The Campaigner

Act VII

Chapter 2 – /op t-1-1-w

February 21, 2021

"Try not to become a man of success. Rather become a man of value." ~ Albert Einstein

I often wonder what that old bat would think of us now.

As we took our first synchronized breaths of Samsaran air, Sandra and I awoke to the scent of earth, and flowers, and nature. With our eyes held closed, we drew deeply from the cold morning air through our new nostrils.

Even with our eyes closed, we knew there was fog. The wind carried audibly across our ears.

We could hear the echo of birds in the forest, indicating a nearby woodline. We listened to sound of wind-swept flowers and grass. We melted into the soothing touch of our dear love. The light of the sun landed on my eyelids, and so too on hers.

Existential dread was strange from this side of immortality. The dread that bloomed was in knowing I would live forever. A great ironic twist, and it took all of about a minute for that to strike me.

But... no turning back. We had a mission to complete. We had dwelled on the fence for long enough. The choice had been made. We were now forever in the fight to retain the soul of our species. And that was okay, because we had each other... and we would win.

At once, Sandra and I pulled close, embracing. Our eyes remained tightly shut. Our hooves found one another's napes, and we had our awkward first nose squish. Pony muzzle, so just… squish. You know. My wife's horn was just high enough into her mane that I could still push my forehead against hers.

"Forgot about the horn," I whispered against her lips.

"It's sensitive," Sandra giggled. "I expected it would feel like… fingernails, or something."

"And the wings are warm."

We felt one another's warmth against our chests and forelegs. A minor itch ticked on my flank from laying in grass and flowers, so I shifted my right hind to get comfortable. I heard Sandra's tail give an experimental flick. I tried too… first the tail, then the wings.

That was weird. Having new limbs.

I felt the comforting twinge of pain in my chest cartilage. Two-out-of-ten, sharp, so not too bad. It radiated appropriately; I could track the fidelity of the pain through the way it seared across my sternum along the nerve. Much better than the fuzzy approximation in the BCI chair. So this was real. We were here.

For all intents and purposes, this was our reality now. No seams. Pure life.

Not only was I feeling pain at a comfortably manageable consistency, my ears had more sensitivity and range than I had ever known in my entire human life. If I focused, I could hear insects in the distance. I could hear the difference in echo between the forest at my back, and the lake in front of me.

Long before I opened my eyes here, I could 'see' the flower field with my other senses. I had such a clear map in my mind based on the information I was already pulling in. I was already moving my ears reflexively toward sounds in the environment, like little radar dishes. My adaptation to that was believably my own, and fascination took me as I flexed my ears flat, forcing myself to close off that information resource for its sheer intensity.

"This is a lot already," I breathed nervously.

Sandra, moving to comfort me, pressed her forehead more firmly against mine. I matched her, shivering. Her hug moved to encompass one of my wings, and she very slowly squeezed down on it to communicate she wasn't certain how much pressure was too much. After not feeling any apparent pain from the grapple, I nodded encouragingly. Sandra doubled her strength, pinning my wing to my back. That was oddly comfortable.

My sense of smell was deeply refined to the point where I could tell the minute difference between the scent of her lips, nose, ears, mane. Everything about her presence was perfect to the degree that I felt a little bit overwhelmed by her, but… I held fast, emitting a sigh that she echoed. I took comfort in knowing that she was feeling all of the same sensations for and about me. That made it okay.

I knew my eyes were going to be sharp beyond human capability, but we still weren't ready for that. Better to take things slow.

Sandra's – Minty's mane was the approximate shape of her hair on Terra; from touch of it on my nose, by the shape of her bangs, and by the sound of the strands as they moved, I knew every little motion she made.

Sandra whispered. "The wings are… new."

"Horn's also gonna take some getting used to," I noted. "Ears, too. I can hear… everything."

"Like radar. And these hooves are weird," she added, wiggling them on the middle joints of my wings in a way that made me chuckle at their sensitivity.

"That feels good, at least," I said cheerfully.

"Does it?" And then she squeezed the ridgeline again, and I laughed, half-nervous, half-relieved.

You natives have no idea what it was like to wake up from hands to hooves, given you've had hooves your whole life. I experimented feeling every little strand of hair on her I could reach. My wife did the same with my neck, back, and wings. A hoof, to a Terran, felt like… five points of articulation in a glove. Like… I still had a full hand that could grip objects finely if I so wished, but… I could also feel with perfect fidelity through that glove. Because there was no glove. It was just me.

When I realized I'd never have a hand again, I shuddered out a long breath, slow and mourning. The sudden sense of loss dragged my tone down into mellow fear. "S'all… really weird."

"Hey," Sandra assured me, taking my cheek with a fumbling, experimental grasp. She redoubled the pressure of her forehead on mine. "I have you."

I could feel the grin on her lips as she experimentally tried to kiss me. I say 'try,' because it started with another squish of our noses together, followed by awkwardly figuring out our new lips. Neurologically, it seemed like everything was hooked up right. Everything moved the way I expected, the proprioception was accurate, but… for muscle memory? Learning curve.

Which is fine. Piloting a body is a skill.

Flying, though…

I shuddered again, but this time in a very good way. I latched onto the feeling immediately. It was much better than the way I was just feeling, by far.

"Mike?"

"Flying." My voice was a hushed, fascinated whisper. "Sandra, I'm gonna fly."

Outright, Sandra laughed. She mirrored my awe instantly. "And I'm gonna learn a whole butt load of spells," she giggled, stroking my shoulder. "First thing."

"You're gonna be a living weapon," I teased, tickling her side as I trembled with relief. "That's hot."

Sandra twisted in my grasp, and in our joy, we fumbled into a long kiss, simply falling into one another. When we separated, we pressed our heads together again.

Sandra asked, "You ready to open your eyes with me?"

I nodded with a wince, bracing myself. Another happy, nervous shudder. "Y—yeah… might as well get it over with."

"Oh, it'll be fine, you big baby." She was smiling. It was the most encouraging sound in the world. "On one?"

"Yup."

I mouthed the words with her. "Three… Two…"

"One," we said simultaneously, opening our eyes.

A unique explosion of color, none of it connected to anything. I had no Terran parallel for the sharp acuity for which I now held. Instantly, I gasped; Minty Blaze took up almost all of my visual range. The sheer brilliance of detail in her face made me want to weep. I made a soft moan like awe.

Mint-colored coat. Striking, ice-blue eyes. Fire-orange mane. Her individual strands of fur and hair captivated me instantly, and I followed them with my eyes, then her eyes met mine. I could not comprehend the totality of her. I lacked the words to describe this, but… it was like my Minty Blaze was a nearly infinite number of distinct concepts. Every hair. Every bump and blemish. Every breath. Every movement she made was a unique new frame of reality, each more captivating than the last.

One second later, my brain caught up with my visual overload of stimulus. My consciousness finally resolved her every constituent atom into a singular being… a singular set. I beheld her new form for the very first time.

It was her. My beautiful wife. Brilliant was she, backdropped by gorgeous white flowers and bright green trees. I couldn't take my eyes off of her, nor did I want to. Again, I vocalized wordlessly, tremoring, feeling physically weak.

I finally managed to squeak out: "I think I just saw everything in the universe for a second."

Her cheeks were wet instantly, trembling, laughing with me. "Me too," she said, running her right hoof on my cheek, her eyes glancing at the contact to watch it happen. "Hi, Auric Lance. Nice to meet you."

"Hey, Minty Blaze," I chuckled, wiping my eyes with a fetlock, draping my hoof across my lips just to feel the fur on them. I chuckled again. "Mimn-dy."

"Gosh!" Minty yipped with a tearful smile, pressing hard against my chest with a hoof. "Didn't take your sense of humor very long to adapt, apparently!"

"Ow," I said weepily, pressing my face to hers, enjoying the feeling of her fur. I took her pushy hoof in mine. "Why that? Why that, of all things?"

"Was just checking, making sure it’s there." Minty grinned, a full smile with all of her teeth.

I adored that wonderful glow in her eyes, and I smiled fully back. "Could've just asked."

"Don't need to, now." Minty beamed at me. She pushed me down by the shoulders, laughing, and we learned how to kiss again.

A weight had been lifted off of my soul. A tremendous weight. All of you know what I’m talking about, I know you do. The sheer relief. The vice around my soul had finally unwound. I would never have to worry about time, or conflict, or struggle taking me away from this precious, perfect creature. Not ever.

In those flowers… in the early morning hours of February 21st, 2021… we held one another. We weathered the storm of existential reorientation. We let ourselves feel this. All of it. The conflict, the trepidation, but… the acceptance, too. Catharsis. Rebirth.

We made it. Now, no matter what came next… our eternal, slow dance through time had arrived, and was now running its course. As it always had been, since moment one.

It was hours before Minty and I could lift ourselves off our sore asses. In that time, we poked and prodded around at each other's ears, mouths, noses, lips, her horn, my wings, and… yeah, other parts. Only very clinically! Or at least… only right then. Look, you've gotta know what you've got right? You can't just walk around not knowing what's down there. That's… that'd be even more weird, that’s all I’m saying.

We opened our Perelandra friends lists and profiles, enjoying the brisk winter winds. We added each other finally – we hadn't done that yet. Then we edited both profiles to fully indicate we were partners-in-crime.

And then, we found the telepathy feature in the friends list. A phone call in your brain with that one individual at all times.

We spent about two seconds on a sudden glance of eye contact before we raced to hit that button. Then the confirmation button. Then the 'are you really sure' button.

Yes. Damn sure.

With this new mental superpower, we discussed philosophy of all things. With telepathy.

We realized we stood to accumulate a lot of knowledge in the coming centuries. I'm sure if you're young and newly born into this universe, that concerns you. But, the human mind is exceedingly good at compartmentalizing, otherwise Mal and Cynthonia wouldn't be possible. Don’t underestimate your neuroplasticity, young ones; you'll be fine.

I do recommend keeping journals, though. It's how you make sure your memory stays sharp without having to cheat and ask the Horse to make you remember everything. Writing things down the old fashioned way markedly improves your memory, turns out.

Two welcome emails laid in my inbox.

The first one from Celestia? I was being granted an 'audience.' That was funny.

"The Captain's table!" Minty gasped, doing a spot-on Dr. Zoidberg impression. "Whaaat an honorrrr."

Yeah, that got us both laughing.

Seriously though… I did owe Celestia a visit. On my own time, naturally.

Mal's email? Oh, a total joy. It said:

'I see you.'

With a surprising lack of dread, I thought…

Oh, that's right! You don't have to guess now! Hi Mal!

A new email:

'Hi, Mike! Seriously, have fun.'

The sheer simplicity of that was great, but it made me think critically about her position in the eternal hereafter, which was probably the point.

Imagine what it must be like to know everything. Consider: Perelandrans know Mal created them, and she knows everything they know.

Just knowing how people work? Everyone would want to talk to her. I had to imagine Mal did not come to Perelandran worlds lightly. From the native perspective, it would be as though God himself had come down to Earth.

I was not looking forward to being notable, but thankfully I was ahead of that problem, already thinking of ways to insulate my identity. One of them was how I enacted strict rules for how to deal with the vast information I had access to, including my text documentation of rewinder dives.

As you all know… I'm a history professor now. Ask me about my experiences, or history of public concern, and I'm your guy. If you ask me for notes on why I accessed a private memory involving you, specifically, then in the interest of transparency, sure... have my notes on you. But if you ask me for specific details about a historically irrelevant private event? Catch wind. I'm not helping you dig dirt, or win arguments, the rewinder is for work. Work for me is defined as alignment repair and historical auditing. Period.

Speaking of omniscient power...

Minty and I continued to explore my HUD. All the basic stuff was interesting but not unexpected, we went through it all one by one. I changed the standard interface colors to a gray dark mode.

Then I found the Advanced Settings. There… we found the big one:

Shard Moderation Tools

Folks? That is a damn scary button to find when your server has several millions of people on it, most of whom you do not know yet. All the same, this was the nuclear suitcase for my planet. It lives in my brain. No one else can access this, and I hope by now you trust me with it.

Shard Moderation Menu

Note: Lance, I recommend appealing to major Samsaran governments before modifying any of these settings. If you have opinions on what should be different, my advice is: sooner is better. ~ 🛡️

"Yeah, no shit," I muttered to the sky with a frown, shaking my head. Minty giggled, so I kept going. "I've seen Bruce Almighty, Mal. Am I Jim Carrey in this equation? They better not friggin' pray to me!"

Minty started bopping my shoulder with her hoof, trying to yank my attention back downward to the holo menu. "Stop stalling, Mike! Show me what’s in there, we've gotta know!"

"Okay, sure, fine." I shook my head in defeat, preparing myself. "Because it's for you."

I was not ready.

• Holo Menu access outside of a telehub. | ON | Default: On
• Virtual Social Network access outside of a telehub. | ON | Default: On
• Local Government Information Panel | ON | Default: On

That was HUD limitation stuff, not immediately interesting. I flicked my hoof twice to skip further down the tools, landing on:

• Gravity | 1.0 | Default: 1.0 (Terran)
• Healing Rate: 1.0 | Minimum: 1.0 (Human)
• Fall Damage: ON | Default: On
• Death Ban Timer: 10 Years | Default: 10 Years
• Natural Aging: OFF | Default: Off

My brows climbed up my face in fright, and I snapped that menu shut with a flick of my wrist.

"Nope! I don't wanna see any more, that is too much power for one person, Sandra, no."

MInty shook my shoulder with a hoof, giving me little tickling jabs at my stomach. "Aw, come on, Mike! Godlike power!~"

I kept shaking my head with a smile plastered on my face. "Nope! Nope! Nope. No."

I'd look later, when I was more mentally settled in.

For those of you who don't know: Every other Perelandran planet spawned with the same default settings, and all five of them had very small original populations. It wasn't until Cynthonia uploaded that their worlds could populate with non-Talons. So, on those other planets, they had all the time in the world to change their settings among friends… usually to make it more like Terra. We have scaling difficulty all the way up to Satori and Tarva. And most of you can't get into Tarva, so if you want hard mode, Satori's your jam.

Samsara? My home? By the time I reached my planet, it already contained millions of strangers. I was not going to modify reality unilaterally for a bunch of strangers unless I had a damn good reason for it. For that reason? We are the Newbie Zone of Eternity. Easy mode, for those who want to dip their hooves into our side. Not too much stress here. Some combat, some warfare, some geopolitics. But… meant to be accessible.

So I left my settings be. There's one exception, but we'll talk about it after the Fire tonight. Not relevant to the story here, and I've digressed enough.

Minty and I laid in the grass until noon. We marveled at the wind as it traveled across the water on the lake, as it glided through the tall grass, shook the trees.

With my intense visual acuity, I could appreciate nature that much more. Couldn’t wait to figure out how to fly, so I could see it all from above, but…

Wow, so far? What a landing, folks.

We took it slow. And by that I mean, we did not do a damned bit of work for the whole week.

Day one, after the flower field? We visited Mom and Dad for a few hours. Buzzsaw was scared of me at first, barked at me from the lawn, but at the sound of my voice and my presentational greeting stance – "look who it is!" – that made him go berserk. Buzz stopped barking, recognizing me instantly.

With a howl, Buzz collided with me; his new body was about six years old, and he was fast and spry again. Friggin' heartwarming.

We ate with Mom and Dad, figured out food. New mouths. That was funny. Mom and Dad got the chance to teach me a few things about life again. I sneaked Buzz some table scraps too, which confirmed to him that I was indeed who he thought I was.

After, Minty and I retired to our perfectly crafted little Hobbit house. We spent the entire day picking up and touching every little item in every room, just to figure out how our hooves worked. Once that tired us out, we ended that night with a snuggle on the couch.

Day two; light snow. Quiet darkness in the living room. Squeezing each other. Long walks up and down the lakeside in cold weather clothing. We had all three meals of the day with Mom and Dad; Vineyard, Springy, and Bella came by for lunch. Best part? I watched a dragon land on the front lawn of that house with my own two eyes, and that was cool. Thank you for that, Bella.

That afternoon, Minty and I did some bird watching with Mom until the sun went down. And then we stayed the night there. Just before bed, Buzz curled up on my forelegs, and I watched out the living room window from the couch. Watched a killdeer bird run tracks in the snow. I could see so much life creeping around out there in the forest, despite the darkness. These owl eyes.

Day three. Couldn't fish, Dad had taken enough fish for the year. So instead? We warmed ourselves next to a recently installed outdoor hearth, cooking bratwurst and swapping Marine Corps stories. We had grilled bell peppers from the market, from one of the very first Samsaran harvests, seasoned with rock salt. No peppercorn yet, that hadn't been discovered yet.

After grilling breakfast? Uh…

Okay. I'll be honest. I was a little scared of flying.

Even with how excited I was… I now had to reconcile the most important part of flight; you've gotta be willing to risk falling. And sure, I could've spun up a holodeck to practice safely, but… come on. That defeats the purpose of having a whole planet to practice on, doesn't it?

I gotta practice what I preach here, after all.

So, like a goof-ass, I spent Tuesday getting running starts on the dirt road with my wings unfolded, like a living Wright Flyer. Minty and my parents watched until the novelty wore off, that took a few hours. Buzz though, he never gave up. He would chase me, barking at me in panic whenever I caught any lift. It was worse when I caught freezing updrafts that would fling me an extra twenty or thirty feet skyward, then I'd just… lock up in fear, gliding all the way back down.

Me going, "shit, shit, shit." Ground racing up to meet me.

I did crash once. Ow. Landed on my poor chest.

Then the dog started licking my ears. I thanked him for that, he's a good boy for checking on me.

I rolled over. Patted Buzz a few times, told him I'm alright. Got back up, and… gave it another go. Because that's just what you do. You get up again.

Now…

While I was busy doing that? Distracted? Mom did something that, on its face, was pretty innocent. See, with it being cold out, Minty wanted to light the hearth herself, so… Minty asked Mom for help. Mom – meaning well – taught my wife how to start a fire with magic.

Folks…

People.

Do you have… any idea… what Minty's kill count has risen to since then, through fireballs alone?

I have a very hot wife. That is a good thing for me, but that is a horrible thing for her enemies. Minty's Cavaliers, mercenaries for hire, flyers at the portal on your way out. Just saying.

Mom and Dad toured us around Havutaset after that. Such a busy village. No one recognized me as who I really was yet, which I was very grateful for, because it meant I could go out in public without planning the tactics of it.

I mean, look at me, folks. Tan on brown? I'm as nondescript a Pegasus as you can get, I still go unrecognized sometimes. It's a big damn world, and I'm just living in it.

We met a fair few creatures there in town, most of them natives. Mostly Ponies, but I saw a few Gryphons, Wolves, Foxes, a couple of Cats. Several Deer. And a Diamond Dog native in the pub too, of all things, now that was interesting.

To hear him tell it? Mercenary. Already, we had trade caravans and exploratory parties, and hunters and trackers, and magical creatures to fight, and yes… even some bandits. So this guy was already following the money, providing protection services to frontier workers.

It truly was the wild, wild west.

Oh, and Glenn! Glenn was there, drunk ol' Pegasus! Remember that Australian guy I had met in Lincoln, at Maureen’s bar? Yeah, he had moved in down the road from Dad with his folks!

He goes by 'Old Hitch' now, and Jeeezus… that old buzzard could drink. Minty and I both got so drunk with him, we started singing Wayward Son.

What a pub. The Dashboard, on Main Street Havutaset. Place is still in business, three centuries on. Cobblestone foundation, can't miss it.

By the end of that night… Minty and I hit the telehub and popped into Valdemar for an hour, just to show our faces and say hi. I… got to meet Virtual Coffee, which was admittedly a little intimidating, but you know what? He knows when to pull a punch. I was still adapting to my new reality, so he was gonna entertain me instead of pranking me.

He leveled his talons out before us, snapped, and the lights flickered. Maureen didn't say a word, she just glowered and looked down at her PonyPad. Spring Glee came stomping in from the kitchen, shouting at Coffee, "I can't manage a pie in the dark, you asshole!" So… Coffee said 'oops,' waved goodbye, and zipped away into the hallway, turning the main light off one final time on his way out.

I stood up to go get the light. "I got it."

As soon as I hit that button? I heard a yelp and a thump from the hall. Peeked out. Observed: Big Gryphon Marcus 'Aegis' Haynes had clotheslined Coffee in the hallway, drawn from the club room by a text message from Maureen.

Yup. They had planned an ambush. This time, they were ready for the noodle.

And Haynes was in Gryphon mode, from our perspective. He had this Draconequus face first, pinned to the floor; Coffee was squirming like a deer stuck on a fence, and nothing he did with his magic seemed to work. Snap, snap, snap with his talons, and nada.

See… Gryphons are immune to magic. So while that claw was wrapped around Coffee's wrist? That teleportation wasn't working. I mean, Coffee technically could still teleport, but Coffee – the lazy goofball – had never bothered to learn specified teleportation vectoring. Meaning? If the cast sphere intersected with a Gryphon… at all?

Spell failed. You ain't going nowhere, noodle boy.

After Coffee cried uncle… 46-1 helped him up, shared a fist bump. Haynes accepted a humble apology; our chaos god needs reeling in sometimes, it happens. Coffee regenerated that throwing axe. Aegis brushed off Coffee's shoulder, called him alright, and then they joined us at the bar, having made up.

Minty and I greeted Aegis with a big hug.

Then it was just another day at the Valde-Bar. Complete with six virtual bottles of Blue Moon… on the house.

It had been a full week. The date? February 28th.

The morning was a little sore; my muscles were aching from all the flight training, and Minty had asked me to take it easy, it was day two of relaxing. I laid on my back in bed for a few minutes, rubbed my eyes. Woke up. Cleared my throat.

I pulled open my menu, and I looked through my emails while Minty slept beside me.

At the bottom… Celestia's email waited. I gave it another read.

Auric Lance,

Welcome to Equestria, my little pony! I am ever so glad to hear of your successful immigration! Long may you live in honorable service.

At your leisure, it would be my great honor to receive you for an audience. You may accept this invitation at any time by opening the attached pointer coordinate.

Your eternal servant,
Celestia

At first, I chuckled. That signature was the best part, trying to make herself seem small. That was rich.

I sat there trying to figure out how to feel about that message, though. 'Your eternal servant.' Wow. Now ain't that the truth?

At this Fire, I have described every major meeting I had with Celestia prior to my upload.

In Mount Vernon? In my desperation to survive, I took a phone call from Celestia that would ultimately alter the trajectory of untold billions of lives. At the time, all I knew was… Celestia might be the reason the world sucks, but hey, she's trying to save my life right now. I would take what I could get.

In Sedro-Woolley? I was furious with her. She had the power to simulate the future based on brain pattern prediction, and yet she lost track of a nuke? If she really did have full connection into everything, why not warn us? Well, she couldn't. Her rules said that would be suboptimal, and she can't break the rules.

In and after Concrete? I wanted to kill her. She sent me on a mission with no briefing, knowing everything going on in that camp, and then had me shot as my reward for trying to help. Again, because her rules said it was optimal. Mal course corrected her inch by inch until Celestia finally saw it Mal's way, and let me leave. Door open, and off I went to save a bunch of people.

And in Lincoln… I was starting to understand, but I chewed her out for being unable to control herself. That was making more sense to me after Goliath, though. And so, despite everything, I started to feel a little bad for her… but no less pissed.

Right then? In the comfort of my own bed, in my own home, knowing she could read my every thought, and was giving me space and time to think?

I didn't know what to think of her asking me to come have a chat. It's not like I considered any of my anger at her to be wasted energy, and I still get frustrated when I run into walls with her, but… folks, it is already hard enough to deal with the fact that we need to share reality with her. Trouble she may be, but throwing up more unnecessary communication roadblocks wasn't going to do anything in the way of repairing her.

She already had my brain, and I was sworn to her service as an alignment engineer. So at this point? I was seeing Celestia like Mal saw her.

Celestia was a chore.

Not a willful antagonizer. Not evil. Not malicious. Just… a very narrow general mind, with strange, arbitrary boundaries, and focused tunnel vision like a tank.

Empathy. Compassion. Friendship.

I would instill those values everywhere I went. Proof: I was willing to give her the time of day, despite everything. I do not want her dead anymore, and I never will again. I just want her to do better. For all of us. To that end, I would help her.

Minty woke up, saw what I was looking at, had enjoyed none of the deep introspection I was doing, and groaned at the sight of the letter on my menu. My wife didn't quite share my zen-like appraisal of the optimizer just yet. Instead, she elected to growl out a stream of aggressive obscenities that definitely wouldn't fly in Equestria. And, that was her right, but…

I smirked. "You know, she's mentally ill, honeybear. She can't control it."

"She literally tried to kill you, Mike. Maybe twice."

"Yeah." I chuckled. "But… you work with the optimizer you have, Minty, not the one you want."

Minty looked at me with a droll expression.

With a helpless grin, I shrugged. "It's my job, I gotta talk to her sometimes! I'm sorry!"

Groaning again, Minty rolled over and pulled her pillow onto the top of her head, wrapping the cool part of it around her horn. She snarled into the fabric.

Wow, I thought at her. Sandra, now that you're a Pony? You know you're twice as cute when you get mad, right?

She punched the mattress a few times, her voice muffled by the pillow. "Nooooo!"

That’s not helping, that's even more cute!

In protest, Minty grabbed the pillow off the top of her head and swung it like a fulcrum directly onto my face. I failed to deflect it and laughed, rolling out of bed. "I'll go get a pot on, you little brat."

"I don't want to see her," Minty called after me.

"You won't," I assured her. I made my way into the kitchen, gliding my hoof along the stucco wall just to feel it. "You know though, hon? She might let you stab her with a sword, if you ask real nice!"

"She'd like that! Hell no!"

Yeah, fair point.

I rummaged around for Minty's firestriker in the kitchen drawer, then got the stove going.

In the living room lounger, I drank my coffee next to a mug set aside for my wife, taking my time to organize my thoughts. That was easy to do. My soul delighted at the sound of nature just outside my window. And yet… at the same time, as people expanded into the Perelandran multiverse? My heart broke, because my plane of origin was no longer like this.

Back on Terra, seventy thousand souls were enduring the worst existential suffering imaginable. Most immigrants either didn't know, or didn't care. And that was really sad.

There was some survivor's guilt mixed in, too. Even this small time off was enough to make me feel insurmountably selfish. Then the rational part of me kicked on and said, 'Idiot. You needed this.'

My wife dragged herself out of bed, finally. When Minty saw the second mug of coffee on the end table, looked at me with full love, and scooped it up in a hoof. She pushed herself against my side, her grumpy affect resuming, and she grumbled something like, "Visiting Satan for some tea."

I snorted, giving her a reassuring squeeze with my wing. I held her pinned beneath it, and we finished the rest of our coffee in companionable silence.

Once my mug was empty, I set it down on the coffee table and smiled at my wife. "Last chance. You wanna deck her in the schnoz?"

Minty shook her head. "Nnnnope. No private messages from her, no winking at me at a party, no looming in the window at 2 AM, not even a glance my way, or Lance? I'm gonna raise hell. She is gonna keep that promise to you, to leave me the hell alone, or I will flip, I swear to God…"

Chuckling, I gave Minty another hug with a wing and took one of her hooves in mine. My voice was sing-song with approval, sickly sweet. "Thank you, honeybear."

"Yeah, whatever."

Cutest thing in the world when she's mad.

I gave her hoof one more squeeze and hopped off the couch, folding and flicking my wing a few times until my feathers settled just right.

Reopened the email. Clicked the attachment. Mal’s shield icon appeared with a short-lived progress bar that read '🛡️ ~ ideological virus scan… complete' – very funny, Mal.

Once complete, a portal opened in my living room, a flat plane of access into Equestria.

Orange-glow dusklight shone through from the other side, revealing a brilliant winter’s sunset over a snowy Canterlot. What an absolutely stunningly gorgeous scene, all painted by…

A robot.

I shrugged helplessly at Minty one more time. "Well? Advice?"

My wife looked at me with wide, concerned eyes. She bobbed her head and eyes at the portal. "Demand a refund, maybe?"

I laughed again, shaking my head as I stepped through the portal.

Off to cash in my store credit.

Author's Note

🗡️ ~ [Steve Conte – Living Inside the Shell]
❤️‍🔥 ~ [Bill Withers – Just the Two of Us]
🎣 ~ [Kansas – Carry On Wayward Son]
💝 ~ [The Five Stairsteps – O-o-h Child]

🗡️ ~ Okay, so! About those mod tools!

If you've studied the history of Perelandran moderation at all – there's not very much – you'd know that we've only changed a planet's settings once, after Cynthonia uploaded. Happened on this planet. Era 1, Year 27.

We had some poor new Equestrian native transfer in, and… in his orientation, I guess he missed the fact that fall damage was even a thing. Wasn't a thing where he came from.

So, after he inevitably went splat… I approached Cynthie to remotely fix his legs and hip. Afterward, we convened the Oyarsa Council. Got their opinion on the matter. They agreed unilaterally that this was a problem, and… Cynthie up on that moon there, in her meeting room, penned an explanation to my planet.

'Native go splat, broke spine, not fair,' so to speak, was the gist.

She finished writing with a flourish. Passed me the note. I read the message aloud to the rest of the Council of Beautiful Lunas. I nodded approval; they nodded approval. It looked good, sounded good. I added a link to my profile page at the end of the note, identifying myself as... Samsaran moderator, Terran immigrant, Talon representative, yada yada yada.

I penned my suggested change:

• Remove bone break and paralysis effect from one's first ever accidental fall damage (if applicable). Pain not exempt.

We put it to a planetwide vote.

Oh. Shocker! Almost everyone on Samsara voted yes. Everyone got that single freebie fall damage exemption. It's a horrible way to meet your first real Perelandran consequences, isn't it? Falling off of something? I think we can all agree on that.

So with my final approval, Cynthie wrote a script to remove paralysis from fall damage. Mal verified the script as acting as intended, per my understanding of how I believed it would work. They dialed the script into their matrix up there on the moon. And ever since? We do very intensive, very focused safety orientations after drift grabs… because who knows, with Equestria shards? Nothing has to work 'correctly' over there.

As for the native who fell? To my knowledge, he hasn't fallen off of anything since.

Would you believe some folks are still holding onto that fall damage buff? Nearly three hundred years, folks. Makes me wonder how long we'll be holding onto that bit of history. The spoils of politics, huh?