Lying awake in bed, you mind is aflutter with thoughts and memories. This is nothing new, ever since you ended up in Equestria, the land of cartoon horses, you found yourself spending many a sleepless night with bittersweet memories of your life and loved ones back on earth.
Tonight was slightly different. Tonight your mind has been occupying itself by drawing parallels between things from earth and a certain mare.
No matter how much you tried to remind yourself that reason cannot be applied such things, you can’t help but play out all the scenarios you seen in the movies or read in books in your mind.
After another ten fruitless minutes of trying to fall asleep you decide to go out for a walk.
While tying your shoes you take a look out at the night sky. Its clear starry sky, no need for a heavy rain coat. But with the way the trees branches are blowing I might want to bring a hoodie.
Exiting your home, it occurs to you how dead Ponyville is at night. With no real destination in mind you choosing a random direction and let your feet do the navigating. Sooner than expected you find yourself in the middle of main street. Looking up at the night sky, you smile to your self. Are there more stars in the sky here in Equestria? Or are more stars visible because of the lack of light pollution?
Come to think of it, I don’t think I have seen a single light all night... Looking around you start to take in your surroundings. There are no streetlights, no porch lights, no neon signs, not even the telltale glow of a TV shining through a bedroom window.
Turning off of main street, you jokingly contemplate how lucrative it would be to become Ponyville's first cat burglar...
In the distance you spot the first light since exiting your own home. Moving in to investigate you discover the light is coming from the second floor of the Gold Oak Library. As you draw closer you can make out Twilight sitting in bed reading.
What are the chances I would ended up at the residence of the one pony who has been running through my mind all night? Could it be fate? No, I’m pretty sure I would have ended up here eventually. But it is convenient that she is still awake.
Looking around you find some small pebbles. Without a second thought you pick up a couple and toss one at Twilight's bedroom window. As it bounces off the glass Twilight's ears perk up but her eyes remain glued to the open book floating inches from her muzzle.
Throwing a second pebble you watch as she turns her attention to the window. Eventual she looks down at you with a puzzled look. As soon as you wave at her, she jumps out of bed and disappears from view.
Standing alone in the dark out side Twilight's bedroom window, you start fidgeting nervously. At best shes going to meets me at the front door and welcomes me with a warm smile. At worst she thinks I a peeping tom and is in the process of getting the town guard. I really didn't think this through... In either case I better meet her at the front door and explain myself.
As you turn the corner you find yourself face to face with a worried looking purple unicorn in pajamas.
"Anon, what are you doing here at this hour? Is everything ok?"
"Oh, yeah! Everything's fine. Sorry to bother you this late at night but I just have a lot on my mind tonight and was wondering if we could talk?"
The concerned look on her face is instantly replaced with an ear to ear smile. Its as though you changed the channel in her brain from Twilight to Pinkie Pie, "Wouldyouliketocomeinandhavesomecoffee? Wecantalkandthenhavesomecoffee? Orhavesomecoffyandthentalk? Orwouldyourather-”
“It sounds like someone has had enough coffee for tonight. How about we talk over a cup of hot chocolate?”
Ten minutes, two packages of hot chocolate, and a boiling pot of water later, you find yourself in the Golden Oak Library sitting at a pony sized coffee table with a bubbly Twilight.
“So.. Anon, what's on your mind?”
Sheepishly you look down into your mug, and try to find the courage to just tell her whats on your mind, “This may sound weird, but you have to realize I’m new to all of this… I have been… observing you for a while and… I just needed to ask… What happens when you teleport?”
Twilight's mug and its steaming hot contents slips from her purple aura drops to the table, “What?”
Using some of the available napkins you start wiping up some of the spilled hot cocoa. “I was curious about what happens to you when you teleport.”
“Well, when I cast the spell I am moved to the target destination without passing through the space between the casting location and the--”
“No,.. Sorry I should have been more specific. What happens to you and your body, while your between the two points?”
Cocking her head to the side, Twilight begins to stare at you quizzically, “Between the two points?”
“Yeah! When I teleported here to Equestria, I was asleep. So I have no idea what happened between me being on Earth and waking up here in Equestria. All the possibilities have been plaguing me for some time now. So I thought I could ask you about your teleporting experiences.”
“I do not know what force brought you here. I cannot say it was a teleportation spell like mine, but I will gladly tell you all I know if that helps?”
“Thank you Twilight, this means a lot to me. I noticed that when you teleport, you disappear from the beginning location, and..." pausing you try to put into words what you have witnessed. "You appear to cease to exist? Only for a fraction of a second though. Then you reappearing somewhere else. What happens to you during that fraction of a second?”
“I… I don’t… know. I have never been an outside observer to my own teleportation. I never really noticed a time delay between… as you put it disappearing and reappearing.”
“Huh, I guess that already rules out some of the theories.”
“Theories?”
You chuckle to your self, “Theories probably was not the right word to use. Back on earth, we don’t have magic or any form of teleportation. But many movie writers and science fiction authors have come up with ideas as to what happens when someone or something is teleported.
"A couple of works suggest that teleportation can result in instantaneous travel from an outsider's perspective. But to the the person being teleported it may be seconds, days, or even years before they arrive at the target location. One in particular story has the main character describe her experience teleporting as becoming disembodied. You exist and can think, but you can’t see, feel or hear while your between locations.”
“I can’t say either of those apply. I start casting the spell in one location, and at the moment the spell ends I’m in another location. To me the process is instantaneous.”
“Interesting,” taking a sip from your mug, you contemplate how to best word your next line of inquiry. “By your perspective there is no change in time, but to an outside observer there is a change in time. Is it possible that in addition to traveling through space could you be traveling through time as well? Granted only a fraction of a second forward in time?”
Twilight’s coffee mug is enveloped in a purple glow once again and begins to floats back up into the air. Deep in thought she stares at the mug and its contents. “I don't think so. Before you arrived here in Equestria, I had… an incident with a time travel spell. Without going into technical details, it's safe to say time travel and teleportation are into different schools of magic.”
These a moment of silence as you both enjoy your hot chocolate and let the new information settle in.
Twilight is the first to break the silence, “What other theories do humans have about teleportation?”
“Most of the other theories come from horror flicks…” Rubbing the back of your neck you think of the most G rated way to explain, “They suggest that there is no perfect way to teleport, and that any person who is teleported does not survive the experience.”
“Oh, that is rather macabre," she giggles, "but luckily we can rule that out as well.” Emphasizing her point she waving one of her hoofs from head to tail.
“Not necessarily. One story describes the process of teleportation as breaking you down on the atomic level and flinging the energized mass through space to the new location, where they are reassembled.”
“That still does not sound as horrifying as you first lead on. The teleported pony, me, is simply being physically moved from one location to another, right?”
“Lets look at it from another perspective. Hypothetically lets say I threw you in a gigantic blender.” For emphasis you mime picking Twilight up and dropping her in an imaginary blender. “If I then took the liquefied you and mailed it to... Manehattan, where they put you back together. Personally I would think the original Twilight die violently in the blender, and the Manehatten Twilight would be… more like a daughter. Shes made from you, and in your image, but she isn’t actually you.”
“Who would write something so -”
“Then there is a theory that describes the teleportation process in three steps: Scanning, Duplication, and Balancing. This one is actually really popular for science fiction writers because -”
“I know this is going to have some type of sick twist to it. So just get it over with and tell me…”
“In the first step the teleporter scans the person who is to be teleported. The digital blueprint is then sent to the target destination where an exact copy of the person is created using available materials. In the final step, Balancing, the original is euthanized.”
“Euthanize?”
“Yup.”
“Murdered?”
“Uhm, yes?”
“Why!?”
“To balance the equation… The teleportation process started off with one Twilight, and it needs to end with one Twilight.” The purple unicorn continues to stare at you waiting for further explanation, “Think of it this way. If there are two of you, one here and one in Manehattan, which one of you gets to have your Social Security Number? Who is the legal resident of this library? Which one of you is responsible for paying income taxes?”
“But if the teleporter simply clone and then murders ponies, why would anypony use it?”
“In those stories, the three step process is a well kept secret. Only a handful of teleporter technicians know the dark secret, and the only reason they know is so they can manually balance the equation if the machine fails to on step three.”
“Manually balances? You're telling me its the technician's job to buck the poor pony to death?”
“Not buck, more like shoot them in the head... and only if the machine fails to incinerate them first.”
“Are all works by humans this… dark?”
“No, some are comedies, but some comedies are dark comedies... Well Romeo and Juliet isn't dark, its a romantic... tragedy.” Twilight’s cup of cocoa slowly drifts back down to the table, as she stares at you with a mix of disapproval and concern. Putting down your now empty mug, you rise from your chair and begin to slowly make your way to the door. “Umm, well this talk helped a lot. If someone as smart as you is willing to teleport hundreds of times-”
“One thousand, and thirty-eight times…”
“That many times then teleportation can't be as bad as I first thought.”
Closing the door on your way out you wish your hostess a good night and make your way out into the cool night.
~~~~~
You are Twilight, and thanks to Equestria’s only human you will be spending tonight in a sleepless existential crisis.
‘In a giant blender,’ you shudder at the thought. Turning to the wall of books you begin pulling every book on Teleportation and Magic Theory, and begin stacking them next to the coffee maker.
Author's Note
Not my first story written but it is my first story posted.
Feel free to down vote or tell me what you didn't like about it.
=D
