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Come, come, let me tell you a story! Sit, sit, perhaps buy some water? No? As you wish. Tell me, have you heard of the tales of the Goddess of the Land? Ah, no need for that, we are all friends here. Perhaps you would like to listen to my tale? Good, good, let me begin. Once, in a realm far from our own there lived a white clad Goddess, all the world within her benevolent care. Akin to those within our own lands, she walked among the mortals that lived within her care, ignored by many and worshipped by none. Among her journeys, she became part of the strangest of groups: a Streetrat, a princess, a monkey, and a genie. Ah, now there is a tale. Though my memory is fadi-Ah, some water? Very well, I believe my memory returns. Sit for a time, and listen to the tale of the Earthborne Patron.

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The moon hung bright over sand and stone, radiating soft light upon the abandoned streets of Agrabah, the greatest city within the seven deserts. The great markets were quiet, the streets abandoned, and all who walked freely searched the shadows for danger. The mundanity was shattered by a trio of brilliant lights far within the dunes, and a most curious group raced through the city. A young man dressed as a street rat, a monkey in a fez and jacket atop his head, and a great blue genie before them. Held in the Streetrat’s hand was a simple golden lamp, it’s presence being what spurred them to greater speeds. Where it often resided with their friend, tonight it had been discovered abandoned beside the street rat’s bed.

“Genie, are you sure that’s her?” The Streetrat skidded to a stop at the city wall, throwing open the sudden blue door made out of the genie’s face. He didn’t miss a beat as a slide formed underneath his feet, carrying him down to the sands. He glanced down at that lamp, Genie emerging from it’s lid to ski along side him.

“Sure am Al, and she’d doing something big.” He shivered, rippling and dissipating into smoke. That was all that the Streetrat needed, bare feet hitting the sand and skidding for a moment. He caught his balance for a moment before dashing off toward the source of the multicolored lights over the dunes, a fourth glow coming into being.

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Far, far from Agrabah, a young woman stood alone. Dressed in loose white clothing fitting the desert people she claimed to be a part of, she stood silently staring into her most recent rift in space. After a time she shook her head, wiping tears from her face as she turned away. “This one’s too weak.” She sighed, her hands spread out to ripple the air itself. She walked along, feeling the world around her and the fabric of it’s connection with others. To mortal observers it would seem as though her hands trailed multi-hued light, but those with the eyes to see would find the trails of something more than magic sinking into the veil separating the multiverse. Further and further she searched, feeling for the tiniest spark of a connection, a link. Finally she grasped it, the smallest glimmer of something shared. To mortal eyes, one would see her take hold of the air, pulling it apart to reveal brilliant light and sparks of magic. She watched expectantly, intently building upon the foothold, making it stronger. She reached out a hand, finger at the border of her portal as the light dulled to reveal what seemed to be the inside of a cave.

“Lila!” She spun around, nearly slipping backwards, to find Aladdin sliding down the sand dune that had been behind her. “What are you doing out here?” He slid to a stop a good distance away from her, leaving him to approach on foot. The monkey on his head stared curiously, and a bit scared, at the burning rifts in the air.

“I’m leaving.” Anger contorted her face, tears gathered in her eyes.

“What?! Where are you going, why?” Aladdin took a step forward, and she took a step back.

“You don’t want me here anymore, he doesn’t want me here anymore. You sent me to go get help, and in less than a day you’ve found someone else!” Her glare turns from Aladdin to the lamp in his hand, which he hid behind his back. Genie peeked out from under his jacket, cringing slightly at the renewed fury she sent his way.

“Lila, I didn’t-”

“Genie, don’t.” Lila and Genie blinked at Aladdin’s command. “Lila, you’re his friend. Well... more than friend. I get it, but you can’t just leave forever.” He started forward again, and this time she didn’t flee. Already her hair was starting to raise from the dimensional distortion, fizzling with a burning smell where it would cross the portal.

“Earth is my home… and a part of me. I don’t plan on leaving forever Al, I just… I need some time.” She looked down, her anger slowly draining out of her. “I finally got the portals working. The ones to other universes, see? The others weren’t right, not enough between them. I… don’t know where this one goes, but it worked.” She gestures toward the three failures, forcing them to slowly close. Aladdin looked down at the lamp in his hand.

“You don’t have to go to another world, you can go anywhere. But… well, wherever you go, take this. To remind you to come back, okay?” He held the golden lamp out to her, his somber expression turning back into his usual smirk. After a few seconds she took it, and shook it before dropping the polished gold.

“I told you I need time. Time away from… everything. You more than anything.” She glares at the lamp, Genie’s head poking out of it after a second. Her anger had made it’s return, along with her pain. She spun on her heel, looking back to Aladdin and mouthing the words “goodbye” before running headlong toward the portal. It resisted her, pressing back against her as she tried to pass through it. Energy arced across her, but she pressed onward. Finally it let her free, like a bubble popping. As she fell forward she felt something bizarre, a flash of indescribable sensation that spread through her as she passed the threshold. She felt something change, as if something was ripped away from her core.

Outside the portal, Aladdin cringed as he saw Lila engulfed in blazing light. “Genie!” He pointed to the portal as it tore itself apart, ducking a bolt of energy that tossed white hot sand into the air. He glanced back at the molten glass where the bolt had struck, scooped Abu up and rolling away from another haphazard bolt. Genie emerged from his lamp and snapped his fingers, tossed the golden lamp into the newly made cannon and lit the fuse. The sound of energy cooking the air was drowned out by an explosion, Genie’s lamp fired after Lila. It slowed at the threshold, breaking through after a moment’s pause. Aladdin was thrown back, curling up to protect Abu as the portal violently exploded, throwing him into the dune. He rolled to a stop at the bottom of the dune, stopping himself before he rolled into the pool of molten glass. “Lila, Genie?” Abu squirmed out of his grasp as he rose and watched the last dispersing fragments of light where the portal once was.

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Lila tumbled to the hard ground, a clang next near her the last thing she heard before unconsciousness overtook her. Minutes passed, and slowly she started to come to. The first thing she noticed was the feeling of something vital missing, like her heart had been torn out and replaced with ice. Something that made it’s presence known was her arm, painfully trapped under her body. The rest of her body was slightly cushioned from the cold stone below by a soft presence, a thicker cushion around her midsection. She could feel her hair draped over her body, but she was cold all over. All her groggy, and frankly nauseous, mind could think of was being wrapped in a thin blanket laying upon a thick pillow. She tried lifting an arm to her head, the one under her straining painfully and unable to move her. The desire touched something hard to her face, her… leg? It felt weird, like she was bending her arm wrong, and in her surprise it moved away. She forced an eye open, the white in front of her spinning. She took a shuddering breath and closed her eye again, the old breathing lesson she had been taught by Aladdin kept her from throwing up. After uncounted minutes of focus on deep breaths, she once more opened her eyes. Laying across from her was one of the strangest, yet oddly beautiful creatures she had seen in recent memory. A small, oddly shaped white horse with a rounded muzzle and ice blue eyes that stared back at her. It’s mane and tail were much longer than they should have been, a few shades off from it’s coat. Strangely enough it wore a similarly colored saddle, soft silk embellishments along it’s length. It seemed intelligent, and as weak as she felt, as it’s attempt to rise was abandoned as quickly as her own. As her head continued to clear she recognized the strange shape on it’s exposed side to be a wing, and a horn on it’s head. In her haze she couldn’t place the creature’s name, nor it’s species. Unable to gather the strength nor desire to stand, she moved her head to look down… and saw only white fur. Legs not her own, four of them covered in a white coat and tipped with identically colored hooves. A thick ornate white band across her stomach. At the bottom of her sight, a rounded nose.

It took her a moment to process what she saw, as bizarre as it was. Her breath left her, and instinct attempted to back her away, the legs she stared at flailing and attempting to grip the ground.

“W-Wha-” Her attempt to talk was interrupted by painful coughs, revealing how dry her throat was. Worse than that the words came out mangled, her mouth not moving quite how she expected. The white legs curled up, and she felt them pressed to her chest; and her legs press to her chest. They… were her’s. She looked up at her strange companion, the horse curled up and panting as though it was attempting to catch it’s breath. She closed her mouth, and so did the horse. She extended a leg with some effort, unsure of what to want to move to do so, and so did the horse. “I… You-” She coughed once more, the horse next to her doing the same. “You’re… me?” The words sounded broken and slurred, barely pronounced as the horse seemed to be having trouble moving it's mouth. The horse extended it’s leg, and the chill within her chest grew as she saw it connect with the one coming from where her body should be. Along with the terror that struck her was the realization that she was staring at a jagged spire of reflective crystal. She kicked away from it in panic, a hoof accidentally stuck the naturally polished stone and she was rolled onto her back. “AH!” Her arm… No, her wing, bent wrong underneath her. The pain cleared the rest of the haze in her mind and left her staring at the rough hewn ceiling. She tried to free her wing, which rolled her to her stomach. Her legs were splayed carelessly, one of her front ones stuck below her but her wings were finally free. Sitting on it’s side directly before her was a very familiar golden lamp. She let herself fall limp, breathing heavily with a single wing spread wide and one pressed against the crystal mirror. She closed her eyes, through the strange feeling of having a muzzle confirmed once more that yes, she was changed. She was a white winged unicorn that felt as though it was freezing inside and out. Her hair fell to cover her face where she let it stay as it hid her rising panic.

Keeping track of time wasn’t one of her priorities, and so she was unsure of when she started to calm. She swallowed a few times to wet her throat and her ragged breathing slowed. It took two attempts to move her hair from her face, the first painfully knocked a hard hoof against the spiraled horn above her eyes. She flinched, and tried once more successfully. With her hair tucked safely to one side, she blinked to fight the dazzling light that blinded her. It poured in from far before her, glittering off the reflective crystal surrounding her. As the tunnel spread toward the light it slowly turned to stone. She weakly lifted her head, looking around for anything else. All that she saw was the polished golden lamp before her, silent and still. Almost without thought she reached out, a hoof rubbed against it’s burnished surface to no avail. She crawled closer, her limbs stiff and unresponsive even where she could bend them. Her attempt to grab it’s handle was useless, a hoof collided with the golden ring and sent it spinning around. She shuddered and bit her lip to fight her rising panic, her forelegs wrapped around the lamp and held it to her… well, she was unsure of what body part it was, but she was mostly sure it was her chest. She hugged the lamp, her panic having risen to a peak at the thought of not being sure of what her own body parts were called anymore. She cradled the lamp in one of her forelegs and rubbed it near desperately.

'Please Genie, come out…' The cold metal was as lifeless as ever, and it struck her that he may not even be inside. She didn't try to speak anymore, the pain in her mouth less troubling than the broken sounds that came out of it. She dropped the lamp, pushing it away. 'Fine… I’ll just have to find someone else to help me. Or, I’ll just help myself.' Her words were by far more confident than she was. She pressed a shaking foreleg to the ground and searched her memory for any time she had paid much attention to a horse’s walk. 'I made the way here, right? If I can do that, how hard could walking be? Right? Right.' It took her a moment to realize that she was talking to herself in her head, the chill within her and risen terror made her cling to any comfort she still had. Forehooves pressed onto the ground, weakly lifting the front of her body an inch off the ground. Though the first attempt left her sprawled, time saw her standing with all four legs spread wide and stable. She raised a foreleg to take a step and crashed to the ground, her prior panic at the bizarre feeling of standing on four legs overtaken by shock. Once again she found herself staring at Genie’s Lamp, mere inches from her face. And once again she picked herself up, her hooves scraping against the crystal below as she shakily pulled herself forward. Not wanting to risk falling again, she shuffled forward. As she went she gained certainty, learned how to move her legs, and with time how to fold her wings so that they would not catch on the walls. And so it was that she approached the light at the end of her tunnel, leaving the silent lamp and the crystal spire behind. Further and further she struggled, and though she fell many times more she did not stay upon the ground. Her arms… wings ached from being crushed, her legs burning from her rigid shuffling, and her neck cramped from being lowered, but she did not slow for more than the moments it took to rise from the ground. At last, after uncountable minutes, she emerged. Her arms… wings spread, the breeze through her feathers and coat simply divine after her confinement, enough to momentarily make her forget the aching chill within.

“You are?” A voice spoke from below, her head instinctively lowered toward it. At the bottom of the hill she saw a bizarre sight even for today’s standard: Over four dozen technicolor horses standing together. A large white one with wings and a horn like her with an air of regal calm about her, mane and tail a rainbow of colors that swayed in the wind like an aurora, stood next to another winged unicorn. The smaller, her coat dark blue and her mane seeming to be a piece of the sky flown as a banner, looked less patient but no less regal. Beside them stood an array of other horses, two normal, two unicorns, and two pegasi, each of a pastel color she was sure horses did not have. They wore golden necklaces set with large cut gems, except for the lead, upon whose head rested a gold tiara set with an amethyst star. Behind them all stood four ranks of ten horses each in gold armor, most of whom carried spears of some sort. It was only after this observation, and the thought that she had to be in a different world, that she lost her balance and rolled down the hill. She slid to a painful stop on her back, the sun blocked out by the body of the largest horse of the bunch, who lowered her head slightly to address her. “Are you lost?” She sounded almost motherly, as if the one who had just come to rest at her hooves was her own child. Lila’s only response was to nod weakly and close her eyes, her body covered in aches and pains. She felt her body lighten, saw a soft yellow glow from behind her eyelids, and heard snatches of dialogue as she faded into a dreamless slumber.

“Princess Celestia, who is she? She's an Alicorn? Where does she come from, is she a Princess?”

“I do not know, my Faithful Student. That we will discover when she awakens. You may calm down everypony, there is no danger here.” Lila’s last waking thought was the cold inside ebbing away in the sun’s warm light.