Dear Princess Celestia,

I have Doctor Insano under surveillance like you ordered. I invited him to stay at my home in the guest bed so that I could keep a close eye on him. I enlisted the help of my friends to keep an eye on him when he isn’t in the house or I’m not with him.

I’m getting more worried and confused by the hour, though. My friends Fluttershy, Applejack and Rainbow Dash all paid him a visit early yesterday, and they found out a few things about him. For one, he isn’t biologically a he at all. He’s a female trans pony who has yet to make the change. Second, he apparently had no idea that sex change spells existed. Third, he said that he’s never used magic before. All of these things just do not add up. He’s a unicorn that not only doesn’t know how to use magic, which is like a plant not knowing how to grow, but is also ignorant of a spell that changed the very concept of gender identity across the planet several decades ago. These are not things that are just casually forgotten or overlooked in the educational system.

More worrying still is that I found him in my house last night pouring through my library’s inventory. For one, he was released from the Heart sisters’ clinic far earlier than they said he would be. I suspected he broke out, but when I got in contact with them they said he had just healed faster than anticipated. His wounds still look raw, though, so I suspect foul play. I don’t know how yet, though. Neither of the Heart sisters would ever take a bribe of any kind, but I don’t know what else it could be. Maybe he’s lying about not knowing magic and has some sort of advanced hypnosis spell? Now that I think about it, he may be a changeling infiltrator. It would certainly explain his strange behavior.

No, scratch that, it wouldn’t fully. When I found him in my house, I took a look at the books he was browsing through. There were atlases of both the planet and Equestria, along with books on Equestrian government, culture, and language. He seemed pretty desperate to read them, though. I think he honestly didn’t know anything about Equestria. He’s been really vague about where he’s from, for one. He’s also been using that really strange dialect of his that I’ve never even heard of. If he really were a changeling, he would have been briefed about all that before being sent out. That, and he wouldn’t be blind, or Queen Chrysalis would have culled him the second he lost his eyesight. Changelings also don’t have anywhere near this level of technology. Or maybe this is all an elaborate ruse to make us think he isn’t a changeling? Espionage is a pain to think about.

What really caught my eye is that he had several books out on astronomy, along with star charts I’ve sketched in my spare time while stargazing. I can’t possibly fathom why he needed those. It couldn’t have been to find his way around, since he had the atlases for that. I can’t stop thinking about it. I think trying to wonder what he’s up to and who he really is will drive me insane, so I’ll try to keep my mind off of it and just make sure he doesn’t do any damage before you arrive.

Your faithful student,

Twilight Sparkle

P.S.: Spike here. Please, please, please make Twilight understand why keeping Insano in our house is a bad idea in your next letter. She says she’s worried and confused, but I know that look in her eye. It’s the way she looks at a new mystery to solve. She’s more interested in than scared of this guy, and last time she tried to figure a huge mystery out, she got a piano dropped on her! For the love of you, hurry!

“I still can’t believe you let that maniac stay the night,” Spike grumbled as he flipped over his mother figure’s breakfast pancakes. The air was filled with the sound of sizzling batter and hay fries in the library’s small kitchen as the proprietor herself sat at the table.

“Look, Princess Celestia told me to keep an eye on him. What better way to do that then to let him stay here?” Twilight asked.

“Twilight, you said yourself that he’s dangerous,” Spike reminded, looking over his shoulder at her. “He’s a mad scientist, and you have a science lab in the basement. Not only that, but you promised to teach him magic. You might as well give a zombie a skull-sized nutcracker.”

Twilight rolled her eyes. “You really need to stop reading those zombie books. They keep giving you nightmares.”

“That’s not the point. The point is that this is a really, really bad idea,” Spike huffed with an annoyed flick of his tail.

“I have it under control. I’ve locked the door to the basement and hidden the key, and I only plan on teaching him the basics. Nothing too advanced,” the unicorn assured. “We still need to be careful, but I know what I’m doing.”

“If you say so,” Spike sighed as he expertly flipped the pancakes through the air and onto a plate. “Breakfast is ready; better go get your science buddy.”

Twilight shook her head as she slipped out of her seat and walked over to the foot of the stairs to her room. “Insano, breakfast is ready! Wake up!”

No response.

Twilight sighed. “He’s still asleep; one second.” She trotted up the stairs and slipped into her room. Sure enough, in the balcony where the beds were, on the guest bed slept the scientist sprawled out in a tangle of sheets and drooling onto his pillow.

“They weren’t kidding when they said he wasn’t a full stallion,” she mumbled with a blush as she averted her eyes and approached the bed. She put a hoof on his chest and shook him gently. “Insano, breakfast is ready. Time to rise and shine.”

All she got in response was an angry grumble and her guest flipping himself over, turning his plot to her. She was fairly sure he said something about her mother and a cheese grater, but she couldn’t make out the rest. She shook him harder. “Insano, get up.”

“Go away before I put my quantum harmonizer in your photonic resonation chamber,” he groused, sleepily waving a hoof in her direction as if to stave her off.

Twilight was half proud that she understood what he said, but half embarrassed that she understood the double entendre. She frowned, her blush glowing brighter. “Fine, you want dirty? I’ll fight dirty,” she grumbled as she lowered her head. “Wake up!” She jabbed forward with her horn, prodding him hard right in the plot.

“Jesus fuck!” He quite literally jumped up into the air and tumbled out of bed, taking all the covers with him. He landed with his rear half still in bed and his head banging on the floor. He kicked his rear legs in the air and shouted, “The hell was that?!”

“Your wake up call,” Twilight said with a smirk. “Breakfast is ready, Doctor. Blueberry and lilac pancakes with hay fries.”

“Lovely,” he deadpanned as he untangled himself from his sheets. Twilight let out a giggle and trotted back down to the kitchen, her guest not far behind.

“You’re not a morning pony, are you?” she asked as she took her seat at the table.

“I hate mornings with burning passion that rivals the heat of the sun itself,” he groaned as he flopped into his chair. “I’ve been trying to figure out a way to make it so I don’t have to sleep for years.”

“Sleep is a natural biological function for more advanced life forms. How exactly do you plan on getting rid of it?” she asked as Spike set her pancakes in front of her. “Thank you, Spike.”

“You’re welcome, Twi,” Spike said with a smile as he set Insano’s plate in front of him. The scientist only gave a grunt in response. Spike just gave him a glare and sat next to Twi, pulling up a bowl of garnets for himself and began munching on them.

“Actually, there have been recorded cases of pe- ponies that have a condition where they do not require sleep. One I know of just lost the need for it one day after having a mysterious fever. Unfortunately, I have yet to get a hold of one of these ponies for study,” he said with a scowl. “If I could just figure out what exactly changed about their brain chemistry, I could abolish sleep as a physical need for all time.”

“It would certainly free up a lot of time,” Twi sighed wistfully as she cut her pancakes. “Imagine all that free time.”

“But no dreams,” Spike cut in, his disdain for their guest plain on his face.

“Who needs dreams when you could have a better reality?” Insano said with a dismissive wave of his hoof as he levitated his knife and fork and began cutting. “Besides, you’re just a child. You wouldn’t understand.”

Spike opened his mouth to respond, but Twilight did first. “Spike is very smart for his age, and if you’re going to stay in my house you will be nice to him.” Spike gave a smug grin before she added, “And you better be nice to him too, Spike. I raised you better than that.”

Spike sighed and said, “Okay, Twi.”

“Fine, whatever,” Insano dismissed as he shoveled a huge mouthful of pancake into his gob. “I just want him to stay out of my way while I research and practice my magic.”

“Fair enough,” Twilight said, gobbling up a hay fry. “Speaking of which, how soon do you want to start?”

“Right away, if possible,” he said. He had already ploughed his way through half his breakfast in a single minute, if even that.

“Do you want to breathe first? You’re practically inhaling your food,” Twilight asked, eyebrows raised.

“Eating is time that could be spent doing something productive. Thus, I’m a fast eater,” he dismissed before shoveling another mouthful of pancake into his maw and swallowing the huge lump.

“Are you part snake or something?” Spike asked, his own eyescales shooting up.

Insano opened his mouth to respond, but bit his lip. It was the look of somepony who desperately wanted to rant about something he was really interested in, but decided it wasn’t the best time. Twilight would know; she’d done the same thing quite a lot in her lifetime. “My mother was a fucking snake, I guess you could say.”

“Hey, watch your language around Spike,” Twilight warned.

“Are you going to teach me magic or not?” he growled as he wolfed down the last of his breakfast.

Twilight gave him a glare as she slipped out of her own seat. “Okay then, lesson one.” Her horn glowed, her magic swinging open the cabinet where they kept their glasses. She took one out and filled it with water from the sink until it overflowed. Letting the access water drain until the water was even at the rim of the glass, she then floated it over to Insano. “Control. Focus your mind and your magic until you can lift that glass a foot off the table without spilling a single drop.”

“You’re kidding,” Insano said flatly as he looked at the glass. “The surface tension is barely holding as it is.”

“It’s what I had to do for my first lesson at Celestia’s School For Gifted Unicorns, so if you want to be good at magic you’ll have to do the same thing,” she half lied.

“I’d heard you’d gone there; Spike was kind enough to tell me a bit about you while I was reading last night,” Insano said, the corners of his lips tugging into a smile. “You’re Celestia’s personal student and a national hero, right?”

Twilight blushed and pretended to avoid eye contact, while in reality she was giving Spike a glare for talking about her to the mad scientist. The baby dragon just smiled nervously and took a bite out of a garnet. “I guess you could say that, yes.”

“Guess I should be honored, then,” he chuckled, putting on a smile about as natural as his goggles. “I’ve never met Princess Celestia before. What’s she like?”

“Everything a pony could hope for in a ruler,” Twilight said with a dreamy smile, her blush intensifying. “Kind, wise, loving, beautiful… I really am lucky to know her.”

Insano’s grin widened. “The way you talk about her, it sounds like you know her in the biblical sense.”

“Biblical?” Twilight repeated, blinking in confusion.

The stallion shook his head. “Never mind, obscure reference. You wouldn’t get it anyway. What about Princess Luna?”

Twilight sighed. “A lot better than most ponies think she is. She’s still getting used to modern times and using an indoor voice, but she’s very nice and just wants to be loved again.”

“Yes, some ponies just need to let go of the past. She isn’t Nightmare Moon anymore, right?” he asked.

“It’s sad how many still think she is,” Twilight said with a shake of her head as Spike took Insano’s plate. “She’s been a mythological monster for a millennium used to scare foals to sleep at night, though, so I guess it’s understandable.”

“As a philosopher once said, it is best for a ruler to be both loved and feared,” Insano said, “though when one has to choose between the two, it is better to be feared than loved.”

“Where did you hear that?” she asked as she finished up her breakfast, Spike taking her plate away. “I’ve never heard a philosopher say that before.”

“Somepony you never would have heard of,” he said with a wave of his hoof.

“You’re making a lot of references without explaining them,” Spike said from the sink as he turned on the water, his suspicion as plain as his scales were purple.

“Whatever,” he mumbled. “So, I just have to lift this glass without spilling, right?”

“Correct,” she said as she slipped from her seat. “I’ll be reorganizing the library’s stock while you try. Give me a call when you’ve done it. I’ll check on your progress later.”

“Great, feels like I’m back in high school,” Insano grumbled as he twisted his face in concentration.

It took less than a second for the glass to spill over.

“Dammit!”

“Mother of a dong merchant, fuck!”

Twilight rolled her eyes at the doctor’s increasingly… creative profanity. The longer he went, the more bizarre his swearing got, it seemed, and he’d been trying for over an hour at that point. She slipped another book back into its proper spot and called over her shoulder, “You’re lucky I sent Spike to Rarity’s house, or I would’ve smacked you for saying that!”

“Kiss my plot,” he spat back. “This is impossible!”

“Not impossible, just difficult,” Twilight assured as she looked over another tome and looked for its proper place. “Before you can safely learn any real spells aside from levitation, you need to learn to completely control your magic to pinpoint accuracy.”

“How in the hell am I having so much difficulty? I’m older than you!”

She sighed. “You really do complain a lot,” she muttered under her breath. “It’s not a matter of age. Magic is my special talent, so I’m just naturally more gifted at it. That, and I had a great teacher.”

“Well, my teacher sucks,” he griped with a groan of frustration. “You’re barely even teaching me!”

“What do you want me to do, hold your hoof through the whole–” She was interrupted by a knock on the door. Twilight trotted over and swung it open with her magic to find a certain walleyed pegasus just outside. “Oh, good morning, Derpy! How can I help you?”

“H-hello, Miss Sparkle,” she said nervously with a smile. “Um… is a stallion by the name of Doctor Insano here?”

“Yes, he is,” Twilight said, looking over the mare as if she had asked to be punched in the crotch, which would probably be preferable to dealing with Insano. “Why would you want to see him, though? How do you even know he’s here?”

“He didn’t tell you?” the mailmare asked, blinking in surprise. “Dinky had an accident yesterday with her magic practice. The glass she was levitating exploded right in her face.”

“Oh no,” Twilight gasped, her ears falling flat. “Is she okay?”

“She is now, thanks to him,” she said, beaming. “The Heart sisters said that he operated on her.” Derpy pulled a box out of her saddlebag. “I made him muffins to say thank you. Do you think he’ll like them?”

Twilight blinked. She blinked again. When the gears in her brain finally got the monkey wrench of what-the-fuckery dislodged, she said, “Excuse me for a minute.” She closed the door and trotted over into the kitchen. “Insano?”

“What?” he grumbled as he filled the glass for the hundredth time that day.

“Why in the hay would the Heart sisters ever agree to let you perform surgery?”

Insano almost dropped the glass into the sink, but managed to catch it before it shattered. “Hello? Because I’m a surgeon. How in the fuck do you know about that anyway?”

“Because Dinky’s mother is at the door right now and wants to thank you for what you did.”

Insano did drop the glass that time, the lip of it shattering on the bottom of the sink. “Tell her to go away,” he growled.

“She made you muffins,” Twilight said, still not quite believing what she was saying.

“I don’t care if she came with the key to the fucking city, tell her to leave!” he spat, wheeling around and glaring at Twilight.

“You don’t understand,” Twilight said with a shake of her head. “Derpy is obsessed with muffins. She craves them more than anything else in life, and the only thing she loves more is her daughter. And she is giving some of hers to you.”

“Yeah, that’s nice, don’t care,” he grumbled, turning back to the sink. “Fuck, it’s broken. See what you made me do?”

Twilight scowled as her horn glowed. Her magic aura surrounded the pony and lifted him up, the scientist flailing.

“What the hell?! Let me down!”

“You are going to accept Derpy’s thank you and you are going to thank her for being so generous,” she said firmly marching to the front door with Insano floating behind.

“I said let me down!” he shrieked. She promptly let him fall in a heap on the floor. “Bitch.”

She trotted back to the front door and opened it, Derpy looking worriedly inside. “He’s right here; come on in,” she said with a smile, stepping aside for the mailmare.

Derpy returned the smile and walked inside, spying the doctor as he got back on all fours. At least, Twilight assumed as much. It was quite literally impossible to follow Derpy’s gaze.

“Doctor Insano?” she asked hesitantly.

“Yes, yes, what is it?” he grumbled, brushing himself off.

Both he and the librarian were taken by surprise when Derpy flung her forelegs around him and pulled him into a tight hug. “Thank you so much! If it wasn’t for you, my daughter could have gone blind! I… I’d still love her all the same, but… but thank you so much.”

Insano’s cheeks turned red and Twilight could see the muscles of one of his eyes twitch. He stood more still than Discord after the Elements were through with him. “It… it was no big deal.”

“You really didn’t have to do that, though,” she said with a smile, pulling back. “You were a patient at the clinic too, right? You could have just kept resting and let yourself get better, but you pushed yourself and saved my daughter’s eyesight. I can’t thank you enough.”

“Then don’t bother,” he said with a nervous hoof through his mane. “I just… I just didn’t want her to grow up like me, okay? I’m blind too. I use these goggles to see. Invented them myself.” He let out a nervous chuckle and puffed up his chest with a bit of pride.

“Your parents must be very proud of you.” Derpy leaned in and kissed Insano’s cheek, leaving it bright red as if he had just been bitch slapped at the speed of sound.

“I…um…I,” he stammered, words simply failing to come out of his mouth.

“I brought these for you,” Derpy said after sensing his unease, pulling out the box and setting it at his hooves. “I hope you like them. And… thank you again.” She bowed with a blush and galloped out of the room, not bothering to say goodbye to the librarian.

Twilight closed the door. “That was very sweet of her.” She turned to see that Insano was staring at the box of muffins before him, his expression blank. “Are you okay?”

She jumped when he abruptly kicked the box, sending it slamming into a wall. “I’m fine,” he muttered as he trotted back to the kitchen.

“What the hay is your problem?” she demanded, picking up the box and then him, whirling him around to face her. “She made these for you!”

“Does it look like I care?” he asked with a scowl.

“You should care because, to be frank, you’ve acted like a total jerk up to this point,” she said, narrowing her eyes and shoving the box into his chest. “You saved a young filly’s eyesight and her mother just wanted to show her appreciation. You did something good for the first time since you got here. Doesn’t that matter to you?”

“That’s exactly the problem,” he spat, tossing the box away once more. “I am not a good pony! As you’ve noticed, I am an asshole. I fully admit it. I am the king of the assholes. One day the assholes of the universe will converge on one point and build a statue in my fucking honor. That’s how I’ve always been, that’s how everypony knows me, and that’s how I want things to stay.”

Twilight’s jaw went slack. She couldn’t have been more shocked if she had just heard somepony say that Discord wasn’t such a bad guy. “Why?! Why would you ever want to be that way?! I just thought you were a jerk without realizing it, but you’re doing it on purpose?!”

“Damn skippy I am,” he snarled. “You really wanna know why? Because when you’re nice, people expect you to fix their fucking problems for them. When you’re nice, your life gets bogged down with expectations. When you’re nice, you have to continue to be nice just so your conscience doesn’t eat away at you. My life is so much simpler this way, and I like it this way, so piss off and stay out of my business!”

Twilight’s gaze softened as she released him from her magic grip. “You know, I really do pity you… and not because of your eyes.” She trotted past him up the staircase to her room, carrying the box of muffins with her. “I’ll be in my room reading for a while. Let me know when you think you can lift that glass without spilling it.”

She looked over her shoulder to see him just sitting where she set him down, perfectly still and unmoving save for his chest heaving in anger. Her ears flattened against her head as she closed the door behind her and locked it. Next Chapter: Trust In Me Estimated time remaining: 2 Hours, 23 Minutes