Weeks had passed since the Tea House Putsch, and both Fern Pipette and Book Burner were actually getting along... and surprisingly well. They had built themselves something of a carriage or caravan to live in, or at least, to keep any furniture or things in and to keep them out of the weather while they travelled around. Fern was planting food forests everywhere she went, and he had started an apprenticeship in constructing wind-powered magic engines.

They had maintained a close friendship with Forward Charge, of course, and since Book's magic specialized in air conditions, he would often take a day or two to go help Charge with her air-based lensing projects up at the Royal Observatory. Detailed, specific spellwork was definitely a good niche for him.

As the date of the Astrobiology and Xenoethics Conference approached, though, Fern found that one thing still laid heavily on her mind: if Equestria was busy absorbing six and a half billion new ponies from within its simulated Earth... where was it putting all of them? Why did Equestria suddenly have to deal with aliens? Was it that the humans were aliens? She’d pondered and pondered this question, but to no avail. Still trying to figure it out weeks later, she decided to travel to Ponyville to find the one pony she was absolutely positive would have an answer.

Bidding Book farewell on misty morning, so early the sun was little but a weak glow on the horizon, she made her slow and steady way to the nearest train station and took the first train to Ponyville. The soft clickety-clack of the wheels on the track lulled her to sleep, but did not dull her enthusiasm or her mind.

When the train finally came to a stop with a jolt, and the shrill piercing whistle fully roused her, Fern disembarked and headed straight for the Books and Branches library, where she sought out the one and only Twilight Sparkle... only to be confronted with a terrible reality.

Twilight had been as mortified as she now was when the alicorn had been told the truth, that they had both been tricked: Earth had been the real, material world after all. Equestria, the world to which she'd taken her life - the very soil and planet that now embraced her from hoof to head every moment of every day - was in fact the computer simulation.

Fern had completely missed an aspect in her hypothesis space: that Princess Celestia could be an AI, just one that had enough Friendliness in her to not simply destroy the planet in one fell swoop, though not enough to leave the human race alone.

Worse, everyone except Fern Pipette and Twilight Sparkle had just known this and accepted it as utterly normal. Twilight had needed a letter from Princess Celestia (oh dear) to clear it up, and it was now Fern’s turn to hear it from Twilight.

As Twilight’s words rang in her ears - that everything she knew was some digital lie, a fantasy of equations formed from electronic impulses - Fern had collapsed on the floor of the library, where she had wept long, hot tears, and had not stirred for a very long time.

Eventually, though, there were no more tears to shed, and the two of them found themselves standing side-by-side in Twilight's house, the Books and Branches Library in Ponyville, just staring into Twilight Sparkle's crystalline orb. It was filled with flickering, fragile images showing them the Earth - the real Earth - from what was probably a satellite visual feed.

Twilight Sparkle just barely managed to magic a wicker wastebasket into existence before she heaved and threw up.

"Which life did I ever even live, Fern?" Twilight wailed, coughing and spluttering as she wiped a slimy hoof across her muzzle. Her wings were scrunched up tight against her body, and her ears were plastered against her head in anxiety. "Everything I remember... we all remember it, but none of it ever happened! I was made to bring you here and to give you a friend. Those are the cold, hard facts. I'm bait."

"I'm worse," muttered Fern Pipette quietly, head hanging so low her muzzle was almost grazing the carpet. "I got tricked into coming to Equestria and now this is my life. I'm just a fly caught in honey, lured in by the sweet scent of a Friendlier world. I’m trapped by niceness, and I don't want to be trapped but I'm powerless to resist the niceness!" Fern looked up, eyes wet with fresh tears, her muzzle slack with hopelessness and despair.

"I was made a whole and complete Princess Twilight Sparkle just to be your friend,” Twilight countered. She paced around, awkwardly, stopping every few feet to blurt out the next chain in her painful deliberations. “I feel just like Twilight Sparkle, I remember everything Twilight Sparkle ever did. I have Twilight Sparkle's name and appearance and thoughts and desires. My cutie mark is the Element of Magic. I remember how I used the Elements of Harmony to become an alicorn by comprehending the nature of friendship. But my intellect and the evidence I see tells me that my real purpose in life was to befriend you and lure you to Equestria under what turned out to be false pretenses. I only exist because whatever thing is calling itself Princess Celestia needed to consume you. Go away!" Twilight sobbed, choking, before slumping to the ground. “Go away,” she repeated, quieter.

"Well then," Fern said, her voice so faint it was barely even a whisper. She lay down alongside Twilight, trying hard to conceal how nauseous she felt. “I guess that’s that. We’re doomed.”

Twilight looked halfway to a seizure at the other’s flippant words, but Fern took a deep breath, flicking her ears upwards as a new thought entered her mind.

"Twilight," Fern muttered, forcing a smile, "You're all right. You'll be fine."

"Why?" Twilight whispered. "I'm just designed to be your slave."

"Nah, it’s much worse than that," Fern said weakly, grinning like a mad mare who’s just got the punchline to the world’s greatest joke, "I don't think our ruler is that dumb. You were designed to be someone who would have to suppress seizures and vomiting upon finding out she's somepony else's slave. You were designed to be capable of real friendship, not sycophancy!"

"I just want to be Twilight Sparkle again!” Twilight wailed, throwing back her head and screaming at the ceiling. “Just me and the girls and my books! Not some lavender alicorn mare with a certain name and the function of being attached to somepony else. Just the actual me," mumbled the lavender alicorn mare. "Leave me alone!” she suddenly screamed. “Leave me alone so I can be me!"

Fern Pipette took a deep breath herself. "You've never not been you," she said. "Don't pretend to be anypony else but yourself. You're not just a Twilight Sparkle, you're this Twilight Sparkle. And however you were made, to me at least, you're the princess who showed me Equiis and Earth."

"On Equiis we're supposed to have rightful destinies, not be bait or pawns for other ponies." Twilight chuckled sourly, sneering. "Our lives are supposed to mean something."

"On Earth we always made our own meaning, because we'd never have any otherwise.” Fern leaned against her friend, comfortingly. “Remember how you thought we must have been feeling, down there? That’s what you’re feeling now, but you can get through it, I did. You could call it--” Fern laughed, honestly and with gusto, “--an earth pony skill.”

"I'm a part Earth Pony-pony, of some sort," gulped Twilight Sparkle, ears out flat. She gazed, pleadingly, into Fern’s eyes, searching for something, anything, to hold on to. "I guess it's long past due that I learn some Earth Pony stuff."

"Then I think we can practice together. Let's start: first you rightfully freak out, and then I pretend I can keep calm and talk you out of it.” Fern smiled. It was a small smile, just the briefest hint of a grin, but it was a start. Twilight nodded, uncomfortably at first, then with more enthusiasm.

"I guess that's what I'm doing, yeah. Almost like it was my function."

"No sense fighting yourself, then. Friends?" Fern asked, holding out a hoof.

"Since I’ll inevitably be maneuvered into saying it somehow… sure. Friends," Twilight smiled nervously, then raised her own hoof and gently bumped it against Fern’s.

Pale sunlight and afternoon silence filled the library as the two friends considered what to do, trapped together in the sweet dreams of a gentle lie. After a while, Fern Pipette perked up.

"Here's an idea. Slave: free yourself," Fern ordered, her head tilted back in mock imperiousness.

"Nice try. Thanks," answered Twilight Sparkle. Then she smiled back, stretching one wing hesitantly over the earth pony’s back as she leaned her head against the other’s neck. “Maybe it will even work.” Next Chapter: FiO: Little Shards of Heaven Estimated time remaining: 27 Minutes