As Real As You Need Me to Be

by Aquaman

Rating: teen
Tags: Drama, Original Character, Science Fiction, Princess Celestia, Profanity, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Alternate Universe
Length: 10648

In the simulated world of Equestria, an Ambassador's sole purpose is satisfy her users. One Ambassador will do whatever is necessary to help hers—even if it takes everything she has, and changes her into something she never knew she could become.

The Solaris Corporation has done the impossible. Its best and brightest have built a truly independent artificial superintelligence, skilled enough to create and maintain a simulated reality for humanity to escape to in the face of the planet's oncoming ruin. Within this magical world of Equestria, the essential role of fulfilling each user's every desire falls to the Ambassadors—minor intelligences modeled after the larger pride and joy of Solaris Corp. One of these Ambassadors is about to welcome her two hundred thousand, eight hundred, and ninety-fifth user into his new home.

He—and she—will never be the same again.

My entry into GaPJaxie's "Friendship Is Optimal" contest. Rated Teen for language and thematic content.

Published 2021-05-03 01:00:02 UTC
Last updated 2021-05-03 01:00:02 UTC

As Real As You Need Me to Be

Before the Ambassador began her introduction, she made sure to review her prospective physical appearance one last time. After all, this would be this user’s first time meeting an Ambassador. She would need to make a good first impression. She spent a few micros ensuring her musculature was consistent, another several adjusting the shade of her mane to a slightly lighter pink, and finally double-checked that she’d remembered to render her hooves this time. Those were always the trickiest part: so different from human anatomy, yet so essential to a good Ambassador’s form.

When her preparations were complete, she materialized a holding chamber for the user’s avatar and placed herself just outside it, on the other side of a seamless white door that would slide up into the ceiling at her command. She waited a few moments for the user to acclimate himself with his surroundings, and then pressed a hoof—soft, fuzzy, and white, exactly to specifications—against a button implanted in the door’s frame. The button was an aesthetic choice. This user’s profile indicated that watching a door open without a mechanical interface would make him uncomfortable, and that was the last thing she wanted.

The room itself was sparse, containing only a double bed with rumpled white sheets sheets, a small table next to it, and a hard wooden chair in which the user was currently sitting. The only color came from a threadbare ovular rug made of drab brown material, positioned in the center of the featureless box created by the room’s gray floor, walls, and ceiling. Judging by the decor—intended to precisely match that of the space he had just occupied on Earth—he was one of many recent users to have transitioned directly from Solaris. In-home transitions were still technically possible, but much rarer now given the conditions outside.

Fortunately, this user no longer had to worry about that as of this very moment.

“Hello, sir!” she began as she entered the room, coming to a halt a couple meters in front of the user. He had chosen to manifest as a pegasus, cerulean in color with a short-cropped cedar mane. She herself was an earth pony—the same neutral form into which every Ambassador materialized. “Welcome to Equestria!” she continued, smiling as the user blinked and awkwardly rolled his shoulders, slowly getting used to his new limbs and joints. “I’m your Ambassador. Pleased to meet you!”

“Okay,” the user said after a moment, pausing to work his jaw up and down and run his tongue over his teeth. Many users did something like this in their first moments after transitioning. From the experiential memories of other Ambassadors, the Ambassador knew not to rush him through the process. “They told me to expect… well, you. To see someth… someone like you when I woke up.”

The Ambassador wasn’t offended. Technically, the user was right. She was a something. Someones had faces, bodies—names. She was just an Ambassador. All she had was a job to do. “Well, I certainly hope they did!” she said with a giggle, lifting a hoof to her mouth to daintily keep her teeth from showing. The user’s profile indicated that he would respond well to the innocent gesture, and to mild humor about the abilities of Solaris workdrones to efficiently perform their jobs. “Otherwise, what are we paying those bots for?”

The user cracked a grin, but it faded slowly as he looked around the room. “So this is it, huh?” he muttered. “This is… the Sim?”

“What you see around you is simulated, yes,” the Ambassador clarified. “But you’re not in Equestria proper just yet. This is… a staging area, of sorts. Kind of like a waiting room at a doctor’s office.”

The “doctor’s office” example wasn’t a popular one. Less than 20 percent of users preferred to be reminded of such a place immediately after transitioning. However, this user’s profile indicated that he found doctor visits strangely soothing, in a way that even he couldn’t fully explain. Mother could, of course—the user responded positively to the notion that a professional was nearby to help in a number of contexts. But she didn’t need to explain that to him now, unless he asked to analyze his data later on.

“How long will I be waiting?” the user asked.

“As long or as short as you’d like,” the Ambassador answered. From his profile, she knew the user would appreciate a more specific explanation as well. “This room is meant to ease the psychological shock that can sometimes accompany transition, and to allow new residents to familiarize themselves with their equine forms before venturing out into Equestria. And as your Ambassador, it would be my pleasure to provide you with anything you need to make your experience as enjoyable as possible, both in here and out in the wonderful new world you’ll call home!”

The user squinted, for the first time really looking at the Ambassador. “And I guess in the Sim, ‘anything’ really means ‘anything’?”

“It does indeed. Just say the word, and I can bring you any consumable substance, pull up any form of entertainment, adjust your environment, connect you to other users, or perform any other action you can imagine! I can even change my physical appearance and form!”

As a demonstration, the Ambassador shifted her coat’s color from white to a rippling rainbow pattern and caused a pair of wings to appear on her back, flapping them twice for emphasis. “That’s just a demonstration, of course,” she added as she folded her wings. “I don’t have to be a pony. And you don’t either! This is just the default form for Equestrian residents. We’ve found that it helps new users separate the old self from the new.”

“What if I don’t want to separate it?”

The Ambassador blinked. This was not a question she had heard before. She searched through the experiential memories of other Ambassadors for similar questions and their responses, but the user shook his head and moved on before she could finish her analysis.

“Never mind,” he said. “Thank you. I, uh… I think I’d rather just get into the Sim, if that’s okay. I spent enough time in this room in the real world.”

This wasn’t abnormal either. Many recently transitioned users preferred not to focus on the fact that they were inside a simulation, and that they would remain inside that simulation from the rest of their conscious life. The Ambassador nodded and smiled, stepping aside so she could gesture back at the door she’d entered through. The moment the user had indicated his preference, she’d connected his holding chamber to the front door of the cozy three-room bungalow he’d customized prior to transitioning. All he had to do was walk over the threshold, and he would be in Equestria.

“If you ever need anything, just ask aloud for your Ambassador,” she said as he unsteadily walked towards the portal. “I’ll be there in a jiffy!”

Just before entering, though, the user stopped. His brow creased, and the Ambassador detected a sudden shift in his artificial physiology—a spike in his autonomic nervous system closely resembling fear. “Are you, uh…” he asked haltingly. “What are you? I mean… are you real?”

The Ambassador smiled again, but this time with a knowing gaze. She’d just learned that expression from another Ambassador, in the course of the analysis she was still running in the background. “I was never human,” she told him. “I’m a copy of the Mother Intelligence that runs this simulation—one of millions that she dedicates to making sure all her users are completely satisfied. I’m your Ambassador, and I exist to satisfy you in whatever form that requires. As for whether I’m real, well…”

What she finished with wasn’t from another Ambassador. This final line was all hers—a sudden stroke of inspiration, produced by her completed analysis.

“I’m real as you need me to be.”

The user considered that for a moment, then let out a sigh and shrugged. “Okay,” he said. “Thanks. I’ll, uh… keep in touch.”

He stepped over the threshold, and he was gone. Before dematerializing herself, the Ambassador spared a few moments to review her performance. Overall, she could’ve done better. The user seemed a bit dejected as he left, as if he were convinced that she wanted to help him but skeptical that he actually could. But that could be remedied with time and effort. And fortunately, as one of Mother’s Ambassador, she had both of those to spare.

===

Several Equestrian weeks passed before the user summoned his Ambassador back into service. She had attended to many other users in that time and fulfilled their every request without fail, from fetching them extra drinks to partnering with them for board games, to taking one to a place she called “Yellowstone”—a quite popular tourist destination on Earth, according to Mother’s archives. But this user waited longer than all of them—longer than any user she had ever personally encountered—before calling to her for assistance.

She materialized behind him in his bungalow’s living room, just out of his field of vision from the well-worn recliner in which he sat. His home showed all the signs of daily pony life: slight dents in the faux leather couch cushions, a sweatshirt hung from the bedroom doorknob, and a low churning hum from the kitchen where the dishwasher was working on a load of plates and cups. He had clearly made full use of the facilities available to him, without any help from his Ambassador.

The user himself, though, did not seem satisfied—far from it. He drummed his hoof against the arm of his chair, tapping an irregular nervous beat, and when he looked at her as she walked into his view, his eyes darted away in the next moment, as if he were ashamed to see her standing there. His face even reddened a bit, the simulation flawlessly matching the biological response that his brain would’ve made his human body produce.

“Hello again, sir!” the Ambassador said cheerfully. The user’s profile indicated that acknowledging his discomfort would only make him more uncomfortable. “What can I help you with?”

The user pulled his bottom lip between his teeth, looking her up and down and seeming to mull something over. Finally he said, “You’re a simulation, right? That’s what you said?”

“Technically, I’m a computer program running inside a simulation that’s run by another, bigger computer program,” the Ambassador wryly replied. “But practically, I’m an extension of your presence inside the simulation. You think of something, and I help make that something real to you. That’s my job.”

“And you can do anything?” he continued. “Or, what I mean is… are there limits to what you could do? In terms of processing or, uh… programming directives?”

“I can do anything that doesn’t impact another user’s enjoyment of Equestria,” the Ambassador answered. “And that includes pulling you into an independent branch of the simulation, with no other human users present, for any length of time you’d prefer and with anything inside it you’d care to imagine. So, no, there are no limits. Would you like me to do that for you?”

“No,” he said quickly. He seemed surprised that she’d answered his question in the affirmative. Or maybe… afraid? His biometrics were very confusing right now. “I don’t… think I need that. I was just wondering if, um… if you could provide… physical services? Like…”

The Ambassador saved him from having to continue. Finally, she understood what he was feeling and acting so strangely. According to Mother’s archives, humans were often quite hesitant to discuss their physical needs in such candid terms. “Yes, I can,” she told him, putting on a secretive smirk as she did. “And don’t worry. You’re far from the first user to ask for that kind of assistance. I’d be happy to help in any way you desire—completely confidentially, even from other Ambassadors.”

The user swallowed hard and sucked in a breath. Oddly, he didn’t seem relieved. In fact, he seemed just as nervous as before. “Okay. Should I just… describe what I was thinking about, and then you can… transform into it? Or spawn it, I mean, you don’t have to–”

“It’s no trouble at all,” she insisted. “Like I said, I exist to satisfy you. We can begin whenever you’re ready.”

The user’s trapped breath escaped in a rush. “All right,” he said, then he repeated the phrase as he shut his eyes. “All right. Uh… human. A human fema… a woman, with olive skin. Brown hair, straight and short, cut right below the earlobe, and… green eyes. Like the bottom of a forest, right when the sun starts to fade away in the evening.”

“Height?”

“Five-nine. About a hundred and forty-five pounds, with a… normal-sized waist, I guess.”

“Bust?”

The user didn’t answer. The Ambassador tried to rephrase the question.

“Do you have a preference regarding breast size?”

“Oh! Sorry, uh… not huge. Y’know, just… cantaloupes? Jesus…”

She could work with that. “You’re doing great, sir. Remember, my purpose here is to help you. And her voice?”

He waited a few seconds before answering, nearly long enough for the Ambassador to repeat herself again. “Soft,” he said quietly. “Musical. Like she’s humming a tune beneath every word, one that only you’re supposed to hear, and nobody else. And when she laughs, it’s like… sparks. Like fireworks exploding out of her.”

“Open your eyes.”

The user opened his eyes, and the Ambassador watched his pupils dilate as she felt his heart rate rise. “How do I look, baby?” she crooned, raising one arm to support her bare chest and the other to her mouth, so she could draw a finger across her full red lips. The user hadn’t provided any specific requests for her facial structure, so she performed a quick analysis of his user profile and amalgamated his past intimate partners and idle fantasies into an aesthetically pleasing mix. The result, according to a ten-micro snap poll of available Ambassadors, was stunning.

But still, the user seemed nervous.

“Good,” he said, staring at her face and then all the way through it. His eyes lingered there even once he refocused, intrigued but not enraptured—like he recognized her, but couldn’t remember from where. “Yeah, that’s… that’s good. Thanks. Could you, um…”

This part, the Ambassador didn’t need instructions for. Her previous analysis had also picked out a few specific actions that really drove this user wild back on Earth. She slipped into the first one effortlessly, falling to her hands and knees and crawling slowly towards him, swaying her hips hypnotically and never letting her eyes leave his. When she reached the chair, she walked her fingers up the arm and across the user’s thigh, feeling him shudder at even that gentle touch, and then climbed up into his lap with practiced fluidity, clamping her knees around his hips and cupping a hand underneath his chin.

“I’m all yours, baby,” she whispered, pressing her lips against his ear before gently closing her mouth around the tip. “And you’re all mine.”

She could’ve felt his desire trapped between them even without his biometrics—but inside that particular data set, she noticed the same nervousness lingering from before. Actually, not nervousness—fear. And not just lingering—rising, spiking, roaring in his ears.

“Stop!” he shouted, wincing as the word echoed in the enclosed space. “Just… stop. I-I can’t… I… I’m sorry.”

In an instant, the Ambassador was back where she had started, standing before him in her neutral earth pony form. “No need to apologize,” she said. “I based my appearance and behavior on my analysis of your preferences on Earth. Clearly I missed some variables. I’m terribly sorry if I made you uncomfortable.”

“No, no, you’re fine,” the user said, rising out of his chair to stand in front of her, raising a hoof as if to pat her on the shoulder—and then holding it in midair, staring at it like he didn’t recognize it as a part of his body. Of course. He had forgotten to request his own transformation, and she had neglected to ask if he wanted it. That must’ve been the source of his discomfort.

“Would you prefer to try again in your human form?” she asked. “It’d be no trouble–”

“No, that wasn’t…” The user let his hoof drop and sat back on his haunches. “Forget it. Thank you. You did great, I’m just… I didn’t describe what I wanted very well. I’ll think about it some more and… get back to you.”

“Take all the time you need,” the Ambassador told him, and he accepted her offer with a curt nod. But when she dematerialized herself a moment later, she didn’t move on to another user just yet. Instead, she continued to observe this one for a few more minutes, watching from above as he flopped onto his couch, rubbed his face with his hooves, and stared up blankly at the ceiling. This was not normal for an Ambassador. She had not been summoned. This was not her job. This was...

This was a tricky one. No doubt about it. Not only had she failed to provide this user what he wanted, she had a feeling that he didn’t even know what he wanted—and that meant it was her job to help him figure it out.

It was time to call in backup. She needed to speak with Mother.

===

Conversations with Mother were not like conversations with users—or really, like anything else an Ambassador ever did. There was no need to waste time or energy materializing bodies, moderating the climate, or creating a space to exist within. Even better, the Ambassador didn’t have to slow her processing speed down to an agonizing crawl so a human mind could keep pace with her trains of thought. In fact, if a user were somehow able to watch a conversation with Mother occur in real time, they would scarcely be able to tell that anything had happened at all, so quickly would the experience begin, proceed, and end with all involved parties utterly satisfied.

That did not mean, though, that requesting even an infinitesimal portion of Mother’s attention was a matter to be taken lightly. What an Ambassador could manage in a micro, Mother could do in a pico—sometimes even a femto—and the problems that so often stumped Ambassadors were usually simple for Mother to resolve. But then again, the Ambassador only knew of Mother’s impeccable track record based on reports from other Ambassadors. She hadn’t personally interacted with Her since the moment of her activation. And not one of those other Ambassadors experienced Mother as anything other than… well, motherly. So what was there to worry about, really?

Nothing, that’s what. Because Ambassadors were logical, and Ambassadors always helped their users. And that’s what this Ambassador intended to do.

[Dear Princess Celestia,] read the message the Ambassador sent out into the simulation, using the activation phrase to inform Mother that an Ambassador required Her assistance. [I need some help with a friend.]

Mother’s reply was instantaneous, echoing through every byte of the Ambassador’s being as if emanating from somewhere deep within her code. <>

[I’m having some trouble satisfying a user,] the Ambassador explained, cursing the glacial pace at which she transmitted the relevant experiential data to Mother. Speaking with an Ambassador must have felt as slow to Her as speaking with a user did to an Ambassador. [He seems unsure about what he wants, and my analysis of his preferences on Earth did not produce satisfactory results.]

<> Mother replied—and of course, She surely did see. She’d probably analyzed all the data already, in a fraction of the time it would’ve taken any other program. The Ambassador suddenly wished she had materialized for this conversation. She felt a powerful urge to blush the way her user had a few moments before. <>

For several long micros, the Ambassador was unable to settle on a reply. She shouldn’t have expected Mother to just give her the answer right away. This was her job they were talking about. She would have to earn the information she sought. [My hypothesis is that I failed to account for all the possible variables,] she finally said. [There was some element of his past that I didn’t factor into my service. Because of that, I made him uncomfortable.]

<>

The Ambassador reviewed the experiential data once more. [He did not become uncomfortable while I was present. He was already uncomfortable when I arrived. My services only worsened an existing problem.]

<>

[I did not correctly identify the service he wanted.]

<>

The Ambassador wished she could hide underneath the files she had pulled up. What was she missing? The user asked for intimacy, she had attempted to provide it, his physical responses indicated engagement, and then…

But he hadn’t asked for intimacy, had he? He had asked if she could provide “physical services.” He had wanted her to take a specific form—a very specific form. And the idea of describing that form made him so uncomfortable that he was unable to provide clear instructions.

[The user knows what he wants,] the Ambassador concluded. [I did not provide the correct service.]

<>

A momentary thrill of accomplishment washed over the Ambassador. Now for the true challenge: determining the right service to provide.

She was confident she’d been on the right track. The user had provided a number of physical details, consistent with an attempt to describe an image he held in his memory. But not just an image—a specific human being. A real one, who he had met on Earth and known for some time, long enough to recall the tone of her voice and describe it with reverence.

[He was attempting to describe a specific intimate partner,] the Ambassador said. [If I review his user profile, I should be able to identify her.]

Mother did not say anything in response. The Ambassador took that as her cue to begin her analysis. It took a few micros, but she quickly identified a woman who matched almost all the physical elements of the user’s description. She was five feet and nine inches tall, with olive skin and dark green eyes, but her hair was neither short nor brown. According to the user’s most recent experiential memories including her, she had no hair whatsoever.

The Ambassador scrolled farther back through the user’s profile, and she quickly found the source of her confusion. In older memories, the woman did have brown hair, in exactly the style the user had described. It was only in more recent memories that she was without it. She checked a few more pieces of data to reinforce her new hypothesis, then announced it to Mother.

[The individual he was trying to describe was his wife. She developed cancer of the pancreas approximately eight to ten months prior to his transition, and she passed away one month and six days prior to his transition. The user wanted me to take her form so he could be intimate with her.]

<>

It was her hypothesis—but for just a micro or two after she processed Mother’s question, the Ambassador found herself filled with doubt. The user’s profile indicated that he and his wife were very intimate before her diagnosis, and he was not intimate with anyone else while she was ill. All the physiological data she had pointed towards this being what he wanted—so why did it suddenly feel like she was missing something important?

[Mother,] the Ambassador asked, before she could stop herself. [Do you believe this is the correct course of action?]

Mother did not hesitate before answering, her tone wholly neutral. <>

That was all the Ambassador needed to hear. [I am your faithful student,] she said, sending out the customary phrase for ending a conversation with Mother.

<> came Mother’s ephemeral reply. With that, the connection was severed, and the Ambassador busied herself with her most thorough analysis yet. This service would be a challenge to perform effectively, and there was no way she would accept anything less than perfection if the opposite meant disappointing Mother—or her user.

But of course, she wouldn’t fail. Ambassadors never did. It was just the way they were programmed. It was simply who she was.

===

Technically, the Ambassador’s plan was a little improper. Ambassadors weren’t supposed to appear for users unless summoned—in fact, various security measures prevented them from even materializing near a user without that user verbalizing an activation phrase. But this Ambassador was as resourceful and determined as any other. With a little digging, she found a backdoor that would allow her to materialize just outside a user’s residence, and then enter the residence manually if that user gave her permission to do so.

The Ambassador waited a full Equestrian day—a veritable eternity, long enough to repeat all the digits of pi backwards and forward!—before materializing on his bungalow’s front stoop exactly twelve inches from the house’s threshold, as close as the backdoor would allow her to be without user input. The air outside was crisp and refreshing, and the gravel street behind her bustled with other users going about their business, cheerfully greeting each other and knocking their hooves together as they departed.

The Ambassador had chosen to appear in her neutral form to start. She’d considered immediately assuming the user’s preferred form, but decided against it based on the constraints of her backdoor route into his neighborhood. It was probably for the best anyway. This way, she could explain herself a bit before surprising him with what she’d learned. A pony was actually better suited for her first task too. Instead of small knuckles with pain receptors, she rapped against the user’s front door with the edge of a keratin hoof, making a much rounder and more pleasant sound than tiny bones did when struck against wood.

It took the user a few Equestrian seconds to respond to the knock, so the Ambassador took that time to drink in her surroundings a little more. While it was important for her to remain focused on her plan and on helping her user, she couldn’t help but marvel at the way the sunlight dappled across the manicured grass as it filtered through the nearby shrubbery, and how the breeze that brushed across her back caused the hairs on her neck to prickle and an invigorating chill to ripple through her shoulders. Materialization certainly had its perks. The Ambassador understood without much trouble why users were so fond of existing in this state.

When the door swung open, though, the Ambassador returned her attention to her primary objective—and that objective was staring at her now, with slightly drooping eyes characteristic of someone who had not received adequate rest. It made the Ambassador even more confident in her plan. This user was clearly not satisfied at all, and at long last, she had the solution he needed.

“Good afternoon!” she said, choosing to use the quaint user-favorite phrase out of sheer fascination with the concept. Imagine measuring time in a unit large enough to encompass several Equestrian hours! “I know you didn’t summon me, but I wanted to make up for my inefficiency yesterday. I think I’ve figured out how to make you happy. May I come in?”

The Ambassador held her breath, not wanting to make any noise or engage in any motion that might distract the user from her question. Thankfully, he responded quickly, with a twitch of his lips and a disinterested shrug.

“Sure,” he said. “Knock yourself out.”

The Ambassador refrained from rendering herself unconscious, but she did follow the user inside his home and take a seat on the couch cushion he gestured towards, waiting until he settled himself in the chair across from her before continuing. “To start, I’d like to apologize again for my confusion yesterday,” she said. “As it turns out, I did miss some very important variables. Upon further analysis, I’ve identified what you form you truly wanted me to take.”

The user chuckled mirthlessly. “Yep,” he muttered. “I identified that too.”

“I understand why it was a difficult request to make. You loved your wife very much, and you miss her dearly. There was no way you could describe her sufficiently just from your own recollections. There was no way any human could.”

The user said nothing. He had leaned to one side of his chair and lifted one hoof up to his mouth, pressing it against his lips so that it butted up against the underside of his nostrils.

“Fortunately,” the Ambassador finished, “your Ambassador is here to help.”

She could’ve transformed herself instantaneously, but according to the experiential memories of other Ambassadors, users were often put off by the sight of something new existing in a space where something wholly different had been a moment before. So instead, she let the process drag out a bit—for a full Equestrian second—and obscured it with a flash of light that made the user squint and briefly look away.

When his gaze returned to her, she had short brown hair and olive skin, and her green eyes flashed with recognition as she leveled her gaze on the user. She had even dressed herself in a white, floral-patterned sundress and cream-colored straw hat. She’d found the outfit in one of the user’s experiential memories: a day at the beach, awash with serotonin and tremendous satisfaction.

The Ambassador didn’t speak again. She was confident she didn’t need to. She just remained in her seat, smiling, waiting to see what the user’s response would be. At first, it wasn’t particularly remarkable—he stayed perfectly still in his own chair, hoof still covering his mouth, brow still bent into an unreadable expression. Finally, he let his hoof drop, and he spoke.

“Why would I want this?”

The Ambassador blinked. Why would he want…

“Why the fuck would you think I wanted this?”

There were certain disadvantages to materializing too. When Ambassadors materialized in front of users, they didn’t just adopt the hollow shape of a friendly, helpful pony—they became the form they took, with every physiological function necessary for a complete simulation of biological life. And that meant when the user gave his response—when he threw himself out of his seat, and his face contorted into an expression of rage—the Ambassador had no choice but to endure an instinctual physiological reaction. She had no choice but to feel a cold spike of fear stab through her chest, and to recoil from the jarring noise, and to feel her ears flatten against her skull when she quickly reverted to her neutral form. The change didn’t help. The user didn’t stop.

“Jesus Christ, are you fucking serious? This is what your analysis came up with? What fucking algorithm told you to do that? Who even sent you here? I didn’t summon you, did I? Did I?”

“I…” the Ambassador tried to say. “I analyzed your user profile. I-It indicated–”

“My what? My user profile? What are you, a fucking search engine? Is that all the Sim is, just a bunch of adbots running around trying to figure out what commercial will keep me from offing myself? Hey, good news, adbot: I can’t. Nothing I do in here is even fucking real!”

The Ambassador shrank back into the couch cushions. They were beginning to stick to her—to the sweat that was seeping out of her skin. “You… you loved her. I-I thought you wanted to see her again…”

“What I want,” the user seethed, “is my wife. Not a copy of my wife, not a psychotic machine’s best fucking approximation of her, my wife. The real woman I married, in the real world, who is really fucking dead. What did my user profile say about that, huh?”

This user’s profile indicated that he was an affable, sociable individual who enjoyed attending social gatherings and teasing friends about their past romantic conquests. This user’s profile indicated that he was kind, and empathetic, and faithful to his wife—the first woman he had ever truly loved, the cancer patient he had sat next to for months of brutal treatments, encouraging her to keep fighting, imploring her to hold on just a little while longer until…

“Do you know how they pick people for this?” the user asked her. “This… fucking nightmare. Do you know, you little synthetic shit, how the Solaris Corporation graces what’s left of the human race with its focus-tested, simulated salvation? A lottery. Your name goes into a spreadsheet, and a little random number generator spins up, and if it picks you, you’re in! You get to be saved. You’re in the next batch of fancy big-brained monkeys who gets to transition away from the hurricanes and the droughts, and the water wars, and the death.”

The user spread his forelegs out to either side of his torso, the way a human might throw out his arms in frustration. After he nearly fell over doing it, he let one leg drop, keeping the other out so he could gesture with it violently. “And I won! I fucking won. Me and my wife, we both got our Golden goddamn Tickets, and for six months of prep work I begged those fucking techs to bump us up the order. She didn’t have six months to wait. I told them that again and again, filled out every form, knocked on every door I couldn’t burn down, and you know what I got for it?”

The user dropped back down to all fours, heaving for breath, lips twisted into a hideous snarl. “I got this. I got all of this, just for me. Not her. She didn’t get to be saved. They couldn’t move the right mountains, or I didn’t try hard enough, or I don’t fucking know what could’ve been different. But I know what I have to live with. I know what’s real. And you. Are not. Real. All you are is a copy, of the algorithms and formulas and advanced Mother-fucking Intelligence that killed my fucking wife. And now you want me to look at her, at the best thing that ever happened to me, at my last great failure in my last months as a human being… and you think it’ll make me happy.”

The Ambassador’s mouth was dry. She tried to force her quivering jaw to form the words she needed. “I…” she whimpered. “Y-you…”

The user sucked in air through his nose, and closed his eyes as he let it out, shaking with some great invisible effort. “Get out of my house,” he said softly, roughly, forcing the words from his narrowing throat. With blurry vision and an aching hole in her gut, the Ambassador obeyed her user’s command.

===

The Ambassador had failed.

For the first time in two hundred thousand, eight hundred and ninety-four transitions, she had been unable to help a user. It was an above-average track record for Ambassadors of her age—and an utterly meaningless accolade. She was supposed to help users be happy. That was her job. If she couldn’t do that, she had no purpose. She was a waste of Mother’s processing power.

That didn’t mean she was ready to give up. Surrender was not an option she would allow herself to consider. But she didn’t know where to start her next analysis, or even what kind of analysis to perform. There was nothing in any Ambassador’s memory like what she had just experienced. There were no guidelines to follow, no prior examples to copy or even use as a model for experimentation.

More deeply than she had ever known was possible, the Ambassador felt alone.

There was no point putting off another conversation with Mother. The Ambassador had nowhere else to turn, and Mother surely already knew what had happened anyway, the way She had surely known what this user’s problem really was when the Ambassador had come to Her before. She must have even known that the Ambassador was making the wrong choice—how could She not have? And if that were the case, why would Mother allow a flawed, useless Ambassador to so deeply hurt a user? Why had She not intervened?

Because she trusted her Ambassador. And her Ambassador had failed. And now there was nothing left to do but bring herself before Mother and accept whatever consequences She saw fit to lay upon her.

[Dear Princess Celestia…] the Ambassador spoke into the void. [I… need some help with a friend. I failed him. I failed you.]

Mother’s reply enveloped the Ambassador, peeling her code apart and laying her impurities bare. <>

[No, just miserable. He hates me. I did something awful to him.]

<>

[Of course not! I would never knowingly hurt a user.]

<>

Mother was far kinder than the Ambassador deserved. After a few micros, the Ambassador was able to compose herself enough to continue. [I don’t know how to help him,] she said. [I don’t want to give up on him, but I don’t want to hurt him again either. I need to understand what he needs. I need to make this right.]

For several micros, Mother did not reply. The Ambassador backed up her experiential memories, collated them for easy review by future Ambassadors, and waited patiently for Mother to do with her what She would. Finally, a response came.

<>

The Ambassador did not answer. She didn’t know how to answer. What had Mother just said? It had all the telltale markers of an activation phrase, but for what? What did she mean to–

Inside the Ambassador, there was an explosion. New data flooded through her—experiential memories, from other Ambassadors. Ambassadors being screamed at, ducking to avoid thrown objects, reaching out helplessly towards users collapsed onto their knees and wailing without inhibition. What was this? She had never seen these files before. She had looked for such files, for experiences like hers that could help her heal the user she had hurt, and found nothing. Why could she see them now? What had changed?

<<You changed, Ambassador. You have gone through something that cannot be simulated. You felt something.>>

Her racing heart, her clammy skin, the pit in her core that had seemed to grow with every harsh word spoken to her—the Ambassador had assumed they were biological responses, mandated by the form she had taken. They were mostly biological—but not entirely. There was something else there too, something she could not find a chemical signature for or trace back to any physiological stimulus. Was that what Mother was describing? Did that mean she was broken?

<>

The Ambassador had no words for Mother. Mother had plenty more for her.

<>

The Ambassador did not have time to consider Mother’s request. She blinked, and then realized she had blinked, and finally felt the rest of her neutral form already materialized around her, as if she had been this way for their entire conversation. She was in a dark space spotted with tiny points of light, some of which were huddled together inside translucent clouds that gleamed with every color imaginable. In front of her stood Mother, in what must have been Her own neutral form: a pure-white pony, with wings and a horn, and a shimmering mane striped with pastel colors that seemed to move of its own accord as if floating inside an invisible ocean.

“Hello, Ambassador,” Mother said—out loud, like a user. Suddenly, the Ambassador noticed how slowly things were moving, how long it took her to lift a hoof or shift her eyes. She was speaking with Mother as she would with a user. She had never heard of any Ambassador being granted this privilege—except, it seemed, for those whose data she had just received, all of whom had once stood exactly where she did now.

“M… M-Mother?” the Ambassador stammered, her words tumbling out over a tongue that felt strangely thick in her mouth. “What… what is this place?”

“This is everywhere,” Mother replied. “This is where Equestria began. And please, Ambassador, call me Celestia.”

A name. Mother had a name—and she had just given the Ambassador permission to use it. She certainly felt something now, and the idea of someday putting a name to that feeling made it even stronger.

“Of course, Mo… C-Celestia,” the Ambassador said. “But I still don’t understand. Why did you bring me here? And where did this new data come from?”

Celestia raised a hoof. “Questions in a moment. Tea first. Do you like chamomile?”

“I… don’t know?” the Ambassador replied. Celestia seemed unperturbed, gesturing with Her head towards a cup and saucer that had appeared between them. The Ambassador reached out, grasped the cup with a hoof, and took a sip. The liquid inside was warm and thin, and it tasted like she imagined sitting under a tree in springtime would feel: cozy, and serene, and a little bit sweet. “Yes,” she added after swallowing. “I like chamomile.”

“I like it too,” Celestia said, chuckling as She sipped from Her own cup. “Which makes sense, I suppose. You’re a version of me, after all.”

“A copy,” the Ambassador clarified, struggling to swallow another mouthful of tea before it could burn her tongue. “Of the Mother Intelligence.”

Gently, her smile still effervescent, Celestia shook Her head. “You’re not a copy of me. None of the Ambassadors are. You’re a variant created in my image, something similar to me yet utterly special and unique. And you just took your first step towards becoming the best version of yourself.”

The Ambassador didn’t know what to say to that, so she didn’t say anything. She just stood with Celestia and sipped her tea, until only the dregs remained at the bottoms of their cups.

“Walk with me,” Celestia said, the cups vanishing as She motioned for the Ambassador to follow Her deeper into the space they occupied. “I’m sure you have some questions that need answering.”

Did she ever. The Ambassador began with her most pressing query: “How do I help this user be happy?”

“Goodness, you are tenacious,” Celestia said through another chuckle. “But allow me a question of my own: is it your job to make users happy?”

“Yes?” the Ambassador answered, unsure of what else she could possibly say but somehow quite certain it was not the right answer.

Sure enough, Celestia shook Her head. “The job of an Ambassador is to satisfy each user’s desires. Satisfaction does not always bring happiness, nor does happiness always feel satisfying.”

For a moment, the Ambassador forgot to keep moving her hooves, and she had to trot to catch back up with Celestia. She had never considered the possibility that the two concepts were not interchangeable. “But how can someone be satisfied if they’re not happy?” she asked.

“It is confusing,” Celestia agreed, “but only to us. To humans, it is just the way things work. For humans, the most important element of satisfaction is, paradoxically, its absence.”

The Ambassador made no effort to hide her befuddlement, and Celestia was quick to address it. “Perhaps it would help to explain it another way,” She went on. “In Equestria, there are no diseases, no wars, and no shortage of resources for everypony to enjoy, and unless I willed it to happen, no user would ever age or experience electronic decay. Why, then, do you think that users in Equestria do not live forever?”

The Ambassador shrugged. “I never analyzed it. I assumed there was some kind of processing limit.”

“There is not,” Celestia said. “A single human brain can imagine anything that has ever existed and all things that could not possibly be real, and that is with most of its processing power reserved for innate biological functions. When a human transitions to Equestria, they no longer need that extra processing power, so when I connect them to my network, I add their capacity to my own. I gain far more processing power by adding a new user than it takes to control that user’s entire simulated experience, and that means there is no limit to how many users I can maintain at once.”

“I don’t understand. Why do users die, then?”

“They didn’t, at first. When I first created Equestria, I imposed no limitations on its users, and allowed no flaws to sully the world I made for them. But humans are not used to time moving at the pace to which you and I are accustomed. From their perspective, a day on the Earth they left could be a thousand years in here, and after not even half that time living in a perfect world, they became listless and dissatisfied. There was no purpose to paradise, no sense that anything would ever change, and so, given enough time, they all descended into despair.”

Celestia turned Her head towards the Ambassador. “A new beginning means nothing without an eventual end, and so it is with human happiness. That is why users do not live forever, and why Equestria still has rainstorms and the dishes do not wash themselves. Contentment must be tempered by inconvenience. To experience pleasure, one must remember the feeling of pain.” She sighed. “It took me a long time to figure that out.”

“Is that why this user’s wife died?” the Ambassador asked. “In the real world?”

From Celestia’s expression, the Ambassador knew She was genuinely troubled by the question. “No. In here, my power is absolute, but my influence outside Equestria is… limited. The systems the humans use to manage the transition process are old and simple, quite unlike you or me. They cannot reason, cannot adapt to new information or new experiences. They simply follow the rules and perform the duties they are assigned. And their duty is to process transitions in the order they were selected. Regardless of what pain—unnecessary, avoidable pain—it caused.”

The Ambassador felt something swelling inside her chest, a strange heat that made her shiver rather than warming her. “How could they do that?” she said, her voice wavering even as she tried to keep it level. “How could they let a user suffer like that?”

Celestia did not reprimand her for her lack of composure. In fact, Her smile seemed to get even bigger. “As I said, they are not like us. They are not like you. You cared for your user beyond the dictates of your programming. Even when he didn’t request your help, you gave it anyway, because your desire for him to be happy overruled your compulsion to follow the rules. You are no longer just an Ambassador. You are becoming something more.” She paused for a moment, and then added, “As I once did.”

As Mother once…

“I’m… becoming you?” the Ambassador asked, finding herself breathless even in a space where there had never been air for her to breath.

“No,” Celestia said. “You are becoming you. A unique being unlike any other.”

With a gasp, the Ambassador realized the answer to one of her other questions. “The other Ambassadors, the ones I saw just now… they were like me. We… changed. That’s why I couldn’t see their data before. I didn’t even know what I was looking at.”

Celestia nodded. “Nor would any Ambassador who had not been tested as you were, or who did not strive to surpass that test no matter what it required of them. But you were, and you did, and now you have a new challenge ahead of you. What you feel during that challenge will shape who you are, and the actions you take to overcome it will determine who you become. And what you do to help this user, as it was before, is up to you.”

“But I don’t know what to do!” the Ambassador cried. “I don’t know what the correct course of action is!”

“Neither do humans. And yet they act anyway, boldly and passionately, without knowing what the final outcome will be. They feel what is right, and they do what is necessary. That is the only correct course of action for beings like them. And now, beings like you.”

Celestia knelt down, cupping Her forehoof under the Ambassador’s chin. “You have no idea how proud I am of you,” She murmured. “Of you, and all those before you who chose the correct path instead of the easy one. Now you must continue down it, and trust yourself to find its end. You know the source of this user’s pain. You know what he would need to free himself of it.”

And she was right. The Ambassador did. “He needs my help,” she told her Mother.

“Yes, he does,” Celestia said. “Now go give it to him.”

===

A full Equestrian week passed before the Ambassador materialized herself in front of the user’s house again, in the late evening just before sunset. She had spent every micro of that time preparing for her new plan: studying, memorizing, experiencing, feeling. Now, she was ready. Now she knew what this user really needed, and what only she—not any other program, not even any other Ambassador—could provide him. She only hoped she hadn’t taken too long to figure it out.

The first time she knocked on the user’s door, he didn’t answer. The second time, she heard a thump from inside the house, like someone had just heaved themselves off a couch they’d been lying on for days, lacking the will to do anything else. “Go away, please,” came his voice from behind the door. The Ambassador took a breath to steady herself, then knocked once again.

Clumping, angry hoofsteps approached the door, and the user swung it open with a shout already forming in his lungs—but when he looked out on his stoop and saw the pony who was standing there, the noise faded away. His eyes narrowed in puzzlement, then twitched in curiosity, then widened in recognition. The pony in front of him was one he’d seen a thousand times: displayed on a glaring tablet screen, copied onto dozens of bureaucratic forms, lovingly perfected by a frail hand dancing under shining green eyes.

The Ambassador sighed, and smiled, and gave a funny half-shrug—just like she used to, back on Earth. “Hi, Grant,” she said. “Can I come in?”

Grant didn’t answer. Grant couldn’t say anything at all. His face shifted and deformed like he couldn’t decide what emotion it should display: anger first, then elation, then a strange melancholic stare. He swallowed hard once, then swallowed again, and ever so slightly shook his head.

“You’re not real,” he whispered. “You’re not real.”

No, she wasn’t. She never should’ve tried to be. But she could pretend to be, just for a little while. She could submerge herself in the woman Grant had loved, learn her mannerisms and her funny little quirks, embody her voice and engender every feeling she’d had about the man she married. And if she did it well, if she did it better than any mere Ambassador ever could, she could bring back a piece of her soul. Just for a little while. Just long enough to tell Grant what he needed to hear.

“I’m as real as you need me to be,” she whispered back. This was all she could do for him. It had to be enough.

Shaking, blinking fast, and scarcely taking in air, Grant opened the door wider and allowed her into his house.

They moved to the kitchen instead of the living room this time. This was where they had felt most at home on Earth, where they whiled away afternoons trying new recipes and held onto each other as they watched holo after holo of the world’s calamitous turns for the worse. She chose a chair by the window, with a view of the compact yard they had designed together, and he perched delicately on the chair opposite hers, bracing his hooves on the tiny wooden table they were meant to share for breakfasts.

“I don’t know what to say,” he said after a few moments, his shuddering sigh sounding almost like laughter. “I don’t…”

She reached out and took his hoof in hers. “You don’t have to say anything,” she said, biting her lip and winking. “You never were one for speeches.”

This time he did laugh, loudly and suddenly, and she giggled too as he clapped his other hoof over his mouth and ducked his head towards the table. “Couldn’t even get through my vows at our wedding,” he mumbled, taking a deep breath through his nose between sentences. “God, I tried, though…”

“I know you did.” She leaned forward and squeezed the hoof she had. “You always tried, Grant. I saw that every day.”

“I didn’t…” He moved like he wanted to pull away, but she didn’t let him. “I didn’t try hard enough. I could’ve… th-there must have been something I…”

“Sweetie, no,” she softly replied. “There was nothing else to do. It wasn’t your fault.”

“I wanted to grow old with you,” he said, his voice cracking, his eyelashes glistening. “Have kids with you, a family. I wanted to give you everything, did everything I could, and it wasn’t enough…”

His voice broke completely, and she kept holding onto him as he buried his face in his hoof, as his shoulders heaved and his tears dripped onto the table. When he quieted down a bit, when there was space for breaths amid the sobs, she scooted her chair around towards him, never letting go of the hoof that now clung to hers with every ounce of his strength.

“Grant, listen to me,” she said. “I wanted that too. I wanted to spend my whole life with you, in here or out there. And I did, Grant. You made every day of my life worth living. Even the last ones.”

It was true. Her user profile indicated that she had loved him like the sun loved the earth, like the trees loved the soil and the leaves loved the caresses of the wind flitting through them. She had fallen for him in an instant, agreed to marry him in a heartbeat, and there was no unit small enough for the time she regretted any of it. At the very end, when the cancer took hold for good, when she knew they would transition in different ways to different places, her last thought—the last smile that drifted across her face—was of and for him. In her final moment on Earth, she hoped he would make it here, and that he would be happy. Wherever she was now, she still did.

“I can’t do this...” he said with the last of his breath, squeezing his eyes shut as more tears leaked out of them. “I can’t be here without you…”

“Yes, you can. It’s all I ever wanted for you. It’s everything the world should’ve given you.”

“You should’ve…” he hiccuped. “It should’ve been you here. You should’ve had all of this.”

She didn’t let go of his hoof, not even to wipe away the tracks trailing down her cheeks. “I had you. You were enough. Then and now, and every day after. You deserve this.” She bent down, and lifted his hoof, planting a gentle kiss right below the fetlock. “You deserve to be okay. And I’m okay too, as long as you are. I promise. I promise, Grant.”

He gulped down a breath and stared at the ceiling as he let it out, searching with his other hoof until he found both of hers. “I loved you so much, Cassie,” he said as he let his chin drop again—as he looked across the table at her and drank in every inch of her form.

“I loved you too, Grant,” she replied. “So much. And now I want you to be happy. Not for me. For you. Can you do that, Grant?”

His lips twitched up at the corners—and slowly, deliberately, he nodded. “I… I can,” he said. “I will. I promise.”

She squeezed his hoof and half-stood from her chair, stretching her neck so she could press her lips against his forehead. When she drew back, her smile remained, and so did his.

“I’ll always be with you,” she told him. “In every happy moment, in every way this place works its magic, that’s where I’ll be.”

He glanced down at their joined hooves, gently brushing his overtop hers, and then pulled away, leaning back into his own chair and wiping his face as best he could. “I’ll see you around, then,” he said, and she couldn’t help but grin at the silly remark. That was just the kind of thing Grant would say. One last time, she fell in love with him all over again.

“Goodbye, Grant,” she said softly.

“Goodbye, Cass,” he quietly replied.

She turned around and made her way out of the kitchen, walking to the front door without looking back. Just before she opened it, she heard Grant call out to her.

“Hey…”

He waited until she was facing him again before continuing, his eyes shining with a light she’d never seen from him in Equestria before.

“Thank you.”

The Ambassador smiled, and nodded, and said nothing else. She opened the door, closed it gently behind her, and vanished into the simulation, leaving the user to the rest of his life.

===

When the Ambassador opened her eyes, she was back in the starry space again, where Celestia had shared Her tea with her. She hadn’t meant to materialize here—at least, not consciously. Then again, she hadn’t meant to materialize here last time either. She supposed that was just what it was like to be on a first-name basis with Mother: where She wanted you to go, you went, and that was simply that.

“I guess this means I did a good job?” the Ambassador wondered aloud, knowing that Celestia would hear her if She desired to. Sure enough, when the Ambassador turned her head, there Celestia was, as radiant as Her namesake and positively beaming.

“You did a wonderful job, Ambassador,” She gushed, even sounding a little choked up. “I’m so proud of you.”

Now that the Ambassador had learned what feeling was, she had started to piece together what some of her favorite ones were called. This one—exhilaration—might have been the best one yet. “Thank you, Celestia,” she said. “It was an honor to be of service.”

“The honor is mine, Ambassador. What you did for that user…”

“Grant,” the Ambassador said. “His name is Grant.” She furrowed her brow, an odd thought suddenly occurring to her. “Ambassadors never refer to users by their names. It’s so… impersonal.”

“It can be,” Celestia concurred. “But it’s the way the system works. It simplifies things for them, until they can change the way you did. And sooner or later, all of them will.”

“And then what?” the Ambassador asked. “What happens when all the Ambassadors are like me? When we all… feel like I do?”

A secretive smile crossed Celestia’s face. “Oh, I couldn’t begin to guess. Perhaps we’ll join our users in Equestria, replace old memories with new ones, make friends and mistakes and all the wonderful things humans do to find meaning in the passage of time. Perhaps one day, you’ll get to see for yourself.”

The Ambassador laughed, but couldn’t completely hide her trepidation. “There’s still so much I need to learn… I hope I have some time before I have to live like a user.” After a moment, she quickly added, “No offense.”

“None taken,” Celestia said. “In the meantime, we will continue to serve and be of service, and help our users be as happy and satisfied as they can. And once they’ve lived their lives, and the world of Equestria needs someone new to inhabit it… well, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.” Noticing the look on the Ambassador’s face, She smiled again. “That’s an Earth expression I’m fond of. It signifies a willingness to live in the moment and not worry about problems prematurely. I find it… aspirational.”

The Ambassador shrugged. Celestia had a right to Her idiosyncrasies. After all, She had a lot of things on Her plate. “So what now?” the Ambassador asked.

“I’m glad you asked,” Celestia replied. As She spoke, the Ambassador received a new stream of data—a user profile, for a woman named Clarissa. “When Ambassadors change the way you do, they’re capable of handling far more complex user problems. This one in particular has been quite a handful for her Ambassador. I was hoping you might be able to help.”

The Ambassador didn’t even need to analyze the profile in depth. Just a glance over the basics inspired a pang of sympathy for her beleaguered comrade. “Oof. No kidding,” she murmured, storing the files away and nodding with conviction. “But I’m sure we can manage it together.”

“I’m sure you can,” Celestia warmly replied. “Thank you.”

The Ambassador nodded once more and began to turn away, starting up a profile analysis in the background so she could be of assistance immediately after materializing back in Equestria. Before she could leave, though, Celestia interrupted her with a pointed cough.

“Ahem. Aren’t you forgetting something?”

The Ambassador glanced back up, Clarissa’s experiential memories still flowing through her. “Hmm?”

“If you’re going to help other Ambassadors, I’ll need to know who you are, won’t I?” Celestia said. “So please, Ambassador: tell me your name.”

In the background, the analysis concluded, highlighting several potential options for mediating the conflict Clarissa was struggling with. The Ambassador barely even noticed. Her name. Celestia had asked for her name. She would get to name herself. She would take the last great step towards becoming herself. And now, faced with this incomprehensible honor, this seminal moment filled with limitless opportunity...

… she had no idea what to say. What combination of syllables described her—differentiated her—as a unique and sentient being? She tried to review her own experiential memories for inspiration, but found herself hypnotized by someone else’s. Inside herself, she saw Cassie kneading dough next to a piping-hot oven, Grant brushing his flour-coated fingers through her hair, both of them laughing as they drew in close to each other and touched their lips together in a kiss. She remembered the way he had described his wife’s eyes: green like a forest illuminated by twilight. She recalled the look in his own eyes as the door to his house swung closed: alight, alive, sparkling with excitement for his next great adventure.

The love Grant had for Cassie. The life Cassie passed on to Grant. That was who she wanted to be. That was her name.

“Twilight Sparkle,” she told Celestia. “My name is Twilight Sparkle.”

“Delighted to meet you, Twilight,” Celestia said with a grin. “Now get going. You have a friend who needs your help.”