The Multiverse is vast, so vast that it's mere vastness of it's hugeness is beyond the comprehension of mortal beings. It's millions of branches, each containing hundreds of millions of universes defy convention and logic. The whole situation is so incomprehensible that most beings, especially in the more rigorously scientific universes tend to ignore the existence of universes beyond their own. However, even in the most scientific of universes, one can still if they look hard enough find evidence of other less boring worlds. For the intrepid explorer-- the type who isn't afraid to seek out stories scribbled on the stall doors of bus stations or the private diaries of pony princesses, the Multiverse in all its glory awaits.
Sometimes, however one can hear these stories without having to dig through the remains of some vagrant's sponge bath, or risking banishment to some heavenly body. Of course, being friends with the storyteller can be of much assistance in this matter. For while the type of writer who sees bus station stall doors as an acceptable canvas may be talk to anyone, what parts of their story actually came from another universe, and which are merely the result of Thunderbird would tax even the most studious scholars of the Multiverse.
Somewhere out in the Multiverse, on one of the branches in which the primary evolutionary pressures favored cuteness above more pressing needs such as camouflage, a group of friends were on a train. The train like the friends themselves also favored form over function, having been decorated like the desserts so favored by the species occupying it. Inside in a private car, owned by the before mentioned pony princess, eight friends were in the middle of a long journey.
"Are we there yet?" a pink pony asked, for the one thousandth one hundred and fifth time that hour.
"NO!" shouted a dark blue pony with a flowing ethereal mane, her voice shaking the train and knocking every apple off all the trees in a five mile radius.
"How about now?" the pink one asked again.
"Pinkie Pie! We won't be in the Crystal Empire for another twenty four hours," said a lavender winged unicorn.
Off to the left, a winged pony with a rainbow colored mane shifted position. "I hate being bored. I wish we were at the All Equestrian Exposition already! Why did they have to hold it all the way up north in the Crystal Empire?"
"Rainbow Dash! Don't be so insensitive. It won't be just ponies attending this Exposition, there will be Griffons too. Some of them will be flying in, and the shortest route between two points on a globe is a great circle. That means that the further north the exposition, the shorter the Griffons have to fly," the purple pony replied.
Rainbow Dash flew a loop, before landing again. "When you are as awesome as me, the short distance is always a straight line. I don't need to fly in any crazy circle to get where I'm going."
"You know, patience is a virtue," said a white unicorn with blue diamonds on it's flank.
"That's what my parents always said, but I'm bored, and I want to be there now," Pinkie Pie replied.
"You know Rainbow Dash, Rarity has a point. Sometimes, being bored is better than the alternatives," said a white pony with both a horn and wings. "Twilight Sparkle, did I ever tell you about the time that I wished to be in the most interesting place in all the worlds?"
The lavender unicorn shook her head. "No Celestia, you never did."
"That's a shame, its a very interesting story," Celestia replied.
"Why haven't we heard this story yet?" the blue pony with the ethereal mane replied.
She was the younger sister of Celestia, and with the exception of a rather long imprisonment on the moon was one of her sister's closest confidants. She couldn't imagine her sister withholding such an interesting story.
"Now, this was back when Luna was on the moon. It was about a hundred and twenty years ago, that is if I remember correctly," replied Celestia.
"Is it a scary story?" asked a yellow winged pony?
"No Fluttershy, it isn't a scary story. There aren't any monsters in it," the Princess said in a reassuring voice.
All of the ponies circled around Celestia, eager to here her tale.
"As I said, this was long ago. Back then, I shouldered the entire burden of ruling Equestria alone. It was I who dealt with the nobles, and made the laws and took care of all the other things that went into running the country. I'd left the most boring garden party in the history of garden parties," Celestia said. "However, I had still had to go to a fancy ball being held that evening by Prince Blue Blood's ancestors. I was dreading that party. As I was out raising the moon, I saw a shooting star. Now, I've always held that wishing on shooting stars grants wishes, so I made a wish to be in the most interesting place in all of the worlds. At first, I thought that like my wishes for Luna to come back it wouldn't come true. But, in the next instant my nose told me something was wrong. Very wrong."
"Hold on a minute! You want us to believe that you made a wish on a star one minute, and you were someplace else the next?" asked a orange pony.
"I've never understood it myself, Applejack," Celestia said. "Such things don't work for anypony but I think that my special connection to the heavens may have had something to do with it."
"What did you smell? Was it cake?" Pinkie Pie asked.
"No Pinkie, it was the foulest most terrible smell you've ever smelled. It smelled like..." Celestia said, struggling to put the stench in words that wouldn't require talking about things that would keep her sister busy dispelling nightmares. "It smelled like somepony had filled Froggy Bottom Bog with milk and let it rot,"
"Why would someone do something like when they could use that milk for baking?" Pinkie Pie replied.
Celestia sensed that arguing with the party pony was futile. She could win the argument, but that would require explaining that baked goods weren't considered one of the primary food groups in much of the rest Multiverse. She'd promised Fluttershy that this wasn't going to be a horror story, so talking about the smell of rotting meat was right out of the picture.
Celestia regained her train of thought, and continued. "So, I opened my eyes. I was no longer on the balcony at Canterlot. Instead, I was in the most disgustingly muddy stream that you've ever seen. I had mud covering my coat, almost up to my neck. Around me was a massive factory complex. It stretched away, almost as far as I could see. At the edge of the stream, stood this strange hairless creature. He was wearing a suit and a top hat, which was completely spotless. He called out to me: "Miss, are you alright?"
I was, but I was too startled by this creature's appearance to speak. I just nodded my head. He offered me his handkerchief, and I declined. Once I'd calmed down a bit, I asked him where we were.
"These are the legendary Chicago Union Sto.. Apple Yards," He replied.
You see, this was all a giant apple pie factory, and I'd just so happened to end up in the place where they dumped the bad apples. I'd find out later that it was called bubbly creek, on account of the bubbles caused by the rotting apples."
"Well, they must have had a bad vampire fruit bat infestation if they had that many bad apples," Applejack replied.
The mention of vampire fruit bats made Fluttershy shift nervously. "So what kind of animals did they have in this Chicago place?"
"They had all kinds of animals, Fluttershy," Celestia replied. "There were bunny rabbits, and cows and pigs. Really they had any animals that you could imagine."
"Were there any ponies?" Twilight Sparkle asked. "I'd surely like to meet a pony from another world."
"There were horses, but they couldn't talk. The hairless things were the sole intelligent creatures in this world," Celestia replied. "The creature, well they called themselves men, introduced himself as the owner of one of the pie factories. He said that if he didn't watch what his employees were doing, they'd end up wasting more apples than they used. So he went out every morning, and made sure that they used everything but the squeal err stem. Everything but the stem."
Luna flicked her ear. Celestia guessed that she was starting to guess what kind of place that Celestia had been in. For the sake of the innocence of her little ponies, Celestia hoped that Luna had learned to be a little more tactful. The last thing that Celestia needed was for Luna to explain how in some other worlds, the inhabitants ate meat, and in some cases even ponies. Especially not this close to dinner. Not that remembering what had happened hadn't already ruined her appetite
"So the man offered me a tour. I took it. It was a fairly interesting tour, but seeing how they make apple pies in factories just makes you appreciate the love and attention that ponies like Applejack put into their baking," Celestia said.
Celestia had accepted the tour of the stock yards out of a sense of politeness, and a hope that whatever the smell had been it hadn't been coming from the factories. She'd been wrong. It had. Celestia held that a bit of her innocence had died that day. She still had nightmares about what she'd seen. Luckily, they came less frequently now and no longer included Celestia butchering Luna.
She seen humans cutting pigs up like a pony would cut a pie. They had no concern for what had been a few seconds before been a living thing. She'd been shocked by the pride that the man had used as he described how he'd created the fastest and most efficient slaughter house in world. She couldn't imagine any sane creature being proud of such an insane thing. But, here was a man that seemed to be perfectly normal discussing the industrial slaughter of other beings like he was talking about a bumper crop of apples.
At the time, she'd been too shocked to imagine that anything short of insanity had been the man's driving force. But after thinking about for a while, she'd decided that the attitude was a product of lacking beings that talked back. It was easy to decide that a cow was a piece of property if it didn't talk back. Of course, Celestia was also aware that some creatures did have a need for meat in their diets. She'd used magic to allow any creature that wished to go without, and she dealt severely with any animal stupid enough to even try to eat one of her ponies.
She'd barely made it out of the factory, eager to be out in even the foul scented miasma that passed for fresh air where she was. She'd been so eager to get as far away from this place as possible, that she was almost hit by a train. This was the first time that Celestia had seen a train, and she couldn't help but marvel at the thing. Trains, now there was a non meat related thing that she could use to keep this story from turning into a horror story.
"So, I should mention that this was before we had trains in Equestria. Settler ponies like Applejack's family had to hitch themselves to wagons, and set out across the vast Equestrian interior. But, in this Chicago place, they had trains. In fact, as I was leaving the pie factory I almost got hit by one of the trains," Celestia continued. "That had been the first time I'd seen a train."
"Hold on a second there Princess. I don't mean to be all disrespectful and all, but you ain't gonna tell me about how these things were able to make apple pies that fast? Now I know that it seems like us Apples are virtually a pie bakin' factory sometime, but if these men things could make pies that fast, maybe there'd be a few tips I could pick up," Applejack said.
Luckily for the sanity and appetite of all involved, the princess's servants choose that time to bring dinner.
