And Everything, Apparently
Rainbow Dash yawned. Space was definitely way more boring than everyone made it out to be.
Twilight would get worked up about space. She used to tell Rainbow all about it, pushing several science fiction novels on her and gushing over their scientifcal accuracy or whatever. Space was supposed to be this dangerous and scary place, with no air and a temperature of negative two zillion degrees. Even talking to normal ponies, they’d get a glazed-over look when talking about space, looking up at the sky and pausing mid-sentence to gape in awe and fear.
Rainbow tried one of those sci-fi novels, once. The first nine pages put her to sleep.
To Rainbow, space was more than just nothing; it was a whole lot of nothing. It wasn’t all that dangerous, or even scary. She could breathe without a “space suit”. She was walking around normally, not floating uncontrollably. It wasn’t even all that cold; space was apparently room temperature. She could hear a sound, too, just barely—something like a soft hum and a distant, gentle wind.
Rainbow took a look around the big black sky, strewn with thousands of stars. The sky stretched all the way around her, even below the horizon and underneath her, as if she was standing on glass. Stars were in every direction she looked. Sure, it was neat to see all these stars in one place, but none of it was going anywhere. Zero miles an hour. It was sorta like Earth, but more dead.
Rainbow brushed her hair out of her eyes. How did she get here, again? Certainly, she wouldn’t have come here because she wanted to, because she really hadn’t. She didn’t remember coming up on a space rocket or anything. Maybe she was trying some death-defying aerial stunt that involved exiting the Earth’s atmosphere. That certainly sounded awesome enough to be it.
Perhaps this was a dream. This felt way more real than a dream, though. She felt fully aware of her senses, as if she were awake. Plus, she would never dream up anything this dull and uninteresting.
Hello, Rainbow Dash.
“Woah, hey! Hello?” Rainbow said, jumping up and flapping her wings. “Who said that? Who’s there?”
You can call me the Keeper.
The voice sounded like it came from everywhere. She looked frantically in every direction, behind her, above her, to her sides, but the source of the voice was nowhere in sight. “Where are you?”
Technically, I’m everywhere.
Rainbow scoffed. “Technically” was a word Twilight liked to use when she wanted to make herself sound smarter, or to ruin a joke. This voice wasn’t just a know-it-all, though; it was worse than that. She seemed to be a vague know-it-all, one of those snobbish types who flaunted their intelligence in front of those like Rainbow who couldn’t help being a non-genius. Or, maybe the voice wasn’t like that, and maybe she could be helpful. “Where am I? What is this?” Rainbow said.
This is everything.
Nope, she was the vague type. Rainbow scrunched up her nose and landed on the ground.
Well, she’d never seen “everything” before, but she figured it wouldn’t look so empty. She searched the place again to see if she had missed something on her first look around. There were stars everywhere she looked, on a black night sky. Stars above her, too, and more stars below her.
“Still looks like nothing to me,” Rainbow said.
From far away, yes, I suppose it could, the voice said. This is the multiverse. Time does not exist here.
“Woah, okay, you’re gonna tell me there’s no time here? That’s stupid,” Rainbow said, rolling her eyes in an exaggerated enough manner that the voice could see it, wherever it was. “One, two, three, four, five. There. Five seconds.”
Yes, but it’s not that simple.
“Gee, it never is, is it? Look, not all of us are experts on philosophy or psychology or whatever, all right? That stuff takes some hardcore thinking.” She pounded on the invisible ground beneath her. It felt and sounded solid, echoing the plock of her hoof, but it looked like more space. “Me? Thinking tires me out.”
We’re not all that different, then.
Rainbow sat down, groaning and covering her face with her hoof. “What’s that supposed to mean? We’re nothing alike. You said it yourself: you’re ‘everywhere’,” Rainbow said, droning her voice to mock the voice’s nebulousness. She tossed her hooves in the air. “You’re probably, like, the creator of the universe or whatever.”
I’m not the Creator. However, this multiverse is mine to keep for the rest of eternity.
“Whatever,” Rainbow said, folding her arms. “Do you have a name, at least? I can’t keep calling you ‘The Voice that Comes from Everywhere or Maybe Inside My Head, I’m Not Sure at This Point’.”
I told you already. I am the Keeper.
“Well then. Okay, Keeper, why’d you bring me here? I mean, to some ponies, space is a cool place to be, I guess, but I’d much rather get to the point of all this.”
I thought you weren’t a philosopher?
Rainbow opened her mouth to respond, but hesitated. She repeated it back in her head, just to make sure she hadn’t misheard. Her lips curled in a small smirk. “Was that a joke?”
An attempt at one, yes. Did you like it?
Rainbow grinned. The creator—or, “keeper” of the multiverse, apparently—just tried to crack a joke. “Yeah, but I think your delivery needs some work. Anyway, you still didn’t answer my question. I don’t know why I’m here right now.”
I’ll show you.
Rainbow took a look around, wondering what Keeper would show her in this empty world, much less where or how. Then, as she turned, a large bubble appeared before her, where nothing had been before. It was not quite a bubble, though—it was a bit flatter, and more of an oval in shape. A slightly cloudy substance, like a light fog, filled the inside of the bubble and swirled around slowly. The surface of the bubble had sheen, and Rainbow could barely make out a reflection of herself in the film.
It seemed harmless enough. Carefully, Rainbow reached out to touch the surface. When her hoof made contact, she felt energy inside of her surge into the bubble and then back into herself. An image appeared on the bubble of her flying through the clouds.
She was no longer just in space, now. She was also in Equestria, flying and performing stunts, a small forest below her, the smell of apple trees grazing her nostrils. She felt the cold wind on her skin, the air through her feathers. However, she wasn’t in control of her own motions. It was like watching a film of herself, but experiencing it with all of her senses, not just sight and sound. She even knew what she was thinking at that moment, but at the same time, she was observing this all from the space world.
She spun around and turned over, viewing the Apple family orchard spread out before her. She remembered this. Just last week, she’d been flying over Sweet Apple Acres as per her morning warm-up. This was all happening again with her, now, as clear as if she was reliving it.
She spotted Applejack down on the farm, hauling a cart full of apples towards her barn. Rainbow turned over on her back and put her hooves behind her head, crossing her legs. She tilted sideways as she called out, “Hey, Applejack!”
“Mornin’, Rainbow!” Applejack hollered back, taking a break from her morning chores and wiping the sweat off her forehead in a wide motion. “Aren’t you usually sleepin’ in right about now?”
“Must be,” Rainbow said. “Applejack’s doing real work? I must be dreaming!”
Applejack laughed, shaking her hoof at Rainbow. Rainbow flew off, smiling stupidly wide as she finished off her morning exercises, invigorated by the mischievous joy burbling in her stomach.
Then Rainbow pulled her hoof out of the bubble. The Apple family farm and the crisp morning air were gone, replaced by the space and stars of wherever she was. However, that flicker of mischievous joy remained as the memory lingered fresh in her mind. She set her hoof down. “Okay. That’s kinda neat.”
And thus, it was so. The bubble that contained the entirety of the universe’s time and space within it was henceforth deemed “kinda neat”.
Rainbow grinned. “I like that one.”
Thanks.
Rainbow walked around the bubble. It floated in midair, suspended by seemingly nothing. “So that’s it, then? These are all my memories?”
Your past, yes, and everyone else’s. When I said “the entirety of time and space”, that was not part of the joke. This bubble contains everything that is, was, and will be, in your universe.
“Will be, huh?” She rubbed her chin and looked the bubble up and down. Curiosity tugged at the back of her mind. “Can I see my future? Like, when I’m old?”
Of course. You can choose what you see, as can I. Touch it again.
Sitting down in front of the bubble, Rainbow stuck her hoof inside.
The evening sun greeted her, viewing her from afar over a thick forest. Her body felt a little heavier, and she reclined back in the rocking chair she was sitting in, letting it cradle her. Her old bones ached inside of her and her skin felt like it was pulling her down, but she was willing to ignore it by now.
The light from the sun glazed the treetops, turning to shades of bright red and orange as it sauntered up the sky. Her skin felt warm, the cool evening breeze rolling across her fur in calm strokes. Rainbow had the distinct feeling of not wanting to be anywhere else but here.
When she pulled her hoof from the bubble, and no longer felt the warmth of the sun on her face, she felt sad. Never had she imagined slowing down in life, but that was peaceful.
“Thanks, I guess.” Rainbow said. “This is cool and all, but I’m still not seeing why you brought me here. If you wanted to show me what I’m like when I’m older, then great, but, uh, so what?”
The distant wind and hum of space was all she heard in reply. Did she say that loudly enough? She must have, since Keeper was able to hear her before.
Keeper spoke, a tinge of sadness slipping through. I want you to see something.
Rainbow felt a tingle on the skin of her back. She watched the bubble as the fog inside swirled in a circle, near where her hoof had touched it before, ready for her to touch it again. Rainbow stood up, lifting up a cautious hoof. “I don’t like where this is going.”
Please, touch it. Look for your twenty-second birthday.
“That’s… specific,” Rainbow said, eyeing the bubble. Did something weird happen then? Something bad? Did Discord take over? Was it the end of the world? Did somepony die? Was the future some horrible post-apocalyptic dystopia where ponies murdered each other, nopony could fly, and everyone had to pay taxes?
Trust me.
Rainbow looked at her hoof, then at the bubble. Though she feared what would happen, she needed to know what would happen in order to make the fear go away. It couldn’t be that bad, could it? Plus, she could pull her hoof out at any time.
“Just this once,” she said, mostly to herself. She grazed the surface of the bubble with her hoof.
Rainbow watched herself as she lay back against a stiff bed. She recognized the place: Ponyville General Hospital. The lighting was dim and the air was chilly, and it had that sterile sort of hospital smell. This was the same bed, in fact, that she had lay in when she sprained her wing as a teenager.
Currently, the same wing hurt, but it was different this time. She couldn’t feel the tips of her wing, just the base, where a dull pain throbbed. She felt tired, like she couldn’t lift her arms if she wanted to. There must’ve been some medicine going through her. It didn’t help, she realized, that she’d been lying here for weeks.
It was bad enough being cold in the hospital bed, the sheets barely thick enough to be able to keep heat close to her body. No, the loneliness was worse. She was stuck in that bed, her wing aching for minutes, hours, days on end, but the emptiness upset her more, the hollow feeling that her friends and pretty much everypony else in the world was out and about, enjoying their lives, except for her. She hated life for choosing to heap this on her.
She pulled her hoof out. The pain immediately left and her wing felt normal again, but the emptiness remained. Even though she was no longer pumped full of medicine, she felt tired and a niggling fear of what would follow that particular scene.
She turned around, once again searching for Keeper’s face. “Okay, this isn’t fun anymore. Just tell me if I die there. I’ll get it. I don’t want to have to feel it.”
No, you don’t die there. Remember? You saw yourself when you were old. Keep going.
The loneliness still hung in Rainbow’s mind. She felt so far away from everything else in this space world. The sound of wind in the distance did nothing to console her. She stared at the thin, lifeless surface of the bubble, scared to ask. “Why are you showing me this?”
Nothing but the wind responded. Rainbow waited for an answer, but several seconds of silence was too long.
She paced around the bubble, counting the number of times she walked around. Keeper still kept quiet. Rainbow couldn’t help but imagine really bad things waiting for her in that bubble. She stopped, putting her hoof down. “I can’t do it. It’s gonna be worse. I’m not doing it.”
Then let me show you another one instead.
“No, I’m done.” Rainbow spread her wings, leaping into the sky and flying away, hoping she’d find a doorway out. She flapped her wings, thrusting herself forward, but she didn’t feel any air move past her. She looked down, noticing that the bubble stayed in place under her. Or it was following her. Either way, neither of them were going anywhere.
She landed in front of the bubble. “Did you hear me? I said I’m done! Take me home now.”
Just one more. Please. What you saw doesn’t have to be.
Rainbow then noticed another bubble to her left, about twenty feet away. This bubble resembled the other one in every way. Rainbow looked at her own bubble, then walked towards the new one, slowly. She sighed. “You’re not going to let me go home unless I see this thing, aren’t you?”
This bubble contains the time and space of a different universe than yours. I think you’ll like this one.
It wouldn’t matter whether or not she’d like it. One way or the other, Keeper was going to keep her there until Rainbow saw whatever she was supposed to see. Spreading her hooves out in a steady stance, she touched her hoof to the bubble’s surface.
The sound of a thousand ponies chattering at once filled her ears. She stood in a dark room, the only light coming from a small hanging lamp and a slightly open pair of doors. Her eyes had adjusted to the dimness, though, and she recognized everypony standing in a circle with her. It was the Wonderbolts: Spitfire, Soarin’, Fleetfoot, Rapidfire, Fire Streak. Rainbow could hardly believe what she was seeing, but to the Rainbow in the bubble, she was used to this by now.
“Hey Rainbow Dash, you ready?” Spitfire said, offering her a hoof bump, barely audible over the chattering outside.
Rainbow returned it, excited that she’d just bumped hooves with the captain of the Wonderbolts, and at the same time thinking nothing of it. “Do you even have to ask?” she heard herself say. She stretched her wings, though she was plenty warmed up by now. She’d trained for this all her life.
A stallion’s voice echoed outside the doors, though Rainbow could barely make out what he was saying. The ponies in the audience above stomped their hooves. The room began to shake and what sounded like constant thunder rumbled, causing the lamp overhead to jerk around wildly on its string.
This could be your future, Keeper said.
Rainbow’s eyes widened. Her teeth rattled as the cheers in the crowd got louder and the stomps grew to a roar. The announcer kept babbling, his voice rising and building to a yell.
Wouldn’t you like to live your dream?
The doors swung open as the announcer boomed, “The Wonderbolts!”
Rainbow bolted through, spreading her wings and pumping up, up, up into the bright blue sky, a sea of ponies of every colour around her going nuts for the Wonderbolts—for her.
Rainbow tried to chuckle, but it came out as a whimper. Tears welled up in her eyes as she watched herself soar through the sky, the air streaking past her as she performed flips and twists, locking arms with Soarin’ for a practiced formation, the pow-pa-pow of fireworks going off around her.
The fame she’d wanted her whole life—she had it, now. The Wonderbolts were her heroes, and to think that she was one of them filled her with jittery glee.
She was so happy, it hurt. This was happening way too fast for her. The crowd was too loud, now. She couldn’t think.
She banked left to start another stunt, but she couldn’t bring herself to keep watching. She yanked her hoof back, out of the bubble.
“Stop it.” Rainbow said. She spread her wings to fly again, but remembered she wouldn’t be going anywhere in this weird space place. Her stomach tightened and she shook her head. “Please, stop.”
But you could be—
“I know, geez!” she said, pounding her hoof into the ground. It was exactly what she wanted. It was too good to be true—but it was true, and it could’ve been true, but it didn’t feel right.
She walked back and forth, back and forth, her face growing hot, her mind scrambling for a way to justify it. Her own universe was so empty. What if she chose the future where she became a Wonderbolt? Life would be great, but guilt nagged at her.
Her pacing slowed until she came to a stop and she was no longer dizzy. She sat down, licking her lips, her head slouching forward. “I could be that if I wanted, but,” Rainbow said, looking down and wiping her eyes, “it’s not right.”
Keeper was quiet. Rainbow took the silence to think it over, but it was a rotten deal no matter how she looked at it. She wondered if Keeper, as all-knowing or all-powerful as she seemed to be, understood why this wouldn’t work.
She raised her head, looking at the bubble that contained her own universe. “It’s like cheating. I worked hard for it, yeah, but I knew there was a chance I wouldn’t make the Wonderbolts. I’m okay with that.”
But it was your dream.
“Yeah, but, so what?” Rainbow said, rubbing her elbow. “Dreams are great, but there are lots of ponies with that dream. So what if it’s not me that gets what they want? It’d be hard to take that, but it wouldn’t be the end of the world. I could move on. I’m a grown mare."
She stared at the bubble, making sure she was certain about this. With a firm nod, she turned away from that life and walked back towards her own universe’s bubble.
She pointed at her bubble, looking up above. “What’s so bad about this one, anyway?”
No response.
Rainbow licked her lips, shifting from side to side. She set her hoof down, still looking up. “What else happens, Keeper?”
Again, Keeper didn’t answer. Rainbow Dash stepped back a moment, wondering if Keeper either didn’t know how to answer that, didn’t want to answer that, or just wasn’t there anymore.
Rainbow glanced at the other bubble, then at her own. Maybe it’d be better to switch universes, if only to avoid some horrible fate in her own universe. There had to be a reason that Keeper wouldn’t tell her.
“Keeper?” Rainbow said, louder this time. She rocked back and forth on her hooves, furrowing her brow as sweat trickled down her forehead. “Keeper! What happens?”
Still no response. Rainbow stomped. “Fine!” she said. She hated the mysteriousness of Keeper. She had to see her life—all of it. She walked over to her universe’s bubble and jammed her hoof inside.
Her mind was instantly flooded with thousands of places, ponies, times in her life. She recoiled and stumbled before the bubble as her senses were overwhelmed with hot, cold, salty, sweet, bitter, the stinging scent of vinegar, the delicious smell of a fresh-baked apple pie. Time pressed on, all at once, out of order. She couldn’t breathe. The ringing explosion of her first sonic rainboom, the eager whisper of Applejack over a late summer evening campfire. Time wouldn’t stay still. Her chest grew sore and hot. The rumble-rumble of her first ride on the Friendship Express with Fluttershy and Rarity, the wet splash of accidentally tackling Twilight Sparkle in the mud. Her friends, her family. Dreams, depression, hope, drive, desperation, joy, hollowness, disappointment, contentment, love.
She yanked her hoof out and collapsed on the space-floor, gasping for air and clutching her chest. She flailed her arms, trying to find the ground, to grab hold of something solid. Her head jerked around, threatening to spin like a helicopter and fly away.
Rainbow Dash? Are you all right?
Rainbow sprawled out her arms, holding her body as close to the ground as possible. Her heart pounded in her ears and she took heavier breaths. Cold sweat trickled down her arms, her sides. She stayed on the ground, trying to process what she just saw.
Which didn’t take long. She’d seen her entire life. Her head stopped spinning, her breathing slowed to a calm rhythm. There was some strange serenity in knowing how it would go, and especially how it ended.
She was ready to show Keeper, now, why there was nothing to worry about.
I’m sorry, Keeper said. I’m so sorry you saw that.
“No, don’t be,” Rainbow said, struggling to stand up. “You were right.” Her arms and legs felt like they were filling with ice, but they weren’t cold. She dropped down, her legs too weak. She wiped her nose. “My life could’ve been great. I could’ve been a Wonderbolt.”
She tried to stand up again, her legs shaking as her knees locked and swayed. She pulled herself towards her universe bubble, blurry in her vision. The bubble moved closer to her, maybe pushed by Keeper.
“One thing, though.” Rainbow stuck her hoof in and opened up a memory early on in her life, leaning on the bubble for support. She knew where to look. The image flashed up on the bubble.
“You missed all the good parts.” She pointed to the image with her other hoof. “Look.”
The bubble depicted Applejack and Rainbow, sitting in her barn on a brisk January evening, a fierce blizzard raging outside, trapping everypony in Ponyville indoors for the night. Applejack had run out of firewood that night, and they were holding each other close to keep warm, their hooves wrapped around each other’s shoulders, each wearing a thick winter coat and three blankets tucked tight around them like one big pony burrito.
Their mouths blurred as Rainbow tried to keep the time stable, but their eyes stayed locked on one another. Rainbow remembered that night, just as it happened and would happen, their bones chilling and aching in the cold, their hot cocoa not nearly enough to keep them warm, but just keeping each other close, enjoying each other’s company. Later, when Apple Bloom told everyone what happened, Rainbow would deny everything and Applejack would insist they were “conservin’ body heat, as Twilight might say”, but they both knew it meant more than that.
Rainbow moved forward in time, her eyes darting as she absorbed the high points in her life, the low points, everything. “I lived in Ponyville for the rest of my life, but… I was happy.” More images flashed on the bubble as she thought of them. “My friends kept me company when I recovered in the hospital. They did so much for me.”
The images kept coming, filling in the blanks of Rainbow’s life. Rainbow watched it all, her other hoof wandering up to her chest. Inside the bubble, Fluttershy sat patiently by Rainbow’s bedside as she struggled to flex her wing. “Fluttershy helped with the physical therapy. Rarity too, sometimes. Applejack came in every day to talk. Said I spent so much time sleeping that nothing actually changed.” Rainbow choked out a laugh.
Twilight appeared, wearing a hardhat and a pencil in her ear, directing a small group of Ponyville’s weather team as they molded and built a set of cloud-stairs. “Twilight helped build stairs to my house, for when I was released from the hospital. Then Applejack and I got married.” Rainbow watched as she lifted the wedding veil of Applejack, and Applejack did the same, the two waiting patiently to share their lives forever.
“We even had a kid.” A foal appeared in the bubble, small and wrapped in a fuzzy, light blue blanket. Rainbow reached out and touched the image of Peppy Comet, stroking her cheek, remembering how soft and fragile she felt in her arms, her tiny violet hooves, her little tuft of golden mane. Warm tears streaked down her face as she smiled. “We have a kid.”
She held the image there for a moment longer. Time slowed down enough to let her focus on her daughter, her dorky little speedster Peppy, who took up running as she grew up, born with a pair of wings but rarely ever used them because she wanted to be just like her Mommy when she grew up. And she did.
Rainbow let the images fade away, the bubble returning to its blank, foggy state. She stared at her faint reflection in the bubble’s film. “I never did become a Wonderbolt, but even though that sucked sometimes, I made the best of it, you know?”
She pulled a hoof across her face to dry it. “Take me back to Ponyville, please. I don’t want to remember any of this.” Rainbow pointed her hoof at the bubble, smiling. “I want to live that life, just the way it happens.”
…As you wish.
Then, as quickly and abruptly Rainbow was brought into the multiverse, she was gone.
The Keeper stayed silent in the void, fascinated. As the Keeper of the multiverse, tied to all universes, she had experienced every one of Rainbow’s memories along with her. Mortality, and all that it entailed, had always been something of a mystery to her, but now, it was a little bit less of a mystery.
The bubble drifted away into the far reaches of the multiverse, taking its place in the night sky and resting there for a long, long time.
Author's Note
Thanks to horizon, The Cyan Recluse, and everyone else who read and gave feedback for it in the writeoff.
