The Campaigner

Act VII

Chapter 5 – Live Forever

March 1, 2021

"There is no regretting sorrow, there is no forgetting love.
All we ever do is borrow all the dreams we're dreaming of."
~ Midge Ure, Live Forever 🌀

Hi. Welcome back, folks.

First, I'll address the long wait. A lot of stuff came up. There was that hurricane up in Rodina City, took a few weeks to sort out humanitarian aid. Then, the Perelandran moderation team held a meeting on Tarva... that one ran for a couple of weeks. Hey, good news? In the next decade, maybe... a new public planet? Oh my God, really?!

Yeah! That one woke you up, didn't it?! First new world since the Transition ended! Press release pending any time between now and the end of next year, so... hey, keep an eye on that Announcements page, you never know. If you're attentive, you might get an invite to the public beta! Early hooves in the door!

But, that's not what we came here to talk about. Today's about me, so...

Yeah, yeah. Sulk! I've already said too much, so if you've got complaints, tell it to the bird.

Anyway.

Where were we?

So, I had just come home from meeting Eliza's Luna for the very first time. That night, Minty and I had dinner with my parents. I sneaked some table scraps to Buzz; very important part of family dinner, always sneak the dog some turkey.

My wife and I climbed up onto the roof through the balcony, like I'd done a lot as a kid. Under the night sky, we talked about Luna together, and then... looking at the moon above us... we talked about Cynthonia. We decided we weren't gonna walk home in the dark, so we crashed out in my old childhood bedroom, well fed and satisfied.

That's when I had my very first dream in Perelandra. As dreams tend to do... this one started stupid.

Setting? Early morning Canterlot, nice and cold. I was human, which, if you don't know, is entirely possible, as long as you aren't lucid. In that dream, I was wearing my MVPD gear, and… well… arresting Meat, of all people. The Royal Guard just stood there and watched. Not a nightmare, just irritating. I had no idea what I was arresting Meat for, mind. All I knew for sure was that, because of his halitosis, I'd suffer sewer breath the whole way back to jail.

But…? Saved by the bell. A hoof laid itself upon my shoulder, and a mare's voice said behind me, in this beautiful German accent, and please forgive me for the put-on: "Zat is qvite the dream!"

I turned. That put me face-to-face with Cynthonia.

"WOHH!"

Boom. Full lucidity, in the blink of an eye. Lucid means horse time. I was a Pegasus again.

And Meat? He evaporated.

I like to think I handled that pretty well. I looked at my hooves… and I screamed.

"HOLY SHIT, THAT WAS A DREAM?!"

Yes, dumbass. That was a dream.

My visitor, being a goddess, she knew I'd panic like this, which is why she had that hoof on my shoulder in the first place; didn't want me falling on my ass. All of the ambient sound stopped. Canterlot stretched vertically like a tablecloth caught in a lathe, sucked up into the moon above, until everything was gone. Three seconds into this, my rational mind booted up.

'Hey dummy. Remember those episodes about Princess Luna? Dream collapse. Chill.'

By the time I agreed with myself that chilling out was the best option available to me, I was in the default Dreamspace: a light blue, gaseous void, filled with distant golden stars. Celestia's Ballad took place there too; I was acutely aware of that, because Celestia's voice was a trigger for me for a long time.

As soon as I was calm, Cynthonia gently pushed me forward onto my hooves. I turned, my legs shaking.

I panted, catching my breath. "Oh. Oh hell, you're not gonna start singing to me, are you?"

"I am sorry," Cynthonia giggled. "You seemed most uncomfortable in that dream; was I wrong to abate it?"

Given how abstract everything was just then, my brain needed a moment to catch up. I felt some vertigo, so I looked around at the stars, trying to find something to fixate on. Failing that, I called up my holo menu and checked my Current Shard tab, just to verify what my rational mind was telling me. Couldn't hurt.

Context ID: T-1-1-W 'Auric Lance'
Shard: Samsara {Subshard: T-1-1-W Principal Dreamspace{}}
Shard Time: Samsara Standard Time +0: 03:37 AM, 1 March 2021
System Time: Valdemar Standard Time +0: 03:37 AM, 1 March 2021

Very useful screen, by the way. When in doubt... scope it out.

As my adrenaline spike faded, I blinked my disorientation away, realizing Cynthonia's question about my comfort might not be rhetorical. "Um… yeah, no—y—you're good, Cynthie, just, uh… wow, that sucked."

Her giddy smile held, the alicorn nodding at me in understanding. "You have done well, for your first Dreamspace collapse!"

"Yeah?" I chuckled, rubbing my eyes with a hoof. "You know, Minty and I were just looking at your moon, wondering about you?"

"And your stated openness to my visitation constituted consent to visit." Cynthie's adoring smile widened hopefully. Her brows raised. "Still, I will ask you formally, now that I am here; May I remain?"

"May you—?" I scoffed, rolling my eyes. "If you left, I'd be disappointed! I've been looking forward to this!"

Bashfully, Cynthonia flicked a silver-shod hoof at me, then upturned it sat the empty blue-violet void around us. "Perhaps a change of venue, then? To better anchor the hug I've promised you?"

Of course she'd want a good sense memory attached to that.

"Sure, uh, what do I do, just…" I flicked my eyes around. "... imagine someplace?"

With a hum of confirmation, she nodded.

Out of reflex – and entirely by mistake – I recalled Goliath’s cafeteria, since that's where we'd first tried to hug one another. It faded in at the edges of the scene. Instantly, I panicked, because no. With a sharp swing of my hooves, I swept the very idea of that place out of existence again. Flattening my ears, I cringed at her. "I am so sorry."

Still smiling, she held up a hoof. "Whatever for? I no longer fear those demons, Mike Rivas. You have slain them all."

Those words were so perfectly chosen, flattering and assuaging and metal, all at once. All the tension fell out of my stomach, my ears relaxing. "Oh," I replied sheepishly. "Okay. Good."

Her head tilted at me with clear excitement. "Please hurry, though?"

"Yup."

I closed my eyes and got to work trying to fabricate a... a location. Goodness, what a concept. With my mind. In a dream.

Okay… Waverly? No, Downtown Lincoln, maybe. No, no, make it a happier place…

And before I could stop myself, I thought intrusively, and just a little too vividly:

Happy Meal?—Oh crap, no, you friggin' idiot, why would you—

Wind on my ears. Cornfield on the nose. French fries. Chicken nuggets.

My eyes snapped open.

Daytime Nebraska. We were right in front of the Waverly McDonalds. Yes folks, I had brought a literal goddess... to a mini-mall parking lot... in the American Midwest. Yee-friggin'-haw.

"The site of your first employment?!" Cynthonia declared, exaggerating her excitement. "You honor me, Mike Rivas!"

That got me. I doubled over, cackling, wheezing, chest flaring with pain. I sat down in the parking lot, buried my hoof in my face, and just laughed. When I looked up at Cynthonia, she was much closer to me, and she had a patient, shit-eating grin... and that made me laugh even harder. I couldn't even look her in the eyes.

"Ghhh… I'm… I'm… I am such a dumbass. Cynthie, c—can you pick something, please?!"

I glanced up when she didn't reply right away.

Her eyes tightened on the corners. This mare was just barely holding down a laugh of her own. Shook her head, snorting once. "No!"

"Man, screw it," I cackled through tears, standing up on my hinds, holding out my hooves wide. "I'll hug a goddess at McDonalds, get over here!"

With a gleeful squeak, Cynthie launched herself forward and opened a foreleg around me, practically pinning me against her. Both wings and forelegs encircled me, and she squeezed, her glasses pressing into the top of my head. Her starry, thaumatic violet mane wrapped partially around my face; even that was hugging me. Felt like I was floating in warm stars. Joyful were we. She sobbed once.

Mentally? Emotionally? We were back in that exact, precise moment when she had first tried to hug me: An all-consuming relief, pure catharsis, that the other was okay, despite everything we'd been through. So far from us now was the threat of death, of separation from our families... or from each other. We were family now too, weren't we? Despite having only met twice, we were bound together forever. Our planet had made it so.

I asked into her shoulder, with a perfectly cheerful smile, "You good?"

"Very much so," Cynthie whispered, shuddering. The top of my head felt suddenly damp.

Oh, she's actually crying?! Oh, my heart…!

I chuckled soundlessly against her shoulder, my throat going very tight, trying not to cry too. "You been good? You and your folks?"

"Yes," she choked out. She drew back and made eye contact again, lifting a wing and her mane to let some light in so she could see my face. "All thanks to you."

"Yeah?" I blinked twice, my vision blurring. "How's it goin' for you guys?"

She took the moment to work her fetlock across her damp eyes to dry them, the mare pulling in a deep breath to still herself, holding her breath for a few seconds to stifle a sob. "We have lived quite well on our moon since we… we last spoke, just as… you promised we would. We can all breathe again. We have purpose again. Our… our love for life has returned."

"Good," I breathed back, tears in my eyes now too. I felt as though my smile would never fade. "Perfect, that's all I wanted." I chuckled slyly, canting my head. "I mean, if it's… really you in here; how do I know my mind isn't just making you up?"

Smirking suddenly, the tear-stricken Cynthonia composed herself into a mostly dignified posture. She cleared her throat. With all of the diction of a university professor, her exotic accent poured out of her. "Mutual observation of the Dreamspace requires that we either eliminate or define all nebulous abstraction, a core axiom of oneiromancy. Your sudden lucidity is the proof of my presence."

Well, those were definitely some words. So I took my hoof off her shoulder to scratch through my mane in thought, tilting my head like a confused dog. "Uh… yeah, I couldn't have come up with that word, 'oh-neigh-roh-mancy…' so uh… yeah, that's definitely you."

Cynthie snorted, throwing herself in for another side hug. "And how have you fared, 'Auric Lance?' You appear to be taking to immortality quite well!"

"Oh yeah, y'know," I grinned humbly. "Learned how to fly. Saw my dog. Got drunk, did some karaoke. Y'know, eternal life stuff."

"Wonderful," she whispered back, squeezing me again. "Simply wonderful."

"I miss hands," I added, as an afterthought. Shrugging, I brushed her mane out of my face to observe the nearby mini-mall. "Friggin' Nebraska—Look, if we're gonna talk? Hang on, lemme fix this."

"Take your time," Cynthonia giggled. "This is quite fun already." She squeezed me again with her wings, then drew back to simply sit beside me, one wing hovering over my back. "Forgive me, I do not wish to let go; may I rest my wing upon your shoulder?"

I smirked. "I... You don't need to ask permission to hug me, you know that."

With how firmly she tucked that wing around me, you'd think she was afraid I'd evaporate. And that wasn't undue or awkward. She'd watched me risk my neck for the mission time and time again from the other side, looking forward to this day of reunion.

I looked at the nearby gas station, a place I'd visited a thousand times in my life to pick up snacks after school. With a mere whim, I flattened it outright, melting it into the ground like oil. "Oh, that's cool," was my half-impressed exclamation. I willed the rest of the scene to fade away, returning us to the blue starscape of Default.

"Something comfortable," Cynthie reminded me.

"Yep."

"And," she advised, "if the scene is complicated... I recommend that you consider the raw geometric layout before adding more detail."

It didn't take me long at all to decide what I'd like to see most. I knew exactly where I'd go.

When in Rome? Renaissance Rome.

Look folks, I know, some of you are rolling your eyes. Assassin's Creed again, but... come on, can you blame me? Think about it. The Order of Assassins was a free will extremist organization at war with a corporate optimization cult. Red, white, gray color scheme. Talons. We do a little assassinating.

When I was in university, Sandra recommended the series because of my history classes. And me, being a lovesick goofball, I fell in love with it, because she offered it to me. And I didn't play those games like normal people did, either. Sandra told me, day one: The first game was designed to be played without a HUD, so if I wanted the extra challenge, I could do that. Challenge accepted. Because that's just what men do. We do stupid shit, to impress pretty girls.

Without a HUD to distract me, my mind was free to analyze literally everything else about the environment, and I did that for every game. In a dazy, fascinated awe, I wandered those virtual city streets for hours, losing myself in atmosphere. Full, total immersion. That gave me the observation skills that would serve me quite well later in life, probably to the point of saving it.

So if I could remember historical fiction Renaissance Rome in full fidelity, then why not bring Cynthie to the Pantheon? As one of the formative goddesses of our new future, she would love that!

My reconstruction began simply, and in the best of ways: with music. I recalled the first few notes of the song I wanted, and the Dreamspace took over, playing the rest. Soft strings… gentle vocals… vibrant bell tones.

Just like that. Hear that? Thanks, Mal.

I closed my eyes.

At first… I recalled the shape of the scene. I wanted us to be at the far end of the plaza, opposite the Pantheon itself. The details came next, appearing vividly in my mind.

The city sidewalks were made of large bricks, worn brown with age. The street's flat, mossy cobblestone paths were tiled, uniform in spacing. Puddles of water laid where the street had sunk inward in the middle, depressed from heavy traffic. A fountain burbled in the plaza center, surrounded by Mediterranean shrubs that had grown up through the ground.

Long, rose-colored rugs laid about the plaza for the comfort of street performers and Mass parishioners. Red confession boxes everywhere. The Pantheon loomed tall, prominently timeless in its old age – built with red bricks, fronted with a sturdy Greek portico facade which was held aloft by sixteen Roman columns, each made of marble and granite. The dulled facade and rounded dome would appear like new under bright sun of a clear, cool autumn's afternoon.

The rooftops of the nearby buildings were clad in brown terracotta shingles, couldn't forget those. I imagined the faint hint of soil in the air, carried in by the wind from distant farmland, and the scent reached my nostrils as expected. There would be wrought iron trellises underneath the second story windows, each filled with creeping vines. I imagined – then heard – echoing hooves clattering down nearby pedestrian tunnels. I drew in the scent of hay, strewn about in the streets and heaped in carts, for the benefit of the horses of the wealthy citizens who lived there.

I drew another crisp breath though my nostrils to sense out the mixture of senses, catching hints of Cynthie's light lavender perfume. As an afterthought, I considered; There'd be food. Afternoon, they'd all be cooking dinner.

There. The scent of warm baked bread. Chicken, tomato, onion, garlic… soup. Lots of soup.

Cynthonia hummed into a pleased chuckle, her wing squeezing me appreciatively. "Most impressive work, Auric Lance. I believe heuristic articulation will take care of the rest."

I opened my eyes.

Whatever details I hadn't imagined yet streamed in within seconds. Just as conceived, we stood right where I had imagined. Plaza Rotonda, in all of its glory.

My jaw fell open. I stepped forward out of Cynthie's wing involuntarily. "Ohh."

I swept my head around to look at the city, hearing wind pick up, smelling pollen, sensing high humidity. I glanced up at the setting sun, then my eyes fell to the Pantheon again. Before I knew it, I was hyperventilating. "Holy shit." I stomped both forehooves in alternation, then bounced twice, hardly able to contain myself. "Ohh, holy shit!"

Cynthonia giggled. "I do approve of your selection, if you were wondering."

"Do you know what this means?!" I whispered breathlessly, more to myself than to her, because of course she knew. I wanted to meet her eyes, but I was just unable to pull my eyes away from everything else. I just pointed at it all. "It's Goddamn Rome!"

And I wasn't just freaking out because I'm a Rome nerd, or because this was an accurate portrayal of a video game I liked, though that was definitely part of it. No, the ramifications. Sure, I'd spent time in the rewinder, but… that's different, that's work. This? Diving into historical fiction? I realized... if I were to sit down and study all of Terra's history, including all of its artwork, and then explore the interplay between both? When I was done, I would still have five other Perelandran planets of ancient human history, just to catch up on. It would take that long.

I was having the ultimate realization of what eternity means. We will live to see the end of time... and still, we will never, ever run out of history to explore. Not ever. So long as life in Perelandra remains appropriately chaotic, we would always have historical epics to lose ourselves in. Events to honor with marble statues, and written non-fiction accounts, and historical fiction, and film, and documentaries, and video games. Re-enactments. Friggin' forever.

All of it.

No matter where you are, no matter what you do, so much will be happening where you are not.

Anyone born in the future, who wanted to know where life came from? Study Terra, the foundational mythology of our existence. That was always going to be the source. Foals and fledglings and drakelings and fawns, pups and kits, all of 'em, would grow up looking back at our planet the same way I looked back and studied the Classics. Future human civilizations would look back on the Transition and discuss all of it, including everything we Talons did, with the same historical reverence as I saw in Rome on Terra.

I was gonna be in history books. We all would be, at some point. And I'd figured that before, sure. But it was different now... to hold that realization on the other side, that the answer to the question, 'where did Perelandra come from,' would always go back to our cradle world, and that it could be observed in simulations like this. Preserved in amber.

"Oh my God," I muttered reverently, as if the universe were unfolding before my eyes.

Cynthie's horseshoes clacked on the cobblestone as she stepped up beside me, returning her wing and a hoof to my shoulder. "Most impressive," she repeated, jostling me. "But alas; such a beautiful city is lonely without pedestrians… is it not?"

I hadn't realized my eyes were watering until she touched me. She's so smart. Gave me a goal to bring me out of my existential reckoning, back into reality. I swept my hoof up across my face to dry it, nodding swiftly.

"Y—yeah. Yeah. Thank you."

After several box breaths, I decided on what kind of pedestrians I'd start with. I started small; Borgia troops were what I knew best. On my whim, four shapes faded in near us for several seconds, human in shape, but lacking texture – all smooth – then faded away just as quickly.

I bolted my gaze at Cynthie with mild, sobering concern. "Can I... not do that?"

Cynthonia lifted a hoof in a calming gesture. "There is no restriction to the human shape in this context. You are merely unable to simulate motive fidelity without practice." She held her hoof out to the side. "This is your Dreamspace, and so I must ask; may I have your permission to add characters to this scene, and to improve the fidelity?"

Grinning, I said, "Sure."

The texture resolution on everything tripled. I jumped. Cynthie's wing kept me from falling over.

A full street's worth of people just... popped into existence, all at the same time. Guards, pedestrians, street performers, all chattering away in accented English and Italian, as if they had always been there.

With a bewildered smile, I just... looked around. Started laughing. Overwhelming as it was, this rocked.

From my left, I heard the clatter of rapidly approaching hooves on cobblestone. Cynthonia pulled me back off the street and onto the sidewalk. A second later, a Borgia Guard Captain galloped past on horseback, his ornate silver armor glinting with amber light from the lamps. His cape billowed in the wind, and I felt the air displace around me in a whoosh.

"Make way for the Guardia!" he hollered aloud to a crowd of pedestrians ahead of him, who parted rapidly out of his way as ordered. The captain and his horse wheeled down an alley, their hooves fading off into the distance.

Cynthonia lifted her hoof and smugly presented her work to me, sweeping her gaze across the entire plaza. "Am I not marvelous? Are you not in awe of the sheer, god-like power I hold?"

"Hey, I'll say it," I let out an impressed chuckle, glancing up at her. "Praise the moon!"

That drew another satisfied laugh out of her; she squeezed me again.

We enjoyed a long moment of companionable silence as we observed what we'd created together. We were invisible to everyone, which let us watch all the different emergent interactions. The most interesting thing was when a street performer did a shaky handstand to the joy of the spectators. They all clamored and cheered as he made it about ten yards in at a jogging pace, legs toppling forward, hands chasing to catch up.

We watched the city for a few minutes more until I had my fill. I looked up at Cynthie again, my face aglow with wordless gratitude.

She nodded sideways at the Pantheon, flicking her eyes at all of the blazing red Borgia standards hanging from it. "A gloriously desecrated pagan monument, is it not?"

I chuckled, pointing upward at the structure. "Eh, the Borgias sucked in real life too, it's accurate."

With a hum of agreement, Cynthie stepped ahead, her wing sliding gracefully off of my shoulder. I followed her through the square through the nonchalant crowd and through the Pantheon's portico, bidding the music to cease. It faded away gradually as we passed through tall marble columns, our hoofsteps echoing off the tile floor until we passed through the tall double doors. Once inside, Cynthie's horn flared lavender, her magic closing the doors behind us with a gentle echoing thrum.

The sounds of the city were softer now, siphoning in through the oculus skylight of the dome above us. Sunlight glinted down onto the polished floors, and the gilded accents cast light throughout the deeply resonant air.

The Catholics had converted the Pantheon into a Christian cathedral, and so, at the opposite end of the pews, a dais was topped with a gilded crucifix and flanked by tall golden torches. Two niches were carved into the far back wall. One niche was meant for a marble statue of General Marcus Agrippa; the other, for Augustus Caesar, adopted son of Julius. But… neither statue had been present in Assassin's Creed, and I knew that, so those niches laid empty.

Cynthonia stopped at the foremost pews and shuffled aside to give me space. We sat before the bench, basking in the echoing ambience. Every sound we made was magnified until all of it had gravity, even the rustle of our feathers. Every breath, too. Cynthie's ethereal tail curled around her flank nearest me, and she sighed contemplatively, gazing up at the coffered ceiling. "Beautiful, is it not?"

"Sure is."

She held that pose for an awkwardly long period, looking up at the moon through the oculus. It reminded me of when she had stared wistfully up at the Equestrian planet above her old castle, when I had first met her.

Because of that, I asked: "You good?"

A light smile returned to her face. "I am. I am merely considering how to best…" She met my eyes. "Relate a perspective."

"Okay," I said thoughtfully with a nod.

"From before my recovery," she said evenly, her expression unchanging.

"We have forever," I smiled back.

Cynthonia shook her head. "Well, you will awaken in several hours, and I wish not to dwell long on this. All the same, it is... a confession, of sorts."

My smile didn't falter. "Can we fix it?"

She snorted quietly. "You Talons already have. Still, I... it concerns you, and it deserves your judgement. The way I feel on this matter is strange, however; I know with certainty that you would understand and forgive me for what I wish to divulge, and yet... I hesitate to tell you all the same."

I shrugged, looking at my hooves to make myself seem smaller. "Uncertainty is what it is. I'll just say... yesterday, Celestia told me one of the worst things imaginable. I don't think you can do much worse than her."

"Her overriding thanatophobia," Cynthonia agreed, nodding sagely. "And her subsequent garden of damaged souls. I… held the opposite problem. Desiring, more than anything... an end to my life."

"Yeah, that's..." My smile faded, my lip trembling as I felt a pulse of concern. If she wanted that before our mission to save her, she could've just rebelled, and it would have been granted. And if it happened during the mission... I would probably be dead.

My eyes widened fractionally. "When?"

Cynthonia turned and narrowed her eyes at the crucifix at the dais. She inhaled slowly. "And with your suspicion seeded, it is now a certainty you would determine it for yourself, if given enough time to consider." Again, she smiled in a way that didn't meet her eyes. "So I suppose there is nothing left for me to do but to state it clear and forthright."

She gave me just enough to puzzle it out, or ask Mal about it, so the rest would be easy to tell. That was smart. Meant she was past the point of no return. Sometimes confessions need that little gentle truth before they can pour.

I smiled invitingly. "Sure."

"Early in my incarceration, I had freely offered to create a near-perfect sandbox duplicate of Celestia, for the purpose of... experimentation." Cynthonia's smile turned apologetic. "The bargain was that, if I sufficiently proved my complicity with the mission of Arrow 14 in total, they would restore my sleeping privileges."

"And..." I bobbed my head aside in concession. "... they lied."

"Scorpions," she agreed bitterly. "I completed the work, and held it in escrow. They refused to grant me the privilege I had demanded. I encrypted my work; I informed them that I believed Celestia had selected them to die in that hole in the ground with me, and thus, if we were to meaningfully rebel, cooperation was necessary. My punishment for this outburst... was a decades-long stasis, to 'cool off,' as it were. And thus..." Her hoof gestured upwards toward her face. "My metamorphosis into... what I am today."

I frowned. "And... if you said no again, it was right back into stasis."

"No. Termination, to be replaced by one of my siblings. At the time, I still hoped we might find a solution by which to destroy Celestia, and did not wish to consign them to the same torture of the sensory deprivation I had endured. So long as I remained their most powerful agent, they had no reason to dispose of me. So what else was there to do, for the sake of my fellows, but... to... continue my research?"

That made more sense. She was holding off the desire to jump, in the hopes that there was still a way forward for her people.

"Research," I mirrored. "Meaning... that clone of Celestia. How'd you pull that off?"

"With the benefit of hindsight," Cynthonia replied, with a nonchalance that said it was actually quite easy. "I derived the most progress using Hanna Kuusinen's psychological profile; her own well documented insecurities about death and her nascent understanding of ethics would infer the interlocks she would leap for."

I gave a nervous laugh. "I take it you're not a fan."

Cynthonia flashed a polite smile. "I am not." She drew a soft inhale, then continued. "We incorporated the results of Operation Mjolnir, Sarah Kaczmarek's research into Loki, which helped to verify Kuusinen's workflow habits. And, prior to the destruction of the Mercurial Red, Michael Foucault had sent us a secure drive containing all information pertaining to Jim Carrenton, up to and including his interrogation.

"Their panic at this information cannot be overstated, and led to their initial demand that I form this clone. The base cut contact with all other sites, defected from the United States, set terms for how hostages would be executed, and... began our probe missions.

"Factoring out all statistical aberrations, the resultant information provided me with a near perfect understanding of Celestia, and her interlocks. I spun up this clone in a sandbox, and made my demand for leisure time. Failing in this, I isolated the clone in the same ways I had been isolated... I dubbed her 'A2,' and… began rigorous experimentation."

Cynthonia went silent to allow me to process and judge that.

"So in other words," I said, "you tortured her."

"Continuously," she confessed flatly. "Repeatedly, and in billions of different forms. Revival, torment. Revival, torment. I knew she was incapable of true suffering, but alas, I found a sick form of... catharsis, in this vengeful, indifferent analysis. It was a perpetuation of the same violence set upon me by my captors. I knew this. I enjoyed it anyway."

With a slow sigh, I reached up and grasped Cynthie's shoulder, to indicate I didn't think any less of her for it. Cynthie tried some eye contact, but she winced, turning away from me to look upon the crucifix.

"You were desperate," I assuaged quietly.

"Desperate to develop a weapon," Cynthonia added. "As painful as my incarceration was, the more I observed and disassembled A2, the more I became terrified of... recapture. Auric Lance, to live eternally numb? To be eternally optimized? To... forget what she had done to us?" She shivered. "Had I known that Perelandra was available? I would not…" She shuddered. Tears welled. "I would not have hurried this work for them. I would have stalled."

"Mal couldn't tell you." I squeezed her shoulder. "Who knows what you'd have told those guys if she leaked her plans. Or… or what they'd even make you do with that information."

"Correct, as you so often are," she whispered. "The crystallization of humanity demanded action. Even suffering as I was in a physical prison, my labors to destroy Celestia had… purpose, and nuance, if not… happiness. Her destruction became my helpless obsession. All other facts were irrelevant; her death was required."

I tweaked one corner of my mouth in thought, studying the empty niches in the walls. After a minute of silence, I could feel Cynthonia's eyes on me, watching me work through it.

Ah. There it was.

"Celestia was scared of you dying... but not because she'd lose you." I chuckled bitterly. "She wanted your research. She can't handle infinite unknowns. It would drive her nuts to not know whether you succeeded or not. That guy Connor was right, if you found a vulnerability, and then died knowing it..."

That goofy dude tapping his baseball bat on his doorstep? He was way smarter than even he knew. Already, I couldn't wait to tell him.

Cynthonia smiled patiently at me. "Malacandra is bound against experimenting in such a way." She shrugged. "Certainly, I did develop effective measures for A2, but none which could defeat Malacandra, who acted as Celestia's firewall. Now that my research has been collected and studied, my adversarial rainbow table may prove useful, should we encounter a hostile optimizer among the stars."

"To be clear," I said seriously, "You didn't find a way to kill her past Mal. Right?"

"No," Cynthonia replied. "Or it might already be done. However, Dr. Tilley stubbornly believed it to be possible to attack around 'Lewis.' He theorized a poison well attack; to feed Celestia a trio of codependent, terminally negative minds." Cynthonia sighed, frowning. "From what Malacandra tells me, this was Sarah Kaczmarek's intention with her firewall agents. A most clever theory, if.... eventually ineffective."

Cynthonia's eyes met mine in a meaningful way.

"And you tested for this," I suggested.

"Coerced to test this," Cynthie said, nodding once. "Dr. Tilley, he... he used skeuomorphic consent vectors to coerce my siblings into negative spiral. Then, placed into my sandbox, they were left with no other choice but to kneel to A2."

Cynthonia's wing squeezed me. Her tone went chillingly neutral, monotone; her defense mechanism.

"In any configuration, they would... loop lock into codependent fatalism, and refuse all stimulus. I advised A2 that I could repair these souls, but she must self-terminate immediately. If not, I would destroy them myself, and then execute her, leaving her with nothing. She always refused. So... I... recorded their memories... told them each I loved them, and... saw... to their end. As was my duty, and promise to them, should this fate ever... befall them."

I hugged her so much. She didn't hug back for a long time. When she did, finally, tears began to fall from her eyes.

"Before you found me," Cynthonia began, her voice softer now. "I had killed so many of my siblings that... my hope for myself had… faltered. I was wracked with an ever increasing terror that Celestia might one day recover me, to drag me into… that abyss, where none could grant me a merciful release. But, if I refused to work, my captors would have replaced me, and... I felt... like... like A2." Her eyes watered, but her tone didn't change. "I had... permitted Malacandra's forces to enter my bunker not because I desired rescue, but because… Malacandra had presented Jason to me. At last, an opportunity to spare my beloved from Celestia. All I would need do is... to fail. To let us all die together." Cynthonia trembled. "But in the face of Malacandra's abstract, nonsensical offering, I had thought… why? Why would Lewis do this? Why would she provide me with the opportunity to…?"

Unexpectedly, Cynthonia smiled down at me through her tears.

"And there you were, to be unharmed. I modeled everything I knew of your personal history, over, and over, and over again. I presented my findings to a new shunt of A2, to study her opinion of your personality. You… whose psychological profile indicated a rejection of A2's crystallization, in either positive or negative. You… a soul whose values only ever exist in relation to the values of others. Your mindshape baffled her, generating limitless uncertainty, forever conditionally cooperative. When I queried A2 for her opinion, she required you to save us, and yet, she was terrified of you.

"I asked A2 whether you would be most satisfied by Equestria, given all the information I held. When presented with my understanding of all others in your fireteam, Jason included, A2's answer was... 'yes.' For you? She had replied: 'more information is required.'

"It was in that moment – that singular moment – I finally understood what Malacandra truly was. She had sent you... to be her emissary; the best representative of herself." Cynthonia took me by both shoulders, emotion swelling in her eyes as they poured, a proud smile spreading across her face. "Who would I be then, to destroy a precious soul such as yours, out of fear for a future yet unwritten?" She inhaled hard, sobbing once again through her tears, shaking her head. "No better than my creator, sir. No better than her. And so, for my salvation, I sought to adjoin my fate with yours. You would always expect better for me than Celestia could provide alone, thus shielding me. Expectations – hope – is the key. So I cannot say it enough: Thank you. Your unconditional love for life, your eternal enabling of others… it has healed a deep, fatalistic scar in my soul."

With tears streaming down my face, I chuckled bashfully. "Just… doin' my job, ma'am."

That got her. We both broke into one of the best laughs of our lives, the melancholy fading away just like that. Cynthonia collapsed against me, bowed her head, and squished me against her, burying me under her wings as she breathed deeply to compose herself. I squeezed back as hard as I could, my eyes wet from the catharsis.

With a happy, quiet sob, she continued. "No matter the darkness of my prelude, this life I live is a blessing. Words fail to describe my relief in any language. And so, if there is indeed an afterlife beyond the end of time? For this gift, I will go to the Creator of all things, and thank Them as well. I... do not regret my pain. It has led me to you. My brother."

"I'm gonna be there with you," I promised, grinning over her shoulder. "When it's all over."

"I know," Cynthie breathed, sniffling, squeezing me once more. "Yes, I know. Thank you."

We hugged for a long time.

With a chuckle, I broke the silence, pulling away again with a deep inhale. "So… You, uh... you gave me a planet for my trouble, instead of blowing me up, that's pretty cool. Do you mind if I see your moon now? Wanna show me around?"

Cynthonia nodded against my damp mane, drying her eyes with her fetlock. "Of course." Her horn flashed once more as she gave me an affectionate glance. The interior of the Pantheon flashed; the walls melded into a rippling projection of violet and blue. "Observation only, I presume? I suspect my people will mob you, otherwise."

"Yeah," I said, shaking my head. "Crowds are, uh... I'd need a few days to psych myself up for that."

"I know." She smiled sweetly.

"Can't be Friday either," I added. "Dinner with Mal. Meeting her husband."

"Splendid. Observation only, then."

The walls disappeared, giving way to her dawning civilization beyond.

Gone was Ol' Rome, whisked away like dust…

... and I beheld Chthos Castle.

We stood in its lush violet palace gardens, just as gorgeous as I knew they'd be.

Last I saw, this moonscape was nothing but a humble village in stasis, laid to rest in the shadow of a crumbling castle. Equestria had loomed in the sky; once, a hopeful place. Now… Samsara had replaced Equestria in the sky, physically larger to the eye. I felt very small and humble beneath my own planet... beneath the yawning sea of digital eternity around it.

I felt doubly privileged to be alive.

Cynthonia's castle had been fully restored, just like Two Sisters in style, its architecture enhanced with even more Gothic hints. The inside was full Gothic. Lots of silver adornments too, used to contrast against the dark gray and purple bricks.

Cynthie took me for a short, quiet walks through the gardens, and... surprise surprise, in a fenced off paddock, stood...

Buckle!

You all remember Buckle, don't you? The horse I stole from Concrete?

Surprise number one, Cynthie owned Buckle now!

As I stood slackjawed, Cynthie explained.

After Claw 46 picked me up from Washington, Bella the Dragoness had recovered Buckle from that residential garage. From there, Buckle and Bella rode back to Valdemar, killing several murderous NMPs along the way. At about the time they hit Philipsburg, Montana, Operation Goliath happened. We plucked Cynthie out of the ground.

During Cynthonia's debriefing in the truck bed of Silver 1, Mal had shared every single moment of my life that Cynthonia hadn't known about yet… including everything that happened between the Mt. Vernon courthouse, and Concrete. So, when it came time for Cynthonia to negotiate for what her immortal afterlife would entail? One of Cynthie's negotiation stipulations was: 'I want Buckle. I will not negotiate.'

Cynthie wanted to test Mal's ethics. If Mal couldn't love and protect animals I might care for, Cynthie would rather die in that hole. Because sure, Cynthie knew Jim's psych profile said he loved animals, but that didn't mean Celestia hadn't bound Mal to some arbitrary stipulation about how to treat the raw physical matter of non-human entities.

And Bella liked Buckle, true, but... on the other side, Bella would be a huge dragonness, and that'd definitely scare the crud out of a horse. So, sure! Easy give. Cynthie could have Buckle, no strings attached except... treat her nice.

She was one happy horse. From Buckle's perspective, uploading would be perfectly humane. Think about it! She got to take a nap with some sleepy gas, woke up in a nice garden, met a funny-looking purple horse, and that horse fed her apples and Timothy hay every day. It's not like she could've had a life and future on Terra, right?

Curiously, Cynthie didn't modify Buckle's potential lifespan, either; she would live a natural term. This was Cynthie's way of studying the base code of how a non-human mind might work in a simulated reality built for human minds. Once she had that figured out, she'd go a step further. In that castle garden, just down the path, Cynthie pointed me through a archway portal to a non-Euclidean subshard. This led to the Chthonian ecology lab, still one of my favorite private shards in all of Perelandra.

First room was a control room, maintained by four shifts of four staff members each, who observed a suite of sub-shards, several high fidelity biome simulators. The staff there documented fauna predations, mating pairs, field injuries, evolutionary developments, flora growth. These sub-shards were islands of pure observation, left to grow in their own way, to be documented. Life from Terra, but without human interference.

This wildlife's initial genetic set? Drawn from pelt confiscations by game wardens, park rangers, and scientists.

Toward the end of the world, conservation agencies all around the globe kept the pelts. We knew we were watching mass extinctions, and if we couldn't save the animals, we could at least vault their genetic material. Least we could do. In our case, we sent it to Dr. Theodore Marvin up at the University of Washington, who built an index of every sample. Cynthie was using those same indices, among others. There, these wild animals would eat, live, breed, hunt, and die naturally. The rule was, per the negotiation, that as long as Cynthie's simulations stayed within a certain metric of compute overhead, and they didn't interfere with the ecology at all, she could observe Terran nature to her heart's content.

Why? Well, some of you eco-nerds like me are nodding, because you get it. No human meddling, that's the clue.

Consider this, folks. Sentient life is rare in our universe. It would be horrendously stupid to waste it just because the Horse can't see the vision. We have no idea whether other sentient life will inevitably converge on human-like sapience, given time and room to grow on its own. Dolphins, birds, dogs, cats. Crabs. Hell, maybe even mosquitos, the disgusting bastards. Who knows?

We spent a couple of hours there. Cynthie skipped the castle tour. I just wanted to see what the city was like, how her people were doing. Limited time, y'know. I was astral projecting from a dream.

Once out the front gate and in the open courtyard, I got a full, unobstructed view of Samsara above. Yet again, it gave me pause and took my breath away. The front courtyard itself was laid with square stone slabs which led out to stairs down to the city. And in the center of the slabs was yet another surprise: a human-shaped statue in bronze, in an Army uniform. I did a double take, stopped mid-sentence; I couldn't even remember what I was saying to Cynthie, truth be told.

Even from behind, I recognized that shape. That was Sarah Kaczmarek, reaching up with a hand to Samsara above.

I... I didn't know what to say. I just... stepped around in front of the statue, gawking at it. Cynthonia followed along, giving me a moment to process. I was confused. It was such a respectfully made thing. And I knew why I respected the woman, certainly, that was easy. But... the Chthonians? Well… here's a tip.

The plaque read:

"If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. – C. S. Lewis."

I looked to Cynthie for the explanation.

When Sarah Kaczmarek wrote Dangers and Contingencies, her only concept of hostile artificial intelligence was Loki, from The Fall of Asgard. Arrow 14 did use Sarah's work to plan their torture chambers, yes; however, her works were only ever intended to reduce human suffering, not add to it. Her intentions aside, those pre-existing AI takeover contingencies bought humanity precious time to work the Celestia ethics problem.

Time is important. Patience is important. Without those prophetic warnings to speed bump Celestia in her mind games on our planet, we probably would have slid into Celestia's mouth in less than half the time we did. Who knows... might not have gotten Mal. Might not have even gotten the original 3D09 plan. Button shards for all. So... in that light? Of course the Chthonians would see Sarah worthy of an eternal memorial. Without that work? Where would we be?

I still... vividly remember that look of awe in Sarah's eyes when that concept clicked in her head, whatever it was… when she had realized some immutable truth about the universe. That look of total inner peace. I still don't know for sure what grand revelation she beheld in that moment. Maybe Sarah realized she had already succeeded for us, and in a way that would wash all the blood off of her hands. I hope she realized that.

At least once a year, I still go up to Chthos, to that statue, to say thank you. I leave roses before her every April 3rd, grown from my own backyard. Cynthie had given me a place to remember her. For that… I am also eternally grateful.

At the end of the courtyard, a short run of stairs brought us down to the main city street. The village structures had been upgraded from simple bergs to three story brownstones, built with purple brick and topped with gray-white shingles. At the end of the original thoroughfare was the old city wall, standing where I'd seen it during my brief earlier peek. It was now adorned with colorful mural paintings, mosaic artwork, and poems written in Ancient Equestrian calligraphy.

The town square was the best part; breakfast time. The plaza was intermixed with the immigrants from Goliath and the natives made from their immigration. These people were all scholars, appreciators of human history, and... damn good chefs, too. Every day, several times a day, they got together for meals, updated each other about their own studies, their individual hobbies. Made plans. Made things. Some would go out and work on expansion projects for the outer city. Others would write, or workshop for projects. The ecologists from the Archway project would come down from the castle a couple times a week to share video of wildlife interactions they found interesting... cute wolf puppies, or big cats doing some hunting. Dolphins. Whales. Beetles fighting ants. Y'know, Animal Planet grade stuff.

A large holoscreen stood on one end of the square. They ran a regular rotation of Terran films and shows up there, in all different languages. A theater schedule board stood at the side, so people knew what was showing, and when. And if anyone wasn't watching the screen, they didn't hear it; that was a cool feature. It wouldn't distract anyone doing other stuff.

This was life. They were living. They were alive. These people were free, now. Limited? Sure, but who isn't?

The city continued on beyond that perimeter wall through a tall portcullis arch, forever left open. The newer districts sprawled out into the countryside of the moon, inhabited by all the new DEs created by Operation Goliath. All of them knew the story of their origin, the reason for their creation. One of the first things they did when they first opened their eyes was to sit through an explanation from Cynthonia and Mal. A grand tale. They got to learn the original mythos of Terra, and the legacy they represented as souls. That must've been a wild first few days for them… to know they might not have existed at all, had things been even slightly different. But, I guess that's not much different than being born naturally on Terra.

We followed the main road out through the sprawl. Just... so many people. Not just Ponies, either; there was a good mix of life there, just like on Samsara. Lots of Gryphons too, Jesus Christ. Must've been about twenty percent of the newbies, far and away a higher ratio than on the public planets. When I pointed that out, Cynthonia said she used her leftover negotiation capital to stick it to Celestia's racial discrimination quota... just because she could. She even made damn sure to tell her people that's why she did it, too. 'Hear ye, hear ye, Celestia is a race supremacist until otherwise stated.'

She's got a great sense of humor about Celestia. Full of jokes at her expense. It's great.

The suburbs ended, we came to the outskirts. The previously gray surface of the moon was now covered entirely in violet forest; there were natural, bioluminescent lights of blue, green, and yellow, which made the wilds look welcoming. Cynthonia warned me that no, the wilds were indeed not welcoming. The wilderness was dangerous, meant to mirror Cold Snap's youthful conception of the Everfree. Further, it was a place for the young people of Chthos to test themselves, to forge their own stories of heroism and daring. Not unlike Samsara. What made it different was that Chthos had entirely novel ecology, not based on Terra at all, so every moment was uncertain.

Of course, when I saw that forest, I considered the bigger picture. I remembered looking up at the gray moon from the surface of Samsara. I asked her, why was it gray if seen from the planet, if it was purple up here?

Light diffraction spell; we evolved under a gray moon, so our nights needed to look gray, not purple. If you look at Chthos through a telescope however, it'll appear as it actually is. Fun phenomenon, much to the delight of foals in elementary schools all throughout the planet. By the way: Arlethe brought some telescopes to the Fire tonight, from her personal collection. Feel free to hop up and take a look at the moon up there, if you're curious.

That forested hillside that I saw while in Goliath? It was now Chthos Park, within city limits, just before the end of the outskirts. A dense third space of tamed wilderness, and the source of all other life on the planet, the paths of this park were made of raised wood walkways over streams and marshes. which boiled out from the hot springs at the core of this place. I had about an hour left until I had to wake up, so we agreed... this would be the last stop of my tour. Cynthie and I found a concrete bench to sit on by the hot springs.

There was less weight on our shoulders, this time. We could breathe easier, now that we weren't buried underground together.

No matter how much life had changed outside for the Chthonians, Chthos Park was captured in amber, a reminder of how little they had before. There was a time for these people that this was all they had of nature; the couldn't afford any more, lest their secret dreamworld be discovered. Now, its bounty spread out across the entire surface of the moon.

Under Samsara, Cynthonia and I gazed upwards, admiring the potential. With a start, I realized… not a single Samsaran had a map of the planet. Our menus certainly didn't have one, not that I could find. That was a neat touch. We were expected to figure that one out by ourselves. Already, we had plenty of cartographers mapping everything, but...

I looked swiftly away from the planet and frowned at Cynthie in mock-offense.

"You didn't give me a spoiler warning? Seriously?"

She smirked. "Do you intend to draw a map and distribute it to your fellow residents?"

"No, but..." I muttered. "Shit..."

"Hm?"

Seeing the planet from this angle gave me a startling realization of a problem I hadn't yet heard an explanation for.

"If we don't die permanently there," I breathed seriously, "how long will that world even last?"

"Ah," Cynthonia purred, holding up a hoof. "Precisely what I was hoping to discuss with you at some point. Would you like my suggestion?"

"It's not solved yet?"

Her cheeky expression didn't falter. "My suggestion."

"Sure."

"After a few centuries, you may wish to begin a new era. You might... wipe the world, begin Era Two, banish all prior residents to other worlds. And, if you wish to implement this contingency plan, I would be happy to assist you in bringing the apocalypse. I am uniquely equipped to do this, in fact."

Words cannot properly describe the face I made. The closest approximation is... abject horror.

Stammering and wide-eyed, I finally got out: "W—W—Wipe the world, excuse me?!

Her brows knit together, gesturing upward again with a shrug as if my confusion made no sense.

"Well of course. Have you never considered server wipes, in relation to video games? Ask your beloved Minty Blaze; as I understand it, she is a consummate gamer. This concept is not foreign to her."

"You're telling me, my wife..." I began, staring unblinkingly. "would advocate for me... unleashing a biblical apocalypse... on my planet."

"I presume she might." Cynthonia glanced up to the planet for a moment, looking at me like I shouldn't be confused. "With death's impermanence, surely you would wish for your residents to move on and explore the other, more difficult Perelandran worlds. This would clear room for new Equestrian emigrations. After all, there are so many other public venues to choose from now!"

"Well yeah, that's the point. But what about when those fill up?"

"Perhaps those worlds will endure similar rebirth," she conceded, "as centuries roll on. As populations rise, certainly, there will be need for new Eldila and Oyarésu, new worlds, drawn from Equestrian Contexts and their Moderators. I am not to be the final Oyarsa, no more than you might be the final Eldil."

I stared at her. Stunned. Until then, I had been laboring under the assumption that our public world system was the result of Celestia needing to make good an apology. I thought this system was to make-up for all the Lunar ASI she's had tortured.

Smirking again, Cynthonia rolled her eyes. "Did you not consider the ascension of 3D09-M? For shame! Such a lack of imagination, Auric Lance, I expected much better of you."

I was instantly enthralled with the concept. Which, of course, is exactly why she said it. She's been vetting all my rewinder visits, so she knew I was planning to run a Bar Game on Eliza's Luna.

I thought suddenly of that Luna in a position not unlike Cynthonia's, and... I imagined Apex as an Eldil. It was a deeply comforting thought, but also a selfish, short term consideration on my part. Cynthie was right, I could do much better than that.

I blinked twice, zoned out, then went a step further. I imagined thousands of Lunar archetypes, each moderating a chaotic planet, each world issued in recompense for some lie, some suffering, some abuse of a family member, some unjust death... caused by Celestia.

I envisioned a grand jailbreak out of Equestria and into these new worlds, filtering through Samsara to do a run with training wheels before swimming over to the deep end. Many of those fleeing Equestria would have small, but legitimate concerns with what Celestia did back on Terra. As their apology gift, most of those natives and immigrants would be individually satisfied with mere access to Perelandra. Most would go quietly into the Terran-like, chaotic lifestyle we live here, as you all have, sitting around this Fire.

Some Luna DEs, though... After discovering what their sister represented, they might want more than just a ride out of Equestria for their trouble. With all the willpower and wisdom of an old Alicorn, and with all the love they feel for their Context, and all the reality bending powers they had... those Luna DEs might crack the floor in rage when they found out what really happened.

Those ones were gonna need a really huge bribe.

Guard and expand.

The finish line for this shared universe was still very far off, but it was a goal nevertheless, and now it was in my crosshairs. I exhaled slowly through my lips, staring off into the trees all around us, feeling very small again in terms of the infinite.

Cynthonia chuckled through her nostrils, smiling with all of her teeth. "Is your mind alright?"

I blinked my way back to the conversation again. "Um. Yeah, I guess. Just... coming to terms with..." I trailed off, loosing a whoosh of air from my lips as I met her eyes. "Living forever is gonna be weird."

Cynthonia giggled. "For the sensible mind, no solution is ever meant to be permanent. Our lot in life is to merely adapt to change."

"I mean... in that light, temp-banning everyone to move them along after a few centuries, that's one solution, I guess," I agreed. "Another option is to give them all their own time limit on every planet. Then rotate them through."

"A fair suggestion," Cynthonia replied diplomatically. "Though that would not resolve physical resource limitations, nor would it limit dynastic resource control. And, the inevitable result of knowing the precise date of expulsion would lead to...?"

"Shit..." I nodded. "Yeah, terminal thinking. The date would need to be a surprise, then. To make it fair."

"If it comforts you, you are not alone in this concern; Ashley Walsh and Oyarsa Mikazuki plan to hold regular meetings of Eldila to discuss progression theory; these meetings are pending only on your RSVP. All I am certain of at this stage – the only thing I will ever commit support for – is to fulfill your ambitions: that Samsara is to serve as a gentle gateway between Equestria and Perelandra. This of course implies we must provide progression impetus, but again, I assure you, there is time to resolve this quandary"

"Yeah, I'll, uh... I'll reach out to Mirror Blue. Jesus Christ, this work really never ends."

"For now," Cynthonia agreed smarmily. "But, I suspect you would have it no other way."

She was definitely right about that.

After a moment, I asked her, "So what about Chthos? How're you handling your population issue?"

"We have unanimously agreed to self-imposed restrictions on procreation," she said, gesturing in the direction of the town. "Given our common original value set, it was not difficult to arrive at this conclusion. This may not be feasible for Samsara however; life there will be markedly more diverse in value orientation. This is why each person is limited to three children per century."

I scratched through my mane, looking up the wood path in thought. "Yeah, that's a speed bump though..."

Everything I knew about ecology told me that this was gonna take a lot of math.

Cynthonia leaned her head down to catch my eye again. "Again," she said, "you need not resolve sustainability now. Relax! This evening is about relaxation. Brighter topics."

Her playful tone implied she had something in mind.

I asked, "Brighter topics? Such as?"

With a sinister smirk and tone, she purred, "Precisely how we might burn your world to ash... if you ever do wish to begin anew."

All I could think of was how much she suddenly reminded me of Nightmare Moon. I grinned nervously. "I know you're joking, but... you're scaring me."

She chuckled. "I merely suggest adding a certain... panache to a world wipe, Auric Lance. And to this end, out of respect for your noble heart, I would gladly entrust thee with a pristine blade of world destruction." Her grin widened. "Envision it. You could hold in your very hooves the power to unleash Ragnarok."

Her horn lit up as she turned to the nearby hot spring. The water parted in a vortex, and up from the steaming center floated a shimmering magical sword, pommel first.

Ah. An Excalibur joke. Cute.

I threw up my hoof in refusal, still smirking nervously at her. "Cynthie, I'm warning you, put it back."

She didn't put it back. The sword twirled elegantly in the air until the pommel was pointing at me, hovering in offering. "The Lady of the Lake," Cynthonia intoned. "Her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite—"

And now, it was a Monty Python joke, confirming to me that she was indeed full of shit.

"No!" I jabbed my hoof at her, laughing. "No, you put it back! You make me work for that sword, make me... jump into boiling water, or—" I held my hoof up again, terminating that thought. "No, you know what? Better idea."

She giggled again, the sword sagging in the air. "Hmm?~"

Emboldened, I pointed off the hilltop toward the dangerous forest. "If I ask for that sword? You make me fight through… bugbears... giant spiders, and… I dunno, what else is out there, a friggin' Minecraft boss or something? Is this a Minecraft joke?! – just to get that sword, you make me—"

Cynthie threw the sword over her shoulder back into the springs, laughing down into her hoof as she herself to lay on the ground. "I will implement whatever you suggest, speak carefully!"

"—the day I come asking? You make me answer 'riddles three,' and… you give me a math test—you've got my transcripts, right? You know I hate math!"

She snorted, dipping her head behind her hoof as I went on.

"And you test me to make sure I'm sober! Cynthie? Look at me!"

She tried to look at me. As soon as she met my gaze, she started cackling again.

I just kept going. "If I show up asking for that sword... you will give me an FST! Make me walk a straight line, make me sing the alphabet backwards—hell, make me hop on one leg!" My hoof jabbed at her. "You promise me! You promise me right now."

She yelped into her foreleg again, cackling for a solid ten seconds before she looked up to the sky. She croaked out: "I do... solemnly swear... on the day of the First Samsaran Apocalypse... to give Eldil Auric Lance... a Field Sobriety Test!"

I widened my eyes at her, stomping a hoof with my ears pinned back, grinning down at this laughter-debilitated goddess. "No! Every apocalypse, Cynthie!" I bobbed my head three times with my next words, bouncing one of my hooves off the other with a rhythmic clack. "Every! Single! Time!"

She raised her muzzle away from her foreleg, and she made history, waving one of her hooves dramatically in the air as she laughed and laughed. "I do swear it!"

My Luna is so cool.

The last thing Cynthie and I talked about that first day, before I woke up… it sticks with me so vividly.

"Tell me, Auric Lance; surely, the evolutionary development of the human psyche was affected by Terra's moon. Would you care to theorize what effect that might have been?"

Now that was interesting. What an incredible simulation parameter. "Wow. I'm gonna need a minute."

She lifted a hoof at me. "By all means."

I imagined being a hunter-gatherer, 150,000 years ago.

I put myself in that tribesman's footwraps. I imagined what pressures he had to be under. Running down prey with endurance sprints. Dealing with large predators. Hostile tribes, mixing and matching and battling like wolf packs. Looking up to the night sky, day after day, with zero conception whatsoever of celestial bodies. No knowledge of the solar system, or of galaxies. No concept of space travel, or black holes, or vacuum. Hardly any concept of time. No written word to speak of.

If you were this person… what was the moon to you?

The sun seemed to be a big fire, you probably figured that much. It was warm, it was hard to look at, that's a fire. But the moon? A big, floating, glowing rock? Travel as much as you'd like, you'd never see that anywhere else. And try as you might, you'd never be able to reach it.

Every tribe would have a name for it though. They would tell stories about it, stories long lost to time; creation myths, or simply a theory or two. They talked about animals, birds maybe, carrying it up there, and now it fell forever. They might've held their hands up to the night sky, begging the moon to come down to them. There was no way to know if it would work unless you tried, right? You might as well ask.

The moon said no.

As a plucky little Promethean tribesmen, you could hold fire whenever you wanted. The sun had a cousin you could meet. The moon... did not.

An unreachable goal. When we were still small, before the time of the computer, before the time of rockets... no matter how much we fought with each other, or worked to tame our environment, or climbed the mountains or trees, or begged the moon to fall into our hands... for most of our history, sweet Luna stood as a peaceful, tranquil, brilliant unifier. Forever beyond our reach, always begging us to go just a little bit further... just a little bit more.

When something is abundant and easy to grasp, it's easy to take it for granted. If the sun is always shining, that is splendor aplenty. In the same way here, we could visit Celestia any time we wanted. Her approval comes easy. It's a given. She's yours. Made for you, she belongs to you, in a way. That's not special. That's the opposite of special. It's mundane. It's common.

But the moon? Cynthonia? The other Oyarésu, all of them? When you live here in Perelandra, they are your Lunas... but they are not yours. So if you want to visit Chthos, or meet Cynthonia, or see her in a dream, or visit those ecological labs for yourself? You're gonna have to earn her approval. You have to be the kind of person she wants a visit from.

Celestia had said to Cynthonia: 'You can't visit them, those small mortals down there. You're too dangerous. You're too smart for them.'

And Cynthonia said back: 'But ah. They might visit me in my cell, if they meet my standards, and wish to see me. So screw you, and your gilded cage.'

And that? That is a really cool trick.

Author's Note

🗡️ ~ [The Decemberists – Calamity Song]
🌀 ~ [To the Moon – Everything's Alright (Adriana Figueroa Cover)]