornmeal was going to be the one to make the change. Apparently five hundred years of learning to read ponies still wasn't enough when it came to human-ponies. "Make sure to send him my best wishes for a speedy recovery."

She turned to the Minister of the Interior. "I've been keeping an eye out but you're closer to the common pony than I am. How is the general population taking the news?"

"Wheeeee!"

The council looked up at the sudden interruption. Outside their window, a blue unicorn was flying. That is to say, he was clutching a broomstick for dear life as it bobbed and dipped erratically. Despite this, he seemed to be having a splendid time.

"Whoo!" he yelled, darting around violently as he made overcompensating adjustments to his anti-gravity spell. "Watch out! I'm Harry Potter, ya'll!"

And once more he zipped out of their field of view.

"...Well." the Minister of the Interior replied with an amused smile. "They seem to be taking it well."

After the discussion of a few more minor topics, future planning mostly and a bit of old business, the meeting broke up. As soon as the ministers filed out, Luna entered in from the other side of the room. "Oh no," she said in mock anguish, "Did I miss the meeting? How ghastly."

Celestia rolled her eyes. "You know you weren't required to come. You have your own duties and you'd get the minutes either way." The taller mare flopped down onto her extra-large half-couch half-chair without a trace of poise or grace. "Speaking of which, how's that going? Pick up anything useful from the dream realm?"

Luna shook her head as she took an adjacent seat. "No dice, it's as much of a mess as ever. I'd hoped people might drop their guard if they thought I couldn't see their dreams, but as far as I can tell it's had no effect. I can still visit and influence just fine, but the dreams themselves are still random nonsense. Not to mention how hard it is to track down a specific person without a dream beacon."

"A pity, that," Celestia commented as she poured them both a fresh cup of tea. "We'll have to stick with more traditional informant networks then."

Luna nodded in agreement and transmuted her tea into coffee. She took a sip and grimaced. "Remind me to invent an espresso machine at some point. I'd kill for a good latte."

The offhand comment reminded Celestia of another of her sister's recent ventures, one which had caught her completely by surprise and which she'd been meaning to ask her about. "How's that new school of yours coming along, by the way?"

"Quite well, actually," Luna grinned, happy for the change in topic, "We've had a few early applicants who've shown some promise. Ones with unique magic or abilities. Not to mention a rare handful who seem to have to become ponifications of characters from other franchises, complete with watered-down versions of their abilities." Her expression tightened. "But nothing game-breaking yet. Whoever or whatever brought them all here did a remarkable job power-balancing their abilities."

Celestia's hooves crossed and began to tap in frustration. "Which is another point towards it being some kind of intelligence rather than a cosmic coincidence." She shook her head in an effort to shake out the worrying thought and get the conversation back on a more pleasant path. "Are you having much trouble finding a campus? I know space is tight in Canterlot."

"Actually, no. It's been super easy, barely an inconvenience," she replied easily, the smallest hint of a grin tugging at her features. "I was planning on opening a school of my own anyway once we outlived the canon, so most of the groundwork was already in place."

"Hm. Well that's certainly a stroke of convenience." Celestia stroked her chin. "More interference from whatever force brought us here?"

Luna gave her sister a curious look for a moment, before she rolled her eyes and gave her a slight whap to the back of the head.

"Hey! What was that for?"

"Don't give me that. I saw that look in your eye. You were starting down another paranoid conspiracy spiral. Had to knock you out of it before you started trying to micromanage the entire nation. Again."

Celestia took a deep breath and let it out slowly, allowing the frizzling ends of her mane to settle back down. "Thanks. It's just... There's just so much that we still don't know about how or why we're here. Were we kidnapped or rescued? Banished or evacuated? Hand-picked or chosen at random? I can't help but worry."

A blue foreleg moved around her, and Celestia leaned into the embrace. The sound of Luna's heartbeat pulsing through her leg eased her mind and helped her pace her thoughts. She soon felt a second hoof running across her mane soothingly.

"It's alright." Luna spoke, softly and tenderly, "We'll figure it out. And it's not just us now. We have a whole nation of people who want answers and will be willing to do whatever it takes to get them. The weight is not solely on our shoulders anymore."

The touching scene of tender sisterly bonding would have probably continued until both were satisfied if it weren't for a sudden and insistent knocking at the door. Work would never wait. With a sigh, both alicorns sat back up and one opened the door with her magic.

A messenger pegasus dashed in, panting and out of breath. "Princesses!" he gasped, desperately sucking in lungfuls of air as fast as he could. "I'm so glad I... I found you!"

"What is it?" Celestia tried to remain calm despite the surge of fear and adrenaline that suddenly swamped her system. Was the unwritten Law of Equestria finally going to kick in? Just when things were looking too good, had something big and evil come in and spoil it?

"There's-" the stallion sucked in one final gasp of air as though he were trying to plunge the room into a vacuum, "There's guests in the castle. A diplomatic envoy. Nothing on the books, completely unexpected."

"Who is it?" Celestia pressed. Of all the possible times for someone to make a surprise visit, it had to be now. With the nation is chaos and half the staff taking their days off. Political damage could still be mitigated though, but how much would depend on just who had come knocking. "The Griffons? The Yaks? The Buffalo?"

The messenger shook his head. "None of those. It's the seaponies."

"You mean... the hippogriffs?" Luna asked hesitantly. "They have multiple forms, both-"

"No," he interrupted insistently, "Seaponies classic edition. Proper shoobedooers."

Luna's eyes lit up in glittering sparkles. Seaponies. Proper seaponies. At long last, and after so long.

For many years after their her and her sister's arrival (having little else to do while pretending to be on the moon) Luna had traveled the world and made it a point to meet as many species as possible. She'd studied with Zebra shamans and danced at a kirin bonfire ceremony. She'd flown with the wild dragons and fought in the gladiator ring of the Abyssinians. But in all her travels, despite decades spent chasing rumors and old fish tales she had never been able to track down a single member of the elusive and isolationist creatures known as the seaponies.

Until now.

"Where are they?" she demanded as she practically launched herself at the messenger. "I have to to be the one to meet them!"

"T-t-the majordomo moved them to the parlor in the east tower!" he stammered out. "B-but there's something really strange about them-"

Alas, his warning went unheeded. Luna was already out the door and down the hall, her sister not far behind.


Author's Note

Yes, yes, I know. Trixie does speak in the first person every now and again. But, counterpoint: This isn't actually Trixie, it's someone who has been pretending to be her.

Also, not 100% edited. Wanted to push the chapter out before leaving for an hours long event.

Next Chapter: No Ponies Slowly Adjusting Estimated time remaining: 47 Minutes
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