The Great Equestrian Economic Assistance Program

The Cosmic Matriarch paced across the void beyond the stars at the edge of the universe. Her auburn hair fell over her green eyes, reaching almost to her mild, knowing smile. Her white coat shone in the lack of light. She remembered fondly the days when the universe was small, when she could smile over everything and take it all in at a glance. As your worlds grew, though, a good creator had to step back and interfere less and less. Invariably, one ended up in the void beyond stars or what have you, helping other universes along until another one came that you could really get into.

The temptation was always strong, since you could always look back, to simply dive back in, tweak something here or there. Madness lay in that, though, and there was a cautionary tale in the one creator who thought moving a few galaxies and millennia away from his start was sufficient. Textbook example of a creator gone rogue, incompetent if not totally evil.

No, it was best to simply look back for a few simple things, to see how one’s favorite entities or places were doing (all creators had favorites, though they might not admit it), and spend most of one’s time searching the shadow between things for one’s next project.

She was doing just that when the universe shook. She frowned as timelines streamed away from one another, fanning out the universe like it was so many sheets of four-dimensional filo dough. Somepony was playing with time paradoxes. Perhaps she shouldn't have put quite so much magic into this one, but hindsight was 20/20. She didn't even mind the inconvenience of having to look at all the layers of reality at once, having to see the inevitable sheets burned by separation. The worst was being spread so very thin across this new multiverse. If any of the more intrepid of her ponies made their way to the edge of their universe now, they would have trouble picking her out from the void.

She turned back to said emptiness. No time like the present.