With the food set out on the table and eating begun, Paul faced the rest of the table. "Guys, I have a thought."

Joe rolled a hand. "Yeah?"

"What if we're not supposed to escape?"

I shrugged between chews of my fried rice. "What do you mean by that?"

Paul pointed at Bed Time and Blank Slate. "What if we're supposed to just join this world, you know, permanently? It isn't letting us leave, but it did let Brad go on the other side."

Joe snorted annoyedly. "I don't want to be a horse, and I have a job, and a girlfriend."

Paul pointed at Joe's character sheet. "You could fix the horse part, if you wanted."

Joe grabbed the sheet roughly and tore it in half, vanishing instantly.

I blinked at the space that once held Joe. "Uh... Fuck."

Bed Time offered more optimistically. "Maybe he's free?"

Blank Slate seemed to be in agreement. "He has rent his tie to this fate. May he find peace in whatever fateless world he now finds himself."

Paul let out a loud sigh. "Well, that leaves two of us, besides the girls. Brad's already stuck in there... I don't have a character sheet to rip up. Are you going?"

Paul looked at me with a resigned expression. I could go. Just tear that sheet, and poof, gone. But that'd mean leaving Bed Time and Paul behind. If Bed Time ripped her sheet, she'd probably go back to a pony in ponyland, not a human. Paul was stuck either way. Abandoning either of them felt like an awfully shitty thing to do.

Bed Time circled the table and rested a hand on my shoulder. "If you want to go home, I won't stop you. If you love something, you can't keep it away from what it wants." She smiled a sad little smile. "I'll always think of you."

Fuck! I shoved the sheet away. "I'm staying. We don't have a healer now though."

Paul nodded in agreement. "Well I could make one, but I think I've made enough ponies, don't you?"

Blank Slate gestured at the game table. "It is your power to create and change fate, my master. You should not look at it as a burden, but a gift."

Paul rest his head on his palms, elbows on the table. "Who says we have to keep adventuring? We could just, you know, settle down with what we have? If we keep pushing, the dice will turn on us eventually, and we'll be dead."

Blank Slate gestured at herself. "I would be dead. You are eternal, fate master."

"Not much better."

I imagined Paul all alone at the table and frowned. "You have a point..." Was I really ready to settle in Equestria? Bed Time squeezed my shoulder lightly and answered the question for me. There are way worse ways to go than living a life with someone who really loves you. "Let's do it. We'll tell Twilight we closed the dungeon in the Everfree and that we're retiring, and she'll have to find some other victims to finish the job."

Paul looked to Blank Slate. "Is this OK with you?"

"Why would it not be?" She looked perplexed.

"I mean, just living through you forever?"

She shook her head. "That is what I trained my life for. How else can a god exist in the mortal realm? I can think of no greater honor than to be your vessel."

Paul frowned a little. "You know I just... made you up, right?"

Her face brightened with a smile. "To know my life is free of the tyranny of chance, even from the start. You fill me with joy."

Paul sank, putting his face into a palm. "Alright, let's go back, for good this time, I guess. If we don't go on an adventure, we won't come back."

I nodded a little stiffly. "There are worse ways of going, all things considered." I kept my theory that Paul might eventually snap back even after our pony selves died of old age. He could discover that on his own if it ever proved to be true.

"Alright, give me a perception roll."

It was the last roll I ever made.

Author's Note

The worst typo of them all, THE END!

Ian and Paul and Brad (now a fiendish goat kid) lived out their life in Equestria. Joe escaped back to reality.

I hope everyone enjoyed the ride! This was a paid comission, of which 20,000 words were paid for, but we went a bit over because happy customers are the best customers. The story's done here, unless someone really insists it be continued.