"Hi, my name is Generic Name! I live in Ponytown, a suburb of a major city in Equestria. It's always the perfect temperature, the food is always yummy, the neighbors are tempered just as they need to be, and the local economy is just right, with a surplus to repair any damages from monster attacks or the rare natural disaster or local accident.
"If I had to rate my town, which may be a city or village, it'd be a solid 7. Not too bad, but not perfect. Does that answer your question?"
"Can you describe yourself? The townsponies?"
"Well, we're made up of an even thirty-three percent of each tribe with the remaining one percent in pregnancy or a pony on vacation. Our coats are only primary colors and divided evenly among each pony in each tribe so we're all balanced. I, myself, am a standard blue. We all sport a nice white mane with a stripe that contrasts out coat color down the center. May I ask, why do you have such exciting colors? And your mane-"
"In due time, Mr. Name. What can you tell me about the city your home is a suburb of?"
"I don't really know, I've never left Ponytown."
"And what of tourism? How many new ponies come through Ponytown in, say, a month?"
"I don't know, I really don't think we've gotten tourists for a few years," he tapped his chin with his hoof and ruffled his wings.
"Sounds interesting. And if you had to guess, what's the average age of an adult in Ponytown?"
He smiled widely. "Adults are 23 and children are 9 and foals are six months."
The mare returned the smile. "That's very nice to hear... and are there any ages between?"
He tilted his head and his smile fell. "Between? There are only three ages in Ponytown, why do you ask?"
"Oh, no reason," she dismissed with a professional smile, "I think we're about done here. Can you send in the next pony when you leave?"
He stood with a grin. "Certainly, have a ponytastic day."
"And the same to you, Generic Name."
He blinked and turned to leave, looking back over his shoulder before he opened the door. "You may call me RT-88791, if you wish, it's my..." he hesitated and lowered his voice, "my given name."
She smiled warmly, honestly. "That sounds lovely, RT-8879, 1, was it?"
He grinned and his feathers fluffed. "That's right! I hope to see you again soon."
"And I as well."
He opened the door and stepped out into the light grey hall of the hospital and turned left after two paces forward and began to walk. He turned to the pony in line as he passed. "Generic Name, you're next. She's really nice so have fun."
The mare smiled and fluffed her wings, as did the next pony in line, and the next, and the next..."
RT-88791 trotted down the hall sixteen paces, turned right, twenty paces, turned right, eighteen paces, turned right and two paces ahead he began the descent of the stairs, smiling at the second pony in line he'd seen before he began his walk around the floor and traded smiles.
He eventually left the building after three more flights of stairs and stood under the noon sun, letting it warm his coat and body from the sunless interior of the building. He trotted down the cobblestone street and passed ponies as he went, standing in the sunlight and enjoying the moment.
"Good noon-time, Generic Name," a filly shouted as he passed.
"And a good noon-time to you, Generic Name. It's a pleasure to see you."
"And a pleasure to see you," she replied with a smile as he passed.
He reached his house an hour later after traversing the path down the street of the town. Exactly the same as all the houses next to it, this one's differentiator being his name in a small plaque on his door at exactly eye level for him.
He opened his door, walked in, turned to offer a smile to the ponies enjoying the noon sun, and closed his door.
Slumping, he scraped his shoes on the mat and stomped his hooves several times to make sure they were clean before taking a step to the right and into a small shower with brushes on the floor that activated shortly and washed his body while the floor scrubbed his hooves clean to a polish.
Instantly dried as he left the shower he stood in the entryway and looked left to the small den with a couch, loveseat, two resting chairs, five cushions, hardwood floors… He rolled his eyes and looked right into the kitchen diningroom and didn’t even scan the area before moving down the hall to the bedrooms.
One to the left, one to the right, and one six paces ahead at the end of the hall, but stopped before he reached the opposing doors and listened to the silence of the house intently for two minutes. Nervously he stepped hard on a loose board, lowered his head, and bit it. Lifting it he looked at a small book and smiled.
Taking the book gently with his softest primary feathers up and as he lay on the floor the book went between his forelegs. “The Adventure of Outside Ponytown,” he whispered as he looked at the cover with different colored markings on it. Turning the cover over he looked at the first page and noticed a faded area where he’d brushed his feathers across the drawn picture.
“Green, orange, purple… so many colors,” he said in hushed awe, “brown lines with green on them everywhere, it’s so pretty.”
He began turning the pages one at a time for what could have been hours until a quiet ‘ding’. He put the book away with utmost care and replaced the floorboard, making sure it was as pristine as the rest before he went to the door and stood tall, opened his wings from his sides slightly, and with a smile opened the door.
“Hello, Officer Generic Name, how may I be of assistance?”
The red unicorn officer smiled constantly, as most other ponies did. “I’m here to inquire about your meeting with the outsider. How do you feel it went?”
RT-88791 focused on his peripheral vision to see at least a dozen other officers asking the same question to other houses at the same time. “I enjoyed it, she wanted to know about Ponytown and I offered her the overall details as we all know them.”
“That is very nice to hear. Have a nice noon-time; soon it will be moon-time, so be restful.”
“And a restful moon-time to you as well.”
They traded the same smile and parted, with RT-88791 closing the door again and relaxing. He made himself a balanced meal, used the restroom, sat in the living room for a time, then went to his room and watched as the noon sun quickly dipped beyond the horizon and in its place, the moon rose until it was right overhead of the town.
With thoughts of the color filled book, he climbed into bed and curled into himself wondering what the world must be like outside the town and if any other Ponytown pony wondered the same as he did.
As he closed his eyes the image of the only creature that was different entered his mind.
“Good evening, my little ponies, what a lovely and absolutely boring moon-time. I’ve heard through the grapevines that a pony has arrived in my town and has spoken to many of you. While I’m not upset at the exactly same, boring answers you’ve given her, I am upset that she’s may bring chaos to the order I’ve created here!
“Now, I’m not a bad draconequus. I simply need a hint of order to maintain my chaos, and if the ponies that have discovered you bring chaos to my order, well then I won’t be very chaotic, now will I? We can’t have that, and I can’t use my magic in Ponytown so I ask of all of you to remain boring, dull, unimaginative, and lame as always so that the outsiders become bored and we can return to the life you all know and tolerate, as I do.”
Discord laughed and with a flash he was gone from RT-88791’s vision, leaving him with the desire to follow the unknown mare back to where she came from. With time passing he felt a lump in his throat that grew with each minute as the desire grew until he opened his eyes and frowned for the first time in his memory.
“Ponytown is not very nice,” he mumbled as he got to his hooves and went to the hall, collected his book, and with swiftness he left the house to a surprise. Every house that had a pony that had met the mare was outside and looking at each other with confusion before joining the masses and crowd that was walking to the town hall to find the mare.
Upon arriving he joined the crowd outside and looked at the building letting his eyes trail to the top of the perfect cube with equally parted windows and the same polished paint coating as the rest of the homes in the town only now with a yellow mare with white mane standing at the top with a mirror unlike any he’d seen before, even from the distance it stood outshining against the black sky with a single dancing constellation of a Dancing Discord and a light bulb called the moon.
“Ponies of Ponytown, we are led astray and we will not beget our lord, savior, a creature of creation among the chaos who brought order to our universe!”
With that, she shoved the mirror over the side and silence continued to reign as the mirror fell, hit the ground, and shattered into more pieces than can be counted upon the cobblestone.
Minutes passed before ponies walked to the place of the broken mirror before they began to turn back to and returned to their houses throughout the next hours until only he stood in place, looking at the place where the mirror shattered. The sun swapped for the moon in one second and the light reflecting off the mirror shards danced colors he only dreamed the closer he finally moved toward them until he saw his reflection in one and they shared a smile.
He picked up the shard, as large as his hoof, and hid it in his feathers before he returned home to place it with his book and pass it on to his offspring as it had been passed onto him, just as each house had taken a piece for their own secrets to pass on to their future generations for ages to come, always with the hope of experiencing what the other side of the mirror had to offer and what each book reflected in another reality of chaos and change that they each longed for until the next traveler appeared, hopefully, to give them the chaos they desired.
