Deep Breath

Having returned to your home in Canterlot, You enter the forge where loyal ponies craft your guard's lunar armor. As always, there is constantly somepony tending to the furnaces as various metal objects are being formed and repaired. They take immediately to your presence and orders to create several damascus blocks from the metals you free from the object that you carried here, and after making several bars with layers of as many metal alloys as are available, they will send the bars to the forges of the solar armor to do the same.

"We leave this task to you, our capable little ponies. For now, we must take our rest and prepare for our nightly duties."

You make your way to your private chambers. You surely will need the rest for night court and to see to your other duties, but there is also one other mater. By now, even if that creature is stubborn enough to try to stay awake, sleep will have caught up to him. Hopefully, the lavender you asked your sister to line that passenger car of the train with will have calmed Anonymous's mind for probing.

The door to this alien mind, now familiar and easily findable to you, opens up to a rolling field of lavender. The human you seek is stretched out on his back, several ponies and changelings lay similarly as they watch the sun set. Easily knowing which direction this particular dream is going, you allow it to continue until the moon and stars come out and watch his joyous gazing for a moment. You then approach and stand beside him.

"Thy mind is finally calm, Anonymous." He turns and greets you with a smile.

"Hello, Princess Luna. The future finally seems to be a bright place on the horizon."

"Indeed, though we still seek to know more of the deeper parts of thy reasons and personality."

"I have no memory of your past visit besides a fleeting glance. Tell me, have you run into any trouble?"

"Thy mind is easily distracted by a myriad of branching thoughts. It proves difficult to find specific thoughts and memories in the cacophony."

As if you've invited it, you sense a slowly encroaching bramble forming behind the hill which Anonymous lays. All of the ponies, including his changelings, become frightened and run for Ponyville that is now lit in the distance. You must influence him to maintain control. He has reacted most to verbal prompting so far, so perhaps there is a way to prompt him to regain control. You probe for words with your magic, words that will create calm, attention and order. You place a gentle hoof against his cheek.

"Anon, center yourself and concentrate. Breathe, and be apart from your thoughts. Be outside yourself."

To this, Anonymous closes his eyes. Placing his hands together across his stomach, he breathes, and a mental image of himself rises. Staying with it, the rest of the dream world falls away and becomes an ever shifting, amorphous form of shapes and color within a glass sphere the size of the world. The silent void is once again present, but you are able to reach out to the mindscape and hear thoughts. Music, memories and sensations are present to you, making this unlike that which you fear of returning to. You've done it. With your magic helping to hold this state, his mind finally feels as open and malleable as that of your little ponies. This is once again the realm where you have the power to communicate with the dreamer and vanquish any monsters formed by fears and strife. This session will prove to be a fruitful venture after all.

"Well done. we can now call memories as we have for the ponies which we protect." He looks down, marveling at the shifting figure beneath the glass below him.

"So all of that is me, huh? Twenty six years and three days."

"Indeed, and here, we have control to observe anything thy mind can recall without fear of being lost within them."

"You mean like this?" Anonymous gestures to a glass surface beside him. "Beetoven's 'Moonlight sonata.'
Van Gough's 'A starry night' "

A part of the glass surface rises, creating a display case that a part of the shifting form below populates, forming a painting behind a piano that starts to play. Your magic effortlessly gives you the full names of the artists, Ludwig Van Beethoven, and Vincent Van Gough. With no other noise in the way, you see all that Anonymous knows about these artists who he is thinking of, as well as his intentions of using classical music from his world to provide playable music for his changelings. His love of beauty in the form of music is admittedly refreshing to know of, but the train will reach Ponyville soon, so you will have to find time to delve into that later. By the glow of your magic, you make the display recede into the floor, the form returning to the whole below.

"Show us the Human race; What their origin is, and how have they come to be in the modern time."

“Very well. I learned about ponies beginning from the time of cold and famine, and so I will tell you of humans from as far back as is relevant.”

Anonymous holds out both of his hands, summoning a wide case that is populated by an equally wide table map that displayed the topography of a lush area with a river running through it.

“Humanity began in a region history would call the fertile crescent. Being hunter gatherers, the only viable food source that would sustain the small tribes were prey animals that humans needed to develop tools and tactics to overcome. Plants were gathered when available to supplement diets and create tools"

Several miniature scenes of handfuls of humans swam up and formed on top of the map. There was an elephant that was chased off a cliff, a bison hit from afar by hunters wielding atlatls, fish were stolen from rivers by spears, and smaller animals were snared by traps.

“Over the generations, prey and tribe groups migrated, cultures and languages came to be and evolved over time. Nomadic groups were able to leave seeds from plants that would hopefully grow into viable patches of crops by the next season they passed. Ways of making sense of the world emerged. No entire population would ever agree on whether this was because of reason, or what created it.”

The scenes each changed to the groups of humans crossing land and water. Each started to develop distinct physical features as each group’s population grew by one or two. They would sometimes plant wheat, and sometimes gather wheat. Individuals took on roles in group dynamics and rituals.

“With the development of agriculture, populations were able to maintain fixed positions. With the betterment of agriculture, more and more members of a population were able to take on other roles. Architecture and weapons developed. New metals and other materials were formed, and some cultures became more advanced than the others. Those that saw themselves as stronger, and therefore better than others, forcefully took what they wanted from any other tribes that they came across, reasoning them to be lesser beings. Equally, those who saw ease in guilefully stealing that which they want also propagated their ‘trade’ for the sake of self-gain. Quality of life and difficulty of obtaining daily necessities defined lifestyles and personality choices in perpetuum, and with this, modern philosophy took root to build the framework of modern government.”

The populations in the displays grew, now joining into one combined map with defined boundaries. They became subdivided by classes. Some adopted feudal systems with serfdoms. Others became slavers. Wars were fought over disputes of resources and territory. Conflicts that were decided by fist and tooth became club and bow, became sword, shield, and ballista, became gun and grenade, became tank, boat, and plane. The banners of cultural and religious empires moved and multiplied as their influence grew and one conquered another, some borders ever shifting.

“The country that I was born in began alongside it’s neighbors when the more advanced nation powers realized that there were two whole continents on the other side of the planet largely unpopulated and uncultivated. The primitive indigenous tribes’ cultures would survive, but not without being decimated by conquest and plague as the powerful nations laid claim on the land from across the sea.”

The glass case doubled in size towards the west to reveal a northern and southern continent. Banners came across and multiplied as they laid claim and built territories, engulfing and decimating most banners with tribal symbols on them. Borders eventually settled into what you understood as French Canada, British colonies, and the Spanish and Portuguese Meso and South America. The flags changed one by one as they became their own nations, and the colonies Anonymous pointed at expanded west.

“Here, more technology and better agriculture was necessary to develop to maintain growing populations. The educated debated better ways to proceed while the rich and powerful bought and grew farms and industry. My home country which I know most intimately was built and expanded on slave labor, which was eventually abolished, then by sweatshops and child labor, which was eventually abolished, then by harsh industrial labor that was eventually reformed.”

The map zoomed in on the southern United States. Images of harsh Plantation, then sweatshop, then industry conditions played out as new technologies like the Cotton gin, Industrialized textile mills, lathes, metal working, and slaughterhouses appeared. Houses in the background grew in both size and number.

“This takes us to the Present, Princess. I hope I am not leaving you with more questions than answers or putting you off with the truth of my world. How personally do you want to know about my life?”

“Nay, I was prepared to see as much from our first encounter in the asylum. This is a much better way of obtaining information from thy mind than expected. If we desire to know more, this display is silent enough for mine abilities to reach out and scry fine details.”

His hands close. The entire glass structure tints slightly as he worries about the implications.

“Asylum? Princess, I-“

“We know of thy desire to keep knowledge of guns a secret. We see now thy sincerity in caring that Equus has fared well without such weapons, and We seek not that information. Though It would have been fortunate had you brought knowledge of making bullet proof armor to strengthen our and our sister’s guards with.”

Anonymous lets out a breath and the tint clears away as he releases his hands.

“Thank you, Princess. What would you like to know about my place in the world that I came from?”

“Show me thy ancestry, thy family, thy vocation and friends.”

“Sure thing. In truth, I am a mut. My mother and father both come from mixed backgrounds. My blood traces back mostly to the Iberian Peninsula and a grouping of islands called the Philippines. Both cultures have a history of mixing with these regions around the world."

The world map clears, leaving two banners that strings reach out from, summoning various flags at their ends in regions across the Americas, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.

“Many of my childhood friends have gone their separate ways, their own decisions and betrayals of each other have separated us after they moved to separate states within the country. I made new friends at my first job that we grew loyalty to each other over work and drink. Even in a different job at a different part of the company, I still met and drank with them.”

“Do you miss them?” Grief suddenly becomes apparent in his mindscape. The form below pulses to a stressed heartbeat.

“Of course I do, though Discord told me how hopeless it is to seek a way back, not that I would abandon my changelings now, but they knew I was going alone on a camping trip. Eventually, they will find my car with no trace of me, my bag, or my axe and weapon. I will officially be disappeared and have abandoned their lives. A family that eats together lives long together, and I will not be able to eat with them again, celebrate my younger cousin’s birthdays, or visit our late family members' graves. I have only and will only mourn this loss in private. I am no noble, but I will speak professionally to you and your princess family. You and your ponies do not have the advanced technology of my world, and with magic, all of you live such better lives. Do you fault me for being a disruption for the sake of my changelings?”

“We cannot say that we do. It is fortunate that you brought up thy changelings’ plight without casualty. It would have been most unfortunate that their blood came to be on our families' hooves in such a way. Though we must ask what your plans are after thy changelings are settled into a new hive. Rumors will travel faster of a minotaur like being courting the changeling queen than a human merely being consort to Queen Chrysalis and ambassador to the ponies.”

You see him roll his eyes and shake his head for the first time.

“Of course that would be a common trait of our worlds. I still stand by what I said on the train. I have no intention of forcing the issue for personal gain.”

You reach out to his thoughts. he is certainly sincere in this, but there is also something else, not hidden, but not mentioned either.

“And what of personal pleasure?”

Knowingly, you point behind Anonymous where an encased display of him cuddling Chrysalis and her unable to escape his embrace rose from the floor.

“That was asked of me in confidence, and I complied. Besides the point, it had been a few years since I had been in the arms of another. I would be lying if I said that I didn't miss it, or that I would not be open to a possible relationship in the future. Will any of this pose a problem in your eyes, Princess?”

“None that we can see. We shall keep quiet on everything you have revealed to us so that you can come to it yourself, but on one condition.”

Apprehension forms on his face as he sees you smirk.

“Aaand what is that?”

Ever the master of dreams, you stomp a hoof and dragged it backwards. The sound of glass sliding on glass rushed up from behind Anonymous, and black change stone walls surround him like always. Anonymous looks around, thinking that something happened until Chrysalis nuzzles into his neck and he snuggles back, relaxing into the comfort. The momentary notion that he heard something forgotten like a whisper in the wind.

Now with him being the only distracted member of this dream, you are free to look into what aspects of Anonymous's personality he holds most valuable, and why he is so. What makes a person separated from his own world so loyal and valorous? What other parts of the world under the sun and moon does he find terrible and beautiful? However much time you have left, alone, you will get to know the true self of this person.