Have you ever looked into your family history? Even skimmed it? Usually there's nothing too weird, a great uncle who served on the other side of a war, a grandmother who took a minotaur for a mate. Maybe a few writers, or “writers”. But what you never expect, or at least what I never expected was, well, myself. And I don't just mean my great-something granny looked kinda like me with a different muzzle. I mean me. Holding a sign that said “Hi me. Weird right? “ in my own hornwriting.

I have to say. Bit of a crisis right then. Some crying, ice cream, definitely some cuddling with my old stuffed toy and/or the Mrs . Though the latter would have happened rain or shine. But eventually I reached the point that I could look at the rest of her albums and records, and that's where things get really strange. Beyond just seeing yourself, imagine seeing your younger self.

Duh you might say, all pictures are from a younger you. That's how recording works, in all it's forms. To which: yeah you're right, but imagine baby pictures of you, but they were taken a few decades before you were born. That's pretty much my new definition of weird, and normal now that I think about it.

Cool. OK. My life is some weird time thing. Easy to deal with. My past lives, or past selves, or just me’s maybe? I dunno how to refer to… Us I guess. Long story short, there's a journal; or a collection of them. Covers all the important stuff, I suppose, like “what the hell?” or “what's our favorite color from puberty?” (amethyst. It's always amethyst) and the apparently most commonly thought of question “AAAAAAAHHHHHHH ” which spoke to me on a very real level. Maybe it was the prose.

So yay, I'm a running time anomaly. Every few decades, there's a me. Looks acts thinks and dances like me, with no memory of past events or future happenings. Unrelated to my specific case, there's even a crown-funded support group for situations like mine. Though it's much more generalized to include “I froze myself in a block of ice to retain my beauty forever” or the recent surge of refugees from the Crystal Empire. Still, my line apparently has some crazy long history with them, so that's cool. The coffee and snacks they serve are great, they come from this bakery owned by one if the members, she works from that bakery on hackam- wait no, getting off track.

My life, weird but normal in its own way. Not unique, but pretty rare. Nothing world ending. Except it kinda might be world ending. See, myselves in all of their adventures and lives, always seem to have a few weird things in common. Aside from the obvious anyway. They're always around when something big happened. Not always a cause or even involved at all, but always a witness. One of two. And by the Seven, I mean all of the major events. From Heartswarming to the first changeling war, even less important events, like we somehow end up at every single Grand Galloping Gala. Even if we're not invited, we end up there. As staff, performers, at least once as a janitor that just showed up too early to her shift. Anyway, so the recurring theme here is that life likes us to party, and life likes to take a huge shit on us at least once in our lives. From war and famine to plague and death.

Then there's the Seconds. So named for being the “Second of Two” that we are One of. Mare, when I first heard the name I was like “c'mon, that's the best they could come up with? Not even something cool like “the society” or I dunno, maybe even their family name?” but hey, turns out they call us the Seconds same as us. We always find our counterpart, though sometimes we don't Know about this whole deal until we'll after life has taken its path, and sometimes even then we never learn. Going by the entries into that journal, it's about 70% of the pairs don't know till way past what our lovely little catalogers have dubbed “the Flip” that aforementioned life-shit moment we observe.

A Flip is a point in time that some part of the universe flips the table and then proceeds to keep playing the game in the aftermath. Or conversely, when the universe flips a coin to see who gets fucked more. Either way, we see it. Us and Them, every time. Sometimes we've been the direct cause of it, as sometimes we just happen to be on the right road to watch the beginning moves unfold.

But really, why do I have to care what this weird anomaly says, I'm my own creature, not some plaything of fate destined to see some world altering bagel be made or some shit.

I'm me, no one else. I'm not her other side. I'm going to buck this chain, I'm going to be myself, be a rebel. Live a safe life. Never going to meet my so called Second. Fuck her.

Fuck Her.

I'm me.

I'M ME!

I'm Me.

right?

Author's Note

Sorry it's been so long.
Sorry I've been away.
So maybe this little song.
Will make it all OK.

Exposition dump kinda. But one that I hope makes sense. The mystery is fun, but sometimes I just need to end somewhere to see the start.