ReVerseby PetrichordChaptersReduceReuseRecycleReduceDear Princess Celestia, As you may know, the Summer Sun Celebration is less than a week away. I know that you’re probably worried about making sure that everything’s organized—and Starlight Glimmer has told me all about how you and Princess Luna work so hard to make sure all of Equestria is happy—so I thought that as the Princess of Friendship, I should also try to help out as much as I can. The students at the school of friendship have promised that they’d help me, too, and even though most of my friends are busy with their own No. Dear Princess Celestia, I’m writing you this letter to let you know that I’m going to help you as much as I can with the summer sun celebration. I thought that I could handle most of the book keeping for you, and I’ve asked my friends to help pitch in however they can to make sure things run great. Even Starlight Glimmer and Trixie said that they’d be happy to help out No. Dear Princess Celestia, I just wanted to let you know that you don’t have to worry about the Summer Sun Celebration. I can handle just as much as you and Princess Luna can, and I’d be happy to work out everything from the invitations to the organization. I’m even ready to help tackle any Princess Problems that might No. Dear Princess Celestia Dear Pri Twilight Sparkle sighed, wiped her quill clean and set it next to her inkpot. Part of her wanted to crumple up her letter and throw it away, but even crumpling it up felt...not exhausting. Not stupid. There had to be another word for it... Rote? As if it was the thing she was supposed to do, the obvious thing that came next. She’d crumple it up, then she’d worry about what to do or say, then she’d wind up helping out with some critical problem without thinking about it and accidentally prevent the friendship school from exploding or Flurry Heart from burying all of Equestria in a massive blizzard, and thwarting that global crisis would help validate her in the eyes of close to a dozen other legends and beings of godly power. And that would be a good thing. Twilight picked up the quill, then set it down again. Then she picked it up again. Then she set it down again and slumped over her writing desk. Her ears flicked as the barely describable hum/whoosh/warble/”fwahhh” noise of magic filled the air behind her. Given that she had double-checked to make sure the door was locked, told her friends to keep anypony from bothering her while she helped set up preparations for the Summer Sun Celebration, did a brief walkthrough of the school beforehoof to check that nothing was broken and/or on fire and made sure that Starlight Glimmer was keeping herself occupied with her friends and not occupied with potentially dangerous magical experiments, Twilight was fairly certain that it was impossible for anypony to actually be behind her, much less using magic. “Hey, Discord.” Twilight muttered. “I’ve let the impossible become predictable. Truly, I should be ashamed of myself. But I’m not.” There was a faint crumpling noise behind Twilight, and a ball of something paper-like and pinkish flew over her head and clattered onto her desk. Marginally more interested in the contents of the paper than getting back to work, Twilight grabbed the paper and uncrumpled it. “Why am I not surprised?” Twilight sighed as she read the single word plastered on the page: SHAME. “I’m not going to waste my talents on an unappreciative audience, you know.” Discord sniffed. “There are ponies of discerning taste who happen to appreciate the sort of humor I provide.” Twilight put Discord’s paper down. “Fluttershy.” “But of course.” Twilight grabbed a clean sheet of paper, waiting for the words everypony would want to hear to magically sprout up onto the page. “You’re ignoring me, aren’t you.” Discord sniffed. “Not really.” “It isn’t a thing that has 'really's and 'not really's. Do keep in mind that I’m perfectly capable of wreaking a lot more mischief than that which I had already planned. But if you happen to enjoy cleaning up messes, then—” “Oh. Okay, that’s my problem. Got it.” Twilight blinked and turned around. “So if I get you mad enough at me that you decide to wreck the party, then I’ll have to apologize to you for hurting your feelings and you’ll have to apologize to me for almost causing a catastrophe. That’s what’s going to happen, isn’t it?” Twilight stared directly at Discord, waiting for him to take offense to her prediction in some fashion. Or, barring that, waiting for him to deny it. In any case, now was about the time where he was going to get angry, and she braced herself as… ...he gave her a quizzical look? Huh? “Well, I don’t know.” Discord scratched his cheek. “Is that what’s going to happen?” “Probably. Maybe. Unless one of us makes a point of proving that assumption wrong. But maybe it’ll happen again after all. Something’s going to happen.” “You’re saying that like it’s a bad thing.” “It...huh.” Twilight paused. Part of her wanted to say yes, she needed to get back to the note, she needed to help out and make sure that everything went according to plan. Part of her wanted to say no, this wasn’t going to work out, maybe she could let everyone else handle the mess or maybe she could try to clear all of it up in one fell swoop right before the deadline. “...I don’t know.” “You don’t know?” Discord cocked an eyebrow. “I don’t. I...wow.” Twilight rubbed her forehead. “I actually don’t know how I feel about any of this.” “What, our playful bout of banter?” “No, like—not just this conversation. This writing-a-letter thing. No, setting up for the Summer Sun Celebration. No, the celebration itself. I don’t know.” Twilight’s gaze fell floorward. She scaled her memory back further and further, trying to figure out what exactly might be bugging her. “Maybe I should sleep on this.” “And you think that would help? When was the last time you slept?” “Last night. Look, Discord, I’m—” Twilight’s temper flared, and as she looked back up at Discord she could have sworn that there was a mischievous glint in his eyes. Then she couldn’t see it anymore, and her irritation vanished as quickly as it came. “I’m not in the mood.” Discord puffed out his chest in mock pride. “That just makes nettling you more fun, doesn’t it?” “No, not like in an irritated way or frustrated way. Just...I don’t know. I don’t think I can really get as angry as you want me to be.” Discord blinked. “Goodness, you’re not reading self-help books, are you?” The Draconequus gagged. “Would that help?” “Absolutely not. And not in a fun way, either. But I’ll be the cleric at the chapel of the candor of chaos and inform you that not only would you not find it enjoyable, and not only would I not find it enjoyable, but you likely won’t even find it enjoyable to try and enjoy them anyway solely to annoy me.” Twilight paused, a rebuttal perched on her lips. “I don’t know,” Twilight admitted. This time, she actually felt something: a twinge somewhere beneath her stomach. It actually hurt, but at least it was different. “You don’t know...what.” Discord drawled, gesturing as if to coax a prompt out of her. “I know there’s a way I should be feeling, but I don’t. And I’m not sure why I don’t. It’s not that I’m frustrated, or tired, or angry, and...I don’t think I’m even bored. It’s not quite like that.” “Continue.” Discord snapped his fingers and sat down on a surprisingly tasteful recliner he had just conjured up. Surprisingly tasteful except for the gem-studded draconequus heads at the ends of the armrests, anyway. “Being bored would make it sound like I want to do something else, but I’m not sure...I’m not sure I want to do anything, exactly. It’s not that it wouldn’t be fun, it’s just...I know how everything goes, or will go. I can’t predict what exactly’s going to happen in the future, but I can tell you the general pattern of just about anything. The idea of doing things just feels like going through the motions, even when things are exciting and new and in constant flux. All the new stuff is the same, and I’m just…” Twilight faltered. “...I don’t know.” “You don’t.” “Do you?” “Are you sure you don’t?” “I don’t know if I don’t know or not! Does any of this sound like it’s making any sense to you?” “What fun is there in making sense?” “This isn’t supposed to be fun!” Twilight snapped. “And that’s why,” Discord concluded as he leaned forward, “this is making far too much sense to me.” “It is?” “An uncomfortably large amount of sense.” Twilight froze. The room fell into tomb-like silence, without even the ticking of a small clock to color the atmosphere. “...I’m not dying, am I?” “Only if you want to. You have that sort of luxury, Twilight Sparkle.” Discord rolled his eyes as he leaned back in his chair. “And if you intend on wrapping me up in your theatrics, then I fully intend to cover you in clown makeup and drop you right into a live theatre performance in the middle of a gigantic city. Literally drop you, I might add.” “That’s an oddly specific threat.” Twilight leaned forward in her chair. Discord snapped his fingers again, and Twilight’s center of balance shifted. Twilight keeled over backward, only to collide rather comfortably with a spacious and well-padded backrest. Shivering slightly, Twilight settled into her sofa and decided against looking at what might have adorned the front leg rests. “I prefer to make threats that I intend to see through if necessary, one way or another. I also abhor generalities. You’re free to consider these the quirks of an entity made of pure chaos, of course, but I prefer to acknowledge them as the creative comforts that have been my companions since long before your kind had ever engaged in agriculture. But I’ve gone and answered some of your questions, and in the interest of a fair and balanced friendship I’ll reiterate one of mine: What is it that you don’t know?” Twilight furrowed her brow, crossed her hind legs, rubbed her right eye. She leaned back in her chair, then sat forward in it again, back hunched. “I don’t know the sort of things I want that would help me feel as if I had wanted the right things.” Discord nodded. “There are things that you want.” “But I wouldn’t really want them! Like, I’d love for the Summer Sun Celebration to be a big success, but it’s already been a big success a bunch of times and I’ll just have to worry about that next year. I’d love it if the students at my friendship academy went on to do wonderful things, but that means less wonderful things I’d be able to do and more time spent running a school. But I never really didn’t want the school, and I wouldn’t want to get rid of it at all. I’ve got the admiration of my mentors, the solid relationships of my friends, admirers, wealth, fame, immortality, the knowledge that everything I’ve done has been a good thing. Discord, this is as good as it gets.” Discord smirked. “See, that doesn’t sound like much of a problem at all—” “Because it isn’t. I’m not worried about losing it all, since I know that I could get it all back if I’ve worked as hard as I have. I’m not...I don’t want to say I’m bored with it. It’s not boredom. That isn’t the right word for it. It’s not boring. It’s just...something that I’ve done again and again, and what I’ll keep doing forever, regardless of how it looks.” Silence. “It’s...I want to say rote, but that’s not the right word for it, either. Discord, help me. Please.” “Why would I help you?” Discord shrugged. “It sounds like you have everything you could have ever wanted.” “I do. And I’ll have it forever. But there isn’t something right about that, and I don’t know what it is, and I know you know what it is. You want me to figure it out on my own, but I don’t know how to do it.” “Ahh, but that’s something I can’t help you with.” Discord sighed, shaking his head. "You’ve already done it.” Silence. “Wait, what? Do you mean, like, I already said it?” “I clearly remember hearing it, as if it was thirty seconds ago.” “I’m going to guess that 'rote' wasn’t the right answer.” “There we go. You’re starting to guess things correctly for a change!” Discord clapped his hands. “And here I was, worried that you hadn’t learned any of the important things in your life.” “So is the answer that I need to learn more? Wait—wait, you don’t want me to just guess.” Twilight backpedaled as Discord frowned at her. “Let me...okay, let me go in reverse for a bit. I said an important thing, the thing wasn’t the word rote, I don’t have to worry about losing anything because I’ve done it all and could get back all the same stuff, and everything I’ll do is basically the same as doing stuff that…” Twilight grew aware that Discord was sitting forward in his seat, looking intently at her, not saying a word. “I’ve...I’ve done it, Discord. I did everything I wanted.” “You’ve played board games before, haven’t you, Twilight Sparkle?” “Yeah?” Twilight frowned. “I used to play chess all the time, and go, and Agricola…” “And what happens once you’ve gotten everything you wanted? When you complete your goal, when you got the best position you could possibly have?” “Isn’t that when you win?” “And do you keep playing after that?” “Of course you don’t. The game’s already…” Twilight blinked. Something very, very cold washed up her spine. “...I won, Discord.” “So will you keep playing?” “There isn’t any point. There isn’t anything to get from it. There isn’t anything new to learn. There are things you can do, but there isn’t really anything to do.” Twilight met Discord’s gaze. For the first time in her life, she didn’t see any trace of humor or mirth, or even the faintest hint of a desire to mock her. And that scared her worse than anything else she had seen in her entire life. “Discord?” Twilight said, blinking a bit harder than was necessary. “Yes?” “If the game is done, what else is there left to do?” Discord sighed in relief, raised his arm and snapped his fingers once more. “And that, Twilight Sparkle, is the most important question you will ever ask in your entire life.” Reuse“There’s plenty of fun to be had in trivializing trivialities. Nesting the absurd creates a delightful medley of absurdity,” Discord lectured. “But this is anything but trivial, and I’ll try to make do without the sort of color I’m known for. You’ve heard of multiverse theory, yes?” “Whose theory, at what level, and implicitly applying what sort of counterarguments?” “You could have just said 'yes,' Twilight. But since I don’t think you’re dithering for trivial reasons, I’ll give it a pass.” Discord nodded his head. “So—once you’re done with one game, win or lose, what do you do?” “You stop playing” Twilight replied. “And if you want to keep playing games?” “You find a different one?” “What if the game you just played is the one you most want to play?” “You start over?” Discord spread his palms. Unprompted and misguided, the idea might have seemed mind-shattering, or at least confusing. For Twilight, in this situation, it was a mind-shattering idea wrapped in an obtuse and vexing shell, and Twilight wanted equally to beg him for clarity and snidely insult him. “So...once more. Just to be sure.” Twilight started. “What I need to go is go into a different universe at a different point in time and try to do everything again?” “Halfway there. Sadly, fifty percent is still a failing grade, Miss Sparkle.” Discord stood up from his recliner, stretched and pushed it out of the way; it keeled over like an unbalanced wooden doll and shattered as it hit the floor, before the flecks of framing and cushions crumbled into dust and dissipated into the air. “Didn’t you tell me that you could already do everything over again?” “Right, sorry. So it’s something new that I need to do, but something that isn’t what I normally do. And what I normally do is…uh.” “Cat got your tongue?” Discord smirked. “Please don’t conjure up a cat.” “That would be trivial of me, wouldn’t it?” “Okay, but...this might sound really dumb. And you might think it’s so dumb that i’m deliberately being trivial, but I’m not trying to be.” “Oh, don’t worry about that. I’m confident that if there’s one thing your boundless intellect hasn’t helped you learn, it’s the knowledge of how to be funny. If there were two things, it would be your ability to be funny and ability to dance, but—” “You're being trivial.” “I’m trying! I really am!” Discord turned away from Twilight and pushed the door open. “I haven’t had to talk about this in quite some time.” Twilight followed him as he walked. The halls of the crystal castle looked as orderly and ordinary as they always had been, the layout pre-arranged majestic as it was the day before, every aspect carefully crafted to invoke the idea of “harmony” as clearly as possible. “What I need to do is…” Twilight started again. “I need to go to a different place in a different time and do something completely different?” “Largely, yes.” “Isn’t that like playing a different game?” “Correct." "So…" Twilight faltered. "If you want to play the same game over again…?” “You need to go to the same place at the same time, and not try to do everything all over again. Oh, sure, you could pick and choose what to keep and what to change, or try to pick and choose, but given what you desired back then, I don't doubt that you'd ultimately end up doing everything entirely the same where it matters. Consider it akin to copying down what you did the first time in a journal, adding in a few 'artistic embellishments' to doll it up in a different guise and re-reading the whole thing.” “So I’m not supposed to do anything?” “Funny,” Discord said as they descended a spiral staircase. “They always talk about retirement as if it’s a dreadful thing.” “I’m serious. Are you telling me that what i’m supposed to do is to go someplace else and stand like a statue until my bones freeze in place?” “Didn’t I warn you about the theatrics?” Discord sighed. “Look—have you ever considered that the world might actually be about you? And before you say it,” Discord added with the waggle of an only slightly condescending finger, “I don’t want the polite answer or the customary answer or any other display of literally valueless etiquette. I want you to answer from the experiences that you, and only you, have witnessed, as witnessed by the only pony capable of witnessing it, given that they were the only pony that had possessed a singular set of traits at one or more singular points in time. This world, this perspective, these experiences, this vessel is the foundation of everything you’ve ever known and everything you’ve been able to think about, tangibly or abstractly, consciously or subconsciously, given your unique set of traits at your unique point in time. Is this world something that literally only you could have experienced? Is this world—the one that you know about and live in—quite literally a construct made entirely of the materials your consciousness provides you?” “So we’re talking about solipsism.” Twilight nodded her head. “The idea that nothing outside my mind can be proven to exist. I guess from that point of view, then—you know, I really feel uncomfortable actually saying it. Are you going to make me say it anyway?” “I know of it. You know of it. Any sort of words discussing how to address it are superficial at this point. So, no, there isn’t any point in saying something you don’t need to say.” “But why are you bringing this up at all? What does my...relationship with the universe have to do with anything else?” “Because your universe determined your course when you chose to play The Hero for the second time. You chose to take issues outside of your experiences and make them your own, and in doing so your world ceased to be your world. It became the world of...I suppose it’s likely up to millions of creatures now, isn’t it? And all you do is interact with the world as they wish, with only your personal lens as a token reminder that Twilight Sparkle was the pony who filled the role of The Hero.” “And if I never was a hero?” “Not a hero, Twilight.” Discord shook his head. “The Hero. And if you never became that, I have no doubt that some other pony would have stepped into that role. And Twilight Sparkle would still be, and forevermore be, Twilight Sparkle.” They continued to walk down the staircase. Abruptly, Twilight realized that they had been walking down the same staircase for longer than the staircase physically should have been. Then it struck her that she hadn’t seen anyone but Discord in the castle since he had entered her room, and hadn’t heard anyone but him talk since he had gotten her attention. Then she remembered that he had snapped his fingers before they left her room. And that her room was supposed to be conventionally locked and magically sealed. Part of her wondered why she wasn’t more alarmed about all of this, and part of her wondered why worrying about that sort of thing right now felt, for lack of a better word, trivial. “So this world. My world.” Twilight started up again. “What world is it?” “Where you want it to be. Where life seemed like it had opened itself up to you, but before demands and expectations forced your hoof to combat threats on a greater scale.” “Does forcing myself to do things count?” “Only if you didn’t need to do them. I’m aware that you’re a bit of a silly little filly. So tell me, Twilight, where does the game begin?” “Ponyville.” As if startled by the forthrightness of her reply, Twilight squeaked and covered her mouth with a hoof. “I wasn’t expecting you to realize that so quickly.” Discord stopped and turned, his smirk at the halfway point towards a genuine smile. “It...okay, I mean, it...the day I met all my friends. No, the day after that. There wasn’t anypony worried about Nightmare Moon, Princess Luna was safe, we were all still getting to know each other, and there were so many ponies to...it was like there wasn’t any kind of world outside Ponyville and Canterlot, and that didn’t matter at all. There weren’t many ponies in Ponyville, but there were still so many stories untold, so many conversations unspoken, so much...there was so much of everything, and I never did it. But there was...there always was all the time in the world for it, wasn’t there?” “There was the possibility of it, yes.” Discord’s smile was entirely full and entirely earnest, as if he had waited for this discussion for a long, long time. “I could have gone anywhere and done anything in the town, and it would have been like going to the ends of the world and defeating the deadliest of foes. And if I didn’t leave…” “One of the princesses could have stopped things. The might of the royal guard could have shown itself. Legends from the past could have emerged to combat the threat, or leaders of distant kingdoms could have banded together to fight the menace. You may not have known this, but you still chose to believe that you were the only pony who could have saved everypony.” “That’s where my game began.” “That’s where your game began. The beginning of the end, since you had made an end for yourself. But if you don’t define an end and don’t define a victory, then…” “Then I’ll never have to leave. I can choose to—I can choose to stay, this time.” Twilight’s face was starting to twist, but she wasn’t entirely sure if it was a smile. “You always had the choice.” “It didn’t seem that way.” “But now you know. And now you can make that choice. And that, Twilight Sparkle, is why we are here.” Discord turned back, walked down the last few steps and vanished into the air. Twilight blinked. “Discord?” she called, descending the steps after him. This time, she didn’t recognize the hallway in front of her—or at least couldn’t put it to any plan she had made or any structure she went in. It was eerily linear, for something whose walls were so twisted and misshapen—wood and stone gnarled and grasping at each other, as if struggling for control. At the end of the hallway was a coffee table, with three items on it. But through some trick of the light, while she could see the table clear as day—no more than twenty yards away at most—the items seemed too small and unidentifiable to discern. “Discord?” She called out as she walked down the hall. Silence. “I have a few more questions.” Silence. “I promise they aren’t trivial ones. I promise I don’t already know them.” Halfway down the hallway. Now she could make out the first item on the table: oddly enough, it seemed to be a genuine coffee cup. The idea of there being something in it as normal as coffee made Twilight feel rather peculiar. “You mentioned multiverse theory before. Does that apply here? Do I make this choice in multiple realities?” Twilight stumbled, briefly, but recovered her stride. Now she could make out one of the other objects: a tome, thick and bound in oak, locked shut with an iron clasp. “You keep referencing they, them, other ponies. Who have you talked about this with before? What did they do?” Now the third object: a picture frame, tilted on its side. “You owe nothing to me, have no promises to keep, and the realm you live in doesn’t even have the same rules as our—as my own.” Twilight stammered. “Why are you talking about this at all?” “First,” the coffee cup replied, “would it matter if it did?” Twilight blinked, drew even with the table and stared down at the cup. After everything else, the oddness of having a voice echo up from the cup seemed almost unsurprising—there wasn’t even a mouth on the cup, just a voice and a few ounces of a dark-looking brew. “Even if there were alternate realities in which you could or couldn’t make that decision, you don’t live in any of them, and you never will. Why would you? You have no reason to go there. There wouldn’t be anything satiating for your curiosity, if you were even curious at all. What matters in this life, the one you live in now, is entirely and exclusively in your hooves, and not even remotely affected by the hypotheticals of a pony you’ve never met and whom you’ll never really be like at all.” “I see.” Twilight faltered, picking up the cup. “You must be thirsty. Here, have a drink” the coffee cup said in Discord’s voice. “Are you sure? Won’t that hurt you at all?” “Hurt me? Pffft. You’re thinking trivially again, Sparkle. I’m just a coffee cup. I don’t have nerves. Even if you shatter me into a thousand pieces, you still couldn’t hurt me.” “If you’re sure,” Twilight said as she lifted the cup to her lips and took a drink. “...Wow.” “What?” “That is...that’s actually some of the best cocoa I’ve ever had.” “You’ve had better. You just don’t remember it yet. As for your second question, yes. At least three other beings have made this choice before you.” “I don’t think I need to guess. Princess Celestia, Princess Luna and...it wouldn’t be Cadance. Is it you, Discord?” “Correct.” “And I guess there isn’t any point in knowing whether or not they stayed or left either, right?” “There isn’t any point in guessing Luna’s. You only mentioned her for completeness’ sake, and I’m sure you never cared for her even half as much as you cared for, say, your babysitter.” Twilight gritted her teeth, then sighed and nodded. “And I already know you did.” “You hypothesized that I did. Admittedly, it’s a correct hypothesis, and the chances of your hypothesis being incorrect were astronomically slim, to the point of the process seeming nonsensical, but…” “What point is there in making sense, huh?” Twilight replied, a faint smile spreading over her face. “Precisely. But that’s neither here nor now, and that brings us to the one you care about: your teacher. As you know, she’s existed for millennia and millennia before almost anypony else, with only her sister to keep her company for a long time.” Twilight nodded. “And one might think that, in all that period of time, she might have understood the universe and decided to reach for one greater.” “But would she have been happy?” “Precisely! She would not have. And she has still internalized the notion that she is happier than she actually is. And she has not made that decision yet. And I’m not sure if she will.” “Oh” Twilight replied, coffee cup still inches from her lips. “If it brings you greater comfort, though, I’ve always assumed that the moment of her most significant joy was in raising what she considered her greatest student. Make of that what you will.” Twilight blushed and took another sip of cocoa. It tasted even better than the first sip, and it was only after a mouthful of the brew that she realized the cocoa was almost gone. “And third, it’s true that I owe you nothing and that I have no promises to give you. You hold no power over me, and no power you might ever have could be held meaningfully over me.” “But if you’re doing this because you want to…” Twilight faltered. “...Why am I doing this?” Discord finished. “I can’t have been a good friend. Honestly, I’m pretty sure I was never your friend at all.” “Of course not. And I can’t exactly say that I like you, Sparkle. I’m proud that you’ve figured this out on your own. Mostly, anyway. But I can’t claim that liking you is the reason why this would make me happy. Your world is your own world, but my world is my own world, and my world does not revolve around you.” “Wait. Fourth question.” Twilight interjected. The liquid at the bottom of the coffee cup bubbled, in what must have been the liquid approximation of a sigh. “Continue.” “It’s just another hypothesis, but - you can go in and out of your own universe, can’t you? And you’re the only one that can do that?” “Would you expect the being of chaos to adhere to the rules of even two universes, let alone one? Of course I come and go, Twilight Sparkle. I came and went long before I turned on the lights in your universe, and I’ll come and go long after I’ll turn them off again. So, yes, I’m not playing fair, and since even I can’t explain things which are fundamentally impossible to explain, I can’t and won’t try to give you an explanation as to why.” “I wasn’t going to ask that.” Twilight shook her head. “I wanted to know if you ever stopped going to old worlds and went to new ones. In case the best parts of your life changed.” For a second, silence settled over the chamber. “...Yes, Twilight. It makes her happy to think that I can make you happy in some way or another. And the degree to which she makes me happy is the degree to which she’s created a paradise for me all on her own.” Twilight smiled at the coffee cup, drank the last of its contents and set it down on the table. “If it makes her happy to be happy with you, then I’m glad you’re doing this for her sake. Is there anything left?” “That’s up to you.” Discord’s voice sounded hollower and fainter, as if it was drifting out of the universe itself. “The book on the right is the tome of your history. It chronicles your deeds and your exploits, from your beginning to your end, and recalls every last thing you’ve ever done and will do. They’ll bury the first and greatest copy with you in your tomb, of course.” Twilight picked up the picture frame and turned it towards her face. It was a photo of her, Spike, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy, all smiling at the camera. “This picture is a fragment of your stories. It keeps a small slice of a fleeting impression, nondescript and fundamentally inexplicable, and represents a whole greater than the sum of all the parts of the personal histories of each and every member of that picture.” Twilight set the picture down and stared at the book, then at the picture. Then at the book. Then at the picture. “Who do you love, Twilight Sparkle?” Discord’s voice whispered. “The pony that you were, or the pony you became?” Then he was gone. Alone, with an empty coffee cup and two items of cosmic significance, Twilight tried to collect her thoughts. Then she realized they would never be more collected, never more explicable, never more coherent than they were at this point in time. And, knowing full well what she was doing and what she had to do, Twilight picked up the picture frame and kissed the photo inside it. RecycleThe light went out. “Twilight!” Spike’s voice. Somewhere nearby. Maybe he was calling her to ask about how her writing was going? Too late for that now. Then again, what wasn’t it too late for? The world was black, null, void. There wasn’t anything left in it at all. Whatever she had been expecting, she had been expecting something more tangible than oblivion. “Twilight!” He was looking for her. Maybe he couldn’t find her in the middle of this hallway? Maybe the scenery hadn’t been in her head? She sort of assumed that once things started getting surreal, it stopped existing in conventional time and space. Or had it been when the staircase became impossibly long? Either way, now she’d have to deal with whatever that was on top of everything else, too. Or maybe everypony at the school would help pitch in— Something touched her shoulder. “Twilight?” And Twilight woke up. With a gasp and a shudder, Twilight reflexively opened her eyes. Dull yellow. Everything was a wrinkled dull yellow, as if somepony had sucked the vigor out of a honeypot and left only a crumpled husk of the word in its...wait, no. Those were probably curtains. The curtains in her old bedroom? Something was still touching her shoulder. Twilight turned her head, and her mind went blank. Spike was there, standing on her bed, looking down at her as if he was too worried to properly shake her shoulder. “Spike?” Twilight mumbled. The baby dragon broke out into a broad smile. “Oh, thank goodness! I thought you were sick with the pony flu. You’re normally really good about getting up in the mornings.” “I...yeah.” Don’t ask if it’s actually the morning, Twilight thought. Don’t ask what time of day it is. Play it cool. “Yes! Because I normally get up early in the mornings! Because I’m punctual! Because I’m Princess Twilight Sparkle!” “Princess what now?” Oh, crud. “Sorry…” Twilight backpedaled, weakly waving a hoof in the air. “I, uh...was having a really weird dream.” “Weird, huh? Maybe you are sick. I know I get really weird dreams sometimes when I’m sick. Like that time I ate too many gems and got chased by a dragon! Then I dreamed that I was chased by a dragon made of gems, and he was breathing gems at me, but if i touched any of them I’d turn into a gem and it was weird.” Spike shuddered. “Maybe you ate too much yesterday? I know Pinkie was throwing, like, a really big party.” Don’t ask if she was. “Aheh. I guess I shouldn’t eat so much.” Twilight closed her eyes and shook her head. The brief familiarity of darkness was soothing. “So, um…” “Oh! Right! Breakfast is ready!” Spike piped, turning around and tottering down the steps to the first floor. “I made pancakes!” Wait, those were the steps to the first floor. Wait, this was… This was the Golden Oak Library. She was actually in it. Twilight looked down by her hind legs. This was her old bed. She was sleeping in her old bed. Brain still running on rudimentary functions, trying not to implode on itself from the strangeness of all these totally familiar things, Twilight got out of bed and followed Spike down the steps. It occurred to her she never actually saw where he made breakfast, or how he did it. It had to be in here somewhere, and… Had she always been too busy to ask? Did something as important as eating every day just not seem important to her? Twilight turned back towards the middle of the library. The walls were inset with dozens of dozens of shelves, and on those shelves were dozens and dozens of books: some put away neatly, and some stacked haphazardly nearby (on in one case, on top of) them. There was a little reading table in the middle, and a huge bust of a mighty warrior on top of the table, looking dutifully over all the knowledge crammed into the oak walls around it. It was like living inside of a photograph. Twilight trotted over and touched the carving’s head. It even felt real. Twilight touched the table. It, too, felt real. Quickly checking around to make sure Spike wasn’t looking at her, she trotted around the library, then grabbed a book off of a shelf at random. Even the book felt real, this - Wait a minute. The Elements of Harmony: A Reference Guide? She had read this one. She and her friends needed it when Nightmare Moon returned, over a decade ago... Had it really been that long? “Twilight?” Twilight turned again. Spike was standing there, two pancake-filled plates in his claws, whipped cream and chocolate chips decorating each stack. Spike’s face settled back into concern. “Are you sure you’re feeling okay?” “Actually…” “Actually...what?” “Actually, um...did you want to eat on the balcony?” *********************************************************** It was a postcard view of the town. Above everything else, but not too high above everything else—she could pony watch if she wanted, but she wasn't so far above them all that she couldn't make out anypony else's face. And the weather was fantastic today: the temperature was just right, the faint breeze filled Twilight’s lungs with fresh, clean air and the sky was an absolutely brilliant blue. About the only nitpick was that the clouds looked slightly messy and underfluffed, as if the weather team wasn't completely thorough in making sure the clouds were up to standards... Twilight just barely held in another gasp. Rainbow Dash was probably still working for the weather ponies, wasn’t she? No wonder the clouds looked a little half-baked: Rainbow Dash was probably napping on the job again. Mind reeling, Twilight tucked into her plate of pancakes. “...Spike, these are really good!” The baby dragon blushed. “Aw, shucks. I just used a little more butter and baking powder than usual, you know?” “I-I mean...I guess I know, yeah.” Twilight wiped an errant daub of whipped cream off of her nose. “That’s probably just chemistry, right?” “I dunno about chemistry, but it is cooking!” Spike cut off a pancake slice and smeared it around some of the chocolate chips on his plate. “Hey, maybe if you hang around Pinkie Pie more often, then you’ll figure out all of her cooking secrets, too! And maybe then you’ll be able to do the cooking for me” Spike added. “Hint hint.” “When I find out a good recipe for oven-roasted rubies, I’ll let you know” Twilight replied, good-naturedly rolling her eyes. “But...huh. I guess I could hang out with Pinkie today, couldn’t I?” Twilight paused. “Um...Spike. Do I have anything on my schedule today?” “Oh! Right!” Spike stood up and trotted back inside. Twilight was halfway through another pancake by the time he returned, a scroll clasped firmly in one claw. Unravelling it with a flourish, Spike coughed and read aloud: “June 23, A.C. 1002. Today, Twilight Sparkle…um.” "Um…" Twilight coaxed. Spike stared at the scroll, shrugged and turned it around. The page was completely blank. “I guess you don’t need to do anything today, Twilight.” “Oh.” Twilight Sparkle paused. “...Wait, does that mean I can do anything?” “I mean, yeah. I guess you can spend the entire day inside reading if you want to, but it’s a really nice day.” “No. Nonononono. Not today!” Twilight shook her head. “I want to see everypony. No, I need to see everypony! I need to find out where everypony is!” “You mean, besides just looking outside, right?” Spike cocked an eyebrow. “Yes!” Twilight squealed. “I need to see the Town Square! And the Town Hall! And the Ponyville schoolhouse, and the clock tower, and the marketplace, and the train station…” “Uh, Twilight?” “Or the Day Spa! Or that one cafe, or the joke shop, or the costume shop, or Quills and Sofas! Spike, we could go to Quills and Sofas together!” “And look at what, Quills and Sofas?” Spike asked, scooting backwards. “Are you sure you’re okay?” “I’m great! I’m wonderful! This is amazing!” Twilight gushed. Her horn glowed as she stood up and bolted back inside, yanked the scroll out of Spike’s hands, grabbed a quill and inkpot off a nearby table, ran down the steps and burst through the sun-drenched front door. ********************************************************** By the time Twilight started walking towards Quills and Sofas, there was barely any spring in her step at all. It was perfect. Everything was exactly like she thought it would be, how she remembered it—or how she thought she remembered it. How she thought it was supposed to be. And...and that was the problem. None of it felt familiar at all. No, wait, it did feel familiar. No, it didn’t. It did. It didn’t. It was her fault. Everything was exactly in the right place, and it was all stuff she recognized, but...but she didn’t remember any of it. That was the problem. It existed, but she never really… Twilight walked inside Quills and Sofas, deliberately avoiding eye contact with the ponies working there, and pretended to look over the newest selection of sofas. She knew this place was here, and she’d always known it was real. The floor under her hooves, the ceiling above her head, the chime of a cash register—those were completely real. But she’d never really been in here before became a princess, had she? It was real, she knew it existed, but this was all new to her. And it felt like she had taken the marketplace and the clock tower for granted, too. They were there, they had always been there, but… But they might as well have not existed for her. Because she saw them, but she never really saw them. And looking at these familiar things for the first time made her feel like she hadn’t really existed at all, even though she was physically right here, right now. She still existed, right? Shaking her head, Twilight walked back outside. She was supposed to feel at home, but she felt like an imposter more than anything. The world wasn’t her world; it was a world, a world that she existed in, but it wasn’t like it was hoof-crafted for her. Discord had gotten her so mixed up… Wait. Did Discord even exist anymore? Was battling him the “Beginning of the End” for her? Is that the point where her life became about saving Equestria? And if he was gone, if all of the magic and craziness of her life was gone, then where did that leave her? Just a phantom hanging around inside the body of… Twilight looked behind her. For the first time that day, she realized that she didn’t have wings. Of course she wouldn’t still be an alicorn. Of course she had gotten by just fine without being one. And being an alicorn was part of the life she became, not part of the life she used to live in. She wasn’t always supposed to be an alicorn, was she? Wasn’t that part of her something that didn’t need to exist? Or did it need to exist after all? Was what she was doing now—running about like a giggling foal—the part that wasn’t real? Twilight sighed and stared at the ground as she walked. Thinking about what existed and what didn’t was making her head hurt. She needed a distraction. “Hi!” Twilight yelped, scrabbled back in surprise, tripped and fell flat on her back. A second later, her perfectly good view of the sky was blocked out by Pinkie Pie’s face. “Hey, Pinkie.” Twilight replied, mustering up a smile. “So I went to see Spike and ask him if today was a cake day or a pie day. Because it’s warm enough that today should totally be a pie day, but it’s also sunny enough that it could totally be a cake day, and it’s Sunday so I don’t know if that means it should be a cake day or a pie day and I promised Mr. and Mrs. Cake that I wouldn’t try to make any more pie-cakes, because the last time that happened I made like a really really big explosion and there was strawberry sauce all over everything!” Pinkie giggled. “But he told me it was totally a Twilight’s-being-a-weirdy-cat day, and now I don’t know if I need to try and be a weirdy-cat too, and if maybe not being allowed to make pie-cakes doesn’t mean I’m not allowed to make cake-pies.” Twilight blinked. Pinkie continued chattering—largely to herself—about culinary semantics and the construction of confections that were absurd at best and flat-out violations of the laws of physics at worst. Then Twilight realized what she needed to do. “Actually, Pinkie, um...mind if I help out?” ******************************************************** “...And that’s the story of how Equestria was made!” Pinkie concluded. “In spirit, anyway. And also in delicious, not-even-slightly-nutritious cupcake form!” Applejack, Rarity, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy blanched, ever so slightly, at the misshapen and frosting-covered chocolate lumps on the tray. “Well...dear. I’m not entirely sure what that has to do with Twilight’s cooking...efforts” Rarity replied, gingerly holding a purple-frosted cupcake up to her mouth in the light of the fading sun. “But I’m sure that you tried your best…” “Even though it totally looks like the opposite” Rainbow Dash interjected. Rarity glared at Rainbow Dash, opened her mouth and took a large, defiant bite of the cupcake. Then she chewed, swallowed, brushed a chocolate crumb off of her lips and stared incredulously down at the cupcake. “Twilight, this is...this is delicious!” The unicorn blushed. “Aww. I just thought I should use a little more butter and whole milk, you know?” Applejack grabbed an orange-frosted cupcake, took a huge bite and grinned. “Well, it ain’t particularly fancy,” she added, before noticing that Rarity was staring at her and swallowing. “Aheh. Sorry 'bout talkin’ with my mouth full. But that there’s still a real tasty cupcake, Twi.” Twilight beamed as her friends reached for her cupcakes, chattering among themselves and making a bit of a mess as they ate her desserts. With a sigh of relief, Twilight looked over at Pinkie Pie, who—with a wink and grin—poked her shoulder with her hoof. “Go on!” Pinkie Pie giggled. “Say it!” “Right. Now, girls, I’ve…” They all looked over at her, smiling. Twilight hadn’t realized how weird having all of their attention felt, even though this wasn’t the first time they had all listened to her. But there was… “I...wanted to say that I’m really thankful that we’ve gotten to spend so much time together. I know it’s been a couple of years...apparently.” Twilight faltered. “Since we defeated Nightmare Moon and became friends. And even after all that time, I’ve still gotten the chance to try out all sorts of things with you, and it’s almost magical how wonderful everything has been with you. I had such a fun day today learning how to bake with Pinkie Pie, and even putting out a kitchen fire didn’t make things too bad…” Rainbow Dash snorted. “But the point is, I want to spend more time with all of you. Because your friendship means a lot to me, and my life has been a lot happier since we became friends.” A cool breeze swept through Twilight’s mane, and she shivered. It was weird, feeling the cold and the heat more acutely than she had again. It was weird not being an alicorn, sort of. But it was the sort of weird that she could handle. She’d always been able to handle it before, right? “So I know that you have busy lives, and all sorts of things to do. I just wanted to let you know that I’m always ready to have fun with you and learn things from you whenever you want, okay? And I’m always happy to help out, too.” “Sounds good to me, Twi” Applejack replied. “I ain’t gonna complain about havin’ an extra set of hooves to help me out with the orchard once apple-buckin’ season rolls around again.” “And goodness knows that I’m always looking for somepony to model my dresses. There’s such a difference between a mannequin and a model, after all” Rarity added. “And I can think of some designs that would suit you quite well!” “Yeah!” Rainbow Dash added in. “And you can totally help me out with a trick tomorrow, too! I want everypony to see how awesome I am when I pull off an inverted Buccaneer Blaze, and I want to make sure it’s as awesome as possible if I ever get to show it to the Wonderbolts!” Twilight froze. Rainbow crammed a cupcake in her mouth, and it wasn’t until she had finished and was reaching for another that Fluttershy spoke up. “Um...Twilight? I-is everything okay? “I...that’s. That’s right. You aren’t a Wonderbolt.” Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. “You don’t have to rub it in, you know.” “That’s not what I...no, it’s. You should be one, you—” Don’t say that she used to be one. “In another, I mean, if you...you totally could be one. That’s what I’m trying to say.” “Are you sure you’re all right, dear?” Rarity interjected. Twilight’s friends were staring at her again, and it was definitely making her uncomfortable now. “I’m fine! Just...amazed. Amazed at the ponies you…” Twilight gasped. “Rarity?” “Yes, Twilight?” “You...you don’t have a boutique in Canterlot, do you?” Rarity sighed. “That’s still a while away, I’m afraid. I’m not sure I’m as famous a pony as I’d need to be in order to have a place in Canterlot.” “But you could. You really could. You’re...you could do it.” “Uh, Twi?” Applejack cut in. Twilight took a step back. “You could all do all of that! You’re good enough at what you do that you could follow your dreams, a-and you could earn everything you wanted, it...Rainbow Dash could be a Wonderbolt, Rarity could be a world-famous fashion designer, all of you could…” “I mean, sometimes dreams are just dreams, you know?” Rainbow Dash added. “Look, maybe I’m not ever gonna be a Wonderbolt, but who cares? Trying is half the fun!” “And I certainly wouldn’t mind being famous, but at the end of the day I’m quite content with the pony that I am” Rarity concluded. “I’m doing what I love for ponies I care about, and I live quite comfortably. I can’t think of any way I’d rather be.” “I…” Twilight stammered. “I...you...I’m…” “Whatever is the matter, darling?” Rarity frowned. “You look like you’re on the verge of tears.” “No, you don’t understand, you had that.” Something was clutching at Twilight’s throat, making it difficult to breathe, much less speak. “You had everything you wanted, and then I showed up, and I changed everything, and I…” Twilight trembled. “I took it all away.” Spinning on her heels, Twilight turned and ran. The nighttime gloom made it difficult to see, even without all the water in her eyes. She couldn’t look at them. She didn’t want to look at them anymore. She didn’t want to see anything, anymore, didn’t want to see what she had done. She had broken everything. She had ruined their lives. She wanted a life where nopony mattered but her, her feelings, her thoughts, her wants. Even by showing up at all, even the first time, she had taken their dreams and crushed them without a second thought. They’d never be the ponies they wanted to be, never have the things they wanted to have, by definition. She had made a world where they never got what they worked all their lives to have. Maybe she had done that to the entire town. Maybe to the entire world. And that was exactly what she had wanted. Twilight stumbled through the door to the Golden Oak Library, walked just far enough to collapse on the table in the middle, and burst into tears. Her chest hurt. Her face hurt. Everything hurt, and it should have hurt more, she deserved it. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair. She didn’t mean for things to happen that way. Except she meant for this to happen, it was exactly as fair as it had been offered to her, and it was what she had willingly done. Twilight barely heard the doorknob rattling behind her. She barely felt something touch her shoulder. She didn’t want to feel it. She didn’t want this to feel real. That would make it worse. “Uh, Twi?” Rainbow Dash’s voice cut in. Twilight kept sobbing. She heard Rainbow Dash sigh, and heard her footsteps trot off. Then they returned, and Twilight heard the clunk of something heavy being set down next to her. “This is a bucket of water” Rainbow Dash explained. “I’m really awkward at dealing with crying stuff, and I really don’t want to have to be around crying ponies, so here’s the deal: either you stop crying, look at me and tell me what the horsefeathers is going on, or I’m going to dump this bucket of water over your head, get another bucket and keep dumping water on your head until the whole library’s soaked. Okay?” Twilight’s chest heaved. Lifting her head felt monumental. Trying to hold back the flood in her tear ducts felt almost impossible. Her heart felt like it was ready to explode, and the rest of her body wanted her to scrunch up until everything went away. But instead, with a small hiccup, Twilight raised her head and stared at Rainbow Dash. The pegasus hadn’t been lying: she looked at least as awkward and uncomfortable as she did concerned. But she was still here, still waiting for an explanation, body language still clearly indicating that the bucket was always an option. “Why?” Twilight squeaked. “Uh, because somepony had to go after you? And being fast is, like, my thing. I wanted to go grab you by your tail, you know, but we had to spend time talking about feelings and behavior and was there something Spike could tell us and where has Spike been this afternoon, anyway and just...ugh. So I just kind of figured that you’d be here, since this is, like your home. And now I guess we’re here?” Rainbow Dash shrugged. “So yeah, uh. Why are you crying?” Twilight’s face crumpled. “No, seriously.” Rainbow Dash pushed the bucket forward with one wing. “Stop it.” Twilight took a deep breath, tried to uncrumple her face, hiccuped and replied: “I ruined your dream.” “Huh?” Rainbow Dash quirked an eyebrow. “I...Where I came from. It’s...I’m not from this Equestria, Rainbow Dash.” “Oooooookay. Spooky magic nonsense. Got it.” “It’s not—” “Look.” Rainbow Dash raised a hoof. “It sounds either like science or like prophecy or something, so either way I’m not gonna understand it. And if you’re gonna try and explain it to me, we’re both just gonna get frustrated.” “But—” “You’re not from this Equestria, huh? So, like, the Twilight Sparkle I’ve been friends with for years isn’t the Twilight Sparkle I think she is? Is she a spy or something?” “No!” Twilight hiccuped. “I’m still Twilight Sparkle! I’ve always been Twilight Sparkle!” “Then who cares? You can say you’re a Twilight Sparkle from one place or another, but since you’re the Twilight Sparkle I’ve known for as long as I’ve known Twilight Sparkle, then who cares about what the other one’s like?” “Don’t you?” “I don’t know her, duh. You might as well paint up the mailpony and tell me that’s who you really are, or something. I don’t care. I’m still not going to hang out with her. 'Cause even though you’re dweeby and nerdy and an egghead, you’re still a fun dweeby, nerdy egghead. I hang out with you because I want to, and I don’t care what you want to call yourself, or who you think you are.” Twilight hiccuped. “Oh.” “And enough with the hiccups. I know you can use some unicorn mumbo-jumbo to fix that, and it’s getting annoying.” Rainbow Dash sighed. “So, fine. You’re Twilight Sparkle, and you’ve always been Twilight Sparkle, and since everypony here knows and likes Twilight Sparkle that’s basically good enough for us. Is that seriously it?” Twilight shook her head. “No, it’s that...where I came from, you were a Wonderbolt. The best Wonderbolt ever, actually. And now you aren’t.” Silence fell. Twilight felt a hiccup well up inside her, but a quick glow of her horn and waver around her neck fixed that problem for good. Finally, Rainbow Dash replied. “So?” Twilight’s jaw dropped. “So you know a Rainbow Dash—who’s this total stranger that I’ve never met before, but who looks like me and has the same name as me, I guess—and she’s a Wonderbolt. So, uh, why should I care?” “Rainbow Dash, it’s not a stranger! It’s you!” “Look, if you want to tell me that there’s a version of me that became a really awesome Wonderbolt, that’s fine. But I’m me. I’m not her. And I’m not a Wonderbolt, okay?” “I…” “I mean, I’m not a Wonderbolt yet. I’ll get there. But like I said, trying is half the fun, so unless you’re telling me that you can travel through time…” “I can! I did!” “Oh, really?” Rainbow Dash arched her other eyebrow. “So then everything’s going to turn out exactly the same as it did where you came from?” “It—” Twilight paused. “...It won’t.” “So you have literally no way of knowing what the future’s gonna be like. I mean, feel free to make crazy guesses, but I’m pretty sure making crazy guesses is against the Egghead’s Code, or something. Look, will I ever get to meet her?” Rainbow Dash pressed. “...I don’t think so. I think that’s impossible.” “So then why bother talking about it? You’re just gonna make yourself feel depressed, and it’s not gonna change anything. Besides, like I said, just because I’m not a Wonderbolt now doesn’t mean I’m never gonna be a Wonderbolt. And your crazy guess is as good as mine as to what comes next, and hey—even if things stay like this forever, that’s not really bad, is it?” “It isn’t?” “No duh, Twilight. Life is fun! Being with you guys is fun! I’m totally happy with this life I have, and if things never change, then I don’t think I’m ever gonna stop being happy, you know? That’s just common sense.” The pain in Twilight’s chest was fading. Her eyes felt slightly less leaky. Her body felt like it was more in her control, now… ...Wait. It wasn’t just her body. It was...her. Her, in this place, with her friends. This actually felt… “I guess...I guess you aren’t wrong.” Twilight sighed. “And I mean, I’m really happy being with you guys, too. Wait, no, not just happy, it’s not just fun, I mean, it’s…” And as if she was seeing it for the first time that day, Twilight drank it all in: the richness of the library, the books and scrolls full of thoughts and things to learn, and her friend. A friend that was as real as anything else here. No, not just “here.” This Rainbow Dash was real. Her friends were real. The world was real, she was real, everything continued to exist as she believed it would, and… And the comfort and security that had eluded Twilight for years and years finally settled themselves back on her, and she grabbed Rainbow Dash and wrapped the slightly surprised pegasus up in a hug. “I’m home.” Twilight sniffed. “I’m finally home.” Rainbow Dash didn’t say anything for a couple of seconds. Then she wriggled her forelegs out of Twilight’s grip and squeezed back. “Yeah. Yeah, you are, Twi” Rainbow Dash said. “Welcome home.”
ReduceDear Princess Celestia, As you may know, the Summer Sun Celebration is less than a week away. I know that you’re probably worried about making sure that everything’s organized—and Starlight Glimmer has told me all about how you and Princess Luna work so hard to make sure all of Equestria is happy—so I thought that as the Princess of Friendship, I should also try to help out as much as I can. The students at the school of friendship have promised that they’d help me, too, and even though most of my friends are busy with their own No. Dear Princess Celestia, I’m writing you this letter to let you know that I’m going to help you as much as I can with the summer sun celebration. I thought that I could handle most of the book keeping for you, and I’ve asked my friends to help pitch in however they can to make sure things run great. Even Starlight Glimmer and Trixie said that they’d be happy to help out No. Dear Princess Celestia, I just wanted to let you know that you don’t have to worry about the Summer Sun Celebration. I can handle just as much as you and Princess Luna can, and I’d be happy to work out everything from the invitations to the organization. I’m even ready to help tackle any Princess Problems that might No. Dear Princess Celestia Dear Pri Twilight Sparkle sighed, wiped her quill clean and set it next to her inkpot. Part of her wanted to crumple up her letter and throw it away, but even crumpling it up felt...not exhausting. Not stupid. There had to be another word for it... Rote? As if it was the thing she was supposed to do, the obvious thing that came next. She’d crumple it up, then she’d worry about what to do or say, then she’d wind up helping out with some critical problem without thinking about it and accidentally prevent the friendship school from exploding or Flurry Heart from burying all of Equestria in a massive blizzard, and thwarting that global crisis would help validate her in the eyes of close to a dozen other legends and beings of godly power. And that would be a good thing. Twilight picked up the quill, then set it down again. Then she picked it up again. Then she set it down again and slumped over her writing desk. Her ears flicked as the barely describable hum/whoosh/warble/”fwahhh” noise of magic filled the air behind her. Given that she had double-checked to make sure the door was locked, told her friends to keep anypony from bothering her while she helped set up preparations for the Summer Sun Celebration, did a brief walkthrough of the school beforehoof to check that nothing was broken and/or on fire and made sure that Starlight Glimmer was keeping herself occupied with her friends and not occupied with potentially dangerous magical experiments, Twilight was fairly certain that it was impossible for anypony to actually be behind her, much less using magic. “Hey, Discord.” Twilight muttered. “I’ve let the impossible become predictable. Truly, I should be ashamed of myself. But I’m not.” There was a faint crumpling noise behind Twilight, and a ball of something paper-like and pinkish flew over her head and clattered onto her desk. Marginally more interested in the contents of the paper than getting back to work, Twilight grabbed the paper and uncrumpled it. “Why am I not surprised?” Twilight sighed as she read the single word plastered on the page: SHAME. “I’m not going to waste my talents on an unappreciative audience, you know.” Discord sniffed. “There are ponies of discerning taste who happen to appreciate the sort of humor I provide.” Twilight put Discord’s paper down. “Fluttershy.” “But of course.” Twilight grabbed a clean sheet of paper, waiting for the words everypony would want to hear to magically sprout up onto the page. “You’re ignoring me, aren’t you.” Discord sniffed. “Not really.” “It isn’t a thing that has 'really's and 'not really's. Do keep in mind that I’m perfectly capable of wreaking a lot more mischief than that which I had already planned. But if you happen to enjoy cleaning up messes, then—” “Oh. Okay, that’s my problem. Got it.” Twilight blinked and turned around. “So if I get you mad enough at me that you decide to wreck the party, then I’ll have to apologize to you for hurting your feelings and you’ll have to apologize to me for almost causing a catastrophe. That’s what’s going to happen, isn’t it?” Twilight stared directly at Discord, waiting for him to take offense to her prediction in some fashion. Or, barring that, waiting for him to deny it. In any case, now was about the time where he was going to get angry, and she braced herself as… ...he gave her a quizzical look? Huh? “Well, I don’t know.” Discord scratched his cheek. “Is that what’s going to happen?” “Probably. Maybe. Unless one of us makes a point of proving that assumption wrong. But maybe it’ll happen again after all. Something’s going to happen.” “You’re saying that like it’s a bad thing.” “It...huh.” Twilight paused. Part of her wanted to say yes, she needed to get back to the note, she needed to help out and make sure that everything went according to plan. Part of her wanted to say no, this wasn’t going to work out, maybe she could let everyone else handle the mess or maybe she could try to clear all of it up in one fell swoop right before the deadline. “...I don’t know.” “You don’t know?” Discord cocked an eyebrow. “I don’t. I...wow.” Twilight rubbed her forehead. “I actually don’t know how I feel about any of this.” “What, our playful bout of banter?” “No, like—not just this conversation. This writing-a-letter thing. No, setting up for the Summer Sun Celebration. No, the celebration itself. I don’t know.” Twilight’s gaze fell floorward. She scaled her memory back further and further, trying to figure out what exactly might be bugging her. “Maybe I should sleep on this.” “And you think that would help? When was the last time you slept?” “Last night. Look, Discord, I’m—” Twilight’s temper flared, and as she looked back up at Discord she could have sworn that there was a mischievous glint in his eyes. Then she couldn’t see it anymore, and her irritation vanished as quickly as it came. “I’m not in the mood.” Discord puffed out his chest in mock pride. “That just makes nettling you more fun, doesn’t it?” “No, not like in an irritated way or frustrated way. Just...I don’t know. I don’t think I can really get as angry as you want me to be.” Discord blinked. “Goodness, you’re not reading self-help books, are you?” The Draconequus gagged. “Would that help?” “Absolutely not. And not in a fun way, either. But I’ll be the cleric at the chapel of the candor of chaos and inform you that not only would you not find it enjoyable, and not only would I not find it enjoyable, but you likely won’t even find it enjoyable to try and enjoy them anyway solely to annoy me.” Twilight paused, a rebuttal perched on her lips. “I don’t know,” Twilight admitted. This time, she actually felt something: a twinge somewhere beneath her stomach. It actually hurt, but at least it was different. “You don’t know...what.” Discord drawled, gesturing as if to coax a prompt out of her. “I know there’s a way I should be feeling, but I don’t. And I’m not sure why I don’t. It’s not that I’m frustrated, or tired, or angry, and...I don’t think I’m even bored. It’s not quite like that.” “Continue.” Discord snapped his fingers and sat down on a surprisingly tasteful recliner he had just conjured up. Surprisingly tasteful except for the gem-studded draconequus heads at the ends of the armrests, anyway. “Being bored would make it sound like I want to do something else, but I’m not sure...I’m not sure I want to do anything, exactly. It’s not that it wouldn’t be fun, it’s just...I know how everything goes, or will go. I can’t predict what exactly’s going to happen in the future, but I can tell you the general pattern of just about anything. The idea of doing things just feels like going through the motions, even when things are exciting and new and in constant flux. All the new stuff is the same, and I’m just…” Twilight faltered. “...I don’t know.” “You don’t.” “Do you?” “Are you sure you don’t?” “I don’t know if I don’t know or not! Does any of this sound like it’s making any sense to you?” “What fun is there in making sense?” “This isn’t supposed to be fun!” Twilight snapped. “And that’s why,” Discord concluded as he leaned forward, “this is making far too much sense to me.” “It is?” “An uncomfortably large amount of sense.” Twilight froze. The room fell into tomb-like silence, without even the ticking of a small clock to color the atmosphere. “...I’m not dying, am I?” “Only if you want to. You have that sort of luxury, Twilight Sparkle.” Discord rolled his eyes as he leaned back in his chair. “And if you intend on wrapping me up in your theatrics, then I fully intend to cover you in clown makeup and drop you right into a live theatre performance in the middle of a gigantic city. Literally drop you, I might add.” “That’s an oddly specific threat.” Twilight leaned forward in her chair. Discord snapped his fingers again, and Twilight’s center of balance shifted. Twilight keeled over backward, only to collide rather comfortably with a spacious and well-padded backrest. Shivering slightly, Twilight settled into her sofa and decided against looking at what might have adorned the front leg rests. “I prefer to make threats that I intend to see through if necessary, one way or another. I also abhor generalities. You’re free to consider these the quirks of an entity made of pure chaos, of course, but I prefer to acknowledge them as the creative comforts that have been my companions since long before your kind had ever engaged in agriculture. But I’ve gone and answered some of your questions, and in the interest of a fair and balanced friendship I’ll reiterate one of mine: What is it that you don’t know?” Twilight furrowed her brow, crossed her hind legs, rubbed her right eye. She leaned back in her chair, then sat forward in it again, back hunched. “I don’t know the sort of things I want that would help me feel as if I had wanted the right things.” Discord nodded. “There are things that you want.” “But I wouldn’t really want them! Like, I’d love for the Summer Sun Celebration to be a big success, but it’s already been a big success a bunch of times and I’ll just have to worry about that next year. I’d love it if the students at my friendship academy went on to do wonderful things, but that means less wonderful things I’d be able to do and more time spent running a school. But I never really didn’t want the school, and I wouldn’t want to get rid of it at all. I’ve got the admiration of my mentors, the solid relationships of my friends, admirers, wealth, fame, immortality, the knowledge that everything I’ve done has been a good thing. Discord, this is as good as it gets.” Discord smirked. “See, that doesn’t sound like much of a problem at all—” “Because it isn’t. I’m not worried about losing it all, since I know that I could get it all back if I’ve worked as hard as I have. I’m not...I don’t want to say I’m bored with it. It’s not boredom. That isn’t the right word for it. It’s not boring. It’s just...something that I’ve done again and again, and what I’ll keep doing forever, regardless of how it looks.” Silence. “It’s...I want to say rote, but that’s not the right word for it, either. Discord, help me. Please.” “Why would I help you?” Discord shrugged. “It sounds like you have everything you could have ever wanted.” “I do. And I’ll have it forever. But there isn’t something right about that, and I don’t know what it is, and I know you know what it is. You want me to figure it out on my own, but I don’t know how to do it.” “Ahh, but that’s something I can’t help you with.” Discord sighed, shaking his head. "You’ve already done it.” Silence. “Wait, what? Do you mean, like, I already said it?” “I clearly remember hearing it, as if it was thirty seconds ago.” “I’m going to guess that 'rote' wasn’t the right answer.” “There we go. You’re starting to guess things correctly for a change!” Discord clapped his hands. “And here I was, worried that you hadn’t learned any of the important things in your life.” “So is the answer that I need to learn more? Wait—wait, you don’t want me to just guess.” Twilight backpedaled as Discord frowned at her. “Let me...okay, let me go in reverse for a bit. I said an important thing, the thing wasn’t the word rote, I don’t have to worry about losing anything because I’ve done it all and could get back all the same stuff, and everything I’ll do is basically the same as doing stuff that…” Twilight grew aware that Discord was sitting forward in his seat, looking intently at her, not saying a word. “I’ve...I’ve done it, Discord. I did everything I wanted.” “You’ve played board games before, haven’t you, Twilight Sparkle?” “Yeah?” Twilight frowned. “I used to play chess all the time, and go, and Agricola…” “And what happens once you’ve gotten everything you wanted? When you complete your goal, when you got the best position you could possibly have?” “Isn’t that when you win?” “And do you keep playing after that?” “Of course you don’t. The game’s already…” Twilight blinked. Something very, very cold washed up her spine. “...I won, Discord.” “So will you keep playing?” “There isn’t any point. There isn’t anything to get from it. There isn’t anything new to learn. There are things you can do, but there isn’t really anything to do.” Twilight met Discord’s gaze. For the first time in her life, she didn’t see any trace of humor or mirth, or even the faintest hint of a desire to mock her. And that scared her worse than anything else she had seen in her entire life. “Discord?” Twilight said, blinking a bit harder than was necessary. “Yes?” “If the game is done, what else is there left to do?” Discord sighed in relief, raised his arm and snapped his fingers once more. “And that, Twilight Sparkle, is the most important question you will ever ask in your entire life.”
Reuse“There’s plenty of fun to be had in trivializing trivialities. Nesting the absurd creates a delightful medley of absurdity,” Discord lectured. “But this is anything but trivial, and I’ll try to make do without the sort of color I’m known for. You’ve heard of multiverse theory, yes?” “Whose theory, at what level, and implicitly applying what sort of counterarguments?” “You could have just said 'yes,' Twilight. But since I don’t think you’re dithering for trivial reasons, I’ll give it a pass.” Discord nodded his head. “So—once you’re done with one game, win or lose, what do you do?” “You stop playing” Twilight replied. “And if you want to keep playing games?” “You find a different one?” “What if the game you just played is the one you most want to play?” “You start over?” Discord spread his palms. Unprompted and misguided, the idea might have seemed mind-shattering, or at least confusing. For Twilight, in this situation, it was a mind-shattering idea wrapped in an obtuse and vexing shell, and Twilight wanted equally to beg him for clarity and snidely insult him. “So...once more. Just to be sure.” Twilight started. “What I need to go is go into a different universe at a different point in time and try to do everything again?” “Halfway there. Sadly, fifty percent is still a failing grade, Miss Sparkle.” Discord stood up from his recliner, stretched and pushed it out of the way; it keeled over like an unbalanced wooden doll and shattered as it hit the floor, before the flecks of framing and cushions crumbled into dust and dissipated into the air. “Didn’t you tell me that you could already do everything over again?” “Right, sorry. So it’s something new that I need to do, but something that isn’t what I normally do. And what I normally do is…uh.” “Cat got your tongue?” Discord smirked. “Please don’t conjure up a cat.” “That would be trivial of me, wouldn’t it?” “Okay, but...this might sound really dumb. And you might think it’s so dumb that i’m deliberately being trivial, but I’m not trying to be.” “Oh, don’t worry about that. I’m confident that if there’s one thing your boundless intellect hasn’t helped you learn, it’s the knowledge of how to be funny. If there were two things, it would be your ability to be funny and ability to dance, but—” “You're being trivial.” “I’m trying! I really am!” Discord turned away from Twilight and pushed the door open. “I haven’t had to talk about this in quite some time.” Twilight followed him as he walked. The halls of the crystal castle looked as orderly and ordinary as they always had been, the layout pre-arranged majestic as it was the day before, every aspect carefully crafted to invoke the idea of “harmony” as clearly as possible. “What I need to do is…” Twilight started again. “I need to go to a different place in a different time and do something completely different?” “Largely, yes.” “Isn’t that like playing a different game?” “Correct." "So…" Twilight faltered. "If you want to play the same game over again…?” “You need to go to the same place at the same time, and not try to do everything all over again. Oh, sure, you could pick and choose what to keep and what to change, or try to pick and choose, but given what you desired back then, I don't doubt that you'd ultimately end up doing everything entirely the same where it matters. Consider it akin to copying down what you did the first time in a journal, adding in a few 'artistic embellishments' to doll it up in a different guise and re-reading the whole thing.” “So I’m not supposed to do anything?” “Funny,” Discord said as they descended a spiral staircase. “They always talk about retirement as if it’s a dreadful thing.” “I’m serious. Are you telling me that what i’m supposed to do is to go someplace else and stand like a statue until my bones freeze in place?” “Didn’t I warn you about the theatrics?” Discord sighed. “Look—have you ever considered that the world might actually be about you? And before you say it,” Discord added with the waggle of an only slightly condescending finger, “I don’t want the polite answer or the customary answer or any other display of literally valueless etiquette. I want you to answer from the experiences that you, and only you, have witnessed, as witnessed by the only pony capable of witnessing it, given that they were the only pony that had possessed a singular set of traits at one or more singular points in time. This world, this perspective, these experiences, this vessel is the foundation of everything you’ve ever known and everything you’ve been able to think about, tangibly or abstractly, consciously or subconsciously, given your unique set of traits at your unique point in time. Is this world something that literally only you could have experienced? Is this world—the one that you know about and live in—quite literally a construct made entirely of the materials your consciousness provides you?” “So we’re talking about solipsism.” Twilight nodded her head. “The idea that nothing outside my mind can be proven to exist. I guess from that point of view, then—you know, I really feel uncomfortable actually saying it. Are you going to make me say it anyway?” “I know of it. You know of it. Any sort of words discussing how to address it are superficial at this point. So, no, there isn’t any point in saying something you don’t need to say.” “But why are you bringing this up at all? What does my...relationship with the universe have to do with anything else?” “Because your universe determined your course when you chose to play The Hero for the second time. You chose to take issues outside of your experiences and make them your own, and in doing so your world ceased to be your world. It became the world of...I suppose it’s likely up to millions of creatures now, isn’t it? And all you do is interact with the world as they wish, with only your personal lens as a token reminder that Twilight Sparkle was the pony who filled the role of The Hero.” “And if I never was a hero?” “Not a hero, Twilight.” Discord shook his head. “The Hero. And if you never became that, I have no doubt that some other pony would have stepped into that role. And Twilight Sparkle would still be, and forevermore be, Twilight Sparkle.” They continued to walk down the staircase. Abruptly, Twilight realized that they had been walking down the same staircase for longer than the staircase physically should have been. Then it struck her that she hadn’t seen anyone but Discord in the castle since he had entered her room, and hadn’t heard anyone but him talk since he had gotten her attention. Then she remembered that he had snapped his fingers before they left her room. And that her room was supposed to be conventionally locked and magically sealed. Part of her wondered why she wasn’t more alarmed about all of this, and part of her wondered why worrying about that sort of thing right now felt, for lack of a better word, trivial. “So this world. My world.” Twilight started up again. “What world is it?” “Where you want it to be. Where life seemed like it had opened itself up to you, but before demands and expectations forced your hoof to combat threats on a greater scale.” “Does forcing myself to do things count?” “Only if you didn’t need to do them. I’m aware that you’re a bit of a silly little filly. So tell me, Twilight, where does the game begin?” “Ponyville.” As if startled by the forthrightness of her reply, Twilight squeaked and covered her mouth with a hoof. “I wasn’t expecting you to realize that so quickly.” Discord stopped and turned, his smirk at the halfway point towards a genuine smile. “It...okay, I mean, it...the day I met all my friends. No, the day after that. There wasn’t anypony worried about Nightmare Moon, Princess Luna was safe, we were all still getting to know each other, and there were so many ponies to...it was like there wasn’t any kind of world outside Ponyville and Canterlot, and that didn’t matter at all. There weren’t many ponies in Ponyville, but there were still so many stories untold, so many conversations unspoken, so much...there was so much of everything, and I never did it. But there was...there always was all the time in the world for it, wasn’t there?” “There was the possibility of it, yes.” Discord’s smile was entirely full and entirely earnest, as if he had waited for this discussion for a long, long time. “I could have gone anywhere and done anything in the town, and it would have been like going to the ends of the world and defeating the deadliest of foes. And if I didn’t leave…” “One of the princesses could have stopped things. The might of the royal guard could have shown itself. Legends from the past could have emerged to combat the threat, or leaders of distant kingdoms could have banded together to fight the menace. You may not have known this, but you still chose to believe that you were the only pony who could have saved everypony.” “That’s where my game began.” “That’s where your game began. The beginning of the end, since you had made an end for yourself. But if you don’t define an end and don’t define a victory, then…” “Then I’ll never have to leave. I can choose to—I can choose to stay, this time.” Twilight’s face was starting to twist, but she wasn’t entirely sure if it was a smile. “You always had the choice.” “It didn’t seem that way.” “But now you know. And now you can make that choice. And that, Twilight Sparkle, is why we are here.” Discord turned back, walked down the last few steps and vanished into the air. Twilight blinked. “Discord?” she called, descending the steps after him. This time, she didn’t recognize the hallway in front of her—or at least couldn’t put it to any plan she had made or any structure she went in. It was eerily linear, for something whose walls were so twisted and misshapen—wood and stone gnarled and grasping at each other, as if struggling for control. At the end of the hallway was a coffee table, with three items on it. But through some trick of the light, while she could see the table clear as day—no more than twenty yards away at most—the items seemed too small and unidentifiable to discern. “Discord?” She called out as she walked down the hall. Silence. “I have a few more questions.” Silence. “I promise they aren’t trivial ones. I promise I don’t already know them.” Halfway down the hallway. Now she could make out the first item on the table: oddly enough, it seemed to be a genuine coffee cup. The idea of there being something in it as normal as coffee made Twilight feel rather peculiar. “You mentioned multiverse theory before. Does that apply here? Do I make this choice in multiple realities?” Twilight stumbled, briefly, but recovered her stride. Now she could make out one of the other objects: a tome, thick and bound in oak, locked shut with an iron clasp. “You keep referencing they, them, other ponies. Who have you talked about this with before? What did they do?” Now the third object: a picture frame, tilted on its side. “You owe nothing to me, have no promises to keep, and the realm you live in doesn’t even have the same rules as our—as my own.” Twilight stammered. “Why are you talking about this at all?” “First,” the coffee cup replied, “would it matter if it did?” Twilight blinked, drew even with the table and stared down at the cup. After everything else, the oddness of having a voice echo up from the cup seemed almost unsurprising—there wasn’t even a mouth on the cup, just a voice and a few ounces of a dark-looking brew. “Even if there were alternate realities in which you could or couldn’t make that decision, you don’t live in any of them, and you never will. Why would you? You have no reason to go there. There wouldn’t be anything satiating for your curiosity, if you were even curious at all. What matters in this life, the one you live in now, is entirely and exclusively in your hooves, and not even remotely affected by the hypotheticals of a pony you’ve never met and whom you’ll never really be like at all.” “I see.” Twilight faltered, picking up the cup. “You must be thirsty. Here, have a drink” the coffee cup said in Discord’s voice. “Are you sure? Won’t that hurt you at all?” “Hurt me? Pffft. You’re thinking trivially again, Sparkle. I’m just a coffee cup. I don’t have nerves. Even if you shatter me into a thousand pieces, you still couldn’t hurt me.” “If you’re sure,” Twilight said as she lifted the cup to her lips and took a drink. “...Wow.” “What?” “That is...that’s actually some of the best cocoa I’ve ever had.” “You’ve had better. You just don’t remember it yet. As for your second question, yes. At least three other beings have made this choice before you.” “I don’t think I need to guess. Princess Celestia, Princess Luna and...it wouldn’t be Cadance. Is it you, Discord?” “Correct.” “And I guess there isn’t any point in knowing whether or not they stayed or left either, right?” “There isn’t any point in guessing Luna’s. You only mentioned her for completeness’ sake, and I’m sure you never cared for her even half as much as you cared for, say, your babysitter.” Twilight gritted her teeth, then sighed and nodded. “And I already know you did.” “You hypothesized that I did. Admittedly, it’s a correct hypothesis, and the chances of your hypothesis being incorrect were astronomically slim, to the point of the process seeming nonsensical, but…” “What point is there in making sense, huh?” Twilight replied, a faint smile spreading over her face. “Precisely. But that’s neither here nor now, and that brings us to the one you care about: your teacher. As you know, she’s existed for millennia and millennia before almost anypony else, with only her sister to keep her company for a long time.” Twilight nodded. “And one might think that, in all that period of time, she might have understood the universe and decided to reach for one greater.” “But would she have been happy?” “Precisely! She would not have. And she has still internalized the notion that she is happier than she actually is. And she has not made that decision yet. And I’m not sure if she will.” “Oh” Twilight replied, coffee cup still inches from her lips. “If it brings you greater comfort, though, I’ve always assumed that the moment of her most significant joy was in raising what she considered her greatest student. Make of that what you will.” Twilight blushed and took another sip of cocoa. It tasted even better than the first sip, and it was only after a mouthful of the brew that she realized the cocoa was almost gone. “And third, it’s true that I owe you nothing and that I have no promises to give you. You hold no power over me, and no power you might ever have could be held meaningfully over me.” “But if you’re doing this because you want to…” Twilight faltered. “...Why am I doing this?” Discord finished. “I can’t have been a good friend. Honestly, I’m pretty sure I was never your friend at all.” “Of course not. And I can’t exactly say that I like you, Sparkle. I’m proud that you’ve figured this out on your own. Mostly, anyway. But I can’t claim that liking you is the reason why this would make me happy. Your world is your own world, but my world is my own world, and my world does not revolve around you.” “Wait. Fourth question.” Twilight interjected. The liquid at the bottom of the coffee cup bubbled, in what must have been the liquid approximation of a sigh. “Continue.” “It’s just another hypothesis, but - you can go in and out of your own universe, can’t you? And you’re the only one that can do that?” “Would you expect the being of chaos to adhere to the rules of even two universes, let alone one? Of course I come and go, Twilight Sparkle. I came and went long before I turned on the lights in your universe, and I’ll come and go long after I’ll turn them off again. So, yes, I’m not playing fair, and since even I can’t explain things which are fundamentally impossible to explain, I can’t and won’t try to give you an explanation as to why.” “I wasn’t going to ask that.” Twilight shook her head. “I wanted to know if you ever stopped going to old worlds and went to new ones. In case the best parts of your life changed.” For a second, silence settled over the chamber. “...Yes, Twilight. It makes her happy to think that I can make you happy in some way or another. And the degree to which she makes me happy is the degree to which she’s created a paradise for me all on her own.” Twilight smiled at the coffee cup, drank the last of its contents and set it down on the table. “If it makes her happy to be happy with you, then I’m glad you’re doing this for her sake. Is there anything left?” “That’s up to you.” Discord’s voice sounded hollower and fainter, as if it was drifting out of the universe itself. “The book on the right is the tome of your history. It chronicles your deeds and your exploits, from your beginning to your end, and recalls every last thing you’ve ever done and will do. They’ll bury the first and greatest copy with you in your tomb, of course.” Twilight picked up the picture frame and turned it towards her face. It was a photo of her, Spike, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy, all smiling at the camera. “This picture is a fragment of your stories. It keeps a small slice of a fleeting impression, nondescript and fundamentally inexplicable, and represents a whole greater than the sum of all the parts of the personal histories of each and every member of that picture.” Twilight set the picture down and stared at the book, then at the picture. Then at the book. Then at the picture. “Who do you love, Twilight Sparkle?” Discord’s voice whispered. “The pony that you were, or the pony you became?” Then he was gone. Alone, with an empty coffee cup and two items of cosmic significance, Twilight tried to collect her thoughts. Then she realized they would never be more collected, never more explicable, never more coherent than they were at this point in time. And, knowing full well what she was doing and what she had to do, Twilight picked up the picture frame and kissed the photo inside it.
RecycleThe light went out. “Twilight!” Spike’s voice. Somewhere nearby. Maybe he was calling her to ask about how her writing was going? Too late for that now. Then again, what wasn’t it too late for? The world was black, null, void. There wasn’t anything left in it at all. Whatever she had been expecting, she had been expecting something more tangible than oblivion. “Twilight!” He was looking for her. Maybe he couldn’t find her in the middle of this hallway? Maybe the scenery hadn’t been in her head? She sort of assumed that once things started getting surreal, it stopped existing in conventional time and space. Or had it been when the staircase became impossibly long? Either way, now she’d have to deal with whatever that was on top of everything else, too. Or maybe everypony at the school would help pitch in— Something touched her shoulder. “Twilight?” And Twilight woke up. With a gasp and a shudder, Twilight reflexively opened her eyes. Dull yellow. Everything was a wrinkled dull yellow, as if somepony had sucked the vigor out of a honeypot and left only a crumpled husk of the word in its...wait, no. Those were probably curtains. The curtains in her old bedroom? Something was still touching her shoulder. Twilight turned her head, and her mind went blank. Spike was there, standing on her bed, looking down at her as if he was too worried to properly shake her shoulder. “Spike?” Twilight mumbled. The baby dragon broke out into a broad smile. “Oh, thank goodness! I thought you were sick with the pony flu. You’re normally really good about getting up in the mornings.” “I...yeah.” Don’t ask if it’s actually the morning, Twilight thought. Don’t ask what time of day it is. Play it cool. “Yes! Because I normally get up early in the mornings! Because I’m punctual! Because I’m Princess Twilight Sparkle!” “Princess what now?” Oh, crud. “Sorry…” Twilight backpedaled, weakly waving a hoof in the air. “I, uh...was having a really weird dream.” “Weird, huh? Maybe you are sick. I know I get really weird dreams sometimes when I’m sick. Like that time I ate too many gems and got chased by a dragon! Then I dreamed that I was chased by a dragon made of gems, and he was breathing gems at me, but if i touched any of them I’d turn into a gem and it was weird.” Spike shuddered. “Maybe you ate too much yesterday? I know Pinkie was throwing, like, a really big party.” Don’t ask if she was. “Aheh. I guess I shouldn’t eat so much.” Twilight closed her eyes and shook her head. The brief familiarity of darkness was soothing. “So, um…” “Oh! Right! Breakfast is ready!” Spike piped, turning around and tottering down the steps to the first floor. “I made pancakes!” Wait, those were the steps to the first floor. Wait, this was… This was the Golden Oak Library. She was actually in it. Twilight looked down by her hind legs. This was her old bed. She was sleeping in her old bed. Brain still running on rudimentary functions, trying not to implode on itself from the strangeness of all these totally familiar things, Twilight got out of bed and followed Spike down the steps. It occurred to her she never actually saw where he made breakfast, or how he did it. It had to be in here somewhere, and… Had she always been too busy to ask? Did something as important as eating every day just not seem important to her? Twilight turned back towards the middle of the library. The walls were inset with dozens of dozens of shelves, and on those shelves were dozens and dozens of books: some put away neatly, and some stacked haphazardly nearby (on in one case, on top of) them. There was a little reading table in the middle, and a huge bust of a mighty warrior on top of the table, looking dutifully over all the knowledge crammed into the oak walls around it. It was like living inside of a photograph. Twilight trotted over and touched the carving’s head. It even felt real. Twilight touched the table. It, too, felt real. Quickly checking around to make sure Spike wasn’t looking at her, she trotted around the library, then grabbed a book off of a shelf at random. Even the book felt real, this - Wait a minute. The Elements of Harmony: A Reference Guide? She had read this one. She and her friends needed it when Nightmare Moon returned, over a decade ago... Had it really been that long? “Twilight?” Twilight turned again. Spike was standing there, two pancake-filled plates in his claws, whipped cream and chocolate chips decorating each stack. Spike’s face settled back into concern. “Are you sure you’re feeling okay?” “Actually…” “Actually...what?” “Actually, um...did you want to eat on the balcony?” *********************************************************** It was a postcard view of the town. Above everything else, but not too high above everything else—she could pony watch if she wanted, but she wasn't so far above them all that she couldn't make out anypony else's face. And the weather was fantastic today: the temperature was just right, the faint breeze filled Twilight’s lungs with fresh, clean air and the sky was an absolutely brilliant blue. About the only nitpick was that the clouds looked slightly messy and underfluffed, as if the weather team wasn't completely thorough in making sure the clouds were up to standards... Twilight just barely held in another gasp. Rainbow Dash was probably still working for the weather ponies, wasn’t she? No wonder the clouds looked a little half-baked: Rainbow Dash was probably napping on the job again. Mind reeling, Twilight tucked into her plate of pancakes. “...Spike, these are really good!” The baby dragon blushed. “Aw, shucks. I just used a little more butter and baking powder than usual, you know?” “I-I mean...I guess I know, yeah.” Twilight wiped an errant daub of whipped cream off of her nose. “That’s probably just chemistry, right?” “I dunno about chemistry, but it is cooking!” Spike cut off a pancake slice and smeared it around some of the chocolate chips on his plate. “Hey, maybe if you hang around Pinkie Pie more often, then you’ll figure out all of her cooking secrets, too! And maybe then you’ll be able to do the cooking for me” Spike added. “Hint hint.” “When I find out a good recipe for oven-roasted rubies, I’ll let you know” Twilight replied, good-naturedly rolling her eyes. “But...huh. I guess I could hang out with Pinkie today, couldn’t I?” Twilight paused. “Um...Spike. Do I have anything on my schedule today?” “Oh! Right!” Spike stood up and trotted back inside. Twilight was halfway through another pancake by the time he returned, a scroll clasped firmly in one claw. Unravelling it with a flourish, Spike coughed and read aloud: “June 23, A.C. 1002. Today, Twilight Sparkle…um.” "Um…" Twilight coaxed. Spike stared at the scroll, shrugged and turned it around. The page was completely blank. “I guess you don’t need to do anything today, Twilight.” “Oh.” Twilight Sparkle paused. “...Wait, does that mean I can do anything?” “I mean, yeah. I guess you can spend the entire day inside reading if you want to, but it’s a really nice day.” “No. Nonononono. Not today!” Twilight shook her head. “I want to see everypony. No, I need to see everypony! I need to find out where everypony is!” “You mean, besides just looking outside, right?” Spike cocked an eyebrow. “Yes!” Twilight squealed. “I need to see the Town Square! And the Town Hall! And the Ponyville schoolhouse, and the clock tower, and the marketplace, and the train station…” “Uh, Twilight?” “Or the Day Spa! Or that one cafe, or the joke shop, or the costume shop, or Quills and Sofas! Spike, we could go to Quills and Sofas together!” “And look at what, Quills and Sofas?” Spike asked, scooting backwards. “Are you sure you’re okay?” “I’m great! I’m wonderful! This is amazing!” Twilight gushed. Her horn glowed as she stood up and bolted back inside, yanked the scroll out of Spike’s hands, grabbed a quill and inkpot off a nearby table, ran down the steps and burst through the sun-drenched front door. ********************************************************** By the time Twilight started walking towards Quills and Sofas, there was barely any spring in her step at all. It was perfect. Everything was exactly like she thought it would be, how she remembered it—or how she thought she remembered it. How she thought it was supposed to be. And...and that was the problem. None of it felt familiar at all. No, wait, it did feel familiar. No, it didn’t. It did. It didn’t. It was her fault. Everything was exactly in the right place, and it was all stuff she recognized, but...but she didn’t remember any of it. That was the problem. It existed, but she never really… Twilight walked inside Quills and Sofas, deliberately avoiding eye contact with the ponies working there, and pretended to look over the newest selection of sofas. She knew this place was here, and she’d always known it was real. The floor under her hooves, the ceiling above her head, the chime of a cash register—those were completely real. But she’d never really been in here before became a princess, had she? It was real, she knew it existed, but this was all new to her. And it felt like she had taken the marketplace and the clock tower for granted, too. They were there, they had always been there, but… But they might as well have not existed for her. Because she saw them, but she never really saw them. And looking at these familiar things for the first time made her feel like she hadn’t really existed at all, even though she was physically right here, right now. She still existed, right? Shaking her head, Twilight walked back outside. She was supposed to feel at home, but she felt like an imposter more than anything. The world wasn’t her world; it was a world, a world that she existed in, but it wasn’t like it was hoof-crafted for her. Discord had gotten her so mixed up… Wait. Did Discord even exist anymore? Was battling him the “Beginning of the End” for her? Is that the point where her life became about saving Equestria? And if he was gone, if all of the magic and craziness of her life was gone, then where did that leave her? Just a phantom hanging around inside the body of… Twilight looked behind her. For the first time that day, she realized that she didn’t have wings. Of course she wouldn’t still be an alicorn. Of course she had gotten by just fine without being one. And being an alicorn was part of the life she became, not part of the life she used to live in. She wasn’t always supposed to be an alicorn, was she? Wasn’t that part of her something that didn’t need to exist? Or did it need to exist after all? Was what she was doing now—running about like a giggling foal—the part that wasn’t real? Twilight sighed and stared at the ground as she walked. Thinking about what existed and what didn’t was making her head hurt. She needed a distraction. “Hi!” Twilight yelped, scrabbled back in surprise, tripped and fell flat on her back. A second later, her perfectly good view of the sky was blocked out by Pinkie Pie’s face. “Hey, Pinkie.” Twilight replied, mustering up a smile. “So I went to see Spike and ask him if today was a cake day or a pie day. Because it’s warm enough that today should totally be a pie day, but it’s also sunny enough that it could totally be a cake day, and it’s Sunday so I don’t know if that means it should be a cake day or a pie day and I promised Mr. and Mrs. Cake that I wouldn’t try to make any more pie-cakes, because the last time that happened I made like a really really big explosion and there was strawberry sauce all over everything!” Pinkie giggled. “But he told me it was totally a Twilight’s-being-a-weirdy-cat day, and now I don’t know if I need to try and be a weirdy-cat too, and if maybe not being allowed to make pie-cakes doesn’t mean I’m not allowed to make cake-pies.” Twilight blinked. Pinkie continued chattering—largely to herself—about culinary semantics and the construction of confections that were absurd at best and flat-out violations of the laws of physics at worst. Then Twilight realized what she needed to do. “Actually, Pinkie, um...mind if I help out?” ******************************************************** “...And that’s the story of how Equestria was made!” Pinkie concluded. “In spirit, anyway. And also in delicious, not-even-slightly-nutritious cupcake form!” Applejack, Rarity, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy blanched, ever so slightly, at the misshapen and frosting-covered chocolate lumps on the tray. “Well...dear. I’m not entirely sure what that has to do with Twilight’s cooking...efforts” Rarity replied, gingerly holding a purple-frosted cupcake up to her mouth in the light of the fading sun. “But I’m sure that you tried your best…” “Even though it totally looks like the opposite” Rainbow Dash interjected. Rarity glared at Rainbow Dash, opened her mouth and took a large, defiant bite of the cupcake. Then she chewed, swallowed, brushed a chocolate crumb off of her lips and stared incredulously down at the cupcake. “Twilight, this is...this is delicious!” The unicorn blushed. “Aww. I just thought I should use a little more butter and whole milk, you know?” Applejack grabbed an orange-frosted cupcake, took a huge bite and grinned. “Well, it ain’t particularly fancy,” she added, before noticing that Rarity was staring at her and swallowing. “Aheh. Sorry 'bout talkin’ with my mouth full. But that there’s still a real tasty cupcake, Twi.” Twilight beamed as her friends reached for her cupcakes, chattering among themselves and making a bit of a mess as they ate her desserts. With a sigh of relief, Twilight looked over at Pinkie Pie, who—with a wink and grin—poked her shoulder with her hoof. “Go on!” Pinkie Pie giggled. “Say it!” “Right. Now, girls, I’ve…” They all looked over at her, smiling. Twilight hadn’t realized how weird having all of their attention felt, even though this wasn’t the first time they had all listened to her. But there was… “I...wanted to say that I’m really thankful that we’ve gotten to spend so much time together. I know it’s been a couple of years...apparently.” Twilight faltered. “Since we defeated Nightmare Moon and became friends. And even after all that time, I’ve still gotten the chance to try out all sorts of things with you, and it’s almost magical how wonderful everything has been with you. I had such a fun day today learning how to bake with Pinkie Pie, and even putting out a kitchen fire didn’t make things too bad…” Rainbow Dash snorted. “But the point is, I want to spend more time with all of you. Because your friendship means a lot to me, and my life has been a lot happier since we became friends.” A cool breeze swept through Twilight’s mane, and she shivered. It was weird, feeling the cold and the heat more acutely than she had again. It was weird not being an alicorn, sort of. But it was the sort of weird that she could handle. She’d always been able to handle it before, right? “So I know that you have busy lives, and all sorts of things to do. I just wanted to let you know that I’m always ready to have fun with you and learn things from you whenever you want, okay? And I’m always happy to help out, too.” “Sounds good to me, Twi” Applejack replied. “I ain’t gonna complain about havin’ an extra set of hooves to help me out with the orchard once apple-buckin’ season rolls around again.” “And goodness knows that I’m always looking for somepony to model my dresses. There’s such a difference between a mannequin and a model, after all” Rarity added. “And I can think of some designs that would suit you quite well!” “Yeah!” Rainbow Dash added in. “And you can totally help me out with a trick tomorrow, too! I want everypony to see how awesome I am when I pull off an inverted Buccaneer Blaze, and I want to make sure it’s as awesome as possible if I ever get to show it to the Wonderbolts!” Twilight froze. Rainbow crammed a cupcake in her mouth, and it wasn’t until she had finished and was reaching for another that Fluttershy spoke up. “Um...Twilight? I-is everything okay? “I...that’s. That’s right. You aren’t a Wonderbolt.” Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. “You don’t have to rub it in, you know.” “That’s not what I...no, it’s. You should be one, you—” Don’t say that she used to be one. “In another, I mean, if you...you totally could be one. That’s what I’m trying to say.” “Are you sure you’re all right, dear?” Rarity interjected. Twilight’s friends were staring at her again, and it was definitely making her uncomfortable now. “I’m fine! Just...amazed. Amazed at the ponies you…” Twilight gasped. “Rarity?” “Yes, Twilight?” “You...you don’t have a boutique in Canterlot, do you?” Rarity sighed. “That’s still a while away, I’m afraid. I’m not sure I’m as famous a pony as I’d need to be in order to have a place in Canterlot.” “But you could. You really could. You’re...you could do it.” “Uh, Twi?” Applejack cut in. Twilight took a step back. “You could all do all of that! You’re good enough at what you do that you could follow your dreams, a-and you could earn everything you wanted, it...Rainbow Dash could be a Wonderbolt, Rarity could be a world-famous fashion designer, all of you could…” “I mean, sometimes dreams are just dreams, you know?” Rainbow Dash added. “Look, maybe I’m not ever gonna be a Wonderbolt, but who cares? Trying is half the fun!” “And I certainly wouldn’t mind being famous, but at the end of the day I’m quite content with the pony that I am” Rarity concluded. “I’m doing what I love for ponies I care about, and I live quite comfortably. I can’t think of any way I’d rather be.” “I…” Twilight stammered. “I...you...I’m…” “Whatever is the matter, darling?” Rarity frowned. “You look like you’re on the verge of tears.” “No, you don’t understand, you had that.” Something was clutching at Twilight’s throat, making it difficult to breathe, much less speak. “You had everything you wanted, and then I showed up, and I changed everything, and I…” Twilight trembled. “I took it all away.” Spinning on her heels, Twilight turned and ran. The nighttime gloom made it difficult to see, even without all the water in her eyes. She couldn’t look at them. She didn’t want to look at them anymore. She didn’t want to see anything, anymore, didn’t want to see what she had done. She had broken everything. She had ruined their lives. She wanted a life where nopony mattered but her, her feelings, her thoughts, her wants. Even by showing up at all, even the first time, she had taken their dreams and crushed them without a second thought. They’d never be the ponies they wanted to be, never have the things they wanted to have, by definition. She had made a world where they never got what they worked all their lives to have. Maybe she had done that to the entire town. Maybe to the entire world. And that was exactly what she had wanted. Twilight stumbled through the door to the Golden Oak Library, walked just far enough to collapse on the table in the middle, and burst into tears. Her chest hurt. Her face hurt. Everything hurt, and it should have hurt more, she deserved it. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair. She didn’t mean for things to happen that way. Except she meant for this to happen, it was exactly as fair as it had been offered to her, and it was what she had willingly done. Twilight barely heard the doorknob rattling behind her. She barely felt something touch her shoulder. She didn’t want to feel it. She didn’t want this to feel real. That would make it worse. “Uh, Twi?” Rainbow Dash’s voice cut in. Twilight kept sobbing. She heard Rainbow Dash sigh, and heard her footsteps trot off. Then they returned, and Twilight heard the clunk of something heavy being set down next to her. “This is a bucket of water” Rainbow Dash explained. “I’m really awkward at dealing with crying stuff, and I really don’t want to have to be around crying ponies, so here’s the deal: either you stop crying, look at me and tell me what the horsefeathers is going on, or I’m going to dump this bucket of water over your head, get another bucket and keep dumping water on your head until the whole library’s soaked. Okay?” Twilight’s chest heaved. Lifting her head felt monumental. Trying to hold back the flood in her tear ducts felt almost impossible. Her heart felt like it was ready to explode, and the rest of her body wanted her to scrunch up until everything went away. But instead, with a small hiccup, Twilight raised her head and stared at Rainbow Dash. The pegasus hadn’t been lying: she looked at least as awkward and uncomfortable as she did concerned. But she was still here, still waiting for an explanation, body language still clearly indicating that the bucket was always an option. “Why?” Twilight squeaked. “Uh, because somepony had to go after you? And being fast is, like, my thing. I wanted to go grab you by your tail, you know, but we had to spend time talking about feelings and behavior and was there something Spike could tell us and where has Spike been this afternoon, anyway and just...ugh. So I just kind of figured that you’d be here, since this is, like your home. And now I guess we’re here?” Rainbow Dash shrugged. “So yeah, uh. Why are you crying?” Twilight’s face crumpled. “No, seriously.” Rainbow Dash pushed the bucket forward with one wing. “Stop it.” Twilight took a deep breath, tried to uncrumple her face, hiccuped and replied: “I ruined your dream.” “Huh?” Rainbow Dash quirked an eyebrow. “I...Where I came from. It’s...I’m not from this Equestria, Rainbow Dash.” “Oooooookay. Spooky magic nonsense. Got it.” “It’s not—” “Look.” Rainbow Dash raised a hoof. “It sounds either like science or like prophecy or something, so either way I’m not gonna understand it. And if you’re gonna try and explain it to me, we’re both just gonna get frustrated.” “But—” “You’re not from this Equestria, huh? So, like, the Twilight Sparkle I’ve been friends with for years isn’t the Twilight Sparkle I think she is? Is she a spy or something?” “No!” Twilight hiccuped. “I’m still Twilight Sparkle! I’ve always been Twilight Sparkle!” “Then who cares? You can say you’re a Twilight Sparkle from one place or another, but since you’re the Twilight Sparkle I’ve known for as long as I’ve known Twilight Sparkle, then who cares about what the other one’s like?” “Don’t you?” “I don’t know her, duh. You might as well paint up the mailpony and tell me that’s who you really are, or something. I don’t care. I’m still not going to hang out with her. 'Cause even though you’re dweeby and nerdy and an egghead, you’re still a fun dweeby, nerdy egghead. I hang out with you because I want to, and I don’t care what you want to call yourself, or who you think you are.” Twilight hiccuped. “Oh.” “And enough with the hiccups. I know you can use some unicorn mumbo-jumbo to fix that, and it’s getting annoying.” Rainbow Dash sighed. “So, fine. You’re Twilight Sparkle, and you’ve always been Twilight Sparkle, and since everypony here knows and likes Twilight Sparkle that’s basically good enough for us. Is that seriously it?” Twilight shook her head. “No, it’s that...where I came from, you were a Wonderbolt. The best Wonderbolt ever, actually. And now you aren’t.” Silence fell. Twilight felt a hiccup well up inside her, but a quick glow of her horn and waver around her neck fixed that problem for good. Finally, Rainbow Dash replied. “So?” Twilight’s jaw dropped. “So you know a Rainbow Dash—who’s this total stranger that I’ve never met before, but who looks like me and has the same name as me, I guess—and she’s a Wonderbolt. So, uh, why should I care?” “Rainbow Dash, it’s not a stranger! It’s you!” “Look, if you want to tell me that there’s a version of me that became a really awesome Wonderbolt, that’s fine. But I’m me. I’m not her. And I’m not a Wonderbolt, okay?” “I…” “I mean, I’m not a Wonderbolt yet. I’ll get there. But like I said, trying is half the fun, so unless you’re telling me that you can travel through time…” “I can! I did!” “Oh, really?” Rainbow Dash arched her other eyebrow. “So then everything’s going to turn out exactly the same as it did where you came from?” “It—” Twilight paused. “...It won’t.” “So you have literally no way of knowing what the future’s gonna be like. I mean, feel free to make crazy guesses, but I’m pretty sure making crazy guesses is against the Egghead’s Code, or something. Look, will I ever get to meet her?” Rainbow Dash pressed. “...I don’t think so. I think that’s impossible.” “So then why bother talking about it? You’re just gonna make yourself feel depressed, and it’s not gonna change anything. Besides, like I said, just because I’m not a Wonderbolt now doesn’t mean I’m never gonna be a Wonderbolt. And your crazy guess is as good as mine as to what comes next, and hey—even if things stay like this forever, that’s not really bad, is it?” “It isn’t?” “No duh, Twilight. Life is fun! Being with you guys is fun! I’m totally happy with this life I have, and if things never change, then I don’t think I’m ever gonna stop being happy, you know? That’s just common sense.” The pain in Twilight’s chest was fading. Her eyes felt slightly less leaky. Her body felt like it was more in her control, now… ...Wait. It wasn’t just her body. It was...her. Her, in this place, with her friends. This actually felt… “I guess...I guess you aren’t wrong.” Twilight sighed. “And I mean, I’m really happy being with you guys, too. Wait, no, not just happy, it’s not just fun, I mean, it’s…” And as if she was seeing it for the first time that day, Twilight drank it all in: the richness of the library, the books and scrolls full of thoughts and things to learn, and her friend. A friend that was as real as anything else here. No, not just “here.” This Rainbow Dash was real. Her friends were real. The world was real, she was real, everything continued to exist as she believed it would, and… And the comfort and security that had eluded Twilight for years and years finally settled themselves back on her, and she grabbed Rainbow Dash and wrapped the slightly surprised pegasus up in a hug. “I’m home.” Twilight sniffed. “I’m finally home.” Rainbow Dash didn’t say anything for a couple of seconds. Then she wriggled her forelegs out of Twilight’s grip and squeezed back. “Yeah. Yeah, you are, Twi” Rainbow Dash said. “Welcome home.”
