<hattersgonnahat> hi
<hattersgonnahat> wow I have like nothing to say on action scenes I'm more quiet character pieces
<hattersgonnahat> "twilight"?


[22:27] <ImRainbowDash> my friend twilight is asking me to write on this magical paper that writes back. pretty weird if you ask me but im used to her craz


"Rainbow Dash, *no*!"

"Huh?"

"She's from another world! She doesn't know that we're ponies!"

"... as opposed to?"

"I don't know! Whatever my Canterlot High friends are maybe! Just—try to follow my lead," Twilight said, frantically running search queries on another piece of parchment, looking for more information that would make her seem like a native, as she hoped the reference to the tropes repository had done a moment ago.


[22:28] <intomystudies> what my dear friend Rebecca means is that she really liked the action scenes in the new Stephanie Meyer book


<hattersgonnahat> oh I haven't read those, my sister says they're lousy, is she wrong?
<hattersgonnahat> is the "magical paper" bit another one of your RP conceits?
<hattersgonnahat> like the series with the magic internet? I liked that one.
<hattersgonnahat> wow talk about off channel topic. whatever, quiz is gone and thad's been idle for an hour and last week I came on and everybody was talking about cybernetic penguins I don't even care anymore

several months later

It was shortly after one in the afternoon in an ordinary, undishtinguished dormatory room at an ordinary, unidistinguished American university, and history was in the process of being made; Harriet could feel it. After a moment of reflection, she decided that it was, on balance, unlikely that one could sense history being made; more likely the sensation of terrifying timeless reality building up behind her eyes was just a side-effect of sleep deprivation. But that wasn't important, just as attending classes this or the previous day hadn't been important. This certainly wasn't the first time one of Harriet's writing sessions had stretched over a timespan measured in dozens of hours, but never had the ideas in her head flown so smoothly into her fingers, the keystrokes raining heavily down upon the keyboard like silver droplets of liquid mercury, building—no, not building a world (the only legitimate work of a fiction writer, if one were to listen to Harriet's professors, but listening to them would have implied showing up to lecture, which Harriet hadn't), but reflecting the real one, recombining images of it into something beautiful and tragic and believable in a way that tales of unicorns and talking dogs could never be.

To keep from yawning, she drummed her fingers on the hardback copy of Fundamentals of Actuarial Mathematics sitting on the desk atop five pages of notes with her interview with the president of the local guide dog training association, admiring the sound. She really should get to sleep—she had been awake for some twenty-nine hours—but she wasn't done typing out everything that was in her head, and who could say if she would be in the same glorious headspace when she awoke? Then, about the protagonist's current moral dilemma, should he—

That was when the room exploded.

That's what it felt like, anyway, but when the terrible noise and light and heat and Harriet's scream of terror all subsided, she seemed to be unhurt, if quite shaken, and nothing she could see looked damaged. Warily, haltingly, she stood up, sputtering "Wh–wh–" as if working up the courage to voice a hypothesis about what had just happened (Was that a bomb?) but finding neither the courage nor any plausible hypotheses. She turned around—and found some hypotheses.

Lying on the floor, in the center of the room, looking no less shaken than Harriet and much more hurt, was a small, lavender horse, with wings, and enormous eyes, and a horn protruding from its forehead.

"Of course," said Harriet aloud. "I'm suffering from sleep deprivation! Or a stroke. And I'm starting to hallucinate. I should get to bed. Or maybe a hospital." She shook her head. "No, that's silly. Obviously I'm already asleep, and this is just an ordinary dream."

The pegasus-unicorn was leaking blood on the carpet from numerous wounds and long gashes all over its body. It was still conscious, though, and looking up at Harriet as if trying to speak. It made a noise that sounded like ironic chuckling, and then another that sounded like words. "Cntrlot heigh."

"Help!" shouted Harriet, looking to the closed door. "Someone needs to get this unicorn to the hospital!" She temored. "No—no—someone needs to get me to the hopsital. It's only—"

The horse spoke. "Hatters gonna hat?" it asked. One of Harriet's online pseudonyms.

"Yes," said Harriet.

"My name—is Twilight Sparkle," said the horse. "But you know me as Into My Studies. I have a ... consulting opportunity that I'd like to discuss with you. The fate of all the ponies in Equestria rests in your ho—in your hands."

Then they both passed out.

Harriet woke up on the floor with a headache. She groaned.

"Ugh, I feel like I've been asleep for [seven years and one month —the Editor]," she said. "And such a strange dream. There was purple unicorn, and—"

Harriet blinked. The purple unicorn was still unconscious before her.

"Um, ordinarily I would assume this is still a sleep-deprivation hallucination, but I just woke up. The sensation of being really-awake-for-real is unmistakable. Or does one always say that in dreams, falsely?"

What does she usually do in a lucid dream? Usually, get caught up in the dream again and fall out of lucidity. Seems like a good plan.

She pokes the unicorn with her foot. "Hey Studies," she says. "You all right?"

The unicorn stirred. "Yes, actually," it said. It spoke with a female voice reminicent of [voice actress Tara Strong —the Editor].

"I'm sorry for making such an abrupt appearance," said the unicorn. "And I'm sorry for deceiving you in our network chats. But a grave threat to my world's security requires an expert on electromagnetism. Given the nature of your world's communication network—creating such a thing without magic being an incomprehensibly impressive feat—I could only assume that the physical science of your world was much more advanced than mine. I didn't know where else I could seek help on short notice, so I prepared a trans-world teleportation spell—"

"Magic isn't real," said Harriet.

Twilight frowned.

"Unicorns aren't real," said Harriet.

Twilight tilted her head skeptically.