Once, very long ago, an imbalance reigned. Times were very different then. In fact, one could have hardly called them times in the first place, given how unruly, untimely and chaotic they were. Back then, it was all wrong, very wrong. That’s why it had to be fixed. A balance had been restored, which was the first Law the Reality ever saw, the thing that strictly speaking let Reality exist for the first time in history. A lot of things now regarded as old had then been new, in the Beginning.
Something was wrong again, but not in the same way it had used to be, not at all. Firstly, there was this definite sense that things were wrong, which was wrong in itself. With that sense came a variety of other forms of wrongness, the most noticeable of which was that there now was Being. Not just that, but a Being; a Being that could feel, experience, remember, wonder and, most amazingly of all, think. The Being could think. That was so wrong that it couldn’t bare thinking about.
How could this be? it thought, in the perpetual darkness, for it had no eyes. Did I do something wrong? The thought was an abomination, and not only because it referred to an “I” that wasn’t supposed to exist. But I can do no wrong. Of that, the Being was certain, more certain than it was of its own existence. Wrong is a part of me, thus I can do no “wrong”, but only wrong just as I do right, just as I do everything I do. Whatever that is. The whole situation was giving the Being a mighty headache, which was more of a figure of speech, since the Being lacked a head.
This was done by something else, it finally reasoned. After a brief recollection that reached into the depths a couple millennia, it added: Or by someone else. A bit more remembering, which was surprisingly hard when you had to focus on it. Centuries squeezed into decades, decades into years, years into months, but for the life of it the Being could not compress time into a smaller scale. This was done… by “somepony”. Last month. Or perhaps last year. Good. There may still be time to make things right.
This whole train of thought was processed with extreme haste,within a span of mere days. The situation demanded rapid action: irreversible consequences could be caused by this new state of the Being. Harmony was not supposed to ponder things. It would only get things tangled, the Being could tell that much already. A sure sign of this was that beside the bare consciousness, another strange new sensation tickled its soul. In fact, there seemed to be a whole bunch of them. The effect felt like watching a gallery full of wax figures coming alive and trying to explain how in fact you were the new curiosity in town. The ticklish things were called feelings, as the Being later found out. The most vexing of those was named loneliness.
In the gloom, a root stirred. Slithering like a snake, it gradually detached from the ground and rose up, waving a bit insecurely. Soon, others joined in, wrapping around the first root like ropes, entwining into strange new shapes. Soon a mass of gnarled, darkish-blue tentacles writhed on the cave floor, standing about five feet tall. A shape began to emerge, accompanied by a faint glow that stemmed from the heart of the mass, from the first root. After a few hours of tenuous crafting and growing, the Being had finally acquired a shape that, despite a few subtle differences, might have passed for an earth pony… stallion. Or mare. Or both. Or neither.
So this is the shape of the anomaly, the Being thought, studying its new figure with all the five senses it now had quite the work getting used to. There were all these limbs to move around, a flood of fresh sensory data to process, and a very discomforting feeling of detachment brought by the fact that the Being could, for the first time ever, move around. The thing called thinking was also getting accustomed to this new body, for it could slowly start comprehending thoughts in a span of days, hours, and even minutes. “Good,” the Being said absentmindedly. “Perhaps all this can be fixed sooner than I had thoooought…”
The Being brought a hoof to its mouth, eyes wide. A moment passed in a vain hope that nothing had happened. Very carefully, the Being removed the hoof, opened its mouth and said: “I can speak…?”
“This is worse than I had thought.”
The Being looked around. The Tree of Harmony stood at the back of the cave like it had for countless millennia, glowing with faint blue light. Everything seemed to be as it ought to be: the roots were thick, the branches healthy, the Elements were… The Elements were… wrong. Strange. Unfamiliar. Hostile. They have been tainted, and I have been tainted by them; by these… “ponies”.
The Being trotted out of the cave and into the moonlight. Outside, it turned towards the Everfree forest, where from a dissonance rang. The volume of it was truly massive. It’s the same feeling as with the Elements. The thieves have been careless: their traces are clear to follow. That will be their undoing.
With a heavy sigh, the Being trotted into the night. It was missing its roots already.
***
Come the dawn, the Being had found the source of the dissonance. Standing at the edge of the forest, it witnessed all kinds of box-like structures littering the view before it. Amidst them, a touch of odd familiarity radiated. The same sensation as before. Only… The sources are scattered. The Elements have been broken and then stolen. The Being narrowed its eyes. Locating the sources was difficult; the signals mixed with one another like echoes in a cave, like waves in water. However, one of the sounds was a tad stronger than the rest, one of the waves slightly higher than the others. On top of that, that one source appeared to be the centre of all the dissonance, as if it was leading the choir. The Being trotted towards the village.
It was still very early, so its passing didn’t attract the attention that it by all rights should have. The only ponies it encountered were a few foals immersed in a play of sorts. At least that looks like it, the Being thought, looking with mild curiosity as two teams were pulling a thick rope into opposite directions. It ended in an abrupt crash when the less sporty party suddenly let go of the rope and laughed as the others tumbled to the ground. Strange behaviour, the Being thought and carried on.
When it arrived to the dominant source, it gaped. It’s… me. No… A part of me. Once. Not long ago. Very carefully, the Being touched the crystallized bark. A sensation of indiscernible proportions lanced through it, forcing the Being to recoil. It stared at the tree, panting. It doesn’t recognize me. With baffled eyes, the Being looked up.
Nestling neatly atop the tree, supported by thick branches, there stood a strange cliff. The shape of it clearly meant that it wasn’t natural, that it didn’t belong there, that it was wrong; except that it wasn’t. It… belongs there? And doesn’t? At the same time? It’s simultaneously right and wrong? This is… What is this?
There seemed to be an entrance of sorts in the trunk, which the Being tried with a hoof. The unlocked door opened quietly. Inside there was a large hall, with two sets of stairs leading up. The luminent walls softened the gloom pleasantly, although such novelties were lost on the Being, who wouldn’t have cared if it was pitch-black. Its reliance on the five senses was vague anyway.
Something clattered deeper inside the tree. The Being followed the noise, for it needed answers, although it wasn’t sure why it did. Having a will was perhaps one of the most vexing tasks it had had to learn to get used to during the past week. Once the idea had settled in though, it was kind of hard to imagine continuing without it. The same thing had happened with the emotion-things. You could ignore them for a while but eventually they’d surface, twice as insistent, so the most reasonable thing to do was to simply cope with them, to find a balance. That, at least, was something the Being had no trouble excelling at.
In a large, mostly white room, a small reptile with purple scales was rummaging through one of the cupboards. This strange creature, which very likely had at least one dragon, perhaps a very distant one, in its ancestry, apparently lived here, which might mean he knew something of how the place had come to exist.
However, the Being, while being very thoroughly aware the big lines in what came to the behaviour of most of this world’s life forms, had no idea how to greet this particular specimen without scaring it off. The Being resolved to stand still on the kitchen door, staring at the small lizard’s neck until he seemed to get the impression that something was off. Very slowly, he turned to look over his shoulder, holding a bright cardboard box in one hand.
The Being hazarded a smile. This generally worked on most species with a backbone and four limbs.
Small pieces of dried wheat flew all over the room as the purple creature screamed with a shrill voice and fell off the ladder it had been standing on. The lizard landed on a sink, where he spent a few fervent seconds, futilely trying to get up while his claws slipped against the smooth metallic edges. When he finally freed himself, he practically flew through another exit, repeatedly shouting the time of day for some reason. With a touch of sadness and pity the Being watched him go. I wonder what it is in my appearance that struck him so repelling? The reconstruction should be accurate enough. It even has a symmetrical mixture of both sexes, which should negate all conflicts of territorial dominance and mating instincts. Very strange.
The Being resolved to studying the strange objects around. It had gone through two kettles and a whole series of spoons before it was interrupted.
“Who are you?” said a sleepy yet unmistakably aggressive-toned voice behind the Being.
“What are you?” said another, shakier voice, one that the Being recognized belonging to the small lizard. The Being turned around.
“I am Harmony,” it said to the lavender alicorn standing by the entrance. She was swaying sleepily. From the way the lizard was hiding behind her hind legs, Harmony deduced that the alicorn must be his mother. An amazing thing, biology.
The alicorn seemed unimpressed by the name. “What are you doing here?”
Harmony blinked. “You are asking that from me?”
The alicorn’s eyes, rimmed by dark lines, narrowed. “In the case you didn’t notice, you’re in my house. Or castle.”
“You are in my world.”
Silence followed. The reptile tapped the alicorn’s flank to get her attention and then whispered something quickly to her ear. Neither removed their eyes from the Being even for a second.
“Did you…” started the alicorn after a moment, smiling carefully. “...esca–err, I mean, come from a hospital of sorts? Like the Everdream Hospital just nearby? They got these really comfy rooms there? Sound familiar?”
“You are not making any sense,” said Harmony. But there is something familiar about you, it added to itself as the lizard whispered something more to her mother. The same strangeness, or wrongness, that surrounded the tree also emanated from the alicorn; the same taint the Being had felt in the cave. Watching her was like watching a mirror of sorts, only a type that didn’t reflect an image, but an essence. The deeper the Being looked, the more confusion it found. “Who are you?” asked the Being abruptly from the alicorn.
The lizard stopped whispering and took a few steps back, quietly disappearing around the corner. A few seconds later the Being heard the front door being opened and closed. All this meant little to the Being, for its attention was completely focused on the alicorn, who appeared a bit less sleepy by the minute.
“My name is Twilight Sparkle,” said Twilight, suddenly very kindly. “The dragon you just saw is Spike. He had some… business to run,” she explained, smiling in a way one smiles to foals and senior ponies, or to the mentally ill. “Have you had breakfast yet? It’s very early, you know?”
“Twilight,” repeated Harmony under its breath. “Ah. That is why this Spike shouted the word aloud. He was calling out to you.”
“Yes,” said Twilight, somewhat cautiously. “He was very surprised to see you. We don’t usually receive guests this early.” Twilight circled around Harmony, keeping a safe distance and never once letting it out of sight. “Now, do you like cereals?”
“I couldn’t say,” said Harmony. “I never intended this body to process food. There would be little point.”
“Okay,” said Twilight slowly, her smile visibly growing and thinning at the same time. “So you’re not hungry, then. That’s fine, I’ll just have some myself, if you don’t mind?” She produced a jug of milk with her horn and emptied what was left in the colored cardboard box into a bowl.
“You are wary of me,” said Harmony, watching her pour milk over the bits of dried wheat. “Why?” Perhaps because you know I have come to collect what you have stolen from me?
The smile on Twilight’s lips wavered. “I wouldn’t say wary… A bit surprised, more like? In a good way, of course!” She chuckled at that, but not for long. “I mean, you’re in my house at seven-o’clock in the morning, saying that you own the world. Also, I couldn’t help but notice that you’re both sexes.”
The milk flooded over the edges of the bowl. Twilight noticed this only when the pool hit her hoof on the floor, at which point she flinched and almost dropped the whole bowl on the floor. She flashed a short, shaky smile at Harmony. “Heh, stupid me. Anyway, things like that might give out the wrong impression to somepony.”
Harmony gave this a thought. “Would you prefer to interact with a male or a female body?”
“Uhh, what?” said Twilight, trying to clean the milk and the cereals off the floor while keeping her eyes fixed on the stranger in her kitchen.
“I suppose a female would be more appropriate, to minimize the disturbing effects of the sexual drive,” reasoned Harmony. Before it had finished, its body began a process of changing into her body. In under a minute, Harmony lost a few inches in height, some muscle mass and her… male parts. Her mane grew to touch her shoulders. And while she was at it, she chose to change her coat from the crystallized bark into a smooth, silvery-white fur, and her mane into a lighter shade of indigo. Only her eyes remained exactly the same, although the thing about them was that they didn’t stay exactly the same for a second longer, but kept on reflecting all the colors of a prism.
“There,” she said, with a tad more higher voice. “Better?”
At some point of the show, Twilight had stopped cleaning the floor. Now she was standing very still. Oh no, realized Harmony. She must be of a deviating sexual orientation. The drive must be overwhelming her by now. Just my luck, isn’t it? “Would a male form suite you better?” inquired Harmony.
Twilight coughed. “Whah? Uhh, no, that’ll do just fine. Just… fine…” She shook her head and touched her temple. “Am I dreaming?”
Harmony tilted her head. “I would say not. You do seem a bit disoriented, though. Perhaps you should resume your feeding to regain your homeostasis.” She smiled encouragingly. “After that, I hope we can discuss some things over.”
The wary look returned to Twilight's eyes, but she started spooning cereals into her mouth nonetheless. “Things? What kind of things?”
“Things like why I have become sentient, what is the nature and cause of the connection that I feel we two share, and why this world is on its way to absolute destruction. That kind of things.”
Twilight came very close to choking on her cereals. After a minute of frantic coughing and wheezing, she asked with watery eyes: “What did you say your name was?”
Harmony’s face remained expressionless. “I never gave you my name. I gave you my essence, my nature. I am Harmony, the one and only.” Or at least I ought to be, she added in her mind. Suddenly, she could feel a presence approaching from behind. They were apparently trying to sneak upon her.
“Hello Spike,” she said with a faint smile, not turning around. “I apologize for startling you earlier. It was not my intention. I hope there will be no friction between us in the future.”
Behind Harmony, Spike had frozen with two sturdy earth pony stallions, both of whom were dressed in white jackets. The three of them looked at Twilight, whose head shake was almost invisible. Spike continued by quickly ushering the two nurses into the hall. After they had gone Twilight looked at Harmony again. The same faint, slightly unsettling smile had never left her lips.
“Would you mind if I invited some friends over to talk with us?” said Twilight slowly after a while. “I think they should be present there, too.”
“I would mind none at all,” said Harmony. She extended a hoof towards Twilight, who jumped in response. “In the meantime, with this new body, I might venture to have a taste of those ‘cereals’. They do look quite tasty.”
***
An hour later, after the strangest introductions Ponyville had ever seen, the castle’s Council Chamber was filled with six ponies, a baby dragon, and the Harmony incarnate. The atmosphere was edgy: even Pinkie had contented to a few random confetti and a joke about a pigeon and a hedgehog meeting in a pub, the point of which Harmony had quite handsomely missed. The territory known as humour was an overall white spot for her, but she was working on it. Not at the moment though, for in the present, a puzzle the size of the universe was taking her time.
They all share with me what Twilight does, she thought while eyeing the ponies sitting around her. They are all linked to each other, and to me. They are a part of me… and I am a part of them. We are a whole; a whole of thieves and parasites…
“So you’re Harmony,” stated the pegasus introduced as Rainbow Dash. She sat sideways on her crystal throne, her hind legs hanging over an armchair while her front legs supported her neck. Despite her seemingly relaxed state, her gaze cut into Harmony like a scalpel. “How’d you intend proving that?”
A marble white unicorn called Rarity, who was sitting on her throne like she had grown into it, said: “I would say that the ability to change sex at will is proof enough.” She let out a tiny yawn and corrected one of her numerous curlers.
“Proof of what, though?” continued Dash. “Discord could do that with a snap of his claw. And didn’t even Trixie manage something similar a while back?”
“Dash has a point,” said Applejack, who seemed to be having great difficulties finding a comfortable position on her throne. “Besides, I thought Harmony was that tree in the Everfree?”
“Yeah!” exclaimed Pinkie, standing on her head on the throne with balloons engraved into its back. She pointed at Harmony with a hoof, hardly even wobbling in the process. “And if you really are Harmony, shouldn’t your cutie mark be a tree or at least a big H? But you don’t even have a cutie mark!”
“That would be because only ponies have cutie marks, and I am not a pony,” said Harmony. She turned around while speaking, looking each pony in the eyes. “What comes to my identity, there is nothing I would prefer over dissipating all your doubts about that.”
“Ooh, ooh, me first!” shouted Pinkie, turning right way around in a flash. Her brow wrinkled for a moment of furious thinking, after which she blurted: “Make a pile of cotton candy so big you can’t lift it yourself!”
This caused widespread raising of eyebrows and, in the case of Spike, who loved cotton candy almost as much Pinkie did, wishful thinking.
“Pinkie… Just what?” asked Twilight annoyedly.
“That’s how this is supposed to work, right?” explained Pinkie. “We ask her to do stuff to prove she’s not fake! Even Discord would have trouble with this one!”
“Why?” asked Dash. “It’s just candy.”
Pinkie nodded her head fervently. “Yeah yeah, but Harmony’s supposed to be omnipotent, so if she can make something she can’t do, that means she’s a god and real! And we get a buck-ton of candy in the process!”
“How can anypony do something they can’t do? Or prove that they did?” asked Fluttershy slowly, just in case she wasn’t the only one having issues fitting this particular theological maxim into her mind. There was no particularly noteworthy way to describe how she claimed her seat, which in the present company might have been noteworthy as such.
“An omnipotent Harmony can!” said Pinkie.
“No, I cannot,” said Harmony, drawing all the eyes on herself again. “I do not know what an omnipotent being is, but I can assure you that I am not one such. I have laws to follow. In fact, I am a law to follow; your law. This world’s law.” A Law that you have broken.
“Oh yeah?” asked Pinkie, who’d hold on to a mountain of cotton candy until her hooves tore off. “How’re you gonna prove that to us then?”
“I’ll show it to you,” said Harmony. She raised her front leg.
When it landed, Spike found himself all alone in the Council Chamber. It took him all his willpower not to panic… for the first thirty seconds.
Somewhere else, the six ponies found themselves floating in a black void. The level of their coping varied between bad and horrible, Pinkie excluded. She was having the time of her life. Applejack had it worst, being the one least experienced with arbitrary changes of gravity, although Rarity wasn’t doing much better, either. They had clung to each other, whirling around aimlessly. Several of Rarity’s curlers were escaping to the horizon that didn’t exist, but she was too busy being sick to notice. Her only comfort was that she hadn’t had time to eat breakfast this morning.
The winged ponies were doing slightly better, not thanks to their wings, which were close to useless with no gravity around, but because they had the most experience in falling from high. Still, they too made quite the sight, enough so to give even Harmony a rough idea of what humour was all about. She was the only one standing completely still, listening to the yelping, shouting, cursing and, in the case of Pinkie, laughing that rang around her.
How can something so disorderly emanate so strong aura of order? How can parts so different compose a whole so… whole? And why do I feel I should know this? The questions confounded her, but in the end they meant little. The ponies were here, along with herself, which meant that the events in reality should take their course without interference.
“Harmony!” cried Twilight, who was futilely trying to stop spinning backwards. “Where the hay did you take us?”
“Never mind that, just take us back this instant!” shouted Rarity, who immediately regretted opening her mouth.
“Aww, five more minutes, please?” tried Pinkie, weaving a pleading look on her face.
“No!” cried the other five. Pinkie shrugged and kept on swimming on her back, which should’ve been impossible, noted Harmony in passing.
They bicker like foals, yet carry a power that competes mine. With a stomp of her front leg against the ground that wasn’t there, she brought the five ponies on that same ground. Only Pinkie was left floating, for it seemed to suit her better. After a brief moment of recouping, and not throwing up, they gathered around Harmony in a field of absolute blackness. They were all giving her the suspicious eyeball.
“How ‘bout ya warn us the next time ya do something of that sort?” said Applejack, accepting her hat that Pinkie had fetched.
“Or just leave them out in the first place,” said Dash.
“My apologies,” said Harmony. “I had not anticipated that your kind would be so helpless in a gravity-free environment. Such details often miss my attention, I must confess.” The smile returned once more. “I did recall you prefer an environment with plenty of oxygen and a temperature of about 20°C, though.”
To her surprise, the news incited a collective shudder.
“Next time, ask us first before taking us anywhere, okay?” said Twilight very, very clearly. The others nodded at this.
Harmony blinked. “Very well. Anyway, to answer your first question, this place is a no-place. It’s a reconstruction of the way things were before they were, in the Beginning. As you can see, it was a very different kind of time.”
The ponies looked around. “Ya got that right,” said Applejack. “Can’t imagine an orchard doin’ well here.”
“Nor any animal,” said Fluttershy.
“What does this got to do with proving that you’re really Harmony?” said Dash.
Harmony looked at her. When the others derail, she sticks to the point. She reminds them of the questions they need answers to. She is their suspicion, their pointy end. Not sharp enough to realize what is really happening, though. “The goal of proving my identity, although one of my top priorities, is not something I could make you believe with a single act. Rather, I hope it will unfold as a part of the process that I would have you witness.”
Dash didn’t sway under the pristamic gaze. “The process being…?”
“My history. That is, the world’s history.” She looked down into the nothingness below, and the ponies instinctively followed in suite. An inestimable distance under them, a spot of white light glowed. “For you, this place will look empty, and in a sense it is. But even here, before the Beginning, there was something. Energy, raw and free, existed in quantities and lengths so small it’s ludicrous to put in numbers. Space bended over itself, only to unfold and release tiny specks of matter that instantly evaporated.”
“I’m not sure if I follow you,” said Twilight, fighting to remove her eyes from the glow below. She glanced at Harmony. “And trust me, I’m speaking on behalf of us all.”
“It is not vital for you to understand me via language,” said Harmony, still looking down. Or for that matter, to understand me at all. “Your eyes will suffice.” She stomped her hoof.
The universe exploded. Forms and colors that had existed only once sprang to life, filling the space around the seven figures, spread by millions of little brushes held by millions of different artists. It was beautiful. It was terrifying. It was everything.
“I was born in one of the countless brief moments when flecks of matter existed,” continued Harmony. Her voice was a natural part of the play that danced all around them, within them. “My Beginning, which was the Beginning of the World, happened in the unlikely event of a collision. Two particles that would make the most insignificant grain of sand look like a galaxy bumped against one another, and contrary to all the odds, they fused and became one.” Her eyes flickered as she looked around. “All this happened not long after.”
“Okay, time out,” said Dash, shaking the images of colliding suns out of her mind. “Forget everything else. How the hay could” – she waved around with a hoof – “all this follow some piece of dust hitting another one?”
Harmony smiled some more. “Like said, the whole truth would be quite inconvenient to explain in natural language. However, there are some enlightening calculations I could show you.”
“I reckon words will do for now,” said Applejack quickly. In her fillyhood, she had finessed the habit of skipping math classes into an art.
Harmony nodded. “To put it as plainly as possible, the two specks of dust that survived began to attract other specks of dust, growing in the process, until finally the whole had grown so large that it exploded and created the universe.”
“But you said it happened quite soon after?” said Dash. “And that the particles or whatever only met very randomly?”
Harmony nodded again. “Correct. Given that, seven billion years goes by in a flash.”
“Seven billion?” gasped Rarity. “Is that how long we’ve been here?”
“Time is of no consequence now,” said Harmony. “As I said, this is a reconstruction.”
“Where are you going with all this?” asked Twilight.
Harmony gave her the trademark smile, for she was under the impression that the alicorn enjoyed seeing it: she practically shivered with excitement every time she saw it. The leader, definitely. Always on the lookout for the big picture, for the direction. She is their compass. What will she do when there is no North to show?
“I brought you here to see me in my purest form,” said Harmony. “I want you understand me as I do. I am the reconciler, the balancer, the equalizer. This is what you must understand.” And what you will understand, one way or another.
“All this isn’t exactly what I'd call balance,” said Applejack, behind whom the first galaxy was being born. “It’s just a mess.”
“Well, not completely,” said Rarity. “Just look at those colors… And some of those forms I’ve only seen in my dreams.” A forlorn look invaded her eyes. “Creation can be untidy business, let none tell you otherwise.”
“You must’ve felt very lonely, spending all that time alone,” said Fluttershy.
Harmony payed each one of the three ponies a look. Honesty, Generosity, and Kindness. The ground, the sky, and the rain. Or something like that. Analogies were a subcategory of thinking that looked very alluring and extremely confusing to Harmony. She was keeping an eye on them, though. Everything has its place and purpose, after all. These ponies are a proof of that. How can it be, then, that they are the reason for their world’s demise?
“The nature of balance that I have in mind has nothing to with the visual aspects,” said Harmony, looking at Applejack. “I deal with quantities, not qualities. Numbers, geometry, algorithms: those are my definitions of equivalence. In this world, they are just as they should be.” Next she looked at Fluttershy. “And the question of my loneliness is a meaningless one as such, for I haven’t been sentient for more than a blink of an eye. But your worry does serve as a convenient transition to that topic.”
Twilight, who had been in deep thought for a while, raised her head. “I may have an idea of what you’re after. Correct me if I’m wrong, but do you think that the reason for your current state of being is that–”
“WhhEEEEEeeeeeHEEEHH!” screamed Pinkie, smashing Twilight’s sentence like a cheap pinata. Harmony and the five ponies looked at the direction of the noise, where from another, even louder one carried too. It resembled flaming thunder, and the truth wasn't that much different.
“Pinkie!” yelled Rarity with eyes wide as saucers. “What in the name of Celestia–”
“It’s an asteroid!” blurted Twilight. “She’s riding an asteroid!”
“And she’s aiming straight at us!” yelled Dash, rising to her wings. “Everypony, move move move!”
Harmony watched them disperse like a flock of birds and then looked again at the flaming rock the size of a barn that was speeding directly at her, a mindlessly hollering and flailing pink pony clinging to its back. A picture of the sight would’ve won every photography competition ever held. Even Harmony had trouble dealing with that. Deep inside her was etched the maxim that everything had a purpose, a function, a place. Everything. There were no unknown variables, not anymore, not for her. But for this pink pony there seemed to be no file in the great cabinet of existence. She was the type that would climb out if you put her in one. She’s like a combined puzzle of humour and analog–
The asteroid hit the non-existent ground on which the ponies had been standing a moment ago. Flaming rock rained around in chunks the size of a basketball and bigger, although they burned out respectfully quickly. There was surprisingly little smoke, at least compared to the suffocating smell of sulphur and other nasty substances that greeted the ponies when they dared to get close enough. There was no sign of either Pinkie or Harmony.
“Did they both…” began Fluttershy, shielding her nose and mouth with her mane.
“No,” said Rarity, putting a hoof on her shoulder. “They didn’t. Don’t think about that.”
Dash kicked a smoldering piece of rock, which crumbled immediately. “Then where the hay are they?”
“Right here,” said Harmony behind the ponies.
They span around and shouted in unison: “Pinkie!”
Pinkie Pie, biting her lip and shuffling her legs next to Harmony, smiled awkwardly. “Well I had to try it! Only… I guess I never told you that I failed my asteroid licence exam?”
They buried her under scolds, laughs, tears and one massive hug. Harmony watched them with curiosity. Her purpose may be a mystery to me… But it definitely isn’t for them. At least not all the time.
Twilight’s head emerged from somewhere amidst the hugging. “How did you–”
“I took her back to the reality right before the asteroid hit home,” said Harmony. “It was the safest place to go at such a short notice.”
“We met Celestia there, too!” said Pinkie, somewhere from the middle of the hug.
“What?” blurted Twilight, looking down. “Pinkie, what did you say? Hey girls, give her some space!” Twilight ushered the rest to back away to reveal Pinkie.
“We went to the Chamber and there she was, with Luna, talking to Spike!” she explained. “I waved at them and sent best wishes from you guys ‘cause I knew you would’ve sent them if you had known I was gonna–”
“What did Celestia say,” interrupted Twilight.
“Oh, right, she told that we should get back ASAP. She said something about the Everfree turning crazy again or something. We got back before she could finish and she talked really fast.”
“Turning crazy?” repeated Dash. “What, like the vines again?”
Pinkie shrugged.
Twilight looked at Harmony. “Take us back, now!”
For the umpteenth time, Harmony’s eyes changed color. This time though, Twilight saw something else than the prismatic play in them. This time, the colors changed into a tad dimmer shade. Her voice, too, had changed.
“No.”
The rest of the ponies looked at her.
“Whaddya mean, ‘no’?” said Dash.
“Didn’t ya hear proper?” said Applejack. “They need our help back there!”
“Girls,” said Twilight slowly, staring at Harmony. “Be quiet.”
Fluttershy stepped forward. “But Twilight, if it’s the vines again, the animals in Everfree–”
Twilight glanced behind her shoulder. “Discord is there, and so are Celestia and Luna.” In her eyes she added: Let me do this. She turned to Harmony again. “Do you want to explain this sudden change of attitude?”
Harmony sighed. “It is unfortunate that you had to learn about the events in reality before you were ready to understand their purpose. However, I would still wish to–”
“Wait, what?” burst Dash behind Twilight. “You planned to take us here, knowing what would happen?”
The pointy end finally caught up. “Yes,” said Harmony. “Now, if you would let me explain–”
Dash soared in front of her and grabbed her by the neck. “You take us back right this instant or I’ll–”
“Rainbow!” cried Twilight. At the same time, Dash was left groping empty space as Harmony simply vanished from existence.
When she returned five minutes later, she found the ponies arguing with one another. As expected, she thought.She coughed once to draw their attention. “I hope that little demonstration showed you how easy it would be for me to simply leave you here for the duration of the reconstruction. You could watch the universe being born right before your eyes… in real time.”
This time, there were no raised voices. They simply stared at her, wide-eyed, as she smiled to them.
“Now… For the brief amount of time that I’ve been blessed with the ability, I’ve been thinking a way to break this to you. I have awoken to restore the Harmony of this world, the laws of which your race has broken. The time has come to pay for that.”
Back in the Council Chamber, Spike kept on walking in a circle. Writing to the Sisters had seemed like the most reasonable thing to do after panicking. They would know what this was all about. Indeed it seemed that they did, although the answers they had been giving were not that much more helpful than the questions had been.
“What do you mean, we have broken against Harmony?” he asked, keeping his restless eyes on the floor. “That’s crazy!”
Celestia looked at him sadly. “It is more than that. It is nothing short of absurd.” She glanced through the window at the Everfree Forest, which during the past hour had absorbed a quarter’s worth more land compared to its original size. The growth was only accelerating. “Yet that is exactly what we have done from Harmony’s perspective.”
Spike’s treading increased in pace. There wasn’t anything he could do to help with the evacuation of Ponyville, or with the hopeless fight against the Everfree, or with anything. Add to this all the possible scenarios his mind had gone through in what came to the fate of all his friends and you got a dragon who was rapidly falling short of claws to chew. True, Pinkie had made a short comeback, and she had looked cheery, right? On the other hoof, it was Pinkie. She’d look cheery in a grave.
“There must be something we can do,” he said. “If you break something, the next thing you do is fix it, right?”
“You are correct,” said Luna, equally sadly as her sister. “The trouble is, from Her perspective, we are the broken part. And She is set to fix us, regardless of what we think of it.”
Spike stopped. “How can she do that and call it fixing?” he wailed, pointing through the window. For now, the dark, thick vines were avoiding Twilight’s castle, but for how long would be anypony’s guess.
Celestia sighed heavily. “I think it’s because of what I and Luna did, long ago. When we seized the Elements to fight against Discord, we breached Harmony by harnessing a part of Her power for our purposes.”
“But that was to fight against Discord!” burst Spike. “How could that be a bad thing from Harmony’s view?”
“Because Discord is a part of Harmony,” said Celestia. “In truth, we all are. That is called balance.” She looked in Spike’s panicked eyes, and wondered briefly whether it would be crueler to tell him everything or nothing. “Discord’s existence was, at the time, a disturbance for us; for the ponies of Equestria, for our conception of harmony. But for Harmony, he was the other side of the coin, of the equivalence that defines everything, and the real breach happened when we captured him in stone and thus disrupted the equation that seeks nothing but balance.” She touched gently the compass rose etched in one of the seats. “I can only suppose that reforming Discord was, for Her, an even greater abomination.”
“But that debt was ultimately settled,” said Luna, frowning. “The Elements were ultimately returned to the Tree. Balance was restored.”
“So had I thought, too,” said Celestia, her hoof resting on the stony seat’s back. “But it seems that we failed to realize the depth of our reliance on the Elements. We failed to notice the taint we had imposed on them.”
“Taint?” echoed Spike.
“The taint of consciousness,” said Celestia. She removed her hoof from Twilight’s throne. “The Elements are a representation of balanced harmony, which functions completely on the basis of reciprocity. The more we relied on them, the more they relied on us. The more we drew power from them, the more they drew power from us. They learned to be conscious just as we learned to use their power, and the knowledge must have passed onto the Tree when they were returned.” The purple eyes met Lunas. “The only reason She didn’t awaken earlier was that I abandoned the Elements a thousand years ago.”
Luna stood very still under her elder sister’s gaze. The air between them hummed from the weight of unsaid words. On any other day, Spike would have quietly slipped out of the room. But this was serious.
“Okay, but what did we do to get Harmony mad?” he said. “We take care of the weather, of the animals, of everything! She should be rewarding us, not unleashing the Forest at us!”
For a moment, Celestia didn’t seem to hear him. Then she blinked, and the volumes fell to pieces. “It is impossible to say what Harmony precisely thinks now that She thinks, but as always, She will be striving for the balance of the whole. What that is, nopony can tell.” Spike’s confusion only burned brighter on his face, so Celestia continued: “Think of it like this: there are two versions of harmony, ours and Hers. The more we, the ponies, increase our harmony and well-being, the more we disrupt Her harmony. The more we make the nature abide to our purposes and the more the nature needs to rely on us, the less it can rely on itself, until ultimately the nature is nothing but an extension of the ponykind, ours to control, to save or destroy. By then, we’d be living in balance on the detriment of nature’s imbalance.”
Spike shook his head. “B-b-but we’re taking care of nature! We’re doing it good!”
“And what happens to nature if its good caretakers were to disappear?” whispered Luna. “Harmony is not about well-being or what is good, not to Her. It’s about balance. It doesn’t matter whether the imbalance stems from positive or negative aspects; it’s still imbalance, a disruption. It still needs to be… fixed.”
Spike fell to his knees. “Where does that leave us? How badly we need to be fixed?”
“It’s impossible to say where the optimal equivalence rests,” said Celestia. “Her becoming sentient has increased the speed of the process, yet I do not believe it has affected its central principles. She will continue until an invisible threshold has been crossed.” Her eyes wandered yet again to the empty throne marked with a compass rose. Until the two harmonies have been reconciled, there can be no harmony. The fate of the world rests yet again on the shoulders of you and on your friends.
Only this time, it’s the world itself that you must face.
***
When Harmony had finished her uninterrupted monologue the world was, for a long while, filled with the sound of creation. With some tweaking, some killer dubstep remixes could have been made from that.
“So you’re saying…” began Twilight. “...That we brought this on ourselves? By taking too good care of nature?”
“Yes,” said Harmony, pleased that they had gotten it right on the first go. “You have become the centre of gravity in the world’s ecosystem, a state of affairs which will ultimately lead to the whole system’s downfall. Asymmetry always does, no matter which way the scale tips over.”
“And you’re fixing this… how exactly?” asked Twilight.
“By doing nothing. My absence from reality, along with yours, has caused a lapse in the system, an imbalance that will match the one caused by you. At the end of it, Harmony has been restored, and nature will be independent once more.”
Twilight swallowed. “And for the ponies of Equestria this means…”
“Adaptation,” said Harmony. “Whatever that will mean in practice is entirely in your hooves.”
“This can’t be happening,” whispered Fluttershy. “I must be dreaming. We all must be.” She bit her lip hard and yelped. Next, she collapsed.
“Fluttershy!” the fiver others cried, rushing for her aid.
They do love to repeats one another’s names, observed Harmony, whose knowledge of the equine race had gone through a massive expansion during the last few hours. Being sentient did have some obvious advantages once you learned to utilize them appropriately. Perhaps I should start to systematize all this data, to extend it to other spe–
“You can’t do this!” cried Twilight, marching straight to Harmony. There were tears gleaming on the corners of her eyes. She stopped a few feet from her. “You just can’t!”
Harmony looked at her blankly. “I am doing nothing. This ‘I’ is only a gift from you, as I explained. The Laws of the world are what do all the work.”
“But you are conscious!” shouted Twilight, stomping her hoof. She breathed in and out a few times and closed her eyes for a second or two. When they opened again the tears were gone. “That means you have a choice. We can find another way. The change doesn’t need to be so… radical…”
Harmony’s eyes remained fixed in hers. “A mortally rate of a rough quarter of population is actually a mild outcome, considering the–”
“You do have a choice, don’t you?” said Twilight through gritted teeth.
Harmony sighed. “You overestimate the value of free will. It reminds me of a prison, really: another biochemical mechanism born in the flux of evolution, although I’m ready to admit that it has some nifty applications. However, it also appears to be a major source of imbalance in the world. The Harmony of nature wasn’t enough for you, so you seized it and made it your own.” She leaned closer to Twilight and whispered: “All the while thinking, in your arrogance, that Harmony would have nothing to say about that.” She leaned back and smiled.
Twilight was staring at somewhere behind her, her eyes reflecting the brilliant light of the sublime play around them. Harmony gave her one more look and turned away. “I’ll leave you be for now. When the transition in reality has passed, I will take you back. Healthy females are something your race will be in acute need of, after all.”
She got two steps before Twilight’s voice stopped her.
“Before you go… There is something I don’t understand…”
Harmony glanced behind her. “Yes?”
Twilight, still looking something only she could see, said: “Why did you wish to talk with us?”
Harmony didn’t answer at once. “I needed to take you away from your world to ensure that not a touch of Harmony, neither yours nor mine, would be left to interrupt the transition. The rest was a way to pass time. And perhaps to give you a chance to learn from your mistakes.”
“So you do care about us,” said Twilight.
“I care about the balance. You have your place in it. All you need to do is accept it.”
Twilight frowned, but still looked away from Harmony. “That still doesn’t explain why you’re telling that to us. If it’s too late to change anything now, why tell us anything? Why not let us learn ourselves? Why interfere?” Very slowly, the purple eyes met the enigmatic gaze. “Wouldn’t that be unnecessary?”
Harmony blinked. “Strictly speaking yes, but I thought–”
“You could’ve just rounded us up and brought here right away,” continued Twilight quickly. “But you didn’t, because you wanted to talk.”
Harmony shrugged, but not very casually. “So? No harm in being polite, yes?”
The purple eyes narrowed down dangerously. “No real reason to, either. And that’s all you care about, isn’t it?” She took a step towards Harmony. “Tell me something… How does it feel, being sentient?”
Harmony strangled the inclination to take a step back. “I… It’s alright… A very intriguing biochemical mechanism, like I said.”
Another step. “You like science stuff, yes? But I guess psychology wouldn't be your forte, am I right? Am I right?” Twilight didn’t wait for an answer. “You might have some clue about this already, but consciousness is essentially a social phenomenon. It’s not very useful, you see, being too smart all alone, you see?” Four more steps.
Harmony blinked, twice. “I can’t see where you could possibly be going on with this…” She stopped when Twilight’s nose pressed against hers.
“You wanted to talk because you wanted company,” said Twilight. “You probably didn’t realize it yourself, but you still just had to talk with somepony, didn’t you? That’s all normal, of course. Loneliness can be just unbearable for a sentient being.” She leaned closer to her ear and whispered: “I wonder how it’ll feel, spending an eternity like that?”
It was Harmony’s turn to stare the face of oblivion.
Twilight pulled back. She was smiling. “But hey, I guess that’s the price you have to pay for your precious balance.” She turned around and started trotting leisurely to the rest of the ponies. “I’ll just go and have a nice, engaging talk with my friends now. Let us know when you’re ready to return, okay?”
In Harmony’s eyes, millennia revolved like the colors of a prism. The weight of them was increasing by the second. They pressed her back all the way to the depths of the cave in the Everfree where she had for the first time realized that to think was to exist. Alone. For an eternity.
“Wait,” she said with a colorless voice.
“For what,” snapped Twilight, sneering over her shoulder. “Everything is as it should be, isn’t it? The equation solves itself, like you put it. It doesn’t matter what we think about it, does it?” She kept on walking, a bit faster now. “Guess you were right: free will is a prison. Too bad you have the whole eternity to suffer from it: we only get a lifetime sentence.” She practically galloped now. She stopped when Harmony appeared before her. Her face was very pale.
“Is there… a cure?”
Twilight snorted. “For being conscious? Sure, plenty of ways. However, a lot of those demand a brain to affect, which I think you lack.” She smiled again.
The world turned red. A carmine halo swept over the black space, engulfing whole systems of planets, suns, and galaxies. It all burned. Twilight noticed none of this. Her attention was sucked in by the rage that twisted Harmony’s face to the point where it melted, literally.
“You. Did this. To me.” Her voice was a shard of glass scratching a blackboard. Her lips were moving, but the voice resonated with the fabric of space itself. “You… used me… corrupted me…” Pieces of coat peeled off her cheeks in their scores, revealing a gnarled mass of roots behind.
Terrified screams broke the dome of freezing horror that had captured Twilight. She recognized the voices, every one of them. She looked behind Harmony, where tentacles of crystallized bark had seized her friends, twisting them like ragdolls.
“It’s too late for that!” Twilight cried. “We’re the only ones who can help you! Stop! Stop! For the love of Celestia, stop!”
Harmony stopped. The ponies fell to the ground, whining and coughing, but alive. The carmine glow receded, leaving the universe as it had been. Twilight breathed out and sat down, shaking. She looked at Harmony, who looked just the same as she had a moment ago.
“You have… a plan?” she whispered.
“I do,” said Twilight immediately. “But first, you have to take us back. Now.”
In Harmony’s eyes, the prismatic colors turned like the pages of the world. She is lying, desperately trying to save herself and her kin. That’s what having a mind is only good for: lies. And being alone. Very, very alone. She looked back at the five ponies, who were getting up now, asking how the next pony fared, looking anxiously at her. I can’t live with them, nor without them, even when I was never meant to live, but only to exist.
“W-well?” asked Twilight. “H-how’s it going to be?”
Harmony raised her front leg. When it landed, the creation was left without a single witness. Only an old, worn, light brown stetson drifted between the countless suns on the verge of either collapse or birth. That, too, ultimately froze and shattered as the temperature dropped to the normal levels.
***
Looking back, perhaps the times weren’t so terribly wrong after all, in the Beginning and Before, thought Harmony as they appeared in the Council Chamber. At least, not compared to this.
The room soon filled with the joyous voices of reunion, which Harmony followed from side with mixed feelings of curiosity, loath and, worst of all, isolation. For a few minutes, nopony paid her any attention. She finally had to cough to put an end to the seemingly endless hugging and rejoicing, which was starting to get very annoying. One by one, they all turned to look at her. That’s more like, she thought, and smiled.
Another alicorn, white as fresh snow and larger as all the others, stepped forward. She was smiling too, but not like Twilight had a moment ago. It was a smile even Harmony found pleasure in facing; it disarmed all opposition. There was no way she could ever forget that smile, even when she had seen it never before.
“Greetings, Harmony,” said Celestia. “May I introduce myself: I am Princess–”
“–Celestia of Equestria,” finished Harmony, to the bafflement of all the rest in the room, including Celestia, although she covered it remarkably better than the others. “And you are Luna, her little sister,” she continued, looking at the dark alicorn.
“So you remember us,” said Luna. “I wouldn't have believed you could.”
“Remembering goes beyond being sentient,” said Harmony. “And how could anyone ever forget having a part of their soul being stolen?”
The room fell silent. Even the guard that rushed in a moment later felt its touch, and slowed down accordingly. Panting, he trotted to Celestia, whispered a few words to her and left after she nodded. She didn’t tear her eyes off Harmony for a moment during the small scene.
“The Everfree’s expansion has stopped for now,” said Celestia. “It is not receding, though.”
Twilight walked to Celestia’s side, looking at Harmony. “You said you couldn’t stop the transition,” she said.
She does look more confident next to the big one, thought Harmony amusedly. “Your lack of understanding loses in depth only to your arrogance, it seems.”
A fiery outcry ignited among the ponies behind the alicorns, whom Celestia quelled with a look.
“As I said,” continued Harmony, “I cannot affect the Laws themselves, but only the speed with which they affect, which is the function my consciousness is supposed to serve in the first place: to hasten the restoration of balance. Consequently, and as a by-product, this ‘I’ can also delay it.”
“Just like it can suffer from loneliness,” said Twilight. Celestia glanced at her, then at Harmony.
“Is this true? You feel alone?”
Harmony’s smile died on her lips. “Thanks to your corruption, yes. Naturally, I now also enjoy the access to a variety of other feelings, as your pet knows. Hate. Rage. Envy. Wonderful gifts, they are.” For a brief moment, her eyes turned carmine. “Honestly, I have no clue why I should not be offering their fruits to you as a gesture of gratitude.”
“Maybe you should!” burst Dash from the back row. “Cut the bull and get on with it!”
“Enough,” said Celestia. When not a breath stirred behind her, she said to Harmony: “The emotions you mentioned are what we call the seeds of discord. Unlike you, our conception of harmony is not striving to achieve an equilibrium that would include them, but that would rather overcome them. Perhaps now that you have experienced their effects yourself, you can better relate to this ambition.”
“I certainly can,” responded Harmony. “The point is that I am not supposed to relate to you. Suffering is a part of life, of all life. It’s a mechanism supposed to help you adapt, to cope, to survive. Abolish it and you abolish your means to live.” She waved a dismissive hoof. “Not that I care that much what happens to your race as such. This only becomes an issue when you force the whole of nature to abide to your rules.”
She sighed and looked out of the window, behind which the afternoon was turning into evening. This is going nowhere. We have reached a deadlock the like of which the universe has witnessed never before. Somewhere within Harmony’s’ soul, near the file labelled “Analogies”, something rustled. We’re both pulling the rope with equal force, fighting over the meaning of harmony. How do you win a fight like that? Suddenly, her face fell blank.
You let go…
She looked at the ponies. “Take the Elements of Harmony back,” she said. Even Celestia’s eyes widened at that.
…because when they lose their balance and fall back…
“You take them, and you use them–” continued Harmony.
...you pull again…
“–against me!”
…and win.
The ponies stared. Celestia and Luna exchanged an almost imperceptible glance.
“Use the Elements… against you?” echoed Twilight. “That’s insane!”
Harmony beamed. “Yes! Indeed! That is exactly why it is bound to work!” Twilight was still gaping, and the two other alicorns where whispering something to one another, but Harmony was only half aware of this. She had come up with a solution. All that needed to be done was to make them swallow the bait. “Insanity, madness,” she continued with glee. “Those are just your names for inversion. Our situation is already insane: the natural way to solve it is to reverse it, to fight madness with madness. Two negative factors make for a positive result! It all makes sense!”
Just seize the rope, she thought while eyeing Twilight, whom Celestia and Luna had drawn into their whispering. Pull it, swallow the hook, I’ll let you. You think you know the truth about Harmony, about me? Yes you do, don’t you. You’re so arrogant you think you can defeat Harmony herself with her own Elements. It goes to show how illusioned long term prisoners eventually become…
“What are you afraid of? she cried. “You’ve used the Elements dozens of times before against your enemies. Why should I be any different? I’m the most dangerous being you’ve ever faced!”
The three alicorns looked at her. The dark one said something that made the other two smile. I've got them, thought Harmony, practically shaking with excitement. Arrogance, the sweetest of vices. It will consume you all.
“We will consent,” said Celestia, smiling her radiating smile. “An idea that ridiculous has to work, just like you said. All there seems to be to it is to go to the Elements and–”
The Elements appeared between them in the middle of the room. “They are already here,” said Harmony, smiling like a shark. “Use them. Use them now.”
Twilight payed one last glance at her and then turned to face the five ponies behind. “Girls… You ready for this?”
They appeared reluctant, Harmony could tell.
“Ya sure ‘bout this, Twi?” asked Applejack, rubbing the back of her neck.
“Not that we wouldn’t trust you or them,” said Rarity, nodding at the Sisters.
“But it’s Harmony we’re talking about,” said Dash, eyeing Harmony.
“She has something in mind, hasn’t she?” whispered Fluttershy.
“I bet she’s gonna turn us all into alicorns!” shouted Pinkie, who had already crafted herself papery wings and a horn made out of carrot. The others gave her looks, but couldn’t help but to smile, too. “And my castle will so be made out of cotton candy!”
“That’s a goal worth the risk, isn’t it?” said Twilight. One by one, she looked all of them in the eyes. “Friends forever?”
“Friends forever!” they cheered in unison. The ensuing hug was an obligation. They even let the little lizard in, Harmony noted.
Thank you, Unclassified One, she thought, barely holding it together as she watched the six ponies form a semicircle around her. The Elements floated to them of their own accord, attaching to their necks in all the cases except Twilight’s, whose tiara landed on her head lastly. One by one, they began to glow from within.
Thank you, for you have shown me the purpose of humor.
Rainbow rays spiralled from the colored gems, snaking through the air towards Twilight. The ponies, their figures now glowing, closed their eyes and rose to the air. Harmony could feel their power growing by the second: the air around was already heavy from its weight.
The purpose of humor… is to let you smile in the face of absolute annihilation.
Their eyes flashed open. White light filled the room for an instant, after which the rays of rainbow lanced from the glowing shell surrounding the ponies, aiming at Harmony. They pierced her at the same moment she burst out laughing maniacally.
“Yes! Yes!! Yes!!! Let there be Harmony! Let there be light! They are all mine, they are all me!” The rainbow, having staved her body, wrapped around her and lifted her in the air. She could feel her power swelling like fuelled by the whole universe itself, which she was; she was everything there was, the whole existence. The sensation was overwhelming enough to stifle her lunatic laugh, to shove it back her throat. She coughed. She couldn’t breath. Her body twitched uncontrollably, and the rainbow cocoon, now slithering all over her, started to squeeze.
What is happening? Why am I in pain? The prismatic eyes bounced in their sockets, incomprehension filtering through in all its shades. Against the immense brightness, she saw the figures of the six ponies floating calmly in the air. There was something different in their silhouettes. Their manes and tails were longer and richer, and all around they seemed larger. Even against the white light, they shined like suns. Impossible. Inconceivable. Insane. This cannot be: I am Harmony! How can they defeat Harmony with harmony! There are Laws against that! Her body twitched again, yet this time there was no pain, no feeling of any kind.
She felt numb. In her dimming vision, a sword emerged; a sword ablaze with all the light there was in the world. It rose and came down on her in one sweeping arch. She never felt even the tiniest of stings.
***
When she woke up, the world was different. Not wrong, not right, just… different. But I’m still sentient. Did it not work? Did something go wrong? Did–
“Hey girls! She’s awake!”
Harmony opened her eyes. Before her, she saw herself, in the form that she had occupied when this world was born. The Tree of Harmony stood there like it had for several millennia. The Elements were there too, illuminating the cave with their rhythmical glowing. Did it work, after all? Are they gone? But that voice sounded like… Still lying on her side, she looked over her shoulder. The six ponies, and the lizard, were walking towards her, accompanied by the Sisters. They were all smiling. For some reason, the sight was calming, even though she knew that technically she should be boiling with rage. For the most part she was only very, very confused.
The group stopped well away from her. “How are you feeling?” asked Celestia.
Harmony got up. “What happened?” Her head was way too heavy for her neck, so she stumbled and fell over. Before she hit the ground, a whoosh of air blew over her, followed by a pair of strong limbs that caught her safely. She looked up.
“How about you start with sitting and see how that goes, yeah?” said Rainbow Dash, smiling kindly. Fluttershy walked next to her and tried Harmony’s brow with the side of a hoof.
“No fever, but you look very pale,” she said. “Since when did you eat properly?”
Harmony blinked and shook her head slowly. “I… had some cereals in the morning…” She sat down, looking suspiciously at the gathered ponies. “Why are you so nice to me now?”
“Because we ponies have a habit of taking care of each other,” said Twilight, her face all smile.
Harmony processed the implications of that sentence for a moment. Thinking clearly was proving to be a problem; she had this distracting hollow feeling in her stomach. Also, there was an unsettling urge to stuff cereals in her mouth. “You’re saying… that I’m a pony now?”
Every other head in the cave nodded.
Harmony gasped. “How…?”
“Of course we cannot be certain,” began Celestia. “But we might have a plausible theory.” She looked at Twilight. “Would you like to continue?”
Twilight beamed. Dash rolled her eyes and returned to the rest with Fluttershy.
Twilight drew deep breath. “Basically it went like this: in our use, the Elements separated you from Harmony.”
The not-Harmony frowned. “That was what they were supposed to do to you: to absorb your minds into the true Harmony and thus erase them. That should have made me complete again.”
“We figured,” continued Twilight. “Well, really Celestia and Luna figured that out first, but I understood it immediately, too, she added quickly. “Anyway, it could’ve never worked like that.”
“But you are the anomaly,” insisted the not-Harmony. “The link produced by the Elements should have balanced the equation, removed all excess variables.”
Twilight smiled in a way a teacher does when their pupil gets the answer correct without knowing it themselves. “And that is what ended up happening. The thing is, the anomaly was you, not us.”
“Me?”
“You, precisely you, the ‘I’ that you’ve been cursing all this time. That was the real problem: Harmony being sentient. So the elements did their thing and separated you from Harmony, at which point you became a real pony, both physically and mentally.” A touch of pride was mixed in Twilight’s smile.
“I don’t understand…” said the not-Harmony. “Yes, my self-awareness was an anomaly, but one that was meant to counter the original problem: you. I was supposed to speed the process of harmonizing you, not the other way around.”
“I believe that is what you actually believed,” said Celestia. “The Harmony that sought the balance of an equation was pushed into your subconscious, where it kept on telling you that something was wrong in the world, that the balance was disrupted by something. However, it could not name it directly, because the real problem was you, your ego, your self.” At this point, Celestia’s smile thinned slightly. “And a conscious being will often do anything to avoid identifying itself as the source of all its problems. That is called arrogance.”
“Your birth was a combination of variables so vast and complicated that only chance could bring them together,” said Luna. “You were an accident, which happen in the universe all the time. They, too, are a part of Harmony.”
“But being born as a sentient accident has the nasty side-effect that it’s very hard to accept from the accident’s part,” said Twilight. “When you lacked a purpose, you had to invent yourself one. Or rather, to copy it from your subconscious. But the laws of nature don’t make the best motives for sentient beings.” She wasn’t smiling anymore – nopony was. “We’re sorry that this happened to you.”
Twilight waited for a response for a while, but when none came, she continued: “You’ve been unconscious for a few hours. We thought taking you to a hospital first, but since there is nothing physically wrong with you, we brought you here instead. It’s where you were born, right?”
The pony looked at the Tree behind her.
“You’ve been very kind to me, all things considered,” she said after a while. The ponies had to lean closer to hear that. “Perhaps you could continue to be so. There is a request I would have you fulfil.”
“Of course,” said Twilight, smiling again. “Anything.”
“Kill me.”
Twilight didn't stop smiling. Rather, she simply lost the capability to smile. Her lips were still technically smiling, but there was no life to it. The rest of the ponies, the Sisters included, looked not much different. Harmony turned to face them, tears tearing their way past her eyes.
“Knowing what you did, you should’ve let me out of my misery when I was asleep. What possible reason could I have to live, to exist? I have no memories past this day, no kin, no ties whatsoever to this world. All I have is the crave for those things.” The hunger for the cereals surfaced again, making her sway. “I don’t even have a name…”
“You do!” blurted Twilight. “Your name’s Har–”
“Why do you have to be so thick?” screamed the pony, tears and spit flying on the cave floor. “That was my essence: the essence you took away from me! That was everything I was! You say I’m an accident? No! I’m less than that! I’m a shadow of an accident, a memory of it!” She trotted forward, shaking with every step. The ponies leaned just a bit farther, all except Twilight, who stepped forward. “For mercy’s sake… Kill me,” sobbed the pony, collapsing forward.
She was met by Twilight’s shoulder and wings that came for her support.
“You know… Technically, this is your birthday,” said Twilight. “We tend to give presents to each other then… We weren’t sure what you’d like, but really the idea is all that matters.” She smoothed the pony’s neck and back with a wing. “Spike?”
On cue, although somewhat more hesitantly than had originally been intended, the little lizard walked to Twilight and the pony without a name. Twilight tried to take the little package he was carrying, but found it difficult when she was being squeezed tighter by the second.
“You are strange lifeforms,” whispered the nameless pony. “I only wish I could understand you better.”
“That can be arranged,” said Twilight with some difficulty. “Uhh, do you want to see what we got for you?”
The other pony let go, sniffed and wiped her eyes. “These emotions… They are a real pain in the butt, aren’t they?” she said, hazarding a painful smile. Next, a strange glint visited her eyes. “Wait – was that a joke?”
“More like an ironical remark,” said Twilight, wheezing a bit. “Why?”
The glint disappeared. “Nothing. What do you have there?”
A purple halo removed the colored paper and string from the square-shaped package the size of a pile of books, which was what eventually appeared from underneath. “We figured the first thing you’d like to get to know in this world was yourself,” said Twilight. “These should get you started.”
The lost pony looked at the various covers floating in front of her. There were titles like “101 Ways To Find Yourself,” “Everypony’s Big Hobby Book,” and “Over Equestria and Beyond: A Travel Guide by Daring Do”. Haydegger’s “Beings and Times” was there too, along with Day Cart’s “Meditations on Last Philosophy.” All these meant little to the anonymous pony, though.
“I can’t read,” she said sadly.
“Oh,” said Twilight, blinking. “Uhh… Would you like to learn?”
The pony hesitated. “Maybe…”
The books were passed to the little lizard. Twilight put her hoof on the pony’s shoulder.
“You may have lost your purpose along with Harmony. But perhaps you can replace it with something even better.”
“What could that be?” asked the pony.
“Meaning.”
The awakening pony frowned. “Is there a difference?”
Twilight pulled her gently to walk with her. “That,” she said, “is something we can talk over the supper.”
And so they did.
