Starting from the background.

~~Thorsday, 14-30, 61°00'43"N 28°24'00"E, South Karelia~~

One of the undeniable benefits of the civilisation is the ability to track the time. One of the downsides of that in our modern age is that when someone decides to go on the calendar, he the life of all of the poor IT staff, who need to work overtime to compensate for inevitable system crash. Good thing is that we had a week to prepare for our very first Marsday, yet the sheer amount of recoding, reconfiguring and rechecking over that week was exactly what had put me into three days long sleep. And that is with some unknown force of voodoo making most of the work for us.

I suppose, by now full introduction is overdue - at least, that was what's Strict demanded, when we settled into slow, but still much faster, than walking, glide right above the road. Can't blame him, really, all he was going by was some scrapes he got while the merge was still underway, and that was the memories of the last week, he was mostly unable to understand it.

My full name is Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin (yes, just like that one and no, not related to that one). I'm 32 years old, live with my parents in a small town not far from Moscow, work as a software designer, tend to spend most of my time online. The last part is the reason, that while I hadn't really watched the pony show up until last Friday, I most certainly knew about it, and did a little research on the overactive fandom it created. To be honest, I was preparing to get into it for quite a while - and yes, I really do things like preparing for an obsession, especially the one I have reasons to believe to be inevitable. I like to be prepared for anything, so I may have a contingency plan for things you won't expect - like a sudden invasion of the Ruinous Powers, or rock-skiing in Antarctica (note to self - the last one needs to be reworked to account for the hooves). One of the downsides of it is that people think I can't get excited about anything - and the truth of it is one of the main downs of my life, another one being my tendency to be well informed and willing to share the knowledge. But that (aside from people around always trying to use me as an avatar of Google) was not that bad, until a certain throne room door accessory with a bag of state secrets decided, that it's the quality I deserve death for.

"Sounds pretty boring," commented Strict, when I finished telling him the story of my life. "And you don't sound too happy about it either. What's with that?"

"Yes, my life is mostly boring, and I spend a lot of my time trying to keep it that way," my answer wasn't very excited either. "So thanks for making it a bit more fun, I guess."

"I can't even tell if you are serious about it. After your freakouts with the heights and the bear, I'm really surprised, how calm you are right now and that you don't even think about getting back home. I can't imagine myself being this calm in your place, and I have been trained for emergencies for my entire life."

"Oh, very serious. You gave me something I'll never let myself to have, and did it in a way I can't get rid of it, as I would normally. It's the only thing I really enjoy, so I'm very grateful."

"And what's that?" asks Strict with interest.

"Thanks to you, my life got something in it that don't make sense, for once. There is no fun in making sense, you know, yet that's what I'm good at."

Minutes passed in silence. I couldn't see his face, but I could feel the shock I had put him in. Strange, considering I hadn't said anything remotely shocking. Then, very carefully, with a hint of dread and a hefty dose of suspicion in his voice, he asked: "Could you repeat the last one, please?"

"Which one? About no fun in making sense? Why?"

"Because I know one person in the world, that liked to use exactly that phrase. The person, that tops the very short list of the ones I'm supposed to attempt to kill on sight," now, there were more dread in his voice, mixed with grim resolve to do what needs to be done. "You are Discord, aren't you?"

"Dis...who? I do remember that name mentioned, but I've attempted to avoid spoilers. That's some kind of villain, right?" Looks like I did it again - I tend to unconsciously pick up quotes from random places and then use them as if it's my own thoughts. Very embarrassing when someone gets the origin before myself, but in our world, where you can't get any respect for your smarts without quoting someone constantly, helps to maintain the intelligent facade. Never attracted murderous pegasi before, though.

"Spirit of chaos and disharmony, previous ruler of Equestria. But you should know, since it's you."

"As fun dude, as he sounds in your description, sadly, that's someone else. You've met him before?"

"Once. When he attempted to regain his throne several month ago, he pulled some 'pranks' on the entire Guard before he was defeated by the Elements of Harmony," Strict paused, then sighed. He loves sighing, it seems. "Fine, fine, you are not him. You are too stupid and you can be scared."

I stifled a yawn and asked: "I suppose then, that Discord guy is smart and fearless?"

"He's immortal master of chaos. The only thing strong enough to stand against him is the Elements of Harmony, and even the Elements don't kill him," yet another sigh, accompanied by yet another yawn. "What is there for him to fear? As for the intellect part, he is considered one of the smartest known beings. No offence, but you don't look even like a someone in a top million."

"Yawn. Well, that was rude and I now officially hate you. Also, thanks for the information, I think this... yawn... the hell?" Constant yawning was starting to get annoying. Maire, who started our travel soaring high above us, also slowly descended to our level and looked pretty tired.

"Look's like our nap-time is overdue," commented Strict, observing her behaviour. "Oh, right, you don't know. Us pegasi are not really built for stamina. We are more of a burst type, you know, unlimited power one second, total exhaustion the other. Even those who train, like me, can't go through the entire day of flying without taking a nap or two to let magic to recharge. Nothing too long, but if you don't want to fall asleep in-flight, you'll need to land pretty soon."

The road we followed had rolled among the late autumn farmlands, so it took only a few moments to locate several huge hay bales, left on the field for some reason. The top of the round bale was just enough to accommodate one small pony with a certain amount of comfort - not that I gave a damn about comfort at the moment, it seems, that when pegasus need his nap, he can fall asleep on nails without much trouble. Maire, moving much faster, than I had allowed myself to, landed on one of the bales and was sound asleep even before her wings folded. I, personally, blacked out the moment my hooves touched the hay.

The next second I stood at the same point in the library I left several hours ago. Strict was nearby, looking at something behind the shelves to the right. The sheer horror on his face was something I wasn't willing to see in my own dreams. Deciding to see for myself, what's wrong, I stepped to him, and fell flat on my face, tumbling over my own feet. After half of a day of walking on four, that was probably to be expected. Not bothering to regain an upright position, I crawled to the shelf edge and peeked around.

As it appeared, the library was not as infinite, as I assumed it to be, at least, in that direction. Few more rows of shelves further there was a wall - thick stone wall, composed of large boulders. "Was" is the key word here, as something managed to blow a huge hole in it, collapsing the closest shelf under a boulder, the next one leaning on it's remains. Beyond the wall there was a big green lawn, nicely trimmed and with a statue of an armored man riding a winged horse in it's center. On the other side of the lawn stood a three-story high hi-tech building, glittering in all of the polished glory of metal and glass. All of it, except a sizable hole in a place of a window on a second floor. In front of the building, there was a line of short wooden poles, sticking from the ground, and connected with strips of yellow "Do not cross!" tape.

"...the hell?" was all I was able to ask, looking at all of that nonsense. Strict looked at me, his left eyelid dangerously twitching, and I attempted to clarify. "What's happened here?"

"That is... over there," stuttered the terrified pegasus, pointing at the hi-tech building, "that's me."

"What do you mean that's you?"

"It's written right there!" again, he pointed his hoof, but this time I've noticed, that he meant to point out not the building itself, but what looked like an entrance - a set of big sliding doors with a sign above. Unfortunately, the symbols on it wasn't even remotely resembling letters from any language I've ever seen.

"Are you sure that's what's written over there?"

"Are you illiterate or what?" at least part of his fear was suddenly replaced by anger. "It says 'Locked Script' in plain Equestrian!"

"Says someone, who introduced himself as Strictly Classified," I knew, that he lied that time, but was sure, that his real name was of our least concerns that time, or mattered to someone except himself at all. "And if it wasn't that obvious, I most certainly can't read plain Equestrian."

"I... You... can you pretend I hadn't said that? Please?" Strict, or, rather, Script's face reddened despite all the fur in a look of utter embarrassment. "It may not look important to you, but there are rules about that."

"Sure, you can go by any name you like. I keep my full name hidden all the time. Actually..." I crawled through the hole and looked at the library from the outside. As I expected, from the outside it looked like an old library, with decorative columns, statues and all that. It was three story tall, and above the entrance there was my name, written in big, fancy blackened metal letters. Unlike Script's building, this one had no signs to keep out, in fact, the door was open and welcoming anyone. Both buildings encircled the lawn from one of the sides and were connected by one of the walls.

"Well, I may be stupid, if you are any expert, but it doesn't take Einstein to get the symbols here," I admired the scenery once more and crawled back inside, where Strict (if he want's to be called that, I'll humor him) was still sitting near the boulder visibly nervous and embarrassed. "You get some ultra-modern datacenter to represent your mind, I got a dusty old library for mine. I can live with that, even if it's more logical in reverse. But who and why is shooting something from your mind into mine? Is it something symbolic, or an indication of brain damage?"

"I don't know. I did find what had caused all that, though," answered Strict, "but I have no idea, what is that."

The item in question was peacefully lying near the boulder, and with no visible damage, despite it had smashed through the thick window glass, demolished even thicker rock wall and drilled the hole through one of the rocks in the process. It also poked through a small paperback book, which somehow stopped it's progress. I hadn't ever seen a hard drive that resilient. The mobile rack box it was packed into didn't had a scratch on it. The book, on the other hand, was pretty much ruined. The title on the book explained one mystery, the label on the box - another. Both explanation combined was something I'd rather miss. The book title was "Bipeds: Keeping your balance." The label on the rack read "Pegasi locomotion for dodos". Further experiments had proven, that my ability to stand upright unassisted was indeed ruined with the book. Every attempt to dislodge the drive from the book was unsuccessful as well, it seemed like someone glued the rack inside the hole.

"Damn, I was bad at it as it is," I sighed, putting the book on the shelf and observing the boulders slowly crawling towards the hole in the wall. "Now if we'll ever fix this, I'll have to learn to walk again."

"You mean you know what is this?" Strict raised the brow in disbelief.

"I have a good guess. Those books around is a visual representation of my mind. This hard drive is a part of the same for yours. And the hole is the representation of how your expertise in moving around has overwritten mine. It seems that strong enough emotion can break through whatever 'defence' you had put up against the merge."

"You mean the merge is still happening?" now, Strict was back to the concerned state.

"I mean that if something scares me enough to require some of your expertise, we merge a bit. In a way I don't really like." I made an attempt to sound concerned, but was interrupted by a familiar feeling. I nearly heard the pieces of a puzzle clicking into places. It felt like a preliminary one, but given the circumstances that was much better, than nothing. The floor of the library shuddered a bit. The armored pegasus springed on his feet, looking around for a threat, and giving me suspicious stares. The latter I could understand - at such moments I tend to scare little kids with my notoriously blank look

"What was that?" asked Strict, when the tremors of the building receded.

"That was me making some sense. Not a lot of it, but for now we'll have to roll with it. Sorry for the quakes, it looks like my brains going full on looks like that from here," I sighed and sat more comfortably, leaning on a huge book. "I don't know about the nature of your 'measures', but from what little we can see around here, I may only assume, that it doesn't really stops the merge, it moves it's beginning to a later date. And that is really, really bad, unless we can solve our little problem very soon."

"Why?" pegasus sat across me, looking puzzled.

"Because it doesn't move the final date. The merge will happen by that date in any case."

"And that's bad, because...?"

"Look at this book here. This is the merge while it happened in a moment. I now possess a significant portion of your knowledge about moving in your body, probably, all there is. That explains my sudden ability to walk and fly with no need to learn. But  at the same time my own knowledge on how to move my own body is lost, most likely - with no way to restore it short of the way I got it in the first place. If we'll separate immediately, I wouldn't know how to walk. Now imagine the results of your entire knowledge colliding with mine the same way. It will either drive us both insane, produce some terrible abomination of a mind, or simply kill us instantly, which in this situation is the way I will prefer it. I don't know what is causing this, but for us to have any hope in surviving it all you'll need to restart the merge soon. If my calculations are correct, you have about four days to do it."

While Strict was busy digesting our new situation, the shelves around us slowly dissolved and were replaced with the harsh and poorly lit reality of early northern evening. It was starting to rain. A significant part of the bale I slept on was missing, my dry throat and a terrible aftertaste in my mouth giving a thick hint on where it went.