Luna quickly collected herself again. "Enough about blood magic. How are you feeling April?"

I considered the openness with which she had answered my questions, the care she had shown in trying to comfort me, and took a deep breath.

"I'm... less bothered by being a pony right now than I am about the apocalypse to come," I suggested carefully. "Blood magic or no, I barely have control over it. I don't know if Josey is going to be able do anything against what's in the sky, even if I blew a hole in it myself."

That caught Luna's attention. "You blew a hole in the sky?"

"Well, in the flesh which covers the firmament right now," I corrected myself. "I lost control of my magic because I was just loading it into my horn without it having anywhere to go to, so Josey told me to send it flying up to the sky."

"So this giant ball of red energy ascended up to the demonic eyes up there and then exploded with a shockwave which forced Josey to set up a protective shield around us while Turkey and Rainbow had to land for their safety," I continued.

"When we looked back up there was a hole in the flesh ceiling several miles across, with the sun shining in from behind it," I finished, noting Luna's pupils had become smaller as I talked, just like Josey's had when she observed it happening.

"Pardon me," she started, looking me over, "but how much energy did you load into your horn?"

"Er... enough to make it feel like it was about to crack?" I suggested. "I don't know how to measure that."

Luna's ears fell flat and her mane stopped flowing like wind was passing through it. "...you have a recently born alicorn with a natural affinity for magic and a unicorn who has been using magic at an expert level since she was a foal among you. Did nopony tell you how to restrain yourself?"

I shrugged at that. "Not exactly, no? We've been busy with other things. They just said 'if you feel like you're losing control of your magic, aim it into the sky before you let go of it' and left it at that."

The princess shook her head. "I will have to have some words with them next I see either of them. There should be no event where you'd charge yourself to such an extent."

"Then what would you have done? I had loaded up too much energy into my horn and had nowhere else for it to go," I protested.

Luna tilted her head to the side while her starry mane started to flow again in that rhythmic pattern as if wind was passing through it.

"Ah," I exhumed as realisation dawned on me.

"There is always something you can do with an overabundance of magic, April dear," the alicorn told me calmly, turning her head back to look at me properly. "Firing it into the sky is usually not one of those things."

"Few unicorns in Equestria have to resort to such excesses because they don't build up enough of a charge in themselves for it to become a problem. They use their magic freely throughout their day's affairs without considering what it would be like for there to be an overabundance of it," she explained.

"Alicorns like my sister and myself have more mana to draw from and find... innovative ways to prevent such a situation from occuring in the first place," Luna chuckled.

I looked down at my forehooves and sort of scraped the left one back and forth over the floor a little.

There was so much more to being a pony than there was to being a human, I realised, starting with differences between pony races; I had heard about alicorns, unicorns, pegasi, and earthponies so far.

Then there was the difference between unicorn/alicorn magic and blood magic. Basically whether you'd use the energy of yourself or the person you were trying to target.

And that was just the start of it. There was a whole other world out there, full of these ponies. Where being a pony was as common as being a human on Earth.

I idly wondered at the religion I was born into. God did create the heavens and earth and all that lived therein.

So did that apply to Equestria as well?

Luna just looked at me as I was letting my thoughts run wild, giving me the time to figure things out without interruption.

I looked back up at her and sighed. Luna just waited for me to form my words.

"So, once we get Josey to Yellowstone and she does whatever it is she has to do with that mana well they've been talking about, what happens to those of us who have been transformed?" I asked.

Luna raised an eyebrow at my question. "Yellowstone?"

"It's a national park which is known for its geysers," I briefly explained. "Josey and Spritelight think there's a large amount of 'mana' hidden there? Josey apparently needs to use it to fix the worlds?"

Luna looked thoughtful. "That explains something which happened today... hm. I will have to forward that to my sister."

"You haven't answered my question," I realised.

"I don't honestly know, April," Luna finally admitted. "Of course we would like to give you all a choice to be turned back to your human selves and return you to your world. Hopefully the damages done so far will have also been corrected before that time."

"And if that's not possible?" I pushed.

Luna sighed out deeply and shrugged. "I'm the princess of the night. The logistics of what happens within Equestria during daytime is largely my sister Celestia's foray. I'm sure there's enough room for you all to be given a new home."

"A new home..." I repeated, considering the implications.

"You are not slipping back into despair over having been transformed, I hope? Your emotional state directly affects the dream world," the princess of the night warned.

I shook my head and repressed those emotions to the best of my ability, not too different from when I had to act unfazed while still a human.

"I'm just starting to wonder at the idea of Eden now," I revealed. "God created the heavens and the earth and put the first humans in a peaceful realm called Eden. They were cast out from it by ignoring the basic rules set by the Lord and ended up populating our world."

Luna raised an eyebrow. "Is this the history of your planet? The more recent arrivals have had similar stories to tell, but not all of them believe it to be true."

"Spritelight only had unkind words to say about our religion," I grumbled.

"Ah, religion. Not quite history but definitely important for some to make sense of the world they live in," the princess realised. "We all need some strength in tough times."

I peered at her face to see if she was making fun, but there was no sign of it.

"Huh, Spritelight said there's no religion in Equestria and called it a stupid thing while giving off on all other things about my world she thought were dumb," I explained. "I thought you would say similar things."

The alicorn shook her head at me. "No, why would I? Of course there is religion in Equestria; my sister Celestia and myself are prime targets for such ourselves. Why would I be dismissive of another's views?"

I blinked at the rationale. "You know, I'm starting to get that this Equestria of yours isn't that different from my world; Some people are very angry about people having different religious ideas while others are more friendly with one another."

Luna smiled and gave a nod to my words. "There are more similarities between our worlds. We just look different from one another."

"Sometimes that's enough to start a war over on Earth," I pointed out.

The princess sighed. "Again; we are not too dissimilar from one another. There are some issues between ponies and other races, but a state of war only exists between changelings and ourselves."

"Changelings?" I wondered.

"Insects which can mimic the appearance of anypony they wish. They take over from a loved one and feed upon the love you have for them," Luna briefly explained. "They have infiltrated and attacked our cities on more than one occasion."

I frowned at this news. "Well, that doesn't really sound like a good thing."

"I'm sure you have your Earth equivalent to this," the princess waved off. "We are used to magical creatures and plants in our midst. They are largely pacified, save some holdouts like the changelings."

"No? I don't think we have any infiltrators who feed on love on Earth," I threw back. "Unless you listen to some people in my family; they would consider any immigrant a parasite."

"Then there you go," Luna decided. "You might not be at war with them, but they are considered invasive nonetheless?"

"Only to a small group of people," I tried to deflect once more. "It's nonsense anyway."

There was a nudge to my left and I looked to the side to find nothing but the costume rack there. "What was that?"

"Spritelight is trying to get your attention," the princess explained. "You're about to wake up."

I opened my eyes as Spritelight nudged my left shoulder lightly.

"Hey sleepyhead," she spoke, looking sideways at me. "You've slept for three hours now. We're over the park area."

There was a faint remnant of a dream swimming through my brain and I reached my right forehoof up to rub at my eyes.

"How do you know? I thought the map was with Josey?" I asked with a half yawn.

"She called back just now to say we were passing by Colt village? They changed direction slightly to follow that road down there," the unicorn pointed out, motioning her head over the edge of the basket.

I carefully peered down to spot a lot of trees and a highway running through them, far below us.

"I think we drove down that highway when we went here with the school," I remembered. "It goes by a lake on the left before leading on to Grant Village next to the main lake's West Thumb?"

"Thumb being that digit you humans have instead of hooves," Spritelight recalled. "The one Turkey kept complaining about missing and which Josey said put you humans apart from cats?"

I chuckled weakly. "Yeah... Hey Spritelight, what do you think of Luna?"

"The princess? She's one of the two main rulers of Equestria, together with her sister; princess Celestia," Spritelight explained. "Celestia brings up the sun and takes care of the day, while princess Luna brings up the moon and safeguards our dreams. Why?"

"I think she visited me in my dream," I recalled, although the memory of it was getting fuzzy. "I'm not entirely sure what she said, but I feel... calmer now."

Spritelight raised an eyebrow at me. "The barriers between worlds must truly be weakened if she could do that from Canterlot..."

"I think I was having a nightmare or something," I muttered, trying to focus on my dream. "Something to do with changelings?"

The unicorn in the basket beside me snorted in disgust. "Changelings are bad news. I hope we don't have to deal with them here on Earth."

"I'll hope for the same then," I decided.