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                       Edge of Time                        
                         -by Cara-                         
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                    What of the Future                     
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What of the Future
They sat at the edge of time, dangling their feet off the lip of eternity as the blackness lapped at them. It was not an evil blackness, nor a good one. It simply was, washing around them like waves, gently pushing and pulling at their ankles, before rolling off the edge into nothingness.
Before them lay a vast expanse of infinity, behind them rolling plains of the past and futures yet to come. It was quiet, save for the sounds of their breathing and the gentle whispers of the darkness around them.
“This is nice,” she said idly.
He agreed.
They lapsed back into silence, staring out across eternity.
They had not planned to meet there, but had simply appeared side by side, ankle deep in the darkness. Neither were particularly surprised to see the other there, of course; as immortals embodying Harmony and Chaos, they were never far apart.
So they sat and wondered about the future and thought about the past.
“Do you miss it?” he turned to look at her.
She glanced at him. “Miss what?”
“The old you?”
She thought for a moment. “I don’t know.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know?”
“I’ve been like this for so long,” she gestured at her wings, “that I can hardly remember how it was before.”
He nodded in agreement. “Such is the burden of immortality.”
“Do you? Remember, I mean.”
“Everything.” He nodded solemnly.
“Tell me about it?”
He shot her a look.
“Please?”
He leaned back, propping himself up on his hands as he looked up. “What about?”
She shrugged. “Everything, I guess.”
“Alright,” he puffed out his cheeks. “My realm, then.” He snapped his fingers and a window opened up in front of them. Where there once was nothing lay a vortex of color, swirling in the distance, a psychedelic array that shifted and spun lazily in the air. He grunted and swiped his finger to the left, sending everything within the window traveling to the right.
“Ah,” he tapped the window again and the space beyond stopped. A flower spun into view, a yellow and purple polka-dotted ball atop a long periwinkle stem. He reached through the window and snagged it, gently tugging it out of the window.
“My realm is… lonely, to say the least.” He pointed at the screen. “Every now and then I get the occasional mail-creature with the occasional package but besides that? It’s only me. Sure, I get to experiment all I want, no consequences, but sometimes.” He paused. “Sometimes I just don’t want to be alone.”
She opened her mouth, but he cut her off.
“Don’t start. I know what you’re going to say, and I don’t want to hear it.”
“Do you now?” she shot him a smug look. “I was going to ask if I could visit sometime.”
He blinked. “What?”
She fluffed her wings and ducked her head. “You’ve spent the past who knows how long with us. I figure it’s about high time I return the favor.”
A smile tugged at his lips. “I think I’d like that. But,” he flicked some darkness off his claws at her. “Where were we?”
“Your realm?”
“My realm. Right.” He pursed his lips. “It’s a pocket dimension that was ripped out of reality I don’t know, a few millennia ago? Or maybe it’ll be created in a millennia?” He grinned, then grimaced. “Time is weird.”
She laughed. “It sure is,” she leaned forward. “How’d you get your own pocket dimension?”
“I made some elder gods and an alicorn very, very angry.”
“Oh?”
“As it turns out, the gods of creation do not like it when the antithesis of their perfect being messes with the order of the universe.” He waved a hand and a body pillow flew through the window in front of them and landed on the mare’s hooves. She looked down at the caricature depicted upon the case, a regal white alicorn with cold, hard eyes, brandishing a sword. She shuddered and dropped it off the edge, peering down into the darkness to watch the pillow disappear into the void.
“Order.” He scoffed. “The first of the minor gods created by the Elders. He is everything I hate, everything that I stand against. When he sprung into being, so did I, right next to him. Every reaction has an equal and opposite reaction, and all that.
“The Elders let him create one thing, anything he wanted. He chose to create ponies, in his image. Imagine being that conceited.” Two miniature versions of the draconequus appeared, began pulling grapes from the window, and feeding them to him. “I could never.”
Her eyes sparkled with mirth. “I’m sure,” she stifled a giggle with her foreleg. “You would never do such a thing, O humble one.”
“I’m glad someone agrees with me,” he accepted another grape from one of his miniatures. “Of course, I couldn’t let him have all the fun. Imagine it, all the ponies in the world as bland, rule-following, perfect little puppets to some higher power. Where’s the fun in that?” He mimed retching.
“So, I did what anyone would do to one of their archnemesis’s creations. I fused a bit of my soul,” he summoned a drab dark brown orb which hovered in front of him. “Into his precious little ponies.” A ball of pure white light popped into being next to the darker globe. He pushed his hands together, and the orbs fused, swirling into each other.
She blinked, and when her eyes opened, the colors had settled within the globe into two fish-shaped structures, with an eye of the opposite color in the center of the shape.
“Duality.”
She turned to him.
He lazily waved a claw at the multi-colored sphere in front of them. “You can’t have one without the other, no matter how much the Elders tried to teach otherwise. I saw it, of course. Order didn’t. First he yelled at me, demanding that I undo it. I said no, mostly because souls are sticky and it takes forever to disentangle them, but also because it's funny to watch a god throw a temper tantrum.
“Order didn’t like that, so he went to the Elders. I was very rudely interrupted from the best nap of my life just to be banished.”
“Banished?”
“They opened up a rift and ungraciously shoved all twelve Wednesdays of me through with the promise of terrible fates should I ever show my face around their workshop halls again.”
She fixed him with a bemused look. “Wednesdays aren’t a unit of measurement.”
“As I’m sure you’ve noticed by now, Chaos doesn’t really play by the rules,” he retorted dryly.
“Wow, really?” she snarked.
“Unfortunately so.”
“So, then what?”
“Hmm?”
“What happened to Order and the Elders?”
“Order is still sequestered away in his workshop, trying to ‘fix’ ponykind. He’s convinced that he can re-write your species, separate my soul from his. As for the Elders,” he shrugged. “I couldn’t tell you, on account of me avoiding them for the past eleven forevers.”
“So you don’t know how to create pocket dimensions.” She sounded disappointed.
He laughed. “Unfortunately not. I can make rifts, but I don’t have the knowledge nor the skill to fully remove part of the timestream.”
She blinked as a thought came to her. “What about Celestia? She’s a minor god, isn’t she?”
He shook his head. “Our dear Celly is a lowborn, like all alicorns. She has not had the displeasure of meeting Order or any of the Elders.”
“That would explain why I haven’t found any references to anything you mentioned in any of the mythologies.” She nodded thoughtfully. “If she didn’t know of their existence then there would be no records.”
He snapped his fingers, and they watched as the two miniatures bowed and backflipped through the portal, which zipped itself shut behind them. “Now it’s your turn to talk.”
“Huh?”
“I want to ask a question, and you have to answer it, unless that little show fried your brain.” Another snap, and a frying pan with two sizzling eggs appeared over her head.
She shot him a look and tossed the pan over the edge.
“Hey! Those were perfectly good eggs!”
“Just ask your question already.” She snorted, laughter tinging her words.
“Tell me about,” he tapped his fingers, thinking. “Tell me about the Golden Oaks Library.”
“Really? Out of all the things?” She blinked.
He shrugged. “An eye for an eye, and all that. I’ve told you about my home, now it’s your turn.”
She bobbed her head. “It was my first real home. You remember what it looked like, right?”
He waggled his paw. “Somewhat. When you’ve lived as long as I have, it all blends together.”
“And that musical number you sang has completely vanished from your memory,” she deadpanned.
“Yep!”
“Whatever you say,” she giggled. “Well, it was a library, right, and you know how I am with books. But for those first couple months, it felt for all the world like a prison.”
He cocked a brow. “A prison? A place where you were surrounded by books?”
She chuckled. “I was coming from the Royal Library to a tiny library inside a tree, no less, in a ramshackle town in the middle of nowhere for ‘friendship’. You can’t blame me for that.”
“Oh woe is me, I’m a pretty purple book horse with books all around me.” He mimed fainting.
She stretched out her wing and cuffed him over the ears.
“Oh, I am slain! Send for help!” he fell back into the liquid blackness, splashing it along her barrel with a grin.
“Ack!” she sputtered. “Come on, you big baby, get up.”
He stuck his tongue out at her. “Make me.”
She sighed and lit her horn, only to have him reach out and flick it.
“Magic is cheating, dear. You know this.”
“Since when was that a rule?”
“Since five seconds ago.”
She rolled her eyes and stretched out a hoof to help him up, then let out a startled yelp as he grabbed her hoof and pulled.
“You’re quite warm,” she noted from her new spot on his chest, their stomachs touching with her legs draped over his sides. “Anyways, since I can continue without interruption,” She glared at him, but it was ruined by the smile twitching at the corner of her lip. “Golden Oaks. I didn’t think it was possible to live inside a completely hollow tree that was still growing, but the window nooks were actually quite comfortable. The basement wasn’t all that bad either, despite always being damp.”
He blinked. “Golden Oaks had a basement?”
“Mhmm!” she nodded. “The thought of strapping you to a chair and running experiments on your magic crossed my mind several times before it got blown up.”
“Strapping me into a chair and running experiments on me? My, I didn’t know you were into that.”
“Hush. It wasn’t like that.”
He shot her a look.
“Really!” she insisted. “Chaos magic was completely unknown, and you were literally the best source of chaos to do research on!”
“So why didn’t you? Come to think of it, why haven’t you? You have a whole castle, and I know for a fact you have empty laboratories.”
“Well, after I tried to figure out Pinkie, I set myself on fire.”
“Huh.” He clicked his tongue.
She rubbed her chin. “What else am I forgetting?”
“How should I know?” he interrupted. “You were the one who lived there, not me.”
“It was a rhetorical question.”
“Gesundheit.”
“You know what a rhetorical question is.”
“It’s fun to tease you.”
“And I’m going to put whatever this is in your mouth if you keep interrupting me.” She scooped up a hoofful of the darkness and held it menacingly over his goatee.
He held up his mismatched hands in mock surrender. “Point.”
“Golden Oaks gave me a place to call home. Don’t get me wrong, I loved having access to the Archives but I never really fit in.”
“Fair enough. I never did vibe with those snooty upper-class subjects of yours.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Vibe? Is that what the kids are saying these days?”
“What, would you prefer I said that they weren’t groovy to the max?” he grinned.
She clamped her hooves over his mouth. “Hush.”
He pried them away with a snort. “Look, just because I’m a near ageless entity with a penchant for chaos doesn’t mean I can’t be hip with the kids.”
She groaned and thumped him on the chest. “You’re the worst.”
He smiled broadly. “I am. It’s your turn, by the way.”
“Huh? Oh! Right.” She flushed. “You said earlier that you were created as Order’s antithesis. If he created ponies, did you create more like you?”
He sighed. “My dear, do you think the Elders would permit that?”
She shook her head. “Probably not.”
A scoreboard appeared over her head. “And give our favorite contestant ten thousand bits!” He clapped, and coins began to cascade out of the scoreboard, piling up around them before sinking into the blackness. “You’re correct, of course. My transgressions aside, the Elders didn’t want hundreds of little me’s running amok through their workshop. Can’t imagine why.”
“Okay, but why haven’t you made more since then?”
He fixed her with a look. “Do you think the Elders, or Order, would let that stand? Order carries a sword for a reason.”
“Oh.” She sat up. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be, it wasn’t your fault. I’ve come to terms with it.” He waved a hand. “Someday I’ll try again, and maybe I’ll succeed.” He stared off into infinity. “One day there’ll be someone like me.”
She blinked at him, then let out a small gasp.
“I know that sound,” he cocked a brow. “What’s going through your pretty little head?”
“Shush,” she flapped a hoof. “I’m thinking.”
He smiled a toothy smile and settled back into the blackness as she muttered under her breath.
“Aha!” She crowed and lit her horn, a tendril of magic reaching from her horn out into forever.
“What did you do?”
“You’ll see,” she grinned and waggled her ears. “It’s a surprise.”
“Oh, well in that case, I suppose I can wait.” He chuckled.
She smiled down at him, then tensed. Before his eyes, she began to shift - her body stretched into a more sinuous form, her forelegs became talons, her hindlegs morphed into lion’s paws, and her tail lengthened into a more dragon-like appearance.
“Ta-da!” She clambered off of him and spun in a circle like a model showing off a new outfit. “What do you think?”
He whistled. “Impressive. Though I will say you appear to be missing something.” He gestured to his forehead.
“Hmm,” she stuck out her tongue and tried to focus on her own forehead. “It’s not actually gone. I can still feel it, but the magic feels fuzzy.” She summoned a purple orb of light in front of them, then shrieked as his jaws snapped closed around it.
“Were you aware that you taste like bananas?”
“No. No, I was not.”
“Regardless,” he let his eyes roam over her form. “How’d you do it?”
“Where are we right now, oh Chaos mine?”
“The edge of time.” He shrugged.
“Exactly, and who’s to say that this reality is the only one? Out there —” she gestured to the infinity before them. “Out there there’s an infinite number of realities. I just cast a line to find a universe where our roles were switched.”
“So you were Chaos and I was Harmony? Blech.”
“Mhmm! I just used that existing version of me as a blueprint for this body.”
He shot her a look of admiration as his coat changed to a soft lavender to match hers. “It’s been ages since I’ve seen another like me. Thank you.”
“Of course.” She smiled at him. “I do believe it’s your turn to ask a question now.”
He scratched his goatee. “Your favorite spell?”
“Oh, that’s easy!” She grinned and clapped her hands. “Oberon’s Transplanar Alignment. You know Oberon, of course.”
He shook his head. “The name is familiar, but not the creature.”
She stared at him, jaw agape. “You did not just say that.”
He shrugged. “You forget, dear, that I was trapped in stone for over a thousand years.”
“After this, we’re going to the Deer Kingdom and you’re going to like it.”
“I make no promises, but I can try for you, I suppose.”
“Anyways, Oberon is the king of the deer, has been for the last twelve hundredish years. The deer are responsible for the movement of the celestial bodies around the other side of the planet, as part of a treaty that Celestia made with them shortly before you showed up.”
“I always wondered where they went.” He mused.
“The deer or the celestial bodies?”
“Yes.” He grinned.
She rolled her eyes. “Cervine magic is criminally understudied by ponykind, in part due to the physiological differences of deer and ponies, but mostly because the deer secluded themselves just after your reign and have only recently reemerged. Even prior to the Classical era, the deer were mostly isolated from the rest of Equus, and very few, if any, texts detailing cervine magic remain from that time.”
“Not that I don’t appreciate the history lesson, but how does this relate to Oberon’s Transplanar thingamabob?”
“I’m getting there.” She bopped him on the nose. “As part of a cross-cultural exchange, I got to go to Mandria to study their magic, and they sent some of their students to the School. Oberon was kind enough to show me his alignment spell, which essentially allows him to hop between planes, similar to what you do.”
He blinked. “That just sounds like portal magic.”
She shook her head animatedly. “I thought so too, but it actually overlays the desired plane onto the material plane and merges them into one another, so that the ‘seam’ between them is thin enough for a being to cross.”
“Impressive,” he whistled. “So it’s your favorite because it’s transplanar travel?”
“Not quite. I mentioned earlier that the physiology of deer and ponies differ, right? The main differences stem from the thaumic system - the latent magic that runs throughout our bodies. The magic here in Equestria is widely accessible, but it takes at least some effort to call upon it. That's why unicorns experience mana drags, why pegasi need to kick lightning out of storm clouds, why earth ponies can’t grow crops in significantly shorter timeframes. In Mandria, everything is completely saturated with magic. Their thaumic systems are much more developed as a response to the amount of ambient magic there, so their magic ends up channeling through different pathways than pony magic.”
“You got to reverse engineer another spell.” He said, comprehension dawning in his eyes.
“Not just a single spell, but an entire field of magic.” She clapped her claws excitedly. “The alignment spell was only one of the spells he showed me, but it was definitely the most complex one. I spent ages trying to tune it to my magic, and alicorns naturally have more developed thaumic systems since they’re a combination of all three pony races.”
“Color me impressed!” he applauded, coat changing from lavender to a garish highlighter yellow.
“That’s the color of impressed?” she eyed him incredulously. “It looks like the Schmooze threw up on you.”
“Tsk, tsk. So close minded.” He wagged a finger at her, then returned to his normal, drab coat color. “You should really try on some new colors. I think a splash of buttercream yellow would really bring out your eyes.”
“I’m not changing my coat color.”
“And I’m not saying you have to. Maybe just a streak in your mane?”
She ran a claw through her hair. “I’ll consider it. Worst comes to worst, I can always cut it off.”
“The paparazzi will have a field day with that.”
“Ugh, don’t remind me,” she grimaced. “Okay, my turn.” She glanced over her shoulder, back towards the fields of time. “What do you suppose the future holds?”
“How am I supposed to know? Chaos isn’t exactly known for predictable outcomes.”
“Humor me,” she blew a raspberry at him.
He puffed out his cheeks. “Well, I suppose the first question would be how far forward in the future are we talking? A few years? A thousand?”
“Hmmm,” she pursed her lips. “For argument’s sake, let’s say that alicorns are no longer around.”
He drummed his talons against her side. “Well, the first thing would have to be a return of the celestial bodies to nature.”
She bobbed her head. “Or the deer would have to take over the movement of the sun and moon.”
“Or that.” He agreed.
“What about our ponies?”
“Our ponies? My dear, while I appreciate the sentiment, your ponies still don’t trust me.”
“They’re just as much yours as they are mine. Some may not trust you, but a majority do.”
He scoffed.
“I’m serious!”
“I’m flattered you think so highly of me,” he drawled. “Do you not remember the last petitioner you had?”
“In his defense, you did turn his coat chartreuse.”
“I did that to everyone in the room!”
“And once you changed them back, he was the only one that was upset. Point is,” she poked him in the side. “Even if we weren’t entwined by Fate, your shenanigans are commonplace now. Ponies enjoy them. Ponies enjoy being around you.”
“Darn. I must’ve lost my terrifying reputation between the couch cushions”
She glared at him.
“I jest, I jest. Our ponies,” he stuck out his tongue and mimed scraping something off of it. “Our ponies will do just fine. They survived pre-Unification times fine enough.”
“What if the tribes split again? What if the Wendigos come back?”
“With you on the throne?” he laughed. “Not likely.”
“I’m not on the throne in this hypothetical.”
“And there are no Wendigos in this hypothetical either.”
“You don’t know that.” She groused.
“Neither do you,” he countered.
“I’m being serious!” she flicked some darkness at him.
“Well, there’s only one way to find out, isn’t there?”
He smiled at her, kissed her nose, and with a cheeky grin, he jumped into eternity.