Author's Note
A one shot I had planned a while ago and just finished it, nothing to really get crazy for.
A view unto other worlds
The Things we have done.
In your lifetime, we have been friends…
In another lifetime, we were enemies…
In another, we never met…
In another, you were gone…
In a different world, I managed to kill you…
In another world, you fell in love with me…
In this world, we didn’t exist…
In the end, there will always be a different one of us, a choice we made that never went fulfilled or never realized. No matter what we do here and now, it wont matter somewhere else. A universe of infinite possibilities, of different portions of different thoughts, of many, many different lifetimes… in the end… it won’t matter, for the choice we make here and now, won’t change the course of the universe.
500 years in the future…
Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Magic, Bearer of the Elements of Harmony, Ruler of Equestria, and mother to two foals, grandmother to four grandfoals and great grandmother to many foals after that… sighed.
Despite having the powers of an Alicorn, she felt utterly exhausted and for good reason as well. She finished the last scroll she had before magically sending it away, to a vault beneath her castle. With her work done, she moved herself away from the desk and towards the window.
As she approached, a flying shinning metal object flew by, not a half mile away from her. When she opened the window to a balcony, she saw that a flying metal chariot had flown by with an earth pony riding it. It was not being pulled by pegasi but by magic and an engine to power it through the sky.
The sky was raining and the sun was hidden behind the clouds. Below her castle, Twilight saw the vast expansion of the town’s buildings and its inhabitants. Buildings were as high as her tower and electricity ran in the buildings to the streets below. Despite the rain, the ponies below actively walked out, whether by having a coat or just enjoying nature itself.
The sound of thunder was heard next, with the distant flash of lightning to the north. Nothing to fear of it, for it was controlled thunder and the sound it makes was almost soothing.
“Twi? Can you close the window?” asked a deep voice from within her room. Twilight sighed and closed the window door, muffling some of the sounds coming through.
From within her room, a giant dragon was laying. The purple and green scaled beast was lying in the giant room, that was at length, 30 feet long. With wings twice his body length, teeth and claws that could rip metal and an appetite that could feed 50 ponies, the dragon was sleeping peacefully in the room.
“Don’t’ tell me a little lightning woke you up, Spike?” she asked, approaching the dragon’s head.
Spike opened a single eye and the green slit focused on her.
“No but you constantly studying and making use of the magic mirror has.” He answered annoyingly. She gave a small smile.
“Sorry… just… trying to figure out stuff.”
Spike huffed.
“You’re always trying to figure out stuff. Whether its magic stuff, science stuff, new possibilities stuff… so what stuff is new that you need to figure out?”
She sat near his head and placed her hoof on his snout. Compared to him, she was still small but roughly the size of his head thanks to her growing as an Alicorn. Spike saw her grow as slow as him. From the day she became an Alicorn to the day all their friends past, Twilight was growing. Whether maturity, physically or mentally, she was still growing.
It took years for her to really get used to seeing everything pass before her. When she started to go out with Flash Sentry, she had decided not to wait on love and fell for him and him to her.
From their love, they had two foals. A colt and a filly, one a pegasi and the other a unicorn. At the same time, all her friends either had families their own or their dreams come true. The rise of Friendship had spread across the lands and reached unimaginable lengths. The girls really had changed the world.
Along with that change however, came great happiness and sadness. When Spike gained his wings, when her foals took their first steps or when old enemies became allies. From families growing to families leaving.
The first time she experienced death was the Apple family member Granny Smith. It not only hurt the Apple Family but Twilight herself. It hurt many months afterwards when she found out that she too would die but she would not die for a long, long period of time.
The many struggles that followed after only made her want to try to enjoy everything she had now. From her friends, to her family to everything else, she made it count. Despite it being a sad and difficult part of change that Twilight saw, each passing day was a bit easier to take in.
Time would pass, her family and friends would get older while she remained. Her parents went first, and then close friends of Ponyville went like Zecora, Mayor Mare, Spitfire, Trixie, her mother and father and so on then slowly… her friends. First was Pinkie, then Rainbow, Applejack, Fluttershy and finally Rarity. Around that time, Spike took it hard as well. Rarity being his only love interests, he managed to spend time with enough to become romantically in love but nothing more. They enjoyed their times and accepted their time was slowly coming to end. After that, well he went back to the dragons for the time to find a mate.
After them was Shining Armor. Oh, that day really set her down the hard path. Shinning was literally the last of the Sparkles family. Not only that, but she was his BBFFF and also Cadance’s husband. Both took it hard and both grieved heavily.
However, they both remembered what he had done in his life and his accomplishments. He left a wonderful legacy with Cadance having a Daughter and Twilight being his sister. Celestia put statues as well as the Elements of Harmony around her friends, so all could see who they were.
She decided to keep the glass pictures of her friends in her castle so that any and all can come see it to those around her. Before Rarity and Shinning Armor, Flash Sentry had died. He left her with two children who lived happy, wonderful lives and the encouragement to never give up and to always have hopes for the future.
After nearly both the first and second generation of Ponyville friends when Twilight had arrived had past, Twilight decided to involve her studies to the betterment of Pony kind. From creating new types of magic to helping develop new technology for the future, Twilight remained positive and kept her hopes up.
Even now, though her children were slow aging, they too would eventually grow old and die. Same with their children and so on. Celestia had told her it would grow easier with time and that was somewhat true. The easy part wasn’t watching somepony die; it was trying to coup with their deaths and after.
And so the centuries had passed where a young Twilight Sparkle would begin her journey through life and hardships. She would grow wiser and smarter with each passing day.
However, it wasn’t until the last few decades had Twilight been tampering with the Crystal mirror that she had really changed. She had been studying extensively with it to see the various versions and realities upon it.
“Magic Mirror Stuff.” She answered his earlier question. She gave a small smile. “I was trying to see through it and…”
Spike motioned his head to it.
“You were trying to see if in other realities… our friends and families were still alive?”
She gave a small nod.
“I… try to see if I can visit them… maybe even try to communicate with them but…” she looked back towards the mirror. “I have seen many of them and I am just too scared to look at them now.”
Spike didn’t say anything. He too viewed at the mirror a few times himself and saw many wonders… and many horrors.
“I studied them all and then just recently,” she continued, “I found out more things that… I don’t know if I should have known or not.”
“Like what?” He roused more awake, slowly adjusting himself to better see her. “I mean… we both saw that there are horrible things out there and we could do nothing about it.”
She didn’t respond but rose and walked to the middle of the room. Closing her eyes, she lit up her horn and a magical burst from her lit up the room with a diagram. It was a virtual cloud filled with planets, all of them being Equestria or some form of them.
There were hundreds of thousands of them, only can be viewed as marble sized dots in the cloud. However there was one, right in the center of the cloud mass. That one was surrounded by roughly a hundred planets. From those planets, there were hundreds more surrounding those, and those were surrounded by hundreds more and so on and until out of the view of the magical cloud.
With a sigh, she opened up her eyes and looked at them softly.
“I know we could have done something and we have done something. Just not us… not me…”
“What do mean?” asked Spike, moving his body to close to the visual cloud. “We haven’t been to other worlds in a century. Celestia forbid it on the account on us not nearly making it back last time.”
“I know,” she answered, somewhat sadly. “but I have been observing other worlds, different worlds then ours. Some by very little, some by explosive amounts.” She highlighted a few planets surrounded by the center one. “Here on this one, the world is shrouded in eternal darkness. Nightmare Moon… we… didn’t stop here. I didn’t listen to Celestia on making friends and we never got the Elements of Harmony to stop her. We lost.”
Another planet lit next to that one.
“In this one we did win but… the Elements sent her back to the moon again. When Celestia came back, she was devastated about it and she stopped being princess. She let the world go into chaos and many of us died.” She skipped to the next planets. “In this one, Luna is princess and Celestia was banished to the Sun. She was Tyrant Solar Flare.” The planet after this, we never met, but other’s took our place.” She gave a small chuckle. “Believe it or not, it was Trixie who is the Element of Magic and all few other Ponyville characters who wielded the rest of the Elements.”
Spike watched as her smile dropped into something along the lines of sadness and regret.
“Here… Pinkie Pie goes crazy and kills Rainbow Dash and a few others as well. She becomes a murder and destroyed the Elements.” She paused and moved to another one. “In here… I become a murder… I kill all my friends… for fun and science.” She swallowed and a tear escaped her. “Another one… I become an Evil Tyrant and kill the princesses and my friends, taking over Equestria.”
“Twilight.” Spike called out.
She was oblivious to his call.
“Here,” she continued. “I am a sexual deviant and I turn my friends to slaves though they seem to enjoy it.” A blush appears on her. “Here I am a slave to an underground sex chain. In this one, Celestia creates an underground sex chain with… foals with the rich in charge.” She shuddered at the last one.
“Twilight.” Spike tried again.
“Here, we are dragons and you are the pony.” Spike would have called her out but thought on how that might be. “Here, we are humans, but I travel to Equestria and become pony. The one next to it, Sunset Shimmer rules over the humans in that world.”
And she continued on, naming endless list of planets and alternate realities. Ones were she and her friends take journeys, many fun ones and many, lethal ones. One where she was tortured by Tirek for all of Eternity, and a reverse one, were he kills her friends and she becomes corrupted.
Discord saves the world, Discord is a god of the world, Discord and Fluttershy have children and so on. Celestia and Luna as lovers and more. Cadance and her as lovers while Shinning Armor and Chrysalis as lovers. Her and Discord, or Shining Armor, or Luna or Celestia are together.
She as a male in a world where everything is gender reversed. She as a male, while the rest stay the same but try to get with her. A world where she or he is raped by female versions of the Villians of this world. Where he is with them, belongs to them or married to them.
Worlds were they are in the future, in the past, in Space, traveling time and so on. Worlds were physics are broken, time was shattered and space was falling. Worlds were her friends never existed or were she never existed.
“Twilight!” he tried a bit louder.
“Here, I am daughter to Nightmare Moon or Luna or Celestia or even Cadance. Here I turn out to be my own great grandmother or ancestor. Here I am Starswirl the Bearded or Discord is Starswirl.
“Twilight!” She paused upon hearing it, but said a final one. This one brought her to tears.
“Here… here is where we are and next to it… my friends are as immortal as me. They stay with me forever.” She pointed to one at the far edge, near the edge of her visual map, just barely visible. “Here at the far edge… here is where we are… where we don’t matter.”
Spike quickly got up, walked through her spell and grabbed her into a map, just as she broke down and tears began streaming. He held her close to his head as she began slowly sobbing.
He held her tightly and cooed to her.
“Hey its okay… its okay.” He whispered. She looked up at him with sadness and pain. She only cried harder as she held him onto him as tightly as possible.
Lightning struck the skies in the back and the rain poured on. But all that was heard was the sound of Twilight’s sobs and Spike’s heart beating.
It was about ten minutes of crying that Twilight had stopped. Taking a deep in, she exhaled softly and looked to Spike. The dragon she helped raised, taught, fed, grew and finally loved, gave her a lick on her cheek. It was the closest to a kiss his size can give.
She smiled and her heart warmed a bit. He saw her smile and gave her another ‘kiss’.
“You know, I love you more than anything right?” he asked. She nodded. “I love you, and so do Luna, Celestia, Cadance, Aurora, and all your friends love you. Your children, Flash, Shinning Armor, mom, dad, they all love you as well and to everypony, including me, you matter to us.”
She gave a smile.
“And I love you too Spike.” She brought him back to a tight hug. “Never forget that.”
Spike let loose his own tears.
“As long as I live, I never will. Draco knows that if even if I were to live as long as you, I would never stop loving you after all these years.” He pulled her away. “And we do matter. We matter because of what we have accomplished. Don’t worry about what could have been, what should have been, what may or may not have happened, what will happen or what has happened. All that matters what we do here and now.
We cannot help those others… our other selves and what they have done or what they have become. All we can do is imagine how things would could go wrong and try to avoid them. Maybe it’s even best if we never imagine the bad, just focus the good are your life. We have done so much in our lives that have mattered.” He motioned to the bedroom where there were photos and digital hologram photos of Twilight’s and his many accomplishments.
“Look,” he pointed one where Twilight was holding the Noble Peace Prize. “You united Ponies, Gryphons, Changelings and other races together.” He pointed to one where she was next to a foal lying in the hospital. The foal was smiling and Twilight was smiling to. “You cured more than half the worst diseases known to pony kind and save so many lives.” He pointed to a holographic picture of Twilight accepting another award. “You also build technology that has made pony lives easier. Now we can get to one corner of Equestria to another in a matter of hours. Heck, you even help start the Space Age and made it possible for ponies to go to space. SPACE!” he said loudly and with a grin.
At each mention of her accomplishments, her smile grew wider and wider. It was true, she really did accomplish a lot. When she looked at the photo of the yellow filly and herself, it warmed her heart so. The filly had cancer and had been in the hospital for years. When Twilight found the cure to the cancer, she was literally celebrated (more so than before) as a hero. The filly was the first to try it and two days later, her cancer was gone and she was going to live a full healthy live. Her parents and the filly cried, almost showering Twilight with tears of joy and happiness. Not only did she find the cure for her cancer but many others as well.
The holographic image of Twilight also reminded her of how far technology really went. First were the telephone, then the cell phone, then holograms. From there, she created the ‘automobile’, inspired by one of the many universes, that allowed a non-pegasi to travel from point A to point B anytime, anywhere, they want and faster than a train. Electricity harnessed by or contained in gems, internet, bio-fuel, magnetic, hover technology and more
Her greatest creation was designing the Lunar Shuttle. She build the design based upon another… off world experience and from the first launched the Space Age and pony kind as well as others, join the celebration across the world on her accomplishments.
Not only had they been able to go to space, but traveled as far as the moon. Luna personally helped them build an established base there. It was a bit hard for her to return there but knowing that there were ponies there to visit and help out, she more or less stayed up there to maintain safety and easier control of her moon and the stars.
All this, she had accomplished and Spike was right… it did matter. What she did here and now or in the past that made a difference, it did matter. The ponies she saved, the ponies she met, the friends that she had, they all mattered.
“Your right.” She said tearfully. “They mattered and we do matter.” She rubbed her eyes and smiled at him. “Thanks.”
He nodded and brushed against her.
“Anytime. Like I said, it doesn’t matter who, about the others. It’s their decisions or events that happened we can’t change.”
“I know,” she finally. “I know but I am just… scarred or sad knowing what has or had happened to us. I mean… all those worlds… different versions of us…”
He paused her with a finger in her mouth.
“Like I said… don’t worry about it. Just worry about now.”
She sighed and nodded.
“I’ll try.” She let him go and turned back to her scale. She stared at the middle planet. “This one is the one that still intrigues me the most.”
“Why?” he said, looking at the middle planet. It looked like every other planet.
“This one… this one is the origin of everything. I call it Prime ‘Equestria’. From here, every decision opposite of what is done here gets a new, ‘different reality’, in which makes another ‘Equestria’.”
As to prove her point, another planet appeared after the middle one, and from that one, several move appeared next to it or expanded to the rest of the visual field where more and more planets filled in definitely.
“This one… Tirek lost the match between me but… I kept all the powers of the Princess and ruled Equestria.” She said somewhat hesitantly and softly.
“Twilight?”
She shook her head in sadness but gave a small sigh.
“I am fine, just… trying to focus on the center.” She focused back on the center one. “Anyways, so just like that, the center one created an alternate reality, a different Equestria, a different world, a different us.”
Spike stared at the center.
“So what does that mean for us? How far away from the center could we really be? What different changes did we do to be far from the center?”
Twilight hummed.
“I observed the ‘Prime Equestria’ and from our world to that one, this one has some differences but not by a lot. Here, I did more accomplishments then ‘Prime Twilight’. Some of them, she has done and I haven’t or never will do. Also our friends died in different ways then hers will.”
“Will?” asked Spike.
“Compared to ‘Prime Equestria.” She answered. “We are roughly centuries ahead of her and should I say, more advanced?” she paused. “Some things before either of us were born, had changed and we had advanced significantly more than our ‘Prime Counter Parts’. Our oldest technology won’t be in that ‘Equestria’ for at least another few decades or so. Also, you stayed with the dragons, longer than that version of you did. Meaning that you are still a baby dragon at that point.”
Spike gave a smile.
“Ah to be young again.”
Twilight giggled.
“Oh please, you use to say forever, how you would love to be a grown up so you can date Rarity.”
Spike snorted.
“Yeah but now that I am a grown up, I wanna be young again. That Spike must be lucky.”
Twilight nodded.
“True but this Spike may or may not have chance with Rarity. I can’t see ‘Prime Equestria’s’ future but then again, we could be one of it’s future.”
“Aren’t we?” he asked. “I mean if we are in the future, wouldn’t we be part of that… err ‘Equestria Prime’ future?”
“We could be, but again, we are so far out in the reach of my diagram. There are millions upon millions of different Equestria’s that we could have come from or did. And just like us, we have created a few million different Equestrias that expand indefinitely. We may have created one where we never had this conversation or we did but with different settings. Everything we do, is based upon decisions we make and how it would have affected us or not.
More or less, it’s a flip of a bit. Heads or tails, we do or we don’t, that in which creates another world where we did or we don’t. The same with that world and so on. Sometimes, the bit lands on its middle and creates another world completely different than the one that lands on its heads or tails. Some decisions are based on what happens around us like environments, ponies, events, past, future and so on, all of which one way or another affects another world’s well… world.”
Silenced crossed them both, Spike stared at the planets in wonder while Twilight to the Crystal Mirror.
“It all comes done to either choice or chance, but choice being the lateral. Even before we were conceived or our parents or even before ponies existed, there was a choice. A choice in which our ancestors, the Eohippus or before the creatures of the sea walked onto land, would have made. If they never were brave enough to walk out of water or brave enough to come out of hiding from the largest creatures, who knew what we would have been.”
She sighed heavily and fell onto her rump with a somewhat satisfied smile.
“All of it began with choice and you just reminded me that I had a choice to become who I am today and what I have accomplished. All the years of hard work and all the years I had to endure, I could have made a choice to either give up or stop but in the end, it was my choice to go on.”
Spike gave a nod.
“And those were all great choices Twi. Choices that make us great.”
He was about to continue on before a knock on the door interrupted him.
“Come in.” Twilight spoke out loudly.
A yellow mare opened the door and bowed her head before looking back up.
“Excuse the interruption, Princess Twilight but Princess Monarch of the Changeling Hive, Prince Iddo of the Diamond Dogs has arrived for the meeting. They are already seated with Azile of the Zebrica nation and Princess Talonia of the dragon empire.”
Twilight gave a grin to Spike.
“At least now your daughter is taking part in politics. I think that maybe her father has something to do with it, hmm?”
Spike gave a cheeky grin.
“She could deal with that stuff as well as her mother. I rather deal with the hoard distributions, the guards at the border and sleeping.”
“Lazy drake,” She giggled then turned to the mare. “Thank you Miracle Gaze. I will join them in a moment.”
With that Twilight undid the hallucination spell and everything went back to before. Spike laid his head back down to the floor.
“You sure you don’t want to come and see Talonia?” she asked.
Spike yawned, showing off his teeth.
“Maybe tomorrow. The rain is too cold and I want to spend much time here before I go back to the dragon empire to see our new clutch.”
Twilight nodded. “Alright, I tell her that you were too lazy to visit today.”
Spike gave a fake snore.
Twilight gave a smirk.
“I guess that means no gems for you and your daughter to eat and no praises from the others about how great you kept the dragons at bay for all these years.”
Spike opened a single eyelid and focused on her. She held a grin and turned to Miracle.
“Miracle, you mind going to tell Talonia that she could have all of her father’s gems for today. I am pretty sure that she won’t mind, especially if they are rubies.” She said teasingly.
Spike instantly shot to all fours and glared at Twilight.
“Sometimes I think that being a princess gave you too much power and you are a tyrant.”
Twilight mocked a scoff.
“Why I never!”
Spike gave a roll of his eyes and passed her.
“Whatever… I just better get there before Talonia eats them all.”
Twilight giggled as Spike quickly left the room. She then followed him with Miracle following behind.
“What were you talking about, Twilight?” asked Miracle Gaze, as she followed the Princess out. Twilight smiled and closed the door.
“Spike reminded me the choices I made and how important they are. That no matter what I did in some other time or place, what I did here is what matters.”
Miracle gave a smile.
“Like the cure you found to save me and millions of others?”
Twilight gave a nod and a smile.
“Yes… that choice.” They both walked away from the room to the hall to meet everyone else. The smile she felt and the warmth from the mare next to her, she knew that these were the best choices she ever made.
The Crystal mirror in Twilight’s room began to glow. A ripple ran through mirror, almost like a single drop of water fell into a still pond.
A better life here, Spoke a soft, scared voice, a voice filled sadness. A better life to live, a better life where… I can be happy… A happy life. A better life… No more pain… no more sadness… Just happiness…
A purple hoof with scars and blood came out of the mirror and stepped out of it. A new world to start all over!
