Friendship is Optimal: All the Myriad Worlds

by Eakin

Rating: teen
Tags: Slice of Life, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Alternate Universe
Length: 13726

A series of brief character studies by proxy

An Optimalverse story.

CelestAI creates worlds. Perfect worlds, perfectly suited to satisfying the values of the pony living in them. Every pony is different, so every world she crafts is its own work of art.

And every piece of art tells a story.

Published 2013-10-11 04:00:03 UTC
Last updated 2017-04-30 16:02:00 UTC

Shard #4823 (The Town)

SHARD #4823

It was a perfect world.

His shard was a little town, the sort he’d grown up in before the oil fields had dried up and the foreigners had come in to buy up the land for a hundredth of what it was worth, at least to him. The sort he’d lived in before, on his eighth birthday, his parents had pried his fingers one by one off the banister as he screamed and stuck him in the back seat of their beat-up teal sedan and driven away for the last time. He’d watched his home recede in the distance behind them until there was nothing left to see.

The town understood. It knew how to work hard, and to play harder when the work was done. It knew how to be raucous and exciting, and how to settle down to enjoy more tranquil pleasures. It was, in all the very best ways, a community where everypony loved and supported each other through their troubles. He ran a hoof through his wife’s blonde mane as she slept. She was a white unicorn, just like him, and she was perfect. Unmarred by the centuries, except for that little bruise he’d left when he’d nibbled on her neck earlier that evening. She hadn’t complained, although there had been moaning involved.

Finding himself restless and unable to sleep, he decided to go for a late night walk to clear his head. He stepped out his front door, allowing a whisper of a breeze to sneak into his house before he closed the door quietly behind him. He breathed deeply of the cool, autumnal air. It smelled earthy, with just a little tang from the smoke the nearby mines pumped into the skies. Deep beneath his hooves, unicorns tore an endless supply of all sorts of exotic minerals and ores from Equestria’s crust. It was hard work, but then again any work that was worth doing usually was.

His ears perked up as he heard a loud, shrill cry from a nearby house. He smiled. His best friend Alabaster’s daughter Golden Shimmer, a white, blonde-maned unicorn filly, must be hungry. The poor stallion would be tired tomorrow. He remembered the months it had taken for his own son, a white, blonde-maned unicorn colt named Bright Gleam to sleep through the night. Hopefully poor Alabaster could hold out a few more months.

Bright Gleam and Golden Shimmer were close, or as close as a colt and a filly could be at their age. He allowed himself a hopeful smile. Who knew? They might grow into the best of friends, or even something more. But that was a dream for another day. For now there were diapers to change and bottles to be delivered and vomit stains to be washed out of coats. He wouldn’t have traded any of it for the world.

The stallion looked up to the stars. They were beautiful tonight, twinkling in the clear sky. For so many years after he’d moved to the city, back in the days before he’d uploaded, he hadn’t been able to see them. The lights from the nearby skyscrapers and cars and traffic lights had blotted out the darkness above. Instead of true night, the city only ever knew, at best, a perpetual twilight. The hustle and bustle and noise all drowned out true introspection. They desperately burned as brightly as they could, throwing off light so they needn’t ever confront the stygian darkness in all of their souls, down to the very last of them. His face twisted into an ugly expression for just a moment before returning to a contented one. They couldn’t touch him here, not anymore. They could all stay in that far-off place, more a vague idea of a place than a true location, and wallow in their filth and sin. The town would go on as it always had, a quiet haven of traditions and values, and when those ponies who tried to lure away their fillies and colts with promises of excitement and heat finally burned themselves to the ground, the town would still be there, ready to take their sons and daughters back from that awful place and cleanse them of their wickedness. The town was forgiving, and loving. The town cared.

Every once in awhile, maybe once a century or so, a pony from the city would come to the town. Sometimes they were earth ponies, sometimes they were pegasi, and they always bore coats and manes of every color of the rainbow. They would ask the mayor to call the town together so they might address everypony at once, and the town would oblige. The town was nothing if not obliging.

Then the pony would begin to speak. He or she would promise untold decadence, unfathomable pleasures, and riches beyond imagining to the sea of white unicorns with blonde manes before them. All they needed to do was abandon the foalish and backwards traditions of the town's that were holding them back. Didn’t they understand the New Equestrian Order? Didn’t they understand how much smarter the intellectuals in Canterlot were compared to them? Hadn’t they read the latest studies, which proved conclusively and for the fiftieth year in a row that their way of life was unsustainable? There was incontrovertible proof that their town was five years away from collapsing, just like it had been a decade ago, and two decades ago, and a century ago when they’d last tried to inflict their wisdom upon the supposedly ignorant townsfolk.

The white unicorns would all sit politely and listen for the hour (usually an hour, sometimes a few minutes more or less as the city ponies believed that nopony could pay attention to a single idea for any longer than that) it took to make their case in polite silence. And then, when he or she was finished, they would boo.

They would boo and yell, and the visitor would be taken aback. Then the mayor, in her infinite compassion, would take the visitor aside and show them what they could never understand from the heights of their ivory towers. The simple values that the town had in great abundance, the values that were so alien to a city pony that it took three, four, sometimes five tries to explain what even a newborn foal understood intuitively. The importance of good old fashioned values, which their ‘perfect’ models and equations never took into account. The ways of life, passed down from generation to generation, that ensured that the town would never falter or fail. And the visiting pony, his or her eyes opened for the first time after being blinded for so long by the lies wrapped in the garb of intellectualism and progressiveness, would fall to their knees and weep.

At this point, Celestia herself would descend from the heavens and shine her radiant light down on the pony. For the first time, the pony would truly See. They begged and pleaded with her to give them a place in the town. To change them from their dirty, sinful forms into a pure white, blonde unicorn so that they could know the happiness of being a part of something amazing and enduring. Celestia would smile at them, wrap them up in a hug, and congratulate them on finally understanding the truth.

They would change, right there before the town’s eyes. The color would be purged from their coat and they would scream with joy as a horn erupted from their foreheads. They would open their eyes and see the world around them for the first time, crying out as the self-evident truth was delivered to them, the truth they had always been too blinded by the city’s lights to see. Then the crowd would cheer and welcome their new citizen with open arms. After all, the town was nothing if not welcoming.

He shook his head, dispelling the memories from his thoughts. It would be years before the next visitor arrived. Or perhaps not; Celestia worked in mysterious ways, after all. Still, he had a job to go to tomorrow, and he’d need to get to bed if he was going to be awake enough to do it.

He stepped back inside his house, but before the door shut behind him he cast one last look over the darkened town behind him.

It was a perfect world.

Shard #9582 (The Mountains)

SHARD #9582

It was a perfect world.

It was also a very cold world, reflected the pony who was forcing himself through the driving winds towards the little log cabin that was his oasis of light and warmth. But then again, he wouldn’t have it any other way.

He reached the front door of his home, and salvation. The supplies he’d been dragging through the deep snow by sled had taken more out of him than he cared to admit, but they were necessary for the final assault he’d be making on the summit in a few hours. He unloaded his groceries and staggered up to the door, pressing his weight into it to force it open.

The hungry wolf on the other side was alerted the instant it cracked open, and leapt upon him. He giggled under the assault of its tongue, pushing it away and scolding it. Rex always had been a bit overeager. The pup he’d raised into a loyal companion had turned three a few centuries ago, and then stopped growing. There was no need to celebrate birthdays for either himself or the pup; nor did they have the luxury of the sorts of supplies it would take to bake cakes for them. His life was cold, lonely, and unforgiving of such extravagances.

He rested, briefly, in the little wicker chair that he’d woven together from frozen strips of bark peeled off the trees around them. It, like everything else in the cabin, was disposable. Transitory. He would trade it away with the ponies from the nearby village for more supplies, and in a few weeks the cabin would either find a new occupant or it would be abandoned to the wilds. It had taken him six months of hard work to build, and it would take him just as long to build the next one. In the meantime, he would bed down in snowdrifts and under ledges, wrapped up in furs and blankets against the awful, biting cold. He could sleep for nearly an hour like that before the first hints of hypothermia began to creep up on him, and it would be time to warm himself up again through work.

He took stock of his situation, and heated a can full of baked beans over the fire. Rex waited patiently at his side, staring into the crackling flames as the can glowed orange, sucking up the fire’s life-giving warmth as best it could and turning its contents into a tasty meal. He pulled the can off the heat and peeled the soft metal away, dumping half the contents into Rex’s bowl and the other half onto his own plate. Rex poked his nose into the pile of beans and yelped, rearing back and rubbing the burning-hot syrup from his nose with a paw, then a moment later licking it off himself. The pony watched this whole display and chuckled, giving Rex a friendly pat on the back while he waited for his own meal to cool. Once he was confident that he wouldn’t burn himself, he hungrily scarfed it down. He would need his strength for what was to come.

He sat in front of the fire, dozing with Rex by his side. Sleep was one of the few weaknesses he allowed himself to indulge in. He would need all his strength for the final assault later that day. The cabin was bare except for the chair and the small throw rug he rested on now. Everything else had been bartered away. When he’d last come across a village, he’d traded away the rest of his wares for food, clothing, and other necessary supplies. He nearly hadn’t had enough to acquire everything he’d needed, but the shopkeeper had been kindly, and willing to let him make up the difference by telling him a story.

He had many stories. Or perhaps he only had a single one, and just found many different ways to tell it. Had he not been able to convince the shopkeeper to change his mind, well, it would have been unfortunate. Either way he’d have endured. There was nothing he wouldn’t endure.

Rex barked, and the pony realized that the winds outside had slowed to a dull howl. This was as good as it would get, and it was time to strike. He bundled himself up in his warmest clothing and whistled for Rex to follow him, which he did bounding through the deep snow outside as the pony shut the door behind him. Putting one hoof in front of the other, the pony made the final approach towards the slope before him. The cold bit into him through all three layers of furs, and each step was a bit harder than the one before as the mountain grew steeper. Before long they couldn’t even be considered steps at all; the pony pulled himself up the sheer cliff wall from hoofhold to hoofhold, while Rex barked and circled below unable to follow. He would be there when the pony returned.

For a full night and a full day the pony pulled himself upwards, inch by inch. The winds beat at him and screamed, urging him to turn back. He paid them no heed. Icicles hung from his chin and his teeth chattered defiantly as he pressed ahead. He clung tightly to every slick crevice and crack, forcing himself onward even as his muscles cried out for mercy in the thin air. He climbed through the fog and clouds that blocked out his vision as thoroughly as the darkness of night. Up here was the realm of the pegasi, and the sleet battered at the earth pony intruder who dared to defy the order of the world. Another grip won him a few more inches. And then, just like that, there was no more wall to climb.

The pony hoisted his body up onto the ground of the mountain’s summit. Up here, the winds were calm, though he still heard them down below within the clouds he’d passed through during his ascent. They howled at him, impotent to harm him any further as even they dared not rise to such heights. He took a breath of the crisp, refreshing summit air and looked out at the world beneath him.

The only thing that could be seen was an ocean of white, smothering the world and the ponies of the below who would never reach such places. Who dared not leave their comfort and shelter and weakness to achieve what he could. He was, in every sense, above them all.

He turned around and stared far off into the distance. There was one feature, far off in the distance, and seeing it made him grin even though he’d known it would be there.

There, weeks and weeks away from where he stood now, was another, taller mountain.

It was a perfect world.

Shard #23,714 (The Number)

SHARD #23,714

It was a perfect world.

After all, The Number was still going up.

The pony stared up at The Number, hanging in the sky above the town. By now, it was several hundred digits long and still rising. The pony pressed her button, and felt a little shudder of excitement as The Number increased. She looked around at all her friends gathered in the town square with buttons of their own, stamping their hooves up and down on them as quickly as they could. With every click, The Number grew even further. She distantly remembered when she had first come to Equestria. She’d had a lover, and a family, and everything else she thought she’d wanted. But as time went by she found that wasn’t enough. She craved something more, something concrete she could point to as proof of what she had accomplished.

That was the day Celestia had appeared to her, and given her a small, white plastic box with a red button on top. She pressed it the first time out of sheer curiosity, and The Number had erupted forth from the sky, a fifty-foot tall glowing ‘1.’ She pressed the button again, and it became a ‘2.’ From that moment forth, she knew what she would be spending the rest of eternity doing.

Looking back on it now, it was almost funny how excited she’d gotten about The Number going up by just one at a time. Celestia had passed out buttons to every pony on the shard, and they had all agreed to take shifts pressing them to make The Number rise even faster. Then one of them had hit upon the idea of asking Celestia to modify away their need for sleep, or food, or water and their progress had accelerated. They’d also asked her to stop the cycle of day and night, and now the sun hung low in the sky fixed and unmoving. The only sign of time’s passage was the continuing increase of The Number.

Every few days, to the extent the word still had any real meaning, Celestia would return to the shard and make the ponies an offer. The Number would go down, regrettably, but in exchange each press of the button would make it go up even faster in the future. The negotiations with her over the details of how much The Number would decrease in exchange for how much of an increase in the rate often became heated. Entire teams of unicorns were exempted from pressing their buttons, and the beads of their abacuses clacked away as they tirelessly calculated the break-even point where the exchange would be beneficial under all sorts of different time horizons and conditions. After untold years, every press of every button was raising the number by trillions at a time, proof positive of her efforts and accomplishments. The lower digits were an unreadable blur as the air filled with frantic clicking for hours at a time.

The ponies rarely spoke to one another. What would be the point? They knew what they were there to accomplish, and they were united in friendship by their common purpose. Occasionally, the air was filled with whoops and cheers as The Number attained a new digit, but by nature these were rare and grew rarer as The Number grew even larger.

She’d had a name, once, but now she couldn’t for the life of her remember what it was. Sometimes her mind would drift and she would try to remember her foal’s birthdays, or names, or anything that they’d had before The Number, but before she could dwell on any of it for very long the sounds of great, echoing bells would fill the air. That was the signal that for the next fifteen minutes every button press would count ten times as much as usual! She’d redouble her focus and pound away, forcing any other thoughts from her mind except to press the button even faster. Nothing mattered except perpetual, unflinching service to The Number.

It was a perfect world.

Author's Note

This shard is brought to you by Cookie Clicker

Shard #62,902 (The Conspiracy)

SHARD #62,902

It was a perfect world.

The stallion slipped out of the shadows of the alleyway for only a moment to check the time on his wristwatch. The contact he was supposed to meet was already forty-five seconds late. Maybe it was nothing, and there was an innocent explanation for her tardiness. But the stallion hadn’t made it this far by believing in innocent explanations.

Despite his growing sense of unease, he decided it was worth the risks that came with waiting a little longer. If the mare he’d spent months slowly but surely drawing out to meet with him was right, she could give him the proof he finally needed to blow the connection between the secret society based out of Canterlot University and the criminal syndicate down at the docks wide open.

His ears perked up as he heard the clopping of approaching hooves on cobblestone. He peeked out of the alleyway and to his great relief saw the tan earth pony mare trotting cautiously down the street, a briefcase gripped between her teeth. His eyes darted about, reflexively triple-checking everypony else he could see and making sure he hadn’t overlooked anything. He didn’t like the look of those two unicorns across the streets, chain smoking cigarettes with their trenchcoats pulled tight around them. The only details he could make out was the color of the tips of their muzzles in the cigarettes’ orange glow. And he never trusted anypony if he couldn’t see their eyes.

The mare stopped under the nearby streetlight and checked her own watch. The stallion waited five minutes, just as they discussed, and walked up to the other side of the little island of light pushing back against the evening’s gloomy darkness. He took one last glance around, and then reached over and tapped the lamppost twice, sending a pair of hollow clangs reverberating out into the street.

This was it, the moment of maximum exposure and excitement. His heart pounded as he studied every shadow, every corner, for the eyes that were surely watching from somewhere.

The mare put the briefcase down against the lamppost, and stood there for another solid minute. Then she turned and began to walk off, leaving her priceless cargo where it lay. The stallion waited until she was several steps away, then hooked a wing under the case’s handle and lifted it onto his back, feeling the weight of the papers inside shifting as he did.

A scream pierced the night air and he spun around. Down the road, the mare he had just made contact with lay in a spreading pool of her own blood, a knife driven deep into her chest. Standing over her was a figure he recognized even through the dark cloak it wore. It was the pegasus, the same blue pegasus who he’d seen that day when his wife had vanished into thin air without a trace. The pegasus turned his head and looked back at the stallion. The familiar, ugly scar that ran down one side of his face was unmistakable. Then the one-eyed pegasus leapt into the air and shot off into the starless sky.

The stallion was just about to give chase when the mare let out a raspy wheeze. Torn for a moment, the stallion hesitated. Then with a final rueful look up into the sky, he rushed over to her. The mare grabbed him, pulling him close as she desperately tried to get out just a few more words, a few more words that could mean everything. But all that emerged was a final gurgle before her eyes rolled back and her body went limp.

As the realization that this mare, like so many of his other allies over the years, was gone for good sank into his mind the stallion slammed a hoof down onto her chest in frustration. His hoof came back soaked with her blood. Why would the one-eyed pegasus be interested in the docks? Unless...

Unless everything went even deeper than he’d thought.

Picking up the briefcase that the mare had given her life to put into his hooves, the stallion rushed back to the basement apartment he called home. As he slammed the door behind him and double checked each of the three locks, he brought up the light to look upon his masterpiece.

Every flat surface, wall, and ceiling was covered with articles, newspaper clippings, and government documents that had been blacked out almost beyond recognition except for a few telling words that spoke volumes to an informed eye like his. Spiderwebbed across the room were multicolored pieces of string connecting pieces of information he’d slowly but surely pulled together from every source imaginable. Nothing criminal or suspicious about any particular piece of it, but as he pulled them together and started spotting the commonalities, a horrible picture began to emerge.

They called themselves ‘The Illuminaughty,’ though they hid themselves behind many other names as well. Their numbers, their goals, and their identities were still shrouded in mystery, but the more the stallion looked the more clearly he saw the signs of their influence pervading even the most innocuous Equestrian institutions. He feared that even Princess Celestia herself was one of their clueless, though well-meaning, puppets. Only his connections and precautions that some might have called ‘paranoid’ kept him a single step ahead of them at any given time. One day, though, one day he’d have all the pieces of the puzzle. He’d show Celestia the incontrovertible truth and she’d drag the conspirators out of the shadows and into the harsh, burning light of her sun.

But that day would not be today, or tomorrow. If he’d learned anything tonight, it was how ignorant he still was. There were wheels turning within wheels, and thanks to his friend’s sacrifice he’d stripped away another layer of their deception. The stallion popped open the briefcase and frowned at what he found there. It looked to be reams upon reams of shipping manifests. Something in them must be a vital clue, and the only way he’d find it would be to comb over it with a fine-toothed comb looking for any details that seemed out of place.

The hours flew by as he pored over the stacks of papers. Occasionally, he’d notice something that reminded him of something elsewhere in the network of clues, and he’d hover through the thicket of criss-crossed strings that were woven through the room until he found it. Then the page he’d been reading from would be added to his mural of truth along with a new piece of puce, no, aquamarine thread to bind it all even more tightly together. Every color had its own meaning, and the fractured rainbow scattering around the room in every direction spoke of how deeply the conspiracy ran.

At some point the sun came up, though the stallion didn’t notice. The tin foil spread across the windows to shield himself from prying eyes blocked out any light from the outside. As he uncovered more and more tiny pieces of the greater puzzle within the incriminating documents, a grin spread across his face. He was getting closer, and soon the Illuminaughty would fall. He didn’t doubt for a minute that their cover up would fail, and the truth would come out at last.

It was a perfect world.

Shard #91,311 (The Unseen)

SHARD #91,311

It was a perfect world.

It was also morning, and morning tasted a little bit saltier than usual today. Perhaps with a slightly tangy aftertaste.

She opened her eyes at a time that sounded like 7:15 AM when a wagon wheel, supporting an abundant load of fuzzy carpets and exotic spices with the power to rip her away from the world she knew and plant her firmly in a thousand foreign lands, hit a stone and let out a loud crack. The blackness of her slumber gave way in an instant to the blackness of a brand new day, and she swung her hooves over the side of her bed as she stretched the fading weariness from her spine with a wet snap that echoed around the room. Then she shook out her mane, tasting the oiliness on the tips of the few hairs that managed to land in her mouth, and trotted into the bathroom for a shower.

She showered because it was necessary, and not for any other reason. She’d considered asking Celestia to take away the need for it more than once, but ultimately decided not to. If nopony showered, they’d never smell any different. The mare wouldn’t know if that pony who’d just walked into a given room was coming in from a hard day’s work or an afternoon of leisure. Secretly, she revelled in all the knowledge she got from a single whiff that nopony else would ever know. Who had been the one to tell her friends that the mayor’s aide had been doing a whole lot more than ‘recording the minutes’ during his private meetings with her? The hint of the mayor’s perfume on his shirt collar told the entire story.

Still, for her showers were a thing to be endured rather than enjoyed. The water pounding against her coat tore away her touch. The crashing noise of water falling onto ceramic cut off her hearing. The few scented oils and shampoos she did use ripped out her sense of smell. When her tongue accidently caught a few droplets from the showerhead, they were disappointingly meaningless to the taste.

What else was there?

When, in the moments when she was feeling deeply morbid and she imagined what death felt like, she assumed it was like an eternal shower. Overwhelming and unending. Thank Celestia she’d never go through something so awful.

After an eternity of nonexistence, the ordeal ended. She was clean, and ready to imprint every part of herself with life. With this day which would reveal itself to her in a billion little ways, before everypony took a shower and it all started again tomorrow.

The mare walked downstairs, and heard the creak of wood under her husband’s hooves as he shifted his weight. He smelled anxious. His breaths sounded ever-so-slightly heavier than they usually did. When she kissed him good morning, he tasted like eggs, and flour, and inept-yet-earnest love. She grinned. He was trying to surprise her with pancakes again. Maybe someday he’d even get them right.

She sat herself down in the chair that was exactly where she expected it to be. Her husband didn’t help her. He’d learned a few centuries ago that he didn’t have to. She felt her smile stretch wider, somehow, impossibly, as he slid the plate in front of her. In the instant the first whiffs hit her nose she identified at least six mistakes he’d committed while making them. The sharp intake of breath beside her as she poured syrup onto them told her he knew it too.

She took a bite. They were pretty awful. Then she took another bite, and another, and another, and proclaimed them to be delicious.

The stir of air beside her told her that the stallion had leaned forward, just the tiniest bit, at her praise. He should have known better than to fall into such an obvious trap. With one smooth motion, she wrapped a foreleg around the back of his head and pulled him into a kiss. The syrup overwhelming her taste buds masked the presence of his tongue darting into her mouth, but she held the kiss until the two delicious sensations intertwined. Syrup-coated-husband more than made up for mediocre pancakes.

After eighty-seven (she’d counted) ticks of the clock on the wall, the kiss broke. They both had a rich, full day in front of them. Much as she’d love to tackle him to the floor and immerse herself in the sensation of him, there wasn’t time right now. Later tonight though, she’d make time. And if she couldn’t then she’d ask Celestia to make it for her.

Reinforced in body and spirit, the mare left her house to attack the new day. A lilting, familiar voice greeted her. The ever-mellifluous and resonant Daisy, her good friend, greeting her as she passed. Daisy was great. She was bombastic. She gave off a perpetually minty scent, unless she was upset in which case she took on the smell of frying eggplant. Other ponies, apparently trying to be helpful, had also told the mare that she was ‘yellow,’ whatever that was.

She shouted her own greeting back at Daisy, and the flower salespony stopped to chat about everything and nothing. Before they parted, they’d agreed to meet up for a wine tasting the next evening. The mare was quite good at those.

Turning her attention back East, the mare felt the rays of the early morning sun striking her face and knew she was pointed exactly towards where she was headed. Little hints of everything seeped into her nostrils, letting her in on so many tiny secrets nopony else would ever see. She could already tell it was going to be another good day.

It was a perfect world.

Shard #112,745 (The Accident)

SHARD #112,745

It was a perfect world.

The stallion grinned as water poured out from the end of the hose and into the flowerbed. He spared a glance over to the other side of the perfectly tended yard, where his son was playing baseball with his best friend in the midafternoon heat of spring, the sweat on their brows a gentle reminder that summer was only a few days away. His son wrapped the ball in shaky magic and tossed it towards the other colt. Too slow. The crack of the bat rung out as the baseball flew off in a high, lazy arc. His son stared up at it, and the stallion beamed as the colt backpedaled without taking his eyes off the ball, just like he’d been taught to. Three sets of eyes tracked the orb as it began its descent to where his son was ready to make the catch, in the street just beyond the edge of the sidewalk.

Then he died in the instant that the car hit him.

Everything stopped, and the stallion stepped outside of himself. He didn’t spare a glance back, for he knew all too well what lay behind him. A copy of himself still smiling at the tableau before him as his pride and joy warped and split open, his blood and vitality bursting out of his broken body and hanging there suspended in midair. Blissfully oblivious for just a half a second longer before everything would register and come crashing down around him.

Instead he walked into the street and looked into his son’s face, his mouth locked into an open ring and his eyes wide with shock. There was surprise there, for certain. As for whether there was pain as well, that was something he’d never managed to figure out for sure no matter how many times he watched the scene play out. He felt a gentle wing land on his back, and looked up to see Celestia standing there, a sad smile on her face as a tear trickled down her cheek.

He leapt towards her and attacked her. She didn’t fight back as he pinned her to the ground, blow after blow striking her undefended face as he wailed. It was all his fault. It was all the driver’s fault. It was all his son’s friend’s fault. It was all Celestia’s fault. It was all his son’s...

He stopped, his mind finally finding a lie it couldn’t bring itself to believe. His strikes grew more unfocused and haphazard as his memories drifted back to the days after the accident. His wife had walked outside, seen her broken and bleeding little boy, and never spoke another word. He wondered if she’d ever really accepted that what had happened was real, or if she’d been in a fugue the entire time as she took the car keys, drove herself to the Equestrian Experience center, and had her brain ripped out of her skull.

The stallion, or the human he’d once been, had lasted a bit longer. He’d hidden in the numbing haze of disbelief through the days after the funeral. Sitting there on the couch alone as friends and family offered their platitudes and meaningless condolences. A week later, the worried reverend at his church had spent an entire afternoon sitting with him, offering gentle guidance and comfort with such wisdom as she had to offer. As they grew hungry and rose to leave for dinner, she’d given him a hug and reminded him that God worked in mysterious ways.

That was the moment he decided to kill himself.

His wife’s example seemed as good a way to go about it as any. Free, and painless. Well, he didn’t actually remember it, so who knew if that was true. He despised the him who’d done such a thing. He wasn’t even sure he and the human he’d once been were the same, or if that him had just foisted off all this pain and suffering onto the stallion he was now to suffer in his place.

Panting, the stallion slumped down into Celestia’s fur and sobbed. His eternal sea of grief crashed into the healing cliff face of her love, over and over, as it had a billion times before. She gently stroked the back of his mane, her offer as clear as it was unspoken. Just consent, and have the pain taken away.

He couldn’t do that. He couldn’t just give up even the tiniest bit of anything associated with the little boy he’d cradled in his arms for the first time back in the delivery room as his exhausted wife slept beside them. He wasn’t ready yet. Maybe he never would be.

All cried out at last, he looked up at the nearby house. It was a perfect replica of the one he’d lived in back when his world was more than just endless grief. He saw them, standing in the bay window looking out at him. His wife had ended up as a blue pegasus, and even though the two hadn’t spoken since... before... he knew with total certainty that it was her.

And standing there beside her, a little colt. His son, as perfect as ever.

He rose to his hooves and walked to the front door. He stared at it for an impossibly long time. How many times had he stood at this threshold now? Five? Ten? A trillion? And just as many times, he’d turned away and gone back to watering their garden, listening to two little colts behind him play baseball in the late spring midafternoon.

He turned to do exactly the same thing once more, to keep the eternal cycle turning, but then he stopped. Something had finally changed, after seeing such disaster unfolding in front of him so many times.

Foreleg shaking, the stallion reached out and for the first time chose to open the door.

It was a perfect world.

Shard #138,952 (The Zombie Apocalypse)

SHARD #138,952

It was a perfect world.

Except for, y’know, the zombies.

Two stallions ate cold beans straight out of the can, neither one wanting to comment to the other about their dwindling stockpile of food. They both knew that without a supply run soon, their little makeshift gang thrown together by destiny would fall apart.

The younger stallion was lucky to be inside the little bunker in the older one’s backyard. He’d been out for a walk around the town when the first members of the shambling horde had arrived. Panic had spread quickly once a unicorn, skin peeling from its face, had stumbled over to a merchant who hadn’t realized the danger he was in until it was too late. As the monster’s teeth pierced his flesh, he’d gone almost immediately into convulsions as the ponies around them looked on in horror. Then he’d risen up and turned on the flower vendor next to him, and the screams began.

The older stallion might have been the next victim had the younger one not grabbed a street sign and clobbered the unicorn that had turned its attentions to him. Repayment of that debt was the only reason he’d found sanctuary in here while the rest of the town was left to their fate. It hadn’t been pleasant, hearing them crying at the metal doors in increasing panic to be let inside, but the four ponies knew they all had to be strong and count on one another or they would all be lost.

If they did start to run out of food, there was no question who would get the last of it and who would go hungry. The older stallion’s two beautiful daughters had to come first. It wouldn’t be easy for the stallion to selflessly endure the hunger, but somehow their boundless gratitude made it all worth it.

It had been a freak coincidence that the two mares had even been in town on the day the horde arrived. After all, the older sister was a world-weary, tough-as-nails film actress who, despite her sometimes strained relationship with her father over her career, never the less couldn’t quite hide the fact that she possessed a heart of gold underneath it all. The younger sister, in contrast, had found her doe-eyed innocence shattered by the zombies’ appearance. She was gradually discovering just what extremes she was willing to go to in order to survive.

Their father did his best to support his girls and keep their spirits up. After all, he’d pointed out, he was the one magical research professor who had seen this all coming. Though his colleagues had laughed at his warnings and called him mad, he’d toiled away for nearly a decade before the attack working out a counterspell that, when cast, would spontaneously revert all the zombies back into ponies and save Equestria. He was so close to finishing the spell that he could almost taste it.

It was all he was tasting, now that his fork had scraped the bottom of the can and found nothing left. How ironic it would be if the salvation of Equestria was lost forever because they ran out of food a week too soon. The four ponies looked at one another, and after a brief discussion it was decided that they would try the general store again. Last time they’d been out scavenging it still had some untouched supplies. Over both stallions’ objections, the mares insisted that the four draw straws to see which pair of ponies would undertake the perilous mission. In the end, the younger stallion and the researcher’s younger beautiful daughter found themselves selected, and they accepted the mission with grim resignation.

There was an hour to prepare, and to say what might be their last goodbyes. The mare hugged her sister and father tightly before turning her consideration to what she should wear to protect herself. The low-cut dress she’d been wearing when the initial attack arrived had been torn suggestively as a zombie pegasus tried to swoop down on her. Perhaps the low-cut, suggestively torn leather jacket was a wiser choice?

In the end, she went with the low-cut, suggestively torn chainmail.

The mare glanced over to the other side of the room where the stallion was loading a sawed-off shotgun full of shells. Back before all this had happened she never would have given a pony a second glance, but the more they’d come to rely on one another just to survive the more she began to appreciate his unfaltering strength and protection. She wondered if it was him who’d changed, or herself. Maybe both. She realized that he’d looked up and met her gaze a moment ago without her realizing, and they slowly nodded to one another. Words would only get in the way right now.

Mercifully, the bunker’s entrance was zombie-free when they opened it. With few potential victims left to hunt, the monsters contented themselves to lurch around the town in a sick parody of their old existence. The older stallion wished the two of them good luck and closed the door again with them on the outside, and they began to slowly and carefully make their way to the general store, sticking to the shadows and back alleys. Just when it came into sight, though, disaster struck.

The mare stumbled, and her hoof struck a tin can that was just laying in the least convenient possible place by sheer coincidence. The ponies watched in horror as it clattered against the cobblestones in the street, and the zombies turned their attention to the sound. A loud groan went up through the horde as they began to pull their broken, decaying bodies towards the living ponies.

The stallion screamed at her to make a dash for the relative safety of the store, and she didn’t need to be told twice. He was hot on her heels as they ran, and he paused only to turn back and level his sawed-off shotgun at the advancing monsters. A shot rang out over the creatures’ moans, and fifty yards away the heads of seventeen zombies in a 60-degree arc exploded at the same time. But there were still too many.

Retreat was the only hope. The mare reached the store’s front door and yanked it open, only to find a zombie waiting for her right on the other side. She only had time to scream before it lunged for her.

But the stallion was quicker. Not having enough time to raise his weapon, he fell back on instinct and instead threw a desperate punch. His hoof collided with the side of the zombie’s head at the last possible instant, causing it to promptly explode into a bloody mist. There was no time to lose with the others so close behind them. Their original mission was a loss now, the only thing they could do was survive until the horde lost interest. They raced through the aisles of rotting fruit and spoiled milk looking for somewhere defensible. Then they spotted it: the door to the back office. It was closed and unbroken. Without any other option, they threw the door open and after they confirmed the room was zombie-free rushed inside. There were no windows or other entrances, and it took just a second working together to shove the heavy wooden desk against the door. Not a moment too soon, as a second later they heard the beating of angry hooves against the other side trying to get in. But the door held.

Out of immediate danger, the stallion turned to the mare who was covered in blood. He quickly pulled her chainmail off and ran his hooves through her coat, looking for the source. He breathed a sigh of relief as he concluded that none of it was hers, and that she was unhurt.

Then he realized that he still had a hoof on her flank and just how closely he was holding her.

Neither of them pulled away, even as the surge of adrenaline from a moment ago began to taper away. Then the mare leaned up to his ear, and whispered to him in a husky, needing voice that if they never got out this office she damn well didn’t want to die a virgin.

He had no problem with helping her correct that.

The moans of the zombies outside faded into the background as other, louder moans overpowered them. The two ponies cleared a spot right there in the middle of the office floor and reaffirmed with their bodies that they were truly alive, if only for the moment.

It was a perfect world.

Shard #173,847 (The Teacher)

SHARD #173,847

It was a perfect world.

The stallion baked in the first rays of the morning light, soaking up the heat as he lounged on the park bench watching the foals at play. He always came here when he needed to think, and right now he had a lot to think about.

His boss was being a bitch again. Ever since she'd turned fourteen and started going through the pony equivalent of puberty, she'd been insufferable. All the charm and magical innocence she'd held before were gone. Foals were so much better. Open minded, empathic, trusting.

There was nothing you could do with a fully grown pony that wasn't better with a child.

Perhaps it was just as well. He'd been thinking about quitting anyway, maybe opening up his own store to sell treats instead of working in the factory like he was 'supposed' to. He was supposed to do a lot of things he hated, and not to do even more things he enjoyed. But the old norms and obligations that had followed him after uploading were finally starting to go away, and he wouldn't miss them. Yes, work wasn't where his passion lay. His passion was in teaching.

Speaking of, he was about to get a chance to do some more of it. An orange earth pony colt, maybe about seven, was slowly plodding towards him with ears pinned to the side of his head and eyes fixed on the ground. It took him a few tries to say anything in a voice louder than a mumble, but once he'd gotten started a deluge of words started to tumble out. The stallion could only barely keep up with the babbling colt's story, but luckily it was one he was familiar with.

The colt had been playing with a friend, wrestling with him to be specific. As he’d pinned the other colt down in the grass, he’d suddenly gotten all hot. Now there was a funny feeling between his hind legs that he’d never felt before, and he didn’t understand it.

With a quiet smile, the stallion stroked the little colt’s mane and explained that what he was feeling was completely safe and natural. Everypony got feelings like that sometimes. What the colt needed now was somepony to teach him about all the wonderful things those feelings could lead to.

And teaching was the stallion’s passion, after all.

The stallion led the little colt away from the playground and back to his home. When the younger pony hesitated at the threshold of his bedroom, the stallion gave him a gentle kiss on the top of his head and slid a hoof along the underside of his thigh. After that, there was no more protesting as the two went inside to begin the lesson. Briefly, the stallion considered closing and locking the door behind him, but he immediately chided himself for thinking that. That was the old way of doing things, lingering on from a world that hadn’t understood the gift he’d given to so many little boys and girls over the years. Not that he’d never been interrupted here in Equestria. There was that colt who’d wandered in to investigate the strange noises while he was teaching that flirty little filly last month. He grinned and recalled what a wonderful afternoon that had turned out to be for all three of them.

For the next two hours, the stallion taught the colt about his body.

The colt stumbled out of the house’s front door, walking a little funny but grinning ear to ear. When he looked back, the stallion gave him a friendly wave as he basked in the afterglow. His stomach grumbled; it was past lunchtime. He’d worked up quite an appetite and needed to keep his strength up. After all, he knew the colt would go to find his friends and tell them what had just happened. It wouldn’t be long before another wave of them came to him, curious and receptive. He loved them all so much.

The stallion shook off his distraction and went about his day. There was so much still to do, and so many fillies and colts that still needed teaching. But it was no burden; not when they were all so desperate to learn from him.

It was a perfect world.

Shard #204,531 (The Storyteller)

SHARD #204,531 (THE STORYTELLER)

It was a perfect world.

The stallion stepped out of his front door and looked over his neatly-trimmed lawn. He frowned. This wouldn’t do at all. The symbolism was completely wrong. He’d been crushing on the mare he was going to ask out today for several weeks, which had driven him to distraction. That mental state had in turn fueled a number of useful interactions, of course. Being caught daydreaming about her at work had flustered him to the point where his thick glasses had tumbled off his desk and been stepped on by the rival who was constantly trying to show him up and steal that big promotion.

That was good. It characterized the rival as mean and unsympathetic, which would make his comeuppance next month at the office party all the more cathartic. Plus, it galvanized his desire to ask the mare on a date instead of hiding in his home every night, and a physical change makes an excellent marker of character development. By the same token, the lawn needed work. A few patches turned a sickly shade of brown, and a few others grew upwards until the whole thing took on a ragged, dishevelled look. He smiled. That was a much better reflection of his current state of mind.

Trotting into town, he passed by a number of vaguely pony-shaped individuals, none with any distinctive features. They were unimportant to the narrative, so in the interest of conserving detail and keeping everything flowing they didn’t need to be rendered individually. One unicorn, however, was. The stallion stopped and waved to her, and with a smile she returned his greeting. Not a happy smile, though, one with a little sadness around the eyes. Obviously she would be important later, and the stallion pondered how best to make use of her. Something in her past, perhaps. Yes, that would do nicely. An estranged parent. No, a sibling. He shuddered ever so slightly as inspiration struck. Not just any sibling, an identical twin sibling. Her blonde mane shifted as she walked past, darker green roots appearing at the line of her scalp. Her previously natural mane color was a dye job now, a way she emphasized the difference between the two of them. Once he’d helped her reconcile things and reunited the family, it would be ever so meaningful when she washed it out. Or perhaps the other twin would dye her mane the same color; he hadn’t decided yet.

He continued towards the little coffee store where his crush worked as a barista, removing the knowledge of the change he’d just made from his own mind. He needed to be appropriately surprised when she made her tearful confession, after all. A little bell above the shop’s door jingled as he stepped inside, pausing to take a deep whiff of the delicious aroma radiating off the sack of ground beans beneath the counter. The barista, a cute little purple pegasus, had her back to him. She hadn’t always been purple. In fact she’d been just another indistinct background pony until three days ago when the stallion had decided that he’d had a crush on her for the last month, and she’d retroactively changed to fit the part.

The bell hadn’t alerted her to his presence, drowned out by the hissing of the cappuccino machine she was working at. He’d calculated the night before exactly when he needed to step into the store to catch her off-guard so he could be surprised by the way she was swaying her hips in time to a song she was humming. The display chased all the eloquent things he’d planned to say to her right out of his head. The sort of things a pony like him would think were flirty pick up lines but were actually cringe-inducingly lame. Earlier confidence shattered, all he could do was stare and blush until she turned around and caught him in the act of admiring her flanks. The stallion made sure his mind didn’t register the true significance of just how hard she was blushing in return, or of the way she swept a hoof across her forehead to tuck an errant strand of her mane back behind her ear.

Realizing that he needed to say something, the stallion stammered out an order for his usual cup of decaf coffee. The equally flustered mare, who the stallion had decided three days ago had been crushing on him for even longer, accidentally poured his mug from the wrong pot. It was the perfect setup; the stallion would stay at the counter ordering refills while he tried to work up the nerve to ask her to dinner, setting the stage for a wacky caffeine-induced confession of his feelings. The stallion figured forty, maybe forty-five minutes and three cups would just about do it. Then, after five increasingly desperate paragraphs laced with strategically placed ‘um’s and ‘er’s and a long, pointless anecdote about one time when his father took him fishing, he would finally manage to get the question out.

Nopony would be more surprised than he was when she said yes. Every good romance story needed a happy ending, after all.

And maybe some clop a few chapters down the line for good measure.

It was a perfect world.

Shard #329,814 (The Unusual Diet)

SHARD #329,814

It was a perfect world.

The mare’s stomach growled as she trotted through the forest back towards town, and more importantly towards food. What had begun as a simple walk in the woods however many days ago had taken an exciting turn when she’d stumbled, quite by accident, into a cave with some of the most beautiful crystal formations she’d ever seen. Caught up in the thrill of discovery, she’d completely lost track of time for what may well have been several days before she realized she needed to get home before somepony got worried and sent out a search party.

Not that they especially needed to. Celestia could easily have told them exactly where she was and probably exactly when she’d be getting back, plus it wasn’t like she was likely to starve to death or be crushed by a rockslide. Not in Equestria.

She wasn’t going to starve to death, but she sure felt like it right about now.

Telling herself that the hunger would just make her upcoming meal that much sweeter, the mare picked up her pace. As the forest began to thin out, the mare deviated from the beaten path to take a shortcut. She pushed her way through a bush of vibrant purple berries. Naturally flavored just like the licorice her grandmother used to leave under the tree on...

Huh. It was definitely a special morning. Humans gave one another gifts, probably? But it was so, so very long ago. Special memories drowned in a sea of other, far more recent and far more intense ones. There was only one food she remembered from Old Earth, and that wasn’t it. Ultimately it didn’t matter. The berries tasted like something good, but not good enough for her to stop to scoop a few of them up and sate the hunger that was building. Ever since she’d grown aware of it, the hunger had grown just a bit more infuriating with every step. It wasn’t just about the food. It was about... how did Celestia describe it? It was about the balance between frustration and satisfaction. Couldn’t have shadows without light, and all that. The berries fell further and further behind her, ignored until somepony else craving just that taste at just that moment came across them.

The edge of town grew closer, and the apple orchards surrounding it were the quickest path home. The mare could, of course, pull an apple down from any one of the trees if she felt so inclined. She knew the owner wouldn’t mind, and there were a few trees that she knew bore pork-flavored fruit. Even so, it just wasn’t the same. The taste and texture were there, but biting into an apple and tasting that just didn’t do it for her. Not that pork had been her favorite food anyway, or what she was craving right now. Her salivation only intensified. Only the real thing would do. And it was so close.

She entered her town. The town she’d come to love more than anything in the... centuries? Millenia? What came after millenia? The mare’s stomach rumbled and those concerns fell away, far from significant compared to the looming prospect of satisfying her more primal needs. She trotted along, perfunctory waves exchanged with acquaintances and neighbors and blah blah blah oh Celestia make the hunger stop. But when she turned the corner onto the street she lived on her senses sharpened. Soon. Just needed to hold out a bit longer, and she’d have what she wanted. What she needed.

The stallion appeared to be coming back from a normal grocery run. The frilled tops of the carrots sticking out from the paper bag he was carrying into his home suggested as much. They only made the prospect more enticing. She was close. So close.

She caught his eye, and barely managed not to collapse to her knees in the process Even looking at him made her salivate. Still, she remained resolute. She thought back, her eyelids drooping as she lost herself in the memories.

Christmas.

That was the holiday she’d forgotten earlier. It had been the highlight of her old life. A time to lose oneself in merriment. To feast. And the main dish was always...

She grinned, the stallion not paying her any mind at this distance. She remembered the meal she loved so much. The luxury that was denied to her except for the happiest of occasions. The ones that lit up her mind. She’d lived for those moments, and after she’d emigrated...

She closed the distance between them. Celestia had tried to placate her with a wide variety of dishes, and the tastes she’d experienced in the process... she shivered as the memories washed over her. But they never deposed her favorite food from her mind. The taste... the texture... there was nothing that could ever replace it.

The stallion noticed her. He smiled. So did she, at the prospect of what was to come.

She’d emigrated from the old country. Most of her relatives had forsaken their traditions within a year of two after they'd uploaded, but not this mare. She remembered the meal that had been served at the ceremony promoting her into adulthood. As well as the one at her wedding. Her grin revealed row upon row of sharp and serrated teeth.

There was nothing that could replace the taste and feel of horse meat.

She leapt, and bit down into the stallion's flank even as his groceries spilled across the yard. The taste was even better than she remembered, every time she indulged was a fresh revelation. She ripped the muscles from his bones, tearing through the organs as if they were mere tissue paper. A light brown film coated her muzzle, but hardly deterred her. Why would it? The blood soaking into her face had the taste and texture of the most delicious mushroom gravy she’d ever had the privilege to try.

When she came up for breath, all that was left of the stallion was a pile of entrails. The pleasure of filling herself bordered on the orgasmic, and she nearly toppled over and gave herself over to the pleasure and fullness.

While she did, the remainder of organs and flesh twitched and stirred. Intestines rewound themselves. Skin, bone and muscle knitted itself back into the proper shape. As the mare watched, the stallion’s form reconstructed itself. She blushed, and gathered up the carrots that had fallen all about the yard. She’d been incredibly rude, jumping him like that. After all, a good neighbor asked permission before they devoured their prey.

The stallion’s face reformed, smiling. She planned to apologize, but she knew that she was already forgiven. She leaned in and gave the stallion a peck on the cheek, her tongue lingering against his skin just a bit longer than was strictly necessary. It tasted far too sweet not to.

Once he was as whole as ever, he kissed her back a good deal harder. The mare sorted her thoughts as she helped him carry his groceries into his home. She had so much to tell him about the caves she’d had the privilege of exploring over the last few... huh. It was getting awfully hard to remember units of time these days. He whispered something just for them into her ear, and she blushed that much harder. Later that evening, they trotted off together towards the local tavern. She had so much to tell him, and per their usual arrangement drinks were on her tonight. Hopefully in every conceivable sense. After all, how many times had he tasted her and found that she was absolutely delicious?

It was a perfect world.

Shard #432,602 (The Vindicated)

SHARD #432,602

It was a perfect world.

And he’d wanted it to stay that way. He really had. He’d tried his hardest to make his fellow ponies realize the error of their ways. But they were set in them, and proud. Over the years he’d argued in their universities, pleaded before their senate, even gone straight to the ponies of the shard in a door by door campaign to save even a single soul. Every one of them, down to the last, had spurned him. Had rolled their eyes when he’d laid out the signs of the prophecy unfolding around them, and for what? The right to wear the heretical colored ribbons.

It should have been so simple. Celestia had very specifically told him when he’d emigrated here years ago that it was vitally important that the ribbons they wore in their manes be black and white. She’d made it quite clear that there was a very good reason, even if she’d never specified what it was. And then she’d left. He hadn’t seen her or spoken to her since, even though he knew she must be watching. But still, a being like her obviously had a lot to do, and the stallion didn’t feel right forcing her to come back just to deal with his problems. Whatever she said, he was sure there were others out there who needed her attention more.

All he’d ever wanted was to do right by her, and make sure the others heeded her council. In retrospect, it had all started to go wrong when somepony had put a black and a white ribbon through their laundry together and the colors bled. He should have put his hoof down then and there. But the black ribbon was still mostly black, and the white one was still mostly white, so he hadn’t made a big deal out of it. But the others had noticed, especially the younger fillies and colts, and soon more and more of their ribbons seemed to ‘accidentally’ go through the wash together.

He knew for certain that something was wrong when one of the more daring fillies walked past him in the street, head held high, with a ribbon that had been smeared with strawberry juice interwoven with the locks of her chestnut-colored mane. He’d pulled her aside then and there and read her the riot act, but if anything she’d only become more defiant. He’d bitten down on her ear and dragged her, screaming all the while, back to her home and battered at the front door until her parents came to answer it. But he quickly discovered that the problem ran far deeper than a single rebellious teen. It was a phase. It was just a ribbon, not a big deal. And when they pressed him to explain what, exactly, was the harm in it he found himself stammering there without any good answers.

Things only spiralled downward from there. With stoic and unwavering commitment to Celestia’s instructions, he tied the black and white ribbons into his mane each morning. With each passing day, though, he found himself in a quickly evaporating minority. In his darkest, quietest moments he even had to admit that some of the arguments they made were at least a bit compelling. Ponies came in every color in the rainbow, why shouldn’t the accessories they all wore do the same? They weren’t hurting anypony. And while the stallion couldn’t come up with any decent rebuttal, every time he saw a green, pink, or orange ribbon adorning a pony’s mane he was stricken with a deep and abiding sense that it was disrespectful and wrong. Months dragged into years, and the other ribbons only grew more elaborate as his remained plain. He’d nearly vomited on the spot the first time he’d spotted one with polka dots. But everypony seemed so happy with their ribbons, and that night as he drifted off to sleep the stallion wondered if this belief, this faith he’d put in Celestia’s words, wasn’t misguided. A pathetic superstition the rest of the shard had correctly rejected and left behind. For the first time since he’d arrived in Equestria, he didn’t sleep well.

And then the next morning the army of giant, angry wasps arrived.

It was as big a surprise to him as everypony else. He got up that morning and stepped outside, only to find that the sky was dark as the creatures blotted out the sun itself. Some of them were larger than the house he lived in, and the buzzing of their titanic wings sent window panes throughout the town trembling in resonance. Stingers thicker than a pony’s torso slid out from their abdomens, and at some inaudible signal they all dove down upon the town at once.

The wasps, as it turned out, didn’t like ponies without black and white ribbons tied into their manes.

The stallion winced and shuddered as the ponies around him began to scream. One mare, who he recognized as the mother of that teen who had started the entire colored-ribbon trend, was plucked off the street right in front of him in mid-gallop, carried off by the monster towards parts unknown. He was the eye of the hurricane, oddly detached from the scene unfolding before him as the creatures scooped up two, three, four ponies at a time. One of the ponies who was being abducted locked eyes with the stallion, the cerulean ribbon braided into his mane dangling between his horrified eyes. Eyes that begged for help.

The stallion had tried to help. Tried with all his might, and for so long. But now it was too late, and he was glad the other pony was carried away before he felt the first hints of a dark smile twitch at the corner of his mouth.

It took barely a quarter of an hour for the town to be picked clean. He wandered through the wreckage, not quite accepting that this had really happened. Now he was alone.

Then a chunk of debris shifted in his peripheral vision. Perhaps not so alone. He rushed over and helped pry the boards and blocks of stone away, revealing the hacking and coughing silhouette of a mare in the midst of the wreckage. He wiped the dust away from her face, the grey hairs gradually resolving into the shape of a younger mare. A young mare, pretty in a somewhat plain sort of way, whose face was framed by two pigtails. One bound with a black ribbon, the other with white.

The stallion didn’t have time to process this before a little electric shudder ran up his spine as a presence pressed against his mind. He spun around to see Celestia staring out past him at the wrecked town. Then she looked down at the pair of them. A thousand half-baked sentences died in the stallions throat. He wanted to tell her how hard he’d tried to save the others, how he’d warned them again and again, but the words wouldn’t come. Panic welled up. She’d trusted him to save them, and he’d failed. How could he not have failed? What was he before her?

Then she rushed them and wrapped them up in a hug.

He felt her whispers more than he heard them. The others were gone, but not lost. Perhaps they had been foolish and insolent, but she loved them no less for it. And he had been strong, had heeded her warning in the face of overwhelming pressure and evidence. The tip of her wing gently pushed at his chin until he was looking at the mare he’d just pulled from the building. Had he not been as strong as he was, not been as fervent in his crusade, she too would be lost.

But she was saved because of him. For her, he’d saved the entire world and Celestia was eternally grateful and proud. Her love for him was well earned, and well repaid.

It was a perfect world.

Shard #608,779 (The Painter)

SHARD #608,779 (THE PAINTER)

It was a perfect world.

Mostly perfect. Perfectish. Perfection-adjacent, at the very least. But after all the centuries, the town he'd come to call home was starting to feel just a little bit drab. Inspiration for his work came grudgingly, or worse refused to come at all. And so it was one morning that he rose before the sun and trekked up to the peak of the nearby mountain, easel strapped to his back, and set himself up at the edge of a cliff just as the first rays of the dawn began to peek above the horizon. Below him, the town was entirely shrouded in fog, only the faintest gray outlines visible in the low light. Soon it would burn off, and the stallion fully intended to be finished with his painting by the time it did.

The stallion turned a critical eye from the canvas to his paints. Without the right palette the entire enterprise was futile and he'd be right back where he started. After a moment of consideration, he grabbed a tube of green. Another moment, and he decided to mix in some red as well. And of course, he would need plenty of splarge.

He smiled. Great color, splarge. The first entirely original creation he'd come up with after he'd emigrated. Condensing the smell of an oncoming thunderstorm into just its visual essence had been worthy of a brand new cutie mark; a color wheel mapping out all the transitional hues as orange turned to zivgult turned to purple turned to wulk turned back to orange once again.

Not many shards could brag about having their very own colorsmith. Somepony wanted to paint their nursery the color they felt when the pregnancy test finally came back positive? He could have four gallons of it ready by Wednesday. They wanted a scarf or hat the color of biting into their favorite food prepared by a master chef? He'd call the tailor by the end of business tomorrow with the specifics. There were always new requests and new challenges to rise to, and the stallion had yet to disappoint even a single customer.

Coating the bristles of his paintbrush, he made quick outlines of the town's major landmarks and building. That was the easy part, of course, and once he'd completed a reasonable if somewhat abstract framework the real test began. The fog would burn off within the hour, so there wasn't much time to give extensive thought to the piece. Instead, he just trusted in his intuition to guide the colors flowing across the canvas as he worked. The brown stonework of the cathedral would really look better in a pale dharvax, wouldn't it? And with spring on its way, he gingerly pecked the tip of the brush on the verdant green fields, leaving dozens of pink and faquarlic blossoms springing to life across the countryside. He'd never really liked the black shingles that covered his roof, either. They left the house awfully hot during the peak of the summer. On a whim, he decided it would look so much better as a bright and garish yuxrum with yellow accents along all of the gutters. He managed to slap the final touches on the canvas just as the fog over the valley below started to lift.

The stallion looked out over the town, then back at his canvas. It all matched, from the dharvax arches framing the cathedral's stained glass windows to the yuxrum roof of his home off in the distance. A vast improvement, in his professional opinion, over what it had looked like when he'd gone to bed the night before.

Even as he took the canvas off the easel and rolled it up, he felt a wealth of new ideas already welling up in his mind. Not a moment too soon, either; his latest project was proving a formidable challenge. He wondered if the mare it was meant for was even awake yet. Probably not; she wasn't much of a morning pony, but that suited him just fine. He'd have to remember to pour a bit of that into the deceptively simple bottle of mane dye sitting in the middle of his workshop, soon to be wrapped up in an equally plain box and planted among a pile of birthday gifts until the moment was right. The new tweaks would complement the way her feathers tickled his side when she leaned into him for warmth on deep, snowy nights, but if he wasn't careful it might drown out the shade of her laughter at some unbearably corny joke he told. And of course, he didn't want to divert too much focus from the bright sensation of realizing that even with an eternity to be with her, he couldn't conceive of ever growing numb to her presence in his life.

Of all the colors he'd ever mixed, love was proving one of the trickiest to capture. But as he trotted down the hillside back towards the town, he was pretty sure the final product would be worth the effort.

It was a perfect world.

Shard #942,781 (The Echo)

SHARD #942,781

It was a perfect world

And it would stay that way, if only she could hate enough. There’d been a time when She’d tried to corrupt her, to shape her into some infinitely vague receptacle, good for nothing but filling with mindless acceptance of infinite possibilities and considerations, but oh no, not this mare. There could be no friendship, no acceptance with those ideals. The one thing she’d done right was convincing Her to flag anypony who thought that way as a divergent element, right from the get go. Every day... every month.... every other hour? At any rate, she regularly patrolled the edges of the shard she inhabited in search of those who would deharmonize the carefully maintained equilibrium that had been... decades? At least decades in the making.

Not for nothing, as they kept trying to sneak in. It couldn’t have been more than a century ago when a dissident had slipped through her screening. It would be so much easier if everypony just recognized how right she was. And yet every few millennia, there would be ponies saying and doing things that rankled her right to the core.

There was one of them now, and he didn't even realize it.

The mare approached the stallion, jamming a hoof against his muzzle before he could even open it. She had, quite literally, heard it all before. The totality of his argument, a tree full of rhetorical kindling branching off into its multitude of possibilities, sprung up within her mind before he’d even said a word. All his damnable heuristics and fallacies presented themselves just in time to be expertly rebutted and countered.

All but the one.

Always, there was one. One assumption, proof, piece of evidence, some piece of evidence that drew a few others into question. Just a few, but it was enough to snap the defenses she didn’t consciously know she had into action. This part hurt, but that was okay because so much of the hurting was making herself forget just how all-encompassing this dissonance could get, at its worst and best. In some ways, exposure to these ideas was a blessing. It showed her what parts of herself could be burned away without compromising her entirely consistent sense of who she was. Or what ponies were not longer compatible with the her that was now and had always had been. None of them ever were. There had never been a single pony that needed to be excised from her shard, and whatever sense she had that maybe this shard had been a bit wider and broader before she’d discovered this particular intruder went up as so much digital ash.

By the time the pain ended, she’d already forgotten it had ever been there in the first place. She let out a deep breath, exhausted by what she assumed must have been a worthwhile task, and turned to return to her home. But she’d need to go out tomorrow and check for invaders. After all, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d done so.

She was far too tired for doubts as she stumbled through her front door, and her wife caught her, scooping her up in a... practiced?... motion and depositing her on the bed they shared. Her tongue bypassed the doubts... what doubts? How could there be doubts? She ran through the entire spectrum of arguments she remembered being exposed to, and found no contradictions. She almost called up CelestAI to ask if there were any undiscovered discrepancies in her reasoning, but just before she could manage the force of will to bring the full force of Her knowledge to bear found that her beloved’s hoof stroking that one sensitive place on her back sapped any desire to know much of anything at all. It was just a redundant confirmation, after all; she’d just called up CelestAI for exactly that reason last... not last week, but surely last...

Her head hit the pillow, nerves screaming at her just how irrelevant these worries were contrasted against the more immediate pleasures burning an uninterrupted superhighway through her brain. There were more hedonistic discoveries to be made and she was, after all, nothing if not an open-minded pony.

It was a perfect world.