The Conversion Burro: Making an Ass of Yourself
The greatest mistake we can commit
is to assume that those who shape History
know what they are doing.
—Herodotus, Apocrypha.
Genocide really made one consider how strong sisterly love was.
Celestia squinted at the dawning horizon, coffee mug on her lips, bags under her eyes, and wondered for the millionth time if the sun was supposed to be on fire. It was one of those things she felt was too late to ask about, no matter how much it nagged her.
One of these days she’d get a huge bucket of water and call it a day. Better safe than sorry. The moon wasn’t on fire, and nopony had ever complained about that.
Ah, the life of a monarch. Always busy, always another problem to solve. Sleep almost felt like an afterthought to Celestia, but it was really just a matter of priorities. As long as you knew what was truly important, and as long as you were mature enough to face your own mistakes, you could get by.
Celestia knew what mattered, and she was always ready to learn from her failures. Very recently, for example, she had learned that she should have never let Luna alone in the Forbidden Section of the Castle’s library, because she was eager to help and loved to try new things.
Really good lesson, that one. Celestia took another sip and nodded. Really good coffee, too. Made her morning. She made a mental note of finding out who’d brew it this morning and thank them directly. It’s the little details.
“…Well,” Celestia said ten minutes later, and her secretary flinched. That mare hadn’t moved from the Princess’ side ever since bringing the news. “I think I better clear up my schedule.”
Her secretary nodded. “Y-yes, Princess.”
“And go talk to Luna.”
“Yes, Princess.”
Another sip of coffee. Was that a roasty aftertaste? She liked roasty.
“Hmm.” Celestia treasured the flavor a little bit. “Just in case, though? Define exactly what you mean by ‘millions might die,’ please.”
Later, and far away, a man woke up at six in the morning to someone knocking on his front door. Or maybe it was someone trying to tear his house down with fists alone—it was hard to judge just by the noise.
The name of this man was Lafayette.
He honestly didn’t deserve it.
The man went downstairs with the grace of an elephant who never let its obvious lack of talent prevent it from following its ballet dreams, and amongst the mist that was his sleepy mind, there was only one thought: Please, don’t be Dani. Please, God, please make it so it’s not Dani again.
Then he opened his front door.
“Hi!” Dani said. “It’s me again!”
And he closed his front door.
Men are simple creatures. When it rains, they get wet. When they hunger, they get food. And when stuff like this happens, they ignore it and go back to bed.
So Lafayette counted to ten, and then opened the door again.
“I hate you,” he said.
“And I forgive you!” Dani replied, giving him the finger-guns.
Dani was was short, blonde, heavily-tanned, somewhat slender, and had the kind of smile that made men do stupid things. This was the kind of genetic makeup that made life somehow easy on a woman of her age.
Lafayette, being her identical twin brother, found this a bit unfair.
“So, how’s it going, Laf?” Dani crossed her arms and rested her shoulder on the doorframe, confident grin on her face. “What have you been up to for the last week? We haven’t talked in ages!”
Lafayette blinked against the sunlight and then squinted at his sister. “It’s six in the morning.”
“So it is!”
“You woke me up.”
“Someone had to do it! Can I get in?”
“No,” Laf said as he stepped aside so Dani could step inside. His voice was perfectly monotone. “And in a surprising turn of events, I’ve been doing nothing for the past week. I sort of don’t have a life.”
“One never knows! Maybe one day I’ll come here and you’ll have done something interesting!”
“Does crying in front of the mirror count?”
“Nope!”
“Then don’t hold your breath.”
Laf closed the door and followed Dani to the kitchen, where the woman was rummaging through his cupboards like she owned the place. He suppressed a sigh, but to be honest, he wasn’t feeling that depressed at the moment.
Just as he’d said, it was still really early in the day, and that usually made it easier to deal with Dani. For the looks of it, she was going to brew coffee, which was also good. Coffee tasted better when you didn’t make it yourself. It’s the little things, the little victories, that make life worth living.
Plus, she looked like she was in a really good mood. Laf dared to hope—maybe something good had happened?
“They say millions might die!” Dani said five minutes later, holding her coffee, bright smile on her face.
A pause.
Laf blinked. “Dani, you’re my favorite sister, and I love you.” He cupped his hands around his mug of coffee. “But this relationship would be much more rewarding if I could tell if you’re constantly high or just an absolute sociopath.”
“Aw, c’mon! Millions of people die every day anyway, and you never cared! But now it’s happening close to us, and that means it’s exciting!”
“I’m actually ashamed at how validated my previous statement feels, now.”
Dani rolled her eyes. “You’re just grumpy because you’re sleepy. Drink your coffee! And then come with us to check the barrier! They opened one of those Conversion Bureau things in town, too. We should go there afterwards!”
“The barrier.” Amidst the rage he was feeling, made obvious by his thunderous yelling, Laf had the composure to listen to his sister and take a sip of coffee. “You mean, literally the most dangerous thing Humanity has ever encountered.”
“Yeah!”
“No.”
Dani pouted.
“Setting aside the fact that it might kill us,” Laf continued, “it’s the fact that—actually, there’s no more facts. It might kill us.”
“Yeah, but they built a Conversion Bureau downtown! I thought those things were a hoax!”
“I honestly don’t see how that’s relevant. Only weirdos go there.”
Dani shook her head and gave him an extremely condescending look. Seeing how she looked like a porcelain doll brought to life, it was somehow more insulting than usual when she did that. “Silly, silly Laf. Don’t you get it? If the Conversion Bureau is here, that means the barrier is an actual threat!”
“Uh-huh.”
“And now we can turn into ponies if we want to! Just how wild is that?! Maybe the barrier is more hardcore than we thought!” Dani slammed her fist on the table. “So we need to check it out!”
“We,” Laf said, “are not going to check out the barrier. It’s dangerous, and that’s final.”
So they went to check out the barrier.
Centuries ago, Equestria had gone through the later-nicknamed “Democratic Revolution”, where, thanks to a group of enlightened individuals with modern ideas, the form of government of the Kingdom went from monarchy to democratic monarchy.
And nopony had bothered asking Celestia what her opinion was on the matter. She wondered if anypony else was aware of the irony.
In theory, this new system allowed the citizens to vote for their elected leaders, who would get the title of Ministers and share the power with Celestia in equal measure. In practice, the system was elegant, but hadn’t been designed with the idea of an immortal, borderly-omniscient regent who pretty much did whatever she wanted because she had the physical power to move the stars around without giving it much of a thought.
So the democracy had stuck, but it was somewhat diminished. Nowadays, the Ministers mostly kept to their own business, living in the West Wing of the Castle and never bothering anypony. (If Celestia remembered correctly, the Minister of Finances and the Minister of Education had married recently.) All in all, an elegant solution…
…Sort of.
Because Celestia liked the political power, sure—it was a nice thing to have during those long and boring Saturday evenings—but sometimes she wished somepony else shared the authority with her. If for no other reason, to lighten the load on her shoulders.
“I don’t see where the problem lays, Sister,” Luna said, looking at the reports Celestia had been obsessing over for the last two hours. “Just start a war!”
Somepony competent, that is.
“Luna,” she said, taking the report from her hooves with her magic. “No. We don’t do wars.”
“Why not? This looks like the perfect chance!” Luna rested her hooves on Celestia’s desk and shot her what she probably thought was a convincing glare. It reminded Celestia of that possum she’d kept as a pet for a while. “We’re invading them anyway, so we might as well make it official.”
“Luna!”
“What?”
“I said no! And that’s final!” A glance at the door of her chambers, and Celestia closed them with a burst of magic. Better to keep her sister’s more… interesting opinions away from the public; she had learned this lesson recently. “Listen, this is simply not how we do this. A war wouldn’t benefit Equestria, and it’s not my wish to cause any harm. This entire situation is just an—”
“I never said we would cause them harm, Sister.” Luna made herself comfortable, half-sitting half-laying on Celestia’s favorite cushion. She looked exactly like a cat. “I just said we would fight a war against them.”
Suppressing a smile—and, to her shame, a feline pun—she kept organizing the documents on her desk, seemingly unaffected. “Even if we fall into the trappings of an ‘us versus them’ mentality, I would never put my subjects through such an experience, Luna. And you know it. To do that…”
“Sister!” Luna made a huff. “You are not listening to me. You keep talking about harming them, when I just talked about a war.”
A pause.
“Luna.”
“Sister?”
“You know what a war is, right?”
Luna arched her back and stretched her neck. Celestia wondered if she wanted scratchies. “An armed conflict,” she said. “An active struggle between opposite forces. Us versus them, as you said.”
“I said it was a trapping. Something to avoid.” Celestia sighed. “You know that wars are bad, right?”
“Can’t see why.”
“Well.” Celestia stopped, and scratched her chin for a moment. “It’s a new concept, you might not be entirely familiar with it, but there’s this thing called the sanctity of life. Ponies get… anxious when we violate the concept.”
“Sounds irrational.”
“It is. I think?” Celestia frowned. “It’s also hard for me to grasp, but I try. I go out of my way to respect that rule, no matter what. This means no wars, amongst other things.”
“I see.”
“And, as I said, I don’t wish them any harm. The barrier is horrible enough, but to add war on top of it? They would never forgive us.”
“Oh.”
A minute or two of silence, as Celestia kept herself busy with the reports. There were a lot of reports lately. The barrier did strange things to time and space wherever it touched. Luna didn’t move from the cushion, fiddling with one of her crystal shoes to pass the time, making it roll around.
“…Plus,” Celestia said all of a sudden, and she looked at Luna now. “I don’t know how to start a war. It sounds extremely complicated, or at least heavy when it comes to paperwork.” She pointed at the desk. “And I’ve got plenty of that already.”
“What?” Luna yawned, showing all her teeth for a second. The shoe never stopped rolling. “What are you talking about, Sister? You wouldn’t be in charge if we started a war.”
Celestia’s ear twitched. “I wouldn’t?”
“I don’t think so. We’ve got a Minister of War, don’t we?”
“I honestly have no idea if we do.”
“No, no. We have one. I’m positive.” Luna picked up the shoe and rolled around untill she was resting on her back, and started playing with it again. She was even wagging her tail. Her tone, however, remained completely serious. “She teaches me Yoga every Wednesday.”
Celestia frowned. “Yoga?”
“Well, she has to do something with her time.” Luna threw the shoe up, and caught it right before it shattered against the ground. “I think you know her? Lives in our garden, inside a hollow tree, she has really big eyebrows… She came with Fluttershy to the last Grand Galloping Gala?”
That made something click, and Celestia’s eyes went huge. “Wait a minute. Tree Hugger? You’re talking about Tree Hugger?”
“Exactly!” Luna rolled around again untill she was laying on her stomach, ears perked up. “That one! I knew you knew her.”
“You’re telling me Tree Hugger is our Minister of War.”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
“She has the title on her desk.” Luna smiled. “That she keeps outside her treehouse, because she feels it would offend it to be surrounded by dead wood.”
Celestia sighed and got up from her chair. “Well. She doesn’t sound too… bloodthirsty for a Minister of War.”
“It’s always the quiet ones. Maybe she’s really good at it?”
“Or maybe she’s like all the other Ministers, and she doesn’t really know much about the issue.” Celestia sat right next to Luna, and nonchalantly, started petting her head a little. Luna didn’t complain. She just kept on playing with her shoe. “Which,” Celestia continued, “brings us back to square one. Even if I wanted to declare war—and I don’t—I don’t think we would be able. Nopony knows how.”
“Hmm.” Luna threw the shoe to the air once more. She yawned, and showed all her teeth while doing so, then patted Celestia to indicate she wanted more petting. “I know how to start a war.”
It took Celestia a moment.
“…Sorry?”
“You’re forgiven, Sister.” Luna shot Celestia a somewhat annoyed look. “I mean, how many times have I tried to take over the world?”
“Uh.” Celestia blinked. “Two.”
“That you know of. That’s basically the same as starting a war.” Luna dropped the shoe and got up all of a sudden, only to arch her back, eyes closed. “I’m pretty much an expert on political conflicts, Sister. I should take care of the war!”
Cats being Nature’s perfect predators, Celestia had to fight back a chuckle before it escaped her throat, and instead chose to talk. “Luna, I don’t want to offend you, but the fact that you tried to take over the world twice is exactly why you shouldn’t take command.” She scratched Luna under her chin. Luna didn’t purr, but she came close. “You failed both times.”
“So? War is not about winning.”
“War is literally all about winning.”
“No, see? That’s a common mistake. War is not about winning, war is about losing the right way.” Luna pointed at the documents on Celestia’s desk. “They can’t fight the barrier, right? They don’t even have magic.”
“No.”
“So we have an advantage. They’re the… Underdogs?” A moment of hesitation, and she looked at Celestia with a frown. “Is that the…?”
Celestia smiled, and gave her a slow nod. “Underdogs is the right word, yes.”
Luna beamed back. “Good! They’re the underdogs. Obviously, they’re going to win.”
“Obviously.”
“So we need to plan, how do we want to lose?” Luna grabbed the shoe again, but this time she put it on, although she looked feline while doing so. “And how do we become friends after we’re defeated and redeemed?”
“Redeemed?”
“Of course. We attacked first, we’re the villains. They’ll defeat us, and then they’ll come up with a way to destroy the barrier and—” Luna stopped mid-sentence, blinked, and closed her mouth. Then she looked at Celestia, confusion in her face. “Sister, I have the strangest of cravings right now. I want to eat tuna.”
Celestia shook her head and got up, too. Back to her desk. “I can’t imagine why. Anyway, Luna, I won’t allow any more arguments about this. There’ll be no war.”
Luna rolled her eyes again. “Are you sure, Sister?”
“My word is final. No war. It would be,” and here Celestia couldn’t help herself, “a cat-astrophe.”
“So they just officially declared a war on the humans!” Dani said, as they returned from the barrier and stepped out of Lafayette’s car. “Crazy, huh?”
“Riveting,” Laf replied. Then, he looked at the Conversion Bureau in front of them, and wrinkled his nose.
History’s greatest flag of surrender reeked of paperwork.
Laf had expected something ominous, something full of fire and brimstone and weirdos wearing hoodies and claiming that the apocalypse was coming. Something interesting, all in all. But there had been no luck—when you got to it, the Conversion Bureau looked kind of boring. Government-funded. Like you needed to fill seven forms and do three background checks before achieving anything.
It was cube-shaped, official-looking, and arsenic white—a combination that turned the building into the least imposing sight Lafayette had seen aside from his own reflection. A simple sign above the door dictated that this was, indeed, a Conversion Bureau.
So that was why there were no angry mobs trying to burn the place down, Lafayette thought. Because even though it had some horrible philosophical connotations he was too stupid to understand, it was impossible to get riled up about the architectural equivalent of a middle manager doing his taxes.
The world would never end with a bang, because people got startled by big noises. But nobody paid attention to the whispers, or to the high-end bureaucratic decisions.
Once inside, it took forever to find a doctor willing to listen.
“So my sister, Danielle,” and he pointed at Dani, just in case the fact that they were identical wasn’t enough of a clue for the man, “had the brilliant idea of going to check the magical wall of death that is annihilating humanity.”
The doctor, a salt-and-pepper haired man with wrinkles around his eyes, nodded. “Right.”
“Because she doesn’t understand the words ‘magical wall of death’.”
“I live life to the limit!” Dani added, clenched fist to the air.
“And I agreed, because I legitimately hate myself.”
“And he lives life to the limit!”
The doctor arched an eyebrow. “I’m starting to see a pattern.”
Laf nodded. “So we arrive, and the barrier is just, well, sorta there. Because it’s a barrier. It doesn’t do anything.” A pause. Lafayette blinked, but his tone didn’t change. “Aside from, well, killing everything we know and love. But that really doesn’t matter, I guess.”
“Of course.” The doctor waved a hand. “A minor issue, at most.”
“Yes, you get my deal.” Laf was pretty sure that last bit had been intended to make fun of him, but he paid the detail no mind. “And then Dani felt the whole experience was boring, because she had expected unlimited thrills when planning to stare at a wall for an entire morning.”
“Now, to be fair,” the doctor said, as he took a pencil from the desk and started fiddling with it, making it twirl between his fingers, “the barrier is highly magical in nature. It’s just that magic so happens to be invisible most of the time.” The pencil did an especially complicated maneuver. “It can still kill you, though.”
“See?” Laf pointed at the doctor and looked at Dani. “See? You hear that? That was exactly what I said. Any wall can kill you if you, say, ram your car into it—but this one is especially deadly.”
“Right.” The pencil twirled. “Why is this relevant to our conversation?”
“Because Dani took that as a challenge.”
“And I won!” Dani said, lifting her fist to the heavens once more. “And now my pickup truck is inside Equestria! So we need to cross the barrier!”
The pencil stopped mid-twirl.
Then the doctor looked at the ceiling, and took a deep breath.
“You understand that this is an extremely demanding procedure,” he said after a pause. The pencil danced in his fingers again. Twirl, twirl, stop, fancy figure eight. “And you have an extremely trivial problem.”
“It’s not trivial!” Dani said. “It’s an entire pickup truck!”
“Ma’am, we’re talking about turning you into a pony.” Twirl, twirl, went the pencil. Then the doctor put it back on the desk and grabbed a pen. Twirl, twirl. “It’s not something we can do on the fly—there’s physical examinations, psychological tests, we need to fill some forms, do at least three background checks…”
Laf gave himself a mental pat on the back. “Yeah. God forbid something like this be efficient for once.”
The doctor gave him a funny look, here. He didn’t sound angry when he talked, though—he just sounded contemplative. Or stoned. Laf was bad at reading voices. “Efficient. Sir, there are still less than ten Conversion Bureaus in the country, we’ve been operating for two weeks at most, and yet, we’ve already dealt with what will probably be our major setback. Do you know what I’m talking about?”
“Ponies!” Dani said.
“People who think you’re surrendering before we even fight the war?” Laf ventured.
“Those who say they support the Conversion Bureau,” the doctor replied, “but really are just in it for the drama.”
A dramatic pause followed.
“Oh, Christ,” Laf muttered. “We’re getting topical.”
“The people who oppose us can be problematic, yes,” the doctor said, and he made a great job at not looking at Laf at any point whatsoever. “So can be the ponies. But they don’t tend to linger. They come here, say their piece, we call security, and then go away.”
Dani frowned. “What, just like that?”
“Our average guard can split a watermelon in two with his chin, Ma’am.” Once more, the pencil twirled. “I know this as a fact. I’ve seen it done.”
“So your guards are basically shaven gorillas!” Dani said.
“They drag their knuckles on the ground when they walk, yes.”
“And once more, violence saves the day.” Laf clapped twice. “Woohoo.”
“Maybe it’s because people think this is not really a problem!” Dani took a pencil from the table, tried to twirl it like the doctor, failed. She never lost her smile. “Turning into a pony is more a novelty than anything. We don’t need to do it! We can probably wipe Equestria out of the map if we want to!”
“Sis, they have magic.”
“But we outnumber them! If we all band together, I’m sure the humans would win the war without any problem!”
“Right. If we all band together.” Laf rolled his eyes. “Remember that time something horrible happened in one country and the whole world went there to help? Because humans really care about each other, and we work great as a team? And then we had a party, and we all had lemonade?” He looked at the doctor. “Does Europe even know what a Conversion Bureau is?”
The doctor seemed to give actual thought to this. “I talked to a British colleague about the serum once,” he said after a while.
“And?”
“He called me a wanker.”
“Damn good metaphor for the entire human race, right there. Why is the world ending? Because nobody really cares.” Laf looked at the doctor. “So we all die, and—oh, God. I’m getting topical. Dani, can we go home now?”
“No.”
“Darn it.”
“That’s debatable.” The doctor coughed. “The dying part. Our job here is precisely to try to save as many people as possible. By turning them into ponies.”
“Right. Forgot that.”
“But even though you want to save people, you still do psychological tests and background checks!” Dani said. “And by your logic, if someone fails them, they die!”
The doctor looked at her, then at Laf. “Why does she sound happy when she says that?”
“Because she’s a little ball of sunshine and rainbows. Don’t mind her.”
The doctor arched an eyebrow, but didn’t comment on it when Dani playfully punched Laf’s shoulder. “All those security measures are there to ensure our own safety, ma’am. Because of the people who think they know about the real Conversion Bureau.”
“That the drama you mentioned?”
“Exactly.” The doctor twirled the pen again. Twirl, twirl. Fancy figure eight. “The serum turns you into a pony when you drink it. Nothing less, nothing more. That’s literally it. No more depth to the whole affair.”
“Truly complicated,” Laf said. “I can really feel the need for all that paperwork.”
“Yes.” Twirl. The doctor glared at Laf. “Exactly. That’s what I’m talking about—there are people who like to feel clever.” Twirl, twirl, went the pencil. Twirl, twirl. Backflip. “So they think, no. That can’t be it. Because that’s way too easy, there’s gotta be a dark side to this.”
Dani was on the edge of her seat now. “And is there?!”
The wrinkles around the doctor’s eyes hardened. “No! Of course not! It turns you into a pony, and that’s that! Magic! Boom! Pony!”
“I like the ‘boom’ part!”
“But they don’t believe us! They want the angst! The drama!” The doctor put the pen down, again, and let out a sigh that would have given life to a dying man. “God in Heaven, the drama. They’ve misquoted Shakespeare so many times I can’t read Hamlet anymore. I will burn my house down if I hear someone talking about going gentle into the dying light again.”
“You’ve got quite the well-read supporters there.”
The doctor ignored him. “We’re literally giving up humanity for the sake of survival, and some people still manage to take it way too seriously.”
Laf rolled his eyes. “What, and we’re supposed to be surprised?”
Both Dani and the doctor looked at Laf.
He glared back. “Come on! How didn’t you foresee this? If you say that character is what you are in the dark, seven thousand idiots will turn off the lights and cry themselves to sleep. They will jump at the chance of making a fool of themselves, and they will thank you for it!”
A pause.
The doctor looked at Dani. “What?”
“He means people are dumb.”
“Oh. Right.” He grabbed the pencil again, and back to the twirl it went. “Well. That’s why we have psychological tests.”
“Because people are dumb?”
“Because the serum is magical, and magic makes no sense. You want the drama? It’ll bring you drama! You think it will wipe out your mind? It will wipe out your mind! You think it will make you miserable? It will make you miserable!”
“Wait.” Laf raised a hand. “Wait, wait, wait. So what does the serum do, then?”
“Well, that’s the funny thing—it really depends on what you want it to do. I told you—if they want the drama, they get it. Lives are destroyed, people are miserable, and the Bureau gets a whole lot of trouble.”
Here the doctor got up from his chair and started pacing around the office, hands in his pockets. The wrinkles around his eyes got deeper, and his voice became rougher, like sandpaper.
“We’ve barely started, and this is already taking a toll on us,” he said. “Forget the fact that we’re working with things we don’t understand—it’s impossible to work in this environment, where every patient knows more than the doctor. Especially because, with the serum working like this, they end up being right.”
“Wow.” Dani’s eyes were positively sparkling. Like the sky on the Fourth of July, Laf thought. Or more appropriately, like the fuse attached to seven tons of dynamite. “I don’t know about you, but to me? This is getting better by the second!”
“See? See that?” Laf pointed at her. “Sociopath. I keep telling you. If you ever take the serum, you’re destroying the world.”
“Oh? And what would you do, then?” Dani crossed her arms and glared at him. “Bring peace to humanity?”
“What? No. I’d probably just make myself look like an idiot. But at least I’d get to take the serum in the first place.”
“No offense, Sir,” the doctor said, arching an eyebrow, “but I believe someone as clearly misanthropic as you wouldn’t past the test, either.”
Laf blinked. “Excuse me?” He pressed a hand against his chest, in what he considered the manliest gesture of discomfort he could produce. “I’m not a misanthrope. I don’t hate people.”
“No?”
“No. I hate myself, and then I project that onto others.”
“Oh.”
A pause.
“Okay then, I stand corrected.”
“Thank you.”
“Sister?” Luna entered the Throne Room with a bunch of scrolls floating behind her. She had something like an apologetic look on her face. “I need to talk to you. Remember my perfect plan?”
“Yes.”
“It failed. We’re winning the war.”
“What?!”
“Not only that.” Luna looked at one of the scrolls. “We’ve apparently conquered China. Among other things.”
“What?!”
“I know, I know. My bad.”
Celestia opened her mouth to yell something, but thought better of it. She gestured to everypony but her sister to leave the room, to give them some privacy. There was no need of undermining Luna’s authority in front of her subjects.
She was sitting on her throne, which always put her in a good mood. It was a great chair. Lately, she had heard ponies say that a monarch should never feel comfortable in their power, that thrones ought to be painful to sit on by sheer principle alone, but in Celestia’s opinion, they only thought that because they were not princesses.
Celestia had spent a lot of time in the Throne Room lately. The barrier was scary. The humans were weird. Lives were constantly changed, time and space warped around and worked in mysterious ways, new forms of magic had been discovered. An entirely new culture, with entirely new morals and philosophies, had been forcefully introduced to Equestria.
And a war had started.
“And you tell me we’re winning.”
“I honestly have no idea how any of this happened, Sister.” Luna showed her the scrolls she’d been carrying—maps, reports, lists of names. Meaningless to Celestia. “Our troops tried their hardest to fail. Tree Hugger and I have spent many a sleepless night trying to come up with the worst strategy imaginable.”
“And?”
“And the humans,” and Luna’s words were infused with fear, “were worse.”
“I can’t believe this.” Celestia set aside the scrolls and got up from the throne, pacing through the room. Luna followed. “See? This is exactly why I hate wars. They’re unpredictable. They make me feel like I’m not a good leader.”
Luna shook her head and offered her a friendly pat. Her movements were elegant, almost feline. “You’re doing your best, Sister. I’m sure they know.”
“Maybe I’m not trying hard enough.”
“I think you are.” Luna looked at the doors. “You were working, just now, right? Even though your schedule says it’s your time of rest. Was that an important reunion I interrupted?”
This made Celestia perk up. The matters of war and peace were heavy on the heart, but all wounds were healed by the virtues of gossip. “Indeed it was. You won’t believe what happened, Luna.”
Luna recognized her sister’s tone, and her pupils grew three times in size. She got closer to Celestia, still pacing around the room, and her voice turned into a conspiratorial meow. “What is it?”
“Did you see who was talking with me?” Celestia nodded towards the door, little smile on her lips. “Before you came in?”
“The Minister of Finances,” Luna replied immediately. “I haven’t talked with her a lot, but I do know quite a lot about her. She’s the wife of the Minister of Education, if I recall?”
“Exactly. And she came to me for advice.” A glint in Celestia’s eyes. “Looks like the Minister of Education is seeing somepony else on the side.”
Luna gasped, and covered her mouth with a hoof. “No.”
“I know. I never saw it coming.” Celestia shook her head.
“They were such a great couple. Saddening news, these,” Luna said with the biggest smile on her face. “And…” Luna looked to the sides, as if to make sure they were still alone. “And who is the third pony in this triangle?”
“That’s the best part.” Celestia squinted. “It’s another Minister.”
“Perish the thought! One of their friends?! Which one?”
“Internal Affairs.”
“My.”
“Indeed.”
“We’re at the doors of drama, Sister. Nothing but suffering and heartbreak can follow.”
“Hopefully, with a happy ending.”
There was a pause. Both sisters looked at each other, chests filled with perverse glee. Both knew what the other was thinking. Immortality made it difficult to bond with ponies, but it was entertaining to watch them from the side.
And it was great to have somepony else to join in the commentary.
Then the moment passed.
“We should probably discuss the war now,” Celestia said.
“Right. Of course.” Luna produced another scroll and gave it to Celestia. “So. We own China now. Here’s the details of the campaign, which I led personally.”
“Oh?” Celestia opened it. Thankfully, this one did make sense, so she gave it a quick readthrough. “Oh. Wow. I see it was rather… One-sided.”
Luna sighed. “That’s one way to put it.”
“I can’t help but notice the humans are incapacitated with surprising ease.”
“Their physiques seem to obey different rules, and they don’t react well to magic,” Luna explained. “They have amazing technology, and they could defeat us with sheer offensive power, but their defenses are astoundingly lacking.”
“Hmm.” Celestia saw something that made her blink. “Wait. This is enough to bring them down? They can’t be this fragile.”
Luna looked at the point Celestia was reading. “Ah, that! Yes, it also annoyed me. At first I thought my troops were exaggerating, so I tried it out myself.”
“And? Were they able to grow it back?”
“No. They just bled all over the place.” Luna frowned. “And I think they might have died afterwards, but I wasn’t paying attention. Perhaps they were just sleeping?”
“Did your troops bury them afterwards?”
“Yes.”
“Then they were dead. That’s how it usually works.”
“Oh.”
“Which means this is a distressing new development,” Celestia muttered as she rolled up the scroll again and teleported it to her desk with a flash of her horn. She would need to give it a more in-depth look later today. “I had no idea we were a warrior race. What does one do with new lands? I can’t come up with anything…”
“Sister? Is this as bad as this sounds?” Luna asked. Something in her voice made Celestia look at her again. “Winning the war was against the plan, but in the grand scheme of things… How much did we bet on the conflict?”
“Oh, Luna.”
They had bet everything.
That was the harsh reality, and nothing Celestia could say would fix the situation. She had trusted her sister entirely with this strategy, safe in the knowledge that Luna had successfully failed to achieve any kind of meaningful victory many times in a row. Celestia had assumed, her thoughts clouded by sisterly pride, that Luna was a military genius of the negative side of the spectrum.
But now they were winning. There was no backup, no Plan B. And the countless hours Celestia had spent planning their defeat, writing the speeches she would give to her subjects, defining the terms of surrender, knitting white flags—all her efforts, pointless.
All her hopes, crushed.
They were going to win the war, and hell would to follow. And it was all because Luna had tried to lose. And Luna only failed when she tried her hardest to achieve something.
First the barrier’s origins, now the war. Luna had finally managed to doom Equestria, the one time her efforts had been directed towards saving it.
But Celestia didn’t say any of this.
Instead, she just put on her best fake smile. One she had mastered over the course of a thousand years.
“There’s no reason to worry. This is just a minor setback,” she lied. “I was surprised, is all.”
Luna visibly relaxed. She sat down, curled herself up in her tail. “I’m happy to hear this. Nevertheless, I will try my best, Sister.”
“Yes.” Celestia nodded. “So will I. More than ever.”
And this time, she didn’t lie.
For the sake of his sister, and the sake of her car, Laf drank the serum. It tasted like honey and hydrogen peroxide. It made him cough, and grab his throat.
And then he felt his body changing. His humanity was taken, and something else took its place.
Maybe it was the shock, or maybe it was an otherworldly realization. In the ten minutes it took him to shed away the body he’d been given at birth, Lafayette changed. He thought about a rose’s ever sweet aroma, never mind the name. About a lily painted, and gilded gold, and the needless excesses in which humanity so often partook.
He felt free of hate. He matured, and became anew.
And then a mirror was put in front of him.
“WHY THE HELL,” he voiced, “AM I A DONKEY?!”
And the doctor said, “Oh dear.”
There was absolutely no doubt. Grey coat, long ears, big teeth, stupid face. Laf hadn’t turned into a pony. Laf had turned into a bona fide ass, and not even a pretty one.
“WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED?!”
“Hey!” Dani looked at him with a mixture of shock and joy, and pointed with the precision of a five year old with a sniper rifle. “You have a tail!”
“I HAVE A TAIL!”
“To scare away the flies!”
“TO SCARE AWAY THE FLIES!”
She patted Laf’s donkey cheek. “And you’re freaking out!”
“I AM FREAKING OUT!” Laf looked away from the mirror and tried his best to glare at the doctor. Hard task, now that his face was forever frozen in an idiotic smile. “DOCTOR! WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO SAY TO THIS?!”
The doctor blinked, looked to the sides, saw nobody was there to save him. Feeling the glare of a human and one particularly angry farm beast, he gave up and faced them straight ahead.
Two seconds passed.
The doctor shrugged. “…Ooops?”
“I’M GOING TO KILL Y—”
Twenty minutes and one struggle later, Laf was sitting on a special chair made for equines, and the doctor was standing as far away from him as possible. Dani was holding the donkey, wearing the completely neutral face of someone trying her hardest not to laugh at a loved one.
“Well then,” the doctor said as he straightened his lab coat and rubbed his arm. “Now that we’ve all got our senses back and we’re sure human narcotics don’t work with you, we can talk about this like adults. I need you to calm down, Sir.”
“THE MOMENT I GET BACK UP, I SWEAR TO GOD I’M MAKING YOU EAT THAT PENCIL OF YOURS. TWIRL, TWIRL, YOU PIECE OF—”
“That is exactly the opposite of what I mean with ‘calming down’.”
“Laf!” Dani said, shaking him a little. “Don’t scream like that! You’re too loud!”
“I’M A DONKEY. MY ONLY TWO SKILLS ARE SCREAMING AND NOT BEING ABLE TO USE THE BATHROOM.”
“But maybe it’s not as bad as it sounds!” She shook him harder. “You’re magical now! That’s pretty sweet!”
“DANI. THIS IS THE OPPOSITE OF SWEET. I’M PROVING STACY FROM FIFTH GRADE RIGHT BY BEING A LITERAL JACKASS.” A pause. Laf’s eyes widened. “OH MY GOD, I CAN’T EVEN BE PEDANTIC ABOUT HER WORDING ANYMORE. I CAN’T EVEN BE PEDANTIC!”
Dani bit her lip. “Oh, dear.”
“DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW MUCH STREET CRED I GOT BY BEING PEDANTIC ABOUT HER WORDING?!”
“Literally none at all.”
“EXACTLY!” Laf bared his donkey teeth at the doctor. “AND HE TOOK THAT FROM ME!”
The doctor sighed, and went for the door of the office. “Give me five minutes,” he said. “I think I can find enough anesthetics to calm him down. This is going nowhere.”
“OH, NO, YOU’RE GOING TO SUFFER FOR THIS, OR MY NAME ISN’T LAFAYETTE! NO WAY YOU’RE DRUGGING ME!”
They drugged him.
Fifteen minutes later, Dani could let Laf go. The fight had been completely taken out of him, in the sense that he was still blistering with rage, but now he was sort of lazy about it.
“So, this is an interesting situation, from a purely academical standpoint,” the doctor said. “While the serum is volatile, so as to say, it has always turned the designated human into a pony.” He waved a hand. “The way the transformation works varies, but the end result is the same. So what happened here?”
“God hates me?” Laf ventured.
“Probably!” the doctor said, giving him a thumbs-up. “But there’s something more. You believed the serum would turn you into a pony, right?”
“Why wouldn’t he believe that?” Dani asked, her legs crossed, her shoulders hunched. “And he knew that the serum changes according to what you think, so this can’t be his fault. You’re smarter than that, Lafayette.”
Laf rested his head against the wall. “Ugh. Thanks for the white lie, Dani. It would mean a lot if it wasn’t for the fact that at the moment I’m a political cartoon made flesh.” He closed his eyes. “I was expecting some kind of humiliation, but this is just—”
“Ah.” The doctor blinked and looked at Laf with something that might have been fear. “Wait. That would… You were expecting some kind of humiliation? That was for real?”
Laf would have moved, but he felt really comfortable at the moment, all sprawled against the wall like a ragdoll, veins full of narcotics. Still, he managed to answer. “Why wouldn’t it be for real?”
“I see.” The doctor clapped. “Well. That explains it, then.”
A pause.
Even Laf managed to move to look at the doctor, although his glare wasn’t as intense as Dani’s. “What?”
“Yes. I mean, in hindsight, this was rather obvious.” The doctor pointed at Laf. “You took the serum, convinced it would make you make an ass of yourself.”
Another pause. This time, it was longer.
“…So, it did.” The doctor frowned and looked at them. “I’m not sure if you’re following me here. What’s up with the faces?”
“You’re telling us,” Dani eventually said, and her voice was surprisingly strained, “that you could have seen this coming?”
“Well, I just assumed that he was being facetious when he said that he hated himself, so—”
“What part of ‘I hate myself’ sounds facetious, exactly?!” Laf asked. It wasn’t an outright yell, but it was getting there. He didn’t feel that lazy all of a sudden. “What kind of assumption is that?!”
“Yes, yes, I see why you’re angry!” The doctor raised both hands to the sky, a clear sign of surrender. “My mistake. I should have asked. You know what they say about assuming, it makes an ass of you and m—I just realized that is probably the worst possible thing to say at the moment, so what if we just calm down and—OH MY GOD NO DON’T—”
Another dose of narcotics later, Laf was lying on the bed, and the doctor was pressing a bag of ice against his right eye.
“All right,” he said. “I’m not gonna call security, because I think I deserved that.”
“I’m a donkey because of a pun! A pun! Why is stupid wordplay having such a weight in my life lately?!”
“This is being quite the thrilling morning!” Dani said, although her chipperness sounded rather hollow at the moment. “But I think I’m a little tired. Can you turn Laf back into a human now? We’ll just leave the pick-up truck in there for a while.”
The room’s atmosphere changed after she said this, they all noticed. After a moment of hesitation, the doctor worded his reply very, very carefully.
“What do you mean, turning him back into a human?”
“What I meant to say,” Celestia said, “is that maybe this happened for a reason, Missus Minister of Education. Sometimes, ponies fall out of love, and we can do nothing to avoid it.”
“Oh, Princess.” The Minister of Education smiled and rested her hooves on Celestia’s. Her eyes were misty. “Please, just call me Missus Minister. I think we’ve been through enough to deserve that, have we not?” She quickly smiled and turned to the left. “Of course, the same applies to you, Princess Luna.”
“I’m grateful for your confidence, Missus Minister.” Luna offered the Minister the remainder of the chocolate ice cream the three of them had been sharing for the last thirty minutes, but she didn’t want any. “And I’m sorry Mister Minister of Finances chose to end your relationship in such an… uncouth way. He truly can’t recognize a good mare when he sees one.”
To this, the Minister of Education made a noise that might have been a whimper, and then rubbed her eyes. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you very much. That is… I needed to hear that.”
“Do you perhaps wish to have some time alone?” Celestia asked, after looking at Luna and receiving a meaningful nod from her. “To think, or maybe just to… Unwind? In private?”
“I think… I think I could use that.” The Minister of Education cleared her throat with a cough, and when she talked again, her voice sounded more solid. “Thank you, Princess. And you too, Princess. Luna. Princess Luna.”
“If you need us, no matter the reason, don’t hesitate to ask,” Celestia said, her voice soft, as the Minister of Education let her go. “Even if it’s only to get more ice cream. We’re here for you.”
“Thank you very much. I mean it.”
“We know. Well then!” Celestia straightened up, her voice suddenly ten times louder, and she smashed the little hammer against the table. “Secretary, if that was the last point on the list?”
The Secretary looked at Celestia and scratched something on the scroll in front of her. “It was.”
“Then I declare this meeting over. Good evening, everypony!”
A number of mutters and mumblings followed her statement, as the entire Council of Ministers got up from their chairs and abandoned the Council Chamber in little groups. The Minister of Education was one of the first ones out.
Soon enough, Luna and Celestia were left alone. The moment the doors closed, Luna’s horn flashed, and she produced a ball of yarn from her mane. Without changing her expression at all, she immediately dropped to the floor and started playing with it.
Celestia looked at her with something of a smile. “You’ve been carrying that all this time?”
“I thought I would need it.” Luna gave her a bright look. “But this was way more fun than I expected. I ought to attend more council meetings, I think.”
“They’re usually not as interesting as this one, I’m afraid. The ice cream was a nice touch, by the way.”
“Thank you.”
Silence followed. Celestia sat down right next to Luna and mindlessly patted her back, now and then. She would have been a bit more concerned about her little sister’s sudden feline development if she hadn’t found it that charming.
Plus, there was probably a reason for it. After a thousand years on the moon, Celestia understood that a pony had to cope in one way or another, so she wasn’t going to judge Luna any time soon. Not after everything that had happened.
“Sister?”
Celestia flinched, suddenly pulled off from her chain of thoughts. “Yes?”
“Pardon my suddenness, but…” Luna stopped rolling the ball of yarn around and just looked at Celestia. “Are you sleeping properly lately?”
No hesitation. “I am,” she lied.
“You have bags under your eyes.”
After giving it some thought, Celestia went for the most diplomatic of approaches. “No,” she said. “I do not.”
There was a pause.
“Sister, I can see them on your face as we speak.”
“Surely you’re wrong.” Celestia got up and walked away from Luna, suddenly taking a great interest on the random notes and scrolls the Ministers had left behind. “I have a perfectly sound sleep every night, and I’ve never felt more well-rested.”
“Hmm.” Luna didn’t move from her spot, but Celestia could feel her glare burning on the back of her head. “I just thought you might be under a lot of stress right now, Sister,” she said. “You told me not to worry, but I cannot help but think that the war might be—”
“The war is,” Celestia interrupted, perhaps a little louder than necessary, “perfectly under control. And my sleep is completely peaceful.”
“Actually, about that. Lately, I can’t help but hear noises from your room at night, Sister. Almost as if you spent the whole eight hours wordlessly screaming at the sky instead of slee—”
The door to the room opened, and a Royal Guard popped his head in. “Your Highness?” he asked.
“Oh, look!” Celestia said, face twisted in a strained smile. “A distraction! Yes, what is the matter, Sergeant?”
“Sister, I’m genuinely—”
“I said what is the matter, Sergeant?”
The Royal Guard—who wasn’t actually a sergeant, but was good enough at reading the mood not to let that slip—looked at both princesses with something that might have been doubt, or maybe fear. Eventually, though, he decided where his loyalty laid. “Um. There’s a, a donkey that demands to see you. He doesn’t appear on your schedule, but he refuses to go away, and it’s been three hours so we figured…”
“Worry not, Sergeant.” Celestia flashed her horn, and the doors opened completely. “I’ll see him myself immediately, so you might rest. Is he waiting in the Throne Room?”
“Um. Yes, your Highness.”
“Good. Luna?” Celestia turned around. Luna was still lying on the floor, but the ball of yarn had disappeared as soon as the Guard had made himself visible. “We’ll continue this conversation later.”
Luna’s face was unreadable. “I’m looking forward to it, Sister.”
“Do so, but there’s no need to. I’ll say it as many times as needed, Luna—the war is going fine.”
The war wasn’t going fine.
For once, Celestia felt thankful for those thousand years of fake smiles and empty laughter, because it was actually impressive how calm and composed she looked from outside when her thought process had been nothing but an endless high-pitched scream for the last two weeks.
“Panic” wasn’t enough a word to describe it. It would have sufficed if the fate of an entire species was all that rested on Celestia’s shoulders—but there were two entire worlds on the line, and Luna had made it all worse by trying to help, and she couldn’t even think of letting her sister know that she had, to some minimal, hypothetical degree, disappointed anypony.
But sisterly love, strong as it was, still made it a little hard to justify genocide, which was sort of what was going on on Earth at the moment. Celestia had managed to get Luna to step down from her position as Commander of the Equestrian Army, but it had been too late—now the entire human planet was seriously considering surrendering to the ponies.
And Equestria plain couldn’t sustain the humans, even if they turned into ponies. They didn’t have the resources—and even if they did, she could see the griffons, dragons, changelings and the like not being exactly happy with the sudden bloodthirst demonstrated by the equines.
So right now, Celestia had two solutions in front of her: letting the humans come to Equestria—equivalent to economical and political suicide—or winning the war, annihilating an entire species, and forcing Luna to rediscover that she was a total failure.
It was a horrible situation, one that could only be solved with careful thought and endless work, so Celestia took every opportunity she had to do literally anything but that. Like having a sudden rendezvous with an anonymous donkey.
That entire deal sounded fishy, judging by the sergeant’s words, but anything would be a relief after. Of that, Celestia was absolutely sure.
“Wait a moment,” the donkey said the moment he saw Celestia, “I thought that you were a female?”
Celestia blinked.
Well, this went on to show that life is always full of surprises.
There were many ways to answer to such a thing, so Celestia went for a perfectly neutral one. “Is it perhaps not clear by appearances alone?”
Some poison might have slip into those words, because the donkey straightened his neck and looked at her, really looked at her, for the first time. “Oh. Oh, God, that came out wrong. No, I was just—it wasn’t an insult, sorry. Just, you know.” He waved a hoof in the air. “I’m used to being around really feminine women, and you’re more handsome than pretty, if you get what I mean?”
Celestia cocked her head to the side. “Handsome?”
“Yeah.” The donkey vaguely pointed at her. “You know. Cheekbones, sharp features… I’d say you’re really handsome. Like, I’d let you marry my daughter, if you asked.”
“I am sadly not accepting marriage proposals anymore,” Celestia said. “But I thank you for the compliment, and I’ll take it as an apology for the—I hope unintended—insult that prefaced it, Sir.”
“Um.” The donkey scratched his cheek. “Lafayette. Please, don’t call me ‘Sir’.”
“I see.” Strange name for a donkey. “It won’t happen again.”
Intense silence followed. Celestia just stared at the donkey. The donkey stared back at Celestia.
Something strange happened, then.
There was an almost audible click, like a spark of recognition. A certain kind of resonance was shared between the two, and Celestia needed a moment to register it.
It was the feeling of meeting an equal for the first time in a long time. Even though she was more powerful, even though she was older, even though she was wiser—she shared something with that donkey she had never met.
Laugh Ayette then talked, and raw emotion tinted his words. “I need your help,” he said.
And Celestia answered with absolute honesty.
“I’m listening.”
That giant pony—wait, maybe she was a horse?—had an interesting look in her eyes. She looked strained. She looked emotionally exhausted, the kind of exhaustion that comes with obsession, with one-minded fixation over one single emotion.
It was a very particular look, but Laf could recognize it immediately, because for the last two weeks he’d seen it every time he looked at himself in the mirror. There was one thing consuming him, and the only reason he was in Equestria was to take care of it.
That feeling was a mixture of hatred and even more hatred. It was hatred.
“I need your help.”
“I’m listening.”
And knowing he’d found an ally, Laf allowed himself to smile for the first time in what felt like a really long time. “Good.”
The horse—Queen of the ponies, said her name was Celestia—quickly invited him to a more private place, to discuss matters away from indiscreet ears.
“I always found that tea goes well with important business,” she explained as she lead him through the castle. “And you need my help with something important, I take.”
“…It’s my sister,” Laf answered absentmindedly. The castle was really pretty, and he was busy staring. “She got me into trouble, but now I need to save her.”
“Oh.”
They passed two more rooms and one corridor full of glass portraits before Celestia talked again. Her voice was almost a whisper.
“That is important,” she muttered.
Laf didn’t reply.
The tea Celestia made looked pretty good. Even Lafayette could see that, and he was exclusively a coffee guy—but it was impossible to grab the teacup with hooves, donkeys have no magic, and a few experiments with his tail showed that while the thing was prehensile, it wasn’t prehensile enough.
“Don’t worry.” Celestia’s horn flashed, and a mop appeared and cleaned the mess by itself. “I can always get you another cup.”
“Man.” Laf resisted the urge to slam his own face against the table. It would have been unsightly, probably. “Now I’m unable to feed myself? If the rest of my entire life hadn’t set the bar this high, this would be a new low.”
“There’s always hope,” Celestia said, and there was a hint of a smile on her face. She raised her cup with a flash of magic and took a perfectly elegant sip, as if to rub it in Laf’s face. “You look like a mystery to me, Laugh Ayette. The way you talk, the way you act—you don’t look like you’re from this land. And there’s something interesting in those bags under your eyes.”
They matched hers. But that was left unsaid.
Laf shrugged. “I used to be human. Not really used to this whole ‘no hands’ policy you’ve got running.”
“That policy was outlawed long ago, after the Griffons issued a formal reclamation,” Celestia said, as she put the teacup back on the table and rubbed her eyes. “But if what you say is true, Laugh Ayette, then you present an even greater mystery.”
“My name sounds really weird when you say it.”
“I’ll be the first to admit I haven’t talked with many turned humans,” Celestia continued, and her eyes were fixed on Laf now. “But as far as I knew, I thought the serum could only turn you into a pony.”
Laf’s ears perked up on their own. It was quite annoying. “Right. Usually.”
“And yet, you’re a donkey.”
“Uh-huh.”
Celestia cocked her head to the side, a clearly implied question. Laf just stared at her for a moment.
In literally any other pony Laf had ever seen, that gesture would have been a rather cute one. He wasn’t one to judge the aesthetics of anything, really, but that was a fact. However, in Celestia, the effect wasn’t cute. It felt uncanny.
She hadn’t changed her expression. She rarely blinked, and when she did, she did it really slowly. Her neck was angled just a little too perfectly. Her smile was absolutely symmetrical. Her voice had been even the entire time.
Everything Celestia said and did felt completely calculated to look as natural as possible.
The realization hit Lafayette like a truck hits an unlucky cyclist, and for a second, he wondered if talking to Celestia was the right choice.
Then he thought of his sister, and made up his mind.
“Well, yes.” He cleared his throat with a cough and, unable to fidget with no fingers, started tapping the table with a hoof. “That is actually part of the reason why I need your help, your Majesty. You see—”
“Highness.”
Laf blinked. “Beg your pardon?”
“The term is ‘your Highness’.”
“Um.” Lafayette frowned at this. “No, it isn’t.”
“Yes, it is.”
“No. Like, okay.” Laf rubbed the space between his eyes. “I mean, it’s really not. It’s ‘Majesty’. ‘Highness’ is wrong. I’m positive.”
Celestia squinted in that robotic way of hers. “I can’t help but think I am more suited to see who is in the right in this case, Laugh Ayette.”
“No, you don’t get it.” Laf pressed his front hooves against his chest. “I’m a pedantic jackass. This is my reason to live. No way I’m calling you ‘Highness’, your Majesty.”
Celestia’s face didn’t change. She just looked down, her features perfectly neutral, grabbed her cup of tea, and took a sip. She savored it for a second, gulped, and let out a sigh.
Then she said, “This is getting us nowhere.”
“I’m taking that as a personal victory.”
“I think I’m starting to see why you’re a donkey.” Celestia put down her teacup and sat with her back completely straight. “It suits you, to a point. You said you needed my help.”
Laf took that as a cue. “Can I go straight to the point?”
“…I do not know. Can you?”
A pause.
Laf squinted. “May I go straight to the point, if we’re done with being petty?”
Another perfectly symmetrical smile made its way to Celestia’s lips, although this one almost felt genuine. “I believe we’re finished. And you may.”
“Can you turn me back into a human?”
“No.”
She might as well have slapped him.
“…Can y—May you elaborate, your Majesty?”
“Transfiguration is a dangerous, delicate art,” Celestia said. “It can be mastered, with talent and practice, but there are limitations. I can turn a pony into a human, but I can’t bring you back what the serum took.”
“Great. Splendid. Magnificent.” Laf tapped his hoof on the table again. “Because…?”
“Because humans have no magic.” And Celestia’s voice made it clear that this wasn’t up to debate. Just in case he’d forgotten his previous body couldn’t shoot lightning, Lafayette guessed. How thoughtful of her. “Your nature opposes its very notion, just like darkness opposes light. It’s the reason the barrier destroys humans, and only humans.”
“Ah. Well. That’s, uh, simple.”
“Hmm.” Celestia finished her tea. “Once darkness has killed the light, it’s not able to bring it back. The serum infuses humans with magic, reverses their very nature—but it can go the other way around, because magic can’t create its opposite by itself.”
A pause.
Laf must have made a really interesting expression, because Celestia immediately started to talk in a way that made it clear she was trying really hard not to be condescending. “Change,” she said, “is destruction slowed down. Two opposite poles collide and repel each other, but you need to… Imagine a ship that sustains damage, and every time it does so, you change a part of it. Eventually—”
“All right, all right, I get it!” Laf lied. “No need to explain further!”
“—and then, while it’s the same ship, it’s at the same time different and—”
“No, yes, shut up!” Laf clapped. “My life’s ruined, whatever, don’t give me a headache on top of that!”
Celestia closed her mouth, and made all the movements necessary to show that she was being genuinely sympathetic. “I’m… sorry to be the bearer of bad news. I’ll understand if you need some time alone.” A beat. “Or a bucket of ice cream.”
He could use a bucket of ice cream, actually, but Laf liked to pretend he had some dignity. “Why the hell would I want that?” he asked.
“To deal with the emotional shock! Surely, now that your life has changed forever, you’re faced with new emotions with which you don’t know how to deal.”
“New emotions? Oh, yeah.” Laf could have tried to keep the snark out of his voice, but he’d made amends with the fact that he wasn’t a likable person long ago. “Crippling depression. Now that’s a novelty, isn’t it?”
Celestia didn’t answer at first. She just looked at him, with eyes that, for once, said nothing. The bags under her eyes looked darker.
Laf felt his own eyes itch, and he rubbed them, annoyed.
“You didn’t take the serum for your own sake. You did it for her.”
“What a vague, ominous way to talk about my sister.” And Laf looked back at Celestia. “Course I did.”
Celestia nodded. “I have a sister, too.”
“Oh.”
For an instant, they understood each other.
Then the moment passed.
“Technically, this is all my sister’s fault.” Laf pointed vaguely at himself. “The whole donkey business? Not my plan.”
“I see.”
“Long story short, the barrier happened, you know? And I’m not very keen on going outside, but she tries to find excuses to make me go with her, she tries to cheer me up, and before we knew it…” He sighed. “She thought she was helping.”
Celestia didn’t move. At all. For a moment, save her mane and tail, she looked like a marble statue—cold, lifeless, ancient. Laf realized with a shiver that she wasn’t breathing.
“The barrier,” she said, and she actually made Laf flinch. “It should have never appeared.”
“Tell me about it.” Laf’s left ear went up. “Why is it there, by the way? What happened?”
“Hmm.” Celestia shook her head, really slowly. “Officially, it was nopony’s fault. Two different dimensions just happened to collide. A cosmic accident.”
That sounded political. “And unofficially?” he asked.
“Unofficially,” Celestia repeated, almost musing to herself. Her eyes looked a little empty, now. Like they had lost part of its shine. “Unofficially, my sister is a curious, powerful mare. She had access to really old texts in the Castle’s library, texts older than me.”
“Ah.”
“She, too, thought she was helping.”
“Right. So we can both relate, here.”
“We do.” Celestia blinked, and her eyes returned to normal. “I think our situations might be the same, Laugh Ayette.”
“Well, you’re not a donkey.” Laf swung his tail side to side. It felt weird, but he thought he’d heard a fly somewhere near, and better safe than sorry. “So… Not really?”
“There’s more to life than appearances.”
“Yes. Said the one who’s not an ass.” He’d always felt that being an idiot helped when he was afraid, and Celestia was being really scary at the moment. “I don’t know. Thing is: I need to save my sister. She cares too much for me, she’s gonna turn into a pony because she’s an idiot, and I don’t want her to throw her life away for—”
“Of course you want to save her.” Celestia closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “We all do. But there’s no way to do it. There are two ways to go, but both mean losing it all. The third path is closed now. We can’t save anypony.”
That sounded overly pessimistic, so Laf immediately agreed with the idea. It was true, to boot: if he moved to Equestria and abandoned his previous life, Dani would follow. And if he kept living among the humans, Dani would literally do the exact same, because she was stupid.
It was really a no-win situation…
“…Probably?” he said out loud. “I mean, there might still be a way out. But I appreciate the thought, really! It’s cathartic to see that someone else gets it. I’m tired of everybody being hopeful and all.”
This sentence caused what Laf believed to be the first show of genuine emotion from Celestia. She widened her eyes, and it felt clumsy, unrehearsed. “What?”
“I don’t want Dani to take the serum,” Laf said, simply. “So if you can, like, vaccinate her? Make it so it doesn’t work on her, no matter what she tries?”
“I—um. Ah.” Celestia batted her wings twice, ruffled her feathers, put them straight, shook her head. “You—uh?”
“Vaccinate my sister. Uh.” Laf squinted. “Replace her… magical ship? Or something? Can you prevent her from turning into a pony or whatever she thinks she will turn into.”
“What?”
“Yeah.” Laf pointed vaguely at himself again. “I thought I would make an ass of myself before taking the serum, so of course I did. In many ways. Because I’m an idiot. But Dani being Dani, she’ll turn into a puppy or whatever.”
“That…” And Celestia’s eyes went wide again. “Subconscious transfiguration? But it doesn’t—the serum eases magic into your system, but you can’t influence it. You’d need an incredibly powerful source to do so, something big enough…”
Silence.
Celestia turned her head to the side, and again, went still like a statue. No breathing. But her eyes weren’t void, this time, at least.
“…Acting like a cat,” she whispered. “Nature’s greatest predator. We could never win. It wasn’t her fault.”
Laf reacted to this show like a deer reacts to some particularly powerful headlights. “W—what? Cat? What?”
“Laugh Ayette.” Celestia turned to him again. “Bring your sister.”
“…What?”
“To Equestria. Bring her.” She headed out of the room, and Laf struggled behind her. “Make her take the serum.”
“What? Why would I do that? That’s exactly the opposite of—”
“—Of what you want,” Celestia finished. “You feel your life is ruined, and you want to save her from the same fate, even if that means your own solitude. You’re willing to drive her away to save her.”
“Um. Yes, I guess, but—”
“I am extremely familiar with that thought. You’re willing to sacrifice yourself for her sake, taking a third option, destroying the problem at the root. I can tackle the problem directly, and never mind myself…”
“…Okay? But, like—”
“This is what I was missing, but now I see it. I can help her.” And her voice was raw with emotion. “So bring your sister here, and trust me. I can solve everything.”
Lafayette couldn’t help but comply. But right as he was starting to get some speed, his thoughts a complete mess, Celestia stopped dead in her tracks, and he almost tripped over her.
“Actually,” she said. “Before it’s too late—may I ask you a question?”
“Uh. Sure, I guess.”
“It’s about your world’s sun. See, I’ve always wondered if mine works properly, and now that I have the chance to check with somepony else…”
The air smelled sweet and fresh, and Celestia could finally breathe. The clouds in her mind had gone away, and the weight over her shoulders, while never off, had turned much lighter.
It was a beautiful day.
“Did you give the sun an extra shine today, Sister?” Luna asked as they walked together to the west. “It feels as if it’s warmer than usual.”
“Summer approaches, Luna.” But she never denied it.
“The bags under your eyes have disappeared, too,” Luna said, getting closer to her. “And tonight was peaceful.”
“Hmm-hmm.”
“What happened?”
Celestia was about telling her, right then and there, but then she thought better. And as she was feeling cheery, she just said, “I lied to you.”
And then she refused to elaborate.
The barrier was gigantic in more ways than mere size. Celestia could feel it—sizzling against her coat, crackling inside her mane and horn, forcing her muscles to tense up against her own will.
Magic. Wild, massive magic in the air. The barrier was a tsunami of energy, the kind that could destroy a world without fading. Approaching it was like putting your hoof on the fire, but never getting burned.
A donkey and a mare were waiting for them somewhere to their right. She was strangely similar to Laugh Ayette—something in the shape of her face, the way she stood and looked around, the size of her hooves. They weren’t the same species, but they were clearly related.
“Hello, Laugh Ayette,” Celestia said when they met. “I assume this is your sister.”
“My name is Danielle! But call me Dani!” The mare gave her the brightest smile. “You are the queen Laf talked about?”
Celestia smiled back. “Princess.”
“Queen,” Laugh Ayette repeated. “She’s most definitely a queen. That one, though,” and he pointed at Luna, “is a princess. Hi, your Majesty, your Highness.”
“Salutations, my little donkey.”
“Sister?” Luna approached Celestia with feline grace, and her hooves made no noise against the ground. “What is happening? Who are they?”
“He,” Celestia said, “is Laugh Ayette. Once, he was a human. He and I shared a very special talk.” She nodded at him, and noticed that the bags under his eyes hadn’t gone anywhere. “I’m glad to see you and your sister here,” she said, and she was saying the truth.
“A donkey.” Luna looked at him, then at Celestia. “But I believed the serum only created ponies?”
“I thought the same.” Celestia shrugged, and got closer to the barrier, as close as possible. It was uncomfortable, but not painful per se. “Until Laugh Ayette appeared. Then I understood why we were winning the war.”
Then, Celestia pushed her head past the barrier.
It’s a matter of perspective, nothing more and nothing less. Every problem looks small in hindsight, because there’s some distance between the past and the present, and the mind works in mysterious ways.
But maybe there was more to it. Maybe, once the pressure was away, once one could allow to think with pause and clarity, it was easier to see the real size of every issue, every little nuisance that crossed our way.
Maybe, Celestia thought as she finished her task and brought her head back into Equestria, maybe it was simply that in the great scope of things, nothing any pony will ever do is truly important. Time will go on. Nothing matters.
There was some freedom in such fatality.
“But that’s it,” she said, once it was all done. “I solved everything.”
Three pairs of eyes, glaring at her. She revelled in the attention a little bit. It was a morbid sort of pleasure, to lengthen the suspense just a little bit more than necessary.
But not too much. She knew she had some explaining to do.
“I told you already.” Celestia looked at Luna, then turned her back on the barrier and walked away. The others followed. “I lied to you. I’m sorry.”
Luna shook her head. “I do not understand.”
“The war.” It still made her feel vulnerable, to open up to her sister. Some things never changed, no matter how old you were. “We weren’t supposed to win. We weren’t supposed to conquer China.”
“And Russia.”
A pause. Celestia blinked, then looked at her sister again. “Russia? When did we conquer Russia?”
“Two days ago,” Laugh Ayette said from behind her.
“Even though the barrier is in America!” Danielle added, cheery. “It was all over the news!”
Luna coughed, and looked to the side. “It was Tree Hugger’s idea. She thought it would be, um, fitting for the current strategy.”
“Right.” Celestia didn’t frown, but not for lack of wanting. “Fitting for the current strategy. Even though I ordered our troop’s retreat.”
“We conquered it on our way back.”
“Even though the barrier is in America!”
“I see.” Celestia didn’t get angry. It was better to let the past go, now. “This is precisely what I was talking about. We’re good at war. Too good.”
Luna’s ears perked up at this. Laugh Ayette and Danielle didn’t say anything, but Celestia assumed they were also paying attention.
“I should have noticed, when it happened. I should have trusted you, too.” It took all the courage she had in her to look at her sister, to mutter the next words. “I thought you were failing me. I was afraid to tell you. To hurt you.” She closed her eyes. “I was a fool.”
“Sister.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Sister.” Luna patted her shoulder, and her touch seemed confident, secure. Solid. “Worry not. The past is behind us.”
“But—”
“I forgive you. I understand what you did, and why. And I forgive you.”
There was a little moment of warmth between then, shared by two smiles that were too young and naive for such old mares.
Then Laugh Ayette broke it. “You know,” he said, “I get that this is, like, cute and all. But I’m still a donkey. So if we can sorta…?”
“Right!” Celestia flinched. She had pretty much pushed the donkey and his sister away from her mind at this point. “Of course. Of course. Ahem.” She shook her head, and put her composed voice back on. “The war was supposed to be lost. Equestria’s fate hung on it. And we were winning. Then, Laugh Ayette appeared—and I realized it.”
“Realized what?”
“That you were acting like a cat. Nature’s predator.” Celestia looked at Laugh and Dani. “That the humans could influence the serum, even though they don’t have magic. That our troops were acting as warriors. That the barrier is more powerful than we thought. It’s a source of magic.”
And Luna’s eyes went wide. “The tuna cravings.”
“I don’t get it!”
Laugh nodded at his sister. “Me neither. What? How does this help us, exactly?”
“Magic,” Celestia said, “is nothing but our thoughts made reality. What we wish, what we think, it brings it to life.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And the barrier is a source of magic.” Celestia smiled. “You wished to be an ass, and the magic of the barrier made it happen. Our troops fought a war, and the magic of the barrier made them win. Luna was a commander, and she turned into a predator.”
“I didn’t wish to be a donkey. I actually wished the opposite of that.”
“Or did you? You expected this outcome. The mind works in mysterious ways. You can’t fight a war without desiring to win it, deep inside.”
“So our plan was doomed from the beginning,” Luna continued. Her eyes were still wide with comprehension. “If the magic doesn’t affect the humans, then—”
“—then our wishes will come true, and theirs won’t.” Celestia nodded at her sister, then looked at Danielle. “Unless you turn into ponies, humans will get no wish-fulfillment, I’m afraid.”
“Gee.” Laugh made a face. “That’s just perfect.”
“It’s not our fault.” Celestia peeked at Luna. “Technically. But the barrier is dangerous for us, too. Power used subtly is a terribly effective tool. You yourself got affected by it, Luna.”
“Scary.”
“Well. But now it’s all fixed, right?” Laugh said. “You said so. That you’d seen the solution to the problem and all. That you can help us.”
“Oh, of course.” They could see Canterlot, now. Celestia’s wings itched, but she figured it would be rude to fly away when their companions couldn’t join them. “We couldn’t win the war, but there was no way to lose it. It was a hopeless situation. Then I talked with you.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes.” Warmth in her voice, now. “And I saw that you were right. There was a third option, if only I was willing to make a small sacrifice. If only I knew what was important.”
And she shot Luna a loving gaze. The thing one does for a little sister, she thought.
“I still don’t get it!” Danielle said. She wasn’t walking as much as she was bopping forward. It reminded Celestia of another pink pony. “But I think that sounds good!”
“Huh.” Laugh Ayette wasn’t bopping. He was, in fact, doing the exact opposite of bopping. “So you made a sacrifice.”
“I made,” Celestia said, “a bureaucratic decision, on my own. Even though I didn’t like it.”
Something in her voice made Laugh Ayette stop. Soon, everypony was standing, too, even though Celestia wanted to get to Canterlot as soon as possible. She fancied a relaxing cup of tea. She believed she deserved it.
“A bureaucratic decision,” Laugh Ayette repeated. “On your own?”
Celestia nodded. “Yes.”
“And you didn’t like it.”
“No. But it had to be done.”
Laugh frowned. “I don’t like the sound of that, actually.”
“I do!”
“Dani, shut up. What decision?”
Celestia shook her head. “No need to feel sad, my little donkey. I just ended the war.”
“What, when you popped your head into my world?”
“Yes. I moved your sun, a little.”
Absolute silence.
Behind her, Luna looked at Canterlot. She, too, wanted to go.
“You… moved my sun.”
“Yes. Such a simple solution! I thought I would need to work much harder, but your speech gave me the idea.” Celestia looked at Luna, nudged her so she would stop fidgeting in place. “Their planet orbits around their sun. If the sun is away, Earth goes away, too.”
Luna’s ears perked up. “Really?”
“Yes. And without Earth, there’s no barrier. It only stood because there was a world on the other side. I expect it’ll disappear soon.”
“The humans are probably dead, then,” Luna said. “Moving a planet like that.”
“It’s the setback, yes.”
Danielle’s face had fell. Laugh Ayette’s was frozen. “You…” he said. “You… killed humanity?”
“Indeed.”
Strange, Celestia thought as she said this. Even though the sun was shining brightly, Laugh Ayette and Danielle looked cold.
“So much for the sanctity of life, Sister,” Luna muttered, still looking at Canterlot. “What made you change your opinion?”
“Nothing did. I said I was willing to make sacrifices, too.” Celestia sighed. “It felt wrong, I’ll admit, but I don’t think they mind anymore.”
“Because they’re dead?” Luna asked.
“That is the plan, yes. I hope the dead hold no grudges.”
“You said you’d help us.” Laugh’s voice was small, weak. Like the yipping of a dying dog. “That you would turn us back into humans.”
“Oh? Did I, my little donkey?” Celestia gave Laugh a look, and there was a spark in her eye. “Perhaps you remember wrong.”
“Yes, you…” Laugh Ayette looked down, eyes wide. “No. What you said was that you had solved everything. Those were your exact words.”
“Exactly. I think you didn’t listen to what I said, but rather, what you wanted to hear.” Celestia looked at Luna, and the smile could be heard in her voice. “It’s an honest mistake, Laugh Ayette, but also a chance to learn.”
“Sister, that sounds a little pedantic.”
“I know. But I know he will appreciate it.” She smiled at him again. “Right?”
But the donkey said nothing.
Another pause followed.
Neither Danielle nor Laugh Ayette talked. Celestia and Luna looked at each other.
At first, none of them knew what to do. Then, Celestia saw something she recognized in Danielle’s eyes, and had an idea. “You surely,” she said, “are dealing with new emotions you don’t know how to face. Perhaps you’d like some time alone?”
Luna blinked, then beamed. “And a bucket of ice-cream!”
“And a bucket of ice cream.” Celestia extended her wings. Luna did the same. “We’ll send it here soon, worry not. And if you ever want to talk, we’ll be here.”
“You just need to ask!” Luna added. “Sister?”
“Sure!”
And they flew away, and soon the donkey and his sister were just little dots in the distance, immobile and silent.
Everything looks smaller when you look at it with some perspective, Celestia thought. Sometimes, the weight of an entire kingdom on her shoulders was heavy. Always busy, always another problem to solve.
But it was really just a matter of priorities. As long as you knew what was truly important, she thought, as Luna flew by her side, you could get by.
“I wonder if they’ll be okay?”
“They will,” Celestia assured. “Mortals heal easily. And they have no worries, once they’re dead.”
“They’re lucky, that way.” And Luna’s eyes went wide. “Which reminds me! You won’t believe who knocked on my door this morning, Sister!”
“Do tell me?”
“The Minister of Internal Affairs!” Luna’s grin was gigantic. “She wants to marry Finances!”
And Celestia couldn’t help but cover her mouth with a hoof. “Perish the thought!”
But in spite of what she said, her chest was filled with happiness.
Genocide really made one consider how strong sisterly love was.
“[...] With that in mind, I find it’s better to act, and to later regret your action, than to forever wonder what would have happened if you hadn’t been a coward.”
—Voltaire, Letters.
“I immensely regret saying those words [...]. And I do not appreciate the irony.”
—Voltaire, Letters, Part II.
Author's Note
Subtlety is my middle name.
