Identity

Solemnity

“I won’t fund your project.”

“But it would be of great use to magical studies.”

“It would run trillions of bits for a useful spell every decade.”

“It would allow spells of greater complexity than exist at the moment.”

“That’s because we can cut through complexity.”

“I don’t see where you get your information. That’s not how magic works.”

“You see this tiara, this is the element of magic. I wear it because I am Magic!”

“Why don’t you help us then, build us a few spells from time to time?”

“I’m busy with this, for the most part. Also science.”

“But you are magic, doesn’t that mean that you can do a lot more with it than I can?”

“Maybe. Trixie, why are you wasting my time?” The light blue mare with dark violet eyes looked downtrodden. Not quite as bad as after that whole Alicorn Amulet incident.

“I’m bored Twilight. There hasn’t been anything dangerous around for a few years. You’ve done too well.” Twilight rolled her eyes.

“There have been twelve wars over the last six weeks.” Trixies mouth hung open.

“Why haven’t I heard about any of this?”

“They each lasted half a week.”

“Why did you not call The Great and Humble Trixie to entertain the troops?”

“They were too busy watching the fire of the other nations splash ineffectually against their shields.”

“What?”

Twilight shook her head and put on her best benevolent ruler expression. It was going to be a long court session.
.

After a few minutes of explaining it further, her magic being used to make their troops more durable than ever, Trixie understood and applied for an internship in the labs that developed the techniques. Twilight decided that it would have to go through. Trixie was too good for anything else.

Antimonious Sulfide entered the room, with an all too smug look on his face. “So, your Highness, I see that you still haven’t done anything about Fluttershy.” Twilight’s eyes snapped open.

“I forgot. I’ll go take care of it immediately.”

It was right. And she came to know of Rainbow Dash. Scarlett found herself enjoying her life more every day. Nothing could ever come of it, of course, how could there ever be any development once Twilight, her older instance-sister found herself able to force a merge upon her. The forking would destroy everything that she desired. It was terrible and cruel. It would take away happiness and love, destroying it to replace it with the banality of court life. It was an affront to identity altogether.

She looked out the window of the rented apartment, the sunrise turned the horizon pink against the weakness of the cyan. “Why are you already up?” A voice came from the bed. Groggy, but entirely understandable.

“The sun is rising. It’s beautiful.”

“Too bad it’s scheduled to rain today.” There was a hint of bitterness in that.

“That’s fine too.”

Across the horizon, a speck grew. It was the royal chariot. The reasons for its journey were nothing good. Scarlett knew that.

“Rainbow… I have something I need to tell you.”

“Scar, you know that I’m okay with it.” Rainbow raised a bit. She smiled at Scarlett, a charming smile, despite the fact that due to sleeping and other things, she was quite disheveled.

“I’m Twilight’s clone.” Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes.

“Duh!”

Scarlett blinked, “I have her memories.”

Rainbow Dash looked a little bit irritated, “Do you think that she would not tell me that? I was messing with you. It worked well enough. I mean─” she started laughing, “You were freaking out at her, it was hilarious.” She became a little more serious, “Not to mention that I always wanted this kind of relationship with Twilight in the first place. The fact that it developed with you, a fellow Pegasus was just another bonus.”

“Do you understand the rest of the experiment?”

“Nah. I spaced out during that part of her explanation. Scarlett, what’s wrong?”

“The original plan was to see if was still socially viable to attempt merging our memories.”

“That’s not cool. You’ve changed into a different pony than she was.”

“I think she’s coming right now.”

The look on Rainbow Dash’s face, was not that of the gregarious, if occasionally mischievous Rainbow Dash. Her face was drawn. Her mouth hung open, her eyes looked at the wall aimless. “We really need to go Dashie! I’ll die as an individual if she gets her hooves on me!” Dash shook her head.

“Fly” Rainbow Dash spoke slowly, with more deliberation than she used in the whole of most conversations.

Scarlett flew through the window. The glass glittered in the morning light. The shards cut into her, drawing blood. There was a Scarlett mist that dispersed as Rainbow Dash questioned the sudden impetuousness of her marefriend.

“I didn’t mean that!” Rainbow Dash bellowed. When Scarlett showed no sign of returning for either the medical attention she needed, or the bill that the landlord would likely insist that she pay in part, she shook her head. “She’s more stubborn than me.” After a moment of calming herself, she began to clean up the glass on the inside of the apartment, there could, after all, be no excuse for somepony getting hurt. Scarlett really wasn’t fast enough anyway.

Scarlett flew off over the Everfree, where Fluttershy was in a heated argument with Twilight over the rights conferred upon her as the forester of the Everfree (i.e. a duty that does not include the responsibility of harvesting the untapped resources in such a place). She continued. It was amongst the worst sensations in her life, flying through the air covered in deep gouges and cuts from broken glass, almost as bad as the despair that Discord caused her.

There was, as was promised by the magnate, a large trail that had been cleared right outside Fluttershy’s house, workers were already starting to funnel into the forest trail. The chariot landed right outside the house, narrowly avoiding the destruction of the bridge.

“Twilight… um. I can explain-”Fluttershy stammered ineffectually in front of the unamused Alicorn. Twilight put her hoof up and gestured for her to be silent.

“Fluttershy, you can’t go around mining the rocks and digging up the natural resources of the Everfree.” Her tone was conciliatory, kind as Twilight could have ever managed.

“Twilight… I really do need to explain. What’s going on-”Fluttershy’s impetus towards speech waivered as she gestured up to the sky.

“I’m sorry, but a mining magnate decided that I was doing such a bad job because of your actions that he told me of your actions within the Everfree” “but” Fluttershy stammered some more, it was getting her a little bit frustrated. “That’s not okay Fluttershy, not to mention that you really shouldn’t put your life or the lives of other ponies in danger.” Twilight was on a roll. Her full lecture mode was out. It was not the time for subtlety Fluttershy decided.

“TWILIGHT!” It was more than a scream, but less than a yell.

“Yes.”

“I’ve been trying to tell you that your clone is flying into um the forest.” Fluttershy noticed that Angel was tugging on her back leg.

“That’s fine Fluttershy, before I go, though, what have you been planning on using the resources for?” Fluttershy decided that Twilight wasn’t too worried about her clone.

“To expand and maintain my animal hospital.”

“Good. Don’t do that though.”

“Okay Twilight”

“Also, thanks for telling me that my clone is running into danger.”

Twilight flew off towards the forest. Fluttershy breathed a sigh of relief. Now she could continue like nothing happened. “That was close, wasn’t it boy?” Angel nodded emphatically. “So, should we continue reviewing employee policy?” Angel nodded again, but less emphatically. “I do wonder how she views her clone anyway.” Angel shrugged, and they both made their way to Fluttercorp™ headquarters.

Scarlett whizzed through the air. The air had started gusting a bit stronger than she was used to once she was above the forest. She decided that it was probably the disturbance caused by the Fluttercorp™ building which had been erected recently, she could practically feel it in her feathers. She was feeling weak and sore. The flying was invigorating. More than using magic, it was a pity that her natural magic hadn’t already fixed her own injury. Or maybe it still required will.

She willed the magic to flow through her, to seal the wounds. After a few moments she felt a sparking. It wasn’t healing. She was casting lightning off of her wings though. Nice to know.The lightning ceased as she allowed it. She felt powerful now. She concerned herself for a few moments with the possibilities that she as now afforded. Namely the ability to use magic consiously was welcome.

The trees stretched out beneath her as far as she could see. There was a mountain in the distance, shrouded by mist. She knew that she needed to get to the mountain at the very least. Her heart roared in her ears. At least the cuts had scabbed over.

The mountain was very close. It did not seem quite right. There were holes in the sides, ones that had semi-visible vortices indicating their intakes. It also had other ones blowing out terribly humid, stinking air. The buzz, it was as though it was filled with a million giant bees. Fortunately, Scarlett thought, giant bees were not native this far north (as indicated by the general lack of giant insects reguarly pilliging villages). “Finally” She said. She spotted an outcropping that was smooth and flat enough for her to rest upon.

The stone was smoother than it appeared, it also had one of the great inlets of air sucking constantly. Scarlett found a comfortable position that she could stand resting in, and nodded off quickly.

“Hmm. Fascinating, this one looks familiar.”

“What shall I do, my Queen?”

“Take her in, feed her, fix her up.”

“Whatever would the purpose be, my Queen?” Deep, slitted, off-blue eyes fell upon the worker. “I only ask to serve you better my Queen.”

“To gain a bargaining chip against the ponies. They will take notice of this one, I am sure of it.” She started to walk back inside, “Be sure to make this one comfortable, don’t scare her, keep her as happy as you can.”

“Yes my Queen.” The worker cast a spell of sleep upon the pony slumbering deeply on the entrance ramp.

The buzzing was louder now. Scarlett opened her eyes warily. There was a field, filled with green grass and flowers. She was alone. It smelled nice. However, the buzzing sound was louder than ever.

“There must be some kind of nest underneath here.” she muttered to herself. She looked upon her back, the cuts were gone. Healed perfectly. Her wings were still quite sore.

“It would do well for you to explain your presence here.” A dark creature, chitinous, shiny, alltoofamiliar.

“Chrysalis, I did always wonder where you and your kind went off to.”

“This is where we always were, I just brought a legion or two out to your land, capture some love for the nest you are in right now.”

“So... What is it you want?”

“To understand your presence here, and to make you a bargaining chip for negotiations with your nation.”

“This is more direct than last time.”

“We’ve decided to go about doing such things in a more diplomatic way in the future. Nothing that is done in stealth is ever appreciated by foreign peoples or governments.”

“That makes sense”

“Who are you, pony? You resemble Twilight Sparkle, one of those who tried unsuccessfully to stop our invasion.”

“I am Scarlett”

“Fascinating. That is almost certainly not your original name. As a changeling, I know such things.”

“I was Twilight Sparkle once. But there is more than one of me.”

“So you’ve tried going multiple. How does it seem to be working?”

“I don’t want to accept a memory merge.”

“Ah. So it isn’t working at all, is it?”

“If that is the metric by which you measure it’s success, then no.”

“Very well Scarlett. Your princess is coming after you, my scouts, the ones that were actually sent to contact her in the first place, saw her flying over at slow clip.” She started walking out.

“Wait! How do you feed yourselves here anyway?”

“We do so on our own love. We wanted to grow, that’s why we needed your love.”

“That’s why then?”

“Yes. Expansionism” Chyrsalis grimaced. “A bad word today, especially in politics, but we wanted to move forwards, like you are able to.”

“What is it that you want to move forward with?”

“Utopia. Nothing short of that. One where my changelings are not afraid of me, and they have enough love and power to push themselves to happiness.”

“As is the goal of Twilight, Celestia, and Luna.” She refrained from referring to Twilight as herself; it was what she wanted.

She nodded, smiling a bit more kindly than she had ever seen her do before. “If we worked together, we would find ourselves in a utopia for both of us.”

“Perhaps you can bring that up when Twilight finally gets here.” Scarlett smiled at Chrysalis. It would be better if she believed that there could be some level of trust between them.

“Perhaps.”

Chrysalis walked away, slipping into the false horizon.

It was silent except for the buzzing. The grass was soft. A false wind blew the scent of flowers across Scarlett’s nose. She felt at peace for a moment, then remembered that she was a political prisoner.

“Twilight, how have you been?” The lanky changeling smiled at Twilight.

“I suppose as well as possible. My clone was freaking out about something, ran off into the Everfree.” She sighed,”I couldn’t let her die in here. You seem to have that covered though.”

“She would not have perished from anything that we would allow.” Twilight raised an eyebrow to this comment.

“That is cryptic.” Twilight said. She wasn’t sure what angle Chrysalis was playing off of. It was not like her.

“I’ll return her to you if you accept my apology—” Twilight cut her off.

“I accept your apology, now return her to me—” In turn Chrysalis interrupted the same way.

“Twilight, we need more than that. We need more than good will to survive these days, even if it is appreciated.” Her voice was modulated. It was perfect for the task. It was innocent, it did not carry the edge which it held when speaking as Cadance.

“I should have known. What is it that you want Chrysalis?”

“I would prefer to be nice in this situation. Don’t try to do the memory merge with Scarlett. She is a nice enough clone, but she has no desire to live your life. Even in memories.”

“Sure” There was no pause.

“That was easier than she assured me it would be.” Her smile drifted away.

“She is a poor judge of intention. That program has been cancelled, we don’t want to do that anymore. There are better things to do with our times than to allow a single individual to crowd out everypony else.”

“That is more or less what we decided. Nonetheless, the Sea-dragons decided that the advantages of going multiple was too great.” Her voice seemed to indicate that she was very interested

“You’ve researched this before?”

“Yes. Of course we have Twilight, we’ve been around as long as your kind has, moreover we’ve been at peace with ourselves all that time. Every species goes through a Singularity at some point.”

“What do you mean?”

“Ah, not yet then. I won’t spoil it.” she smiled at Twilight knowingly, “Drone, retrieve Scarlett.”

“Chrysalis, do you wish for your people to be more closely associated with Equestria?”

“Yes. Twilight, that would be the greatest thing that we could ask for. You know, immigration passes, embassies, all of the things that we should have had before that incident.”

“I think that you shall have to arrange your own transport to Canterlot sometime, perhaps we could formalize it.”

“Indeed”

The new window was being installed in the apartment. The landlord had ample reassurance that it would not occur again. It was easily paid for by the state, and

Twilight looked down at Scarlett. “I’m sorry Twilight but—”

“No, I am the one who should be sorry, the goal of merging our memories was not only implausible, it was also cruel to the individual, so I do not believe that such usage of the machine will be permitted. We already have one time copy crystals for it.”

“You never told me that Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy knew about the experiment.”

“I never said otherwise.”

“It would have been nice to know.”

“I’m sorry Scarlett. You deserve your own life. Get a job and there won’t be any more experimenting.”

“Fine. I was thinking of trying out weather magic anyway.”

“Good... Good. You’ll be able to keep up with Rainbow Dash without much issue then.”A note of sadness in her congradulations.

“Did you love her too?”

“Of course.”

“I’m sorry—”

“You can’t be the one to apologize, Rainbow Dash likes you more, you are more like her, or she thinks so at least.”

“And she’s right.”

“Indeed.” Something like a cloud passed over her the Princess’ face, “You deserve her. If only because I created monsters in the process.”

“Are we going to talk to each other in the future?”

“If I can avoid it, no.”

Twilight flew off back in the direction of Canterlot. Scarlett’s eyes teared up. An experiment to find if it was possible to torment yourself without feeling hurt. As always, it worked both ways.

“Scarlett, do you want to come back inside?” Rainbow Dash yelled out the window which she had broken earlier.

Scarlett smiled. At least her life was untainted by all that she had not done in her own instance. “I’m coming Rainbow.”

She ran into the apartment building, and spent a lovely evening with her favorite mare.